As I'm sure any scientist or academic who spends any time on the internet will know, Randy Schekman (recent nobel prize winner) wrote an article in the guardian about how we shouldn't be publishing in 'Glamour mags' like Nature, Science and Cell. Of course his caveat is that we should all publish in his not quite glamour mag (because its open access) e-Life.
Obviously, there's been a lot of talk on twitter about this...
I've seen a lot of "Hurrah!" responses and a lot of re-post with out much comment. But there's also an undercurrent of people who aren't as happy as might be expected. Mick Watson wrote a really good blog post explaining why some people are annoyed at Schekman and feel he's a hypocryte and that we shouldn't be praising him for something that will ultimately help him out (i.e. get us to publish in his new journal instead).
While I really respect this position, I have to disagree. While maybe he doesn't deserve praise exactly, we need these people. He's won a nobel prize, he's published lots in these closed-access journal, his credentials are sorted. So now he has both power and nothing to lose, he can say what he likes.
I know from trying to persuade my former Boss to go with PeerJ, that people in this position (not that he's won a nobel prize!) aren't always interested in change, they know the system, they've worked out how to do well in the system and while they don't have much to lose, they also don't have much to gain by changing it. Those of us without much power (Phd student, postdocs, ECRs), we may be idealistic and really want the paradigm to change, but we can't do it on our own, we need the senior people. I know I have pressure from colleagues and bosses to publish in these journals if I can. Committees for fellowships and future jobs lap these things up, and I'm not in a position to change that. But Schekman is one of the lucky few who are.
I think on our way up, all of us play the game to some extent. As long as we know that we're playing the game and doing all we can to change the rules at the same time, I don't think that makes us hypocrites. We just have to not end up believing in the game if we manage to win it.
Thursday, 12 December 2013
Monday, 9 December 2013
Sharing too early or just early enough?
I've been seeing a Guardian article around twitter this week which has kind of hit a nerve. It was this post about having your blog plagiarised. Not because I've had the same thing happen to me, but because I've been known to be a bit worried about telling people too much, too early about what I'm working on.
This is the second year that I'm going to Popgroup (The UK population genetics/evolution conference) and not talking about the work that I'm hoping to publish in the near future, because we're too worried about plagiarism (Last years work ended up in this paper). This was due to the fact that both analyses were fairly simple to do, they just hadn't been done that way before, and someone could pretty easily have gone and replicated the study and beaten us to the punch.
But would they?
Although I, along with my colleagues, wanted to protect against competitors, is it actually that likely that anyone would have gone and replicated it? After all, there would be a room full of people who saw me present the work, it'd be pretty obvious if someone who was there then went and published it a couple of months later.
Science is littered with examples of people 'borrowing' bits of other peoples data (the whole Watson, Crick, Franklin debacle being the main one we think about in genetics). But, maybe we should give people the benefit of the doubt more. There are lots of advantages of talking about your science as it progresses, people can pick you up on mistakes and pitfalls and you can get new ideas to improve the work. So, in the spirit of open science, I think I'm going to try to be a bit more open in the future, I hope it doesn't come back and bite me.
This is the second year that I'm going to Popgroup (The UK population genetics/evolution conference) and not talking about the work that I'm hoping to publish in the near future, because we're too worried about plagiarism (Last years work ended up in this paper). This was due to the fact that both analyses were fairly simple to do, they just hadn't been done that way before, and someone could pretty easily have gone and replicated the study and beaten us to the punch.
But would they?
Although I, along with my colleagues, wanted to protect against competitors, is it actually that likely that anyone would have gone and replicated it? After all, there would be a room full of people who saw me present the work, it'd be pretty obvious if someone who was there then went and published it a couple of months later.
Science is littered with examples of people 'borrowing' bits of other peoples data (the whole Watson, Crick, Franklin debacle being the main one we think about in genetics). But, maybe we should give people the benefit of the doubt more. There are lots of advantages of talking about your science as it progresses, people can pick you up on mistakes and pitfalls and you can get new ideas to improve the work. So, in the spirit of open science, I think I'm going to try to be a bit more open in the future, I hope it doesn't come back and bite me.
Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Thinking about the next step
So I'm 2 weeks in to this postdoc, which means I pretty much have to start thinking about the next step now. It seems slightly ridiculous, but I felt I left it too long to start thinking about it during my last postdoc, and its possible that this job may only be 1 or 2 years long anyway.
So what is the next step? I'm on my 2nd postdoc. Two seems fairly justifiable to me, particularly since I've moved to a really great lab in the US for the second one (where I'm hoping to pump out a lot of papers). Three would probably be less justifiable...
So this leaves three options a) Lecturship b) Fellowship c) Doing something else.
Lets throw c away now, I'm not ready to contemplate that yet (although one day I might).
When I was looking at postdoc jobs this time around, I did a bit of looking at Lecturing jobs too. The issue with these seems to be money, in that you need to have had some of your own to be seriously considered, which excluding a small travel grant, I haven't. Which leads us onto Fellowships. An enormous unknown for me, its hard to even know where to start really, although I guess by seeing what I'm even eligible for.
A quick look around the internet showed a big lack of information about applying for Fellowships written by people who have do it. There are quite a lot of pages written by specific universities on their policies, but not much about the experience. Does anyone know of any links? I'll continue to document here anyway.
So what is the next step? I'm on my 2nd postdoc. Two seems fairly justifiable to me, particularly since I've moved to a really great lab in the US for the second one (where I'm hoping to pump out a lot of papers). Three would probably be less justifiable...
So this leaves three options a) Lecturship b) Fellowship c) Doing something else.
Lets throw c away now, I'm not ready to contemplate that yet (although one day I might).
When I was looking at postdoc jobs this time around, I did a bit of looking at Lecturing jobs too. The issue with these seems to be money, in that you need to have had some of your own to be seriously considered, which excluding a small travel grant, I haven't. Which leads us onto Fellowships. An enormous unknown for me, its hard to even know where to start really, although I guess by seeing what I'm even eligible for.
A quick look around the internet showed a big lack of information about applying for Fellowships written by people who have do it. There are quite a lot of pages written by specific universities on their policies, but not much about the experience. Does anyone know of any links? I'll continue to document here anyway.
Friday, 8 November 2013
My problems with AcWriMo
AcWriMo stands for Academic Writing Month. It came about as an off shoot of NANOWRIMO, which stands for National Novel Writing Month and is basically a challenge to try and write a novel in a month. AcWriMo was started by Charlotte Frost, and if you'd like to learn more, I recommend going to her blog which you can find here - http://www.phd2published.com/2013/10/09/announcing-acwrimo-2013/
Both last year and this year I have signed up to AcWriMo full of good intentions to improve my writing habits and to become more productive.
Last year I gave myself a word count for each day, but I think I ended up giving up halfway through as I wasn't really in the right place in my research to do lots of writing, just finished one project, too much actual research to do for the next one.
So this year, I decided that I would just block out an hour a day for writing. Any writing e.g. this counts as part of today's hour. But I can already see myself slipping off the wagon. So I'm going to try and work out the reasons for this and use my realisation of these to re-new my vigour.
1. New Job - The 1st week of November (Academic Writing Month) has coincided with the first week of my new postdoc. I think because it's a new job and I've had quite a lot of admin things I had to get done etc. I've not found it easy to say "This is my writing hour". But a lot of those things are over now, so from Monday 9am-10am is going to be my writing hour and we'll see how that goes.
2. I don't have a paper in need of writing up - I think when I envision AcWriMo I think about having a bunch of research that I've done over the Summer that needs writing up into a paper, spending November doing that, and then submitting said paper at the beginning of December. Of course the big problem with that is that I don't write like that, I do it as I'm going along, so what I actually have is a half written paper that needs more analysis. However, this year rather than a word count, I've just got an hour I need to write in. That leaves a lot of other hours to do research in. Also, since I'm starting some new projects, there's a whole bunch of literature searching to write up.
3. I find writing in chunks kind of boring - I'm going to try and use pomodoros to get over this one. It makes it into a kind of game - and games I like.
Does anyone else have a problem like this, i.e. they find the idea of something like AcWriMo really exiting, but the reality seems like hard drudgery? Anyone got any ideas of how I can buck myself up?
Both last year and this year I have signed up to AcWriMo full of good intentions to improve my writing habits and to become more productive.
Last year I gave myself a word count for each day, but I think I ended up giving up halfway through as I wasn't really in the right place in my research to do lots of writing, just finished one project, too much actual research to do for the next one.
So this year, I decided that I would just block out an hour a day for writing. Any writing e.g. this counts as part of today's hour. But I can already see myself slipping off the wagon. So I'm going to try and work out the reasons for this and use my realisation of these to re-new my vigour.
