AAB enables effective science communication by providing a direct link between the general public and active researchers or “experts” in the field. (Our rule of thumb is that an expert must have a PhD or MD or be working toward one, have a track record of research publication, and/or be employed in science education). These experts endeavor to provide timely, up-to-date, and authoritative answers to current questions, while the archive of previously answered questions provides a substantial and constantly growing and increasingly comprehensive online resource. It is the intention of AAB to complement, rather than compete with, the classroom (or lecture hall) by providing information beyond what is readily available: a system is in place to prevent the service from being abused by those attempting to find a shortcut to doing their homework and assignments.
In a typical exchange, a user will go to the site, perhaps search for an archived question related to the question on their mind, and then post the question in one of the 14 categories (Mammals; Birds; Reptiles and Amphibians; Fishes; Invertebrates; Plants and Fungi; Microorganisms; Fossils; Genes, Genetics, and DNA; Human Biology and Evolution; Ecology, Biodiversity, and Behavior; Evolution; General Biology; Research and Careers). This results in a new page containing the unanswered question, which experts subsequently discover—perhaps via the “recent questions” or “unanswered questions” link. Experts can also set up automatic alerts that e-mail them when questions in a given category or containing a specific keyword are posted.
If a question is deliberately offensive or “trolling,” it is simply deleted. Homework questions (which are far more common, but still only compose a small part of the traffic) will get a brief “We don’t answer homework” answer and be marked for automatic deletion in a week's time, giving the person who posted the question time to read the reply. The decision as to what constitutes a homework question is made by the various experts on the site and is entirely dependent on their judgment. Homework questions are generally easy to spot as they do not read like genuine questions, e.g., “Name the major blood types in humans?” or “Describe the process of DNA replication.” More often than most readers would find credible, students have included the mark schemes associated with their question.
Assuming a question passes these simple human filters—as more than 90% of them do—then it receives more attention. If the question's title is too broad or uninformative—titles like “Biology” or “Dinosaurs” are all too common—it will be replaced with something more descriptive. Likewise, the question itself may be edited for clarity if it has spelling or grammatical mistakes. Time commitments vary between experts, but as each question simply needs to be read and then have a box ticked if necessary to delete it, this is simple and quick to do. The total administration input from all the experts is only a few hours a week for editing, arranging, and deleting problematic questions.
Then over the next few hours and days, answers are given by various experts. These often turn out to be more informative than the initial questioner may have envisaged: for example, the somewhat frivolous question “What’s the best way to stop Velociraptor attacks?” (http://www.askabiologist.org.uk/answers/viewtopic.php?id=988) attracted six answers. The first noted the general principle that it’s best not to go near large, fierce animals in the first place; the second went on to suggest climbing a spiral staircase, because dromaeosaurids such as Velociraptor had stiff tails that would have made them unable to negotiate tight bends; subsequent answers pointed out that the orientation of dromaeosaur wrists would have made it difficult for them to open doors as depicted in the Jurassic Park movies, and that, “in life” Velociraptor was much smaller than depicted on screen. It’s not unusual for a pop-cultural question like this to lead into answers that turn on details of anatomy: this we feel, can engage a child's attention far more readily than conventional teaching methods and takes them farther than they might expect from what may have been a tongue-in-cheek question.