Bringing animal ethics teaching into the public domain: the Animalogos experience

Abstract

An increasing number of academic researchers blog – most as a form of science communication to a wider public. This tool is particularly interesting as it provides a way for scientists to communicate directly with a public rather than depending on journalists. When we launched Animalogos (animalogos.blogspot.com) in December 2009, our main aim was to establish a forum of communication for people working professionally with animal ethics and animal welfare, in order to provide a Portuguese-language professional perspective on issues previously almost exclusively commented on by animal rights and animal protection NGOs. Increasingly, we have also integrated the blog into animal ethics teaching, where we now use it as the main examination tool in the animal ethics discipline of two courses: a postgraduate course in animal welfare and an undergraduate course in veterinary medicine. Individually, students have to write a comment to one of the existing blog posts, a comment which is published by the students themselves. In groups, they have to write a post on a topic of their own choice, which is published after revision. For examination purposes, the texts thus produced by the students are evaluated as a short written essay. Whether to be anonymous or not is the students’ own choice. Using the blog as a resource for teaching and examination started as a pilot project during the academic year 2010/11, during which the method was evaluated from the teachers’ perspective. The main advantages with involving students in the blog activity is that firstly students get to make a real contribution to the public debate and secondly that this draws attention to the blog. The main disadvantage we observed was that most posts written by students require substantial revision before they can be published, sometimes resulting in negative reactions from the students. Continuing the project in 2011/12, we have asked feedback from students. Overall, they view the experience as positive and consider examination through writing for the blog preferable to traditional exams (written or oral), essays or oral presentations. More than half of the students would like this examination approach for more disciplines within the course they are taking. All respondents think that anonymity should be an option when they are writing for the blog.