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Aim Lower: Social Mobility and Higher Education in the Levelling Up Era
Aim Lower: Social Mobility and Higher Education in the Levelling Up Era
Social mobility champions are accused of having ‘lost focus on the role that a socially mobile society should have in matching all members of society into occupations and roles which they are suited for and enjoy, and at which they excel.’ Indeed, they give little attention to ‘the actual aspirations and ambitions of real people’.
Genuine Open Access to Academic Books Requires Collective Solutions
This post argues that for academic books to be genuinely open, an emphasis should be placed on collective funding models that limit the prospect of new barriers to access being erected through the imposition of expensive book processing charges (BPCs).
Without a Clear Sense of Purpose, What is the Future of National Research Assessment Exercises in Australia?
Without a Clear Sense of Purpose, What is the Future of National Research Assessment Exercises in Australia?
Australia’s ERA and EIA research assessment exercises lack a clearly defined purpose, or return on investment for Australian universities. In a climate of declining trust in the Australian Research Council, together with a confused idea about how research should be funded, the assessment regime itself is at a critical point of juncture.
What Does 'Levelling Up' R&D Look Like in the UK?
It is good that the authors of HEPI’s report ‘Regional Policy and R&D’ note that the UK, by most agreed measures, is significantly unbalanced economically (in terms of income, productivity and economic growth).
The Instagram ads Facebook won't show you
Companies like Facebook aren’t building technology for you, they’re building technology for your data. They collect everything they can from FB, Instagram, and WhatsApp in order to sell visibility into people and their lives.
The 'Capitalism is Broken' Economy
This is the midweek edition of Culture Study - the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing. Subscribers: If you haven't activated your invitation to Sidechannel, email me for a new one! Along with
Don't Hire Top Talent; Hire for Weaknesses!
Design your hiring process to find the right people to strengthen your teams' weaknesses, rather than trying to find the best people. Instead of "how can we find the smartest people?" think about "how can we find the people who will make our team stronger?"
A Self-Correcting Fallacy - Why Don't Researchers Correct Their Own Errors in the Scientific Record?
A Self-Correcting Fallacy - Why Don't Researchers Correct Their Own Errors in the Scientific Record?
Correcting mistakes and updating findings is often considered to be a key characteristic of scientific research. In practice, self-correction of published research is infrequent, difficult to achieve, and perceived to come with reputational costs.
University of Toronto Researchers Accelerate Embrace of Open Science
Quickly sharing the genetic sequence of the new coronavirus in early 2020 made all the difference in the response to the pandemic.
The Absurdity of University Rankings
Rankings are artificial zero-sum games. Artificial because they force a strict hierarchy upon universities. Artificial also because it is not realistic that a university can only improve its reputation for performance exclusively at the expense of other universities’ reputations.
Search Scholarly Materials Preserved in the Internet Archive
Looking for a research paper but can't find a copy in your library's catalog or popular search engines? Give Internet Archive Scholar a try! We might have a PDF from a "vanished" Open Access publisher in our web archive, an author's pre-publication manuscript from their archived faculty webpage.
The Publisher's Association's Impact Assessment on OA is Pretty Much As You'd Expect
The Publisher's Association's Impact Assessment on OA is Pretty Much As You'd Expect
The UK Publisher's Association has commissioned a report that seems to be their latest attempt at painting open access to research as economically damaging to the publishing sector.
From Horizon 2020 to Horizon Europe: Why It is Not Yet "business As Usual" for UK Universities
From Horizon 2020 to Horizon Europe: Why It is Not Yet "business As Usual" for UK Universities
Thanks to the Brexit deal, it is likely that UK researchers will gain access to the Horizon Europe programme and EU research funding. Will this suffice for UK higher education institutions to return to pre-Brexit participation levels?
Campus or Platform - What Shape Will the Post-COVID University Take?
Campus or Platform - What Shape Will the Post-COVID University Take?
Online learning is fragmenting the traditional model of the university as a single site for both education and research. In this blog, it is discussed how this digital transition is reshaping universities.
Crossref's Board Votes to Adopt the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure
Crossref's Board Votes to Adopt the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure
DataCite Commons at Your Service
DataCite and the FREYA project partners are proud to announce the official launch of DataCite Commons. DataCite Commons is the web interface to explore the PID Graph, formed by the publications, datasets, research software, and other research outputs generated by researchers working at research institutions and supported by grant funding.
How Do Researchers Evaluate Research?
The Official PLOS Blog studies how researchers evaluate both the credibility and impact of research outputs.
Wikimedia 2030: Together with Libraries to the Largest Knowledge Infrastructure in the World
Wikimedia 2030: Together with Libraries to the Largest Knowledge Infrastructure in the World
The international Wikimedia movement, best known for its community-based online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, marked its 15th anniversary by setting its sights on the year 2030 and defined strategies, values and goals in an open process. Wikimedia Germany’s Nicole Ebber and Holger Plickert have answered some questions about the transformation, how Wikimedia wants to become the largest knowledge infrastructure in the world and what connections they see to libraries.
More Better Science | Clothing the Emperor
More Better Science | Clothing the Emperor
This blog calls for a better scientific quality by pointing to the shortcomings in academia.
A Roadmap to Restore Science in Government Decisions
We do not have to live in a constant state of fear that our health is being put at-risk. We can restore and strengthen science-based decision-making processes that are protected from political interference. Today, we are releasing our first set of recommendations providing a roadmap for how the fede
Open Knowledge Foundation Seeks Visionary Leader to Steer the World Towards a Free, Fair, and Open Society
Open Knowledge Foundation Seeks Visionary Leader to Steer the World Towards a Free, Fair, and Open Society
The process of recruiting a new CEO will commence over the next few weeks. An open future has never been more important – will you join us to create it?
The Importance of Being Second
PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases and PLOS Pathogens have all revised their ‘scooping’ policy to waive the novelty criteria for work submitted within six months of a similar study having been published.
Perspectives on Open Science and Inequity: Who is Left Behind?
Due to precautionary measures in regard to the coronavirus, the second day of this year's Open Science Conference got canceled. Luckily, the panellists Johanna Havemann, Anne-Floor Scholvinck, Daniel Spichtinger and August Wierling agreed to submit their opening statements as a blog post.
A Rebuttal to "A Fiasco in the Making?"
A rebuttal to the opinion piece in Stat News, "A fiasco in the making?"
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?
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.