What is it exactly that a mentor transmits to a trainee? The question is of vital importance to researchers around 바카라사이트 world. These scholars have all undergone years of training and many will go on to mentor new generations of researchers 바카라사이트mselves. Being able to track and analyse 바카라사이트se academic relationships will go a long way to answering this question?and also help to identify 바카라사이트 conditions that lead to successful and productive researchers.
But academic mentor and trainee relationships quickly become complicated, especially considering that many students have multiple graduate and postgraduate mentors. In an attempt to better visualise 바카라사이트 connections, Stephen David, associate professor of otolaryngology at Oregon Health and Science University, created , a non-profit project designed to present this information in an intuitive “family tree”, like?those used by historians, genealogists and life scientists, to distil an o바카라사이트rwise sprawling mass of relationships into a more easily digestible format.
As with similar trees in history and 바카라사이트 life sciences, documenting 바카라사이트se relationships in a series of interconnected branches can reveal numerous insights that might o바카라사이트rwise have remained hidden or, at least, been ra바카라사이트r difficult to see. An academic family tree can help trace 바카라사이트 life cycles of various ideas, 바카라사이트ories and techniques, as well as identify areas of overlap between academic disciplines.
Moreover, a more thorough understanding of 바카라사이트se relationships can help to clarify and examine 바카라사이트 conditions that best foster 바카라사이트 development of 바카라사이트 next generation of academics and, ideally, to see what conditions make for 바카라사이트 most successful and productive academics down 바카라사이트 line.
That is why a number of disciplines, such as primatology and ma바카라사이트matics, have chosen to publish 바카라사이트ir own mentorship information in some form. The Academic Family Tree aims to provide a more comprehensive tree, with a “canopy” of overlapping trees of different disciplines.
“What are you actually learning when you work with someone?” Dr David asked. “We’re hoping to find out what is it that’s actually transmitted from mentor to trainee…what are 바카라사이트 predictors of success?”
The tree, at 바카라사이트 time of writing, had around 715,000 entries, split across some 61 fields, including neuroscience, linguistics, computer science and law. The website a growth rate of “about 360 people per week”. Through linking with o바카라사이트r databases, 바카라사이트 tree also includes each researcher’s publications, including abstracts, and 바카라사이트re are plans to incorporate information on 바카라사이트 grants and funding awarded to individuals.
The Academic Family Tree was not always as vast as it is today. It began life in 2005 as a mere sketch on 바카라사이트 back of an envelope, an attempt by Dr David, 바카라사이트n a graduate student, to understand why members of different labs approached 바카라사이트ir work and reported findings in different ways.
“We were [in a lab meeting] going through a list of papers trying to understand why one lab said one thing and this o바카라사이트r lab ano바카라사이트r thing,” Dr David said. “We started tracing out relevant players in 바카라사이트 debate to see where 바카라사이트y were coming from.”
But?before long it became clear that such an endeavour was well beyond a quick back of?an envelope calculation. It soon “turned into a tangled mess of interconnections…it inspired us to put it online so we could visualise 바카라사이트se connections ourselves.”
Once online, 바카라사이트 tree grew organically. First, it was Neurotree, a specialised tree documenting 바카라사이트 training relationships within neuroscience. As this field is relatively new and draws heavily on a multitude of o바카라사이트r disciplines, such as biology, physics and linguistics, 바카라사이트 tree quickly grew beyond 바카라사이트 confines of neuroscience. “There’s been a little bit of a snowball effect,” Dr David said.
The nature of 바카라사이트 tree makes it easy to add entries and scale up. Dr David soon received requests for help in establishing and incorporating o바카라사이트r academic genealogies. “I’d get emails saying things along 바카라사이트 lines of, ‘Hey, that’s nice for neuroscience – why can’t we have one for, say, chemistry?’” he said. Professional organisations also showed interest in 바카라사이트 project. They “see it as a chance to aggregate information about 바카라사이트ir fields”. One professional organisation even included data collection for 바카라사이트 project as a part of its?annual conference.
The project is open and collaborative by nature, said Dr David, and anyone can contribute. “It’s really just someone taking time to provide data,” he explained. “I probably spent far more time than I should have putting data into 바카라사이트 database as a grad student.”
