The venerableLISTSERV email lists such as mediev-l (founded in 1992) and other medieval-focusedlistservs are early instances of the digital democratization of scholarship, conducted as anasynchronous and geographically dispersed conversation.
Listservs and their relationship to Notes and Queries
firstwant to consider the ways in which our increased online presence has exposed manyof the existing networks that ground the sources of academic and intellectual authority(reputation, credibility, reliability).
How online communities have changed the way humanists work.
Fisher, Matthew. 2012. “Authority, Interoperability, and Digital Medieval Scholarship.” Literature Compass 9 (12): 955–64. doi:10.1111/lic3.12018.
/home/dan/.mozilla/firefox/rwihx4ee.default/zotero/storage/PHS4P7D6/Fisher - 2012 - Authority, Interoperability, and Digital Medieval .pdf
pp. 6-7 Interesting history of Journal
Scholars have always had a need to communicate with other scholars. More than three hundred years ago, using the then new technology of the printing press, scholarly journals began. Journals were an exceptionally practical solution to the problem of the limited technolgogies of the time. ... For an individual before the seventeenth century the only practical form of communicating over significant distances was the personal letter. In comparison, scholarly journals allowed an individual to communicate more easily and exchange ideas with groups of others. These early journals were not seen as the final destination of a scholar's work; until this century, the monograph (book) was usually the final destination of a scholar's work. I find this distinction important because when a scholar today commits to be published in a journal, the product is usually considered finished and the scholar commits her or himself to the finality of the work. The journal article becomes the final piece offered to the public and to the fate of history.
Together, these twin pressures—the need to enhance the ties between scholars and their organizations while simultaneously doing more with less —begin to suggest that the traditional value proposition of the scholarly society, in which one becomes a member in order to receive the various communications of the society, is no longer as viable as it once was. But there isn’t a clear sense, as yet, of where the society’s value for its members today, not to mention its sources of revenue that allow it to fulfill its mission, might lie. In order to find a way forward, today’s scholarly societies must begin to think differently about their functions, their structures, and their overall goals.
CHanging roles of scholarly societies
The letters that were exchanged among the membership of the Royal Society in the mid-17th century, and that were later gathered into journals, gradually accrued formalized processes of review, editing, production, and distribution. In creating this new product —the scholarly journal—learned societies found one part of the financial model that would allow them to serve their larger goals. Scholars were encouraged to join and maintain their memberships in order to receive the journal. In addition to memberships made available to individuals, journal subscriptions were created for libraries, allowing academic institutions to help support the organizations that facilitated, validated, and circulated the work of their faculty members.
History of journals from letters
he web was, like scholarly societies, invented for the express purpose of supporting communication amongst researchers by allowing them to create pages on which they could share their work with one another and with the world. The difference, of course, is that the web permits any individual scholar with server access and a little bit of technical knowledge to share their work directly and immediately further diminishing their apparent need for those collectives that scholarly societies have historically provided.
How the web is like and not like traditional societies
Since the Royal Society of London, learned and professional societies have been created precisely in order to help facilitate communication amongst members, scholars, and between those members and the broader intellectual world. Now, early on that communication took place via meetings and letters that were sent among the membership between meetings. Over time, the meetings developed into regularly scheduled conferences, and the letters were gathered into systematically produced and distributed journals. Those journals accrued a series of formal publishing processes including, of course, editing and peer review that came to mark them as authoritative resources for developing knowledge in their fields, and those resources came not only to be valued by their original audience, the members of the society, but also by a broader range of scholars, researchers, and students. As a result, research libraries collected those journals and made them available to their patrons
History of Scholarly Societies from networking centres through conferences through publishers
It could if we had more gold, but I am here to tell you that we do not. The boom Brandon just mentioned in the sciences has passed us by. ACLS funds a lot of scholarship, and we award $15 million in fellowship and grants, but if recipients of our fellowships use stipends to pay author fees that would be trading publication costs for research time. The National Endowment for Humanities, its funding is now 29% of its peak appropriation, and an additional 49% cut has been proposed, and the House Budget Committee is considering complete elimination of all funding. If the author pays model were widely adopted in the humanities, it would increase the already problematical level of inequality in academia. Wealthy universities could pay for their faculty but scholars at public universities and smaller colleges could not expect such largesse.
Why APC doesn't work in the humanities
They were created to name and claim an area of knowledge and to establish and monitor standards for cultivating that area. Establishing a peer-review journal was the most obvious way of doing that but there are many other ways. Prizes for books and articles, even the elections of officers themselves. Most humanities journals have two types of peer review: prepublication review of research articles and postpublication review of books and other published materials.
