Comments on: Culture Trumps Technology: The UC Berkeley Scholarly Communication Report

By: How the Internet Changed Medical Journals « The Scholarly Kitchen

How the Internet Changed Medical Journals « The Scholarly Kitchen — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 09:32:23 +0000

[...] it is naive to believe that scientists just need more time to feel comfortable with public debate. Culture always trumps technology, yet there are real consequences to the state of scientific knowledge — and more importantly, [...]

By: State of the Art II: The Future of Technology in the Classroom « The Scholarly Kitchen

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:52:19 +0000

[...] to blame a lack of resources as the cause of slow adoption of technology in the classroom. As culture trumps technology, the conservatism of teaching is a reflection primarily of academic culture and reward and not a [...]

By: Post-publication Review: Is the Dialog of Science Really a Monologue? « The Scholarly Kitchen

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 09:24:54 +0000

[...] by simply changing the mechanics of public feedback because the problem lies more deeply in the embedded cultures and reward system of researchers. Ultimately, we need a change of culture that places more value on public [...]

By: Let the Adaptations Begin! « The Scholarly Kitchen

Let the Adaptations Begin! « The Scholarly Kitchen — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:30:16 +0000

[...] this blog, we’ve talked before about how culture trumps technology or why scholarly publishing hasn’t been disrupted yet, but I think academic culture is in a [...]

By: The Mismeasure of Man, Funds, and Open Access Experiments « The Scholarly Kitchen

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:25:22 +0000

[...] Most faculty do not consider open access publishing high on their academic priority list (see the Berkeley report and the Ithaka report), and those who do often have access to their own research funds to support [...]

By: Rules of Thumb for Social Media in Science « The Scholarly Kitchen

Rules of Thumb for Social Media in Science « The Scholarly Kitchen — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:21:36 +0000

[...] pre-conceived opinion tweeted by a non-attendee is contradictory to most published studies, so I thought I’d post my talk here, as I’d rather hear commentary on what I actually [...]

By: Philip Davis

Philip Davis — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:12:39 +0000

Yes, their report did focus on academics from “elite” institutions, although that does not limit the interpretation of their findings, because:

1) Researchers at these elite institutions generate the vast majority of the published literature. This means that academic publishing is largely driven by the needs and desires of this group, and

2) Second-tier institutions often follow the same reward models (albeit a more relaxed version) of these elite institutions.

By: Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:57:50 +0000

I read into the beginning of the methodology and was stopped by the description of how they sourced their interviews. They used “snowball sampling”, which essentially means they got initial contacts to forward them on to others. What this means in terms of the results is that they have a snapshot of what elite academics thought a few years back.

Aren’t elite academics most likely to embrace the traditional culture in which their ensconced and eschew new technology?

By: A tale of two wikis « Can't see the wood for the trees

A tale of two wikis « Can't see the wood for the trees — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:54:26 +0000

[...] tools by active scientists. A recent report from University of California Berkeley confirmed this reluctance to embrace new forms of sharing [...]

By: Steve Hitchcock

Steve Hitchcock — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:25:35 +0000

When making the comparison with Web 2.0 services, such as Flickr, YouTube, Slideshare, etc., a factor often overlooked and seriously underestimated is that these provide services for content for which there was previously no outlet. That is not the case for scholarly papers. So services that seek to enhance scholarly communication – and in this respect I am a great supporter of open access, for example – must recognise that they are marginal (even if by a large margin) in terms of additional dissemination, and make the case accordingly. This would explain why on scholarly communication the conservatism of the academic system identified in this UCal report prevails and it isn’t easily persuaded for change. The case for change has to be better and more focussed, and where that has happened, e.g. open access policies, it has been more successful.