Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Our Story: Hamiltunes and the Burden of Founding Histories
The musical “Hamilton” raises questions about history and historical practice that reflects what scholars are and aren’t doing.
Speech is Instinctive, Writing is Hard
Steven Pinker discusses a better model for more effective prose, particularly for academic authors.
The Dissertation Mess: Balancing Rights and Responsibilities
The broad online availability of theses and dissertations creates difficult tensions between the individual rights of authors, the rights of educational institutions, and the responsibilities that both have to global scholarship and the collective good. How can we resolve those tensions?
Happy 100th Birthday to Relativity–More or Less, Depending on Where You're Reading This
Celebrating Einstein’s theory of General Relativity with a well-known time traveler.
MOOCs Rise from the Ashes
The MOOCs seem to have faded from view. In large part this is because they were so relentlessly overhyped when they first appeared. But now various forms of online education have begun to get traction in the marketplace. An essay by Clay Shirky points out how online education is operating today and its implications for higher education.
Ask The Chefs: How Does The Increased Use of Adjunct Faculty Affect Scholarly Publishing?
How does a differentiation between faculty on separate tracks for research or educational roles will drive change in the reward system? How might it impact scholarly publishing?
The Death of the Collection and the Necessity of Library-Publisher Collaboration: Young Librarians on the Future of Libraries
Applicants for a recent conference scholarship wrote essays that tended strongly to depict the traditional collection as dead and collaboration between librarians and publishers as essential to the library’s future. Do they herald a generational shift in mindset among librarians?
Notes on Publishing in an Emerging Economy
Well-intended government policy in an Eastern European nation is having unexpected results on school publishing, some of which are the precise opposite of what policymakers had hoped for. The problem is that those who draft policy have little imagination about how new programs will be taken up–and altered–in the marketplace.
The Impact of Color
A video showing how filmmakers use color to evoke an emotional response from an audience.
Back to School
John Oliver’s guide to the upcoming year for students.
ORCID Out of the Box
Charlie Rapple reports back from ISMTE, which does not stand for the International Society of Making Toys Educational
Meeting in the Middle
Over the last 4 months, I have attended many of the major publishing conferences and have learned quite a bit about the average attendee. I am going to cut to the chase and say that we publishing professionals are missing […]
Science Versus Religion, The God of the Gaps, Being "Less Wrong" and Two Favorite Neils (Gaiman and deGrasse Tyson)
Does religion impinge on scientific progress? And what about leprechauns? Neil Gaiman and Neil deGrasse Tyson discuss…
Deceptive Publishing: Why We Need a Blacklist, and Some Suggestions on How to Do It Right
Predatory publishing is a big and complex problem; so is calling out and shaming deceptive publishers by means of blacklisting. Is that something we should even do, and can it be done fairly, constructively, and helpfully? Yes, and here are some suggestions how.
You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means
A look at common terms that are improperly used to describe science.