texts: Are non-mandatory sensitivity trainings mandatory?

texts:
This is probably a very USA-specific question:  My university is implementing a new sensitivity training framework.  This is so new that no information about it can be found in faculty handbook, school website, or anywhere I tried. This framework appears to be completely independent from colleges or the senate. I am one of the lucky few to be "invited" to join the training.
The invitation letter stated that such trainings are not mandatory, but in light of a recent "incidents" such trainings will of great value to me. My chair and dean all said these are optional yet they strongly implied that I should just go with it ("There's no reason to cause trouble").
I don't yet have tenure. So for me, in the current climate, is not mandatory a code phrase for mandatory?


texts: Can my institute use my figure and put their name on it for press releases, etc.?

texts:
I was wondering if my institute can use a figure which I made for a paper that has been published and crop it slightly and use it for press releases, etc., and instead of putting my name underneath the figure, they just put the institute's name.

Is it generally OK for them to do so, or should they give me credit?


texts: How to explain the reasons to change Phd. supervisor

texts: I spent a year with a Phd. supervisor. I am not happy from both aspects: relationship and academically. Is it ethical to change the supervisor? Should I explain the reasons for change in details to the prospective supervisor or just be brief? How to avoid getting the impression that the student is trouble-maker (if I explained details of problems) vs. avoid give the impression there is no real reasons for change or that the student is not serious enough (if I am brief)?


texts: Is it plagiarism to reference a fictitious source?

texts:
I'm dealing with a student essay that references three books in support of a claim. None of the books referenced have authors listed, and, based on the contents of the student's essay, I can't find any information on these books online. I'm fairly certain they don't exist, but I'm not sure what to call this beyond academic dishonesty.

I read this from the Nebraska Methodist College:

  Other acts of plagiarism are more limited in scope, but are nonetheless cheating. If you decide to make up a quotation or other material and an associated in-text citation, this is plagiarism. If you change or invent the author of a quotation, an idea, or a statistic to make your paper appear to contain more numerous sources, this is plagiarism.

I've run into a few other university plagiarism guides that mention the citing of fictitious sources as plagiarism, but I'd like to know if this is standard, fair, or legitimate to label this practice plagiarism and not just academic dishonesty.

The conflict is this: the student isn't citing these presumably falsified texts directly, but they are referencing finer plot points and characters in them. That is, they are talking about the fictitious dilemmas of the fictitious characters as a way to support their thesis. To me that's dishonest and shows a lack of integrity. I'm grading students on a rubric that awards points for organization, analytical treatment, and language use. If I treat this as academic dishonesty maybe I knock the person's grade down in the rubric criteria related to analysis, but if I treat it as plagiarism I'd give the student a zero.


texts: Would denouncing cheaters from an exam make me less likely to receive penalties?

texts:
I aced my undergrad studies and got the best offer I could ever dream of for grad school.

And three **** might have ruined it.

They ran into me and asked for help with "studying". Turns out it was blatant cheating and I helped them anyway. I had my doubts, but my compassion instinct took ever.

I'm looking forward pursuing an academic career, and I don't think this event was good at all. It's nowhere near loving my sleep over this issue, but I want to keep my academic integrity and cover my ass.

Now, if the punishment for cheating was just a failed exam, I would've denounced without hesitation. But in my country, you can get banned for exams and higher education for 5 years. I think it's enough to destroy someone's life. At the same time, they (the 3 ****) put mine on the line so they could pass some exam. (If they get caught and I somehow get involved, I can get banned for 5 years too. Everything I worked for 3 years, gone in an instant)

I'm about to send the email to the equivalent of the Dean, but I just can't know for sure if I'll stay safe. I know him kinda personally and have friends that are friends with him, but still, I'm scared and I fucked up.

What should I do?

Edit:

Here's a rundown of the events

I ate at school self, not my usual spot
The 3 **** ran into me. They asked me to help them with studying and I accepted. I had doubts that it was a cheating scheme but paid no mind to it.
A few hours later, they send me a photo, there were some questions and I assumed it was an exam from previous years. I asked them when was the exam and they said "now lol". Doubts that it was a cheating scheme were almost confirmed. I answered these questions and sent the answers anyway because I was pressured from holding an unwritten contract and instinctual compassion
They sent another photo, I saw the date of the exam and it was the day all of these events happened. I stopped communications.
And here we are now. I helped them cheat and I want to pursue an academic career. This is like a big stain I'd like to clean.


texts: Immediate access to previously accessed PDFs integrated into a Google Scholar search?

texts:
Downloading full-text PDFs is often too slow: My university has a subscription to most journal articles. Thus, most of the time I have full-text access to journal articles. However, for various reasons, accessing an article still takes perhaps 30 seconds. Although sometimes it's quicker, it's often still a 7-step process (1) search and find the article on Google scholar (2) login to the university system (3) get to the list of sources at my university that provides full-text; (4) get to the journal article page; (5) get to a full-text page; (6) save the pdf; (7) open the pdf in my preferred viewer.

Managing a library of PDFs is tedious: That said, I find it tedious to have to manage my own library of PDFs. It often takes longer to work out whether I already have the article or not (Thus, I have to first search my hard drive and then search Google Scholar). I also have to enter the PDF into the library with no guaranty that I'll ever need it again.

In general, there are two kinds of PDFs. There are those that I'm accessing for the first time, and there are those that I come back to again.

Thus, I imagine a good system would be if some online system kept track of what I'd downloaded. If I did a search on Google Scholar and I'd already downloaded the PDF, it would just be a single click away (i.e., in a kind of cache).

Is there a way to meet the following requirements?

Near immediate access to previously accessed PDFs
Almost no time to store a PDF (or ideally something that operates in the background)
Integrated search through Google Scholar that works both for new PDFs and previously accessed PDFs (i.e., for a previous PDF it pulls the article out of the cache; for new PDFs you go through the normal process).


texts: Difference between campus police and campus / public safety

texts:
Why do some American universities have actual campus police, with guns, while other American universities have "public safety" officers who don't have guns?

For instance, Georgia Tech and the University of Chicago have campus police.

Is it determined by the level of imminent danger that surrounds the campus?


texts: What is the point of a thesis defense presentation?

texts:
Context: math master's thesis.
I get that I need to show up and be able to have a discussion and answer questions, etc. That's all fine and good.
But in my uni, 70 % of the thesis defence consist of my own presentation. Then maybe 25 % of the time is alloted for questions, and 5 % for grading.
What is the point of that 70 %?
Am I supposed to just re-summarize the entire thesis?


texts: The lecturer supposed to grade my presentation fell asleep while I held it. Should I complain?

texts:
TLDR:
I am attenting a seminar where the grade is based entirely on a talk I hold. The responsible lecturer fell asleep during the talk multiple times, and I am worried about my grade, feel insulted and am unsure how to communicate these issues.

For a seminar, I was required to hold a 45 minute-talk about current department research in front of the course. The corresponding researcher attends this talk as well.

Together with the lecturer (the instructor for this seminar), they grade my talk, which amounts for the entire seminar grade. The researcher can make comments about how accurate the presentation was, but the ultimate choice of grading is with the lecturer.

During my talk (actually not too far in), the lecturer fell asleep for a bit for the first time, for only a brief period. Now this happened on multiple occasions during my presentation, and it has happened during someone elses' past talk on an earlier date as well.

I find this highly insulting, since I have spent a lot of time reading up on the topic and practicing to hold the talk.

Since the lecturer did not hear or see my entire talk, I am worried that grading may be affected in addition.

The lecturer is notoriously busy (which I assume to be quite common) and stressed, but both issues should not affect me or my grade in my opinion.
Also, he may have had stress-related health problems in the past, which could be a reason for him to pass on caffeine consumption. I see that this may be a reason for his tiredness, but again I cannot possibly account for it and I should not be graded differently because of it.

I want to communicate the following two issues, how can I approach this situation?

I feel insulted by the lecturer falling asleep through my graded talk
I am worried about him falling asleep could influence my grade

On a side note, I really like the lecturer otherwise, but I am afraid that making a comment like "please reconsider your sleep schedule" whould be considered highly inappropriate (and rightly so). Recommendations on this matter will be appreciated as well.

Update: Grades are out as of today, and I am not satisfied with the grade. I don't have any pointers on what I could have done better or how to improve future talks. I will probably not pursue this any further.

I don't know if I wrote this in a comment already, but in another seminar I attended, a similar thing occured for another student.


texts: What kind if questions can I expect in an an interview for an Associate Professor position in the Netherlands?

texts:
I am an Asst Prof working at a mid-size liberal arts college in the US.

Recently I applied for an Assoc Prof position in the Netherlands and got invited to do a Zoom interview. I’m pumped! I’ve read a bit about how the differences in academia between the two countries, but sure would appreciate any input in what kind if questions I could expect.

I’ll be interviewed by internal 4 professors, one PhD student (!!) and an external scholar. Intense.

I’ve never had to interview before because I did my MS, PhD, postdoc, Lecturer, Asst Prof jobs all at the same institution.

