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 […]
How Far Can Twitter Reach in Good Survey Research?
Several public health researchers are intrigued about the possibility of using Twitter for important surveys. Might what’s true forthem also work in the social sciences?
What a Half-Baked News Article Tells Us About Explaining Research
A flawed article about wearable watches in the New York Times offers a teachable moment for researchers about how they can — and perhaps must — do a better job at disseminating their own findings.
A Marketplace of Ideas? Yes. A Market? No
Research and teaching have never been free from external constraints and public universities have long been expected to justify the resources society devotes to them. But universities feel threatened and increasingly incapable of fulfilling their primary functions.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, Consider Research Ethics
Imagine an ethics review system where the researcher’s proposal is read by an ‘ethics jury’ of four to six researchers drawn, as in legal juries, from the academic population at large, suggests Australia’s Gigi Foster.
Treating Science as Politics Does No One Any Favors
Although the GOP is usually fingered as anti-science, biased attitudes toward scientific information and trust in the scientific community can be found among liberals and conservatives alike, new research shows. As you might expect, biases vary based on the science topic being considered.
Young Scholars Fear for the University of Their Future
Universities are at a crossroads. Pushed by governments who want institutions to dominate in the competitive, globalized world of higher education, they are also struggling with questions about academic freedom in the face of the pressures of marketization. Here a group of young PhD students argue for more debate about the kind of places universities are becoming.
Is It Time to Say Goodbye to a Fickle Friend, the P Value?
After one psychology journal banned the use of P values outright, and new research suggests P value may not be as reliable as hoped, might it it time to show an old friend the door?
Science Communication in the Age of Polarization
A study of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science finds their politically homogeneous environment on and off the job seems to play a primary role in how they form judgments about policy issues and whether, or how, they choose to engage the public.
