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 […]
Academy of Management Report on Measuring Scholarly Impact
Usha Haley shares findings of a recent Academy of Management report that sought to answer the impact of scholarly research. By surveying 20,000 members & conducting a selection of interviews, most scholars felt the present system of evaluation and rankings has led to an over reliance on traditional techniques and methodologies, and even “junk science”.
Educational Reforms Still Have No Answer for School System
The Gates Foundation is regrouping after its latest school improvement disappointment, but it’s not bowing out of the education reform business. As the philanthropic powerhouse led by Bill and Melinda Gates explained in their latest annual letter to the public, it ended its effort to overhaul teacher evaluation systems after determining that these efforts were failing to generate intended results.
Ignorance and Interdisciplinary Work: Field Notes from the Social Science Foo Camp
The first-ever “Social Science FOO Camp” was held a couple weeks ago at the Facebook headquarters in California. What’s a Social Science Foo Camp? According to Tom Kecskemethy, director of the AAPSS, “its a hard-to-describe ‘un-conference,’ for the uninitiated.” Follow Tom in this post as he shares his perspective on the FOO camp and explains what he learned.
Sander van der Linden on Viral Altruism
When online charitable appeals take off, social psychologist Sander van der Linden perks up. He studies ‘viral altruism,’ and in this Social Science Bites podcast he details to host David Edmonds how he studies this phenomenon.
Are Ethnographers Ever Wrong?
Steven Lubet, the author of ‘Interrogating Ethnography: Why Evidence Matters,’ explains the importance of his approach to investigating the discipline — to ‘put it on trial’ — and to reiterate the idea that accuracy matters in social science. Spurring on his restatement is a recent review on Social Science Space that Lubet argues missed his point entirely.
The State of Gun Research in the US: Six Questions Answered
The research needed to answer questions about the role of firearms in acts of horrific mass violence doesn’t exist – and part of the problem is that the United States government largely doesn’t support it.
How Young People Cope with Challenging Contexts
In an exploration of the complex dynamics of youth in especially challenging situations around the world, Charalmabos Tsekeris and Lilu Stylianoudi from the Academy of Athens have brought together 15 studies from around the world that point to a surprising finding: young people manage reasonably well in extremely difficult situations.
Interrogating Ethnography – and Coming Up with the Wrong Answers?
A recent critique of Alice Goffman’s influential 2014 book, “On the Run,” has, in effect, put ethnography conducted in the United states on trial. Here, our Robert Dingwall argues a case for the defense.
