Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Chance in animate nature, day 3
Björn Brembs November 12, 2015
doi:10.59350/d2y9h-41f88
On our final day (day 1, day 2), I was only able to hear Boris Kotchoubey‘s (author of “why are you free?“) talk, as I had to leave early to catch my flight. He made a great effort to slowly […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
So many symptoms, only one disease: a public good in private hands
Björn Brembs September 17, 2015
doi:10.59350/7tw94-qme49
Science has infected itself (voluntarily!) with a life-threatening parasite. It has  given away its crown jewels, the scientific knowledge contained in the scholarly archives, to entities with orthogonal interests: corporate publishers whose fiduciary duty is not knowledge dissemination or scholarly communication, […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
How to write your grant proposal?
Björn Brembs December 4, 2015
doi:10.59350/4qk6y-cw767
Posting my reply to a review of our most recent grant proposal has sparked an online discussion both on Twitter and on Drugmonkey’s blog. The main direction the discussion took was what level of expertise to expect from the reviewers […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
How free are academics, really?
Björn Brembs December 17, 2015
doi:10.59350/nbd4r-wq274
In Germany, the constitution guarantees academic freedom in article 5 as a basic civil right. The main German funder, the German Research Foundation (DFG), routinely points to this article of the German constitution when someone suggests they should follow the […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Don’t be afraid of open data
Björn Brembs November 16, 2015
doi:10.59350/snxxh-06390
This is a response to Dorothy Bishop’s post “Who’s afraid of open data?“. After we had published a paper on how Drosophila strains that are referred to by the same name in the literature (Canton S), but came from different […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Chance in animate nature, day 1
Björn Brembs November 10, 2015
doi:10.59350/fgj2z-q6x52
Ulrich Herkenrath, a mathematician working on stochasticity, convened a tiny symposium of only about a dozen participants discussing the role of chance in living beings. Participants included mathematicians, philosophers and neurobiologists. Herkenrath: “Man as a source of randomness” Herkenrath kicked […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Data Diving for Genomics Treasure
Björn Brembs November 25, 2015
doi:10.59350/a5wdb-xdh90
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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Guest post: Why our Open Data project worked
Björn Brembs November 19, 2015
doi:10.59350/tww6q-ry866
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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
How do academic publishers see their role?
Björn Brembs March 8, 2016
doi:10.59350/dd6th-dd058
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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Academic publishers: stop access negotiations
Björn Brembs March 3, 2016
doi:10.59350/wnpsv-sbz25
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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
On the productivity of scientists
Björn Brembs May 12, 2016
doi:10.59350/hj1vy-w7823
“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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Why cutting down on peer-review will improve it
Björn Brembs December 1, 2015
doi:10.59350/cb1ew-2me34
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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Seeking your endorsement
Björn Brembs March 14, 2016
doi:10.59350/vefte-dy427
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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Have you seen this response to terrorism anywhere?
Björn Brembs March 23, 2016
doi:10.59350/ynx5x-8mr87
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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Academic publishers and competition
Björn Brembs May 4, 2016
doi:10.59350/syg73-m2e43
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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Data show “excellence initiative” was a massive failure – help stop it
Björn Brembs April 28, 2016
doi:10.59350/xhfte-dxd59
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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
What interacting with publishers felt like for this open access proponent
Björn Brembs August 1, 2016
doi:10.59350/1qq9b-5r645
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...
Download Read paper
Björn Brembs
@brembs  ·  activity timestamp 12 months ago
posted-content Front Matter
Should public institutions not be choosing the lowest responsible bidder?
Björn Brembs December 6, 2016
doi:10.59350/w4j25-x7j06
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...
Download Read paper
Home Login