Letters of Rec

If you write a letter of recommendation for an undergrad in your class that you barely know you are just diluting the value of such letters. Those who are deserving are having their efforts obscured by this practice.

Discuss.

Open Grantsmithing?

Some Open Science wackaloon has posted a grant application that he plans to submit here

Now, there is no value I see in the pre-publication of a grant application you haven’t submitted yet. I’m not seeing the purpose of this, particularly for my operation.

The fleeting thought I had was whether I would be willing to post

1) old grant proposals that went unfunded

2) old grant proposals that were funded but we’ve dropped that line in my laboratory

3) grant proposals funding our current work

The point being my usual desire to help folks understand the granting process. The occasional handful of grant samples posted on IC websites can’t cover the breadth of NIH applicants, so perhaps more examples would be useful.

I have a pretty strong aversion to doing this and am going to have to explore why that is the case.