How problematic are citations as a measure of research performance? VERY. @peterwoelert.bsky.social's piece lays it all out! "once citations became a target, they ceased to be a good measure." futurecampus.com.au/2026/10/12/w... #AcademicSky #Research #ResearchImpact #AcWri

Why Citations Are Moribund

Its hard to see how citations can continue to be used as an indicator of research performance, Peter Woelert writes.

futurecampus.com.au

Are the ways we connect in universities unravelling? @duncanmcdonnell.com thinks so: "collegiality has been hollowed out, with academics resembling independent contractors who sell their services to the university" - Duncan McDonnell #AcademicSky #HigherEd researchwhisperer.org/2026/10/27/u...

Unravelling the university

At the end of August this year, I clocked up two important milestones: 12 years in Australia, and my departure from Griffith University in Brisbane, where I had spent those 12 years after arriving …

researchwhisperer.org

New post this week: early findings from a study about how academics use GenAI that offers crucial insight into the emotional aspects of engaging with it, by @neilselwyn.bsky.social and colleagues: researchwhisperer.org/2026/07/21/a... #academicsky #highered #genAI

Academic (mis)uses of GenAI

This second post by Neil Selwyn and his collaborators shares some of the preliminary results from their research survey, which was discussed in an RW post earlier this year ‘Academics’ …

researchwhisperer.org

Last week on Wonkhe: How do we move from collecting evidence and designing frameworks to meaningful transformation? Lauren Flannery and Helen Leggett look for accountability for equalities work

The problem wasn’t Athena Swan - it was what happened next

How do we move from collecting evidence and designing frameworks to meaningful transformation? Lauren Flannery and Helen Leggett look for accountability for equalities work

buff.ly

Who gets left behind in Australia's #OpenAccess strategy? "The whole arrangement starts to feel uncomfortably like paying protection money to the incumbents while neglecting the parts of the ecosystem that could genuinely turn the situation around." - T. Shafee researchwhisperer.org/2026/05/05/a...

Who Gets Left Behind in Australia’s Open Access Strategy?

I’ve been thinking about Australian’s recent Open Access (OA) deal now that the dust has settled on the recent showdown with Elsevier. After all, we’d been spending some $500 million to $1 billion …

researchwhisperer.org

Something to look forward to, no doubt. 🫠

Jason Sanford@jasonsanford.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I agree 100% with Steven Vickers that authors will be falsely accused of using AI in the coming years. In particular, authors like myself whose works were stolen to train AI systems are at risk. When we write in our own unique styles, AI trained on us will quite likely flag us as using AI.

I agree 100% with Steven Vickers that authors will be falsely accused of using AI in the coming years. In particular, authors like myself whose works were stolen to train AI systems are at risk. When we write in our own unique styles, AI trained on us will quite likely flag us as using AI.

"This is the most essential technology ever created in all of human history. Don’t mercilessly ridicule it just because it steals the joy out of your hobbies and creates sexually explicit images of women without their consent. Seriously, please stop! It really hurts my feelings."

Please Don’t Say Mean Things about the AI That I Just Invested a Billion Dollars In

“[Nvidia CEO] Jensen Huang Is Begging You to Stop Being So Negative About AI” — Headline from Gizmodo - - — Guys, enough is enough. Bullying is a s...

buff.ly

Do we need a wealth and labour acknowledgement in the UK? "land acknowledgements should not be tokenistic, learned by rote and delivered with as much feeling as a station announcement that the train on platform 2 is ... 5 mins late" - @drhelenkara.bsky.social researchwhisperer.org/2026/03/24/d...

Fingers crossed that academia is smart enough to change course from its overwhelming dependency on metrics. 🤞🏽 #AcademicSky #ResearchLife #ECRchat

Peter Woelert@peterwoelert.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I wrote a piece for 'Future Campus' in which are argue that for academic publication to have a future, a radical departure from current productivity-focused models and incentives is needed: futurecampus.com.au/2026/03/10/t...

FYI, Academia.edu has changed its terms of service to give an irrevocable worldwide license for anything uploaded to its site to be used for generative AI. I do not consent to this and have pulled all my papers.

Academia.edu - Find Research Papers, Topics, Researchers

Academia.edu is the platform to share, find, and explore 50 Million research papers. Join us to accelerate your research needs & academic interests.

academia.edu

Get onto this, folks. If you lament the metricisation of academic work, this is valuable. What should be counted, and how does the counting happen? #AcademicSky

DORA@dorassessment.bsky.social · 8mo ago

DORA has launched an introductory course on responsible research assessment! 🤩 🤓 What is it? A free online self-paced course ❓ Who is it for? Anyone who wants to learn more about the basics of research assessment, regardless of career level or discipline 🌐 Explore the course 👉 bit.ly/DORA-Intro-C...

Sorely needed work around this issue of AI disclosure - survey closes in 4 days! #AcademicSky

COPE@publicationethics.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Share your views towards building a shared understanding of AI disclosure in research. The survey is the first consultation round which will feature as a focus track at the @wcrifoundation.bsky.social in May. 🗓️ Survey closes: 28 February 2026 council.science/our-work/ai-...

