Last but not least we hear from Kaitlin Thaney, our co-organiser from Digital Science, on how she got involved in Science Online London, and what she hopes to bring to the event this year.

Tell us a bit about yourself - where on the path are you and where are you currently headed?

I work for 'Digital Science', a new technology company out of Macmillan Publishers that provides state-of-the-art tools and software to enable better science. I'm the Manager of External Partnerships, a long title that involves developing and managing business leads, as well as serving as the spokesperson for the company - sometimes referred to as "evangelism" in the tech world.

I come from the open science world, most recently serving as the manager of the science division of Creative Commons (formerly known as "Science Commons"), where I also worked on making research more efficient, but through licensing hacks, policy and infrastructure. My time at Creative Commons introduced me to the socio-cultural nuances that can oftentimes be the most obstinate in the research world (and also the least talked about) - factors that are key to understanding how researchers interact with technology - or on the flip side, don't. In my current role at Digital Science, I continue that work but instead focussing on technology solutions to help researchers and decision makers do better science and administration.

Previous lives include print journalist (funny enough as we prep for a conference with ties to science communication), First Amendment/freedom of information advocate, education technologist, and licensing (/data sharing) nerd. Each of those experiences have helped shape my current drive to change the way science (and science administration) is done.

 Tell us a bit more about any interesting previous projects you’ve worked on.

At Digital Science, we have a number of external projects and partnerships going on that are particularly exciting. We're a bit different than your usual software company in that we not only develop tools in-house, but also invest in start-ups and companies already pushing the ball forward, encouraging innovation. It allows us to serve as an incubator for businesses to help build out their tools and teams, as well as integrate with some of our existing technology in house. It allows for us to have a different level of conversation with researchers and entrepreneurs, tackle problems in a different way.

I also love connecting people, which I'm fortunate to have stitched into my day-to-day job (and even outside of Digital Science time). Along with my colleague Timo Hannay, and colleagues at Google and O'Reilly Media, we organise something called 'Science Foo Camp' (or 'Sci Foo' for short), an invitation only unconference that brings together 200-300 people each year stitched together by science. Our guestlist is diverse by design, including Nobel laureates, postdocs, industry leaders, writers and those from the media, and beyond. You can find out more about the event here.

In a similar vein but on a smaller scale, a friend and I run a monthly meetup here in London called 'sameAs', a pint-fueled get together that unites people from science, technology, design and beyond on a set topic each month for interesting discussion. Our hope is to bring disparate communities and individuals under one roof for regular conversation and reveal the threads that stitch them all together. We even, every once in a while, hold geek pub quizzes just for fun - including one this Friday night as a fringe event for Science Online. ;)

How “online” is your day-to-day life? Is there anything specific online that you wouldn’t like to live without e.g. favourite tools, blogs or websites?

My life has moved almost completely online - partially due to work, partially due to travel, the rest due to general interest. As for favorite tools, Flipboard has done wonders to fix the love/hate relationship I have with my RSS Reader (the "hate" portion being due to sheer content overload, not a problem with tool, per se). Other than that, the tools I rely on most heavily are the less-than-flashy ones - add-ons to my email, calendar integration, etc.

Do you write a blog yourself?

I try to, but managing various information streams, from Digital Science to sameAs to my own blog to even a food blog (which I was much better about when I was in the States for some reason) takes quite a bit of time. If someone can find me a life coach who can get me a bit more regimented about updating these streams regularly, I'd be eternally grateful. Perhaps Alice Bell or content kings Ed Yong and Bora Zivcovik can help. I think they must have a team of secret writers helping them put out such high quality content in such volumes. Yep, that must be it ...

How did you get involved with Science Online London?

I attended as a participant last year, having just moved to London a few weeks prior to start at Digital Science (which was still operating in stealth mode at that time). Following the event, we had a chat with our colleagues at nature.com (Digital Science is a sister company of Nature Publishing Group) about the event, and our involvement was floated as a natural next step. The rest, as they say, is history.

What was the best bit about last year’s conference?

From someone completely outside of the policy world (but a former policy geek), Dr. Evan Harris' keynote was absolutely fascinating. The video he showed of the Parkinson's sufferer who was controlling his severe tremors with a brain implant was incredible. He used this example of medical technology to convince policy makers of the need for animal research. Brilliant stuff.

What are you most looking forward to about this year’s conference?

We've worked hard to get some new faces involved in this year's event, and also craft the programme so as to welcome some other constituencies to the audience, introduce them to some new concepts. The event, just as science itself in the digital age, is evolving, and I hope this year's Science Online shows that.

