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"The fundamental problem is that the âwe need a journalâ approach is stuck in the printed page paradigm. To get negative results published we need to reduce the barriers to publication much lower than they currently are, while at the same time applying either a pre- or post-publication filter."
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"If the primary measure of a journal's value is its impact -- pretty layouts and a good Employment section and so on being presumably secondary -- and if the Impact Factor is a measure of impact, and if publishers are making a good faith effort to offer value for money -- then why is there no apparent relationship between IF and journal prices? After all, publishers tout the Impact Factors of their offerings whenever they're asked to justify their prices or the latest round of increases in same."
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"This problem is really exaggerated by an inclination in a lot of colleges and universities to take all disciplines and departments as entitled to the same dispensation of resources but also as subject to the same kinds of cost-cutting imperatives, a kind of faux-egalitarian rhetoric. So, for example, when administrations direct libraries to cut journals budgets, libraries often have to turn to departments and ask each of them to volunteer a few titles that they can get rid of, so that the cost-cutting seems to fall evenly on all, to be a collective responsibility. But if you did a relatively dispassionate cost/benefit analysis, you might note that you could cut three hugely expensive journals (usually but not always in the sciences) at the cost of thirty or forty journals in the humanities and social sciences."
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"Looking back through some old photos this evening, I realize that March is my best month for photography. I seem to react to cabin fever by engaging in my favorite hobby: milling.
Milling is a variant on a phenomenon some call âurban explorationâ. We donât have too many urbs around here, but we have a wealth of beautiful abandoned mills. Milling involves finding ways into these mills and photographing them. This, in turn, involves driving around looking for promising looking mills, scouting them out and returning with milling gear (steel-toed boots, good flashlights, reflectors to bounce light, cameras, tripodsâ¦)"
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"The team determined this tiny shift by using a device called a frequency comb, which is capable of making a very accurate measurement of the laserâs wavelength. By comparing the resonant wavelengths of berylliumâ11 with the other beryllium isotopes â and then correcting for the mass shift â the team worked out the volume shift. This allowed them to conclude that the halo neutron is about 7 fm from the nuclear core. The core itself has a radius of about 2.5 fm. "
More like this
Regarding home schooling mom Vanessa Mills, of Wake County, NC, USA:
...Mills ... grew alienated from her husband and parents after joining a religious group that some former members call a cult, the judge in the case said Tuesday...
Mark at CosmiVariance passes on a rumour that there is a new Astro Job Rumour Wiki
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
-- Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
Go check out The Mill and Carrboro Commons.
How hard would it be to have an online-only journal of negative results, with peer reviewers? ArXiv is free. Create an ArXiv for negative results, recruit some peer reviewers, and cover the costs with author fees. Hell, maybe NIH or somebody else would pony up for the "negative results" journal that everybody wrings their hands for.
As to Impact Factor and cost, that's an excellent find!
"you could cut three hugely expensive journals (usually but not always in the sciences) at the cost of thirty or forty journals in the humanities and social sciences."
Compare sequelae of the transistor to sequelae of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders II, 1974 ex cathedra reallocating homosexuality from pathology to a celebration of life. Did one of those cost society tens of $billions/year in medical reimbursements? Losing 30 or 40 journals in the humanities and social sciences would benefit forests. Losing them all would harm puff pidgeon criminality.
The Council of Nicaea was a careful convocation of used god salesmen. A Dialectical Critique of the Intersubjective Perspective, hence the Institute for Institutional Analysis ("the answer lies within").
Thinking more about negative results:
My previous comment was made with clinical trials in mind, an area where the public has a significant Need To Know about negative results. An NIH-based solution would seem appropriate there.
In other fields, negative results are probably of less public urgency, so it's better to look at them in terms of intellectual significance. Physics journals already publish significant negative results, if those results put a limit on, say, the mass of a photon, the mass of a dark matter candidate particle, or deviations from Newtonian gravity. These negative results represent technical achievements and they are careful quantified. They are interesting. They will inform future inquiry. Anybody who proposes a gravitational theory that deviates from Newtonian results in the domain tested will immediately be shot down.
OTOH, nobody would want to see a series of papers like "This material isn't a superconductor" and "This material isn't either" and "Whaddaya know, this material isn't a superconductor either" followed by the culminating paper "Gee, turns out damn near everything in my lab isn't a superconductor."
In biology, 5,000 papers on "These proteins aren't involved in cancer" wouldn't be very interesting. A few of them might be interesting, if some of those proteins were closely related to proteins that _are_ involved in cancer, or if they're involved in processes related to cancer, but the vast majority of those studies would be uninteresting.