I came across an interesting blog article discussing whether academics should strive to publish in open access journals. I particularly liked this passage:
"However in the information-saturated world you can’t read everything and traditionally journals have been a way of bundling content into packets for particular readers. In the electronic and multidisciplinary world this is no longer necessary (although it’s still common). So journals have become branding labels. They are a simplistic way of saying “this paper is better than that paper”. It’s a bit like Gramophone records used to be. Or book publishers... So we’ve moved to a situations where scientists follow brands rather than make rational decisions. The university system reinforces this... And the publishing houses can make a lot of money out of promoting brands. Bibliometrics shows that one publishing house not far from Kings Cross has done exceptionally in promoting its brand for all sorts of disciplines. Does this mean that their papers are better, or simply that their marketeers are better? Why do people buy one fragrance as opposed to another? Or any other fashion accessory? It’s not the raw value of the item – it’s the perception that has been built up."
Saturday 18 December 2010
Monday 13 December 2010
Alfie
Peter Hallward wrote in the THE of last week's demos thus:
"The story of one Middlesex undergraduate who used to sit in on my MA classes, Alfie Meadows, is already notorious. He received a full-on blow to the side of his skull. My partner and I found him wandering in Parliament Square a little after 6pm, pale and distraught, looking for a way to go home. He had a large lump on the right side of his head. He said he’d been hit by the police and didn’t feel well. We took one look at him and walked him towards the nearest barricaded exit as quickly as possible. It took a few minutes to reach and then convince the taciturn wall of police blocking Great George Street to let him through their shields, but they refused to let me, my partner or anyone else accompany him in search of medical help. We assumed that he would receive immediate and appropriate treatment on the other side of the police wall as a matter of course, but in fact he was left to wander off on his own, towards Victoria.
As it turns out, Alfie’s subsequent survival depended on three chance events. If his mother (a lecturer at Roehampton, who was also “contained” in Parliament Square) hadn’t received his phone call and caught up with him shortly afterwards, the odds are that he’d have passed out on the street. If they hadn’t then stumbled upon an ambulance waiting nearby, his diagnosis could have been fatally delayed. And if the driver of this ambulance hadn’t overruled an initial refusal of the A&E department of the Chelsea and Westminster hospital to look at Alfie, his transfer to the Charing Cross neurological unit for emergency brain surgery might well have come too late."
"The story of one Middlesex undergraduate who used to sit in on my MA classes, Alfie Meadows, is already notorious. He received a full-on blow to the side of his skull. My partner and I found him wandering in Parliament Square a little after 6pm, pale and distraught, looking for a way to go home. He had a large lump on the right side of his head. He said he’d been hit by the police and didn’t feel well. We took one look at him and walked him towards the nearest barricaded exit as quickly as possible. It took a few minutes to reach and then convince the taciturn wall of police blocking Great George Street to let him through their shields, but they refused to let me, my partner or anyone else accompany him in search of medical help. We assumed that he would receive immediate and appropriate treatment on the other side of the police wall as a matter of course, but in fact he was left to wander off on his own, towards Victoria.
As it turns out, Alfie’s subsequent survival depended on three chance events. If his mother (a lecturer at Roehampton, who was also “contained” in Parliament Square) hadn’t received his phone call and caught up with him shortly afterwards, the odds are that he’d have passed out on the street. If they hadn’t then stumbled upon an ambulance waiting nearby, his diagnosis could have been fatally delayed. And if the driver of this ambulance hadn’t overruled an initial refusal of the A&E department of the Chelsea and Westminster hospital to look at Alfie, his transfer to the Charing Cross neurological unit for emergency brain surgery might well have come too late."
Saturday 11 December 2010
Spineless
From a Guardian interview with Tim Farron MP, president of the Lib Dems:
"I am absolutely furious with the vice-chancellors as a cadre and I'll be careful not to call them all spineless – but I will call them all spineless.
"No other public sector body, in this whole shake-up with the cuts, was in a position where they could say: 'Right, we'll accept our cut in the direct support we get from the state as long as we get to charge our clients.' Imagine if we had headteachers or NHS managers saying that – it's absolutely outrageous"
Says it all, really.
"I am absolutely furious with the vice-chancellors as a cadre and I'll be careful not to call them all spineless – but I will call them all spineless.
"No other public sector body, in this whole shake-up with the cuts, was in a position where they could say: 'Right, we'll accept our cut in the direct support we get from the state as long as we get to charge our clients.' Imagine if we had headteachers or NHS managers saying that – it's absolutely outrageous"
Says it all, really.
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