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A newsletter and curated collection of 14962 articles on science policy
Supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation
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Publications
Gender
Citations

Rare Case of Gender Parity in Academia

web
Gender
Citations

Rare Case of Gender Parity in Academia

The results of this study strongly suggest that when male and female authors publish articles that are comparably positioned to receive citations, their publications do in fact accrue citations at the same rate. This raises the question: Why would gender matter “everywhere but here”? 

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Women in Science

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) IF/THEN Ambassadors

web
Women in Science

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) IF/THEN Ambassadors

The AAAS IF/THEN Ambassadors program furthers women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics by empowering current innovators and inspiring the next generation of pioneers.

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Reproducibility

Making Reproducibility Reproducible

medium
Reproducibility

Making Reproducibility Reproducible

Modern data science requires reproducible and functional work environments, not just ephemeral re-execution for validation.

medium
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News
AI

Congress Wants to Protect You from Biased Algorithms, Deepfakes, and Other Bad AI

technologyreview
AI

Congress Wants to Protect You from Biased Algorithms, Deepfakes, and Other Bad AI

Only a few legislators really know what they're talking about, but it's a start.

technologyreview
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Open Access
Publishing

Open Access Publishing: New Evidence on Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors

scholarlykitchen
Open Access
Publishing

Open Access Publishing: New Evidence on Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors

On Friday, Ithaka S+R released the latest cycle of our long-standing US Faculty Survey which has tracked the changing research, teaching, and publishing practices of higher education faculty members on a triennial basis since 2000.  Here, some of the key findings around open access are higlighted. Especially among early career researchers, real-world incentives remain misaligned — and indeed appear to be moving further out of alignment — with the drive towards open access.

scholarlykitchen
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Open Access
Publishing

Researcher to Reader (R2R) Debate: Is Sci-Hub Good or Bad for Scholarly Communication?

scholarlykitchen
Open Access
Publishing

Researcher to Reader (R2R) Debate: Is Sci-Hub Good or Bad for Scholarly Communication?

Transcript of a debate held at the 2019 Researcher to Reader Conference, on the resolution 'Sci-Hub Does More Good Than Harm to Scholarly Communication.'

scholarlykitchen
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Publications
Research Data
Publishing

Figure Errors, Sloppy Science, and Fraud: Keeping Eyes on Your Data

jci
Research Data
Publishing

Figure Errors, Sloppy Science, and Fraud: Keeping Eyes on Your Data

Recent reports suggest that there has been an increase in the number of retractions and corrections of published articles due to post-publication detection of problematic data. Moreover, fraudulent data and sloppy science have long-term effects on the scientific literature and subsequent projects based on false and unreproducible claims. The JCI introduced several data screening checks for manuscripts prior to acceptance in an attempt to reduce the number of post-publication corrections and retractions, with the ultimate goal of increasing confidence in the published papers.

jci
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Reproducibility

Rein in the Four Horsemen of Irreproducibility

nature
Reproducibility

Rein in the Four Horsemen of Irreproducibility

Threats to reproducibility, recognized but unaddressed for decades, might finally be brought under control. The four horsemen of the reproducibility apocalypse being: publication bias, low statistical power, P-value hacking and HARKing (hypothesizing after results are known).

nature
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Opinion
Open Access
Publishing
Funding

It's 2019. Academic Papers Should Be Free.

undark
Open Access
Publishing
Funding

It's 2019. Academic Papers Should Be Free.

Libraries and funding agencies are finally flexing their muscles against journal paywalls. Authors should follow suit.

undark
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Conference

Towards Persistent Identification of Conferences

web
Conference

Towards Persistent Identification of Conferences

Conference talks are a key element in scholarly communication. It is the primary mechanism for sharing research results and getting feedback. However, conferences in most disciplines never reached the same level of maturity as traditional journal publications in terms of quality management, which led to challenges like fraudulent conferences. There is need for a better control mechanism that can deliver credible information about conferences. 