And input on what I can expect, especially from the Dutch our European perspective, but honestly overall, would be great! Should I wear a tie?


texts: Should I email a professor during Christmas and New Year Holidays?

texts:
I got a project confirmation from a professor 2 days ago. The project would require me to travel abroad during the summer vacation period of May-July 2021. The formalities such as offer letter and visa forms are pending. The professor told me that he would be on vacation for a few weeks but would be in touch via mail. I sent him my academic records yesterday but I haven't received a reply from him.
Should I wait and send a mail after Christmas? Should I contact him in January?
He was enthusiastic about offering me the position and I'm sorta panicking. Would greatly appreciate some help.


texts: Are there any specific teaching techniques to handle "virtual" classroom sessions?

texts:
In the past, I have attended a few "virtual" classroom sessions as a trainee and I always found it a little boring.  I could notice the sincere effort that the trainer has put through but I couldn't control the feeling of boredom.

Are there any techniques specific to teaching in a "virtual environment" that can improve the pedagogical experience and keep students motivated?  I do have a list for a normal environment but it is of little help in this new medium!

Thanks for helping.


texts: Is it legal/possible to apply for a patent based on an already published/submitted journal article?

texts:
I want to apply for two patents.

The first one is based on a journal article (obviously written by me) which is published a few months before.

My first question is: Is it legal/possible to apply for a patent based on an already published journal article? Is it a kind of self-plagiarism?

The second patent application which I am currently writing is based on a manuscript which I am planning to submit to a journal soon.

So, my second question is: Will it be a problem if I submit both the patent application and the manuscript to a journal at the same time? Should I write this to the journal editor?

My third question is: Is it unethical to keep the diagrams in the paper and patent almost the same?


texts:
This question is a special case of this one, which has no satisfying answer in my opinion.

I often encounter papers that have been published twice (or more), without any modification. An example is this one. First presented at the DLS'12 conference, and published in the proceedings. Then, the proceedings have been published in an issue of the ACM SIGPLAN. Notice that the paper is the same, same DOI, etc. However, there are two bibtex entries (one @inproceedings, one @article) which are similar, but not identical.

My question : in such cases, how should the paper be cited ? Using the @inproceedings entry or the @article ?

(Side question : Why is it the case that a single paper is published twice ?)


texts: What is a citation style that mentions full details of a paper?

texts:
Many papers in STEM fields use IEEE or ACM citation styles. However, those use abbreviations for names and journals. Is there a style that mention all paper details with no abbreviations and no doi.

Something simple like:

Firstname Lastname and Firstname2 Lastname2. Title of the publication. Journal name (Issue), Startpage - Endgpage, Publisher, Year.


texts: Is it rude to request a book chapter from the academic who wrote it if you don't want to buy the entire textbook?

texts: The title says it all. I want to read a book chapter from a prominent Oxbridge researcher, but I don't want to shell out the cash for the entire textbook in which it's published. Is it rude to contact the professor who wrote the chapter and request an electronic version? It's for my own research purposes.


texts: Abbreviating first names in the bibliography

texts:
In my bibliography I use the names of the authors as they are given in the publication. Usually this will be the last name, the first name not abbreviated and second names abbreviated. However, I now have the following problems:

For some authors I only have publications with their first name abbreviated.
Some authors have their first name abbreviated in some publications and in others not. This leads to the strange result that I have them in the bibliography with their first name abbreviated only sometimes.

Should I try to get/use the not abbreviated first names for consistency or leave the names as they are given in the publications?


texts: Is it ever advisable for graduate students to go on sabbatical for several months?

texts: Undergraduates have several-month long "sabbaticals" every years. While graduate students shouldn't expect to have the same thing, could it maybe be justifiable for them to take a several-month long sabbatical in the middle of graduate school? These things can be really helpful for things like evaluating whether or not you're trying too hard to reach a dead end.


texts:
I'm in my second year at uni.
There's a professor whose group I want to get into. My question relates to what's appropriate to send in a "hey can I join" email.
For example, this man quite recently (in the last 7 months) published a paper relating surveying different search algorithm techniques to find ideal locations in a molecular lattice w/ xray diffraction (this is a made-up research topic for privacy haha).
I really like this approach and wanted to use similar techniques in my graduate studies. However, he's so far only published this paper based on it. Should I not mention my specific interest in my email?
Also in general, there are a few people at my school who explore a similar "scale" of physics as this man. I'm unsure about how much detail I'm meant to put in my emails. Are professors looking for someone who's completely in-tune to their specific subfield of the subfield, or do they expect "someone who wants to work with physics on this scale and thinks your papers are cool"? Obviously the former is preferred, but I'm wondering if the latter is the usual.
Thank you for reading.


texts: What is the difference between Dual, Joint, and Double PhDs?

texts:
What I understand is, Dual/Double PhD is getting two PhDs writing only one thesis.
But what is a Joint PhD?

Also, what is the benefit of these types of PhDs?


texts: Good resource/advice on mentoring undergrads

texts:
As a graduate student I will mentor some undergrad students so that they can help me with my work and get some useful experience working in a lab.

From my past experience, I realized that they lack knowledge. So I do not want to them work on data analysis at least for a semester (unless they show promise) but at the same time do not want to just work on tightening nuts and bolts.

Also they lack time to get up to speed on doing research on their own.
What is a good way to get them interested in learning more? Also if you can point to some good resources on mentoring that would be helpful.

Edit (following eykanal's comment): I do not need to interact with undergrads on a regular basis. So I am not thinking about getting them interested in research, in general. I believe most of the students, who come to work in lab, are in general interested in learning, ignoring few who are just want to beef up their resume.

Last time I worked with a student, I had assigned him some data analysis related work only to realize later that he was more interested in working in the lab then in front of a computer. Lesson learned the hard way, because we ended up wasting time.

What I am looking for is the missteps to avoid when mentoring a student so that they would stay interested and try to do things on their own.


texts: Is getting a PhD position in the US easier with a prior degree from the US?

texts: I'm currently an undergrad in Statistics from India, with a keen interest to pursue higher studies in Biostatistics/Bioinformatics. Is getting a PhD position in US easier for students who did their degree in the US, because the admission committees are more likely to trust a degree from the US itself? I intend to complete my Master's here before applying for a PhD.


texts:
I am applying for the Masters in the US for the Spring 2019 session. I don't understand the concept of GPA.
I have done my masters in Physics.  My doubts are as follows:
1. For my three-year undergrad degree in Physics do I need to calculate the score of the last year or all the three years (as in my country what you scored in the final year matters for admission)
2. My Master's is calculated on a 7 point scale. Like my GPA is 4.33/7. How to convert this on 4 point scale?
3. I come from a lower middle-class family and applying to the US universities will come costly to me. So I wish to email shortlisted university for my profile evaluation. Will they help out? How do I approach them?


texts: How to find publications from a particular institution in a journal?

texts: Suppose now I am interested in University A and a Journal B. I want to know how many people from University A published a paper in Journal B, and what are these papers. How to do this?


texts: Suggesting my own paper when serving as a peer reviewer

texts:
I am reviewing a survey paper in a good journal, where the paper missed important papers in the field including my previously published articles. I plan to suggest a rejection due to this serious lack, but I want also to encourage the authors to resubmit it again by pointing out the weaknesses of their paper.

In addition, I want to recommend them to cite some papers (since it is a survey paper) including my own. I don't know whether this is ethical (because I am one of the authors and it is clear that I found them interesting).


texts: How many free copies of a textbook is a publisher typically willing to provide?

texts:
Normally I teach a single section with 10-15 students, and a single copy is sufficient.  This class will have 3 sections of about 20 students each.  FWIW, I am in the United States.

I am considering changing textbooks for an introductory class.  A problem is that none of the TAs and tutors already have this textbook, and our department funds are limited.

How many free desk copies is a publisher usually willing to provide?


texts: Including "Thanks Card" in my graduate application

texts: I am applying for graduate schools in the US. In the applications, I can upload supplement materials (like CV, publications), and I am considering including a "Thanks Card" I have received from my last internship, which composed of many of my coworkers' recognitions and wishes for me. I want to include this card since I think it can further prove my motivation, good understanding of my field, and many other good characters. But I am not sure if this is too personal or inappropriate (my coworkers' first names appearing in the cards) for a graduate application. Could I have any suggestions or opinions? Thank you very much!


texts: is there a usage called "Full Professor"?

texts: I would like to know if the usage of "Full Professor" is valid or not as my language ability does not let me decide on this particular thing.


texts: My professor gave me a bad grade and wouldn't discuss it further, I think some prejudice may be involved. How should a student proceed?

texts:
Background:  I was a senior at a very prestigious, high-ranking university in the US.  At the time my GPA was around a 3.9 and had never had any issues with professors (and actually socialized with a few outside of class).

Fall semester I ended up getting pinned taking two classes from a female professor that had a reputation for being an extreme feminist.  I only mention the "feminist" part because this reputation preceded her around campus.  My adviser who was female, basically said "sorry about this" but I have to put you in her classes.  I also mention it because the department head (later in story) is very quick to pull me from her class with little discussion.  I am not anti-feminist nor did I care.  If anything it made me act more cautious around her.

Both of the classes were very basic so I figured, whatever.  Well I get my first few papers back and there is little feedback other than very minor sentence rewording.  "C"s.  No notes.

I ask her about her office hours (after class) so I can talk about the issues on the papers.  She simply told me she finds me intimidating and that she would rather talk to me in class with other people around.  This was my first direct interaction with her, and I was standing beside a few friends.

So I ask her what I need to do to not get a "C".  She says that she doesn't feel comfortable talking to me because she feels threatened—again I have two or three female friends standing a few feet from me.  That's it.  She wouldn't talk to me because I was a big male.  (At the time I was boxing professionally but I really doubt she knew this. As a 6'3" 200-pound white male, she just would not talk to me based on how I looked.)

