As you know, we (Robert, Callan and I) launched an online survey about the geoblogosphere last year (October to November). The following results are only a (very) short summary of the comprehensive data which will be published in a few months in a professional journal. Due to a chronic lack of time, I mainly show the graphs without much of interpretation. However, I think (or hope) the data are also interesting without an extensive discussion.

Abbreviations: n = number of participants; a = number of responses

General

Number participants: 78

Male/Female: 78.2%/21.8%

Highest degree:

MAT 2.6%

BS/BA 21.8%

PhD/EdD 32.1%

MS/MA/Diplom 35.9%

Other 7.7%

Age distribution of geobloggers. Note the non-linear age-axis. Vertical axis: number of responses.

Most of the geobloggers are based in the United States.

large map

Job distribution of geobloggers.

Topics

A wide range of geoblog topics. Miscellaneous topics are, e.g., geoscientific outreach and geo heritage, geophysics (i.e., seismology), geochemistry, pedology, geology-related hazards, maps and mapping, topics related to building stone and sand, geoscientific literature research and geological humor, as well as topics bordering other sciences, e.g., religion in science, geoscientific epistemology, technology, social networking, and painting.

The majority of geogloggers blogs mainly about geoscience-related topics.

The great advantage of blogs: individually influenced topics.

Interestingly, the topics geobloggers read are more diverse than the topics they write about. Further, topics like teaching and education, climate change, and astronomy are not as much read as geobloggers write about them.

Motivation

Most of the geobloggers like all of the great advantages of the geoblogosphere.

One of the aims of the survey was to make currently non-blogging geoscientists familiar with the geoblogosphere. The results support our "feeling" that there are too few geobloggers and professionally written geoblogs. Maybe, this will chance this year...

There are two main groups of reasons why geobloggers blog: they want to share their knowledge, experience and information, and they want to improve their own (scientific and social) skills.

Geoblogs and Community

Obviously, there has been a rapid growth of the geoblogosphere since 2007 with a maximum in 2008.

"Blogger" is the undisputed blogging software.

Nearly 30 % of the geobloggers use an aggregator service, some of them in combination with feeds and blog visits.

Most of the geobloggers blog at least weekly or monthly.

Average post rate in the geoblogosphere: 0.37 posts per day

Max. post rate: 2.4 posts per day

There is a slight positive correlation between the age of the bloggers and the number of posts per day.

A clear disadvantage? Blog post discussions are no typical feature of the geoblogosphere. Maybe this is caused by publishing mainly informative posts than posts worthy of discussion?

70 % of the geobloggers are Facebook users, less than 50 % use Twitter.

Roughly 50 % of the geobloggers have not yet participated in a geoblogger collaboration project.

Geoblogging and Career

Employers/supervisors assess geoblogging, at least, not negatively. Interestingly, only 6 % of the women participants but 23 % of the male respondents stated that their employer evaluates their geoblogging activities positively.

It's quite surprising that geoblogging is seen so positively regarding the own career - with one restriction: only 29 % of the women but 57 % of the male geobloggers think so.

In this context it is interesting that 47 % of the female but only 15 % of the male geobloggers write their posts anonymously. The results suggest that women geoscientists are more afraid of possible negative impacts on their career by blogging under their own name. On the other hand, blogging anonymously may offer more possibilities to improve soft skills and find scientific orientation, especially as student.

At the end of this short summary I present some statements why 50 % of the geobloggers believe that geoblogging influences their career positively:

Blogging has increased my profile within the paleontology community, and introduced me to many individuals whom I never would have met otherwise. It has led to research collaborations, as well as collaborations on general issues of scientific importance (e.g., open access publication). I believe that I also have been able to maintain a positive influence on my career by generally avoiding controversial or divisive topics.

I’ve already received positive feedback from colleagues saying how impressed they are with the quality of content and intent to educate.

Communication and the dissemination of information is what we do. Blogging just shows that you have taken the initiative to go beyond the expected.

My job includes public education about paleontology as a component. My blog has been my most successful single effort to that end.

The whole goal of being a research scientist is to get your research out as quickly as possible to the widest possible audience.  A well-known blog lets you do that very effectively.  Our ideas reach people that they would never reach if they were only in our formal publications, and also act as a “gateway drug” to get people onto those publications where the ideas are worked out with full rigour.

The purpose of the blog is to show what I and my employees are doing. It shows experience and publicizes us.

Institutions are increasingly supportive for this kind of activities, which are essential for dissemination of the research that is done within their labs.

Tags: Geoblogger, Geoblogosphäre, Geoblogosphere, Geoblogs, Survey, Umfrage

This entry was posted Saturday, January 16th, 2010 at 7:52 pm under Geoblogosphere/Web 2.0 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.