We enjoyed attending the International Student Symposium on Animal Behavior and Cognition last week! Thank you to everyone who came to our workshop and visited our table, and thanks to the conference organizers for the opportunity to participate.

#animalbehavior #wildlife #wildanimalwelfare #animalwelfare #macademia #science #ScienceMastodon

Wild Animal Initiative is a nonprofit dedicated to exploring the most pressing questions in #wildanimalwelfare science. We conduct research, fund scientists, and provide other services for researchers, all in pursuit of our goal to understand and ultimately improve the lives of wild animals. Please follow if you're interested in the many scientific fields that overlap with our work, including #animalwelfare science, #ecology, and #animalbehavior.

#wildlife #science #sciencemastodon #macademia

Okay, I'm late to this, so don't judge too harshly. Can someone tell me how to find the RSS feeds of the academic journals I read/keep up on regularly? I've only recently learned that this was a thing (which is embarrassing since I have a huge RSS reader list, but have never used it for academic stuff). For example, American Quarterly, GLQ, Journal of the History of Sexuality, etc. Trying to create a journal RSS list on Zotero...
#Academia #Research #Zotero #Macademia #Scholarship

I’ve been using a variation of the “Eat the Frog” productivity/motivation method recently – I figure out what major things I need to do then line up an equivalent number of frogs to perch on the top of my monitor. They just stare at me until I knock them out one by one. #macademia

JOB POSTING: Gerry Carter is hiring a 5-year+ Research Senior Associate to supervise experiments in his lab on sociality and cooperation in a captive colony of vampire bats.

Gerry is absolutely phenomenal to work with and this position looks amazing! Please share far and wide!!

More info here: https://socialbat.org/research-scientist/

@jobsecoevo #bat #VampireBat #cooperation #BehavioralEcology #SocialNetworks #postdoc #ResearchScientist #Macademia

We used to do this every field season on the #BirdSite but are transitioning over to here on #Macademia!

Which of our lovely monk parakeets do you feel best represents your current state? (Letter codes represent head, cheeks, and neck color combinations, for example BOB is blue-orange-blue)

I am definitely all-green (GGG) this semester!

#Parrots #FieldWork #Science

U of Minnesota Art History department has issued a thoughtful statement about Islamic art and the value of academic freedom and free inquiry in tension with cultural sensitivity necessary to teach in multicultural classrooms. Really excellent. #Macademia, #AcademicFreedom #Prater #Hamline

https://cla.umn.edu/art-history/news-events/news/art-history-faculty-statement-recent-events-hamline-university

Wondering if anyone has a semester planning template they'd like to share. I feel like I'm recreating the wheel every term, so seeing others' might help me standardize. #academia #academicchatter #Macademia @academicchatter

Ex-Tory minister attacks Sunak plan to limit foreign student numbers

Yup - many UK university courses are only financially viable because UK unis are allowed to charge huge fees to overseas students.

Overseas students are essentially subsidising UK students' education.

Another consequence of forcing unis into a fee model by withdrawing govt support.

#University #Acadamia #Macademia
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/21/ex-tory-minister-attacks-sunak-plan-to-limit-foreign-student-numbers?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Booking links for the Liverpool Learning Summit 2023 are now OPEN. We've got lots of sessions across the week of January 23rd, so there's bound to be something that piques your interest.

Book here: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/centre-for-innovation-in-education/conferences/liverpool-learning-summit/summit-bookings/

General Summit info here: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/centre-for-innovation-in-education/conferences/liverpool-learning-summit/

Please share this wherever you can! We're looking forward to seeing you there!

#LLS2023 #Liverpool #Pedagogy #HE #Macademia #Citizenship #Globalisation #Teaching #SOTL #Students

As part of the end of semester reflection, I asked students what advice they would give other students taking this course in the future. Most answered: "DO THE READINGS!!!"

Mission accomplished 😎

#pedagogy #Macademia #academicchatter

A paper analyzing predatory publishing was retracted after one of the listed predatory publishers (Frontiers) sent a letter to the journal (Scientometrics) demanding its retraction.

Members of the Distinguished Reviewers Board of Scientometrics wrote a letter criticizing the decision: "The retraction note does not demonstrate the alleged unreliability of the paper".

#macademia #researchintegrity #science #academicchatter @academicchatter https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-020-03852-4
https://retractionwatch.com/2022/12/05/board-members-decry-their-own-journals-retraction-of-paper-on-predatory-publishers/

I was going to leap in here & loudly proclaim how nutty #Macademia sounds but I see half of Mastodonia already cracked that one: seems I'm late to the party - I filbert daft now ...perhaps I should take a bite from a different topic 🙃

What's up with Frontier's "themed article collections"?

I've received 2 emails in the past few weeks inviting me to submit to one or be a guest editor and create one myself (in an area I have never 1st authored a peer reviewed pub in).

There is >37,000 of these article collections. I've heard Frontiers accused of predatory practices in the past, is this another one?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontiers_Media#Controversies

@academicchatter #macademia #researchintegrity #academicchatter

Are influential researchers more likely to engage in misconduct OR is research misconduct way more prevalent that we think? 🧐

At least 7% of highly cited researchers engage in some form of misconduct (extreme self-citation, plagiarism, fraud).

Clarivate says that it appears to be increasing and that they anticipate it will reach 10% in the next few years.

@academicchatter #researchintegrity #macademia #academicchatter #metascience via @ivanoransky and Gali Halevi https://retractionwatch.com/2022/11/15/why-misconduct-could-keep-scientists-from-earning-highly-cited-researcher-designations-and-how-our-database-plays-a-part/

Funding for early career researchers in Canada has not increased in almost 20 years 🤯

Grad students are now living below the poverty line.

"low wages keep individuals in precarious financial positions and can prevent people from pursuing graduate degrees or continuing in research."

These "pay levels exclude individuals who cannot persist in low-paying positions"

https://www.supportourscience.ca/post/tri-agency-funding #canada #macademia #phdlife #postdoc @academicchatter

I have never once in ~20 years published any work on plant or fungal biochemistry. Why the hell would I blow CHF2300 to publish work in a journal specific to a field I don't work in?

I know this predatory academic spam is par for the course, but there is plenty of data on what I _have_ published out there. At least go to the effort of scraping that data and targeting your spam more effectively.

#Academia #Research #Macademia

More than 1 in 5 grad students report getting a side job to supplement their income 👩‍🎓 💵

85% report worrying about the increasing cost of living (food, rent, etc.)

45% are considering dropping out of their program due to these issues

#ucustrike #phdlife #macademia @academicchatter
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03478-x

“In future weapon systems , which will be designed with a volunteer force in mind, we will probably witness more substitution of hardware for highly skilled personnel.”
-John Sullivan, Study 2, Qualitative Requirements of the Armed Forces,Vol I President’s Commission on the AVF #history #military #defense #allvolunteer #president #commission #weapons #Macademia

The top reasons graduate students are leaving academia 🏃‍♂️

1. The funding climate is discouraging

2. Too competitive/lack of jobs

3. Lack of work-life balance

"Less than half (48%) of respondents say that they would prefer, ultimately, to work in academia. That’s down from 56% in 2019"

"I don’t want this kind of life"

N = 3,200 international students that responded to a Nature survey

#macademia #phdlife @academicchatter

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03586-8