Category: 1. Research
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The real problem with pay-walled publications
Pay-walled publications are just that: Publications that nobody reads unless someone pays the publisher’s fee. I have no problem with that, because I don’t read pay-walled work and don’t consider it published research and prior art that I should care about. The real problem starts with researchers and editors who expect me to find, read,…
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How not to ask your research question (and what to do about it)
In software engineering, the structure of research theses, most notably dissertations, is straightforward: (1) Formulate a research question, choose a method, build a theory, then (2) generate at least one interesting hypothesis, choose a method, and test the hypothesis as part of the theory’s attempted validation. A dissertation can do both parts 1 and 2…
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Anecdotal evidence on the method wars
On a whim, I asked my Twitterverse (which includes a fair number of computer scientists) what they think about the following question: When peer-reviewing somebody else’s work submitted for publication, what should you do if you find that the authors have a different belief than you about what can be known? There were only 11…
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Pay-walled research papers do not constitute published work
I just had another discussion with a reviewer (by way of an editor) who insisted that I cite (presumably their) work buried behind an Elsevier paywall. How obnoxious can you be? It is 2019 and there are still editors and reviewers who consider articles, which are not freely accessible on the web, published research? That’s…
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Inverted research funding
Most people believe that scientists first perform basic (“fundamental”) research and then perform applied research. Basic research delivers the fundamental insights that then get detailed and refined as they hit reality in applied research. Along with this comes the request that basic research funding should be provided by the country (because few companies would ever…
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Alternative definition of theoretical saturation in qualitative research
Theoretical Saturation: The mental state of a researcher wanting to finish up the work and go home for the holidays.