Last night saw SoNYC’s first birthday celebrations at Rockefeller University. We’ll blog a more detailed write-up tomorrow, but for now you can read the Storify capturing some of the online chatter around the event. Thanks to everyone who took part either in-person or online – we’re looking forward to our 2nd year!
To celebrate SoNYC’s first birthday, we have been reminiscing on past events by highlighting some of the key take home messages, linking out to pictures and hearing from the co-organisers. (We recently summarised all of the past SoNYC events; you can read the recap of the events from the science communication and outreach strand here, online tools for scientists and digital publishing here and the implicational issues – legal, policy and community here.) It has been a great year and we hope you have enjoyed the conversations, whether it has been in person, online, or via our write-ups and Storifys.
To finish our warm-up to the party, we’re hearing from each of the SoNYC co-organisers. First up was SoNYC co-organiser Jeanne Garbarino from Rockefeller University. In her retrospective she details the birth of SoNYC and how the internet has enabled her to tap into a community she never knew existed. Next up John Timmer, Science Editor at Ars Technica, explained how the organisers met and decided on SoNYC’s format. Now Lou Woodley, nature.com’s Communities Specialist, muses on why the SoNYC-style events are important.
One of my favourite travel tales comes from the days before social media and smartphones; I was journeying back from Barcelona, where I was due to move with my PhD lab, to Heidelberg, where I was based at the time. As the train approached France, it came to an unexpected halt in a tiny border town and everyone alighted. A quick look at the departure boards revealed that there was a strike by railway workers, with no trains scheduled to leave the station for hours. I was stranded in the middle of nowhere with no way to get to Perpignan to catch the TGV to Paris to make the last connection that would get me home that night. Unwilling to admit defeat just yet, I scrawled “Perpignan, SVP” on a bit of cardboard and decided to try hitch-hiking for the first time…Sitting in the back of a stranger’s car heading along winding coastal roads, I revived my high school French to establish that yes, I wanted to go to the train station, please. Oh, this was where the driver was headed, cool. Yes, I needed to get the TGV to Paris…And, oh, the good Samaritan who had picked me up was in fact the TGV driver of the exact train I was going to take!
Jeanne and John have already detailed how we all met and how SoNYC came about – our meeting was almost as serendipitous as my hitch-hiking! – I’d now like to shift focus and talk a bit more about the “why” behind our monthly discussion series.
We live in interesting times for science; from working in the lab, to publishing, to outreach, there are new tools and new challenges. How can the law keep up with the applications of our discoveries? Whose role is it to police the scientific literature when it’s technically so much easier to commit fraud? How do you measure whether your online activities are actually engaging anyone with science? In what format will our scientific knowledge be shared in the future?
For me, each month’s SoNYC shares many of the same feelings as my fortunate French journey – the nervousness of venturing into the unknown, the sense of urgency to find solutions to problems, the excitement of learning and connecting and the gratitude for others’ kindness. No one has answers to all of the questions facing science online right now – the combination of new technologies, eroding business models or funding, and shifts in attitudes presents us with exciting and daunting new territory that we need to learn how to navigate. But by creating an open, collaborative environment where scientists from all backgrounds – be it the lab, technology start-ups, publishing, teaching, libraries or the media – can come together, there are opportunities to connect and share and to create an incubator for new ideas.
Source: SoNYC badges – Scientists from all disciplines attend every event
SoNYC’s format relies on not allowing conversations to be dominated by a panel of experts, but instead for them to seed the conversations with their experiences and then to allow anyone else to contribute their thoughts and feedback. In this way, we can explore online science together and come up with ideas that each of us may not have thought of alone.
Source: Joining in the conversation online, even with my own slice of pizza!
Extending the spirit of inclusiveness in the pursuit of problem-solving, every event is live-streamed and live-tweeted, with the video archives and Storify storyboards of tweets available online afterwards so that the conversations are as accessible as possible. This year, we’ve also worked to source guest blog posts around each month’s topic to deepen the information that’s being contributed to the conversations as well as extending their reach. Anyone is welcome to get in touch to suggest a contribution.
While I may sound like a doting mother on baby’s birthday, I’m not claiming that SoNYC-style events are the only place for people interested in talking about science. The proliferation of science communication events in places such as London and NYC shows there’s a healthy appetite for exploring science using many different formats – from open mic stand-up to question time debates, late night museum events to quiz nights. For me, what defines the SoNYC-style events is a set-up supportive of forming connections to begin working on shared challenges together regularly.
So, if you’re curious about and willing to explore science in the digital age, why not stick out your thumb and join in? The SoNYC community is a friendly bunch of multi-talented drivers, and the journey is so much better shared.
*******A BIG and heart-felt thank you to everyone who has contributed to our first year – co-organisers, panellists, in-person and online audiences. I hope that you’ll help us to continue to grow throughout our 2nd year.*******
To celebrate SoNYC’s first birthday, we have been reminiscing on past events by highlighting some of the key take home messages, linking out to pictures and hearing from the co-organisers. (We recently summarised all of the past SoNYC events; you can read the recap of the events from the science communication and outreach strand here, online tools for scientists and digital publishing here and the implicational issues – legal, policy and community here.) It has been a great year and we hope you have enjoyed the conversations, whether it has been in person, online, or via our write-ups and Storifys.
To finish our warm-up to the party, we’re hearing from each of the SoNYC co-organisers. First up was SoNYC co-organiser Jeanne Garbarino from Rockefeller University. In her retrospective she details the birth of SoNYC and how the internet has enabled her to tap into a community she never knew existed. Next up is co-organiser John Timmer, Science Editor at Ars Technica.
Putting the team together
My role in co-organising SONYC has its start with the National Association of Science Writers. They gave me a travel fellowship to go to the Nobel Laureates meeting in Lindau, where I met Lou Woodley, who was handling the social media side of Nature’s partnership with Lindau. Nature had a series of local “hubs” in various cities, but the one in New York (where Nature has some of its offices) had gone quiet. Lou was interested in getting something going in the city and I knew a lot of the scientists and science communicators there through the course of my research career and a science writers drinks night, as well as through national meetings like Science Online, so I offered to help out.
While we were kicking around ideas for what might work in New York, Lou cryptically told me that i should meet Jeanne, who I was told was “The Mother Geek.” It turned out that we were both going to the same event at Social Media Week and working with Jeanne since then has made it clear that, whatever the reasoning, meeting her was definitely a very good idea. Jeanne managed to solve the venue problem through her work at Rockefeller, and has been tireless in finding ways for us to cooperate with various groups on campus. She also put the team in touch with our fourth organizer, Joe Bonner, who is both at Rockefeller and helps run the local NASW chapter.
The format
One of the most successful parts of SONYC (as far as I can tell) has been its format: a monthly, single-topic meetings with a mix of presentation and discussion followed by drinks. It has worked really well for us, and appears to be translating nicely to other locations. It’s something we reasoned through pretty carefully.
There were some very practical reasons not to run a big, annual meeting. For one, New York City is expensive, both in terms of getting space and in terms of accommodations, and that would limit who could attend. Plus, New York had a huge science and scicomm community in place already, so it’s not like we needed to import anyone from out of town. Plus, there were already a number of excellent annual meetings, including the Science Online ones in North Carolina and London.
There had already been an example of a monthly, single-topic panel discussion of this sort in the city. Back in 2008, three graduate students ran something called the NY Science Communication Consortium. It ran a year’s worth of really successful panel discussions before folding as its organizers realized they had to focus on actually graduating. The format they had used – short presentations followed by Q&A with the audience – was also pretty close what we ended up with.
The only real difference is that, instead of a Q&A, we use the panelists’ presentations as a launching point for an audience-driven discussion (something you might call a semi-unconference). Lou and I had both seen this at events like Science Onlines in North Carolina and London, the National Association of Science Writers, etc., and we were in complete agreement that it was the best way to go. Lou, who seems to spend 90% of her life online, insisted on the livestream and heavy Twitter presence, both of which have really worked well for us and probably are the main reasons other cities are aware of this.
Another motivation for wanting to do something monthly was that the community reacts quickly to major events like #arseniclife and the Pepsi-pocalypse at Science Blogs. These ended up being a big deal as they happened but, by the time they were discussed at a big, national meeting, they’d become a bit stale. The hope was that, by having a monthly meeting, we could afford to jump on topics as they were happening. (So far, we haven’t really had the chance, though)
As a final benefit, I hate concurrent sessions. With only one topic a month, this wouldn’t be an issue.
We may have put the pieces in place, but SONYC has been entirely driven by the panelists and audience. We’ve been fortunate enough that people were willing to sign up before we had any sort of track record (our first panel, featuring Ken Bromberg, David Ropeik, and Gavin Schmidt, was excellent). And a mix of word of mouth, various forms of promotion and a bit of luck, seems to have brought in audiences that were ready to engage on the topics. We’ve been grateful for the fact that a lot of them have continued to come back for more.
SoNYC 4: Credit: Copyright (c) 2011 Sourabh Banerjee Photography. Any Use.
To celebrate SoNYC’s first birthday, we have been reminiscing on past events by highlighting some of the key take home messages, linking out to pictures and hearing from the co-organisers. (We recently summarised all of the past SoNYC events; you can read the recap of the events from the science communication and outreach strand here, online tools for scientists and digital publishing here and the implicational issues – legal, policy and community here.) It has been a great year and we hope you have enjoyed the conversations, whether it has been in person, online, or via our write-ups and Storifys.