We're just over a week away from Science Online, and we wanted to let you know about a few fun fringe events planned to add to your calendars.

TalkFest - Science and Hobbies

First, kicking things off the night before Science Online, on Thursday is TalkFest - an informal event hosted by Beck Smith (Biochemical Society) and Alice Bell (Imperial College). This TalkFest will look at the possibilities and pitfalls involved in thinking about science and science communication as hobbies (think citizen science, community groups, etc). They've got a stellar list of folks who'll also be lending their thoughts, and well, there'll be cake (and extended discussion in the pub afterwards).

Admission is free, but they've asked that you register in advance. Fun starts at 630 pm at the Charles Darwin House. More information on the event Web site.

The sameAs Quiz is back

(Kaitlin switches off her Digital Science hat, puts on sameAs co-organiser hat …)

To give your brains a bit of a switch (not really, a rest) and a venue for further mingling with your fellow conference registrants, we're throwing a geek pub quiz and we hope you'll join.

Matt Wood - my esteemed co-host- and I are very pleased to invite you to an evening of research riddles and technology teasers, as the sameAs Quiz returns. For one night only, specially running as a fringe for Science Online London, we invite you to join us in celebrating the wonders of science, technology and general geekery in the time honoured fashion of a pub quiz. We'll be venturing to nearby Hoxton (Juno at 134-135 Shoreditch High Street to be specific).

All are welcome, teams encouraged (please try to keep them 6 or less). Admission is free and prizes will be as nerd-tastic as the questions. There will be 10 rounds, including some photo rounds, ranging from popular science to gaming to prior sameAs themes. For a taste of what to expect, check out some coverage from our December quiz, also crafted by quizmaster Matt Brown of the Londonist.

Also, so we can get a headcount, do log on to Lanyrd if you know you're coming. The fun starts at 7 pm on the dot.

Have something you'd like to propose as a fringe event? Send me a note. We hope to see you next week!

Below is a look at some of the sessions we'll be having at this year's event. Stay tuned for more information, and do keep an eye on the programme. We'll be posting the remaining sessions in the coming weeks.

Eva Amsen (@easternblot) will lead a session on the importance of offline communities in online networking. She is interested to discuss how real-world meetings and professional connections can strengthen online communities.

Bora Zivkovic (@BoraZ) and Anton Zuiker (@mistersugar) will talk about the different ways in which one can tell a story. They will focus on the narrative and will share good science stories that have worked in the past.

The best way to engage people with science is science itself. Beau Lotto of UCL will tell us about Blackawton Bees, a project that resulted in the world's youngest published scientists.

Tomi Kauppinen (@LinkedScience) will lead a session on how to link scientific resources online? He will focus on schema.org, a recently announced set of HTML tags that can be used as markup for scholarly content.

Neil Morris (@bioscihor) and Cathy Kennedy will introduce the National Undergraduate Bioscience Research Journal, a peer-reviewed journal that focusses on by undergraduate students in the biosciences.

Philip McDermott (@philipmcdermott) and Steve Pettifer (@srp) will speak more about Utopia Documents a tool they've been developing at Manchester University. Their session Bridging the divide: building around the PDF will demonstrate how Utopia can enhance the PDF format.

Alex Wade (@alexwade) will give a demo of Microsoft Academic Search, and will answer questions on how you can integrate the service with your own tools.

David Shotton (@dshotton) and Tanya Gray will introduce Open Research Reports: a model for open access to key facts within subscription journals. Open Research Reports are structured digital abstracts summarising the key facts and conclusions contained within a single journal article, and will be published both in human-readable form and as embedded RDFa.

More to come, so do stay tuned. For more information visit http://scienceonlinelondon.org.

Hooray! It’s time to release the tickets for this year’s Science Online London Conference.

If you’ve not attended before, Science Online London (SoLo) is an annual opportunity to meet other people interested in how science is carried out and communicated online. Join us for two days at the British Library on September 2nd and 3rd, to discuss recent developments, learn new skills and connect in person with those in your online communities. Whether you’re a technologist, librarian, science communicator, or academic researcher, we aim to have something of interest for you. To find out more about this year’s programme, including the new workshop format for day two, see the latest version and the more detailed explanation in our blog post.

Ticket details

This year, we’ll be releasing the tickets in two stages, both of which can be purchased from our Eventbrite page. The first wave of tickets will be available at last year's price - £50. There are only 50 of these specially discounted earlybird tickets, so act fast! Once these spaces have sold out, the remaining tickets will be £75 each. Tickets include breakfast, tea/coffee breaks and lunch for both days of the conference. The first round of tickets will be released at 2pm BST on Wednesday 13th July so set a reminder now!

