Guest Post: Perry Hewitt — Bringing the Cathedral to the Bazaar: Academic Content and Wikipedia
Perry Hewitt discusses JSTOR’s efforts to create and disseminate peer-reviewed scholarship to inform our post-truth world.
Journals and Politicians — A Marriage for Mutual Benefit? Or a Temporary Alignment of Interests?
President Obama has published three articles in six months in three of the world’s most prestigious scholarly journals. Is it appropriate? With these precedents, what happens when the politics of the President conflicts with the politics of science?
The Price of Silicon Valley’s "Disruption" — Is It Possible to Now Have Responsible Information Economics?
As we’ve absorbed and adopted the information economy assumptions peddled by Silicon Valley, social isolation has increased, the definition of “fact” has become slippery, and the scientific record has become more superficial, less reliable, and more transitory. In fact, confirmation bias seems to have become our main operating principle. Maybe a change in economic incentives and greater skepticism across the board could help — all driven by more humans at the controls.
Communicating Science: What Can We Do Better?
In the wake of public questions about trust in science, Angela Cochran had a conversation with Dr. Jamie L. Vernon about the challenges of communicating science to the public and how the SciComm community could do better.
Postdocs Promoted As Paid Reviewers
Paying a living wage for reviews could provide postdocs with a temporary career alternative. But it won’t come cheaply and it will likely result in an uncompetitive journal with little chance of success.
Let’s Make the Facts Louder than the Opinions
A public service message from the Weather Channel.
Economics, Silicon Valley, and Information Warfare — Is Accuracy Becoming a Luxury Item? Or a Casualty?
Information warfare is both tactical and strategic, with much of its success stemming from the weakened economics of the current information economy. Scholarly publishers have experienced this in many ways, from Google Scholar to predatory publishers to pre-print archives — all answers to the calls for “free information” and all revealing tactical and strategic vulnerabilities as accuracy and facts become luxury items in the information war.
How’s That "Abundance" Thing Working Out For You?
The age of information abundance may have fundamental flaws — barriers to entry that create false equivalence; dissemination tools that conflate fake information with responsible sources; self-reinforcing loops of conspiracy and paranoia; and social fragmentation that makes societal disruption more likely. What can be done? Here are a few ideas.
How To Live Safely in a Post Factual Universe
2016, The. Laughs. Just. Keep. Coming… This is a post about how events in the non-scholarly publishing world are going to have a very big impact on us. Question is, what are we going to do about what’s going on?
What We Can Learn from Fake News
Fake News is making headlines as questions about how dubious stories may have influenced the US election. This post explores the damage done to reputable news organizations and what scholarly publishers could learn from the whole thing.
The US Election, a Need for Curation, and the Power of Story
A post election look at what publishers can learn from the process.
Does Democracy Need Footnotes?
Are scholarly citation practices really the bedrock of engaged democratic governance? Maybe.
Love That Dirty Water — Are We Headed Toward a "Clean Science Act"?
With greater awareness of the foibles and failings of scientific publishing, weaker self-regulation systems, and a trend toward governmental regulation of funding, is external regulation of the scientific journals system now inevitable?
Innovation, Growth and the Art of Balance
Robert Harington references our current altered state in politics as a tool to reflect on the need to invoke balance in publishing innovation, and growth.
The 2016 Ig Nobel Prizes
It’s that time of year again. Every year Harvard University’s glorious Sanders Theatre plays host to the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. I was there, along with my 13-year old son, armed with dozens of pieces of paper, for ready assembly into paper airplanes and ready to revel in a couple of hours of sublime silliness. Here is my report.