To finish out warm-up to the party, we’re hearing from each of the SoNYC co-organisers. First up was SoNYC co-organiser Jeanne Garbarino from Rockefeller University. In her retrospective she details the birth of SoNYC and how the internet has enabled her to tap into a community she never knew existed. Next up is co-organiser John Timmer, Science Editor at Ars Technica.
If it were 2005, you would undoubtedly find me avoiding the question “What do you do?” At that point in time, I was trying to wrap my head around my PhD thesis and accompanying qualifying exams, leading me to completely dissociate from realities pertaining to the big picture. I didn’t really understand the importance of science communication. Hell, to be honest, I didn’t even know that the communication of science actually existed outside of academic instutions. So when people asked me about my line of work, I skirted the issue, mostly because I just didn’t know what to say. Or rather, I didn’t know how to say it. In my mind, there was no way to make non-scientists understand, and trying to do so would only be frustrating for all parties involved.
Having been at the bench for more than a third of my life, I literally had no idea how technical my science English had become. Traditionally, my science had always been communicated to other scientists. Even worse was the fact that these scientists were usually in my field. This undoubtedly led me to adopt a vernacular that was so completely inbred that it became its own dialect.
Then I found the internet.
Whether you want to call it serendipity, a product of the highly intricate algorithms inherent to social media networks, or getting a twitter follow by this guy who goes by BoraZ, I somehow found myself quickly immersed in the science online community. I was devouring the information that was only a click away and suddenly, my favorite scientists were being replaced with my favorite science writers. In one fell swoop, I could read on point science articles by John Rennie and David Dobbs, as well as share common experiences with other scientist women and mothers like Dr. O and Emily Willingham. What was this cyberutopia and why did it take me so long to find it??
It started to come together a little more for me as I shared in the ScienceOnline2011 experience. With an infant on the boob and toddler still in diapers, it was difficult for me to travel to North Carolina for that meeting, but I was lucky enough to follow through twitter and catch a few of the live video streams. Now, I’ve been to plenty of meetings before, which are quite useful for making professional connections, but often, early career scientists (like myself) feel intimidated. The ScienceOnline meeting in North Carolina, however, was different. EVERYONE who wanted to be heard was heard. There was no hierarchy and information flowed freely. Even though I was tuning in from afar, I could tell that this meeting was different, for it was not a “meeting” at all. To me, it seemed more like a gathering of friends who are all passionate about communicating science and, miraculously, the lines between being professional and being social became blurry.
I really wished that I could be there in person. And naturally, I found myself thinking about getting my act together so I could attend ScienceOnline2012. But then I started to ask myself, why wait a whole year? My home base is NYC and I am a postdoc at The Rockefeller University, which is, in my opinion, is one of the most forward thinking and accommodating research institutions around. Surely there is a community who would be interested in a regular science online discussion series.
Only days after my ScienceOnline2011 virtual experience and resulting epiphany, I met the ever-fantastic Shelley Cohen, who just happened to be a part of NPG. We got to chatting and I told her about my desire have regular discussions surrounding the communication of science. She told me how there were others interested in doing such a thing and recommended that I look into joining forces. And with that, she introduced me to Lou Woodley.
I quickly came to learn that Lou would be the heartbeat of this movement. She had a clear vision that was creative, organized, and exciting (just to name a few). And, as it turns out, I wasn’t the only one who approached her. John Timmer, chief science wrangler at Ars Technica (chief wrangler because he is probably one of the smartest guys out there), had also hopped on board. And to complete our super-sonyc team, I asked Joe Bonner to join in as well. As Director of Communications at RU and head honcho of Science Writers in NY (SWINY), I knew that his local expertise would be an incredible asset.
Photo Credit: Copyright (c) 2011 Sourabh Banerjee Photography. Any Use
We went from concept to the first SoNYC in only a matter of weeks. The planning was streamlined and everything just seemed to fall into place. But, that didn’t stop my nerves as the 7pm starting time drew near on that warm April evening. We had a packed house and a great panel to discuss the communication of controversial topics in science, including vaccination, climate change, and the psychology of risk.
Photo Credit: Copyright (c) 2011 Sourabh Banerjee Photography. Any Use
We all had taken on a specific job. Lou was assigned with introducing SoNYC, coining our catchphrase “have a super-sonyc evening” while doing so. John introduced our panel and I followed with the moderation. After two truly captivating hours, it was over. And with that, we all funneled into the RU bar and toasted to a great evening (and I finally exhaled!).