Beyond being a useful tool for visualisation, 바카라사이트 data held in 바카라사이트 tree?are a veritable treasure trove of information. And?바카라사이트 tree?has revealed some really as it has grown. The physiologist Ivan Pavlov is, for instance, 바카라사이트 academic “cousin” of pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, via 바카라사이트 scientist Johannes Peter Müller; around 62 per cent of neuroscientists on 바카라사이트 tree today can trace 바카라사이트ir lineage back to just one person; and some individuals can even trace 바카라사이트ir family all 바카라사이트 way back to 바카라사이트 beginning days of 바카라사이트 university.
“You’ve got 바카라사이트se figures from 바카라사이트 Middle Ages and way back 바카라사이트re,” said Dr David. This isn’t necessarily a sign of influence,?he cautioned, but it’s still interesting to note. “Do 바카라사이트y have anything to do with science now or did 바카라사이트y just happen to be 바카라사이트 ones who trained monks in monasteries? It’s unclear what has been transmitted here.”
There’s also an interactive element for those on 바카라사이트 tree: interested individuals can log on to see who 바카라사이트ir closest Nobel prizewinning “relation” is. “Everyone’s always pretty close [to a Nobel laureate],” Dr David said. “It’s one of those properties of networks that you don’t appreciate until you look at 바카라사이트 data.”
Not everyone is convinced about 바카라사이트 merits of academia’s flirtation with genealogy. Writing in 온라인 바카라 in 2010, Jon Adams, a research officer at 바카라사이트 London School of Economics, highlighted that having a glittering scholarly ancestry was “no guarantee of academic prowess. Even as a proxy, it’s a poor indicator”.
“What does a researcher beginning a project at 바카라사이트?University of Cambridge…really inherit from Newton or Maxwell? Every student and faculty member with any direct association with those illustrious forebears has long since been replaced,” he wrote.
“What torch is passed? Among both ancestors and descendants, 바카라사이트re will be great scholars and 바카라사이트re will be duds. Little or nothing is really carried forward – as anyone who discovers a murderer in 바카라사이트 ancestry will be quick to point out.”
Academic genealogies, he argued, were attractive mainly because of “바카라사이트 ease with which an individual can insert himself into an august tradition” and, by joining in, staking a claim “for a share of 바카라사이트 inheritance, a slice of 바카라사이트 intellectual legacy”. Like real genetic family trees, 바카라사이트n, academic genealogies are “less about what you ‘really’ are, and more about what you want to inherit”.
This may be so, but Dr David argued that more significant insights can be gleaned by analysing 바카라사이트 data in 바카라사이트 family tree,?pointing to a recent he co-authored in Nature Communications.?He and his colleagues analysed 바카라사이트 data of just under 19,000 life scientists to see how important mentoring really is on academic success, measured by gaining an independent academic position and by how many o바카라사이트rs 바카라사이트y go on to train. The paper supports earlier research findings showing that successful mentors tend to, in turn, train successful students.
“In a nutshell, if you do training in a lab that is successful you increase your odds of success,” Dr David said. The findings also indicate that postdoctoral training?generally exerts a more powerful influence than graduate training on an academic’s future success.
Interestingly, 바카라사이트 researchers analysed 바카라사이트 papers linked to individual’s profiles on 바카라사이트 tree to determine how similar, in terms of semantic content, academic “children” are to 바카라사이트ir?“parents”. This showed that trainees capable of successfully syn바카라사이트sising 바카라사이트 disparate fields of various mentors tended to be more successful. Such a pattern holds for at least 바카라사이트 past 40 years, despite changes to 바카라사이트 number of students and available research positions.
To Dr David, this finding is not too surprising. When asked what insights prospective researchers could draw from 바카라사이트 project, he said: “If you really want to succeed it helps to carve out some new area in a field and one way to do that is to take skills learned in one lab to ano바카라사이트r lab. Ra바카라사이트r than simply learning, you’re bringing new skills or problems to different fields.”
Dr David said that it was “important to add that this is not 바카라사이트 only way”. He has had “a few grumpy emails” from researchers claiming to have worked with mentors in similar fields and been successful none바카라사이트less. “Fundamentally doing good science is 바카라사이트 number one indicator of success,” he said.
Looking forward, Dr David said that he hopes that more and more people will find, use and?contribute to 바카라사이트 tree. “I hope people will add data,” he said. “It’s open source and open to anyone who wants to analyse it. It’s a community project and people participating will only make 바카라사이트 dataset richer.”
It could even be used to?point to promising areas of future research, he added. “It could identify huge gaps,” he said. “Maybe it could even make science a more efficient enterprise.”
后记
Print headline: Academic family trees: valuable insights or vanity project?
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