texts: Is it fair to my PhD student if I ask them to do "miscellaneous" work for a paper they're not going to be a coauthor of?

texts:
I've started work as an assistant professor recently,
and my first PhD student has just started her first semester.

I'm working on a paper with my collaborators
which is almost ready to submit.
I am thinking of asking my PhD student
to help us in the writing of the paper
by drawing a graph using LaTeX/PGFPlots.
However, I am not sure if this is fair to her.
Here are how I see the pros and cons of giving this work to her.

Pros:
Offloading the drawing of the graph to her
would be beneficial to me because it would save my time.
In addition, she would be learning skills
that are useful in her academic career.
Indeed, I have used LaTeX and PGFPlots in my two most recent papers
and will almost certainly use it in the papers I write with my PhD student.
Cons:
I am afraid that she might feel taken advantage of,
in that I am offloading menial and tedious tasks to her,
asking her to do work for a paper
without allowing her to benefit by being a coauthor.
In our field (a type of applied mathematics),
the real work is doing math theory,
formulating problems, solving them or proving math results.
What I am asking her to do (drawing graphs)
is sometimes an important part of paper writing,
but not nearly as important as mathematically rigorous work
such as developing theory and proving math results.

Note: I estimate that it would take me 3-4 hours to draw the plot,
although it may take her a longer time (perhaps one or two days),
given that she is fairly new to using LaTeX/PGFPlots.

Thank you all for your answers and comments.
I posted what I decided to do as an answer below.


texts: Differences among Doctoral Degrees/titles

texts:
I have two colleagues who hold doctoral degrees. They are moving to the US within the next couple months. Both of their doctoral diplomas, one from Europe and the other from South America, literally say: "Doctor of Engineering".

We were discussing about this situation and, although they are doctors, I don't know if it would be "legal" for them to use the PhD letters at the end of their names or if D.Eng would be the adequate choice. So far, they have not been asked to do any kind of nostrification process.

Are there any legal, formal or professional implications associated to this or is it just a matter of putting a set of letter at the end of your name?


texts: Inviting a likely reviewer of a rejected manuscript as a co-author

texts:
Researcher X is well known in area Y for the past five years. He finished his PhD about 4 years ago and now has over 1600 citations. In area Y, he has been the first author of all published survey and tutorial articles. Now someone (researcher A) writes a survey on area Y, narrowed down to a particular aspect in the same journals where Researcher X publishes. He submits his paper and got a rejection. Thus, A thinks the paper would highly benefit from researcher X's experience. The problem is there are strong indications that Researcher X is a reviewer of A's paper. Since A would like to resubmit to this journal, how could he write a convincing letter to Researcher X inviting him for co-authorship. For instance, does this look fine enough?

Dear Researcher X,

I am writing you with respect to my manuscript titled: 'My Title'. I will like to add more value to this paper to meet reputable journal G's standard. It is pertinent that I mention that the paper has been previously rejected from this journal with an opportunity for resubmission. I am thus requesting your assistance and co-authorship to improve on the quality of this manuscript.

I anticipate your response


texts:
A number of conferences have moved to a two-phase review system, in which for example all papers get two reviews, and then any paper that has received at least a "weak accept" advances to get two more reviews.  In the conferences that use this, I'd say that typically 1/3 are eliminated early and ultimately receive only those two reviews.

In general, conferences stick to a single notification deadline.  If they opt for rebuttals and offer a rebuttal after the first phase, authors may withdraw upon seeing the writing on the wall.  But if there's no interim rebuttal, authors don't find out until the notification date that their paper was dead perhaps 4-8 weeks earlier.

I'm familiar primarily with computer science systems conferences.  In fact, I have served on a fair number of program committees, chaired a few conference TPCs, and serve on some steering committees.   I'm curious whether the two-phase review system is used in other fields, and if so, do any release the rejections early?  And of course I ask because I wonder if I should advocate that conferences I have any say in move in that direction.


texts: Applying for research funding as an independent researcher?

texts:
I am a Masters degree holder in Computer Science. Where I live, the most popular way of receiving research grants is from the government. There are two problems with that.

First, You have to be enrolled in a Masters or doctorate degree program at the time of applying for funding.

Secondly, the researcher only gets a small amount of pay from the grant(Like about 2 or 3 percent). About 10 to 15 percent is for research supervisor. And remaining is equipment and other costs.

So is there any way of applying for research funding as an independent researcher?
I am currently enrolled in a Masters program and am very close to getting a grant for my research. But I would like to continue work as a researcher after completing my Masters and would like to apply for funding independently.


texts: Can I bring up past work in the discussion?

texts:
Consider the following scenario.
Experiments yield a somewhat peripheral finding. Not what I set out to find, but still interesting.
When I encountered this finding, I looked up some past work, and found that it was corroborated in past studies.

Now: do I mention these past studies in the background, or in the discussion? Logically, it seems to make most sense to bring it up in the discussion. "I found this, which suggests this. And this is supported by a review of the literature". However, this might be against the "rules".

Meanwhile, bringing it up in the background seems strange, out of place, and like "leading the witness". This wasn't what I set out to discover, so it seems weird to discuss it.

Thoughts? Thanks!


texts: Writing referee report: found major error, now what?

texts:
I'm writing a referee report on a paper.  This paper is interesting and, if correct, would be worth publishing. However, I believe they have a major mistake in their method which invalidates their results more or less entirely. I am 90%+ confident that this method is in error, which will affect their results in (possibly unpredictable) ways.

How should I address this in the rest of the paper? I could write the rest of the referee report assuming that they haven't made this mistake - but I think that could be a waste of my time (and their time, since it'll take me longer to do).

If a referee had this sort of problem with your paper, what would you like to happen?

Edited to add:
One of the major concerns I have with just rejecting, focusing on this point (as recommended by Raghu and others), is the (time and $) cost of re-running things. Saying, "This is wrong" but not going through the rest of the paper could lead to a second referee report where they've fixed the error and re-done everything.  If I then say, "Also, Experiment B doesn't mean what you think it does," re-running Experiment B may have been a waste. How much consideration of these factors do you think a referee owes the authors?


texts: How to explain a change in research interests for an application for a doctoral position?

texts: At the moment I'm writing a statement of research interest for a doctoral position in physics, more precisely theoretical quantum technology. The problem I have is that my master's thesis was mostly about numerical astrophysics. The work of the group I'm applying for is pretty mathematics-oriented with only some parts of numerical work and the two topics of astrophysics and quantum technology are quite different. Now I don't know how to discuss this shift of interest in a good manner. During my master studies I mostly chose lectures with a high amount of mathematics (General relativity, quantum information technology, nonlinear dynamics etc.), but my master thesis only had a small analytic part. Thanks in advance for some general advises and tips on how to build a bridge between these topics!


texts:
I've already published a paper on a topic (let's call it topic A). In that paper I reserved a chapter/section right after the introduction to introduce a topic C that is important to understand before presenting my research and results in the subsequent chapters.

Now I've started on a new paper on a different topic, topic B, but still related to topic A. The paper still requires the readers to have some knowledge of topic C I introduced in the beginning of the previous paper.

The readers of my second paper are not necessarily interested in my first paper, so should I:

Keep a section/chapter to re-introduce topic C? And in that case, I feel I can't just copy-paste the same text.
Just reference to the topic C chapter in the previous paper and skip it as a chapter in the new paper.

I feel like I should keep a chapter for it, but modify it to be adapted to the new paper. But still most of the information will be exactly the same.

Any suggestions for what would be appropriate to do?

(This is regarding an engineering field.)


texts: Where can I find referral for my post-graduate application?

texts:
I'm currently in the midst applying to do my Master's degree in a university in UK. It is a distance learning course and I am a full-time working professional. The application requires me to name 2 referee and they should be someone who knows me in an academic or professional role.

I am feeling a wee bit uncomfortable to let my supervisor and boss know that I am intending to pursue Master's degree due to the fact that they value productivity more than academic qualification.

Furthermore, I was somewhat an 'inactive' student while doing Bachelor's degree. I've never participated in any organization or published any publications.

As such, is there any avenue where I can find professional referee who will be willing to look at my application and endorse my application?


texts: What to write in an impressive about me section

texts:
Can you give me some suggestion on how to write an impressive about me section in my cv?

I know I'm supposed to give relevant information (I'm a scientist, by the way) which is not directly covered by my academic background and career, but basically I don't have a clue about what to include (for example, should I add the description of some traits of my personality?).

I'm particularly thinking about some sections of the second page of this one www.teemeurope.eu/documents/europeanCVformat.doc namely PERSONAL SKILLS AND COMPETENCES and OTHER SKILLS AND COMPETENCES and the linkedin profile


texts: How to penalize students who copy each other but don't realize they have plagiarized?

texts:
I gave my students an opportunity to rewrite one of their papers for extra points. As I was grading, I realized that two papers were almost identical. They had a similar structure, organization, and presented ideas in a similar manner. I asked the students about plagiarism but they denied it. Since it was a rewrite, I told them that I wouldn't add any points to their grades and they should never do this again.

One of the students, however, emailed me stating that she is worried their final assignments might look similar as well. She was trying to convince me that her paper is her original work and the second student "worked really hard to make sure their papers don't look alike!".

She included screen shots of their fb conversation as evidence. In FB conversation the one with the original work is telling her friend to use her paper as a basis but change the sentences and examples so it won't look like plagiarism.

