Open access publishing hoax: what Science magazine got wrong | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional

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Open access publishing hoax: what Science magazine got wrong

via Open access publishing hoax: what Science magazine got wrong | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional.

This is a fairly accurate assessment of Open Access publishing.

Where research is made freely available through open access publishing, there may still be legitimate expenses that a publisher needs to recoup. One strategy for this is to take payment from the author when an article is accepted for publication. It is now common for research councils to allow grant money to be used to pay these so-called author fees.

This is a model that invites corruption. Set up a journal, accept some articles, charge a high fee, and publish the article on your website. This corruption is fed, of course, by the fact that researchers feel incredible pressure to publish more and more. It’s also fed by a system that uses quantity as a proxy for quality. But it is a mistake to equate open access and author payment. There are traditional journals that require some payment, too, especially in connection with high typesetting costs.

….

The real problem for science today is quality control. Peer review has been at the heart of this, but there are too many failures – both in open access and traditional journals – simply to plod ahead with the same system. We need new approaches and numerous individuals and organisations are working on these, such as the open evaluation project.

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Places I’ve Been (to Sept. 28, 2013)

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  • Take the Test: How Well Do You See Color? | Apartment Therapy

    tags: test colour graphics

  • Origins of genomic ‘dark matter’ discovered

    “A duo of scientists at Penn State University has achieved a major milestone in understanding how genomic “dark matter” originates. This “dark matter”—called non-coding RNA—does not contain the blueprint for making proteins and yet it comprises more than 95 percent of the human genome. The researchers have discovered that essentially all coding and non-coding RNA originates at the same types of locations along the human genome. The team’s findings eventually may help to pinpoint exactly where complex-disease traits reside, since the genetic origins of many diseases reside outside of the coding region of the genome. The research, which will be published as an Advance Online Publication in the journal Nature on 18 September 2013, was performed by B. Franklin Pugh, holder of the Willaman chair in Molecular Biology at Penn State, and postdoctoral scholar Bryan Venters, who now holds a faculty position at Vanderbilt University. “

    tags: origins dark matter genetics

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Smart Teenage Brains May Get Some Extra Learning Time : Shots – Health News : NPR

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2010-01-13_23-15-54_wmSmart Teenage Brains May Get Some Extra Learning Time : Shots – Health News : NPR.

We have long accepted that there are specific critical periods in animals as they grow up – we know a fair bit about how dogs grow up. Doesn’t surprise me a bit that there are similar periods in a human’s life as well. It’s just that our complexity (including the complexity of our surroundings) makes it less noticeable.
I’ve thought for a long time that in a sense the brains of really intelligent people run “hotter” than others. It would make sense that the plasticity of their brains would be greater. I predict that we will eventually discover that the really intelligent have brains that never really “settle”.
While I don’t pretend to have any understanding of the mechanisms, I also think that this plays an important role in mental illness, especially schizophrenia – the brain just runs too hot.
Having a Formula 1 brain in a Studebaker body is bound to have some consequences.

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Places I’ve Been (to Sept. 21 2013)

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Video games becoming required coursework in schools – Technology & Science – CBC News

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Video games becoming required coursework in schools – Technology & Science – CBC News.

Unfortunately, they got my institution wrong. I’ve got a request in to fix it, but I’ve had no response yet. Below is an edited excerpt (with the correct institution named).

I have to say I am disappointed at how many people are *still* dead set against the use of games in the classroom. In most cases they are classic examples of what Harlan Ellison calls “idiot hearsay” – forming opinions based on second hand information at best, and uninformed knee-jerk reactions at worst.

Experience without consequences

Screenshot from Animal Crossing New Leaf

Screenshot from Animal Crossing New Leaf

“If the outcome is learning in the end, then why not?” says Katrin Becker, an adjunct professor at Mount Royal University who researches and designs educational video games.

