texts: What license to use while putting papers on the Arxiv?

texts:
I am new to this and not sure what to make of all the options available. I am interested in putting a machine-learning-related preprint, which will potentially be submitted to places like NIPS/ICLR/ICML in the future.

arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this article (Minimal rights required by arXiv.org)
Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0)
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration (CC0 1.0)


texts: Working unofficially and unpaid after internship got cancelled, should one give full commitment if not intending to continue as a researcher?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student who has signed up for a 4 months internship at a Canadian university with the Mitacs global intern program.

The initial deal was to travel to the Canadian university for the internship where I would get paid and work closely with the supervisor.

Due to the pandemic, the trip was canceled and borders closed. The Mitacs organisation canceled the internships. However, as I didn't have any possible internship in my country, I agreed to continue the internship remotely by Skype without getting paid.

The problem is that I usually have a strong work ethic, although I am definitely not continuing in research. I believe I should do my best at my current job. I don't think it's okay to lay back and not get it perfectly done but there is 0 motivation.

The supervision is very minimal and I am not getting paid, plus home work.

Finally, I am looking for advice. Should I continue my internship as a good committed person and work full time? Or should I work part time, get it done poorly and learn something for my career in the mean time?


texts: Age of contacts for recommendation letters for tenure-track position

texts:
I finished my PhD last month and now I am heading towards a non-tenure track position this year.

In a couple of years I want to apply to a tenure track position. The recommendation letters may be a mix of old and new - but I wonder what mix is most recommendable, if it matters to the committee at all. I would strongly prefer to give only new contacts for letters of recommendation.

What are your experiences, in particular, if you have been a search committee before?


texts: Reflecting bad experience with previous graduate program in statement of purpose

texts:
I am applying to master program in computer engineering, but I have some concerns and not sure how to present them in my statement of purpose.

First, my undergrad was in computer engineering but after moving to US I pursued biology in graduate school. I had bad experience with my adviser. He moved to another university right when I started my research, but since I had a fellowship that came from a school in our university, I was forced to stay. He promised to help me, but didn't do anything after he moved. That being said, since I just started my research and we had a small department in which no one else worked on the same area, I couldn't make progress on my own.

But, then I started taking some online courses and became really interested in some new areas and also coauthored a paper in computer architecture. Now I want to apply to computer engineering for masters.

I also had to extend my graduate program in Biology due to some immigration related stuff, so now my graduate degree took more than five years, while I don't have any result in it. I was wondering how can I represent these stuff in my statement of purpose without hurting my chance of getting admission. I should also mention that I took almost all the PhD courses in Biology and have a very good GPA in graduate school.


texts: How to teach from a tutorial-style book?

texts:
I will be teaching introductory computer science and am considering using a book [sample chapter] that is so well-written and self-contained that, at least for the first few chapters, it's not clear that the students need lectures.  Should I just spend a few minutes at the beginning of the class giving an overview, then set them to work lab-style, enlisting TAs to roam the room with me?  (I teach in a classroom with a computer for each student.) That seems lazy, but I'm not sure what value I can add (until the material gets more challenging around Chapter 4).  FWIW, I'm a tenured professor, so I don't have to worry about being judged by anyone (except myself).

UPDATE: It occurs to me that something else I can do during classtime is meet one-on-one with students to find out what they hope to get from the course and how it is going for them.


texts: Using home address when submitting an article with no affiliation?

texts: If you're submitting information for an article, and you have no institution affiliation, what should you use? I was asked for an address and all I have is an home address. That seems a bit weird to use, however.


texts: Would the professor leave the classroom if only 1 student uses their cellphone during class?

texts:
I’m a college student. My class has only 40 students. My professor left the classroom before class ended because, like he said, too many students were using phones while he was talking. It was not like there were phone sounds or the phones rang. He said before leaving that he would let us teach ourselves.

In this case, I’m quite curious about something:

Would he be able or be allowed to not teach, and let us handle it ourselves and only come in to do the test?
Would he be able to fail the whole class?
Would he possibly react the same way if only 1 student used their phone without making any noise?


texts: Ph.D.-ed philosophers vs Doctors of philosophy vs philosophy Ph.D.'s?

texts:
Basically, I'm asking how to refer to a group of individuals who all have the same degree.

I'm referring to them in the third person, as in, "I work with a group of (x)".

let's just assume for purposes of the title, that all the individuals in said group actually have the literal job title "philosopher", and it is important to call attention to the fact that they have doctorates in (stand up) philosophy.

My inclination would be the first one, but in searching, that doesn't seem very common.

To expand, I'm writing my application essays for graduate school.  I work in a non-academic setting that still has a research focus, and I'm trying to briefly describe the organization in a way that would support the narrative I'm building, that working here has fostered my interest in research.

The organization is made up almost entirely of Ph.D. holders in largely the same field.  But naming one as a practitioner of that field does not by itself imply that they hold a Ph.D.  That's why saying "I work with a group of philosophers" doesn't convey the right message.


texts: Is it okay if a student wears a mask to class to conceal scars?

texts: Like a halloween mask to conceal injuries of a burn?


texts:
In order to apply for studying abroad (writing my M.Sc. thesis) I need to write a research plan. However, I only know the approximate research field, e.g. "program analysis for concurrent software", but I was not assigned an actual topic or specific goal yet.

How am I supposed to write a research plan without knowing any more details? I'm completely inexperienced regarding such paperwork (never had to do it before), therefore I relied on templates and guides I found on the internet, but they all assume you already know a specific goal.

What am I supposed to write in this case? Is there some outline I can use as an orientation?


texts: How would I justify that my work isn't just 'normal' design and creation

texts:
Quick info. I'm a 4th year student (i.e. I'll be doing my masters when I complete my 4th year). Some of the work I'm doing now will however influence my masters.

One of my assignment questions in my research module is to come up with a few research strategies that would suit my research project. Whilst I cannot say exactly what my project is, it will in general be a new built system that will make decisions based on what rankings were given by people. (somthing similar to clicking the 'like' button on facebook or giving a review star rating for books as on Amazon.com).

I'm also using the following book (Researching information systems and computing by Briony J Oates) as a guide. I've identified the 'Design and Creation' research strategy as what would be the most fitting research strategy for my project seeing as I would be creating a new system. One of the questions in the evaluuation guide for the 'Design and Creation' research strategy is:

What makes this piece of work research and not 'normal' design and development work?

How would one go about answering such a question? What criteria would one have to look at to say that such a research project is an actual research project and just not your normal run of the mill application?


texts: What should I do when one of my academic tutor is not responding to my email for reference request?

texts:
I am applying for a PhD programme in the UK. All the universities I'm applying to require me to obtain two academic references.

I asked my MA supervisor and course tutor for the reference request. One of them promptly replied and happy to write me a reference and the other one did not respond.

I am sure that the one who replied will write a strong recommendation letter for me and I also believe that the other one would also write a fairly good reference letter.

After three weeks of no reply from the tutor, I sent a gentle follow-up email by forwarding the previous email I sent. I indicated the deadline of the application (all pretty much soon, one in 4 days, the other is in a week from now) and also attached my personal details about my course result which he taught and the reference letter he gave me last year so hopefully, he can refer to it when being requested by the universities. (I obtained pdf version of reference letter from him last year)

And now 3days has passed after my follow-up email and still no response..
I am getting anxious as the deadline for my applications is getting too close.

I am not sure to chase him again because probably he does not want to write a reference and I don't want to give him the impression that I am pestering.

So in this case, what I want to know is

chase him again by sending the 3rd follow-up email in a gently way as possible?
submit the application with just one strong reference letter?
find another referee (unfortunately, there are no suitable people I can ask who can write a good reference.)?

What should I do?

I am very frustrated now.

Update: The referee finally responded to my email today 14th January. He agreed to write a reference letter. Pheww!!


texts: Can I get a PhD for developing educational software?

texts:
I am a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. After asking another question on this website, I have decided to become a professor of practice. To do this, I will pursue a Ph.D.

A Ph.D. project that I have already started in my free time this summer is developing an application and website that would help with calculus education. The application has

A computer algebra system which solves the calculus problems
A system which shows the work that the computer algebra system performs
A system which gives hints for the user
A system which allows the reader to type in each line of their work for the system to check for correctness and possibly identify the reason the answer is incorrect. This would include a system which would allow the user to draw graphs with their mouse for curve sketching problems.
A website where the application would be available for free use.
If there is still time left, typed notes and maybe even video lectures to correspond with the application.

I already have done 3,014 lines for the computer algebra system over the summer and I would love to make this my research project. I think that this would make an awesome research project because I would do it even if I didn't get a Ph.D. (I originally was considering making a level with the website as an alternative to the Ph.D.)

However, I worried that it would not be eligible as a Ph.D. project because I'm creating something rather than discovering a new theorem, numerical algorithm, or mathematical model. This made me even consider not getting a Ph.D. as my previous experience with research in numerical analysis was not enjoyable.


texts: Is it possible for me to apply for a student and working visa to obtain a post-graduate degree?

texts: I am an HND degree holder and I want to know the chances I have to fund my tuition and my expenses if I apply for a student/working visa from Nigeria and what is the duration?


texts: Can I list an educational paper in my publications?

texts:
I have published a paper in Journal of Chemical Education by my supervisor. This is about a teaching approach for an undergraduate course. The paper was peer-reviewed and we spent more time on it than a research paper.

In my CV (I am applying for a faculty position), the list of publications is normally peer-reviewed research articles. Can I add this paper to the same list or it is better to create a separate section in my CV?

My worry is that this may undermine the entire list that some of other papers are not based on cutting-edge research.


texts: Research assistant wishes to remain anonymous, what to write in the acknowledgement?

texts:
So this is pretty much it. My co-author, who is also the main author, has hired an assistant through Elance (an online work outsourcing platform) for doing statistical analysis and also to collect and annotate some relevant literature about connected topic X. I was aware of this and was OK with it, knowing that his or her work is not significant enough to claim authorship but will be acknowledged properly. Now it turned out that, for reasons not entirely clear to me, the RA does not want their name to be disclosed in the acknowledgement section. Even funnier, we do not even know their real name or email address, just the nickname and the profile they use on Elance.

We have the following options:

Do not acknowledge the contribution at all (at first, out of question; but see below why it should be considered)
acknowledge the contribution without naming the contributor. (Like "The authors would like to thank <Main Author>'s research assistant for their help in preparing this manuscript...") As far as I know this would be nonstandard.
acknowledge the contribution without naming the contributor but indicating that remaining anonymous was his explicit request.
acknowledge the contribution and identify them by their Elance nickname
(Like "The authors would like to thank to "FyI1978" from Elance for their help in preparing this manuscript...") This would make us seem unprofessional or laughable; if I have the right impression.
redo the statistics and clean the manuscript from any elements that might bear the mark of the RA's contribution (so that we would not have to acknowledge them at all).

What is your advice, how should we proceed?


texts: I graduated last year and my advisor passed away unexpectedly soon after. What should I do now for subsequent academic job searches?

texts:
I received a PhD in mathematics last May. Last December, my advisor passed away quite unexpectedly.

My advisor was an extraordinary person; in addition to being a fantastic advisor mathematically, he was a wonderful mentor who I always thought of as a friend – this is very much a personal loss for me. My initial emotional response was that I should clearly leave mathematics forever. Rationally, that seems uncalled for. Before all of this, I had been aiming for academic jobs in mathematics. However, I expect that a recommendation (as well as other help) from one's advisor is a significant part of an academic job application (for example, this recent answer states that the letter from one's advisor is read first even when applying for a tenure-track job after a postdoc).

How does one go about an academic job search when one's advisor has passed away?

For example, my advisor wrote a letter for me for my job search out of grad school. Does one try to use that letter (via perhaps my graduate department) for subsequent job applications? Do I mention in every cover letter from now on end that my advisor has died (that seems horrifying, since I like my vague sense of denial)?

I am in the first year of a (3-year) postdoc, so I won't be on the job market for a while (in fact, it seems simultaneously very soon and too far away). Of course I can tell that my productivity and motivation have slumped in the last few months, and I know that I should try to get back into gear as soon as possible.

PS: It’s entirely possibly that there’s no ‘practical’ difference between this situation and other situations where one doesn't have a letter from an advisor (as commentor Sumyrda has said), in which case that would be a perfectly reasonable answer that I would happily accept.

Related questions:

While in more of a 'denial' stage, I asked this question to try to get at this.

The analogous question for current graduate students was asked here and here.

There are several questions about dealing with not having a letter from one's PhD advisor on this site, such as this one, or this one, or this one.


texts: Should I inform the journal that I'm the actual first author?

texts:
It's been about 2 years since I've left academia, partly because of the kind of deeds that I'm about to describe to give a bit of context to the question.

About a month ago I was CCed in an email exchange involving my former PhD supervisor and one of our collaborator, a Post-doc in Mathematics (from now on referred to as the Post-doc). The email said that one of our papers, that we submitted to a journal about 2 years ago (that's right) was finally rejected (better late than never I suppose).

Recently, I have received a letter from the Journal of Functional Analysis that informed me that I have been indicated as a co-author of a publication recently submitted by my former supervisor. It is of course yet another attempt to get the paper published somewhere. Although the fact that the choice of journal is a questionable one (JFA is published by Elsevier, which I would gladly boycott, but this is a whole different matter I won't get into), what startled me was the fact that the Post-doc has been indicated as First Author.

Now, a clarification about the paper is due in order to understand the situation better. Most if not all of the original draft of the paper was written by me, and it pretty much contained most of my research work, which then turned into my PhD thesis together with some later results that I have obtained. There have been times when I got stuck on some points, in which cases a few chats with my supervisor helped overcome the problems. The contributions from the Post-doc towards the final version of the paper are, to say the least, very questionable. One way to summarise them is perhaps with the expression unintentional sabotage. The Post-doc kept changing sentences in the paper because he thought we was improving it. I'm not an English native speaker and nor is the Post-doc, but his English was definitely worse than mine and, as a consequence, I had to spend hours reverting his changes, over and over again. Not to mention his competency with the mathematical content of the paper itself. A good part of the time we spent in meetings to discuss the contents at the board, it was basically me (a PhD student in Pure Math with a degree in Physics at that time) recollecting basic school maths facts (literally) for the sake of the Post-doc who didn't seem to remember them (or know them altogether).

Don't get me wrong on this though. I am in no way implying that there is an voluntary attempt at bad deeds here. Knowing my former supervisor, this is what I think it is going on with the paper submission. Given that I am no longer in academia, it benefits nobody if the paper is submitted with me as first author. Hence it would make more sense to indicate the Post-doc as first author since he is still somehow making his way in the academic world.

Whilst I would totally support this decision in general as very sensible, I find it hard to go by it in this particular case, given the scenario I have described above. By allowing the Post-doc to be first author, my former supervisor is (I believe inadvertently) helping someone to be where he's probably not supposed to be, taking the chance away from someone who is more qualified. You wouldn't believe how many successful applications the Post-doc has had, given his actual knowledge on the subject. The only explanation that I could come up with is that, somehow, people are happy to offer the Post-doc a place at their departments to enjoy of his buffoonery (possibly his only positive aspect).

Now, after this long introduction, here comes the question: Should I notify the journal that I am the actual first author?


texts: Is it normal to be stopped from doing experiments for months due to "equipment malfunctioning" during masters?

texts:
I am currently doing a medical science research masters with a difficult supervisor. Due to two incidents of equipment malfunctions (equipment that I am using), I was stopped from doing any experiments for more than three months in total. During the three months I did almost nothing. Over the entire 6 months that I have been here, I have only had one month during which I was able to generate any sufficient results (the other months I was learning the technique).  My supervisor rejected my proposal to switch to a new technique or use a different equipment set-up. What worries me is that I won't be able to gather sufficient results to write my thesis by July (which is the deadline), and I haven't even started my masters project.

I am wondering whether anybody else has similarly experienced this situation before and whether this is normal during your PhD i.e. doing absolutely nothing for 3 months or more due to the excuse of "equipment faults"? Do you just switch to a different experiment or part of the project which utilize different techniques? Could somebody please help me understand why my supervisor is doing this - is this normal for labs which lack funding?

What should I do? Should I make a formal complaint to the university about my masters supervisor? If I do so, I am afraid that the animosity between me and my supervisor will be beyond repair and he will not support me at all in finishing in time for the deadline. If it keeps on like this, I won't get enough results to sufficiently write the project thesis.


texts: Is research prize from Italy taxable in the UK for a non-domicile resident?

texts:
I feel it's a complicated wording question. I am an international student studying in the UK as a PhD student. I received a research prize from an Italian academic society for training purposes (I am needed to spend a month in Italy doing research). The prize is worth €3000 and subject to 30% Italian income taxation.
The coordinator from the society indicated that I could ask for a certificate of residence from the UK tax authority to avoid double taxation. I am still very perplexed about my situation.

Would I be taxed in the UK? (I am also a recipient of a PhD tax-free studentship)

Has anyone ever required the certificate from the HMRC? Can you please share your experience and the process? I am in Italy now so I am not sure what I could do.

If the Italian side deducts the taxation, will I be able to claim it back when I return to the UK?
Thank you!


texts: How to balance reading the literature and just solving the problem your self?

texts:
I work for a company that has several projects involving computer vision. The literature rarely has papers on the exact problems we are solving. Furthermore, the state of the art in much of computer vision is often not reproducible or not ready for actual applications. Furthermore, the rate at which new papers come out in the areas we are interested in would make it very time consuming to digest most, let alone all of them.

On the other hand, we often get stuck and would like to get answers or at least inspiration from existing work.

Our goal in the end is to get to solutions as fast as possible. Does anyone have any guidance on how to balance time spent reading vs doing?


texts: When is asking for an update on PhD admission status appropriate (given international flight prices)

texts:
I am a US student who has applied to physics PhD programs while aboard on a Fulbright Scholarship in the Netherlands.

Based on the dates of open houses last year, I will be heading back to the US for the week of March 14-21 to attend graduate open houses.

Physics PhD programs allot roughly 500 dollars per admitted student for travel expenses for them to attend the open house. This was totally sufficient last year when I attended open houses as I was in the US.

Hypothetically, if I get into Brandeis on February 20th, buying a plane ticket to Boston from Amsterdam 3 weeks in advance would be doable — roughly $350.

However, hypothetically even if I got into USC later today, a plane ticket to Los Angeles would still mean money out of my pocket.

If I submitted my applications to December 15th deadline programs around December 5th-10th, is reaching out for an update around February 1st too pushy?


texts: Common scenario and situation leading to similar questionnaire -- Is it plagiarism?

texts:
I recently had to make a questionnaire for my research. For this questionnaire, I tried taking some ideas from other examples for the questions. Another student was working on the same topic and did her questionnaire before mine, but didn't publish any results yet. After comparing my questionnaire with hers, it was clear that some questions are a remarkably similar, due to covering the same topic, same country, same society and same climate. The other student made a complaint that I have copied some of the questions from her questionnaire.

Could anyone please help me know whether did I commit plagiarism? How should I deal with the present situation?


texts: A place to host static HTML+JavaScript that can be referenced from a paper?

texts:
My PhD supervisor always told me that we write papers "for the ages". The publication system being what it is, we cannot go back and update any links, so we should not cite or reference a source that may be gone in five years.

With that in mind, I'm looking for a place to host a small open-source web-application, consisting only of static assets (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), and I would like to link to it from my paper. GitHub being as big as it is, I suppose I will trust them for storage, but they do not offer hosting. Ideally, someone reading the paper should be able to go right to a URL and run the app.

Any thoughts?


texts: How detailed should my review of a very poorly-written manuscript be?

texts:
My question has to do with whether my responsibilities as a reviewer also includes copyediting duties.

I am in the midst of reviewing a manuscript for a mid-tier applied health sciences journal.  While the topic is potentially important, the manuscript is poorly written and the methods used were simply inadequate to answer the research question.  The manuscript read like a first draft, rather than something that has undergone some degree of polishing and internal review before being sent out to the journal.  Given a manuscript laden with spelling and grammatical errors, awkward sentence construction, and incomplete ideas, how detailed should reviews be for very bad manuscripts?  Is it my job to "copyedit" (correct the grammar, spelling, etc.) the manuscript, or should my constructive criticism be focused on improving the big picture issues, such as:

Whether the authors convinced me that the study was timely or necessary. (No.)
Whether the methods were appropriate for the research question. (No.)
Whether the authors' conclusions were supported by the data they presented. (No.)

My annotated hard copy of the manuscript is full of comments in the margins about spelling errors and awkward sentences, which can be found every 2 or 3 sentences. I am of course more than happy to put in the review, but at the same time, I do not want to "embarrass" the authors by essentially saying that they do not know how to write.

I am curious to hear others' experiences with bad manuscripts and how they have handled them.


texts: Should a citation be included when answering a question regarding a specific source?

texts:
For example, "How do the six types of shenanigans relate to the ethical use of a flux capacitor according to Smith and Smith?"  (Smith and Smith are authors of the textbook).   For this type of question, where there is a specified source that must be used, is it necessary to re-state the source in the answer?

The question is posted in a discussion board.  Only students of the course and the instructor are the intended audience.
Also, the chapter of the book is directly stated in the subject line of the posted question.
Ex. "Chapter 2: Electric Boogaloo"


texts: How much will connections with the department chair help with grad school acceptance?

texts:
As an undergraduate (not studying computer science) I was fortunate enough to work in the lab of the CS department chair at my university for an extended period of time. This work resulted in me being added as a coauthor to one of her most recent papers. She also knows me well - I took an intro CS course with her, and during my time in the lab we would be in contact practically every day. I definitely plan on asking her for a recommendation letter when I apply for graduate school in computer science next year.

Although I know that going to the same university for undergraduate and graduate school is sometimes discouraged, I would quite honestly be very happy to return there, as I very much enjoyed working under her, she is well-known in her field, and some of her research interests are very close to mine. In any event, it would be nice to have a "safety net" of sorts while exploring other options.

I know that every university has different policies about admissions decisions, so no one can speak to my particular case. But in general, how much would you say that having the backing of the department chair helps in graduate school admissions?


texts: Old supervisor not responding to email for reference

texts:
I have worked with my old advisor for 1+ year to produce my senior thesis. I'd say that our relationship was good when I left to do my masters (and he did write me a reference the first time around). I'd say he was satisfied with my studies if not terribly impressed.

I was fairly confident that he would write a letter this time around for my PhD application (1 year after our departure) but now I've sent him two emails without getting a reply. I feel that there is really no reason he would decline other than he is too busy or getting too many letter requests--this may be why he just didn't reply to my email without an outright refusal.

I cannot "ambush" him in person since my visa has expired. I do have contact info to one of his phd students and his phone number. Should I call him or contact his PhD student? Or keep sending more emails? What should I say in the emails? I really need his reference.


texts: Student number indicates when you started – what to do about the ensuing prejudice?

texts:
I come from a university where the first two digits of your student number represents when you started in the university. As such people often use this to judge age, whether the person is repeating or changed course, or is an incoming postgraduate. Student numbers are the identifier for students, and are consequently used in all official capacities, but also in terms of clubs and societies. Attempting to join a club without the right two digits can often be difficult; generally lower digits are a serious social no-no. A student number can never be changed, under any circumstances. If someone starts a course with a hiatus of twenty years, they will still be using their original number. There is also the issue of semi-anonymized information being easy to identify if results are given out using people’s student numbers (if someone doesn’t have the same first two digits as the rest of his peers).

Naturally a unique identifier is a positive thing for managing information. Also having consistency in relation to the manner in which information is recorded is also good. So what sort of action could be performed at the level of the institution to remove this bizarre social stigma, and increase campus social integration, without potentially damaging the integrity in the way in which information is managed (and incurring additional costs of implementation).


texts: What open access textbook publishing initiatives are around?

texts:
I am wondering how open access textbook publishing platform is viewed in regard to publication turnover i.e. how quickly can one get published through it, compared to (say) traditional publishing?

There are several open access models and I am aware of Open Suny which describes itself as follows:

Open SUNY Textbooks is an open access textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants. This pilot initiative publishes high-quality, cost-effective course resources by engaging faculty as authors and peer-reviewers, and libraries as publishing service and infrastructure.

This is a peer-reviewed platform (so it is different from self publishing).


texts: How should I fill the "First name" and "Last name" in an application if I have two given names and two last names?

texts:
How should I fill this information if I have more than one given name and more than one last name?
For example, if my name is Juan Eduardo González Rodríguez. I have 2 given names: "Juan" and "Eduardo", and I have 2 last names (The first one of my father and the second one of my mother because that how it is done in Mexico): "González" and "Rodríguez".
Should I only write:

First name: Juan
Last name: González

or should it be

First name: Juan Eduardo
Last name: González Rodríguez (or González-Rodríguez)


texts: Can (and should) an editor referee a paper he's in charge of?

texts:
I have reason to believe that the editor assigned to a paper we have recently submitted might have also acted as referee.

I am of course not sure because reviewers for this journal are in principle anonymous (as is standard, at least in my field). So I want to make clear this is not an accusation or even a complaint - the report sounds very reasonable anyway.

However, this has made me wonder: would it be appropriate for an editor to referee a paper that he/she is in charge of?


texts: Web Crawl Dataset - Legal & Practical feedback

texts:
I'm working on a web site classification method. Papers in field (Text Classification / Web Page Classification) are usually using:

a) Ancient, but well known & widely adopted, datasets like WebKB 7-sectors
b) Their own datasets, collected from domains found at a public categorized web directory

What puzzles me:

after review of recent research, I found that for b) cases, authors are not that happy to make dataset (corpus) publicly available.

They clearly state where they harvested web domains and do provide parameters of the crawl - but, I assume it would make scientific sense to publish exact corpus - so, future comparisons have more solid ground. Yet, I rarely find dataset link in a paper (interestingly enough: in few cases, I recall: authors published the corpus but never mentioned it in the article - I found it accidentally while searching GitHub / Google for PDF of the original source)

Now, I'm worried if there are legal concerns here - that I might not be aware of. I would appreciate very much thoughts & feedback from your practice / experience:

Should we allow our self to interpret copyright notice (~100% of pages in the sample) "all rights reserved" less rigidly, for our case, case of a scientific research?

But how to sleep well if I published gigabytes of web pages, having such copyright notice, on a Data Set repository with Creative Commons or GPLv3 licence? I mean, it is hard to play dumb if ever called out for such "disagreement" between the repository content and the licence.

Is it about me, or you agree - that it sounds really insane if we should ask for written permission to each of 1400 legal entities (in my current sample), running business web site - being researched?
how you guys handle this dilemma?
or would you stick only with ancient/mainstream datasets?

My particular research has focus more toward "web site" than "web page / text" classification aspect. Hence, I have strong motive to crawl an additional dataset (from domains harvested from https://dmoztools.net/), beside using the mainstream ones (since these rarely provide web-site context, and mostly contain web pages / single documents). If I take that methodological path, I have to make it available -- but: are there hidden problems in such path?

Thanks for all thoughts in advance & this is not an easy one :)


texts: Stamp of electrical department on letter head of recommendation letter

texts: My referee is a pioneer of my university in my home country.  I am applying for PhD in Australia. My referee has signed the letter of recommendation in hardcopy form but he hasn't put a stamp of his name on it saying that letter head needs no stamp. I have mentioned on letter head that he is Professor and Trustee.  I have asked electrical department to put department stamp on it and they agreed. In this scenario is it likely that my chosen university in Australia may question why the pioneer and professor hasn't put his own stamp? Is it likely that the Australian university would contact my referee for it? Note that I am applying for a highly competitive scholarship in Australia.


texts: Am I allowed to use a figure drawn by co-author in another paper?

texts:
I published paper 1 with a co-author A, who drew a very good illustrative figure in the introduction.

I want to submit paper 2 which addresses the same problem (but uses a completely different approach), so the introduction of the problem is pretty much the same. Do I need to ask A for permission to include the figure in paper 2?


texts: Do we have a citation ethics in science?

texts: Citations matter! Everybody knows this and Google Scholar (or Publish or Perish) shows it. Over the last years, I met people with different citation "ethics": Supervisors and professors require students to cite their own papers, even if they don't really relate or if there is a paper which would be more appropriate to cite. Journal reviewers nicely recommend accepting the paper for publication if only more two or three references (paper from the reviewer) are included. And even when an author cites a paper, there is often the question if the "idea" is cited or a specific "result" etc. E.g. there is a study showing that wrong citations are often inherited in papers that cite the misspelled citation, which indicates that the author didn't really read or access the paper and cites it only because of its general reputation. Similar to the IEEE Code of Ethics or ACM Code of Ethics, is there any Citation Code of Ethics?


texts: Any chances for me in top 10 economics program?

texts:
I am bachelors of commerce from a not known university. I am going to take economics masters from India's top institute. I will take higher math courses as well. What else should I do to get in top 10 economics program ? (Are there any chances for me?)

Also can you please suggest some masters economics program which enrolls commerce undergrad?


texts: Should I put my résumé on LinkedIn when applying for a PhD?

texts:
When I apply to a university for acceptance to their PhD program, I send my résumé with the application. When I want to apply for a job outside of academia, I also send my résumé to them. In both cases they also read my résumé at the interview stage.

But I am not sure whether it is advantageous to also upload my résumé to LinkedIn. Will people visit my LinkedIn profile and read it? Is it likely to help?


texts: Is the Journal of Data Science still alive?

texts: Does anyone one know whether the Journal of Data Science is still working or not? I have noticed that the journal's website (http://jds-online.com/) has not been updated since last year.


texts: How much delay is normal in publication of a Special Issue?

texts:
I submitted a paper to a special issue of a very reputed computer science journal. Now as per the original timelines, the special issue was expected to be published by this month with two cycles of revisions. However, there was an extension for a month in submission deadline.

I submitted the paper within the extended deadline and yet to receive even the reviewer comments (4 months since submission while as per timeline the period for first review was two months). During this time, the manuscript was in peer-review. It went to "Awaiting Decision" three weeks ago, but I am still to hear on any decision.

Since this is my first submission to a reputed journal, is it normal for special issues to be delayed to such an extent?


texts: Should I include this information in a cover letter for a journal submission?

texts:
I am in the process of making my first journal submission. Half-way through submission, I realise that I haven't considered the cover letter, which is an optional field in the submission process for this particular journal.
The history of my article is that the subject of the original paper is of tangential, but real, relevance to my PhD thesis. Having read the article, which is highly theoretical and technical and not in my area of expertise, I was pretty sure that I couldn't understand it properly—it seemed, if I followed it through correctly, to predict straightforwardly incorrect results. After struggling for several months in trying to get to grips with it, I swallowed my pride and reached out to a couple of the authors. It turned out that I wasn't misunderstanding after all, and the problems were real. They mentioned that if I could see a solution, they'd be happy to hear about it. I thought about it hard for a while and sent them my thoughts regarding a solution that they (people interested in this framework) might use, and they, surprisingly to me,  suggested I submit them to the journal in question.
I should point out that these problems only affect a very narrow area of the ground covered in the the original paper, albeit an important one.
So my question is, given that this is a response to another article, firstly, do I need to give my article a 'sell' as it were, or can I just say that I am submitting it? Secondly, if I do write a more detailed letter, should I mention that (some of) the original authors suggested that I  submit it, or that I have been in correspondence with them? Is it ok/wise to forego a cover letter completely?


texts: Editorial rejection: should I write back?

texts:
I recently submitted a paper to one of the Physical Review Journals (not Letters). I think that the result is both novel and important. After I uploaded the preprint to ArXiv, I received several emails from researchers in the field whom I do not know personally saying that they liked the paper and it is an important advancement in the understanding. People I personally know reacted similarly. I was sure that the paper would at least be reviewed considering that it seems to be important and that it is not submitted to PRL.

After two weeks, I got an email from the editor saying that it is being rejected without any review. My friend has got such rejection from the same journal, he received exact same text, which means that it was simply copy pasted. Now, I am a researcher who has a small number of citations, I have never published in Physical Review before and I am from a third world country. My feeling is that these things have biased the editor against the manuscript even though it is a good work if not groundbreaking and he should have at least sent it to reviewers.

I feel that I should write back to him these concerns. However, I have never done anything like this before and I am not sure if I risk lifetime rejection from the journal if I do this. I would be glad to hear the experienced researchers on this issue.


texts: What advice would you give to an undergraduate research assistant?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate research assistant on an experimental physics project. I'm becoming aware that the skill set I learned from my classroom learning doesn't necessarily transfer over to the research world. My question is: how can I develop this new research skill set and become the best research assistant possible?

What are traits of exceptional researchers? What skills should I focus on developing early? What are common mistakes in mindset, time management, project choice, etc. that should be avoided?

What advice would you give to yourself at the start of your research career?

Please let me know if there is any literature out there on this topic.


texts: Recommendation letters for "good enough" students

texts:
I'm a math professor. I get asked to write a number of recommendation letters to graduate schools where my honest view of the candidate is "this student would fall somewhere in the bottom 25-50% of their student body. I expect there will be dozens of applicants of similar quality and I have no  reason to favor this one except that I have a good personal relationship with him or her."

Logically, this candidate deserves to go as much as any of the dozen similar people in the pool, but I feel that a letter which said the above would be a real disservice to them. Should I refuse to write them?  Describe their accomplishments and pointedly ignore that (if my estimates are right) they don't particularly make them stand out?


texts: How far do you commute to graduate school?

texts: I decided that I want to go to graduate school. I started looking into some local schools, but none of them have any programs that are very appealing. I found a program that is two and a half hours away and classes are held on Saturdays. Is this ridiculous? How long is too long of a commute? As much as I would love to just move there for a few years, I have a husband and a toddler. I can't uproot them as well. My only other option is to take the program online. Do people even take online programs seriously in the job market?


texts: MS in Mathematics, having trouble finding work outside teaching algebra

texts:
10 years ago, I got an undergraduate degree in IT/CompSci from a good school. I spent most of my hours playing video games or drinking beer, and learned only enough to get a barely passing GPA. I never used the degree, as I joined the military and did the minimum amount of time for my paid education and got out.

7 years later, in 2016, after traveling and busing tables for a couple years, I realized that I had been wasting my life. I realized that learning is cool, and that I'd wasted a great opportunity both to learn interesting things and to have a rewarding career. So, I decided to go back to school.

I applied the graduate Math program at WVU, for no other reason that I got a B in Calc 2, one of my highest grades in undergrad. They let me in even though my undergrad GPA was abysmal (2.5 or so), and that I didn't have any of the prerequisite math classes to get in. I agreed to spend the first two semesters taking undergraduate differential equations, basic linear algebra, proof writing, etc. After that, I started taking a full load of graduate courses. After three years, I survived to get a piece of paper, but having retained little actual mathematical ability.

I was exposed to a lot of math, but because I was so far behind the learning curve, very little of it stuck. I was too busy trying to pass/survive to be able to learn much. What I did pick up lies mostly in the realms of numerical methods and differential equations. It is important to note that I learned almost nothing, even in these two areas. I graduated this summer, and can only talk in very vague terms about what I was exposed to.

Now, I am unemployed and wondering why I ever gave up waiting tables. I can program a little. I can read a math textbook without my brain exploding, and that's about it.

Now, I spend about 10 hours a day reading textbooks on ODEs and Numerical Methods, as well as working practice programming exercises from Project Euler and sites like it. I'm slowly working through Khan Academy's probability and statistics courses, as I never learned any of that in school.

It's dismal. I'm depressed because I worked so hard to try to bring myself up and correct a life time of laziness. I'm still working at it every day. My wife goes to work, and I read until my eyes bleed, occasionally checking my email for the most recent employer rejection letter. Now it seems like I should never have left waiting tables.

So what's the question here? This:

What do I do? What do I study, and how long is it going to take before I know enough to be marketable?

I can teach community college, but the thing is i loved the stuff that was covered in school, and I want to apply it. Sad thing is, I'm too dumb to get a job at anything but teaching algebra to bored college kids who don't want to be in class.


texts: Choosing the right journal for your papers - the top journals or the one that you are a frequent guest reviewer?

texts:
We usually start writing a paper with a target journal in mind. One of my supervisors always encourages me to target the 1 or 2 top journals in our field (operations management), while I myself prefer to submit to a journal that I frequently review manuscripts for which has a much lower impact factor. If published in the former, the paper will be considered more valuable; while in the latter, I suppose, the manuscript might be easier to get accepted.

What would you advise?


texts: Letter of recommendation from employer for MS in U.S. universities

texts:
Is a letter of recommendation from an employer required to be on the official letter head of the company?

Also is it okay if I give the recommender's personal email?


texts: Receiving gift from student before grading MSc thesis. Is it ethical?

texts:
As a follow up on this question I am wondering whether it is ethical to receive gifts from students before grading their MSc thesis (or any other project where students feel like they need to thank you for).

Lately I have encountered this situation where a student gave me a present before I was able to fully grade his work. The student had to go abroad and wouldn't be able to drop by after grading. The gift was rather small, just a few bottles of good quality beers which are not that expensive where I'm from. He also said: "you can drink this when grading my work, ha ha". We got along quite well, so at that time I didn't feel like it was some sort of bribe (which I still don't feel like it was).

Generally, I don't have any problem in accepting gifts as they tend to be rather small. However, a month after receiving this gift and finishing my grading for his work I was starting to think whether I have made the right decision by accepting his gift.


texts: Correct formatting of step-by-step equation demonstrations in papers

texts:
Working on some journal paper, it has pseudocode-ish/equation-ish demonstrations of the way some equations play out, along with actual reference values in the example proper; along the lines of:

i = i + 1

i = 2

Note: please assume the actual demonstrations are much more complex than this and actually require the reference values.

What is the correct formatting here? I have had it suggested to me the first line should be underlined, whereas I find putting the reference value in brackets more obvious - like so:

i = i + 1 (i = 2)

with the bracketed content right-aligned.
Suggestions?


texts: As the domestic partner of a Marie Curie Fellow, what resource(s) should I consult?

texts: Or to put this simply, what's a husband with his own skills to do while his wife is a fellow?  We're excited by my wife's well earned opportunity to travel and participate in the culture of another country[US to EU].  Through the participating institution, it sounds like we will have a family allowance but I'd love the opportunity to work/study/volunteer during the year or two that we're there.  I'd love to hear the stories of spouses/partners that have direct experience but I'd be very appreciative of pointers to information I should consult.  The fellowship website isn't really geared to partners, unsurprisingly.


texts: Lack of motivation to carry out research or search for positions post PhD. How to address this feeling?

texts:
Tl;dr: Defended my PhD two weeks ago. However, right from the time of the defense and up until the present moment, I am experiencing a huge lack of motivation and sense of purpose to do anything related to research or search for future positions. How to address this?

Other details****: I had applied for other positions before my defense and was not successful in securing a suitable position. I have an offer from my PhD advisor about a postdoc position which I am expected to start early next year.

Leaving every other concern aside, I am very appalled by my lack of motivation and the constant feeling of lethargy to start with the pending research work and/or resume with the dedicated job search.

I have no idea how to address this feeling. I have taken two hiking trips during the last two weekends. However it feels empty and unproductive inside. I have so much to do before I start with a postdoc position. But all am I doing is wasting time.


texts: Applying for post-docs in mathematics: is it common to email faculty?

texts: I am about to finish my PhD program. At this point I am trying to do a post-doc.  Is it common to email faculty members in order to see if they take post-doc students?If so what should be included in a typical email?


texts: TA for the class versus taking the class?

texts:
My Ph.D. advisor and I are trying to decide whether I should take his class this Fall or be the TA for it (I have not had this class before).

My question is, shouldn't one have already mastered the class material inside-out to become a TA?  It appears that my advisor expects me to "learn as I go." Is this usual?

Second question, how is the workload between the two? I'm thinking to be the TA, I will have to be a step ahead of the game and rather than doing the assignments, I will be designing the assignments (which requires more understanding).  Which would you prefer based on what circumstances?


texts:
In this recent question, the OP there describes a situation where they were assigned to be a session chair without being asked to do so.

After reading the above question, and having never chaired a conference session before, I wonder if I would be adequately prepared to take on such a task. For sure, one would expect the conference organizers to fill in the details upon request, but it'd still be useful to have an idea of what to expect; this would all be taking place at well-attended (electrical) engineering conferences.

  What is typically expected of a conference session chair?


texts: Information to be included in brochure about new undergraduate programme for admissions committees

texts:
I am a student from a new undergraduate programme with only one batch of graduates. The administration is planning to create and send an official brochure/document with information about the programme to admissions committees of graduate programmes (mainly in the United States) where students may apply.

What information would about the programme would be relevant to these committees to get a better idea about what our programme is and our standards? Would it be useful, for example, to include information on textbooks followed for various courses?


texts:
How often do mathematics professors move up from mediocre schools to good ones?

For example, let's say someone did some ok research at a postdoc and then went to industry for 10 years and afterwards got a professor position at a very mediocre place where they started pumping out solid papers over a few years.

Given that they had the talent to get a top 50 research school position on a traditional route, what are the chances that they get there in this situation?


texts: Finding graduate programs supporting a specific research focus

texts:
I'm looking forward to finding a university that I could do my PhD in computer science in financial systems and machine learning. Financial systems means Foreign Exchange market or Stock markets.

Is there any way to look for such universities?

My background:
I studied in three universities in Egypt, USA and Singapore for my bachelor in Comp Eng. Worked in two universities as undergrad research assistant (NTU, Singapore and Uni of Arkansas, US). I won several national and international awards and competitions. Now, I'm working as a junior researcher in north Italy (one year of experience, two by the next fall). And I published 4 papers in last 12 months


texts: Switching fields in a postdoc after PhD, is that possible in psychology?

texts: I’m currently doing a PhD in neuropsychology, however 6 months down the line I have fell out of it. I realised I’d like to do research in a field such as health psychology or clinical psychology. Would it be possible for me to get picked for a postdoc position in one of those areas coming from a neuropsychology background? (Considering that I don’t want to be in a postdoc that has something to do with neuropsychology in any way, but more like developing a behavioural change intervention or researching about mental health without digging into the biological aspects of it) , or should I just switch to a different PhD?


texts:
So, I think that I'm in quite a mess here.
I recently submitted a paper to an IEEE conference and got my paper accepted. I submitted the camera-ready paper and the copyright form but weeks later, after the submission, I found out that all the authors including me were assigned the job of conducting exams for undergraduate students and as of such we were not allowed to decline. So I sent a withdrawal request to the conference organisers and got a reply today saying that our paper was removed from their 'list'. We had already registered the paper in the conference as well.

Now, since we had already submitted the copyright form but the work was yet to be presented in the conference and published in IEEE Xplore , is it possible for us to submit the same paper in another conference knowing that the paper has been removed from the list?


texts: How to formally address two individuals with different titles for PhD cover letter

texts: I am in the process of writing a cover letter for a PhD application. The two supervisors of the project are part of my faculty (where I am doing a postgraduate degree), and I have previously been in touch with them through an interview and because one of them taught me some classes last year. I would surely want to address the letter to their names, I am whoever doubting how to officially address them since the first supervisor has a title of professor and the second supervisor has a title of doctor. Maybe having this kind of issue seems exaggerated to some, but I do not know whether to make a distinction in their titles in my letter. I am studying in the UK now, but I previously studied in the Netherlands and getting the right title was always a big issue. To those who might know within the context, can I simply address them both as Dr. to avoid the whole feeling of pointing out their different levels in the letter?


texts: Does TA experience for wide range of classes improve future job prospective?

texts:
If other important factors (e.g. Research quality) are about the same, does an academic job* candidate with TA experience in many different upper division classes (e.g. Abstract algebra, real analysis and many other elective classes) have a better chance than a candidate with TA experience only in elementary lower division classes (e.g. Calculus 1 and 2)? How significant is this factor?

I'm currently one year into a math Ph.D. program and is mostly financially supported by TA work. During my first year my TA experience is limited to calculus 1 and 2 (single variable)-It's both the department's preference and my personal preference for a first year student. I'm wondering if it's a good or bad idea to keep it that way(I'll have choice either way). Does it worth investing some extra time to TA some more challenging classes?

*Here all post-doc. or faculty job, whether research or teaching orientated, are included, if your answer depends on the type of job, address it.


texts: Does a tutorial type conference submission differ significantly from a regular submission?

texts:
I work mainly with in silico method development and data analysis within biomedical research. For an upcoming conference I intend to go with a tutorial-type of submission instead of a "regular" conference submission, which in our field would be a teaser of upcoming papers or application of something that is already published.

Based on what I read here on Academia.SE, in other fields (e.g. CS) conference papers are more prestigious (and thus more desirable) than conventional journal papers, but in our field it's the other way around, people prefer getting a "real" publication rather than a "conference paper" and thus typically don't want to give away much at a conference. This is simply because a) the same set of results would not be novel if submitted later to a journal, and b) if the results are still preliminary there is always the risk of being scooped.

At any rate, given the background, I consider preparing a tutorial type contribution where I present the practical _do_s and _dont_s of this one particular type of data analysis. I have noticed that many scientists in the field are not very comfortable with this type of analysis and it would also be a nice way to promote my methods. I am mostly considering this as a poster presentation, but of course an oral presentation would work as well.

So my question is:
Does a tutorial type submission differ significantly than a regular submission (for instance with respect to how the abstract should look like)? Is there anything in particular I should be careful about?


texts: How to respond positively to a scientist's rejection e-mail (PhD program)?

texts:
I am a Molecular biology post graduate from India. I enquire about PhD vacancy to various potential principal investigators (PhD supervisors) by sending my CV and cover letter. When I receive a rejection mail like mentioned below, how do I respond to the scientist? I would like to have good rapport with the lab as I aspire to join the lab later. Or should I ask any questions?

Examples of rejection e-mail:

  Thank you for your interest in joining our lab. Unfortunately, I'm not looking for a phd student. Good luck

  I am sorry but the lab is full


texts: UK Lecturer application: possible to refuse to answer "expected salary"?

texts:
I am applying for faculty positions in multiple countries.  For all of the UK positions, it was necessary to fill out an online form, which always asks for my current salary, and often asks for my "expected salary".  All the UK job calls I have seen did state a salary range.

I find it very uncomfortable to tell them an "expected salary" and I worry that they will try to use this to exploit me.

Also, my current position was extended with a lower salary than what I was getting before (due to funding constraints). It was worth accepting this lower salary for a limited time, but I would not have accepted it long term. For this reason, I would prefer not to state my current salary either.

The application system requires me to fill out these fields, but of course I could always write something like "negotiable" which amounts to a refusal to tell.  I don't know if this is a good idea though.

In a UK context, what is the best way to proceed?  Just put in the average of their stated salary range?  Is it legal for them to require me to give this information?  What would be the consequences if I refuse?  Is this information used to choose one candidate over another?

I have seen "What should I state for "expected salary" in a tenure-track job application?" and I read the answers. I feel that they don't apply here, as the country and context make a difference.


texts: Why are degrees in Business Administration (and similar) considered Science?

texts:
Why do people studying e.g. Business Administration (or similar) receive BSc or MSc degrees? Those guys don't rely on the scientific method even if they may use some mathematical or scientific tools from social sciences sometimes.

Is this just an institutional artifact?


texts: Why can't universities work around the proposed reclassification of tuition remission as taxable income, by not charging tuition?

texts:
There has been a lot of press about how the new tax proposals currently being considered by Congress could hurt grad students because one of the plans would treat remitted tuition as taxable income.

I understand why this would be bad -- grad students who receive tuition remission would have to pay a lot more in tax.

But if this became the new law, couldn't universities simply change the way they handle tuition for funded graduate students?  In most top Ph.D. programs no grad students pay tuition because it is always remitted.  Instead of remitting it, couldn't the universities just not charge tuition at all, or pay it through a grant rather than through remission?

I'm asking because I'm wondering why grad students are so worried about the new tax plan.  I understand why it would be bad if universities didn't change the way they handle tuition and students had to pay tax on all that extra "income." But as it is, tuition for many Ph.D. students is just a shell game because it is always remitted. If the goal is to allow students not to have to pay tuition, it would seem that there are other ways to do that that would get around changes in the tax code.  And I can't think of any reasons why giving students remitted tuition is more beneficial to the university than just not charging them tuition in the first place.

Am I misunderstanding something about the way tuition remission works, or the new tax proposal?


texts: Is there a way to submit privately to claim intellectual property

texts:
Hypothetically, if I had an idea to improve an algorithm/theorem but

I wasn't sure it was correct, or
I wasn't sure it was significant or meaningful or hasn't already been published in a different form/somewhere else already or wasn't sure where to submit something like this .

is there somewhere I could submit a manuscript first privately to secure any intellectual property rights while I think about whether it is worth submitting or trying to do some more work on this and try to understand the field a bit better?


texts: Should I always expect to receive proceedings at conferences?

texts:
I attended a conference in computer science recently, where we were not given any proceedings at the registration desk.
They said the papers are available online on the website of the conference inside the program detail.

However I know that the publisher (ACM) is not open access, and for example I have to buy the papers from the last conference if I like to read them.

So, there is a chance that the papers might be removed from the conference website 1-2 months after the conference.

I was wondering if giving proceedings to the attendees is a tradition only to make sure they have access to the contents during the conference?


texts: What is the importance of TOEFL and GRE?

texts:
I am bachelor in technology student from India. I would like to pursue higher education subject to my selection based on merit, i.e scholarship. I know there are many criteria, among which getting good grades in proficiency exams like TOEFL and GRE are most sought after. I came across a article on optional requirement of such exam in some of the US universities. So my questions are

Are these exams universal, i.e. followed in every country?
Does this depend on what Higher education you want to take?
If it is mandatory, when is the peak time to start for this type proficiency exams(P.S. I am currently in 5th sem)?


texts: Etiquette when a student attends a conference with his/her supervisor

texts: I am attending a conference with my PhD supervisor! So, I was a little bit nervous how to treat for example in welcome cocktail, during the conference time and at the gala dinner! Do I need to accompany him most of times? Or only need to be around? It is such a long time doing research with him, but never able to communicate easily! This is hopefully a chance for me to improve my relationship.


texts:
July 2015 : We four authors (Fabio, Alex, Haris and Mark) have submitted a paper in July 2015 and transfer of copyrights to the Journal A. Alex was corresponding author and I am Mark the 4th author.

October 2015: The paper got accepted and published also appeared online.

June 2016: I suddenly came to know through Google search that same article has also been published by three authors (Fabio, Haris and David) in December/January 2016 in Journal B. Fabio is corresponding author, I was not aware of this and also I am not an author in this duplicate publication.

At the time of submission in July 2015, as per my knowledge this paper was not submitted/or being published anywhere else.

This duplicate publication was accepted in December 2015 and appeared online on January 2016 in Journal B

In this whole situation being the 4th author in the first publication (Published in Oct 2015 in Journal A) where do I stand ? Are authors of duplicate publication guilty of plagiarism or copyrights violation ?

What are suggestions for me ? What should I do ? Does it all effect my authorship ?


texts: Recently, I came across a document listing approximately 358 colleges and universities of HBCUs, Tribal CUs, and Hispanic Institutions (serving underrepresented students).  Out of these colleges, none had a program in the field of Industrial Organizational Psychology (I-O Psyc). The I-O Psyc program is established in approximately 139-colleges/universities in America and Canada (serving predominantly white institutions). My question is, "What is the process or criteria by which institutions decide to adopt or establish a field of study?"  It is peculiar to me that this particular field of psychology, which is noted in U.S. News Report as one of the fast-growing fields in the country, is not established at any of the institutions serving underrepresented students. Is there a book discussing this process?


texts: Do you need to get permission to publish a quote or small excerpt?

texts:
As an academic, my papers (I assume) have been cited. But only once do I remember a publisher, on behalf of a writer, contacted me to ask if they could reused (or republish) a chart I had created in one of papers - for a textbook. I gave them my permission and that was the end of it.

Now I am about to publish my first (non academic) book. I still have footnotes with citations, maybe 5-10 per chapter, but it never occurred to me to ask permission, as long as the citation was proper. The only time I asked for permission was when I printed a comic strip by a popular author.

So - for the other citations - do I need to get permission to publish a quote, or a small excerpt?  (for instance if a sentence with an industry fact or statistic).

Clarification:
I am asking about both citations (paraphrased in my own words) ... but especially quoted material.

Three examples:let's say an author wrote a book about blogging.

In the first case his book is organized into 10 chapters, each with a title that colorfully describes his tenets of blogging.  In my book, write:
Famous blogger Joe Smith, in his book "Blogging for Fame and Fortune" writes the 10 tenets of blogging:  (list follows)

Same example, except that, instead of chapter titles, inside the book, the author has the tenets listed explicitly.  In my book. I write something similar, quoting the list.
Same example - except in my book, I only quote or cite 3-4 elements of the list.

Which, of any of those do I need to get the other writer's permission (or his publisher's permission)?  Or is justy proper attribution OK?


texts: Bibliography entry for website found via Google Cache

texts:
I am writing a paper and wish to include a website as a reference. However, the website died a few months ago and is no longer viewable. Interestingly, I've never seen the live website myself, but have only ever seen it via Google Cache.

So, how do I add this source to my bibliography? Do I do everything with the data from the original article (including the original URL) with the date that Google cached the website? Or do I put the Google Cache URL and today's date? If the latter, should I modify any of the other terms of the bibliographic item?


texts: Uni group project being used by companies for profit

texts:
Our second semester group project is to bid for, develop, and attempt to "sell" a software solution. Local companies are the customer that provide the brief, and that we attempt to "sell" to.

I was under the impression until recently these were dummy projects, something the company already has so that our projects can be compared to their own as an additional method of measuring how well we did.

However, it turns out this is not the case, with one project going as far to say in the brief;

  "CompanyX would be interesting in commercialising any suitable finished products, or projects that could easily be finished to industry standards."

So essentially we're required to work for free.
Is this legal (in the UK)?
I've heard a bit about anything created for Uni work being the Uni's IP, does that come into this at all?


texts: Applying for scholarship with prospective advisor support, but not taking the scholarship: possible consequences

texts:
I am planning to apply for a (quite competitive) scholarship offered by a foreign government, which I need the recommendation of a prospective doctoral advisor to apply. However, if I am offered the scholarship but decline it for opportunities in other countries, would I offend anyone? Are there alternatives should I decide later not to pursue a PhD there?

In fact, I'll give it off: I'm going to apply for the Japanese government's MEXT scholarship. Now, while I really enjoy living in Japan (having lived there briefly in the past) and can find good doctoral advisors there, I am not sure if that is in my best interest, as I would prefer to pursue a career in Europe due to personal and family reasons, and doing a PhD in Europe would be better for my goals. Also, if anyone is familiar with the MEXT scholarships, I wonder if there are alternatives: e.g. use my scholarship to study as a research visitor student (kenkyuusei) instead, etc.


texts: How many rejected papers does it take to get an accepted paper?

texts:
Today I received my first rejected paper.

The committee of 2 people left some good points but at the end they didn't get the point of my theme. It took me 3 months to write this paper for the Requirements Engineering Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

I talked to 2 PhD students and they said that this takes time and passion. They told me that the average of rejected papers/journals per capita is 7. Do you agree with this average?


texts: I'm about to submit a paper and the format requires a running title in addition to the actual title. What is it for, and is it supposed to be longer or shorter than the actual title? Should I abbreviate the title, or take the opportunity to convey another message that could not be included in the main title?


texts: What could be a possible next step after a bachelors in Economics and Business Administration?

texts:
I've degrees in International Economics and Business Administration.

I consider myself an entrepreneur, certainly my past degree did give me perspective but I feel it lacked solid practical knowledge, so in my entrepreneurial career it didn't help me much.

I was thinking to go for computer science degree. But having bachelors degree in Economics/BA it will be hard for me to go directly for masters? (even though I've fairly good knowledge of the subject). Restarting bachelors degree in a completely different field could be a total waste of time for 26 years old.

Also I'm aware that allot of students do it the other way around, first they get science degree and than they do masters in business administration. Do you think my way will be harder and more intense? as master in computer science can be much challenging than masters in business administration or computer science bachelors?


texts: How to deal with email unresponsiveness?

texts:
I sent a research mentor an email (admittedly quite lengthy and dense) which he hasn't responded to in several days, nor my request within the email to discuss via phone / video call.

What should I do in this situation? Should I just resend the email?


texts: Should I notify competing researchers that I am working on the same problem?

texts:
Say I am working on some specific research question, and during the course of my research I discover that some other group of researchers are working on the exact same problem (in my case I learned this because the authors of a paper had my research problem listed in their future work section). My questions are:

Should I notify the other researchers that I am working on the same problem? It seems unethical to let them continue on their way without knowing that they may be wasting their time and money.
If I do notify them, is best practice generally to start collaborating on the problem, or should we continue separately knowing that we're "racing" towards a result? Theoretically the goal of academic research is to expand the realm of human knowledge, so it seems counter-productive to knowingly avoid sharing information that would probably lead to a deeper result (and more quickly).

Full disclosure: I found myself in this position last year and did not notify the other researchers. Luckily, I suppose, I ended up publishing my results first. I have heard some horror stories from other researchers about months of research being wasted because of this exact scenario, so I am curious as to what I should do in the future should this happen again.


texts: How bad is it to take another year for my undergraduate degree?

texts:
Complex analysis (or more particularly contour integrals) is kicking me downhill (again), and I may need to drop it (again). If I do, I would only have to take a single course in my 5th undergraduate math degree, another 3rd year math course like complex analysis (3rd times a charm???). If I don't drop it, I risk getting a low enough GPA to not get into graduate school. I already applied. So how bad is taking another year?
Did anyone else do this? How many of you were able to get into graduate school even after taking another year? Is there a bias? What are the pros versus the cons?
People have mentioned this to me before in the past, like it was inevitable, but I never really considered it until now. When I ask others if they would do it, they act like it's unthinkable for them. Like they are inherently better than me so course they wouldn't need to do this.


texts:
I'm an italian student,attendig the university, and I have to apply for a Work placement during this year, in order to complete my path and graduate. I have already found a firm in London and I would like to send as soon as possible my request. The point is that it's my first time and I have some doubts:

Should I send, with my CV, a motivational letter in order to introduce myself or this letter should be done only for jobs or accademic application like PHD and Masters?

I read this thread below very carefully, and I loved it!

A good motivation letter

Could be the first answer from @penelope a good structure also for my application?

Thank you so much!


texts: Will my creating and hosting a popular online educational website improve my odds of admission to grad school?

texts:
I created a website 2 years ago; it's a non profit educational website, it's mostly like udemy but a tiny version. It's all free because where I come from they're really a low income community so I want to benefit them with what knowledge I have. I have uploaded many courses (only relevant to my field and area of expertise) and it has an exam; if you pass it you get a certificate of completion and it has a signature of my area of expertise syndicate to accredit it. I also used to do seminars on weekly basis and I have many many students who reviewed my course and put 5 stars on it and attended my seminars.
For some reasons I stopped and now I will apply to a master's degree in 10 months.. The unfortunate thing: where I come from there are no undergraduate research opportunities and I'm really afraid I won't get accepted due to lack of experience. However, I decided to do review articles to boost my abilities but the question is:
Should I really make a little bit of time and invest it to make my website grow and keep on doing this, because it positively influences and helps me in my application to add a bonus or make my CV look decent, or is it useless and a waste of money and time and should I leave it? I'm not even sure if this counts as teaching experience.
My field is pharmacy and my country is Canada.


texts: Applying for a postdoc. Should I mention that I completed my PhD with no supervision?

texts:
I'm hopefully in the last half a year or so of my Ph.D. in a subfield of mathematics/theoretical physics and am considering applying for a postdoc within the next three months.

My supervisor works (partly) on field X, and I've pursued my Ph.D. in the direction of subfield Y (with the thumbs-up from my supervisor) – however, my supervisor neither has experience in subfield Y nor much familiarity with the type of mathematics involved. Furthermore, my supervisor is the only person working on field X at my institution.

I've therefore been working with zero direction/advice from my supervisor (I like them, I'm not complaining!) – essentially complete research freedom (which I guess is strange for a typical Ph.D. experience). Of course, this has its pros and cons. The cons mainly consist of working in complete isolation (internet aside) without any supervision in the traditional sense, and with no people in area X (let alone Y) to talk to – my own doing, I know it's what I effectively signed up for! This has been slightly daunting at times (given I had zero research experience before the Ph.D.); it's been 99% laissez-faire.

I have managed to attend a few relevant workshops. The discussions there have been great and have often left me feeling positive/excited about research – I guess if I managed to secure a postdoc in an environment with a group of people in field X (even better with some in field Y), I'd get to experience the stimulation/collaboration experiences that I've thus far missed out on.

The question: When applying for a postdoc, should  I mention any of the above? I'm not sure if having done the Ph.D. in field Y in 'isolation' will be a mark for or against me. If I should mention it, what would be the best way (roughly) to word things?


texts: How much effort does it take to record video courses?

texts: MIT's OpenCourseWare has many video courses. They are very helpful, but compared to the majority of MIT  curriculum they're only a small part. So, how much effort does it take to record video courses?


texts: Is it acceptable to ask someone for help revising your paper?

texts:
I am an undergraduate and I was wondering if it was appropriate to ask someone (who isn't an author) to help revise the draft of a conference paper that I am writing.

I am new to writing and this would be helpful to get input from as many people as possible.


texts:
I am trying to start a research using a study mentioned in a biometrics paper. The paper only provides the NIH study number but without the dataset. The study number starts as MH so, to be specific, it got support from NIMH I think.

I can easily get access to the study whose number starting as NCT, but I cannot find this study, which is supposed to be publicly available. (I have tried searching the NIMH website.)

Moreover, what I am really interested in is the trail or intervention in this study, instead of the mere observational data.

Has anyone ever done this before? It will be so nice of you if you can tell me how to get access to this study. I am going through other papers hoping to find a way.


texts: Effect of offensive speech online on grad student life

texts: I have a friend who has been accepted to grad school who posts stuff on line on social media that would offend many people.  The person is not racist, homophobic, or anti-semitic but someone reading it might think so.  Do you think this will have any effect on their life as a grad student, working with an advisor/professors or future career?  The person just enjoys being provocative and apparently doesn't like to self censor.


texts: In a formal paper, should I censor "brainf**k", the name of a programming language?

texts: I'm working on a formal paper about programming languages. I am going to talk about two intentionally difficult languages, brainfuck and JSFuck. Should I leave the names as they are, or censor the names? (e.g. brainf**k, JSF**k)


texts: Is it a good idea to do a (cs) phd in France with a fixed topic?

texts:
For what I know, one finishes PhD with only 3 years in France which is rather efficient, but one may suffer if one's research interest gets changed in the mean time, because the thesis topic is locked by the funding and by the advisor right from the beginning of the PhD, which could be disturbing in a fast changing field like cs. Besides, PhD programs in France don't seem to get global recognition as the ones in the US or even some in the EU, with one or two exceptions. Even within France, PhD is condemned to belong to the academia and is rather ignored in the industry (if there's any).
Could anyone familiar with the French system correct me on this? Is it possible/typical to research on a different topic from the one that I'm getting paid for, to change the PhD topic, or even to quit the PhD in France?
Thanks.


texts: Should I be a visiting student rather than a non-degree seeking graduate student?

texts:
Princeton has two nice options called "visiting student" and "qualifying student". UCB and MIT also have the same options, but their policies and names are slightly different. The former is for undergrads from other college who want to take courses in Princeton, and the latter is for those who graduated from their colleges who are not qualified for Princeton but would like to take courses in Princeton as a non-degree seeking graduate student. The cost is roughly the same (no stipend) as my current college, and both are a year only, but the only difference is whether the student is undergrad or grad. As a junior undergrad, I have exhausted courses on mathematical physics and relevant pure math courses offered in my university, so I would like to take courses, attend seminars and do research under professors of Princeton. Although my school's math PhD program is great, it's not comparable to Princeton, since they have Y. Sinai and professors in IAS for mathematical physics.

I can graduate this year (as a junior) and become a "qualifying student", or become a "visiting student" and I can graduate a year later. Which option is better? Or are both options bad? This is for the case that I will not get into PhD program of my choice this year, so please assume that situation. According to the following question, being a non-degree seeking grad student is waste of money. Does it apply to my case, too?

How will study as a non-degree student affect my graduate admissions chances later?


texts: Professor didn't acknowledge a late hand-in by email. Is it appropriate to follow up?

texts:
I missed a class where I was supposed to hand in an assignment.
I arrived at my school at the end of the class, and the teacher had already left, so I sent them immediately by email.

It has been a week, and I understand that they are probably busy.
I imagine that a professor's inbox can receive so many messages that they don't have time to read all of them either.

This is an important grade in an important course for me, and I would like to make sure that they have actually seen my message, and that they are willing to grade it (instead of failing the assignment).

Is it appropriate to follow up on my first message, asking politely if they could confirm that they have seen the email?
Will that just anger them?
I don't think I will have an occasion to see them in person to ask.


texts: Stuck with a mediocre topic for my master thesis

texts:
I am a masters student in Germany.
On the contrary to how most people's thesis work turns out, mine looks like it is quite far from what I planned to gain expertise in, in that it seems like it is an oversimplified topic. I was looking to work with machine learning as a center point of focus ( did a bunch of courses in data mining, information retrieval) , but after working as an intern for nearly 5 months in the institute, the topic I was offered was to do with optimising pairwise intersections of lists for which I do not need to make use of any machine learning tools.

I am afraid, this will make it very difficult for me to get a job in the industry and also, I feel like, the topic is not really giving me much to write as part of the literature survey in my thesis report. The whole thing has gotten me really worried sick.

I would greatly appreciate any guidance on where I stand and what I should look out for.


texts:
I am currently an undergraduate math major in my 3rd year (in America). I have taken lots of pure math courses, and anything I put in my resume tells potential employers I'm probably going to be an academic.

However, I still would like to know from current researchers what is it like to be a math professor. More specifically, I have already guessed at basically what they do (research approachable problems, teach zero or one or two classes at a time, go to conferences and seminars to get ideas, life is probably easier after tenure and more stressful before, pay is sufficient but probably less than industry). When I look up career-related questions on this site, I generally get questions dealing with the items mentioned above.

But what is the job satisfaction like (people probably get impressions from colleagues)? What sorts of things should one consider before committing to an academic career (as it's a long road)? What is the work environment like (what sorts of people with which one has to interact)? Which types of people generally like an academic environment?


texts: Is it better to prove a generalization of a theorem before presenting specific cases?

texts:
In (mostly) mathematical publications, when proving a theorem that can be generalized to a wider range of parameters, is it generally considered better practice to:

Present a special case of a theorem first, and then prove it in a general context, or
Prove the general case and then move on to present one (or more) special cases?

The first approach makes understanding the theorem easier, and makes the paper quicker to read. The second one looks more "rigorous", but is much more difficult to understand for more complex theorems and formulae.

What is generally considered the better practice?


texts: What are the chances of getting into a PhD program in math after other pursuits in life?

texts:
I have a very unusual profile for a PhD program applicant. I worked a few years in business after college and have recently completed a J.D. I did not have much research experience in college except my honors thesis. My grades in math are solid but I did not take any grad level classes. After the "distractions", I have decided that I would like to study math and do math research. I do love math and was quite good at it. I'm concerned that the admissions committee might view my trajectory as unfocused.

I would appreciate any feedback and suggestion as to how I can best remedy my situation.

Thank you so much for your help.


texts: How intensive is the process of interviewing people for faculty openings?

texts:
I'm interested in answers for both the individual faculty member and for the department as a whole.

For the individual prospective faculty member - How long does the prospective faculty member's visit usually take, especially compared with the visit of a prospective PhD student applicant? And does the faculty member go through multiple interviews with individual members of the department? I know that the process varies from department to department, but specific examples would still be helpful.


texts:
I work in a quite competitive sub-field of computer science. In computer science, we have the publication culture where people publish mostly in the proceedings of different conferences. As in other sub-fields, we have several conferences that are super selective and thus highly prestigious, and a few others that are OK but not so valuable. I am a mid-late PhD student, and I have an extremely poor record of getting into those top-tier venues. I've had at least five rejections in the last years. All my papers are published elsewhere and I am personally OK with that, I still believe that my work has value: it was cited, I got personal praises for the content and quality of my work. The problem is that the attitude of my adviser and some other people in the field is that only the papers from the prestigious venues count, and everything else is "meh" no matter what the actual content of the paper is. Moreover, it seems that one has no future in academia without those publications. This situation makes me quite depressed at times: it devalues all the hard work I have done in last six years of my life and makes me feel like I am wasting my time and should drop out. So questions:

1) Does my lack of ability to deliver those high profile publications at this stage really mean that my academic future is bleak?

2) If I decide to stay in (at least to finish the PhD), how can I deal with being my work massively devalued just to keep myself sane?

P.S. We even have a ranking based on those publications: http://csrankings.org/


texts: Letter of support for promotion to full professor from an "unusual" student

texts:
A professor (currently Associate Professor) I used to collaborate with is being considered for the promotion to "full Professor". The Department asked me to write a letter supporting the professor's promotion as former student.

I am super happy to be able to support this promotion because I have a great opinion of this scholar and I genuinely think it is fully deserved, but I have few concerns:

I am just a postdoc, and usually referral letters are asked to other professors (ok, it's true I was asked as former student).
I have not been formally student of this person, neither I was enrolled in that university. I was doing my PhD in another university in the same city and just met the professor casually due to common friends and interests. The professor became my PhD co-advisor, but this was mainly to acknowledge the nice discussions and ideas exchanges we had over lunch about my work, more than a formal collaboration.
we did not publish papers together.

That told, I am wondering whether I should be really writing this letter, and, in the positive case, what kind of shape I should give to my message.


texts:
There are a few reference citing formats around but I'd like to know what's the relevant information to put in a reference in general. If I want to cite a book, what should go in the reference other than the title which is obvious, same for other media? By formatting I mean content, punctuation, font, size, typography, etc...

My second question is: do references undergo any modifications when the medium in which they are referenced changes (paper, article, tutorial, etc...).


texts: Writing a short paper pointing to a mistake in a 2012 journal paper that got significant citations, while discussion with the author not successful

texts:
I've very convinced that an author made a serious error in the main theorem in one of her 2012 papers in Statistics and Computing, which is a reputed journal in machine learning. I contacted the author, and we did have a respectful conversation, in which she neither agreed nor disagreed with me, but didn't seem to know a mathematically fundamental step mistakenly used in the proof of the theorem. Now, since I'm convinced that this is indeed a serious error, what should be my next step?
Along this line, I followed this question, and ideally I wanted to collaborate with the author, who did very kindly give me half an hour to discuss in real time, but I understand that there's no hope for writing a corrected version of the paper with her, since she neither agreed not disagreed with me.
Now since I'm in the beginning phase of my research career, I'm thinking of leveraging my discovery into writing a paper that'd be along the line of "Notes on the paper X", which'll mostly focus on discussing why the theorem  and the proof is wrong. I do of course want to acknowledge the discussion with the author. How can I make this possible?
See the thing is: since the main theorem of the paper is wrong, it makes the subsequent experiments wrong as well, so I can't really do much to improve the results into something to make a brand new paper. However, I do want my contribution to the community (that catching the mistakes and explaining them why it's wrong with potential counterexamples) noted. This is the reason I want to publish my finding. Also I'm wondering even if I write to the editor, they acknowledge that it's a mistake, will they necessarily publish my notes in the same journal? Intuitive it seems no because it's just a correction (albeit to the main theorem), but yes, as this should be the appropriate choice, as this is the very journal the paper was published in. How should I go about it? Thank you!