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Wednesday, June 29, 2011
www.qatar-tribune.com
QT SPOTLIGHT ON WCSJ 2011
Some govts place
restrictions on
science reporting
TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK
DOHA
Sihem Amer Yahia, a principal research scientist of the social computing section at the QCRI, speaks at a session, in Doha, on Tuesday. (MANEESH BAKSHI)
Number of scientists at QCRI
to increase five times by 2015
JOSEPH VARGHESE
DOHA
THE Qatar Computing
Research Institute (QCRI)
gave a presentation of the
organisation’s computing
research activities during
the
seventh
World
Conference of Science
Journalists 2011 held at the
Education City of Qatar
Foundation on Tuesday.
Bradley Steffens, director
of communications at the
QCRI, said the number of
scientists at the QCRI will
go up from the present 21 to
110 by 2015. The QCRI has
already filed one patent
application and another
three are being prepared.
Talking about the developments at the QCRI, Steffens
said, “The QCRI aims to
make Qatar a global centre
for computing research. It
wants to become a leader in
key areas which are vital to
the growth of the country.”
Steffens said there are five
areas of research at the
QCRI. “The five sections are
Arabic language technologies, social technologies, scientific computing, data analytics and cloud computing.
The collaborative outcomes
of the research are publications, software prototypes,
patents and students and
trainees,” he said.
Steffens also said that applied computing is at the
core of scientific research in
many of the disciplines and
computing is vital to the success of the country’s
researches. The QCRI is
interacting with universities
and media organisations to
execute its projects as well as
with other organisations
such as the Qatar Science
and Technology Park (QSTP)
for the commercialisation of
the findings. It is in talks
with firms like Microsoft,
Google and Yahoo for joint
projects and licensing.
The QCRI aims to
find reliable, relevant and diverse
social content.
SIHEM AMER YAHIA
Ihab Ilyas, a principal research scientist at the QCRI,
described some of the challenges of data analytics.
“The big challenges related
to data are its extraction,
integration and quality.
Data quality is important in
enhancing the usability of
the acquired data and
increasing the confidence of
analytic results,” he said.
Ilyas also said that in the
last one month, the QCRI has
been able to build a team of
world class researchers in the
field of data management.
Simon Ponsford, a senior
scientist at the QCRI, also
gave a brief description of
the organisation’s cloud
computing activities.
Sihem Amer Yahia, a principal research scientist of the
social computing section at
the QCRI, discussed the
challenges and opportunities
of social computing. She said
that social computing is the
“science of gathering, storing
and processing social bread-
crumbs left by millions of
users, in order to enhance
their online experience”.
She said, “The QCRI aims
to find reliable, relevant and
diverse social content.”
“It plans to enable exploration of effective social
content as well as engage
users to increase regional
content generation. It plans
to contextualise the content
for better exploration without looking into the language and location of the
users,” Yahia said.
She said a MoU has been
signed with Al Jazeera for
exclusive access to its data.
The QCRI is looking forward
to improve local media businesses and Arabic social networking as well as aims to
globally recognise through
high quality research.
Science journalists and guests take part in one of the sessions at the Seventh World Conference of Science Journalists, in Doha, on Tuesday.
(QT PHOTO)
GOVERNMENTS of many
countries have placed
severe restrictions on their
scientists to interact with
local and foreign media,
opined experts at a panel
discussion during the 7th
World Conference of
Science Journalists 2011
held at the Education City
of Qatar Foundation on
Tuesday.
The session, called ‘Secret
Science’, was moderated by
Phil Hilts of Knight Science
Journalism Programme,
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. It was attended
by Richard Stone of Science
Magazine, Grigory Pasko, a
freelancer from Russia, and
Margaret Munro from
Postmedia News, Canada.
The panelists said that
countries have a system
where scientific organisations have limited contact
with the media. Without
prior approval of the
authorities
concerned,
journalists are unable to
approach
scientists.
