Challenges in Academia

A pointed article about what is going wrong, in part, with academia.

“The growth of managerial and administrative grades responsible more and more for controlling academics rather than supporting them is one of the most important trends in the modern university. That structure emits a constant white noise and static of demands that don’t seem connected to lecturers’ training or aims”

#AcademicChatter #HigherEd #Education #Academia
https://voicesofacademia.com/2024/04/05/its-not-your-fault-that-academic-life-is-getting-harder-by-glen-ohara/

It’s Not Your Fault That Academic Life is Getting Harder by Glen O’Hara

Universities are in trouble, and it’s not just money we’re talking about. They are living through something of a crisis of confidence, even of trust and faith. More and more, I find myself, and my …

^{Voices of Academia}

Here's a question for #academia: why shouldn't I count my contributions to major open-source projects which are scientifically relevant (e.g. Linux [1], OpenCV [2]) just like publications?

- They have a unique identifier.
- They are most certainly peer-reviewed (if you don't believe me, try to submit a Linux patch sometime)
- They are archived long-term.
- They are publicly available.

So... where's the difference?

[1] https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/input/touchscreen/sur40.c
[2] https://github.com/opencv/opencv/pull/10081

[RFC] Java Camera2 View for Android by floe · Pull Request #10081 · opencv/opencv

Based on #10050, here's a first alpha implementation of the Camera2 adapter class which should allow zero-copy access to preview image data. Comments very welcome. Known issues at the moment: tuto...

^GitHub

Counting citations hasn't been a reliable measure of scientific impact for a while, especially on platforms like Google Scholar that compile info from random documents. Hyper-authorship, predatory journals, etc have all contributed to the problem.

This preprint just drives home how important it is to measure scientific impact more carefully and without reliance on automated metrics

Google Scholar is manipulatable

https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607

#science #academia #publishing #citations

Google Scholar is manipulatable

Citations are widely considered in scientists' evaluation. As such, scientists may be incentivized to inflate their citation counts.

^arXiv.org

Holy shit I love this research paper

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v1

#anthropology #anthro #academia #academicresearch #longevity

You all… it has started 😱

What should I do if I suspect one of the journal reviews I got is Al-generated?

#PeerReviewing #Academia #PublicationEthics

What should I do if I suspect one of the journal reviews I got is Al-generated?

I've submitted a paper to one of the well-reputable journals and received two reviews asking for a revision. One of the reviews is on-topic and helpful. The other, however, I suspect was generated ...

^{Academia Stack Exchange}

Job! An endowed professorship at Arizona State University in the systematics and taxonomy of ants. A rare opportunity for the right sort of ant nerd/desert rat.

#Ants #Academia #Entomology

https://apply.interfolio.com/135564

From Chris Brink: "It is not difficult to construct a university ranking. What is needed is not so much any technical skill as enough blind self-confidence to tell the world that the arbitrary choices you have made in constructing your ranking actually represent reality."
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20231024130858697

#Academia #Rankings #Universities
@academicchatter

Academic rankings: The tide begins to turn

The development of academic rankings has reached an inflection point as some of the world’s leading universities – concerned about fundamental fla...

^{University World News}

My "favourite" thing about this study is the part where achaeologists who found hunting tools/weapons in women's graves assumed they were kitchen implements.

Like, "well Hans, in this woman's grave, we found what inscriptions at the time have named the Flail of Vengeance. As of right now, we are not sure to what culinary task this tool was turned, but conjecture that it was possibly the preparation of small pies."

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/07/01/1184749528/men-are-hunters-women-are-gatherers-that-was-the-assumption-a-new-study-upends-i

#archaeology #feminism #women #academia #AcademicMastodon

The #UMontana is cancelling more than 5,000 #journals from #Elsevier, #TaylorAndFrancis, and #Wiley, forced by "rising journal…#prices and a stagnant #budget…The library has seen a $700,000 reduction in money received since fiscal year 2020."
https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/mansfield-library-at-um-set-to-cut-largest-e-journal-packages

#Academia #Cancellations #Libraries #Publishers #ScholComm #Universities
@academicchatter

Mansfield Library at UM set to cut largest e-journal packages

Cuts are coming to the Mansfield Library’s collections to address a more than $300,000 funding gap.When University of Montana students access the library’s onli

^KECI

So true – it's nigh impossible to weigh the impact of research but years afterwards. Ask the microbiologists who were studying extremophile bacteria in a Yellowstone pond whether they thought their work would lead to the sequencing of the human genome and modern medicine as we know it. Or ask the zoologists who pulled out bioluminescent and fluorescent jelly fish out of the sea whether they thought scientific research in developmental biology, neuroscience and biology as a whole, remarkably even DNA sequencing, would be so thoroughly transformed. And these are just two examples in biology.

PCR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction#History

GFP: jellyfish Aequorea victoria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_fluorescent_protein#Wild-type_GFP_(wtGFP)

#academia #science

Protein that converts blue and ultraviolet light ranges to green light.

^{Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)}

"New data released Thursday by the National Science Foundation show the exodus of young life scientists from the Ivory Tower to industry has reached the highest level in nearly three decades, deepening concerns about the future of academic science in the U.S....Ph.D. graduates are now pursuing postdocs at the lowest rate since at least 1995, based on STAT’s review of NSF data available online."

https://www.statnews.com/2023/09/28/scientists-exodus-from-academia-historic-levels/

#science #research #academia #industry

Data show record exodus of life scientists from academia - STAT

Ph.D. graduates are pursuing postdocs at the lowest rate since at least 1995; conversely, 47% of 2022 life science grads had a job lined up.

^{Jonathan Wosen (STAT)}

So many good points in this piece by
@PhilippBayer

My highlight in this screenshot (#science delivery & success is a TEAM effort!), but if you're vaguely involved in #academia +/- #bioinformatics, do have a read and think how it all may apply to you. #academicchatter @academicchatter
https://genomic.social/@PhilippBayer/110644840476993836

Philipp Bayer

2023-07-02 13:58:01

A new blog-post: the two cultures of bioinformatics, and how academia selects against one https://philippbayer.github.io/blerg/posts/2023_07_02_the_two_cultures/

The two cultures of bioinformatics

i ramble about bioinformatics careers

^{Hello! Welcome!}

Happy to say I defended my dissertation "Methods and complexity in phage-bacteria ecology and evolution"!

Much thanks to all those who supported me throughout my PhD.

I'm glad to be sticking around the Turner Lab for another year as a post-doc to continue my work on multispecies phage-bacteria communities

#PhDone #AcademicChatter #AcademicMastodon #Academia #PhD #Ecology #Evolution #Phage #Phages

• About time! All MDPI journals are "predatory" (57%, 26 votes)
• Mmm, only some MDPI journals are "predatory" (20%, 9 votes)
• MDPI journals are iffy, but not fully "predatory" (20%, 9 votes)
• MDPI journals are fine! (2%, 1 vote)

Content warning: peer review in academia Click to open/close