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the university over its handling of sexual- All forms of sexual harassment are prevalent in harassment allegations against a researcher US academic science, a new report nds. PEVASIVE POBLEM in her department; the case is ongoing. “We Harassment by major. The proportion of female students Academic impact. Female science majors in the University of Texas system who report having been at the University of Texas who say they have are still waiting for tangible changes at our harassed by faculty members or sta varies between those been harassed by faculty members or sta university, despite having voiced similar rec- who major in science, technology, engineering and also report higher rates of disengagement ommendations over two years ago in the wake medicine (STEM) and those who do not. with their studies. of multiple student complaints about sexual Overall harassment by a faculty member,” she says. Non-STEM Sexist hostility Missed class The report comes as the flagship national Crude behaviour academy is facing criticism over its policies Unwanted Late for on harassment. Since early May, more than Science sexual attention class Sexual coercion 3,500 people have signed a petition requesting Made excuses No sexual that the National Academy of Sciences expel Engineering to get out harassment members who have been sanctioned for sexual of class Sexual harassment harassment, retaliation or assault. Done poor Medicine Academy president Marcia McNutt says the work group’s governing council will consider pro-

SOURCE: NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES, ENGINEERING, AND MEDICINE OF SCIENCES, ACADEMIES SOURCE: NATIONAL posed changes when it meets in August. “This 0 10 20 30 40 50 0 0.4 0.8 1.2 Percentage of ‘yes’ responses Academic disengagement is something we have to take seriously as an (0 = almost never, 4 = almost always) organization,” she says. But, she adds, the acad- emy would probably not initiate its own inves- tigation of a member — instead referring any were perceived as stars in their department. Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University complaints that it receives to the leadership of An institution’s workplace climate is by far in New Haven, Connecticut. “If they feel like that person’s university. “One is ongoing right the greatest predictor of sexual harassment, their careers rely on future recommendation now,” she says. “No, I won’t tell you who it is.” ■ the academies’ report says. Title IX and related letters from the harassers, they are less likely laws are a good start, says Clancy, but universi- to want to come forward.” 1. Ilies, ., Hauserman, N., Schwochau, S. & Stibal, . Personnel Psychol. 56, 607–631 (2003). ties need to embrace other methods of address- However strong the report’s findings, it is 2. Clancy, K. B. H., Lee, K. M. N., Rodgers, E. M. & ing sexual harassment. These include ways still up to universities to interpret them, says Richey, . J. Geophys. Res. Planets 122, 1610–1623 for victims to report incidents without being Jessica Cantlon, a cognitive neuroscientist (2017). 3. Konik, J. & Cortina, L. M. Social Justice Res. 21, re-traumatized or subjected to retaliation. who is in the process of leaving the Univer- 313–337 (2008). “Many targets of harassment are women and sity of Rochester in New York. There, she was 4. Rosenthal, M. N., Smidt, A. M. & Freyd, J. J. Psychol. minorities in vulnerable positions,” says Akiko part of a group of faculty members who sued Women Q. 40, 364–377 (2016).

BUSINESS researchers are wary because has been slow to make its own tools available in open-, and to make its services com- patible with open-source projects. He has sev- Microsoft’s GitHub eral projects on GitHub, but says he will move them to another service if the company makes the platform less open, forces Microsoft tools on users or changes its pricing model. buyout raises fears Mahmood Zargar, who studies open- source communities at the Free University of Amsterdam, is more concerned that Microsoft Users worry popular data-sharing site will become less open. will impose changes that will make GitHub less efficient for him to use. He’s planning to move BY ANDREW SILVER Scholar cited the website, which is free to use his projects to other services. for projects that release their code. GitHub A spokesperson for Microsoft did not answer itHub — a website that has become uses a version-control software known as , Nature’s questions about researchers’ concerns, popular with scientists collaborating which transparently records changes to files. but referred to a blogpost by company chief on research data and software — is to This allows in different locations executive . “We are committed Gbe acquired by Microsoft for US$7.5 billion. to work on the same project in real time, and to to being stewards of the GitHub community, In the wake of the takeover announcement track changes and merge updated data. which will retain its developer-first ethos, on 4 June, some scientists and programmers Although Microsoft says GitHub will remain operate independently and remain an open voiced concerns about the deal on social open to any project, some scientists are scepti- platform,” Nadella wrote. media. They fear that the site will become less cal about that commitment. “Open Science is Arfon Smith, a data-science manager open, or less useful for sharing and tracking not compatible with one corporation owning at the Space Telescope Science Institute in scientific data, after the buyout. But others are the platform used to collaborate on code. I Baltimore, Maryland, says the fears are over- hopeful that Microsoft’s stewardship will make hope that expert coders in #openscience have blown. He doesn’t think Microsoft will change the platform even more valuable. a viable alternative to #github,” tweeted Tom the features that researchers care about, GitHub launched in 2008, and is now Johnstone, a cognitive neuro­scientist at the such as its ease of use. Katy Huff, a nuclear widely used to store, share and update data University of Reading, UK. engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana- sets and software code. As of 13 June, more Björn Grüning, a bioinformatician at the Champaign, thinks GitHub will give Microsoft than 223,000 academic papers on University of Freiburg in Germany, says some an opportunity to support science. ■

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