Current Awareness Tools

Blogging is an excellent way to catch the latest buzz on a research topic or contribute your own ideas to the conversation. In recent years, academia has seen more and more researchers adopt blogging as a way to engage in scholarly conversations. Scholars use blogs to:

• Publicize established research results, preliminary findings or work in progress
• Crowd source information and data
• Keep a record of research notes
• Explain research to non-specialist audience and students

Here are a few research blogs from individuals in the UBC community:

• Rosie Redfield Research - UBC Zoology professor reports her daily findings in the lab
• The Polymath Blog - mathematicians using blog as open research forum to try and solve mathematical questions
• Savage Minds : Notes and Queries in Anthropology - written by several anthropologists, this blog provides an online forum for discussing the latest developments in the field

• The Blog Search Engine can help you locate blogs in your research area.
• Use Google Alerts to find new blogs.
• Ask colleagues in your discipline for pointers.

Once you've found a blog you'd like to follow, you can sign up for email notification of new posts.