What is science communication and why do we do it?
Science communication in short is the exchange of scientific information with others who tend not to be experts in the field of science being communicated. Synthetic biology as a field is interdisciplinary in nature and synthetic biologists have varying degrees of experience and knowledge in any discipline. Personally, we found this apparent when discussing our project with electrochemists who had less experience with synthetic biology. Therefore, effective communication is essential for advances in synthetic biology. Additionally, as a subject that is highly linked to industry, communication with industry leaders is essential in translating synthetic biology to the real world. In general, science communication is important for a few reasons:
Increasing scientific literacy and curiosity among the public
Science communication makes science more transparent and accessible to the public, making it easier to visualize and support the impact science will have on people's daily lives, increasing scientific literacy and curiosity. This encourages young people (such as ourselves) into science in the future as well as making the public more likely to support scientific progress.
Influence policy and ethical decisions regarding science
With the support of the public, lawmakers are more inclined to fund science, or change policies to make science easier to conduct. Increased public scientific literacy means more science-based policy decisions as well as informed decisions on science policy.
Influence individual decision making
Increased scientific literacy means that the public will be less fearful and more eager to adopt new technology as well as incorporate science in the decisions that they make in their daily lives. Lastly it makes people less likely to believe in pseudoscience or misinform/misrepresent science which is very important in the age of fake news and misinformation.
What is the Communication Strategies Guide?
We've designed a 4-stage protocol for science communication optimized for iGEM. Much like the engineering design framework synthetic biologists follow when designing new technology, it is cyclical and iterative in nature. Our approach is also modular, reflecting the modularity of synthetic biology. To demonstrate its ease of use, we have created a customizable science communication guide following the framework.
Our four stages are as follows:
Identify audience
Evaluate familiarity
Design communication
Improve design
Stage 1: Identifying Audiences
The first consideration when designing a science communication protocol is the audience. Being able to characterize audiences means that we can optimize communications tailored to that specific audience.
Firstly, the level of knowledge the audience has on the subject matter you wish to communicate must be considered. In this regard, typically only academics, relevant industry leaders and some university students will have any knowledge on said subject matter. If they have no background, considering the level of education (High School Graduate, Undergraduate, Postgraduate, etc.) will be helpful (the more academic an audience is, the more comfortable they are with academic terms and complex ideas, even without a prior background on the subject). If both parameters are unknown, the age of the audience can be taken into consideration (older audiences tend to be more mature and should at least have a high-school/university education and vice-versa). If your audience belongs to a certain archetype (i.e. if they are children), consider unique characteristics to your audience (i.e. children have short attention spans, do not know too much and prefer visual media).
Secondly, we must consider why the audience should care about the subject matter being discussed. To start, consider your project; Is it something that is likely to have wide societal impact? Is it likely to be controversial? Is it novel or interesting? Does it fit in with the issues society is dealing with today (zeitgeist)? Then think about how the socio-economic and cultural background of the audience may impact the reasons they should care about your project. The reasons why audience should care about your project will shape the way you communicate with them.
Stage 2: Evaluating Familiarity
Thirdly, we should consider the purpose of science communication for your project, to what extent does the audience need to know the finer details or background of your project. Following Bloom�s taxonomy, we can roughly define levels of knowledge required for an audience. If we expect the audience to have a low level of understanding after communication, we should expect them to be able to remember and understand the basic points that underlie the project. If we expect them to have a medium level of understanding after communication, we should expect them to be able to apply and analyze the project (find new applications and point out certain issues with the project). Audiences who are expected to have an advanced level of understanding should be able to critically evaluate and synthesize new approaches for the project. Expectations must be realistic however and you should only expect only one level of improvement. It is also highly unlikely that anyone other than academics or industry leaders will be able to critically evaluate and analyze the project as the level of background knowledge required is far too high.
Stage 3: Designing Communication
Fourthly, we need design a method of communication suitable for these audiences. To start, consider when and where communication will occur. Certain audiences would prefer specific times and places for communication to occur. If communication is happening on the cloud, consider the online media being used, the audiences of specific social media are relatively well characterized and some media allow targeted marketing of audiences which extends the reach of your communication. Next, consider the medium of communication, you could choose online communications which has wider reach but less responsivity or offline communications which may have lesser reach but have better interactivity. Additionally, consider which media your audience is more likely to consume. Lastly, consider the type of communication that you will be using, certain audiences prefer certain types of communication (whether it be text, audio, visual or video based) and it is wise to tailor the type of communication with the audience chosen.
Stage 4: Improving Design
Lastly, it is very important to be interactive and dynamic with science communication. To increase the effectiveness of future science communication, it is important to always get feedback not just with your project but with the communication itself. A few important metrics to consider is verifying if the target audience is the same as the intended audience, how much did they learn (how much did they know before versus how much they know now), attempting to see if there is a change in perception with your project if they had a prior opinion and whether they have any advice or issues they had with the way the project was communicated. Consider the method of feedback as well, people prefer quick and easy to answer feedback however these forms of feedback may not be as comprehensive. Finding a compromise with good question design is very important.
Example demonstrating how our protocol can be used
An iGEM team had a project investigating co-cultures wanted more public awareness of the importance of co-cultures on the daily lives of people (i.e. has wide societal impact). They chose children as their target audience and their goal was to educate them on the importance of co-cultures in their daily lives and did not expect prior knowledge on the subject. Following the science communication design framework, they would be completing the first two steps. They then considered that an online based media would have a wide reach for their target audience and that they needed to choose a media that would not only be attractive to children but also informative. They ultimately chose to create a video game as a visual media it is easy for children to understand what is on the screen. Moreover, as it was interactive, it was able to capture the attention of children for extended periods of time. Lastly, they used surveys to collect not only feedback on the game, but also feedback for potential new applications for their project on co-cultures as well. This particular team was the Imperial College 2016 team and they won Best Public Engagement and Education that year.
Custom Science Communication Guide
Who is your audience?
Why should they care?
How much does the audience need to know?
Choose your communication media!
Choose your communication type!
Characterising the audience
In general, all audiences prefer if you can tell a good story. If you can weave all the disparate reasons why they should care and what have you done into an appealling narrative, they are more likely to be interested and care about what you have to say. Make sure that your first impression is a lasting one.
Reasons for audience to care
Expectations for audience after communication
As a rule of thumb, having realistic expectations of how much an audience can learn from a communication event. Take into consideration the time duration and the prior level of expertise of the audience when having an expectation of how much they will learn.
Communication design
Feedback strategies
Lastly, it is very important to receive and integrate feedback into future protocols. Here are a list of a few methods that we can use to assess the effectiveness of our communications: Surveys, Interviews, Emails, Social media questionnaires/polls and a comment box. All of these feedback methods require methodological approach in question design. The most important things to consider are: Who were the audience? How much have they learned from the event? Whether the method of communication was appropriate for them? and lastly whether they have feedback on both the project and the way it was communicated? For qualitative data comment boxes and long ended questions may be appropriate but do not allow for quantitative data processing. Simple yes/no questions may not be qualitative and thus not give as much information but are able to be processed easily.
How did Imperial implement this protocol?
Science Museum Surveys: On the ____, we travelled to the Science Museum in London to get feedback on how much people know about synthetic biology and the implications of our project. We originally designed paper surveys and spoke to people directly. We found this approach cumbersome and not efficient. To improve, we decided that all future surveys will use electronic media (iPads, etc.) and have changed our survey designs accordingly.
Electrochemistry:
Changelog
Version 1.0: Sci-comm guide implemented (June 30th)
Version 1.1: Based on feedback from KUAS-Korea iGEM, we've added examples, visual detail and made a pdf downloadable version of the whole guide. We have also made minor edits to parts pertaining to industry as well as correcting minor grammatical and spelling mistakes. (August 31st)
