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The publishers of the science journal Nature have established a Cambridge-based social media division, publishing a website for students, professors, researchers and writers, focused around original science education content and selected articles from the prestigious London-based journal.
With a staff of 30, Nature Education, a division of Nature Publishing Group, has launched a beta version of a site it calls Scitable. For now, it is focused exclusively on genetics. The site will eventually branch out to other topics, said Vikram Savkar, senior vice president and publishing director.
Nature Education chose Cambridge because it is at the heart of Boston’s academic community, Savkar said. He declined to specify how much Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd., has invested in Nature Education. But he said Nature sees its foray into social media as a seed of the company’s future expansion.
Boston College associate professor Clare O’Connor, who is on Nature Education’s editorial board, said the site’s accessibility makes it a better resource than cumbersome print textbooks for teaching genetics to non-majors. Eventually, she said, she hopes Scitable and sites like it will democratize science education globally.
Savkar said the company plans for Nature Education to be profitable in about four years through a mix of ads and paid premium content, such as tutoring services.
The new site is a break for Nature as it attempts to reach new markets and new advertisers, he said. The ultimate goal is to engage the next generation of researchers.
“Science education is a leaky pipeline,” Savkar said. “They start out majoring in science. By the time they graduate they are no longer majoring in science. The educational model is broken. Kids want to learn from the web, but a lot of what they find on the web is not reliable. We’re trying to provide something that’s authoritative and accessible.”
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