Are you an academic asked by a reporter to talk about a developing story in your area of strength? Unaccustomed to speaking with reporters and a little nervous? The Chronicle of Higher Education has a good list of 14 short tips. https://www.chronicle.com/page/talk-to-us
PS: I'll add one more: Say yes. Help the public understand.
#introduction v2
I’m a research scientist without a long-term job yet, ranting about the love-hate relationship I have with #academia and the depression and anxiety it induces.
I’m here to chill, posting mainly about daily life. I enjoy writing #BL / #danmei novels in Chinese, playing the #piano and listening to #ClassicalMusic
Cat & flower fanatic. Whenever I see them, I take a #photo
Due to my not-so-great mental health, I tend to either be silent on political topics or have outbursts.
The kids are alright. From a Wa-Po article on student reactions to Florida education laws:
““Education can and should expose us to diverse perspectives,” first-year student Megan Meese said. “Ignorance permits hate, discrimination and marginalization. And by limiting discussions and awareness of identity, the legislation in Florida is going to instill ignorance in our students, which will promote intolerance and inequity in our future.” #academia
The gist: We treat science as a weak-link problem (in which we fear opening the gates to the worst stuff) when when it's properly a strong-link problem (in which we should fear closing the gates to the best stuff).
I have been considering publishing my next article in #elife
I was not very convinced by their new #publishing method, but the more I think about it, the more I like it.
What convinced me is that I think of the way I review papers myself. I won't ever reject a paper unless there is something majorly wrong e.g. from an ethical point of view. Instead, I would rather spend time and give constructive and realistic feedback to improve the study.
This is because of two reasons:
If the study idea/methodology etc, is good but maybe is missing some key experiment, I think that the authors must have put a lot of effort, time and money into producing this. I have been through the "your work is not fancy enough for our prestigious journal" crap enough times that I will not engage in that. Ever. There is no reason your paper should not publish negative results if the study is well done.
Also, people's jobs and mental health depend on that, which is way more important.
Also, there are plenty of papers in "fancy journals" that are just piles of bs, so I really won't buy into shiny names (I have just spent an entire day trying to run code from several papers published in high-IF journals to no avail...).
If the study is poor, it is easy to say: "This is cr*p, straight reject". This just means the authors will submit elsewhere, hoping the next reviewer won't be bothered reading the paper in depth and will let it through. Even worse, this plays into the hands of #predatory journals. I would rather say this can be accepted after all of these major revisions.
The authors get useful feedback on how to improve their study; they might choose not to act on it, but at least I have made my part.
I would be interested in hearing other views on this.
To further add: presently, scientific evaluation for grants, recruitment and career promotion is entangled with paper publishing: everybody claims not to have enough time to read the papers and instead use the journal name as proxy.
Now with #eLife there is a one-paragraph assessment that distils with some controlled vocabulary what the reviewers, reviewing editor and senior editor--4 or 5 experts in the field--thought of the work, on two axes: strength of evidence (accuracy) and significance of findings (impact).
As someone who has used neural nets and self organizing maps in a research project about a decade ago, I found this history of artificial neural networks fascinating. I had no idea of the 70+ years of history of AI exploration.
The same article reports that public universities in Florida are having trouble hiring professors. "During [recruitment] conversations, 'more and more often, we are hearing, "Florida? Not Florida. Not now. Not yet," because they are looking at regulations' like this one, as well as bills passed and proposed by the Florida Legislature."
Related: "Nearly 1 in 4 high school seniors said they passed up, out of political concerns, a college they would have initially considered because of its state. The trend is evident among conservatives & liberals…91% of prospective college students in FL disagree w the education policies of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a #Republican, & 1 in 8 graduating high school students in FL won’t attend a public college there due to DeSantis’s education policies. https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2023/03/27/role-politics-where-students-want-go-college
Update. #Florida chill: "@insidehighered asked 40 public college presidents in Florida to weigh in on state higher education reforms. None were willing to speak, even when offered anonymity."
So I just learnt that J Physiol requires figures to be made with Biorender (https://www.biorender.com/), a VC backed subscription SaaS extend and extinguish of scientists drawing pictures!
Is this a thing now!? Complete privatisation of the publication workflow!?
Am I the only one enraged by this!? Pictures? We could have just made our own shared repository of useful graphics. Our own open source software. Uggghhh!
#Academia requires drastic changes at all levels, beginning with the eradication of short-term positions ("opportunities") that only benefit a privileged few. Colleagues should also stop promoting these positions... as a bare minimum...
My new favorite youtube account is acollierastro, a physicist who has a lot of insightful things to say. This video has some advice for making space for first generation graduate students.
Planning a #conference? Include Mastodon at least as prominently in your materials as you do other social media. If you ask presenters or attendees for handles, ask for their Mastodon handle. This is an important opportunity for the Fediverse to reach, welcome, and engage key global audiences. #academia#event
Wondering if anyone has a semester planning template they'd like to share. I feel like I'm recreating the wheel every term, so seeing others' might help me standardize. #academia#academicchatter#Macademia@academicchatter
Time for a proper #introduction. I'm a #wildfire and #climatechange researcher who has somehow remained employed in #academia for 6 years. I worked in government for almost 10 years before that. Before that I studied neuroscience and biochemistry, before that business and German. #publicinterest#science. Outreach, industry engagement. Anything to deepen the links between science and society. Oh and reading, and basketball, and work-life balance, and frivolity.
I'm a PhD candidate in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I'm studying Internet culture and am interested in how individual people relate to corporations, governments, etc. through various types of technology.
My dissertation is about how individual people are constructed as "Users" on the internet.
Do you want to start a #PhD in #computational#materialsscience? Are you interested in predicting properties like conductivity or catalytic performance? Want to live in #Berlin and work in #academia? Do you want to be part of a new and ambitious project? Then apply here:
Current research projects include reconstructing #fire history records from #cave#stalagmites. And monitoring #groundwater#recharge in underground spaces to work out how much rainfall is needed to replenish this water resource.
More specifics: Looking to work remotely for a research position. Want to stay in the US for TT jobs (excluding TX and OK). I’m more skilled in #qualitative methods but I am working on my #quantitative skills and am teaching myself #RStats.