texts: Respond to the interview invitation late

texts:
I received an invitation of interviews for my PhD application. However, I missed the email and found it was in my mailbox a week later.

I replied the mail as soon as I found it on the last Friday, and I sent another one on Monday after not receiving a timely reply. Am I worried to much ? I know the coordinators might be very busy at this moment.

What should I do to confirm my very strong wish to let them arrange interviews for me ? Is everything too late already ? Should I call ?

The following is the full text:

'''

On behalf of the XXX Graduate Admissions Committee, I am pleased to invite you to interview for our program. As you are an international applicant, we will be scheduling 2 - 4 skype interviews for you with multiple faculty members. This will give different faculty the opportunity to speak with you about your interests and experience.

Email your SKYPE ID to Ms.X , the Program Administrative Assistant, at: X@yyy.edu. All the logistics with your interviews will be coordinated by Ariana.

Please keep in mind that all skype interviews will be scheduled before the end of January. From January 9th through January 27th , send all of your date and time availability to participate in a 20-40 minute interview, as well as your location so that adjustments can be made for time zone’s.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Admissions Committee

'''


texts: Students requesting to switch partners mid term

texts:
I'm a TA in a graduate level course. Students in the course have to hand in a weekly assignment which is done in pairs.

A few days ago, one of the students approached the professor and told her that they are not getting along with their partner and requested to join another pair of students, in practice creating a group of three students and leaving their current partner on their own. The professor asked me and the second TA for our opinion in this matter.

When we inquired further, the student stated (roughly) that they think the partner does not take the course seriously, does not put enough effort and expects them to do all the work. They also stated that success in this course is important for them and that they wish to work along with a similarly motivated student. (They named a specific student they would like to work with. That student already has partner so it would make a group of three students.)

While the request itself sounds legitimate, we are reluctant to comply with it, because we are not happy with the idea of students working on assignments in groups of more than two since we think this is unlikely to lead to situations where all students in the group put in a reasonable amount of effort. Also we are concerned of what will happen with the current partner of the student if we comply.
Thirdly, although we have no proof on this matter, both the professor and I independently had the gut feeling that the request might (mind you, I said might, again there's no proof and we may be totally wrong here) also be related to racial tensions.

A possible solution we were thinking about is to have a conversation with both students and see if we can make them work together in a more productive way.

I will be most grateful for any tips as to how to make this conversation  productive and as pleasant as possible to the students involved.

Also if someone has any other thoughts on this matter such as creative solutions or convincing arguments for/against the obvious solutions such as refusing the request, complying with the request, doing some reshuffling in the pairs in order to be able to comply with the request and still guarantee all students are working in pairs, I will be most grateful.


texts: What can I do, for I cannot read documents on screen for long times, but my required readings are too heavy?

texts:
1) My degree demands me to have around 50 lbs. of new books and reading each year. Second-hand books are not possible for my subject that changes every year.

2) The total cost of all this material is around $5000 USD.

3) I must have all this material with me while I travel repeatedly between North America and England during my degree, and I cannot afford exorbitant shipping or airline baggage fees each time.

I suffer from an eye condition that forbids reading on screen for long times. Thus buying the PDF versions for these books is not a possibility. What else can I do?


texts: Are you permitted to forward the reviews from a rejected manuscript when submitting to a new journal?

texts:
Suppose I have a paper rejected from a top tier journal. The anonymous reviews highlight a number of strengths of my paper, but ultimately judge that the paper does not merit publication in that lofty journal. When I resubmit to a lower-tier journal from a different publisher - presumably after addressing some or all of the reviewer's substantive concerns - can I include the entire original reviews as part of my submission? How about including excerpts from these reviews in a cover letter?

On one hand these reviews might be seen as the property of the journal that rejected my manuscript and as part of a closed correspondence. On the other, in my role as an editor I do think everyone would be better off if we were more open about where we'd submitted and what feedback we'd received. That is useful information for an editor trying to assess the merits of a paper and decide whether to desk reject or to proceed with a full review.

I'm interested both in formal policies (I don't see any for the journals I frequent) and in general thoughts about the ethics of doing so.

Addition: To clarify, I am more interested in whether it is allowable to forward these reviews than I am in whether it is advisable to do so. The latter question depends so much on the particular circumstances that I cannot imagine a single universal answer - though it is interesting to read the thoughts of the community on this issue as well.


texts: Are there really disadvantages of community college and state Uni for undergrad compared to 4 years state Uni?

texts:
I am finishing up my undergrad in marketing. I started off my college career at a Community College and then I am finishing my last 2 years at a local state university. This has saved me over $50k which is beyond amazing in our current (US) student debt crisis.

A lot of people in my university "look down at me" just because I went to a Community College. While I don't particularly care what those students think I was wondering if professional jobs also "look down on" Community College?

I currently work in a corporate position but will be leaving soon after I have my degree and am looking into applying for Grad school. Will having a Community College on my record put me at a disadvantage compared to someone who took all 4 years of their undergrad at a university?


texts: What does "scientific merits" in a job application mean?

texts:
In a job application I should add a description of my "tieteellisistä ansioista", which translates to "scientific merits". (The application is only available in Finnish, in which I am fluent.)

The application also asks for information concerning my research and research interests; all of this is to be provided in the same document.

What, exactly, does "scientific merits" mean and cover in this context?


texts: For a PhD pursuing a career in academia is a Linkedin helpful?

texts:
I have seen the other questions on linkedin on the Academia stack exchange page but had a slightly different one.
For a PhD student who is looking to becomes a professor post grad school, is a linkedin helpful?
From what I see, the interview process for academia is the following:

The student gives a job talk at the universities they are interviewing for.
They interview 1-1 with the professors in the department, especially those in the same research field
Their publication record, existing fundings, and CV are reviewed.
Lastly, their recommendations from their own advisor and collaborators are weighed in.

Although point #4 might not be explicitly done, at the end of the day that seems like one of the primary implicit ways a student gets their foot in the door - the student's PhD advisor connects the student to another professor in another university who will vouch/champion them in the interview process.
With all this being said, I see that the academic review board goes directly to the students CV, publication record, and their academic website/page to get a sense of who they are as a academic professional and whether they are involved in the proper outreach activities and support diversity, etc.
In this whole pipeline, I can't imagine linkedin being helpful anywhere along the way. So is it helpful? Or is it only helpful for PhD students seeking opportunities in the private sector? Does having a linkedin affect how I am perceived in Academia?


texts: Students who did poorly on the final exam

texts:
There are a handful of students in my course who came to class, did acceptably well on the midterm, and contributed to the (group) assignments, but did poorly on the final exam. The exam was a combination of multiple choice and long-answer "problem solving" questions. The class is heavily applied and has a strong emphasis on team project work but there was also a 50% exam component.

These students were surprised that they did so poorly in the course.

Is this an indication of a poor exam or poor instruction on my part? Is there something that I can do throughout my course to avoid this situation in the future?

Some articles (ex: http://chronicle.com/article/Stop-Telling-Students-to-Study/131622) advocate moving away from summative evaluations altogether for example.


texts: Point of weakness for tenure track postions

texts:
What is the greatest weakness point Question? I want to be honest when answering this question. Actually, I have a problem which speaking so fast in English (which is not my first language). So, I would like to answer this question as" Some times I became so enthusiastic and speak so fast in English" and to handle this issue" I always ask student feedback to keep my self speaking slowly.

Is this answers hurts me?

I know there are "ideal" answers on the internet such as pointed here 1


texts: Question about the authorship of mathematical equation

texts: Recently, I felt thrilled because I was finally (after few months of non-stop work) able to mathematically prove the mathematical (physical) transformation which I use to prove some new laws of physics. Everything adds up so nicely using this transformation and everything seems logical. To much of my disappointment, I have learned that in 1950's two papers are written where exactly the same mathematical transformation appears. However, in neither of these two papers this mathematical transformation was not proven and it was only guessed from physical laws. Probably because of this lack of proof, both papers were forgotten, otherwise I suppose these papers would be breakthrough papers. These two researchers were not only researchers trying to find the correct form of this transform and in last century there is at least dozen of papers trying to find this transform (although not explicitly stated).  Now, I've been able to mathematically prove this transform and I am writing the paper about some new physical laws emerging from this transform. My question is should I mention these papers at all? Since no one before (without fake modesty) was able to prove it and the rest of the papers were on this track (but not explicitly stated) I was thinking about not mentioning these papers at all. Otherwise I would have to explain what these researchers did and its rather irrelevant for my paper (sole discussion about this would represent another paper). What do you people think about this? I would like to hear your opinions, and of course, the constructive criticism from you


texts: Most common departmental structure for degrees in EE, CE, and ECE

texts:
The acronyms are Computer Engineering (CE), Electrical Engineering (EE), and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). Currently, my Department is ECE, and we offer two degrees within the same departmental structure.

As a result of some political issues, I have been asked to find out what is "best practice", i.e., what "most" Universities do. After googling around, I was able to find several departments that pursue each of the possibilities:

separate departments (CE and EE) offering separate degrees,
single departments (ECE) offering degrees in both CE and EE, and
single departments offering one degree that encompasses both fields.

My question is if there is any survey, overview, or summary that would shed light on how common these various options are (preferably in a quantitative way).


texts: How to assess an unknown journal's quality?

texts:
[I apologize if it has been asked, I think it must have been but I couldn't find a similar question.]

