Could Distributed Peer Review Better Decide Grant Funding?
The landscape of academic grant funding is notoriously competitive and plagued by lengthy, bureaucratic processes, exacerbated by difficulties in finding willing reviewers. Distributed […]
Why the h-index is a Bogus Measure of Academic Impact
Although experts in bibliometry have pointed out the dubious nature of the h-index, most researchers do not always seem to understand that its properties make it a far-from-valid index to seriously and ethically assess the quality or scientific impact of publications.
Why Social Science? Because We Will Need to Do Better in the Next Crisis
Without research in social, organizational, and behavioral sciences, argues John Haaga, as serious as the investment in biomedical research, the United States may be no better off when the next acute crisis hits.
Might Commercializing Social Science Be a Road to Impact?
As the world emerges from the COVID-19 lockdown many opportunities have arisen to rethink how and for whom our societies operate. In this post, Julia Black argues that social sciences can play a unique role in the post-COVID-19 recovery by forging new relationships with business and commerce and outlines how initiatives, such as the Aspect network, are seeking to bridge the divide between the social sciences and business.
A Giant in Mentoring Political Leaders: Lucius Barker, 1928-2020
Political scientist Lucius Barker, a pioneering African-American academic whose influence in fields like constitutional law and civil liberties has been amplified by the high-profile leaders he mentored, died on June 21. He was 92.
Size Still Matters: Discoverability, Impact and ‘Big’ Journals
One of the proposed advantages of open access publication is that it increases the impact of academic research by making it more broadly and easily accessible. Reporting on a natural experiment on the citation impact of health research that is published in both open access and subscription journals, Chris Carroll and Andy Tattersall, suggests that subscription journals still play an important role in making research discoverable and useful and thus still have a role to play even in open publication strategies.
The Future of Precarious Work
In 2009, American Sociological Review published Arne L. Kalleberg’s “Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition,” in which he explores the various ways unpredictable work impacts employees. Over 10 years later, sociologists actively turn to and build upon his work and the suggested structural changes needed to create more stable conditions.
People Do Not Understand Logarithmic Graphs Used to Visualize COVID-19
Editor’s Note: If you’re curious about the ways in which data visualization and graph use can generate impact with regard to the […]
Can Social Science Save Lives in a Pandemic?
David Canter considers the emerging social science perspectives for controlling COVID-19
