In this repost, Robert Harington makes an appeal to Plan S leaders and funders to take to heart the needs and interests of researchers, when implementing a new generation of open access policies. These days I wake up and strenuously attempt, and spectacularly fail, to avoid the news. Across the world it seems as if we are seeing an epidemic of […]
Category: Featured
Building a culture of research impact
Drawing on case study evidence from the DFID-ESRC Growth Research Programme, Louise Shaxson suggests that developing a culture of engagement and collaboration is just as important to achieving research impact as following best practice, and presents five principles that underpin an effective research impact culture. There’s no better way to occupy yourself over lunch at your desk on a rainy […]
Change ahead: How do smaller publishers perceive open access?
Reporting results from a comprehensive survey of publishers in the German-speaking world, Christian Kaier and Karin Lackner explore the attitudes of smaller publishers towards open access, finding both rising levels of interest, but also ongoing uncertainty and resistance over making a transition to open access publishing. While libraries and funding bodies in German-speaking countries have been negotiating Open Access Agreements […]
Who are you writing for? The role of community membership on authors’ decisions to publish in open access mega-journals
Open Access mega-journals have in some academic disciplines become a key channel for communicating research. In others, however, they remain unknown. Drawing on evidence from a series of focus groups, Jenny Fry and Simon Wakeling explore how authors’ perceptions of mega-journals differ across disciplines and are shaped by motivations associated with the multiple communities they function within. Open-access mega-journals are […]
2018 in review: top posts of the year
How to design an award-winning conference poster A good academic conference poster serves a dual purpose: it is both an effective networking tool and a means by which to articulately communicate your research. But many academics fail to produce a truly visually arresting conference poster and so opportunities to garner interest and make connections are lost. Tullio Rossi offers guidance on how to […]
The A to Z of writing an impact case study
With submission to REF 2021 now less than two years away, university staff and academics are stepping up work to present their best examples of research impact in the form of compelling impact case studies. In thinking about how to approach writing these documents, Sally Brown has compiled this useful A to Z; from understanding your impact aim, all the […]
Let’s focus on the research process, not the outputs
The outsized importance of publications has meant too many research students focus on featuring papers in prestigous journals, despite having success in doing so feeling like something of a lottery. To Mattias Björnmalm, a strong focus on the research output instead of the research process is detrimental to research itself. Research is about increasing our understanding of the world and […]
How to run a book sprint – in 16 steps
A “book sprint” is a method of writing a book collaboratively in only a short period of time, usually less than a week. Lambert Heller and Helene Brinken share insights from their own experience of facilitating a book sprint to write the Open Science Training Handbook earlier this year. Here, the process is measured out over a distance of 16 […]
From scientists, for scientists, and beyond: a method to develop a comic based on your research
Scientists are increasingly challenged to communicate their work to broader, more varied audiences. Responding to this imperative, Jan Friesen and Skander Elleuche have developed a method that provides a simple, flexible framework to translate a complex scientific publication into a broadly accessible comic format. “Even amongst scientists, communication across disciplines is tough. But to communicate scientific findings to the general […]
The main obstacles to better research data management and sharing are cultural. But change is in our hands
Recommendations on how to better support researchers in good data management and sharing practices are typically focused on developing new tools or improving infrastructure. Yet research shows the most common obstacles are actually cultural, not technological. Marta Teperek and Alastair Dunning outline how appointing data stewards and data champions can be key to improving research data management through positive cultural change. This […]