A neuroscience journal club is being started at Upstate, the emphasis of which will be on significant findings in the field of interest du jour. With the sudden burst of enthusiasm and postive energy that went into the journal club's creation, I thought I would take the opportunity to get an online extension of the journal club going--in blog form.
The goal of this blog is three-fold. First, it should provide a running record of the papers we discuss. Second, it should allow students, faculty, and casual internet observes to comment on new findings in a different way. While the live format (to take place on alternating Fridays) is nice, having a chance to craft a written response to somebody's work is good, too. Third, the blog might turn out to be a useful way to communicate and collaborate across the program, outside of the confines of journal club.
So what will go on the blog and who will contribute to it? Anyone scheduled to give a talk will be granted permission to create a new post on the blog. (In fact, if you're interested in posting at all, let me know, and I'll magically grant you priveleges. The one piece of fine print is that you'll need a Google or Blogspot account before you get started.)
My thinking is that each main post will correspond to a journal article slated for review. The main post should outline the major findings of the paper and anything else the presenter thinks is interesting (methods, novel model, shift in paradigm, etc.). The post will then be opened up for comments. Hopefully, this will be the stage where things take off.
As for the running record of papers we are to discuss, labeling your post with various tags is useful. Doing so not only helps with search functions within the blog, but it opens the blog's content up to general Google searches as well. PubMed search terms are probably good to include, but my take is the more, the better. Also, try to use search terms similar to those used in the past (e.g. "motor neuron" instead of "motoneuron" or vice versa). This will enable more returns when someone does search.
Finally, there are the blog features outside of the main posts to think about. This will probably be an evolving project, so if there are any functions you'd like to see (e.g. calendar, links to other sites, etc.) let me know and I will add them or you can add them yourself.
That's it from me. I'm looking forward to Chrissa's talk on June 24!
