@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social
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koen_hufkens

@[email protected]

#ecology #remotesensing #phenology #foodsecurity #climatechange | #rstats | duct tape and a hammer | #anarchist academic | move fast and fix things | mostly #science & #foss software | he / him

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koen_hufkens, to academicchatter
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

Update on the National Science Foundation () stance on in review and proposal writing.

"A key observation for reviewers is that sharing proposal information with generative AI technology via the open internet violates the confidentiality and integrity principles of NSF's merit review process."

@academicchatter

https://new.nsf.gov/news/notice-to-the-research-community-on-ai

koen_hufkens, to academicchatter
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

On the of . Where scientists burn the candle at both ends, paying to read and publish their work, in what is the ultimate grift.

@academicchatter @pluralistic

https://khufkens.com/posts/enshitification-of-academic-publishing/

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@mycotropic @academicchatter @pluralistic

Just going to leave this here. Those are the retractions, and not even touching the shady paper mills (described elsewhere in detail).

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03974-8

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@mycotropic @academicchatter @pluralistic

On the alarming rise of papermills. This was pre based such as !

https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-scientific-papers-are-alarmingly-common

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@mycotropic @academicchatter @pluralistic

And a final one on publishing "what you have".

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0687-2

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@mycotropic @academicchatter @pluralistic All these issues contribute to the problem. But what I highlighted was the fact that the financial model can be seen as the ultimate grift, where authors pay twice (whatever their incentives).

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@mycotropic @academicchatter @pluralistic You go low on the first interaction, I'll happily match that.

mbojan, to academicchatter
@mbojan@sciences.social avatar

Adding to the ToRead list https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2023/12/07/where-did-the-open-access-movement-go-wrong-an-interview-with-richard-poynder/ @academicchatter

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@mbojan @academicchatter I think this is a nice summary of the deadspin of

The tacit approval in conclusion of the need to therefore then return to a closed ecosystem, and further excluding the public from science, is a hard capitalist spin pulling the publisher's cart.

The problem always has been advocacy, i.e. academics talking the talk but not walking the walk.

The take on is also stale, CC BY isn't CC0. Widespread violation by companies of the BY needs a legal answer.

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@mbojan @academicchatter But, thanks for the reading suggestion!

koen_hufkens, to academicchatter
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

Cleaning my academic CV. I sort of forgot that I wrote three papers with just my two supervisors.

I was funded on an interdisciplinary grant, and both didn't really know the topic.

The first true feedback I would get after submission to the journals. Luckily they trained me well, being critical of my own work in the context of the literature and having me seek out other opinions.

Seems wild I pulled this all off.

@academicchatter

koen_hufkens, to academicchatter
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

👌 Academic and small business owner here. This couldn't be more on point.

Academics lack key business skills which I argue are required even within #academia but are never taught with systemic management dysfunction as a result.

#AcademicMastodon #AcademicChatter

@academicchatter

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03411-w

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@DrSuzanne @academicchatter Some of this is also prone to gate keeping. I wanted to join some of the start-up tech groups at Harvard, but I didn't have access to them as a post-doc (only for students). So try as you may...

koen_hufkens, to academicchatter
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

I'm preparing my CV for a tenure track application and stepping through all my publications brings back so many memories.

The friends made, the fieldwork stories, the places visited, the teaching, the disappointment and frustration, the parties after (or before) things were finished.

I think I managed to do a lot of good science while having fun at it. I has been a privilege, which I hope to pay forward.

@academicchatter

koen_hufkens, to academicchatter
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

Some reflections on the externalization of our inner dialogues through and how it influences students' problem solving skills.

@academicchatter

https://khufkens.com/posts/lost-inner-voices-llm-impact-problem-solving-chatgpt-ml-teaching/

petersuber, to academicchatter
@petersuber@fediscience.org avatar

New study: "Our results show that Chinese PhD student significant pressures to publish in order to obtain their degree, with papers indexed in the Science Citation Index [] often a mandatory requirement for students to obtain their degree. Moreover, it is found that first authorship is also mandatory."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-023-04854-8


@academicchatter

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@mrbig @Thcoudreau @wolfgangcramer @petersuber @academicchatter Is common in Belgium too (in biology). I've always found a manuscript a convenient unit of work, it being mandatory is the troubling part (it being published even more so).

koen_hufkens, to academicchatter
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

Mind the Owl. Some advice I gave students the other day.

@academicchatter

https://khufkens.com/posts/how-to-draw-an-owl-advice-from-a-meme/

koen_hufkens, to academicchatter
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

"... what is the point of asking scientists to write documents that can be easily created with AI? What value are we adding?"

The point never was to add value, it was to f-ing gatekeep you fool.

If things were fair, projects were selected based a cut-off value. The remaining (sizeable) pool would then be used to draw grants through lottery. Those on tenure track get a participation badge when ranking in this pool.

@academicchatter

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03238-5

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@academicchatter Just some nuance here. The fact that some things go off the rails, but you don't have a backup plan shows poor skill in scoping a project, and even more so poor skill in managing things.

If you can't recover from a failure, you didn't manage things right (lack of redundancy). There is high stakes research, but most of the time you know where things can fail and should know how to recover. If you don't, you're messed up.

