AJCann

Presumably one could create an RSS feed from your profile page? Ah, they're not aggregating comments by person anywhere...shame. Incidentally if anyone has enough CSS-fu to help me hack together a PLoS web embed service I would much appreciate it. I'm trying to replicate the top panel for a paper basically, put in static links back to the paper. Have all the content and relative links so that is fine but I don't get how the presentation works... - Cameron Neylon

I could use a scraper such as http://feedity.com/ but I'd rather see this functionality built into the PLoS site. - AJCann

True -- and the blog author doesn't take up the resources spent by the creator's themselves who will not see profit from their efforts in traditional forms (royalty checks, for example). - Mickey Schafer

I liked these lines: "shared exploration and collaboration works well with the “guide on the side” metaphor, where you have subject expert mentors who help create “paths” through the sea of content, providing an intelligent information filter. George Siemens mentioned that this was similar to Draken’s (1996) “wayfinder” metaphor from gaming, an apt linkage. This skill is necessary for... more... - Mickey Schafer

It's also going to make search, and especially recommendation, algorithms into a potential gold mine. And a potential bubble. - Bill Hooker

Uh, I think the bubble is called "Google"? - AJCann

AJCann, I think what is meant is along the lines of 'find me something/someone I'd like to read'. - Michael R. Bernstein

They are using a very broad definition of authorship -- that isn't necessarily bad, but before social media, I'm pretty sure we didn't call someone who wrote a letter to Grandma an "author" of a letter (maybe we should have?) -- but now, 140 characters qualifies someone as author? Hmmm. - Mickey Schafer

Is authorship as simple as that? What about a person who publishes a paper or a poem that isn't read by at least 100 people? There is a re-working of the definition of "writer" going on in this article that doesn't acknowledge the connotative meaning of the word. Again, not that this is a bad thing -- but if we look at reading, I feel comfortable stating that we should have more words... more... - Mickey Schafer

If you write, you are an author, because you have switched from passive consumption to production. You don't have to be read to be an author - if a tree falls in the forest... - AJCann

Hi, AJ. Somewhere in my brain there lies a distinction between "authoring" and "being an author" -- perhaps that distinction is no longer valid. At my kids elementary school, they use the terms "author" and "publish", so perhaps it is I who is out of touch. - Mickey Schafer

If it doesn't we need to have words with some people. But given that the REF has moved away from metrics anyway I'm not sure how big an issue it is. - Cameron Neylon

REF has moved away from metrics? Citation data is going to play a major part http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story... and it's not clear to me how PLoS will sit within that. I strongly suspect some panels will interpret "citation data" as "impact factor". - AJCann

I read that article as saying that mechanistic citation counting was being abandoned in favour of a peer review model. Which means hopefully the numbers form Thomson won't be the main determinant. My suspicion would be that if they were then it opens up legal grounds for challenging the outcomes aside from anything else. There is too much money at stake to use a mechanistic system anyway - would almost certainly come up with the "wrong" answer. - Cameron Neylon

In successive RAEs various panels behaved very differently in how they utilized the data submitted to them. Some were very objective, effectively carrying out the REF proposals, Others weren't. - AJCann

Agreed - and that has arguably cost the university sector some tens of millions in misapplied resource to try and raise ratings that then get pulled out from underneath them - Cameron Neylon

As a complicating factor, what REF panel the article go under? Archaeology and Classics are likely to go in the same sub-panel, but the article is listed under Mathematics and Physics. I doubt this will go in REF, even if it is cited much. I'll have to settle with contributing to human knowledge and do something else for the REF. ;) - Alun Salt

Hmm, no plans for Socky on FriendFeed at this stage. He crops up in my weekly statistics videos. Of course, if there's enough demand... - AJCann

What will you be teaching? - Miss Elle

I assumed socky would have his own account :-( - Jo Badge from iPod

Socky mostly teaches statistics, but he also pops up to give students feedback (by hijacking their attention). - AJCann

LOL @ AJCann The author there is going through every publishing innovation that people are trying out and blogging about why it sucks. That's a big part of what the web is for, and he's right on many points, less so on others. Also, any criticism he gets from people who are using these technologies he immediately discredits as part of the choir, so better to say "People I talk to say X is great" as opposed to "I think X is great" if you're writing a response to him. - Mr. Gunn

Mr/Dr Gunn -- liked your comment at the post! - Mickey Schafer

Also interesting comeback from David - a reverse advertising open access model - Cameron Neylon

Crotty loves to blog about how scientists don' blog or read blogs - oh, the irony! - Christina Pikas

Curious -- how many children are born with "intrinsic" motivation? Or is this something that is environmental? - Mickey Schafer

Intrinsic versus extrinsic. - AJCann

yes, learning can be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated--and I believe this is true for everyone with variation depending on what has to be learned. But I've also encountered the terms as personality dimensions, and it isn't clear in the article which one was being used. - Mickey Schafer

Yesterday, I overhead a very interesting conversation during which a school counselor was advising a parent with a failing child to remove all things of value to the girl and make her earn it back by achieving passing grades. This included _everything_ the girl liked from clothes and shoes to electronics to time with friends. She quipped after that she frequently has to teach parents how to be parents since today's generation was ill-informed. I found her horrifying. - Mickey Schafer

@Mickey: that sounds like a recipe for leaving home at 16 and never going back to me. Horrifying indeed. - Bill Hooker

There is some truth to this - when I have students play games for prizes, the reward (usually a chemistry book) is not the central motivation but it does make it more fun for the very best students to compete a bit. Similarly, with our ONSChallenge where students do labwork, the cash prize is small enough to not be the primary motivation but again it makes things more interesting. - Jean-Claude Bradley

Jean-Claude, I agree that external motivation is quite useful. Nor does it have to be a big deal! I have premed students who once commented with enthusiasm that they would like get smiley stickers on their papers -- I was amazed. Didn't invest in stickers, but have thought about why this would be the case. In writing, the work is very personal and I get to see so many different sorts of... more... - Mickey Schafer

I also suspect we over-romanticize the intrinsic nature of learning in children. Yes, they do like learning, and they are curious, and the natural process of hypothesizing and testing that occurs can be rewarding (to a normal child). But this isn't the same process being used in school. And getting a kid to study for something like a spelling test in the first grade has very little to... more... - Mickey Schafer