Modern scholarly societies in the humanites were created to provide peer review
William Rainey Harper, the first president of the nascent University of Chicago, was aggressive in recruiting star faculty to his new campus. He would offer blandishments including one relevant to our topic this morning. If Harper really wanted someone, the president would promise the wavering scholar that he, and it was almost always a “he” in those days, would be the editor of not one but two new journals that the university press would publish: one, a journal for academic specialists, and the second, for the general public.
How U of C used journal editorships--of scholarly and public--as recruitment tool in setting up the U of Chicago.
Commentator Kat Nagel outlined a life cycle that every list seems to go through. First thereis initial enthusiasm and evangelism (where people complain about the infrequency ofpostings). This is followed by a period of growth and then community (with lots of threadsand information and willingness to help). When the number of messages increases both involume and in diversity, a certain discomfort arises (often marked by complaints that the listhas lost its central purpose). Finally, if a group of purists emerges and is allowed to ‘‘flame’’(attack ad hominem) and act self-righteously, while others leave to form groups of their own,then a complacency develops, or worse stagnation and death. If, however, the self-righteousare minimized and a balance develops between community and diversity, then a list will reachmaturity
Life cycle of the listserv
The depth of interactivity varies widely among discussion groups. Some groups are likecocktail parties with many conversations (threads) competing. Some, like formal seminars,focus around specific topics. Some are like notice boards in the local grocery store wheremessages are pinned and left for others to read and comment on. And some groups merelyfunction as newspapers, disseminating electronic journals or computer programs, advertisingconferences or job vacancies. Many people are content to just read and listen, even in themost interactive groups, while a relatively few dominate conversations
Different kinds of listserv groups
In some ways, the exchange of correspondence publicly over these networksconstitutes a new form of publication. The posting on a list frequently resembles a letter to theeditor where someone conveys their opinions on a subjec
A way of understanding listservs as a new form of scholarly communication--like a letter to the editor.
Marcin and Laura joined me on Thursday to talk about translating CLAVIER into their local cultures. They helped me, we are helping each other attempt to make that translation.
translation respect of context finding common ground difficulty
Mia talked about translating meaning through boxes, inside boxes.
Key. translation of meaning through boxes, inside boxes
(I shall make a mental note for next time not to forget to mute the headset - metaphor to remember - it's just like the translator's cabin that I used to work in for the Short Film Festival in Clermont Ferrand REMEMBER to MUTE)
Confidence in competence.
Cutting off from space.
Withdrawing from space
mutual communication transaction, Rogers is often as con- cerned with the audience as with the speake
It seems like a lot of our rhetors so far have been discussing "mutual communication transactions," but without acknowledging it. Those earliest were, perhaps, genuinely not considering reciprocated communication from their audience at all, but in more recent weeks, at least, we have gotten rhetors who think about their audience at least a little. This, however, is certainly the most explicit text in terms of addressing rhetoric as a "mutual communication."
the grace and force of those ex-pressions which they used, when they sought to persuade or to affect.
This thought reminded me of the discussion in class about how even babies are communicating before developing a sense of language.
It seems to me that as long as an individual has an understanding of their own cultural ideas and contexts, they can grasp some form of rhetorical interaction with others; rhetoric seemingly always finds a way.
but I think the biggest problem with our relationship is lack of communication.
This is why we need to be able to communicate properly and not just assume the other person is bad without understanding their sides of the story.
Now, there is only so much survival training that is required, and there is always a little bit that is needed ongoing because it relates to your need to provide income for yourself and to get along with other people. You live in a social setting as well as a biological one. You must survive physically and you must survive socially. To do this you must develop your personal self so that you can communicate and participate with people effectively and be able to manage the simple affairs of your life. This is ongoing because even with a greater emphasis in life, you will have to develop and cultivate your personal self to accommodate this greater emphasis. Do not expect God to come and give you a great mission in life until you have the capacity for it.
tores and storekeepers were at the center of the val-ley’s communication system
Gathering places differ in different places with different social statures. Culture of communication and social communicating expectations.
Page XVIII
Borgman notes that no social framework exist for data that is comparable to this framework that exist for analysis. CF. Kitchen 2014 who argues that pre-big data, we privileged analysis over data to the point that we threw away the data after words . This is what creates the holes in our archives.
He wonders capabilities [of the data management] must be compared to the remarkably stable scholarly communication system in which they exist. The reward system continues to be based on publishing journal articles, books, and conference papers. Peer-reviewed legitimizes scholarly work. Competition and cooperation are carefully balanced. The means by which scholarly publishing occurs is an unstable state, but the basic functions remained relatively unchanged. while capturing and managing the "data deluge" is a major driver of the scholarly infrastructure developments, no Showshow same framework for data exist that is comparable to that for publishing.
Page 203
Citation age of an average article is longest in the social sciences.