1. New Job - The 1st week of November (Academic Writing Month) has coincided with the first week of my new postdoc. I think because it's a new job and I've had quite a lot of admin things I had to get done etc. I've not found it easy to say "This is my writing hour". But a lot of those things are over now, so from Monday 9am-10am is going to be my writing hour and we'll see how that goes.
2. I don't have a paper in need of writing up - I think when I envision AcWriMo I think about having a bunch of research that I've done over the Summer that needs writing up into a paper, spending November doing that, and then submitting said paper at the beginning of December. Of course the big problem with that is that I don't write like that, I do it as I'm going along, so what I actually have is a half written paper that needs more analysis. However, this year rather than a word count, I've just got an hour I need to write in. That leaves a lot of other hours to do research in. Also, since I'm starting some new projects, there's a whole bunch of literature searching to write up.
3. I find writing in chunks kind of boring - I'm going to try and use pomodoros to get over this one. It makes it into a kind of game - and games I like.
Does anyone else have a problem like this, i.e. they find the idea of something like AcWriMo really exiting, but the reality seems like hard drudgery? Anyone got any ideas of how I can buck myself up?
Sunday, 3 November 2013
First post from the USA
So I've been in America for almost 2 weeks, although only one day of that has been at work so far. I figure I should write out some of my thoughts about what seems to be the same and what seems to be different.
Firstly, Rutgers seems to run in a similar way to every other University I've been at. I've probably been to every admin building in the several campuses we have, clutching various forms. I now have an email account and login, but it's Department of Life Sciences specific, I'm still working out how to get the full one. My login card now lets me into my flat (it didn't to start with), but I've discovered this weekend that it won't let me into my department out of hours, I suspect I'll have problems with the Library too. But I'd expect this sort of thing at a UK University as well!
There are two main things that seem to be very different from the UK. Firstly, alcohol. The age limit of 21 in the US means that the vast majority of Undergrads aren't allowed to drink. Therefore, you can't get a beer on my campus. There's no bar - the student centre has fast food outlets instead. But more than that, you can't buy alcohol in the convenience store. This is the first way that it's a very different experience to being in the UK.
The second way is all the 'School Spirit'. It turns out that the weekend after I arrived was Homecoming. There were banners everywhere! Even now that Homecoming's over, there are pennants saying Rutgers on every single lampost on campus. I guess they think we might forget where we were otherwise. Probably a quarter of the people you see are wearing some kind of Rutgers themed clothing and the Barnes and Nobel store has a whole floor of the stuff. They have every type of clothing you could imagine, rugs, cushions, bottles, mugs, banners. But it's basically all in either red, or grey or black. Scarlet is the school colour, so that's the colour (sorry color) you get!
I'm guessing I'll get used to these things eventually, and I'll probably find all sorts of other things that are different, but these are the things that seem to be standing out right now.
Firstly, Rutgers seems to run in a similar way to every other University I've been at. I've probably been to every admin building in the several campuses we have, clutching various forms. I now have an email account and login, but it's Department of Life Sciences specific, I'm still working out how to get the full one. My login card now lets me into my flat (it didn't to start with), but I've discovered this weekend that it won't let me into my department out of hours, I suspect I'll have problems with the Library too. But I'd expect this sort of thing at a UK University as well!
There are two main things that seem to be very different from the UK. Firstly, alcohol. The age limit of 21 in the US means that the vast majority of Undergrads aren't allowed to drink. Therefore, you can't get a beer on my campus. There's no bar - the student centre has fast food outlets instead. But more than that, you can't buy alcohol in the convenience store. This is the first way that it's a very different experience to being in the UK.
The second way is all the 'School Spirit'. It turns out that the weekend after I arrived was Homecoming. There were banners everywhere! Even now that Homecoming's over, there are pennants saying Rutgers on every single lampost on campus. I guess they think we might forget where we were otherwise. Probably a quarter of the people you see are wearing some kind of Rutgers themed clothing and the Barnes and Nobel store has a whole floor of the stuff. They have every type of clothing you could imagine, rugs, cushions, bottles, mugs, banners. But it's basically all in either red, or grey or black. Scarlet is the school colour, so that's the colour (sorry color) you get!
I'm guessing I'll get used to these things eventually, and I'll probably find all sorts of other things that are different, but these are the things that seem to be standing out right now.
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Leaving projects behind
One of the things that holds true for the vast majority of Early Career Researchers (Postdocs, Fellows etc.) is that life is transitory. You have a short time working on a project and then you move on to the next contract, maybe another institution, maybe another topic, maybe another field entirely.
