Thoughts on university leadership
Are politicians stealing our academic freedom? Is their fetish with open access publishing leading to a “pay to say” system for the rich? Will the trendy goal of making publicly financed research freely available skew the world of scholarship even more in the direction of the natural sciences? I don’t think so. But it took… Read More…
Traditional scientific communication directly threatens the quality of scientific research. Today’s system is unreliable — or worse! Our system of scholarly publishing reliably gives the highest status to research that is most likely to be wrong. This system determines the trajectory of scientific careers. The longer we stick with it, the more likely it will… Read More…
Open Evaluation will improve science. Researchers constantly evaluate each other — when we submit our results for publication, when we apply for grants, and when we apply for new jobs or promotions. Peer evaluation is our quality assurance strategy. And it needs to be better. Here are thirteen suggestions to include in a new system of Open Evaluation. Click here to read more…
What’s really at stake with open access is the chance to radically reform the way that we communicate the results of science. That was my answer when MyScienceWork asked me to describe in one sentence the opportunity that open access represents. While I think the basic philosophy of open access is right — the results… Read More…
What if I write something and publish it — and then publish it again? Is that plagiarism? What if I don’t mention the second time that there was a first time? Have I stolen from myself? Does that even make sense? If it does, is it unethical? Two recent high-profile cases — one from the world… Read More…
The Open Access movement started with the idealistic goal of making research results available to scientists who could not afford the increasing subscription costs of journals. It was picked up by funding organizations — including governments — who developed a principle that they should have free access to the results of the research they fund. Read more…
In the push-and-pull between open access (OA) publishing models and that of traditional scientific journals, OA should not strive to prove it is as good as the latter; it can be better, and social media tools can give it that competitive edge. Learn how…
Is it wrong for Norwegians to hunt whales? Is it unethical to do research on Minke whales killed for sale? If a researcher submits an article building on such data, is it wrong for an editor to publish it? These are just some of the questions raised in the story below. Click here to read more…
Over 20% of researchers have been pressured by journal editors to modify their articles in ways that manipulate the reputation of the journal. Journals are ranked by the citation rates of the articles they publish. Editors can manipulate their journal’s ranking by asking authors to include more citations of other articles in that very journal…. Read More…
There are four key components to publishing, and they’re all about to change. Ten years from now, publishing will be done in ways that we are only beginning to envisage. Politics and profit will of course compel these changes. But the specific innovations coming our way will be driven by a generation of tweeters, bloggers, status… Read More…
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