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 […]
Weeding the Books Out of Academic Libraries
The printed book, though still part of the academic library ensemble, is being relegated to the role of supporting player rather than the lead actor, argues a University of California librarian.
Beware! Big Data Is Not Free of Discrimination
Math can be immoral. too. Algorithms rarely come equipped with an explanation for why they behave the way they do, notes mathematician Jeremy Kun, and the easy (and dangerous) course of action is not to ask questions.
A Modicum of Common Sense Helps Interpret Open Access Publishing
No one ever assumed that everything in print was trustworthy, says Virginia Barbour, and neither should that be the case for open access content. Content is what matters – whether delivered by open access, subscription publishing, or a printed document.
Big Questions Require Teams That Step Across Lines
‘Interdisciplinarity lies not above the academy, but in its very foundations,’ say the co-authors of a new report looking at this issue.
Who Should Decide Cuts for UK’s Research Councils?
Objective outsiders focused on the purse or knowledgeable insiders focused on the scholarship — who should decide the best way to derive the productivity and innovations sought from Britain’s Research Councils?
Here Be Dragons: The Perils of Predatory Publishing
The need to ‘publish of perish’ may send many academics adrift in unknown and dangerous waters of the predatory and vanity journals. It’s worth keeping a weather eye before sailing over the edge.
Did My Field Make Me a Liberal?
The idealized folk psychology that underpinned his original libertarian politics, says social psychologist Elliot Berkman, collapsed in the face of social psychological evidence.
In Defense of Uni-disciplinarity
Interdisciplinarityfor interdisciplinarity’s sake is fraught, argues Merlin Crossley. We should build bridges linking the tops of silos rather than try to break down silos themselves.
