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Get Political Reporters off the Coronavirus Story Because They Don't Distinguish Between Right and Wrong

Get Political Reporters off the Coronavirus Story Because They Don't Distinguish Between Right and Wrong

News organizations should take political reporters – and perhaps even more importantly, political editors – entirely out of the loop on this story. It’s too important to be covered as a two-sided battle over who’s winning the narrative.

The [R]evolution of Open Science Book Now Available for Free

The [R]evolution of Open Science Book Now Available for Free

Jonathan Tennant's latest book, The [R]evolution of Open Science, is now available online for free.

Building a More Sustainable World Will Need More Women Engineers

Building a More Sustainable World Will Need More Women Engineers

Women are seriously under-represented in the engineering world - but they can problem-solve from a uniquely impactful perspective.

Underrepresented Faculty Members Share the Real Reasons They Have Left Various Academic Institutions

Underrepresented Faculty Members Share the Real Reasons They Have Left Various Academic Institutions

When Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt asked a large group of underrepresented faculty members why they left their higher education institutions, they told her the real reasons for their departures -- those that climate surveys don't capture.

The Simplest of Models for Open Access to Research Proves Itself: Welcome to Subscribe-to-Open

The Simplest of Models for Open Access to Research Proves Itself: Welcome to Subscribe-to-Open

What if libraries agreed to continue paying the subscription fees to journals that they were already subscribing to, only the journals flipped to open access?

The Busy Lives of Academics Have Hidden Costs - and Universities Must Take Better Care of Their Faculty Members

The Busy Lives of Academics Have Hidden Costs - and Universities Must Take Better Care of Their Faculty Members

Hilal A. Lashuel's experiences have taught him that maintaining good mental health and balancing life and work is a struggle everywhere in academia.

How the Academic Publishing Oligopoly Skews Debates on the Cost of Publishing

How the Academic Publishing Oligopoly Skews Debates on the Cost of Publishing

We should be nurturing the kinds of publishing cultures we want to see: those that value the labour needed to care for publishing and that work in harmony with research communities rather than extract from them, argues Samuel Moore.

Coronavirus Is What You Get When You Ignore Science

Coronavirus Is What You Get When You Ignore Science

 Science and scientists face crushing opposition. In addition to silent-spreading disease and a burning planet, they must take on the moneyed, the godly, the dictatorial and Mike Pence.

The Ultimate Open Access Timeline

The Ultimate Open Access Timeline

What happened instead of us sitting down and thinking how we could spend our money in the most technologically savvy way to the benefit of science, scholars and society. A generation later, roughly US$300 billion poorer and none the wiser, it seems.

Of Mythical Beasts and Zero-Embargo Mandates | Advancing Discovery | Springer Nature

Of Mythical Beasts and Zero-Embargo Mandates | Advancing Discovery | Springer Nature

Last year, everyone in U.S. academic publishing had strong opinions about a mythical beast that all had heard about but none had actually seen: a rumored Executive Order from the White House Office of Science and Technology that would mandate immediate public availability of research results by federally-funded authors.

How Academic Science Gave Its Soul to the Publishing Industry

How Academic Science Gave Its Soul to the Publishing Industry

Self-governance of science was supposed to mean freedom of inquiry, but it also ended up serving the business model of scientific publishers while undermining the goals of science policy.

Women of Color in Academia Often Work Harder for Less Respect | Nadia Owusu

Women of Color in Academia Often Work Harder for Less Respect | Nadia Owusu

The racist assumption that women of color are hired as faculty because of our identities rather than our credentials can have a serious impact on our careers.

What Coronavirus Teaches Us for Preventing the Next Big Bio Threat

What Coronavirus Teaches Us for Preventing the Next Big Bio Threat

The vast majority of the discourse among the punditry and policymakers is about ensuring we have the right response. Shouldn't we instead be asking a more fundamental question: How did this happen in the first place?

Read-and-Publish Open Access Deals Are Heightening Global Inequalities in Access to Publication

Read-and-Publish Open Access Deals Are Heightening Global Inequalities in Access to Publication

Opinion piece argues that Plan S deals have streamlined open access provision in the global North while exacerbating existing inequalities in scholarly publishing, by establishing and entrenching a two-tier system of scholarly publishing based on access to funds. 

Your DNA is a Valuable Asset, So Why Give It to Ancestry Websites for Free? | Laura Spinney

Your DNA is a Valuable Asset, So Why Give It to Ancestry Websites for Free? | Laura Spinney

DNA testing companies are starting to profit from selling our data on to big pharma. Perhaps they should be paying us, says science writer Laura Spinney.

The Research Literature Looks Too Good to Be True

The Research Literature Looks Too Good to Be True

Standard reports paint a much rosier picture of the research landscape than may be warranted. In this analysis, the first hypothesis of standard articles reported was supported by the data 96% of the time, while that rate was only 44% in registered reports.

They Wanted Research Funding, So They Entered the Lottery

They Wanted Research Funding, So They Entered the Lottery

A survey of New Zealand scientists found that recipients of a randomized funding program favored random allocations of some kinds of grant money.