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 […]
If You Want an Academic Mentor, Try to Be a White Guy
Grad sudents looking for a professor to be a mentor had a better chance of getting a positive response – or a response at all – if they were white and male, according to a new study that broke down findings by discipline and whether a school was public or private.
Tamiflu and the Ethics of the British Medical Journal
No one expected Tamiflu to be a wonder drug, but indications are that it’s moderately useful in fighting a serious public health threat. But that message was lost last week in an ill-starred rush to beat up on ‘wicked’ Big Pharma, argues Robert Dingwall.
The Lowdown on Five Collaborative Writing Tools for Academics
Research collaboration now involves significant online communication. But sending files back and forth between collaborators creates redundancy of effort, causes unnecessary delays and, many times, leaves people frustrated with the whole idea of collaboration. Christof Schöch looks at some web-based collaborative writing tools and presents some helpful tips on finding the right tool for the job.
Call for Papers: Diverse Regions: Building Resilient Communities & Territories
Less than a week remains to submit abstracts for the Regional Studies Association’s European Conference 2014, slated for June 16-18 in Izmir, […]
Brain Scans are Fascinating But Behavior Tells Us More
In a pair of views from our partner site The Conversation, two exponents of brain research discuss the utility of brain scan technology. Here Catherine Loveday suggests that observational methods are still more valuable.
Call for Authors: The Social Science of War: An Encyclopedia
The story of social science and war is a long one, going back to the Roman military in the late second century […]
Publication Ethics and Biomedical Imperialism
Applying ethics to social science research can raise as many issues as it answers. A new set of guidelines on which Robert DIngwall consulted gives clarity in some cases like manipulation of images and duplicate publication but leaves some other controversies unsettled.
What Does the Future Hold for Academic Associations?
Competing associations. A funding drought. Smaller travel budgets. Royalty streams drying up. Surely the future for academic associations is grim. Steven Rathgreb Smith, the executive director of the American Political Science Association, certainly sees challenges all around. But the former president of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action and one-time editor of the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly also knows a thing or two about how to snatch opportunity from adversity.
