Scholar Social is a Mastodon instance meant for: researchers, grad students, librarians, archivists, undergrads, academically inclined high schoolers, educators of all levels, journal editors, research assistants, professors, administrators—anyone involved in academia who is willing to engage with others respectfully.

We strive to be a safe space for queer people and other minorities, recognizing that there can only be academic freedom where the existence and validity of interlocutors' identities is taken as axiomatic.

"A Mastodon profile you can be proud to put on the last slide of a presentation at a conference"

Scholar Social also features a monthly "official" journal club, in which we try to read and comment on a paper of interest.

Any user of Scholar Social can suggest an article by sending the DOI by direct message to @socrates@scholar.social and one will be chosen by random lottery on the last day of the month. We ask that you only submit articles that are from outside your own field of study to try to ensure that the papers we read are accessible and interesting to non-experts.

Google Data Collection research (PDF) - by Professor Douglas C. Schmidt, Professor of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University, and his team. This study provides a unique and comprehensive view of Google’s data collection approaches and delves deeper into specific types of information it collects from users.

To understand what data Google collects, this study draws on four key sources:
a. Google’s My Activity and Takeout tools, which describe information collected during the use of Google’s
user-facing products;
b. Data intercepted as it issent to Google server domains while Google or 3rd-party products are used;
c. Google’s privacy policies (both general and product-specific); andd.Other 3rd-party researchthat has examined Google’s data collection efforts.