texts: Why do we cite books with publisher and city?

texts: Or just city in some formats? I mean, I could maybe guess why it was marginally helpful a century ago, but why now? What use is it for my reader to know that a book I'm citing was published in Berlin, Boston, and Fresno, or more to the point, that the nearest city to me where a certain book was printed years ago happens to be Fresno? If the point is to look up the book, wouldn't the ISBN be far more useful?


texts: Do non-English papers/publications have value in a CV which is going to be sent to an English company/university?

texts:
Some of the students are doing research in another language than English because they are living and studying in a non-English speaking country; they may be doing research in their mother-tongue language because they are studying in their own country or they are studying in another country in which the language is not English.

If these students have non-English language publications which are published or sent to a non-English conference/journal; Do these publications still have the same value in their CV when they are going to send it to an English speaking university/company? Or only publications in English are of value in those institutions.

PS: I think the situation is easier for the students having English publications in their CVs and want to send it to a non-English speaking university/company as they welcome and accept those publications.


texts: What's a good strategy for coming up with a lab name?

texts:
I'm going to be starting a research lab as a junior faculty, what is a good strategy for coming up with a lab name?

How important is a lab name in differentiating yourself in the field or potentially attracting graduate students?

Is it common for one to use their last name, i.e. 'Smith Lab' or should it be a term from the research domain?


texts: Chances of Getting into a Top PhD Math Program

texts:
I know many people have asked similar questions and admissions can sometimes be a crapshoot. But, I am currently a sophomore mathematics major at a non-target top 25 public school. If I can maintain a 3.8+ GPA and major GPA, is that a respectable range for a top grad program? I know GRE scores are a factor too, but have not taken them yet. But I am currently doing undergrad research with a professor (maybe will get my name on a paper) and plan to do departmental honors, which requires me to write a thesis by the time I graduate. Struggling with trying to decide if I want to do industry or grad school. My advisor of course is pushing me towards grad school and tells me if I maintain my grades I will have a good shot. I also plan to take hopefully 2-3 grad courses by the time I graduate. What realistically are my chances? I know it is hard to say without GRE's and no answer is definite, but is it even worth me looking at top tier programs?

Thanks.


texts: U.S. universities on-campus residence for International PhD students?

texts:
I want to ask generally, do most U.S. universities offer on-campus accommodation for International Ph.D. students Who are married?

If the student is benefitted from scholarships {Free tuition and fees + 2k monthly stipend} will he/she need to pay an extra to use not-shared on-campus settlements?

Without any self-funding and other support, is the stipend enough to pay for it while taking care of food, health care, etc. at the same time?


texts: My peers are publishing high impact papers and getting awards or offers while I am struggling to write a decent paper. What should I do differently?

texts:
I am a 3rd year PhD student in Canada. My research area is different than my labmates. However, they are publishing high impact papers at high rate  (2 per year), while I am struggling to get my second paper out. My first paper was in a low impact journal.
It is not only about the impact factor, their work is also more rigorous than what I am doing. Granted that my field of research is different (they work in modeling nanomaterials, while I work in simulation of a coating process), but I get super intimidated by their research output. My research area is not exactly aligned to my advisor's research expertise.
My seniors have gone on to become assistant professors in universities, in industry or are in prestigious research labs for their postdoc. They receive awards and accolades from the university and government, while I am struggling.
What should I do differently? I am working 80+ hours every week, but it seems I am not capable enough. My advisor seems satisfied with my work, but he is a hands-off kind of person, so I don't know if he even cares about my research output. Am I wasting my time with doing this PhD?


texts: I found out that I have plagiarism in my published journal papers, what should I do now?

texts:
I published some research papers in an ISI Journal during the past years. But due to the lack of precise knowledge of the correct referencing, and particularly due to attending an “unintentional plagiarism class” in my university, perhaps in some places of my papers, referencing rules unintentionally do not meet correctly and exactly. It seems that I have to modify some parts of my papers if possible.
Also in some parts of my papers I commit an intentional plagiarism.
Now what should I do? Should I contact the editor of the journal? Do they reject or retract my papers? I am a PhD student and if my papers are rejected or retracted I could not defend my PhD thesis.

Please guide me. I'm afraid of expulsion from the university and loss of honor.


texts: When can scientific publications have a dedication?

texts:
Under which circumstances can a scientific publication have a dedication?

It is not uncommon for theses (Bachelor, Master, PhD, ...) to have a dedication. Furthermore, some big publications in high impact journals happen to have a dedication.