This is a clear case of plagiarism. Correct? I am not sure how to handle it. I know they are not realizing that's plagiarism, otherwise they wouldn't have shared those fb conversations. So I don't want to report to the school (yet!). But I am also not sure how to penalize them? Give a zero for the assignment? What do you recommend? Should I give zeros to both of them?


texts: Is there a problem with citing the original source instead of the source where the information was first found?

texts:
I'm writing a Bachelor's Thesis.

I found a seemingly convenient way of making my research paper successful, but I'm not sure if it counts as plagiarism.

This is mainly concerned with the methods section.

I have gathered many research papers that use the same methodology but discuss different topics (it is not about the literature review). I read the method section and take notes of how the author presented the information, the discussion raised, the sections included.

If it is relevant to my research paper, I follow the same ideas. I take the information cited by the researcher; I mean good information from experts. I do further research on good quotes that are in the research papers I read, use them in my research paper, and cite the original source of the quote, which I also read, but I do not cite the research paper where I was first introduced to the information.

Is this plagiarism?

I don't cite the research paper where I found the quote because it is irrelevant to my topic. It only uses the same methodology. Moreover, I do further research on the information and usually cite the original source or a source on research methodology.


texts: How to handle letters of recommendation requirements in this situation?

texts:
I'm wondering about the best way to handle the following situation. Some time ago I've asked my then-potential referees about possibility to become my reference sources and they kindly agreed, after which I've updated my CV with their contact information.

After some analysis of the academic job market advertisements, I had an impression that most institutions (at least, solid ones) do not expect receiving letters of recommendation directly from a job applicant, but rather from referees (via either e-mail, or online forms). However, recently I ran across at least several institutions (including some well-known ones), which, in their instructions, ask job applicants not only the traditional set of documents (cover letter, CV, samples of research, teaching and research philosophy, transcript, teaching evaluations), but also recommendation letters instead of references.

The problem is that now I have to explain this situation to my referees and kindly ask them to send me those letters of recommendation (for institutions, expecting them from applicant) plus to submit those letters directly to institutions, which expect that information from referees. Is it a reasonable request? My referees are very nice people, but quite busy, and I feel uncomfortable to bother them more than needed. However, I don't really see any workarounds in this regard. Is there anything else I can do to optimally solve this problem? I would appreciate your opinions.


texts: Is it an ethical issue if about half of a subsection of a paper consists of quotations?

texts:
I wrote a lengthy mathematics paper that consists of about 8 sections.

For comprehensiveness and consistency purposes, I have a subsection that massively quotes one of my supervisor's papers (there is no other paper in existence that covers that subtopic in the same detail, I tried to preserve the original rigor and formulations, and that paper is simply brilliant). I stated what is being done at beginning of the subsection, and everything is properly referenced.

About half of the subsection is citations, and about half of it is my own text.

The supervisor was extremely happy with the paper, and I got great feedback from the faculty.

However, I'm a bit embarrassed by the massive citations in the subsection, and I am concerned that there may be an ethical issue with that. Normally, I don't  quote any text in my papers (although of course I use references) -- the entire text is my own.

I would appreciate your opinion on this issue.


texts: Listed school on interview but not on application

texts: During application process to a graduate school in the US, I was asked to submit transcripts from all schools I attended. At the time of application, I was recently accepted to another unknown (by many-many orders of magnitude less known than the program I am applying to) PhD program in my home country. I was not given a transcript from this school, because at the time of application I was enrolled for only two months, and was not taking courses, so I did not upload a transcript on their site. I mentioned that I will be working at the school in my SoP, but never underlined in my application that it will be doctoral studies. When I was invited for an interview, I forwarded on my CV where I mentioned that I was a PhD student at the school. Now I've been accepted to the new school. I may be worrying too much, but could there be any problems in the future because I did not upload much info about that school in my online application? What should I do (if anything) in my case?


texts: Is my method of learning new mathematics efficient?

texts:
I am a graduate student in mathematics and from time to time when I need to learn new concepts either in a research paper or just courses, I feel that just reading the words (and just writing the mathematics) does not help me to understand the new concepts properly. So to really understand the concepts, I usually take notes with a pen and paper and this method really helps me to understand the concepts. By this, I mean that I both write down words and mathematics. I feel that this is not efficient as I have to write a lot and it is slow and also my fingers hurt after a lot of writing.

I wonder if I am doing it completely wrong or if there is a more efficient and easier way to learn new material.

On a related note, what kind of pen is suitable for long handwriting? I use a Staedtler triplus fineliner pen and was wondering if my choice of pen is ok for long hand-writing?


texts: Is it bad to copy and paste from your SoP to other questions on a grad school app?

texts:
There was one school that asked to explain any breaks in university enrollment. Well I took a year off and was really active in research so I talk about that in my SoP. The question asked to explain any breaks, which I did thoroughly in my SoP. I just copied and pasted the part from my SoP where I talk about it and add a line or two of context before it. I didn't even think about it. Looking back I should have thought about it.

Did I do a bad thing? Will this come off as lazy? The passage stands on its own, IMO.


texts: Leaving postdoc after less than one year with no reference letter

texts:
I've been in my first postdoc for a year and feel that I'm not progressing in my career. There has been communication issues with my PI, he's not very supportive of his senior postdocs, and it takes a long time to publish.

I am currently looking for new positions, however how do I address the issue of my one year postdoc, especially if I won't be receiving a reference letter from the PI?

Should I address this in the cover letter?

Also, he is quite big in the field, so are there any considerations I should be careful about, for instance applying to people he has worked with?

Would it be worthwhile to ask other PIs in the department that I have not worked with but I have been on good terms with for a reference letter?


texts: How does a standalone honours degree work?

texts:
I'm currently trying to apply for a PhD position, but am unable to meet the entry requirements. My (potential) supervisor has advised me to undertake an honours year to meet the requirements.

I completed my bachelors degree in 2010 at a completely different university and everybody I've known has done their honours year as a part of their undergraduate degree before graduation.

My degree was titled "Bachelors of Computer and Mathematical Sciences" and shortened to BCM. So I would be

  Mr. LegoStormtrooper BCM

while my friends who have completed their honours would be

  Mr. Other Guy BCM(Hons)

For me, I can't just add on "Hons" because it would be in a different field at a different university.

So I am very confused about this. I've heard of Bachelors, Masters, Doctorates, Graduate Certificates, but never an "Honours degree" as an independent thing.

Can any one explain how this works?


texts:
I often read in research articles acknowledgments such as

  The first author is (partially) supported by a grant of the National Science Foundation of Sikinia no. 1234567890.

What are the guidelines for acknowledging funding agencies? Should I mention, for instance, grants that cover some research expenses or sponsor my participation to a conference? Or only those who pay me directly?


texts: Does the eigenfactor ranking depend on number of articles in a journal?

texts:
The eigenfactor is offered by ISI Web of Knowledge as an alternative journal score compared to the impact factor. It is explained on their site as follows:

  The Eigenfactor Score calculation is based on the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year, but it also considers which journals have contributed these citations so that highly cited journals will influence the network more than lesser cited journals.  References from one article in a journal to another article from the same journal are removed, so that Eigenfactor Scores are not influenced by journal self-citation.

From this explanation, I am not sure whether the eigenfactor depends on the total number of articles that a journal publishes?


texts: Is it possible to write good papers in a startup?

texts:
I don't know if there are some small startups in the world where they hire researchers to write papers. If so, is it possible for them to write good papers almost without advisors and professors or even doctors? What they only have is probably the open source materials like papers on Axive and Sciencedirect and etc..

I have never encountered any small company having research department only for publishing papers. Is it common?


texts: What should a technical thesis' conclusion entail of?

texts:
I can't speak for other CS students but I personally don't have much imagination regarding what to write sometimes. I have nearly finished finalizing my thesis regarding a Rubik's Cube Solver I have developed.
I'm having trouble writing the overall conclusions of the paper. The chapter is titled "Conclusions and Future Work". I had no issues writing a plethora of ideas for the Future Work but am struggling to think of good things to write in the conclusions section...
Any recommendations would be brilliant. THANK YOU!
p.s. Supervisor is busy marking work, thus does not reply as fast as the stack-exchange. I have emailed him regardless.


texts: Our final exam has us work in pairs. I am struggling with personal issues and worried about being able to pull my weight. Should I ask to work alone?

texts:
I am an undergrad about to graduate this month. I've been dealing with post-traumatic stress and severe depression for almost two years now. This time of year is especially difficult for me due to when the trauma happened.
My professor would like us to work in pairs for our upcoming final exam (which is more like a take-home project - we have a week to complete it). I worked alone on the last exam, ended up having to turn it in late, and got a C. I'm in worse shape now than I was then, and now that I've just moved home (which is where everything with the trauma happened, so there's lots of triggers here), things are more likely to get worse before they get better.
So I'm scared I'm going to drag down whoever I get paired with. I am obviously going to try my best, and hopefully things will go better than I'm expecting! But I also want to be realistic since my ability to function will now impact someone else's (final!) grade as well as my own. If I crash and burn, I want to be the only one doing so!
I am planning to talk with my professor about this, but I'm not sure how to approach it. Would it be appropriate to ask to work alone? Since the exam is pretty involved they said working in pairs makes it both easier on us, and easier on them to grade. I don't want to cause more inconvenience for them, especially since they've already been super understanding about my situation.
tl;dr: My professor wants us to work in pairs for our final. I am struggling with major mental health issues and am worried about dragging my partner under with me if I can't pull my weight. How should I approach this when talking with my professor?


texts:
I am currently writing my thesis which is on a relatively new topic and as such literature is limited and I have to take note of a lot of developments that are popping up as internet articles.

