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Data Diversity Podcast #3 – Dr Nick H. Wise (3/4)
Welcome back to the penultimate post featuring Dr Nick H. Wise, Research Associate in Architectural Fluid Mechanics at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge. If you have been with us for the previous two posts, you would know that besides being a scientist and an engineer, Nick has made his name as a scientific sleuth who, based on an article on the blog Retraction Watch which was written in 2022, is responsible for more than 850 retractions, leading Times Higher Education to dub him as a research fraudbuster. Since then, through his X account @Nickwizzo, he has continued his investigations, tracking cases of fraud and in some cases, naming…
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Data Diversity Podcast #3 – Dr Nick H. Wise (2/4)
We are back again with our second blog post featuring Dr Nick H. Wise, Research Associate in Architectural Fluid Mechanics at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge. As is the theme of the Data Diversity podcast, we spoke to Nick about his experience as a researcher, but this is a special edition of the podcast. Besides being a scientist and an engineer, Nick has made his name as a scientific sleuth who, based on an article on the blog Retraction Watch which was written in 2022, is responsible for more than 850 retractions, leading Times Higher Education to dub him as a research fraudbuster. Since then, through his X…
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Data Diversity Podcast #3 – Dr Nick H. Wise (1/4)
In our third instalment of the Data Diversity Podcast, we are joined by Dr Nick H. Wise, Research Associate in Architectural Fluid Mechanics at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge. As is the theme of the podcast, we spoke to Nick about his experience as a researcher, but this is a special edition of the podcast. Besides being a scientist and an engineer, Nick has made his name as a scientific sleuth who, based on an article on the blog Retraction Watch which was written in 2022, is responsible for more than 850 retractions, leading Times Higher Education to dub him as a research fraudbuster. Since then, through his…
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Data Diversity Podcast #2 – Dr Alfredo Cortell-Nicolau
In our second instalment of the Data Diversity Podcast, we are joined by archaeologist Dr Alfredo Cortell-Nicolau, a Senior Teaching Associate in Quantitative and Computational Methods in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and Data Champion. As is the theme of the podcast, we spoke to Alfredo about his relationship with data and learned from his experiences as a researcher. The conversation also touched on the different interpersonal, and even diplomatic, skills that an archaeologist must possess to carry out their research, and how one’s relationship with individuals such as landowners and government agents might impact their access to data. Alfredo also sheds light on…
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Thomas Roulet on sustainable publishing models
Knowledge Rights 21 recently published a short video by Thomas Roulet, Professor of Organisational Sociology and Leadership at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. In it, Prof. Roulet discusses the operations of M@n@gement, the no-fee open access journal published by L’Association Internationale de Management Stratégique (AIMS). The journal is a good example of the turn to community-led forms of open access publishing and how publishing can be organised by communities and sustained by professional associations. This video is reproduced under a CC BY licence and with the permission of Prof. Roulet. The original video was shared on the Knowledge Rights 21 blog here: https://www.knowledgerights21.org/video/sustainable-publishing-models-thomas-roulet/
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Thoth Archiving Network goes live at Cambridge
Dr Agustina Martínez-García, Head of Open Research Systems, Digital Initiatives Cambridge University Library (CUL) is piloting participation in the Thoth Archiving Network, which allows small presses to use a simple deposit option to archive their publications in multiple repository locations, creating the opportunity to safeguard against the complete loss of their open books catalogue, should they cease to operate. Participation in the pilot has allowed us to explore the implementation of suitable infrastructure, built on interoperable, open, and widely adopted platforms to support discovery, access, and long-term availability of open scholarly works. Work done so far We are pleased to share that the Cambridge repository platform participating in the Thoth…
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Diamond Open Access Journals platform launch at Cambridge
Dr Agustina Martínez-García, Head of Open Research Systems, Digital Initiatives We are pleased to announce that our Diamond Open Access Journals at Cambridge platform has launched in May and can be accessed at https://diamond-oa.lib.cam.ac.uk/home. This service will be available initially as part of a one-year pilot project undertaken by the Open Research Systems (ORS) and Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) teams within Cambridge University Library (CUL). Project overview The main aim of the Diamond project is to support Cambridge’s research community in the context of a changing open research and scholarly publishing environment. To meet increasing demand to share research findings we are scoping, assessing, and implementing future services…
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Formatting the Future: Why Researchers Should Consider File Formats
Dr Kim Clugston, Research Data Coordinator, OSC Dr Leontien Talboom, Technical Analyst, Digital Initiatives Many funders and publishers now require data to be made openly available for reuse, supporting the open data movement and value for publicly funded research. But are all researchers aware of why they are being asked to share their data and how to do this appropriately? When researchers deposit their research data into Apollo (the University of Cambridge open access repository) they generally understand the benefits of sharing data and want to be a part of this. These researchers provide their data in open file formats accompanied by rich metadata so the data has the best…
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The (exponential) thirst for data – The March 2024 Data Champions forum
The Data Champions were treated to a big data themed session for the March Data Champion forum, hosted at (and sponsored by) the Cambridge University Press and Assessment in their amazing Triangle building. First up was Dr James Fergusson, course director for the MPhil in Data Intensive Science, who described how the exponential growth in data accumulation, computing and artificial intelligence (A.I.) capabilities has led to a paradigm shift in the world of cosmological theorisation and research, potentially changing with it scientific research as a whole. As he explained, over the last two decades cosmologists have seen a rapid increase of data points on which to base their theorisation –…
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What we can learn from the ‘promise and pitfalls of preregistration’ meeting
Dr Mandy Wigdorowitz, Open Research Community Manager, Cambridge University Libraries The promise and pitfalls of preregistration meeting was held at the Royal Society in March 2024. It was organised to address the utility of preregistration and initiate an interdisciplinary dialogue about its epistemic and pragmatic aims. The goal of the meeting was to explore the limitations associated with preregistration, and to conceive of a practical way to guide future research that can make the most of its implementation. Preregistration is the practice of publicly declaring a study’s hypotheses, methods, and analyses before conducting a research study. Researchers are encouraged to be as specific as possible when writing preregistration plans, detailing…