Page 202
Borgman on information artifacts in the social sciences
like the sciences, the social sciences create and use minimal information. Yet they differ in the sources of the data. While almost all scientific data are created by for scientific purposes, a significant portion of social scientific data consists of records credit for other purposes, by other parties.
Page 184
In the section “Description and Organization in the Sciences” Borgman discusses some of the ways in which scientific literature is better organized: for example these include uniform language, taxonomies, thesauri, and ontologies.
Borgman, Christine L. 2007. Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
page 182
the sciences create a variety of objects the salt in the gray area between documents and data. Examples include Laboratorio field notebooks, slicer talks, composition objects such as graphic visualization of data. Laboratorio notebooks are often classified as data because their records research. Slides from talks, which were once ephemeral forms of communication, now our compost and competent person websites are distributed to accomplish proceedings. Graphic visualization data can be linked to scarlet documents to report research or to the underlying data.
Chapter 8 is an excellent overview of the nature of the commons its differences and similarities
Page 182 Borgman on the disciplinary differences in scholarly practice
Despite many common activities, both the artifacts and practices of scholarship very by discipline. The artifacts very as scholars make choices about the sources of data, along with what, when, where, and what form to disseminate the products of their work. Scholarly practices vary in the way that scholars create, use, and share documents, data, and other forms of information.
Pages 153 and 154
Borgman on how data Deluge affects the balance between traditional and new forms of scholarship
Changes in scholarly practices such as mining data sets can have significant influences on scholar is professional identity. Shifts in technology and funding that favor computational methods May disadvantage those whose research is based on fieldwork for instance. These transitions can create a double bind for those research areas more funding for computational modeling made me less funding for field research to collect new data. Not only does less data collected but fewer students are trained in field methods. Substantial expertise and data collection and the ability to interpret older data may be lost. Conversely those who rely on computational methods must have sufficient knowledge of how the data were collected to be able to interpret them. They do require adequate training and data collection methods.... Research Specialties that use more computational methods are seeking a balance between a steady supply of new data, avoiding duplicate or redundant data collection where possible, and training students in field research and computational methods. Thus, new technologies for producing and analyzing data may have subtle but important influences on Scholars career path.
Page 115
Borgman makes the point here that while there is a Commons in the infrastructure of scholarly publishing there is less of a Commons in the infrastructure 4 data across disciplines.
The infrastructure of scholarly publishing Bridges disciplines: every field produces Journal articles, conference papers, and books albeit in differing ratios. Libraries select, collect organize and make accessible publications of all types, from all fields. No comparable infrastructure exists for data. A few Fields have major mechanisms for publishing data in repositories. Some fields are in the stage of developing standards and practices to activate their data resorces and Nathan were widely accessible. In most Fields, especially Outside The Sciences, data practices remain local idiosyncratic, and oriented to current usage rather than preservation operation, and access. Most data collections Dash where they exist Dash are managed by individual agencies within disciplines, rather than by libraries are archives. Data managers usually are trained within the disciplines they serve. Only a few degree programs and information studies include courses on data management. The lack of infrastructure for data amplifies the discontinuities in scholarly publishing despite common concerns, independent debates continue about access to Publications and data.
Chapters 4 and 5 the continuity of scholarly publishing and the discontinuity of scholarly publishing
These are both useful and important chapters for the scholarly Commons working group. They discuss the things that are common across scholarly communication as well as the different functions comma and they also discuss a new technology is disrupting this common area.
Page 47
Communication is the essence of scholarship comment as many observers have said in many ways. Scholarship is an inherently social activity, involving a wide range of private and public interactions within the research Community. Publication comment as the public report of research, is part of a continuous cycle of Reading, Writing, disgusting, searching, investigating, presenting, submitting, and reviewing. No scholarly publication stands alone. Each new work in a field his position relative to others through the process of citing relevant literature.
Page 47
Communication is the essence of scholarship comment as many observers have said in many ways.
Borgman gives bibliography of claims that scholarship is communication
A great paragraph here on the value of interconnection
scholarly data and documents are of most value when they are interconnected rather than independent. The outcomes of a research project could be understood most fully if it were possible to trace an important finding from a grant proposal, to data collection, to a data set, to its publication, to its subsequent review and comment period journal articles are more valuable if one can jump directly from the article to those insights into later articles that cite the source article. Articles are even more valuable if they provide links to data on which they are based. Some of these capabilities already are available, but their expansion depends more on the consistency of the data description, access arrangements, and intellectual property agreement then on technological advances.
I think here of the line from Jim Gill may all your problems be technical
Figure 3 illustrates at what age ceased ‘indie’ journals stopped publishing. Most journals survived the first 2–5 years period, whereas the mortality rate rose in the critical 6–9 years period. After that, the number of journals ceasing dropped sharply, indicating that the surviving journals had found stability.
