Preprints – rapidly published non peer reviewed research articles – are becoming an increasingly common fixture in scholarly communication. However, without being peer reviewed they serve a limited function, as they are often not recognised as high quality research publications. In this post Wang LingFeng discusses how the development of preprint servers as self-organising peer review platforms could be the future of […]
Category: Featured
How does funding and publication affect the time taken to complete a PhD?
A persistent problem for higher education policy has been how to ensure a steady supply of doctoral graduates equipped to deal with today’s global challenges. In this post Hugo Horta, Mattia Cattaneo and Michele Meoli examine the relationship between PhD funding and research productivity during PhD studies with time taken to complete a PhD and suggest that a key factor […]
The careers of carers – A numerical adjustment cannot level the playing field for researchers who take time off to care for children
Quantitative measures of the effect of caring for children on research outputs (published papers and citations) have been used by some universities as a tool to address gender bias in academic grant and job applications. In this post Adrian Barnett argues that these adjustments fail to capture the real impacts of caring for children and should be replaced with contextual […]
Book Review: Scholarly Communication and Measuring Research – What Does Everyone Need to Know?
Academics are required to not only find effective ways to communicate their research, but also to increasingly measure and quantify its quality, impact and reach. In Scholarly Communication: What Everyone Needs to Know, Rick Anderson puts us in the picture. And in Measuring Research: What Everyone Needs to Know, Cassidy Sugimoto and Vincent Lariviere critically assess over 20 tools currently available for evaluating the quality […]
Don’t be a giraffe – How to avoid trolls on academic social media
Social media has acquired a reputation for being a highly polarised and argumentative public sphere. Whereas, the vast majority of academic social media is generally good natured, it can also be plagued by bad actors. In this post, Andy Tattersall shares a number of simple measures and tips on how to deal with the dark side of social media. When […]
Are altmetrics able to measure societal impact in a similar way to peer review?
Altmetrics have become an increasingly ubiquitous part of scholarly communication, although the value they indicate is contested. In this post, Lutz Bornmann and Robin Haunschild present evidence from their recent study examining the relationship of peer review, altmetrics, and bibliometric analyses with societal and academic impact. Drawing on evidence from REF2014 submissions, they argue altmetrics may provide evidence for wider […]
For a Civil Internet – How the tone of online conversations can build trust
The internet is a challenging environment for those looking to engage in enlightened public discourse. In this repost, Fabio Sabatini and Tommaso Reggiani present evidence showing how, although incivility has become the default setting for online conversations, where debate is civil it has a corresponding effect on levels of trust. Suggesting that an appropriate policy response to the incivility of the internet, […]
Negative Impact – Is it possible to manage potentially harmful research findings?
What do you do with research that produces potentially harmful results? In this post Andrew Crane, explores how research can produce negative as well as positive impacts on society and discusses how his own research group has approached dealing with the complex issue of ‘negative impact’. “If you put these things in your report it will kill our industry”. The […]
Publishing and Perishing – Does a new generation of social scientists have to publish more to achieve less?
It is often anecdotally remarked that early career and PhD researchers have to publish their research more frequently and earlier in their careers than previous generations of academics, if they aim to secure a permanent academic job. In this post, Rob Warren lays out empirical evidence from the field of Sociology showing that this is indeed the case and highlights two […]
20 ways to increase your research impact – you won’t believe number 6!
When it comes to the war for eyeballs, most academics are ill-equipped to drive online attention to their research. In this post, Andy Tattersall draws on best practice from the sphere of viral marketing to develop the concept of ‘Scholarly Enticement’. He then presents a toolbox of simple techniques that can be applied by anyone across any discipline, to enhance […]