I often receive invitations / calls for papers to write papers in journals. 95% of these cases are obvious spam publications, but in about 5% I see a letter that's not entirely generic, e.g. they mention my previous publications in the subject** and they write something that appears genuine about the publication. They also write the name of the editor in chief.

My question is how to assess this new journal's quality? I mean, nice journal pop up once in a while and just because it's a new journal, does not mean it's necessarily "fake news".

Here are a few points I thought about:

Wait a few months/years until I see reputable people publish in it, but then I will have missed my shot, possibly.
Inspect the editor's reputation. If she/he appears reputable (e.g. have published in journals I know to be good), then the journal is okay.
Inspect the publisher's "parents", for example if it's ACM, Springer, IEEE, etc., then maybe it's worthwhile (but then, I can't say definitively either way).

I would appreciate any points on the subject.

** yes, these messages can nevertheless be generated automatically.


texts: How rude is it to ask a potential PI for their CV?

texts:
I think I made a dire mistake a few days ago. I asked a potential PI for their CV (I wanted to get a full record of their credentials along with the information I could find about him on Google Scholar and his website), but I was met with a curt response telling me I should look at his website and papers. I felt really, really bad after that. I sent him an apology e-mail, saying I meant no disrespect, and will look at the materials he suggested.

For context, I am trying to decide between two reputable graduate schools for an EE PhD, and I am interested in a particular person at both. One guy had his CV publicly available, while the other did not (the one I may have offended). I naively thought I could ask for a CV since I've seen professors post theirs. I thought this could help me decide.

I'm going to wait a few more days to make a decision because I don't want it to seem like I intentionally provoked him to make it easier for me to pick an option.

Does the guy despise me now? I'll be seeing him in the next few years (these particular people know each other and work together, and go to the same conferences). Is there any way to undo any damage I might have caused to his impression of me?

Edit: Thank you everyone for your input. I will try not to make this mistake in the future.


texts:
Suppose you are in a tenure-track position in the US and lucky (or successful) enough to eventually get tenured.

The most important effect is obvious that you now have a permanent position. But what other effects are there? Does your salary increase automatically? Does your teaching load change? Do you get (additional) grad students? Are these changes negotiable?

PS: I am outside of the US system but interested in these facts for the purpose of comparison.


texts:
I'll be attending a accredited/well-recognized university for my undergrad this coming fall, and I'm just curious about research correlating with publications. I have a particular yearning passion in enhancing the field of pediatric robotic surgery, a new field of medicine that just opened up very recently, and I am firmly intrigued in doing undergrad research along with a publication from that department. Now I know for a fact publications take up an exceeding amount of time.

My main question is :

How long does it take a student to conduct undergrad research and then release a publication based off of that research?


texts: Is it possible to "validate" a simulator without comparing it with the actual tool?

texts:
I am developing a simulator for a data mining tool. The simulator will be an abstract version of the tool so that people can perform their experiments easily.

I am doing this project for a post Masters Degree and "verification and validation" are a part of the report. Please note that this is not a research degree and the projects are fixed term. So my project time cannot be extended. Also, its not a research project so a publication is not required.

Problem:

The problem is that I don't have enough time left for the project and my simulator is not realistic enough to validate with the real tool. I asked the director of our program and he told me that I should ask my stakeholders to limit the scope of the implementation and I should validate against a limited scope. But whenever I ask one of my stakeholders(who will be using the simulator), he says that I cannot validate my simulator against the real tool unless I do all of the implementation. I asked him to restrict the scope of validation(only for the report) so that I can put the validation in my report. He said that we can ask my supervisor (who is on vacation for the next three weeks and isn't responding to emails).

I could try and finish the implementation by spending my weekends and nights on it but even then I will not be able to put the validation in my report because the report deadline is a month before the project deadline.

Do you have any suggestions for the validation of my simulator ?


texts: Equal contribution for second and third authors

texts:
We are six co-authors in an applied CS paper (AI). This paper has a "strong" first author who worked on this project for years. Two student authors (let's call them Alice and Bob) contributed to the paper, and the other co-authors are seniors.

Since Alice and Bob have roughly the same contribution, we use a lexicographic tiebreaker, and placed Alice before Bob. While Alice is (unsurprisingly) happy with this solution, it bothers Bob.

I thought of several solutions:

We stay with the lexicographic tiebreaker between Alice and Bob.
Flip a coin to determine the order.
Put an asterisk suggesting equal contribution to the second and third authors.
Other creative solutions?

My question is about option 3. I've yet to encounter an "equal contribution" remark that is not about the first author. Since there is a sole first author, is it reasonable to remark that the second and third have equal contribution? Any other thoughts?


texts: Do PhD students really publish so committee doesn't have to thoroughly read dissertation?

texts:
My advisor recently mentioned that the point of publishing throughout your PhD is so your committee doesn't have to read your dissertation to determine whether it's sufficient for a PhD--if you have enough publications in peer-reviewed conferences/journals, the committee can just rubber stamp the dissertation without effort. For context, the field is computer science and engineering.

Is really the point? Obviously publishing work throughout the PhD is important, but to me this seems a dumb reason. I thought the point was to be continually learning and developing as a scholar, not to publish a series of half-baked papers so your committee can avoid reading your work several years down the line. Perhaps I am being idealistic.


texts: Contact reviewers/authors after the end of the review cycle for follow up

texts:
I recently submitted a paper to a conference and was just blown away by the quality of the reviews (double-blind). Not only were they very detailed, but they were also very informative and insightful. They really helped me move the work forward. I wanted to thank the reviewers (which I got a chance to do in the rebuttal stage) but also to perhaps even contact them for a follow up on their comments. I thought that I could perhaps add them as co-authors or even offer collaborations.

I was wondering if people thought whether or not it would be appropriate for journal editors or program committees to allow reviewers to connect with the author following the end of the review cycle should it be requested by either side. What would the down-side of such a follow-up system be?


texts: How to recruit participants for online experiments?

texts: We are currently doing a study where we thought it might be smart to try out the possibilities of recruiting participants from the Internet. I was thinking it might be best to ask more experienced members, where would be the best kinds of places to publicize the experiment, and what strategies they would recommend to this?


texts: What warrants acknowledgement or citation in a dissertation?

texts:
I have just finished my dissertation and just have a question about acknowledgements and citation.
There was a line in a proof of a paper that I did not follow and someone told me what it meant.
Does that warrant citation or does it look silly citing such things? It wasn’t their own work, they explained where it came from.


texts: What standards should I apply when evaluating a PhD thesis from a weaker university?

texts:
I have been asked to serve on the examination committee for a PhD thesis. It's in the area of machine learning. It's from a university in a developing country. My job is to provide a written report, recommending whether to award the degree (possibly with minor or major changes), or even not to proceed to defence. I won't be participating in the defence itself.
The quality is very bad. I would say it would receive a low grade, if evaluated as a 3-month MSc dissertation, in my university (in a developed country, but not a top-tier university). It's bad in every respect - novelty, experimental design, understanding, motivation, contact with literature, writing, reliance on "predatory" journals, even some (fairly benign) plagiarism. So, my instinct is to recommend it should not proceed to the defence.
My problem is that standards vary between countries and between institutions. How much allowance should I make for this? I do not want to perpetuate a "vicious cycle" which prevents high-quality work in developing countries (eg Breaking the (perhaps perceived) academic (poverty) cycle).
Part of my problem is that I don't know how much weight my report will carry. Maybe the department is used to receiving harsh reports from international committee members, and de-weights them. Or maybe a harsh report from an international member is enough for an immediate fail.
If I could allocate the blame in my review, I would say the supervisor surely deserves most of it. But it is the student who will suffer the most, if they fail. On the other hand, perhaps the supervisor's own PhD was the beneficiary of some lenient reviewing in the past, leading them not to know what standards are expected. I should not perpetuate that cycle either.
I hope my question does not sound condescending or insulting to scholarship in developing countries. I know that great research is done everywhere, and I have great respect for many individual researchers from the country in question.
Edit: of course, there are no right answers here, but I accepted @anon's answer because the "PhD = passport to worldwide community" concept was the most helpful in my thinking. In the end, I wrote a fully honest review from my point of view, and recommended it should not go to defence, but I added a note that I understand the local committee will apply the institutions' own standards. It goes without saying that I was constructive, not negative, and gave a lot of advice for accessible improvements. Thanks to all for a useful discussion!


texts: How to finish Master's Thesis when my adviser is too busy to help me thoroughly edit what I have written?

texts:
I have finished my B.S. and I am now finishing my M.S. thesis (already finished M.S. classes). My original thesis topic was not getting me anywhere and I came to my adviser asking him to allow me to switch to a new topic that I have already started working on. The professor allowed such a change and I believe my new work is much better and more interesting. Unfortunately, the new thesis topic is not my adviser's area of expertise.

Moreover, I have been late in turning in my thesis for several semesters since I've also been working full time much of the time after I finished my B.S.. This makes it feel like my university does not really care about my success anymore and I am not even being pressured to finish writing my thesis as I would have been if I was a full-time student.