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Misconduct

"A New Form of Plagiarism:" When Researchers Fake Co-Authors' Names

scholarlykitchen
Misconduct

"A New Form of Plagiarism:" When Researchers Fake Co-Authors' Names

There’s a new publishing trend in town, says Mario Biagioli: Faking co-authors’ names. Biagioli, distinguished professor of law and science and technology studies and director of the Center for Innovation Studies at the University of California, Davis, writes that it’s “the emergence of a new form of plagiarism that reflects the new metrics-based economy of scholarly publishing.” We asked him a few questions about what he’s found, and why authors might do this.

Related articles
Plagiarizing Names?
scholarlykitchen
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Open Access
Publishing

Elsevier Agrees to First Read-and-Publish Deal

insidehighered
Open Access
Publishing

Elsevier Agrees to First Read-and-Publish Deal

A Norwegian consortium has signed a new kind of subscription deal with Elsevier that includes open-access publishing - a first for the publisher. But the new rights come at a cost.

insidehighered
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Publications
Preprints
Open Science

Meta-Research: Tracking the Popularity and Outcomes of All BioRxiv Preprints

elifesciences
Preprints
Open Science

Meta-Research: Tracking the Popularity and Outcomes of All BioRxiv Preprints

The growth of preprints in the life sciences has been reported widely and is driving policy changes for journals and funders, but little quantitative information has been published about preprint usage. Here, we report how we collected and analyzed data on all 37,648 preprints uploaded to bioRxiv.org, the largest biology-focused preprint server, in its first five years.

elifesciences
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Publications
Misconduct
Publishing

Plagiarizing Names?

cell
Misconduct
Publishing

Plagiarizing Names?

A new trend in scientific misconduct involves listing fake coauthors on one’s publication. I trace some of the incentives behind faking coauthors, using them to highlight important changes in global science publishing like the increasingly important source of credibility provided by institutional affiliations, which may begin to function like ‘brands’.

cell
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Publications
Funding
Evaluation

What Words Are Worth: National Science Foundation Grant Abstracts Indicate Award Funding

sagepub
Funding
Evaluation

What Words Are Worth: National Science Foundation Grant Abstracts Indicate Award Funding

Can word patterns from grant abstracts predict National Science Foundation (NSF) funding? The data describe a clear relationship between word patterns and funding magnitude: Grant abstracts that are longer than the average abstract, contain fewer common words, and are written with more verbal certainty receive more money. 

sagepub
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Publications
Gender
Evaluation

Is Blinded Review Enough? How Gendered Outcomes Arise Even Under Anonymous Evaluation

web
Gender
Evaluation

Is Blinded Review Enough? How Gendered Outcomes Arise Even Under Anonymous Evaluation

Blinded review is an increasingly popular approach to reducing bias and increasing diversity in the selection of people and projects. We explore the impact of blinded review on gender inclusion in research grant proposals submitted to the Gates Foundation from 2008-2017. Despite blinded review, female applicants receive significantly lower scores.

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News
Open Access

Swiss Consortium Pledges 216,000 Eur to DOAJ and SHERPA/RoMEO

web
Open Access

Swiss Consortium Pledges 216,000 Eur to DOAJ and SHERPA/RoMEO

The Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries, comprising sixteen libraries and the Swiss National Science Foundation, is the third national consortium to commit to the SCOSS initiative.

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Open Data
Prizes

New Data Re-Use Prizes Help Unlock the Value of Research

web
Open Data
Prizes

New Data Re-Use Prizes Help Unlock the Value of Research

The winners of the Wellcome Data Re-use Prizes have generated new insights in antimicrobial resistance and malaria research.

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Publications
Open Access

New Preprint: Scholar-Led Publishing and the Pre-History of the Open Access Movement

web
Open Access

New Preprint: Scholar-Led Publishing and the Pre-History of the Open Access Movement

There is an often-neglected pre-history of open access that can be found in the early DIY publishers of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, including involvement of the humanities and social sciences. Policymakers are advised to keep in mind this separate lineage in the history of open access as the movement goes mainstream.

