Scientific Map

April 11th, 2011 by pcahn

Inspired by a graphic representation of friendship networks on Facebook, Olivier Beauchesne decided to create a similar map of scientific collaboration. Because he works for a bibliometric analysis company, he had access to a large database of research article citations.

For every publication jointly authored by researchers in different cities, he drew a connection. So, if a faculty member at BU published with a faculty member at the Sorbonne, a line would connect Boston and Paris. To see the complete picture, click here.

Even without an overlay of a geopolitical map, it’s clear both how much collaboration takes place and between which countries.

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Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor?

April 8th, 2011 by pcahn

The theory used to go that women occupied fewer of the top ranks  of academic medicine because fewer women possessed the necessary experience. The so-called "pipeline" problem has improved over the past decade as women make up half of all medical students. Yet, the proportion of women at the full professor level has not reached parity.

An NIH-funded study at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine will apply the rigorous methods of drug trials to study the advancement of women in academic medicine. The investigators have randomly assigned different departments to an intervention and a control group. Junior women faculty in the intervention group will participate in two professional development programs: a manuscript writing course and a leadership training.

After four years, the investigators will gauge what they call the "Women's Academic Culture Measure." For them, the important unit of change is the department or division. They recognize that the obstacles to female faculty's success are diffuse, what one researcher calls "a thousand pound of feathers." Creating significant opportunities for all faculty will involve shifting not just individual minds but institutional culture.

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The Science of E-mail

April 6th, 2011 by pcahn

When I first started communicating by e-mail, I treated messages like a letter. I started each missive with a salutation, wrote in complete sentences, and closed with my complete name.

Nowadays, e-mail and texting have become so ubiquitous that the conventions of formal correspondence don't seem to apply. Speed replaces courtesy. With speed comes sloppiness. Most faculty have received e-mails from trainees that begin, "Hey!" Or we have received messages so short and full of abbreviations that they read like hieroglyphics.

A column in Science recognizes that e-mail messages can balance the brevity of the electronic age with the formality of the Victorian Age. The advice gives several examples of how to tailor correspondence to different audiences. Even though e-mail may seem ephemeral, each message can leave a strong impression.

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School for Educators

April 5th, 2011 by pcahn

The trend in biomedical research is building collaborative teams to tackle interdisciplinary problems. So why not in medical education? At Johns Hopkins, the schools of Education, Business, Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health have joined together to form a master's program in education for health professionals.

The program will enroll faculty at Johns Hopkins in an 18-credit graduate certificate with the option to continue for a master's degree. The curriculum consists of:

  • Adult Learning
  • Evidence-Based Teaching
  • Assessment and Feedback
  • Curriculum Development
  • Instructional Strategies

While occasional skill-building seminars are useful, this program recognizes that educators need a solid grounding in the fundamentals of teaching and learning. Ideally, it will also enhance participants' ability to conduct research on their educational interventions, advancing their chances for promotion.

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Chronic Procrastination

April 1st, 2011 by pcahn

Psychologist Joseph Ferrari gives a one-minute summary of his research on chronic procrastination. He finds that procrastination is not about time management, so telling someone, "Just do it" won't work. At the same time, it's not about creating conditions of pressure to force ourselves to work.

He sees chronic procrastination as a "maladaptive" condition of people who seek to please. Afraid that their work may not be universally liked, they don't do it at all.

I'll need more than one minute to weigh the evidence for his claim. Still, the practice of distilling your research into 60 seconds is good practice.

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Artscience

March 29th, 2011 by pcahn

In an academic environment given to increasing specialization, David Edwards defies the trend. His training is in chemical engineering, his faculty position at Harvard is in biomedical engineering, and his passion is incubating innovation. To achieve this, he has set up two labs that fuse both creativity and empiricism. He calls this blend "artscience."

His labs have produced an installation curated by an artist and a psychologist that depicts fear in an age of terrorist. A chef and a scientist combined to produce breathable chocolate, which is now marketed commercially.

In a book about these experiences, Edwards advocates for learning through creativity. A scientific lab infused with art is less likely to shoot down unorthodox ideas. Together, they lead to concrete breakthroughs.

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Work to Live or Live to Work?

March 28th, 2011 by pcahn

Nigel Marsh found himself in the typical corporate rat race. He never had enough time to spend with his family and attend to his personal growth. When his company's fortunes turned, he decided to take a year off and reconnect with his family.

His money ran out, and he had to return to work, but he did so with newfound understanding. As he relates in a TED talk below, it's not enough to wait until retirement to enjoy your personal life. Nor is it realistic to expect to achieve balance every single day. But we can find inspiration in small gestures like meditation or a trip to the playground.

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A New Medical School

March 25th, 2011 by pcahn

Western Michigan University is a public university in Kalamazoo. The university conducts research in the health sciences, and two teaching hospitals in the city already train residents on clinical rotations. So, in 2010, WMU began the process for accreditation of a new medical school.

This week, WMU announced an anonymous donation of $100 million to launch the new school. Like the source of the gift, WMU's medical school will be privately funded. The school now has a dean and several committees dedicated to having classrooms ready to welcome students in two or three years.

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Confidence Boosters

March 24th, 2011 by pcahn

Even at elite colleges, underrepresented minority students obtain lower GPAs than majority students. Two Stanford researchers hypothesized that a reason for this performance gap could be the minority students' lack of confidence.

So they conducted a randomized controlled trial in which some first-year students read essays by upperclassmen of all races about how they too had trouble fitting into college at first. The nontreatment group read essays that had nothing to do with belonging.

After this short intervention, the investigators tracked the students until the end of college. They found that African-American students in the treatment group had higher GPAs and greater levels of happiness. The readings had no effect on white students. They published their results in Science.

If a brief confidence boosting halved the achievement gap, then imagine what more concerted efforts to address students' self stereotyping could accomplish. The study also points to the social origins of academic performance.

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Challenging the IRB

March 22nd, 2011 by pcahn

When Brown University Associate Professor of Education Jin Li began her research on learning among Chinese immigrant children, she secured funding from private sources, prepared her methodology, and received approval from the IRB. As the research began, she noticed that her plan to provide $600 to all families who participated did not reflect the added effort low-income families expended on the learning assessments, so she decided to offer some families $600 and others $300.

She submitted her modified budget to the IRB and was rejected. Moreover, the Board told her she could not use data collected from families paid only $300 even though they had signed consent forms. Nor could she pay those families an additional $300 because she had run out of funds. So, she is suing Brown for harm to her research.

Originally, IRB approval was intended for research funded by federal sources. A new book, Ethical Imperialism, documents how that mission has grown to encompass all research with human subjects. Social scientists, in particular, find the restrictions ill suited for their work with interviews, archives, and oral histories. Just as under regulation can be harmful, so can overreach.

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