Scholarly and science
blogs
A new form of academic discourse?

Theses
• Blogs are a specific type of online discourse
• Science blogs/scholarly blogs are a well
established type of blogs with different
subtypes
• Blogs can translate properties of scholarly
discourses of the pre-web era into a
hypertextual universe of discourse

What is a blog?

Entries ordered by
inverse chronology
Text
Text
http://www.iaas.uni-bremen.de/sprachblog/

Permalinks
http://www.schmidtmitdete.de/

Comments
http://sozlog.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/biedermann-und-die-brandstifter-

Feeds
http://www.louisgray.com/live/index.html

A type of news
Text

Links as the basic
content
Text
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/02/14/

“Authentic voices”
http://www.robertlender.info/blog/
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/
http://log.c3o.org/

Blogs as a form of
online discourse

Specific ways of
observation
• Simple interface
• RSS-Feeds
• Widgets, Aggregators
• Blog Search Engines
• Technorati and other services

Specific communication
chains
• Comments
• Blogrolls
• Trackbacks

Uses of blogs

Documentation and
monitoring
http://www.innovativeinteractivity.com/2009/01/05/behind-the-scenes-of-las-vegas-suns-
thirst-in-the-mojave/xt

Explanation and
reflection
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2008/07/americas_addiction_and_the_new.html

Agenda setting and
intervention
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-fir.html

Types of Blogs
• Media Blog
• Tech Blog
• Science Blog
• Political Blog
• Corporate Blog
• Personal Blog

Scholarly blogs/science
blogs

Blogs about science and
humanities
Text
http://www.chronologs.de/chrono/blog/der-islam/allgemein/2008-12-22/weihnachten-im-islamxt

Blogs by scientists and
scholars
http://www.hardbloggingscientists.de/info/

Academic reflection
http://thomaspleil.wordpress.com/

Documentations of
scientific activities
http://www.schmidtmitdete.de/

Personal and
institutional PR
http://mediendidaktik.uni-duisburg-essen.de/blog/2

Publication of peer
reviewed research
Text
Text
http://researchblogging.org/

Popular science
http://www.wissenslogs.de/wblogs/blog/klimalounge/klimadaten/2008-05-08/die-klimawette

Contexts: Academic
publishing on the web
• Commercial Online Journals
• Open Access Journals
• Wikis
• Individual Sites and Publications
• Specialized Search Engines (Google
Scholar)

Platforms and portals
• •
ResearchBlogging.org Nature Network Blogs
• •
ScienceBlogs.com GermanResearchBlogging.org
(zur Zeit nicht erreichbar)
• Postgenomic
• The Academic Blog Portal
• wissensblogs
• Scientific Blogging
• Discover Blogs
• Nature Blogs

Reputation
• Thesis: Translation between scientific
reputation and blogger reputation is
possible
• Scientific reputation and blogger reputation
rely on similar mechanisms
• The blogosphere allows scholarly micro
public spheres

Scientific exchange
• Thesis: Blogs facilitate scholarly
communication on “fluid subjects”
• Blogs allow asynchronous open
communication between personal talk and
journals/congresses
• Blogs can serve as open research journals

Academic teaching
• Support of learning communities
• Support of self directed learning by
students
• Documentation of work for master theses
and doctoral dissertations

Public science
• Direct dialogue between scholars/scientists
and the general public
• Short circuiting of existing publication
channels
• Agenda setting/PR for science

Future: Blogosphere,
social media, life web
• Microblogs and life streams take over
• Social networks and blogs are integrated
• Blurring of the border between posts and
magazines
• Internal aggregation; blogs as knowledge
repositories

References and
Discussions
• Alex Halavais: \"Scholarly Blogging: Moving
Toward the Visible College\" (Amazon)
• Wissenswerkstatt – tag
“Wissenschaftsblog”
• Was sind gute Wissenschaftsblogs?