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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 17, 2024 14:18:37 GMT -5
Someone in my neck of the woods has started a new academic journal. It's a little different from the standard model but seems to be a serious, non-predatory publication. I'm not in academia and would love to hear from people more familiar with academic publishing. Is this a good idea? "New journal founded by Oregon scientist offers alternative to traditional academic publishing July 15, 2024 Earlier this month, a new journal based in Portland launched online with its first set of published scientific articles. But the Stacks Journal isn’t your typical academic journal, according to its founder, David Green, an ecologist who previously worked at OSU’s Institute for Natural Resources. He says that it removes some of the main obstacles associated with traditional academic publishing by being more affordable and available to anyone online. And it offers an alternative to the traditional model of peer review by having reviewers work together to provide feedback on a scientific paper and vote on whether it should be published. The process can be completed in just a few weeks compared to a year or more for an article to be published in a traditional journal. Green joins us to share more, along with Phoebe Parker-Shames, a wildlife ecologist at The Presidio Trust in San Francisco who recently authored a study published in Stacks Journal about the impact of cannabis cultivation on wildlife in southern Oregon." Audio: pds.cdnstream1.com/p/opb/think-out-loud/new-journal-founded-by-o-b638fb/audio.mp3?aw_0_1st.playerid=opbsiteWebsite: www.opb.org/article/2024/07/15/think-out-loud-science-peer-review-research-stacks-journal/The price of publication is very low, which is a good thing (publication costs in big journals are insanely high nowadays). Here's hoping the business plan can hold. The idea of having reviewers discuss a paper collegially is intriguing, although I expect it might slow down the evaluation process (since reviewers first have to review the paper on their own, then consider what other reviewers have said). What I like about the idea, though, is that sometimes a second opinion gives one new ideas and could prompt even more criticism, thus making the reviewing process more efficient. Voting on whether a paper is accepted sounds fair on the face of it, but I'm not sure it's the way to go. At the end of the day, a vote is just a tally of "ayes" and "nays" and does not reflect the relative weight of the points that let people vote one way or the other. The current peer-review process is pretty democratic already, but the editor retains the right to weigh in if he or she thinks that the paper is really on to something interesting, or that the harsh criticism of reviewer #3 (it's always reviewer #3) does not warrant refusal. The one aspect of the strategy I am wary of is this : " You can see all the reviewers’ feedback, their names, and what percentage voted to approve the article for publication." Losing anonymity would have on criticism a dangerous moderating effect: people might have to refrain from expressing their true opinions. It's not that reviewers habitually call a paper's authors bad names, but how is someone going to turn down a paper by someone very influential in one's own field, knowing that there might be repercussions? What about currying favour from a Big Shot in one's domain by accepting all his papers? Apart from the obviously sunny "we have nothing to hide" attitude, I don't see what this point brings to the table. I'm fairly sure that some of my (rejected) papers were reviewed by friends, and I'm glad that they didn't fear to hurt my feelings when criticizing the science. All that being said, there is nothing wrong with new models of publication. For example, I quite like the BioarXiv model, where unreviewed papers are made available to public criticism before experts can sink their teeth into them. It's a nice complement to what we did in the past. (Publication of negative results is also a pretty good idea).
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Post by driver1980 on Aug 4, 2024 8:26:04 GMT -5
Remind me never to get lost in space: Taken from social media, credit possibly to NASA. Okay, I think I could find my way home if I got lost in the Andromeda Galaxy, I just hope I’d have enough fuel…
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 4, 2024 11:40:54 GMT -5
Remind me never to get lost in space: Taken from social media, credit possibly to NASA. Okay, I think I could find my way home if I got lost in the Andromeda Galaxy, I just hope I’d have enough fuel… “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 4, 2024 17:45:06 GMT -5
We really need a banana for scale. Or an arrow saying "you are here".
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Post by Doghouse Reilly on Aug 4, 2024 17:54:03 GMT -5
Remind me never to get lost in space: "Oh, the pain, the pain!"
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 4, 2024 19:44:51 GMT -5
Remind me never to get lost in space: "Oh, the pain, the pain!" Each reboot of Lost in Space must include that line! It's as necessary as "Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!"
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Post by driver1980 on Aug 10, 2024 7:26:15 GMT -5
I’m not really sure what the context is, or what I can add or discuss, but this looked pretty interesting (shared via Twitter):
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Post by Doghouse Reilly on Aug 16, 2024 7:51:43 GMT -5
Extending the geography theme... For the RPG I'm working on, I've found some interesting sources for learning about geography, including the picture driver1980 shared. (I take my RPG world-building seriously, but mostly because it's a fun vehicle to learn about the real world.) So here's a couple more quick visual references for geographical info. One is a chart showing the environment produced by level of moisture combined with temperature. The other is examples of life-forms encountered at different depths of the sea. I have a list or two of the different types of terrain features as defined by one or two governmental (or otherwise serious agencies), but I have lost and not yet re-found proper attribution, so I'm not posting it. The list(s) are really good for inspiration for fiction.
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Post by driver1980 on Aug 20, 2024 10:33:18 GMT -5
I’m currently reading 1,001 Ideas that Changed the Way We Think on my Kindle. There’s a chapter on outer space. This has given me a new perspective:
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,197
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Post by Confessor on Aug 21, 2024 21:09:08 GMT -5
I’m currently reading 1,001 Ideas that Changed the Way We Think on my Kindle. There’s a chapter on outer space. This has given me a new perspective: According to the NASA website, it's even closer than that because the Von Karman Line – the point where spacecraft are considered to have entered space – is only 62 miles from sea level.
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Post by berkley on Aug 22, 2024 0:46:21 GMT -5
And to make it even more scary, didn't the moon once have an atmosphere? But not any more, which naturally makes one feel the same thing could happen to us. But I forget the science behind it and why ours has lasted so long - more mass and thus greater gravitational attraction to hold onto it, I suppose, but if the moon had enough mass to have an atmosphere in the first place there must have been something else at play. yes, I realise we can just look it up on wikipedia.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 27, 2024 17:02:31 GMT -5
Cool little video about the Wallace Line, a line of biodiversity that separates Asian and Australian bio-areas that runs through Malaysia and the associated islands in the area. I find this kind of thing fascination.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Aug 28, 2024 8:23:40 GMT -5
Cool little video about the Wallace Line, a line of biodiversity that separates Asian and Australian bio-areas that runs through Malaysia and the associated islands in the area. I find this kind of thing fascination. (...) Yeah, I watched that one about a year ago. Cool stuff. Otherwise, those Eons videos are really good, and a bit addictive. I've idled away what ended up being many an hour just clicking on one after another.
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 1, 2024 15:26:55 GMT -5
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Post by driver1980 on Nov 16, 2024 11:10:45 GMT -5
Saw this on social media: I was a bit sceptical, but I did find at least two websites - Live Science - was one, both of which looked credible, and both of which stated that it possibly did rain for that long. Hope there were umbrellas back then…
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