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3 - The future's bright? Professional science communication in the age of the internet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2010

Nicholas Russell
Nicholas Russell
Affiliation:
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London
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Summary

Dr Esme Smith added the finishing touches to the Mark 6 version of her neuropeptide paper, pacing back and forth dictating and watching the words appear on her wall screen. Pausing, she passed a finger over her snazzy Hand Assistant to get the whole last paragraph on screen. Frowning slightly she read it through, glanced at her time bar, mentally rehearsed the chores she had to do before picking up the children (unusually Richard had to be in the office rather than the home console) and decided it would do. She swiped her finger again, checked the total sum in Euros, and sent Mark 6 into cyberspace.

She had put the first four versions on the private British science site, Impact One, but their charges were becoming excessive and the Nova Brainstem Foundation who funded her work refused to pay for it anymore. Impact One had a good reputation, most major players in her field were keyed in for on-the-hour alerts, and the Nobel Prize Winner submission index was high at 5.043, but she had become increasingly unhappy with the site, especially with the quality of review and post-review comments on the professional (peer) file. The Mark 1 version of the paper had been double blind (no one knew who had written it and reviewers were editor-selected and anonymous) but a reviewer had recognized who she was and used some hurtful put-downs. But overall she had scarcely altered the Mark 1 (Beta) paper and it appeared as Mark 2 under her name (with her Research Assistant and one of the Ph.D. students as co-authors). […]

Type
Chapter
Information
Communicating Science
Professional, Popular, Literary
 , pp. 28 - 39
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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