Alex Holcombe
@alexh.bsky.social
Science-ing, trying to improve science. Cognitive and perceptual psychologist.
Biases include @simine (💍), cats (🚫)
Mastodon: @alexh@fediscience.org
Biases include @simine (💍), cats (🚫)
Mastodon: @alexh@fediscience.org
Open science provides fraud deterrence, and facilitates fraud detection.
When I first learned about open science around 20 years ago (then called "open notebook science"), I never thought about research fraud. Now it is a critically-important issue.
When I first learned about open science around 20 years ago (then called "open notebook science"), I never thought about research fraud. Now it is a critically-important issue.
November 10, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Open science provides fraud deterrence, and facilitates fraud detection.
When I first learned about open science around 20 years ago (then called "open notebook science"), I never thought about research fraud. Now it is a critically-important issue.
When I first learned about open science around 20 years ago (then called "open notebook science"), I never thought about research fraud. Now it is a critically-important issue.
Reposted by Alex Holcombe
Wouldn't it be great to gather top social science journal editors + experts on fraud-prevention to discuss better ways to fraud-proof our field @ the National Academies? This is happening! Step 1 is creating an organizing committee. Submit nominees by 11/7:
www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/enh...
www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/enh...
www.nationalacademies.org
October 24, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Wouldn't it be great to gather top social science journal editors + experts on fraud-prevention to discuss better ways to fraud-proof our field @ the National Academies? This is happening! Step 1 is creating an organizing committee. Submit nominees by 11/7:
www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/enh...
www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/enh...
Someday we'll have acknowledgment citation counts and we can better recognize those who are particularly collegial. The image shows the most frequently-acknowledged people in the journal Psychological Review up to 1999.
(Cronin, Shaw, and La Barre, 2003)
(Cronin, Shaw, and La Barre, 2003)
November 2, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Someday we'll have acknowledgment citation counts and we can better recognize those who are particularly collegial. The image shows the most frequently-acknowledged people in the journal Psychological Review up to 1999.
(Cronin, Shaw, and La Barre, 2003)
(Cronin, Shaw, and La Barre, 2003)
"Scholarly publishing, by contrast, too often feels designed to serve corporate profit margins..
what would it mean to design our infrastructures around the communities that use them, rather than around extractive logics?"
A large fanfiction platform shows the way!
what would it mean to design our infrastructures around the communities that use them, rather than around extractive logics?"
A large fanfiction platform shows the way!
November 1, 2025 at 6:56 PM
"Scholarly publishing, by contrast, too often feels designed to serve corporate profit margins..
what would it mean to design our infrastructures around the communities that use them, rather than around extractive logics?"
A large fanfiction platform shows the way!
what would it mean to design our infrastructures around the communities that use them, rather than around extractive logics?"
A large fanfiction platform shows the way!
"What if academic libraries, OA publishers, and educators treated Wikibooks as seriously as they do repositories or university presses? The potential is enormous."
Yes! It's frustrating how academics ignore Wikimedia Foundation projects, which have been diamond open access and radically transparent
Yes! It's frustrating how academics ignore Wikimedia Foundation projects, which have been diamond open access and radically transparent
👀ICYMI: "Wikibooks’s readership is considerable and genuinely international – 469 million page views worldwide in the last year alone, from more than 11 million devices."
@heroicendeavour.bsky.social on why academics should take another look at Wikibooks
#AcWri #OABooks #ScholComms
@heroicendeavour.bsky.social on why academics should take another look at Wikibooks
#AcWri #OABooks #ScholComms
Does academia need a wakeup call on Wikibooks? - Impact of Social Sciences
Wikibooks has nearly half a billion annual page views, but has hardly featured in academic OA debates. Could it be a solution to providing open academic books?
blogs.lse.ac.uk
November 1, 2025 at 6:13 PM
"What if academic libraries, OA publishers, and educators treated Wikibooks as seriously as they do repositories or university presses? The potential is enormous."
