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 […]
Lying With Maps and Census Data
Geographer Frank Donnelly notes that census geography and maps are not automatically reliable – they can be used to intentionally skew research findings.
Why Academic Writing is Dry and Boring by Necessity
The necessity of rigorous if uninspiring academic writing is perhaps best illustrated with the story of a prominent 18th-century intellectual named Franz Anton Mesmer. He believed that illnesses were caused by blockages that interfered with the healthy flow of magnetic fluid through the body.
Assessing Australia’s Poor Record of Impact Assessment
Over the years, Australia has had a confused relationship with the impact agenda, with much of this grounded in the vagaries of government. When the idea of a national exercise to evaluate research was first touted in the form of the Research Quality Framework, the focus was to be on both quality and…
How Bibliometrics Incentivize Self-Citation
Using bibliometrics to measure and assess researchers has become increasingly common, but does implementing these policies therefore devalue the metrics they are based on? Here researchers present evidence from a study of Italian researchers revealing how the introduction of bibliometric targets has changed the way Italian academics cite and use the work of their colleagues.
Susan Michie on Behavioral Change
While you might think that the essentials of human behavior are pretty similar, one of the things Michie quickly tells interviewer Dave Edmonds in this Social Science Bites podcast is that it can be unwise to jump to conclusions when studying behavior (or trying to change it).
Dickens’s Heart of Darkness – Not Your Muppet Christmas Carol
If you missed the broadcast of the new BBC/FX version of A Christmas Carol, it is well worth tracking down on a streaming service. While the production is occasionally bonkers, it brilliantly captures Charles Dickens’s passionate anger about social injustice in Victorian Britain.
Should We Take a Chance on Lotteries Determining Research Funding?
Peer review is integral to the award of funds for academic research. Lambros Roumbanis argues that randomly awarding research funding via lotteries presents a more rational, efficient and most importantly unbiased means of distributing research funding.
Understanding The Most Widely Used Occupational Therapy Measure
Since its debut in the Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy in 1990, the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure has been adopted by, more than 40 countries across healthcare professions, and as such is the most widely used occupational therapy measure in the world. The article has received 490 citations according to CrossRef and has been cited, according to Google Scholar, 843 times.
