Academia
clock | August 18, 2009Two recent events put in stark relief the differences between the old way of doing things and the new way of doing things. What am I talking about? The changing world of science publishing, of course.
Let me introduce the two examples first, and make some of my comments at the end.
Example 1. Publishing a Comment about a journal article
My SciBling Steinn brought to our collective attention a horrific case of a scientist who spent a year fighting against the editors of a journal, trying to have a Comment published about a paper that was, in his view, erroneous (for the sake of the argument it…
drorzel | August 17, 2009Via I-no-longer-remember-who (the tab's been open for several days), there's a list of What You Might Not Know About Scientific Journals, outlining some of the facts about scientific publication. There's some good stuff, but as you can tell from my title, a lot of it is fairly specific to biomedical journals, and doesn't really apply in my usual context of physics. For example:
The most popular articles in a journal are reviews, editorials, letters, etc. and not research papers. Consequently, journals contain more narrative reviews than genuine research. It's what keeps them in business.
The…
drorzel | August 17, 2009I mentioned a few times that one of our physics graduates from 2008 was spending a year in rural Uganda, working at a clinic and school there as part of a college-run fellowship program (with Engeye Health Clinic. Steve is back in the US now, and headed to graduate school in Seattle in Atmospheric Sciences.
Steve's replacement in Uganda turns out to be another physics major, Tom Perry, who is now in Uganda and blogging about it. This is purely coincidence, by the way-- there's nothing physics-specific about the position, we just happened to have two really good physics majors in consecutive…
catdynamics | August 17, 2009" 1. Read a paper that has a mistake in it.
2. Write and submit a Comment, politely correcting the mistake...
3. Enjoy your Comment in print along with the author's equally polite Reply, basking in the joy of having participated in the glorious scientific process and of the new friends you've made - the authors whose research you've greatly assisted."
This was circulated anonymously by e-mail among a group of my colleagues.
I asked, and got tracked back to the author who, I am informed, would like to see it out there and with his name on it.
It is, I am assured, a true story. Some of you…
jstemwedel | August 16, 2009It was decided that the Free-Ride offspring are maybe, kind of, old enough to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark without having nightmares. Even though they haven't seen it before, they seem to have picked up at least some general information about Indiana Jones as one of the canonical figures in American pop culture.
Dr. Free-Ride: So, what do you know about Indiana Jones?
Younger offspring: He's a hero.
Dr. Free-Ride: Actually, he's an archaeology professor at a university.
Younger offspring: No he's not!
Dr. Free-Ride: Yes he is! He's a professor just like me! Maybe I'm a hero, too.
Younger…
clock | August 15, 2009A run-down of good recent stuff, highly recommended for your weekend reading and bookmarking:
PLoS One: Interview with Peter Binfield:
...In my view PLoS ONE is the most dynamic, innovative and exciting journal in the world, and I am proud to work on it.
In many ways PLoS ONE operates like any other journal however it diverges in several important respects. The founding principle of PLoS ONE was that there are certain aspects of publishing which are best conducted pre-publication and certain aspects which are best conducted post-publication. The advent of online publishing has allowed us to…
sciencewoman | August 12, 2009A. Non Mouse, who blogs over at NaCl and hv, has just written a great series of posts about her strategies for successfully bringing a baby to a conference. Check out her how-to posts on childcare, transportation, gear, and accommodations.
This is a subject that is close to my heart, and one that I've written about before (here, here, and here on a trip when Minnow was 9 months old, here at 18 months, and here's a manifesto on the subject that was featured in last year's Open Lab ).
And it's funny timing too that A. Non Mouse writes about motherhood and conference travel now, when I am…
drorzel | August 12, 2009ZapperZ links to an interview with David Saltzberg about careers for students with an undergraduate degree in physics. As is often the case, ZapperZ proclaims himself "disappointed" with things that I think are about right. In particular, he writes:
[W]hen asked on why one should major in physics, is the best that can be answered is that "... you really like it.. "? What happened to the fact that the skills one acquire majoring in it can be quite useful in one's career, be it in science or outside of science?