Most critical period for journals is 6-9 years. After year ten, the number of journals that stop drops quickly
The development over time of active ‘indie’ OA journals before and after 2002 is shown in Figs. 1A and 1B. A journal was counted as ‘active’ in a particular year if it was still publishing articles in that year. Before 2002 the number of active journals grew very rapidly from a total of 76 journals in 1995 to 207 journals in 2002. The year 2002 was the cut-off year to be included in the studied cohort, meaning that no new journals were added to the data set after this point in time. After 2002, the number of journals in the cohort decreased steadily to the 127 that stayed active in 2014.
Interesting charts showing the rise and then decline of independent, scholar-published OA journals
The average number of articles published was 31 per year with 74% publishing 0–30 articles, and 9% 60 or more. The study also contains interesting data about the workload done, revenues etc.
Average numbers of articles in OJS journals: 31
“The key question for OA publishing is whether it can be scaled up from a single journal publishing model with relatively few articles published per year to a comprehensive major journal with of the order of 50–100 articles annually.” They further note: “The continuation of the journal relies very heavily on the personal involvement of the editor and is as such a risk to the model. Employing staff to handle, for example, management, layout and copyediting tasks, is a cost-increasing factor that also is a threat to the model.” Both questions are still highly relevant today.
Key issues facing scholar-published journals: can they ramp up; can they survive succession.
Earlier studies A number of previous studies, both snapshots and some with longitudinal elements, have shed light on different aspects of such type of journals, which for short we will call “indie” journals.
Bibliography of "independent journals"
Often the enthusiasm of the founders and their personal network can carry a volunteer-based journal for a few years. But at that same time this type of journal, which lack the support of employed staff and a professional publishing organization, are threatened by many dangers. The editor may change affiliation or retire, or the support of the university hosting the journal might be withdrawn. Authors may stop sending in good manuscripts and it may become more and more difficult to find motivated reviewers. Not being included in the Web of Science, and the impact factor that follows, may in the long run limit the number of submissions severely. On the positive side of the balance the emergence of open source software for publishing (i.e., Open Journals System) and cheap or free hosting services like Latin American Scielo have facilitated the technical parts of publishing.
Problems with Scholar-published journals
Most of the OA journals founded in the 1990s were of this variety, later many established subscription journals (particularly society ones) have made their digital versions freely available immediately or with a delay. This has been particularly noticeable in countries where cheap or free national or regional electronic portals have become available, like Scielo, Redalyc, and J-stage. Since around 2003 the OA market has become increasingly dominated by professionally published journals, which finance themselves by charging authors so-called article processing charges, APCs. At first such journals were being launched by open access publishers like BioMedCentral and PLOS, but in the last couple of years the major commercial and society publishers have increasingly started new OA journals and have also converted some subscription journals to APC-financed models.
History of OA journals. Initially scholar-published, non-APC, post 2003 mostly APC-publisher-led journals
Open Access (OA) is nowadays increasingly being used as a business model for the publishing of scholarly peer reviewed journals, both by specialized OA publishing companies and major, predominantly subscription-based publishers. However, in the early days of the web OA journals were mainly founded by independent academics, who were dissatisfied with the predominant print and subscription paradigm and wanted to test the opportunities offered by the new medium. There is still an on-going debate about how OA journals should be operated, and the volunteer model used by many such ‘indie’ journals has been proposed as a viable alternative to the model adopted by big professional publishers where publishing activities are funded by authors paying expensive article processing charges (APCs). Our longitudinal quantitative study of 250 ‘indie’ OA journals founded prior to 2002, showed that 51% of these journals were still in operation in 2014 and that the median number of articles published per year had risen from 11 to 18 among the survivors. Of these surviving journals, only 8% had started collecting APCs. A more detailed qualitative case study of five such journals provided insights into how such journals have tried to ensure the continuity and longevity of operations.
Abstract
A longitudinal study of independent scholar-published open access journals
Björk, Bo-Christer, Cenyu Shen, and Mikael Laakso. 2016. “A Longitudinal Study of Independent Scholar-Published Open Access Journals.” PeerJ 4 (May). peerj.com: e1990. doi:10.7717/peerj.1990.
Here is the real message of the letter and the real rationale of the Spenser Society of America: to multiply the institutional contexts in which writing on Spenser will at once be demanded and published. It so happens that the letter was written before the society's first meeting, but as this sentence shows, the society need never have met at all, since its most impor- tant goal-the creation of a Spenser industry with all its attendant machinery-had already been achieved
The creation of the Spenser industry: how communities create fields
Publish or perish? The rise of the fractional author…
Plume, Andrew, and Daphne van Weijen. 2014. “Publish or Perish? The Rise of the Fractional Author….” Research Trends, no. 38(September). https://www.researchtrends.com/issue-38-september-2014/publish-or-perish-the-rise-of-the-fractional-author/.