From that event, SoNYC became a mainstay on the calendars of many locals. Month after month, people like Sean Cusack, Maki Naro, Ben Lillie, David Levine, and Nancy Parmalee never disappoint with their insightful and sometimes provocative comments (I’m looking at you, Nancy!). I have come to associate SoNYC with seeing and interacting with some of the best minds NYC has to offer. And with each event, I am afforded the incredible opportunity to interact with our guest panel, giving me a glimpse of all the amazing science communications initiatives happening around us.
But let’s not forget some of the more humble aspects of SoNYC. We are, for the most part, working on a next to nothing budget. We dine on cold pizza and drink lemon soda. We use a cup turned upside down as our microphone stand. We record our events with my macbook. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be able to upgrade some of our technologies, but there is something special about putting things together as best you can and having people think that what you’re doing is tops!
So how did a scientist who didn’t even take the time to explain her science to her own parents become so involved in science communication? I don’t really have an aswer for this, but I do know its been a great ride so far!
I am honored to be a part of this super-SoNYC crew and am over the moon to see that SoNYC has inspired other local science communities, like Vancouver, Seattle, and San Francisco, to establish their version of the regular science online discussion.
Now if we could just convince the higher-ups at NPG to transfer Lou to NYC! Then things would really be perfect super-sonyc!!!
This month, SoNYC, our monthly discussion series in NYC about all aspects of communicating and carrying out science online, turns one! We’re hosting a party on May 2nd to celebrate, and to warm up we’re taking a look back at all the SoNYC events from the past year.
SoNYC is co-organised by Lou Woodley of nature.com, John Timmer, Science Editor at Ars Technica and Jeanne Garbarino and Joe Bonner at Rockefeller University. We follow a rotating 3-month editorial cycle to ensure we cover all angles of science online:
In month 1 we cover topics relating to science communication and outreach. Month 2 focuses on online tools for scientists, including digital publishing and month 3 of the cycle looks a “implicational” issues such as legal and policy discussions.
In this post we round up all of the SoNYC events around implicational issues around carrying out science online – everything from legal considerations to research misconduct. You can read the recap of the events from the science communication and outreach strand here and the review of those that focused on online tools for scientists and digital publishing here.
On Wednesday 9th June, the third SoNYC took place. The discussion laid out key ideas behind the US courts’ use of scientific evidence and application of libel law to journalists, addressing how intellectual property law and government regulations are responding to the rapid pace of innovation in the biological sciences, and how feedback from the online community is influencing those processes. The panel featured:
On Thursday 10th November, the sixth SoNYC took place. The topic for discussion was whether the fact that a paper hasn’t been peer reviewed can influence how its findings are reported. Recent headlines have been filled with scientific work that hasn’t made it through peer review and the panel discussed the ways we can judge the quality of something that hasn’t been through peer review. They also considered whether focusing on peer reviewed science limits journalists to simply summarizing papers. The panel included:
On Tuesday 20th March, the tenth SoNYC tool place and the topic for discussion was Keeping the scientific record straight. The internet has enabled the faster and more thorough dissemination of published science, meaning that more eyes than ever are available to check the accuracy, veracity and integrity of the research record. With our enhanced ability to spot plagiarism and image manipulation electronically, it appears that the frequency with which we’ve flagged potentially fraudulent or plagiarized papers has gone up. The panel looked at the trends in retractions and how they relate to real or perceived increases in research misconduct. The discussion considered the steps publications are taking to deal with the sloppy or fraudulent research practices that sometimes result in retractions, and also what research institutions are doing to investigate and deter such practices.
Panelists:
In anticipation of the discussion, we ran a series of guest posts on Of Schemes and Memes, discussing what steps publications are taking to deal with fraudulent research practices and what is being done to investigate and deter such practices. First we heard from Richard Van Noorden, Assistant News Editor at Nature. He gave us an overview of what retractions can tell us about setting the research record straight, highlighting some recent high profile cases of retraction, revealing why retraction rates appear to be increasing. We also compiled a Storify from a session at February’s AAAS meeting in Vancouver on Global Challenges to Peer Review which touched on some of the challenges faced by journal editors. Next we heard from Dorothy Clyde (Dot), Senior Editor at Nature Protocols, detailing the role an editor plays in avoiding plagiarism, giving advice to all parties. In our final post, SoNYC panel member Ivan Oransky, executive editor of Reuters Health, explained the concept behind the Retraction Watch blog.
Find the take home messages below and a write up and Storify of the discussion here.
This month, SoNYC, our monthly discussion series in NYC about all aspects of communicating and carrying out science online, turns one! We’re hosting a party on May 2nd to celebrate, and to warm up we’re taking a look back at all the SoNYC events from the past year.
