Publishers have reacted to open access mandates by offering hybrid “Open” options through Article Processing Charges. Ernesto Priego digs into the data released by the Wellcome Trust on the highest and lowest article processing charge expenditures in 2012-2013 and finds these figures reveal a mere inversion of the business model. Enabling Open Access costs money. But does it cost as much as reflected […]
Author: Sierra Williams
Book Review: The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities by Doris Sommer
Celebrating art and interpretation that take on social challenges, Doris Sommer looks to steer the humanities back to engagement with the world. Among the cases that she covers are top-down initiatives of political leaders, such as those launched by Antanas Mockus, former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, and also bottom-up movements like the Theatre of the Oppressed created by the Brazilian director, writer, and […]
Impact Round-Up 22nd March: Data journalism, code as a research object, and the cure for impact factor mania.
Managing Editor Sierra Williams presents a round-up of popular stories from around the web on higher education, academic impact, and trends in scholarly communication. The high-profile launch of Nate Silver’s new FiveThirtyEight site (manifesto here), along with similar journalistic ventures like Vox Media, and The Upshot, provide the background for this week’s top recommended read by economist Allison Schrager. The problem with data journalism (Quartz), imparts […]
Business education can revive itself by building links with the public sector and embracing policy relevance.
Business schools have operated under the same pedagogical model for the past 30 years, making them a prime target for innovation. Mark Esposito pinpoints the emergence of a possible nexus between business schools and policy makers – a connection yet to be fully explored but with massive potential to help address complex problems of the future. While private and public sector […]
Open data sheds light on how universities are minority providers of commissioned research to government.
Anyone under the impression that universities are the dominant suppliers to government of commissioned research, advice, and knowledge, think again. Open data on government spending shows the relative dominance of other suppliers and mediators of knowledge to government – not least the private sector and think tanks. Simon Bastow presents some preliminary government-wide data. Moves towards more transparent and open […]
Research datasets need to be easy to find if they are to achieve their potential impact.
The impact of research data is now of definitive importance for universities, funders and disciplines themselves. Similar to the wave of preprint repositories established for journal articles that helped preserve access to papers in disciplines not otherwise catered for, we are now seeing a steady stream of institutional data repositories emerging. Alex Ball provides the background for a Jisc project looking to establish […]
BIS report on UK Research Councils: Drop in income sees fewer researchers supported but more knowledge created.
Jane Tinkler breaks down the key findings from the UK government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) report on the impact of research council funding over the last year. With income cuts playing a significant role, the number of principal investigators and research fellowships with research council funding have both gone down. Interestingly, output productivity of funded researchers has actually increased […]
Book Review: Introducing Qualitative Research: A Student’s Guide, 2nd Edition, by Rose Barbour
In this book, Rose Barbour sets out to provide a clear, user-friendly introduction to the craft of doing qualitative research. The author’s writing style and the inclusion of numerous anecdotes from her own research, simultaneously demystify qualitative research whilst reiterating the expertise and skill which researchers must possess, writes Christina Dobson. Christina recommends this book to anyone undertaking qualitative research, postgraduate students in particular. This review originally […]
Impact Round-Up 8th March: Happy International Women’s Day, the failures of PowerPoint, and mental health in academia
Managing Editor Sierra Williams presents a round-up of popular stories from around the web on higher education, academic impact, and trends in scholarly communication. On International Women’s Day, do we know what academic success looks like? by Athene Donald delves into the issues raised in research from The Meaning of Success: Insights from Women at Cambridge by Jo Bostock. Similarly, GrrlScientist at the Guardian looks […]
Impact Round-Up 22nd February: Channels of academic influence, visualisations and turning raw data into actionable knowledge.
Managing Editor Sierra Williams presents a round-up of popular stories from around the web on higher education, academic impact, and trends in scholarly communication. This week, there was much discussion around Nicholas Kristof’s plea in the New York Times, Professors, We Need … Continue reading →