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Ig Nobel Win for Roller Coaster Therapy
Riding on some types of roller-coaster is an effective way of removing kidney stones.
Guest Post: Challenges for Academics in the Global South - Resource Constraints, Institutional Issues, and Infrastructural Problems
Guest Post: Challenges for Academics in the Global South - Resource Constraints, Institutional Issues, and Infrastructural Problems
For social science and humanities researchers in many parts of the world there are significant barriers to conducting and sharing research, in some cases more so than for science and medicine. In this guest post, Dr. Naveen Minai provides a perspective as a gender studies researcher in Pakistan.
Radical Open-Access Plan Could Spell End to Journal Subscriptions
Eleven research funders in Europe announce ‘Plan S’ to make all scientific works free to read as soon as they are published.
Global State of Peer Review
The Global State of Peer Review is one of the largest ever studies into the practice of scholarly peer review around the world focusing on four questions: 1. Who is doing the review? 2. How efficient is the peer review process? 3. What do we know about peer review quality? 4. What does the future hold?
An Explosion of Openness Is About to Hit Scientific Publishing
Major European countries are mandating that publicly-funded research should appear only in open-access journals.
Bell Burnell: Physics Star Gives Away GBP2.3M Prize
One of the UK's leading female astronomers is to donate her GBP2.3M winnings from a major science prize she was awarded. The sum will go to fund women, under-represented ethnic minority and refugee students to become physics researchers.
Making It Easier to Discover Datasets
There are many thousands of data repositories on the web, providing access to millions of datasets. To enable easy access to this data, Google launched Dataset Search.
British Astrophysicist Overlooked by Nobels Wins $3m Award for Pulsar Work
British Astrophysicist Overlooked by Nobels Wins $3m Award for Pulsar Work
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell will donate the money to help students underrepresented in physics.
Hope and a Welter of Concerns Greets Europe’s Radical Open Access Plan
Scientists warn the devil is in detail of the European Commission’s latest open access plan, while publishers argue prohibiting researchers from submitting their work to certain journals is a threat to academic freedom.
Peer Reviewers Unmasked: Largest Global Survey Reveals Trends
Scientists in emerging economies respond fastest to peer review invitations but are invited least.
Too Much Academic Research Is Being Published
The decision by The Review of Higher Education, a highly respected academic journal, to temporarily suspend submissions due to a backlog of more than two years’ worth of articles awaiting reviews or publication set off a twitter storm and much debate in the corridors of academia about the future of academic publishing, and in particular its very foundation, blind peer review.
The Key to a Happy Lab Life Is in the Manual
A well-crafted set of guidelines and advice can save time, reassure trainees and promote a positive lab culture, argues Mariam Aly.
Free our Knowledge
ECR-driven initiative launching in 2019 to collectively boycott commercial publishers and return scholar communication to the academic community.
cOAlition S: An Initiative to Make Full and Immediate Open Access to Research Publications a Reality
cOAlition S: An Initiative to Make Full and Immediate Open Access to Research Publications a Reality
The 11 national research funding organisations that form cOAlition S have agreed to implement the 10 principles of Plan S in a coordinated way, together with the European Commission including the ERC. Other research funders from across the world, both public and private, are invited to join cOAlition S.
Talent Isn't Keeping Women Away from Science. Sexism, Stereotypes and Bad Science Are
Talent Isn't Keeping Women Away from Science. Sexism, Stereotypes and Bad Science Are
Girls are equally able at STEM-related subjects at school but are reluctant to choose them for a career. That is linked to a lack of confidence. We're only just starting to tackle the problem.
Science Without Publication Paywalls: cOAlition S for the Realisation of Full and Immediate Open Access
Science Without Publication Paywalls: cOAlition S for the Realisation of Full and Immediate Open Access
In this Perspective, a group of national funders, joined by the European Commission and the European Research Council, announce plans to make Open Access publishing mandatory for recipients of their agencies' research funding.
Addressing the Mental Health Crisis Among Doctoral Researchers
A perspective from Germany's biggest network of doctoral researchers.
Google Unveils Search Engine for Open Data
The tool, called Google Dataset Search, should help researchers to find the data they need more easily.
Documentary Puts Lens on the Open-Access Movement Upending Scientific Publishing
Paywall, a documentary about the open-access movement, makes its debut and will be available online.
European Science Funders Ban Grantees from Publishing in Paywalled Journals
Bold move is intended to trigger open-access tipping point.
Britain Loses Medicines Contracts as EU Body Anticipates Brexit
European Medicines Agency ends pharma evaluations work and moves contracts to bloc.
University Clears Ngago Gene-editing Study Authors of Deception
But an investigation confirmed that the study was flawed.
Open Access the Movie
Richard Poynder views a documentary on the tug of war over paywalls in scholarly publishing.
Open Access to Publications: the SNSF Supports Europe's Plan S
Open Access to Publications: the SNSF Supports Europe's Plan S
European and national research funders are expected to commit all researchers to granting open access to their publications as of 2020. The SNSF supports this Plan S. However, it is not in a position to add its signature to the plan at present.
Apple, IBM, and Google Don't Care Anymore If You Went to College
Skills matter. How you learned them may not.
Open-access Journal Editors Resign After Alleged Pressure to Publish Mediocre Papers
All 10 senior editors of the open-access journal Nutrients resigned last month, alleging that the publisher, the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), pressured them to accept manuscripts of mediocre quality and importance.
Academicons: Icon Font for Academics
Icons for websites and organisations related to academia that are often missing from mainstream font packages. It can be used by itself, but its primary purpose is to be used as a supplementary package alongside a larger icon set.
Publish Peer Reviews
Biomedical funders and ASAPbio call on journals to sign a pledge to make reviewers’ anonymous comments part of the official scientific record.