1. Guest Post - The Dissertation Publication Requirement: It's Time for Reexamination
Academe is conditioned to public dissemination of doctoral dissertations, and the justification from the website of the University of Michigan's Rackham Graduate School is typical. Rob Schlesinger, in his guest post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, encourages a rethink of the common requirement that graduate students publish their dissertations.
The blog post says (quote): From the inception of the modern doctorate in the early 19th century, a central purpose of doctoral education has been to prepare students to make significant scholarly contributions to knowledge. The dissertation is submitted as public evidence of the scholarly accomplishment meriting the conferral of the doctoral degree. In keeping with this long-standing tradition, which is consistent with the University's public mission, it has always been the University's expectation that every doctoral dissertation and abstract will be released upon conferral of the degree. Only in specific circumstances may release of a dissertation be deferred, and then only for a limited period of time.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Don't be a giraffe - How to avoid trolls on academic social media
Social media has acquired a reputation for being a highly polarised and argumentative public sphere. Whereas, the vast majority of academic social media is generally good natured, it can also be plagued by bad actors. In his post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, Andy Tattersall shares a number of simple measures and tips on how to deal with the dark side of social media.
The blog post says (quote): Many academics employ the line 'views are my own' and 'do not reflect that of my employer' on their Twitter profiles. Their views may be their own and they may not reflect those of their employer and whilst the employer does not own their Twitter profile, they may see something that they perceive as harmful to their reputation. There is a fine line between 'academic freedom' and using the social media platform to say things that may get into trouble. One may not care what their manager or department thinks of their Tweets, but if that profile has an affiliation with their institution (web address, email) it can be construed as speaking on behalf of them. As a result one might find themself being invited in for a chat or even worse looking for another position, as has been the case for some academics when they have made some very ill-judged comments. Academic institutions are increasingly concerned about their reputation online and in some cases the threats to that reputation are not always coming from external sources.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. How the open access model hurts academics in poorer countries
The rise of open access publishing should be applauded. Rather than individuals or institutions paying to have access to publications, increasingly, academics are expected to pay for publishing their research, notes Brenda Wingfield, in her post in the Down To Earth Blog.
The blog post says (quote): One suggestion is to "flip" the current model, so there would only be open access and no subscription-only journals. This, however, may still be too expensive for many universities in the developing world who currently cannot afford journal subscriptions. Some journals are already helping authors by offering incentives and rewards to reviewers. Editors approach experts in their fields to review manuscripts, this is the basis of peer review. These reviewers receive no remuneration for their input but are essential for the peer review process. In some cases, journals offer reviewers subscription access for a year. This only benefits the individual reviewer, not the organisation which pays their salaries. This is not an ideal approach for universities. Perhaps publishers could consider a voucher approach in which vouchers accrue to the institution that pays the reviewer's salary. These vouchers could contribute towards subscription costs or the article publication charges. More altruistic publishers could even donate vouchers to universities in the developing world.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. How to use altmetrics to craft a better microbiology research engagement strategy
With a growing demand from funders and universities for researchers to engage with the public, altmetrics are seeing increased interest across academia. Altmetrics are used by researchers worldwide as a complement to citation-based data when attempting to track the influence of their work and the success of their online engagement activities, discusses Stacy Konkiel, in her post in the Altmetric Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Altmetrics services like Altmetric.com can provide a snapshot of the discussions around microbiology research. Searching the Altmetric Explorer database using a list of the top twenty microbiology journals identified by Scimago Journal Rank, one finds 40,594 total articles were published in the discipline as of March 2018, 30,593 (75.4 percent) of which were mentioned a total of 260,703 times in the online sources tracked. Looking specifically at the one thousand most discussed microbiology articles published in this list of journals, some interesting trends appear. Text-mining techniques show that "gut microbiota", "influenza virus", and "infection" are among the top ten most-written about microbiology topics. These topics were calculated using the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) Python package. NLTK Bigrams finds word pairs in a corpus of text and ranks them according to how many times they appear.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Scholarly Kitchen Webinar: The Future of Independent and Society Publishing
The scholarly communications marketplace has become increasingly difficult for the smaller independent and the society publisher. In his post in the Scholarly Kitchen blog, David Crotty previews their upcoming webinar looking at the future for these publishers.
The blog post says (quote): In an era of consolidation and regulation, scale has become a key factor in a successful publishing program. This has made it increasingly difficult for smaller independent publishers, particularly research societies, to continue to thrive in the market. The recent publication of Plan S, a set of funder requirements for publication, has accelerated the sustainability concerns of the independent publisher. Though not intentional, these sorts of policies are expected to lead to greater market consolidation and favor larger, commercial publishers who are better positioned to weather the oncoming storm of compliance. In this webinar they will hear from independent societies about their future plans, from consultants working with societies on those plans, and from a larger publishing house that partners with societies about the pluses and minuses of such partnerships.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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