SoNYC is co-organised by Lou Woodley of nature.com, John Timmer, Science Editor at Ars Technica and Jeanne Garbarino and Joe Bonner at Rockefeller University. We follow a rotating 3-month editorial cycle to ensure we cover all angles of science online:
In month 1 we cover topics relating to science communication and outreach. Month 2 focuses on online tools for scientists, including digital publishing and month 3 of the cycle looks a “implicational” issues such as legal and policy discussions.
In this post we round up all of the SoNYC events around online tools for scientists and digital publishing. You can read the recap of the events from the science communication and outreach strand here, and the implicational issues – legal, policy and community here.
On Monday the 16th May 2011 the second SoNYC took place. The sharing of information and materials is an integral part of the scientific process. Many communities have found that online tools can greatly enhance this sort of sharing, but the scientific community appears to be lagging behind when it comes to the adoption of social software, even though scientists have embraced various digital tools as part of their regular workflow. The panel discussed the technical challenges of creating social media software for researchers, the difficulty of attracting a scientific audience and looked at why it’s so hard to get a group of scientists to agree on anything. The panel included:
For more information, you can find a write up and Storify summary from the event here and below are a few of the take home messages from the online conversation:
On Tuesday 20th September the fifth SoNYC took place at Rockefeller University in NYC. The topic for debate was “Enhanced eBooks & Book Apps: the Promise and Perils.” Enhanced ebooks and tablet apps offer new ways to present material and engage readers. Yet some of the software restrictions and rights deals that these ebooks, apps and their platforms use can make them unfriendly to librarians, archivists, and future users. The discussion focused on ways authors, designers, and publishers can best exploit these new opportunities while avoiding their current and potential downsides? The panel featured:
Thinking digital: giving your research more reach and making sure others can find it
On Wednesday 25th January 2012, we hosted the eighth installment of SoNYC. The topic for debate this month was, “Thinking Digital: Giving your research more reach (and making sure others can find it).” Only a fraction of the things that scientists do in the lab ever see the light of day in a formal publication. Negative data, new tools, and public data sources rarely merit an independent paper, making it tough to receive credit for your work. Even when the work leads to a paper, it can be tough to accurately credit everyone’s contributions, or make the underlying data available to the scientific community.
This month’s panel discussed new tools like Figshare, a repository for negative data, and the ORCID author identifier, which can be used to associate any form of digital publication to your research record. It also featured two librarians who discussed how research libraries can help store and share information. The panel featured:
For more information, you can find a write up and Storify summary from the event here and below are a few of the take home messages from the online conversation:
This month, SoNYC, our monthly discussion series in NYC about all aspects of communicating and carrying out science online, turns one! We’re hosting a party on May 2nd to celebrate, and to warm up we’re taking a look back at all the SoNYC events from the past year.
SoNYC is co-organised by Lou Woodley of nature.com, John Timmer, Science Editor at Ars Technica and Jeanne Garbarino and Joe Bonner at Rockefeller University. We follow a rotating 3-month editorial cycle to ensure we cover all angles of science online:
In month 1 we cover topics relating to science communication and outreach. Month 2 focuses on online tools for scientists, including digital publishing and month 3 of the cycle looks a “implicational” issues such as legal and policy discussions.
In this post we round up all of the SoNYC events around science communication and outreach. You can read the recap of the events from the review of those that focused on online tools for scientists and digital publishing here and the implicational issues – legal, policy and community here.
The very first SoNYC took place on Weds 20th April 2011 and asked how to successfully engage an online audience with complex or controversial topics. Questions such as; “How do science communicators can help ensure that accurate information rises above the noise?” and, “What are the challenges faced by experts who attempt to reach the public directly?” were discussed. The panel included researchers who have engaged the Press and the public about climate change, vaccines, and the perception of risk:
You can find a write-up and Storify summary from the event here and below are a few of the key messages from the online discussion:
The fourth SoNYC event took place on Wednesday 24th August. The topic for debate this month was how do we reach and connect groups that are underrepresented in science? Women, minorities and researchers in developing economies often face challenges when integrating into the scientific community. It can also be difficult for researchers with a niche interest to find and support each other. Groups such as teens often fail to view science as interesting or significant in its own right and have poor access to reliable, engaging scientific content.
The panel looked at how minority networks form and develop both online and off, and discussed the targeted efforts to reach communities that are underrepresented or disinterested in science:
In the build-up to the event, we also ran some guest posts here on Of Schemes and Memes by scientists representing minority or niche groups. Our first installment from SoNYC co-organiser Jeanne Garbarino, also a Postdoc at Rockefeller University, considered some of the underrepresented groups within science. In our second installment, Mónica I. Feliú-Mójer discussed her role as the vice-director of Ciencia Puerto Rico, a non-profit, grassroots organization that promotes science, research and scientific literacy in Puerto Rico. Our third post was from Subhra Priyadarshini, editor of Nature Publishing Group’s India portal who talked about life for scientists in India. In our forth post we heard from Satoshi Uchiyama, a Japanese researcher working abroad, as he details his career hurdles and visa issues. In our last post, we heard fromAmanda Adeleye, a medical student who reveals that the glamorous world of cheerleading can mix with science.
