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The case for Open Research: the authorship problem
This is the second in a blog series about why we need to move towards Open Research. The first post about the mis-measurement problem considered issues with assessment. We now turn our attention to problems with authorship. Note that as before this is a topic of research in itself – and there is a rich vein of literature to be mined here for the interested observer. Hyperauthorship In May last year a high energy physics paper was published with over 5,000 authors. Of the 33 pages in this article, the paper occupied nine with the remainder listing the authors. This paper caused something of a storm of protest about ‘hyperauthorship’ (a term coined in 2001 by Blaise Cronin).…
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What is ‘research impact’ in an interconnected world?
Perhaps we should start this discussion with a definition of ‘impact’. The term impact is used by many different groups for different purposes, and much to the chagrin of many researchers it is increasingly a factor in the Higher Education Funding Councils for England’s (HECFE) Research Excellence Framework. HEFCE defined impact as: ‘an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia’. So we are talking about research that affects change beyond the ivory tower. What follows is a discussion about strengthening the chances of increasing the impact of research. Is publishing communicating research? Publishing a paper…
