This is the first post in what I hope will be an ongoing series in scientometrics. Today’s topic is an excellent paper -and idea- by Hutchins, Yuan, Anderson, and Santangelo called the Relative Citation Ratio (RCR). The RCR is part of a new wave of citation metrics that aims (broadly speaking) to correct for the […]
The OMICS group is still trolling for scientists to join their high-quality events. The latest is an invitation to Cosmetology 2014, a “Dermatology” conference where all of the speakers are cosmetics and hair salon CEOs. I’m sure I could come speak to them. After all, they probably want to hear me talk about academic metrics, […]
The predatory publishers on Beall’s List keep looking for scientists to spam. The newest tactic is a beauty – just connect to people on LinkedIn. I got the request this morning. I took a screenshot from my phone. Yes, “OMICS Publishing Group” is featured on Beall’s List. They send me a lot of spam. As […]
I can honestly say that I’ve never thought of myself as a flower. Perhaps that’s why an invitation to join the editorial board of a journal in “the bouquet of STM JOURNALS” [sic] doesn’t really speak to me. Or perhaps it’s because STM is on Beall’s list, and their invitation doesn’t quite ring true. It […]
Straight from my gmail spam folder, the other side of the coin: solicitations for publications. Now that’s an enthusiastic Greetings!!! usually reserved for people promising me miracle drugs. Nigerian barristers tend to be more somber, which is reasonable given that they are usually informing me of the passing of previously unheard of (but very dear, […]
Part of being a scientist is curating the work of other scientists. This is called peer review. Peer review is critical to the well-being of science, because it helps ensure that the scientific record is important, correct, and has passed some level of validation before being put in front of other people. Peer review is […]
Fantastic post over at Slate Star Codex on how people use statistics to cheat at science. I already gave my take on the pressures scientists face, and the culture that leads to it. I wish I had written that post, or its linked articles. Go read.
This is my first not-a-paper publication. I wrote it in a much more conversational style, which I greatly prefer. After Randy Sheckman’s statements on journals such as Nature, Science, etc. I started wondering if there was a way to quantify what kinds of articles these journals publish. After all, the general perception (notwithstanding the allegations of […]
There’s a big debate in science about research and what to do with negative results. It boils down to more or less this: We scientists publish only positive results. There’s a lot of reasons for this, some more valid than others. The first one is that it’s hard to prove things beyond a shadow of […]