A group of Canadian science bloggers (Kim Moynahan, Steph Taylor, Pascal Lapointe, Raymond Nakamura, Maryse de la Girody, and myself) has been working with Canadian Science Publishing and Genome Alberta – both non-profit organizations – to create a Canadian science blog aggregator.
“Why a blog aggregator?” We have many science blogs in Canada, written by scientists, science communicators, those interested in science, and many more. By making a one-stop-shop where you can find ALL THE BLOGZ, we’re working towards building an integrated Canadian scicomm community, creating a valuable tool for policy-making, and showcasing to the public all the neat stuff going on across the country.
“Why Canadian?” Canada is a vast country with a huge geographic, economic and cultural diversity. Many science topics are unique to our country, such as managing the environment in a heavily resource-based economy, or dealing with fisheries issues on three coasts. Canadian policy makers – and the public – want and need to understand what science is being done, what makes it so interesting, how it might be applicable to us, and where it’s headed. Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post on this by Carla Davidson and myself, at the Canadian Science Policy Centre‘s site.
The first step in our community-building work was our logo contest. We put out the call in June, and by the August deadline had an impressive variety of logo designs.
Today we’re excited to unveil the winning logo! Details are in the press release (written by Mike Spear at Genome Alberta), below.
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Science Borealis logo revealed
Science Borealis: Blogging from Canadian Perspectives is pleased to unveil its new logo – sure to become an instantly recognizable symbol for the network in Canada and around the world. A community driven project developed by Genome Alberta and Canadian Science Publishing in partnership with group of dedicated Canadian science bloggers, Science Borealis is Canada’s first comprehensive science blog network.
The platform will aggregate Canada’s many science blogs and provide a uniquely Canadian gateway for information, news, and opinion on science in Canada. About to enter the beta testing phase, ScienceBorealis.ca will officially launch on November 22 at the Canadian Science Policy Conference in Toronto.
This summer we held a logo contest to find the perfect image to go along with this exciting new initiative. Today, we’re pleased to share it with you.
Designed by Charles Bourne, a graduate of the University of King’s College History of Science and Technology programme (2012). Charles is a Halifax-based (and sometimes Vienna) freelance designer, photographer and editor.
“This one is playful and definitely the most interesting of the bunch. The squiggly “s” representing the borealis is quite inspired – I wouldn’t change it. The bold design will work for many applications and it looks great in black and white. This is my first choice.” (noted Janice Whitehead, a member of the Judging panel).
The First Runner up was Lisa Liskovoi, a graphic designer/graduate student/science-communicator-in-the-making, currently studying at Ryerson University in Toronto. The Second runner up, Robert Aboukhalil, is a computational biologist, entrepreneur, web developer, and science communicator.
The panel of judges included Raymond Nakamura, science blogger; Christina Keng, seasoned graphic designer; and Janice Whitehead, publisher PREVIEW: The Gallery Guide and a professional graphic designer.
The founders of Science Borealis felt there was a gap in telling the story of Canadian science and that it was time for a site where Canadians could learn about what was happening in their own backyard. Canadian Science Publishing and Genome Alberta have been working with an enthusiastic group of volunteers for several months to bring this new Canadian initiative from vision to reality.
Whether you want the latest in Canadian science, information to inform policy, to connect with researchers, write a term paper, or you just want to learn about neat stuff ScienceBorealis.ca will deliver Canadian science to Canadians.
Genome Alberta is a publicly funded organization that initiates, funds, and manages genomics research and partnerships. We were established in 2005 as part of Alberta’s Life Sciences Strategy through an initiative between the Alberta Government and federally funded Genome Canada. www.genomealberta.ca
Canadian Science Publishing is a not-for-profit publisher dedicated to serving the needs of Canadian and international researchers, not only by publishing quality peer-reviewed journals (via NRC Research Press) but also by supporting the knowledge-sharing activities of scholarly societies and other key partners through events, awards, and other exchanges. www.nrcresearchpress.com
For further information:
Full resolution versions of the logo are available for download at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2qrdsbqug2l2awp/VctKQap8HY
To arrange an interview about the Science Borealis work to date or to find a Canadian Science blogger please contact:
Mike Spear
Director of Communications,
Genome Alberta
mspear@genomealberta.ca
403-210-5265
Jenny Ryan
Manager, Communications,
Canadian Science Publishing,
jenny.ryan@nrcresearchpress.com
613-222-4630
Looks like a very good idea. Has your group been thinking about ways of getting policy wonks to use the blogs in their work? Would the ” aggregator site” sport a search engine? I am largely ignorant of modern technology and my second question may be trivial.
Yes we’ve been working on getting policy ppl to use the site – in fact, our official launch will be at the Canadian Science Policy Conference in November, which is an apt venue for it. As for search engines…that’s all included in the aggregator setup. That’s what makes it useful! 🙂