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Boycotting Elsevier – when are politicians, grant makers and search committees speaking out?

The debate around the boycott of Elsevier that more than 8,400 scientists have signed already is an important one. But the publisher-researcher relationship and the high cost of knowledge for university libraries should only be one aspect in this debate. Don’t get me wrong: I do support most of the arguments of the petition, but I also believe that this should not be about a single company or business model. Elsevier has been cashing in on the ‘impact culture’, an academic culture that is supported by more than expensive peer-reviewed journals with impact factors. The drive to prove ‘impact’ that higher education politicians, grant-making organisations and search committees have been demanding led to a situation where journal publications have become status symbols and the publishing industry realised that they are a key player in this discourse. The ‘evaluation culture’ that has been established for the neoliberal research and teaching industry focuses on measurable products – and

Links & Contents I Liked 17

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Hello all, The development blogosphere was dominated with Kony 2012 discussions. WhyDev's ' Reader's digest of Kony 2012 ' is still an excellent starting place to catch up with the debate. I presented and discussed '#Kony2012, social media & the ethics of DIY development' with University of King's College journalism students, focussing on the dilemmas of engaging with a single, powerful and unrefutable narrative, every campaigners dream, what happens once you start asking questions and what the implications may be for a new breed of DIY aid initiatives and philantropical endeavours. Kony2012, social media & the ethics of DIY development And before I'll turn to the more 'mundane' finds on development and academia, I would encourage you to watch ' The Governance Gap ', a documentary that is part of my IDS colleague Marjoke Oosterom 's doctoral research: The Governance Gap (2011) is a documentary about the legacy

Links & Contents I Liked 16

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Hello all, Happy International Women's Day! It has been quite a busy week in the development blogosphere. But I promise you an almost Kony 2012 and Jeff-Sachs-for-President free zone in this post. Not that these are not important debates, but they have already been in the spotlight for a few days and there were many other posts that also caught my attention. There are also three new posts on aidnography that I hope you enjoy, too. New on aidnography Is writing reflective blogs on development a girl’s thing? And if so, am I really a female blogger? In some ways, a pre-emptive Women's Day debate took place last week on the subject of gender and writing blogs. Tom Murphy's balanced post Carefully Wading into Gender and Development Blogging summarizes the debate quite well - although more research certainly needs to be done ;) Open data, crowd-wisdom and ‘hunting plagiarists’ – how a group of activists is challenging the German academic system A Wikileaks-equivalent on uncover

5 questions for a post-Kony 2012 debate

I am not going to write about Invisible Children and their Kony 2012 documentary. Many others have done so already and fellow bloggers at Whydev.org have a neat compilation of all the material. I found the ' We got trouble ' and ' Taking "Kony 2012" Down a Notch ' particularly good food for thought and reflections. But as I was reading through the material I came across 5 bigger issues and questions that I find important to address once the viral dust has settled a bit. As always, I'm writing this from the perspective of a blogging development researcher and teacher and my feeling is that 'we' will have to engage more and better to break through the cycle of 'good intentions' - '15 minutes of virtual fame' and 'viral critique' that seems to have become part of contemporary discussions and approaches on development. 1. Is transparency overrated? Although the issue of transparency would probably come up quite early in a &#

Open data, crowd-wisdom and ‘hunting plagiarists’ – how a group of activists is challenging the German academic system

Yesterday, the University of Cologne stripped off the title of one of their PhD graduates after a web-based plagiarism platform discovered significant amounts of allegedly plagiarised material in the Liberal Party Member of Parliament's dissertation. What started as a more organised and crowd-based project after the Minister of Defence resigned last year because of a plagiarised dissertation is slowly turning into a 'dissertation Wikileaks'. Except for a REUTERS article about a year ago, I couldn’t find any new English information on Vroni-Plag (named after the nickname of a former Bavarian Prime Minister’s daughter who also came under scrutiny of the project) and the potentially global implications it may have for PhD dissertations, academic accountability and issues of plagiarism and fraud. [Update: WiseWoman @WeWuWiWo sent me a link to ' Copy, Shake, and Paste ' which, among other issues on plagiarism, features some English posts on Vroni-Plag ] Abou

Is writing reflective blogs on development a girl’s thing? And if so, am I really a female blogger?

Duncan Green’s post Is blogging (or commenting on blogs) a guy thing? And if so, why? on development blogging gender disparities tackles an interesting issue with surprisingly sexist contemplations that may generate comments for the Huffington Post (where his article was also published), but really don’t take the debate forward. Just to get two things out of the way. First, Tom Murphy would be the first person to admit that the ABBAs shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Many interesting comments have already been made as to how to improve them, but the basic question is whether it should turn into a ‘serious’ award or remain on the level of group of friends engaging with development blogging. Second, as always on topics with very little data, one should be careful about generalisations. Many of my favourite development bloggers are female – Saundra Schimmelpfennig , Jennifer Lentfer , Whydev (e.g. Lucy Daniel's recent post on children, education and disability), Linda Raftre

Links & Contents I Liked 15

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Hello all, Some of you may have noticed that there was another 'Links I like' post earlier this week, but since then quite a few interesting posts, new blogs and intellectual tidbits have gathered in my Inbox. One piece I found particularly important is Hugh Gusterson's report from inside the Iraqi university system (filed under the Anthroplogy section). In many ways, it's an sad example of how interconnected 'development', 'peacebuilding' and academia are and how the war in Iraq was exactly the opposite of laying a foundation for a a bright, democratic and prosperous future of the country. I hope this week's second link edition has something worthwhile for you to read as well! New on aidnography Links and Content I liked 14 Links I like Monday edition-Canada, mining & good governance; Nepal, community forests & post-war spoils; Kenya, ICT4D & offline advocacy; how to find a job as anthropologist; suing 3 Cups of tea & SpikeTV's