Category Archives: Peer Review

An (Im)Modest Proposal – The UK Evidence Information Service | Pasco Phronesis

Three U.K. universities are doing something I doubt their U.S. counterparts have the resources (or the willingness to risk) to duplicate.  They have started a process for establishing an Evidence Information Service (EIS) to, as they put it, help put … Continue reading

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Multiverse Controversy Heats Up – Scientific American

The multiverse is one of the most divisive topics in physics, and it just became more so. The major announcement last week of evidence for primordial ripples in spacetime has bolstered a cosmological theory called inflation, and with it, some … Continue reading

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How Academia and Publishing are Destroying Scientific Innovation: A Conversation with Sydney Brenner | King’s Review – Magazine

An interview with molecular biologist Sydney Brenner… In most places in the world, you live your social life and your ordinary life in the lab. You don’t know anybody else. Sometimes you don’t even know other people in the same … Continue reading

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Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers : Nature News & Comment

The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense. Over the past two years, computer scientist Cyril Labbé of Joseph Fourier University in … Continue reading

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Scientist proposes revolutionary naming system for all life on Earth

A Virginia Tech researcher has developed a new way to classify and name organisms based on their genome sequence and in doing so created a universal language that scientists can use to communicate with unprecedented specificity about all life on … Continue reading

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Scientists reading fewer papers for first time in 35 years : Nature News & Comment

A survey of the reading habits of US university researchers saw a drop in the traditional, paper-based consumption of information. A 35-year trend of researchers reading ever more scholarly papers seems to have halted. In 2012, US scientists and social … Continue reading

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Would teaching economics backwards help students be ready for the world?

Who really knows… but it might be worth the experiment! …here’s one temporary fix for introductory economics: teach it backwards. Reversing the order in which introductory economic classes are taught today might be the easiest way to respond to the … Continue reading

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▶ Are Memes & Internet Culture Creating a Singularity? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios – YouTube

 

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The History, Honor, and Travail of the Nobel

Mark Jackson takes a look at the prize against which most other prizes are measured and how sometimes, winning the great honor precedes the slowing down of an innovative research career. Via The Not-So Noble Past of the Nobel Prize http://theconversation.com/the-not-so-noble-past-of-the-nobel-prizes-18939

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How Higgs owes his Nobel to an editor and a biologist | Science News

In his talk, describing the events that led to the prediction of his boson, he provided an enlightening case study about how science really works. As with so many good ideas in science, Higgs had trouble getting his paper published. … Continue reading

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Schoolhouse Block: Science Students and the Government Shutdown | The Student Blog

It’s Day 5 of the government shutdown and the Panda Cam is still off. What does this mean for American science students? One of the biggest effects making its way around the science blog-o-sphere is the cutting of funding for scientific research. … Continue reading

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Assessing impact » Testing hypotheses…

Steven Hill (@stevenhill), Head of Research Policy at the Higher Education Funding Council for England, responds to a recent publication by Steven Hrotic and me here: Assessing impact » Testing hypotheses…. Here is the original publication, which is available open … Continue reading

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Developing indicators of the impact of scholarly communication is a massive technical challenge – but it’s also much simpler than that | Impact of Social Sciences

Developing indicators of the impact of scholarly communication is a massive technical challenge – but it’s also much simpler than that | Impact of Social Sciences.

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New Peer Review Pilot at NSF: Applicants as Reviewers? | CHS Sponsored Programs

For this pilot project, instead of a traditional review panel, all principal investigators submitting proposals to the Sensors and Sensing Systems (SSS) will be required to review seven competing proposals! The program officer will then compile the final rankings and … Continue reading

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Nigel Warburton’s negative vision of what philosophy isn’t | jbrittholbrook

Does not resisting impact requirements mean you’re not a real philosopher? Nigel Warburton’s negative vision of what philosophy isn’t | jbrittholbrook.  

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Friends With Benefits – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Some real gems in this piece from today’s Chronicle, with which we collaborative humanists at CSID are much in sympathy. I sample the piece here, but it is well worth reading in full: No one works alone. It’s just a … Continue reading

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Pure hype of pure research helps no one : Nature News & Comment

Dan Sarewitz on continued belief in myths of science policy. Pure hype of pure research helps no one : Nature News & Comment. I blogged my immediate thoughts about Dan’s article here.

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56 Indicators of Impact

In 2011, several core members of the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity (CSID) at the University of North Texas held a meeting during which we imagined different ways to indicate the impact of our activities. We scribbled them on … Continue reading

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Impact, impact, impact | Pioneers Post

Discussing the term ‘impact’ — something we did at this workshop, and elsewhere. Impact, impact, impact | Pioneers Post.

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Not Safe for Funding: The N.S.F. and the Economics of Science : The New Yorker

Aside from the inherent interest of all things having to do with NSF merit review … what, that’s not just us CSID folks, is it? … anyway, there’s also some really interesting stuff about what motivates scientists in this article. … Continue reading

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The impact imperative can be better understood through the opportunities and contraints of feminist scholarship | Impact of Social Sciences

Feminist researchers are motivated to undertake impact activities because of their feminism. We want to change, as well as observe, the world. via The impact imperative can be better understood through the opportunities and contraints of feminist scholarship | Impact … Continue reading

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Holdren Attacks House Bill, Defends NSF’s Grant Selection Process – ScienceInsider

Holdren Attacks House Bill, Defends NSF’s Grant Selection Process – ScienceInsider.

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The ‘Broader Impacts’ of Sequestration on Science

CSID Director Bob Frodeman has some suggestions about the interconnection of research & society in post-austerity world. Now that we’ve been driven off the “fiscal cliff,” perhaps we should look around and assess the results. It turns out that sequestration … Continue reading

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Subcommittee Reviews NSF’s FY 2014 Budget Request | Democrats -Committee on Science, Space and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives

Links on NSF Merit Review hearing: Subcommittee Reviews NSF’s FY 2014 Budget Request | Democrats -Committee on Science, Space and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives. http://science.house.gov/press-release/subcommittee-reviews-nsf-budget-explores-ways-improve-grant-approval-process http://science.house.gov/hearing/research-subcommittee-hearing-overview-national-science-foundation-budget-fiscal-year-2014 http://science.edgeboss.net/wmedia/science/sst2013/RS041713.wvx        

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NSF Peer Review Under Scrutiny by House Science Panel – ScienceInsider

John Holdren to Science House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology: “I think it’s a dangerous thing for Congress, or anybody else, to be trying to specify in detail what types of fundamental research NSF should be funding.” NSF Peer … Continue reading

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