Actually, I think that really is the best reason for majoring in physics. Or any…
jdupuis | August 12, 2009During my summer blogging break, I thought I'd repost of few of my "greatest hits" from my old blog, just so you all wouldn't miss me so much. This one is from October 10, 2008. It provoked a bit of angst out in the library student blogosphere, which is kinda what I was hoping.
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It's interesting times in the world out there.
And not surprisingly, the world of the internet is thinking about the implications. One of the big implications is that it's going to be harder to get a job, and that's going to be true librarians as much as anyone else.
As it happens, I've been collecting some…
drorzel | August 11, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Julie Myers-Irvin, who helps scientists put together grants.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I work at the University of Pittsburgh as a "Scientist Administrator" (a terribly nondescript title that I will…
drorzel | August 11, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Ethan Allen, a program manager.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I manage education and outreach (terrible term, hate it) for two different Centers here at UW the Center for Nanotechnology and the Genetically…
drorzel | August 10, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Joel Boyce, a high school science and math teacher in Canada.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I'm a high school science and math teacher.
2) What is your science background?
I have a B.Sc, majoring in…
clock | August 10, 2009Scientific facts are fun. But probably to a limited number of people.
It's more fun to know how scientists got those facts - their thoughts, motivations and methods. How they did it. Why they did it. Where did they get the idea to do it in the first place.
It's even more fun, for a broader number of people, if that finding is placed in a historical context - how work of previous generations of scientists, meandering around various age-specific ideas, led to the work of this particular group.
But it is even more fun watching the historians of science at work. Most recent science is pretty easy…
purepedantry | August 10, 2009(I had this whole post ready talking about flexible representations, but now my computer is borked -- stupid monitor! -- so this is going to have to do.)
Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution links to a piece by a former editor at American Economic Review telling all about how papers are accepted for publication. In economics this process may be slightly different, but I found the piece addressed several questions I had about the process.
I reject 10-15% of papers without refereeing, a so-called "desk rejection." This prompts some complaints - "I paid for those reviews with my submission…
drorzel | August 10, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of James Annan)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I'm a research scientist at a Govt lab, working in the field of climate change research. Currently I'm in Japan, which is probably a bit off-the-wall for most…
drorzel | August 8, 2009My talk was Friday morning at 10am, on the title given above. This wasn't my choice-- when I volunteered to be on programming, I said some general areas that I'd be willing to talk about, and left it at that. Somebody else made up the title and description for the talk, which made it very slightly like PowerPoint Karaoke. Happily, this is a topic I can easily discourse about, but I think in the future I'll try to remember to suggest more specific talk titles...
I've posted the slides for the talk on SlideShare, and will attempt embedding them below:
Worldcon09
View more presentations from…
drorzel | August 7, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Alric, a veterinary pathologist at a drug company)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I am toxicologic veterinary pathologist and work at a contract research organization. We use animal models to evaluate the…
khannula | August 6, 2009Geoscientists: we (Anne Jefferson, Pat Campbell, Suzanne Franks, and me) are looking for participants in a survey about the ways in which women geoscientists use blogs (both as readers and as writers). Here's the official request:
Over the past several years, the geoscience blogosphere has blossomed so much that this fall, the Geological Society of America (GSA) will be convening a Pardee Keynote Symposium called "Google Earth to Geoblogs: Digital Innovations in the Geosciences." Kim Hannula started wondering how blogs serve women geoscientists. Kim recruited the rest of us and we decided…
drorzel | August 6, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Raymond Wagner, an engineer and technical fellow for a defense contractor.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
Chief Engineer for an initiative to enable users of a system-of-systems to concurrently train or…
drorzel | August 6, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of David Syzdek, a wildlife biologist.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I work as a wildlife biologist for a large water utility in a Western state.
2) What is your science background?
BS in Environmental…