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@moritz_negwer @academicchatter

I agree, the problem I see here is that IMO these "filler" parts are there for a number of reasons, mainly:

  1. Raise the barrier of entry (discourage submissions to limit review burden)
  2. Counter fraud and / or abuse

I was mocking number 1., but I do think number 2 is a valid reason to have such "non-scientific" parts.

I've seen too much mismanagement in academia to realize that these sections should be there to let some of them think.

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@moritz_negwer @academicchatter The fact that your project management plan will now be written by ChatGPT will not be a win. As mentioned here:

"Nevertheless, when the project is finished, you might well have managed to produce great science, although this could easily differ from that outlined in your original proposal. And that’s OK."

Actually, this is not OK. If you do (high risk) science you should account for this - as it influences projects but also people's careers.

koen_hufkens, to academicchatter
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

This has been going to rounds, questioning the practice of only submitting at one journal at a time. This isn't as "revolutionary" as some think. This is par for the course for anyone gaming the publication system, or trying to.

Submitting at multiple places as one is just the cherry on the pie. Scope your work well, get a ticket and get in line - and I hope they review their 3x share of manuscripts submitted 🤷‍♂️

@academicchatter

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03196-y

koen_hufkens, to academicchatter
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

Got some questions about early career development in . Here are four points to remember.

@academicchatter

https://khufkens.com/posts/building-bridges-science-management/

alx, to academicchatter
@alx@mastodon.design avatar

, do you feel there’s no free speech in academia?

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/oct/09/englands-university-free-speech-tsar-says-role-is-not-to-conduct-culture-wars

@academicchatter

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@alx @academicchatter I always thought gender diversity, gun control (right to safety), abortion rights, environmental and racial justice ... were human rights not part of any culture war.

Obviously, you can argue against these rights but will you get pushback - the overton window has moved. They can't just shrug and trample over these issues as before.

Free speech is still there, the context has changed. Some were left behind - probably for good reasons.

niketagrawal, to cognition
@niketagrawal@fosstodon.org avatar

Mastodon is so much flexible and democratic than BlueSky, any reason academic Twitterites are moving to BSky ??? @cognition @cogsci @psycholinguistics @neuro

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@niketagrawal @cognition @cogsci @psycholinguistics @neuro Reply guys seem to be prolific in certain fields it seems. @devezer left because of it.

ukrio, to academicchatter
@ukrio@mstdn.science avatar

"arXiv is a cancer that promotes the dissemination of junk 'science' in a format that is indistinguishable from real publications."

Riled by low-quality about , @emilymbender pulls no punches. Thoughts, @academicchatter?

https://medium.com/@emilymenonbender/scholarship-should-be-open-inclusive-and-slow-15ab6ce1d74c

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@moritz_negwer @robotistry @ukrio @emilymbender @academicchatter "documented well enough" HA... 😂

DrEvanGowan, to random
@DrEvanGowan@fediscience.org avatar

Since I am planning to delete my Twitter account soon, I am slowly deleting every post I made manually, so I can see what I posted (I also do not trust that they will delete the posts if I delete the account). A large portion of my replies are congratulating people on things like their newly published paper, graduating, getting a grant, etc. These kind of posts are what I miss about Twitter, and I hope more people come and post their successes on Mastodon. #AcademicChatter

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@prachisrivas @gpollara @DrEvanGowan @yetiinabox @academicchatter True, academics only come running when there are institutional metrics involved. sarcasm (well maybe 50% or so)

aral, to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

“We rebuilt the Mastodon backend from scratch and made it able to handle Twitter-scale (500M users, 20M writes/second, unbalanced social graph, etc.)”

Congratulations, you reinvented Big Tech.

Did you stop to consider that fediverse (emphasis “diverse”) servers should not be trying to reach “Twitter scale?” That they should be kept small on purpose? That the goal isn’t to recreate Twitter but with some other asshole in charge?

(Of course, it’s a VC-backed startup.)

https://redplanetlabs.com/mastodon-clone

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@aral Next question would be: is Mastodon's backend (A)GPLv3. Might be mighty fine to slap VC bros with some licensing.

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@aral TBH, "from scratch" is something I don't buy without proof to the pudding, certainly not in times of LLM and co-pilot. But yes, this is more a philosophical issue rather than just a technical one.

Private
koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@zenforyen @academicchatter If you have to put it in writing you already lost the battle. You should have the trust of the people you mentor, so it is offered generously without asking/demanding it.

Smells like poor management skills, where the unit of work is producing papers not competent researchers (who are efficient at producing papers).

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@zenforyen @academicchatter Not to say I'm against codes of conduct, but they should serve the student not the other way around it seems. Obviously abuse on both sides should be covered, but the power structure favours the PI by default (without a code of conduct), and much else is covered by employment agreements (title IX, stuff like that).

Private
koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@SemAntiKast @danai @academicchatter Would agree. It is one thing to share your research, it is another to get your feed full of: "I'm thrilled to announce ... ". People should be proud of their work, but keep the sleazy car salesmen talk for LinkedIn please. Fine line but still.

Samuelmoore, to random
@Samuelmoore@hcommons.social avatar

Pretty soon Springer Nature will own every company in the scientific research lifecycle. Then Elsevier will buy them out and there'll just be one company for all your scientific needs.

https://www.protocols.io/blog/the-next-chapter-for-protocolsio

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@Samuelmoore @gpollara @academicchatter They have been data brokers more than publishers for over a decade now. I would pull everything from protocols.io if I had anything there.

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