Where can I stay?

This year we've arranged a conference hotel to give everyone who needs somewhere to stay the option of doing so at a reduced rate. The Premier Inn on Dukes Road are offering a discounted rate at £130.00 for Bed and Breakfast:

            PREMIER INN,
            1 Dukes Road
            London
            WC1H 9PJ
            
            T: +44 207 554 3400 E: 7029
            

If you’d like to book a room here, speak to their Groups & Sales Coordinator, Ola Buko and quote the rate code ZS162.

Please note that this rate is subject to availability and guests can call and reserve the rooms up to the 31st of August.

I am not based in London, can I get a grant to help with travel costs?

If you are abroad and wish to come to Science Online you can apply for a travel grant to help with your costs. It is worth keeping your eye out for The National Association of Science Writers' Careers Grant. The dates for the next round of grants will likely be in late August and will appear on their home page.

Sadly, we don't offer any stipends ourselves so it might be worth contacting your University or workplace to see if they offer grants. However if you can't attend, do not be disheartened as River Valley TV - a UK based typesetting and videography company, will be livestreaming and recording the conference.

Science Online would not be possible without the support of our sponsors. We wanted to take a quick moment to tip our hats to the organisations and projects that have graciously offered to help this year, showing their support of research and communication in the digital age.

At our highest level, we have the Wellcome Trust, the largest non-governmental funding body for biomedical research in the United Kingdom, and River Valley TV - a UK based typesetting and videography company who will be livestreaming and recording the conference.

They are joined by number of return sponsors, Microsoft Research at the silver level, and exhibitors Public Library of Science (PLoS) and Symplectic Ltd. - a portfolio company of Digital Science. You can find more about them at this year's event.

Stay tuned for more announcements on sponsorship in the coming days, and an enormous thank you again to the organisations that have joined us so far.

Interested in supporting this year's event? It's not too late, and every little bit helps. Contact me for more information. And keep an eye out for information about tickets in the coming weeks. We hope to see you there.

It’s drum roll time as we’re finally to pull back the metaphorical curtain and share the details of the programme for this year’s Science Online London. Like last year, we’re planning two full days of activities plus fringe events but we’ve decided to refresh the format a little with the intention of giving everyone the chance to actively participate and take home some valuable new practical skills.

On Friday the format will be familiar, although the conversations will be fresh. We’re pleased to welcome Michael Nielsen who will be giving the day’s keynote on the topic of Open Science. If you’ve seen Michael’s TED talk, you’ll know we’re in for some thought-provoking ideas on how to shake-up how science is carried out. Continuing the discussions, we’ll then host a panel debate on how to engage with peer-reviewed literature. We’ll use the example of the online activity that followed the publication of the #arseniclife Science paper last year as a starting point, before widening into a broader discussion. Contributions from Rosie Redfield, Ed Yong (TBC), Ivan Oransky and Jonathan Eisen will help shape the debate. Our second panel of the day, moderated by Cameron Neylon, will be on incentives - “the carrot and stick problem” – exploring how science is measured and rewarded, and what opportunities the digital age presents us as researchers, funders and science communicators. Panel members will be announced soon.

The largest chunk of the day, however, is dedicated to breakout sessions based on suggestions from you all, the participants. We have 12 break-out slots (three blocks of four sessions, running concurrently) to be decided via the wiki. If you’ve got a suggestion for an interesting topic for discussion, or maybe even want to do some hands-on demos with others working on similarly-themes projects, please add your ideas to the wiki. We’ll then pool all the suggestions into some common areas so that we get as broad a range of options as possible, while avoiding scheduling conflicts. Please don’t be disappointed if you don’t make the final cut as 12 slots is not a lot. Because we would also love to hear from some new voices why not try using the wiki as a way of teaming up with other people in your area to create something extra-special?

On Saturday, we deviate from the familiar to try something new: hands-on workshops to give everyone the chance to learn new skills and improve existing ones. We’ll start the day with a panel moderated by Kaitlin Thaney discussing how we are facing new challenges when dealing with data and discussions online. The panel will feature a number of different perspectives, from working with data in media to genomics. We’re fortunate to have Alastair Dant from The Guardian and Tim Hubbard from the Sanger Institute. More panellists to be announced in the coming weeks, as well.

