At the risk of giving you the impression that Idaho is full of backwoods uneducated types, I’m going to mention a recent article about the “vaccination debate” here in Idaho.
The article tells the story of a group of anti-immunization crusaders in Northern Idaho through the lens of two contrasting women. One of these is the leader of the anti-immunization folks, Ingri Cassel. The other is state epidemiologist Christine Hahn.
I’m not going to wade into the depths of the ...(read more)
Recently the International Society for Computational Biology put out a request for feedback on their draft Literature Open Public Access Policy Statement.
The goal is laudable: encourage all computational biology researchers to publish their work where it can be openly accessed by all.
This goal makes sense as long as the public is paying for the research being done. When the public pays, the work should be open access.
Academics have a love-hate relationship with money that, I think, can sometimes impede forward progress.
I bring this up because of an email conversation with a friend and colleague of mine. I had asked this person about doing an interview for my online grant writing course, and I said I would compensate him for it. He’s someone who has done very well with grants.
He responded telling me that he was uncomfortable with the idea of “charging” for his grant ...(read more)
A reader writes in with the question: “I’ve been putting my head down and working hard on my science for the past few years, trying to avoid “politics”. Now a situation has come up that has forced me to realize that I’m not being recognized for the work that I did, and the politics are getting ugly. Will I always have to pay attention ...(read more)
I just met up with a friend of mine who teaches at a small(ish) western university. It was interesting how much our stories intersected about some of the job challenges we both face – even though our respective University environments are quite different.
Both seem to stem from a fundamental lack of respect for what scientists and faculty do. We get squeezed from both sides. At the small college, they try to squeeze more teaching out with ever less ...(read more)
The cost of information being “free”
by morgan · 2 comments
Academics have a love-hate relationship with money that, I think, can sometimes impede forward progress.
I bring this up because of an email conversation with a friend and colleague of mine. I had asked this person about doing an interview for my online grant writing course, and I said I would compensate him for it. He’s someone who has done very well with grants.
He responded telling me that he was uncomfortable with the idea of “charging” for his grant ...(read more)
Tagged as: academia, faculty, free, money, politics
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