Find a write up and Storify summary from the event here and a few of the take home messages from the online discussion below:
Matching mediums and messengers to meet the massesOn Thursday 8th December 2011 the seventh SoNYC took place and the topic for debate this month was, “Matching medium and messengers to meet the masses.” Reaching an audience that’s already interested in science is a relatively easy thing to do. Reaching a broader audience, however, can be a serious challenge. The conversation looked at when and how scientists and science communicators should highlight science issues to the general public.
The panel had experience communicating with audiences from young kids to policymakers, and discussed what they have learnt about using different spokespeople and platforms to get their message out:
For more information, you can find a write up and Storify summary from the event here and below are a few of the take home messages from the online conversation:
On Thursday 17th February the ninth SoNYC was a special event for Social Media Week. We teamed up with the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the topic for debate was social media. This month’s SoNYC wasn’t held in the usual location at Rockefeller University, but at the AMNH:
As a communications tool, social media is an undeniably effective way to enhance your message. But within the science realm, top communicators – both academic and professional – strive to use social media for something greater: to engage the public in a conversation about science. The panel included scientists, communicators, and educators who use social media tools to find creative, collaborative, and engaging learning opportunities:
In the lead up to Social Media week, we ran a series of guest posts here on Of Schemes and Memes, recounting experiences where social media has been a key part of a science education project. To start the discussions, Dr Alan Cann from Leicester University gave us an academic’s viewpoint on how social media can be used as part of the curriculum. Next we heard from Ben Lillie, co-founder of The Story Collider, revealing how social media can also be used to tell a science story. We then took a look at the, “This is what a scientist looks like” initiative, interviewing writer and multimedia specialist, Allie Wilkinson.
Take home messages
All SoNYC events are live-streamed and the videos are archived so that anyone can follow along, whether you’re in NYC or not. We also tweet enthusiastically on the #sonyc hashtag and create Storifys of the online conversations around each event. Recently, we’ve also been providing preview posts for each event, where we start to explore the month’s topic in advance of the in-person discussions. Search our archive of blog posts to find out more.
On Thursday evening, we hosted the tenth instalment of the monthly Science Online NYC (SoNYC) discussion series. For this month’s event, the topic for debate was, “Setting the research record straight.”
The internet has enabled the faster and more thorough dissemination of published science, meaning that more eyes than ever are available to check the accuracy, veracity and integrity of the research record. With our enhanced ability to spot plagiarism and image manipulation electronically, it appears that the frequency with which we’ve flagged potentially fraudulent or plagiarized papers has gone up. This panel will look at the trends in retractions and how they relate to real or perceived increases in research misconduct. We hope to discuss what steps publications are taking to deal with the sloppy or fraudulent research practices that sometimes result in retractions, and also what research institutions are doing to investigate and deter such practices. Is the system broken, and what can researchers do to help fix it if it is?
Preparing for the event
In anticipation of the discussion, we ran a series of guest posts here on Of Schemes and Memes, discussing what steps publications are taking to deal with fraudulent research practices and what is being done to investigate and deter such practices. First we heard from Richard Van Noorden, Assistant News Editor at Nature. He gave us an overview of what retractions can tell us about setting the research record straight, highlighting some recent high profile cases of retraction, revealing why retraction rates appear to be increasing. We also compiled a Storify from a session at February’s AAAS meeting in Vancouver on Global Challenges to Peer Review which touched on some of the challenges faced by journal editors. Next we heard from Dorothy Clyde (Dot), Senior Editor at Nature Protocols, detailing the role an editor plays in avoiding plagiarism, giving advice to all parties. In our final post, SoNYC panel member Ivan Oransky, executive editor of Reuters Health, explained the concept behind the Retraction Watch blog.
This month’s panel:
To read what people on Twitter were saying about the event, check out our Storify of tweets at the bottom of this post.
Do let us know if you blog about the event and we’ll include a round-up of links here.
Live-streaming and video archiving
We live-stream each SoNYC event to give as many people as possible the chance to take part in the debate. Check out this month’s livestream, or take a look at our archives where you can view the previous meetings.
The next SoNYC will be held on the 2nd May – keep an eye on the SoNYC twitter account for more details and/or watch the #sonyc hashtag.
If you have a suggestion for a future panel or would be interested in sponsoring one of the events, please get in touch.