Do these go as footnotes rather than the bibliography? When should I put a reference as a footnote rather than a bibliography?

Examples:

A news article
A simple website such as microsoft.com
A PDF published by an authority
A scholarly article

So far I was placing 1-3 in the footnotes and 4 as bibliography (which is short)

Should references be separated or can everything go in the bibliography?


texts: I am aware that the question regarding the inclusion (or otherwise) of the place of publication in citations has been answered. What about the publisher, though?  I have a personal and rather inexplicable dislike of naming the publisher in my citations, not least because it doesn't seem to add any vital information. Is this illegitimate? Any thoughts would be most welcome.  Thank you.


texts: How to justify capability for securing research funds in a faculty job application?

texts:
I am a professor of mechanical engineering in Russia. I have an excellent record of publications and some visiting experiences in the US. Now I want to apply for a faculty position in the US.

One criterion is a strong record of previous funds obtained. In Russia, the funding system is completely different. If I list my funded projects, the values look ridiculous in comparison with the US funded projects (where an assistant professor secures millions of dollar). This does not mean that my research projects have not been funded as well as the US rivals.

How can I convince the search committee that I have capability to secure research funds from the US funding agencies?


texts: A potential undergraduate research guide seems to have stopped replying

texts:
I'm taking this (i.e., officially enrolled in) independent research course which functions like any other class necessarily except that it's, well, independent and you can do the work you're assigned on your own time and you're graded based on an unofficial rubric.
I'm working with a Professor in the Pharmaceutical Chemistry department and his work is right up my alley. Contrary to the usual hard time undergraduates have garnering opportunities to work in research labs, this professor actually offered (without any nudging from me) me a position in his lab and his exact words were, and I quote "...if you're game for doing some experimental work in the Fall, we can discuss time commitment per week, who you'd be working with and what specific problems you'd be working on..." and even told me that since I'd be helping, I would be made a Co-author on this paper.
He then proceeded to send me an unpublished manuscript that he'd just send out for a peer-review, for me to read and formulate my thoughts on. Once I was done, I was to let him know and we could then schedule another meeting. This was on the 26th of March, 2021.
Up until this point, we'd been communicating on a semi-regular basis but not enough that I'd have a grasp on his emailing patterns. I reached back out to him on the 31st of March, telling him I was done with the paper and had my questions ready for whenever he would like to set up a meeting. I then sent him a follow-up email on the 2nd of April (a Friday)
Today is the 8th of April and it's been a week and he still hasn't gotten back to me. I do know that he was supposed to get his second shot of the vaccine on the 5th of April, but that still doesn't explain why he hasn't reached back out.
Obviously, I'm worried about the class I'm taking with him and the grade I'll be assigned, but more importantly, I really think this is a great opportunity and I'd love to work with him outside of taking this class and honestly, any thoughts anyone here has on why this is happening and whether I should be worried, let me know!


texts: What universities (especially in the USA) prohibit or restrict duplicate advanced degrees?

texts:
For example, University of California - Berkeley says

  The Graduate Council views academic degrees as evidence of broad
  research training, not as vocational training certificates; therefore,
  applicants who already have academic graduate degrees should be able
  to take up new subject matter on a serious level without undertaking a
  graduate program, unless the fields are completely dissimilar.

and says

  Students may enroll for a second academic or professional master’s degree if the second degree is in an unrelated field.

What are some other universities that prohibit or have restrictions on the duplication of advanced degrees?


texts: How can a student improve his attentiveness during lectures?

texts:
I'll be starting my 4-th year of post-secondary education, in a few weeks, and during my first 3 years, I've had problems with attentiveness. My latest problem was last year, where I don't think I've been able to follow a single lecture during more than 30 minutes out of the 2 to 4 hours (There is one break during the 4 hours lectures).

I don't think it's my teacher's fault because it has always been an issue with me and, for instance this year, even though many students such as myself had problems with attendance and attentiveness, about 25% of the students felt the lectures were satisfying and managed to follow most of them.

It might be due to the fact that the courses are not always, the one I would like to attend, but I won't be able to chose until my 5-th year so this option won't work for me.

The thing is I've managed to fall through the cracks so far by simply working by myself with the textbooks we were given but I now realise it was a mistake, first of all because several times the textbooks we've been given were either obsolete or not related at all to the knowledge and skills we were actually expected to get and a few times we were simply not given anything besides the lectures.

I usually get enough sleep, 8 to 10 hours. I also play sports 3-4 hours a week.

Second of all I'm pretty sure my understanding of the course was pretty much limited to me getting good grades on the tests but not actually understanding the essence of the courses. I'm supposed to be an engineer in two years and I feel like all I know is how to get good grades but without proper actual engineering skills, and I'm pretty sure it's mostly due to me not having the right approach on lectures.

Basically, I would like to know if someone had the same problem and what approach they took or if anyone has pieces of advice or tricks to improve attentiveness during lectures ?


texts: Is it okay to open up the thesis file during the defense?

texts: During the follow-up discussion during the PhD defense, would it be okay if I open up the thesis pdf file to answer some questions, for example to refer to a figure or equations? or should everything be already on the slides and prepared before?


texts: How to protect the timeline of my project when the supervisor is not willing to negotiate anything?

texts:
I am currently working on an 8 month final project, of which 1 month has already passed. Its for an Engineering Doctorate degree. I have one supervisor and one client (who is a Phd student).

Situation

It is really important for me to finish the project on time. The most important reason is that I was recently offered a job and I told them that I will join after 7 months. So if I don't complete the project on time then I might lose this job. Secondly, I am living in a foreign country (all of my colleagues are too) and earn some monthly living expenses from the university. These living expenses will stop exactly after 7 months. So if someone is late with their project then they will not get any living expenses for the remaining number of months. Every year they have two or three such cases.

Problems

They are not responsible for my project timeline: This is not really a problem but both of them made it clear to me on the first day. In the beginning the supervisor told me that you will be the one driving our discussion sessions and deciding your work for each week. The Phd student also told me that "I am not responsible for protecting the timing of your project and you are responsible for that". So I cannot blame them for any delay.
Unwilling to Negotiate: The problem is that my supervisor is not willing to negotiate anything related to scope or requirements. The first time I tried to bring up the issue of scope, the reply was "We will see near the end of the project what happens". The second time I tried to bring it up I got a bad tempered reply of "To be real blunt, this is what I want in the end. If you are worried about your grade then I must tell you that you will be given a fair evaluation".

What does a "fair" evaluation mean? Does it mean I will get the degree but I will work two more months after my project timeline without pay and also lose my new job?  In that case, this is not really fair at all.

Unrealistic Expectations: Now for some reason I feel like that it might not be possible to complete the three goals of the project on time. It might be possible and it might not be possible. I am not sure of the time because I have not done something like this before. And I think that the supervisor is also not sure of the exact time it will take. For example, When I asked about the first goal then the Phd student said it is really simple and will take around two weeks. However, when I started implementing we found out that there were a lot of things to implement just to support the simple thing and it is much longer than just two weeks of work.
Trying to change directions/ Integrating my senior's work: Furthermore, I was requested to also  integrate this project with a senior's project.
Sometimes they want me to go in a different direction which is again scary for me.
They ask me to write down the project goals so that could be used to evaluate my work in the end.

Solution?

I am really stressed out about the timely completion of my project. I am currently working really hard and don't even take the weekend off. My colleagues are only working 9 to 5 from Monday to Friday. This is the reason that I am already implementing things while they are still studying papers for their topic.

How should I deal with this so that I complete the project on time ? How do I set realistic scope and goals for my project without crossing my supervisor? How do I make sure they don't ask me to do something in the last two months that would make me late?


texts: Why do academics perform review for free?

texts:
Most of the work involved in producing a journal is done by people paid at rates higher than most academics, but the those with the rarest skills, those able to review specific scientific articles, provide their labor for free.  In my fairly limited experience most academics are over worked, under paid and not particularly positive about the closed access journal system or shareholding capitalists.  Most reviews are conducted anonymously, so reviewers do not receive direct credit from the scientific community.  Funders (in my limited experience of the MRC at least) care about papers a group author not those they review.  The big journals at least are profitable companies that pay dividends to their shareholders, and I presume that if they were unable to get this work done for free they would pay for it, making the academics better off and the shareholders receive less dividends.

Why do so many academics provide this service for free?

I saw this question, but it does not seem address the economic imbalance or the supposition that if no one did it for free then everyone would get paid.


texts: Contacting university after graduating for help contacting a professor who isn't replying to emails

texts:
I'm aware that this sort of idea gets asked a lot, but I'm slightly stumped by what I'm allowed to do and what's considered bad practice.

I had been in contact with the supervisor of my Final Year Project, the person that most likely knows my abilities best after my three years of university, who'd said he'd happily write a recommendation letter for the MSc programs I was planning on applying to. However, for the past several weeks I'd been trying to contact them to no avail. I've left a few email reminders, and two phone calls. I've been told I should contact the Head of Department or someone above them at the university to talk to them.

