Editor’s Note: Another Solid Year for Science Communication

With the beginning of the new year, we are phasing in a new option for journal submissions: Research Notes. Our Board has been very enthusiastic about this innovation, and so am I. We are defining Research Notes as short research papers in the range of 3000 to 4000 words (preferred length). They will be peer reviewed but generally by just one or two reviewers, depending on the range of expertise required for the particular paper; we will try to expedite this process as much as possible, bearing in mind we already have a short turnaround time even for reviews of full-length submissions. Our regular Research Articles, which receive three full reviews in most cases, are generally between 7000 and 9000 words (preferred length) because we insist on their reporting a fully developed project, including a sound theoretical or conceptual foundation, careful explication of the scholarly (and real-world) context and purpose, detailed documentation of the methods for both data-gathering and analysis, and thorough discussion of the results and their expected impact on communication scholarship and practice. For the Notes, we will offer a little more flexibility so that intriguing but preliminary results can be published as quickly as possible.

Research Notes must still meet the four basic criteria we apply to traditional Research Article submissions: They have to be about science, they have to be about communication, they have to have a clear theoretical or conceptual foundation, and they have to use reasonable empirical methods for both data gathering and analysis. And, of course, they must have some interesting implications for the field! But Notes can summarize the context and to some extent the theory (e.g., in cases of unexplained but intriguing observations) and may report partial results from a larger study in cases where full results will not be available until some distance into the future.

Regular readers of the journal may find the first two criteria (being about science and about communication) a bit too obvious, but actually we do get quite a few papers that do not fit these criteria—often from authors who are clearly unfamiliar with the journal. These do not go into review. We generally encourage these authors to study the journal’s website at scx.sagepub.com—a site that is now undergoing its own major “facelift” courtesy of Sage. For Science Communication (SC), as many readers of this discussion will already know, “science” is broadly defined to include environmental science, health science, and the knowledge underlying engineering. And “communication” can be interpersonal or mediated, from experts to publics or from publics to experts, between scientists and policy makers (or other nonscientist experts) or even among scientists themselves (e.g., observations of the challenges in interdisciplinary science communication, including collaborative projects).

We are anticipating the Research Notes will report on items such as unexpected observations encountered in a larger study that will require more work to fully understand, preliminary work in a very new area, empirical testing of a directly relevant new measure that leads to recommending it to others,¹ and other smaller-scale studies (potentially including pilot studies) expected to lead to or inform larger-scale work. Evaluation studies and other highly applied research may qualify for acceptance as a Research Note more easily than if submitted as a Research Article, but work in this area is not exempt from the basic requirements for topic, theory and method. For example, an evaluation study of a particular project (say, an outreach approach) will not qualify if the results apply only very narrowly to that specific project; some kind of theory is very often the key to understanding generalizability in this non-statistical sense. In other words, a good idea (from the literature) about why a particular programmatic approach should work (or should not), rather than just what the problems or successes of that specific program might be, is needed.

As a reminder, we publish both qualitative and quantitative work, and will continue to follow this policy for Notes. For both Research Articles and Notes, we also seek writing that makes the details of the study as clear as possible for our interdisciplinary and international audiences. In either format, quantitative media content analysis projects in which the data undergo extended statistical analysis must be supported by appropriate intercoder reliability statistics using a measure that adjusts for chance agreement; qualitative approaches to content that only report frequencies for particular observations (and perhaps go so far as to compare frequency distributions for these using appropriate statistics for nominal data such as chi-square) are not required to use formal reliability tests. However, procedures used for identifying and addressing discrepant coding by multiple coders in a qualitative study should be reported.

What goes in Commentary then, especially now that Research Notes (at 3000-4000 words) are going to be roughly equivalent in length to Commentary articles (at 3000 words)? Simply put, Commentary consists of relevant essays that do not fit any other category of article—that is, they are not research—but that should be of interest to our audiences, both scholarly and professional. Commentary includes descriptions of especially innovative programs (some empirical facts or observations can be included, but these are generally less extensive or less systematic that what we would expect in a research submission). This category also includes discussions of the impact of science communication on policy and of the communication policies of science-oriented institutions, as well as analysis of—and comments on—specific concepts or trends in the field or informed suggestions about best practices, whether scholarly or professional.

Occasionally, this section is home to reviews of events (such as our annual review of the Sundance Film Festival’s science film competition); discussions of shared themes emerging in several related books in the field would also be welcome as Commentary submissions. Since we do not publish purely theoretical research papers, this is usually the place for explicating (or critiquing) a new concept or proposing a new research or policy direction. Since these are essentially opinion pieces in most cases, they receive editorial review only; that is, they are not peer reviewed. When space in an issue is short, Research Articles will continue to take priority over Commentary pieces.