Having hopefully framed why we all need to pack our personal tool boxes with a range of online skills, we’ll then hear from MaryAnn Martone of the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation who will be introducing our theme for the day, around which all of the workshops will be loosely focused. The rest of the day will be divided into two 90 minute workshop sessions where attendees can choose from 4 options; data visualization, beyond scholarly publishing, online communication tools and dealing with data using Synapse. Each workshop will be led by experts in their fields, and are intended to be interactive, so don’t forget to bring your laptop to participate fully. You can start a session in the morning and then either stay on for an advanced version after lunch or swop rooms to learn a second skill. We’ll all reconvene at the end of the day to share the output of our synchronised hacking.

We hope you’re as excited about the programme as we are and look forward to reading your suggestions on the wiki.

Lou, Martin and Kaitlin

This week we hear from Lou Woodley, our co-organiser from nature.com, on how she got involved in Science Online London, and what she hopes to bring to the event this year.

Tell us a bit about yourself - where on the path are you and where are you currently headed?

My current role is the Communities Specialist for nature.com which basically means I’m involved with all of our people-focused online projects. They include everything from blogs (both by independent bloggers and members of Nature Publishing Group (NPG) staff) to our social media activities. I’m also involved with organising “offline” meet-ups to discuss science online such as SOLO and Science Online NYC (SoNYC). I’m really lucky to be able to do something that happily blends my passions for people, science, education and technology.

When I started working at NPG, I was involved with our virtual home in Second Life where we hosted virtual conferences and built an entire area intended as an educational exhibit for Charles Darwin year. I helped design and create an interactive educational game where players could learn about Darwin’s theories and end up on a Second Life scale replica of the HMS Beagle.

The latest project that I’m enthused about is Science Online NYC (SoNYC).This is a monthly discussion series in NYC that I’m organising with John Timmer from Ars Technica and Jeanne Garbarino and Joe Bonner from Rockefeller University. We aim to provide a regular opportunity for anyone interested in debating the issues involved with communicating and carrying out science online. We launched on Wednesday 20th April and are hoping to share footage of all the events online so as many people can benefit from the discussions as possible.

 Tell us a bit more about any interesting previous projects you’ve worked on.

While I was studying at Cambridge University, I co-founded and was then Managing Editor of BlueSci, the university’s termly popular science magazine. We wanted to create a termly way of sharing what people across the university were working on so that anyone could find out more. I realised that I absolutely loved the 360 degree view that role offered - as Managing Editor, I did everything from writing, page setting, and hand-delivering issues to helping obtain advertising and trying to link up with other outreach activities across the university. This helped me to realise that I enjoyed helping people talk about science much more than I enjoyed lab work and that I wanted to do more of that next.

How “online” is your day-to-day life? Is there anything specific online that you wouldn’t like to live without e.g. favourite tools, blogs or websites?

I live online! Arikia Millikan wrote a great blog post last year about how she sleeps next to her smartphone and wanted a Google implant - in my case, I think it would be a Twitter one! I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis, not just the NPG ones, and am especially interested in the psychology of online behaviour and more broadly in education - issues such as how can the online environment be used to make learning more inclusive.

Do you write a blog yourself?

Sort of. I do enjoy writing but have always been more keen to facilitate sharing other people’s writing than promoting my own and I spend a lot of time these days reading other people’s posts. Various conversations in the past year have made me consider writing more of my own material, but I’ve not been very good at prioritising this.

I do contribute some of the posts to the Nature Network editorial blog and I was extremely fortunate last summer to form part of the English blog team at the 60th anniversary of the Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting. The whole week was a phenomenal experience - from being surrounded by promising young scientists from around the world on a fairytale island to interviewing the Nobel Laureates themselves. The schedule was really packed though, and I was up writing at 2am more than once that week!

How did you get involved with Science Online London?

I first got involved with Science Online London in 2009 (the 2nd event) when Joanna Scott and I broadcast the event in Second Life so that people who couldn’t attend in person were still able to follow along. Dave Munger had been scheduled to speak in London but was having passport issues and so he gave his talk from within Second Life. We broadcast this live to everyone at the conference in London by projecting the Second Life lecture theatre onto the walls of the one at the Royal Institution. This was really successful - it made a great bridge between the online audience and the real life audience, something that can be hard to pull off with a partially virtual conference.

Last year I was one of the co-organisers of the conference and learnt a lot about just how much work is involved in putting such a big event together. It’s not just inviting speakers - there are all the behind the scenes tasks from arranging catering and sponsorship to printing out name badges and stuffing swag bags.

What was the best bit about last year’s conference?

There were lots of aspects I enjoyed about last year’s conference - I’m always eager to hear thoughts on blogging from key thinkers such as Ed Yong and Alice Bell, who participated in some thought-provoking discussions. It’s also interesting in retrospect that Evan Harris’ appeal for scientists to speak up in matters of science politics felt like a call to action that resulted in the Science is Vital campaign.

