ScienceOnline2013

Description: Only 2-10% of PhD graduates in any given year will ultimately end up in the coveted, grail-like, tenure-track position. Only a smaller proportion still will actually receive tenure. Despite this, we keep training scientists from the start of their careers that this should be the aspiration. But should the tenured academic be the norm for a science career? Out in the wider world many science graduates are on the front lines where policies get shaped, public opinions get changed, pseudoscience gets debunked, and where we aide our academic colleagues in creating real hope and change. In addition to commercial science, many science graduates run non-profit conservation organizations, form patient and health advocacy groups, work to improve law, develop software and new analytical tools and advise movers and shakers in a wide variety of sectors. There's a veritable Nerd Army always looking for a few good Sci's. But how to get there, from the universities to these non-academic careers? This session will draw on the collective wisdom of those attending to provide ammo for those unsure of their place in this world. Scientists are more broadly trained than we often give ourselves credit for and can leverage many of scientific skills in other areas.

Questions:
- How do we make students aware that they most likely will not be a tenured academic?
- Where and how can students and early career people find emotional support for getting off the academic career meth? Need to move from personal stories (such as #IamScience) to practical paths.
- What are our transferable skills and how do we shift from our research focus to marketing our abilities and talents? Are there skills that should be taught during a graduate program that could enhance both the traditional path and the newer options?
- How do we teach students to think more entrepreneurially and highlight the wide variety of scientific careers that may be more readily accessible to them?
- What are the sectors that hire science graduates? Examples from industry, biotech/pharma, science writing/journalism, freelance/self-employment, non-profit and government.

Lets face it--according to stereotypes, scientists aren't known for their dress sense, sleek presentation style, or jargon-free articulation. Yet planning and executing small touches of design can make people take notice. In this session we'll discuss how incorporating art, music, and design can have transformative effects for research, outreach, and career prospects. From dress sense to website design, fostering a personal style can help you build a professional brand. Having a visible public profile (and making a unique impression) as a researcher or journalist can lead to myriad opportunities.This session will NOT discuss specific art/visualization methods as a tools for effective scientific outreach (e.g. comics, visual metaphors, etc), although it will touch on how failing to think about such concepts can impact career opportunities and your personal brand.

Questions:
-How important is personal branding, and in what ways can it impact career advancement?
-How do you tailor scientific presentations to different audiences (balancing style vs. substance)?
-What are some easy tips for incorporating touches of design into research/academic pursuits?
-How does a scientist's personal style affect the public's perception of their research?

This session will discuss what open science means and how we can encourage it, if indeed we need to.

Questions:
- How do we define openness – Open Access, Open Data, Open Science?
- Are there obvious benefits to openness in science?
- If yes, what are the blocks towards openness? Tools, Systems, IP concerns, organizational support.
- Do scientists have to be fully open or is partial or part time open?
- What are incentives to move scientists towards openness
- Do journals, patents, IP all prevent openness?
- Do open journals promote open science or not?
- What projects can we launch at SciO13 and monitor/measure for impact of Open Science
- Which prominent open scientist can we invite to scio13?

We writers like to toss around the term "narrative," but what we mean isn't always clear. Discourse theory tells us that narrative is one of four rhetorical modes, the others being exposition, argumentation, and description. Webster calls narrative "a representation … of an event or story" — which reflects common sense but passes the buck. For what is a story? Most would agree that The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a story — two or three, in fact, woven into a single fine narrative. Yet we might argue over whether, say, Richard Dawkins' brilliant description of the rise of the "replicator" (the first gene) also constitutes a narrative; or whether a narrative requires people; or whether narrative can be driven mainly by ideas. In this session we hope to demystify what narrative is so we can better discuss how to create it. First we'll spend a few minutes trying to define narrative in a way that broadens but firms the concept into something actionable. Then we'll talk practice. Why or when should a writer/journalist use narrative? How does one transform a topic into a story? How do we conceive, report, structure, and write to enliven this story. How do we create a sense of movement through time, of tensions raised and (maybe) resolved? How must we do our reporting to turn an abstract idea into an earthy narrative? Drawing on a few prime examples and the experience and perspectives of the moderators and audience, we'll aim to firm up a working definition of narrative and send everyone out with a list of practices and skills needed to create one. Hashtag: #ScioStory. Freelancer T. Delene Beeland took the narrative challenge in first book, The Secret World of Red Wolves, to be published in spring 2013. David Dobbs tilts narrative in his pieces for the New York Times, National Geographic, and other magazines, and in his book-in-progress The Orchid and the Dandelion.

Whether we like it or not, statistics are a rhetorical device. Any number that's reported in a scientific study has a great deal of context, whether it's stated explicitly or kept hidden, and like any argument, the numbers reported are intended to make a point. When reading, writing, or simply understanding the results of an experiment, you have to grasp the whole context of the numbers - including errors and uncertainties. As with our session at ScienceOnline 2012, we'll use some case studies drawn from recent scientific stories - both good examples and bad - where the numbers are a major part of the story.

Questions:
1) Numbers in a scientific study are reported to make a point. Understanding what they mean is essential for getting the story.
2) Any reported number without a context is meaningless. The full story is needed to know what a scientific result means.

In this session, we’ll explore the challenges and opportunities in blogging about science under the umbrella of an institution (university, hospital, nonprofit org), and unleashing the voices of individuals in an organization where the leadership may still cling to older concepts of controlling its message. We can discuss real tips on how to plan, write, edit, promote and moderate your institution's blog so it meets your institution's goals and also doesn't suck -- and fix the problems if you think it might.

Questions:
- What institutions have good blogs? What do you like about them?
- Can an organizational blog ever be credible? Or are they ‘just PR’?
- How far can an organizational blog stray from the corporate line? And why?
- What are the top five things you need to reassure your boss about, so that they’ll let you blog for your org?
- Science journalists, are there blogs from institutions (universities, research orgs, agencies) that you value?
- What does your organization use your blog for? And how does this fit into the mix of other forms of communication?
- Organizational blogs – who’s reading? And how did you find out?

The perennial discussion about scientists 'doing' outreach intensified this year, with lots of opinion and some data about who's doing it, who's fault it is that so few do it, what the roadblocks are, and how to alleviate them. Rather than host yet another tiresome round of the blame game (e.g. Scientists should do more outreach! Scientists suck at outreach!), the goal of this two-session track is to create a take-home resource for scientists hoping to do more and/or better outreach or trying to drum up enthusiasm for outreach in their departments/institutions and for those hoping to recruit more scientists to do outreach. In this session, we will focus on why scientists should want to do outreach. Drawing on the collective ScienceOnline expertise, we will brainstorm a list of ideas for incentivizing outreach that take into account the limitations (time, etc.) and barriers (stereotypes, etc.) that researchers face. The scientist-moderators for both sessions Karen James and Miriam Goldstein, and the public information officer-moderators are Matt Shipman and Meghan Groome.

Questions:
- If the currency of a scientific career is peer-reviewed papers and grants, how can scientists be encouraged and supported to take time away from these activities for outreach?
- What are the incentives to do outreach, and what are the limitations and barriers?