I will be finishing writing my thesis on this new topic, but much of the work I have done have not been checked by anyone with a Ph.D. This worries me. Should I just crowd-source some comments for editing my thesis from friends and try to just get it turned in and accepted so I can present? Or should I seek out more professors who are more familiar with this new topic and try to have them read it (it would take at least several hours to do this and, keep in mind, I am not a full-time or even part-time student right now)?

I think my work is good and I will pursue trying to get it published in a journal once my actual M.S. is done, so I am not too uncomfortable with the things I've written.


texts: Senior co-author is jeopardizing two years of work

texts:
I have been working on a certain paper for about two years, the first year funded and the other one pro bono.

The data and methods were fixed during the first year. The data has high quality, the sample size is three times larger than in a typical study, and the papers that describe the methods I am using have been cited thousands of times.

Now one of my senior co-authors, for some reason that I do not know, is saying that the methods are essentially junk, and refuses to allow me to submit the paper to a good journal, though he would find low-rank journals just fine! I have rewritten the paper once already but it still does not satisfy him. The other seven authors have given generally positive feedback with good suggestions on how to improve it.

I will soon finish my studies, so I have little incentive to remake everything for a third time. However, it would be wasteful to discard the paper entirely. I don't know. I am very angry about this but I do not know what to do. My supervisors have been helpful but I feel I am not getting anywhere.

I could perhaps file a formal complaint and burn some bridges but then I would only lose more time in that. Any suggestions for further action?


texts:
Nowadays most journals use electronic forms for the referees to submit their recommendations to the editor.

However, if that's not the case, how should the letter to the editor be structured?

In the referee report I have already mentioned some points I consider should be revised. But, do I have to explicitly state these points in the letter? or should I just say that the points mentioned in the referee report should be considered before publication?


texts: PhD application: bad grade in relevant subject at master's

texts:
I'm currently pursuing an M.Sc. in Europe. I am going to apply for a PhD program at an Ivy league university. I am afraid that some bad marks in the master's (especially one in a relevant subject) would affect my application.
Some background: I completed my B.Sc. in mathematics with very good marks (corresponding to a GPA of 4.0 or something close to it) in Europe and then moved to another country (still in Europe) to do a quite renowned master in theoretical physics (about 1 out of every 5 applicants was selected for this master).
Current situation: Because of several factors (moving to another country, changing subject from math to theoretical physics, different and stricter exam regulations*, having chosen to follow the most demanding courses) I got bad marks in my first semester. In particular I got the American equivalent to 2.5 in a subject which is relevant for my master thesis (and for the PhD project I would like to pursue).
During the second semester my grades improved. Since I got most of the required credits, I have time to do the specific low-grade exam again during next semester (I can also do more exams to replace the bad ones according to the university regulations).
Problem: Even if I do the exam again and get a good mark, I will know the results after the deadline of the application for the PhD. So, I can't reflect my ability in that core subject (apart from my results in other exams and from my reference letters) in the application. Would it be a problem for my application? Would saying "I did bad in the first semester but I will try to make up for it in the third semester" be satisfying for such elite universities?
I am very excited about the research topic and would love to work on it. I am just afraid that some bad marks could affect my chances to get in the PhD program.
Additional info: The PhD program would be in physics / theoretical physics. My B.Sc. was in mathematics but included physics exams (and I did more physics exams than average by choosing optional modules).
*here I mean that in the master's I had less time to prepare for exams (they were immediately after the end of the lectures, whereas during my bachelor's I had time between the end of lectures and the exam session). Moreover, in the bachelor's I had multiple retake exams and every retake had the same difficulty whereas here we have at most one retake and if it occurs it is more difficult than the first exam (this is an objective observation claimed by professors, I quote "you can't get a good mark at the retake" and "guys I suggest you to do the exam immediately because the retake will be way more difficult").


texts: When translating an article into English, how do I quote the author’s quotations of translated versions of English works?

texts: The article which I am translating into English quotes extensively from translated versions of works by English authors (e.g. a Spanish translated version of Philip Pettit’s ‘Republicanism’). As the translator, do I translate these quotations into English myself, or do I need to find Pettit’s original English words? I’m not sure, because the latter would mean quoting from a text (the original, English version of ‘Republicanism’) which the author of the article I am translating did not read... In which case do I simply do the former but make very clear in the in-text references that I am quoting from a translation?


texts: Can I share my notes of copyrighted materials on my blog?

texts:
I make extensive notes on the material I encounter all over the Internet (video courses, textbooks, blogs etc). I want to make my hard earned notes available free over the Internet. But if I do that, then it won't be fair as everybody will want to read the notes and won't buy textbooks.

Is it copyright violation if I share my notes over my blog?


texts: Nobel laureates and where they currently work

texts: There are a lot of lists of Nobel laureates by institution available online. However I cannot find any that list laureates by where they are currently working.  Does such a list exist?


texts: For government / industry research posters, should I include my university's logo?

texts:
For an undergraduate putting together a research poster describing research worked on at a government lab, is it appropriate to include the undergraduate's home institution in the Acknowledgements section?

Assume, in this case, the undergraduate institution has no involvement in the research.


texts: Graduation attire - masters hood while receiving an associate degree

texts: I earned a MS degree a while back.  I went back to school for another degree that happens to a "lower" degree...associates of science.  Can I wear my Master's hood while getting the AS degree at graduation?


texts: Getting a master in math after an econ PhD

texts:
Ok guys, I know this is a weird question.
I have found that the opposite has been asked many times, however I could not find opinion in how useful would be to get a master in math after completing a phd in econ.
I am at an advanced state in my PhD and I do not want to give up now, because I stil believe I can make it to the end. However, I believe that I will never fully understand some topics without having some intense training in math. So I am considering to successfully complete this path to start a degree in math that could also give me some research ideas for my future career.
What would you say of this atypical question? What are good institutions to learn math (better if linked to good economics department) in Europe?
Thanks in advance for your consideration.


texts: My adviser agreed to write a letter of recommendation, but hasn't done so

texts:
I am currently a M.Sc. student and I was planning to apply for PhD programs. I asked my adviser to write me a letter of recommendation two months ago, and he agreed to do that. However, now that the deadlines are approaching (in 2 days) he has refused to write a letter, and basically he says that he wants me to stay in his research group and do a PhD under his supervision. In other words, he is forcing me to stay in my current school. I have been rejected from one of the PhD programs that I had previously applied, because he did not submit the letter of recommendation.

My first question is: what should I do? I do not want to create conflict, because he is my adviser and I need to defend my thesis in peace in the next two months.

My second question: If I do not send a letter of recommendation from my adviser, will it affect the decision of admission committee?

This is a time-sensitive manner and I really appreciate it if you could give me some insights, I am absolutely stuck here.


texts: Transferring Master to Master, different country/ LOR issue

texts:
I'm currently undertaking second semester in MA program.
As an international student, I am unhappy with living here in this country, so I'm considering to transfer to another university in the US but a similar MA program.

In this case I need to take GRE which wasn't required in order to get in the current university, and hopefully meet the minimum requirements.
In this case can I make an excuse about unhappiness when asking for a letter of recommendation (LOR) from my supervisor?

Well then I need at least three LORs, but I have no idea where to ask for. I do have been volunteering at an organization for almost over 100 hours now, but is unpaid work okay to be considered as a strong LOR?


texts: Do non-ACM events/conferences publish & index their final proceedings in the ACM digital library?

texts:
I am looking into options to submit my research paper to this conference:
- http://www.icbdr.org/ or - http://www.iccbdc.org/index.html

Both of the links indicate that after acceptance, the paper will be published in ACM library and indexed in Scopus and EI. But after I discussed with my colleagues they said that there is a chance of being a scam.

I checked the ACM main events but did not find any of the above-mentioned conferences but instead, I found them in Non-ACM Events http://www.acm.org/conferences/non-acm-events.

Does it mean that the work will be published and archived in ACM library?

UPDATE: I contacted the Elsevier Ehelpdesk and got the following reply:

  Dear xxxxxx, Thank you for reaching Elsevier Ehelpdesk regarding
  Scopus Indexing.   The 2017 International Conference on Cloud and Big
  Data Computing (ICCBDC 2017) is set to be published under the
  International Conference Proceedings Series by  ACM as seen on their
  site http://www.iccbdc.org/index.html.   I can confirm that the
  International Conference Proceedings Series by  ACM is already indexed
  in Scopus which has several conference titles already indexed.   Once
  a conference is is published, the publisher will be processing the
  title to be included in Scopus to be indexed.   I hope I have provided
  you with everything you need. Should you have further query, please
  don't hesitate to email me back. Kind regards,


texts: Is there an efficient way to give a large class of students feedback about their assignments?

texts:
I am the course lecturer of a large undergraduate course
with about 700 students in the course.
One of the challenges of teaching such a large course
is grading the assignments and giving students feedback.

Here is some information about the grading process:

The students submit their assignments electronically,
using a learning management system
The graders grade the assignment by filling in a spread

I would like to give the students two types of feedback:

Students would receive their scores for each question part,
e.g., 1A: 10/10, 1B: 5/5, 1C: 2/5, etc.
For each question part where marks were lost,
students would receive some comments about why they lost marks,
e.g., wrong units in 1B, did not round to an integer in 2A, etc.

Is there an efficient way to give a large class of students
such feedback about their assignments?