Is contacting someone above them considered rude, or bad practice?

This professor has a history of taking a while to respond. I tried contacting them early to ensure I would give them enough time to write the letters, but time seems to be flying past as they no longer reply.

I may have the possibility of going back to the university (I'm currently doing an internship in another country) and possibly set up a meeting, is this something I should definitely do given their tendency to be bad at replying to emails, or should I contact their superiors?


texts: How do you respectfully remove someone from your research group?

texts:
Recently, I began my work on an independent research project. A few months ago, while I was writing the research proposal for submission, I talked with a peer of mine who hadn't done independent research. As a good gesture, I told her that we could work together on it, since it would help her resume. In the meantime, I planned, wrote, and submitted the entire proposal myself.

When I offered her this "opportunity", I hadn't really thought things through. Now, I've realized that there really isn't much that she can contribute to the project besides stick around and do manual data entry - all of which I can do (she studies physics, while this is chemistry research).

I've already began the project and she hasn't done anything yet (because she doesn't really have the skills or experience, and it'd be too difficult and time-consuming for me to teach her). While I could definitely keep her around since she wouldn't bother me, I feel like it'd be unfair because I would be doing everything, but she would also receive the credit for it (and my "contribution" would therefore be viewed as less).

I'm not sure how to tell her that I don't want to work with her anymore in a way that she wouldn't be offended, but also in a way that doesn't make me look too bad for "going against my word". Any suggestions?


texts: strategy of a maths/science chalk talk interview

texts:
1.Candidate is to teach 1 out of several topics given. Should there not be any preferrential topic to be taught in the eye of the interviewers? Is there any disadvantage not to choose the hardest topic?

2.In a real classroom, it's better to make the class interactive and ask students to come on the board to solve hands on problems. But as part of the interview, there's little time to do this. I can surely ask quick questions to the audience. How to balance between interactivity and time limit?


texts: How to survive as a theoretician in computer science?

texts:
I am currently a PhD student in the mid of my PhD. I have seen many of researchers in my field have published just one or two articles. My research more precisely is related to designing algorithms for problems related to polynomial factorization. This field requires two three years of background for research work or even more for some people. I am very much interested in this field, but worry about the future of my research. Here are some problem which I think may be problematic after my PhD:

Getting a post-doc seems quite challenging as my field is purely theoretical.
Suppose I join some institute as an Assistant professor then it will take longer for me to become Associate professor. Because the rate of publication is slow.
Funding also seems also quite problem

I am only motivated by theory and not that much interested in practical aspects.

Question :  Is there any way to avoid above mentioned problems to some extent?

The above information I have collected by searching online and talking to few researcher who works in the field mentioned above.

One solution that comes directly to my mind is try to relate my research to some practical side but that does not seems to be solution in my case.


texts: If one applies to a bunch of universities, in two programs each, One is  Masters math/stats and the other in Masters Financial eng/fin math/ computational fin. If it fair to assume that one will get into a university with better reputation (overall) with the math/stats application than with the MFE applications?


texts: how to develop a new course as a new Assistant Professor

texts:
I am writing to inquire some experiences/advices on developing a new course on my first semester (this fall) as an assistant professor in computer science.

At this moment I am aware of the course assigned for me is for senior undergraduate students, principles of XXX (a subfield in computer science). According to previous years' feedback, this is roughly a 80 students course with 2 TA.

I have been reaching out to the instructors who were teaching this course last year but unfortunately he refused to share his materials (is it common?). So before diving into the details and building the courses from scratch, I am writing to inquire some general experiences or lessons that could smooth the process a bit. So here are some questions and concerns:

What should I hash out before the new semester starts? This course is not "connected" to any other course, but maybe at least figure out something like typical expectations (and background) of the students?
I took a similar course as a Ph.D. student but in my opinion that course simply goes too far. Perhaps it is a common (and wise) practice to start from there and develop my materials, say slides and projects?
What is the common practice of reusing materials from other institutes? I often see some notes like "this slide is borrowed from XXX", but not sure about the best practice of doing (or avoid doing) so.
My major concern is about the time constraint, in my first semester. It would be great if I don't need to spend too much time at the very beginning and gradually refine the course after several semesters. So in that sense, what are some good strategies/tactics I can consider? For instance, considering to put more grades on the exam instead of homework?

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated very much. And I will be keeping an eye on this post for refinement, because clearly this current form is a bit too general. Thanks.


texts: Can a company prevent a co-author of a paper from putting his name on it?

texts:
I was working for a company where we put forward a paper with other colleagues. I was the first author and the paper got rejected. After that I left that company. Recently, I found out that they published the paper removing my name from the list of authors and they simply put me in the acknowledgements. The paper was basically the same. They did not even want to answer me when I asked for clarifications. After I asked the editor to intervene, their excuse was that because I left the company, they could not put my name as a researcher for their institution and that the research belonged to them. Because of that I had no rights for authorship. They even threatened me in case I have drafts of the first submission stating that I have no rights to take them with me when I left.
Can such claim was made and the authorship entirely removed based on the project ownership. I was clearly the main contributor

Thanks for your answers


texts: Last term I taught a large undergraduate course. I had assignments (online) due a week after we finish a chapter. There were two minor problems with this. The first was that I had to deal with students who enrolled one, two or even three weeks into the term and gave them extensions of the first several assignments, which involved logging into the website, finding the student, setting his/her new deadline and answering the student email. Secondly for some of the chapters that take more time than others, some students would bombard me with requests for extensions. So I am thinking of adopting a different method next time. Specifically, I plan to divide the 12 chapters into 4 modules with 3 chapters in each. Each module has a deadline for all 3 chapter assignments. I am hoping this would give students more flexibility on their time management, and have a little more time working on those long assignments. It also saves me from handling those extension requests because of late registration or others. The potential peril I can think of is that some students may not start on the assignments until the last minutes and it would be very difficult to crash 3 assignments within a short time. I would appreciate other thoughts on the pros and cons of this method.


texts: Do I need to send two official copies of toefl/gre scores to a US school?

texts: I'm applying two programs in different departments in one university simultaneously. One department has a department code and the other has not. Do I need to send two official copies of toefl/gre scores to the university?


texts: What is meant by a Personal Interview for Junior Research Fellow

texts:
I have been invited for a personal interview for the recruitment of Junior Research Fellow in Mathematics  in Space and Application Center.

I read about personal interview questions for jobs in different companies but what is a personal interview for Junior Research Fellow?

Till now whatever institutes I have applied I have been asked to appear for an interview in Mathematics where the professors asked about questions in Mathematics.I dont know what is  a personal interview.

Does anyone know what is meant by a personal interview for the recruitment of Junior Research  Fellow in Mathematics?

What are the questions that are asked here?
Is it the same like any other interview?

If these type of questions are not suited here,please tell where can I ask it?


texts: How do I remove an article from Scopus indexing?

texts: Due to some technical mistakes, I removed my published article from a journal. But the article was already indexed by Scopus. I need to remove the article from Scopus indexing database as well. Could I get some guidance in this regard?


texts: Should I be concerned when an editor tells me that I have the final say about the paper he sent me to referee?

texts:
I have been asked to referee a paper for a middle-tier physical science journal.  I have reviewed for this journal many times before, although it was several years since I had gotten a paper sent to me by this particular editor.  (I thought that this editor disliked me, since I was fairly critical of one of his own research papers.)  However, some weeks ago, he sent me a paper to referee, and I sent promptly sent back a report.

The peculiarity came the second time that I was sent a draft of this paper.  After the first round, I asked for some significant clarifications, since the work being described in the manuscript seemed to have been done properly, but the justification was very poorly explained.  The editor was not able to find another scientist to provide a second report, so the revisions were based solely on my comments.  The authors made some changes, which I have not combed through that carefully yet, but they are probably satisfactory.

However, this editor told me explicitly in the letter he sent me that he will definitely accept or reject the paper, according to whatever "verdict" I return.  This makes me a little uncomfortable.  On the one hand, I am honored that he trusts my judgement sufficiently to put the entire decision effectively in my hands.  On the other hand, I feel a nagging concern that the editor is, to some extent, shirking his own responsibilities in this case.  Not that I would ever really expect him to go against my recommendation, but I am sort of uncomfortable with the level of responsibility that he has implicitly placed on me.

As a general rule, the way this editor works is somewhat idiosyncratic.
 For example, the journal has an online system for submission and refereeing, but its use is apparently optional for the editors.  Every other editor I have worked with on this journal has used the Web-based system for assigning and collecting reviews, but this guy does everything entirely via e-mail.  His e-mails can be rambling and mix personal and professional communication, quite different from most e-mails I get from journals, which are almost all boilerplate.

So I guess my question has two aspects:  First, is it reasonable to be concerned about what the editor has said?  Second, is there anything I can (or should) do about it?


texts: Citing private individuals without their authorization?

texts:
I am writing about an innovation camp, which private individuals took part to. During this camp, they developed systems. I have analyzed these systems in my study, and thus want to credit their author in my publication.

Can I write following sentence in my paper?

  In this paper, we studied projects Fourtytwo conducted by John Doe and Erika Mustermann, and HolyGrail by Ann Onym and M. Icks.

My question focus on citing the name of John Doe, Erika Mustermann, etc. - that are private individuals - without their authorization.

