Recent articles
What’s the Content of Fact-checks and Misinformation in Germany?
In this short analysis, Sami Nenno takes a closer look at the content of fact-checks and misinformation in Germany.
The (potential) impact of AI on the individual research process and science in general
In this interview Theresa Züger gives exciting insights about the risks and opportunities AI bears for research work and talked about tools her team is developing.
A Journey from researcher to influencer: TikTok as a methodological tool
Tinca Lukan explores TikTok’s use in ethnographic research on social media influencers, detailing how she integrated it into her PhD study on influencers’ working conditions in Slovenia.
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Running from missiles: How Ukrainian researchers experience the war
Carrying museum artefacts in a suitcase and evacuating university hardware while hiding in shelters. This is the new reality for Ukrainian researchers. Elephant in the lab talked to two of them.
Surveillance Publishing
Jefferson Pooley on Surveillance Publishing, its history in modern societies during the last couple of decades, and the potential costs of these practices for both service providers and their users.
Trust at the interface of environmental research and policy
Karcher and Shellock on trust at the science-policy interface, how can you build trust when working with decision-makers and what can you do when it has been compromised or lost.
ploc – an app to discover and improve research
The pocket library for open content is an application designed to simplify the search for openly available research content and lay ground for a basic quality assurance mechanism.
Another Year in Elephants
A wrap up of 2021 on Elephant in the Lab by the Editorial Team
How to find the right Survey Tool: Problems and Proposals
Sami Nenno on the typical problems of the most common service providers for conducting online surveys and how to find the right one for your own project.
Impact of social sciences – (How) Can it be measured?
A summary of the results of a workshop held by our authors on issues related to the measurability of the impact of the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Snails on the chase: How to cope with anxiety in an academic career
Zhao et al. on an individual’s role in the scientific system and some coping mechanisms to alleviate the stress of the precarious working conditions of early career academics.
Opening up the black box of teaching in a digital era
The Pandemic hit the vast majority of European HEI unprepared. The members of AEDiL saw this as a starting point for a collaborative project taking innovative methodological pathways.
Wikipedia as Science Communication: A Step-by-Step Guide
The Wikipedia community has become a source of information for a broad and global public. Paul and Max argue that contributing to the encyclopedia as a scholar can be a powerful way of achieving a strong societal impact of their own expertise. Furthermore they provide a guide on how to write your first contributions.
Possibilities for Change – Higher Education and Digitalisation
Bronwen and Moritz highlight the institutional challenges posed to Higher Education Institutions by the pandemic and outline how these can be viewed as a window of opportunity
How to structure a cumulative dissertation: Five strategies
In this article, Mennatullah Hendawy shares some insights on structuring cumulative dissertations based on her own experience
Breaking the status quo – The role of a small funding organization in gender mainstreaming
Donia Lasinger on the contribution of the Vienna Science and Technology Funds (WWTF) as a compareably small funding organization to equality of all genders
When your journal reads you
Renke Siems on user tracking on science publisher platforms, its implications for their individual users and ways to face this issue
On creating a good research environment
Sabine Müller on the hierarchical system of German academia and why it could be a problem for the wellbeing of young academics and Ph.D. candidates. She compares it to her experiences at Oxford University and sheds light on the differences between the two research cultures.
Reducing the power imbalances in academic letters of reference
Lucy G. Gillis on inequalities in science reproduced by letters of reference and how to encounter them
A Replication Crisis in the Making?
Jörg Peters on the lack of replicability of many publications in economics, the role of p-hacking and publication pressure, and reasons for cautious optimism in considering these issues
Sexual harassment in Academia
Kelsey Medeiros on sexual harassment, what role it plays in relation to power structures in academia, and possible ways to address it
Manifestations of power abuse in academia and how to prevent them
A group of researchers from the German N² network presents the results of a survey among PhD students on the abuse of power in science and outlines ways to counter it
Power and Publications in Chinese Academia
Ruixue Jia on the influence of administrative power in Chinese academia on researchers’ publication activity, their selection of co-authors, and the topics they are writing about.
Power and Academia, an endless story
Linda Jauch on powerful dependancies of academics to funding bodies, their supervisors and what to do about it.
Transdisciplinary research: Pain or Gain?
Katrin Martens take on the struggles of transdisciplinary research.
A Year in Elephants
A look backwards from the editorial team.
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