texts:
For a project, I noticed really around an hour or so before my deadline was due that some of my graphs lacked units when I labeled the axes. In the interest of time, I decided to add units to the plots manually using photoshop. The deadline has now passed, and I’m worried if this is considered academic misconduct or something. The data I used complies with the labels I gave the graphs manually, and I haven’t done anything to change my data in any way with the image editing program other than to simply add the units of some of the labels. The only thing I’ve done is to write the axes labels myself instead of telling Python to.

I can’t find any policy on this on my university website. Should I be worried? Could this be considered falsification of data or some other form of academic misconduct), even if the units I’m adding are literally the appropriate units?


texts: Is it okay to report classmates cheating on exams?

texts:
Is it acceptable or ok to report on students cheating?  Many times during a test or an exam, I have seen students in front of me either passing notes, or otherwise collaborating whenever the professor isn't looking.

I don't want to get into trouble, and I don't know if it's "alright" to rat on fellow classmates.  Part of me thinks they deserve being caught out, by virtue of trying to cheat their way through the course. However, I feel like I would get found out by other students if they were caught cheating.

What is the right course of action here? To be clear, I would never raise an accusation in the middle of an exam; it would only lead to me being ostracized by my peers.


texts: What to do when phd advisor wants me to work on side projects but i'm starting a post-doc?

texts:
I'm currently finishing up writing my PhD while starting a post-doc at another university in another country. The post doc is a great opportunity at a top tier university. Between finishing my dissertation, trying to get started in this new lab, and moving to an apartment in another country that requires I start from scratch, my time is super limited and everything is hectic.

I made sure my post-doc advisor was aware that I'm finishing my dissertation , and would be doing so for the beginning of the post-doc, from the get-go as I informed him during interviews for the position and when I accepted the job. He has been fine with this and held the position for me for as long as he could because as he said I'm a perfect fit for the position and he really wanted me to be his post-doc, so I'm super grateful for that. Plus, there is enough crossover in the project that my PhD advisor made him a collaborator on the chapter that I'm finishing up while starting the post-doc position.

My PhD advisor recently reached out to me about a side project I had been working on for him previously and had written up with me as the first author. This paper was rejected from the previous journal we submitted to and we received this notice around the time I was getting ready to move. Because of this, he offered to re-work the manuscript results/discussion sections after I re-did the analysis and sent him the new results, which I did. Now, he is saying that he doesn't have time anymore and that I need to set aside my work to make this a priority.

The other relevant background information is that my PhD advisor is in trouble with the university because he is so absent when it comes to his students. He had another PhD student who started at the same time as me defend her dissertation before she was ready, and the defense was so bad that department members outside the committee were asking how she was allowed to defend and it got to the department head. Now he is in trouble of losing teaching assistantships for future students. I have been independent for my PhD and have worked on many side projects for him. Just 6 months ago, again while I was trying to finish up my thesis because of the post-doc position, a similar thing occurred where I was asked to set aside everything to devote my time to a project I was a co-author on and it ended up being 2 months of re-doing the entire analysis, results, and discussion and with me being a co-first author on the paper, which was published after my rewrite. I have also worked on numerous other projects for him over the years. I have been very independent in my PhD, not relying on him for much as I came up with the question, methods, and interpretation of my PhD project - my independence (a byproduct of his absence) yet success with this project is a part of the reason why I got an amazing post-doc position.

I think realistically this re-write would be ~1-2 weeks and I know that I was first author on the manuscript and the major person behind the project, but I just don't have the time. I proposed to have a student from our collaborating lab that also did a lot of the work on it just finish the re-working of the results/discussion and to make him co-first author, but my PhD advisor wouldn't entertain the idea. I think he needs more papers coming from his students alone.

What do I do? Should I bring this up with my new post-doc advisor? If I do this I either won't have time to work on any new stuff with him or I won't be able to work on my dissertation and will fall behind there. Should I say no to my PhD advisor, and if so, how?


texts: Can I improve a project after submitting it to a CS conference?

texts:
How much can I improve a project after submitting it to an academic conference in CS?

Recently, I submitted my first conference paper. The work is honest, but it was rushed due to getting promising results only a few days before the deadline. Furthermore, the process of trying to justify the work helped clarify it in my mind, and there are experiments, baselines, and comparisons I now believe I need to run to be more convincing. Is it standard to keep working on a project until the reviewers respond, such that I can say, "Thank you for such and such feedback. We are now including such and such an experiment/table/figure to address this concern." The writing could also be improved, but I'm not sure what is an acceptable number of modifications.


texts:
I recently submitted a manuscript for review to a journal. The manuscript was a result of an independent study and therefore, had 8 authors (students, advisors and a few other relevant collaborators). I am the first author and am also a student.

One of the student co-authors wrote a paragraph that stood out as irrelevant to me and had some unique wording so I edited it out. Yesterday I was doing some literature review for a different project and reread a paper that was cited in the recently submitted manuscript and found that the paragraph I edited out was copied word for word from this paper. I remembered the paragraph due to the unique wording.

I am very glad that I edited it out and avoided plagiarism accusations. Should I report the plagiarism to this student's advisor (she was the second author on the paper and I work very closely with her, though she is not my advisor)?


texts: Can I submit more than 3 reference letters with my grad school applications?

texts: Is it acceptable to attach additional reference letters to an application under the supporting documents category of an application? Say I have 3 references from my masters institution, and another 2 from my undergraduate institution. I would think that if they are all positive, that the more is better. Would this be acceptable or is it a no-no? I am particularly thinking about top-10 universities.


texts: Does graduate school reputation have any effect on your academic career?

texts: I am an Australian citizen and studying at University of Newcastle (Australia). Does your graduate school reputation has any effect in your academic career? So if I decide to do my PhD at a US university (like Harvard or Stanford) instead of doing it at an Australian university (say University of Melbourne or Australian National University), would that make me more successful in my academic career? Does that make me more employable? Say that after doing my PhD, I apply for an academic position at a Canadian university, which of them would help here more?


texts: How would a collective recommendation letter from co-workers be perceived for admissions to MFA requiring work experience?

texts:
I am planning to apply to an MFA program in product design, and one of the admissions requirements is having at least 1 year of work experience.

My office is structured pretty horizontally (so, nobody is nobody's boss and we're all equals). We also do all our work collaboratively, in the open. I'm wondering if submitting a letter of recommendation written collectively by my entire team would make a statement to the admissions committee of this type of program.

Have any of you seen this? If any of you have been in charge of admitting students, what's your reaction?


texts: Next steps in approaching an unresponsive academic

texts: I am applying for PhD programmes very soon and I have recently been trying to get in touch with my potential referees. At my previous institution there is a professor who knows me the most out of all academics I know; we had plenty of conversations regarding the field I want to pursue my PhD in and also I did very well in modules taught by him. I was planning to request a reference from him and I tried to get in touch with him three times (through e-mail), however, he has not replied to me (it has been about two months since my first e-mail). Should I assume that he overlooked my e-mails (he is very busy) and send him another message? Or rather, should I try to contact him through the Department? It might seem to be a trivial case, but I really do not want to annoy him too much as his reference would potentially be of the biggest importance in my applications. What would you suggest in this particular case?


texts: Employment history and graduate admission

texts: Why do some graduate schools require an employment history for their application forms?  Additionally, is it likely that they verify said history via one's social security number?


texts: Does any country have free college & open admissions?

texts:
Here's my rough understanding of differences in higher education in different countries:

In the U.S., college is paid for in general by the individual student, not the state. On the other hand, access is basically universal, as anyone can attend a community college, which is open admissions (no entry or admissions requirement) if they wish.
In other countries, such as those in Europe, college is generally provided for free by the national government. However, I assume that placements are competitive and have strict entrance and performance requirements.

Those would be my impressions. However, I find it extremely hard to confirm the latter point, because basically no one talks about the difference in admissions requirements in U.S. vs. Europe (possibly because people in the different environments take their own practices so much for granted that no one thinks to say them out loud in conversations?).

So: Am I correct that countries in Europe with free government-funded higher education have strict entrance requirements in all cases? Or, is there any nation that has both open admissions and universally free college education?

By "college", I mean adult education (age 18+), including community colleges, 4-year colleges, universities, and international equivalents.

For the purposes of "strict entrance requirements", answers should address the status of nationwide qualifying examinations such as the Abitur (in Germany, etc.) or Matura (in Switzerland, etc.), which are passed by less than half of secondary school students, and do not have any analog in the U.S. (And which, as a U.S. person, I didn't even know about until it came up in the comments.)


texts: Previous publication of my supervisor and a post-doc is a lie

texts:
I am in a bit of a situation. Basically, the research on which I was basing my PhD was carried out by a former post-doc in our group. After one year and a half not being able to replicate his results, I exploited my admin privileges on our cluster to download his codes. I discovered that the algorithms he used in his publication are different from the ones used in the experiments, as the ones he claims he is using are not really applicable and the ones he is using do not have the claimed complexity. He even went so far to provide made up (theoretical) timings to cover this up.
My supervisor knows about this issue from me and he also knows that the post-doc has stopped responding to my mails trying to replicated his work. My supervisor is very hands-off and I don't believe that he has any fault in this but his name is on the publication. Moreover, I feel he is disappointed in the post-doc and feels guilty. So, it seems to me that pressing the issue does no good for me and I have stopped mentioning the topic to my supervisor. (I am still quite angry about this issue as this has cost me about a year and a half of my PhD)
I have been able to salvage the original idea of the publication and come up with an algorithm which has the correct complexity and we are now writing the paper. To the reader these two publications might appear extremely similar and I would like to include a sentence in the introduction that the previous publication is not a working algorithm. What is a good, diplomatic way of doing this?


texts: Being told a conflict of interest is acceptable for paper review

texts:
I was recently asked to review a paper. I feel like there is a conflict of interest as (i) I frequently collaborate with one of the authors, (ii) I discussed the paper with the authors while they were working on it, and (iii) I am currently doing follow-up work (i.e. extending the work of the paper in question).

