for researchers, science writers, research editors, translators, publishers

Peter Matthews's Blog (35)

On Open Access (from the Guardian Weekly), and volunteerism

John East, in a letter to the Guardian Weekly ("How access stacks up", 02.10.09) defends the role of librarians in making information as widely available to people as possible. '...it is researchers, not librarians, who decide to publish their output with "predatory publishers". Librarians have been at the forefront of the Open Access movement. Unfortunately the competition for tenure and promotion means that most researchers still to prefer to publish with prestigious publishers and in highly-… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on October 18, 2009 at 7:00am — No Comments

Autumn to Spring

Several hours after my previous posting, I am safely back on the ground in the opposite season: a journey from Autumn in Japan to Spring in New Zealand. Here is a tui I photographed in Auckland today. Notice how the bird is upside down in the southern hemisphere.

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Added by Peter Matthews on September 29, 2009 at 7:04pm — 1 Comment

Mini-thoughts for a mini-moment

Sitting in the shuttle from passport control to departure gate, I marvelled at the woman in front of me changing her balance while simultaneously removing something from her bag behind her. I wonder if I can make a picture contrasting the stillness and detail of a landscape with the activity and blur of a human with her mind on a dozen different things at the same time. Thus ends my mini-though for a mini-moment before transgressing the Pacific, Osaka to Auckland. Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on September 28, 2009 at 6:03pm — No Comments

Our multilingual community

Much has been said about English being THE language of international research, but in reality, the international research community is EXTREMELY multilingual. English and some other languages may be more common as languages for publishing the results of research, but the research itself is conducted in a multitude of different languages. The Research Cooperative has been created to help mediate between the extreme multilingual world in which individual researchers live, and the less multilingu… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on September 21, 2009 at 8:05pm — No Comments

Printed brochure now available for Research Cooperative members

A beautifully printed brochure explaining the aims of the Research Cooperative has been prepared and is now available for our members. The brochure is printed in full color, and uses a single sheet of folded A4 paper. If you would like to receive one or many copies, please send a request and postal address to your nearest Research Cooperative administrator (see contact details at foot of top page). Extra copies can be requested for distribution to colleagues, students, research libraries, comp… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on September 14, 2009 at 8:52pm — 2 Comments

How does our site look on mobile phones?

Although our site can be viewed with mobile phones, I have not yet seen this myself. My own phone has no screen. I can only see how the /m pages for mobile phones look on my computer screen: see http://cooperative.ning.com/m I would be grateful if any members can send me one or more images of their mobile phone screen with the Research Cooperative site (address above) showing our top page or any other page. I will also need your perm… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on September 13, 2009 at 10:42pm — No Comments

The TED Talks - 18 minutes for thinkers and teachers to shine

Recently I started listening and watching some of the TED talks at http://www.ted.com/, a website operated by the Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation based in the USA. There really is a lot to learn from the talks, if you have a good connection for viewing video on the internet. Many members of the Research Cooperative may enjoy the talks (they cover a huge range of subjects spanning business, science, art, design and more). S… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on September 2, 2009 at 11:21pm — No Comments

Procedures for setting up conference or other meeting pages

Procedures for setting up conference or other meeting pages inside the Research Cooperative, using the ‘group page’ function (first developed for the IPPA 2009 Congress) Peter J. Matthews, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan 9th July 2009 [Copyright: The Research Cooperative] Note – to create a hierarchy of pages under one ‘top’ page for your meeting, it is necessary to manually link higher level and lower lev… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on July 9, 2009 at 4:00pm — No Comments

Text for a promotional flier explaining the Research Cooperative

The Research Cooperative http://cooperative.ning.com An international not-for-profit organisation (NPO) for researchers, science writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, translators, illustrators, language service companies publishers, and others Our mission is to support academic, scientific, and popular research communication in all subjects, languages, countries, and media Membership is free. All members can offer or request volunteer or paid services Contact Network Cr… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on July 7, 2009 at 2:00pm — No Comments

President Obama's address to the National Academy of Science, USA, April 27, 2009

Members of the Co-op may like to see and hear this -- President Obama's address (38 mins) to the National Academy of Science on the Necessity of Science. You may be interested in listening to his message. Average age of NASA staff when setting up the Apollo missions: 26. He is emphasizing science education and energy research, but also mentions the need for effective international collaboration. It would have been good if he could have said more about science as an international endeavour, but… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on June 30, 2009 at 4:45pm — No Comments

