Celebrate Boring Research Rejoice Over Reproducibility

Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2017

Outstanding scholars have generally been regarded as having special influence that enables them to publish articles in top-tier journals and obtain higher levels of research funding. This study proposes that the social effect of an outstanding scholar, which is derived from the halo effect and the Matthew effect, is favorable for the expansion of the scholar's personal research network and will improve that scholar's future research accomplishments. Data for a total of 101 outstanding information systems scholars and 36 ordinary scholars were collected. The definition of an outstanding scholar is based on the quality and quantity of their publications. The results show that the social effect of the outstanding scholars is beneficial for the development of a research network, including 3 types of network structures. In addition, being highly connected with colleagues leads to higher research accomplishments in terms of quantity, while being connected with colleagues from different sub-fields leads to higher research accomplishments in terms of novelty. Additionally, this study found that the social effect of outstanding scholars is a double-edged sword, with both positive and negative impacts on research accomplishments. The findings contribute several theoretical and practical implications for future research.

Minerva, 2016

There is a crisis of valuation practices in the current academic life sciences, triggered by unsustainable growth and ''hyper-competition.'' Quantitative metrics in evaluating researchers are seen as replacing deeper considerations of the quality and novelty of work, as well as substantive care for the societal implications of research. Junior researchers are frequently mentioned as those most strongly affected by these dynamics. However, their own perceptions of these issues are much less frequently considered. This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the interplay between how research is valued and how young researchers learn to live, work and produce knowledge within academia. We thus analyze how PhD students and postdocs in the Austrian life sciences ascribe worth to people, objects and practices as they talk about their own present and future lives in research. We draw on literature from the field of valuation studies and its interest in how actors refer to different forms of valuation to account for their actions. We explore how young researchers are socialized into different valuation practices in different stages of their growing into science. Introducing the concept of ''regimes of valuation'' we show that PhD students relate to a wider evaluative repertoire while postdocs base their decisions on one dominant regime of valuing research. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for the epistemic and social development of the life sciences, and for other scientific fields.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 2013

BioEssays, 2010

2022

The reward (and punishment) system of science is an expression of its putative autonomy, i.e., the ability to govern itself based on criteria it has authored. It has put in place processes that recognize those among its members who have made substantive contributions to scientific knowledge. The validation of these accomplishments is said to be based entirely on “internal,” i.e., scientific, principles. As a community with strict rules of entry and boundaries that purport to separate the scientific from what is not, science has often resisted strenuously any encroachments into its affairs from the outside, lay, society. The laity is excluded from matters scientific because, in science’s view, it is not competent to do so; it does not possess the specialized knowledge necessary to evaluate science’s practices—hence, lay considerations are irrelevant to the affairs of science. However, in the recent past, events appear to have the potential to upend this idyllic construct. I will examine two cases (the American Statistical Association’s recommendation in 2020 to remove the name of R. A. Fisher from a lectureship and, in 2021, the cancellation of the Carlson Lecture at MIT) that could be harbingers of a reconfigured reward system of science—one in which “external” criteria to science are used to reward or punish an individual scientist.

Journal of Clinical and Translational Science

Purpose: In 2015, the University of Pittsburgh partnered with several Minority Serving Institutions to develop the Leading Emerging and Diverse Scientists to Success (LEADS) Program. LEADS was designed to provide skills development, mentoring, and networking support to early career underrepresented faculty. Method: LEADS included three components: skills training (e.g., grant and manuscript writing and team science), mentoring, and networking opportunities. Scholars completed a pre- and post-test survey and an annual alumni survey that included measures on burnout, motivation, leadership, professionalism, mentoring, job and career satisfaction, networking, and an assessment of their research self-efficacy. Results: Scholars demonstrated a significant increase in their research self-efficacy having completed all the modules (t = 6.12; P < 0.001). Collectively, LEADS scholars submitted 73 grants and secured 46 grants for a 63% success rate. Most scholars either agreed or strongly a...

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2023

Academic science has always had a competition for jobs, for funding, and for career advancements. This creates pressures on scientists to get their work, and themselves, noticed. There is nothing new to that. However, competition has increased with an increase of PhDs and declining opportunities in academia [1]. The means of getting noticed have also changed in an interconnected world. And, most critically, the need to be noticed has been enhanced by changes in the way universities conduct business.

2019

2013

In early April, our UCF colleagues at the Florida Space Institute secured a $55 million grant to produce an instrument for space research. Congratulations

Proceedings of the forty-first annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2019

Graduate students experience high levels of mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. In this provocation, I focus on the imposter syndrome as one of the sources of these issues. I urge our community to chip away at imposter syndrome by revealing the messiness of research through three practices. As we face a new horizon, my hope is these practices shift the culture at conferences (and academia) so we can all be a little kinder to ourselves.

Gestão e Sociedade

Background: Quantity, quality, and impact of scientific publications are used to assess national, institutional, and individual levels of research productivity. While the importance of quality research is stressed among the medical research community, minimal research has been conducted on analyzing which factors affect research productivity. Current literature assesses the quality of research institutions rather than that of individual researchers; there is also no research on the difference between high-impact researchers and other researchers. This study, conducted in 2015, sought to investigate the underlying reason for high-throughput authors' success by understanding their similar habits and motivations leading to high productivity.Methods: The authors conducted a qualitative study via interviews of high-throughput researchers from around the world. Semi-structured interview scripts guided the interviews in accordance to the grounded theory method for qualitative studies. ...

CLADBook 2018

International Journal of Consumer Studies, 2010

This case study illustrates the research career trajectory of two lay researchers after they joined a Big Lottery funded study to explore loneliness and isolation among older people living in a town in the north of England, UK. The two lay researchers were of pensionable age themselves and engaged in all aspects of the research process as full members of the research team. Following research methods training and their substantive input into study design, they engaged fully in an approach of peer-interviewing of other older adults as the main study method. Following this initial exposure to undertaking research, these exemplars of public involvement in research went on to be involved in other research as co-researchers at a local and national level. Initially the paper sets out the lay researchers' personal backgrounds and expectations from involvement in research. The impact of their involvement in research on their quality of life and that of their community is presented. Latterly, the societal impact of the lay researcher's involvement is examined. The difference they made to the initial study design and conduct is described first followed by their development as substantial research resources for other studies and community initiatives. Overall the impact of these lay researchers has been significant and the paper provides an example of how involvement in research can impact on individuals and communities to great effect.

Scientific research requires both innovation and attention to detail, clever breakthroughs and routine procedures. This indispensable guide gives students and researchers across all scientific disciplines practical advice on how to succeed. All types of scientific careers are discussed, from those in industry and academia to consulting, with emphasis on how scientists spend their time and the skills that are needed to be productive. Strategic thinking, creativity, and problem solving, the central keys to success in research, are all explored. The reader is shown how to enhance the creative process in science, how one goes about making discoveries, putting together the solution to a complex problem and then testing the solution obtained.

Social Studies of Science, 2013

How do highly cited scientists account for their success? A number of approaches have been used to explain scientific success, but none incorporates scientists’ own understandings, which are critical to a complete, process-oriented explanation. We remedy this oversight by incorporating scientists’ own descriptions of the value of their work, as reflected in essays written by authors of highly cited articles (‘Citation Classics’). As cultural objects, these essays reveal not only factors perceived to be associated with success but also reflect narrative conventions, and thereby elucidate the culture surrounding success. We enlist Charles Ragin’s Qualitative Comparative Analysis to analyze how factors mentioned in these accounts work in conjunction. Our results show that three ingredients – relationships, usefulness to others, and overcoming challenges – are found in a large majority of scientific success stories.