Category Archives: Accountability

Brace for impacts : Nature News & Comment

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its previous report in 2007, some scientists and many environmentalists were still loath to talk about adapting to climate change. The policy focus was squarely on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, and even … Continue reading

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A World without Scarcity?

An intellectual property lawyer considers the philosophical and legal consequences of a world where anything can be printed and copied. …new technologies promise to do for a variety of physical goods and even services what the Internet has already done … 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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Capitalism vs. Democracy – NYTimes.com

Thomas Piketty’s new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” described by one French newspaper as a “a political and theoretical bulldozer,” defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism.Piketty, a … Continue reading

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Micro-turbines could revolutionize small-scale energy production

A chief complaint about wind energy is that nobody wants to look at the turbines. A lab out of University of Texas – Arlington is revolutionizing the concept by creating windmills so tiny, ten can fit on a single grain … Continue reading

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What Happened On Easter Island — A New (Even Scarier) Scenario : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR

What we have here are two scenarios ostensibly about Easter Island’s past, but really about what might be our planet’s future. The first scenario — an ecological collapse — nobody wants that. But let’s think about this new alternative — … 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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Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt

In December 2012, a pink-haired complex systems researcher named Brad Werner made his way through the throng of 24,000 earth and space scientists at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held annually in San Francisco. This year’s conference … Continue reading

Posted in Basic News, Climate Change, Economics & STEM Research, Environmental policy, Globalization, Occupy Wall Street, Philosophy & Politics, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Science’s rightful place is in service of society | Dan Sarewitz

Science policy must concentrate less on how much money is spent, and more on how to translate investments into public good via Science’s rightful place is in service of society : Nature News & Comment.

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A Wizard of Oz Moment for the Web: Pull back the Curtains

Lightbeam, a download produced by Mozilla, the US free software community behind the popular Firefox browser, claims to be a “watershed” moment in the battle for web transparency. Everyone who browses the Internet leaves a digital trail used by advertisers … Continue reading

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Nietzsche’s ‘active forgetfulness’ in the face of the avalanche of digital data | This Is Not a Sociology Blog

When there were limits to storage we had to think carefully about what was really worth keeping. Today we store first and think whether it is useful later. Companies store vast quantities of data on us as customers and we … Continue reading

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CFP: HASTAC 2014 – Hemispheric Pathways: Critical Makers in International Networks | HASTAC

The challenges facing the Western hemisphere are multidimensional  and complex.  Urban agglomeration, economic development, ecological crisis, military conflict, digital privacy, impediments to advanced learning, negotiations of multiple cultural and historical perspectives—these are problems with scientific and human factors that must … Continue reading

Posted in Calls for papers, Conferences Upcoming, Future of the University, Interdisciplinarity, Open Access | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted in Accountability, Broader Impacts, CSID Publications, Field Philosophy, Metrics, NIH, NOAA, NSF, Peer Review, Public Philosophizing, STEM Policy, Transdisciplinarity, US Science Agencies | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Why Philosophy is Hopeless Today

So, let me tell you about the absurd. I’m at a conference on the philosophy of technology. I’m at a plenary. A big shot (who I have never heard of, but that does not say much anymore) is at the … Continue reading

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Opinion: Mind the Measures | The Scientist Magazine®

Opinion: Mind the Measures | The Scientist Magazine®.

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Hirschman on creativity

Nice Albert O. Hirschman quote brought to us by Malcolm Gladwell at the New Yorker: …The only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it … Continue reading

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Metrics 2.0: who will be the ‘Google of altmetrics’?

An interesting summary of presentations on altmetrics, including a set of interesting questions: BMJ Group blogs: BMJ Web Development Blog » Blog Archive » Metrics 2.0: who will be the ‘Google of altmetrics’?.

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BYOI: ORCID and Impact Story | Amber at Warwick: academic technology

Interesting post and slides from Amber at Warwick — a philosopher-information-technologist. BYOI: ORCID and Impact Story | Amber at Warwick: academic technology. I think there’s something right about the notion that this is “cool social scholarship.” But is it too … 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.

Posted in Accountability, Broader Impacts, CSID Publications, Field Philosophy, institutionalizing interdisciplinarity, Libraries, Metrics, Peer Review, Science and technology ramifications, STEM Policy, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Alternative alternative metric

Maybe more ways our 56 Indicators can be used to assist in a different approach to success: not only in Academia but the general day to day of living a measured life and working in a measurable way. Finding new … 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.  

Posted in Accountability, Broader Impacts, CSID Publications, Future of the University, institutionalizing interdisciplinarity, Metrics, NSF, Philosophy & Politics, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, STEM Policy, Transdisciplinarity | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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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On Reinventing the Wheel of Interdisciplinarity

Perhaps! But who wishes to concern himself with such dangerous “Perhapses”!                                                                                                                                             … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, CSID Publications, Future of the University, institutionalizing interdisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, Multidisciplinarity, STEM Policy, Transdisciplinarity | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

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

Posted in Accountability, Broader Impacts, Interdisciplinarity, Multidisciplinarity, Open Access, Public Philosophizing, Transdisciplinarity, Transformative Research | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments