Category Archives: Admin
Ghost research: taking stock of work that disappears
Why every researcher should keep an old bulletin board.
Guest contributor Eli Lazarus
I recently found a short article my father wrote for National Fisherman, in 1988, which reported on a new kind of lobster trap with a “catch escape panel” aimed at reducing bycatch. My dad had a steady freelance gig at the time with National Fisherman, and the article was one of several he wrote while researching “ghost traps” – lobster traps, specifically, but really any lost fishing gear (nets, lines) that disappears underwater for reasons random, accidental, or deliberate.
With lobster traps, it’s easy to imagine what happens. To retrieve traps and the lobsters in them, a fisher works her way along from floating buoy to buoy. Each is connected to a heavy “sink line” that is in turn fixed to a trap, which sits on the seabed, catching lobsters. If something – a propeller from a passing boat, for example – parts the sink line, then the buoy drifts off with the current and the trap is lost.
{credit}Getty images/Jeff Rotman Photography{/credit}
Scientific presentations: A cheat sheet
Scientific culture and insufficient training in public speaking leads to dull, text-heavy talks. Put more effort into presentations, say Andrew Gaudet and Laura Fonken
As postdocs with a combined 20 years of experience in neuroscience research, we’ve attended hundreds of talks and delivered dozens of presentations. We’ve realized it is imperative to perform your best every time you present — whether at a weekly meeting or at a job interview.
Your preparation and organization will help the audience understand your main points, and this professionalism will boost your reputation, which could lead to further opportunities. Ultimately, a presentation is one of the ways of influencing how others perceive your science and your competence. Here, we’ve put together some ideas for creating polished presentations.
How to wake up early
Here’s another infographic — this time helping you to wake up early (and why that’s important)
You’re a designer — act like one
To communicate effectively, scientists have to start thinking like designers: know your audience, follow the rules of human perception, and tell your story in many layers.
Naturejobs journalism competition winner Lev Tankelevitch
This past August, I visited the Naturejobs career expo in London. As I chatted with exhibitors, I was ready to decline the typical set of leaflets they give away at these things. To my surprise, I was given a USB stick loaded with all of the information that I’d otherwise be carrying home in a canvas bag. This small but much appreciated gesture highlighted for me the significance of effective communication.
#scidata16: Open data should be easy
There’ll always be reasons not to share data. It’s time we stop making excuses and start making plans, says Atma Ivancevic.
On the morning of October 26, 2016, a group of scientists convened in London to discuss the state of open data. The third Publishing Better Science through Better Data conference kicked off with morning tea, international introductions, and furious scribing from @roystoncartoons. The premise was simple: “Today is all about being open”, said conference chair Iain Hrynaszkiewicz. We settled in to learn the advantages of data sharing at both the individual level and for the scientific community at large.
“Open data should be easy,” said Dr Jenny Molloy from the University of Cambridge as she explained the importance of building a data management plan. She pulled up a poster of a missing black backpack: “CASH REWARD” it read, “contains 5 years of research data which are crucial for my PhD thesis!” I laughed along with everyone else, internally reflecting how similar my life had been before I discovered version control.
Think you don’t need a research data management plan?
#scidata16 keynote highlights: “Research data management for early career researchers”
Data management is a crucial component of scientific research and one that should be tackled by early career researchers before they become swamped with data, says Erica Brockmeier.
PhD students and early career researchers have a lot on their to-do lists, everything from writing papers and applying for grants to staying on top of the latest findings in their field. The third keynote of the #scidata16 conference highlighted yet another important facet of a research career: data management. Kevin Ashley, based at the University of Edinburgh, gave a thought-provoking presentation on this topic. As director of the Digital Curation Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland, Mr. Ashley and his team provide advice, guidance and training for researchers, alongside consultancy services on all aspects of data management and data reuse. Continue reading
Opening doors to open data at #scidata16
Want to embrace open data but don’t know where to start? The tools are out there, says Matthew Edmonds.
The Publishing Better Science through Better Data conference, or #scidata16 for short, took place at the Wellcome Collection in London at the end of October. This one-day event organised by the journal Scientific Data, Springer Nature and the Wellcome Trust explored the challenges facing early-career researchers as we enter the era of open data.
As a data novice, I arrived without really knowing what to expect. The types of experiments I perform generate only small datasets needing a simple statistical test, easily summarised in a graph in the manuscript. The original data can be safely left to gather dust in a shared drive. Continue reading
Make a (sketch)note of Science!
Raise your hand if you doodle while taking notes.
Taking notes is a time consuming – and occasionally boring – process, but doodling and using symbols can make it easier, more fun – and could be better for your studies, says Marianna Ricci.
https://youtu.be/qp3kdN58SD0
Personally I’ve always liked to draw and I think of myself as a “visual person”: I’m sensitive to paintings and photos as well as nice color combinations or a cool pattern.
When I need to study something, the easiest way for me is to write it down and draw a diagram. Especially in my veterinary medicine studies, I used mathematical symbols and diagrams as well as colour codes and eye-catching drawings while taking notes and summarizing the lessons. Continue reading
Why don’t scientists always share their data?
Reproducibility is the cornerstone of science, and it can be compromised by insufficient data in peer-reviewed publications. Should scientists reveal everything?
Publishing Better Science through Better Data writing competition winner Emma Vander Ende.
One of the foundations of science is its reproducibility. Without it, results are not verifiable and are therefore not believable. But even if a published result is true, there is a chance it might not be reproducible, which introduces a plethora of problems for science.
Irreproducible experiments severely limit the ability of the scientific community to build on results and advance the field. This can happen when scientists don’t share enough data, or details of their experiments in papers, and it happens quite frequently.
So why might a scientist not share their data?
{credit}Comstock/Thinkstock{/credit}