Some researchers attribute the phrase to Kimball C. Atwood III, who is said to have coined the phrase in 1950 (
origin of the phrase "publish or perish"
Jon Udell on productive social discourse.
changeable minds<br> What’s something you believed deeply, for a long time, and then changed your mind about?
David Gray's Liminal Thinking points out that we all have beliefs that are built on hidden foundations. We need to carefully examine our own beliefs and their origins. And we need to avoid judgment as we consider the beliefs of others and their origins.
Wael Ghonim asks us to design social media that encourages civility, thoughtfulness, and open minds rather than self-promotion, click-bait, and echo chambers.
business
Right: But where this argument fails is in interrogating whether, and why, this must necessarily be the case. Many socially necessary functions are provided outside market structures. Is there an iron law of nature dictating that scholarly communication must happen in a marketplace?
in the latter both the wide differential in manuscript rejection rates and the high correlation between refereerecommendations and editorial decisions suggests that reviewers and editors agree more on acceptance than on rejection.
In "specific and focussed" fields, the agreement tends to be more on acceptance than rejection.
In the former there is also much more agreement on rejectionthan acceptance
In "general and diffuse" fields, there is more agreement on paper rejection than in "specific and focussed."
excellencetorecognizeexcellence
Excellence to recognise excellence quotation.
. I consider that my job, as a philosopher, is to activate the possible, and not to describe the probable, that is, to think situations with and through their unknowns when I can feel them
The job of a philosopher is to "activate the possible, not describe the probable."
massmediarefers to those means of transmission
When I ask students to post on Youth Voices, I'm asking them to participate in mass media. It's a big jump for some who do very little by friend-to-friend communication.
Levine, T., Asada, K. J., & Carpenter, C. (2009). Sample sizes and effect sizes are negatively correlated inmeta-analyses: Evidence and implications of a publication bias against non-significant findings.Communication Monographs, 76, 286–302
Paris, G., De Leo, G., Menozzi, P., & Gatto, M. (1998). Region-based citation bias in science.Nature, 396,6708
Rosenthal, R. (1979). The file drawer problem and tolerance for null results.Psychological Bulletin, 86,638–641
p
Song, F. J., Parekh-Bhurke, S., Hooper, L., Loke, Y. K., Ryder, J. J., Sutton, A. J., et al. (2009). Extent ofpublication bias in different categories of research cohorts: A meta-analysis of empirical studies.BMCMedical Research Methodology, 9, 79
Sterling, T. D. (1959). Publication decisions and their possible effects on inferences drawn from tests ofsignificance—Or vice versa.Journal of the American Statistical Association, 54, 30–34
publication bias
Osuna, C., Crux-Castro, L., & Sanz-Menedez, L. (2011). Overturning some assumptions about the effects ofevaluation systems on publication performance.Scientometrics, 86, 575–592
evaluation systems and publication performance
Pautasso, M. (2010). Worsening file-drawer problem in the abstracts of natural, medical and social sciencedatabases.Scientometrics, 85(1), 193–202
Schmidt, S. (2009). Shall we really do it again? The powerful concept of replication is neglected in thesocial sciences.Review of General Psychology, 13(2), 90–100.
Shelton, R. D., Foland, P., & Gorelskyy, R. (2009). Do new SCI journals have a different national bias?Scientometrics, 79(2), 351–363. doi:
Silvertown, J., & McConway, K. J. (1997). Does ‘‘publication bias’’ lead to biased science?Oikos, 79(1),167–168.
Yousefi-Nooraie, R., Shakiba, B., & Mortaz-Hejri, S. (2006). Country development and manuscript selec-tion bias: A review of published studies.BMC Medical Research Methodology, 6, 37
On developing countries and science
Evanschitzky, H., Baumgarth, C., Hubbard, R., & Armstrong, J. S. (2007). Replication research’s disturbingtrend.Journal of Business Research, 60(4), 411–415. doi
replication research
Jeng, M. (2006). A selected history of expectation bias in physics.American Journal of Physics, 74(7),578–583
History of expectation bias in physics
Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2008a). Perfect study, poor evidence: Interpretation of biases preceding study design.Seminars in Hematology, 45(3), 160–166
effect of positive bias
Feigenbaum, S., & Levy, D. M. (1996). Research bias: Some preliminary findings.Knowledge and Policy:The International Journal of Knowledge Transfer and Utilization, 9(2 & 3), 135–142.
