Monthly Archives: July 2013

Member profile – Sarah Lau

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Thank you to Sarah Lau who shared her deepest darkest secrets with us for this Q&A profile!

When not working as Communication Manager for ChemCentre in Western Australia, Sarah spends her time keeping things in order as the Secretary of the ASC. As a long-term member, Sarah’s commitment to the ASC is a great example of what keeps a volunteer organisation like ours running like clockwork. She kindly took some time out of her busy schedule to answer some ASC profile pop-quiz questions.

Read on to find out about everything from ASC WA events to malformed origami!

 

When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?

As a small child, my career choices were heavily influenced by books and television, so I went through phases of wanting to be a journalist, a police officer, a lawyer… at one point I’d even settled on being a spy. Eventually when I hit high school I decided I wanted to get into science, but a disastrous Year 12 practical chemistry exam made me realise that lab work wasn’t for me. So I decided to combine my passion for science with my love of talking and working with people, which led me to science communication.

Apart from being superstar secretary of the ASC, what work do you do?

In my daily role, I am the Communication Manager at ChemCentre, the WA chemical and forensic science facility. This is a fascinating and varied job which sees me doing everything from briefing media on synthetic drugs to devising marketing strategies for air monitoring analysis. Right now I am working with our team to deliver a series of August outreach activities, tying into National Science Week, and culminating with ChemCentre’s annual Open Day. (Shameless plug – if you’re in WA, come by on Saturday 24 August!)

With another hat on, I work as a science communication and presentation consultant. The most exciting role I have taken on recently was for The University of Western Australia, working with some of UWA’s highest profile scientists to deliver the Science for our Future Festival program across South East Asia.

Has your time with the ASC helped or hindered your work?

I joined ASC as a student when I was studying Science Communication at The University of Western Australia. I found it was very useful, as it gave me a chance to engage with established professionals and consider future career directions.

As an early career professional, being involved with ASC, and particularly volunteering at the branch level, meant that I had the chance to develop skills and build a network of contacts.

Now, my role with ASC has grown to allow me to support the evolution of ASC as we expand and move towards a professional association. As I’ve become more involved with ASC, one my favourite things has been the chance to connect with ASC members from across Australia and hear their experiences.

Why is science communication important?

I see science communication as ‘bridging the gap’ – bringing skills and expertise to connect the world of science and an intended audience. I’ve always considered that science communicators help make science accessible, relevant and engaging. Science communicators also bring perspective and expertise to scientists to help the scientific process in the modern world. The benefits to ensuring science is communicated are wide-ranging, including better informed decision making in the wider community, and increased uptake of science at the policy and governance level. I think the recognition of science communication as a specialisation is increasing, and along with it, an appreciation of the value of science communicators.

What ASC events are you looking forward to this year?

In WA, there is a fantastic local committee which has worked hard to create a diverse programs of events, including social, professional and networking events. We’ve had some great evaluation events and I’m looking forward to this program continuing this year. Fast forward to 2014 – I am excited about the ASC National Conference in Brisbane!

When you are not science communicating, what are your hobbies/interests?

Not much has changed since I was young, so books and television still feature prominently. I adore music and I’m easily distracted by music videos. I also love checking out the great cafes and bars now popping up all over Perth. And for the novelty category – I enjoy attempting geometric origami structures, which is an odd choice for someone with little artistic ability or patience!

From the president

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Thank you to Claire Harris for preparing the update from the President.

If you haven’t seen the email from Rod Lamberts (9 July) you may have missed that Rod has decided to step down as President, due to health reasons.

This was not a decision I made lightly. I had some large and shiny plans for the ASC back in November last year and was enjoying the opening phases of enacting these with the ASC Executive and National Council. But having weighed up what’s possible for me, and what’s fair and practical for the ASC, the only reasonable path was for me to stand aside and let someone else take the lead.

This has been a reluctant decision, and speaking on behalf of the Executive members, and I’m sure the rest of the membership, we all feel for Rod in his situation.  We wish him the best and the Executive is glad to report that Rod will stay on the Executive and attend meetings when he can.

After discussions within the Executive and National Council (the representatives from our branch committees) I have agreed to take on the role of Acting President until the AGM. This will be a joint effort really, with Will Grant, Vice President and others in the Executive sharing the load.

