by Hannah Wasserfaller -

Dissemination practices

As teased in one of my previous blog posts, I wanted to give more detailed insights into dissemination practices. I do believe that this will help me understand the scientists side of things more, as I was previously more focused on developing content for the general public. And while that goal remains the same, I believe that it is crucial to understand how scientists try to communicate their topics and to find a way that bridges the gap between the scientific and non-scientific community.

A 2020 article by Tony Ross-Hellauer et. al. published ten simple rules for innovative dissemination of research, which will now briefly be explained. These ten recommendations were compiled via multidimensional research activities and have the goal to provide primarily researchers with an entry point to more innovative dissemination practices, allowing them to choose methods and tools according to their audience, requirements and skills. 

Rule 1: Get the basics right

In order to be able to communicate effectively, it is necessary to have clarity in some aspects: one needs to define objectives, define the potential target group(s), messages and methods of engagement and communication. Also, a dissemination plan should be created to strategically outline the project goals.

With defining objectives, the authors essentially mean the purpose and goal of the dissemination – what is a researchers motivation, what should be achieved with it? This step is essential for planning further activities.

This step goes hand in hand with defining the target audience and who to reach with ones research – having clarity in who the stakeholders are will also determine what they need in order to receive the information. The same goes for developing the key messages, as these need to be planned accordingly in order to be communicated to a specific group.

Rule 2: Keep the right profile

The authors suggest establishing a unique identity, both online and offline, for a research project or individual researchers – be it through the usage of websites, personal social media accounts, academic social networks or other, as this will help in increasing visibility. Creating a brand and having a visual identity not only can have an impact in the public’s perception and accumulating esteem within the scientific community.

Rule 3: Encourage participation

Inviting research audiences to engage and collaborate in order to create a collaborative, collective endeavor is suggested. Participatory approaches can be anything from games through including the public in the research process.

Also, frequent and early dissemination, i.e. by updating followers on social media, publishing progress blogs or tell the public about early findings can in turn mean early feedback. So, to sum up, including not only researchers but also citizens and other audiences outside of the academic circle can increase a project’s societal impact.

Rule 4: Open science for impact

Open science is definitely as knowledge that is share and developed via collaborative networks in a transparent and accessible way and is rooted in the principles of transparency and equitable participation. Practices include, for example, open access to publications, open source software, open research data, citizen science, or open educational sources.  Open Access publications can have a larger impact as they are widely available and can be reused and explored further. Therefore, dissemination can be considered a core element of the open science approach.

Rule 5: Remix traditional outputs

Research articles or books can be consider traditional research outputs. The authors suggest that innovative dissemination practices should complement these traditional tools in order to boost impact. Publishing press releases, blog posts or nonspecialist summaries alongside the traditional outlets can be a great way of reaching more people with one’s research and which also might get picked up by media outlets who are often interested in science-related stories. 

Rule 6: Go live

There are multiple ways of translating dissemination into in-person activities outside of specialized conferences. Science slams, TED talks science shops or science festivals offer different ways of interacting with various audiences. Reaching out to key stakeholders is also encouraged, as policy-makers or thought leaders have the power of making change happen and personal conversation might be a powerful tool to support collected evidence on a topic. 

Rule 7: Think visual

Currently, dissemination is still largely done via writing or spoken word. Including visual elements can be a strong tool in helping the audience understand and interpret research. The most logical approach is, of course data visualization, a practice that has been used for a long time. However, the means of visualizing data have changed throughout time and offer some new possibilities such as smart graphs and infographics. Science comics, video abstractor even artistic interpretations are ways of depicting science in a way that might just be memorable – and therefore stronger in impact.

Rule 8: Respect diversity

Diversity within the academic discourse has always included discussions about cultural backgrounds, gender, ethnicities, ideologies, digital literacy and economic diversity. It is important to not only raise awareness about diversity issues but to also grant higher visibility to underrepresented minorities in research. And in terms of communication, there should always be the consideration of how to appropriately and respectfully reach the right audience – because research should be reaching everyone that it might affect. Helpful tools to achieve this is defining a code of conduct or contributing guidelines. 

Rule 9: Find the right tools

Contrary to traditional dissemination methods, innovative dissemination often requires a different skillset and other resources. A Hub created by OpenUP offers a catalogue of innovative dissemination services researchers can use and list resources that range from data visualization, outreach and publishing to event organization, archives, and crowdsourcing opportunities. 

There are other initiatives like this in order to support researchers in their dissemination and widen public scientific engagement.

Rule 10: Evaluate, evaluate, evaluate.

Dissemination activities should constantly be monitored and evaluated in regards to their effectiveness and impact. Analyzing why or why not certain tactics do or do not work is crucial in order to identify effective practices and allow researchers to be strategic in using them. 

Evaluation should be based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative indicators and could include interviews, questionnaires, or observations for measuring impact.

All these dissemination guidelines made me realize that I, myself, might need to re-evaluate my research approach. I need to decide where I want to put my focus in my further research – to support the scientists in their science communication skills and develop formats that might be applicable for them or to independently find ways of communicating science to the non-scientific community outside of dissemination goals.

