What's SciCom

Scientific Communication Tool as a Foundation for Innovation in Occupational Health Research
SciCom – The Atlas of Occupational Health

Although the evidence produced by occupational health research continues to grow, it is generally understood that 80% of the evidence produced is not implemented in society. To accelerate the social implementation of occupational health research, it is essential to promote science communication among stakeholders such as academic researchers, practitioners, the general public, service providers, and governments.
Therefore, the Scientific Committee, Editorial Committee, and Public Relations Committee of the Japan Society for Occupational Health jointly developed a website that serves as a foundation for open science communication. This is SciCom.

 

Aims

SciCom was established to respond to the global open science strategy by accelerating the practical application of science and generating innovation through the accumulation and utilization of knowledge that would occur by making science open.

SciCom has two main aims.

The first is to archive the findings of occupational health research so that they can be widely used in an easy-to-understand format and made available to everyone. In today’s era of open science, people’s access to research papers is increasing. However, it is difficult for the general public and specialists outside the field to go over the contents of numerous research papers in a short period of time.
Therefore, SciCom has introduced “lay-summaries,” which summarize the content of a research paper in plain language. SciCom also offers “infographs,” which present an illustrated overview of the paper; and “video shorts,” which introduce materials with movies. Graphical overview articles with the aforementioned three types of content are devised to provide a quick overview of trends in occupational health research.

The second aim is the acceleration of knowledge creation through occupational health research. As stated in the Fifth Science and Technology Basic Plan (Society 5.0) and the Comprehensive Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation 2017, the social implementation of knowledge is urgently needed to facilitate innovation worldwide. In order to create new innovations in occupational health research that address social issues in occupational settings, interdisciplinary efforts are necessary.

According to James W. Young—the father of the idea generation method—the principle of an idea that is the source of innovation is that "an idea is a new combination of existing elements," and is created through exposure to knowledge from diverse disciplines and professional fields and the application of those perspectives to one’s own field. We hope that SciCom can serve as a source of innovation by enabling exposure to research trends and topics in various fields of occupational health.

 

Article Resources

  • The SciCom contents introduce articles published in the Journal of Occupational Health, Environmental and Occupational Health Practice, or SANGYO EISEIGAKU ZASSHI(Japanese Journal of Occupational Health), all of which are published by the Japan Society for Occupational Health.
  • Original English lay-summary articles, provided by the editorial boards or the authors themselves are translated and publisized as milloring Japanese ones from using DeepL Translator, a neural machine translation service.
  • Original English infographics, provided by the editorial boards or the authors themselves are publisized in each article, if available. For articles without infographs, we use artifical images generated by the DALL-E2 image generation AI (DALL-E2), using keywords in the lay summary article and publish them.
  • Video shorts, provided by the editorial boards or authors are uploaded to the youtube platform, then incorporated into the article.
  • The Editor's choice is a list of articles that the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of the Journal of Occupational Health, Environmental and Occupational Health Practice, or Occupational Health recommended.

 

Current Model / SciCom Model

Current Model for accessing science knowledge

Researchers access academic databases or journal sites via the Internet to access academic information. Although it is possible to access academic papers through those academic databases, they are rarely used by the general public.

SciCom Model

The Japan Society for Occupational Health prepares a portal site based on lay-summaries and infographics. The articles will be posted on SNS and accessed through the portal. The portal will be used as a communication tool among occupational health professionals, as well as to promote knowledge of occupational health research among the general public. SciCom will archive overview articles of occupational health research, and will be used by domestic and international occupational health professionals (practitioners and researchers), academics (researchers outside the field of occupational health, etc.), service providers, and government officials to support the creation of innovation.

 

Intended users of SciCom

The primary users of this site are assumed to be domestic and international occupational health practitioners, academics (e.g., occupational health researchers or researchers outside the occupational health field), service providers, and government officials. Its secondary users are assumed to be the general public and students.

 

About the abbreviation of the name “SciCom”

SciCom is an abbreviation of “Science Communication.” Each of its constituent letters also bears meaning, as shown below.

Ｓ: Stakeholders
SciCom seeks to make domestic and international stakeholders (general public, researchers in other fields, practitioners, administrators, companies, etc.) aware of scientific findings related to occupational health and arouse their interest in occupational health.
Ｃ: Communication
It seeks to promote occupational health research by fostering the interactive nature of scientific information among disciplines and stakeholders through communication.
Ｉ: Internet
It seeks to accelerate translational research by providing a bridge between theory and practice through the Internet, which is widely used by the general public.
Ｃ: Commons-innovation
It seeks to accelerate innovation in occupational health research by inviting citizens to submit proposals and opinions on issues as a place to practice citizen science.
Ｏ: Open-science
It seeks to improve the status of occupational health research by encouraging various academic fields to utilize the findings of occupational health research.
Ｍ: Media
It seeks to serve as an occupational health research portal for scholarly knowledge and increase the social impact of scholarly articles.
 
 

Planning, Production, and Operation

This website is planned and operated by the Academic Committee of the Japan Society for Occupational Health in cooperation with the Editorial Board and Public Relations Committee.

■Science Communication Working Group, Academic Committee

- Takeshi Ebara (Department of Ergonomics, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan)　

- Mayumi Tsuji (Department of Environmental Health, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan)

- Tomohide Kubo (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Japan)

- Toru Takebayashi（Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Keio University, Japan)

 

■Administrative Cooperation

- Naomichi Tani（Department of Ergonomics, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan)