Category: 1.1 Research (General)

  • A short critique of CRediT

    A short critique of CRediT

    CRediT is a system for classifying contributions to research with the goal of documenting who did what for a given publication. Ann Barcomb, formerly a Postdoc in my research group, now a professor at U of Calgary, pointed me to it. The system may or may not be used by journals. As a long-time modeler,…

  • How to not cite related work

    How to not cite related work

  • The student, the researcher, and the professor

    The student, the researcher, and the professor

    The student: I can’t access the research paper; it is behind a paywall. The researcher: Fret not, you will find it on sci-hub. The professor: Just ask the author.

  • Dear Ph.D. student: Don’t be afraid of prior art

    Dear Ph.D. student: Don’t be afraid of prior art

    A first step in a one-person research project in a domain new to a researcher (Ph.D. student) is to read-up on related work. This can be daunting, as sometimes it feels like everything has been done already, and there is nothing new to write a dissertation about. Fear not! With enough digging, the opportunities will…

  • The value of articles with no relevance

    The value of articles with no relevance

    I’m listening to Lutz Prechelt’s keynote at the German Software Engineering research community conference. He is talking about how we should not be undertaking research that has no relevance, and he is demonstrating this by presenting research based on ludicruous assumptions (that will never be real, not in this nor another world). Nobody could disagree…

  • Dear editor [of an Elsevier journal]

    Dear editor [of an Elsevier journal]

    Thank you for the request to review an article. My usual reviewing fee for Elsevier journals is one full year of free access to your digital library for my university. However, Elsevier has locked out German universities from accessing research on their websites, including our own. So in addition to my usual fee I must…