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When researchers write, we don't just describe new findings - we place them in context by citing the work of others. Citations trace the lineage of ideas, connecting disparate lines of scholarship into a cohesive body of knowledge, and forming the basis of how we know what we know.
Opinion pieces challenges the dichotomy that use of social media for public engagement with science and working to change policy and remove systemic barriers to inclusion are mutually exclusive.
Economists show increased research efforts are yielding decreasing returns. Too much innovation veneration! One driver of the replication crisis is our culture’s growing obsession with “innovation.” As technology historians Lee Vinsel and Andrew Russell state in their influential Aeon essay Hail the Maintainers: “Entire societies have come to talk about innovation as if it were an inherently desirable value."
A short list of seven functionalities that academic publishers looking to modernize their operations might invest in; from unencumbered access and improved social components, to dynamic data visualisations and more precise hyperlinking.
To what extent should academic hiring and promotional bodies apply a discount for articles with many authors?
We are entering a new era - the Impact Era - where increasingly philanthropists are grounding their generosity in decisions focused on having a real social impact. And, in response, nonprofit organizations are learning to refocus their strategies to maximize that impact.
In an Essay, Michael Johansson and colleagues advocate the posting of research studies addressing infectious disease outbreaks as preprints.
In today’s knowledge economy, the practical value of a STEM degree is obvious. Yet our future depends on graduates who are steeped in the humanities and social sciences.
Today's complex, dynamic scientific results are often found with the help of computers. And yet the most popular tool we have for communicating these results is the PDF - literally a simulation of a piece of paper. Maybe we can do better.
Most lab mice are kept in pristine conditions, but a few immunologists think a dose of dirt could make them a better model of human disease.
Across the UK, universities are falling behind government targets to increase female representation on their boards by 2020. What steps can they take?
University of California libraries tackle the transition from subscription-based publishing to sustainable open access.
John Ioannidis discusses the potential effects on clinical research of a 2017 proposal to lower the default P value threshold for statistical significance from .05 to .005 as a means to reduce false-positive findings.
The breadth of social and moral questions raised requires a new architecture for democratic debate, insists Simon Burall.
If scientists avoid discussing the topic candidly, racist theories will fill the vacuum.
How blockchain can be used to time-stamp data and authenticate research.
The privacy backlash over Cambridge Analytica and Facebook may lead to explosive consequences for academics.
After years in a deadlock with publishers, researchers are keen to know whether we will now see for-profit companies and ‘astroturfers’ enter the open science landscape and undermine science in pursuit of their commercial interests, while claiming to support the struggle of researchers, who demand more say in the publishing of scholarly articles.
Science is a human activity. When we fail to distill and explain research, we accumulate a kind of debt.
The sleeping bear of Russian science could finally wake - and China can show it how.
Should we treat preprints the same way that we treat reviewed and published material? If so, how can we make that clear to readers?
From Margaret Thatcher to Generation Snowflake, Keith Joseph to Sam Gyimah, why and how have universities and students found themselves so firmly on the wrong side of public opinion? And what are we going to do about it?