I told the program committee member who asked me to review the paper all of this. I was surprised when she responded saying that this is not an issue. Specifically, she responded that this is unavoidable as there is a small community of experts who all work together and that this just means I'm the most qualified expert to review the paper.

What should I do? Should I accept the PC member's assertion that this is OK? (I have been honest with her.) Or should I insist that I am not able to give a fair review?


texts: What to do when an advisor takes credit for a grant proposal?

texts:
I've been writing a big grant proposal for the last few months and I am almost done. I asked my advisor to read it and give me advice on content, and he has yet to read it. He's always saying he'll "read it later" or "he's busy".

I finally got a meeting with him this past week and he says he will read it this weekend. As we're wrapping up, he says it will look good on my CV to have "contributed" to a grant that got funded.

Here's the problem though: I've written the entire grant proposal and done all the literature research for it. The only tangible contribution my advisor has made is to tell me which protein he wants to study. He's also an "absentee advisor" and I do all my own experimental design and troubleshooting. Actually,the post doc in our lab has been giving me all the help/advice.

How should I handle this situation? I realize I could just give him the credit, but how would this reflect on my future career opportunities?


texts: Should I do a thesis, no thesis, or a capstone project in a master's in statistics?

texts: I intend to work in industry after finishing my Masters in Statistics and am considering some universities in the United States. How will a Masters in Statistics with thesis, no thesis or with capstone project impact my career prospects? I've read that having written a thesis that is relevant to the employer's business  would be beneficial. But how does that compare to a capstone project? It sounds to me that a capstone project and thesis mean the same thing as both involve research.


texts: Publishing a mathematical research article on research which is already done?

texts:
Recently, I was working on some mathematics (number theory) and try to do that just for a math fun. Prior to that, I did not refer to any literature or any research articles, as I was doing this for fun. But I went in very deep and spent almost 15 days on that as it was getting interesting.

After one stage, I was able to represent the numbers in a series representation but was not able to find the equation. After a few more days of work, I was able to extract the equation. Now, I can represent that series in one equation. This makes me very curious, as all this I did just by trial and error method and found on my own.

I know that, making equation of some series is not a big task. But, the way I came to that equation is making me think to publish an article on that.

I thought to search on whether this equation is available or not, and as it was expected the research on that has already been done.

In this scenario, can I publish a research article on the topic?


texts: Asking for advice: Leaving Academia after finishing Physics PhD - Hoping to start a career in Data Science right after

texts:
I will finish my PhD in Applied Physics (simulations of quantum transport and light scattering in nanowires) in around 6-8 months  and I have already made the decision of leaving Academia as soon as I graduate. The main reason is that I consider that my publications record after the PhD will not be good enough to be able to compete for good positions in the post-doc world. I have also lost the motivation and my interest in the field due to the lack of satisfying and rewarding outcome (I tend to blame myself for this, but I had almost no supervision during the last year). If I stay in Academia I will most likely be jumping from post-doc to post-doc contract in mediocre/low level research groups for the next decade.

I have recently started to consider pursuing a career in Data Science: job offers seem to be abundant and the salaries are good, plus it seems that it is possible to work in many different fields once you are experienced (which is something I love since I'm interested and curious about many, many things).

I currently lack the core-set of technical skills a data scientist should have (R, Python, SQL, Statistics, etc.) and I will not have that much time left to take on-line courses until I write and defend my thesis. However I have strong experience working with other programming languages and I know that I could easily get familiar (not talking about proficiency) with everything needed in short time. After all, everything should be conceptually much easier than the theory of my PhD/MSc and I also have a good background in Statistical Mechanics.

Do you guys have any advices or experiences to share on how to make this transition? I am a bit afraid of the real world after I finish. Also, what would be the most optimal way to get a data scientist job after the PhD? I have thought of looking for an internship, but I do not know if I could just do it by taking on-line courses and doing things on my own.

Thank you very much in advance!

Edit: As it may be relevant, I am not in US but in Europe


texts: When is it prudent to argue against a suggested revision to a journal paper?

texts:
Most journals have a peer review process, where there are several rounds of reviews and modifications over a single paper.

In my particular case, one of these reviews was, in my opinion, a bit over the top. In this case, the reviewer asked me to expand a set of equations that are explained in any undergrad numerical analysis book. It even has a very well described Wikipedia page. And the set of equations took an entire page of my paper.

Yet, my PI at the moment told me it was just better to comply and get the paper ready (it had already been accepted subject to these changes).

My new PI told me it seemed wrong to him, since it is a very basic set of equations and the fact that one reviewer is not familiarized with it, is not an excuse to break the rhythm of the paper, since suddenly a whole page of equations can do that for you in a paper.

He told me he would have fought it back.

What is the overall opinion in different fields with respect to this?


texts: If it is stated that two authors have contributed the same on a research paper, are both authors co-first authors?

texts: If someone gets his name second on a paper despite the two contributing the same amount of work and this fact is indicated so, are both authors co-first authors?


texts: Where Self-plagiarism Begins and Where it Ends

texts:
Academics sometimes publish popular books based on their own research, but not always cite properly themselves, even when book references other authors properly. Moreover, sometimes I can see that one author publishes very similar (but not same) papers on the same topic, without self-referencing, even though it can be seen that the author recycles some of hers/his ideas. Even respectable people in the profession do it.

Given this where is the line beyond which we are talking about self-plagiarism?

On one hand it feels bit wrong to do this even in a small amount. On the other hand I can imagine that it can be impractical, and cumbersome to piously self-reference yourself, and I also worry that that might seem egocentric to the reader.

It is no brainier that copying part of your old article, and submitting it as new is clearly wrong. On the other hand it does not seems to be wrong using the main ideas, quotes (or chapter titles), or paraphrasing minor ideas of your earlier papers to publish a book without using the same referencing standards for yourself as you use for other authors.

Any opinion on this? Should I always reference myself as well as I do others, or is it ok to be more lenient on yourself as long as it is not more excessive then it is usual in the field? Do you think that this depends mostly on the context?


texts: How to correct plagiarism in my own Master's thesis, years later?

texts:
My situation is somewhat similar to this question, but I'm the plagiarizer.

Six years ago I did my Master's degree by coursework at university X, and wrote the Master's thesis under supervision of well-known Prof. A. For many reasons that I don't want to list here, I plagiarized. The first part of my thesis was background, and the second part was the original contribution.

In the background part, I copied an entire chapter from textbook T about algorithm S. Algorithm S was invented more than 50 years ago, and is described in several books, including the very well-known T. I didn't paraphrase at all, I started by citing T, and then copied the whole chapter word by word.

The contribution part is actually contribution. One year after I left the school, Prof. A found another student to extend it and published the extension with me as the second author. (The paper included the algorithm and experiment in my thesis, but I didn't write a single word of the paper.)

I have moved to university Y to do a PhD. I have published several papers in top conferences and have very good relationship with several well-known researchers. I want to advance in academia.

Will the Master's thesis destroy any possibility of a future academic career? If someone read my Master's thesis, it is very easy to recognize, since the part from the textbook is in perfect English, and the rest is in extremely poor English.

Can I contact the university to submit a revised Master's thesis which re-describes the algorithm S? This is the last thing I want to do.


texts: How to tell pushy "advisors" to back off?

texts:
TL;DR

What can a PhD student on a research stay abroad do about postdocs that are supposed to be collaborators but behave like "helicopter advisors"?

Background

A friend of mine is doing her PhD (fourth year) in Europe (in a STEM field) and she asked her PhD advisor for the possibility of a research stay abroad. So the advisor told her to contact some professor-acquaintances of his and one of them (at a very famous US university) had a project she could work on but no funds to pay her. She therefore applied for funding and stipends in her home country and managed to scrape up enough money to go and stay for some months. Half of this time has passed by now.

The Situation

She is working on said project together with two postdocs who will be co-authors on a possible paper resulting from it. The professor who invited her will of course also be a co-author but he is not very closely involved. The postdocs, on the other hand, seem to believe they need to track her every step and micro-manage her. All while being very demanding since they are looking for faculty positions. They will (both, sometimes one after the other, sometimes together) come to her office on an almost daily basis to be shown any progress she made. Also, they will schedule frequent meetings (in addition to the weekly group meeting) for her to report on what she has been doing and to give her tasks to complete. From what she's telling me, for her these meetings feel like it's two big guys against her. She tried to involve the professor in the meetings but all that did was make it feel like three big guys against her. She has also started working in the library and that has taken some pressure out since now the postdocs won't just come by and demand seeing her progress.

