Sometimes I listen to myself

I’m trying to do this in a kind of scientific manner, writing my thoughts in a logical manner, formulating questions and actually trying to find answers. First, I need to mention that, for the purposes of this discussion, scientific communication is both communication between scientists as well as the dialogue between scientists and “lay-people” or non-scientists. I don’t quite know how to say this in a politically correct fashion. In the second category, I should really also include communication between scientists that have no idea what each other is doing. Already, we can identify one way to classify scientific communication. Let’s call this

•  technical communication: between people who both know what’s going on
• everyday communication: between someone who knows and someone who doesn’t

We could probably add another category, something like “third party communication” in which case all the people taking part in the discussion have no idea what’s going on and they’re discussing someone else’s science.

Another way to characterize communication could be by a mode of delivery:

• synchronous communication: I have to listen while you’re talking (e.g. conference talk, tv program)
• asynchronous communication: You speak and I listen whenever I want (e.g. journal paper, documentary on dvd)

We can also classify communication by the parties involved:

• one-to-one communication:  like a meeting between a student and his supervisor
• one-to-many: like many of the conference talks you see. We ask questions, but seriously, how much discussion takes place?
• many-to-many: think of a group meeting.

and for completeness

• many-to-one: really I can’t think of an example on the top of my head right now. I guess it’s not that useful.

One could also characterize communication based on how much information is being transmitted, information quantity. So different types of information have different characteristics.

Scientific (Peer-Reviewed) Journal papers = technical, asynchronous, one-to-many, large quantity communication

Conference Proceeding = technical, asynchronous, one-to-many, small quantity

Conference Talk = technical, synchronous, (mostly) one-to-many, (often ridiculously) small quantity

Large Public (Non Peer-Reviewed) Journal article (like national geographic or what is often referred to as vulgarization publications, although I hate the term vulgariztion) =  everyday, asynchronous, one-to-many, medium quantity

Group Meeting = technical, synchronous, many-to-many, small to medium quantity

Hallway discussion = ….

You get my drift. So at this point, we have different technologies that enable different mediums for communication (some listed above), we also have different communication intents. The question then becomes “What is the most appropriate medium for a particular content, given a particular intent?”

And with this, it’s too late for me and I’m going to bed.

A great post from the blog New Music strategies about a new music service, Kompoz. This system is about enabling musicians to collaborate online to record songs. Read that post, and you’ll get an idea about where I’m going with this “science is broken” thing. All that’s being done on that site doesn’t entirely apply, at least according to me, to science. The needs are different, but the spirit is there. There’s something to learn from that site and what it enables musicians to do.

This is the first post in a (hopefully not so) long series of posts on the subject of communication in science. Let me clarify the object of this series right away. The title is a bit provocative and I chose it because it’s catchy and simple. I don’t believe science is done badly. I believe we are doing science properly. What I have a problem with is scientific communication, both within the scientific community and outside of it.

So far, the plan of this series is to expose my views on the following topics:

1- Do young/new scientists today like using the conventional methods of scientific communication? Are those conventional tools for communication in science as effective, in the current context, as they could be?

2- Which are the particular concepts in today’s scientification that are ‘most broken’?

3- What kind of alternative could we come up with to complent and/or replace the conventional tools of communication in science?

4- What kind of hurdles would we face in undergoing such a transition? What are the objections to such a (hopefully radically) different system? (This will be a tough one for me. As you can imagine, I’m a firm believer of changing the system.)

5- How can we overcome those hurdles and make the transition to this new system?

So at least, this is the plan so far. We shall see how this series develops and what becomes of it. At least now you have an idea of what to expect.

Cheers, read on, and don’t forget to comment, I would really like to get all the input I can. This is something I’ve been maturing for a while and after this somewhat exploratory series is done, I’d like to start this project seriously and actually achieve the goals I’ll be discussing here.

If I fail, I hope I’ll at least be able to inspire someone to create something even better.