Positive bias
Song, F., Parekh, S., Hooper, L., Loke, Y. K., Ryder, J., Sutton, A. J., et al. (2010). Dissemination andpublication of research findings: An updated review of related biases.Health Technology Assessment,14(8), 1–193. doi
positive bias
De Rond, M., & Miller, A. N. (2005). Publish or perish—Bane or boon of academic life?Journal ofManagement Inquiry, 14(4), 321–329. doi:
On how increased pressure to publish diminishes creativity.
Several possible problems have been hypothesised, including: undue proliferation ofpublications and atomization of results (Gad-el-Hak2004; Statzner and Resh2010);impoverishment of research creativity, favouring ‘‘normal’’ science and predictable out-comes at the expense of pioneering, high-risk studies (De Rond and Miller2005); growingjournal rejection rates and bias against negative and non-significant results (because theyattract fewer readers and citations) (Statzner and Resh2010; Lortie1999); sensationalism,inflation and over-interpretation of results (Lortie1999; Atkin2002; Ioannidis2008b);increased prevalence of research bias and misconduct (Qiu2010). Indirect empiricalevidence supports at least some of these concerns. The per-capita paper output of scientistshas increased, whilst their career duration has decreased over the last 35 years in thephysical sciences (Fronczak et al.2007). Rejection rates of papers have increased in thehigh-tier journals (Larsen and von Ins2010; Lawrence2003). Negative sentences such as‘‘non-significant difference’’ have decreased in frequency in papers’ abstracts, while catchyexpressions such as ‘‘paradigm shift’’ have increased in the titles (Pautasso2010; Atkin2002). No study, however, has yet verified directly whether the scientific literature isenduring actual changes in conten
Good discussion (and bibliography) of problems involved in hyper competition
Formann, A. K. (2008). Estimating the proportion of studies missing for meta-analysis due to publicationbias.Contemporary Clinical Trials, 29(5), 732–739. doi
estimate of positive bias in clinical trials.
Fronczak, P., Fronczak, A., & Holyst, J. A. (2007). Analysis of scientific productivity using maximumentropy principle and fluctuation-dissipation theorem.Physical Review E, 75(2), 026103. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.75.026103.
On rising scientific productivity over shorter careers.
Atkin, P. A. (2002). A paradigm shift in the medical literature.British Medical Journal, 325(7378),1450–1451
On the rise of sexy terms like "paradigm shift" in abstracts.
Bonitz, M., & Scharnhorst, A. (2001). Competition in science and the Matthew core journals.Sciento-metrics, 51(1), 37–54
Matthew effect
To publish. And sometimes publish in the right journals.... In my discipline ...there’s just a few journals, and if you’re not in that journal, then yourpublication doesn’t really count
Importance of "top" journals
In addition to that, the other thing that they focus on is science as celebrity.... Sothe standards are, ‘‘How much did it cost, and is it in the news?’’ And if it didn’tcost much and if it is not in the news, but it got a lot of behind-the-scenes talkwithin your discipline, they don’t know that, nor do they care
Importance of news-worthiness.
You’ve got to have a billionpublications in my field. That is the bottom line. That’s the only thing that counts.You can fail to do everything else as long as you have lots and lots of papers
Importance of publications in science--overrules everything else.
The winner-take-all aspect of the priority rule has its drawbacks, however. It can encourage secrecy, sloppy practices, dishonesty and an excessive emphasis on surrogate measures of scientific quality, such as publication in high-impact journals. The editors of the journal Nature have recently exhorted scientists to take greater care in their work, citing poor reproducibility of published findings, errors in figures, improper controls, incomplete descriptions of methods and unsuitable statistical analyses as evidence of increasing sloppiness. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)As competition over reduced funding has increased markedly, these disadvantages of the priority rule may have begun to outweigh its benefits. Success rates for scientists applying for National Institutes of Health funding have recently reached an all-time low. As a result, we have seen a steep rise in unhealthy competition among scientists, accompanied by a dramatic proliferation in the number of scientific publications retracted because of fraud or error. Recent scandals in science are reminiscent of the doping problems in sports, in which disproportionately rich rewards going to winners has fostered cheating.
How the priority rule is killing science.
The role of external influences on the scientific enterprise must not be ignored. With funding success rates at historically low levels, scientists are under enormous pressure to produce high-impact publications and obtain research grants. The importance of these influences is reflected in the burgeoning literature on research misconduct, including surveys that suggest that approximately 2% of scientists admit to having fabricated, falsified, or inappropriately modified results at least once (24). A substantial proportion of instances of faculty misconduct involve misrepresentation of data in publications (61%) and grant applications (72%); only 3% of faculty misconduct involved neither publications nor grant applications.
