Research impact is often equated with the way in which research articles are cited and used by other researchers and non-academics. An often less appreciated aspect of research impact is the impact that the ideas contained within research papers and books have when used to teach students. In this re-post Anne-Wil Harzing presents the The Open Syllabus Explorer, an online tool that […]
Author: Taster
Book Review: The Good University: What Universities Actually Do and Why It’s Time for Radical Change by Raewyn Connell
In The Good University: What Universities Actually Do and Why It’s Time for Radical Change, Raewyn Connell provides a powerful and expansive critique of the current state of higher education at a variety of different geographical scales. While this lucid and important book makes clear that the global state of higher education is at a crossroads, its optimism should make it a deserved […]
Smartphone-size screens make it harder to pay attention to and understand news stories
Smartphones have become a key medium through which information of all kinds is accessed. Even a small, but significant, amount of traffic to academic journals derives from smartphones. Their increasing popularity and power, have led some to argue they have an important role to play in maintaining an informed public. However, Johanna Dunaway and Stuart Soroka argue that the smaller […]
Journal Indexing: Core standards and why they matter
The ways in which journals are indexed online is essential to how they can be searched for and found. Inclusion in certain indexes is also closely linked to quality assessment, with research funders often requiring their grantees to publish in outlets listed in certain indexes. In this post Danielle Padula explains the importance of good journal indexing and how journals […]
Fitting the mould – What the European Commission’s second tender for an Open Research Publishing Platform tells us about the future of scholarly communication
The European Commission recently announced a second tender for its Open Research Publishing Platform, a venture designed to meet the publication requirements of Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe funded research and to provide an open publishing venue for all interested researchers. In this post Bianca Kramer analyses what changes to the tender might mean for a future European Commission publishing […]
Reflections on academic fundraising: the art of getting there
Fundraising, or grant capture, has become an increasingly established part of a career in the social sciences. Whereas, in the UK this process has become institutionalized, in other research systems grant capture remains less central. In this post Abel Polese reflects on his own experiences of academic fundraising and argues that for researchers seeking research funding, failure is relative and […]
Book Review: Getting the Most out of Your Doctorate: The Importance of Supervision, Networking and Becoming a Global Academic edited by Mollie Dollinger
In Getting the Most out of Your Doctorate: The Importance of Supervision, Networking and Becoming a Global Academic, editor Mollie Dollinger brings together commentary and analysis from an international group of students and scholars to offer reflections on the doctoral researcher’s journey through a PhD programme. This is a smart, handy and pragmatic contribution to any doctoral student’s bookshelf, writes Sabrina Wilkinson, and may […]
The hidden cost of having a eureka moment, but not being able to put it in your own words
Accessibility in scholarly communications is often framed as an economic and technical question of enabling more people to have access and engage with research literature. However, the dominance of the English language especially in the most prestigious academic journals, poses a different barrier to researchers who do not have high quality English writing skills. In this post Sneha Kulkarni discusses how […]
To achieve a truly ‘Global Britain’ we need to take international research policy partnerships seriously
The relationship between the UK’s research endeavour and its international partners is likely to change in coming years as a result of changes in domestic funding streams and a potentially sharp exit from EU funded research projects. In this post James Georgalakis argues that if the UK is seeking to be truly ‘Global’ in terms of research, there is a […]
Using mobile applications for social science research
In this post Dr Reka Solymosi & Dr Michael Chataway discuss the use of mobile phone applications as a research method in the social sciences. Reflecting on their own use of apps to study fear of crime, they highlight the methodological advantages of incorporating apps into research designs and provide four key points to consider for researchers seeking to use […]