Monthly Archives: February 2012

Nurse, Willetts and National Attitudes to Science Funding – Binocular Vision Blog | Nature Publishing Group

Nurse, Willetts and National Attitudes to Science Funding – Binocular Vision Blog | Nature Publishing Group. The comment from Kieron Flanagan (twitter: @kieronFlanagan) makes a lot of sense to me.

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Research Works Act: Elsevier and politicians back down from open-access threat.

Research Works Act: Elsevier and politicians back down from open-access threat.. A brief account in slate Magazine, with links.

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Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Don’t be too worried about the environment – it’s bad for your health. Or so goes the sophistical argument presented in this analysis of risk perception: Even today, when media warnings about the latest health or safety risk are commonplace, … Continue reading

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A call for the philosopher librarian

Librarian Dave Puplett on the role of the librarian. Academics must be applauded for making a stand by boycotting Elsevier. It’s time for librarians to join the conversation on the future of dissemination, but not join the boycott. | Impact … Continue reading

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NPR Tries to Get its Pressthink Right » Pressthink

NPR Tries to Get its Pressthink Right » Pressthink. An interesting post on the new ethics handbook issued by NPR.

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Open Science Federation – Google+ – Now it’s official — The Research Works Act is dead. …

Open Science Federation – Google+ – Now it’s official — The Research Works Act is dead. ….

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Census Finds Bachelor’s Degrees at Record Level

More than 30 percent of American adults hold bachelor’s degrees, a first in the nation’s history, and women are on the brink of surpassing men in educational attainment, the Census Bureau reported [last] Thursday. The figures reflect an increase in … Continue reading

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Taxpayers deserve value for money from research funding | Stephen Curry and Imran Khan | Science | guardian.co.uk

Imran Kahn and Stephen Curry present a case for accountable science here: Taxpayers deserve value for money from research funding | Stephen Curry and Imran Khan | Science | guardian.co.uk. This in response to Ananyo Bhattacharya’s piece from last week. … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Broader Impacts, Future of the University, Metrics, Peer Review | 18 Comments

Altmetrics, anyone?

Jason Priem presents altmetrics at Purdue University. Since this is posted on the peerevaluation.org site — one of my favorites — I suspect there’s a way to offer feedback on he presentation. I also suspect that Jason Priem has his … Continue reading

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Elsevier withdraws support for Research Works Act

Here is the announcement. Of course, the Research Works Act is probably a loser at this point, so it’s not really a big thing for Elsevier to withdraw its support. Moreover, Elsevier still says in their announcement that they continue … Continue reading

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Scientists have sold their souls to business | Ananyo Bhattacharya | Science | guardian.co.uk

A reactive attitude toward impact: The assumption that the lack of evidence for impact is evidence for lack of impact permeates Whitehall and the Swindon-based research councils charged with funding science. The research councils continue to demand impact statements with … Continue reading

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Innovation for the People, by the People – NYTimes.com

Obama’s innovation strategy includes giving Federal agencies wide latitude to offer prizes to link innovation with specific national needs. Would be interesting to see how the competitions are judged. Without checking, my bet would be peer review. Innovation for the … Continue reading

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First INIT Virtual Seminar on Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Horizons

The International Network for Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity (INIT: http://www.inidtd.org/) is launching its First Virtual Seminar on Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Horizons on the platform www.interdisciplines.org. The first paper open to discussion is by Wolfgang Krohn (Bielefeld University): Interdisciplinary Cases and Disciplinary … Continue reading

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Gleick apology over Heartland leak stirs ethics debate among climate scientists

The outing of the researcher who exposed the Heartland Institute’s efforts to discredit climate change has thrown the scientific community into tumult, with fierce debates raging on Tuesday over whether to brand his actions heroic, or misguided… “Heartland has been subverting … Continue reading

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Colleges Should Teach Intellectual Virtues – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education

This is an interesting read — as are the comments. Colleges Should Teach Intellectual Virtues – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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Obama pushes the question: What are students, taxpayers getting for their college dollars?

During his State of the Union address, Obama put higher education on notice: “If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down,” he said. “Higher education can’t be a luxury— it’s an … Continue reading

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Center for Ethics and Politics of Emerging Technologies (EPET) conference 2012

Technology is an important driver of change in today’s world, and the desirability of such change is a matter of concern in public debate and policy making. Whereas the influence of morality on technology is well acknowledged, the influence of … Continue reading

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SNET Conference 2012

S.NET invites contributions to the Fourth Annual meeting of The Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies (S.NET), to be held at the University of Twente, the Netherlands, on October 22-25, 2012. The four-day conference will assemble scholars, … Continue reading

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Civilisation faces ‘perfect storm of ecological and social problems’ | Environment | guardian.co.uk

The perpetual growth myth … promotes the impossible idea that indiscriminate economic growth is the cure for all the world’s problems, while it is actually the disease that is at the root cause of our unsustainable global practices. via Civilisation … Continue reading

Posted in Globalization, Science and technology ramifications, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | Leave a comment

The Brain Drain in Spain … We Should Feel their Pain

I’ll briefly summarize the article from Nature by Amaya Moro-Martin: Spain’s ministry of science no longer exists, having been absorbed, along with a substantial cut in funding, by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Spain’s university system is so backward … Continue reading

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Disruptive Innovation and Philosophy

Christensen’s The Innovative University applies his theory of disruptive innovation to the contemporary university. Disruptive innovation occurs when a new idea or technology redefines a market. The new approach–say, the Apple personal computer–doesn’t approach the competition head-on; it instead starts … Continue reading

Posted in Future of the University, Public Philosophizing | 1 Comment

What Are Universities For? by Stefan Collini – review | Books | The Observer

Thanks to @ProfSteveFuller (the Twitter handle of CSID Senior Fellow Steve Fuller) for pointing me toward this scathing review: What Are Universities For? by Stefan Collini – review | Books | The Observer. What universities are emphatically not for is … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Future of the University | 2 Comments

Our research must eventually become irrelevant: this is how to prove we had an impact on policymaking | Impact of Social Sciences

Sounds kinda right to me: Our research must eventually become irrelevant: this is how to prove we had an impact on policymaking | Impact of Social Sciences. It’s an interesting spin on Steve Fuller’s Schumpeterian reading of teaching: we destroy … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Future of the University, Transformative Research | 2 Comments

A Call to Reform Student Debt Laws

The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys has issued a report cautioning that the growing social strain of student loan debt could culminate in a financial crisis akin to the bursting of the mortgage debt bubble. Their primary policy recommendation … Continue reading

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Tighten fracking regulations, scientists urge US officials

Tighten fracking regulations, scientists urge US officials | Environment | The Guardian.

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