Scientific Americans Experiment in Collaborative Publishing

1
Scientific Americans Experiment inCollaborative
Publishing
Kate Wong Scientific American www.sciam.com
2
The Story

• In September of last year, paleontologists
  unveiled a spectacular fossil of the oldest baby
  girl ever discovered. Born 3.3 million years ago
  in what is now Ethiopia, the child did not live
  past her third birthday.
• Her discoverers christened her Selam, but she is
  often referred to as Lucys baby, because she
  belongs to the same proto-human
  species--Australopithecus afarensis--as the
  famous Lucy fossil discovered in 1974.
• Selam is one of the most complete hominid fossils
  ever found--even more complete than Lucy--and she
  provides scientists with an unprecedented view of
  childhood in an early human ancestor.

3
The Experiment

• Momentous stories like this one can be the bane
  of monthly magazines. Because of the long lead
  times involved in preparing articles for print,
  we knew we wouldnt be able to get this story
  into print until our December issue at the
  earliest. What could we bring to the table by
  then?
• We decided this story presented a good
  opportunity to conduct an experiment we had been
  pondering for a while, inspired by various wikis
  and other collaborative projects.

4
The Setup

• We created a special report on the find for our
  web site
• We then invited readers to post their questions
  and comments about the story in our blog, with an
  eye toward helping us shape the forthcoming print
  article.
• I also solicited remarks from a number of experts
  in the field of paleoanthropology.
• In addition to the links to the story and
  discussion from the home page, we drove traffic
  to the experiment with promotional banners and
  MPUs

5
The Reader Response

• We had no idea what to expect in terms of
  response from the readers
• We were pleasantly surprised. We ended up with
  roughly 40 reader comments and questions.
• I popped into the comments section from time to
  time to answer their questions and keep the
  discussion on track.

6
The Scientist Response

• Six scientists provided written commentary on the
  discovery, which we posted verbatim in the blog.
• These posts generated far fewer reader comments
  than the general discussion post did, which is
  understandable given the technical nature of the
  writing.
• But they provided good fodder for the print
  version of the article.

7
Distillation

• Armed with all this feedback, we then had to
  decide what, exactly, to do with it.
• The biggest question was, do we want to just
  rewrite the article to address the readers
  questions and reflect the various points of view
  from the scientists, or do we want to incorporate
  their feedback in a more transparent way?
• We decided to do a bit of both.

8
The End ProductRefining and expanding the main
text
9
The End Product Highlighting readers questions
10
The End Product Expert commentary and new art
elements
11
Was Our Experiment a Success?

• Yes--on both the web and print fronts.
• All told, the total number of page views for the
  web version of this special report and the
  related blog posts was several times the average
  number of page views for an article of this type.
  
• A survey regarding the December issue revealed a
  high level of reader interest in the article,
  particularly the sidebars containing the reader
  questions and the scientists views.

12
Was It Worth Our Time?

• We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how
  to conduct this experiment within the confines of
  our existing site design.
• I spent a fair amount of time answering reader
  questions and coaxing the scientists to furnish
  us with remarks.
• But in all, it was reasonably efficient. Getting
  the scientists to write their own comments saved
  me some reporting time. And the presence of the
  sidebars--both of which could be readily
  shortened or lengthened--made fitting the print
  article much easier than usual.

13
Will We Do It Again?

• We already have. Earlier this month we put up a
  draft of an article on the origin of life.
• So far, the discussion has been lively.
• The print execution will probably be very similar
  to that of the Lucys Baby article.

14
Variations on a Theme

• Were also trying out different ways of engaging
  the readers-and picking their brains.
• In preparing our holiday gadget guide, we
  solicited reader ideas for gadgets to include in
  our list
• In January, we started a blog discussion on a
  conservation idea that will be the subject of a
  forthcoming article in print. We didnt post a
  draft of the article--we just told readers
  briefly what it was about, and invited them to
  submit their questions about the proposal.

15
Looking Ahead

• The is definitely room for improvement in the way
  we present these interactive opportunities. Were
  looking into establishing a dedicated area on the
  site for articles under construction.
• We see this kind of collaborative publishing as a
  way to both foster reader interaction with the
  brand and to build a certain amount of customer
  satisfaction into the print product--without
  sacrificing the control needed to preserve our
  reputation as the voice of scientific and
  technological authority.