The Problem

However, the feeling of constantly being pushed and having to prove herself is starting to take a toll and I'm seriously worried about her mental well-being. She's not sleeping well, has considered just dropping everything and going home (something she usually never does), and sometimes she seems close to breaking down.

Now on the one hand I don't think the postdocs are doing this maliciously (they haven't reacted negatively to her starting to work in the library), it just seems to me like they have little experience in supervising students (which is odd, considering that they are looking for faculty positions) and interpersonal relations aren't really their strength. I mean not even an undergraduate student should be supervised so closely in my opinion, let alone someone reaching the end of their PhD who is funded from abroad and is basically a visiting collaborator. And on the other hand, to some degree, it's probably also her personality that's making this difficult since she really values working independently and maybe it's a cultural/language thing that has prevented her from being able to make that clear. But all this does not change the fact that something has to happen. Unfortunately, I wasn't really able to give her any good advice on how to make them understand that they're pushing too much and need to give her more freedom.

The Question

So what can I tell her to do when she asks the next time? How can she improve this situation without burning bridges?


texts: How to cite a paper that looking for a journal for publication

texts:
I am working on my second paper (as phd projects) which is an extension of my first paper. For my first paper, I will send it to a journal very soon. As I know acceptance of a paper by a journal is not an easy journey. Therefore, may I need to submit my paper for different journals (not at the same time) until it can find a place. My question is, how can I cite my first paper in my second one. I need to submit them at a very close time. For example, if I submit my first paper in this week (for example) then I may send the second one into two weeks (two weeks after the first one is submitted).

Any help, please?


texts: How should I proceed if I am late in applying for postdoc positions?

texts:
I am submitting my Aerospace engineering PhD thesis in August. However, my colleagues have pointed out that I am very late with postdoc applications for this year. I should started searching much sooner.

Now, I am still being funded by my PhD supervisor, and she has said that I can stay in her lab after my PhD as a postdoctoral fellow until I find something else. I personally would like to do that because I have lot of publications pending and staying back will help me push those through. Also it would provide me time to learn a new modeling methodology which will significantly improve my profile and improve my chances of securing postdoc positions.

However, my colleagues are saying that doing postdoc from the same place is extremely bad for an academic profile. I do want stay in academia, and I am now regretting my delay in applying for postdoc positions.

How should I proceed? Is it true that my profile is going to be looked at negatively if I continue under my current supervisor for the next 6-8 months after my defense? At the moment, I don't have any financial debts or anything. But, I am really concerned how my future will pan out provided I have to stay here. This is really stressing me out.


texts: I would like to apply to a masters program in Japan but I have no research experience. Any advice?

texts:
I am pursuing a B.S in Math at UCLA, which is in the United States. My academic performance is above the average. My major GPA is 3.73 and my GPA for upper division courses is 3.56. My GRE General is 327. I might also pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level N1 held in this December, so I might be able to apply to programs taught in Japanese.

I am thinking about applying to some master programs in Japan such as information science in Tokyo University. The only thing that troubles me is that almost all universities require you to write research plan and contact the professor whose research interests you. This is quite different from US. As someone without research experience, how should I deal with this situation? Is there any taught masters program in Japan? Thanks in advance.


texts: Referencing literature review in discussion

texts: If I refer back to a cited source in the literature review while writing the discussion section, (undergrad dissertation) should I cite the author again or am I free to use the information that has already been cited?


texts: "Web of science" as search provider in chrome?

texts:
Is it possible to use Web of Science from the Chrome Omni-Bar (aka address-bar)?

Chrome supports adding custom searches by mapping a string to a search expression, e.g.

i    https://www.google.at/search?tbm=isch&q=%s
doi  https://dx.doi.org/%s

which then allows entering doi XXXX.XXXX to lookup a doi, or i academia to do a google image search for "academia".

apps.webofknowledge.com however, has session-based urls where the current query isn't included in any readable form, so this method won't work. They do provide a description of how to add web of science as search provider but it seems to be outdated by years – Chrome isn't even mentioned and it doesn't work in Internet Explorer 11 either.


texts: Are the referees of a journal allowed to reveal the title of the papers they review after the review process?

texts:
I am wondering if a referee can reveal the title of the papers he/she has refereed for a journal (either by talking about it in the pub, posting it on facebook or another mean) after the decision has been made.

The reason for my question is that I have seen some people revealing titles of the papers they referee but I have not found an authoritative reference for judging this behaviour.


texts: How relevant can be the major corrections in PhD dissertation?

texts:
My understanding of major corrections in PhD dissertation is that there can be entire chapters to add to the presented dissertation. However for me it's very hard to understand how much these changes might actually impact the thesis.

Specifically to my situation, I negotiated with my supervisor to limit certain contents that I'm not interested in adding to my dissertation. Apparently he agreed.(1)

However, I'm afraid that these contents can pop up again after the viva, in the form of "major corrections" to the dissertation. In that case, I guess, I will have no chance to negotiate again and I can just accept them or quit the PhD, probably in the worst moment possible. (2) So, can I anticipate this to happen? How can I make sure that "major corrections" will not be used to turn my research to the personal will of the supervisor?

Moreover, since I saw that "minor corrections" could just be revised by the internal committee, I'm afraid that this can happen as well as in the case of "major corrections". But, maybe in this case the corrections cannot be that radical to change the direction of my research. Is this actually possible?

notes

(1) these contents have been forced to me by manipulative moves and have nothing to do with the thesis itself. I added some of them as a compromise to make my supervisor happy enough. I'm rejecting these contents because of the manipulation and because of my personal ethic.

(2) I would not rely too much in the other components of the committee , since they are all under the influence of my supervisor


texts: How should I use a five-minute presentation at the beginning of an academic job interview?

texts:
I have been invited for an interview for a tenure track assistant professor position. The interview will be conducted virtually. At the beginning of the interview I am supposed to give a five minute presentation by way of introduction. Very little was provided by way of instructions for this presentation, apart from the time limit.
I don't really know how best to use this time. They have already seen my application materials (research plans, teaching philosophy etc), and will presumably have them to hand, but should I give a summary of what I consider the most important points of those? Or should I give a summary of my career so far emphasising the most relevant experiences? Or should I be trying to introduce some new information that they won't have seen in my application?


texts: 19 months and no decision: At what point should I withdraw my paper?

texts:
I submitted a mathematical paper to a good journal specialized in geometry and topology. By good I mean that there is no doubt whatsoever about its scientific standing (e.g. Scimago places it consistently in the first quartile within its subject category).
Now, the problem is that I submitted the paper more than 19 months ago, and yet I have not received any feedback. The journal does not use an online submission system, so to inquire about the status of the submission I need to send an email to the journal's email address.
Approximately six months ago I was informed, upon request, that both referee reports had been received, and that the paper was pending the handling editor's decision. Last week I emailed the journal again (putting the Editor-in-chief on copy) and asked again for news. I was informed that the status has not changed.
I am wondering how long more I should keep waiting before withdrawing the paper. I do not want to withdraw it, knowing that a decision might be close, but at the same time I am getting really frustrated. What would you do in this situation?


texts: Is there an available network analysis of all academic papers and/or a 3D representation?

texts:
I know multiple paid or open databases are available online for a meta-analysis of academic articles, but I was wondering if there are any published papers or graphics on a network analysis of the available data, particularly in reference to time.

Ideally, what I’m looking for is a three-dimensional representation of correlation of all available research papers by word similarity, keyword, title similarity, etc. and with vertical axis as time of publication and which allowed relatively assessable identification of nodes, density, cluster, and relationship patterns.

If something like this exists, a link would be greatly appreciated. If not, any nudge in the right direction of meta-research on academia would also be greatly appreciated.


texts:
My question in about the general situation in the US universities related to the two body problem.
My impression from what I have heard is that most of American universities are located in small university towns where there are very few other job places. So for spouses of university employees there are not many options to find a job.
My question is whether my understanding is correct. Is it typical that spouses cannot find jobs?
At the moment I cannot ask a more specific question about concrete place.  By it is important for me to know what is going on in general.
ADDED. My spouse works in chemistry.  But in industry rather than academia.


texts: Submission paper to a journal with no reply

texts:
I submitted a paper ten day ago, respecting the dead line. Precisely, I submitted the paper two days before the dead line indicated by the Journal on its web site. The Journal had different editions during the years, such as the spring, summer and winter one. The deadline is important only to see your article published on the next edition of the journal. However, from the day I submitted the paper, I still haven't received any answer from the editors. I submitted my paper, as required by e/mail. I didn't get even a confirmitation that the paper was received. Is this normal?

Should I ask about the current status of the paper?


texts: How to handle salary negotiations while negotiating a postdoc position?

texts:
I am a couple of months off my defence and started thinking about postdoc possibilities. I seem to have an opportunity at a very prestigious lab in the U.S. (I'm currently located in Europe).

After a brief chat with the PI at a conference, and some e-mails back and forth I was invited to come for a visit, meet the people and present myself and my work so far. Considering that we are still in contact and started discussing more regarding the projects and funding possibilities, I feel like they genuinely do want me to work there.