I considered asking the TA to email each student
their score for each question part and the mistakes that they made.
However, this seemed to me to be very time consuming and impractical.

Response to questions in comments

Question:
How many students does each TA handle?
Is the group of a particular TA consistent throughout the course?
That is, does the TA handle the same students for the course?
Are the "graders" also the TAs?

Answer:
We have about 5 PhD students who take the role of graders,
i.e., their job is only to do grading.
We also have 1 TA who is a recently graduated BSc student,
whose job is primarily to do admin work,
although she also helps out with a little bit of grading.

Question:
What is the learning management system?
Do you know all of the available features on this system?

Answer:
We are using the Canvas learning management system.
It is possible to give comments for each student's assignment;
however, to the best of my knowledge,
this has to be done one assignment at a time,
which means that giving feedback this way would be fairly time-consuming.


texts: What would happen if I don't have a published research paper during my education?

texts: I am a 3rd year Ph.D. student. My field is computer science. I've worked on my topic for a long time, but finally, I found out that there are a lot of parameters correlated with publishing a paper. So I don't have hope for publishing a paper, since I should do it all on my own. What should I do now?


texts: How to organize my binder of activities for review of time as assistant professor?

texts:
I am up for review and I must compile a lot of materials from my time as an assistant professor.  Everything has to be submitted in hard copy in a binder.  I would like to make it as easy as possible for the committee to read.  I must submit the following:

A cover letter
A CV
List of all courses taught, along with syllabuses
My annual reports (about three pages per year)
Every student evaluation from every class taught
Lists of various activities that include scholarship, professional development, and service.

I thought I would organize it so that each of the categories above would get their own tab in the binder. Each of the categories in (6) will get their own tab as well. My main concern is the evaluations from (5). I teach three or four classes per semester.  So, I have dozens of classes with evaluations. If I only give a single tab to all the evaluations, it would be hard to navigate. And, each class getting its own tab seems excessive. Is there a way to have (1) through (6) have tabs that are easy to pick out, while still maintaining some kind of sub-tab system for each semester?  Or, is there a better way to organize all this stuff?  Thanks.


texts: Would this work be considered a publishable cs research?

texts:
I was able to create a new version of a known algorithm with a reduced space complexity than the original by using a different data structure from the one used in the original. It's something like what Fredman & Tarjan 1984 did for the Dijkstra algorithm's time complexity by using Fibonacci heaps. The only difference is that these guys created Fibonacci heaps, I did not create the data structure I used in my work.

Would my work be considered by a respectable journal?
If no respectable journal would accept it, should I consider self-publishing it to, say, arxiv? or should I forget the whole "publish as research" thing and just write a blog post about it?

P.S: I'm a fresh CS graduate and I'm not affiliated with any post-graduate program, so I don't have an academic advisor to ask that question to.


texts: Is it a contribution if I prove the result in previous paper in my own way and provide small extension in the form of application of the results?

texts: If I have an idea to extend an already published paper (P1) but the extension is very small and further I know how to prove the results of (P1) so my question is as follows. If I prove the results of P1 through my own way and has slight extension (in the form of application of the results) of P1 then is it worth writing that idea or should I avoid such thing?


texts:
I have got the first revision of my paper from a journal in Elsiver. Despite, all 3 reviewers' comment are very positive and accepted the paper the editor is so tough. He is questioning the originality of the proposed method and also saying the paper is not very much in the scope of journal.
If so, why did you hand it to reviewers?!!!
Any idea to answer him/her?


texts: Would this be right to respond to all the reviewers queries simultaneously in single files along with their queries?

texts:
I have prepared all answers to all the queries raised by reviewers in major revision. Would it be ok if I respond to both reviewers in single pdf file in following format:

Reviewer #1:
Query 1: Reviewer's first query.
Author response: This is my explanation.
Query 2: Reviewer's second query.
Author response: This is my explanation.

and so on....

Reviewer #2:
Query 1: Reviewer's first query.
Author response: This is my explanation.
Query 2: Reviewer's second query.
Author response: This is my explanation.

In this way both reviewers can see queries of each other. Is this right way of response to reviewers ?


texts: In terms of graduate applications, what sort of courses should I take in a gap year?

texts:
I've been offered a position in the lab I worked in as an undergrad, starting this spring upon graduation. One of the perks of my position would be that I get to register for 5 credits (~one class) per quarter for free.

Let's say I want to take advantage of this, and my boss in the lab is willing. I see I have three options to take classes this way:

I could take more classes in my major (linguistics) that I didn't take before I graduated.
I could take classes that would prepare me for the sort of work I want to do in graduate school (closer to psychology than theoretical linguistics) beyond what I already have done and learn in the lab.
I could take entirely unrelated classes I have interests in but didn't take in undergrad. For me, I would probably take a language class. It keeps me sane, and they're often scheduled early in the day so I would miss less work.

All else being equal, how would a graduate admissions committee look on me for choosing each of these paths for a year or two before I apply for grad school? I imagine (2) would be best, but there's still lots of interesting classes in (1)
and (3) that are hard to pass up.

I do want to say I'm not just doing this to make my grad school apps look better. There a lot of undergrad classes I'd love to take in both options (1) and (2), and like I said, learning a language keeps me sane, but I thought I'd get all the variables before I did anything.


texts: What effect does a good research paper have on a university's reputation and worldwide ranking?

texts: What effect does a good research paper have on a university's worldwide rankings?


texts: Can we ask a journal to assign another reviewer to review our paper if we think that his/her review is not satisfactory?

texts:
Can we ask a journal to assign another reviewer to review our paper if we think that his/her review is not satisfactory, for instance if we have reason to believe that s/he is not familiar with the subject of the paper? For example, s/he points out that s/he does not understand a term which is well-known in the subject area.

Edit:

In this particular case, the reviewer in question is generally positive about the paper. The other reviewer is positive, and the editor has recommended acceptance.

Do you keep quiet about it because the paper has been accepted? Or should we at least let the editor know that he has not assigned someone who knows the subject to review the paper? Or do you go as far as asking the editor to assign another review just to be sure that everything is done responsibly?

If you have been in similar situation, I am interested to know which action you took.


texts: What are the cons of studying in a Ph.D. program that takes much time to confer the degree (about 1 year and a half or 2 years, after dissertation)?

texts: Currently, I am in the second year of a Ph.D. program. However, I am really worried about the amount of time Faculty takes to confer the degree, since It could be detrimental to my academic and professional future.


texts: How to choose and validate interdisciplinary research methodology?

texts:
How to formalize the following research consideration towards research methodology selection and validation?

That is, I consider to establish and validate interdisciplinary foundations for a discipline A using foundations of discipline B, and formally validate if it makes sense.

Hypothesis: is it possible to model, analyze and solve problems regarding end to end software application lifecycle management (aka DevOps) based on foundations of system engineering, specifically logistics engineering?

Example case study: assess component flow from positions of optimization methods for material flow.

Now which methodology is in place to proceed with evaluation and validation of the hypothesis so that findings would be broader than just "I used method X of 10 possible for a specific software application of myriad possible and it was a 13% gain, maybe due to some luck or an error in the whole setup or my bias"?

That is practical experiments would validate research, but after gathering practical experiences in a series of projects I am looking first towards creating theoretical and analytical foundations in this direction to design more large scale experiments and have some scientific output as well.

In case this is an existing field of interdisciplinary research to your knowledge please point to it as well in your answer.


texts: Is it normal for US PhD programs to require students to pay tuition for extra credits beyond 9 credits/semester?

texts:
Last semester I chose 12 credits, but the department said it can only pay for 9 credits, i.e. I have to pay for the extra 3 credits by myself.

No one ever told me about such rules before. I thought the tuition fees for phd students are just a fiction/imaginary/symbolic number. Is there anyone who have heard things like this?

I think it is ridiculous to ask a phd student to pay. Because phd is kind of a job, I have heard employees getting very low salary, but never heard of an employee PAYING her company.


texts: Does APA style satisfy AEA style requirements?

texts:
I see the AEA templates as well as APA guidelines. I'm in the process of assessing the question myself, but I'm wondering if anyone has a quick answer: If I format my paper according to APA guidelines will this also satisfy AEA style requirements?

To add context to a paper I'm working on: I do have tables and equations, but I do not have second or third level headings. Only first-level headings.

I'm interested in contributing this work PubCSS and I'm wondering if I will need two distinct style sheets, or if I can get away with a single one. It would be even better if I can get away with 0 new style sheets! PubCSS already supports ACM and IEEE style, so if anyone is familiar with those then I would be curious what differences, if any, exist between those, APA, and AEA.


texts: How should I deal with a colleague talking on my behalf?

texts:
Our Chair is writing a major proposal and me and my colleague are on-board (both non-tenured)... Chair has asked for a meeting next week to work on the bid for a centre and this colleague of mine has replied back to both of us accepting the meeting and on our behalf and has suggested working two-three full days for the Chair.

I replied to the Chair saying "sure lets meet" and didn't acknowledge anything else that was said.
I am tempted to write to the my colleague and say I know they had the right intention but please never ever talk on my behalf again as its not professional. Is this the right thing to do?

I am worried if I don't react this will continue as I am new in my current job. On the other hand I am worried if I react by sending an email or verbal communication and asking them not do it they might just forward/talk with the Chair with some lame excuse like suggesting that I am really busy and unhappy and they will do it themselves to make me look bad or with the genuine intention of correcting their mistake which in both cases will make me look poor!

