The SJC continues its series of fascinating seminars with two presentations this month: the first from John Cook, from the Global Change Institute on The Power of Online Community and Citizen Science, and the second from Lyn McDonald from the SJC on Corporate Social Responsibility.

Date: Thursday August, 16 between 12:30 and 2:00 pm.

Location: Level 2, Meeting Room (208), Building 37.

Speaker 1- John Cook, from the Global Change Institute

 The Power of Online Community and Citizen Science

The Internet offers innovative and creative means of disseminating content. But where the  Internet comes into its own is in the non-linear power of community.  Not only can communicators interact directly with their audience, more importantly, the audience can network with each other.  This enables publishers to build communities rallied around common topics of interest.

Online communities lead to exciting opportunities such as citizen science where communities crowd-source the collection or analysis of data.

Skeptical Science is a case-study in the development of a volunteer community that produces regular content developed within an internal review system that ensures a high level of accuracy and quality. The community also engages with the peer-reviewed literature, submitting responses to peer-reviewed papers, collecting meta-data used in other scientific research and conducting the largest ever survey of climate papers. Thus this online community both contributes to the outreach effort of climate communication and also seeks to add to the body of scientific knowledge.

Speaker 2- Lyn McDonald from SJC

 Corporate Social Responsibility:

  • why (organisations do it)
  • what (typical CSR activities) and
  • how (we research it)

More information c.vanvuuren@uq.edu.au

SJC seminar series