While we do not publish ordinary literature reviews as separate papers, we are open to publishing what are sometimes called systematic reviews where the search for literature has been predefined by clear criteria (actually a form of meta-analysis, albeit more commonly qualitative than purely quantitative). Those criteria, along with an equally systematic approach to the analysis, together serve as the empirical methodology for this kind of a paper. We are also open to historical reviews for specific areas of scholarship within our field. Either of these can be submitted as Research Articles.

The precise line between Commentary and Research Notes will probably evolve a bit in practice, however, as we will inevitably receive submissions that seem to fall into a gray area between them.

We have recently distributed a new and very exciting special issue call on the topic of Public Science in a Wired World: How Online Media are Changing Science Communication, to be edited by Sarah Davies, Joachim Allgaier, and Noriko Hara. As the call itself notes, “From the websites of scientific organizations such as universities or scholarly societies to social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook groups or Reddit, science is negotiated by public audiences in online spaces alongside traditional formats such as the mass media, public lectures, or popular science writing.” Please contact Sarah ([email protected]) or myself ([email protected]) with any questions or to request a complete copy of the call. Contributions should be sent to mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sc with a cover letter clearly noting that they are intended to be considered for this special issue.

At present, we are also hard at work organizing our next special issue on the broader societal impacts of science communication, edited by Maarten van der Sanden and William Evans. What legacy does our work leave? Have we actually changed society—or scientific practice or institutions? The deadline for submissions for this one was November 1, 2016, so you can look for this issue to appear soon—sometime in spring of 2017. This idea is not an easy one to study, but we received quite a number of very promising submissions even so, submissions that we are right now in the midst of evaluating. We hope this special issue will inspire additional work in this area.

We always welcome suggestions for future special issues as well. Now that we are publishing six issues a year, we are generally able to accept about one special issue proposal per year. Please note that all special issue submissions are announced by open call and are subject to a variant of our normal review process, using the same basic criteria as for other research papers, and that the guest editors (who become deeply engaged with that review process) cannot be among the authors.

So what else has happened in 2016? I did a quick run at categorizing our accepted articles for the year (all six issues) and here is what I found. Most interesting to me, I found that of the 27 research articles we published this year, 11 were qualitative, 12 were quantitative, and 4 were mixed-methods approaches or otherwise combined qualitative and quantitative elements. I was surprised by this finding, given the number of times people ask me whether we just publish quantitative work. The answer is “no,” of course, and I think this year’s data show that very clearly.

The topics for the year were varied and exciting, but not very easy to summarize effectively. The biggest category was probably environmental communication, including climate, but (and while this area is vital) there is so much more involving scientists as communicators, journalistic practice and its effects, citizens as scientists, expertise and how it is perceived, information seeking, the space program, science festivals, and even the communication of wine research! And this is just within the past year’s offerings. To really understand the range of things we publish, please be sure to study the abstracts available at scx.sagepub.com, which can be searched or browsed by issue. Access to the abstracts does not require a subscription or any kind of institutional membership.

We published articles in 2016 with first authors coming from almost every inhabited continent (including commentary articles, 23 of these came from North or South America, 9 from Europe and the United Kingdom, 2 from Asia, and 3 from Australia or New Zealand). Although none of our first authors were submitting from Africa this year, the December issue included a very interesting research article focusing on environmental advocacy in an African context.

Calling all authors! Please arrange to have your publisher send a copy of any book that you feel we should announce directly to me; they may contact me at [email protected] for my actual physical address. We emphasize scholarly works in the field and textbooks directly relevant to science communication courses (with “science” broadly defined as explained above). At this time, as was also briefly noted above, we do not publish full-length book reviews; rather, we publish paragraph-length summaries in a periodic column by the editor. Unfortunately, we do not have the space to announce the many excellent examples of book-length science writing that are available; fortunately, there are a number of other forums for those.

To provide each submission with the personal attention it needs, we are again seeking to add one or more additional Associate Editors. (Troy Hall was in this role briefly but was lost to an administrative position at Oregon State University some time ago.) Longtime, hardworking Associate Editors Cynthia Coleman and Marilee Long add tremendously to our editorial capacity, but everyone is feeling the strain of our growth. I am also taking this opportunity to thank our hardworking Board members and other reviewers (literally too many to list here), as well as our existing and truly dedicated Associate Editors, for their contributions. It sounds trite but it’s true: This journal could not function without all of you.

For an Associate Editor role we prefer someone who is familiar with the journal (through work as a board member, regular reviewer, or research author), who has completed a PhD in a directly relevant field (or can offer a substantially equivalent research background), and who is currently pursuing a career as a university faculty member or other research-oriented work (permanent or at least long-term position preferred to assure stability). Emeritus professors and well-established independent scholars are also welcome to apply. This is, alas, an unpaid position, but offers the opportunity to help shape the future of the field in cooperation with a leading team. The workload is negotiable but in the past has involved managing the review process, culminating in an Associate Editor publication recommendation, for roughly 6 to 12 research submissions annually. Please write me at [email protected] for further details or to apply.