With the mammoth task of Storifying #EGU2013 this week, I’m wondering just how useful social media, particularly Twitter, has become at conferences.

While having a hashtag for a conference with 4,684 oral, 8,207 poster, and 452 PICO presentations (#EGU2013) won’t give you an insight into what’s going on in all the sessions – there’s simply too much science – it provides a guide to what’s happening next (as speakers share their sessions) and is an indicator of the “hot topics” as multiple media-savvy participants share their experience of particular sessions. More importantly though, it gives people attending the conference an opportunity to interact and extend their discussion online.

When there’s over 3,800 tweets on the #EGU2013 hashtag during the General Assembly, curating a scintillating story that also falls into the category of ‘short and sweet’ no longer seems achievable. But do we need it? Perhaps it’s better to preserve the discussion that surrounds topical sessions such as the Great Debate on fracking and shale gas (Storify to come – watch this space!) and short courses, which can then be used as a resource for hints and tips later.

Just a sample from #EGU2013 (click for larger).

While making something public via Twitter can bring up the subject of potentially being “scooped” on science before it’s published. At a conference you are already communicating your work externally, so this is not an issue. Instead, it presents an opportunity to communicate your research with the wider public and scientific community. Here are some of the benefits:

Enriched discussions

Twitter provides opportunities for a much richer discussion during a conference – not only are you listening to the speaker’s insights on a topic, but you can tune in to the knowledge and experience of others in the audience. The knowledge gathered in a scientific conference is phenomenal and in the case of the EGU General Assembly, having over 11,000 brilliant scientific minds at your fingertips, why wouldn’t you ask a question?! Okay, so they aren’t all on Twitter, but the chance of a well-informed reply is high, so it’s still worth asking!

Remote participation

To add to the already enriched discussion, when something is being broadcast on Twitter, anyone can follow the goings on – be it the colleagues you left back in the lab, the geologist whose fieldwork clashed with the event, or the interested twitterer, who happens upon the hashtag! If a talk is being live tweeted (someone is tweeting updates about the speaker’s presentation) then it’s even easier for others to participate in the conference online and ask their own questions of the audience and the speaker.

Leaving a legacy

So we have a rich discussion, that involves members of the audience and connects with the wider public, potentially sharing the science with individuals across the globe – is there more to gain from a conference Twitter feed? Yes. The online discussion can be condensed and curated using Storify, which leaves a legacy of the discussion that people can return to later. Take the #EGUjobs session for example, Sarah Blackford and Helen Goulding gave an excellent talk on how to apply for jobs both in and out of academia last week and you can return to their recommendations here.

What did you gain from the conference Twitter feed? Fancy more of the same next year? Less? Or an even bigger online presence in 2014? Leave a comment below, or include it in the conference feedback form and we’ll do our best to make it a reality. 

Blogging

GeoLog will be updated regularly throughout the General Assembly, highlighting some of the meeting’s most interesting sessions, workshops and lectures as well as featuring interviews with scientists attending the Assembly.

Writers from the EGU Blog Network will also be posting about interesting research and sessions during the Assembly, so you can catch up on any sessions you’ve missed and get a feel for what’s going on in the press room through them!

As in previous years, the EGU will be compiling a list of General Assembly related blogs (the blogroll) and making them available through GeoLog.  If you would like to contribute to GeoLog, add your blog to the blogroll, or join the EGU Blog Network please contact Sara Mynott at mynott@egu.eu.

Tweeting

Participants can keep updated with General Assembly goings on by following the EGU twitter account (@EuroGeosciences) and the conference hashtag (#egu2013). You can also direct questions to the EGU communications staff and other participants using #egu2013, or by tweeting to @EuroGeosciences directly.

Some sessions also have their own hashtag including the Great Debate (GDB1; #eguFrack), the Union Session on Curiosity (US2; #eguMars), how to apply for a job (SC9/EOS13;#eguJobs), and how to use blogs and social media in scientific research (SC8/EOS12; #eguSMedia). Make sure to tag your tweets accordingly if you are posting about these sessions!

And other social media!

While these will be the main media streams during the Assembly, you can also follow the European Geosciences Union on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube to keep up with us there!

Short Courses

Open Access (OA)

Demystifying Open Access – an open discussion for early career researchers tackling how OA can benefit young scientists without compromising their careers. From what it costs to publish an open access paper to how we can measure its impact, all interested scientists are invited to drop in and join us over drinks in a marketplace of discussion.

How to apply for a job. It’s a topic rarely addressed in postgraduate courses, but in this session, career training experts will help you make the most of your strengths and show them off to a potential employer. Pick up some tips about finding the right job for you, preparing a good CV, and writing a targeted cover letter.

