Author Archives: Stephen

Follower

This post has nothing to do with science. Seamus Heany is dead. I am only begining to process what that means to me. I claim no deep knowledge of his poetry but it has been with me for a long … Continue reading

Posted in Science & Art | 1 Comment

Remembering Innisfree

I observed recently how the rise of the internet has eliminated letter writing and so caused some of the wells of correspondence that historians and biographers have relied on down through the ages to fall into disuse. But the internet is … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Scholarly publishing: time for a regulator?

“…price rises coupled with high profits, mis-selling scandals […] and a lack of transparency over bills have destroyed consumers’ trust […], a committee of MPs has said in a report that also criticises the sector’s watchdog for failing to take … Continue reading

Posted in Open Access | Tagged , , , | 33 Comments

Richard Poynder asks: where are we with open access?

This post has been written simply to point you to an interesting series of interviews that Richard Poynder has published on his blog with a range of stakeholders in the open access arena. So far he has mostly interviewed advocates, … Continue reading

Posted in Open Access | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Open access on the conference circuit

Having devoted a fair number of the words on this blog to open access over the past year and a half, I have found myself invited to an increasing number of meetings on the topic. Whether run by RLUK, the … Continue reading

Posted in Open Access | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Debating Open Access

Twelve months after the publication of the Finch Report, during which the new RCUK policy on open access has been published, dissected, debated (including by committees in both Houses of Parliament), revised and implemented, it seems an apposite moment to … Continue reading

Posted in Open Access, Science & Politics | Tagged , | 46 Comments

Tripped up by the light fantastic

Yesterday I went to Mars. I stood on the surface and gazed at the dusty red ground, illuminated as far as the pink horizon by sunlight weakened from a journey that is a 100 million kilometres longer than the distance to … Continue reading

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The Hunters

I had never heard of James Salter till I read a profile of him in the Observer a couple of weeks ago, on the occasion of the publication of his latest book, his first in a long time. Salter is … Continue reading

Posted in Book Review, Scientific Life | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Impact factors declared unfit for duty

Regulars at this blog will be familiar with the dim view that I have of impact factors, in particular their mis-appropriation for the evaluation of individual researchers and their work. I have argued for their elimination, in part because they … Continue reading

Posted in Open Access, Science | Tagged , , | 41 Comments

Reinventing Excel

In Reinventing Discovery Michael Nielsen says that one of the great things about the Internet is the way it can connect problems with problem-solvers. Well, let’s see if that’s true. I have a problem with Excel, or rather, with a particular spreadsheet … Continue reading

Posted in Technology | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Science: better messy than messed up

I am fascinated by the psychology of scientific fraudsters. What drives these people? If you are smart enough to fake results, surely you have the ability to do research properly? You should also be clever enough to realise that one day … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific Life | Tagged , , , , | 32 Comments

Libel Reform – smells like victory

For those few resilient readers who have weathered the year-long storm of open access posts at Reciprocal Space and still look in here occasionally for reports of the libel reform campaign, there is good news. Within days I should be … Continue reading

Posted in Libel Reform | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments