September 7, 2006

Diagrams illustrating scientific communications processes

Coturnix kindly points to a series of diagrams by Rob Loftis, a philosophy prof at St. Lawrence University. These diagrams can be used to explain scientific comminications processes to students, both in terms of scientists communicating among themselves and how scientific information gets communicated to the public.

I use a similar diagram already when I do IL classes, but I find that one is a little too conceptual and detailed for non-science students (ie. when I do IL for students taking a breadth course) but perfect for senior undergrad & grad students who are ready to learn about the scholarly communications processes in their discipline.

(Rob updates his diagram here, but I don't think this version is as useful.)

Update: I think I should be more explicit in my debt to Jim Parrott of the University of Waterloo for the diagram I link to in the second paragraph.

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