UniSuper accused of greenwashing after quietly reducing environmental element of investment option

UniSuper accused of greenwashing after quietly reducing environmental element of investment option

UniSuper says change was made ‘to expand the investible universe’ but complaint to Asic claims members were not properly informed * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A major Australian super fund has been accused of greenwashing after it continued to badge an investment option as “sustainable” despite quietly halving its environmental criteria. UniSuper, which invests $158bn on behalf of 670,000 members, promotes its Global Environmental Opportunities option as a portfolio “selected on the basis of environmental considerations”. Continue reading...

theguardian.com

New at RW this week: @jod999.bsky.social's "Sunk guilt fallacy". "In general, the more time I have, the less likely I am to do the thing. When I’m very busy, I don’t have time to dwell on fears or feelings, so I get a lot done." - O'Donnell researchwhisperer.org/2026/02/17/s... #AcademicSky

Sunk guilt fallacy

Photo by Carlos Cram on Unsplash In economics and planning, there is a thing called the sunk cost fallacy. It comes about when people continue with something that isn’t working because they have pu…

researchwhisperer.org

All 4 universities I've worked at are in the bottom 7 for staff wellbeing. My current employer is the 2nd worst across the country. A whopping 82% of participants ranked high or very high in emotional exhaustion - directly related to organisational change.

The Research Whisperer@therealrw.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Australian University Census of Staff Wellbeing is now out - some shocking stats! Census WEBSITE for more info and full report: stresscafe.net/census/ #AcademicSky #AustralianUnis

Australian University Census of Staff Wellbeing is now out - some shocking stats! Census WEBSITE for more info and full report: stresscafe.net/census/ #AcademicSky #AustralianUnis

Wonderful post by @agnesbosanquet.bsky.social that was inspired by one of ours by Tess Shirefley! #AcademicSky #GenAI #AcademiaAndGenAI

Agnes Bosanquet@agnesbosanquet.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Inspired by @therealrw.bsky.social I wrote a post on GenAI and epistemic erasure theslowacademic.com/2026/02/11/e... I would love to hear your thoughts.

New at RW: Academics’ uses of GenAI – what is appropriate and what is not? By @neilselwyn.bsky.social "By turning to GenAI to manage workloads, are we simply covering up structural problems with contemporary academic work that need to be properly addressed?" researchwhisperer.org/2026/02/10/a...

Academics’ uses of GenAI – what is appropriate … and what is not?

Although universities remain keen to tackle inappropriate uses of generative AI (GenAI) by students, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to talk much more openly about academics’ (mis)us…

researchwhisperer.org

Our first RW post for the year shares some of the small things that we're looking forward to in 2026 - a nice change! What research things are you looking forward to this year? researchwhisperer.org/2026/02/03/w...

Welcome to 2026

Photo by Warren Griffiths on Unsplash. 2026 is shaping up to be an interesting year. It feels like every year since 2020 has been an ‘interesting year’ for different reasons. Could we h…

researchwhisperer.org

This post remains highly relevant, if not more relevant, right now: "Talking out of school: counting the cost of return-to-office mandates" (by Daniel Reeders) "Fixed notions of introversion as a definite type of person don’t always help."

Talking out of school: counting the cost of return-to-office mandates

In a recent post on Research Whisperer, two anonymous authors decry the universities’ rush to wind back work-from-home arrangements that were instituted during the COVID crisis. In particular, the …

researchwhisperer.org

Can you publish too many papers? (By Shaun Khoo) "Some researchers become so focused on their publication metrics that they forget the purpose of research is to generate knowledge that, just maybe, solves some kind of problem."

Can you publish too many papers?

Competition for jobs and grants in academia has never been tougher. The constant drive to “publish or perish” can make you feel like your career will end unless your output is superhuman. Sometimes…

researchwhisperer.org

V. interesting post about "zombie citations" - imagine where we might be a few years down the track. 🤔

Ben Williamson@benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Academic publishing is currently experiencing a viral spread of “zombie citations.” I tried following one to see how these references are infecting academic knowledge systems codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2026/01/30/t...

Useful, stimulating post by Oliver Burkeman describing "the freewriting way of life" - does it resonate for you? Burkeman draws on the work of Peter Elbow and it's an astute provocation for all writers.

The Imperfectionist: The freewriting way of life

The freewriting way of life Freewriting, as you may know, is the technique whereby you set a timer, open a text file or notebook, then just write whatever comes to mind, even if...

ckarchive.com

Folks who are planning to do a social media research project: huge range of tools at this site! (HT @anntics.bsky.social)

Social Media Lab@socialmedialab.ca · 9mo ago

If you are starting a new social media research project, start here: socialmedialab.ca/apps/social-...

Goodbye, Researchfish! The Elsevier research impact tracker is being shut down by July 31st 2027. Announcement here: help.researchfish.com/en_US/resear...

Researchfish — Information for Researchers Regarding Researchfish Sunsetting

After careful consideration, Elsevier have made the difficult decision to sunset Researchfish on July 31st 2027, when the product will no longer be availab

help.researchfish.com

Research Whisperer @therealrw.bsky.social and all round good egg @jod999.bsky.social has started a Wikipedia page on #researchculture . Read more and find out how to contribute at researchwhisperer.org/2025/12/09/r...

Research culture on Wikipedia

Screen capture from Wikipedia, by the author. Earlier this year, I realised that there was no Wikipedia page for ‘research culture’. I was surprised by the omission, but I probably shouldn’t have b…

researchwhisperer.org

We're running a very short survey to explore why academics are increasingly turning to GenAI to do things that they know/feel they should probably be doing themselves (e.g. write peer reviews, draft papers, data analysis etc.) - please share (or fill in!): redcap.helix.monash.edu/surveys/?s=L...

#AcWriMo might be over but the academia / writing / research memes continue. A familiar vibe for many of us, I imagine... #academicsky #academicchatter #PhDchat #resdev #highered

Help! Sign & share the petition to save the State Library of Victoria from rolling crises, gallery closures, harassment/jettisoning of staff & new cuts to destroy services for children & adults. c.org/Hj9G9WSg2f. (Or change.org, search Save The State Library of Victoria.) #StateLibrary #librarians

Can you spare a minute to help this campaign?

Save the State Library of Victoria!

c.org