Ivan Oransky, M.D., is executive editor of Reuters Health and treasurer of the Association of Health Care Journalists’ board of directors. He blogs at Embargo Watch and at Retraction Watch. He also holds appointments as an adjunct professor of journalism and clinical assistant professor of medicine at New York University.
Reporters have always relied on sources to give them story tips and documents, and to keep them honest. Today, however, some of what used to happen in one-on-one phone calls and meetings is now happening in public, in an acknowledgement that we’re performing “users-know-more-than-we-do” journalism.
That’s certainly true at Retraction Watch, which Adam Marcus and I founded in August 2010 to “track retractions as a window into the scientific process.” Science is too specialized for two individual reporters to cover, so we rely heavily on our thousands of regular readers, who have deep knowledge of particular fields.
Our readers frequently leave comments that add to or advance stories. Take the case of Jatinder Ahluwalia. Our first post about the (now former) University of East London researcher was in November 2010, reporting that he and his colleagues had retracted a Nature paper. The notice referred to a University College London report that wasn’t yet available, but while we waited for word of that, a researcher who had earlier criticized the Nature paper wrote us with comments. They were so good, we turned them into their own post.
It was a month later, when we posted on the UCL report – which found that Ahluwalia had faked results, and probably sabotaged his colleagues – that our community really kicked into gear. One commenter asked whether we knew Ahluwalia had decided to study plagiarism – the one type of scientific misconduct which he didn’t seem to have committed – at his new post at the University of East London. That of course become a post.
And then we received an email from a loyal reader, including two documents about which he said it was “clearly important that your readership be made aware.” Those documents turned out to be letters describing Ahluwalia’s misconduct at Cambridge which, unbeknownst to the institutions where he later trained and worked, had dismissed him the first time he tried to earn a PhD. We agreed with our tipster, and posted them. Ahluwalia’s story has continued to unravel since then; he has left his post at UEL and now risks losing his PhD because the paper it was based on has been retracted.
Some readers will take apart images, often letting us know what’s wrong with a retracted paper even when a journal’s notice is frustratingly opaque. Others will give us important context and background to flesh out posts. And still others end up contributing guest posts, for example telling us what it’s like to have your paper plagiarized.
Among those users who often know more than we do are anonymous whistleblowers, whom some journal editors insist on ignoring. (We applaud the fact that Nature pays attention to anonymous tips.) We think blowing them off is a bad idea. We investigate as many of their tips as we have time for, and we post about those that check out.
Our readers also use the comments to let us know when we’ve made an error, or missed a retraction by a lab about whom we’re writing. We correct our mistakes, and publicly thank the commenters.
In short, we couldn’t do Retraction Watch without our readers. A big part of our role is to simply give voice to the community of people who want to fact-check science.
And anyone can make use of the tools of investigative journalism. You don’t have to be a journalist to file a Freedom of Information request, for example, as I pointed out in a talk at ScienceOnline2012. (My crowdsourced resource list is available here.)
We all benefit from having more engaged eyeballs on our work. That goes for science journals, too. It’s not surprising that last year set a record for retractions, and we look forward to covering more in the coming years. Retractions, after all, aren’t necessarily a bad thing – they mean that science is correcting itself, as it’s supposed to.
Science Online NYC (SoNYC) is a monthly discussion series held in New York City where invited panellists and the in-person and online audiences talk about a particular topic related to how science is carried out and communicated online. For this month’s SoNYC the topic for discussion is: Setting the research record straight. We’re looking at issues such as retractions and plagiarism and how they relate to real or perceived increases in research misconduct. More details about this month’s SoNYC can be found here.
To complement the event, we’re running a series of guest posts discussing what steps publications are taking to deal with fraudulent research practices and what is being done to investigate and deter such practices. We’ve already heard from Richard Van Noorden, Assistant News Editor at Nature. He gave us an overview of what retractions can tell us about setting the research record straight, highlighting some recent high profile cases of retraction, explaining why retraction rates appear to be increasing. We also compiled a Storify from a session at February’s AAAS meeting in Vancouver on Global Challenges to Peer Review which touched on some of the challenges faced by journal editors. Next we heard from Dorothy Clyde (Dot), Senior Editor at Nature Protocols, explaining the role an editor plays in avoiding plagiarism, giving advice to all parties.
Dorothy Clyde (Dot), is a Senior Editor at Nature Protocols and has been with the journal since its inception in January 2006. In her previous life as a research scientist, she spent close to a decade studying various aspects of fruit fly development and genetics. In her guest post she explains the role an editor plays in avoiding plagiarism, giving advice to all parties.
Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but I doubt if anyone feels particularly flattered when they come across their own work – copied verbatim and unattributed – in someone else’s publication. Unfortunately, instances of plagiarism are becoming more commonplace. As a result, tackling plagiarism has now become part of an editor’s job, and at Nature Protocols we work closely with our authors to avoid it. Once upon a time plagiarism was difficult to detect, but now that so much of the scientific literature is online there are a number of services that help us spot when parts of a submitted manuscript have already appeared elsewhere.
Thankfully, plagiarism of the classic kind is rare; when we do come across plagiarism, it usually takes the form of self-plagiarism (where an author reproduces uncited sections of text from one of their previous publications), or duplicate submissions (where the same manuscript is submitted to more than one journal, often simultaneously). Self-plagiarism, if detected early enough, is usually relatively straightforward to resolve. Duplicate submissions, on the other hand, are one of the more frustrating aspects of an editor’s job, as the problem often does not become apparent until the later stages of the editorial process – or worse, until both versions have been accepted and published in different journals!
Why is self-plagiarism a particular problem for Nature Protocols?
In order to ensure that our protocols are reproducible, Nature Protocols has a policy that all our protocols are based on a previous primary research paper from the author’s lab, in which the technique was used to generate data. If this supporting paper is very methodological, there may be some degree of overlap with the Nature Protocols manuscript. Alternatively, the authors may have published a protocol-type paper on a similar topic in another journal. In these circumstances, it is easy for sections of duplicated text to creep in, especially if the authors are unaware of the problems associated with self-plagiarism.
With respect to duplicate submission, we hope that all authors realise that it is unacceptable to submit identical manuscripts to more than one journal at the same time. However, duplicate submission (and self-plagiarism) problems can arise when manuscripts that were seemingly unrelated at initial submission, progressively become more similar as they pass through the editorial process, for example, when additional material is added in response to referee or editorial comments. In addition, some authors view protocols differently to other publication types and do not see a potential conflict in publishing the same protocol in more than one journal.
The role of editors in avoiding plagiarism
It is our job as editors to ensure our authors are fully informed about our plagiarism policies and to detect potential problems early in the editorial process. So how do we set out to achieve this at Nature Protocols?
Taking action
If self-plagiarism is detected before a manuscript is accepted for publication, the author is made aware of the offending sections and asked to either cite the original source or to rewrite the duplicated text. Duplicate submissions will be rejected outright as soon as they are detected. No manuscript will be accepted for publication until we are satisfied that all text is original and appropriately referenced.
Once a manuscript has been published, the course of action will depend on a number of factors, including: proof of intent; severity of plagiarism; policies of other journals involved. In cases where it is judged that the plagiarism is relatively minor and unintentional, authors will most likely be given the opportunity to correct the publication record by including additional citations or rewriting sections of text in the form of an official correction. In more serious cases, it is likely that we will retract the Protocol. That is about the limit of what we as editors can do ourselves although an author’s institution may well decide to investigate. In theUS, there is also the US Office of Research Integrity (ORI) which will investigate complaints of plagiarism. We are of course happy to cooperate with Institutions, the ORI or equivalent authorities.
Limitations of our approach
Unfortunately, there will be cases of plagiarism that slip past the Nature Protocols editors unnoticed. Plagiarism detection software, such as iThenticate, is not foolproof; determined individuals will find a way to ensure their manuscripts evade detection. Services such as PubMed, Scopus or CrossCheck do not index content from every journal; neither do they index all content types from participating journals. And by definition, only published papers are included in these databases. Thus, concurrent submission of identical manuscripts to more than one journal is a serious problem with no immediate solution.
A closing plea to authors
Authors – remember, your editor is your friend when it comes to avoiding plagiarism. It is in everyone’s best interests to identify and resolve potential issues early in the publication process. To facilitate this, I would urge all authors to be honest and transparent with your editor. And if you are unsure about how the policies apply to your manuscript –just ask!
Science Online NYC (SoNYC) is a monthly discussion series held in New York City where invited panellists and the in-person and online audiences talk about a particular topic related to how science is carried out and communicated online. For this month’s SoNYC the topic for discussion is: Setting the research record straight. We’re looking at issues such as retractions and plagiarism and how they relate to real or perceived increases in research misconduct. More details about this month’s SoNYC can be found here.
To complement the event, we’re running a series of guest posts discussing what steps publications are taking to deal with fraudulent research practices and what is being done to investigate and deter such practices. We’ve already heard from Richard Van Noorden, Assistant News Editor at Nature. He gave us an overview of what retractions can tell us about setting the research record straight, highlighting some recent high profile cases of retraction, explaining why retraction rates appear to be increasing. We also compiled a Storify from a session at February’s AAAS meeting in Vancouver on Global Challenges to Peer Review which touched on some of the challenges faced by journal editors. More guest posts coming soon.