Latest in Comments on Science and Academia
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How to get a Ph.D. in Germany
In this 10min. video, I explain ways of getting a doctoral title (Ph.D.) in Germany. I specifically explain the individual doctorate and its differences to the structured programs of Anglo-Saxon universities. This talk is scheduled for Jan 24th, with 165 registrations for the live event one week before already.
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How not to generate a hypothesis
xkcd is an enjoyable web cartoon, often with a scientific bent. This time they got it wrong, though. Introspection is not a proper research method to generate hypotheses. Rather you generate hypotheses from a theory that you are trying to validate. The development of that theory in turn is (should be) subject to the use…
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Open sourcing research software
In this 15min. video I’ll take you through the basic steps of open sourcing your research software. It covers purpose of open sourcing, the rights situation, license choice, and the actual step of open sourcing. The slides are also available. Please note that the slides and video contain some simplifications so make sure you resp. your lawyers…
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Documenting a lead author’s contributions for a cumulative dissertation
Since 2021, my Ph.D. students have been able to submit cumulative dissertations for promotion rather than the traditional monographs. A cumulative dissertation is a set of published research papers, logically stapled together, and lead by an introduction that puts the research papers into context. This way, a graduate-level researcher can work incrementally towards their dissertation,…
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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,…
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Making your theory practical
The output of research is theory, initially just proposed, later validated (or invalidated). A theory is a description or model of phenomena of interest, and its main value is to make predictions about these phenomena. No predictions, no theory. Predictions are turned into hypotheses to put a theory to the test. Sadly, the word theory…