What should I do?


texts:
I want to understand how absurdly obscure references are discovered by authors when preparing papers for publication.
Although the availability of large online searchable databases obviously makes things easier today, I still occasionally come across a paper or a book, sometimes from decades ago, which somehow discovered a paper or letter to the journal editor, written 50 years ago, in another country, in a foreign
language, in an obscure long gone journal, from an unrelated field, which deals with a highly specialized problem, that has a shockingly generic title, and presents not the same idea, but one which can be shown to be equivalent to it, in a brief parenthetical comment, using defunct jargon, dead
nomenclature and outdated notation.
Although you don't often find strictly all of the above to be true at the same time, some generous subset of it does occur more often than one would expect.
How are these references discovered? Is there an army of science historians scouring agricultural journal from 19th century Prussia for proto-theories of quantum entanglement? Does every academic department dedicate a portion of its budget for the care and feeding of some tiny Hungarian septuagenarian savant with eclectic tastes and photographic memory? Or is the reference librarian a vastly unappreciated form of superhero?


texts:
I am looking to pursue an online master's in MIS starting next spring. I'm in the process of deciding on a school and I've narrowed it down to two choices: Florida State or Illinois-Springfield.

Both are accredited, but I'm trying to think about which would benefit me more in the long run. Florida State seems to be the more well-known, popular university, and, I would assume, would "pop" more on a resume. However, each credit hour is $810 and the program itself is upwards of $27,800.

In contrast, UIS is a much smaller school, and probably less well known. However, their program is $403 an hour and would come out closer to the $15,000 range.

I could probably pay for the UIS degree out of pocket, but FSU would require me to get loans.

Is it worth the extra money for a more recognizable name on your resume? Does anyone pay that much attention to the school?


texts: How can I prepare well for a MSc in the UK?

texts:
I am going to study this course in 3 months: MSc Advanced Manufacturing Technology and Systems Management. It is offered by The University of Manchester.

I am a bit nervous and I want to prepare for it to overcome my nervousness.

Are there any good resources or online courses which makes me ready for this MSc?

Thank you very much.


texts: How should one acknowledge assistance received via sites like SE?

texts: I have been working for some time on a paper that I hope to submit to a mathematics journal. Buried deep in the guts of the paper is a technical lemma that I struggled with for some time before finally posting the question to MSE, where it promptly received an answer.  What is the proper way to acknowledge this assistance in the submitted manuscript?


texts: Does examiner's own PhD outcome influence decision?

texts:
PhD examination outcomes, depending on country/university, may include unconditional pass, pass subject to minor or major corrections, and resubmission among others.

Is there any evidence or analysis (in any country) on whether an examiner's decision can in some way be influenced by their own PhD outcomes?

For instance, is an academic who himself/herself got a lower PhD outcome, e.g., major correction or resubmission, more likely to give lower outcomes when acting as an examiner?


texts: My postdoc advisor just now said she cannot support me after 6 months. What should I do?

texts:
After graduating in February, I was waiting for my work permit to start my one-year postdoc position. Finally, after 2 months delay (due to COVID-19), I have got my permit today and now I can start the paperwork to have my position finalized. However, now my postdoc advisor informed me that there's a change in the financial situation due to an industrial funding partner retracting their contribution and I can be supported for only 6 months. So, now I am clueless on what to do about this.

What should I do? I am going to start applying to positions again from next week. Any other advice for me?


texts: On balance, is it more valuable to review for a journal you haven't yet reviewed a paper for?

texts:
I'm a grad student, and over the weekend, received two review requests from very good journals in my field, one of which I have already reviewed for.

I declined one because it was out of my area, but it made me wonder if, all else being equal I should prioritize reviewing for a journal I haven't yet, or if it doesn't matter.

I have often seen CVs in my field list journals reviewed for, as well as a number of reviews, so it is information that is out there and valued


texts: How to ask a, probably angry, PhD supervisor for a letter of recommendation after graduation from uni?

texts:
I was on good terms with my PhD supervisor throughout my studies. After graduation, I gave a talk at a symposium and my PhD supervisor was in the audience. I was planning to add a few sentences of appreciation to my supervisor during my talk, but decided not to (in order to prevent potential awkwardness). After ruminating about the talk, I also noticed that I perhaps took too much credit ("I developed this assay in the past" etc.) and never credited my supervisor once throughout the talk (must have been subconscious, because I don't know why I didn't in hindsight). All of that is true: I developed the experiments on my own and performed them on my own. However, my supervisor has been indispensable when it comes to "meta-knowledge," general guidance and feedback. Overall he seems like one of the nicest professors in our department, so I felt bad. After my talk, he just left the symposium without saying anything to me. Maybe he was in a rush, but I remember he had done it another time in the past, where he was unsatisfied with my performance on a previous talk. Right after the talk, I sent him an appreciation email with candour, but I didn't receive a reply. Over my entire studies, I can only recall a single email of mine that he had ignored. My friend tells me that he was likely busy with travels, but I think it's very likely that he is disappointed for the aforementioned reasons (or another reason I'm not aware of).

I now need a letter of recommendation from him for my next position. I'm confused on what mode of communication I should opt for (email, phone, in-person) and what content should be communicated. Although in-person seems like the best option, I don't think he is rarely in his office and I live far away now. We are both somewhat socially awkward and averse to awkward tension, so I also feel like a phone conversation might not the right approach. Regarding the content: If I'm apologetic, he might not respond out of awkwardness. There's also the small chance that I'm imagining his anger. If it's just a canned or standard request email, and he is indeed angry at me, he may ignore it or, in the worst - admittedly unlikely - case sabotage the letter of recommendation.

What mode and content is likely to lead to the best outcome in this situation?


texts: Possibility of submitting a paper whose one page has been previously accepted in a poster session?

texts: If a topic (only one page) has been accepted previously in poster session of a conference / workshop, is it possible to submit the long version of the same topic (15 pages) to another conference? (particularly in field of computer science)


texts:
How should I use in-text citation in case of one book from two authors with same surnames?
For instance; a source from Paul Ehrlich and Anna H. Ehrlich.
Which one is correct?

" ... " (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2015)
" ... " (P. Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2015)


texts: How do professors see the German grades?

texts:
I am currently doing a master in Germany and I scored 2.7 in one particular course.
How is 2.7 to the professors? Is it a very bad grade? Is this grade uncommon among students?


texts: UK Post doc salary and National Insurance scheme for an expat

texts:
I've been offered a post doc position in the UK and I'm trying to understand how the whole package works so I can make an informed decision before I accept or reject.
Say for example, I've been quoted a salary of £34,377 in line with the national average.
What would be the total amount I get for a year accounting for tax and any other standard things that a foreign national might not know about? I've heard about National Insurance, but I don't know how that factors into a quoted salary offer. And practically, how much would I have deposited into my bank account per week?
Also, I'm not intending to stay in the UK permanently. What would happen to the NI after I leave? Does it get paid out when I leave the country?


texts: Publishing an algorithm that may not have many applications?

texts:
Suppose I came across a problem, say in graph theory, that I need to solve for my application, or a problem that I just created out of the blue. I find that it is not a standard problem by any means. Also, it may not have many applications. I then solve this problem with some algorithm. The algorithm is non-trivial. My questions are:

Is it possible to publish such algorithms?
Does it even make sense to publish it? Since it may not even have any applications. And if it did, it is likely that other people have solved the same problem for their respective applications without ever publishing it.

I am sorry if such speculative questions should not be asked here, but I was curious. Thanks!


texts: Are spelling issues part of the reviewer's job?

texts:
During peer-review, is it part of the job of the reviewer to check the spelling, typos, grammar, and suggest improvement? It will help the paper and seems part of the job, but seeing some manuscripts it could take ages to write down every tiny correction in the review.

So, is it the job of the reviewer to judge quality of the writing?


texts: When picking a journal for my research should I value the publisher's reputation over the journal's impact factor?

texts:
I'm in the process of selecting an appropriate journal for my article. I short-listed a few journals based on topic coverage, IF and speed of the review process.

I am confused: should I select a journal with higher IF (2.3) published by a non-reputable publisher (MDPI) or should I publish in a journal with low IF (1.2) published by a reputable publisher (IEEE)?

By reputation I mean the reputable publisher (IEEE) is specialized in my area of research and non reputable (MDPI) is an Open Access publisher.


texts: Should you list irrelevant work experience on graduate school applications?

texts:
(1) On graduate school applications that ask for a work history, is it permissible to omit jobs--such as waitressing, temping, working retail--that have nothing to do with the program to which you are applying?

(2) If so, where is the line drawn to make a job something you are truly expected to report on the application? If you babysit now and then, do odd jobs for a day, or "help out" in a store for a few weeks, are admissions committees truly interested in knowing that? More to the point, is it dishonest to leave it out?

