Cost of Peer Review Exceeds the Cost of Giving Every Researcher a Grant
Scott Leslie passed this along. "We show that the $40,000 (Canadian) cost of preparation for a grant application and rejection by peer review in 2007 exceeded that of giving every qualified investigator a direct baseline discovery grant of $30,000 (average grant). This means the Canadian Federal Government could institute direct grants for 100% of qualified applicants for the same money." Ironically, this report is published in a subscription-locked peer-reviewed paper, the total cost of which is entangled in the mechanisms for selecting which papers are good enough to publish. Pot, meet kettle.
A.J. Cann,
Science of the Invisible, April 21, 2009.
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Giles Martin on 26 May 09Adobe Connect web meeting app - available for free for up to three participants (including host - only one who needs to sign up). Participants simply go to the host's meeting room url (which is easy to remember) and can use webcams/audio, share screen/windows, type messages and meeting notes, use the whiteboard, exchange files.
David Andrew on 26 May 09Looks very good - liked the way it went straight to gmail to find contacts - lets try it more widely.
anonymous on 27 May 09We recommended this to the folks running a Clinical Dermatology course for holding their virtual tutorials and it seemed to work pretty well. It does require quite an up to date version of the Flash player which can be a problem...i.e. anyone attempting to use a student service machine or some staff with 'managed' computers won't be able to use it. I believe Electronic Engineering have forked out for the "pro" version...or at least they have in the past. As usual with Adobe stuff,,,it looks slick! DimDim is another web-conferencing thingy that seems to get a lot of press...haven't used it myself. Elluminate is another one that I've seen used at several meetings I've been to recently.