This blogpost is majorly based on this PLOS article: 

Ross-Hellauer, Tony, Jonathan P. Tennant, Viltė Banelytė, Edit Gorogh, Daniela Luzi, Peter Kraker, Lucio Pisacane, Roberta Ruggieri, Electra Sifacaki, and Michela Vignoli. “Ten Simple Rules for Innovative Dissemination of Research.” PLOS Computational Biology 16, no. 4 (2020): e1007704. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007704.

by Hannah Wasserfaller -

Science Communication and Dissemination

While I am busy with creating further visual content that is related to science and have been starting to put out some of my creations, I still wanted to continue my research about the world of science communication. From an exercise in the design and research class, I came up with a number of relevant key words for my research which I wanted to explore further. And one term in particular has crossed my path in both the research process and in “real life”, which is why I would like to dedicate this blogpost to the topic of dissemination. In the world of science, dissemination is a term that one will frequently come across – and one that I would define as closely related to the field of science communication.

Dissemination in the context of science essentially means transferring knowledge to a targeted audience because that audience will either use it, be impacted by it or influence the use of the evidence. In short: dissemination is all about getting information to the right people so that they can make use of that knowledge. To name one example – knowledge that concerns health care could be communicated to policy makers, patients or healthcare practitioners. It is a core component in translating knowledge strategically in order to adopt and implement new practices.

There are various frameworks and translation models that include elements of dissemination, however, dissemination is often regarded as a single step at some point towards the end of a research project rather than spanning over its entire running time which in turn contributes to a translational gap between what is evidence is being generated and what actually impacts policies and practices. This furthermore has also the potential to represent poor return on investment to research funders.

Dissemination is a complex topic that demands strategic use and while many models exist, researchers struggle to select the fitting resources for their dissemination strategy and lack guidance in terms of which activities to implement at the subsequent steps of the dissemination process. 

So, to sum up: while there are strategies and models, implementing them effectively poses a big challenge, which is why it would be important to develop a framework that is accessible and clear to everyone. 

While my previous posts and my general approach was more on the non-scientific community as a target group for my topic and also the little projects I have been working on, it was quite interesting to see that proper science communication is a struggle that is not only related to (public) education but maybe even more relevant for the scientific community,  incredibly important in order to translate scientific findings for decision makers or audiences that concretely benefit from certain knowledge. 

While communication to the public and offering ways of easily accessible information that are intended to raise the overall knowledge within the population is a large part of what caught my interest in the matter and is also something I want to pursue further, the importance of that other side of science communication was not as evident to me before.

Therefore, I think it could be interesting to also follow the topic from this other side. To look at the ways  scientists currently frame and communicate their work to respective target groups and then find the issues and new (design supported) approaches to make for better knowledge transfer.

The way of communication research has been changing, especially due to digital possibilities.

And while traditional formats such as scholarly journals and books can be found online, their functions and formats have remained similar throughout that time of change. 

Therefore, online media such as blogs and social media platforms offer new possibilities for scientists to use. Blogs and wikis have risen to popularity with something called „open notebook science“, professional academic networks like ResearchGate or Academia.edu have millions of users, and for interaction with the wider public, online formats such as TED talks that are being streamed via YouTube have become very popular. 

Digital technologies allow scientists to not only communicate with their primary dissemination targets (such as other scholars, policy makers or similar) but to actively involve people that otherwise would not have had access to this information.

The potential of adopting new methods is promising, as new cross-disciplinary collaborations could emerge which in turn could support publications, funding and new research opportunities.

Overall, there has been a noticeable push towards making science and research known to the greater public since the 1980s and the inclusion of non-scientific audiences which in turn has caused new forms of dissemination to emerge. Examples for this would be sciences shows or magazines and in more recent years, new event types such as science slams or open lab days. New participatory spaces such as science cafés or hackerspaces emerged which influence both research production and dissemination  processes, and powerful trends that strive for the globalization of research, responsible research, and inclusion of previously excluded audiences are reshaping the scope and purposes of dissemination. 

The issue here is, that while these new emerging approaches are viewed as fundamental constituents of open science, researchers tend to still focus on traditional outputs such as journal articles, speaking at conferences or publishing books. 

Innovative dissemination would, in turn, mean dissemination that exceeds traditional academic publishing and meeting practices and aims to spread the research findings to a more widespread audience.

I feel like this is the part I would like to find out more about in the future because that is also where the power of (media) design can play a vital role. 

For the next blogpost, I plan on diving a little bit deeper into (innovative) dissemination practices in order to find out more about the possibilities and challenges in that regard.

Sources used in this blogpost:

First part: Scott, Sion, Bethany Atkins, Thomas D’Costa, Claire Rendle, Katherine Murphy, David Taylor, Caroline Smith, Ian Kellar, Andrew Briggs, Alys Griffiths, Rebekah Hornak, Anne Spinewine, Wade Thompson, Ross Tsuyuki, and Debi Bhattacharya. “Development of the Guide to Disseminating Research (GuiDiR): A Consolidated Framework.” Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy 20, no. 11 (2024): 1047–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sapharm.2024.07.007.

Second part: Ross-Hellauer, Tony, Jonathan P. Tennant, Viltė Banelytė, Edit Gorogh, Daniela Luzi, Peter Kraker, Lucio Pisacane, Roberta Ruggieri, Electra Sifacaki, and Michela Vignoli. “Ten Simple Rules for Innovative Dissemination of Research.” PLOS Computational Biology 16, no. 4 (2020): e1007704. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007704.