For an idea of the specific context, here is text from one graduate school's question about employment history:

  "[List] employment experience (including part-time) since secondary
  school""

I ask about the general case here.


texts: How to obtain an alpha-numeric endorsement code to give to my potential arXive endorser

texts: How to I obtain an alpha-numeric passcode for my potential arxiv endorser


texts: No rec letters from subject area of master's application

texts: I have a minor in the subject I want to get a master's in (CS). Core courses, all excellent grades. I have a major in math. If I get all 3 of my recommendation letters from math people (or possibly 2 solid math letters and 1 stellar letter in a totally unrelated subject), will that look bad to the CS admissions committee? As core courses, the CS classes were all massive lecture halls and I didn't develop personal relationships with the profs.


texts:
I am currently a postdoc in a genomics lab, doing computational work. I will be completing three years in the lab, this fall (this in the US). I graduated with a PhD in theoretical physics in 2012 (US university) and during a postdoc year at an obscure lab somewhere in Europe (this was the only offer I could land), I decided to switch fields and move into computational biology. It took me about a year to figure out the background for the field and land another postdoc (which is where I am now). I have managed to publish one paper in a high impact journal at this lab and also picked up lots of bioinformatics techniques.

However, the lab is not a good fit for me. It's not really multi-disciplinary and does not use any of my physics skills. But by going to conferences and talking to other people, I have managed to figure out what kind of work I'd like to do in the broad field of computational biology. I've also taught myself the necessary analysis methods that would be helpful.

So here's my question: I am going to apply this fall for another postdoc in labs that are much more aligned with my interests and where I can be a better fit. (a) But some universities specifically state that the PhD should be within five years. (b) Others state that the total postdoc time (including previous experiences) should be five years. (c) And there are yet others which state that the total postdoc time at that particular university should be five years.

Cases (a) and (b) could hurt me. Are there other researchers here who've been in similar (or remotely similar) situations? How strict are these five-year cut-offs? I have now acquired a lot of skills and have a much better vision of where I'd like to take my research in computational biology. I am worried though that this five-year cutoff rule could hurt my research plans and career.

In physics itself, I know many post-docs who did more than two post-doctoral stints with a total time exceeding five years. I wonder how they managed to deal with this rule?


texts: Is patenting based on theoretical findings possible?

texts:
Imagine one, as part of their academic research, makes a theoretical finding of a new material with interesting properties based on a computer simulation. The method used in the simulation is sound and has been proven to provide reliable results.

Can the discoverer file a patent based on this theoretical work or does one need experimental confirmation that the new material indeed has the predicted properties before being able to file a patent?


texts: When should we repeat a statement of a theorem before proof in a paper?

texts:
When should we repeat a statement of a theorem before proof?

Suppose we have a theorem in a paper at the introduction or at the beginning of a section. However, a proof is given, say, six pages later after a series of definitions, lemmas and propositions. It would be convenient for the readers to repeat a theorem before we give proofs to recall hypothesis and notations (especially those who read an electronic copy to see in a screen). Then, however, the paper becomes redundant. Should we repeat?

More pragmatic question: Are there any guideline/style of journal papers/books mention when to repeat or not?

Added: Although I asked when to repeat, how to repeat can be found, for example, in section 6.10.1(b) in this style guide.


texts: Should I decline to fill out a recommendation form after saying that I will do it?

texts:
I received an email from a student today. The email said that she was applying to a program, and that she needed her professors to fill out a recommendation form. She added that it shouldn't take long, because it should be easy to fill out. The deadline is exactly a week from today.

I am currently away from my institution, and will not return until her deadline, so this already puts me in a tight spot. She was also a weak student, maybe in the top half, but by no means a memorable one.

So I replied very quickly to her email (within 30 minutes of receiving her email), telling her that 1) if it's just the form, I can do it in a week; 2) if she needs a letter, I cannot write her a good letter within a week; and 3) overall, although if she insists I will do the job, she is advised to ask someone else for a letter.

She responded in a half-sentence, saying "it's just the form" So I asked her to send me her CV, transcript, and any relevant application materials. She has not responded yet.

I made a mistake here, though, because I was so busy that I did not open her attachment, thinking that if it's just a form, it should be easy to fill out. Now that I opened the form, I realized that I have seen this form before. I have already filled out this form for another student, and furthermore, I have written a detailed letter for her, because the form has an "additional comments" section that is very short (that I assumed had to be interpreted as a recommendation letter). I even asked about this letter here:
Should I write that a student is a feminist in my recommendation letter?

So now I am facing some tough choices.

Should I still agree to just fill out the form for her? Given that I have already written a strong letter of support for another student on top of the recommendation form, this will be a death sentence to this other student's application since her grades on the form will be lower, and she will not have a letter to supplement it (however, the first student is a lot stronger in every dimension that I am qualified to assess them on).

I could email the student again, and tell her that because of the above reason, I cannot even fill out the form because it is too weak and that she will surely not get in.

Or, I could just do a half-assed job of writing a recommendation letter for this student as well, although the letter will have to be very generic and neutral, as I have none of her application materials, I do not remember her well, and I am also pressed for time since I am at a conference all week. Even physically sending the letter will be a pain since I do not get back until the day of the deadline.

So I am once again turning to you, hoping that I can get some quick answers (if I decline to write the letter, I had better let her know soon, so that she can find someone else). What should I do?


texts: Using a github code for my journal paper

texts:
I'm conducting research on cyber bullying classification. I recently found a github repository containing code on sentiment analysis which looked at different machine learning algorithms, doc2vec + ml classifiers and a word2vec + cnn model. My dataset is different and I do use different machine learning classifiers than the github code does. However, the way the code in the repository trained the cnn model and the word2vec that was used is exactly the same.
Would using the code in the repository for my problem be considered plagiarism?


texts: Difference between Phd degree while remaining a student, and after quitting a Japanese university?

texts:
I am currently enrolled at a Japanese university in the doctoral program of Mathematical and Life sciences, and have already been a student for last 4 years. I am waiting for the acceptance of research paper, and based on it, will submit the thesis for defense soon.

But I came to know that Japanese universities have a system where one can actually quit the university, but if the paper has been accepted, one can apply within one year for a thesis defense. A PhD degree will be awarded in the case of successful defense.

My question is, has anybody here been such a situation, and is aware of a possible difference between the technicalities of the difference in PhD degree, while remaining a university student, and after quitting the university? I know the concerned university or department should be the best place to answer it, but just in case anybody here can clarify that, I would be grateful for it.

At the minimum, will the degree obtained after quitting the university, would it be considered equivalent to the degree obtained while as a student or not? I guess other country universities don't have such a system in place. Thank you very much.


texts: Is it possible that an incremental work may get selected by a top conference?

texts:
I am a PhD student in computer science, working in theory. I was recently reading a research paper, which was submitted to a tier-3 conference last year.
It gave me some idea (which may not work), which is a kind of incremental, but yields a significant improvement of the run time.

The only problem I am facing right now is where I should submit this research paper. Although idea is not big as per me, my colleagues are saying it is significant and I do not realise as I have been working on this for three months. This is not related to my PhD project. I asked my supervisor and he said it seems okay to him.

Question: Is it possible that an incremental work on research paper may get selected for a top conference? I have hard time deciding to which conference I should submit. I have little experience as I have already published two research papers but that does not seem to help much.


texts:
I completed my PhD and post-PhD. Since last year I am working as a researcher in my country, at the lowest level of hierarchy (first out of five) It usually takes no less than 4 years of steady research to advance to the next level. These levels are named (translated to English)

Assistant researcher
Associate/Adjunct researcher
Independent researcher
Principal researcher
Superior/Top researcher

My employer is the government (Argentina), and I work at a government-funded institute.

Although I understand that this likely varies for different countries, what designation do you believe describes my position more accurately?


texts: How to deal with an incompetent collaborator

texts:
I was asked by this (tenure-track) assistant professor X, with whom I'm in very friendly terms, to collaborate on a project together. X and I work in the same broad area of pure math (topology) but our subfields of expertise differ considerably. At the beginning I was very excited but I've now realized that X is at best extremely inefficient and at worst incompetent. We have been working on the project for some months now and 90% of the things that X says are wrong for very elementary reasons and the remaining 10% are borderline tautological. I'm getting very frustrated because I spend more time correcting his "proofs" (of very elementary claims, not even high level stuff!) than doing actual research. So far all we have is stuff I had proved before starting the collaboration with him which forms the base of the project we are working on. On the other hand he seems to be very keen on us working on a project together and as I've said we're friends. I don't know how to deal with this.

Should I give him some more time to actually contribute in some way to our project or should I tell him that I no longer want to collaborate with him? In the latter case would it be ethical if I worked on my stuff that I shared with him? He literally hasn't added any value whatsoever to it so far.


texts: How much influence do individual professor have on grad admissions?

texts:
Say I have emailed a professor a few times, and told him I would like to work with him for my PhD etc. and that professor is interested:

How much of a factor could this possibly be in my application?

What about the (not so exact) opposite: somebody in the department doesn't like me, I apply there to work with somebody else etc.?


texts: Is it possible to become a tenure track Assistant Professor at the same university where I did Post Doc?

texts:
I know that there is such thing as "intellectual incest" and that many universities are against hiring their own PhD graduates for their faculty positions.

But what about the movement from being a Post Doc to a Tenure Track Faculty at the same university? If a person did his PhD at University A, and did Post Doc at University B, would it be possible for the person to get hired as a tenure track faculty at University B straight from his Post Doc position? and if yes, why doesn't the "intellectual incest" apply in this case?

