SpotOn London Is Now Free To Attend! Join us on the 14th & 15th November

Posted on 07 Nov 2014 by Laura Wheeler

We are thrilled to announce that we have decided to make tickets to this year’s SpotOn London free!

Why you may ask?

First and foremost, this is a community event and we want as many people as possible to join us – you make SpotOn what it is.

We are very lucky to have generous hosts in the Wellcome Trust who have donated the venue for the weekend and we have some fantastic sponsors. This has enabled us to cover some of the costs of this event – and Nature Publishing Group have decided to pick up the rest of the tab. We may not be able to do this every year, but this year we are! So we would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors and hosts who have enabled us to do this:

Hosts

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. Established in 1939, the Wellcome Trust is the largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research in the United Kingdom. Their breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health.

Digital Science is a technology company serving the needs of scientific research. It offers a range of scientific technology and content solutions, from intelligent knowledge discovery tools to software applications for the laboratory and decision support systems for managers. Digital Science combines world-class technology with a resolute focus on scientists and those who support the research process. We believe passionately that tomorrow’s research will be different – and better – than today’s. Visit www.digital-science.com.

Nature Publishing Group is a leading provider of scientific journals, magazines, products and services. NPG is dedicated to serving the scientific community and the wider scientifically interested general public. Visit www.nature.com.

What if you have already bought a ticket?

You will be refunded the full ticket price shortly after the conference. If we do it now, your ticket will be cancelled and you’ll have to reapply, which would be a pain!

How to get yourself a ticket

You can get your free ticket for the event here – which includes food and drink throughout the conference.

The final programme is now available here and you can stay tuned online using #solo14 and following @SpotOnLondon on Twitter.

We are also running two exciting fringe events with Pint Of Science and Science Showoff which you can read about here. We hope to see you there!

SpotOn London 2014 Final Programme

Posted on 06 Nov 2014 by Laura Wheeler

This year’s SpotOn London conference will take place at the Wellcome Trust on Friday, 14 November and Saturday, 15 November 2014. This year’s theme is on the challenges of balancing the public and the private in the digital age.

You can now see the final programme for Friday below and here. It includes a day of panels, workshops and keynotes on topics including: sharing sensitive data, measuring social impact, open peer review and the right to be forgotten.

You can click onto the sessions links to be taken to detailed information pages on each event.

Friday

9:00am	Registration and Networking
09:40 – 10:00	Welcome and unconference explainer
10.00 – 11:00	Opening panel: who do we trust? #solo14trust
11:00 – 12:00	Sharing sensitive data – Workshop. #solo14sens	Measuring social impact – the tools available and whose responsibility is it? Workshop. #solo14alt	How to build your profile as a scientist? Workshop. #solo14profile
12:00 – 1:30	LUNCH
1:30- 2:30	Open peer review. Panel #solo14peer
2:30 – 3:00	COFFEE BREAK
3:00 – 4:30	Right to be Forgotten #solo14forget
4:30 – 5:30	Keynote Panel – Social impact and why we should include social impact as part of UK higher assessment. #solo14impact

Saturday

On Saturday, the day will start at 9am and the programme will be crafted by the delegates. The programme will be emailed to delegates on the Friday evening.

This is an exciting change to our Saturday programme – an unconference completely picked and run by the community within this year’s theme. If you are not sure what an unconference is, then check out Martin Fenner’s great explainer post here.

There is a Google doc where you can add your suggested session suggestions. Saturday’s schedule will be formulated on the Friday at the conference, not just by the organisers but a handful of other volunteers too.

If you are only attending on the Saturday and want to run a session, do let us know in advance.

There is still plenty of time to purchase your tickets via our Eventbrite page.

There are two ticket types, a full two-day conference ticket (£60) and a Saturday only ticket (£35) – which includes breakfast, lunch and other refreshments.

As the conference has sold out every year, we recommend buying your ticket as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Fringe Events

We’ve got some great fringe events lined up on the evenings of Thursday 13th and Friday 14th November. Tickets to these events will be offered to conference attendees first. You can see all the details of the fringe events here.

Finally, if you want to be kept updated on this year’s event, follow @SpotonLondon and the hashtag #solo14. If you’re not already on our mailing list, or if you have any questions, drop us a line at blogs@nature.com and we’ll happily add you!

SpotOn London 2014 – Fringe Events

Posted on 27 Oct 2014 by Alex Jackson

To accompany this year’s SpotOn London conference, at the Wellcome Trust on Friday, 14 November and Saturday, 15 November, we have a number of exciting fringe events taking place around London.