Importance of low funding rates as incitement to fraud
The predominant economic system in science is “winner-take-all” (17, 18). Such a reward system has the benefit of promoting competition and the open communication of new discoveries but has many perverse effects on the scientific enterprise (19). The scientific misconduct among both male and female scientists observed in this study may well reflect a darker side of competition in science. That said, the preponderance of males committing research misconduct raises a number of interesting questions. The overrepresentation of males among scientists committing misconduct is evident, even against the backdrop of male overrepresentation among scientists, a disparity more pronounced at the highest academic ranks, a parallel with the so-called “leaky pipeline.” There are multiple factors contributing to the latter, and considerable attention has been paid to factors such as the unique challenges facing young female scientists balancing personal and career interests (20), as well as bias in hiring decisions by senior scientists, who are mostly male (21). It is quite possible that, in at least some cases, misconduct at high levels may contribute to attrition of woman from the senior ranks of academic researchers.
Reason for fraud: winner take all
Editors, Publishers, Impact Factors, and Reprint Income
On the incentives for journal editors to publish papers they think might improve IF... and how citations are gamed.
44-45 Ingelfinger rule: won't publish articles that have been presented, discussed with reporters, or published in any form elsewhere--including data. Once a paper is under consideration and production, it can't be discussed with reporters.
This clearly harms science in the interest of journals.
Now, it is important for you and I to speak regularly, as we are doing, because just as meditating reminds you of the experience of centeredness, our conversing reminds you of the nature of the experience of Knowing, which provides you with the clear perspective of the pleasure of It, the Integrity of It, the naturalness of It, and the fact that in the experience of It there is no loss of any experience of Self, including, as I said, identity and identification—what might be called mind and body. The experience of It does not convey or substantiate the sidekick, the sidekick’s judgments, or the sidekick’s sense of separation. You must be reminded of this because it helps to substantiate to you the desirability of not being fragmented, the desirability of not experiencing fear, the desirability of not being “bumbling,” the desirability of not experiencing incompetence, the desirability of releasing the sidekick.
Raj speak about the importance of being reminded of what is real.
Remember—and this is the key of our conversation today—it is the act of being in dialogue, it is the event of being connected, and not what happens during the connection, which constitutes the bridge that allows you to move from the ego sense of self to the Conscious experience of Who You Are. Indeed, you can ask me to simply say, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” when you are afraid of the content of what you might hear, because it isn’t the content but the connection that constitutes the bridge.
"it is the event of being connected, and not what happens during the connection, which constitutes the bridge that allows you to move from the ego sense of self to the Conscious experience of Who You Are."
? Real dialogue is not about what is said?
Our relationship is a unity, and our conversation, our experience of each other, is communion. That is taking things further than you can grasp at the moment. For the time being, the key point is that our conversations demonstrate for you the fact that you are with me from my point of view, which means from the Father’s point of view, rather than my being with you from your level of perception. I have not come to where you are in belief. I am speaking to you where we are in Reality. Therefore, again, our communication is a demonstration of the Fact of where you Are.
The conversations prove to Paul that he is actually in 4d.
The Center for Plain Language is a non-profit organization that promotes clear communication in government and business.
"A communication is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design are so clear that the intended readers can readily find what they need, understand it, and use it."
Plain language checklist<br> https://twitter.com/plain_language
The No. 1 Predictor Of Career Success According To Network Science
Alice Maz on communication failures due to different cultures of conversation and values.
Most people value feelings, shared perspectives, and social status. They see correction as an attempt to knock them down a peg. Nerds value facts, logic, and the sharing of information. A genuine nerd shares information with no intention of knocking anyone down, and prefers being corrected to remaining misinformed.
Although the transcript gives some slight indication of what we have been discussing, the emphasis should be placed on the actual experiences which you have had. The value is in the communication of meaning as experienced within your consciousness.
Words are symbols of symbols twice removed from Reality ~ACIM
It's the meaning of the words that is important - that has value. Meaning is communicated by experience.
Right now, you are seeing from the inside. Although you do not see me with your eyes, and do not hear me with your ears, you are, indeed, perceiving me and the ideas which I am expressing. You are perceiving the meanings which my Being is expressing at that point of my infinitude which is called “Paul.” The five physical senses play no part in this exchange or process, and yet the process is Actual and experienced. As I said yesterday, observe the process of communication that we are enjoying. As you do, you will begin to grasp the process by which you may communicate with and understand the meaning of any and all parts of the infinitude of your Being, whether it is visible or invisible to the five physical senses. Everything about this process of communication illustrates and includes lessons to be learned and understood.
The body is not necessary for communication.
