Science Communication

Consensus conferences involve a small group of citizens who go through a learning process on a given technological issue, engage experts, and develop an assessment of the key issues they identify as critical. These models of technology assessment, intended to make the process more democratic, have increasingly been used in Europe. This study examines the first application in Canada on the issue of food biotechnology. It examines the consensus conference as a model of public deliberation with specific attention to communication processes.

Women often face different issues than men when they pursue careers in science and engineering. This case study of a computer-mediated group dedicated to issues concerning women in science and engineering explored how some women in these fields are using computer-mediated groups as resources for social support, information, role models, and mentors. The findings suggest that online groups can be helpful for promoting professional development and satisfaction and that affiliation with an online group can be especially beneficial when a person's face-to-face social network is unavailable or non-existent. A striking finding was the degree to which lurkers derive social identity benefits.

This article argues that scientific mobility has, as a part of its function, enhanced scientific expansion and the formation of gravity centers in science. Through the mobility of scientists, scientific traditions that are embodied in certain schools or departments expand to embrace other spatial sites of science and include them in their social spaces. The article uses geographical discourse to presume a relationship between mobility, scientific expansion, and scientific change. In doing so, it seeks to improve our understanding of the contribution of scientific mobility to the formation of scientific legitimacy and institutional credibility.

This article explores some of the issues associated with the visual communication of science and emphasizes the important role of research in contributing to public understanding of visual science. The visual literacy requirements of scientists and science communicators are highlighted through in-person interviews. This article also suggests a number of research opportunities based on the scenarios that are described. Two areas of interest—visual literacy and collaborative approaches to science communication—are emphasized.

The Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and the Association of Computing Machinery set up a joint committee (Software Engineering Ethics and Professional Practices [SEEPP]) to write a code of ethics for software engineers. Work was to be “primarily” by e-mail. SEEPP has now completed its work. Acting as participant observers, we concluded the following: (1) e-mail, while perhaps saving travel, did not (as hoped) speed the process of code writing; (2) e-mail exchanges resembled those of conventional mail rather than those via the phone; (3) e-mail was not as reliable as phone, fax, or conventional mail (a surprising number of messages went astray); (4) e-mail did not encourage communication among strangers, overcome apathy, or cure the effects of overcommitment; and (5) e-mail was no substitute for face-to-face meetings (indeed, it seemed to require some such meetings to work well).