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Data Diving for Genomics Treasure
Björn Brembs November 25, 2015
This is a post written jointly by Nelson Lau from Brandeis and me, Björn Brembs. In contrast to Nelson’s guest post, which focused on the open data aspect of our collaboration, this one describes the science behind our paper and […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Guest post: Why our Open Data project worked
Björn Brembs November 19, 2015
Why our Open Data project worked, (and how Decorum can allay our fears of Open Data). I am honored to Guest Post on Björn’s blog and excited about  the interest in our work from Björn’s response to Dorothy Bishop’s first […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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How do academic publishers see their role?
Björn Brembs March 8, 2016
Over the years, publishers have left some astonishingly frank remarks over how they see their role in serving the scholarly community with their communication and dissemination needs. This morning, I decided to cherry-pick some of them, take them out of […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Academic publishers: stop access negotiations
Björn Brembs March 3, 2016
Three years ago, representatives of libraries, publishers and scholars all agreed that academic publishers don’t really add any value to scholarly articles. Last week, I interpreted Sci-Hub potentially being a consequence of scholars having become tired after 20 years of […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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On the productivity of scientists
Björn Brembs May 12, 2016
“an academic career, in which a person is forced to produce scientific writings in great amounts, creates a danger of intellectual superficiality” Albert Einstein Isaacson W (2008) Einstein (His Life and Universe) (Simon and Schuster, New York), 1st Ed, p […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Why cutting down on peer-review will improve it
Björn Brembs December 1, 2015
Update, Dec. 4, 2015: With the online discussion moving towards grantsmanship and the decision of what level of expertise to expect from a reviewer, I have written down some thoughts on this angle of the discussion. With more and more […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Seeking your endorsement
Björn Brembs March 14, 2016
I am contemplating to apply to join the European Commission Open Science Policy Platform. The OSPP will provide expert advice to the European Commission on implementing the broader Open Science Agenda. As you will see, some of us have a […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Have you seen this response to terrorism anywhere?
Björn Brembs March 23, 2016
I usually don’t write about politics, but there has been one or the other exception to this rule in the last 12 years of this blog. This time, I’ve been missing one particular response to the various terrorist attacks in […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Academic publishers and competition
Björn Brembs May 4, 2016
Scholarly journals, on the face of it, emerged in the 17th century as a medium to facilitate communication of scientific discoveries among interested scholars. In the 21st century, it’s not all that different: researchers form communities around topics in which […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Data show “excellence initiative” was a massive failure – help stop it
Björn Brembs April 28, 2016
Around 2005, German politicians decided on a plan to circumvent a newly created amendment to the German constitution that prevents federal funds from supporting state-owned institutions such as universities. Given the unanimous support of R&D among federal parties and the […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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What interacting with publishers felt like for this open access proponent
Björn Brembs August 1, 2016
At various meetings I get often asked by early career researchers, librarians or other colleagues what my interactions with publishers felt like. I usually answer that my last twelve years campaigning for infrastructure reform felt like academia was receiving the […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Should public institutions not be choosing the lowest responsible bidder?
Björn Brembs December 6, 2016
Public institutions the world over are required to spend their funds responsibly. Commonly, this is done by requiring them to host bids for purchases or services above a certain threshold. If you work at a public institution and have wondered, […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Peer-review is not free – it’s a subsidy for publishers
Björn Brembs July 26, 2016
At seemingly every possibility in a discussion on peer-review, people apparently feel the need to emphasize that in the current model reviewers (or most academic editors handling peer-review) are not being paid. Inasmuch as the reviewer is employed at some […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Practical roads to infrastructure reform
Björn Brembs September 29, 2016
A recurrent topic among faculty and librarians interested in infrastructure reform is the question of whose turn it is to make the next move. Researchers rightfully argue that they cannot submit their work exclusively to modern, open access journals because […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Do flies in groups make individual choices?
Björn Brembs November 13, 2016
This is our first poster at this year’s SfN meeting in San Diego. It’s about decision-making in fruit flies. We find a probabilistic form of decision-making that suggests that without understanding the mechanisms behind this fundamental uncertainty, we will never […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Recommendations for future #scifoo invitees
Björn Brembs July 25, 2016
I received an invitation to SciFoo (a “Science Friends of O‘Reilly” meeting) in the beginning of April this year. I was aware of the hype around this “unconference” and several people I knew had already participated, so at first I […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
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Are we inadvertently supporting the defunding of public science?
Björn Brembs March 7, 2017
There can be little doubt that the defunding of public academic institutions is a main staple of populist movements today. Whether it is Trump’s budget director directly asking if one really needs publicly funded science at all, or the planned […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...