On “William J. Polley: Comments and observations on economics and whatever else catches my eye” blog February 21, 2007 “Is Wikipedia an acceptable source for college papers?”

(His answer - no, but very useful as a starting point)

linked from the “Economics Roundtable” aggregator blog.

In this situation, the lack of colleagues to discuss topics is a big handicap, which is partly alleviated by blogs, even though they are not as interactive as face to face discussions. Blogs can be very useful in providing summaries of current work reported in papers or at conferences, as well as pointers to more detailed articles. Confronting Arxiv without some guidance would be a formidable undertaking, and blog articles by competent people provide guidance. Of course, as with most material on the Internet, one has to select reliable sources, and Cosmic Variance is high on my list of trustworthy blogs.

I have also started my own blog, which I thought would be useful in describing my experience and summarising what I have learned, but it is currently a private blog as I’m hesitant to reveal my ignorance to the whole world. I’ve invited physicist friends to contribute, but this hasn’t been very successful so I talk mainly to myself

Blogging also allows retired teachers to teach with methods, or teach subjects, that perhaps their school board prohibited them from teaching. Or how better to match up the right student with the right mentor or tutor–if your brain works a different way and you can’t communicate with the teachers you are given, you could explore blogs until you find the teacher who understands your particular learning situation.

If anyone knows of a particular site I can direct her to where she can most easily learn about blogging, I’d appreciate the cue.

Some of the initial links in the “rethink” post are dead, a common problem problem of this media, but the remaining ones go in fascinating directions.

The YouTube featured video “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us.” by Michael Wesch’s Kansas State Digital Ethnography working group at Kansas State University to examine the impacts of digital technology on human interaction. They also have the “Digital Ethnography” blog.

As an aside, I hit these from a link to the Fischbowl blog in an almost off-hand post on an old technology e-mail list serve for medical professionals on which most posts are focused on the day-to-day getting the job done.

Two posts on the issue of how blogging fits into academic scholarship:

“Blogging Makes Its Way Into the College Curriculum” 2/14/07 on Nisbet’s “Framing Science” blog that brings issues at the intersection of science and public policy into the spotlight

“Will Blog Posts Get Credit?” 2/7/07 on “Overcoming Bias” blog - will the academic system eventually recognize this media as scholarship?

“Greg Mankiw’s Blog: Random Observations for Students of Economics” example of a class blog - Harvard EC10

“The Pump Handle: A water cooler for the public health crowd” - example of an aggregator blog that is in the public health arena

“Effect Measure” - public health bloggers that are making significant contributions to the preparations for H5N1 among other things, holding public officials feet to the fire.

The blog “Pharyngula” by the developmental biologist PZ Meyers likely has had considerable impact on the evolution vs. creation / intelligent design debate with its huge number of posts and even greater number of comments. Very wide ranging, fuzzy focus that likely strongly reflects the personality of PZ.

“Resilience Science” blog - an example of a blog by a group on a topic around which an institute was formed.

“RealClimate” and “Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog” - two examples of blogs with in-depth posts and comment responses by scientists having somewhat different interpretations of the evidence in a high profile area that sometimes debate between their blogs. Fairly sharply focused.

Two examples of applied science blogs are “R-squared Energy Blog” and “Transect Points: Views from the ground down”. Bloggers out applying their science.

It seems that those areas that have a tradition of working papers, such as economists, are the richest in blogs. For an idea of the number of economics blogs, look at the sources for the “Economics Roundtable”.

In science, neuroscience and related areas seem to have a disproportionate number of blogs. A senior scientist in that discipline said that many of the popular books, such as those by Pinker, in that area are targeted more at fueling the debates with their colleagues than they are intended to inform the public, which suggests a similar role for blogs in that arena.

Today Ajay and me completed a workshop on New Media for students at SCIT. I absolutely love talking about the potential of New Media, specifically blogging, and podcasting. Now it’s not that blogging and podcasting are going to change the world, but t…

OK, this is going to be very technical. In his comment to my last post, my colleague Ned Wright asks a couple of important questions about the way that the Planck Surveyor satellite is going to observe the sky. In the spirit of Mark Trodden’s que…

I’m teaching a class on Media & Politics and, of course, we post on the blog. The students have various assignemnts and I select a few to be posted every week. They like it. Blackboard gives us the opportunity to have a forum or a discussion board, but it’s closed to those students taking a particular course, whereas the blog is accessible to all.

-Thank You Again Mr. Pigglesworth

When I was doing my PhD, I wasn’t aware of any blogs. If I was starting to study now, blogs could be very useful.

The great thing about blogs is that they facilitate fast communication amongst any group of people connected to the internet. Blogs could help people working on a problem together and allow people to make comments and get feedback - it’s a little like a party-line e-mail tool.

Blogs are often used by economists and social scientists to publicise papers and ideas and to get feedback and input. Many academics could do the same.

In even the few years since (ie 7 years or so), things are quite different because anyone interested in science can poke around a few minutes on the Internet and quickly discover a thriving community happy to answer questions. The best thing in the real world to get into a field is some sort of mentor, and in lieu of one in the real world (most teenagers do not show up at colloquia to find one, after all), a blog can really help show someone potentially interested what the field is really about.

Physics Blogs

for my opinion about what blogging can and can’t do.

If i were a University PR/Marketing person, i would propose to the administration that it support a blog site that represents the best of the institution’s blogging faculty and staff (student blogs can be all over the place). This would encourage those interested in grad school and undergraduate admissions to delve into an interactive on-going overview (meta-blog construct) of what is really happening at the school at any one point in time. This would also develop cross-campus (intra-campus) discipline connections and networking; for example suggesting that during the early fall terms, professors and grad students from diverse departments share their researches, planned investigations, concerns for future freshman and grad students etc. Such a forum is much more reliable than the pablum that marketing departments arrange to spew forth to attract students.

But, if I were a PR person, I’d probably emphasize the things that make blogs unique: interactivity, immediacy, and informality. The interactivity is obvious; between comments, trackbacks, and hyperlinks, blogs provide a great way to lower communication barriers between insiders and outsiders in any field. Immediacy is also a virtue; as soon as a story appears or an idea becomes popular, you can get quick reactions from people who know the terrain without having to go through the usual publishing pipeline. And the informality is one of the best features of blogging. For the readers, they are a great way to get an inside glimpse at the lives and thoughts of experts (in science or anything else); for the writers, it’s a nice opportunity to stretch one’s self outside what would count as a traditionally publishable article.

In cases of pure theoretical research by individuals or small groups, or just very small groups of experimenters perhaps a departmental or institute wide blog with periodic updates to their efforts.