Academic communication, Ask Me Anything, digital scholarship, free, front page of the internet, r/science, Reddit, reddit algorithm, science reddit, Social Media, subreddit

r/ip: why science communicators should mourn the loss of reddit’s Ask Me Anything series

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Social news website reddit is home to one of the world’s largest online science communities, r/science. The community ran a popular Ask Me Anything Q&A series that saw hundreds of academics quizzed on their area of expertise by an inquisitive online audience. However, following reddit’s decision to rely solely on its algorithm to surface content to its users, the r/science […]

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big data, Data reuse, Data science, data skills, free, Government, government data, open data, open science, research data, UK Data Service, Working Group for Secure Data Access Professionals

Mind the skills gap: creating a data access and reuse competency framework for government departments and organisations

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Having access to the vital data collected by government departments can make a huge difference to the work of researchers in universities and charities. But for these researchers to actually access and be able to reuse this data is an often painstaking process that can take months or even longer. Richard Welpton suggests this process might be made quicker and […]

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academic anxiety, depression in academia, Early career researchers, early-career research, Featured, free, graduate research, Higher Education, mental health, mental health crisis, PhD research, PhDchat, stress in academia

Mental health risks in research training can no longer be ignored

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Graduate research candidates are the powerhouse of research in universities, yet many have reported feelings of isolation, burnout, and career uncertainty. Karen Barry reports on a study of Australian research candidates which found that increasing numbers are suffering from heightened levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, often citing reasons related to academia’s general work processes, such as writing or publishing […]

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Academic Publishing, Blockchain, double-blind, free, peer review, peer review training, peer-review system, post-publication peer review, PPPR

Unhelpful, caustic and slow: the academic community should rethink the way publications are reviewed

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The current review system for many academic articles is flawed, hindering the publication of excellent, timely research. There is a lack of education for peer reviewers, either during PhD programmes or from journal publishers, and the lack of incentives to review compounds the problem. Thomas Wagenknecht offers up some solutions to the current system, including encouraging associate editors to use […]

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