As I said in my email to the list recently, this is an exciting time for the ASC. We are ramping up to the 2014 conference and will shortly be calling for expressions of interest to run sessions at the conference (keep an eye on the ASC website and Scope newsletter for updates). This event is a key pillar of the ASC associations objectives and will deliver a range of benefits, primarily to members, but also wider communities interested in science and the communication of its impacts on society.

We are also, with Will’s leadership, exploring what the future of ASC looks like with regards to professionalisation. So far, members have told us that becoming a professionalised association is something they would value. This is an important discussion and so we, on the Executive, invite your further thoughts.

I am also pleased to see that we have many enthusiastic writers working with our new Scope editor, Victoria Leitch, to bring new content to you all. This group effort has been specifically supported to encourage and harness the talent and passion of our members who want to contribute to ASC and help deliver as best we can as a volunteer association. This is a great opportunity for the writers – providing them with a tool to meet others, generate stories, build their profile and have their work delivered straight into the inbox of Scope subscribers. For all those who have been in touch to offer your time and enthusiasm, I thank you and look forward to enjoyable and rewarding projects ahead.

Another important recruitment is the general manager position – a vision shaped and implemented by the 2012 and 2013 Executives. We have received applications for this new role, which ultimately is aimed to deliver greater strategic partnerships, funding and the key projects.

I feel privileged to take on the role of president and look forward to meeting more of you over coming months. As always, your reflections on the ASC and how it is supporting or could better support its members are always welcome; either to me or your local branch reps.

The rise of the MOOC

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Thanks to Brigid Mullane for her review of MOOCs.

MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses, are free courses from major universities around the world, available on the internet through platforms such as Coursera, Udacity and edX.

The first one I heard about was Coursera, and after reviewing its numerous offerings, I started in January this year with a course called Principles of Economics for Scientists from California Institute of Technology.  The title caught my attention because so many science issues have to be understood as economic issues as well, for example, climate change or the use of GMOs in crops.

I found that the course was not about the interaction of science and economics; the science tag related to the fact that students were expected to understand basic calculus to do the course, and many scientists would have this background.  The course dealt with economics using mathematical models, rather than in the descriptive way typical of many introductory economics courses.  Assignments were submitted weekly, and machine-marked.  The turnaround was immediate, with a grade, and an outline of how to solve each problem.  This was a great way to learn.

A feature of the course was an online trading game to help students understand the process of supply and demand in a market.  Unfortunately the system crashed on the first attempt, and so the game had to be abandoned as a component of the course assessment.  However, later in the course, after some repairs, the game was run again as an optional exercise.  This worked mechanically, but the market collapsed because some virtual banksters were going into virtual overdraft, and paying crazy prices for tokens.

Next, having seen how easily markets can be destroyed, I started to think about food security, and signed up in July for the course Sustainability of Food Systems, from the University of Minnesota.  It covers topics of interest to me such as food choices, industrial food production and the effects of national agricultural policies.  The assignments include open-book quizzes on reading assignments, so it would be difficult not to get full marks.  The other assignments involve various projects which are to be reported as forum posts, and we are also asked to comment on, or uptick the contributions of our fellow students.

Comparing the two courses, I’d rate the economics course higher.  Despite that trading game problem, and a few other bugs, it was a great opportunity to brush up on economics, confirm that I could still do some calculus, and hear from students around the world on the course forum.  The food course seems to be pitched more at high-school than university level.  This might have something to do with the need for assignments to be machine-marked for a massive student body, which precludes giving students the more demanding assignments that might be part of a regular course.

Students do not receive credit from the teaching institutions, but for most courses a Statement of Accomplishment is awarded to those who complete the requirements.  For a better class of certificate, Coursera students can join a program called Signature Track.  For this the students are asked to create profiles by recording their typing patterns and taking webcam photos of themselves and their ID documents.  Then they have to use a webcam while submitting assignments so that the system can confirm their identity, as well as their typing patterns.

This all seems very cumbersome and Big-Brotherish, and does not give university credit, but it does allow you to refer people to a website to confirm your course results.  The cost of this varies by course, and was USD29 to USD49 on a few I checked.  I noticed that a couple of these were discounted from a previous higher cost, so perhaps this is not a popular program.

On the question of actual course credit, a survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education in February 2013, found that 72% of professors teaching online courses did not believe that students should get formal credit from their institutions.

So, it will take a while for universities to work out how MOOCs might be integrated into higher education.  Meanwhile, why not sign up for a free course and learn something new?

How to tell a journo from a spin doctor: an ASC list discussion

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Thank you to Jarrod Green for preparing this summary of the ASC list discussion. 