However, what about regular journals? Can I include a dedication in the 'Average Journal of okay results'? It is assumed that I will not have a top journal hit publication in the near future. Would such a request be turned down immediately?


texts: Advisor-student meeting patterns in very high-end theoretical research

texts:
This is related to my previous question: “What is the optimal number of times one should meet one's PhD. advisor?”

I want to know of specific details of advisor-student meetings, frequencies, patterns in very high-end theoretical subjects like say algebraic geometry or string theory. Like if anyone knows of accounts of how it goes for say students of Vafa or Witten or Nima or Seiberg or Xi Yin or Kiran Kedlaya or Mattihas Zaldarriagga or Bjorn Poonen and such.
In such subjects how does one keep oneself motivated since publications aren't so regular probably and progress is possibly very "slow"?

I mean, in such subjects how does one measure progress on a daily/weekly basis to understand if things are going well? (once the instant gratification of homework scores are removed, in full time research mode how is progress measured on weekly scales?)


texts: How can one learn from poor teaching evaluations?

texts:
I teach at a large R1 state university, and I just received my teaching evaluations for Fall 2013. Usually I get excellent evaluations, but this time my evaluations for Calculus II were an unpleasant surprise. My numerical scores were mediocre, and representative student comments included: "Answers were obscure"; "can sometimes be cryptic when answering questions"; "didn't really answer questions".

These comments do not appear to be sour grapes, as the same students didn't complain heavily about the workload or grading of the exams. Moreover, I got excellent teaching evaluations when I taught Calc I a year ago, at the same university, with the same philosophy and style, with similar course policies, and with a comparable workload. Clearly, I did something wrong with regard to this course in particular.

I e-mailed both of my TAs, and only got encouraging comments ("I thought you did a good job"). I then e-mailed the class, and explained that my teaching evaluations were poorer than I expected, and asked students to offer criticism and suggestions for the benefit of future Calc II students. No responses.

So, apparently my teaching left room for improvement but I have no idea what to improve. This is quite uncomfortable -- is there anything useful I can do here?


texts: Scholarships or bursaries specifically for software for scientific research

texts:
I am a graduate student in statistics at a Canadian University and I have a desktop computer in my office which has software installed that I have used for my research. The software is proprietary and the license is for a local machine so I can not access it remotely (via ssh or otherwise).

Due to the current situation with COVID-19, I am working from home. I am able to conduct most of my research using open source software (such as python and R) however I would also like to use some of the software which I had access to on my desktop in order to complete my research since I had code that was working on the proprietary software. I would save a substantial amount of time by running existing code compared to rewriting it in another language.

Unfortunately I can not access the software on my desktop remotely due to licensing issues and I do not want to visit the university since the government has asked us to practice social distancing and the University has also requested that only essential personnel be present in the interest of the safety of the general public.

Therefore I was wondering whether there were any scholarships or bursaries available specifically for students who would like to use scientific software for their research (in Canada or in North America in general)?

I understand that research and education requires sacrifice and I might end up asking my supervisor to help me out with buying a license and I also understand that a lot of software is available at a discounted price for students (however the student price is still non-trivial). Before I try these options however I was wondering whether the community might be aware of some resources for scholarships or bursaries specifically for software that I could apply for?

Moderators, if this is off-topic, please direct me to the relevant stack exchange so I can post my question there.


texts: Is there a standard system example for writing papers which introduce a newly developed programming language?

texts: I am writing a paper that describes a programming language that I am developing as part of my PhD. I think that writing the paper using an example can greatly improve how the paper is understood. Is there a "standard" example that is used in programming languages paper? A set of examples?


texts: Applying to Canadian universities for PhD without a thesis based MS

texts:
I am applying to some Canadian schools for PhD in Computer Science. I am currently enrolled in a master's in CS program in a school in USA. I work as a research assistant but I will not be presenting a final thesis before degree completion. I saw that most PhD in CS programs in Canada require a thesis based MS. I wanted to know if they make some exceptions to that rule. Will a research assistantship be ample proof of the ability to conduct research?

Here are the unis I am interested in:

Uni of Saskatchewan

Carleton Uni

Uni of Calgary

Thanks!


texts:
Below is a reference of an article cited as footnote on a page of a book. I'm not familiar with this style so just want to know.

Anne Nguyen. Cultural and Social Attitudes Towards Mental Illness in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Stanford University Research Journal 2003: 27-31.