I will to use the name given in the end-of-the-camp PDF report that is freely available on the web - what speaks in favour of yes. However, they are not public personalities (as politicians, etc.) nor explicitely revealed their names (as paper authors) - what leads me to this question.


texts: How can a phd student lobby against university wide publication restrictions?

texts:
Recently, my university has expressed that it wishes to enforce compliance with Plan S, an European-wide initiative to 'transition' towards open access publications, for all researchers employed by the university.

I think that while the plan has good intentions, the execution seems to ignore important features of the publication process in my field, and could be actively harmful for the development of my scientific career (I have a more detailed description of my concerns at the end of this post).

While I don't think I am the only one who would oppose this plan, nor that this concerns only phd students, I would like to have my objections to this plan heard or considered. It seems the university board would like to treat this as a 'done deal' (only shortly after announcement, in spite of initial resistance), and does not see keeping the status quo as an option.

How can I, as a (relatively new) phd student, most effectively lobby against this decision?

I have thought about the following methods, which I can easily do (and will do). However, I am unaware of their effectiveness.

Contact the phd council of my department. These people are easily approachable, and should have more experience with influencing university policy than I have.
Discuss the matter with my advisor. I'm sure my advisor would have an opinion here, and I think he would share some of my concerns, as this also affects senior researchers.

The main concern I have with this plan is that it seems to ignore the primary publication venue in my field (computer science): conferences. The workflow for publishing in my field is roughly as follows:

Submit to a conference.
Simultaneously to 1, publish a freely accessible pre-print on the arXiv.
If the conference paper was accepted and generally well-received, publish an extended version of the conference paper in a journal.

Many conference proceedings of top conferences in my field are not in open access and do not appear to be pressured by plan S to do so. (the entities that control these conferences include ACM, SIAM, and IEEE, who have quite a stake in closed-access proceedings and where the influence of European researchers does not seem to be particularly big.)

Plan S explicitly states that releasing freely available pre-prints is not enough to be compliant. This may make sense when publishing to non-open access journals, as it means the 'official' and hence mostly cited version of the publication is still not open access. However, publishing in conferences without open access proceeding does not have the same problem: For almost all important work, there will be a journal publication later, which can be open access. The journal version is the version that will usually get cited, rather than the conference version. In the mean time, any researcher can freely access the pre-print on the arXiv.

Note that disallowing publication at these venues also has the secondary effect that it hinders my option of attending these conferences. They are often held in North-America, and costs for travel+attendance are not cheap. It is therefore not easy to get sufficient funding to attend one of these conferences if you are not presenting or at least publishing something at the conference.


texts: Short summary of other works that cite/build upon your publication

texts:
Researchers (in particular, in mathematics), in general, clearly write their paper in the hope that their results will be built upon and cited by other members of the community.

Nowadays most researchers have a list of their publications and copies of their papers (or links to the Arxiv) uploaded on their websites. Some of them also add a summary (much longer than the abstract, but clearly much shorter than the paper) written by themselves or a mathscinet review. And almost anyone pays (at least some) attention to their citation count (indeed, that's one of the reasons why Google Scholar and Research Gate researchers' profiles exist).

However, It doesn't seem a common practice to include next to every paper a list of the works by others that cite or build upon it with a short summary and some commentary of their content and its relation to your paper.

  I think it is very time consuming, but would it be an acceptable and advisable practice (by today standard)?

In case of positive answer: should only the works that build directly upon the cited paper be included in the list (or should one be more flexible and include also papers that are less strictly related)?


texts: How much value is given to a recommendation letter written by a foreign professor? (Grad school/math)

texts:
I'm about to finish my undergraduate degree in mathematics in France, and expect to be close to the top of my class in a top university here.  Next academic year, I will be studying for a master's at UPMC (Pierre and Marie Curie University).  I intend to apply for PhD programmes in the US or the UK.

Since I will be only a few months into my master's program when I apply, I expect that some of my letters will be from my undergraduate professors.  The head of the math department and a professor I've had for over a year said they would write letters for me, but neither one of them have published anything in the past decade.

How much value is given by the admission program to a letter of recommendation written by a teacher at a foreign university?


texts: How report of reviewer travel through editorial system?

texts: When a reviewer submit review report through editorial system, does this report goes straight to author by mail or review report is first scrutinize by editor and then goes to author ?


texts: Start-up based on PhD: inside or outside the university?

texts:
I am currently in the half of my PhD in computer science, and I would like to build a start-up from the algorithms I developed.
I have doubts whether is the case to involve my advisor in this:

If I do it, we could make a university spin-off. In this case my fear is to lose the ownership of the project (I would like to lead the company), and the independence of the company itself from the university (we should in some way be linked with it, I think).
If I try to do it independently, I lose the precious logistic help that the univesity can offer; also with university help, I guess it might be easier to find partners or persons who want to collaborate.

So, I am confused on which might be the best way to proceed..

any advice/experience to share?


texts: Could it be beneficial for me to not disclose my gender/ethnicity in an REU application?

texts:
I am an undergraduate in the US applying to REUs in mathematics. Every REU I am applying to through MathPrograms has a section where you can choose to fill out your gender/race, along with a message of the form

  The U.S. Department of Education requires [university X] to report on the racial or ethnical composition of its student enrollment. Information on individual students is held in strict confidence. Self-identification is entirely voluntary.

It is not a secret that REUs want to encourage higher participation of minority groups, and indeed the web pages of some programs say things like, "Members of underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to apply."

I am a white male from a suburban area. Clearly this is not going to boost my application, so my question is, could there be much benefit in choosing "decline to answer" on these questions?


texts: Do academics in the UK usually have to declare other jobs (e.g. consulting) they take on and is it public information?

texts:
I am interested in relationships between academics at UK universities and private businesses.

A number of academics in the Computer Science department at my old university worked part time and were also employed part time by google. I recently found out that a number of them also work a few weeks a year on a consultancy basis for a local finance firm.

I wondered whether 1) they had to declare any such activities to the department or university (especially in the consultancy case which seems to go alongside full time academic employment), and 2) whether it's possible for others to find out about these relationships (e.g. a journalist investigating links between an academic department and a particular company).


texts: Nightmare Ex-Professor Haunt me in my new PhD?

texts:
Long story short: I started a Ph.D. in late 2017 and after one year I was forced to leave because of racism/bullying and it was an awful experience, although I was a hard worker and got grants. I moved temporarily to an aloof country with harsh conditions and then out of desperation I accepted a position in another country to turn out they don't any facilities, I resigned since a month ago while in this year I developed a good network with our professors in the field except the bully one who trying destroying me back then. Luckily I got a new position this month with a relatively good professor.

The shock comes here, I cannot believe it: I developed a strong skill while I worked in the lab of bully professor in 2018, and that why they brought me.

I found after starting that they have a collaboration with this bully professor who literally because of him I stuck two years of my life at wrong places because of lack of money and was desperate.

Of course, no one knows about that from the new supervisor because of its old story, he know I resigned from my position and even accept me directly without an interview.

Tomorrow, I have a meeting and that bully supervisor would attend, worse: they won't make very official.

I am shattered, Maybe the unluckiest person in that situation, the problem I cannot even resign now again it is insane, I don't know what the bully ex-supervisor going to say.

You don't know how much time does it to over this experience. Mind you with I got CPTSD and benign tumors in the body after my horrible experience with him.

Honestly: I don't know what to do, I don't want to see him and I cannot bring this old issues since back then this ex-supervisor was trying to blacklist, but luckily I managed to get awards and recognition from my community and that's why I was hired for the new position.

I would be grateful for your advice.


texts: Standard method for showing changes made to a LaTeX manuscript

texts:
I am about to resubmit a manuscript to a journal, having now addressed the reviewers' feedback.

The instructions say to submit my final manuscript along with a "marked-up manuscript", which is "the final version showing all changes from the former version".

Since my manuscript is in LaTeX, what is the standard way of highlighting the changes I made?  Had it been a Microsoft Word document, I would have used the "track changes" feature.  More so than technical methods, I am wondering what format the reviewers typically expect. Are they asking for a marked-up, compiled PDF? Or a marked-up TeX source code? Or a side-by-side comparison of the source code?


texts: Should I contact a PhD student or his supervisor for potential collaboration?

texts:
I found some recently published papers which are related to my research and am interested in contacting the authors for potential collaboration. However, in those papers, the first author is a Ph.D. student while the second author is his supervisor, who is a well-known professor in my field. In my field, the order of author is based on contribution, which means the Ph.D. student contributed more to the paper than his supervisor.

Hence, I don't know whether I should contact the student or his supervisor to initiate the collaboration. I can see that the advantage for contacting the student is that he should know more about the research than his supervisor. On the other hand, I also look for someone that can write a reference letter for me in the future, and the supervisor sounds better.


texts: Advisor moving to a different school, should I move with him?

texts:
I am currently a PhD student studying robotics at university A in my third year, and I've recently finished my qualifying exams and advanced to candidacy. My professor has been in contact with another university B, and they want to offer him a position there, so now I have two choices: stay at A, and finish up my PhD; or move with him to B, help set up the new lab, and finish my PhD there. BY the time I take this decision, I'd have finished three years into my PhD. The pros and cons are somewhat like this.

