The Physics of the Milk Crate Challenge (and Why You Will Fall)
Why is the latest internet craze so difficult? An engineer explains…
Revisiting: Breaking the Silence: the #MeToo Moment in Scholarly Communication
Revisiting Alison Mudditt’s 2018 post on sexual harassment in our community. What has changed in the last three years, and what can we continue to do to eradicate this behavior for the next generation of women.
Popularizing Cosmology: The Example of Katie Mack
It also can be something of a trap for a well-intentioned academic who wants to write for this audience, as writing for the lay person is often contemptuously dismissed as “popularization.” Woe to the academic who puts an article from The Atlantic or a book from Simon & Schuster into her tenure portfolio! It takes courage. My view is that these brave souls should be called out and celebrated. They are my heroes.
Guest Post — Best Practices and Innovative Approaches to Peer Review in Africa
A pilot series of community peer review events from four organizations (AfricArXiv, Eider Africa, TCC Africa, and PREreview) have been developed to enable equitable practices of research evaluation and review.
Pearson Launches a Comprehensive Textbook Solution for Students. What Are Its Prospects?
Pearson is offering online access to its entire textbook collection for $15 a month. Will students go for it?
Pluralism vs. Monoculture in Scholarly Communication, Part 2
Calls for a monoculture of scholarly communication keep multiplying. But wouldn’t a continued diversity of models be healthier?
What Universities Have Wrought: An Interview with Davarian Baldwin
The crises that US universities are producing in cities are intensifying as fast as others they face. An interview with Davarian Baldwin, author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower.
Friday Video: A Quiet Place II… Study
The BYU Library’s latest humorous promotional video is out, and (if we do say so ourselves) it’s an instant classic.
How One Society Is Supporting Peer Review Excellence in their Community: An Interview with Laura Feetham of IOP Publishing
In today’s post, Alice Meadows talks to Laura Feetham of IOP Publishing about their work to improve peer review quality in the physical sciences through their ongoing peer review excellence program.
Guest Post — Building the Last Mile: A Plan for Bringing the Expanding Universe of Digital Primary Sources into Classrooms
Getting digitized primary source materials into the classroom requires an open dialogue among researchers, teachers, and archivists. A workshop from historians of business shows how.
Guest Post — A Model for Peer-to-Peer Workplace Learning
Gabe Harp discusses MIT Press’ “Skill Exchange”, a peer to peer program to foster learning and professional development.
Science Is A Process
Adam Savage of “Mythbusters” addresses how they approached ideas that had “no basis in science”, and how that phrase is essentially meaningless.
Start-up Stories: Skilltype
Continuing a series looking at start-ups in the scholarly sector, from what they do and how it could be useful, to how they have got started, and tips they would share with other entrepreneurs. This time, an interview with Tony Zanders, founder and CEO of Skilltype.
Watch Out for the Silent Librarian: An Interview with Crane Hassold
Silent Librarian is an international phishing organization that “angles” for university network credentials on behalf of the Iranian government. Crane Hassold gives us the lowdown on this dangerous scam.
Guest Post — Publishing in a Pandemic: 5 Factors Limiting Scholarly Research
Survey results on COVID pandemic impacts on researchers and educators across the disciplines, and implications for scholarly publishers.