Monthly Archives: February 2013

Five habits of great students: Lessons from top-ranked STEM school | WSJ

I like this piece from the WSJ. The authors are a world history and an English teacher at the top-ranked high school for STEM education. They identify five habits of their most successful students: 1) frequent reading in a variety of subjects … Continue reading

Posted in Interdisciplinarity, STEM Policy | 1 Comment

Physicist tipped for US energy post : Nature News & Comment

As the administration of US President Barack Obama prepares for a renewed push towards cleaner energy and reduced greenhouse-gas emissions, the White House appears to have chosen another physicist to head the effort. The leading candidate to replace departing energy … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Environmental policy, Gas Fracking, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Does technological liberation have to come at a price?

A good read from Evgeny Morozov at the WSJ: Are Smart Gadgets Making Us Dumb? Once we step into this magic space, we are surrounded by video cameras that recognize whatever ingredients we hold in our hands. Tiny countertop robots inform … Continue reading

Posted in Innovation, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, STEM Policy, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Leave a comment

Humanities Unraveled – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Humanities Unraveled – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Posted in Accountability, Future of the University | Leave a comment

Conservatives declare war on college – Salon.com

Good insight from Andrew Leonard: For many conservatives, the humanities departments of public universities are bastions of the “tenured left” busily brainwashing the young people of America into godless socialist postmodernism. They’d much rather for-profit corporations were in charge of … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Economics & STEM Research, Future of the University, Open Access, STEM Policy | Leave a comment

OSTP Open Access Memo — even faster than FASTR

John P. Holdren: Scientific research supported by the Federal Government catalyzes innovative breakthroughs that drive our economy. The results of that research become the grist for new insights and are assets for progress in areas such as health, energy, the … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Open Access | Leave a comment

Institutions starting to walk the Broader Impacts walk

CSID’s own Robert Frodeman is slated to keynote an upcoming Broader Impacts Infrastructure Summit. This summit marks the first of its kind for its focus on institutional infrastructure, primarily at universities and colleges, to support faculty and staff in coordinating, … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Broader Impacts, Conferences Upcoming, NSF, STEM Policy | 1 Comment

Influential few predict behaviour of the many : Nature News & Comment

To completely understand how a living organism works one would have to take it apart, the great physicist Niels Bohr once observed — but then the organism would certainly be dead1. In general, systems of high complexity, including living things … Continue reading

Posted in Science and technology ramifications, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Open Access Creative Commons licences for Cambridge Journals « CJO « Cambridge Journals Blog

Cambridge University Press has announced today that articles in its Open Access journals can be published with a Creative Commons Attribution licence (‘CC-BY‘). This licence allows users and readers to download, read, re-use and re-distribute freely, as long as they … Continue reading

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How Scientists View the Public, the Media, and the Political Process | Climate Shift

Most scientists in the US and UK blame public ignorance of science for flawed policy preferences and political choices. They tend to be critical of media coverage, yet rate favorably their own experience with the media.  Scientists say policy-makers and … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability | 1 Comment

An unusual take on the Research Excellence Framework – HERAVALUE

An unusual take on the Research Excellence Framework – HERAVALUE.

Posted in Accountability, Broader Impacts, Future of the University, Metrics | Leave a comment