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Inviting co-authors
Published on 2012-10-07 14:57:06
A problem I often encounter is deciding who to invite as co-authors. On one hand, you want to show appreciation to the people that helped you in the process of obtaining your results. On the other hand, generously adding authors will dilute the contribution of the people that made the largest contribution. In this post [...]
“Predator” conferences and open-access publishers
Published on 2012-09-30 16:39:30
This week I received the following email stating “The purpose of this letter is to formally invite you, on behalf of the Organizing Committee, to be the speaker at the upcoming “2nd International Conference on Nanotek and Expo” (Nanotek-2012).” This sounds very much like a desirable invited talk in my area of expertise, nanotechnology. The [...]
Which is a better document standard: pdf or xml?
Published on 2012-09-20 07:21:19
Some time ago I was asked by Oxford University Press to write an article for their Library Magazine about which document format is better: pdf or xml. I defended pdf and following is my text. Martin Fenner defended xml. You can download both contributions as pdf file (!) here. Pdf is still strong For scientists [...]
My group, Your group, or Our group
Published on 2012-09-14 03:38:43
In science the dilemma of either cooperating or competing is everywhere. The situation is never black or white and depends on the discipline. In this post I will limit myself to the typical small-science group model: one group leader, one or two postdocs and a number – typically between 4 and 6, of PhD students. [...]
Biomeeter: find your way in the world of conferences
Published on 2012-09-14 03:00:14
Presenting your data at conferences is key for doing good science. However, finding the right conference can be as challenging as the actual experiments. Especially when you work interdisciplinary there is a lack of overview of what is organized and where. We scientists mostly rely on the occasional mail from our supervisor for our meeting [...]
Effectiveness of large scale conferences
Published on 2012-07-26 14:44:55
Last May I visited the first large scale international conference (CLEO) during my PhD. I was shocked about the enormous contrast with smaller scale (more specialized) conferences. In this post, I will discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages that struck me during this conference. The most positive aspect was the large variety of subjects [...]
Applying successfully for a PhD position by email
Published on 2012-05-09 15:09:22
Very handy guide for prospective PhD students. It gives advice on how they can send much better applications by email.
Academia can benefit a lof from a more democratic funding system
Published on 2012-05-05 09:05:20
Much more has been said about the failure of current grant system than that has actually changed. My favorite opinion piece is this one by Peter A. Lawrence. The single-sentence abstract says it all: “The granting system turns young scientists into bureaucrats and then betrays them.” There are a couple of suggestions for improving the [...]
Poor quality of slide-sharing services
Published on 2012-04-12 04:39:34
A sample presentation is uploaded to four cloud services for sharing slides: (i) SlideShare, (ii) authorSTREAM, (iii) Google Docs and (iv) SlideBoom. With the exception of SlideBoom the services are of unacceptable poor quality. Google Docs is abominable. For scientists sharing slides is a powerful way of collaborating with colleagues and for improving their presentations
Poor quality of slide-sharing services
Published on 2012-04-12 04:39:34
A sample presentation is uploaded to four cloud services for sharing slides: (i) SlideShare, (ii) authorSTREAM, (iii) Google Docs and (iv) SlideBoom. With the exception of SlideBoom the services are of unacceptable poor quality. Google Docs is abominable. For scientists sharing slides is a powerful way of collaborating with colleagues and for improving their presentations
Important feature all slide-sharing-services lack
Published on 2012-04-11 14:59:29
A feature request for slide-sharing services is put forward that would extend the usefulness of these services tremendously. In the first place scientists would profit, but many other professionals would greatly appreciate this feature. Numerous people would like their colleagues to help them to improve their slides and this feature would enable just this sharing process. It all boils down to implementing comments-per-slide.
Doing multidisciplinary research
Published on 2012-03-31 16:50:25
Introduction Science in the 20th century has been divided into a distinct number of more or less separate disciplines ranging from Mathematics and Physics to Biology and Medicine. This distinction was naturally based on the different aspects of our material and living environment under study. In all disciplines one can clearly define ‘core’ subjects which [...]
Should editors of Science and Nature socialize with scientists?
Published on 2012-03-30 08:32:45
In this post the ever increasing socializing with journal editors at conferences is critically discussed. Suggestions are put forward to make the social role of junior scientists more prominent at conferences and preventing the successful scientists from taking it all.
Goodbye Outlook, enter Thunderbird
Published on 2012-03-29 05:33:43
This post is the ultimate, mobile-site-friendly, migration guide from Outlook to Thunderbird. If you want the short version, go immediately to the section To wrap it all up . The author describes in detail the design flaws in Microsoft's Outlook and how these shortcomings avoided in Thunderbird. If you need a Windows program to handle a large number of email messages coming from various accounts the open source and free Thunderbird should be your choice. With this guide Outlook will be history.
Why every scientist should make his Google Scholar profile public
Published on 2012-03-13 11:44:27
Surviving in science these days is all about high impact. How is this impact being measured? Managers, deans, operators, science editors and grant officers, to mention just a few non-active scientists, know the answer exactly. They judge the scientist by the: number of papers published in refereed journals number of papers in high-impact journals number [...]
Managing PhD projects
Published on 2012-03-03 07:41:24
Among physicists “manager” is not the most popular word, albeit that all group leaders are in fact managers. Why this is the case may be more than a blog post on itself, and I do not intend to write that post. Having quite some manager friends, for example in civil engineering or management consulting, I [...]