The Blogs and social media in scientific research session explores the ways in which scientists can use blogs and social media to communicate their work. Why should scientists blog or use Twitter?  How do they find the time? And what are the benefits? A panel of blog and social media-savvy scientists will talk about their experience before opening the discussion to the audience.

Last year’s communicate your science workshop

If you’re a Geomorphologist, you’ll be set for the week as the Geomorphology division has loads on offer! Pickup skills on dating techniques, project supervision, open access publishing  and you can also meet the master for tips from seasoned academics.

If you’re a Hydrologist, there’s also the opportunity to meet experts in the field in a round-table discussion with established scientists. You can also pick up pointers on writing the perfect hydrology paper.

See the session programme for more short courses at EGU 2013.

Meeting other Geoscientists during the tweet up at last year’s General Assembly.

Networking

The opening reception on Sunday, 7 April is a great opportunity to meet people, network, get to know the Assembly venue. There is free food and drink as well as specific places for Young Scientists to meet up on the Green Level. Tall signs will tell you where to go, so stop by to meet fellow early career researchers, division presidents and the Young Scientist representatives for the EGU (Jennifer Holden and Sara Mynott).

Earlier in the day, there will also be an opportunity for women in the geosciences to attend a networking event run by the Earth Science Women’s Network, for more information and how to register, see here.

Check this post for more details on networking opportunities at the General Assembly.

Have your say!

What would you like us to do for you? Join us over lunch (food provided!) to find out what the EGU can do to for Young Scientists and let us know what you’d like more of. These will take place on Tuesday 9 April and Thursday 11 April.

Other Sessions

The Medal Lectures, which highlight the work of brilliant scientists. Head on over to the lectures on the Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists (ML4-ML7) and be inspired!

You can also join in a conference call for Young Researchers in Earth Sciences, which aims to promote interdisciplinary research efforts among early career researchers.

As the skeleton programme is being put together and in advance of the Public Call-for-Session Proposals (20 July – 10 September 2010) the EGU GA Twitter Account has been changed to @egu2011.

The tweets about the EGU GA 2010 are there as we’ve just changed the name. If you followed the account you will automatically be subscribed to the new account.

JAH

The American Geophysical Union’s Plainspoken Scientist blog has the first of a series on “Why I Blog” by Geoscience bloggers. Its worth checking out, they’ve put a request out on twitter for anyone else who wants to post.

Here’s a quick round-up of coverage of the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010 from around the blogosphere (the usual disclaimer that these are not views of the EGU, more letting people know what’s out there).

From the EGU GA 2010 Blog Roll, Dave Pettley blogged about several landslide related sessions, including the Sergei Soloviev Medal lecture by Dave Keefer. Musing’s of a Life Long Scholar covers talks and has a comparison of the EGU GA and AGU Fall Meeting. Felipe Rosas covered sessions along with some points of interest around Vienna. The YES Network Blog (YES=Young Earth Scientist) contains reflections that the YES Network were involved in. The Environmental Research Web Blog picked up on newsworthy items such as the Iceland eruption and monitoring Artic Sea Ice.

From those not on the Blog Roll, Alistair McKinstry’s Aon Scéal blog talked about sessions of interest to him. James Annan of James’ Empty Blog mentions how although he’s not at the EGU GA 2010, he can access more of it online than before.

Do you know of a mention of the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010 on a blog that isn’t included above? If so let Jennifer Holden know, or post it in the comments.

JAH

The Educational and Outreach Symposia at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010 cover a variety of topics. Several include examples of best practice. Virtual conferences and observatories are covered in ST6/EOS9 as described in the below guest blog from Sini Merikallio of the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Thursday in Room 29, 10:30-12:00 in ST6/EOS9 Best practices in Education and Outreach contains a talk from a distinguished journalist who will be sharing his experience with scientists. Other talks include virtual conferences and online data repositories.

Tähdet ja Avaruus (‘Stars and Space’) is the most popular astro-magazine in the Nordic countries as measured by the number of subscribers. The Editor in Chief of the magazine, Marko Pekkola, has revolutionized the magazine and during his era the relative amount of astronomy hobbyists in the general public in Finland has increased to
become one of the world’s highest. Mr. Pekkola is invited to the session to reveal how this has been accomplished. The magazine has also witnessed numerous cases of both good and bad science popularizing, and Mr. Pekkola will also be sharing his educative
summary of these experiences.