And here's a reference for a book:

Richard Keller. Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007, 89.


texts:
I was appointed to make some programming outside of a research group to see if I can be accepted for doctoral studies. The task is to mimic the results of one paper and from that point to carry more research about it.

Because of some personal problems, that project got delayed. The thing is that when I got the results of my program, and I compared with the ones that I was supposed to get, there were some differences (it was a medical related project). When I started comparing those differences I saw that some of my results were backed up by some medical papers.

Now the initial project has ended, because there has been published one software tool that do almost the same thing. And that research group is focusing on other projects.

My question is, is there any way I can publish the results I obtained with the program I made? I have spent more than six months doing that, without payment. How can I name it? Is it a model? Should it be published like a technical report? Any help will be great.


texts: Is it possible to join academia with a structured PhD?

texts:
There are two types of PhDs in Germany(or, in other parts of the world, like, Ireland): structured, and individual.

A definition of structured Ph.D. is as follows:

  Usually, in structured Ph.D. programs, the thesis advisor has a
  pre-planned or a pre-defined research proposal which he intends on
  carrying forward through his Ph.D. student. The Ph.D. student then
  does some preliminary studies based on this proposal, based on which
  the student sets his own objectives. Basically, in such structured
  programs, a few of the objectives are already set and the may, or may
  not add a few more, depending on some of the results obtained in his
  preliminary work.

Is it possible to join academia with a structured Ph.D.?


texts: Is it normal to feel impatient in lectures when a lecturer explains material that could be obtained from textbooks?

texts:
I am a senior PhD student who greatly appreciates learning about allied fields. I had been a huge fan of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and I believe some of them steered the course of my life towards grad school. However, I am more and more getting impatient in lectures. I am a Mathematician but I like to study Economics and Computer Science for fun. My university pays for any courses I would ever want to take as a PhD student so I try to enroll but I am losing my patience. I feel the instructor is taking up too much time explaining things that I could grab off the textbook in much lesser time and in the process, form the connections better. Is this normal?

As someone who has had 20 years of schooling since kindergarten, is it normal to get impatient and want to do things by myself. I know I am implicitly making the assumption that one is motivated enough to stick by routines but that's fine.


texts: Is it a good idea for an international student to use his master's thesis preprint as his writing sample?

texts:
I am applying to doctoral programs in the US.

I would like to use my master's thesis preprint as my writing sample because it was written in English and is in the field on which I intend to concentrate in my possible doctoral studies.

Though my advisor, who is not a native speaker too, feels it is okay for my thesis to be my writing sample, I am afraid, because I did not make the English in my thesis polished by native speakers, that using it as my writing sample would backfire.


texts: In astronomy, would it be possible to continue doing postdocs for up to 15 years to increase your chance of getting a permanent position?

texts:
I heard that in astronomy most people do only one or two postdocs. If they haven't found a permanent position after this, they quit astronomy and find a job in a different field like physics, economics, or information technology. And the vast majority of people who get a PhD in astronomy will end up quitting astronomy because the astronomy is one of the hardest field to get into.

But suppose that your parents were rich and provided you with more than enough money to live for as long as you wanted, which means that you have no pressure to quit your postdocs to get a job in a different field than astronomy in order to earn more money.

Would it be possible to continue doing postdocs after postdocs for up to 15 years (so up to 6 postdocs) to increase your chance of getting a permanent position compared to those who only do one or two postdocs?

Or would doing more than 2 postdocs not increase your chance of getting a permanent position anymore? Maybe all employers reject people who do more than 2 postdocs because they all see them as failures, no-good, incompetent and unskillful?


texts: Include background to ideas for future work in related work chapter of master thesis?

texts:
First of all I hope this question is not too trivial for this site. It does say in the FAQ:
"This site is for academics of all levels". Furthermore, this question should be helpful for other novice researchers who want to write a paper or thesis.

I have worked for a good while with my MSc. thesis and what I did initially was to read a lot of related work in the research area of my project and also in perhaps more peripheral areas that initially seemed very interesting.

This initial review is the basis for a related work chapter that I have written. I was fully expecting to prune a lot of this text and have also done this according to what I eventually ended up doing. However, a lot of the descriptions of research that I have in the current version represent very interesting ideas for extensions to the current approach that I want to write about in a future work section.

Should I keep the sections in related work that are about research areas that I have not ventured into, that are not directly comparable but do represent possible extensions?

If possible I would also like someone to explain how related the related work section/chapter should be.


texts: Can I use images showing up in Google search for my presentation slides without violating any copyright?

texts:
I am teaching a freshman science course for the first time and I am doing also outreach activities in high schools. To be able to attract the young generation to science one has to connect the concepts with everyday applications.

