Fighting Fire with Fire: Scalable Oral Exams
https://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2025/12/fighting-fire-with-fire-scalable-oral.html
#HackerNews #Fighting #Fire #with #Fire #Scalable #Oral #Exams #Education #Innovation #Assessment
Ross Gayler
boosted
"Research Groups Oppose Capping #NIH Funding of Publisher Fees."
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2025/12/16/research-groups-oppose-capping-nih-funding
PS: These universities seem to be saying: "We accept the growth of the APC model. We just need help paying APCs." They don't take any responsibility for steering authors toward high-prestige, high-JIF, high-APC journals, and don't acknowledge their ability to change those incentives while upholding their historic standards of quality. They could say instead, "We will revise our research assessment (promotion and tenure) procedures to focus on the quality of research more than where it is published." Insofar as universities succeed at shifting those incentives -- admittedly a long game -- authors could submit work to no-fee or diamond OA journals, bypass APC-based journals, and face no blowback from their P&T committees. All researchers and research institutions would win, including those institutions that now want govt help in paying APCs.
#Academia #AcademicMastodon #APCs #Assessment #DiamondOA #OAintheUSA #OpenAccess #ScholComm #Universities
"Research Groups Oppose Capping #NIH Funding of Publisher Fees."
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2025/12/16/research-groups-oppose-capping-nih-funding
PS: These universities seem to be saying: "We accept the growth of the APC model. We just need help paying APCs." They don't take any responsibility for steering authors toward high-prestige, high-JIF, high-APC journals, and don't acknowledge their ability to change those incentives while upholding their historic standards of quality. They could say instead, "We will revise our research assessment (promotion and tenure) procedures to focus on the quality of research more than where it is published." Insofar as universities succeed at shifting those incentives -- admittedly a long game -- authors could submit work to no-fee or diamond OA journals, bypass APC-based journals, and face no blowback from their P&T committees. All researchers and research institutions would win, including those institutions that now want govt help in paying APCs.
#Academia #AcademicMastodon #APCs #Assessment #DiamondOA #OAintheUSA #OpenAccess #ScholComm #Universities
Alex Akselrod
boosted
Surprise: "Researchers believe their institution values publication in highly cited journals more than any real-world impact their work might have."
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/research/2025/12/12/social-scientists-policy-impact-undervalued-universities
#Academia #AcademicMastodon #Assessment #Impact #Prestige #SocialScience #Universities
Surprise: "Researchers believe their institution values publication in highly cited journals more than any real-world impact their work might have."
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/research/2025/12/12/social-scientists-policy-impact-undervalued-universities
#Academia #AcademicMastodon #Assessment #Impact #Prestige #SocialScience #Universities
alcinnz
and 1 other
boosted
"We present DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology, evolutionary biology and archaeology (https://dafnee.isem-evolution.fr/). DAFNEE includes information on over 600 journals (co)run by academic or non-profit institutions, aiming at helping to keep publishing funds within the academic community. The database details these journal’s business models, article processing charges, citation rates and partnerships. We show that DAFNEE journals compare favourably to non-DAFNEE ones in terms of editorial and financial policy, while offering similar citation rates."
https://academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jeb/voaf143/8325101
PS: I like this idea and hope that researchers in other fields will work on their own versions. The job could be done badly. But if done well, the big plus is that promotion and tenure committees would have (new) good reasons to shift to more academic-friendly criteria and away from a narrow focus on brand, prestige, and metrics like impact factor.
"We present DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology, evolutionary biology and archaeology (https://dafnee.isem-evolution.fr/). DAFNEE includes information on over 600 journals (co)run by academic or non-profit institutions, aiming at helping to keep publishing funds within the academic community. The database details these journal’s business models, article processing charges, citation rates and partnerships. We show that DAFNEE journals compare favourably to non-DAFNEE ones in terms of editorial and financial policy, while offering similar citation rates."
https://academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jeb/voaf143/8325101
PS: I like this idea and hope that researchers in other fields will work on their own versions. The job could be done badly. But if done well, the big plus is that promotion and tenure committees would have (new) good reasons to shift to more academic-friendly criteria and away from a narrow focus on brand, prestige, and metrics like impact factor.
Jeff Pooley
and 4 others
boosted
Excellent new paper.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
"The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science; we need the most powerful members of the research community – funders, governments and Universities – to lead the drive to re-communalise publishing to serve science not the market…The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge."
#Assessment #Funders #OpenAccess #OpenInfrastructure #Publishing #Universities
Excellent new paper.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
"The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science; we need the most powerful members of the research community – funders, governments and Universities – to lead the drive to re-communalise publishing to serve science not the market…The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge."
#Assessment #Funders #OpenAccess #OpenInfrastructure #Publishing #Universities
Laetitia Bracco
and 4 others
boosted
I applaud the new #StockholmDeclaration for the reform of academic publishing.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.251805
It calls for action on four high-level principles, and makes 34 specific recommendations under those four heads. Here are the four:
"(i) Academia should resume control of publishing using non-profit publishing models (e.g. diamond open-access). (ii) Adjust incentive systems to merit quality, not quantity, in a reputation economy where the gaming of publication numbers and citation metrics distorts the perception of academic excellence. (iii) Implement mechanisms to prevent and detect fake publications and fraud which are independent of publishers. (iv) Draft and implement legislations, regulations and policies to increase publishing quality and integrity."
I just signed it and hope you will too. When you sign, you can weigh in separately on each of the 34 specific recommendations.
https://sciii-it.org/stockholm-declaration/
#AI #Assessment #DiamondOA #GreenOA #Integrity #Nonprofit #OpenAccess #OpenInfrastructure #OpenSource #Publishing #Repositories #RightsRetention #ScholComm