Next step was going to the department chair.  Basically he looked at a few of my papers and we went around in circles over the grades.  But that didn't matter.  The professor basically told him exactly what she told me.  And she told him that it was the first time I had ever talked to her.

He offered to grade the rest of my papers and give me grades for the classes.  I opted out of that because basically I would have started off with a 70% in each class (he could not change my grades, I was told).  So he offered pass/fail. I took that option.  Didn't go to class.  Turned in a bunch of papers and passed both classes.

My question is did I handle this correctly?  Should I have paid for those two classes?  What would be the norm in this situation from a student's perspective?


texts: What are the benefits of editing a special issue?

texts:
My understanding is that editing a special issue helps encouraging research in a particular area, and gives the special issue editor a higher reputation in the field.

But what makes this better than organizing a workshop in a conference, for example? is it just more reputable (i.e. similar to how reviewing for journals is more prestigious than reviewing for conferences)?

Are there any other benefits aside from that?

P.S. I come from a computer science background


texts: What is the PhD application process for Germany and Switzerland?

texts:
Currently I am in the last semester of my Master studies in computer science in Germany. I am further contemplating about the possibility of applying for PhD position somewhere in Germany, Switzerland, (and maybe Austria). There are other candidate countries as well, but these are the main ones.

In a year or so I should be done with this studies. I wonder what is the PhD application process for Germany and Switzerland. Are there scholarships offered? Is there a need for scholarship at all, or do you get paid as an researched directly from the institution where you get the PhD position?

question added after edit:

Is there a need to search and find for a supervisor (or professor), and explain him the idea for the research that you are planning to work on... or do you get the position and work on the topics which are treated in that research group. my question is both for Swiss and DE?

Can someone with similar experience tell me how these things work?


texts: How to get reference from lab I worked with, when lab head seems unlikely to help and I was advised not to ask postdoc

texts:
I'm looking for PhD but I'm having issues with my referees. I did a placement year and for my second referee I was advised to use one from my placement. I worked only with 1 Post-Doc there but I was told by my uni tutor that I cannot get a reference from him as I need from somebody with a stable/fixed position, here is her reply I asked about that:

"You are normally expected to get the person who officially supervised your research work to write your reference. This must be a person who has a permanent position at the place you worked i.e. the lab leader (so never the post-doc, Ph.D. student or a technician i.e. anyone who is a colleague and not in official charge)"

I was quite surprised, I was planning to simply just use a reference from my Post-Doc. Now that leaves me with my placement lab leader. Well, the thing is she is very strict, moody and hard to please and we pretty much never really talked apart from maybe 1 or 2 short chats. She was away on conferences when I gave a lab presentation and when I had a short seminar. It's a shame, I wanted to show her that I really worked hard in her lab. Anyway, when I left I wanted to personally say thank you and ask if she would be willing to write a reference for me. Again, she was away on a conference so I ended up sending her an email. She never replied. I got too busy with uni and family issues and a month has passed. Now I really want to submit my PhD applications so I sent her another email and now I'm dreading what if she won't reply again? Maybe that was her answer? A 'no'?

Additionally, I got close to another lab leader who said she would be willing to write a reference for me. She also happens to be a very close friend with my Post-Doc supervisor. I wonder if that would acceptable? I didn't work in her lab but she holds a fixed position.

Please help me. On my CV I will mention my placement with my Post-Doc and the lab I worked in, wouldn't that be weird to not provide a reference from my placement lab?

I wonder how much this could affect my application?


texts: Sharing an old (never used) Phd Proposal with another student

texts: Can I share a Phd proposal that I wrote five years ago with a potential student, who is currently applying for a PhD? Please note that I never used my proposal to apply to a PhD program till this moment? The person asked me to share it wants a real example of a proposal. But I feel it is my effort. Is it ok to share it? Thanks


texts: How to decide whether to publish masters project in computer science alone or with supervisor?

texts:
I am working on my Master CS project. I would like to have this published as article before my Master ends.

Now I see 2 options:

I try to get it accepted and published at my own (not a affiliated with my university/supervisor, more as a independent scholar). I will use a ghostwriter (Master CS, native English) to get the English correctly. In this way I will be the only writer.
I will try to get my supervisor on board (eg. for advice/editing). This will result in a paper with at least 2 writers.

What are the pro/cons of each choice? Is it worth to get it accepted alone? Does it happen more frequently that students try to get its work accepted prior to finalizing the master program?

If you try to get your supervisor as second writer, does this not looks like 'student did research but supervisor wrote the article?'.


texts:
Are there any ways of getting to know about new PhD positions in CS other then just looking trough university/research groups web sites? Maybe people from different branches can name some specialized mailing-lists where PhD positions announcements are quite usual. I am particularly looking out for computer systems, mainly dealing with cache problems, scheduling problems, multicore architectures, etc.
Here are a couple of websites that I found:

EuroSys — European Job Openings in Systems,
PhDportal.com (formerly www.phdportal.eu),
Research Grants | International Scholarships,
Scholarship Positions,
http://youngbrigades.com/ (site has new, unrelated owner; verified on 26.12.2020).

I would appreciate any help. Thanks!


texts:
I'm a student from India who wants to do PhD(in math) in Germany in September 2019. The first thing I did was mail a couple of supervisors who I thought would be interested to work with me. Among them, I have received two positive responses. Now, the next step is to apply for DAAD scholarship. As far as I'm aware, I can only send one application for the scholarship. Does this mean that I will have to choose one of the supervisors now and hope that I get the scholarship?

Does this also mean that I cannot apply to multiple places in Germany to increase my chances of getting a position?


texts: What's the best way of starting a private lab wiki site?

texts:
My labmates and I were thinking of creating a wiki site for sharing protocols, links to github repos, some metadata and other useful lab related material. Contentwise mostly text, maybe some images, but nothing too heavy in terms of storage. We want to keep it private though since there'd be a lot of confidential information. Can you recommend sites that are most ideal for this purpose?

Edit: free services would be preferred.


texts: Course of action after failing a (non-maths) course in hopes of entering grad school for maths?

texts:
I'm currently a second year student in a general science program with a specialization in mathematics (it's kind of like a double major, almost). I'm hoping to go to grad school for combinatorial optimization, operations research, or some other pure math stream.  The problem is, I failed a cell biology course this semester (that just ended).

There are no medical reasons as to why I failed, just a matter of poor judgement when it came to choosing courses (I took an extra course than needed - the cell bio one - so that I could get it over with and take a computational biology course next year which requires this cell bio course), as well, I'm part of a major faculty society at my school and I'm doing research (non-math) with a group. All these factors lead to cell bio being my last priority and to sum it up, I have a U (0) in it, because I didn't pass.

My question is, how will this look on my grad school application? Overall, I'm a good student, I had about a 3.8 cgpa last year and at most I think this will bring it down to about a 3.4-3.5. I'm sure the next few years I'll do much better in my courses and can hopefully bring my cgpa back up to it's original glory, but for now I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do, especially given that there isn't really anyone to talk to at my school (Canadian) about maths grad school (I went to see an adviser and was told I'd get an email with some helpful info, but haven't received anything yet). I am going to write the GREs and hopefully do well in that and I'm considering taking the Putnam to further enhance my application.

I'm very sorry if this is a duplicate of a question, but so far, people have had different (I'd think more severe) circumstances, i.e. medical, failed course was taken as a high school student, etc. If anyone was in a similar situation or have dealt with this and could help me out, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you!


texts: What are the benefits of working as a teaching assistant?

texts:
I am a first-year international master student in a US statistics department. I am offered a 10-hour teaching assistant appointment next semester. I am considering taking it. I have no idea how to weight the benefit and cost of the appointment.

Background information:

I plan to apply PhD next fall.
I plan to take 14-credit course next semester.

Costs (that I can come up with):

Potential overload

Benefits:

Improve my English skills
Half-coverage of tuition and salary (important to life yet trivial to PhD application)

What are the other cost and benefit of taking a TA appointment? In particular, how would TA experience affect PhD application?


texts: Is grad school typically time-intensive?

texts:
I would like to know what is graduate school supposed to be like? I started grad school for mathematics 2 months ago and I find myself studying all the time with no time for anything else (except activities of daily living). Is this typical?

Some notable advantages that I have:

I commute from school to home.
I am a U.S. citizen and obviously did not have to venture outside of home for any of my schooling.


texts: I drop out from a PhD and the professor is unhappy with it

texts: I started a PhD in US wanted to study machine learning. Instead of that I cleaned experimental data (coming from human-related experiments), without any algorithmic endeavur or learning anything new. The choice of lab was pure, since they are supposed to use machine learning but not explicitly study it, but I chose it because of personal reasons (they would allow me to visit my family in my country more often). I regret it, since I see now that they do not use machine learning at all. I told my professor, after a year, that I want to stop at masters and he got angry. He agreed but I get the feeling he will not allow me to do any kind of research on the masters, and he'll probably make my life hell. I want to apply for a new PhD but since I have not done substantial research for the past year, I don't think I have good chances of getting accepted in a better PhD program. How should I handle this case with my professor? Can he not allow me to even take a masters? of course asking for a recommendation letter is out of question..


texts: Does an industrial internship instead of a research internship hurt my chances at scholarships for masters?

texts: Will engineering schools at universities like UPenn, CalTech etc. reject my application if I have industrial internships that involve techno-management profiles rather than just research internships as an undergraduate?


texts:
I am PhD student. My PhD advisor wrote a research paper literally copy pasting several paragraphs from a already published paper, which was written by me as main author and he is just second author. Copy-pasted paragraphs where without any citation to this paper written by me.

