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Better Together: Collaborative Spaces Can Inspire Scientists of All Ages

Better Together: Collaborative Spaces Can Inspire Scientists of All Ages

An area where researchers can gather and informally discuss ideas is the best way to produce innovative inventions, argues Ethan N. Gotian.

'We Need to Talk': Ways to Prevent Collaborations Breaking Down

'We Need to Talk': Ways to Prevent Collaborations Breaking Down

Scientists who plan to partner on a research project should start by identifying pressure points and devising ways of tackling them as a team.

​YES to International Collaboration, NO to "EU-First"

​YES to International Collaboration, NO to "EU-First"

Research-intensive university groups representing 77 universities across Europe have joined together to signal their determination to collaborate across borders to drive innovation and new discoveries. The joint statement also calls upon the European Union not to restrict access for associated countries, such as the UK and Switzerland, to parts of its multi-billion Horizon Europe research programme.

Giving CRediT Where CRediT is Due

Giving CRediT Where CRediT is Due

With the addition of 14 new CRediT contributor roles, research contributors - who may have multiple roles per published work - can now have all facets of their work recognized.

Investigating the Division of Scientific Labor Using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy

Investigating the Division of Scientific Labor Using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy

Paper analyzes how research contributions are divided across research teams, focusing on the association between division of labor and number of authors, and authors’ position and specific contributions by using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT).

Academic-Humanitarian Technology Partnerships: an Unhappy Marriage?

Academic-Humanitarian Technology Partnerships: an Unhappy Marriage?

Working together seems like a good idea - especially when working toward a noble goal. However, little has been reported to date about the success and efficiency (or lack thereof) of such partnerships as a practical matter.

Analysis of the Evolution and Collaboration Networks of Citizen Science Scientific Publications

Analysis of the Evolution and Collaboration Networks of Citizen Science Scientific Publications

The term citizen science refers to a broad set of practices developed in a growing number of areas of knowledge and characterized by the active citizen participation in some or several stages of the research process. Definitions, classifications and terminology remain open, reflecting that citizen science is an evolving phenomenon, a spectrum of practices whose classification may be useful but never unique or definitive. The aim of this article is to study citizen science publications in journals indexed by WoS, in particular how they have evolved in the last 20 years and the collaboration networks which have been created among the researchers in that time. In principle, the evolution can be analyzed, in a quantitative way, by the usual tools, such as the number of publications, authors, and impact factor of the papers, as well as the set of different research areas including citizen science as an object of study. But as citizen science is a transversal concept which appears in almost all scientific disciplines, this study becomes a multifaceted problem which is only partially modelled with the usual bibliometric magnitudes. It is necessary to consider new tools to parametrize a set of complementary properties. Thus, we address the study of the citizen science expansion and evolution in terms of the properties of the graphs which encode relations between scientists by studying co-authorship and the consequent networks of collaboration. This approach - not used until now in research on citizen science, as far as we know- allows us to analyze the properties of these networks through graph theory, and complement the existing quantitative research. The results obtained lead mainly to: (a) a better understanding of the current state of citizen science in the international academic system-by countries, by areas of knowledge, by interdisciplinary communities-as an increasingly legitimate expanding methodology, and (b) a greater knowledge of collaborative networks and their evolution, within and between research communities, which allows a certain margin of predictability as well as the definition of better cooperation strategies.

The Work-From-Home Shift Shocked Companies-Now They're Learning Its Lessons

The Work-From-Home Shift Shocked Companies-Now They're Learning Its Lessons

Tens of millions of Americans are working from home and many will never go back; employers scramble to figure out what tools they'll need to stay productive.

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration and Scholarly Independence in Multidisciplinary Learning Environments at Doctoral Level and Beyond

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration and Scholarly Independence in Multidisciplinary Learning Environments at Doctoral Level and Beyond

The aim of this study is to investigate how patterns of collaboration and scholarly independence are related to early stage researchers' development in two multidisciplinary learning environments at a Swedish university. .

