Open Access Week starts this Monday 19th October. In the run-up, Stephen Pinfield provides an overview of eighteen propositions on open access identified through an extensive analysis of the discourse. Key elements remain controversial. Particularly in relation to quality, researchers continue to view open access publishing with disinterest, suspicion and scepticism. It is clear that whilst OA has come a long way […]
Author: Sierra Williams
Book Review: Digital Humanitarians: How Big Data is changing the face of humanitarian response
The overflow of information generated during disasters can be as paralysing to humanitarian response as the lack of information. This flash flood of information is often referred to as Big Data, or Big Crisis Data. Making sense of Big Crisis Data is proving to be an impossible challenge for traditional humanitarian organisations, which is why they’re turning to Digital Humanitarians. Dimitrinka […]
Opening the black box of clinical decision making: Interpretation is a central feature in evidence-based medicine.
How can different knowledge components, such as scientific evidence, clinical expertise, and patient preference, within the evidence-based medicine (EBM) framework be combined? Do trustworthy decisions fall out as clear-cut conclusions as part of an algorithm when an EBM approach is used? Eivind Engebretsen, Nina Køpke Vøllestad, Astrid Klopstad Wahl, Hilde Stendal Robinson and Kristin Heggen use the four stages of knowing presented by Bernhard […]
Book Review: Enhancing the Doctoral Experience: A Guide for Supervisors and Their International Students
This an excellent, thoughtfully-produced pragmatic guide to the very fine and complicated art of doctoral supervision across cultures, writes Casey Brienza. This review originally appeared on LSE Review Books. Enhancing the Doctoral Experience: A Guide for Supervisors and Their International Students. Steve Hutchinson, Helen Lawrence, and Dave Filipović-Carter. Gower/Ashgate. 2014. Find this book: It was with tremendous anticipation that I […]
President Obama’s free community-college plan is a necessary plan – and a good one.
Last week, President Obama announced that community college will be made free for all students for the first two years of study. Sara Goldrick-Rab welcomes the announcement, which will be especially helpful for less affluent families who spend a large proportion of their family income on college. She writes that the next steps in improving college affordability should include making the first two […]
Editors’ Choice: Round-up of our favourite posts from the last year.
Season’s Greetings from the Impact Blog! We wish our readers a restful holiday ahead of next year’s research-filled excitement. In 2014 the blog featured a range of evidence-based analysis and fresh perspectives on academic impact, from low citation rates in the humanities to reports of economists accepting sex in exchange for co-authorship. In case you missed them the first time around, […]
Collaborative ‘science of science’ needed to ensure research and education make a difference to practice.
Zoë Sheppard, Vanora Hundley, Edwin van Teijlingen and Paul Thompson of Bournemouth University present the challenges of impact in healthcare recently discussed at a symposium held by the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education at Bournemouth University. Given the imminent results of the Research Excellence Framework 2014, the summarised findings and issues raised on the implementation of impact point to further collaborations needed on the […]
Impact Round-Up 4th October: Metrics for scientific outreach, Google Books fair use, and privacy in the digital age
Managing Editor Sierra Williams presents a brief round-up of popular stories from around the web on higher education, academic impact, and trends in scholarly communication. Paige Brown Jarreau at SciLogs calls out Science‘s latest ‘Top Scientists on Twitter’ list for reducing social media science engagement to popularity. She considers what criteria might lead to more enriching experiences with science communication on Twitter in her […]
Impact Round-Up 6th September: Monsters of EdTech, visualising conferences, and for-profit masters.
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. Conference season is in full swing and this week there were a range of events taking place on scholarly communications with equally lively discussions taking place on Twitter. The Association for Learning Technology’s annual conference (#altc) discussed online and digital […]
Book Review: Sisters in the Statehouse: Black Women and Legislative Decision Making by Nadia E. Brown
In 2013, out of 7,776 female state legislators serving across the USA, 364 are women of colour; of these 239 are African American women. Linking personal narratives to political behavior, Nadia E. Brown elicits the feminist life histories of African American women legislators to understand how their experiences with racism and sexism have influenced their legislative decision-making and policy preferences. Muireann O’Dwyer is enthusiastic about […]