Evolution Online Journal Club: Who’s In?

The Why

Journal clubs are common in many labs/departments, with students meeting with post-docs and advisors to discuss the latest and (sometimes maybe-not-so-) greatest research being published in their field of study. These journal clubs not only help students learn new techniques and concepts, but also teach them how to critically examine and review an academic paper, an important skill for evaluating new research.

Unfortunately for those of us who work in smaller labs without many other grad students or senior researchers, we don’t get the opportunity to have these discussions very regularly (if at all). While I took a few course-based colloquia during my MSc, I would love to take part in a journal club that lasts more than a semester. When I first joined Twitter, I floated the idea of a Twitter-based taxonomy journal club, but never really got much of a response at the time (largely due to my small follower list I suspect).

Then earlier this week Rafael Maia (a PhD candidate at the University of Akron) confessed on Twitter that he cyber-stalks journal clubs in other labs and universities, and so I suggested perhaps we start our own journal club via social media! It wasn’t long before grad students from other institutions expressed an interest, and so I figured I’d get the ball rolling and start fleshing out some of the ideas that were thrown around on Twitter about how we can make this happen!

The Where & When

While Twitter is great for connecting and sharing short quips, I’m not so sure it will be the best medium for in depth discussion of an article between multiple people (although it has been done before by the Twitter Journal Club, which discusses medical research). Plus, archiving tweets for later perusal can be a pain in the butt. Twitter will probably be most useful for sharing paper choices (see below) and getting a head count on who wants to participate.

Google+ hangouts will probably be the best bet for hosting the actual discussions. These voice/video conferences have a number of benefits for this sort of thing:

• Continuous discussion: no waiting for tweets to come through or trying to read a half dozen comments simultaneously, and it feels more natural, like you’re all in the same room discussing things together.
• Open to the public: G+ Hangouts Live! allow you to stream your discussion live, letting others observe without needing to join in. This might help entice new students/people to start listening even if they don’t feel ready to join the discussion yet.
• Recorded: G+ hangouts are recorded and instantly uploaded to YouTube where they can be viewed, commented on and easily rewatched later if you want to refresh something you said or heard. This way people can come back to discussions they weren’t able to attend and still get the most out of the discussion. All kinds of win here!
• Silly hats: ’nuff said.

I think it’d be best to use a set time on a set schedule, like 12pm on the first and third Wednesday of every month for example. That way people can plan their lives and work around it (because who wouldn’t) and we won’t run into trying to schedule a different, best time for everyone each session (which can be very difficult). If someone can’t make it one week, oh well, they can watch the video, add their thoughts in the comments and then hopefully make it for the next paper.

I’d also say we limit the formal discussion to an hour or so, and allow people to carry on via comments, Twitter or however else they may choose on their own time afterwards.

The What

I think to keep things accessible to the broadest spectrum of people, 3-10 page papers on some aspect of evolutionary biology (evolution, systematics, ecology, behaviour, etc) should be the target. That should ensure most people will be able to comment without needing to spend an inordinate amount of time doing background research before hand. Sure I might not know much about daisy population genetics, but if the paper is short and pretty straight forward I can probably follow along, and still learn something from the other participants.

Of course, Open Access papers would be ideal so we don’t exclude anyone without access, but I’m sure we can get away with sharing paywalled papers on occasion.

As for choosing which papers to discuss, I’d suggest we use Twitter or email for choosing which papers to discuss. Twitter will allow everyone to follow the stream and get links to the papers, and if people aren’t on Twitter yet, then they can email suggestions to those that are to share.

Most Importantly, The Who (I’m mean you, not the band)

A discussion group needs more than 1 person (trust me, it gets boring being uncontested all the time), which means we need you to join us! Because of the online nature of this journal club, we have the potential to pull together a diverse group of people with a full spectrum of research backgrounds, which will help bring plenty of differing opinions to any given paper, and expand discussion in ways that like-minded individuals may have trouble doing. Of course this diverse discussion group will take time to develop (like anything in social media), but it starts with a few people willing to give it a shot.

As for career level, I hope that we’ll have interested people joining in from every level. Be it undergrads, grad students, post-docs, scientists in academia/government/industry, or anyone else who’s interested in discussing what’s new in evolutionary biology!

So, what do you think? Would you be interested in joining an online journal club? Do you have ideas and/or suggestions on how arrange and undertake something like this? Feel free to join in and leave your thoughts in the comments below, or on Twitter (let’s use the hashtag #EvoOnline for now).

Update Sept. 10, 2012: There’s been quite a lot of support for this program, with several biologists from around the world expressing an interest in participating, so things look like they’re going to happen. We’ve switched to using the Twitter hashtag #EBJClub if you’d like follow along with the planning, and Rafael has secured a WordPress blog (Evolutionary Biology Online Journal Club) for the group which will turn into the hub of information shortly.