Author Archives: Alastair Culham

About Alastair Culham

A professional botanist and biologist with an interest in promoting biological knowledge and awareness to all.

Digital deception

We all receive spam email from time to time and have probably all been asked to send our bank account details so that millions of dollars/pounds/euros can be deposited in our accounts. If you have a spam filter that gets … Continue reading

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Measures of impact – a top ten for museums

I’m sitting in a meeting room at Kew evaluating the role of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and listening to a talk on making data sticky by Rod Page.  His thesis is that data are only valuable if there are … Continue reading

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RU Digitally Ready?

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Chelsea Flower Show is Digitally Ready!

Alan Titchmarsh and Rachel De Thame may spend their time admiring the large and expensive show gardens around the grand marquee but to the digitally ready enthusiast surely the most photo worthy item in the show is the 2 metre … Continue reading

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The open access argument is hotting up further with Harvard putting its weight behind free to view publications as reported in The Guardian.  What the article doesn’t mention is that you need to be a fairly rich researcher to publish … Continue reading

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Digital dissent

I follow several electronic newsgroups to ensure I stay at the front of my research interests. The ever challenging issue of science on Wikipedia cropped up today with an unusually heated debate on the accuracy of information on a page … Continue reading

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A library in my pocket

One of the problems of being a plant taxonomist is that my research relies heavily on books, and some of those can be a few hundred years old.  My modest working book collection covers an entire wall of my office … Continue reading

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Peer learning – Google Scholar Citations

This afternoon one of those serendipitous conversations happened that allowed me to add another online profile to my digital presence; Google Scholar now offer individual academic profiles that update automatically, can be edited and keep track of an individual’s publications, … Continue reading

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The Digital Human

The advantage of bank holidays is the chance to hear weekday Radio4 from time to time.  This afternoon at 4.30pm I happened to hear The Digital Human. This is week two of a series of six programmes investigating the impact … Continue reading

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Are you digitally ready for a Snickers bar?

University students have long been targets for advertising of products and events through leafleting campaigns and through email spamming.  During my tenure as a hall warden at Reading University I had frequently to deal with people who had gained access … Continue reading

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