bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education最新文献

{"title":"Setting Climate Targets: The Case of Higher Education and Research","authors":"Anne-Laure Ligozat, Christophe Brun, Benjamin Demirdjian, Guillaume Gouget, Emilie Jardé, Arnaud Mialon, Anne-Sophie Mouronval, Laurent Pagani, Laure Vieu","doi":"10.1101/2024.03.11.584380","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.11.584380","url":null,"abstract":"The carbon footprint and low-carbon strategies of higher education and research organizations have been the subject of scientific articles and reports. However, these provide few details on the reduction targets themselves, leaving the question of how should higher education and research organizations define and construct their climate targets and trajectories unanswered. The present paper fills this gap. We first review and analyze the documents describing the climate strategies of 53 higher education and research organizations coming from 11 countries, based on their detailed GreenHouse Gas emissions (GHGs) reporting. The selected reports include at least one target reduction for at least one target year. Then, on the basis of this analysis we propose guidelines to encourage and help higher education and research organizations set relevant climate targets.","PeriodicalId":501568,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140128312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Australian researchers' perceptions and experiences with stem cell registration.","authors":"Mengqi Hu, Dan Santos, Edilene Lopes, Dianne Nicol, Andreas Kurtz, Nancy Mah, Sabine C Muller, Rachel A Ankeny, Christine Wells","doi":"10.1101/2024.03.11.584334","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.11.584334","url":null,"abstract":"The recently issued ISSCR standards in stem cell research recommend registration of human pluripotent stem cell lines (hPSCs). Registration is an important part of establishing stem cell provenance and connecting cell lines to data derived on those lines. In this study, we sought to understand common barriers to registration, by conducting interviews with forty-eight Australian stem cell stakeholders, including researchers, clinicians, and industry professionals. Australian stem cell researchers do not routinely register their lines, and of those Australian lines captured by an international registry, only a third have completed the registration process. Most registered Australian cell lines miss information about their ethical provenance or key pluripotency characteristics. Incomplete registration is poorly aligned with the goals of open science that registries are founded on, and users themselves expressed concerns about the quality of the partial information provided to the resource. Registration was considered a publication hurdle, and this impacted on user perceptions of usefulness of registration, and lowered the likelihood that they would engage with registries to find resources. Although the Australian community represents a small fraction of registry users, the results of this study may suggest ways for journals, registries, and the stem cell community to improve registration compliance.","PeriodicalId":501568,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140117261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Field size as a predictor of \"excellence.\" The selection of subject fields in Germany's Excellence Initiative.","authors":"Thomas Heinze, Isabel Maria Habicht, Paul Eberhardt, Dirk Tunger","doi":"10.1101/2024.03.06.583816","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.06.583816","url":null,"abstract":"We investigate the selection of subject fields in Germany's \"excellence initiative,\" a two-phase funding scheme administered by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2005 to 2017 to increase international competitiveness of scientific research at German universities. While most empirical studies have examined the \"excellence initiative's\" effects at the university level (\"elite universities\"), we focus on subject fields within universities. Based on both descriptive and logistic regression analyses, we find that the \"excellence initiative\" reveals a stable social order of public universities based on organizational size, that field selection is biased toward those fields with many professors and considerable grant funding, and that funding success in the second phase largely follows decisions from the first phase. We discuss these results and suggest avenues for future research.","PeriodicalId":501568,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education","volume":"66 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140075087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Learn!Bio - A time-limited cross-sectional study on biosciences students' pathway to resilience during and post the Covid-19 pandemic at an UK university from 2020-2023 and insights into future teaching approaches.","authors":"Katy Andrews, Rosalie Stoneley, Katja Eckl","doi":"10.1101/2024.03.06.583815","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.06.583815","url":null,"abstract":"Higher education in biosciences is significantly informed by hands-on field trips and practical laboratory skills-training. With the first Covid-19 national lock-down in England in March 2020, on-campus education at higher education institutions was swiftly moved to alternative provisions, including online only options, a mix of synchronous or asynchronous blended, or hybrid adaptions. Students enrolled on an undergraduate bioscience programme have been faced with unprecedented changes and interruptions to their education. This study aimed to evaluate bioscience students' ability to adjust to a fast-evolving learning environment and to capture students' journey building up resilience and graduate attributes. Bioscience undergraduate students in years 1-3 at the biology department at a Northwest English university participated in this anonymous, cross-sectional, mixed-method study with open and closed questions evaluating their perception and feedback to remote and blended learning provisions during the Covid-19 pandemic and post pandemic learning capturing academic years 2019/20 to 2022/23. The Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent restriction of personal social interaction resulted in an significant decrease in the mental wellbeing of undergraduate bioscience students in this study, cumulating in poor or very poor self-rating of wellbeing in spring 2021; while at the same time students showed evidence of advanced adaption to the new learning and social environment by acquisition of additional technical, social and professional graduate-level skills, indicative of an, albeit unconscious, transition to resilience. Post pandemic, bioscience students worry about the increased living costs and are strongly in favour of a mixture of face-to-face and blended learning approaches. Our results show that bioscience students can experience poor mental health while developing resilience, indicating tailored support can aid students' resilience performance. Students have adjusted with ease to digital teaching provisions and expect higher education institutions continue to offer both, face-to-face, and blended teaching, reducing the burden on students' significantly risen living costs.","PeriodicalId":501568,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education","volume":"2015 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140075088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Analysis of justification for and gender bias in author order among those contributing equally","authors":"Ellie Rose Mattoon, Maisha Miles, Arturo Casadevall, Nichole A Broderick","doi":"10.1101/2024.03.01.582955","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.01.582955","url":null,"abstract":"The practice of designating two or more authors as equal contributors (EC) on a scientific publication is increasingly common as a form of sharing credit. However, EC authors are often unclearly attributed on CVs or citation engines, and it is unclear how research teams determine author order within an EC listing. In response to studies showing that male authors were more likely to be placed first in an EC listing, the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) required that authors explain the reasons for author order beginning in 2020. In this study we analyze data from over 2500 ASM publications to see how this policy affected gender bias and how research teams are making decisions on author order. Data on publications from 2018-2021 show that gender bias was largely nonsignificant both before and after authors were asked by ASM to provide an EC statement. The most likely reasons for EC order included alphabetical order, seniority, and chance, although there were differences for publications from different geographic regions. However, many research teams used unique methods in order selection, highlighting the importance of EC statements to provide clarity for readers, funding agencies, and tenure committees.","PeriodicalId":501568,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140037013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sci-comm \"behind the scenes\": Gendered narratives of scientific outreach activities in the life sciences","authors":"Perry G Beasley-Hall, Pam Papadelos, Anne Hewitt, Kate D L Umbers, Michelle T Guzik","doi":"10.1101/2024.02.28.582614","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.28.582614","url":null,"abstract":"Science communication, or sci-comm, is a broad term describing activities seeking to increase scientific literacy. Sci-comm has a positive impact on perceptions of science, public policy, public scientific literacy, and career choices of future scientists. Yet, sci-comm is often viewed as at odds with, or tangential, to academic achievement, as non-scientific, or as less worthy a time commitment compared to internal communication in academia. In Australia, scientific societies and organisations engage in a range of activities underpinned by communal, or so-called \"behind-the-scenes\", sci-comm work by individuals done almost exclusively on a voluntary basis. Given an apparent undervaluing of sci-comm work in academia, we established a pilot study to investigate who does this work, in what capacity, and why. A semi-structured online survey was administered to 88 Australian life sciences organisations for dissemination to their members, and 49 responses were received. Respondents were mostly women in early-career researcher positions at universities. Participants almost universally agreed that their sci-comm contributions to organisations were not beneficial to career progression. Some participants suggested that this perception might stem from it being perceived as feminised or categorised as \"care work\", potentially resulting in its undervaluation. However, most also cited a range of personal and professional benefits gained from the work, including giving back to the general public and scientific community, and developing skills relevant to translating scientific research. The majority of survey respondents indicated that they were likely to continue such work in the future. Gaining a deeper understanding of the motivations behind, and perceptions of, behind-the-scenes sci-comm work will aid in overcoming barriers that disproportionately affect women, and promote better acknowledgement and recognition of their contributions in the future.","PeriodicalId":501568,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140005503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Career Navigator: An online platform to streamline professional development and career education for graduate bioscientists","authors":"Rachel Rudlaff, Utsarga J Adhikary, Candrika Khairani, Daniel S Emmans, Johanna L Gutlerner, Ronald Jason Heustis","doi":"10.1101/2024.02.22.580689","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.22.580689","url":null,"abstract":"Graduate professional development is a highly dynamic enterprise that prepares graduate students for personal and career success in a variety of fields, including the biosciences. National policies, funding awards, and institutional programs have generated myriad tools and services for graduate bioscience students, including new learning resources, events, connections to prospective employers, and opportunities to strengthen academic and professional portfolios. These interventions are welcome and have done much to enhance graduate bioscience training, but they may also be overwhelming for trainees. To streamline professional development and career education information for the bioscience graduate students at our institution, we tested a model where we built a centralized web portal of career development resources. Here we present our strategy and best practices for website design. We show data that students preferred a centralized online portal over other forms of resource communication; that programming, paired communication and environmental factors (e.g. remote learning and work as in the COVID-19 pandemic) combined to increase sustained engagement with the site; and that harnessing website analytics is an effective way to measure site utilization and generate insights on programming and