It is one of the most enduring debates in the field of communication: where do the boundaries lie between journalism, PR and other communication roles? The ASC is the latest to tackle this thorny demarcation problem through a discussion on the ASC email list and calls for further debate at the next ASC conference in February.

The recent ASC list discussion shows how differentiating between communication professions can become deeply entangled with questions of independence, ethics and bias.

Best practice journalism was distinguished early in the discussion by its critical and independent stance. Summarising a SciLogs post by Matt Shipman, ASC member Arwen Cross pointed out that sharing news from a single source is not journalism. Good journalists draw on multiple sources and independent experts.  This distinction was supported in the ASC discussion, though members also observed that mainstream journalism often fails to cover science with a critical voice, illustrating that independence doesn’t guarantee investigative reporting.

Pointing to articles by David Carr and Jack Shafer respectively, ASC members Bianca Nogrady and Sarah Keenihan highlighted the tension that can exist between journalism and activism, bringing into question the feasibility (or even the desirability) of totally impartial journalism. Nogrady argued that a pro-science outlook does not diminish the effectiveness of a journalist or their capacity to ask the hard questions.

However, the (im)partiality of journalists was only a minor theme in the ASC discussion compared to the question of bias in other communication professions. One of the most debated topics was whether institutional affiliation necessitates bias. Some ASC members argued that bias (especially spin) is the hallmark of PR and should never be a feature of good journalism or communication. ASC member Jo Finlay argued that science should always be reported honestly and accurately, irrespective of your employer.

Other members highlighted what they saw as the inevitability of bias, emphasising instead the importance of transparency and consistency with audience expectations.  ASC member Adam Barclay wondered whether “communicator” may just be a term used by PR practitioners to “spin” their own job description. Members like Barclay were not troubled by the possibility of biased elements in their work so long as the bias was consistent with their values and ethics. They would sooner leave a job than push a message that they don’t support.

However, for ASC member Niall Byrne, communication professions are distinguished in the first instance by the source of their paycheck and only secondarily by judgments of ethics or bias.

“[If] you’re funded by the subject of your writing (in the broadest sense) it’s not journalism,” he said.

So far discussion has been framed largely in terms of writing for the media, though as ASC Acting President Claire Harris illustrated in her post, science communication covers a broad range of engagement and knowledge brokering activities that include but are not limited to writing for the media. Beyond the question of demarcating journalism from communication and PR, Harris also asks what the word “science” really means at the head of each of these professions.

With the topic now flagged as a potential topic at the ASC 2014 conference, there will surely be some interesting discussion ahead.

Further links

ASC members highlighted various links in the course of discussion, including Kaz Janowski’s editorial at SciDev.Net, which was the impetus for the ASC list discussion (via ASC member Lynne Griffiths). Sarah Kennihan’s open letter to the ASC was a further catalyst for discussion (see also Keenihan’s profiles of journalists and communicators, her comparison of the two, her thoughts on the “death” of journalism, and Jacqui Hayes’ reflections on switching from journalism to PR). For summaries of a related discussion at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Helsinki this year, see these posts by Anne Sasso and Kai Kupferschmidt.

 

Are we making an impact with science communication?

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By Craig Cormick and Arwen Cross

Community concerns about wind farms and vaccines have led to a discussion about why some people have strong fears of adverse reactions, and why their perception of risk doesn’t align with those of scientists. As Janet McCalmun wrote recently:

Their problem is a problem with science, and science has a something of a problem with them.

Both sides have a problem which could potentially be addressed by better science communication that worked to include all sides of such debates rather than polarising them, and used evaluation to measure impact and improve.

There are many good arguments for raising community understanding of science. These include a knowledge of science being useful in daily life (such as determining which medical advice is more sound), the economic benefits (a skilled workforce is good for the national economy), the cultural benefits (that it is fulfilling to know about science, history or music), or even democratic benefits (an informed society can make better decisions). Let’s call this 20th century thinking.

More recent arguments say that people should be engaged early in the directions and outcomes of scientific research, as key stakeholders/tax payers/beneficiaries. Let’s call this 21st century thinking.

But is the question a discrepancy between 20th and 21st century thinking as Jenni Metcalfe has suggested? Or is it more about better matching science communication strategies with different audiences, based on evidence? Because if we’re going to debate the best way to communicate science to the public, we must use that key tool of scientific research – evidence!