Tickets are available for the main event and you can read about the workshops, panels and unconference here. This year’s theme looks at the challenges of balancing the public and the private in the digital age.

Here’s the run-down on fringe events taking place across the week.

Pint of Science

When: Thursday 13th November 2014, 7pm – 11pm

Where: The Driver, Wharfdale Road, King’s Cross

Pint of Science have teamed up with SpotOn London to offer an evening of informal, fun science talks relating to science policy, communication and preventing fraud in science.

In between pints and talks we’ll gather around for some good old fashioned storytelling with a science theme.

Speakers so far include Professor Tony Segal (UCL), who will be talking about how we can prevent fraud in science and Dr Aeneas Wiener (Cytora), who will talk about how his company Cytora uses open data to assess real time political risk. A third speaker will be announced shortly.

The event will be held the evening before the SpotOn conference, in The Driver pub near King’s Cross, on Thursday 13th November at 7pm.

Tickets cost £3 and are available at https://www.wegottickets.com/event/295178.

Science Showoff

When: Friday 14th November 2014, 7pm – 10pm

Where: Basement bar, The Star of Kings pub, London

Science Showoff is the anarchic science cabaret night that gives everyone the chance to share their love of science in whatever chaotic way they like.

The stage at the Star of Kings will be full of SpotOn conference delegates and the cream of London’s science communication scene, talking about science, telling jokes, doing demos, playing songs… hell, they can do an interpretive dance if they want to as long as it relates to science.

The whole thing is loosely held-together by our MC and super-nerd Steve Cross, who will be keeping our acts to time and getting science completely wrong for laughs.

Tickets cost £6 with all donations going to the Lightyear Foundation charity and are available at https://www.wegottickets.com/event/295387

Get involved: If you think you’ve got what it takes to showoff your science and you want to take part, we’re currently looking for five performers who are attending SpotOn London 2014 to perform 9-minute sets, communicating any kind of science in any way at all. You could:

Continue reading →

Let’s do an unconference

Posted on 17 Oct 2014 by Alex Jackson

Guest Post by Martin Fenner.

Martin Fenner is the technical lead for the PLOS Article-Level Metrics project. Before taking this position in 2012 he worked as a medical oncologist at the Hannover Medical School Cancer Center in Germany. He has served on the ORCID Board from 2010 to 2012 and is a member of the ORCID Outreach Steering Group.

This year’s SpotOn London conference takes place November 14-15 and registration opened this Monday. I have been helping to organize this conference since 2009, and I again look forward to the sessions, and – more importantly – the discussions with people in and between sessions this year.

The name (ScienceBlogging London, ScienceOnline London, SpotOn London), the location (Royal Institution, British Library, Wellcome Conference Center), the people organizing (too many to mention, but Nature Publishing Group always at the core), and the fringe events (lots of cool things from science tours toStory Collider) and the format have always changed slightly over the years, and this year again is a bit different. The biggest change is obviously that Lou Woodley is no longer an organizer (as she announced at last year’s conference), but this is also the first SpotOn conference with a theme:

The challenges of balancing the public and the private in the digital age

This is obviously a very broad topic, but nicely encompasses many important issues that we are dealing with in scholarly communication today. The draft program is posted here, and I’m helping organize the sessions on sharing sensitive data and open peer review. More details will follow for all these sessions.

Continue reading →

SpotOn London 2014 Draft Programme

Posted on 13 Oct 2014 by Alex Jackson

We’re pleased to announce that the SpotOn London conference will take place at the Wellcome Trust on Friday, 14 November and Saturday, 15 November 2014.

This year’s theme will be on the challenges of balancing the public and the private in the digital age. Friday will see panels, workshops and keynotes on topics including: sharing sensitive data, measuring social impact, open peer review and the right to be forgotten. In an exciting change to our Saturday programme, SpotOn London will be hosting an unconference completely picked and run by the community within this year’s theme.

Find out more details about the event in our previous blog post.

Tickets go on sale today at noon (UK time) via our Eventbrite page.

This year there are two ticket types, a full two-day conference ticket (£60) and a Saturday only ticket (£35) – which includes breakfast, lunch and other refreshments.

As the conference has sold out every year, we recommend buying your ticket as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Continue reading →

How to get a ticket for this year’s SpotOn London

Posted on 09 Oct 2014 by Alex Jackson

With a month to go, we’ve been busy behind the scenes planning for this year’s SpotOn London conference on 14th and 15th November. We are pleased to announce that we can now share some more details about how you can attend the event.

What is SpotOn London?

