Science Merges Career Resources and Redesigns Online Sites
Based on a merger of ScienceCareers.org and Science’s
Next Wave, the journal Science today announced a
new Web site that is believed to be the single most comprehensive,
freely accessible source of online science-career support currently available
for scientists, teachers, students, career counselors and the public.
The debut of free online career support coincides with a sweeping redesign
of the Science family
of Web sites and the journal’s decision to make newly published
content on its ScienceNOW daily news site freely accessible
to the public. The Science Web sites are published by AAAS,
the nonprofit science society.
“Altogether, these changes to the Science family of
Web site make a unique and rich array of science career information and
science news easily available to anyone visiting the sites. Science
is pleased to be offering these resources to budding scientists, their
mentors, researchers at various stages of their careers, and other members
of the public who are interested in science,” said Donald Kennedy,
Science’s editor-in-chief.
The newly tooled ScienceCareers.org
offers job listings, a grants directory and other resources for the many
facets of a young scientist’s career, all in one place. Free to
everyone and easy to navigate, the site also provides career advice, a
CV database, meetings and events calendars, information about funding
opportunities, advice on cover letters, interviews, career development
and more. Users will also find special topic portals, including the Minority
Scientists Network and the Postdoc Network.
“All in all, on a single page you have I’m sure the richest
set of career related tools available anywhere,” said Jim Austin,
editor of the new ScienceCareers.org.
Austin emphasized that the editorial content on the site will continue
to be editorially independent, maintaining the rigorous journalistic standards
of the former Science’s Next Wave site and of
Science’s News department.
“The field of science is so important for so many reasons, for
international security, economic reasons, but to me most important is
it offers prospect of hugely rewarding, satisfying career. Yet, it can
be a difficult, trying career too. I can think of no better way to advance
science and serve society than by helping people interested in science
find satisfying careers,” Austin said.
The Web site’s launch occurs along with a new design for the entire
family of Science
sites, which includes the online version of journal Science,
the daily news service ScienceNOW, Science’s
knowledge environments on signal transduction (“STKE”) and
aging (“SAGE KE”), and other resources, as well as the new
ScienceCareers.org site.
The redesign began after a series of surveys, focus groups and user testing
revealed that users wanted to find content on these sites more easily
and that they generally were overwhelmed by the volume of scientific information
available today.
“We tried to move toward a much more integrated look and function,
in effort to make the sites more comprehensible to users and to help with
the need for making sense of the whole world of science in an information-glutted
age,” said Stewart Wills, the online editor of Science.
When the new, redesigned site launches, stories on ScienceNOW,
the daily news service, will also become freely available. Science’s
news team posts three to five news stories at ScienceNOW
every work day, covering new developments in science research, policy,
funding, exploration and technology.
Recent headlines include everything from “Tightwad Primates”
to “Nature’s Super-Rubber Made in Lab.” Users will be
able to read these stories without a subscription for four weeks after
each story is posted.
Until now, ScienceNOW’s very loyal readership has
generally consisted of working scientists, but its editors expect that
students, teachers, policy-makers and other members of the public will
also visit the site regularly now that a subscription isn’t required.
“We think ScienceNOW is a great device for improving
public understanding of science and bringing the latest scientific developments
to a much wider audience. We hope the site can be used for teaching purposes
and bringing people into science,” said Colin Norman, Science’s
news editor.
Traffic to ScienceCareers.org and the rest of the Science
Web sites will also likely increase as a result of all the redesign and
merger, Wills and Austin agreed.
“It’s a much more welcoming site, and we’re hoping
to attract new users we haven’t had before," said Wills. “This
is a good thing from the perspective of the AAAS mission. Being able to
bring nontraditional audience segments into the orbit of the Science
sites is a really nice opportunity.”
See related story:
AAAS
Selects Richard Weibl To Head S&T Careers Center (20 October 2005)
Kathy Wren
15 November 2005
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