University A's PhD program is more research focused with minimal coursework. If I move to B, I am looking at an extra year/more of coursework, that probably will not be relevant to my research at all. Few schools seem to offer coursework that's directly in line with my research.
University B is better ranked; and if I move there, I will be part of a new research group that's just being set up. That could be a better platform, and I'd gain a lot of valuable experience being involved in a lot more projects.
Obviously, university B is a completely new place, new people etc. I've already spent about 5 years (master's+PhD) at A.
Based on what the university website says, there don't seem to be a lot of course equivalents of what I'd already taken in my master's/PhD so far in the new university.
Personally, given the amount of time I'd spent in this city, and other such factors, I would prefer to stay at A.

Given these parameters, would it be worth moving to B, how it would set me back timeline wise and the possible advantages from the move?


texts: Mentioning mental health in a supplementary application essay

texts:
I'm applying for a PhD in neuroscience and I've recently finished writing my SOP and supplementary essay. My supplementary essay asked me to respond to the prompt "Please tell us about an incident in your research where you experienced failure. Include what you did about it and what you learned from the experience." I wrote about how due to my social anxiety I failed to reach out for help in preparing for graduate school, leading to a delay in attending graduate school. I wrote about how I corrected my behavior to no longer respond to anxiety with avoidance. Most of the essay focuses on what I did to correct my behavior and my talk of mental health is kept fairly minimal. I asked the admissions whether it was okay to write about a personal difficulty I overcame throughout my academic career instead of a technical failure in the research process, and they said this was fine. However, when I showed my essay to my academic advisor he said I should avoid mentioning mental health and therapy as it might scare off the admissions committee. The specific lines he had a problem with were as follows:

  "However, towards graduation I became preoccupied with moving away
  from my parents instead of preparing for graduate school. This was
  despite the fact that they offered to pay for my graduate education on
  the condition that I stay. I later learned, through working with my
  therapist, that I was attempting to escape an abusive environment."

I feel as though these lines are very important to contextualizing the situation. Would a line like this really scare off admissions?


texts:
I took the GRE test in August and the test scores were sent to the respective universities before the registration opens. Now I am worried because the test scores are not attached to my profile.

Is it possible that they are in the trash bin right now? If not, should I contact the help desk or resend the scores?


texts: Are proceedings of this conference really published by IEEE CS CPS?

texts:
Today, I got the following e-mail from info@snspconf.org :

Conference invitation to [my name]

  Dear [my name]

  This is Senlin Yan, the conference secretary of the 2018 International
  Conference on Sensor Networks and Signal Processing (SNSP 2018)(Oct. 28-31,
  2018, Xi`an University of Science and Technology, Xi`an, China).
  We have got to
  know that you have published paper with title [one of my papers],
  it is quite inspiring and related to our conference topic, on
  behalf of SNSP 2018 organizing committee, I sincerely invite you to attend our conference.

  Winners of the Best Oral Presentation in each session will be awarded a free registration to the next conference.
  Active Reviewers are candidates for Technical Program Committee next year.
  Attendees can enjoy a free tour of Terracotta Army in Xi`an.

  If you are not available for attendance, could you please help us review one or two papers?
  It is highly appreciated if you kindly forward this conference information
  to your colleagues or friends in this field.

  For more information, please visit
  http://www.snspconf.org

  or contact
  info@snspconf.org

  Best Regards
  Senlin Yan

I have no intention attending this conference or reviewing one paper (I do not even work in Sensor Networks and Signal Processing), but I wanted to know if it was just some kind of spam or a real conference. Actually, the automated e-mail made me think it was some kind of academic spam asking for my bank data if I'd anwer, but it seems the conference exists (at least the website does).
as they prentend its proceedings are published by IEEE CS CPS, I searched on the IEEE website and I did not find any reference to this conference.

So now my question is as follows :

does IEEE really publish the proceedings of this conference which does not fit IEEE standard?
Or is it a scam, and should I inform IEEE their name is used for dubious purpose?


texts: Using copyrighted images for research, not publication

texts:
Does one violate the copyright of images in any sense if one uses them in research (for example in memory tasks) and writes a scientific publication based on these data, but does not publish images in the article?

Is this part of the fair use policy?


texts: What are the career prospects after being an RA?

texts:
I'll be eligible to apply for the master's in Computer Science within a semester (2 max). I'm working as an undergrad for a research group (I'm implementation -- programming).  I'd like to know what I could reasonably expect (in terms of job prospects and recruitment if any) if I work as an RA.  How are RA's typically viewed by prospective employers?

Initially, I thought this would be good and that RA's are sought after since they're pretty well educated and have been working in cutting edge areas.  But then, I wasn't sure if it's just too far removed from industry and that employers might think you just didn't bother to pursue any work in the private sector while getting a degree in a field that is highly employable by the private sector (i.e. they might not be sympathetic to your desire to do interesting research work as opposed to straight coding production work as is often in industry).


texts: Second PhD scholarship while studying a PhD already

texts:
I would appreciate it if someone could help me.
I have a question. Is it illegal if an international student, who is currently studying a PhD with a scholarship in the UK, accept another PhD scholarship from another country simultaneously?
Consider that he is going to continue his PhD in the UK until his visa is granted from the second country, and then he will withdraw from the UK university's scholarship. I do not know if this is illegal or will violate any specific law or regulations. In the scholarship contract is mentioned that student can withdraw any time but should repay a portion of the fee and scholarship.
Will either of these two university know I am doing this? none of them asked me, so I preferred not to say until someone asks me
I really need to know this and would be grateful if someone could give me a right an accurate answer.
Thank you


texts: How far should I help students with learning extracurricular skills?

texts:
I am currently a teaching assistant for both master and PhD students. Part of my work included helping and supervising them during several lab experiments (physics). One task of the lab experiments is to write a program to numerically calculate values and simulate them afterwards. The students are allowed to use any programming language they want to use (except stuff like Brainfuck and Whitespace, of course), as long as they provide the source code with the result.
While the master students are not having any problems with the problem, I got was asked by the PhD students if I can help them do the programming in Excel, as that is the only thing they can use and know for "programming".

How far should I now go and help them? I know that doing the task they are assigned to is impossible to do in Excel, but they never used any other language or programmed themselves. I am able to teach them how to achieve the programming goal, but based on their current knowledge that will take a lot of time, which I also need for my own lab tasks. Should I thus simply tell them to drop the course, or should I try to help them, and if yes, in which extent?


texts: Under what circumstances can one republish a conference paper/presentation?

texts:
For conferences that "peer review" and "publish" full papers, when, if ever, can you resubmit essentially unchanged versions for publication in a peer reviewed journal?

In my field, when conference papers appear as book chapters, people often "republish" them as journal articles.

I have just had a talk accepted at a conference which is now (decided post submission) planning on publishing the proceedings as a special issue of a journal. It appears the journal is complete crap with an extremely light peer review process in general, no impact factor, and essentially not indexed. I think this "article" will be worthless, but I am concerned that I will not be able to republish the results in a respectable journal.


texts: Working with the 'my way or the highway' attitude from advisor

texts:
My advisor very much has a "my way or the highway" approach in her supervision of students, and chooses to communicate largely through email whilst sitting in her office. Some element of "my way or the highway" is to be expected when someone is an expert in their field (at least in relation to experimental work), but she refuses to listen to any kind of reasonable argument.
Often, rather than coming to the lab, or raising her issues during lab-meetings, she chooses to send emails in person late at night or first thing in the morning such that we wake up to them (she isn't a people person). The emails are often not really related to my project but rather about some aspect of how we do things in the lab. They often come after you've disclosed to her some issue you're having in your work, i.e. my cells died
An email chain may go something like this:

Advisor: I've been thinking about the situation regarding the running of the flow cytometry assays, and decided that XX will run these from now on in your place.
Me: XX's project doesn't require flow cytometry, and XX only works Mon-Wed in the lab which would mess with our schedule. I'm happy to keep on running this, but if you want someone else training to do the assay then perhaps I could suggest YY – they'll be needing to do the assay in a few weeks time anyway and did some work during their masters project.
Advisor: Please come to my office at 0800 tomorrow morning.

Maybe she does have a point. I do need more time in the lab. And could do with not having to spend time running assays.
My issue is that everybody accepts that the advisor has made a stupid decision (we're even sure that she knows that shes made a stupid decision but has taken it too far to back down). The person chosen is chosen not because of their skill/knowledge etc, but because that persons work is currently going well and so she favours them.
Going to her office yields nothing productive other than a re-hash of her emails (she's no more willing to listen to a reasonable argument in person). I don't like having these one-on-one meetings as I end up leaving angry/upset, which damages our relationship generally and makes me want to avoid her as much as possible.
How should one deal with this situation? My gut feeling is to reply along the lines of:

Me: I don't feel that would be productive right now. Perhaps we could discuss this at the next lab-meeting as it effects everybody, or if you're keen to meet one-on-one, then i'd be happy to do so in the presence of ZZ (my co-supervisor).


texts: Lie or try to explain reason of my absence during classes?

texts:
I have a difficult situation about limit of absences during classes in my university.

The teacher of one subject made a rule that 3 absences with disrespectful reason during the course leads to fail grade. I've exceeded this limit because of my part-time job, which I need to perform in order to pay for my education.

One (and almost the only) respectful reason for absence is illness. Illness must be proven using a medical certificate from a doctor. The teacher asked me to show a certificate. Obviously I don't have it.