If you’ve not attended before, SpotOn London is an annual opportunity to meet other people interested in how science is carried out and communicated online. The two day event, which marks its sixth year, is hosted by Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, Digital Science and the Wellcome Trust. We’re also delighted to have Martin Fenner of PLOS joining us as a co-organiser again this year.

The conference is taking place on Friday 14th and Saturday 15th November Find out more details about the event in our blog post announcing the dates.

How can I get a ticket?

This year we’re releasing tickets to attend the main conference in one batch which will go on sale at noon (UK time) on Monday 13th October via our Eventbrite page.

This year there are two ticket types, a full two-day conference ticket (£60) and a Saturday only ticket (£35) – which includes breakfast, lunch and other refreshments.

As the conference has sold out every year, we recommend buying your ticket as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

What if I want to run a session

On Saturday, the programme will be crafted by the delegates. There will be a Google doc before the conference for session suggestions. Saturday’s schedule will be formulated on the Friday at the conference. If you are only attending on the Saturday and want to run a session, do let us know in advance.

If we’ve already been in touch with you and you’ve agreed to coordinate a session on the Friday, please don’t purchase a ticket. If you’ve got any questions about organising sessions and joining in the unconference, please do get in touch.

What about attending fringe events?

We’ve also been busy coordinating plans for fringe events on the evenings of Thursday 13th and Friday 14th November. Tickets to these events will be offered to conference attendees first. We’ll announce details of the fringe events soon – so stay tuned!

Follow @SpotonLondon and the hashtag #solo14 for updates and if you’re not already on our mailing list, or if you have any questions, drop us a line at blogs@nature.com and we’ll happily add you!

SpotOn London: Public interest and privacy in the digital world – 14/15 November 2014

Posted on 02 Oct 2014 by Alex Jackson

The annual conference, SpotOn London, will be taking place at the Wellcome Trust on Friday, 14 November and Saturday, 15 November 2014. The two day event, which marks its sixth year, will be hosted by Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, Digital Science and the Wellcome Trust. We’re also delighted to have Martin Fenner of PLOS joining us as a co-organiser again this year. SpotOn London is a dynamic, lively melting pot of scientists, science communicators, technologists, and those interested in science policy.

Is our understanding of where the lines blur between private and public keeping pace with technology?
How do we balance public interest with the right to privacy when it comes to personal data?
How much are we prepared to share for our own interests, and do we really know how much we are sharing about ourselves?
How do we balance personal opinion and professional image on social media?
Has the right to be forgotten managed to strike a balance between the right of information and the individual’s right to privacy?
Does scientific peer review need to be open? And would this work?

Continue reading →

Save the date! Announcing SpotOn London 2013

Posted on 10 Jul 2013 by nature.com Communities Team

Calendars at the ready – this year’s SpotOn London conference will take place on Friday 8^th and Saturday 9^th November and we warmly invite you to join us!

Hosted by Nature Publishing Group, in association with the Wellcome Trust, SpotOn London is an annual conference for anyone interested in how science is carried out and communicated online.

This year we’re hosted at the British Library which means we’ll have room for almost 250 attendees to join us at an event that usually sells out.

And just in case you do miss out on a ticket, we’ll be live-streaming and live-tweeting sessions so you’ll be able to follow along online. Check out last year’s archives here and join in online with the #solo13 hashtag.

What can I expect?

Last year we changed our name to SpotOn London – SpotOn stands for Science Policy Outreach and Tools Online – and we re-structured the conference programme to focus around the three broad topics reflected in our new name: i) science communication and outreach ii) online tools and digital publishing and iii) science policy.

This year we’ll be sticking with a similar format and the programme will include keynotes, discussion sessions, practical workshops plus the fringe events. We’re also hoping to run a hackday again.

As an attendee, you won’t be restricted to any one track – you’re free to hop between the threads at any point. We’ve just found that the tracks help to create a more balanced programme that ensures everyone’s interests are represented.

A final note on the format: SpotOn London is a dynamic, lively melting pot of scientists, science communicators, technologists, and those interested in science policy. The resultant sharing of ideas, problem-solving and learning experiences depend on everyone’s enthusiastic input so we hope you’ll add your voice to the conversations.

How do I get involved?

If you like the idea of sharing a new tool you’ve been working on, giving a case study about an interesting project, letting us know about a problem you think needs solving or otherwise want to help to shape any of the conversations, we’d love to hear from you!

The overall theme of this year’s event is Impact – that might include altmetrics, assessing the success of communications, considering whether crowdfunding can change the science funding landscape or thinking about specific campaigns to address policy issues. So if you have a suggestion that fits broadly into this theme, please do add you suggestions to the public google document.

