2020's last blog post... and a Christmas surprise!

It's holiday time for Leiden Madtrics as well. We wish you all restful days off and are looking forward to seeing you again in the new year. In the meantime, have fun reading this blog post written by Ed Noyons about a very unique Christmas surprise taking place in the city of Utrecht.

Ed Noyons • December 24, 2020

Q&A about Elsevier's decision to open its citations

Last week Elsevier announced that it has signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and that it is going to make the reference lists of articles openly available in Crossref. In this Q&A, Ludo Waltman shares his perspective on Elsevier’s decision to open its citations.

Ludo Waltman • December 22, 2020 • 1 comment

The causal intricacies of studying gender bias in science

A recently published paper on the role of gender in mentorship in science has triggered a lot of debate. In this blog post, Vincent Traag and Ludo Waltman contribute to this debate by emphasizing the importance of understanding the underlying causal mechanisms.

Vincent Traag and Ludo Waltman • December 10, 2020

Publications should be FAIR

Scholarly data sets are increasingly expected to be FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable). To fully realize the benefits of open access to the scholarly literature, Ludo Waltman argues that publications should be FAIR as well.

Ludo Waltman • October 26, 2020

Who benefits from science? A comment on Barry Bozeman’s ‘Public Value Science’

In a new article for Issues in S&T Barry Bozeman argues that current science policies benefit the rich more than the poor, thus reinforcing social inequalities. This blog post discusses his argument in the light of related views on how science can contribute to wider social well-being.

Ismael Rafols • September 22, 2020 • 1 comment

Honest signaling in academic publishing

Scientific publishing has become a game between scientists and journals. Scientists try to convince the journals to publish their papers, while journals try to filter-out low-quality papers while being overwhelmed with too many submissions. Is there a smarter way? Honest signaling may be the key.

Leo Tiokhin • July 22, 2020

Why openly available abstracts are important — overview of the current state of affairs

Openness of the metadata of scientific articles is increasingly being discussed. In this blog post, Aaron Tay (SMU Libraries, Singapore Management University), Bianca Kramer (Utrecht University Library), and Ludo Waltman (CWTS, Leiden University) discuss the value of openly available abstracts.

Aaron Tay, Bianca Kramer and Ludo Waltman • June 30, 2020

How does a lockdown affect a visiting researcher? Some reflections during the COVID-19 lockdown period

In July 2019, I joined CWTS for a one-year research stay. The lockdown due to COVID-19 changed my situation as a visiting researcher quite a bit. While virtual ways of working could make up for some of the constraints experienced, I had to think: what might be the effects on academic networking?

Carey Ming-Li Chen • June 05, 2020

Going back to normal?

With Covid-19 forcing university staff to work from home, there is ample opportunity for rethinking all the commuting we were doing in ‘normal' times. However, staying all at home is not so enjoyable, either. Could there be an alternative?

Ed Noyons • May 14, 2020

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