Putting aside all the parameters regarding the scientific matters, I am a bit concerned about the economic aspects. The lab is located at a city which is among the most expensive in the country, based on what I read/hear. I have been in contact with the postdoc-community (turns out there is one) at this university and asked them about how salaries are decided and how it compares to the cost of living in that city. The answer wasn't very simple, but my understanding is that it's not regulated at uni or faculty level but instead decided on a case-by-case basis. I hear figures varying from $30K to $75K, which is a pretty huge span.

So, coming back to my contact with the PI, at no point during our communication the subject of salary came up, and while initially I was cool with that, I am starting to feel like it would be good to know what I am getting myself into before we start putting serious effort into writing grant applications and designing projects.

I realize money shouldn't be the first concern, while negotiating an academic position; but if I'm going to relocate to the other side of the planet without any security of a future there, or back here, I'd like to know that I'm taking a step up from my current life rather than a step down. The issue is that as a grad student in Sweden, you have a pretty decent life and you get a respectable salary (despite being 20-35% down from a comparable position at industry).

Q1: How can I inquire about the salary offer/negotiation without appearing greedy or money-oriented?

Q2: As a follow up, is it reasonable to expect/ask them to match my current living standard?


texts: Is it appropriate to reply every time to a professor's "thank you" email?

texts:
I want to know, since I am not a native English speaker, whether or not it is appropriate to reply to a thank-you email from a professor?

For example, if every time you get an email from a professor saying "Thanks," you reply "no problem" or "you are welcome."

Could it turn out to be annoying or offending if one replies to every "thank you"?

I realized sometimes misunderstanding may unnecessarily arise because of cultural differences. If one does not reply to a thank-you email from a professor, then would the professor be accordingly offended? On the other hand, if one constantly reply "you are welcome" or something like this, would he be instead considered prudish?


texts: Consequences of a paper with major errors, but unrelated to your field/dissertation

texts:
Background Info:

So, to make a long story short, I'm worried about paying for mistakes I made when I was a younger, unprofessional, ignoramus.

I'm an engineering PhD student at a U.S. University.  I did my BS and MS at the same university which I'm doing my PhD.   About 3 years ago, my previous advisor wanted me to publish my work (from late undergrad early MS stage) to a respected international conference.  At this  time I was young, nieve, and frankly did not care very much.  I submitted the paper and it was accepted, and I presented at the conference.  I have since left the lab, and changed fields to a different engineering discipline.

Years later, I have realized the conference paper has numerous errors, some are theoretical errors, others are sloppy errors.  My initial reaction was that this does not matter because it's a different field (a conference/journal not relevant to my current field) and not related to my current PhD dissertation.  However, upon further thought, there could be serious consequences to this.

MY QUESTIONS

1) What are the consequences for having submitted a conference paper with major errors?  The paper is sitting in the proceedings with errors.

2) Are there actions/charges/reprimands the university can take against me for having submitted a paper with major inaccuracies while a student at that university?  Can they expel or revoke a degree?

3) Since this work has errors, I worry about charges of rigged data/results.  Since there are inaccuracies, this could lead to charges of rigged data (side note: paper was on theoretical and computational work, not experimental).  The way to combat these allegation would be to reproduce the error-filled work  -  which would be very tough for me to do since (1) the work had errors and (2) the work was done a long time ago with some files now missing.  Even though I did not falsify data, what are the charges for a grad student falsifying data?  Although the paper is not related to my dissertation, allegations of rigged data could have serious consequences, what could they be?


texts: On conference abstract based on my research lab job, not university where I am currently an undergraduate, should I include university affiliation?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student working at a National research institute (I call it NatLab), not my University (Acme U).

On a proposed abstract for a conference which one of my coworkers will be presenting our work, my name is tentatively listed along with NatLab, but not Acme U.

Should I ask to also include Acme U in the affiliations?

EDIT: The reason that I suggested that my question question is related to, but not identical to the link below is that there are a few subtle differences between my question and the link.

First, I am still considered to be a student at my University while working for Natlab, and my university is associated with Natlab (they collaborate heavily, and I believe they co-fund Natlab).

The second is that I will be applying to graduate school at my Acme U (among other places), and I am hoping to avoid stepping on any toes.

Having said that, I believe I will still lean towards the answer provided in the link, and I do think it encompasses what I need, but if anyone has any other opinions, I would be happy to hear them.

Possibly related: For paper based on thesis, should I list my university as affiliation or the name of the company I currently work for?


texts: What to do if I have a good proposal for experiment but don't have an ability to fully conduct it?

texts:
I've recently began working on machine learning, and I was a mathematician before then. Despite such background, as ML is a fast moving area, since I have studied the recent progress considerably and numerous papers, I'm confident in my knowledge. However, I'm neither good at nor fast at implementing my ideas to algorithms. I have no problem with writing pseudocodes, adding details and designing experiments, but it takes bit more time to implement algorithms in Tensorflow and PyTorch for my designed neural network not too slowly. I'm not used to debugging such codes either, since it's much harder than simple, fast algorithms I had to learn before. Therefore, it takes an incredibly long time to conduct an experiment by myself.

An interesting paper was published 3 days ago, and the author does neither understand its full implication nor have an access to enough computation resources. I can attempt a very interesting experiment, and if successful (which is likely), it would be a great deal for both the author and me. However, due to my incredible slowness, I probably have no chance for it, since others will probably publish before I will. I need someone with machine learning knowledge who is not too bad at coding.

I have three choices: grad students in my university, the aforementioned author and well-known experts in the field. I've never met the people in last two options, but both are familiar with the topic. The author doesn't possess a good coding skill either and failed at coding one thing I'm trying to do, since he is a mere student.

I'm not sure whether I can trust either of them. If I will propose my ideas and coauthoring a paper, since I lack coding experience and it bothers them, there's no guarantee that, even if they don't even know the paper (for experts' case) or my idea yet, they can just claim to have the idea already or just ignore my email, and they can publish the paper based on my idea before I do. Grad students probably can help me, but I'm not sure whether they will show an interest in or familiarity with the topic.

I believe this situation can be generalized. In such cases, what is the best choice? Any advice? By the way, as far as I know, it's uncommon to just upload to Arxiv a non-theoretical paper with proposal of experiments and generalization of an existing algorithm. Even if I do, it will not give me much credits, since if it does, then proposal papers would have abounded.


texts: Should you write university names out in full, or use the common abbreviation?

texts:
I am writing a job application which lists the universities I have given invited talks at. What I would like some advice on, is whether I should always write each university out in full, or whether I should always use the common acronym / abbreviation associated with that university (if any), or whether it should depend on how well-known that acronym / abbreviation is.

For example, consider the following passage:

  I have given talks at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Melon University, the University of California Berkeley, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, University College London, the Technical University of Munich, Kings College London, Manchester Metropolitan University.

If I were to use all the acronyms / abbreviations, then it would read:

  I have given talks at MIT, Caltech, CMU, UC Berkeley, ETH Zürich, UCL, TMU, KCL, MMU.

Now, some of these acronyms / abbreviations are well-known (the first few), but some are not (the last few), particularly for non-academics.

But would it look strange if I used a mixture? Let’s see:

  I have given talks at MIT, Caltech, CMU, UC Berkeley, ETH Zürich, UCL, Technical University Munich, King's College London, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Yes, that looks a bit strange to me. So what rule should I use? Should I be consistent, or should I decide for each university what rule to use?


texts:
I want to create a fairly long survey for my doctoral research. The target audience is teachers in the area. I have the option of using the software my institution provides (Qualtrics), Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or perhaps something different. I'm leaning toward my university's software because the URL has my university's domain and might seem more trustworthy or legit than SurveyMonkey. Google Forms is pretty slick, though, too.

My one requirement is that I need to be able to branch based on answers.

What are some pros/cons of using one software over the other for academic work? Is it okay to do a survey with software not provided by my institution?

(PS--This is actually on behalf of my wife. :-) )


texts: My experiment supports a theory. Shall I contact the theorist attaching with my drafts?

texts:
We did an experiment and the results unexpectedly support a famous theory. I am not entirely sure how to write the full paper or sell the results because I am not too familiar with that theory. And I don't know which journals welcome that theory. I think chatting with that theorist will surely help.
Shall I directly send our results and drafts to that professor, or shall I send a short cover letter first, which concisely describes our results and shows how his theory is supported, and then send the paper only if the theorist agrees?

I talked to my advisor and they agree I could contact this person, but I'm not sure how to start. The theory is famous for its philosophical and mathematical elegancy but one of its important implications is hard to test.


texts: "I noticed an (minor) imperfection in my paper, but it is already under review. What should I do now?

texts:
I submitted a paper to a journal early last year that was given major corrections. The reviewers were generally positive about the contribution but felt the technical framework needed simplified.

I spent 6 months or so on the corrections and sent it back a couple of weeks ago. The journal secretary has since confirmed it's back with the reviewers.

I've since noticed there's something missing from the paper and although it's relatively trivial - insofar as it doesn't affect the results - I'm concerned that it will ruin my chances of acceptance.

Basically, in the revised paper I simplified the framework by binning multiple confusing definitions in favour of four new definitions of four similar concepts (let's call then apple, orange, banana and pear, with the definitions being "X is a(n) {apple,orange,banana,pear} if such-and-such a property holds"). These definitions are all in the paper as resubmitted.

Each of these concepts then has an associated definition (also new in the revised paper) of an operator whose output is a collection of each individual concept.

e.g. +(A,B) = {apple1,apple2,...,appleN}; -(A,B) = {orange1,orange2,...,orangeN} etc.

These definitions are near-identical: "the apple operation +(A,B) yields a set where every element is an apple", "the orange operation -(A,B) yields a set where every element is an orange" etc.

(I've trivialised the definitions but you hopefully get the idea).

My problem is that I've only provided definitions of the operators for apples and oranges and completely forgot the ones for bananas and pears. I subsequently say something along the lines of "consider the following banana operation *(A,B)..." and also later in the paper use the undefined operators in a theorem.

The definitions of banana and pear operator are near-identical to those for apple and orange, something I think is easy to deduce in context.

A silly mistake I know, but not only did I not spot it, amazingly two others I asked to review it (one internal one external) didn't spot it either.

I'm just wondering if it's worth worrying about? I suppose it's likely that the reviewers won't spot it either, but if they do, does this seem like a minor correction (rest of the paper notwithstanding)? And if so, are minor corrections normally allowed after major corrections?

Edited to add: I realise that the question in the title didn't fully encapsulate what I was asking. I've updated the title to more fully reflect the question I was asking.


texts: How to find the ISI-indexed papers for a specific institution?

texts: I am interested in finding the ISI-indexed papers for a given institition X. This would be any ISI-indexed paper where one or more authors are affiliated with X. Is this doable and are there any guidelines for how to do this?


texts: Advisor asking to cite his works in my thesis. Not sure if the right thing to do

texts:
I am currently writing my thesis, and so far I've mentioned some well known related artcles focusing on a certain family of methods. My advisor has also published a similiar work, which is not influential or as diverse compared to other methods - the work also focuses more on utilization aspect rather than benchmark one.

My advisor wants me to mention his work - I feel it would be a little out of place in my thesis, unless I mention some older not necessarily state-of-the-art methods. What should I do?

EDIT: I forgot to mention that this is a master thesis. Aside from that, what feels wrong to me is not having a choice to comply or not with the request and treating citations as a currency. It's a small thing, but if it weren't my advisor I would probably refuse.


texts: What is the minimum one can communicate with coauthors

texts:
What are the minimal communication points with coauthors necessary for peer-review?

I am faced with a slightly hostile and poorly trained group of coauthors (the latter is not their fault: they are MS level engineers from industry). Each communication costs time and misunderstanding. I do have a desire to do things 'correctly', in general, but especially as I suspect that at some point one may write a letter complaining to the editor. I'm hoping to steer this process to happier places, and fewer exchanges seem to be one important component of this.

Upon submission all authors ratified the draft.  Now I have a revise and resubmit. My plan is not to send the comments around (they will be taken as 'we failed' by this group, not accustomed to academic comments). Instead, I will address them and send around the revision with reply.

Does this seem acceptable. is there a way to minimize even more?


texts: Declining a paper review after accepting it and seeing the manuscript

texts:
Most of the time, when I am invited to review a paper, I am only provided with the title and abstract. The full manuscript becomes available only after I have agreed to review the paper. As per this question, this seems not to be common in all fields, but it does seem to be the norm in the journals I usually review for.

I assume this is a way to minimize the number of people that get access to the content of the paper before publication, and only provide that "privilege" to those who actually give something back in the form of a review.

However, it might hypothetically happen that I agree to review a paper based on the abstract, but then I see the full manuscript and find that I do not have the required level of expertise to review the methods used in the paper.

If I now decline the review, then I am going back on my word, and the community will see me as less reliable. Furthermore, I have unfairly gained access to unpublished content without giving anything back.

If I do the review, I will not be able to accurately evaluate the contributions of the paper, and might (probably) recommend acceptance of something that might not warrant it.

What is the best course of action in this case?


texts: Do STEM PhD admissions committees check a candidate's Statement of Purpose for plagiarism?

texts:
Or is that not really possible, given the high volume of applications?  Do professors have a plagiarism-detecting application to launch investigations, if necessary?

What if, for instance, a successful math PhD applicant to University X gives his Statement of Purpose to his friend for him to apply next year at a similar PhD program at University Y?

I am just asking out of curiosity - I have no intentions of plagiarizing :)

Also, there are plenty of admissions-consulting businesses that are around, particularly for business school applications, so I wonder if such services are offered for PhD applications and whether PhD admissions committees have a way to say, "this Statement of Purpose was definitely not written by Candidate Z."


texts: Ethical considerations in publishing raw data

texts:
Apart from taking measures to maintain confidentiality, do I need my ethical approval to specify permission to publish raw data along with my study? I'm trying to facilitate reproducibility in my research. It is a retrospective, cross-sectional study of medical records. The information is sensitive.

I know that there are other questions out there that touch on the subject, but they do not quite cover what I want to know.


texts: Would it hurt if I mention somewhere in my application package to a phd program that I applied to the same program?

texts:
I applied to a phd program last year and was not offered anything. This year, I would like to take a shot at that school once more. I thus wonder if it would do me good or bad or neither for me to mention somewhere in my application package that I once applied to the program? The school does not ask applicants to reveal such information in their online application system
(so that I think the present question is differentiated from this neighboring question Reapplying to same PhD program....

Suppose doing so is tacitly expected and otherwise the applicant could be considered trying to cover up something. Then what is a judicial way to describe the situation?

Moreover, could an admissions committee of a very competitive program somehow really remember who applied before and who is fresh?


texts: How to be a good reviewer when suspecting dubious results or being sent contributions outside my field of expertise?

texts:
Recently I have been appointed as a reviewer for an IEEE journal in CS. This journal is indexed on Scimago and its ranking is a Q3 journal.

I know that one cannot know all the topics covered in the diverse areas of CS, but as a reviewer, I have been assigned some papers that do not specifically belong to my field of expertise. Even though the journal appears to check the familiarity of the reviewer with the topic before reviewing it, I just feel it is not close enough.

Apart of that sometimes I get some papers in which the practical part or the methodological part is jumped quickly, and for me, it lacks consistency and is rather descriptive; I know the limitations of space, but I believe some authors should put more effort on that section.

Also, how can I know that the results that they present are for real? I have read many cases in which some authors fake their own results or push them to show nice results when in reality is not like that.

What to do in the aforementioned situations?


texts: If my professors didn't respond to my emails about recommendation

texts:
I have an issue with my professors not responding and I wish that you could help me.

So in May, I talked to a few professors about recommendation letters and they all agreed to write me letters. I emailed two of them three days ago, and I emailed a new professor about whether he could write me a letter one day ago. But none of them replied. My first reaction was if the emails were sent successfully because I attached 4 documents to every email, and it had happened before where people don't receive my emails with large files, even when it says it's sent. However, I also BCCed myself to my school email (which have the same server as my professors) and my school emails received all my emails. And it's really strange for one of the professors not responding to the email, because he is really nice and he usually replies.

My question is since I'm not sure if it's a technical issue that my professors didn't get my emails, or it's simply because all of my professors don't want to write me letters (two of them agreed to do it earlier). If they all chose to say no by not responding to my emails, would it be annoying if I keep sending checking in emails to them? But I also can't sit around and wait forever.

Thanks for your time reading this and I'd really appreciate your advice!


texts: What is the advantage of doing an integrated Masters course over a Bachelors and then Masters? (UK.)

texts:
I am on an integrated Masters in Physics course, otherwise knows as MPhys. This means that after my third year I will not be awarded with a BSc, but will graduate after 4 years with an MPhys. At my university (and I assume others as well), doing a 4th year after graduating with a BSc then gives you an MSc instead of an MPhys.

I am coming to wonder if there is any advantage to this. It complicates things massively if I want to change university to complete my Masters. Surely it would be advantageous to do a BSc, and then if you want to change university to complete an MSc there will be no complications.

There are only 2 possible advantages I can think of:

An MPhys is harder than a BSc+MSc and is therefore more highly regarded by employers and
There is no longer the need to apply for a 4th year at university.

The second is an obvious one, but is the first true? Are there any other advantages? I am thinking of transferring to the BSc in case I decide I want to go to a better university to complete my Masters.


texts: NSF proposal still pending but status date changed!

texts: It has been 6 months since I submitted an NSF proposal. I noticed the status date got updated to today, but the status is still pending. No email or call from the PM. Is this a decline for sure?


texts: What are the benefits of becoming an academic administrator?

texts:
Why do some professors choose to go into academic administration (e.g., become associate deans, etc.)? I've always assumed the main attraction is that they get paid more.

But I've also thought that if I wanted to make more money than I do as a professor, I'd just leave academia entirely and take a job in industry, where I could probably earn 30-40 percent more. I'd have less flexibility in industry than I have as a professor in terms of what I research and what my work hours are. But the same would be true if I went into administration at a university (which would probably still not pay as well as industry).