Productivity vs Creativity
Published on 2012-02-20 17:08:52
I am at the last year of my PhD. I started working on a topic which was quite new in the sci community. I also published about 5 articles on that topic and 4 other articles in related topics. Sometimes i had too much pressure to publish my works as it normally happens in a [...]
Every scientist should have a Researcher ID
Published on 2012-02-18 19:44:46
Unique author identification is a longstanding issue in scientific publishing. Currently there are a number of systems under development that promise a variety of functionalities. I am not going to give here an extensive overview of this wide range of systems, an up to date article can be found here. While a universally recognized standard [...]
Every scientist should have a Researcher ID
Published on 2012-02-18 19:44:46
Unique author identification is a longstanding issue in scientific publishing. Currently there are a number of systems under development that promise a variety of functionalities. I am not going to give here an extensive overview of this wide range of systems, an up to date article can be found here. While a universally recognized standard [...]
Should academics pursue patents?
Published on 2012-02-02 16:43:17
For researchers in applied sciences, it is the norm to file intellectual property (IP). This practice can be construed to make a lot of sense: The objective of applied research is applications, solving real-world problems. Applications generally make it out into the real world because a company thinks they can make a profit solving a [...]
Assessing research
Published on 2012-01-26 16:38:51
Being a PhD student for almost three years now, a challenge I keep on running into is assessing the research projects I have done. What I mean by assessing is: judging what is new and interesting about the research. During my Master’s I thought science is all about discovering new physics. But new physics is [...]
“The nature of the contribution of every author should be made clear”
Published on 2012-01-26 02:10:05
Being an author of a scientific paper is still the most secure building bock of a scientific career and a way to recognition. As a result people fight to be on the author list and are disappointed – if not angry – when they feel that they are left out for no good reason. The [...]
We are back on track
Published on 2012-01-24 07:14:26
A few important changes have been introduced for this blog: user who registers has to wait approval only logged-in registered users can comment Why? I had to : remove a few hundred users that were spammers remove over 500 comments that were spam We have been quite for some time. A number of my colleagues have [...]
Increasing your h-index by reclaiming misspelled citations
Published on 2011-02-19 05:27:15
Here is a short contribution on how to correct misspelled citations in Web of Science. Citations have become the currency of science, which is used to reward scientists and scientific institutions. Small variations in citation scores can make million
Increasing your h-index by reclaiming misspelled citations
Published on 2011-02-19 05:27:15
Here is a short contribution on how to correct misspelled citations in Web of Science. Citations have become the currency of science, which is used to reward scientists and scientific institutions. Small variations in citation scores can make millions of pounds difference in the financial outcomes of national Research Assessments . Therefore keeping your citation [...]
Moving to a new job
Published on 2010-11-26 15:56:59
I always thought I might move from one academic job to another but stayed in the same place for 13 years. Finally I moved to the University of Glasgow this November. Moving is important but also quite disruptive.
Improving plotting programs with better data import
Published on 2010-11-26 05:27:45
When you look at modern scientific journals you will find that in the majority of papers (some of) the results are presented in graphical form, from a simple black-and-white X-Y plot to sophisticated multicolor 3D-plots. The data that are graphed com
Deliberately misleading titles and abstracts of papers
Published on 2010-11-17 13:42:06
In the Shakespeare play As You Like It main character Rosalind reads the epilogue, from which we cite: If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue; The Dutch translation of the saying “Good wine ne
Impossible to unsubscribe
Published on 2010-10-20 14:31:35
Like many of my colleagues I get tens and tens of emails per day. My estimate is that about one quarter of is spam that by definition cannot be caught by any spam filter. I really get irritated by receiving these emails. I will give a few examples th
How many conferences, and of which kind?
Published on 2010-09-29 11:30:03
Yet another conference invitation in my inbox, and I am wondering (again): how many conferences (broadly, meetings) should a scientist attend in a year? And of what kind, meaning, the large confluences of experts all over like a cleo, or the limited
Improving a journal’s impact by rewarding outstanding authors: an example
Published on 2010-09-29 04:30:34
The reason for writing this post is a bewildering experience on my side while preparing a talk a few months ago. I was invited to give presentation on May 17 of this year for a 200-people audience at a material science conference. The organizers ha
Improving web submission forms
Published on 2010-09-22 03:17:43
In the majority of cases that you communicate with journal editors you have to do it through a web form. When you submit a paper, or when you have to act on referee reports, or when you act as a reviewer of a paper. Science supporting agencies also
The Two Slit Trick
Published on 2010-09-20 03:54:53
Comment by Ad Lagendijk: We get regularly posts like the following. I will only allow it once. For demonstration purpose. The internet is full of web sites and blogs reporting on the content of science and on the popularization of science. Our web si
How difficult is it to get a patent?
Published on 2010-08-02 05:30:28
In our research and development works, we often get some results which are creative with potentially practical value. At this time, it is great to apply for a patent. However, the whole procedure of a patent application is relatively complicated, com
Organizing your results
Published on 2010-07-17 15:50:10
When you start your career as a postgraduate student, it is normal that you start collecting your scientific results in a slightly unorganized way. However as time proceeds, some basic rules are needed to keep track of your work. Every scientist has