Human ecology and anthropology

The Minpaku Anthopology Newsletter is a biannual publication of the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan. In the next issue, our special theme is human ecology, and I am the editor for this part of the newsletter. When the next issue is published, I would be happy to post copies of the newsletter (no cost) to anyone with an interest in the theme (email your 'newsletter request' to researchcooperative tat gmail tot com). Here is a short introduction: In five short essays, our cont… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on June 10, 2009 at 9:30pm — No Comments

The real-estate value of science

Writing in the 'Properties' page of the International Herald Tribune (5th June 2009), Richard Holledge asks "Can you put a price tag on English history?". Some real estate agents think so, and like to tell prospective customers about the history of houses being offered for sale. Nick Barratt, who specialises in architectural and archaeological research, and hosts a BBC TV series, is quoted: "Finding a famous person lived in a house is always nice, and in many ways, the older the better… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on June 6, 2009 at 8:13pm — No Comments

Roaming through the scientific universe

I have always enjoyed crossing scientific disciplines in my own research. Managing the Research Cooperative provides an excuse to take this to an extreme. Now I can go anywhere in scientific universe with purpose, despite my general ignorance. Should I try to be disciplined and systematic about this, or should I go where personal experience, motivations, and intuituion lead? It is safe to assume that one person cannot reach into all reaches of the scientific universe, to promote this site. I s… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on May 15, 2009 at 8:18pm — No Comments

Introducing our site to the e-Network of Academia in Social Sciences (e-NASS)

Today I introduced the Research Cooperative to e-NASS, a Yahoo group established in 2001 and now numbering about 4700 subscribers. e-NASS aims to deepen inter/intra/trans/multi-disciplinary communication within the academic community of scholars, professionals and students, from all branches of social sciences. Here is the message I sent: ******* Greetings, I am new to e-NASS. I have worked in Japan since 1990, and at the National Mus… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on May 6, 2009 at 11:00pm — No Comments

Promoting the Research Cooperative (some success)

At the end of last year, and in the first four months of 2009, I began using Google adwords to promote the Research Cooperative site. This effort was supported by our current sponsor, Editage, and also from my own pocket. With the initial settings and budget, our capacity to compete with other advertisers on Search result listings has not been great, but we have been able to learn a few things from the exercise. To put things in context, form the 1st of January to 30th April (i.e. the first qua… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on May 2, 2009 at 8:00pm — No Comments

Mentoring and the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association (IPPA) 19th congress

The following quote from the IPPA congress website illustrates a problem that the Research Cooperative has been created to help solve. The IPPA conference will be held in Hanoi, Vietnam, from 29th Nov. to 5th Dec. 2009. "During the Hanoi conference we will need to discuss how IPPA is to be organised in the future. The environment for scholarly associations such as IPPA is very different now from what it was when the current as… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on March 31, 2009 at 4:00pm — 1 Comment

Testing times in Manila

Today I skipped down to Manila from Osaka, a tedious half-day flight, but nothing so stressful as the daily life of streetworkers trying to make a living in Manila,selling water and snacks to vehicle occupants, under the hot sun, or scraping together some food at the edge of the city, in one of the slums surrounding the airport. We can see tin shacks built over the shallow bay within 100m of the end of the airstrip, with a few canoes tied up to them. My taxi driver repeateedly tried to divert me… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on March 4, 2009 at 6:15pm — No Comments

A morning with GPeerReview

Following my encounter with the review-free publishing environment of Docstoc.com (see previous entry), I have been looking at a Google discussion group called GPeerReview. The discussion there revolves around an attempt to make an online reviewing tool for academic papers that appear online (in any context). The aim is to make something that is more than just a star-rating system, and that might be useful for authors, readers and publishers. The GPeerReview designer expresses dissatisfaction w… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on February 27, 2009 at 9:00am — No Comments

An evening with Docstoc.com

Tonight I am looking at a website called docstoc.com where anyone can publish documents in a searchable online archive. No editors are involved.... which means that the quality of documents is infinitely variable. There is only a very rudimentary search system, and no network of subscribers for each topic of research. Docstoc may be useful as a kind of archive for grey literature, and for self-published research, but not for serious peer-reviewed scientific publishing -- unless it can be integr… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on February 26, 2009 at 10:30pm — 3 Comments

Fieldwork and notebooks

Recently I have been away on fieldwork in the Philippines, having a computer holiday. It is only during fieldwork that I really have time to keep a daily, handwritten diary. My notebooks become not just a record of the work in the field, but also a record of what I am thinking about outside the field. We often encounter delays and unexpected obstacles during fieldwork, but there is never any waste if time if we can dive back into a notebook and restart a chain of thought about one thing or anot… Continue

Added by Peter Matthews on February 24, 2009 at 8:02am — 2 Comments