ResearchGate and Wiley Announce Cooperation Agreement

ResearchGate and Wiley Announce Cooperation Agreement

ResearchGate, the largest professional network for researchers, and Wiley, a global leader in research and education, today announced a cooperation agreement to explore ways in which Wiley and ResearchGate can collaborate to better support the needs of researchers through ResearchGate’s collaboration platform.

What Are Fake Interdisciplinary Collaborations and Why Do They Occur?

What Are Fake Interdisciplinary Collaborations and Why Do They Occur?

Scientists influenced by funding priorities promoted by regional, national and transnational funding bodies, as well as by the academic mania for ‘interdisciplinariness’, feel compelled to develop a concrete interdisciplinary research topic and organize their research collaboratively.

EU and UK Research Organisations Plan a Strong Future Relationship Post Brexit

EU and UK Research Organisations Plan a Strong Future Relationship Post Brexit

On the day that the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, higher education and research organisations from across the UK and Europe have reaffirmed their commitment to working together, and are calling on their respective governments to make this a priority.

10 Simple Rules to Run an Open and Inclusive Project Online

10 Simple Rules to Run an Open and Inclusive Project Online

Abstract: There are many reasons why open source projects have difficulty attracting contributors. Current academic incentive structures are some of the strongest. Wanting to maintain a competitive advantage, too great a focus on novelty when publishing papers, and too little credit given to writing documentation and tutorials, all encourage researchers to reinvent the wheel in a closed team. Although I will discuss these barriers, my talk will focus on some challenges that are much easier to overcome. Not knowing where to start. "Imposter syndrome" and the various intersecting biases that accompany (and often underpin) it. Being unsure as to whether a project even wants any contributions. These can all be addressed with 10 simple rules. From laying out your welcome mat, through setting explicit expectations, to the graceful death of your project, these steps will will help you build and run an open and inclusive community-driven project online. (Breaking down capitalism may have to wait for another day.) Bio: Kirstie Whitaker is a research fellow at the Alan Turing Institute (London, UK) and senior research associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. Her work covers a broad range of interests and methods, but the driving principle is to improve the lives of neurodivergent people and people with mental health conditions. Dr Whitaker uses magnetic resonance imaging to study child and adolescent brain development and participatory citizen science to educate non-autistic people about how they can better support autistic friends and colleagues. She is the lead developer of "The Turing Way", an openly developed educational resource to enable more reproducible data science. Kirstie is a passionate advocate for making science "open for all" by promoting equity and inclusion for people from diverse backgrounds, and by changing the academic incentive structure to reward collaborative working. She is the chair of the Turing Institute's Ethics Advisory Group, a Fulbright scholarship alumna and was a 2016/17 Mozilla Fellow for Science. Kirstie was named, with her collaborator Petra Vertes, as a 2016 Global Thinker by Foreign Policy magazine. You can find more information at her lab website: whitakerlab.github.io.

Ten Simple Rules for Researchers Collaborating on Massively Open Online Papers (MOOPs)

Ten Simple Rules for Researchers Collaborating on Massively Open Online Papers (MOOPs)

The authors provide recommendations for a highly open and participatory interactive process of collaboration using digital tools and environments, discuss potential issues that come with working with large and diverse authoring communities, and provide possible solutions should these arise.

How Katie Bouman Accidentally Became the Face of the Black Hole Project

How Katie Bouman Accidentally Became the Face of the Black Hole Project

The project included more than 200 researchers around the world, about 40 of them women, including Dr. Bouman.

Distributed Organisations for Collaborative Research

Distributed Organisations for Collaborative Research

This essay proposes how distributed Web technologies are poised to enable an entirely new way of communication and cooperation among scientist and citizens.

"We Should Treat Each Other with Respect"

"We Should Treat Each Other with Respect"

ETH Zurich has submitted a request to the ETH Board to terminate the employment relationship with a professor in the former Institute for Astronomy. To avoid as far as possible similar cases from escalating in future, ETH Zurich is adapting its structures and processes.

The Open Tide - How Openness in Research and Communication is Becoming the Default Setting

The Open Tide - How Openness in Research and Communication is Becoming the Default Setting

The UK has benefitted from funder incentives that make Open Access appealing for authors, while US funders have taken a less interventionist approach to Open Access. This in turn has led to increased international collaboration for UK researchers.