Science fraud: Journal urges China to show ‘integrity’
(physorg.com): Leading medical journal The Lancet on Friday urged China to tighten measures against scientific fraud after dozens of papers written by two teams of Chinese chemists were found to be faked. The call came after a specialist journal called Acta Crystallographica Section E uncovered extensive fraud in Chinese-authored papers… Read More
Climate for scientific misconduct in China
(upiasia.com): China’s path toward becoming an innovation-oriented nation by 2020, as outlined in the nation’s Medium and Long-Term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology (2006−2020), will be significantly derailed if the nation does not make serious effort to eradicate misconduct in science. ecently, Lancet and Nature, two leading… Read More
Social media – A guide for college and university libraries
(crln.acrl.org): Social media is a powerful new form of communication. The number of users on popular social media sites is growing at exponential rates. Because of the ubiquity of social media use, academic libraries can leverage these communication tools to interact with faculty, staff, and students in new ways. It… Read More
Global warming, Web 2.0 and the future of science
(examiner.com): The practice of science does not seem to be delivering much of what society needs and expects from science these days. We are getting mountains of scientific papers and patent applications, but more restrictions slapped on the use of intellectual property, not enough women in science, fragmented disciplines that… Read More
Open Access or Open for Business? | Peer to Peer Review
(libraryjournal.com): The problems higher education faces aren’t due to stodgy tradition, they largely come from applying market economics to something that should be a public good, not a commodity. Faculty feel they have to produce more and more research because productivity, not profundity, defines their worth. Students are coveted tributaries… Read More
New publication to advance the national conversation on the future of libraries
(ala.org): The American Library Association (ALA) Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) has released the first of several policy briefs to be published in 2010 on the revolution in information technology and its implications for the future of libraries. The publication, titled Checking Out the Future: Perspectives from the Library… Read More
When to Doubt a Scientific ‘Consensus’
(american.com): Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the non-rational dynamics of the herd. Many false ideas enjoyed consensus opinion at one time. Indeed, the “power of the paradigm” often shapes the thinking of scientists so strongly that they become unable to… Read More
Crowdsourcing and Open Access: Collaborative Techniques for Disseminating Legal Materials and Scholarship
(papers.ssrn.com): This short essay surveys the state of open access to primary legal source materials (statutes, judicial opinions and the like) and legal scholarship. The ongoing digitization phenomenon (illustrated, although by no means typified, by massive scanning endeavors such as the Google Books project and the Library of Congress's efforts… Read More
Why E-Books Failed In 2000, And What It Means For 2010
(businessinsider.com): A major consulting firm says ebook sales will account for ten percent of the publishing market in five years. And an executive at the leading computing firm predicts that 90 percent of all publishing will switch to electronic form in just 20 years. But the year isn’t 2010 —… Read More
Student-Run Journals Encourage Scholarship, Creative Endeavors
(uanews.org): The Arizona Journal of Environmental Law & Policy is among the most recent UA-student run publications to be launched. The Web-based, student run journal will enable students, faculty and others to publish on environmental issues from legal, scientific, economic and public policy perspectives, among others. Read More
