Capturing Blogs Citing Peer-Reviewed Research

About a month ago, I discussed my involvement as a member the BPR3 (Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting) team. The primary goal of BPR3 to to create a service which allows researchers to discover blog posts about peer-reviewed research. It offers a way to distinguish serious posts from general news and what the family pet did last night.

Dave Munger, the team lead, is in the process of filling out the paperwork to establish the organization as a non-profit. As a part of the legal process he describes the purpose of the organization:

• To establish standards for online discussion, cataloging, and citation of peer-reviewed research;
• To improve the visibility and status of weblogs and other sites that thoughtfully discuss peer-reviewed research;
• To produce and manage a central web site where readers can locate weblog posts, online discussions, journal articles, and other information about academic research, and which other institutions can use to provide other services to the public and the research community;
• To provide a forum for researchers and the public to discuss and collaborate on research projects;
• To promote the discussion and dissemination of peer-reviewed research;
• To educate and inform the public about academic research;
• To engage in other activities related to the discussion, dissemination, and education about peer-reviewed research.

There are indeed other services out there exploring similar approaches, such as Postgenomic (supported by the Nature Publishing Group). There has also been discussion on how to include citation metadata when creating blog posts. The fact there are several groups looking at a way to capture this information only adds support to the argument that blogging can add value to academic discourse, when done with a scholarly approach.

The BPR3 service is currently in beta and the developers are working hard to make sure it is stable before the formal rollout, scheduled for very early in '08. Sphere: Related Content