Two weeks ago I added a first version of full-text search to the Rogue Scholar blog archive. This was a good start, as blogs typically only have the timeline, tags, and metadata like titles and authors to help readers find relevant content.
The Rogue Scholar science blog archive launched in April and I have been busy building out the core features of archiving the full-text of blog posts, establishing a full-text search, and registering DOIs and metadata for all posts. My announced goal was to complete this work by the end of the second quarter.
In January I started the Rogue Scholar blog archive with the slogan "science blogging on steroids", promising to enhance science blogs in important ways. Earlier this month I began DOI registrations for blog posts, and I am well on track to complete this for the included 35 blogs with more than 1,000 blog posts in the next few weeks.
Two weeks ago I started registering DOIs for blog posts included in the Rogue Scholar blog archive. It is an automated process but involves a lot of manual checks. So far I have registered 231 blog posts from 20 different science blogs, and I hope to finish the DOI registrations by the end of the month.
The Rogue Scholar science blog archive launched last week. Going forward the focus is on improving the service and adding more blogs. This includes giving blog authors feedback on how they can improve their RSS/Atom feeds – used by the Rogue Scholar to collect and archive the blog content. Feedback for science blog publishers A good starting point is author information, which often can be improved.
The Rogue Scholar science blog archive launched with limited functionality on April 3rd. Interested science blogs can go to the sign-up page, provide some basic information via the sign-up form, and then will be added to the Rogue Scholar archive within two business days.
The Rogue Scholar blog archive today released its first catalog of science blogs, a total of nineteen science blogs that signed up for the Rogue Scholar via submission form and met the inclusion criteria: The blog is about science and in English or German (more languages will follow later, reach out to me if you can help). The full-text content is available via RSS feed and distributed using a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY). The
On Wednesday this week I am launching the Front Matter Gazette , a weekly newsletter that highlights exciting science stories from around the web. The linked content highlighted in the newsletter is published elsewhere and is free to read whenever possible. The newsletter requires a paid subscription (available here), 5 €/month or 50 €/year with a thirty-day free trial and free subscriptions on request.
Science blogs have been around for at least 20 years and have become an important part of science communication. So are there any fundamental issues that need fixing? Barriers to Entry Blogging platforms are mature at this point, and the technology is not imposing barriers to entry for most people.
As I discussed in a recent post, RSS is an essential building block for the upcoming Rogue Scholar Scholarly Blog Archive. RSS makes it easy to import blog posts (both metadata and content) automatically and is supported by all blogging platforms.