So I've never seen a real benefit of going into administration, given that the extra pay does not (to me) offset the extra responsibilities (especially when the best-paying jobs are outside of academia entirely). Are there other benefits of being an academic administrator that I'm overlooking?


texts: Can giving back to my alma mater have a positive impact on application?

texts:
I going to create a really simple social network for my alma mater so that it could help people network better. After getting some work experience I was thinking of pursuing a masters degree in Computer Sciences. The school I graduated from is not a tech-school but best for arts and commerce in my country.

So I was hoping that it could become a stand-out factor in my application. I have an average percentage.

EDIT

The degree I graduated with was not a CS degree but a degree in physical sciences. Further, the undergraduate school as I mentioned did not have a "proper" CS department.


texts: Should I agree to review papers as a postdoc?

texts:
I am a post doc in mathematics, and was just sent a request to review a paper. This is the first time it happened to me. I never heard of this journal before, but it is a Springer journal, and upon checking the editorial board it looks like a respectable journal. Also, the paper looks quite interesting, so it appears that I shouldn't worry about it being dubious.

I wonder however, if this is a good time in my career to do such a job. Given that I am a postdoc, constantly in the run for the next job, and probably this will take some of my valuable research time. Is it normal for postdocs to review research papers? Should I accept it? If so, should I mention the fact I review for this journal in my C.V?


texts: How to prepare academically-minded students and postdocs for the eventuality of not finding secure academic employment?

texts:
Graduate students and postdocs are predominantly trained to be -- and driven by the prospect of becoming -- full-time academics. For a majority of them, there comes a point of reckoning when they realize they may not be among the select few that "make it" to a secure full-time academic job. This realization is commonly accompanied by the feeling of having been exploited by the academic system, a feeling that becomes more and more exacerbated the longer one remains in graduate studies or post-graduate contingent positions before moving on to a different field. This is both well-studied and quantified in higher-ed literature and virtually omnipresent as anecdotal accounts on higher-ed media.

As a soon-to-be assistant professor, how can I prepare academically-minded students and postdocs for the eventuality of not finding secure academic employment? Are there well-documented mentoring methods on this subject?

I am more interested in what I can do individually, rather than how to force institutional change collectively, as I have found it easier to find resources on the latter topic.


texts: I think my professor misunderstood something I said and may have taken offense; what should I do?

texts: I am following a graduate mathematics course. While in class, I noticed that my classmates notes almost sliding off her inclined desk, and I whispered to her that gravity was a bitch. I think I saw the lecturer, a woman, react to this but I am not sure. I am now worried that our lecturer thinks I called her a bitch. I have the utmost respect for her and I'd hate for her to think otherwise. How can this be fixed?


texts: Why is it so difficult to find a topic for my thesis research?

texts:
I've majored in computer science (BSc: close to MIS, MSc: advanced software engineering), I've worked on dissertations on totally different topics in every stage at college, now I'm planning to do a PhD and I've been looking at different topics from various sub-fields but I frankly can't pin one to use as a starting point. I would say that I like X topic or Y and when I look closer at the papers being published in the field they seem too obscure to me and I can barely comprehend their abstracts. For example, I was searching for starting point in solving concurrency problems in software or even advance such technique since I felt it's what I want to do and what I know that would keep me motivated but I frankly couldn't find anything, I've looked at publications that reference famous papers/book (things I've researched very briefly) like communicating sequential processes and cooperating sequential processes but there was nothing that could give me a good start.

My questions here, am I looking in the wrong sub-field? I know I'm highly motivated by the previously mentioned area but do I understand enough to enter such area? I've seen people jump from psychology to computer science at PhD level and I wonder how someone could do such thing. Also am I even a PhD material if I can't pass this stage?

Note: the topics of my past dissertations were on AI and online social communities


texts:
I came across a paper today:

  Plink It: Paper-Based Links for Cross-Media Information Space Jurgen
  Steimle, Nadir Weibel, Simon Olberding, Max Muhlhauser, and James D.
  Hollan. Adjunct Proceedings of ACM Symposium on User Interface
  Software and Technology, 1969-1974, 2011. (PDF)

I am curious: what does Adjunct Proceedings mean? The paper's style and format looks quite different from Computer Science papers that I used to read. Could anyone explain this to me?


texts: Clarifications needed: UK research positions

texts:
In addition to various US-based positions, I am currently considering (applying for) several research positions at a couple of well-known UK universities. While I researched the topic somewhat, I am not too familiar with specifics of academic system in UK and, thus, would appreciate clarifications.

Questions:

Despite being offered at the same salary level, I assume that a position of researcher is higher in rank, responsibilities and expectations than the one of research assistant. Is my assumption correct universally or it might depend on department or specific research project?
Is employment at UK universities at-will? Specifically, I am interested in the context of (postdoctoral) researcher positions. If the academic employment is at-will, is it ethical to leave early a research position, associated with a multi-year project (for valid reasons and assuming no teaching is involved)? If not, how such issues should be handled gracefully? I don't expect such things to happen, but it is better to have some situational awareness in this regard.
Are there any differences between positions with the titles of researcher or research assistant and the ones with the same titles, but prefixed with "postdoctoral"? (You can answer from both UK and US perspectives or either one, whatever environment you have knowledge about.)


texts: What does “Awaiting Reviewer Scores” mean within the context of a prosemanager submission system?

texts:
I submitted a paper to Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems that uses the prosemanager submission system. The manuscript status has changed from "Awaiting Reviewer Assign" to "Awaiting Reviews(8 outstanding)".

And now "Awaiting Reviews(8 outstanding)" changes continuously to "Awaiting Reviews(7 outstanding)", "Awaiting Reviews(6 outstanding)", ..., "Awaiting Reviews(4 outstanding)" with time.

What does this change mean? What is the flow chart of the different statuses for a manuscript for this "Awaiting Reviews"?


texts: Course gamification: rewards that aren't bonus marks?

texts:
I am experimenting with a game mechanism in my course in which students can progress through 4 core competencies, A, B, C, and D.  Each competency has 3 levels, 1, 2, and 3.  The game component is optional.  The idea is that each level of each competency will be linked to a few homework activities that, once completed, achieves the level.  When all levels are achieved for a given competency, the competency itself is achieved.

In my department, homework assignments are not graded (projects and so forth are, but I can't assign a few questions for grading).  As a result, I want to ensure that my students are actually going to do the homework I've assigned.  I can give bonus marks.

I'd like to give rewards for completing these competencies, but I don't want the course so overloaded with bonus marks that students can too easily get 100% without doing well on the final/midterm/projects.  So far, the ideas I have are:

Complete level 1 for any competency - earn 1 grace day for handing in an assignment late without penalty
Complete level 1 for all competencies - earn 5 grace days, in addition to the 1 you gain for doing the above
Complete all levels for any competency - bonus quizzes now worth 7% (originally they were worth 5%)
Complete all competencies - 2% course bonus

I'm not a big fan of all of this bonus, but other than bonus marks and late days I'm not sure what other options I have.  Any ideas?


texts: I am currently an undergraduate math major and have hopes of attending graduate school in applied math. I also have a love for physics and thinking of minoring in physics. After some research, I found that many departments have professors in the research area of mathematical physics. Is having a minor in physics a good background to pursue research at the graduate level in mathematical physics?


texts: Publishing as an undergraduate student: can/should I list my university affiliation?

texts:
I have done some research during the past year on one of the topics I am studying. Now I have got some nice results which I think I should publish. I think I can write a conference paper based on my results; a journal one might be too difficult at this point.

I have conducted the research alone, and have not received any help from any faculty members. Now, when I'm writing the paper, I came to consider for the first time am I allowed to publish under the institution I am studying in? I mean, I can list my university as my affiliation, even though I'm just an undergrad student, right? .. I could not find anything on this from the university rules, so I guess its "quiet information".


texts: What are good methods for determining course instruction workload equivalency?

texts:
The courses at my university are assigned a number "units" that basically correspond with the number of in-class hours per week, i.e. a 4 unit course is often two 110 minute sessions per week. Different types of courses require different amounts of time for the instructors. Professor teaching distributions are often set by simply stating something like "a regular faculty member must teach 1 four unit course per quarter". The courses in my department vary from 10 students to 300, we may get teaching assistants, and courses are traditional lecture styles, laboratories, project based, etc. It is likely not a good idea to say that 1 four unit course with 10 students requires equivalent time/resources as a 4 unit course with 300 students, but that is what we do. Instructors may not get fair teaching distributions due to this and it also has bearing on merit and promotion cases.

How do other institutions and departments compare courses in terms of instructor workload? I assume there may be ways other than simply the # of hours in class per week (credit/unit measure).

