1. How Undergraduate Research Drives Science Forward
When people discuss undergraduate research, they generally focus entirely around the benefits for students. These experiences are widely recognised to build critical-thinking skills, foster a foundation for the scientific process and create hands-on classroom experiences, notes David S. Rovnyak and George C. Shields, in their post in the Inside Higher ED post.
The blog post says (quote): Perhaps the most valuable strength is a low-stakes environment to foster publishing research. While many undergraduate institutions do include research expectations in faculty evaluation, teaching loads and high service commitments are priorities. Since faculty members are conducting research because they want to, rather than because they have to, undergraduate institutions actually value having fewer high-quality papers over a high rate of publishing. Meanwhile, high-stakes publishing is coming under increasing scrutiny. Editors of the major medical journals Lancet and NEJM have expressed concern that high-stakes research has led to a culture in which a surprising percentage of medical studies are not trustworthy. Further, retraction rates can be higher in leading journals than in lower-tier journals………………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Hate journal impact factors? New study gives you one more reason
Scientists have a love-hate relationship with the journal impact factor (JIF), the measurement used to rank technical journals by prestige. They have come to use it not only for deciding where to submit research papers, but for judging their peers, as well as influencing who wins jobs, tenure, and grants. And yet a journal's impact factor is dismissed by many as useless or even destructive to the scientific community, discusses John Bohannon, in his post in the Science magazine Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Calculating the impact factor might seem straightforward. It is just the average number of times that a journal's articles are cited over the past 2 years. Nature, for example, currently has a JIF of 41.456, which is generally interpreted to mean that over the past 2 years, Naturearticles have been cited, on average, about 41 times each. But that number is easily misinterpreted. For example, if the citation counts of articles were like the heights of people, then the average number would be informative. Men are taller than women, on average, and indeed you can do better than random at predicting the height of people knowing nothing more than their sex. But for the articles published in any given journal, the distribution of citations is highly skewed. A small fraction of influential papers get most of the citations, whereas the vast majority of papers get few or none at all. So the average number of citations is often highly misleading………………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Prioritise local science journals
Science journals have become a prime medium to expand scientific knowledge. They have been deployed since the early beginnings of scientific research. One cannot deny the fact that knowledge can only grow through the sharing of the fruits of research, notes Datuk Dr Ahmad Ibrahim, in his post in The Star Blog.
The blog post says (quote): In Malaysia, because of the KPIs imposed by universities in their quest to be ranked high, much has been spent to load science articles by their lecturers and professors in such journals. Inadvertently, such journals, a majority of which reside in the more developed countries, become even more valuable in the eyes of the scientific community. The unfortunate part of it all is that local journals are largely ignored. They are mostly put on low priority. They have many local science journals. Each university may have a few in the different disciplines. Some of the research institutes also have their own science journals. Some do attract overseas scientists………………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. What does the future hold for academic books?
Between August 2014 and September 2016, the Academic Book of the Future Project, initiated by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Library, explored the current and future status of the traditional academic monograph. In her post in The Impact Blog, Marilyn Deegan reflects on its findings, welcoming them as an opportunity to open up further dialogue on the horizons of the academic book.
The blog post says (quote): The academic book/monograph is still greatly valued in the academy for many reasons: the ability to produce a sustained argument within a more capacious framework than permitted by the article format; the engagement of the reader at a deep level; its central place in career progression in the arts and humanities; and its reach beyond the academy (for some titles) into bookshops and the hands of a wider public. It seems that the future is likely to be a mixed economy of print, e-versions and networked-enhanced monographs of greater or lesser complexity. There are many new experimental partnerships between academics, libraries and publishers to push the concept of the book beyond its covers in the UK and the USA. At the same time, there is a continuing (indeed, resurgent) preference for print for sustained reading and reflection………………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Do peer review models affect junior doctors' trust in journals?
A recently published study in Research Integrity and Peer Review, that surveyed 178 trainee doctors, finds that although peer review is perceived as an important means of quality control by this community, there is little value placed on being able to scrutinise peer review themselves. In her post in the BioMed Central Blog, Jigisha Patel discusses about the study's findings and the implications.
The blog post says (quote): There is a belief that if an article is peer reviewed and published it can be unquestioningly viewed as valid. For journal editors and publishers this highlights their responsibility to deliver on these expectations by focusing on the quality of peer review, not just on the speed and efficiency of the process. The study also raises many other broader questions: should there be an alternative approach to peer review in medicine? Should systematic reviews of medical research consider the peer review model? Should those who write evidence based clinical guidelines for junior doctors do the same? Should doctors be given training on how to assess peer review reports? How realistic or fair is it to add peer review to an already stretched medical curriculum? What is the value of opening peer review if the end user does not look at it?………………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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