The Digest

EssayOpen Notebook The Digest
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Visualising, Violating, and Humanizing Scholarship

Visualising, Violating, and Humanizing Scholarship

Three weeks ago, COPE published new guidance for how to handle retractions of published articles - highlighting just how pressing the problem is becoming.

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On Second-hand Scholarship and Academic Piracy

On Second-hand Scholarship and Academic Piracy

However, what is piratical about such open notebooks is that they trial alternative modes of knowledge sharing that resist the enclosures of copyright and proprietary temporality, and that trouble the very idea of knowledge as a finished, ownable product.

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On Science: Fatigue, Ownership, and It's Soul

On Science: Fatigue, Ownership, and It's Soul

In discussing the extent to which science has met our curiosity about the university, we must remember that different minds are curious about different things.

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The Scholar's Dilemma: single-use AI, reading less, and poor pay

The Scholar's Dilemma: single-use AI, reading less, and poor pay

The job was advertised in Nature and required an honours degree - meaning research experience proven by a thesis - and a minimum of 2 years experience for an annual salary of £155 (roughly equivalent to £8,778.18 or $11,658 in today’s money).

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What if Scholarship Looked Like This?

What if Scholarship Looked Like This?

“A paper that does not have references is like a child without an escort walking in the night in a big city it does not know: isolated, lost, anything may happen to it”

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On Research Performativity, Agreeing Disagreeably, and Degree Inflation

On Research Performativity, Agreeing Disagreeably, and Degree Inflation

The same paper would be rejected by two more top journals before, as an act of desperation, Mojica submitted it to, and it was accepted in, a smaller Q2 ranked journal.

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On Scholarly Algorithms, Arguments, and Objectivity

On Scholarly Algorithms, Arguments, and Objectivity

Upon examining his critique, it was decided to be sufficiently important that Newton be sent a copy immediately - publication of Hooke’s work, however, was to be delayed.

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On Academic Pain, Pleasure and Strong FOKs

On Academic Pain, Pleasure and Strong FOKs

The para-academic works for and with others to sustain the very simple (but somehow now very rebellious) idea that thinking and learning are worthy activities with multiple values beyond the scope of any capital-driven market, and which exceed quantification in economic terms.

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Make Academia Great Again

Make Academia Great Again

The aim of examining the finer textures of your individual curiosity is not to categorize it, but to feel, to notice, how it shapes your scholarly life.

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Cite Me, Like Me, Follow Me

Cite Me, Like Me, Follow Me

“The attention a scientist’s work gains from the public now plays into its perceived value. Scientists list media exposure counts on résumés, and many PhD theses now include the number of times a candidate’s work has appeared in the popular science press."

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On Postplagiarism, Diamond OA, and Rigour

On Postplagiarism, Diamond OA, and Rigour

Will academics, especially early career researchers, be willing to publish in these journals; will universities recognise these outputs?

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On Critique, Rude Writing Notes, and Letters

On Critique, Rude Writing Notes, and Letters

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