So I build my power point slides using pictures from the textbooks which we officially use. Unfortunately when one does a Google search on any subject by images, one gets much more appealing and fascinating pictures. Some of these pictures are even related to simple applications which are explained in popular science sites on very recent discoveries. The problem is that I cannot use those pictures from Google sites in my slides because they are copyrighted.

What should I do then? Should I stick to the boring-looking textbook pics to avoid copyright problems, or bring life to my course by using images Google shows up (but then I might go to the jail!)?

Is there something that says one can use images shown by Google for educational purposes with no copyright issues?


texts: What non-research activities are most valuable when applying for faculty positions in mathematics?

texts:
I am asking this question for two reasons: first to work on activities to strengthen my CV for the future, and second to write a plan for professional development activities as part of a grant proposal.

What non-research related activities are most valuable to have on a CV when applying to permanent faculty positions at research-focused universities? For example, how valuable is it to have experience working with graduate students, organizing conferences/seminars, etc.?

I am a pure mathematician, hoping for advice that can apply to both European and American jobs. I currently am working on my second postdoc, although my first one was only six months long.  I had to take some adjunct teaching positions here and there as well, so I have a decent amount of undergraduate teaching experience. I have a limited publication record however (one thing I know I need to work on).


texts: Romance between tenured and pre-tenure faculty? Ramifications for disclosure?

texts:
I'm an assistant prof in humanities at a small school, just finishing my second year in a new position, and I've developed romantic feelings for a tenured faculty member (Dr X). We are both unmarried, single, and have similar areas of specialization.

Dr X is, unfortunately, currently serving in an administrative position ($$) for the first time this year, a position appointed by our somewhat mercurial dean. Because of this, Dr. X is my immediate supervisor.

We are friends, and I'm quite certain these feelings are reciprocated, but neither of us has made a move because of the rank situation.

What happens if we move forward with this? I'm on track for tenure - publishing well so far, and I have a contract and both internal and external grants for my book manuscript, which will be completed at the end of this summer.

I understand we would have to disclose, but then will Dr. X lose the administrative position if the dean disapproves? Will I potentially damage my tenure case? I've considered going back on the market, but the market is bad, and it seems a lot to risk on an un-tried relationship.


texts: What is the right way to patent an idea under PhD studies?

texts:
Let us assume that a phd student has discovered a brilliant idea during his/her phd studies and that the idea has not been published or presented yet.
How can that student protect the idea under a patent? What are the right steps to follow and wrong steps to avoid?


texts: Should I make project report public before publishing journal article

texts:
I have written a report about a piece of user research that was carried out with an industry partner. The partner wants to make the report public, and I would also like it to be public as soon as possible and disseminated widely as it is of interest to the (fast moving) industry.
However, i also plan to write an academic article (which will obviously take longer to publish) based on the research, and am concerned about self-plagiarism.
Should I

Wait until after journal publication to make the report public
Make the report public and reference it in the article
Make the report public and include a reference to the article ("in preparation")


texts: Do the yearly (worldcomp) conference recognized by Scientists?

texts:
I am planning to submit for a conference that organized by the (World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, & Applied Computing https://americancse.org/events/csce2018) located and held every year in the US. Looking at their invited speakers over the last 10 years, they managed to attract many top scientists from NASA, SAP, Google...etc

The conference that I am planning to submit my work for named The 20th Int'l Conf on Artificial Intelligence (ICAI'18) and ranked-B according to Qualis. After I checked the dblp database, I noticed that they stoped indexing the Congress proceeding on their website. Do that indicate or reflect any bad signs?


texts: what are good ways to find team-mates on research and writing papers?

texts: im a AI researcher and mostly interested in a field that is less attended in our university. i have some ideas to work on but i blieve it can have better results by working with exprienced people. is there any network that you can find interested people that want to work in special type of fields?


texts: Is my advisor asking me to commit fraud?

texts:
I am currently a postdoc, leaving my position in ~1 month. I am departing my contract a few months early after receiving an offer for a job in industry, about which my advisor is very upset. It is policy at my institution to pay departing postdocs for un-used vacation days.
My advisor has asked that I "use" my leftover vacation days, i.e. take them on paper, but actually use that "time off" to finish a few papers. His argument for this is that he "cannot afford" to pay me for them (this sounds bogus to me; how was he going to pay my salary, if he is so broke?). It seems to me he just doesn't want to participate in this policy.
Obviously, this would be shafting me first and foremost, since I would be losing out on this money, but I am not all that upset about that. I'm worried that the university, or our funding agency would object to this maneuver. Would it even be legal? Most importantly, could I be held responsible, for facilitating this?


texts: Is mathematical aptitude the limit of how well I can do in an interdisciplinary life science field as a computer scientist?

texts:
I apologize in advance if this question is too broad, or too subjective - I couldn't think of a better place to ask it.