resource development. This data, in turn, fits into broader priorities to evaluate interventions in graduate bioscience education.","PeriodicalId":501568,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139981207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enable, Empower, Succeed: Harnessing Open Science for Antimicrobial Resistance Containment","authors":"Luria L Founou, Opeyemi U Lawal, Armando Djiyou, Erkison Ewomazino Odih, Daniel Gyamfi Amoako, Stephane Fadanka, Mabel Kamweli Aworh, Sindiswa Lukhele, Dusanka Nikolic, Alice Matimba, Raspail Carrel Founou","doi":"10.1101/2024.02.20.580892","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.20.580892","url":null,"abstract":"Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a significant threat to global health, particularly in Western sub-Saharan Africa where 27.3 deaths per 100,000 lives are affected, and surveillance and control measures are often limited. Genomics research plays a crucial role in understanding the emergence, spread and containment measures of AMR. However, its implementation in such settings is particularly challenging due to limited human capacity. This manuscript outlines a three-day bioinformatics workshop in Cameroon, highlighting efforts to build human capacity for genomics research to support AMR surveillance using readily accessible and user-friendly web-based tools. The workshop introduced participants to basic next-generation sequencing concepts, data file formats used in bacterial genomics, data sharing procedures and considerations, as well as the use of web-based bioinformatics software to analyse genomic data, including in silico prediction of AMR, phylogenetics analyses, and a quick introduction to Linux command line. We provide a detailed description of the relevant training approaches used, including workshop structure, the selection and planning, and utilization of freely available web-based tools, and the evaluation methods employed. Our approach aimed to overcome limitations such as inadequate infrastructure, limited access to computational resources, and scarcity of expertise. By leveraging the power of freely available web-based tools, we demonstrated how participants can acquire fundamental bioinformatics skills, enhance their understanding of biological data analysis, and contribute to the field, even in an underprivileged environment. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of this training approach in empowering local researchers and bridging the bioinformatics gap in genomics surveillance of AMR in resource-constrained settings. Building human capacity for genomics research globally, and especially in resource-constrained settings, is imperative for ensuring global health and sustainable containment of AMR.","PeriodicalId":501568,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139952460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"SIMHYB 2: a software tool to explore and illustrate evolutionary forces in Population Genetics teaching and research. Application to Conservation Genetics","authors":"Álvaro Soto, David Rodríguez-Martínez, Unai López de Heredia","doi":"10.1101/2024.02.13.580073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.13.580073","url":null,"abstract":"Practical approaches have become a standard in many scientific disciplines, including population genetics. By analyzing properly selected datasets, the students can calculate parameters and draw conclusions about genetic diversity, differentiation and evolution of populations with higher efficiency than if based exclusively on theoretical lessons. However, preparing the appropriate datasets is a hard task and a wrong selection can spoil a well-aimed practice. Here we present SIMHYB 2, a software tool specifically intended to ease the full understanding of evolutionary forces by the students and to help the teacher to prepare adequate datasets and examples for the practices. It simulates the course of a mixed population under user-defined reproductive and evolutionary conditions. Outputs can be easily adapted for downstream analysis with other popular tools as GENALEX or STRUCTURE. Thus, SIMHYB 2 is very suitable for project-based-learning approaches: students can produce their own datasets in different scenarios of genetic drift, migration, selective advantage, reproductive success, etc. Additionally, SIMHYB 2 is the only simulation software available to date providing traceable pedigrees of individuals, being therefore very convenient for preparing datasets for parentage analysis, spatial genetic structure or conservation genetics study cases. Satisfactory results from its ongoing utilization in higher education and research are reported.","PeriodicalId":501568,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139760132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Postdoctoral Scholar Recruitment and Hiring Practices in STEM: A Pilot Study","authors":"Meagan Heirwegh, Douglas C Rees, Lindsey Malcom-Piqueux","doi":"10.1101/2024.02.12.580018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.12.580018","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the importance of the postdoctoral position in the training of scientists for independent research careers, few studies have addressed recruiting and hiring of postdocs. We conducted a pilot study on postdoctoral hiring in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology to serve as a starting point to better understand postdoctoral recruiting and hiring processes. From this survey of both postdocs and faculty, together with the available literature, the picture emerges that the postdoc hiring process is more decentralized than either faculty hiring or graduate admissions. Postdoc positions are often filled through a passive process where the initial expression of interest from a prospective postdoc is through a 'cold-call' contact to a prospective advisor. Individual faculty members are often responsible for developing and implementing their own outreach and recruitment plans and deciding who to hire into a postdoc position. The overall opacity of the processes and practices by which postdocs are identified, recruited, and hired make it difficult to pinpoint where interventions could be effective to ensure equitable hiring practices. Implementation of such practices is critical to training a diverse postdoc population and subsequently of the future STEM faculty recruited from this group.","PeriodicalId":501568,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Scientific Communication and Education","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139760460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}