Pay-to-play?

Pay-to-play? Predators in the Academy

If you're an early-career researcher, and you want to be a professor, how do you demonstrate your suitability for an open position? You typically have to:

• Provide a cover letter
• Provide a Curriculum Vitae
• Provide a Teaching Statement and/or a Statement of Research
• Provide your unofficial transcripts

But how do you really set yourself apart from other early-career researchers who are applying for the same position?

One way is to be well-connected; a recommendation from a luminary in your field can go a long way! Another option is to have an extensive list of publications, especially if your publications are in prestigious journals with a high impact factor.

It's the latter that I'd like to focus on today.

Since there is an absolutely massive amount of demand for journal publications, the free market has responded to the pressure: the rise of so-called "predatory journals."

https://contexts.org/articles/pay-to-play-journals/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/sep/18/who-should-pay-to-publish-scientific-research
An interview with Jeffrey Beall and overview of the challenges of identifying "predatory publishers:" http://www.nature.com/news/investigating-journals-the-dark-side-of-publishing-1.12666
An archived version of the famous (or infamous) Beall's List: https://beallslist.weebly.com/
A sting operation to identify predatory publishers who will accept anybody as an editor: http://www.nature.com/news/predatory-journals-recruit-fake-editor-1.21662
It's gotten to the point where people are publishing journal articles about predatory journals! http://www.bioone.org/doi/10.2983/035.035.0101
An advocate of open access to research has become disillusioned by the systemic abuses that take place under the auspices of openness: https://ocsdnet.org/confessions-of-an-open-access-advocate-leslie-chan/

How do you tell a "good" journal from a "bad" one? Well, if you're looking for a single list...alas, there isn't one. However, the DOAJ [Directory of Open Access Journals] lists some helpful guidelines on how to identify a high-quality publisher. And the website ThinkCheckSubmit.org [archived version here] also gives authors guidelines.

Stats Doesn't Have to be Scary!

Looking for a free, open-source, easy-to-use statistics program? If you haven't heard about JASP before, then I suggest you read my blog more often! 😂 I've already promoted the use of JASP in the classroom and in research, despite a few limitations such as the inability to edit graphs.

Check out the full playlist: 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvPJKAgYsyoJxXZn-fTmqxF_GfOQ-htvJ

In trying to probe the limits of JASP, I uploaded a dataset with over 40,000 rows and 6 or 7 columns of data. It took a minute to upload such a large file, but there was no problem with running analyses even on a large dataset such as that one!

I think most behavioral researchers could spend their entire careers using this program, as long as they also have another program handy to generate publication-quality graphs. R is a popular solution for this (though you'll have to learn a bit of programming to use it).

Benjamin Nanes, MD, PhD, recommends additional options such as ImageJ or Inkscape. They're free, which is a big plus for impoverished graduate students and/or those who simply want to avoid the hassle of trying to get a license for SPSS or another such program on their personal computers.

Though I haven't tried these myself (yet!), I trust Dr. Nanes' recommendations and plan to try them out soon. Another option, also recommended by Dr. Nanes, is Inkscape: this could be used to add text (such as axis labels) to the graph generated by JASP and export it in a vector format that your journal will accept.

Everything I've said so far about JASP also goes for jamovi, another free and open-source program with a user-friendly interface. JASP started development before jamovi, so it's a little further along in its capabilities, but the original lead programmer for JASP is the lead programmer for jamovi, so there are many similarities between the programs--and I like both of them! jamovi does have a few features that JASP lacks, including the ability to see the R syntax for a given operation. This makes jamovi a great bridge for those who would like to learn R!

Since both JASP and jamovi are based on R but provide a far more visually appealing user interface, the analyses are trustworthy (though I've double-checked some analyses myself) and the programs themselves are easy to use.

In any case, if you're wondering why I like JASP so much, I made and edited a series of videos yesterday showing how to install JASP, upload files, and run most of the common tests in JASP 0.8.6.0. I've compiled these videos into a YouTube playlist; note that the instructions for jamovi are going to be quite similar.

screenshot of JASP 0.8.6.0 from my own computer

If you haven't already tried JASP or jamovi, what are you waiting for?

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Wondering about the social media usage of actual college students? 

Check out the results of this totally informal—but real—survey.

In case you missed it, I review some fantastic, easy-to-use, and FREE stats programs here.

For more help explaining statistical concepts and when to use them, 

please download my freely available PDF guide here!