Joanna Tai
drjot.bsky.social
Joanna Tai
@drjot.bsky.social

Higher education assessment & feedback researcher. Both kinds of doctor. Knitter and baker. Views my own, reposts are not necessarily endorsements.

Education 72%
Public Health 14%
I cannot evangelize enough for @zotero.org for citation management. It's a game changer. If you're a student, and you're writing a paper right now, and you're NOT using Zotero, I ask you...why? Why are you making things harder than they need to be?
a woman is sitting at a desk with her arms outstretched in front of a map on the wall .
ALT: a woman is sitting at a desk with her arms outstretched in front of a map on the wall .
media.tenor.com

Reposted by Joanna Tai

The upshot is that we were able to knock results from the journal out of our article search and got the publisher's journals removed from Ulrich's. But this is clearly going to be an eternal game of Whac-a-Mole for librarians (and for patrons who contact us to report this stuff)! 4/4

Reposted by Joanna Tai

In another, a student found an article that had seemingly AI-generated fake citations using our institutional article search (which searches our subscription stuff, but also beyond). It got picked up via CrossRef. Another sketchy publisher, but this one with enough oomph to be listed in Ulrich's. 3/

Reposted by Joanna Tai

In one, a researcher told us he'd found himself cited as coauthor on a paper he hadn't written. We found a few years' worth of backlog on the journal's page (hijacked version of a legit journal) was AI-generated abstracts and titles to pad things out for the newer, dubious full-text articles. 2/

Reposted by Joanna Tai

My colleagues and I (librarians at UW-Madison) just ran a two-hour presentation on the impact of gen AI on predatory publishing for library staff this week! It was directly inspired by a few patron interactions similar to what you're describing. 1/
I mean we are absolutely in a place now where the only solution to this information disorder is for everyone to constantly evaluate the source of information. Never trust a chatbot, but also don't believe a video unless you know and trust where it comes from.

Unfortunately... that's a lot of work.
Here's the reality this example illustrates:

It's not even just about people blindly trusting what ChatGPT tells them. LLMs are poisoning the entire information ecosystem. You can't even necessarily trust that the citations in a published paper are real (or a search engine's descriptions of them).

Reposted by Joanna Tai

I used this as a framing example in a recent talk I gave about the "librarian's dividend" which is my probably-far-too-positive spin on this absolute garbage fire -- that at least maybe we're forced into more appreciation and value for the people and institutions who help us evaluate information.

Aargh. It's the first time this year past Jo has dropped the ball on planning ahead for presentations. Got one on Monday but my slides aren't done and it's already almost 5:30 on Friday afternoon 😅

Me too! Mainly in comment boxes on others' writing 😬

Reposted by Joanna Tai

The reality of uncertainty: Dr Nicole Crawford shares her reflections and key takeaways from our last seminar of 2025, where Prof Margaret Bearman discussed the role that feedback cultures play in improving #feedback.

Read Nicole's thoughts here: blogs.deakin.edu.au/cradle/the-r...

Reposted by Joanna Tai

If you've had any tough days during #AcWriMo, I highly recommend adopting Taika Waititi's expansive classification system for writing. Another handy tip from the academia / writing / research meme stash. #PhDchat #academicsky #academicchatter #highered
Nature Sci Rep publishes incoherent AI slop. eLife publishes a paper which the reviewers didn't agree with, making all the comments and responses public with thoughtful commentary. One of these journals got delisted by Web of Science for quality concerns from not doing peer review. Guess which one?
"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se
This banger from the academia / writing / research meme stash definitely has wider applicability but I do really like using it for coaching, mentoring, and workshop activities when we talk about the importance of saying 'no' to things as researchers. #academicchatter #academicsky #PhDchat

Congratulations!!!
🚨 #DECRA #DE26 announcement:

❗️Outcomes announced publicly for Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2026❗️

See ARC's RMS for list ➡️ https://rms.arc.gov.au/RMS/Report/Download/Report/a3f6be6e-33f7-4fb5-98a6-7526aaa184cf/285

/bot

Reposted by Joanna Tai

I reckon that should be banned. It's quite striking how much regulation surrounds authorship conduct (ICJME authorship criteria, can't submit to more than one place at a time, must declare AI etc) but almost none for what the reciprocal conduct of editors should be.
a cartoon character says " whatever i 'll do what i want "
Alt: a cartoon character says " whatever. i 'll do what i want "
media.tenor.com

Reposted by Joanna Tai

To go through minor revisions and then have the editor send out to a whole new round of reviewers is the absolute worst

Reposted by Joanna Tai

The audience of educational developers at #POD25 cheered at @edufuturist.bsky.social ‘s comment that the only known solution to “the cheating problem” with AI is to “rethink assessment top to bottom.” Apparently, that’s not the usual response. 😂

Reposted by Joanna Tai

Reposted by Joanna Tai

Quite an opening.
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."

https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1

Reposted by Joanna Tai

We are having so many wrong conversations - this is a major one

thepoint.com.au/opinions/251...
We're having the wrong conversation about unemployment
The point.com.au
thepoint.com.au
POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success

Reposted by Joanna Tai

"Critical washing" is "encouraging AI use while being 'aware of the risks'".

Page 7

Reposted by Joanna Tai

This is the world I want to see for Australian kids, particularly indigenous kids where stats show they have a greater chance of being in prison that being in further education. That's on us, and that needs to change. Let them eat cake.
fyi @robertarnol.bsky.social @big-tony.bsky.social
Fitzroy Crossing community believes Night Space has broken cycle of crime
As Kununurra battles with a surge in youth crime, residents in Fitzroy Crossing are celebrating their success in reducing rates through a community-led initiative.
www.abc.net.au

Reposted by Joanna Tai

More Canberra school to be closed over asbestos fears. But for the life of me I can’t find out which ones! Be better ACT education OMG. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...
Breaking: ACT to close 69 schools after extra coloured sand products recalled
The ACT will close more schools after additional coloured sand products were recalled by Kmart and Target, while the schools that were shut on Friday will reopen on Monday.
www.abc.net.au
Lobster fishery off Bruny Island in TAS closed on eve of the opening of fishing season due to antibiotic use by the salmon farms.
No indication of how long for. Must be a devastating blow for fishermen approaching Xmas.
Crayfish Closure Follows Salmon Antibiotic Deployment - Tasmanian Times
The commercial rock lobster fishery south of the D'Entrecasteaux Channel is now closed effective 15 November 2025
tasmaniantimes.com

I'm pretty sure most banks here don't issue personal chequebooks any more, and a bank cheque is $15 a pop. Luckily we have functional electronic banking including fee free bill pay options.