Thank you,


texts: Can a professor require that I collect personal data from family members for an assignment?

texts:
I have an assignment for a psychology class that is "requiring" me to contact dozens of family members to find out their traits and what health conditions they may have. Truth is, I don't have the best relationship with many of my family members.

My question:

Can my professor require, at the penalty of point loss, that I actually contact my family members? Or can I provide obviously fake data?

edit: I wanted to clarify. When I said "obviously fake data", I meant to convey that I would actually inform my instructor that the data was false before turning in the assignment.


texts: Are journal papers really viewed as strictly inferior to conference papers in Theoretical Computer Science?

texts:
To give a bit of context, I graduated 1 year ago from an undergraduate where I double majored in Math and Computer Science and I am planning to apply for a CS PHD this coming year with a focus on theory.
During my undergraduate studies, I worked on a project with a Professor that lead to a publication in a top Information theory conference (although the paper was about an information theory problem, it was essentially a theoretical cs paper). In addition, we added a new results and submitted the result to a top information theory Journal and we got the paper accepted. The last "breakthrough" came when I was able to come up with a new optimization technique that was interesting from a CS theory point of view, which led to a CS theory paper.
However, after writing the paper, my advisor told me he would prefer to submit the paper to a journal ("Theoretical Computer Science Journal") right away, rather than to a conference.
I understand that in CS, conferences are generally preferred to journals, but my question is, assuming that the CS theory paper gets in, would I be disadvantaged during the grad school application process against someone who has, say a SODA, paper? Are journal papers really viewed as strictly inferior to conference papers?


texts: Correcting small errors in text/picture after publication?

texts:
I got a manuscript published in November 2018 (Elsevier) and realized after reading it again today that an error has been introduced, after proofreading/publishing, in one of the equations I wrote; they have added a "Â" right after "f(x)=" which is nonsense. Is it conceivable to ask for correction now?

Also, two of the texts describing patterns in the legend of a graph were interchanged; this one is my mistake (prior to publishing).


texts: Writing grant applications as a new academic/faculty member

texts:
I am a new faculty member at a University. In the last 5 months since I started, I have applied (or in process of applying) 4 research grants (2 internal applied, 2 external in the process).
What I have found difficult is that for the current two external grants, I feel I need to do a lot of research myself, learn new topics, techniques, and/or algorithms. The call-for-grants do not exactly match my existing research expertise, though the domains are the same.
My question is about spending a lot of time researching to learn new techniques/tools/algorithms to be able to apply for a grant. Is it normal, or is my approach wrong and I should not apply for those grants? I am feeling a bit lost. It seems challenging to decide if it is wise for me to spend my time writing grants for calls not exactly matching my area.
Researching for my applications and writing them does not leave enough time for me to do my own publishable research (in a publish-or-perish culture) as I have to do teaching as well as other non-teaching services at university.


texts: Does it look bad to get recommendation letters all from the outside of undergrad school?

texts:
I'm applying for Mathematics MS degree and I have an issue with getting an recommendation letter from undergrad professors. I didn't plan to apply for grad school unitil recently and I was never a type of student who visits professors during office hour or get friendly with them. Fortunately, I know two professors that I've worked with during an internship and they are willing to write me the letters. But as most schools require three letters, I still have an issue.

I do have classes (semester-long) that I got good grade, but again, I've never talked to any of those professors. For now, it seems I have two scenarios.

Get letter from someone from non-academic field that knows me personally
Get letter from undergrad professor who doesn't know me personally

I know it sounds ridiculous, but what would be the better choice?

Thank you.


texts: How many supervisors for a post-doc position?

texts: I am in the process of contacting potential supervisors for a post-doctoral position. I discussed my initial idea with 2 potential supervisors, but now I refined the idea and I found 2 more supervisors that fit within the scope of the project and that are interested in searching for funding together. The ideas are linked together, so my question is should I apply for funding with 4 supervisors? When is it expected to include someone into a grant proposal? At the moment nothing is written or decided, I was only proposing ideas. I am just feeling naive on these poitics matters. In my head, the best would be to have a first postdoc with 2 supervisors and a second postdoc position with the other 2 that seem interested.


texts: Attending a conference with an abstract accepted but without a full paper submitted

texts:
I'm a Ph.D. and my abstract has been selected for an international conference. This is my first international occasion.
I have to pay now the fee as an author and I have little time to submit the full paper before the deadline for the future proceedings. (I'm also evaluating to take mode time and completing it in the future, for a journal)
I'm here cause in this call there is the option for not presenting the full paper but to register as an author the same. I have no experiences in this matter so here is my question: what happens if I decide to not submit the full paper? For me would be very important to present my work in progress at the conference and, maybe, one day publish the full paper in a journal.

Thanks in advance


texts: What are the typical steps to be admitted to a masters program later in life?

texts:
I graduated from college with a BS in Civil Engineering a bit more than 10 years ago. My GPA was about 3.0, but I think that was pulled up more by some electives and liberals arts classes that I excelled in because I recall struggling a bit with some of the more advanced technical courses and walking away with an A+ in History of Rock and Roll I and II.

Since graduating, I've since tested for and passed the PE exam and am licensed to practice engineering in addition, I've since become a lot more proficient at advanced technical aspects of engineering via practice.

I've never before attempted an application to grad school, but more and more I'm finding professionally that there are a lot of advantages to having a broader knowledge in engineering than the narrow specialization that my BS prepared me with.

What are the typical steps I would need to complete in order to gain admission to grad school. Is it necessary to take the GRE? Would a GPA below 3.0 in technical courses pretty much bar me out?


texts: Why would a Ph.D. be awarded five years after attendance?

texts:
I recently verified a degree, and the university reported that the degree was awarded five years after attendance. In other words, the student attended from 1995 to 1998 but the degree was not awarded until 2003, five years later. Why would there be a gap between the time the student attended and the time the Ph.D. was awarded?

(Note that the years above are fictitious and the actual years were at the time of the war in Vietnam so it is possible that some kind of military service may have been involved.)


texts: Having my first supervision soon, but I have nothing to tell or even ask

texts:
I have my first supervision soon, but I don't really know what to talk about. I am working on a particular problem in the Humanities; my supervisor has given me a reading list, and well, I am currently working through it. I haven't come up with any novel ideas so far, but I also cannot think of any questions to ask her. I have not encountered any problems, but I am also not far enough to have anything written, or a table of contents ready.

What shall I do? What does my supervisor expect from me now? Obviously you won't know, but maybe you can guess? I am quite worried.


texts: Is Publons a reliable reference to show peer-review experience in a faculty application?

texts:
I was invited for an interview for a tenure-track position. Since I was highly active in peer-review service, I highlighted this in my cover letter as well as my CV.

When an interviewer mentioned it (in a positive way), I emphasized that I have already included my Publons profile where my peer-review works can be checked. He said "I've never heard of it. Do you have any certificate or recommendation from the journals."

Then, I felt it was better if I did not mention Publons at all (it would look more normal). Was it a problem of my interviewer OR it is not common to include a peer-review profile in the application?

My impression was (maybe I am wrong) that if you simply mentioned it, we would believe you. Now that you want to prove it, you should do it in an official way.


texts: Why is it important to specify your source of funding in published papers and posters?

texts:
I was reading a paper online, and in a footnote, it read:

  The author is supported by NSF grant DMS-0649473 and by a Simons Investigator Award.

Then it hit me, this information is completely useless to me as a reader. Why would I care what kind of funding the author have? The author for this instance has had every single kind of funding you can imagine, and at no time in my life was I ever interested in knowing any of it. This must be useful information for someone else.

But this is not the only place I see funding information being mentioned. In research posters, you tend to see a list of funding sources being mentioned at the top or the bottom of the poster, like brand names with their own little logos and everything. Again, they are completely meaningless to me. Sometimes I would recognise one of the sources of funding, but there usually isn’t a clear-cut relationship between the fund and the project, especially since a lot of them are government grants.

Can someone explain to me what would motivate one to mention his or her source of funding (or going even further by thanking the fund, award or grant)?


texts:
Suppose paper 1 establishes that roses are red, and cites paper 2 for the statement that violets are blue. Apart from the blueness of violets, no other results from paper 2 are relevant for paper 1, nor for my own essay.

How should my essay refer to these two assertions?

I see three possible options:

Citing the primary source for each statement: Roses are red.[1] Violets are blue.[2]
Citing each relevant source for each statement: Roses are red.[1] Violets are blue.[1,2]
Downgrading the second statement to a secondary citation: Roses are red.[1] 2 had earlier established that violets are blue.[1]

Is there a generally accepted preference for one of these?


texts: How can a master student get research opportunities?

texts:
I'm an international student in a master program in applied math department in the United States. There are two ways that I have known in which the person like me can find the research opportunities:

Independent research: do it on your own. Is it common for most math students to do research in this way?
Research for the master thesis: As I know, the credits for the master program in applied math in my school are mainly for courses. You will not do research until you are writing thesis.

