Have Journals Outlived Their Usefulness?
By Tim Connelly
connelly.tim-at-gmail.com
At the end of the film Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? George Clooney’s ever-rational Ulysses Everett McGill is forced to turn to prayer with his life on the line. Afterward, he disavows his actions: “Well, any human being will cast about in a moment of stress. No, sir…out with the old spiritual mumbo jumbo, the superstitions and the backward ways. We’re gonna see a brave new world where they run everybody a wire and hook us all up to a grid. Yes, sir, a veritable age of reason.”
The publishing industry is having its moment of stress, and recently the Association of American Publishers cast about to save itself with a bill known as The Research Works Act introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill would end the requirement for publishers to provide copies of publicly funded research articles to the NIH for dissemination. Instead of freely available research, publishers will charge $15-35 for access to most articles.
The publishing industry is having its moment of stress, and recently the Association of American Publishers cast about to save itself with a bill known as The Research Works Act introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill would end the requirement for publishers to provide copies of publicly funded research articles to the NIH for dissemination. Instead of freely available research, publishers will charge $15-35 for access to most articles.
The publishing industry is having its moment of stress, and recently the Association of American Publishers cast about to save itself with a bill known as The Research Works Act introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill would end the requirement for publishers to provide copies of publicly funded research articles to the NIH for dissemination. Instead of freely available research, publishers will charge $15-35 for access to most articles.
“post-publication peer review” talked about in this issue, which is also conducted by scientists voluntarily and can provide a more complete critique of a paper’s quality. Additionally, impact can be better judged by such things as times read, number of citations, and ratings by many scientists at all career levels, rather than by the opinion of a mere two or three gatekeeping reviewers.
Still, journals have been around for over a century, and they haven’t survived this long by being completely ineffective. Despite some inefficiencies, journals have at least come to an equilibrium on problems such as peer review, evaluating impact, editing for readability, access vs. profit, and research quality vs. relative influence of the scientist. While the technology exists to improve on the publishers’ model, newer models (such as Eisen’s open-access PLoS) will struggle to achieve such popularity and stability. With the publishing industry lumbering to create more inefficient access, however, they only lower the bar for fledgling new publishing models to outperform them. We have been hooked up to the grid, and have the capability to improve upon our backward ways. It comes, as Everett said after his crisis of confidence, “Not a moment too soon.”
Postdoc Buddy Program
We would like to know if you are interested in being a buddy to an incoming postdoc.
The host buddy at Penn will be responsible for:
- Sending a welcome email to the incoming postdoc prior to his/her arrival and answering any questions the postdoc may have
- Attending the new postdocs welcome reception (BPP event)
- Inviting your buddy to an initial coffee or lunch meeting
- Touching base with your buddy
- Keeping your buddy aware of events/parties going on at BPP and BPC, and inviting him/her to attend some events with you
- Connecting your buddy to other colleagues & programs that fit his/her interest
The Buddy Program will:
- Help incoming postdocs with any questions or concerns they have prior to coming to Penn
- Reduce the adaptation period for new postdocs at Penn
- Facilitate meeting postdocs of similar nationalities
- Help postdocs network
A broad range of nationalities are represented in the postdoc community, and we are attempting to pair postdocs from the same countries whenever possible.
We encourage all current postdocs to be a buddy. This is not supposed to be a time-consuming activity. If you are interested in being part of this program, please send an email to pcouncil-at-mail.med.upenn.edu with BUDDY PROGRAM in the subject line.
If you are new to Penn and want to be buddied, let us know too!
Thank you,
Monica Matsumoto
Foreign National Committee Chair – Biomedical Postdoc Counci
The Work-Life Balance Continuum
By Allison Beal
[ allisonbeal25@gmail.com ]
Whether you are male or female, a parent or sans child, in a relationship or single, the thought of work-life balance has probably crossed your mind at some point in your career. While this subject tends to be thought of as a “women’s issue”, I think it is important for everyone to consider the topic. In thinking about what to write about for this issue, I spent a lot of time procrastinating and considering various topics. But I recently realized that I was struggling with work-life balance and I wondered how many of my colleagues were experiencing the same issue and hence my article topic came to fruition.
My struggle with work-life balance began shortly after I returned to lab after having my daughter (who is now 19 months old) and it stemmed from my unrealistic perception of what work-life balance really was. My perception of work-life balance was that it was some perfect state of mastery when you can do it all and be it all (the best scientist, the best parent, the best partner, the best daughter, etc) and maintain a perfectly balanced schedule. And if I attained said mastery, my life would be in balance. I actually thought I had to do it all and that I could do it. But as surprising as it seems, I was not able to accomplish this feat. I struggled with this off and on for a while until I recently spoke with a mentor (again highlighting the importance of mentoring). She made me realize that my perception was wrong and I was putting undue pressure on myself. In fact, my false understanding was setting myself up for failure and actually throwing my life completely “out-of-balance”.
Work-life balance is actually quite different. I am beginning to realize that it is not about mastering how to do it all. It is about defining your own idea of success and setting guidelines of what you expect from yourself and what you think is important. Over the course of your career, your definition and goals will frequently change (sometimes on a daily or weekly basis) based on what you think is important at the time. For example, when one’s children are younger, it may be more important to spend more time with them and, as a result, some sacrifices may be made in your career. However, once children are more independent you may find more time to devote to your career. While it is called work-life balance, there are times when things will not be completely balanced; you may need to spend more time in lab some days and then at other times you may need to devote more time to your personal life. Thus, one’s work-life balance is always changing and quite dynamic. I now think of it as my work-life balance continuum and this has helped me tremendously. While I am by no means an expert on this topic (I still have a lot to learn and I still struggle with it), I write this more to share my experience with the hope that this will help those of you out there having similar experiences. I would be happy to hear from any of you struggling with similar issues.
BPC Newsletter 