Yes! It's frustrating how academics ignore Wikimedia Foundation projects, which have been diamond open access and radically transparent
Yes! It's frustrating how academics ignore Wikimedia Foundation projects, which have been diamond open access and radically transparent
A >$10,000 award that will be given to multiple individuals who "communicate their work with radical transparency, making it easy for others to use, test, and build on their ideas" outside of journals, in an ongoing project.
We also need awards to the many communities (not individuals) already
We also need awards to the many communities (not individuals) already
Deadline today!!!
Some scientists aren’t waiting for journals to catch up. They’re showing us what’s next.
The Beyond the Journal awards honor those breaking the mold in how science is shared.
More details: pracheeac.substack.com/p/off-roadin...
Nominate or self-nominate here: www.experiment.foundation/beyond
The Beyond the Journal awards honor those breaking the mold in how science is shared.
More details: pracheeac.substack.com/p/off-roadin...
Nominate or self-nominate here: www.experiment.foundation/beyond
November 1, 2025 at 8:10 AM
A >$10,000 award that will be given to multiple individuals who "communicate their work with radical transparency, making it easy for others to use, test, and build on their ideas" outside of journals, in an ongoing project.
We also need awards to the many communities (not individuals) already
We also need awards to the many communities (not individuals) already
@martonkovacs.bsky.social is beavering away implementing something new for tenzing.club. We hope to make it easier for you to manage your collaborators, by also providing for acknowledgees (people you acknowledge but who aren't co-authors)!
tenzing Documenting contributorship with CRediT
tenzing.club
October 30, 2025 at 9:50 PM
@martonkovacs.bsky.social is beavering away implementing something new for tenzing.club. We hope to make it easier for you to manage your collaborators, by also providing for acknowledgees (people you acknowledge but who aren't co-authors)!
The Python Software Foundation won a $1.5m grant from the US government National Science Foundation.
Turned it down because required to affirm that we "will not... operate any programs that advance or promote DEI"
simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/27/...
Turned it down because required to affirm that we "will not... operate any programs that advance or promote DEI"
simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/27/...
The PSF has withdrawn a $1.5 million proposal to US government grant program
The Python Software Foundation was recently "recommended for funding" (NSF terminology) for a $1.5m grant from the US government National Science Foundation to help improve the security of the Python ...
simonwillison.net
October 29, 2025 at 7:21 PM
The Python Software Foundation won a $1.5m grant from the US government National Science Foundation.
Turned it down because required to affirm that we "will not... operate any programs that advance or promote DEI"
simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/27/...
Turned it down because required to affirm that we "will not... operate any programs that advance or promote DEI"
simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/27/...
I thought this paper was satire at first, but I think it's not? www.crimrxiv.com/pub/bxsjoeth...
October 29, 2025 at 4:47 AM
I thought this paper was satire at first, but I think it's not? www.crimrxiv.com/pub/bxsjoeth...
"Australia is freaking amazing", because of its political and economic institutions. Covers the non-gerrymandered voting system starting at 12:28 www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAa9... . Nice TED-style talk by @justinwolfers.bsky.social
Justin Wolfers Delivers the 2025 Boyer Lecture: Australia is Freaking Amazing
YouTube video by Justin Wolfers
www.youtube.com
October 28, 2025 at 3:34 AM
"Australia is freaking amazing", because of its political and economic institutions. Covers the non-gerrymandered voting system starting at 12:28 www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAa9... . Nice TED-style talk by @justinwolfers.bsky.social
MetaROR, a platform for reviews of research on research, is a success! We have published 24 sets of reviews and have 16 submissions in process. MetaROR now has 9 partners - these are journals that agree to use our reviews when authors submit to them. metaror.org #metascience #openaccess
Home - MetaROR
MetaResearch Open Review
MetaResearch Open Review MetaResearch Open Review
A new platform designed to transform how we review and share metaresearch
A new platform designed to transform
metaror.org
October 26, 2025 at 10:33 PM
MetaROR, a platform for reviews of research on research, is a success! We have published 24 sets of reviews and have 16 submissions in process. MetaROR now has 9 partners - these are journals that agree to use our reviews when authors submit to them. metaror.org #metascience #openaccess
Reposted by Alex Holcombe
What better time than #OAWeek to share 13 actions researchers can take for fairer, more sustainable publishing? From posting preprints to supporting diamond journals to refusing to review for exploitative publishers: each small action matters when we act collectively.