Don’t worry if you’re not sure which of the three strands your suggestion fits into, or whether it fits the overall theme – we can always rejig later. If you prefer, you can email us at spoton@nature.com.

You’ve a choice of two session formats to contribute to. The first is a discussion session where a panel of 3 – 4 people acts as a warm-up to a wider conversation involving the in-person and online audiences. The second is a more hands-on workshop session where the audience should be involved from the outset. Discussions are an hour in length but we might be more flexible about workshops, so let us know if you think you might need more than an hour.

You don’t need to have fully-formed ideas, so don’t worry if you’re not sure about who else to present with – we can work together to create new collaborations and friendships. We’re also looking for help to organise the fringe events so if you’ve got a fun science activity in mind that you think others would also enjoy, do let us know.

If your organisation would like to sponsor SpotOn London, we have several different options this year, from attending as an exhibitor, to hosting refreshments, to sponsoring a specific track. Do get in touch for more information (spoton@nature.com).

How do I get a ticket?

Tickets will go on sale in three batches to give everyone who would like to attend several opportunities to reserve their space. More details on this once we’ve confirmed the programme.

Keep in touch!

Don’t miss out on any of the news or chatter! You can follow the SpotOn London accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ as well as adding the SpotOn site to your RSS reader. The main conference hashtag is #solo13 – and that will work on all the main social media platforms now, including Facebook.

Finally, if you’re not already on our mailing list, drop us a line at spoton@nature.com and we’ll happily add you!

SpotOn London 2012. Photo by Jason Wen.

Sponsors and Hosts: SpotOn London 2012

Posted on 18 Oct 2012 by nature.com Communities Team

SpotOn London would not be possible without the help of our generous sponsors.

We hope you will join us in thanking everyone who has supported us this year. You can find out more about our sponsors and hosts below.

Gold Sponsors

Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. Established in 1939, the Wellcome Trust is the largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research in the United Kingdom. Their breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health.

Silver Sponsors

Digital Science

Digital Science provide world-class software tools and services to scientists, managers and funders with the ultimate aim of making research more productive through the use of technology.

PureDiscovery

PureDiscovery is a company of curious, motivated technologists making game-changing software products.

Copper Sponsors

PLOS

PLOS (Public Library of Science) is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization with a mission of leading a transformation in scientific and medical research communication.

VIVO

VIVO is an open source, open ontology, research discovery platform for hosting information about scientists, their interests, activities, and accomplishments. VIVO supports open development and integration of science through simple, standard semantic web technologies.

Exhibitors

CrossRef

CrossRef is the official DOI® link registration agency for scholarly and professional publications. CrossRef’s mandate is to connect users to primary research content, by enabling publishers to work collectively.

For more information about SpotOn London 2012 sponsorship options, please do get in touch: spoton@nature.com.

SpotOn London 2012 Programme Timings

Posted on 17 Oct 2012 by nature.com Communities Team

We are now ready to share the timings for the SpotOn London 2012 programme – thanks for bearing with us while we’ve worked out how to fit everything in! Aside from the keynotes and closing plenary, the conference will be split into three tracks: i) science communication and outreach ii) online tools and digital publishing and iii) science policy. Follow the links to find out more about the discussion sessions and workshops in each strand. Attendees can stick to one track or can flit between different topics, depending on their interests.

If, like us, you’re finding it difficult to choose which sessions to attend, they will all be livestreamed and the video archives will be available later so that you can can catch up when it suits you. Each session will have an event page here on the SpotOn site similar to this one and we’ll be bringing together all the media about it (blog posts, shared resources such as google docs, Storifys, slides from slideshare and video archives) so that all the session information is available in one place. If you’d like to contribute a blog post to the discussions around a particular session, do get in touch (spoton@nature.com). Continue reading →

nature.com blogs

Category Archives: Science Online London (SoLo)

SpotOn London Is Now Free To Attend! Join us on the 14th & 15th November

We are thrilled to announce that we have decided to make tickets to this year’s SpotOn London free!

Sponsors

Hosts

SpotOn London 2014 Final Programme

Saturday

SpotOn London 2014 – Fringe Events

Pint of Science

When: Thursday 13th November 2014, 7pm – 11pm

Where: The Driver, Wharfdale Road, King’s Cross

Science Showoff

When: Friday 14th November 2014, 7pm – 10pm

Where: Basement bar, The Star of Kings pub, London

Let’s do an unconference

SpotOn London 2014 Draft Programme

How to get a ticket for this year’s SpotOn London

SpotOn London: Public interest and privacy in the digital world – 14/15 November 2014

Save the date! Announcing SpotOn London 2013