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How would academics react to mandates requiring them to declare their support for: - Ensuring open access to research - Committing to long-term, foundational
by rahimnathwani 3y ago
How would academics react to mandates requiring them to declare their support for:
- Ensuring open access to research
- Committing to long-term, foundational research
- Prioritizing high-quality teaching and mentorship
- Embracing diverse viewpoints
- Questioning established academic orthodoxy
- Focusing research on public rather than personal gain
- Openly sharing data and methodologies
- Upholding research neutrality and objectivity against external influences
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- itronitron 3y agoA declaration of support for those line items would be more impactful if it came from the university administration.
- lazide 3y agoIf everything is a priority/mandate than nothing is.
- snek_case 3y ago> Committing to long-term, foundational research Here I would respond that academics are prone to looking down on applied research, but it's also incredibly important. Think of new programming languages, new types of chips that will enable future computational workloads. New ways of using or optimizing existing technology... Or even empirical research to validate the effectiveness of current industrial practices (something people often don't do, or don't do rigorously enough). Not all research needs to be "foundational". Not all applied research needs to happen in industry. Many academics would actually benefit from climbing down from their ivory tower more often. As it is, a huge percentage of research happening in academic CS circles would probably call itself "foundational" but is actually very much divorced from reality and useless. Just people trying to increase their citation count with an incremental extension to some widely-accepted idea.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoThey don't do this already? Who would possibly object? Why would any student attend an institution that didn't require it? Obviously I'm not in academia, but to most outsiders this is really obvious stuff.
- rahimnathwani 3y agoObviously I'm not in academia, but to most outsiders this is really obvious stuff. That's my point. To outsiders like you and me, these things may seem obviously desirable. But academics respond to incentives. Imagine you've spent 10 years pushing some set of conclusions based on some shaky studies you did early in your career. Do you really want people to dig deep and challenge the validity of your research?
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoIsn't that just part of the job? If you're not wrong sometimes you're not trying hard enough. To avoid this situation you should invite others to challenge your work more quickly.
- warkdarrior 3y agoThe academic job is primarily about getting funding for further work. If ten years of work were proven wrong, the academic may worry that funding agencies may stop funding them. "You've been doing the wrong work for a decade!" So while the academic may not mind being proven wrong in their hypotheses/results/conclusions, they may stress about not being able to get more funding.
- mintplant 3y agoWe do. I literally just had to submit a statement to this effect to the NSF. The GP is spouting uninformed opinions and then patting themselves on the back for being an "outsider".
- rahimnathwani 3y ago
- jltsiren 3y agoMost of those have been around for decades. Some of them are legal requirements, at least in some contexts. Some are required by research funders and similar organizations. Some must be included in a teaching statement, which became a popular requirement a decade or two before DEI statements. And all contribute to the administrative bloat everyone likes to complain about.
- AdrianB1 3y ago> - Embracing diverse viewpoints If you read this as having some academics embracing Flat Earth viewpoints, it is obvious this will not happen. The devil is in the details, what does "Embracing diverse viewpoints" even mean? Science usually drives to unique conclusions, not diverse interpretations. How many correct and diverse viewpoints exist about E=m*c^2 ?
- rahimnathwani 3y agowhat does "Embracing diverse viewpoints" even mean I could have phrased this better. What I meant was: being open minded to being proven wrong. There are many academics who will not entertain any viewpoint that's contrary to their own belief and agenda. They will happily share papers that support their preconceived notions, and be hostile towards anyone who questions whether these papers have merit.
- AdrianB1 3y agoOK, with that definition not only it make sense, but close minded academics are not worth to be academics.
- pyuser583 3y agoDoes "external influences" include the American Communist Party? How about the Chinese Communist Party?