October 22, 2025 at 7:57 PM
What better time than #OAWeek to share 13 actions researchers can take for fairer, more sustainable publishing? From posting preprints to supporting diamond journals to refusing to review for exploitative publishers: each small action matters when we act collectively.
Happy Open Access Week, everyone!
October 23, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Happy Open Access Week, everyone!
#OAweek Support diamond #openaccess scholar-controlled journals, such as those listed at freejournals.org.
October 23, 2025 at 4:19 AM
#OAweek Support diamond #openaccess scholar-controlled journals, such as those listed at freejournals.org.
Today's email to an associate editor, declining to review for a big corporate publisher. This one focuses on Nature Publishing Group's practice of funneling rejected manuscripts to their newer journals with hefty APCs.
![Dear Dr. [redacted],
It was nice to meet you at the [redacted]!
Thanks for thinking of me as a possible reviewer, as I am interested in the topic. However, I decline to review this manuscript - I often do this in the case of journals published by profiteering corporate publishers. For Nature Communications, Nature Publishing Group charges an outrageous US$6990 to authors that has little to do with higher-quality service or journal processes and lots to do with a legacy first-mover advantage that it uses to exploit academia. This is rentier capitalism.
NPG funnels papers they reject from their most prestigious outlets to their newer subsidiary journals such as Nature Communications and Nature Communications Psychology, which academics go along with because they don’t (directly) foot the bill, and because, given the pressure academics are under to publish rapidly, they wish to take advantage of the reviews they may have already received from the higher-tier Nature journal. Because we are now live in a world where most studies can eventually be published somewhere, NPG has been able to exploit this by creating their own lower-tier journals and charging high-aspiration authors for the convenience.
This practice conflicts with my interest in universities and funders not wasting their money, which is why I do not wish to support it by contributing to the hundreds of millions of dollars of labor that academics donate to corporate publishers. Instead, I preferentially review, and volunteer as an editor for, diamond open access journals that are free to read and publish in.
For various reasons, including combating this strategy by which corporate publishers are extending the era in which they profiteer from university funds, many academics and funders now advocate for the Publish->Review->Curate model, in which academics publish their work immediately (on preprint servers, which prevents gatekeeping by editors), and then get it peer reviewed, preferably through low-cost…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kynaetyuzsp46xejc6mzpjle/bafkreiaoe55bbl7zqu7nkhem6uy74kmqxc5pkassyn5ofayrfwxy7my3ia@jpeg)
October 19, 2025 at 5:55 AM
Today's email to an associate editor, declining to review for a big corporate publisher. This one focuses on Nature Publishing Group's practice of funneling rejected manuscripts to their newer journals with hefty APCs.
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” - A.J. Liebling
"We have the benefit of being fully independent of the university. We own our own press. We were more than willing, with our extra freedom being an independent student organization, to help out.”
Kyle Charters, publisher Purdue Univ Exponent, after Purdue students delivered news to IU in solidarity
Kyle Charters, publisher Purdue Univ Exponent, after Purdue students delivered news to IU in solidarity
October 19, 2025 at 3:24 AM
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” - A.J. Liebling
Reposted by Alex Holcombe
Purdue to the rescue of IU student newspaper, whose institution was attempting censorship. Details in alt!
October 18, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Purdue to the rescue of IU student newspaper, whose institution was attempting censorship. Details in alt!
Wow, this excerpt from Giuffre's book (www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...), and Bloomberg got Epstein's emails, including one from Steve Kosslyn (the Harvard psychologist possibly referenced here) asking how he could help when Epstein was about to enter jail. www.bloomberg.com/features/202...
October 19, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Wow, this excerpt from Giuffre's book (www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...), and Bloomberg got Epstein's emails, including one from Steve Kosslyn (the Harvard psychologist possibly referenced here) asking how he could help when Epstein was about to enter jail. www.bloomberg.com/features/202...