However, I did all the tasks and presented them.

Now I have a dilemma:

Try to forge the document about illness OR try to explain my situation about work.

Each option is a risk. The risk of forgery is obvious. And the risk of trying to explain my situation is that the teacher can say that he doesn't care about that, and then forgery will be impossible, and so I will automatically fail the course.

What should I do in this situation?


texts:
What is the significance of undergraduate grades (2.6/4.0) after 5 years of work experience. Do they still carry a value? If your job is not research oriented, e.g. for me I am a software developer on various enterprise Java technologies, how should I project myself to admission committees?

What are your suggestions for me? Getting non degree classes BEFORE APPLYING etc.? Currently, I am in Turkey and I want to enter US Job Market possibly after a MS CS, but if I like I can continue with a Ph.D. So I am an international applicant.


texts: How to gain global trust from researchers

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I am investigating properties of some material. However it seems that all of the research is inconclusive and material modified the same way but by different teams have different properties.

Because research teams sometimes did only one or two types of measurement (which does not overlap with other teams' measurements)* , it is difficult to compare and say what may be the reason for different results.

It is known that the best practice is to never throw samples away.

So maybe it would be good to invite all the research teams to send me their samples and make all of the possible measurements to squeeze more data from them. It would not only give the mankind more knowledge, but also it would allow those team to have one more paper from the same, old samples.

However everyone I know tells me, that people will never agree for something like that, because noone trust other people.

So how to make people trust me, and create a huge, multinational study of said material, with a lot of authors and a lot of measurements (carried out in one facility to be sure of identical conditions)?

 * I mean that eg. teams 1 and 2 made the same type of material
but team 1 did measurements A and B, while team 2 made
measurement A and C.
Hard to compare, especially if measurement of A gives different results
for different team.


texts: I have a UK DClinPsy. Can I use a plain 'Dr.' title in Germany?

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A resposible german executive body (Kultusministerkonferenz) decided that certain doctorates from the EU grant the right to use the title 'Dr.':

  Inhaber von in einem wissenschaftlichen Promotionsverfahren erworbenen Doktorgraden, die
  in [meiner Uni] erworben wurden, können anstelle der
  im Herkunftsland zugelassenen oder nachweislich allgemein üblichen Abkürzung [...] wahlweise die Abkürzung „Dr.“ [...] führen. Dies gilt nicht für Doktorgrade, die ohne
  Promotionsstudien und -verfahren vergeben werden (so genannte Berufsdoktorate) und für
  Doktorgrade, die nach den rechtlichen Regelungen des Herkunftslandes nicht der dritten
  Ebene der Bologna-Klassifikation der Studienabschlüsse zugeordnet sind.

excluding non third cycle qualifications (Bolonga EHEA term) and doctorates that do not require some not further defined sort of studies ("doctoral" studies) with professional doctorates given as example. However, a UK doctor of clinical psychology (DClinPsy) is usually considered equivalent to a PhD.

So, am I allowed to use Dr. MyName in Germany?

And will I be after Brexit?


texts: How does a low quantitative score on GRE general exam affect admissions to mathematics PhD programs?

texts:
I am applying to pure math grad school for Ph.D. this fall (usually top 20-25).

I just took my GRE test and found out that my Quantitative score for General GRE is 156. I am not sure about the percentile yet for this particular exam, but this is typically around 64th percentile among GRE test-takers.

Thus, if I want to present strong applications to math grad schools like UT Austin, UCLA, Columbia, Ohio State is the quantitative score enough?

The rest of my application is decent with about (3.7 gpa), research and publication. However I scored in the lower end of 600 for math gre. As you can tell I have high anxiety before such tests but I would like to avoid bringing up this point in my application as I am sure that the admission committee sees reason like this on its applications a lot.


texts:
I have written an accepted paper for the 2020 Annual Conference of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). While uploading the final version, I agreed to this copyright statement:

  Copyright to the above work (including, without limitation, the right
  to publish the work in whole or in part in any and all forms and
  media, now or hereafter known) is hereby transferred to the
  Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), effective as of the
  date of this agreement, on the understanding that the work has been
  accepted for presentation at a meeting sponsored by the ACL and for
  publication in the proceedings of that meeting. However, each of the
  authors and the employers for whom the work was performed reserve all
  other rights, specifically including the following: (1) All
  proprietary rights other than copyright and publication rights
  transferred to ACL; (2) The right to publish in a journal or
  collection or to be used in future works of the author's own (such as
  articles or books) all or part of this work, provided that
  acknowledgment is given to the ACL and a full citation to its
  publication in the particular proceedings is included; (3) The right
  to make oral presentation of the material in any forum; (4) The right
  to make copies of the work for internal distribution within the
  author's organization and for external distribution as a preprint,
  reprint, technical report, or related class of document.

I would like to upload the same final paper to arXiv. Am I allowed to do so?

Specifically, I think exception (4) might be relevant here, as the proceedings aren't published yet, so I guess it would be a pre-print? However, it is the same final paper, not some intermediate result.

I am aware that uploading the accepted papers to arXiv is common practice. Many authors advertise this eg. on Twitter, so ACL must be aware of it. But do they just ignore it, or is it actually legal?


texts: What to do with an overtly exasperating colleague in computer science?

texts:
I am working on my undergraduate research project in an HPCC. Whoever does programming knows this is a "teach-yourself" skill. Everytime a problem arises, you search the wealth of tutorials and guides on the Internet, you ask in an specialized forum and the last resource is to consult a colleague (everybody is very occupied with their own business).

A few weeks ago, a new MSc candidate entered our lab and was assigned a seat next to me. She seems unable to go beyond very basic commands like executing a for loop in a Bash script. We helped during the first weeks, but she is making no progress. I myself handed her down a couple of tutorials and scripts. What exasperates us is that the more frustrated she gets the more she starts mumbling expecting that someone will approach and solve the problem for her, not to mention that she interrupts every five minutes asking the same question we have answered several times. We spoke about it in the most kindly possible way, now she says we are bullying her!

She is completely unprepared and we are starting to think that she lied to get accepted by our supervisor. She is destroying the amicable relations in our lab and affecting performance of almost everybody. I decided to program the most I can in my laptop instead of using the HPCC, but a process that gets done in five minutes at home is solved in seconds in the lab.

We don't want to mess up her reputation with our supervisor, but we got to find solutions. Does anyone had a similar situation with a colleague? How would you solve it in the most diplomatic way?

UPDATE: Group meeting this morning. Our supervisor found out she has done nothing. She blame us. Our supervisor said it is not our business to solve her problems, she might have spoken them out a couple of weeks ago. She (our supervisor) asked her to separate an appointment to talk privately. Let's see what happens...


texts: What are the reasons for journals to have a policy against publishing material available as a preprint?

texts:
As it can be appreciated from this list of journals with varying preprint policies, certain journals consider a preprint to be "prior publication". In other fields like Chemistry, there is a strong policy against preprints.

I'm curious about those reasons, if there are other reasons, and if they hold weight.


texts: Is it acceptable to transform an accepted paper (tier-1 conf.) as a patent?

texts:
Recently I have a paper acceptance from a tier-1 conference in our field of telecommunication. I have also submitted the extended version in IEEE Transactions as well.

Is it ok (and acceptable) for me to write the patent out these papers? (I understand that paper acceptance does not guarantee patent acceptance)

What will be the academic/career benefits for me to write the patent at this stage when I am writing my thesis?


texts: How do search engines calculate citations when both a preprint and a published journal/conference version of a paper exists?

texts: Let's say that I wrote my research paper and then I published it as a preprint on the ArXiv, and I got citations for this preprint. Afterwards, my same paper has been peer reviewed by a journal then published, so, how will search engines count the citations? Will they do a sum or union or consider them as two different papers?


texts:
Background: I am an undergrad student who took a CS elective.
My software engineering professor has asked us to review a bunch of research papers on certain topics in software development. He specifically wants us to review papers only from IEEE and ACM Transaction papers or conference papers.
I found a paper of interest in IEEEXplore. It says:

Publisher: IEEE

at the top, but below the abstract, it says:

Published in: 2018 Third International Conference on Informatics and Computing (ICIC)

I tried to find more about ICIC but could not figure out if this conference is affiliated to IEEE.
My questions:

Does this count as an IEEE Conference paper?
Can I safely assume that all papers available on IEEE Xplore or ACM Digital Library are published as IEEE transaction or conference papers, and ACM papers respectively?


texts: Should I tell my advisor that our paper is full of mistakes?

texts:
Okay, I'm in a nasty situation. I'm about to receive my master's degree in two months. Also, I am a third author on my advisor's paper, and the paper is completely awful and full of mistakes. Contradicting results not reported etc., it has it all. The thing is, my advisor will take it personally if I give comments that would put him to a bad light in front of the other co-authors. Very probably, he would let his anger to be seen in the evaluation of my master's thesis.

Really, I have no idea what to do. Should I be quiet, hope the paper gets rejected, and then RUN FAST, or just write a long email about every error there is? Which one is less harmful? I really don't want my name on that paper, nor a biased evaluation of my master's thesis.