Summary: does mathematical aptitude impose an upper boundary on how well one can do in research areas where life sciences intersect with engineering and computer science? I.e., is an ideal researcher in such fields either an experimentalist or an applied mathematician/physicist?

I'm a computer science graduate thinking about pursuing a PhD in an interdisciplinary life science field; specifically systems biology, synthetic biology, bioinformatics, genomics or cognitive (neuro)science. Characteristic of all these disciplines is that they seem to - ideally - require one of the following two profiles:

someone with great experimental/domain skills (e.g. molecular
biology, neuroscience methods etc.),
someone with great quantitative skills (math/physics).

By virtue of my undergrad background, I'm likely closer to the second profile, even though I have some domain knowledge. However, here's where my self-doubts begin. People of this profile seem to be - in the long term at least - expected to produce new theoretical knowledge primarily by employing advanced math. Top research papers seem to be full of it. I'm concerned about this for the following reasons:

my mathematical skills and aptitude in the context of this profile are average, or a bit above average at best. Sure, I can handle ordinary differential equations and numerical integration, but once it gets to the postdoc level and above, I'm competing with people who are elite talents and have backgrounds in math or physics from top schools. I don't believe I posses anywhere near the math talent that they have, and I simply wouldn't be able to do the job as good as them - and I don't want to be producing subpar research. Furthermore, I spent a significant amount of time studying things that don't seem applicable to this type of research, like CPU architecture or OS internals. Because I'm targeting programs in Europe - where a PhD is normally 3 years - I can't in this short time develop my math skills enough to close the gap, especially considering my less-than-elite talent (funny as it may sound, I believe I have a much greater talent for the humanities/philosophy, but the amount of positions there is close to zero).
by far my strongest actual skill is coding/programming, and I could probably get some kind of position based on that. I believe I could do
well enough to produce some tools and maybe even get a (likely mediocre) PhD eventually, but
after this step - when an independent research path is expected - it
seems to me I would be at a disadvantage and heading for the
industry, because implementation skills are simply not enough, i.e.
they seem to have merely a supporting role in academia (since they alone cannot generate new knowledge, the main objective of research). Permanent faculty positions seem
to go out at much higher rates to math-inclined
individuals, who are at an advantage when it comes to formulating a
unique theoretical research statement. At least, this is my
observation.

Should I choose something else if I'm not a top math talent and thus can't evolve into any of the two profiles mentioned?

Or is such categorization of researcher profiles in fact a false dilemma and there are more options, i.e. not everything required to perform well in these fields can be reduced to mathematical aptitude?

For what it's worth, I did undergraduate research in computational biology that lead to published papers, and sure I could handle math at that level, but it just seems to me that to make it as a top full-time researcher, I would either have to become an applied mathematician or an experimentalist.


texts: May I ask professors to reschedule two back to back night classes from 4:30PM to 9:00PM?

texts:
As a graduate school student, I have two professors teaching two separate classes that go from 4:30PM to 5:50pm and 6:00pm to 9:00PM. This happens every one day of the week.
I'm not sure whether I can handle concentrating for 5 hours and I have the option to not take a class but it would delay graduating by a semester.
Do I negotiate with the professor to reschedule or do they have the power to deny it?