Finally, aside from the main talks, one of my personal highlights was standing on the rooftop of Mendeley’s offices where we’d had the Saturday night BBQ event and watching the International Space Station pass overhead, with live narration from Karen James. I was aware of Karen’s enthusiasm for and knowledge about space via Twitter so it was awesome to be able to share the experience in person.

What are you most looking forward to about this year’s conference?

We’re hoping to shake up the conference format a little this year. We want to keep some of the familiar sessions for the first day - a keynote, some panels and the opportunity for attendees to get involved in presenting themselves in the breakout sessions. However, for the second day, we’d like to experiment with a more hands-on format - giving us all the chance to learn some more practical online skills and come away with something we’ve actually “done”. Stay tuned for more details on what exactly this is going to involve :)

So that you can get to know the organisers behind this year’s conference, we’ll be hosting an interview with each of them on this blog. This week we start with Martin Fenner, who has been involved with Science Online London from its beginnings in 2008.

Tell us a bit about yourself - where on the path are you and where are you currently headed? Why did you decide to pick that route?

I work as a clinical fellow in oncology at Hannover Medical School in Germany. In this position I care for patients with cancer, and I also do research work. My focus is the care of patients with urologic cancers, in particular testicular cancer. I also help organize our comprehensive cancer center. The management of patients with cancer is a multi-disciplinary effort - this can be both a big challenge, but also very rewarding. My plan is to continue work in that direction.

Tell us a bit more about any interesting previous projects you’ve worked on.

I’ve done a few things over the years. One of the most interesting projects has been the post-doc I did in tumor genetics in Boston. We cloned and characterized a new gene that we thought would be involved in the metastatic process of malignant melanoma. All this work was done before the human and mouse genomes were completely sequenced, and it took us months what now can be done in a few days. Not only did I learn a lot about molecular biology and cancer, but I also met my wife.

As a little side project I worked as “Assistant System Operator” for the MacUser Forum on the CompuServe network. This was in the mid-1990s, and the Internet was still in its infancy. I started with rates of $22 per hour for a 9,600 baud connection - the trick was to be as quick as possible when going online and we had special software to help us with that. The “Assistant Sysop” job didn’t pay any money, but gave me free online time. I also learned some of the basic rules of managing online communities.

How “online” is your day-to-day life? Is there anything specific online that you wouldn’t like to live without e.g. favourite tools, blogs or websites?

My day-to-day life is very much online. I couldn’t live without blogs, Twitter and FriendFeed. Some of my favorite blogs are listed on the blogroll on my website. I also use Facebook, but it is far less important to me on a daily basis. And there is a long list of other online tools I use regularly, and that list is changing constantly.

Do you write a blog yourself?

Yes I do. I write the blog Gobbledygook. It started in August 2007 as a blog on Nature Network, in September 2010 the blog moved to the newly launched PLoS Blogs Network. The topic of my blog is scholarly communication, broad enough to allow me to write about a variety of interesting topics.

How did you get involved with Science Online London?

I started blogging at Nature Network in August 2007, and attended the first Science Online London conference in 2008. In the first year the conference was still called Science Blogging London, and it was very much a reunion of Nature Network bloggers and friends.The following year the format was changed a little bit and Corie Lok from Nature Network asked a few people whether they wanted to get involved. This is how Richard Grant (Faculty of 1000), Victor Henning (Mendeley) and myself helped Corie and Matt Brown (and many others) with the 2009 conference.

What was the best bit about last year’s conference?

Many things. Probably that you spend many months organizing a conference and then see that it all falls into place. And the many small conversations before, after and in between sessions.

What are you most looking forward to about this year’s conference?

I’m most excited about the new workshop format. In addition to keynotes, plenary and breakout sessions we want to do beginner and advanced sessions that teach a few tricks on how to do online science. I will help with a workshop on “Scholarly HTML”, and this includes tips for using blogging software, but also how to create ePub files.

Introducing Science Online London 2011

Planning is full swing for this year's Science Online London. The event will take place 2-3 September at the British Library, and consist of a series of keynotes, panel discussions, breakout sessions and fringe events to help celebrate and explore the ways in which the web is changing science.

This year's organising committee consists of Lou Woodley (nature.com), Kaitlin Thaney (Digital Science), and Martin Fenner (Hannover Medical School, PLoS blogger). You can follow @soloconf for updates, or check back here for more in the coming weeks as we continue to plan.

Would you like to help support this year's event? In order to keep Science Online London affordable and accessible, we need help from you. Email Kaitlin to find out how you can help, or visit our sponsorship page.