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Title: The communicating scientist: How to effectively and responsibly communicate scientific research

Main/Overall Objective: To provide an overview of different platforms used for scientific communication and how to communicate responsibly and appropriately for different audiences.

Section Content:

  1. Understand the role of scicomm as part of being a scientist
    1. Appreciate the role of the scientist as “chief” communicator and how this fits alongside other professions such as journalists
    2. Understand the requirement of communicating scientific findings as part of being a scientist and from funding bodies
    3. Appreciate the role of scientific communication at different stages in the publishing process from preprint to published article
  2. Develop awareness of the different scientific communication platforms and how to utilise these
    1. Understand the pros and cons of each of the major platforms
    2. Learn the key skills required to perform effective communication across different platforms
    3. Practice scientific communication for platforms such as Twitter and Youtube
  3. Understand how to adapt content and communication style to different audiences
    1. Appreciate that non-specialist audiences require different language and presentation than specialist audiences
    2. Understand how different platforms lend themselves to particular audiences better than others
  4. Understand how to appropriately share science from other groups and combat misinformation and poor science
    1. Consider best practices for sharing the science of other groups, such as including appropriate caveats and warnings where necessary
    2. Appreciate the importance of reading and “vetting” articles prior to sharing on social media
    3. Develop skills in combating misinformation and the incorrect use of particular articles

Materials:

Lesson plan

Lessons should take approximately 2 hours for material delivery and completion of discussion topics.

Time estimate (minutes) Content (objective(s)) Suggested materials Other resources
20 (A, B), Define what scientific communication is and provide an overview of the different platforms (twitter, blogs, news orgs, in-person) Infographic “Scicomm platforms”, “Why scicomm”, teacher-provided example materials ASAPBio website,

Example websites

30 (A, B, C) Explore the role of scicomm as part of being a scientist and why you should communicate your own science.

Explore how to utilise different platforms and adapt content for specific audiences and how and when use each platform

Infographic ”why scicomm?”, Discussion topic “whose responsibility is scientific communication?”,
20 (A, B, C) Practical element - write a twitter thread for a recent preprint or paper (if participants don't have this then provide an example). Provide feedback as a group or more broadly “Should preprints be shared as press releases or twitter threads” discussion topic. Guiding principles link

Preprints and the media link

40 (A, B, C, D) Discuss and evaluate how to responsibly share work from other scientists, particularly in relation to flawed science and responsible sharing.

Sharing work responsibly

How to share other people's work

Why share work of others

What is responsible sharing and how to do it

Calling out bad science / misinformation

Sharing preprints and other non-peer reviewed material

“Sharing responsibly” infographic, “Types of scientific publication and how to read them” infographic. “Example” twitter threads.

Practical exercises or discussions around examples.

Page 29 in “On being a scientist A guide to responsible conduct in research”

COVID vaccine communication handbook

10 Summarise the key points and review the role of scicomm in being a scientist.

Summarise the different platforms available and when each should be used

Extension Scientific communication as a career - opportunities and experience Interviews websites?

Reflection:

Discussion topics (incl questions to drive discussion):

Resources:

Twitter thread example - https://twitter.com/JACoates91/status/1264505600538488832?s=20

Additional Twitter thread examples:

Youtube video example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frsYEt3GAhA&feature=emb_title

How to make a youtube whiteboard video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Lod8oHOZ4

Guiding principles - https://asapbio.org/public

How I work blog posts - https://lifehacker.com/c/how-i-work

How I work twitter account (specific to science productivity tips and tricks) - @howiwork_sci

COVID vaccine communication handbook - https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/home

Preprints and the media - https://kuleuvenblogt.be/2020/04/01/we-need-to-talk-about-preprints-how-not-to-deal-with-media/

On being a scientist A guide to responsible conduct in research - https://www.nap.edu/download/12192

Scientific communication guide

https://www.hindawi.com/resources/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=owned%20referral&utm_campaign=HDW_MRKT_GBL_AWA_TWTR_OWN_OSOC_HIND_X_10436

Author:

Jonny Coates

Email: Jonathon.coates@qmul.ac.uk

Please contact for further questions or issues with the lesson material.