QUESTION:
1) Is the accuse of plagiarism still standing, when the main author of a paper copy-pastes from a paper where he/she was only second author?

2) What is your opinion about addressing the issue directly to the funding scheme which has financed the project and of course the scientific output?

3) Furthermore he copy-pasted a full methodology from a un-published document written by me, of course without citing. Unfortunatly this document has no specified authorship although through email traffic I can proof that I am the main developer of this document. Do you consider that also plagiarism?

thanks for answer provided.
Alfred


texts: I am a new teacher/lecturer in science, and I am preparing lecture notes for my module. I am putting together a lot of material coming from textbooks as well as borrowing material from other lecture notes I come across online. In the bibliography, I have included the main textbooks, as students are encouraged to read them and try some of the exercises in those books. However, I am not sure how, or if I should, include references to the material I am taking from other lecture notes. First, if I include too many references, it will be useless for the students. Second, the material in those lecture notes is not original either. What are some general rules and guidelines for citing material in your lecture notes?


texts: Should a bachelor’s or master’s thesis include acknowledgements?

texts:
For Ph.D. theses, I think nobody would disagree with adding acknowledgements. But what is the stance in different places for a bachelor’s and/or master’s thesis?

When I was doing both, I strictly followed the guidelines laid out by the university which required me to include an abstract in both English and German, introduction, results, discussion, experimental details, a table of contents, a statement that it’s my own work and an appendix (which included literature, copies of the NMR spectra and Perl scripts) — acknowledgements weren’t mentioned anywhere. (The Ph.D. student whom I was working with during the bachelor’s thesis and the subgroup leader where I did my master’s were included in the statement that it’s my own work.)

Now, during my Ph.D. work at a different university, a lab colleague is finally completing his master’s thesis and has different samples from former master students. Most of these included acknowledgements (even though they often didn’t say much).

I found one site with a non-representative poll which was in favour of not including them, the reason being the duration of the work just being too short; but that’s merely anecdotical, not representative.

So outside of universities where either version is required, should a master’s or a bachelor’s thesis include acknowledgements? Is there any kind of general practice?


texts: Consequences of unwittingly reinventing an idea

texts:
Say you have an idea and you can't find any paper or book that explicitly states that idea. You don't know for sure if you're right in assuming that you came up first with that idea so you decide to publish it. What are the consequences if you're wrong and the idea has already been published. Do the reviewers point that out for you before the paper gets published? Is your career over because of that?

To be more specific, I have an idea for constructing iterative formulas for solving systems of nonlinear equations for any convergence rate. I also have an elegant proof for that. The problem is that I have found just one article that explicitly states that idea just for functions of one variable, but doesn't expand on it.( just one paragraph and then continues with something else)


texts: How to get students to highlight academic text more effectively?

texts:
When I give students readings (articles, textbooks, etc), they sometimes literally come to class with entire pages colored yellow with a highlighter. I cannot begin to understand how they discern that everything on a page is of equal value to know.

As such, I would like to know of some suggestions for how to teach my student how to approach highlighting academic texts effectively.


texts: What points should be included in SOP if the target program is industry focused and not researched focused?

texts: I'm applying for MS in US, and for every university I'm making a tailored made SOP. I was applying for a program, which is industry focused and not research focused. And I am not sure what should be included in the SOP regarding that, as for research focused program we can include our research experience, and we can also check if the program fits our research interests, but what should we include for industry focused program?


texts: Academics who have moved to industry: what changes helped you thrive

texts:
What changes to habit, knowledge,  or mindset can help an ex-academic thrive in an industry management role?
I have moved to an industry position, setting down an academic career after my university insisted I teach in-person during the COVID surge. I have been fortunate in my transition: I will now lead a line of research at a Fortune 50 company.
Entering into mid-management in a huge corporation is proving to be quite a challenging transition.
I am looking for specific recommendation from individuals who have worked between these settings, and who come from an academic background post-PHD, as a Laboratory Director, Professor (of any stripe), Research Scientist, etc....


texts: How to politely reject a professor's request for work that I was recommended for?

texts:
A very high profile Prof. A recommended me to another high profile Prof. B to do some work for him.  While normally as a graduate I should be very thankful and jump on this, I simply cannot do the work asked due to time and I also believe there would be a more suitable candidate for the work.  Prof A's recommendations hold very high weight in the field I work in (his previous recommendation got me a job as an undergraduate).  I feel that Prof A may have misunderstood my skills (he confused Java programming with Java web programming essentially).  Prof A knows me somewhat well (I work for him currently), so perhaps this is why he recommended me.

How do I turn down Prof B's request in a polite manner without losing any face to myself or Prof A?  In my response, should I also forward candidates whom I think would be able to do the work (e.g. cc them in the email)?


texts: How to take a mental health related leave of absence (immediately before quals) without revealing mental illness to advisor

texts:
Recently due to burn out, my physical and mental health have been deteriorating to the point where I believe I need several months of leave to recover before I can be at a point where I can function normally again. I have been seeing a counsellor. However, now is a particularly 'bad' time to take leave because my PhD qualifying exams (first attempt) is very soon and in the month following, I have conferences/academic travels planned (which are great opportunities for furthering my career that my advisor has offered to me instead of to other students). Any one of these is enough exertion that I serious doubts that my physical and mental health will be recoverable afterwards, which makes me determined to take leave now, before it is too late. However, I am aware that having both these plans disrupted with short notice will not make my advisor or my department happy. Furthermore, while my relationship with my advisor is currently fine, it is not close enough that I feel comfortable confiding in him that I have a mental illness. His personality traits make me suspect that he might either not be particularly sympathetic/understanding, or he will be too afraid to 'break' me in the future. Therefore, I would prefer that the department and my advisor do not know that this leave of absence is due to mental health.

However, I need a compelling reason for the leave to be approved at this point in my studies and to have my qualifiers shifted to an unorthodox later date. My family are supportive of my decision for taking leave and have offered to invent some sort of family emergency which I can use as an excuse. However, my family are overseas, which is a fact known to both my advisor and my department (I am one of very few international students), yet I hope to be able to stay here during leave, where I have the support of both my husband and counsellor. We live close to campus and the counsellor is on campus in a small campus. So I am afraid that if I lie that I need to leave immediately for a family emergency, that during the time of my leave, my advisor/department secretary/chair will see me walking around campus and this might cause problems.

Are there any potential valid justifications for a leave of absence which do not mean that I have to mention mental illness, or leave the country? I will also be discussing this with my counsellor, but perhaps someone here has a clever idea that I have completely missed. Also it would be helpful for me if people can provide me with context/comparisons for just how bad/uncommon it would be to 1) take a leave of absence shortly before a qualifying exam (from the view of the department and advisor) and 2) take a leave of absence that disrupts travel plans where so far no money has been spent (from the view of the advisor), so that I can have some expectation of the resistance I might encounter.


texts: How do I find reliable studies about highly commercialised industries

texts:
For context:
I was reading about face washing and encountered a great number of people suggesting that using regular soap would cause dry skin - which is not something many would want for their face skin.
Now this claim is totally fair, but I'm somewhat sceptical of any claim in highly commercialised industries. I gave this idea a bit of thought. Is all my skin subject to this phenomenon?
I'm not super well versed in finding reliable research papers, so my cursory googling of "does soap dry out my face" (and similar searches) just provided me with countless personal hygiene company websites as my only source of information.
For the record I'm not trying to argue against the claim, I just found myself in a position where I wasn't confident that the information I was encountering was the truth. I'm inclined to believe it is, but I do like to verify.
My Question/s:
Is there any resources or search terms I can use to best ensure I am finding unbiased studies?
What tools does one have at their disposal to verify these claims? Are there any robust reasoning strategies for filtering unbiased from biased science?


texts: How can I protect my loose leaf textbooks?

texts: One book I ordered this semester is a loose leaf book (3-hole punched) that I'm currently keeping in a binder. Problem is, the pages are quite thin, and tear very easily near the hole punches. What can I do to help prevent this?


texts: How to quote "... (see Chapter 5 above) ..."

texts:
I'm writing a short essay on a book we're reading in class. The book (Gerald O'Collins, Rethinking Fundamental Theology) contains the following part, literally:

  To begin with, the disciples of Jesus remembered him as having made extraordinary claims to personal authority (see Chapter 5 above) and then as having died an utterly shameful death in a place for public executions.

I'd like to quote this in my essay, but to include "(see Chapter 5 above)" seems pointless. I am tempted to simply leave it out. Is that allowed in such a case, or should I always replace it by "[...]"?


texts: How to organize a good "special session" at a conference?

texts:
Many organizing committees set aside time and space at the conference for special sessions, which are often planned and organized by select individuals that have been invited to highlight a particular subject or scientific direction.

For example, if you work in computer science and you're specializing in deep learning, you might propose (or be asked) to organize a deep learning special session.

Once your proposal has been accepted, you have to spread the word to interested researchers, issue a call for papers, collect papers, invite an important speaker, and make sure the event runs smoothly.

For those of you that already had this experience, what are your suggestions and advice for organizing a good special session?

For instance, should you get in touch with potential participants before the session is announced?


texts: Is the '°' wrong in a degree centigrade mark?

texts:
My PI helps to modify my thesis. He keeps changing the degree mark '°' to '0' as the superscript in a degree centigrade mark. He also changes every 'in the phase' to 'at the phase'.
As I searched, superscript 0 was used when initially creating the degree mark. But now ° is used in all the degree mark. 'Phase' means a period of time and in most paper and textbooks, people use 'in the phase'.
I'm confused about these changes. Is the '°' wrong, or 'in the phase' wrong? What do you use in the paper/thesis writing?

An example of using '°' and 'phase' in my thesis:
'The cells cultured at 30 °C for 3 days were in the stationary phase.' 'Stationary phase' is one of the cell-growth phases that range from several hours to several days.
Thanks to @Houska for your vision and practical suggestions <3
Thanks to @AndreasRejbrand for correcting the degree sign to be 'U+00B0: DEGREE SIGN'. I have changed the sign in the title and body. In my PI's comments, he highlighted my degree sign (that I added through 'Symbols' in MS Word) and commented 'Should be a zero in superscript! Change all the rest.' So I believe he means using a zero.

PS. My PI is a Chinese who has been working in the UK for 20 years. His spoken English is fine, but sometimes he mixes up "she" and "he", or forgets to add 's' in a verb with the third person.


texts: Are Stack Exchange sites good pedagogical tools?

texts:
It seems like Stack Exchange sites would be a great resource for real-world open-ended research-and-answer projects. E.g., as a teacher I might select one or several recent good questions from an on-topic Stack Exchange site and have students actually submit their answers on Stack Exchange. For more advanced students I might have them find good questions on their own.

It's sort of a free peer-review system.

But I am not aware of this having been done. Is there a reason?

(I have a particular interest in why or why this might not pass academic muster because the recently-launched Law.SE has a built-in lack of experts, and the only likely pool of expert participants would be students and professors.)

Clarification: It seems that some people are reading this question and thinking of Stack Overflow. I'm thinking more of Stack Exchange sites like Law, Chemistry, or Cross-Validated, where there are a lot of good questions that are hard to provide with good answers because of the amount of time that has to be invested in a good answer. If only there were a source of people not only studying those subjects, but also compelled to spend extended time crafting good answers....

Also, I was thinking first of graduate-level students, perhaps down to advanced seminar students in an applicable major. Not shotgunning something like this out to an introductory lecture.  (Although apparently you can use the latter approach to create your own SE site!)


texts: Incentives for independent researchers to work on reproducible research

texts:
For the sake of high-quality science diffusion, there is no doubt that reproducible research is a good practice as it helps to demonstrate the robustness of the proposed methods and boosts the possibilities of getting more citations for a published paper. Needless is to say that it also allows new researchers to continue the work of a previous mentor. For students wondering if they should or should not release their code in a public repository, this was a topic already discussed here: Is it beneficial for a student to publish their research code and data?.

However, my understanding, from this material, is that reproducible research is a practice followed by institutions in which the government takes charge of the salary earned by researchers, their equipment, and travel expenses. Given that public funds are used in this context, there is no point in publishing results in places that would keep the knowledge inaccessible to the people who need it (and pay for it with their taxes). In fact, many journals offer now the possibility of publishing papers as Open Access. Obviously, this exempts the case of national security affairs that need to be kept in secret.

For independent researchers or non-granted students, the things change a little bit, as they don't have to follow the reproducible research practices because they pay for most (if not all) of the expenses during their studies. My question is, what are the incentives (if there is any) for this group of people to release their code on the internet if they are not looking to exploit it commercially? Is reproducible research something that they can use to improve their chances to get a job in academia or an R&D department in the industry?

Note: by reproducible research, I am taking the definition stated here: all the results from a paper can be reproduced with the code and data available online.


texts: Molds of PhD thesis from more than one idea

texts:
I'm considering doing a PhD in  Software Engineering and Information Technology.

Associated with a particular concept of interest (immersion), got many ideas running through my mind that having them explored would bring, at my sight, both business and educational value. So, the ideas:

Consolidation work.
Understand the current state of the art in immersive technologies.
Create taxonomies.
Design and implement immersive solutions.
Investigate the real-world value of immersion.
Etc.

Spoke with two PhDs. One told me a valid thesis can be a collection of articles that have to be published; in other words, what I have in mind is definitely good and possible as long as the articles are published. The other PhD told me  this would be something too general and I need to specify more to have a valid and good thesis; in other words, grab one idea and specify even further.

So, what I would like to understand is if I could create a thesis taking what I've got in mind with the 5+ ideas and have it be considered a valid and good thesis? If yes, under which molds / structure / methodology?


texts: How to cite several papers at once with first same authors?

texts:
I would like to cite both Potter, Granger and Weasley (1995) and Potter, Granger and Weasley (1998) for the same claim. I would write

  Hogwarts is a school of magic (Potter et al. 1995,1998).

Now let's assume I would like to cite both Potter, Granger and Weasley (1995) and Potter, Dumbledore and Snape (1997) for the same claim. Should I write

  Hogwarts is a school of magic (Potter et al. 1995,1997).

or

  Hogwarts is a school of magic (Potter et al. 1995; Potter et al. 1997).

I doubt it vary much among journals but FYI I am aiming Molecular Ecology who uses the APA reference style as indicated in the guidelines to authors.


texts: Overly long review process (>2 years) without feedback

texts: We submitted a paper to a journal more than 2 years ago. After 1 year had passed without any news, I asked the editors for an update on the status of our paper, and they mentioned they were still waiting for referee reports. After the second year of waiting, I wrote another email about a status update, without getting any response from the editors. The long process is a real nuisance for all authors involved, in particular for the junior ones who need publications on their track record. This is why I would like to see a decision (positive or negative) soon, but on the other hand I would like to not offend the editors. What would you advise us to do in this situation?


texts: Would a retired researcher mentor a postdoc with his/her own external funding? What about one without external funding?

texts:
I'll be completing my Ph.D. soon, and am reaching out to people who I'd like to serve as my mentor. Two questions with regards to "academically" retired researchers:

If I have external funding, would emeritus faculty be interested in mentoring a postdoc?
If I don't have external funding (so would require my mentor to fund me), would a retired researcher from a research institution, or retired faculty, take on a postdoc, i.e., willing to spend time with and pay someone?

I have never seen this happen (though I haven't really looked into this), so I'd like to know if being a postdoc for someone retired is even possible. Both people I'm considering are still somewhat active in research (publishing papers, responding to emails).


texts: Familiarizing oneself with state-of-the-art at the beginning of a PhD

texts:
From my research internship experiences (my previous University didn't really focus on research much) and what my current advisers told me, a general flow of a PhD is like any other long(er)-time project:

familiarize oneself with state-of-the-art on the subject

generate your own ideas (by trial-and-error) and integrate with current approaches
(with this phase becoming a lot fuzzier the more advanced your "project" is)

write it up for the world to know.

As a fresh PhD student, I'm currently in the middle of familiarizing myself with the state of the art, following the advice of many older students ("be a brave soldier in the beginning and do and read everything your advisers throw/send/e-mail your way"). And I do understand the importance of it (in fact, more often than not, I love it). But, it does give one an impression of self-uselessness sometimes (I have a talk with myself every few weeks or so to remind myself of my motivation and resolve the "uselessness" issue).
So, my question is: Typically, how much time would a fresh PhD student spend on going through state-of-the-art at the beginning of his/her PhD?
And some sub-questions:

is it expected/typical to produce some kind of output (articles?) during this period?
what kind of output is expected at the end of this period?
what would be some indicators that this period is ending which a student himself can notice

In the end, just to provide some context: I'm doing a PhD in Europe, and we have a limit of 3 years for a PhD (sometimes extended for up to 6 months) and I'm studying Computer Science.


texts: Do prizewinners use prize money for academic purposes?

texts:
Suppose Alice wins the Nobel Prize and $1 million. Does the prize money go entirely to personal matters, or is she likely to use some (most/all?) of it for academic pursuits? If the latter, how does she go about it? Does she just "award herself" a grant similar to grants that academics apply for?

I'm particularly curious about the Fields Medal since it has a stated purpose to encourage awardees for further achievement, which can be interpreted as saying that awardees should use the prize money for academic purposes.


texts: Is undergrad research experience related to the undergrad field preferred, or can I do research on the area I plan to study in grad school instead?


texts:
A professor at my university has recently started grading students partially based on assignments delivered as YouTube videos. These assignments are basically the usual exercises that a teacher would give students for practice or to hand-in for grading. Students however, are being required to film the problem solution paper and explain it, so the voice is recorded but the students face may be left out of the video.

This raised my brows, so I'd like to inquire about the good practices around it, particularly:

Should it be publicly or privately posted on YouTube? From my understanding, the videos are being made public.
What advantages with respect to simply asking for the paper to be handed physically or scanned and e-mailed?
Does it provide good proof of authorship? I.e. people can hardly re-use a handwritten paper delivered to the teacher, but knowing that the student's face is not on the video and the teacher may not recognize the student's voice, I'm unsure it gives reasonable confidence that the student is behind the microphone doing the work. Maybe a student reposts an old (deleted) video if the exercise has been used in the past.
It this nice for one-shot experiences, or is it functional for continued usage? I.e. could a teacher give the same video assignment over several years? Possibly with the same exercise problems?
Are there any intelectual property or image rights concern? I.e. for music/movies, performers/actors are continuously paid for exhibitions of their performances, while intellectual properties such as the contents of one's thesis are often waived to the university. What if these videos are later included for paid online courses?
Is there any advantage for the professor with respect to simply asking the video file to be delivered on a Dropbox folder or similar cloud storage method?


texts:
What's the best "bookmine" academic targeted website for PhD students to find references for their studies ?
Thanks in advance


texts: How to send TOEFL score to a particular department?

texts:
I am applying to the Ph.D. program in McGill. As it says at the end of this page, we have to send our TOEFL score to the department. But in the ETS website I cannot find the department, I can only find the institute.

What to do ?


texts: Is it acceptable to write reports in the IEEE standard paper format?

texts:
I am an undergrad engineering student working on some project with my colleagues , and we are asked to submit a report by the end of it.
So is it a good thing to write the report in the IEEE standard paper format.
http://www.ieee.org/documents/MSW_A4_format.doc

If not, what are some other standards forms that we may use?

This might not be the most suitable place for this question but I figured out that there could be a lot of professors and instructors here.


texts: Should I include web pages in the references

texts:
I am doing a course in a university. Course has 60% of weightage alloted to the project (which involves implementing algrithm to solve a problem), which we may turn into thesis if at all we succeed to find out something new (we have only one semester duration). I have to write a initial document of the work. I want to know if its ok to specify webpages (which I went through for some related information, not strictly of referred jornal papers, but some articles on some site) as references. I have never seen any journal paper to include webpage URL in the references. But, at least now, mine is a project and not a thesis (not yet come up with something new). So, I was thinking whether should I include webpage references.
Q.1 I was thinking I should include them as long as its a project (implementation of existing algorithms). Once I come up with something new, I can skip webpages and specify only non webpage references (books and journal papers which helped me find new algorithm) in the thesis. Am I correct with this?
Q.2 Also if I have to include webpage as a reference, in what format should I?


texts: How to reply to your boss when your boss ask you whether your new subordinate is competent/ good to let the boss have a good impression of you?

texts:
I recently started to supervise a student writing his bachelor thesis. While he was about two weeks late in contacting me (which was apparently normal according to my colleagues; he also explained to me that he was busy), he seems to read the papers I recommended carefully before contacting me.
My professor (my boss) asked me whether I consider that student as good. I just told her that the student seems to read papers carefully. Now I wonder whether I did it correctly.
In general, when my superior ask me about the impression of my new subordinate, should I emphasize the good aspect or the bad aspect? (Some people told me that I should emphasize bad aspect so that if that subordinate turns out to be an incompetent one (i.e. yielding bad results), I would not be the one to blame.)
Should I mention something that is already normal e.g. in my case, the student contacted me about two weeks late?
Would there be any cultural differences in dealing with this (I am in Germany)?
(Would the answer be different if I am in a non-academic field?)


texts: Combining a conference with a personal vacation

texts:
I received a funding offer from a conference overseas (as a PhD student), which includes accommodation and travel. I was wondering whether it is ethical to combine this business trip with a personal vacation? That is, to arrive e.g. a week or two before the conference (and of course pay for lodging in this "personal segment" from my own funds) and just get to know the country where the conference is held? Is it acceptable to email the organizers asking whether I'm permitted to come early? (This is needed to make sure that the airfare for such an early arrival is still reimbursable.)

I understand that this can be treated as an abuse of the conference's money, but on the other hand, it does not make any financial difference if I come earlier (however, see the remark below). And I'm still going to keep attending the conference as my main purpose. Moreover, coming earlier may result in purchasing a cheaper plane ticket (around 200 USD cheaper), in which case the conference's funds will only benefit.


texts: What is the letter of experience for faculty position?

texts: I am going to apply for a faculty position. One the required documents is titled" Letter of Experience". Do you know what is this letter. Is there any special format for that? Need to say, they have also asked for a formal application letter.


texts: Are hand made posters acceptable in Academia?

texts:
Are hand assembled posters acceptable in Academia?

When I say academia, I mean formal presentation settings such as conferences and symposia.

I ask because I am preparing for a symposium and came across Colin Purrington's guide to conference posters found here.

On his site, Purrington writes:

  If you’re crafty, a handmade poster is far superior to anything that you could make with a poster printer. Plus you’d be the highlight of a meeting.

My field is engineering by the way.

I couldn't find this anywhere else and every academic research poster that I have seen is printed. I can print my poster, I am just wondering, would there be any issues with presenting a professional looking hand made one?

On my hand made poster, all text would be printed, it would just be assembled on the board without a template.

Thank you.


texts: Can this be counted as a research experience for Grad school?

texts: I've recently completed my bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from India. In my last year, I worked on two four-month projects in two leading research institutes affiliated to the government of India. Both projects needed tons of literature survey and calculations. However, I didn't make any prototype. Everything from design and analysis was on software. My supervisors found everything satisfactory. I was also responsible for designing certain things not related to my project too. I am confused if everything above mentioned counts as a 'research experience' for applying to Grad school and emailing to professors seeking students to apply for MASc. positions.


texts: Are non-degree courses a viable option to offset a low master's GPA?

texts:
I am planning on applying to Ph.D. programs in the US in Computer Science and I have a bad GPA of 3.33/4 in my MS(Computer Science) degree.
Would taking non-degree courses in CS in my target school and getting really good grades, help me increase my chances of getting a Ph.D. Admit there? Also, since I am paying for those courses and taking them, would it be ok if I approach the professor and ask to work on a research project with them? Would they be able to write me a letter of recommendation in the future when I consider applying to a Ph.D. program in that same department?


texts: What does "external reviewer" mean for a computer science conference?

texts: I've seen the term "external reviewer" used in someone's CV for conference reviewing in computer science. Does this mean the person officially reviews the paper for the conference, or he/she gets a request to review from someone who officially reviews the paper?


texts: Re-using literature review ideas in another assignment, paper, etc

texts:
Suppose that I submitted an essay of a literature review for 1 course and I have to prepare a study for another course with similar ideas. My questions:

Can I 'copy' some of the ideas of the literature review of the 1st essay into the 2nd one? How ethical is such a practice?
Generally speaking, suppose that I define x and lists its components in one study, can I reuse the same source in another study since I want to also include the definition of x and its components in this 2nd study? If yes, can one use the same exact words?


texts: Moving from chemistry to oceanography as a current chemistry PhD student?

texts:
I am currently working my way towards a PhD in chemistry in a very good EU university. Things are running smooth and I expect to graduate within 1 to 2 years. But there is one big problem: the time spent in the lab made me realise that this is not the life I want. Although my passion for science is still intact after all those years, I have to admit that the lab work, the dreadful academic and private job market and the unexciting prospect of "parallel careers" have finally dented my motivation to pursue such a path.

I do, however, have a second passion in life: the ocean. I simply love earth, climate and ocean science about as much as I love chemistry, and seriously considered going for such studies instead. Since I started college, I have continuously taken classes in related subjects (biological oceanography, biogeochemistry, atmospheric physics...), and have enjoyed every bit of it. The only reasons why I picked chemistry for grad school were that I considered the outcome of the research I would do as more valuable for society (I specialise in cancer biochemistry) and the illusion that surely, I would get my own lab some day. But with the current physical sciences job market being grimmer than ever in both academia and private research, I have to accept the possibility of doing no research at all after graduating as the likeliest scenario. And the mere thought of ending up in careers such as consulting, no matter how lucrative, makes me want to off myself straight away.

On the other hand, the job prospects in marine and earth sciences appear somewhat more decent (please correct me if I am wrong here) - at least in the sense that you have better chances of working as a scientist in the end, although not necessarily in a tenure-track position or in an elite institution. This, coupled with my very strong interest in the field, has led me to consider quitting traditional chemistry for a field such as chemical oceanology and the likes. To do so, several branching pathways seem not entirely absurd:

1) Finishing my PhD in chemistry, and then jump into oceanography via post-doc training: this would be the easiest and safest option IF permanently moving from chemistry to oceanography is realistically doable. (It seems to me that the fine understanding of the physical and chemical processes common in living systems and natural milieus deriving from a PhD in basic chemistry could be a plus in that prospect).

If 1) was to be an impossible/unrealistic course of action, I guess my options would then be:

2) Finishing my PhD in chemistry, and then do a second PhD in oceanography: I am honestly not a huge fan of this idea, as it would considerably extend the duration of my studies. I have also read quite often that already holding a PhD will basically disqualify you from being admitted in any serious graduate programme (committees would understandably see you as a degree chaser, an eternally indecisive student or a pisstaker). I would however gladly follow that path, provided that it is actually possible to go for the second PhD route and if it was my only option.

3) Dropping out of my current PhD and start another one in oceanography as soon as possible: This would be the Mad Max card. I am obviously very, very reluctant to this idea, but would consider it if everything else was to fail.

In the end, my question(s) would be: which one of these scenarios appears the more realistic? Is 1) a plausible option, and do I have to consider the other, riskier courses of action?

I would welcome any insight from people experienced in the related fields or who have heard of similar situations.


texts: How do I diplomatically tell my collaborators that I've accepted a different postdoc position?

texts: I wrote a 20+ page postdoc grant last year and was rejected, but decided to revise and re-apply with the same collaborators. I am probably days away from it being ready to re-submit, with slightly better odds this time around. In total it's gone through maybe 4-5 months of work with multiple drafts making the rounds among myself, the PI, and 2 other collaborators. However, I just got a postdoc offer that is too good to turn down (funded position at the perfect balance between learning new skills in a new system while flowing naturally from my PhD work). I know I will accept this new offer, so how do I contact my collaborators on the grant we were writing to turn them down? The timing is awkward as hell. Should I just submit it (since it's nearly ready) and then once the new offer is finalized (signed contracts, etc) tell them? Or, tell them now and propose that we sit on the proposal for 2-3 years to submit around when the first postdoc ends? I don't want to burn any bridges as the grant collaborators are also important names in the field and I'd like to keep future collaboration possibilities open.


texts: How to test (admitted) grad students before hiring them in your lab

texts:
Recruiting "bad" PhD students who only become emotional, temporal, and financial drag is not good for anybody. I was listening to the recent freakonomics podcast episode, and thought it would be great to use tricks for testing the candidates before hiring them. Interviewing only can tell you so much, but unlike industry, PI's have more time to test the students before committing to seriously bring them into their research program.

In a related question, some qualities of successful students were discussed. Specifically, I want to test for

persistence/focus
creativity
logical/systematic thinking
communication
teamwork
"smartness"
some basic skills (programming, computer skills, writing, etc.)

At the same time I do not want to punish for lack of knowledge or experience. Also, I'm okay with eccentric personalities to a certain degree.

I've seen PIs testing their candidates by giving them mini research problems before hiring them (or while they are rotating in the lab). Some students will quickly finish the task and further explore the science on their own write fantastic reports/papers, while some students never finish the simplest first step. This seems to work fine (but some students might think it is not fair). I would like to learn if there are some quick tests that would reveal the quality of the candidate.

What tricks/procedures do you use?

P.S. I am in a computation/theory heavy science in US.

EDIT: I am especially looking forward to King Solomon's cutting the baby in half type of creative solutions. Perhaps PI can ask the student to do an impossible task and see how long it takes before the student says he/she thinks it is impossible.


texts: Getting sealed transcripts from a German university

texts:
I have a degree from a university in Germany, which I'm now trying to get evaluated by an institution in another country. This institution requires that the transcripts be sent directly from the university in a sealed envelope. Unfortunately, it seems this isn't something that German universities are wont to do (or at least not my former one): I have been told that presenting my original Urkunde (diploma) is enough, which is completely false in this case. Is it possible to get a sealed copy of my degree certificate and transcripts from a German university, and, if so, how/where do I do it?

Attempted solutions

I have been in contact with the Prüfungssekretariat (something like an "exam office"), and they told me two weeks after I first asked them upon me asking them again that they "currently don't have access to" these records and that I probably should have a copy of my records be "beglaubigt" ("notarized").
I then contacted someone at the university in charge of Beglaubigungen, who offered to do so if I send them a copy. However, they have not responded directly to my request to have them sent in a sealed envelope directly to the institution in question.
I called the Zentrale (central hotline) and asked what I should do in this situation. I was then told I should contact the Studierendensekretariat ("registrar").
I have literally spent the entire afternoon trying to call multiple different numbers for the Studierendensekretariat and they do not answer the phone. I have sent them an e-mail, but, based on my previous experiences with them, I do not expect them to answer timely or even at all. I am currently over 1,500km away from the German institution in question, so dealing with this in-person is not possible. While I was at the university, the only way things could actually get done is by going to the office you need during their opening hours (which are only a few hours and only on certain days) and then waiting for an extremely long time. Sometimes, the office would close before you get a chance to talk to anyone†.

† Yes, this is a lot of circumstantial information, but this is, according to my experiences, fairly normal for German bureaucracy. Hopefully, however, these details will at least be useful to show at least what I've tried which hasn't worked.


texts: What percentage of arXiv preprints fall under the CC BY or CC BY-SA licenses?

texts:
I am interested in exporting and redistributing arXiv papers and will need the source on them. It looks like this is allowed so long as they fall under CC BY or CC BY-SA licenses. However, I'm not sure how viable it is, because I don't know how many papers are typically published with those licenses.

It says on their bulk data page that "A small fraction of submissions are made with other licenses and this information is available in the OAI-PMH metadata." So the data are available there, but I'm only not sure how to harvest these data from the OAI.


texts: How should I respond to "no research position available" from a cold email?

texts:
Yesterday, I sent a "cold" e-mail (i.e., an unsolicited email to someone I do not know) to inquire about whether a professor has open research positions. Today I got the reply as shown below. Obviously, it is not positive.

Thank you for your interest in my lab – unfortunately while your skill set looks to be ideal for the lab – I currently do not have any positions available.

The answer is not very surprising. But how should I respond positively? Because we are in the same city, and probably one day I would have a chance to work in that lab.


texts: Using downloaded NES/SNES ROM files for research work

texts:
The only official statement for nintendo is their legal terms page, which prohibits from anyone using downloaded ROM files.
Scenario -

If someone play downloaded ROM file (any ROM file will serve the purpose) on FCEUX emulator on PC. The ROM file remains intact and will not be changed. Only the game will be played and in-game variables will be change via emulator.

The reason someone can use NES/SNES games, is the availability of many diverse genres within the same platform.

Is there any fair use policy to use proprietary material for academic research. There are some YouTube  videos and some projects on hackster.io, where people have used AI (Artificial Intelligence) to play Super Mario and Tetris in emulator. There was a research paper on AI playing tetris too. (A simple google search reveals lot of published papers with Super Mario and Tetris).

The for specifying any jurisdiction is to have a blanket protection to anyone in the world using it for academic and research work.


texts: Does still it matter to be the "first author" nowadays

texts:
It used to be that the first author (meaning, the author whose name comes before the others) is thought to have contributed most to the publication.

But in the last couple of decades, it seems that the first author no longer matters AT ALL, instead the last person has become the most important.

I attribute my observation to two things,

The first author is typically a student, someone with no name recognition, or someone who is getting advised or funded by the last author.
The last author is typically the director or advisor of the project. In recent years many of these people have become ultra famous through things like TEDtalks and other media hype. It didn't use to be this way before the internet.

Nowadays whenever I evaluate how potentially interesting a paper is in my field (stem), before I even read it, I almost always look at the last author, especially if it is someone famous. If I don't recognize anyone, I am quick to assume that the paper is not interesting. I am trying to fight back against my bias.

Does being the "first author" still carry any weight in today's academic culture?


texts:
I have some new ideas regarding a concept in computer science and have done considerable independent reasearch work.None of the faculty members in my university seem to be interested in helping an independent undergrad thesis in computer science.I have some time to complete it formally, though.

Could anyone please tell me the steps to get my paper published ? What should I ensure about my paper before sending it for publication ?

I am confused as to what to do , there are so many things- transations, journals , proceedings, conferences ..etc , How are these different and where it is the best to send a research paper ?


texts: I've been working for one year. Can I apply for grad school in CS in Canada?

texts:
I planned that I could make myself money to continue education (by obtaining a master's degree), but what am I supposed to do to continue my education? It would be nice if it's going to be a part-time education and I don't have to attend to school all the time.

My candidate would be University of Toronto or McGill.

I looked at their homepage, and the application information describes undergrad for high school applicants, or application directly from undergrad students.

On top of that I am not Canadian citizen (but a resident). Is there any chance for me to restart my education?


texts: Grading unsuccessful team work in a seminar

texts:
I'm the supervisor of a seminar.

A team of two students is preparing a common presentation for the seminar. The team has to write a report (a preliminary version for double-blind reviewing by other teams and a final version read by me) and give two talks; the team has a lot of freedom on how and what they do. The topic, the seminar dates, the duration, and the deadlines for handing in the reports and the slides are fixed.

I put the two together a few months ago (they had not known each other before, so I had to do all the organization via e-mail). They already submitted the preliminary version of the report more-or-less in time. However, 5 days before handling in the final report and 12 days before the presentation, one of them complained about the poor performance of another one. I asked them to clearly state their contributions by a particular deadline; one did so, while the other did not answer by the deadline. I offered them to split and am waiting for the answer.

I do care that all the participants of the seminar and me learn something new from the students' presentations.
Moreover, I get evaluated by the seminar participants anonymously; the evaluation goes to the department. I do care about good evaluation results, too.

How should I deal with such an unpleasant situation?


texts: Repeat dropper and failure at multiple colleges. Is a Master's ever possible?

texts:
Just found this site and did some searching around but I'm not sure anyone is as nuts as I am.  Long story short I've been living with a severe anxiety surrounding school.  I'm 29 years old now and am finally getting to the root of my issue, and it's making a lot of sense.  Everything except how to move forward.  I've always wanted to go "all the way" through a Masters Degree but I'm almost certain any competent admissions committee will reject me without question.  Here's my scenario:

Community College 1: About 9 years ago I registered for my classes, didn't show up.  Dropped by the administration.
Community College 2: About 7 years ago I registered for my classes, showed up for a week, dropped by administration.
Community College 3: 4 years ago I registered for a fresh start.  Did one semester successfully but got a D in one class because I had anxiety surrounding showing up for that class.  I retook that same class 5 more times each resulting in either a self-initiated withdraw/drop, or a flat-out F because I stopped going and had too much anxiety to admit that i'm dropping again.  I have 1 "ok" semester, and 3 complete failure/dropped semesters.  Ending GPA is 1.75
Went back to Community College 1.  Did well and have a GPA of 3.4.  Did not transfer any of the classes from any other school.

Now I'm looking to apply to a 4 year university.  I know I need to give them all transcripts from all schools, but I'm really nervous about not getting in anywhere because of my rough history working through that anxiety.  I'm mostly concerned about a future Master's program not giving me the time of day.  I have an excellent work history because I always put that first but now that I'm learning how to focus on academics I want to go all the way.  Maybe even further for a PhD., if I continue to bust my behind the way I have been.

I'm floating the idea of maybe doing a 2nd Bachelor's before a Master's if I have to do that to prove to a committee that I'm worth a shot.

What would any of you do in my shoes?


texts: How do you cite articles from a "database?"

texts:
Cochrane reviews are great to cite in academic publications due to their systematic nature but I have no idea how to cite them in APA style because there's no obvious volume or issue to use in the citation. Here's a reference I've already tried, albeit awaiting on the volume and issuing numbers I'm meant to give.

Linde K., Berner M. M., Kriston L. (2008). St John's wort for major depression.
The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD000448.pub3.
PMID 18843608.


texts: What can a student in England do, if her Disability Office refuses PDF versions of textbooks?

texts:
My sister is an undergraduate at a university in England, and emailed its Disability Office  (let me abbreviate this to DO) a letter from her physician stating that disability thwarts her from carrying books (like her many heavy textbooks), because a publisher suggested PDF Accessible Formats of books that she must request through her university's DO.

But the Head of DO informed my sister that he doesn't consider her to have 'print disability' or to qualify for PDFs, probably (we are guessing) because he doesn't want to spend time obtaining the PDFs for her. He has offered nothing else useful for her.

We think that he's wrong, but how can she acquire the PDFs?


texts: How to reminded a Prof of a promised recommendation letter (2 years ago)

texts:
I am an undergraduate student volunteered at a research lab 2 years ago, working under a phd student. At the end of the work term, the phd student arranged a meeting with the prof so that I presented my work to him. He was rather impressed and promised to provide reference (2 years ago).

Right now, I am applying graduate studies so I would need his recommendation letter. But the problem is that he might not remember me because I didn't work directly under him and I merely gave a presentation. What kind of approach should I take in order to remind him of this issue?


texts:
What are good techniques or suggestions for people on verge of memory decline to better remember where to find a scientific material?

Personally when I read something in a book or in a paper or a website/blog (for example a particular proof of a theorem, a particular approach to a concept, a particular application of a result), I unconsciously assign it with the names of its authors.

When I would like to recall or to see that thing again, knowing the names of its authors is very helpful, since by knowing the name I can find the source very easily even if I have forgotten the title of the source.

This approach works if one has a relatively sharp memory. But as the memory starts to decline (for example by aging), sometimes recalling the author of a source could be difficult. When I forget the authors' name finding the source could be very difficult. Sometimes even with the help of search engines, I can not retrieve what I want.

Are there good techniques that people with limited memory use in order to better recall a scientific source?


texts: Oral vs written exam - from a lecturers point of view?

texts:
We are free to grade our students in oral or written exams. Obviously, if only 1 or 2 students take the course, oral exams (~15-30 mins) are the way to go from an effort minimization perspective (no exam creation, room reservation, grading, post-exam inspection/review), as well as written exams for like 1000 students.

Can anyone provide experience on the effort/benefits of oral vs written exams? Is there a magic number of students where this changes?


texts: Publishing articles in not peer-reviewed journals

texts: There are several important journals out there that are not peer-reviewed, such as Network Security. Do such papers provide any value for the author(s), especially for whom want to apply for a PhD program.


texts: Aligning my Master's degree with prospective PhD's

texts:
I'm at the cusp of selecting a MSc programme in Europe before re-applying to American PhD's and I'm at a loss how to decide which MSc position I should take.

I'm strongly convinced I want to do a PhD with a person at Columbia U., UT Texas and some elite schools. All of these people have a shared interest (narrowly defined field of research) and I'm wondering how I can improve my chances down the road to study with them.

First off, a PI's at one of the schools I've been accepted to is working in the same field; goes to the same conferences, visits the PhD PI's and, is probably on quite good terms with them. I could not verify this any further without asking too obvious questions. So to me it seems like an advantage, however this MSc programme is not well established and hence doesn't have the 'prestige'  like the other programmes I applied to.

I'm tempted, perhaps because of my upbringing, to contact the PhD PI's I'm interested in and straight-up asking them if they'd recommend any of the MSc programmes. Would this seem overbearing? I can't really tell and the cultural differences make it more ambiguous.


texts: What are some good practices for a supervisor?

texts:
I just started co-supervising a master student and I was wondering how people approach supervision.

I tend to follow what worked for me but not everyone is the same, so I'm not sure if what I'm currently doing is the best scenario. I've always had freedom to make my own decisions, so I do the same. For instance, the student has to choose between method A and method B and both are options. I don't tell him/her to choose one of them, but instead tell them to research and decide which method they think it's the most appropriate. However, I know some supervisors prefer to tell the student use method A.

So, my question is mainly how do you approach supervision? Do you give space to the student to make his/her decisions? Do you meet with them on a regular basis or let them find you whenever they need? Do you have a chat with the student to understand what does he/she want? If it's the first research experience of the student, he/she may not know what works for them.

Any tips or advice are most welcomed. Given the number of poor/complicated supervisor-student interactions I've seen and heard of I'm just trying to improve my supervision skills.


texts: My advisor does not provide any solutions and wants me to work alone

texts:
So, my advisor works in a group style, meaning we have these weekly meetings, where all of his PhD students and RAs are present. We plan the work ahead and set aims, but these aims are always very general and non-specific.

For example, it is always like "you must publish in the X journal something about improving the 4G network, because that's where the money is". He usually asks for publication planning without having done the work first.

We rarely have 1-1 meetings and even when we do, he does not provide any guidance, he just sets aims and I have to work alone to achieve them (no one else in our group works on the same topic).

This gets even worse by the facts that:

I do not enjoy the topic that much. Long story short, I was assigned this topic after changing supervisors for logistics reason (Worth mentioning the relation with my previous supervisor was excellent, but unfortunately as I said, I cannot go back to him due to logistics).
More importantly, he is very cautious with sharing his research and does not like to work with people outside the group.

As an example of the 2nd, I had asked him if I could write a paper with another researcher outside our group. He said yes, but after a month of work and 2 days before the deadline, he changed his mind and said I should remove the other person's work and name from the paper, otherwise we are not going to submit.

I am 2.5 years into the PhD out of a 5-year long program, so half-way through.  However, I cannot work alone on a topic I do not enjoy, with a person I do not get along with. What should I do? Should I change supervisor again, keep working alone or quit maybe with a MRes?

Some people I have talked with say this situation is common and normal.


texts: Does it matter where I get PhD degree from if I want an academic career in the US?

texts:
I am an EU citizen who is going to apply to PhD Physics programs soon. My ultimate goal is to become a university professor. In considering which university I should attend for PhD, factors such as tuition & program differences don't matter to me. What matters is that I don't feel like doing (nor do I agree with) the GRE (which would require a significant preparation), thus applying to PhD programs in the US might be out of the picture for me. However, the question pertains that if I want an academic career (ultimately, a professor position) in the US in the future, does it matter from which university I get my PhD degree?

Note: I do not care about a uni's rank or status. What I care about is whether the uni's location (different country) will affect where I can get jobs later on...

PS: On a separate matter, I've heard that PhD graduates in the US can obtain academic jobs without going through postdocs, is that true? If so, what does it take do achieve that?


texts: Can I patent work after I have published a paper about it?

texts: I've published my scientific results one year ago, but I didn't apply for patent at that time. Can I still patent it?


texts: Can I use figures from my article on my website after it is accepted but before being published, if I publish open access and retain the copyright?

texts:
I have a paper that was just accepted (but not yet published) in an open access journal. I am also upgrading my website right now, and I would like to know if I am allowed to post pictures which are in the paper (which I made) on my own personal website. I know that by publishing in a journal, I am giving up some rights over the material to the journal itself, and that certain actions are grounds for the journal to remit the article such as trying to submit the paper to another journal.

Can I use the pictures on my website, now before the paper has been published?
Do I have to wait until after the paper is published to use them?
Are the rules different for journals that are not open access?

I found the license information:

  Ownership of the copyright in the Contribution remains with the Author(s).
  However, the Author(s)’ re-use rights in the Contribution are subject to the rights and restrictions set forth below in this Section, and in clause 3 and 4(a). After the Author(s) have submitted the Contribution to NPG hereunder, the Author(s)’ rights to re-use the Contribution shall be the same as those set forth in the Creative Commons licence selected above, with the following additional re-use rights:

  (a) to reproduce the Contribution in whole or in part in any printed volume (book or thesis) of which they are the Author(s); and

  (b) to reuse figures or tables created by the Author(s) and contained in the Contribution in oral presentations and other works created by them.

  Notwithstanding, if the entire Contribution is rejected by NPG and not published, all rights under this licence shall revert to the Author(s).


texts: I have finished my paper for a computer science conference, and I submitted it, but after the deadline a discover the missing of a figure, what if I updated my paper on the Easychair conference organization platform?