This is a problem that has quite a lot of repercussions in Bioinformatics. I suspect it does in other fields too, but Bioinformatics is what I know.
The problem is this -
You're going along happily using a piece of software in your research, it's great software, it does exactly what you want and it saved you a lot of time and effort. But then, one day, it breaks. Maybe a server that it takes information from has changed it's file formats? Or it's just not updating properly any more. What ever the problem was, you find you can't fix it yourself, so you email the person who wrote it, seeing if they can help. Only to find that they were a Phd student who no longer works on the project. If you're lucky, they still work in research and they still care enough about their old software that they'll help you out. If you're not lucky, they probably work for a bank now and are completely un-contactable!
This is a problem that's endemic in Bioinformatics and it definitely feeds into the reinventing the wheel culture that we have. How can you trust that someone else's software will still be around in 5 years time?
Unfortunately, this isn't a problem that just exists in software development. Over the last year, I've been running an event called Ignite Sheffield. It's been pretty popular, particularly with undergrads / postgrads and postdocs. We've had lots of Phd students use it to help them gain confidence in speaking about their work, and I believe it's a fantastic tool for this. However, due to the transitory nature of ECRs, I'm off to New Jersey in 2 weeks time.
I tried my best to get someone to take over, but people have their own projects and don't really have time to take on someone else's - much like with software upkeep. So sadly Ignite Sheffield will be having to have some down time.
Maybe I'll be able to start it up again if I come back.
This is a problem that has quite a lot of repercussions in Bioinformatics. I suspect it does in other fields too, but Bioinformatics is what I know.
The problem is this -
You're going along happily using a piece of software in your research, it's great software, it does exactly what you want and it saved you a lot of time and effort. But then, one day, it breaks. Maybe a server that it takes information from has changed it's file formats? Or it's just not updating properly any more. What ever the problem was, you find you can't fix it yourself, so you email the person who wrote it, seeing if they can help. Only to find that they were a Phd student who no longer works on the project. If you're lucky, they still work in research and they still care enough about their old software that they'll help you out. If you're not lucky, they probably work for a bank now and are completely un-contactable!
This is a problem that's endemic in Bioinformatics and it definitely feeds into the reinventing the wheel culture that we have. How can you trust that someone else's software will still be around in 5 years time?
Unfortunately, this isn't a problem that just exists in software development. Over the last year, I've been running an event called Ignite Sheffield. It's been pretty popular, particularly with undergrads / postgrads and postdocs. We've had lots of Phd students use it to help them gain confidence in speaking about their work, and I believe it's a fantastic tool for this. However, due to the transitory nature of ECRs, I'm off to New Jersey in 2 weeks time.
I tried my best to get someone to take over, but people have their own projects and don't really have time to take on someone else's - much like with software upkeep. So sadly Ignite Sheffield will be having to have some down time.
Maybe I'll be able to start it up again if I come back.
Tuesday, 8 October 2013
USA J1 Visa process (from the UK)
There are quite a few blog posts and websites that talk about the process of getting an American Visa. Some of them are fairly full of doom and gloom, so I thought I'd give my much more positive take on it.
DS-2019
The DS-2019 is a document that your future employers have to generate before you can apply for a Visa.
This stage seemed to take the longest.
There was an on-line form I had to fill out first, I suspect that different universities/workplaces have different procedures at this point. I had to provide proof of medical insurance (provided by the department and an email seemed to count for this), a scan of my passport, my Phd certificate and a letter of invitation from the Dean. This whole process seemed a bit circular since the letter of invitation and the medical insurance were both coming from the department I had to send them to!
Once I'd fill the form out, it took 2 weeks for them to generate the form and fed-ex it to me.
SEVIS I-901
When you get your DS-2019 there will be information included about how to go about paying your SEVIS fee. I don't really know what this one is for, but you have to do it. Make sure you have a credit/debit card handy and that your printer is connected. You'll need to print out the receipt to show them at the embassy.
DS-160 Nonimmigrant Visa Application Form
This is the form that allows you to apply to go for a visa interview. It is very long.
Things you need to make sure you have:
Your DS-2019, you can't apply without it
A US Visa style photo. This has to be square, so a UK passport photo won't do. You can get more info from here: http://travel.state.gov/visa/visaphotoreq/visaphotoreq_5334.html
Your SEVIS I-901
Keep printing out everything, particularly your 'instructions page'.