(For background, my previous advisor left the university about 6 months ago, and then I got this new one. So, I could probably get a letter of recommendation from the previous advisor.)


texts: Postdoc in reputed university vs Assistant professor in below average university

texts: I am a fresh Ph.D. scholar. I have applied for several academic jobs and recently I got acceptance for a Postdoc position in a university (world QS rank 71) and an assistant professorship offer in a university which is not among top 1000 university in the world but known as an average university in my subject area.  Being a fresh Ph.D. scholar what should be my priority? For both positions, the contract is 2 years. Which job experience, postdoc or AP, will give me better chance to get a better position after 2 years?


texts: How should I adress (grammatically) a referee whose gender is unknown?

texts:
I'm responding to an anonymous referee who made comments and suggestions on an article I wrote.

Since I don't know the gender, I thought of two possibilities:

We agree with the referee on its comment...
We agree with the referee on their comment...

Is either of these the proper way to refer to the referee? Or should I just write "he/she" "his/her" on every occasion?


texts: What are the pros and cons of multidisciplinary research?

texts:
Does doing multidisciplinary research enhance one's employment opportunities compared to doing a degree in "basic" sciences?

For example, is a Ph.D. in Nano-science/Nano-technology in any way better than a Ph.D. in Physics or Chemistry, considering employment in India or in Asia? Would like to hear perspectives from other regions as well.

(In India, the basic qualification for employment in universities or affiliated colleges, as Assistant Professor is M.Sc. with UGC-NET or a Ph.D. in the relevant subject. Multidisciplinary research is available only in major research institutes and a limited number of universities.)


texts: Are there "restart" mechanisms for candidates seeking a graduate admission with a mediocre undergraduate record?

texts:
To take one example, the University of Pittsburgh offers certificate programs equivalent to a minor to non-degree students, and also offers a chance at a "second" bachelor's degree.

Suppose there was an undergraduate in say Mathematics, who got at best mediocre grades, no more than a 3.0 GPA in math, and a 3.0 for the degree. I would imagine that this person would not a be a good graduate school candidate for a program in say, Computer Science.

Suppose some years later, the same person "woke up," enrolled in a certificate program in Computer Science, equivalent to a minor, or better yet, took a whole second degree (equivalent to a major), and got (mostly) A's, say a 3.8 or better GPA. The new program includes As in one or more graduate courses. The person's GRE scores have also climbed, to over 700 in each category. This person then wants to do graduate work in Computer Science.

Would this cause some graduate school programs to take a "fresh look" and him or her graduate student credentials? Perhaps this is most likely to take placein the same school where s/he successfully completed the certificate or second degree program?  That is to say, is the strength in the certificate program or second major program enough to call into question the mediocre undergraduate record? (The person's letters of recommendation would come from professors in the later program.) Put another way, is there a point where a strong enough "post graduate" record will make up for a mediocre undergraduate record?


texts:
I am a PhD student works in theoretical computer science(Algebra). I have been working on my PhD project from last five years. I am very much interested in  my work. During my Ph.D there were not collaborator were there other than my research supervisor. I struggle a lot during my Ph.D as problem finding was very tough, solving also and then writing. I even did not find the course work which I did any helpful. I was also not allowed to work outside my university I don't know why. Now at the end of my Ph.D I come to know the value of collaboration.

I have studied most of things in Ph.D. at my own. I come up with results and written those with the help of research supervisor. I have worked very hard in my Ph.D. despite of that I am not publish a single paper in top tier. All of my research paper are in low tier. I will be graduating soon.

According to my research supervisor, PhD is to train a student not to publish something in top tier. This is true for all of his Ph.D students that they publish in low tier.

I am worried about post-doc and Job after my Ph.D as many of the students in my field are publishing at top tiers. I can publish research paper at my own but not in top tier.

Question : Is it okay to publish your entire work of PhD in low tier?


texts: Which is more impressive -- finishing a PhD in 2.5 years or getting more research done?

texts:
I am working on a PhD in chemical engineering, and my advisor mentioned to me today that I'm on track to finish in about half a year.  I only have one class left to fulfill the course requirements and I have a few papers published, with a couple more almost finished.

Personally, I'm in no hurry.  I love grad school and working on research.  However, from the perspective of a getting a good job, would a PhD at 23-24 years of age or additional research publications in high quality journals look better?  Once I graduate I plan on either doing research in industry or working at a startup.  I don't plan on going into academia.


texts: Finding a PhD scholarship with a Second Class Lower Honors

texts:
Hi I and a Student from Sri Lanka and I do have 2 Bachelors degrees one with a Class (2nd Class Honors) and another General degree. However I do wish to enroll to a PhD program, possibly in Australia. Is it possible to do so. I have studied mainly in the stream of Cyber Security.

I tried with applying for a few Universities and some hadn't replied as well. However one of my colleagues had received a scholarship for PhD with the same results.

Can anyone explain the feasibility of the things that I have mentioned about?


texts: Would doing an independent study or directed reading help me get into grad school with a poor undergraduate record?

texts:
My goal is to get into a math graduate program within the next 5 years. The trouble is that I have very poor undergraduate grades no research experience, and no current connections, since I graduated 7 years ago.

Would doing an independent study / directed reading / directed study class help me overcome this? This seems like a good way to improve my letters of recommendation and explore topics not covered in conventional courses. Or would some other avenue be better?

If so, how could I find a professor to oversee such a course?


texts: How to see citation contexts of all the papers that cite a paper?

texts:
Given a paper, I'm looking for a quick way to see the citation contexts of papers that cite that paper, to gauge both the direction and intensity of sentiment towards the original paper and help me decide what to read first. The need this would address of mine is somewhat related to this question but specifically I want the citation contexts.

Since a few tools allow you to get the 'cited by' list after searching for a paper, eg. Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar, and the former actually lets you search within the citing articles, a natural next step seems to me to see the citation contexts in the summary of the search results. Is there any feature to toggle this? Or another tool that does it (whilst still being a critical platform where lots of papers will exist/have been indexed on it).

Ideas appreciated. Thanks!


texts: Writing a large part of a grant as a postdoc

texts:
Background: I defended my PhD in 2018 and took a postdoc job with my same lab as a matter of convenience.  The job had a 3 year contract, funded via an R01 grant, for whom my dissertation advisor was the original PI. He has since retired and transferred PIship to a "research track" junior faculty who followed a similar path to mine (came up through the lab).  New PI is certainly capable but perhaps not the "titan" that the original was.
Fast forward to now, I am helping to write a renewal application for the grant, and have contributed 2 out of 4 Aims.  These aims contain a lot of (perhaps not all of) my "early career plans".  At first glance, this all sounds great, but in a recent email exchange, it was indicated that I would be designated "other personnel" in the grant application, implying perhaps that my position would remain postdoc if the grant was funded.
My question is the following: to what extent is it typical for a postdoc to contribute a large portion of a grant, or grant renewal, but have essentially no formal holding power on the resulting funding?  In my particular department, it is my understanding that postdocs cannot hold PI or co-PI on an R01-type grant.  My worry is that I'm tying up a bunch of (what I consider) good ideas in someone else's grant, with my only "reward" being another few years of postdoc funding and perhaps a half dozen papers.
Options are clearly: 1. Take whatever I can get, since I have little leverage apart from threatening to "take my ideas elsewhere".  2. Try to negotiate for a position that would allow for a co-PIship (seems difficult during C19 times because university budgets are shot to heck)  3. (semi-nuclear option) Jump ship at the end of my contract (May).  4. Your ideas are welcomed!
Thanks and cheers,


texts:
I'm not sure if this question is too broad or opinion-based, but I have been wondering about it for sometime.

In the old days when communication was not as abundant as is today, periodicals were a very effective means of communicating one's research and findings to interested people. Books and personal letters were also available, but were either not suitable for short communications or narrowly accessible. Thus, journals made sense at that time.

Today, however, especially with the widespread use of the internet, I find it hard to justify the existence of journals other than to preserve the status quo from the past. In fact, I can see several disadvantages such as:

Economic burden on institutions and individuals.
Unnecessary delay in publication due to processing and reviewing times.
Subjective editor/peer-review process with many decisions made based on personal and/or journal-specific reasons.

So my question is: are there any real advantages of having journals nowadays? Wouldn't it be better to adopt an open publication method (maybe similar to that here at SX) in which people can rank, cite, and vote on publications instead?


texts: Got Ph.D Degree from India on the basis of Ph.D Comprehensive Exam + Ph.D Thesis now thinking of doing Course Work in another university

texts:
I applied for a teaching job. I was told by the selection committee that I didn't do coursework in my Ph.D program.
I replied that the university Ph.D program requires two years of Independent Study on the courses specified by the course Advisor and then a comprehensive Exam and then Thesis Adjuducation.

What can I do if the university has no provision for registration of formal courses ?

I have asked them to consider the Credits of Courses that I have in two Masters Degrees ( 42 Credit Hours from Master of Engineering + 41 Credit Hours from MS )

When I had checked the qualifications of one of the Selection Committee members, he did one MS (with 24 Credits Course Work + 30 Credits Course work in Ph.D with thesis in both the programs)

I am thinking of Joining again Ph.D PROGRAM in a university where there is coursework, and complete 30 Credit Hours of Course Work.

Please advise how can I do this ?


texts: Can experience as a high school teacher or freelance tutor be useful for graduate admissions?

texts: If someone works as teacher in high school after completing his undergrad studies or works as a freelance tutor, can he write about it in his statement of purpose? Would such experience be considered as "Teaching experience"?