Category: The Loony Bin Called Academia

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Paper Reviewing Ratio

A long time ago, in a blog far far away, I ran a small poll about paper refereeing. The poll asked “What is your ratio of reviewed to submitted manuscripts?”. The results were

  • >=6 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 7 votes (8 percent)
  • 5 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 3 votes (4 percent)
  • 4 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 9 votes (10 percent)
  • 3 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 12 votes (14 percent)
  • 2 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 13 votes (15 percent)
  • 1 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 20 votes (24 percent)
  • 1 reviewed for every 2 submitted: 6 votes (7 percent)
  • 1 reviewed for every 3 submitted: 5 votes (6 percent)
  • 1 reviewed for every 4 submitted: 2 votes (2 percent)
  • 1 reviewed for every 5 submitted: 0 votes (0 percent)
  • 1 reviewed for every >=6 submitted: 7 votes (8 percent)

This works out to an average 2.2 papers reviewed for every one submitted.
But the question I didn’t ask is what should your ratio of reviewed (refereed) to submitted be?

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Other NSF News…Of Funny Kind

Melody points me to this gem of an advisory from the NSF:

In the event of a natural or anthropogenic disaster that interferes with an organization’s ability to meet a proposal submission deadline, NSF has developed the following guidelines for use by impacted organizations.  These guidelines will take the place of the previous NSF practice of posting notices to the NSF website regarding each specific event.
Flexibility in meeting announced deadline dates because of a natural or anthropogenic disasters may be granted with the prior approval of the cognizant NSF Program Officer. Proposers should contact the cognizant NSF Program Officer in the Division/Office to which they intend to submit their proposal and request authorization to submit a “late proposal.” Such contact should be via e-mail (or telephone, if e-mail is unavailable). Proposers should then follow the written or verbal guidance provided by the cognizant NSF Program Officer. Generally, NSF permits extension of the deadline by 5 business days. The Foundation, however, will work with each impacted organization on a case-by-case basis to address their specific issue(s). Proposers should be aware that all applications submitted after the submission deadline must be submitted through FastLane since Grants.gov does not accept proposals after the deadline.

Boldface mine. Yeah, read that again: you can get an extension for a natural disaster with prior approval. “Dude, Dr. Program Manager, I know there is going to be an earthquake on the day I have to submit, so could I please have an extension?”

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Can't Spell "Evil" Without "Elsevier"

John Baez (via Zoran Škoda) points to the case of M.S. El Naschie. El Naschie is apparently the answer to the question “how do you publish over three hundred papers of craziness in an Elsevier journal?” Simple: just become the editor and chief of the journal!
Tell me again the argument about scientific publishers rendering a valuable service with their stellar editing?

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Open Access Talk

Last week, before I headed to my current location in the land of Coca Cola and the Cartoon Network (the hotel is so nice here that when my friend stopped outside so that I could drop my bags off, the concierge asked him if he wanted would like some water while he waited), I attended a very inspirational talk on open access by Jonathan Eisen. The video is now available online (lecture 2.) Well worth watching as it was a good talk laying out the case for open access to research journals (which Eisen makes sure to delineate from open science. Say the word open science, I guess, and some people go bonkers.)
Continue reading “Open Access Talk”

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Professor Demoted For Video Game Designer

Say it ain’t so Hasbro, say it aint so. From an NPR story on a makeover of the game “Clue”:

The characters have changed, too. Miss Scarlet has a first name: Cassandra. Colonel Mustard left the military; he’s a former football star. Victor Plum, formerly the professor who was always known as the smartest man in the room, became recast as a self-made video game designer — a dot-com billionaire.

Take that you stuffy academic professors, with your padded elbows and your pipes and your uncombed Einstein hair: you’re no longer the smartest person in the room (unless you’ve made a video game, that is.) But I still think you were the murder, in the spa, with the baseball bat.

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Change We Believe In, But Tenure?

Turning down a tenured position at the University of Chicago Law School:

Soon after, the faculty saw an opening and made him its best offer yet: Tenure upon hiring. A handsome salary, more than the $60,000 he was making in the State Senate or the $60,000 he earned teaching part time. A job for Michelle Obama directing the legal clinic.
Your political career is dead, Daniel Fischel, then the dean, said he told Mr. Obama, gently. Mr. Obama turned the offer down. Two years later, he decided to run for the Senate. He canceled his course load and has not taught since.

File this one away in regards to (1) deans don’t always know what they are talking about and (2) turning down a tenured position has the potential of leading you to be one of the two leading candidates for the position of president of the United States.
You who are reading this, could you make a similar such decision?

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Against the Stereotype

After reading the comments on my post Leaving Academia: Cry or Celebrate?, I started thinking about the successful scientists I know, and it occurred to me that the following conjecture is at least anecdotally true:

Scientists who have passionate outside interests are more successful in science than those who do not.

Okay, hows that for a broad against the grain statement which might stimulate comments on this blog? Anyone?