Continue reading →

Science Week Trivia Night, Brisbane

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13 August 2013
6:00 pmto9:00 pm

The South East Queensland Australian Science Communicators branch has teamed up with the Science Teachers’ Association of Queensland to celebrate National Science Week with a spot of trivia.

Hosted by the Green Beacon Brewery,Teneriffe, and mc’d by the talented Dr Joel Gilmore, the night will be cocktail of good beer, food, science and fun.

Invite your family, colleagues and friends or rock up on the night to join in on the fun.

Capacity is limited, so book your tickets and register your team now at http://sciencetrivia2013.eventbrite.com.au/

Ticket prices
Before the night: Members $12, Non Members $17
On the night: Members $15, Non Members $20

Program

  • 6 pm – Doors open
  • 7 pm – Trivia begins
  • 9 pm – Trivia finishes

Prizes

Yes, there will be plenty of these!

What if I don’t have a team?

Don’t worry. If you don’t have a team, we’ll help you form one on the night. Help us out by arriving a little before trivia begins and we’ll be sure to help you find some friends.

Parking

Some street parking is available on Helen Street and in surrounding streets. We suggest you carpool and nominate a designated driver if you are going to drive in.

Public transport

The Brisbane City Glider stops at the CityGlider Terminus at the Teneriffe Ferry, about 100 metres from Green Beacon Brewery. The 393 bus also stops mere metres away at Commercial Rd at Florence Street, stop 13. To find your best public transport options, visit Translink.

Age Restrictions

Unfortunately, this event is for those aged 18 and over only.

ACT: Mayday! Canberra’s deadliest air disaster re-examined – AUG 14 @ Questacon‏

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On 13 August 1940, Canberra’s most fatal air disaster took place when a Lockheed Hudson bomber crashed into a hillside near Canberra Airport, killing all on board – including three key ministers within the Menzies Government.
 
To mark the 73rd anniversary of the Canberra air disaster, we have brought together a team of  forensic experts to walk us through several possible scenarios of the ill-fated flight using today’s cutting-edge forensic techniques.
 
Where: Japan Theatre, Questacon, Parkes
When: Wednesday, 14th of August
Time: Starts at 5.30pm sharp, finishes around 7pm.
Refreshments and finger foods provided post event.
Required due to limited seats in theatre – plenty of parking available.
 
Many Canberrans and Australians alike are not even aware of this historic Canberra event and so in our Centenary year, why not come along and learn a bit more about our local history, with of course a science twist. There will be chances for crowd participation and to win some great prizes. 
 
This event is proudly brought to you by the ACT branches of the Australian Science Communicators and Australian New Zealand Forensic Science Society and Inspiring Australia. We’d like to thank the ACT Government and Questacon for their support and generosity of this 2013 National Science Week event.
 
Click here – if you’d like to print and display the promotional flyer at your workplace.
 
Please email asccanberra@gmail.com if any questions or media enquiries.
 

DISCLAIMER: suitable for children but parental guidance is recommended as victim identification will be discussed.

NSW – Science Spoken Word / Poetry night

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18 July 2013
6:30 pmto10:00 pm
6:30 pmto10:00 pm
6:30 pmto10:00 pm

The Australian Science Communicators, in association with WordinHand and Blue Space present an evening of Science-focused spoken word……featuring two GIANTS of the spoken word genre…

Tug Dumbly ! & Bravo Child !

Plus… Bring along your original, science themed, poetry / spoken word pieces for the open mike and slam (competition).

First prize is $100!

Tug Dumbly is the pseudonym of Australian performance poet and musician Geoff Forrester. He has released two albums, namely “Junk Culture Lullabies” (2001) and Idiom Savant (2003). He first rose to prominence as a regular guest on the national radio station Triple J. For many years he co-hosted spoken word night Bardflys at The Friend In Hand, Hotel, Glebe, with fellow writer-performer Benito Di Fonzo. In 2010 he was named the winner of Nimbin World Performance Poetry Cup.

Bravo Child is an acclaimed Sydney based performance poet who has starred in productions at The Sydney Opera House, Newcastle Young Writers’ Festival and The State Library SLAM poetry competitions.

An all science-focused evening…bring your thoughts and insights on all things science: physics, biology, social-, pseudo- and hokum!

You will be amused, entertained and enlightened!

Where: Harold Park Hotel, 70A Ross St Glebe
When: 18th July, 6.30 – 10pm
Admission: $10 non-ASC members; $5 ASC members