Edit: I'm particularly interested in precise definitions of this measure.


texts: Is it still possible to get a decent job in academia (specifically physics) nowadays?

texts:
I am an American high schooler considering what to do in university. I am immensely interested in theoretical physics, and I would quite like to become a professor in the subject (I've self-studied quite a bit of it; while I'm no master, I can still do enough to have a decent bit of reputation on the Physics S.E.). However, I've been hearing some rather concerning things from others already in academia about becoming a professor in physics in particular. First of all, I've heard here that every new crisis is permanently harming the job market in academia overall. Secondly, I've heard in several places (including here, if I recall correctly) that the job market for new mathematics professorships is starting to dry up, which most likely means the writing is on the wall for physics professorships. I've heard plenty of personal anecdotes from friends who have parents in academia about how brilliant folks who went to top class schools are now either not able to find work at all or only able to find work in small, relatively unknown universities. Finally, I've heard from a couple physics professors and chairs that it's somewhat difficult to find a first position in physics in general (though it is apparently relatively straightforward to achieve tenure once you get your foot in the door, so to speak).
I've really enjoyed my self study, and research seems quite lovely with the little experience I have with it. Thus, I'd really, really love to grab a PhD in physics and teach and research for the rest of my time here on this planet,  but I'm concerned I'd be left out without a job if I tried to do so! Is my outlook on the situation too bleak, or would I be right to travel a different path and perhaps research on the side?


texts: Can I publish a paper with a group that is different than the one I start with?

texts:
I am an undergraduate who did research at my university a little while back. It was funded by a non-profit research organization, and I was paid with this money, through the university. I worked alone, but received some advice from people I worked with along the way. At the end of my time with the group, I had a poster with my findings on it, and I was preparing to begin writing a paper on the material. Unfortunately, the head of the group was let go from the university for some some immoral behavior (I'm aware that this is vague, and it intentionally so), and the group was disbanded. The university said that they would try to help me find someone else that I could publish with, but that never happened.

So here I am, sitting on some work that I'm very proud of. I don't want for it to go to waste, but I don't know if publishing my findings with a different group, outside of my university, will be considered plagiarizing. Any advice?

Edit: removed a separate question, asking how to bring the research up in applications


texts: Why are degrees revoked due to data fabrication/manipulation only in specific fields?

texts:
I read on the Internet that most degrees in psychology and medicine are revoked because of data manipulation/fabrication. In other areas like engineering, degree revocations only happen due to plagiarism.

How can data manipulation misconduct only be detected in medicine or psychology, but not in the other fields of investigation?


texts: Phrasing for one current fellowship and one previous fellowship

texts:
I'm receiving support from Fellowship X, and previously I received support from Fellowship Y. I want to write on my website

  I am fortunate to be supported by Fellowship X. Previously, I was supported by Fellowship Y.

But it might seem that I'm not grateful for Y. If I write

  I am fortunate to be supported by Fellowship X and Y.

it is not accurate, because I'm no longer supported by Y. Is there an elegant way to phrase this?


texts: Possibility of guessing acceptance rate of a journal using its impact factor?

texts:
Usually for the journals we have impact factor and for the conferences we have acceptance rate.

Now, is it possible to guess the acceptance rate of a journal using its impact factor ? For example, for this journal:

https://www.journals.elsevier.com/computers-and-security/call-for-papers/special-issue-on-blockchain-and-cryptocurrency

whose impact factor is 2.650


texts: A time frame for a faculty position application application in UK

texts:
Let us imagine that I am uploading the application for a faculty position (e.g. lecturer) in a university in UK today. What to expect next? Should I wait for their reply anyway or only in the case that my application is in a short list? How long might it take to get an email from them (weeks, months etc)?
Thanks!


texts: Can I take a course and get credits without enrolling in a program in the US?

texts: I am pursuing a master part time in my home country. My job is sending me to Houston for 2020, so I will have to pause my studies. I wouldn't like to stop studying next year so I wanted to know if I could take one or two courses at a Houston university given I comply with the academic requirements. Hopefully, I can get credits back home but that's not a requisite. Still, I would like to know if I would receive an official proof for having passes the courses.


texts: Undergrad thesis supervisor rejected request for LOR - how will this look on grad apps?

texts:
I haven't worked with my supervisor for long (~3 months now, 4 when apps are due), and she is well known in her field. I understand she has a reputation to uphold is honest in her letters from what I hear, so she really needs to get to know you before something like this.

I will be giving a lab talk on Nov 15 and submitting a research proposal and lit review on Nov 19, but sadly apps are due earliest by Dec 1. So, again, understandably, she told me she didn't feel prepared to judge me in a span of about 10 days (between when I submit and when apps are due), and that I should seek another prof.

Luckily, I'm working on another independent project and I've asked that supervisor (fingers crossed!); my other references are from (1) a 1.5-year work supervisor from when I was a research assistant and (2) a prof I worked with for a summer independent project.

How will it reflect on my Master's applications if I don't have a reference from my thesis supervisor? Is there anywhere I can explain the situation? Or, is there a possibility to request a delay in submission anywhere - and if this is the case, should I mention it to my prof or should I not persist?


texts: Citing a short story within a collection within another collection

texts:
Its collections all the way down today.
I am usually pretty sure about my works cited pages, but I just ran into something that has me stumped.
I am citing "Araby" from James Joyce's Dubliners. However, the only copy I have access to right now is the Barns & Nobel Classics edition, which contains both Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
So far, this is what I've come up with:

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners.
Barnes & Nobel Classics, 2004.

and

Joyce, James. "Araby." A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and
Dubliners. Barnes & Nobel Classics, 2004. pp. 249-254.

Ignoring my lack of hanging indent, are either of these correct?


texts:
Sabbatical leave is very common as it is nice to spend a year as a visiting professor in another university and experience a new environment.

It is very beneficial for the host university to have temporary faculty members free of charge (no salary is normally paid by the host university). (1) How do host universities attempt (if they do) to attract visiting professors? Of course, there are job advertisements for hiring visiting professors, but I think they are paid positions and different from normal sabbatical leave.

Visiting for research purposes should be arranged with the leader of the host research group. Thus, the arrangement is at a personal level (somewhat similar to hiring a postdoc researcher.

Visiting for education purposes should be arranged at the level of the department chair.

(2) How can a professor find a visiting professor? Is it chancy? to meet a colleague interested to host? Or s/he must contact many professors and department chairs to find a vacancy?

(1) & (2) Who should actually initiate this process? The guest professor or host university?

(possible 3) Is there a system to facilitate this process, as it is of mutual interest, or everything is left to chance? For example, European Union emphasizes the mobility of students/professors through different programmes. Is there such a system for sabbatical visits (in its classical form of completely working at the host university for a period of time, not guest lecturing as it is common in Europe).


texts: What if MS advisor pad his wife's name into my conference and journal publications?

texts: My MS advisor who is a tenured professor in a US school is padding his wife's name into my publication papers. His wife is an PhD candidate from the same department too and she didn't have any contribution on my research work. This is ethically and morally wrong but as the advisor is my thesis committee chair and I want to do my defense in coming month, I haven't opposed his idea yet. What I could do in this scenario? (He submitted one paper in a conference already with her name as second author and I am working to submit another in a transaction- he insisted her name to put in the second author position)


texts: Usefulness of graduate school extracurriculars

texts: All graduate programs have committees such as the "social committee" and "speaker series committees", as well as Graduate Student Organizations and other organizations to work on behalf of these programs. Is there any concrete career benefit to being an officer on one of these committees/organizations?


texts: GPA vs Undergrad prestige and difficulty

texts:
Consider the following scenario:

Bob goes to a top-tier university for his undergraduate degree. This university is known for its extra challenging curriculum and Bob also challenges himself while attending. Bob is able to learn the material, but due to the extra rigor of the college, Bob graduates with a 2.5 GPA (B/C Student).

John goes to a different university for the exact same undergraduate degree as Bob. His university has a significantly easier curriculum and as a result, John is able to graduate with a 3.5 GPA (A/B Student).

Other than going to a different undergraduate university and their GPA, Bob and John are identical. Both are now applying to the same grad school and the same program at that school. Which is a better graduate school candidate?

Note: I know this question is similiar to How are GPAs from different universities evaluated for admissions to MS programs in the USA?, but I am looking for an answer that is narrower. In my case, I would like to know how two candidates would be judged if there only differences was undergraduate GPA and undergraduate university. In all other aspects of the application process, these two hypothetical candidates are identical.


texts: Should I write more books as a grad student, or focus more on studies/research?

texts:
I started a blog that attracted the attention of publishers and they began offering me contracts to create video courses for them. I signed on with the first legitimate publisher to contact me last year and I've already published three courses with them (I owe them one more). I got paid advances and hopefully at some point I'll start seeing royalty checks too (I don't get paid until royalties exceed the advance; fair enough).

Writing and recording videos for these courses though is a lot of work and the publisher hounds me about deadlines. I thought after I publish these courses that would be the end of it, but other (and in my opinion bigger and better) publishers have taken notice too and they are wanting to get deals too.

I'm starting to stress out about whether I should try to squeeze a couple more books/courses in, maybe try to hurry through them during the summer, or if I should just say no more until I complete my Ph.D. (or at least my thesis and I'm basically coasting to graduation). The work is stressful and a distraction from studies and research, but the money I'm paid as a grad student gets me a small apartment and no car and money is still tight, and I would love to have a little more income from royalties that could maybe make a car payment or even an apartment in a better location (one where there's actually fun places to go in walking distance; I live alone and I'm getting lonely, and my location is a big part of the problem IMO; it feels impossible to meet new people here when a grocery store is the most interesting place in walking distance). I also have this fear that if I tell publishers no, I'm "missing out" on something that will pay off in the future.

TL;DR: Should I try to squeeze out a couple more video courses/books with publishers, or say "no more" until I finish my PhD and have a good research program going for me?


texts: Amount of pseudo code in the thesis body

texts:
I'm writing my undergraduate thesis (~25 pages) on a computer program I've developed. Naturally, I'm expected to explain what the program does and how it is implemented. However, the algorithm is quite complex and I simply cannot afford to include a full description.

What do you think, should I:

Lay out the general contours in writing and leave out the semi-obvious implementation details. The amount of detail should be enough to reproduce my work, but it would look rather vague and hard to read.
Include main pieces of the algorithm (written in pseudo code) in the body and use comments to explain what is going on. I'm leaning towards this one, as the work looks more readable this way. However, cumulatively these bits and chunks amount to 3.5 full pages of code.
Put pseudo code in the appendix. But in this case the major part of the explanation would be done in the appendix and the body would look kind of empty.


texts: Resolving authorship when PhD student does most of the work on paper, but originally agreed to support another PhD student (first author)?

texts:
I am a senior PhD student (in electrical engineering) who has been working on a project for approximately two years with another student (call him John, same year as me) and our advisor.

It was decided at the beginning of the project that John would be the leader of the research and I would help. Over the past two years, John's research interests have drifted away from the topic of the project, and he has increasingly lost interest in the project. This has pushed more responsibility on myself (coincidentally, my interests have drifted towards the topic). We published a conference paper on the topic (which had John as the first author even though I wrote the majority of it).

I raised concerns with my advisor about six months ago that I was doing more of the work. He listened and spoke with John that he needs to put in more effort. Shortly after I mentioned my concerns to my advisor, we were invited to submit the work to a book chapter to which we agreed (with the same author order, since John was still labeled as the leader of the project).

Over the course of the past six months, John and I have been writing the chapter. John has not been putting much effort into the chapter (John's written English is very poor and he is not detailed oriented at all, resulting in many equations being incorrect), so I have taken it upon myself to undergo the (very time-consuming) task of fixing the paragraphs and math. The quality of the chapter would have been very poor if it was not for my efforts.

I mentioned to my advisor in private that I basically wrote the entire chapter to which he responded that John's work was primarily in the theory. I know that John has not contributed more to the theory than I have. Furthermore, my advisor mentioned that John needs this work as a chapter of his thesis so he must be first author.

We are now a couple of days away from submission and I am feeling like I was exploited. I am sacrificing my own projects in order to finish this. Since my name is on the chapter, I have put in a lot of effort to make sure it is good quality. It is upsetting that John will end up getting more credit than myself. Furthermore, I am questioning the ethics of the fact that I wrote a chapter of someone else's thesis.

How should I proceed with this? My advisor has already seemed to make up his mind. Should I request/demand that a footnote be added that John and I contributed equally?


texts: What should I do if I cannot reproduce experimental published results

texts:
I found a useful advice if I cannot reproduce computational published results in (What should you do if you cannot reproduce published results?). However I would like to ask the same situation with experimental results.

I am from chemistry, and it often involves synthesis of compounds. I know every lab in the world cannot be identical even if all equipment are the same, because many external factors such as climate, humidity, lab temperature, etc. may possibly interfere with the experiment.

If I have followed all the steps described in the literature, from the source and purity of chemicals to every single step described, but still I cannot reproduce the results (evidence from some characterization techniques), what can I do? Should I contact the author to give me all 'hidden' steps like the size of beaker, etc.? Or the journal reviewers think that the authors have already disclosed enough information for others to reproduce it, so the remaining job to investigate how to reproduce the results is on me? However sometimes the description is really vague, like 'drying in a vacuum oven at 50oC for 10 minutes', but what is the degree of vacuum?

(Sometimes the size of beaker may play a role, as evaporation way affects its crystal size, also the position of drying compounds in oven, etc.)


texts: How to address an author showing replicated results from his paper?

texts:
I have replicated a method of interpolation recently proposed by certain author, and I want to tell him that I have done so. I suppose the author is interested in knowing that students are engaged with his work and are using his findings. But I'm unsure on how should I address him.

Should I just write to him saying that I have applied his method to new data and found the same results?
Should I also send him my work? Or is it too rude to send him the attachment (it is my thesis actually) because he may not be interested in reading it?
Should I also comment the results in the same email?

I don't know to which extent do I have to show him my results, because I don't wan't to overwhelm him but neither should he be the one asking for more info.


texts:
I am applying for a masters programme in Computer Science in the UK.
In the application I am asked to provide a description of any jobs I had so far.

What is important in such a job description, i.e. what information should I include?
How long should it be?

There is an html form with a text field but the maximum length is unspecified.


texts: What if research does not fetch good results

texts: A friend of mine is pursuing a Masters course containing a research dissertation as part of the curriculum. He has done a lot of work on his topic (both studying of existing literature as well as tried out some new methods) but none of them have given interesting results. So, what should his thesis describe? Or does he need to succeed in order to pass?


texts: What is life like for Western-raised/trained academics who are faculty in countries with extremely tight governmental control?

texts:
There are a growing number of prominent universities in the world which are based in countries where the government exerts substantial control over its citizens in ways that are not typical in "Western" countries (Europe, US, Canada, etc.). Two examples:

KAUST, in Saudi Arabia, where alcohol is illegal and there are extremely strict dress codes.
Tsinghua University, in China, where citizens are not typically allowed to protest or congregate, and in general citizens are not entitled to, for example, free speech.

For those who are/were faculty (or postdocs/researchers) at such institutions, and who were raised/trained in Western countries with less restrictive governments, what is life like at such a research institution? In particular:

Are you bound by the restrictive laws the govern most citizens (for example, dress codes or alcohol in Saudi Arabia, or speech in China)? (Of course it's assumed that you can't just do whatever you like - I'm mostly interested in the laws that have nothing comparable in Western countries)
Did you bring a family or significant other with you? What has their experience been like?
Do you expect to stay at this institution for your career, or will you eventually try to return to your home country/a Western country?

Importantly, I am NOT passing judgement/being critical of the government of these countries. I am really just interested in how the institutions/governments of these countries treat researchers who are not citizens (and who, from my experience, have often been recruited from another western institution).


texts: Checking with co-authors on status of a not-yet-submitted paper?

texts:
In the spring, I briefly helped with a decently sized project. Shortly after it wrapped, I was asked if I wanted to be co-author on the paper being written on the project. I agreed, and subsequently haven't heard anything back. It's a database project so there will be a long list of co-authors, and I don't want to be a bother, but I also don't want to be left off.

Is five months a reasonable time to wait before asking after status?


texts: Can oral tradition be used as a reliable source in scholarly papers?

texts:
If I wanted to write a scholarly paper on, say, Native America wars, would I be able to cite oral traditions as reliable sources of information?

As a made-up example, "the war lasted exactly seventeen days, with 3,000 men on either side. The enemy had initiated the rebellion by capturing one of our women," (Native Tribal Chief). Obviously terrible citation grammar, but the point remains, I suspect.

Can one use oral traditions as legitimate sources in scholarly papers, or is it more supplemental in nature? Or just illustrative of something else?

Can you please cite sources showing this as viable citation? Thank you.


texts: How to manage a colleague in your research group taking your idea?

texts:
I have been a newly appointed lecturer (18 months). Within my first 6 months I have advertised a PhD subject in order to recruit a good student. The specific project was advertised a year ago. I completed the recruitment of a very promising PhD student that started about two months ago.
In the meantime one of my colleagues that belongs to the same research group, has an already established collaboration with a company. After a brief discussion, my colleague informed me that the company is open to new ideas and that we could collaborate on a similar idea, which was not specified at that point. After a month, my colleague sent an email saying that they are going to submit a project for funding but again, no specifics were given.
I have asked to check the application (as I was included, but my colleague was the lead) and see the objectives/deliverables/commitments etc. I highlighted the fact that we will need to avoid any potential conflict of interest, but received no reply. After checking with my organization's research team I found that the project idea was based on the subject of my PhD student. However, I do not have a copy of the application to understand the extent of overlap, just the summary of it.
The whole process was dodgy and I have lost trust in my colleague.
I found out later that my colleague is known for such tactics but at the same time has the support of a senior member of the group that has the power to block me from pursuing my research plans. I am not sure how to manage the situation and would appreciate any advice on the matter or if you could share similar experiences and how you handled them.


texts: Is it okay to email the general/conference chairs if I feel the reviews are biased and unprofessional?

texts:
In a conference with an author rebuttal phase, I received a review from a reviewer (who gave a strong reject) asking to compare my work to a paper which is not even on the same problem as my paper. I firmly believe that this review is biased and the reviewer is either the author of the paper, which he/she is asking me to compare or was planning  to putting a similar paper.
Is it okay to email the chairs to look into my paper and reviews?


texts:
I have been a teacher for 17 years and am looking to change careers. I earned a Master's Degree in International Relations with a concentration in East Asian Regional Affairs in 2004 and want to find a job with this.

I know I need to get my foot in the door, so in the mean time, I wanted to start to research and write.  I am also going back to school for a Master's Certificate.

How do I find companies/organizations to research and write for?  I really want to become noticed so I can get a job in International Relations.