IAU C55 Communicating Astronomy with the Public Report for CAP2010 Cape Town March 15 th – 19 th 2010 Ian Robson

C55 structure from   President – Ian Robson (UK)   VP – Dennis Crabtree (Canada)   Secretary - Lars Lindberg Christensen (Denmark)   Organising Committee Oscar Alvarez Pomares; Augusto Damineli Neto; Richard Fienberg; Anne Green; Ajit Kembhavi; Birgitta Nordstrom; Kazuhiro Sekiguchi; Patricia Whitelock; Jin Zhu  

Progress:   Working Groups:   Washington Charter - Chair Dennis Crabtree (Canada)   Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project - Chair Adrienne J. Gauthier (USA)   Best Practices – Chair Lars Lindberg Christensen (Denmark)   Communicating Astronomy Journal – Chair Pedro Russo (Portugal)   New Ways of Communicating Astronomy with the Public - Chair Michael West (USA)   CAP Conferences - Chair Ian Robson (UK)

Progress:   Much of the work has, not surprisingly, been strongly focused on IYA2009 (inc EX WG) and this has limited the work that has been able to be achieved across the entire portfolio. I think we can say that this effort has been extremely successful as we’ll see this week

Progress:   The IYA2009 focus has been hugely beneficial in promoting C55 ideas in the areas of New Media and the VAMP work.   Also, we have seen major benefits in ways that were not envisaged in the Working Groups – such as the Galileoscope and FETTU to name but two.

Washington Charter   Progress has been limited due to effort availability but the current picture is that it has been endorsed by:   19 professional astronomical societies or agencies   12 universities, labs, facilities and other organisations

Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project   Spectacular progress has been made on this project, lots of agreement on metadata and tools, culminating in the launch of ‘Portal to the Universe’ at the NAM/JENAM meeting in the UK in April 2009 and sponsored by the IAU and ESO   Portal to the Universe is a global, one-stop clearinghouse for online astronomy content, with news, blogs, video and audio podcasts, images, videos targeting the complete range from laypeople, press, educators, to scientists   During the first three months of operation it aggregated 3,000 press releases; 1,500+ podcast episodes; 11,000+ blog posts and received more than 130,000 visitors.

Best Practices   This project has also suffered due to the IYA2009 activities but some of the aims have been incorporated into the IYA activities and instructions for organisers and evaluation.

Communicating Astronomy Journal   Another spectacular success story   Initial meetings and discussions with the Astronomy Educational Review amongst others – launched in October 2007   It has a formal organisational structure and editorial board and provides a refereeing process for submitted papers.   Six editions published by summer 2009, over 60 articles with 1,500 hard-copy subscribers, 2,700 on-line subscribers   ESO supporting editorial and shipping costs

New Ways of Communicating Astronomy with the Public   This work has also taken off, albeit through a life of it’s own rather than through the Group – and led by a small number of devoted ‘geeks/gurus’.  As well as blogging and podcasts, recently Twitter has appeared on the scene alongside Facebook and Second Life. In other areas key examples such as Galaxy Zoo show how this is a vibrant way forward for the future, especially for the younger generation of producers and communicators

CAP Conferences   There has been one CAP conference since Prague, CAP2007 in October 2007 in Athens.   It was co-organized by the National Observatory of Athens and the Eugenides Planetarium   This was a tremendous success, with over 200 participants – much of the focus was on looking forward to IYA2009   The Proceedings were published in book format as well as on-line.   CAP2010 is alive and well and here we are in Cape Town, in March 2010   CAP2011 – Watch this space

C55 structure for the next 3 years   President - Dennis Crabtree (Canada)   VP – Lars Lindberg Christensen (Denmark)   Secretary – Pedro Russo (Portugal)   Organising Committee Anja Anderson; Oscar Alvarez Pomares; Augusto Damineli Neto; Richard Fienberg; Anne Green; Ajit Kembhavi; Ian Robson; Kazuhiro Sekiguchi; Patricia Whitelock; Jin Zhu

Proposed working groups for the next 3 years   Washington Charter - Chair Dennis Crabtree (Canada)   Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project - Chair Robert Hurt (USA)   Best Practices – group wound up   Communicating Astronomy Journal – Chair Pedro Russo (Portugal)   New Ways of Communicating Astronomy with the Public – renamed ‘New Media’ with Pamela Gay as Chair and Lars Lindberg Christensen as Co-Chair.   CAP Conferences - Chair Ian Robson (UK)   ProAm collaboration – Chairs and membership TBD

Work needed   Update the web once we complete CAP2010   Washington Charter – must progress, we need supporters who can influence their ‘local’ agencies etc. Need to focus on individual departments/groups as endorsers   VAMP – formalise the supporters of this group as huge activity going on and this will be a key area for the future of CAP – so much to do in this topic, supporters sought.

Work needed   Portal to the Universe – can it become a one-stop image repository ? Is it further expandable ?   CAPJournal – needs sponsorship for the printing costs   Need more supporters (workers) for all the WGs   What do we retain (nationally/globally) post IYA2009 ?