What else opportunities can a math student like me have for doing research?


texts: Short reference on writing numbers and units

texts:
What's a quick and useful reference, either in print or online, for writing numbers and reporting measurements in scientific texts? Something I could distribute to all new students, which would cover things they should be taught but do not always know, like:

how to write big/small numbers in scientific form (1.78 10–12), including proper spacing?
how to write units of measurement, in text and in abbreviated form? includes: when do you capitalize units, when do you pluralize them, etc.
how to properly report significant figures, etc.
when do you write variables in italics/roman/bold/underline?


texts: Career advice about a short stint at a mathematics institute as a postdoc

texts:
I'm finishing my PhD, and am about to take up a postdoctoral/visiting professor position this Fall. I do have the option of taking leave for six months to attend a Mathematics institute, which is having a thematic year in a field of my interest.

It's clear that I need to be as productive as possible in the next three years to get a tenure-track position. Since I do not have a very specific problem that I'd like to work on with people at the institute, I'm worried that I'd be wasting six months of my time at the institute. On the other hand, its always nice to meet new people, make connections and learn new math.

I'd like to hear the community's experiences so I can make an informed decision. Thanks!


texts: Why do past PhD exams appear more difficult than current ones?

texts:
I noticed while doing practice math PhD exams that the newer exams tend to be a bit easier than the older exams. The online archive goes back about ten years or so, but I was able to dig up some old exams from the mid-80s. I was absolutely shocked. I would get wrecked if they gave me one of these. I don't even think I could finish one if they let me take it home.

I looked around at some other PhD exam records at other universities, and it seems to be an across the board thing, not just my department.

Some people I've asked about this give the explanation that PhD programs are bigger now than they used to be-- in other words, in the past, only geniuses got PhDs, and since then cretins like me have gradually wormed our way into academia and lowered standards for everybody. This would make sense, but I'm not sure if this is just something people say, or something that is actually true. People have a tendency to put the past on a pedestal, and I'm skeptical.

Another explanation I could think of would be drift in material content. Maybe they were studying different stuff back then at the same difficulty, or using different terminology to study the same thing we do now. Maybe it just seems harder to me because I'm not used to how they talk about it. A lot of PhD level material is, after all, reasonably modern.

I also wonder if exam practices used to be different-- open book, take-home, more hand waving tolerated in grading, offered at the end of the 5th year. Something?

All this is speculation, though, which I find unsatisfying. Has this actually been studied with healthy rigor and skepticism? What is the history?


texts: Should I admit students who are waitlisted for my class?

texts:
As an instructor at a large university, you will sooner or later have a waitlist for your class. Is it better (for you) to admit those students into your class or do you better keep the enrollment limit firm?

I favor the latter because it reduces my work, however marginally. What's more, it might improve the attitude of your students towards your class if there is more demand to take your class than you offer.

Is there a different perspective or a refinement of the above?


texts: Do repositories of translated papers exist?

texts:
I've recently been told to read an article for my research, but do not speak the language it is written in ("Drei Vorträge über Diffusion, Brownsche Molekularbewegung und Koagulation von Kolloidteilchen", Smoluchowski).

It's fairly heavily cited, so I imagine that someone somewhere will have translated it.
Has anyone heard of/found online repositories of translated academic documents?
Failing that- I don't suppose anyone reading this happens to have a translation?
(P.S. the original author is long dead, hence I will not be asking him for a copy)


texts: How do I generate an Undergraduate Thesis worthy of publication?

texts: Simply, what do you expect from a good bachelor's thesis?


texts: Why has the status date changed while the status remains unchanged at "Editor Assigned"?

texts:
I submitted an accepted paper after a second revision to a springer journal on 24th Avril and the status stayed at "Revisions Being Processed " for two days. The status changed to "Editor Assigned" on the 27th. However, it remained at "Editor Assigned" for two days, and the date changed on 29th Avril. What does it mean?

Thank you very much.


texts:
There are campuses in Malaysia belonging to the universities of Southampton, Nottingham and Reading.  There is a Mauritius branch belonging to Aberystwyth University, whereas the University of Wolverhampton has shut down its Mauritius campus.  Newcastle University has a Singapore campus.  There are many more examples of UK universities with campuses in Asia or Africa.

Why do (some) universities based in the UK spend resources on establishing a campus on another continent?  Is it a form of developmental aid, to bring UK expertise to a spot where existing universities may be perceived to have less quality?  Or is there a different reason?

I don't know if this is exclusive to the UK or if it also occurs with universities in other countries — I have not seen it anywhere else.

The Wikipedia article International branch campus is not terribly informative.


texts: Switch PhD program: how to contact possible PhD advisors when already enrolled in PhD program?

texts:
Say a student is enrolled in a PhD program in the US and is in the first or 2nd year and has not started his/her thesis work but has only done coursework. The student has always been in the same lab (no rotations). Say such student for whatever reason wants to switch to a PhD program in Europe.

How should such a student handle contacting PhD advisors and other institutions? Should the student mention in the first e-mail that he/she is already enrolled in a PhD program or can this be mentioned in the first phone call? Or should it be mentioned at all? How much would this situation decrease the chances of getting accepted into a PhD program in Europe? Or should the student first quit the current PhD program before applying to any other program?


texts: Can I ever know if my question has been answered before?

texts: I am working on a project that is very interesting to me, but I am unsure about whether the research question has been asked before. What is the best way to find out if my research question has already been answered before?


texts: Why do principal investigators not hire grant writers?

texts:
The success of a research-active professor is related to his successful proposals for securing research funds. For this purpose, he should spend something like half of his time for writing proposals, but still he misses several possible calls for proposals due to the lack of time while the current proposals are not idea.

To resolve this problem, many people have this idea to hire a grant writer to perfectly and quickly write/re-write proposals. I personally heard this from many junior and senior professors, but in practice I have not seen any example.

This plan seems reasonable (the salary of a grant writer should be less than a postdoc), but why it is not common?

Researchers pay much more money to patent attorneys to have legally ideal text, then, why not investing on the text of proposals, which can directly enhance the chance of winning?


texts: Is it legal to upload a paper to arXiv when it is under double blind review for one of the IEEE journals? I am suspicious that it may violate the double blind review requirements and I couldn't find any thing in the journal's homepage specific to this issue. In general IEEE allows preprint versions to be uploaded to arXiv.


texts: How to cite (Chicago author-date) papers your paper is about

texts:
I'm writing a philosophy essay. The essay is required to answer a particular question by analyzing, in turn, four particular philosophy essays; the essay needs to follow the outline below.

Restate the question.
Introduction.
Analyze essayW by Mills
Analyze essayX by Shue
Analyze essayY by Locke
Analyze essayZ by Hospers
Answer the question with information from essay analyses.

Where do I need to write (Author, Date) in my analyses? Each analysis will be about an essay, and will reference that essay in most of its sentences. Do I need to include the same citation in every sentence that references that essay? That seems like it would aggravate the reader.


texts: How can I know if my thesis has enough and good results for a PhD?

texts:
So I am doing a PhD for nearly 3 years now. I am self-funding my PhD, and I think I already have enough work for my PhD (in Mech. Engineering).

I have 4 papers already published in ISI and Scopus conference proceedings, and one journal paper submited. Apart from that, I have another 2 conference papers published.

In my country I am able to defend a thesis without a supervisor. I am thinking of dropping out and doing this due to the fact that my supervisor claims he needs 2-3 years to review my thesis.

How can I know if my thesis has enough quality and results quantity? Any tips on how to evaluate that? I would like to drop only when I have enough results. Or is there any thesis review service?


texts: How much of the statement of purpose should be focused on each of my academic background and my work experience?

texts:
I am currently writing up my SOP for a PhD in Economics. I studied math and economics in college and I have been working for 4.5 years in financial services since graduation.

I have two main question:

How much should reiterate my educational courses in college? It's on my transcript and I have already mentioned a synopsis of the coursework I took. Am I being redundant by mentioning the tough courses I took. I wrote a senior thesis, I'll obviously mention that.
Since the career jobs I took after graduation are heavily economic modelling/quantitative finance oriented and add a lot of value in terms of modelling skills and programming skills. How much of the SOP should be focused on my academic how much on my work experience? I feel like the skills I received from my work experience do a better a job at expressing how qualified I am for the program. I had a high GPA in difficult math and econ courses but the same can be said about most applicants, so I was wondering that if the work experience is extremely relevant, maybe I should concentrate on that to distinguish myself.


texts: Is it alright to thank my Master's thesis advisor, via e-mail, for getting a good grade?

texts:
So, I received the grade for my Master's thesis over the weekend. I defended my thesis late September, and received my grade yesterday (due to university rules). I waited about 4 months to receive my grade, and it was well worth the wait.

So I was wondering if it's alright to shoot my professor and advisor a thank you e-mail? I am very happy with my grade, but I was wondering if it's a weird/improper thing to do to thank a professor for a grade they've given. Does anyone have any experience with this? I would greatly appreciate it, thank you.


texts: Adding the full text of the articles that I manually added to Google Scholar

texts: How can I add the abstracts and/or the full text of the articles that I manually added to my Google Scholar account?


texts: Why do PhD students do research for other people’s research ideas?

texts: I’m a research assistant with an idea for a new study.  I’ve started my literature review, however a couple of people have said to me there are plenty of PhD students who would be keen to help with the research.  Why would a PhD student want to do research on a topic that’s not potentially of any interest to them?


texts: Are there any students at the United Nations University?

texts:
The United Nations University (UNU) is an academic arm of the United Nations.

If I understood well, it is doing only research.

Are there any people who are actually enrolled as "students" there?

References appreciated