How Do Blogs Help Recruit Women and Minorities in the Geosciences?

UPDATE: Pat Campbell has asked that if you did take the survey initially when it was returning 404 errors, and you subsequently re-took it, drop her an email and she will send you cookies! She has promised to send cookies to the first 10 of my readers who had to retake the survey, if you let her know by email. I've had her cookies. They are great! If you got the 404 error this is a nice incentive to retake - just do so and then drop Pat an email :
campbell AT campbell-kibler DOT com

UPDATE: If you took this survey right after I first posted this entry and got a 404 error when you tried to submit your answers, we are very very very sorry but your survey data was not captured. The error has been fixed now and we would be ever so grateful if you would please consider retaking the survey for us! Thank you so much, and sorry once again for the error!

Over the past several years, the geoscience blogosphere has blossomed so much that this fall, the Geological Society of America (GSA) will be convening a Pardee Keynote Symposium called "Google Earth to Geoblogs: Digital Innovations in the Geosciences." Kim Hannula of All Of My Faults Are Stress Related started wondering how blogs serve women geoscientists. Kim recruited the rest of us and we decided to approach this problem as scientists - by collecting data and analyzing the results. Specifically, we'd like to know how blogs might help in the recruitment and retention of women and minorities. We plan to discuss our results at the GSA session on "Techniques and Tools for Effective Recruitment, Retention and Promotion of Women and Minorities in the Geosciences." We have designed a survey, gone through the Institutional Review Board process (completely foreign to the geologists in our group), and now we need help from you.

We are asking you to complete a short (5- 10 mins), anonyomous, survey. The survey focuses on your participation with science blogs, why you read science blogs and what you gain from reading science blogs. It will also ask you to list blogs you find to be particularly useful and a little about yourself. No questions are required, all are optional.

We are primarily interested in the responses of women and minority geoscientists, but non-minority men, please feel free to fill out the survey as well. Your answers will be a useful point of comparison. Note also that we are definining geosciences rather broadly. If you are or can be a member of GSA, AGU, AAG, AMS, ASLO, their international counterparts, or similar organizations, please consider taking the survey.

All the data collected are anonymous and no individuals can or will be identified. Your participation in this study is completely voluntary. You are free to withdraw at any time without having any negative affect. If you have questions concerning the study, please contact Dr. Anne Jefferson at ajefferson (at) uncc (dot) edu.

To start the survey, just click here.

UPDATE: some commenters say the link above is not working; the url is http://fairerscience.org/CKA/consentform.html

Sincerely,
Anne Jefferson
Kim Hannula
Pat Campbell
Suzanne Franks

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the submit button takes you to a 404 error page. who knows if it was actually submitted before the redirect.

I did the survey and also got a 404 page error when I hit submit.

What happens is that you go through the questions, and at the end of the survey, you hit the submit button. A page error appeared so I'm not sure if my answers were submitted or borked.

The error is now fixed, but if you took the survey and got a 404 error, unfortunately, your data was lost. If you would be so kind as to retake it, we all would really really appreciate it. And we apologize for the error.