Chris Condayan, manager of the Public Education Outreach Initiative at the American Society for Microbiology, writes an Editoral in the September issue of Nature Reviews Microbiology (6, 646; 2008) about how self-created audio and video content enable more microbiologists to share knowledge and news online. From his article:
As the science audiences for newspapers, radio and television decline, the future for audio and video podcasts, blogs and social networking looks bright. On the horizon we are starting to see the emergence of science-related social networks and a movement towards ‘open science’ that allows scientists and researchers to collaborate on projects, communicate results, share data and publish papers with the same recognition that is afforded to colleagues who publish in print journals. Specific details of how open science will work are still murky, and concerns over citation, peer review, accuracy, scooping and accountability resound even among its strongest supporters. But this has not stopped microbiologists from engaging with one another on wikis, such as EcoliWiki, TOPSAN or Proteopedia, or prevented thousands of scientists from sharing their poster presentations, lectures or laboratory methods through iTunes or video destination sites, such as YouTube, SciVee and JoVE.
Podcasting for audio or video is generally defined as episodic content that listeners or viewers can subscribe to for free and which they can consume at any time and on any device, whether it be a computer, iPod, mobile telephone or television set. Audio podcasts are easy and affordable to create, and can be used to make a radio-style show or to make lectures available to a wider audience. Uploading and sharing videos on websites such as YouTube, or creating a video podcast show, is more time consuming and requires more equipment and a video-editing software program.
Chris Condayan goes on to provide some examples of microbiologists who produce online resources to educate and promote microbiological research, and the MicrobeWorld sevice of the American Society for Microbiology, which includes the popular resources MicrobeWorld Radio and MicrobeWorld Video.