Virtual conferences and remote accessing and representation of data are currently becoming crucial in the scientific community as well as among the general public. Dr. Victoria Pearson will talk about virtual conferencing techniques in enhancing remote public engagement. A special talk about building of a virtual observatory is also arranged: Dr. Mikko Syrjäsuo will present GAIA: an open access online virtual
observatory for accessing auroral data. Thanks to GAIA, anyone will be able to easily access high-quality data in order to work from their offices, home couches or from the classroom.

There are several presentations at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010 that investigate social media and the Geosciences, as a tool for dissemination or source of material for research. The below guest blog comes from Dr. Maria del Carmen Llasat Botija of GAMA (Meteorological Hazards Analysis Team) at the University of Barcelona concerning research into using social media for communicating about Natural Hazards.

From paper to facebook, travelling trough the natural hazards divulgation by M.Llasat-Botija, M.C.Llasat and A. Rodriguez [XY518] presented in Session NH9.3/EOS6 Natural Hazards Education and Communications to Students, Government Officials, and the Public on Friday 7th May (Poster Summary and Discussion Session: Room 29 08:30-10:00, Authors in Attendance at Posters: XY512-533 10:30-12:00).

One of the main objectives of this preliminary work is to study the possibilities that Internet offer to develop communicative actions in the field of natural risks as well as to improve the risk awareness. In order to do this, a systematic procedure in order to identify the knowledge, kind of information and lacks existing is being created. The poster starts showing the treatment of natural hazards in Spanish press news and its evolution since 1881. The entrance of internet in the 90’s is clearly identified, as well as a positive trend and strong anomalies due to electoral processes or other specific situations. Using Google searches’ as an indicator, it has been observed an important but very heterogeneous presence of natural hazards in Internet, being the earthquakes the most cited (more than 50 million of entrances) and landslides and snow avalanches the less cited (less than 3 million). The impact of the volcanic eruption in Iceland is clearly revealed. The term “climate change” shows a factor of 10 in comparison with “natural hazards”. Most of the found sites have a static design. However, an increasing trend of dynamic sites has been found on last year, frequently updated and with a high level of participation (this kind of sites are so-called “web 2.0”).

In relation to the contents, internet is an ideal platform to provide information and formation, to divulgate the new results or to introduce prevention measures. The educative sites show a tendency to be more specialized in the contents, the objective public and language used (technical, scientific, popular). Internet is an opportunity to the researcher to communicate his work to the general public. The presence of scientists and experts in Internet is continuously increasing through blogs, websites, wiki’s, although it is still considerably inferior to the amateur’s contributions. In this sense, social networks can be a good channel to divulgate the scientific work, news results as well as to awake the historic memory in order to improve the risk awareness.

Internet tools, like blogs or social networks (Facebook etc.) enable provision of information in real time like warnings, to share experiences and experiments or to work in networks.

These all are opportunities but it is necessary consider some weaknesses. One of these is that people is most interested in sharing personal experiences and pictures, than in learning to improve their resilience. Other important question is the heterogeneous distribution of Internet that does not arrive at the major part of the most vulnerable countries. Another point to be considered is that these new tools need time to be updated (to write a post in a blog,…) that has to be considered in time table of the researcher.

Our challenge is “How do we use this potent tool to improve the risk awareness?”. At the moment we have started with a website and a blog in Spanish, but, why not take benefit of the Natural Hazards EGU Section and the expertise and enthusiasm of their members to have a common blog?

JAH

In the ‘about’ page of this blog (in the bar underneath the banner) there is a section outlining the authors of this blog. Blog posts now have authors on them (if its not already identified).

If you spot me (Jennifer) at EGU GA 2010, please come up to me and say hello, it would be nice to meet some of the people who have been reading the blog. If you would like to do a guest post or have an idea for a blog post, please email Jennifer Holden.

by Jennifer Holden

From Dick van der Wateren and the editors of EGU Today

We have recently seen the worst attack on science in ages. The hacking incident at the University of East Anglia set off a worldwide scandal, with climate scientists being accused of fraud and sceptics having a field day. Despite the complete and explicit rehabilitation of Phil Jones et al., the impression remains that scientists are dilly-dallying frauds. Clearly, scientists are vulnerable to attacks by laymen oblivious to scientific truth.
The aftermath is worrying. If we are sceptical about the causes and extent of global warming – “Science is simply organised scepticism.” (the Observer’s Robin McKie) – tampering with the atmosphere is risky business. These worries have led us to invite five people to write a daily column for EGU Today “Science under Fire”. We invite you to join the discussion on the blog and Twitter pages @DickEGUPress and @egu2010.
Hope to meet you in blogosphere.
The editors of EGU Today
Anne Martens, Andrew Gilman, Armand van Wijck and Dick van der Wateren