Link to article: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Erasing-the-Pop-Culture/237039

I suppose the greater presence of trolls, bots, and the like would make this a lot more difficult now than it would have in 2009.

Love this as way to sum up the current state of the online sphere.

Very cool, I'd love to see the difference in comments from the official reviewers and the public.

I find this ironic. How you can spend years of work and produce an fully coherent and important academic paper as so many devote themselves too. However, because of the issues of open access, if you want people to find, read and engage your work, a blog is a more effective way to distribute knowledge you wish to share.

Then prestige will still equate to power and we will still be at a big divide between open access to scholarly work.

Open access seeks to dismantle this.

This is a great statement. If you take the power away from prestige, what is really left?

Interesting separation

What is the definition that these "public institutions" operate under? It seems that a lot of their characteristics point away from public. Or perhaps, public if you can afford it.

Reminds me of our optimist/pessimist discussion in class on what seemed like the "unchangeable" parts of scholarly work. Perhaps it can be altered in the future.

This seems to be the re-occurring obstacle for those trying to go public. The fear of appearing less credible based on citation counts and where you are published.

I think yes. It has the potential to break down a big barrier between the general population and the academics.

Here we go! Things are coming back around and tying together.

I think this can be applied in so many different situations. People don't always share stories for self-gain, sometimes its in an effort to help others. Academic research should fall into this as well.

This seems logical. Number one problem of moving towards open access seems to be the feared loss of the high impact journal publications and citation counts. But if you limit the people who can access it you're automatically starting out behind the eight ball.

a divine or prophetic token.

This just doesn't seem to be the case with a lot of scholarship

a solution or remedy for all difficulties

It really loses the tag of public when it's hundred of dollars to take a single class almost anywhere.

I think it is quite common for people to stop school after their undergrads or never really seek out work in the field they studied. Perhaps this move could encourage people to do more than they currently are with academics.

Really not asking for the world here... If it's publicly funded it should be publicly available

Lots of political obstacles to overcome but if successful, this could lead to a new world of knowledge production and accessibility to resources that was not possible before

So many considerations to take into account.

I hope we can reach this goal at some point. It'll take some time still but it's nice to read about others working towards this as well.

I honestly didn't realize it was this huge before the readings this week

Different end goals causing tension between commercial regulators and the other players involved.

overall, very problematic and only benefits a small group of people

Really cool how blogs do have an effect on public discourse in times of change.

Such a huge control over one discipline to happen relatively quickly

Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics - "converts high-quality subscription journals in the field of high-energy physics to open access through re-direction of subscription funds."

I would not have guessed this to be the outcome

There's always a catch

Better late then never I suppose

This sounds like what Juan was mentioning last class about how tenure is still evaluated on number of citations and publications

this sums up what I meant by "misguided motivations" quite well, motivated through personal gain

Misguided motivations

This ties back to what Shannon and Public Labs aim to avoid with their community research

Not a surprising factor but interesting to see the discrepancies between wealthier and poorer countries

I never thought of this being an issue when it comes to publications in science. Research topics chosen by what is currently trending and not necessarily what needs attention...

Science still seeks out the high impact journals for these reasons in the publication process. I also feel like a citation count is not a fair just of quality of work, it's an indicator but there should be more too it than just that that.

I wished they defined this a little more clearly.

Higher than I originally thought

I find it interesting that these are so well known and actively used, yet nobody shuts them down despite them pirating their material.

"a profound or notable transformation."

Excellent!

And it's still appears to be more private then public.

This raises two questions for me:

1. Are authors taking it upon themselves to allow people to access their work openly?

2. What is an "explicit Open licence," and is it difficult to acquire? If it's literally a license that allows them to share their work I have many reservations. It should be ultimately up to the author in my opinion.

So many limitations around scientific research both in terms of access and ability to determine just how far they do reach.

The RedALyC project is a bibliographic database and a digital library of Open Access journals, supported by the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México with the help of numerous other higher education institutions and information systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redalyc

Curious to see how this evolves in coming years.

I thought this would be higher than 20%

The chronic overuse of jargon that appears in most scholarly writing, definitely makes it less appealing to read at times.

Interesting quote, really strikes the root of the problem if the only people who have open access to your work are other scholars.

This is so backwards to me. I would think that after putting that much work into a piece you'd want as many people to read it as possible.

So true, but I never would have thought of that. How deadlines for univerisity assignments can have an effect on how much people are downloading. It'd be interesting to see how much it spikes during midterm and exam seasons within institutions as people are typically information hungry during particular periods.

This is funny. The better they are doing economically, the more likely they will download articles illegally? Perhaps this could have to do with the level of education and knowledge of these data bases and ways to get around purchasing research.

A study within a study

I've taken classes in the past in University where I've wondered if this was taken into account...

this seems like one of the first solutions to some of the questions we've been asking in class, while of course it's not perfect, it provides an optimistic outlook as public education and an informed society

I think all of these questions have great possibilities. If conducting research was common knowledge among all, more research would get done in more areas every day.

The more educated the citizens are the more educated questions come from the public as a whole which is beneficial

Do universities have citizen science programs?

Is it possible to truly have a collaborative government? I'm not fully convinced that this be fully achieved.

Oh, this is interesting. I wonder what ways it has changed the governments interactions with the public and if it has been positive.

I'm uncertain if this is defining what they are going to do or what they "should" be able to do. If they're able to pull all of these goals off through collective citizen science, I feel it would be a big step forwards.

This is so true, falls into the clicktavism debate that just because people click on a link, sign a petition, or have something to say online, it does not mean it is always effective.

I've never heard of this so I looked it up. F1000Prime was launched in 2002.

