PerspectivesAre you interested in submitting a Perspective Article? Be sure to read The Science Advisory Board's Editorial Guides for Perspective Articles. Click here. The Discussion Forum: An Agora Definitely Not for Agoraphobics... by Mathilde Poussin, Ph.D. Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto. The Discussion Forum of The Science Advisory Board is, in my opinion, an essential feature of this site. True, it is not really the main purpose of The SAB. As indicated in the About section.“The mission of The Science Advisory Board is to improve communications between medical and life science professionals and the companies who provide this community with products and services.” Concretely, members of SAB are answering surveys and their opinions and ideas are forwarded to interested professionals, allowing them to develop products that better serve the needs of their customers. Some money goes to The SAB, and SAB procures services to its member. For example, The SAB allows its members to access various Resources including Biomedical News, Product Announcements by companies, but also Reviews of products or books by other members of SAB (so, hopefully, unbiased). Another important feature for SAB members in search of a job is the possibility to post their Resume in a searchable database or post/look for a Job. Still, the facet I want to focus on is the Discussion Forum. De gustibus coloribus… The Forum is clearly the more lively side of The SAB. It is beyond doubt the agora where members can go online and discuss, get answers, exchange ideas or just “hang out.” It is dynamic; you can get answers to your posts in real time. People get connected and post everyday. The structure of the Forum allows it to be the central point for exchange of ideas between people from all over the world. The topics are very varied. The mains areas are Research Discussions, Clinical Discussions, General Discussions and the evasive Et Cetera… Each area is divided in several more specialized forums and each folder includes a many discussion threads as people want to start. The discussions range from very specialized protocol questions (there are many examples in the Bio Kits and Reagents or Cell, Tissue & Organ Culture sub-sections) to discussions of general interest, ranging from conference announcement to ethical debates. Generally, you get (at least) one answer when you ask for help on the forum, and you’ll find people eager to help or discuss. The Forum has seen disputed debates. The less consensual discussions are especially about morally or ethically charged topics (see transgenic microorganisms, human cloning or euthanasia) but topics linked to the news also motivate intense discussions (see SARS or technology transfer for example). Narcissistically, the forum even has a specific place to discuss the SAB, and how to improve it. Every SAB member should be able to find some topic of interest on the Forum, or alternatively start the forum of his/her choice. Si vis pacem, para bellum. However, the Forum seems to be quite intimidating to many, hence the title. For instance, the statistics on September 22, 2003 at 12:48 pm were that 415 Members had made 9,734 posts (about 23 posts/posting member) in 17 forums. At the same time, SAB counted a total of 16,372 members. This means that only 2.5% of the members had been posting. In actuality, the 10 most active members of the Forum have posted about 80% of all the posts. In other words, only a very small fraction of The SAB members account for the activity of the Forum. Why? There are several possibilities to consider. First, either other SAB members don’t go to the forum, or they go to the forum site but don’t post, in internet-speak, they are “lurkers.” Hopefully, this means that their needs are satisfied without interaction within the forum (maybe they are only interested in participating to surveys or look for job offers…). Perhaps more probable is the scenario in which SAB members have no knowledge of the forum’s existence. That can be solved by some internal SAB advertising. Eureka! Perhaps the perspective could be subtly used to promote the Forum: hey you check the Forum, often!!! Alea jacta est The second case to consider is that SAB members go to the Forum and read, but don’t post. That’s a trickier situation. Why could that be? Maybe they think that there is enough said already, that any question they would have is already asked, any answer they could offer is already given. I somehow doubt that. Maybe they think they have nothing to say. Then I’ll tell them: there is no such thing as nothing to say (check some of the posts of the usual suspects, I mean the frequent posters. I know, I’m one of the culprits). Any bit of information you have can be useful to somebody else! Any question you have can be a problem somebody else has and doesn’t know how to express! So please post, answer, question, salute people or tell them to stop posting nonsense. The Forum is truly open. The fact that some people are quasi exclusively the ones posting does not mean that they know everything and that things should remain that way. Alternatively, maybe you consider there is too much gibberish and waste of time there. It is true that more often than it should, serious discussions tend to degenerate to chatter. Then start your own folder, be a moderator and make the Forum better. ### Mathilde Poussin, Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania Dr. Poussin is a member of the 2002-2003 Steering Committee for The Science Advisory Board. ### << Previous Next >> [ View All Perspectives ] |
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