More research should be solid instead of novel

Novelty is often highlighted as the most important criterion for getting research funding. That a manuscript is novel is also a major concern for many conference/journal reviewers. While novelty may be good in some contexts, I find it more important that research is solid. I started thinking about novelty versus solidity when I read through the (excellent) blog posts about the ISMIR 2021 Reviewing Experience. These blog posts deal with many topics, but the question about novelty caught my attention....

September 20, 2021 · 5 min · 895 words · ARJ

Open Research puzzle illustration

It is challenging to find good illustrations to use in presentations and papers. For that reason, I hope to help others by sharing some of the illustrations I have made myself. I will share them with a permissive license (CC-BY) to be easily reused for various purposes. I start with the “puzzle” that I often use in presentations about Open Research. It outlines some of the various parts of the research process and how they can be made (more) open....

September 7, 2021 · 1 min · 165 words · ARJ

Why universities should care about employee web pages

Earlier this year, I wrote about my 23 tips to improve your web presence. Those tips were meant to encourage academics to care about how their employee web pages look at universities. Such pages look different from university to university. Still, in most places, they contain an image and some standard information on the top, followed by more or less structured information further down. For reference, this is an explanation of how my employee page is built up:...

August 19, 2021 · 4 min · 835 words · ARJ

Launching NOR-CAM – A toolbox for recognition and rewards in academic careers

What is the future of academic career assessment? How can open research practices be included as part of a research evaluation? These were some of the questions we asked ourselves in a working group set up by Universities Norway. Almost two years later, the report is ready. Here I will share some of the ideas behind the suggested Norwegian Career Assessment Matrix (NOR-CAM) and some of the other recommendations coming out of the workgroup....

June 1, 2021 · 4 min · 732 words · ARJ

Some Thoughts on the Archival of Research Activities

Recently, I have been engaged in an internal discussion at the University of Oslo about our institutional web pages. This has led me to realize that a university’s web pages are yet another part of what I like to think of as an Open Research “puzzle”: Cutting down on web pages The discussion started when our university’s communication department announced that they wanted to reduce the number of web pages. One way of doing that is by unpublishing a lot of pages....

January 26, 2021 · 4 min · 754 words · ARJ
Open Science puzzle pieces

Opportunities and Challenges with Citizen Science

Citizen Science is on everyone’s lips these days, at least on the lips of people working in research administration, funding agencies and in institutional leadership. As a member of the EUA Expert Group on Open Science/Science 2.0, I am also involved in ongoing discussions on the topic. Yesterday, I took part in the workshop Citizen Science in an institutional context organized by EUA and OpenAire. A recording of my talk is available here:...

December 10, 2020 · 6 min · 1235 words · ARJ

MusicTestLab as a Testbed of Open Research

Many people talk about “opening” the research process these days. Due to initiatives like Plan S, much has happened when it comes to Open Access to research publications. There are also things happening when it comes to sharing data openly (or at least FAIR). Unfortunately, there is currently more talking about Open Research than doing. At RITMO, we are actively exploring different strategies for opening our research. The most extreme case is that of MusicLab....

October 30, 2020 · 6 min · 1172 words · ARJ

Why is open research better research?

I am presenting at the Norwegian Forskerutdanningskonferansen on Monday, which is a venue for people involved in research education. I have been challenged to talk about why open research is better research. In the spirit of openness, this blog post is an attempt to shape my argument. It can be read as an open notebook for what I am going to say. Open Research vs Open Science My first point in any talk about open research is to explain why I think “open research” is better than “open science”....

August 27, 2020 · 8 min · 1495 words · ARJ

NIME Publication Ecosystem Workshop

During the NIME conference this year (which as run entirely online due to the coronavirus crisis), I led a workshop called NIME Publication Ecosystem Workshop. In this post, I will explain the background of the workshop, how it was run in an asynchronous+synchronous mode, and reflect on the results. If you don’t want to read everything below, here is a short introduction video I made to explain the background (shot at my “summer office” up in the Hardangervidda mountain range in Norway):...

August 13, 2020 · 6 min · 1181 words · ARJ

Podcast on Open Research

I was in Tromsø to hold a keynote lecture at the Munin conference a month ago, and was asked to contribute to a podcast they are running called Open Science Talk. Now it is out, and I am happy to share: Open Science Talk · #26 Music Research In this episode, we talk about Music Research, and how it is to practice open research within this field. Our guest is Alexander Jensenius, Associate Professor at the Department of Musicology Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion (IMV) at the University of Oslo....

January 9, 2020 · 1 min · 149 words · ARJ