This is cool, but there's a logical non-sequitor in the abstract? "however, the brain is an organ with a particular function that only it can fulfill. Converging evidence suggests that this function is allostasis: the predictive regulation of competing demands from internal bodily systems. "
Thanks for sharing!
October 18, 2025 at 9:34 PM
This is cool, but there's a logical non-sequitor in the abstract? "however, the brain is an organ with a particular function that only it can fulfill. Converging evidence suggests that this function is allostasis: the predictive regulation of competing demands from internal bodily systems. "
"If there is a God, he has an inordinate fondness for beetles" - attributed to Haldane.
I don't know what kind of weevil beetle this is. There are over 97,000 species of weevils.
I don't know what kind of weevil beetle this is. There are over 97,000 species of weevils.
October 18, 2025 at 6:15 AM
"If there is a God, he has an inordinate fondness for beetles" - attributed to Haldane.
I don't know what kind of weevil beetle this is. There are over 97,000 species of weevils.
I don't know what kind of weevil beetle this is. There are over 97,000 species of weevils.
I'm not usually so counter to trends, but I've been spending a lot moe time on Wikipedia lately. Love the Wikipedia app, both for reading and for editing. Also happy to be contributing by editing for the WikiJournal of Science.
So for-profit AI companies have trained on the world's largest collaborative volunteer project and a precious free resource, to make money for their for-profit enterprises. They have crushed traffic to the volunteer project, starving it of donors and volunteers
www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”
www.404media.co
October 17, 2025 at 6:43 PM
I'm not usually so counter to trends, but I've been spending a lot moe time on Wikipedia lately. Love the Wikipedia app, both for reading and for editing. Also happy to be contributing by editing for the WikiJournal of Science.
On the World Conference on Research Integrity conference submission website (abstract deadline today!). Seems a reasonable approach. #metascience
October 15, 2025 at 9:39 PM
On the World Conference on Research Integrity conference submission website (abstract deadline today!). Seems a reasonable approach. #metascience
And an education-focused job in Animal Physiology, and one in Law!
Unexpectedly, there's an 'education focused' job in HPS at Sydney! At snr lecturer/assoc prof level, which means associate professor in US terms. You'll need to scan down below ruminant science etc to see it, though (perhaps a message there?):
#STS #bioethics #histstm #histsci #histmed
#STS #bioethics #histstm #histsci #histmed
Education Focused Academics (Sydney Horizon Educators) Faculty of Science
Full time and Part-time continuing (tenure-track) academic Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor (Education Focused) positions at The University of Sydney Opportunity for the best and brightest talented...
usyd.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com
October 15, 2025 at 5:47 AM
And an education-focused job in Animal Physiology, and one in Law!
Reposted by Alex Holcombe
Against Publishing: universonline.nl/nieuws/2025/...
Preprints are read, shared, and cited, yet still dismissed as incomplete until blessed by a publisher. I argue that the true measure of scholarship lies in open exchange, not in the industry’s gatekeeping of what counts as published.
Preprints are read, shared, and cited, yet still dismissed as incomplete until blessed by a publisher. I argue that the true measure of scholarship lies in open exchange, not in the industry’s gatekeeping of what counts as published.
October 14, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Against Publishing: universonline.nl/nieuws/2025/...
Preprints are read, shared, and cited, yet still dismissed as incomplete until blessed by a publisher. I argue that the true measure of scholarship lies in open exchange, not in the industry’s gatekeeping of what counts as published.
Preprints are read, shared, and cited, yet still dismissed as incomplete until blessed by a publisher. I argue that the true measure of scholarship lies in open exchange, not in the industry’s gatekeeping of what counts as published.
"In the 1930s, the British Association for the Advancement of Science established the Ferguson Committee to investigate the possibility of psychological attributes being measured scientifically. In its Final Report (Ferguson, et al., 1940), Campbell and the Committee concluded
October 14, 2025 at 7:31 AM
"In the 1930s, the British Association for the Advancement of Science established the Ferguson Committee to investigate the possibility of psychological attributes being measured scientifically. In its Final Report (Ferguson, et al., 1940), Campbell and the Committee concluded