It is quite accurate that it is not possible for those who believe that they have been born to communicate with those who believe that they have died. These are two different states of the three-dimensional-only frame of reference. It is part of the distortion of that finite view which makes it seem as though some part of one’s infinitude (those who have “passed on”) is not available to him as his conscious experience. There are infinitely more individualizations of Being who are Awake than there are those who are “asleep.” it is ridiculous to believe that communication with them is impossible.
Quote: There are infinitely more individualizations of Being who are Awake than there are those who are "asleep."
Birth and Death are two different states in the 3d frame of reference. They are part of the same distortion. It is not possible for one who believes in death to communicate with one who had died because of the belief that they are gone.
Hypothesis might make a fine alternative to Twitter.
even if an interconnected skein of nanotechnology were toextend into all aspects of everyday life
recent research has proven that personal use technology (internet, smartphones, gaming systems) have decreased the skills of interpersonal communication and emotional intelligence (mostly of the millennials generation)... should we be pushing for technology to be involved in all aspects of everyday life?
As I said yesterday, observe the process of communication that we are enjoying. As you do, you will begin to grasp the process by which you may communicate with and understand the meaning of any and all parts of the infinitude of your Being, whether it is visible or invisible to the five physical senses. Everything about this process of communication illustrates and includes lessons to be learned and understood.
Real communication occurs in the consciousness of Being and Raj is showing Paul that what he is experiencing in these communications is very Real and gives him the experience of an example.
My friend also told me that when he removed PowerPoint from lecture theatres, his students demanded it back, because without it they had to organise their own notes.
Not for nothing did Brigadier General McMaster, of the US military, subsequently liken the proliferation of PP presentation in the military to an “internal threat”, saying: “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems are not bullet-izable.”
Through PowerPoint, everything has a tendency to resemble a pitch rather than a discussion
You have found that sometimes I am not even going to say something new, in the sense of something radically different from what you are able to understand. Observe, Paul, that it effectively cuts off communication when you begin to try to think for yourself and figure this out.
Ahh and here he says that it cuts off the communication.
Active listening helps listeners better understand others’ perspectives and helps speakers feel more understood and less threatened. This technique can prevent miscommunication and spare hurt feelings on both sides. By improving communication and preventing arguments from escalating, active listening can make relationships more enduring and satisfying. Practicing active listening with someone close to you can also help you listen better when interacting with other people in your life, such as students, co-workers, or roommates.
I seem to recall reading (probably a Quora response) about the best salesman being a fellow who didn't try to actively sell anything, but just "actively" (i.e. clarifying questions in the right places) listened to his clients. He'd then put the pieces together later after finding out what they needed.
While that is likely part of it, another part seems to be that this is simply a preferred mode of communication.
Another destructive Stress Reaction is withdrawal. We become uninvolved, aloof, occupied with other things. We hide in our offices. We avoid communicating.
the language of electricity — stimulant, reactor, and voltage
That makes me think of J.D. Peters, Speaking Into the Air and Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted Media
Correction, the link location for Unspeakableness has changed to http://peiyinglin.net/unspeakableness.html
More details accessible here: http://unspeakableness.net/
National governments are also weighing in on the issue. The UK government aims this April to make text-mining for non-commercial purposes exempt from copyright, allowing academics to mine any content they have paid for.
UK government intervening to make text-mining for non-commercial purposes exempt from copyright.
“Our plan is just to wait for the copyright exemption to come into law in the United Kingdom so we can do our own content-mining our own way, on our own platform, with our own tools,” says Mounce. “Our project plans to mine Elsevier’s content, but we neither want nor need the restricted service they are announcing here.”
This seems to be a sensible move rather than be hindered not by copyright, but by the onerous contract that Elsevier wants to put in place.
some researchers feel that a dangerous precedent is being set. They argue that publishers wrongly characterize text-mining as an activity that requires extra rights to be granted by licence from a copyright holder, and they feel that computational reading should require no more permission than human reading. “The right to read is the right to mine,” says Ross Mounce of the University of Bath, UK, who is using content-mining to construct maps of species’ evolutionary relationships.
"The right to read is the right to mine."
Here’s a simple test: If your company has a performance bonus plan, go up to a random employee and ask, “Do you know specifically what you should be doing right now to increase your bonus?” If he or she can’t answer, the HR team isn’t making things as clear as they need to be.
Instead of cheerleading, people in my profession should think of themselves as businesspeople. What’s good for the company? How do we communicate that to employees? How can we help every worker understand what we mean by high performance?
Four faults of prose style, with illustrative examples: (1) misuse of compound words; (2) employment of strange words; (3) long, unseasonable, or frequent epithets; (4) inappropriate metaphors.
Rhetoric as a tool for communication - something that increases the understanding of the audience rather than confusing them until they agree.
Hence rhetoric may be regarded as an offshoot of dialectic
I believe rhetoric is its own branch of communication.