According to them, some
governments
try
to
put barriers and limit
access to scientists and
their work.
Talking about his experience in China, Richard Stone said there were several
occasions when he was
harassed by the Chinese
officials.
“Before the 2008 Beijing
Olympics, journalists needed permission to report on
anything outside Beijing.
By 2008 the government
revised many of the regulations on foreign journalists
but there was a crackdown
on the journalists during
the Jasmine Revolution,”
Stone said.
Narrating his experience, Stone gave a few
examples when he was not
allowed to report on scientific developments in
China. He said that he was
not allowed to report on
the Three Gorges Dam and
none of the scientists were
allowed to speak to him.
In 2007, he tried to report
on an ecological problem
but the scientists were
gagged and could not
speak to the foreign press.
“In 2008, many of the scientists were ready to
speak as some of the
restrictions were lifted
and there were some
changes in the system,”
he said, referring to the
changes in the press law.
Richard Stone
spoke about his
journalistic expe
rience in China.
Stone narrated
how he was barred
from meeting Chinese scientists.
Talking about the situation in Russia, Grigory
Pasko said journalists as
well as scientists are under
threat from the government in Russia.
“Nine scientists are in
prison in Russia for none
of their faults. A committee has been set up to protect the scientists. Many of
them are charged with
espionage and are put
behind the bars,” he said.
Echoing similar sentiments, Margaret Munro narrated the situation in Canada and urged the world
governments to allow sufficient
freedom
to
scientists and science
journalists.
(JV)
Richard Stone speaks at the conference, in Doha,
on Tuesday. (QT PHOTO)
‘World needs a science journalists’ community’
AILYN AGONIA
DOHA
SCIENCE journalism is a
good
mechanism
for
understanding the use of
science and technology,
said Alan Leshner, CEO of
the American Association
for the Advancement of
Science.
During his presentation
on the second day of the
ongoing World Conference
of Science Journalist 2011
on Tuesday, the expert
stressed that the fast-changing time is in need of a
vibrant science journalism
community.
“We are living in the best
of scientific times. The
world badly needs a vibrant
science journalism community,” Leshner said.
According to Leshner,
people may claim to know
what science is but most of
them have no idea of the
real concept of the subject.
Citing a survey on people’s
knowledge towards scientific research conducted in the
US and Europe, he said,
“About 70 to 90 percent
people in the US believe that
the benefits of science outweigh its disadvantages. In
Europe, over 80 percent of
the population said science
and technology improves
quality of life. But people
still have little understanding of what is science.”
He stressed the importance of raising awareness
of the people on the fundamentals of science and technology. Leshner also identified building science capaci-
The session
was titled ‘Am I
a Science Journalist’ and it discussed the definition
of a science
journalist.
ty and national policies that
reflect the best science necessary for countries to prosper and to maintain the
appropriate science-society
relationship.
The session titled ‘Am I a
CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science Alan Leshner speaks at the conference, in Doha,
on Tuesday. (QT PHOTO)
Science Journalist?’ delved
into the definition of a science journalist. The panellists discussed whether the
term ‘journalist’ is appropriate for science bloggers and
educators in the field.
Homayoun Kheyri, a freelancer for BBC World
Service, put more emphasis
on the role of science journalists. “Science journalists
help bridge the gap between
the scientists and the people,” he said.
According to award-winning freelance journalist
Cristine Russell and one of
the panelists, labelling a
journalist as ‘science journalist’ is not a big issue. The
issue is whether the goal of
journalism has been met by
calling the person a ‘science
journalist’.
Russell, who has written
about science, health and
environment for over three
decades, stressed on the
practice of responsible
journalism.
“The goal of journalism
has not changed. It is not
about the question of the
name. The goal should be
the same. We should also
think about practising journalism. We need to get science journalists from their
theoretical desks to the
practical field,” she said.
Other panel members
included Ed Yong and
Moheb Costandi.