Science blogging. A couple years ago, I could never have imagined I'd try it, let alone share a site here at Sb. It's definitely changed the trajectory of my interests and pursuits, and it's an evolving medium that's proven extremely influential in some circles. John Wilkins recently had a paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution analyzing how blogs function and now our sciblings Shelley Batts, Nick Anthis, and Tara Smith have an article in PLoS Biology proposing:
a roadmap for turning blogs into institutional educational tools and present examples of successful collaborations that can serve as a model for such efforts. We offer suggestions for improving upon the traditionally used blog platform to make it more palatable to institutional hosts and more trustworthy to readers; creating mechanisms for institutions to provide appropriate (but not stifling) oversight to blogs and to facilitate high-quality interactions between blogs, institutions, and readers; and incorporating blogs into meta-conversations within and between institutions.
Head over to Drug Monkey's place for a good analysis.
