1. Academic publications to become less important when funding university research
The Turnbull government is set to overhaul the way university research is funded by dramatically downgrading the importance of publishing articles in little-read academic journals. Prime Minister Turnbull wants to end the "publish or perish" culture in which academics are pressured to focus on constant publishing rather than producing work with commercial and community benefit, notes Matthew Knott in his post in The Sydney Morning Herald.
The blog post says (quote): Under one proposal, the government would entirely scrap the use of research publications from the way it allocates $1 billion a year in block research grants and PhD research funding, sources said. Instead, in its innovation statement next month, the government will put more emphasis on research "engagement" and "impact". The aim is to encourage universities to work more closely with the private sector to explore how their research discoveries can be commercialised. Publications in books, journals and conference papers currently determine how 10 per cent of the $678 million funding for PhD research is allocated..........(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. The Death of the Collection and the Necessity of Library-Publisher Collaboration: Young Librarians on the Future of Libraries
Rick Anderson recently served as a reviewer of applicants for a conference scholarship. He reviewed 17 packages of application materials, notably including essays on an assigned topic dealing with the future of libraries. Most, but not all, of the applicants were relatively young librarians in the early to middle stages of their careers. In his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, Rick Anderson argues about two themes that are arising repeatedly enough (and strongly enough) in the applicants' essays.
The blog post says (quote): Assuming this group of scholarship applicants is at least broadly representative of the rest of its generational cohort, we have a rising generation of librarians who seem to believe that this core function of the library is dead. If they do (and it seems like a more rigorous study would be in order to determine whether that's the case), it portends seismic changes to the library profession - regardless of whether these librarians are correct or incorrect in their assessment of the declining importance of traditional collecting. To the degree that publishers depend for their revenues on libraries building traditional collections, the implications for publishers are obvious and just as important..........(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Focusing on the research and not the anecdote
BioMed Central's new journal, Research Integrity & Peer Review (RIPR), seeks to publish research about research integrity (including research reporting) and peer review. As with many journals, several submissions received were outside the journal's scope. However, in this case all the rejected submissions were descriptions of single, specific incidents or policies. In her post in the BioMed Central Blog, Liz Wager explains more about why RIPR does not consider this type of article.
The blog post says (quote): It is well known that peer review is not perfect. This fact is not only recognized by authors but also acknowledged by editors and publishers. Therefore, we see no point in publishing individual cases in which authors feel that peer review has failed or let them down. Such descriptions do not help us improve peer review. We also fear that such cases would only ever describe situations in which authors had their work rejected by journals (analogous to the false-negative results from the diagnostic test) but would rarely describe situations in which flawed work was published but should not have been (in other words, the 'false-positives'). Thus, these anecdotes would not only be unhelpful but would also be a biased selection..........(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Virtual Reality and the Scholarly Publisher
Virtual Reality has, to put it bluntly, a pretty poor history. The VR of the nineties most certainly over-promised and massively under-delivered. VR is possible today precisely because of the revolution brought by the mobile phone. And (and this bit gets missed all too often), the environment generators of today's modern games industry. In his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, David Smith describes his experience with the Cardboard VR.
The blog post says (quote): The Google Cardboard iteration of VR is quite frankly a work of genius - probably by luck more than design. The fact is long VR experiences can become difficult. Being on the receiving end of a highly stimulating, realistic visual and sonic experience that does not match what the inner ear is reporting can be a challenge. But the beauty of Cardboard VR is that it's intended to be a more casual, shorter scale experience on the order of a few minutes, perhaps 15 at most. The ridiculously cheap cardboard phone holder is surprisingly capable, and as I've already indicated, more sophisticated headsets aren't exactly going to break the bank. Oh, by the way - the cardboard design is open to anyone to reprint, so distributing a version with your branding on it is simplicity in itself..........(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Standing on the shoulders of the Google giant: Sustainable discovery and Google Scholar's comprehensive coverage.
The 11th anniversary of Google Scholar passed. The scholarly community might ask whether it is entirely desirable that Google plays such an important role in the scholarly workflow. Not only does Google Scholar have a known effect on discovery and citation of articles, it could well be shaping academic writing and evaluation. Max Kemman, in his post in The Impact Blog, provides an overview of the growth and impact of the platform and also looks at why Google Scholar is virtually unrivaled.
The blog post says (quote): Maybe the concern over Google Scholar's sustainability is thus not needed. Still, we might ask whether it is entirely desirable that Google plays such an important role in the scholarly workflow and as such in science in general. A question remains over why it is so difficult to replace Google Scholar with an alternative. Numerous features can be mentioned to compare between Google Scholar and its competitors, but one feature with which Scholar stands out is comprehensiveness. Although it is unclear how much is in Scholar, it is clear that is has the largest coverage of all the available discovery systems..........(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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