Apply for a Visa interview
This was pretty easy, choose a time and a day. They don't make you stick to your time, but I'd suggest an early one anyway. If you go early you don't get a backlog of people.
Visa Interview
My interview was at 9.30 in London. I arrived at 8.20, there was already a queue, but only a small one. First you have to join the queue to say you're there. They'll check you don't have anything like a mobile phone/laptop/ipad/kindle etc. They'll also give you a plastic bag to put you watch and belt into for security. Try and only take in what you need, there is a pharmacy near by where you can store stuff, but I was lucky in that I could leave everything at someone's house. All I took was my debit card, my oyster card, the paperwork and a (hardcopy) book.
Once you've been checked in you join another queue. They'll check your paperwork again and then send you through to security. Security here is less scary than at the airport, and they don't make you take your shoes off.
Once inside, you'll be directed to a reception desk. Here they'll check your paperwork (sensing a pattern?) and give you a number (well it's a letter and a number, but you get the jist).
Now you just have to wait until your number is called. It'll blink up on the screen with the number window you have to go to. There are also hand instructions about exactly what you need to give them. They'll take everything off you. I felt quite naked sitting in the US embassy without my passport!
Then they'll send you back to wait to be called up again. The second time you're called is your actual Visa interview. I was asked what my job was and then she got me to explain what that meant. But it almost seemed like a friendly conversation. Also she enthused about Rutgers a bit. That was it. I was told I'd be given a Visa and that my documents would be returned in ~ 5 working days.
In all the visit to the embassy only took 45mins which wasn't bad considering some of the scare stories of waiting for 5 hours etc. that I heard!
DS-2019
The DS-2019 is a document that your future employers have to generate before you can apply for a Visa.
This stage seemed to take the longest.
There was an on-line form I had to fill out first, I suspect that different universities/workplaces have different procedures at this point. I had to provide proof of medical insurance (provided by the department and an email seemed to count for this), a scan of my passport, my Phd certificate and a letter of invitation from the Dean. This whole process seemed a bit circular since the letter of invitation and the medical insurance were both coming from the department I had to send them to!
Once I'd fill the form out, it took 2 weeks for them to generate the form and fed-ex it to me.
SEVIS I-901
When you get your DS-2019 there will be information included about how to go about paying your SEVIS fee. I don't really know what this one is for, but you have to do it. Make sure you have a credit/debit card handy and that your printer is connected. You'll need to print out the receipt to show them at the embassy.
DS-160 Nonimmigrant Visa Application Form
This is the form that allows you to apply to go for a visa interview. It is very long.
Things you need to make sure you have:
Your DS-2019, you can't apply without it
A US Visa style photo. This has to be square, so a UK passport photo won't do. You can get more info from here: http://travel.state.gov/visa/visaphotoreq/visaphotoreq_5334.html
Your SEVIS I-901
Keep printing out everything, particularly your 'instructions page'.
Apply for a Visa interview
This was pretty easy, choose a time and a day. They don't make you stick to your time, but I'd suggest an early one anyway. If you go early you don't get a backlog of people.
Visa Interview
My interview was at 9.30 in London. I arrived at 8.20, there was already a queue, but only a small one. First you have to join the queue to say you're there. They'll check you don't have anything like a mobile phone/laptop/ipad/kindle etc. They'll also give you a plastic bag to put you watch and belt into for security. Try and only take in what you need, there is a pharmacy near by where you can store stuff, but I was lucky in that I could leave everything at someone's house. All I took was my debit card, my oyster card, the paperwork and a (hardcopy) book.
Once you've been checked in you join another queue. They'll check your paperwork again and then send you through to security. Security here is less scary than at the airport, and they don't make you take your shoes off.
Once inside, you'll be directed to a reception desk. Here they'll check your paperwork (sensing a pattern?) and give you a number (well it's a letter and a number, but you get the jist).
Now you just have to wait until your number is called. It'll blink up on the screen with the number window you have to go to. There are also hand instructions about exactly what you need to give them. They'll take everything off you. I felt quite naked sitting in the US embassy without my passport!
Then they'll send you back to wait to be called up again. The second time you're called is your actual Visa interview. I was asked what my job was and then she got me to explain what that meant. But it almost seemed like a friendly conversation. Also she enthused about Rutgers a bit. That was it. I was told I'd be given a Visa and that my documents would be returned in ~ 5 working days.
In all the visit to the embassy only took 45mins which wasn't bad considering some of the scare stories of waiting for 5 hours etc. that I heard!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)