This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
ScienceOnline Bay Area (SOBA) is hosting a series of monthly discussions about how the internet is changing the practice and communication of science. Our first event addresses the topic of data journalism and visualization of scientific data and takes place on Thursday April 19th in downtown San Francisco at the offices of swissnexSF. We've got a great panel of experts in the science of making data confess, including Peter Aldhous from New Scientist, Michael Porath from Visual.ly, Shane Shiflett from the Bay Citizen, and David Kroodsma.
SOBA arose from discussions with Liz Neeley and Brian Glanz from ScienceOnline Seattle during ScienceOnline 2012 to carry the discussions from the yearly ScienceOnline conference back to our respective communities and to keep the flame burning throughout the year. Lou Woodley, Jeanne Garbarino and John Timmer from Science Online New York were the first to organize such local meetings and our events are modeled after theirs.
The site that connects the local ScienceOnline Bay Area community is http://scienceonlinebayarea.org and there you can register for the event (also see eventbrite), see who else has registered, find archives of previous events, and connect with the wider ScienceOnline community in Seattle, Vancouver and beyond. On the night of the event, you can follow along via the #soba hashtag or the ScienceOnline Bay Area Google+ page and tweet to us at @sciobayarea.
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The current organizers of SOBA are Megan Williams and Aurelie Coulon of swissnexSF, David Harris (@physicsdavid), and William Gunn of Mendeley.
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Previously in this series:
What is: Science Online London
What is: Science Online New York City
What is: Journal of Science Communication
What is: ScienceOnline2012 - and it's coming soon!
What is: The Young Australian Skeptics’ Skeptical Blog Anthology