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Opinion
Women in Science
Diversity

What a Deleted Profile Tells Us About Wikipedia's Diversity Problem

web
Women in Science
Diversity

What a Deleted Profile Tells Us About Wikipedia's Diversity Problem

Clarice Phelps may have been the first African-American woman to help discover a chemical element. For Wikipedia, that wasn't enough.

web
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Opinion
DORA
Impact
Metrics

The "Impact" of the Journal Impact Factor in the Review, Tenure, and Promotion Process

web
DORA
Impact
Metrics

The "Impact" of the Journal Impact Factor in the Review, Tenure, and Promotion Process

The Journal Impact Factor has been widely critiqued as a measure of individual academic performance. However, it is unclear whether these criticisms and high profile declarations, such as DORA, have led to significant cultural change.

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Brexit
Funding

Fearing No-Deal Brexit, European Funder Orders U.K. Researchers to Transfer Grants

sciencemag
Brexit
Funding

Fearing No-Deal Brexit, European Funder Orders U.K. Researchers to Transfer Grants

U.K. COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) grant holders face bureaucratic headaches to shift grant administration out of the country by 1 May.

sciencemag
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Opinion
Impact
Foresight

Ten Ways Times Higher Education Can Change the Story

web
Impact
Foresight

Ten Ways Times Higher Education Can Change the Story

By Rob Cuthbert Tips from an editor on how Times Higher Education can shift the negative perceptions of people in higher education to reassert its value to the sector. Times Higher Educat…

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Opinion
Society
Gender

Imposter Syndrome Isn't the Problem - Toxic Workplaces Are

qz
Society
Gender

Imposter Syndrome Isn't the Problem - Toxic Workplaces Are

As young scientists, we are fooled into working harder and longer to live up to sky-high expectations and encouraged to feel inadequate.

qz
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Biodiversity
Society

'Nature's Emergency is Our Emergency Too'

bbc
Biodiversity
Society

'Nature's Emergency is Our Emergency Too'

Critical scientific assessment of humanity's impact on nature to be released after Paris negotiations.

bbc
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UK

The Government Is Planning To Make EU Students Pay Much Higher Fees To Study At English Universities

buzzfeed
UK

The Government Is Planning To Make EU Students Pay Much Higher Fees To Study At English Universities

Home fee status and financial support for EU nationals is planned to be withdrawn from 2021 in a new crackdown on foreign students by Theresa May.

buzzfeed
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Open Access

Elsevier Strikes Its First National Deal with Large Open-access Element

nature
Open Access

Elsevier Strikes Its First National Deal with Large Open-access Element

Agreement with Norwegian consortium allows researchers to make the vast majority of their work free to read on publication in Elsevier journals.

nature
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Opinion
Meta-research

Should We Trust Meta-Analyses with Meta-Conflicts of Interest?

blogs
Meta-research

Should We Trust Meta-Analyses with Meta-Conflicts of Interest?

There are a couple of angles to look at researcher conflict of interest from. One is that a conflict could distort their work, tilting findings and claims away from "the truth". The other is for the way the work is received, not how it is done: authors' perceived conflicts could damage credibility. How does this translate to authors of systematic reviews and meta-analyses? Are the issues the same, no matter the type of study? I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I was one of the external stakeholders consulted as part of the Cochrane Collaboration's review of its conflict of interest policy for their systematic reviews editorial teams. As they explain, they are looking to strengthen their approach to financial conflicts, and "consider a wider range of possible inherent biases". In biomedicine at least, systematic reviewers/meta-analysts are widely seen as arbiters on the state of knowledge. Their work often guides individual decisions, policy, and funding. I think that

blogs
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Digitalization

Organise Your Files!

ethz
Digitalization

Organise Your Files!

Digital continuity in the personal archives of scientists.

ethz
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UK

EU Students Could Face Higher Fees to Study in UK from 2020

theguardian
UK

EU Students Could Face Higher Fees to Study in UK from 2020

Higher education groups call on government to clarify its policy on tuition costs

theguardian
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