Think Social Media is a Fad?
A video compilation of data, set to a familiar tune, showing why social media is changing the world.
Wikipedia’s Plateau: A Sign of Elitism, Maturity, or Both?
The plateau of entries in Wikipedia has people scratching their heads. Are the editors becoming elitists? Is quality beating quantity? Or is it a little of both?
Free Digital Textbooks Win in California
An initiative to see if free K-12 textbooks in math and science could exist, California tested the waters. The results have been released. They’re surprising, and may portend changes for educational publishers.
Google Knol — Vanity Publishing Fails Again
Google Knol is fading fast. Why didn’t it work? And when will it be put out of its misery? Meanwhile, Google opens the doors on a faster, more accurate version of its search engine.
Ghostwriters & Ghostresearchers: Supernatural Forces in Scholarship
Ghostwriters and unnamed contract researchers might scare up controversy, and frighten away the truth. And they’re only part of the problem.
Why Everything Sucks
Why does the world suck so much right now? Craig Ferguson provides a fairly compelling hypothesis.
Will Feudalism Fade from Knowledge Exchange?
Feudalism was a necessary step in social organization, but is it the end-state for academic organization? A number of related events this past weekend make me think not.
Diversion, Invention, and Socialized Medicine
A study of social citation reveals diversion, invention, and distortion, and provides a cautionary tale about how socialization of knowledge in medicine can have downsides.
A Gate-keeping Failure at Morgan Stanley
When a teenager is allowed to publish a report under the name of Morgan Stanley, the results show that an important gate-keeping function failed.
The Francis Collins Controversy
The overtly religious views of Francis Collins, nominated to run the NIH, is creating a controversy deserving of careful attention.
Paying for Peer-Review — or, What We’ve Learned from Financial Watchdogs
A common systemic problem links oversight of financial risks and author-pays peer-review. Both are potentially calamitous.
Chaos Still Publishing Former Editor’s Work
The journal that sparked a peer-review controversy has resumed publishing its ousted editor’s work.
The Impact Factor: A Tool from a Bygone Era?
With scientific information propagating in new ways, is the Impact Factor measuring what it was intended to measure?
From Information to Coordination
In this video from a U.S. State Department presentation, Clay Shirky explains how the Internet has gone from a “source of information” to a “site of coordination” — the fifth historical revolution in communications.
The Tip of an Iceberg?
The Bentham experiment suggests that a poorly managed payment system may be the root of a larger problem emerging in academic publishing.