As we continue to measure the number of papers, citations, and the combination, perhaps we should be measuring a much lower number — the number of studies that can be replicated after publication.
A new book edited by David Swords on patron-driven acquisitions (PDA) provides a good background on the topic, but there is a broader context of PDA, which is not fully addressed.
eLife asserts that professional editors create more harm than good. But how do we know that? How can we know that? Or is this just an emotional argument based on anecdote and conjecture rather than fact?
Can a cloud-based printer with a small footprint insert print back into daily information flows?
The vaunted review article gets a neat little send-up, and reminds us that part of the value of humor is that it keeps you loose and helps you retain a skeptical perspective.
The two Requests for Information recently put forth by the federal government require a realistic set of responses, and hint at some changes in attitudes and approaches.
The universe is magical, but we tend to take it for granted. This TED Talk will get you back into the zone of amazement.
The rhetoric of “open” seeks to rally science to some higher state, but it’s not clear what “open science” means, why it’s any better, and what the risks of its adoption might be.
General purpose technologies are broadly applicable, and when they double in effect like IT has been doing for decades, they can start taking fast tracts of land. Is there anything safe as we “Race Against the Machine?”
Does the future belong to the small and nimble, the flexible mid-range, or the large and powerful? The Chefs reflect on this question in our second installment of this monthly feature.
Siri may be many things — cool feature, Google killer, source of amusement — but it is perhaps the ultimate expression of the semantic Web. And it’s still in beta.
The decline of bookstores has made discovery increasingly difficult. One solution is to create a new kind of bookstore, which is effectively a showroom and community center for the celebration of the book.
The commodity nature of the OA service seems to predict certain structural aspects, including lower prices and bigger journals.
The way Netflix unbundled DVD-by-mail and streaming video services, flipped branding strategies, and made it all a public show created a focus on strategic inflection points and betting for the long-term.
It seems Apple underpredicted the future they’d make. Facetime, Siri, iCloud, iPhone, and other innovations have made this prediction of the future seem almost old-fashioned.