F1000Prime identifies and recommends important articles in biology and medical research publications. Articles are selected by a peer-nominated global 'Faculty' of the world's leading scientists and clinicians who then rate them and explain their importance.

(https://f1000.com/prime/about/whatis)

Wow, have has this not been upgraded in 350 years. No wonder open access is such an issue still today.

That's a cool way to make something inclusive out of a place in the community I'm sure people used to avoid

A good step forward though, it's important to expand and try new ways of doing things so we don't get caught in outdated policies and whatnot like we so often do

Dependency promotes power over weakness as there is power in numbers

Important to build up a level of trust between the university and the community it resides in

I think this is important and more universities should tak initiatives like this one

I can't help but think this is from the predisposed mind set that comes with "school pride," we're always taught to compete against other universities in sports, grades, rankings and more. I think we're losing perhaps a big opportunity to collaborate on certain levels because of our natural competitiveness.

Make an unpleasant feeling less intense

I think this is an important and could be a trend towards a more modernist approach to OA. Alternative ways to communicate research to others in non-traditional formats.

At least someone recognizes this, hopefully this model can somehow gain traction across other universities

I find it surprising that even now, they use wording like it "MAY be meritorious and impactful" ... As there is a chance it could have a negative impact in publishing it in OA.

this is shockingly and unfortunately low

I feel as this should be an important factor of research

This sounds like a better model to me

Who holds them accountable to actually practice what they preach?

It seems they've taken many steps to make it more important if it's consumed by the academic community and public consumption of the published knowledge means very little in comparison

There is some very systematic flaws when it comes to open access.

I can see how people may not find these forums as credible as a published journal and why this is problematic

The ones that are the hardest to gain access too

This is unfortunate

this is a really good question, SFU has the SFSS who is supposed to be the voice of the students but even that is highly contested among the public and extremely political so do they really represent the public interest??

A result of the large pressures put on the policy-makers and their lack of time to properly read and consider the relevant research.

I can see this posing even more complications in the policy making process for areas that are culturally diverse.

I find it kind of surprising things like local involvement and round table discussions was only introduced in the past 10 years.

A fancy term to fast-track policies in an absence of legitimate research and proper findings.

No kidding, there seems to be lots of corruption in these processes.

I can see this being an issue in terms of picking a choosing pieces that don't tell the whole story in order to form your argument.

There will always be critics.

To me, this sums up the "you can't please everyone" battle in terms of creating policies in an attempt to rectify current challenges we face.

They make this sound as if public-awareness is a fault in the police-making system.

This statement fits well with last week's topic on "Calling Bullshit on Fake News," as it's important to always take new information with a grain of salt as their are so many 'experts' out their nowadays and it's important to do further research into new facts and knowledge.

A good way to sum up that in policy-making, unless someone of power has the same interpretation of say a civilian who is affected by the policy, that view does not get considered in the policy making process

I think this is an example of decisions led more by emotion and perhaps a bit of panic in terms of a spreading disease instead of maybe the more rational response of a vaccine

I agree with this. To make a policy purely out of neutral and objective research could perhaps overlook some critical aspects in terms of individuals who are affected by new policies.

I think that local experts should have some of a say in the decisions regarding their livelihood, but it becomes a question of how much weight you put on their experiences versus your scientific research.

"evoking a keen sense of sadness or regret"

This can be a fine line to draw at times, to truly tell if its "neutral" or not in terms of objectivity

This would be interesting to see just how big of a role power plays in the policy-making processes

*most boring

This is an important point, the majority of people aren't as apt to dive into theory-dense policy readings in their free time

I find this to be very true

This sounds like a manipulative solution

I think sometimes it's hard not to be cynical when it comes to change, especially when some of our major issues today originated and were brought to attention 50-60 years ago.

I would say so. At the very least, they're admitting your inhaling tar while is bound to have some implications on your health.

"dispute the truth, validity, or honesty of (a statement or motive); call into question."

this happens at all levels in an attempt to stop undesirable behaviours

Is this supposed to be to benefit the reader of the information or the researcher?

"the supposed faculty of perceiving things or events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact"

Morality is based on a complete lack of imagination as to what has not been proven. If people never thought outside the box, then we would never make new discoveries.

"a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions"

Essentially the author is saying we will perpetually live and die again and again for the rest of eternity...

Could it be possible that Ramtha is a coping mechanism or simply a part of J. Z. Knight's imagination?

At the end of the day, regardless of it being bullshit, hot-air, bluffing, or just straight up lying they all rely on the receiver(s) of the information believing in a false-fact whether its directly or indirectly delivered.

if bullshit is false truth with the intention to decieve (ie. his example of "I have $20 in my pocket"), and bluffing is to talk through something by speaking nonsense. Then, by his definitions I would venture to say that bluffing and bullshit are quite similar.

promoting

so if its playfully exaggerated, it doesn't classify as bullshit unless someone interprets your intentions were different from what they are. so your own bullshit is up to the interpretation of others whether you like it or not.

"out of place; inappropriate."

I understand the author's definiton of humbug and how it can differ from deceit. However, this statement and whole paragraph seems like a bit of stretch. How can he be sure the orator isn't a passionate patriot? There's many situations where you are listening to a speaker regardless of topic, does that make everyone who does so fall into this category?

I think if the utterer intends to mislead someone by fabricating what they are saying to any degree, it would be considered humbug or bullshit

Looking up the basic definitions of these words shows the following:

Humbug - deceptive or false talk or behavior

Bullshit - stupid or untrue talk or writing, nonsense

I find the differences in these interesting because they're so closely related yet one focuses on behavior and the other writing. Although, the author focuses on the nicety of the word humbug versus bullshit.

"enforcing uniformity or conformity without regard to natural variation or individuality"