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 […]
Children’s Perceptions: Teachers are Girls, Scientists are Boys
If you were to draw a ‘scientist,’ what would be the distinguishing features? Martin Rowley and James Hartley look at psychology studies which have evaluated children’s perceptions of scientists, all confirming stereotypical views of scientists as predominately white and male.
Do Scholarly Publishers Need a Creative Un-Commons?
A move by an association of STEM publishers to offer a bespoke category of open-access licenses for scholarly work has stirred up proponents of the existing Creative Commons system.
Publiscize: Instant Outreach in the First Person
Very, very little science makes its way to the public eye, and an even smaller amount of that makes an impact. Entrepreneurial scientist Robert Seigel is offering a way around the gatekeepers of knowledge.
Is Doctor Who a Sociologist?
Doctor Who’s sobriquet implies he’s earned a doctorate in something. The Doctor’s not telling what he might have studied, but his actions and attitudes make a strong case for one discipline …
Are Good Intentions Enough in Allocating School Places?
Unintended consequences and little practical improvement could result from England’s plan to give poor students priority in school placement, especially if schools can decide to opt in or out, argue Stephen Gorard and Rebecca Morris.
We Must Resist the Pressure to Be Interesting
Academic publishing creates incentives to simplify results, cull aberrations and focus on the exciting — often to the detriment of good research. Could more open access allows us to be good and boring?
Diets on the Internet: You Might as Well Make Them Up
Contradictory diet advice is everywhere – Katy Perry’s acupunctured fish, Matthew McConaughey and the caveman diet, Gwyneth Paltrow’s macrobiotic meals. It seems […]
A Social Science Audit for Facebook’s News Feed?
How can the public learn the role of algorithms in their daily lives, evaluating the law and ethicality of systems like the Facebook News Feed, search engines, or airline booking systems? Earlier this month Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society hosted a conversation about the idea of social science audits of algorithms, and J. Nathan Matias reports on the discourse.
