Case Study: Science, Medicine, 

Mathematics, and Technology forums

Background

The mission of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance is to establish, maintain, and advance 

the capacity to preserve our nation's digital resources for the benefit of present and future 

generations. The NDSA’s Content Working Group is focusing on investigating guidelines for the 

selection of significant content, discovery of at-risk digital content or collections, and engaging 

all stakeholders in the process of acquiring, preserving, and providing access to the content.

Working group members are developing case studies and/or models to share broadly with all 

stakeholders, from content producers to cultural heritage organizations. The goal of this case 

study is to engage all members of the community in the preservation of content and to 

encourage the cultivation of relationships that could enable preservation. This case study 

addresses at-risk Science, Medicine, Mathematics, and Technology forum content. 

About Science, Medicine, Mathematics, and Technology 

forums

Discussion forums have become a popular mode for scientists, mathematicians, engineers, 

doctors and technologists to talk to each other. Places like Stack Overflow, Math Overflow, and 

Science Forums have extensive amounts of these discussions. Science also comes up a lot in 

non-professional discussion forums, for example, forums for videogames that broach science 

topics, or a range of forums that exist around science controversy in the general public 

(evolution, anti-vax, etc). Lastly, many Citizen science projects, like Galaxy Zoo, have web forums 

that serve as a corollary component to the project where users discuss potential discoveries. 

Historical Value

• The Public Record of Knowledge, Discovery and Innovation: Forums where professionals 

discuss topics record discussion between professionals. In the future these kinds of 

discussion forums will be invaluable records of interactions and communications 

between experts. 

• Science Communication: As a novel form of communication these forums represent part 

of a change in science communication. As such, having a record of the different forums 

in different contexts is valuable to record the history of science communication. 

• Public Understanding of Science: Many forums that bring together popular audiences 

offer a rare opportunity to collect and preserve discussions of science and science topics 

Working Together to Preserve the Nation’s Digital Information

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that can allow insight into public understanding and perspective on a range of science 

topics. 

Example sites:

• Stack Overflow: Massive online discussion forums for troubleshooting software 

programing issues 

• Math Overflow: Focused discussion space for mathematicians to help each other work 

through problems. 

• Science Forums: Broad and ranging discussion of science topics in more than 680,000 

posts. 

• Forums devoted to science controversies: For 

examplehttp://www.evcforum.net/Forums.php and http://www.antievolution.org/cgibin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi or for that mater parts of other forums, this anti-vax 

section on a mothering forum http://www.mothering.com/community/f/443/im-notvaccinating 

• Sporum: A discussion forum devoted to the video game Spore. As much of the game is 

about science topics much of the forums also involve discussion of science topics. 

• Galaxy Zoo Forums: Web forums for a popular citizen science project.

Recognized Opportunities

• Interest in born digital science content preservation among content creators evident in 

establishing sessions on preserving science blogs at Science Online 

• Potential to incorporate this into the NDIIPP report on the Preserving Online Science 

meeting

Target Audiences

These audiences share multiple levels of local, state, national, and international interest: 

• State-wide communities: Academic researchers; historians of science; university 

students and professors; archives 

• National and International communities: Trending researchers; historians of science 

Educating Stakeholders

The NDSA seeks to communicate the role that online science discussion forums can in 

community history to stakeholders through multiple venues: 

• Content creators: Participate in events with content creators like Science Online 

• Funders: The National Endowment for the Humanities has funded work on preservation 

and access of science collections, the Alfred P. Sloan foundation has funded some work 

on the history of science, and the National Science Foundation funds a limited amount 

of work on the history of science

Working Together to Preserve the Nation’s Digital Information

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• Historians of Science: There is not yet the kind of focus on born digital history of science 

that one sees in some other historical topics like literature. There is a need to reach out 

to organizations like the History of Science Society, and the Chemical Heritage 

Foundation

• State libraries and historical societies: Educate and partner with state libraries and 

historical societies on preserving science content related to geographic regions. (NDSA 

members or regional centers collect; workshop presentations at district library 

association meetings; conference calls with public library directors

• National Libraries: Get national libraries to launch collections focused on these topics

Obstacles and Risk Factors

Possible risk factors and obstacles in Science, Medicine, Mathematics, and Technology forum

content:

• Identification and selection of content remains challenging

• Discussion forums are a rather ephemeral kind of content, so there is substantive 

potential for risk of loss 

Actionable Items • Encourage a partner, or multiple partners, to propose and begin to collect a collection of 

science, technology, mathematics and medicine discussion forums collection. Or, to get 

several partners to break the topic up into content areas to collect. 

• Example small web archiving projects could include 

• Professional Programing Discussion Forums Collection: A collection of discussion forums 

where programmers discuss technical solutions

• Mathematics Discussions Online Collection: A collection of discussion forums in which 

professional mathematicians discuss issues and trouble shoot problems. Could also 

include discussion of particular mathematical software, like Mathematica

• Science controversies Forums Collection: A collection of various discussion sites focused 

on topics like evolution and vaccines

• Popular Science Discussion on the Web Collection: There are a range of discussion

forums that are simply topically identified as general science forums. This would focus 

on collecting those

• Science in Pop Culture Forums: This would focus on targeting discussion forums 

associated with pop-cultural phenomena that generate considerable discussion of 

science topics. For example, tv-show forums for science fiction shows, video game 

forums for games like Spore that focus on science topics

• Reactions in Wisconsin to Stem Cell Research: Localized special collection focused on a 

particular topic in a regional area

For more information, to provide feedback, or to get involved, contact ndsa@loc.gov (please 

include the subject line: Content Case Studies).

Working Together to Preserve the Nation’s Digital Information

http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa/

December 12, 2013

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