She added that games can provide students with learning experiences that could be “painful or dangerous or expensive” in real life — such as running their first business or performing surgery on an animal.

“In a game, they can find out what happens if you do it wrong without any negative consequences to the real world,” Becker said. “And that’s really very valuable.”

Nevertheless, game-based learning modules are still are far less popular in the classroom than traditional methods.

“The shift that needs to happen … is the reawakening of the idea that learning can and should be fun and entertaining,” she said.

 

Challenges for teachers

That may all be encouraging to teachers, but incorporating games into coursework can be more challenging than it looks.

Wershler said he is mindful of the fact that many games take longer to complete than a book, can be expensive and sometimes must be played on expensive technology. Because of that, he chooses older, cheaper games that can be downloaded and played on a computer or mobile device.

Becker said commercial games can also be challenging for teachers, because they don’t come with lesson plans.

“Teachers don’t have time to develop their own courseware,” she said.

Despite the difficulties, Becker said she is a huge proponent of games in education, as they provide new options for learning.

“It’s yet another tool to use,” she said. “And I think the richer the environment, the better off we are.”

 

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Places I’ve Been (to Aug. 31 2013)

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It’s Not PowerPoint’s Fault

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There’s a discussion going on (again) on one of the forums I follow that is trashing PowerPoint. Now, I’m not a big fan of Microsoft, but really, PowerPoint is one of their better applications. The fact that there are millions of crappy PP presentations out there is not the fault of the application. Really.

Also: Prezi (or any of the other applications people love to rave about) will NOT magically make a mediocre presenter into a star. Honest.

It’s NOT about the tool.2012-11-11_09-06-05

Too much focus on the tool – which includes positive (eg. Prezi is the ONLY way to go) as well as negative (eg. I hate PowerPoint) focus – interferes with the design and development of good instruction.

Active learning is key, but avoiding any particular tool or approach “just because” is usually not helpful. Sometimes, “lecturing” really IS the most effective way to do something. Even drill has a place in some kinds of learning.

Ultimately, it boils down to the skills and expertise of the designer and the instructor. I’ve seen teachers do amazing things without so much as lifting a piece of chalk, and I’ve seen abysmal teaching using some of the fanciest tools around.

This quote is from a list of rules for spacecraft design, but much of it applies here too ( http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/old_site/academics/akins_laws.html )

20. A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.

When I design & build something, whether it’s a computer program, a course, a Halloween costume, or a rabbit hutch, my own expertise (and what I have access to through colleagues and friends) and the tools I have available inevitably affect the thing I am designing. For example, I have neither the tools nor the skill to cut curves into wood, so I design my rabbit hutches with straight edges.

When designing instruction some things are made easier by particular tools and harder by others. The tool inevitably affects the instruction that is being designed. This is neither good nor bad – it simply is. It’s great to start a design thinking about what you would do in a perfect world, but after that you need to get practical and consider the tools you have available. Then you need to fit the two together. You are usually better off using a tool you are comfortable with than one you are not. There are times when it is appropriate to try something new, and times when the tried and true are appropriate. There really is no single right way, EXCEPT that you should be authentic and committed to providing the best instruction you know how to do AND you should be prepared to adjust what you are doing to match the needs of your learners.

For any task you set for your learners, you should always be prepared to answer these two questions (with honesty and grace):

  1. Why are we doing this?
  2. What is it good for?

Finally, any time you consider changing what you are doing, ask yourself this question:
How does this make things better?
If you don’t have a good answer to this, why are you doing it?

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Places I’ve Been (to Aug 17 2013)

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  • Scribus.net

    “Scribus is an Open Source program that brings professional page layout to Linux, BSD UNIX, Solaris, OpenIndiana, GNU/Hurd, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4, eComStation, Haiku and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready output and new approaches to page design.

    Underneath a modern and user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as color separations, CMYK and spot colors, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation. ”

    tags: publishing software opensource scribus tools graphics design desktop

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