Where are the science editors and reviewers?

January 18, 2005 9:01 AM

Does anyone know where the editors and reviewers of science educational resources hang out online (listservs, discussion sites, etc.)? I'm working with some people at an educational digital library, who want to develop an editor/reviewer system to cover accessioning resources, and would like to get up to speed with some of the perennial and also current issues. Thanks!
posted by carter to education (5 comments total)

Best place to start is the National Science Digital Library at www.nsdl.org

I might be able to help you out too if you have specific questions.
posted by batboy at 9:21 AM on January 18, 2005

Speaking somewhat from experience, what you are looking for is either:

a. An organization devoted exclusively to science education like the National Science Teachers Association or less generally something like American Association of Physics Teachers

or

b. The educational branch of a professional society like: American Physical Society or American Chemical Society or any number of other societies that exist around the globe.

A lot of what you are looking for actually occurs at large meetings instead of on the internet. After you have networked with people at the meetings you can keep in touch with them via email.

Most editors and reviewers are invited to do so because they are considered experts in their fields. So there is not much need for the discussion boards/listservs that you're asking about.

(Then again, I could be wrong and just not know about them.)
posted by achmorrison at 12:17 PM on January 18, 2005

Thanks, batboy and achmorrison. As it happens, I'm already working with some NSDL affiliated people, and we do talk about review a lot, but it is mainly as DL people - that is, how do we review something for inclusion in a library. I was wondering how non-DL, such as people at an educational publishing house, might talk about the same thing, or talk about issues that kept coming up. Ideally I'd like to find something like Dig_Ref, which is for reference librarians who answer questions over the web; but either it does not exist, or I am using the wrong search terms :(
posted by carter at 12:45 PM on January 18, 2005

There is a session on digital libraries at this years AAAS conference. I work for a scientific society and we are adamant that only high-quality, peer-reviewed resources are put into our library. We have developed a tool similar to what we would use for reviewing a journal article. My experience is that most science DL's have a rather different philosophy, mainly that 'more is better' and that quality isn't so important.

Now back to your question. I don't know of any--sorry!
posted by batboy at 1:14 PM on January 18, 2005

Thanks again, batboy. Regarding the 'more is better' philosophy, I think a number of DLs are at the beginning of their growth curve, and are anxious to get resources into their catalogues ASAP; and in addition to scientific accuracy, they can also consider 'pedagogical effectiveness' as a measure of quality. The peer-review question then becomes, how do you rate something that is not top-notch scientifically, but which may be useful for teachers as they assemble their teaching modules? Anyway - I've sent you an e-mail to your user page address with a few more comments and questions.
posted by carter at 2:16 PM on January 18, 2005