texts: Disagreement over how much IP to put in paper

texts:
Apologies if this is not the correct site for this- I work in a research lab that is in a kind of grey zone between academia and industry and I can't tell from the help centre if this would be considered off-topic here.
I'm a fairly junior researcher in my field, and I'm writing my first paper that I will be the lead author of. My paper is based on work that I did on a relatively niche process in my field that has little previously published on it.
However, I'm being told by my manager to not include any potential IP in the paper, and instead just report on the results. My issue with this is that work was fundamentally about creating a framework for this process- without the underlying technical description allowing the reader to recreate the process there is not a great deal of note I can say other than we did it and it worked.
The reasoning behind my managers argument is to ensure that the lab (which is kind of a corporate entity while also being a research lab) can exploit the work for products and services later down the line. I would be fine with this except that the company is quite poor when it comes to actually exploiting IP, and instead just prefers to sit on it. On top of that, the work performed doesn't really meet the level of being patentable, so it's not possible to protect the IP and then give a thorough description in the paper.
The likely outcome as I see it is then that I publish a paper with little technical information or impact and does nothing to further the field, the IP is not patented and the company does nothing with the outcomes of this work, meaning that the work might as well have not happened. As this is an area I am very enthusiastic about and have sunk quite a bit of my spare time in to (not to mention I am somewhat proud of it) I am rather disheartened by this.
My reasoning for wanting to publish the underlying technical content is that
(a) it has a much better chance of being cited, having a greater impact and increasing awareness of the work
(b) advances the field by allowing other groups to implement this process
(c) does not stop the company from engaging in commercial work with industry in this area as we are really the only group with expertise in this area.
So my question is how should I approach this issue?
Am I being overly pessimistic, and should I just accept what my manager wants?
Or should I try and argue my position (and if so, how?)
Edit: to clarify, this is a publicly owned institution, that has dual aims of both generating impact from science and also making a profit to provide a greater value for taxpayer money. It doesn't really have 'competitors' per se, and can be either commercially or research focused depending on the issue.


texts:
I am currently in my final semester of masters. I have some background in Algebraic Number Theory. I have one PhD offer from a US university.

When I started getting into algebraic number theory, I did not have much trouble as most of the pre-requisites were from Galois Theory and Commutative Algebra. But through my study in the last two-three semesters, I have realized that Number Theory is a subject which requires knowledge of many different areas like Complex Analysis, Algebraic Geometry, Topology(subjects which I have not learned properly or not learned at all). This has put me under a quite a lot of stress: Am I good enough to study Number Theory or should I shift to something else, something more self-sufficient?

Is it possible (and advisable) to change my research interest to something else? What should I do?

Edit- To add to my troubles, I don't know anything about Modular Forms or Automorphic Forms or Galois Representations.

Before voting to close this question down, I would like you to know this: I originally asked this question on Math SE. But people told me that it was more of an Academia SE question.


texts: Are there tenure track academic jobs where teaching and research are given equal importance?

texts:
I have asked my advisers this question recently (since in a year or so, I expect to go on the job market) and received a variety of answers, specific to the USA. Very generally, as I understand, with reference to the US, there seem to be jobs which are either primarily research based (R1 universities) or primary teaching based (liberal arts colleges).

I understand that in either case, you are expected to do some amount of teaching and some amount of research but the focus varies depending on the university. In my university, research is generally seen to have more importance than teaching.

I was wondering, specifically with reference to the whole world, whether there are academic jobs where teaching and research are both given equal importance.

I am very interested in discipline and country variations in this.

Thanks.


texts:
So, someone (A) introduced me to someone else (B) via email, so that I can ask B questions and get advice. The email is directed at B, and I am copied. Should I wait for B to email me, or should I email B first? If the latter, should I reply to the original email and copy A, or should I just open another thread with B?

Also, I don't know if it is important or not, but the email ends like this:

  Thanks for connecting with him, he is copied on this email.

Needless to say, "him" means me.


texts: Does one get academic credit towards a degree for open online courses?

texts:
Lately lots of courses like udacity, coursera, and MITx are provided online. I attended most of them; also I have attended courses in OCW provided by MIT. Now I desire to earn some credits for whatever I have learnt so far, so that I can apply for a degree (in electronics and computer engineering).

Could anyone suggest some place where I will get accredited for the courses I do?


texts:
I graduated on time and on the top back then, but after that I had some problem with major depression and anxiety, hence I have some gap on my CV and for a while, I either couldn't work or worked below my qualification. My world literally fell apart but now I am trying to get back to my old dream. Next year, if everything goes well, I want to go get a master degree.

How should I explain myself? Do I need to mention my history with depression? I am from a country where mental health is still really badly stigmatised, but I'd like to apply abroad. I am not sure what's appropriate to say and what's not.
Thank you.


texts: What are the ethics of getting help from online forums?

texts:
As an engineer, sometimes in my research I come across a mathematical problem that either is beyond my mathematical skills, or I know that someone, somewhere must have seen something like it before and can point me in the right direction, hence saving me time.

Asking on math.stackexchange often does the trick, but I wonder what the ethics involved are. For instance, if someone provides a complete answer, and the result turns out to be integral to the paper, should I offer them authorship?

PS: I'm not talking about a result that is novel in itself - i.e. it would not be considered as a contribution to mathematics. The result will be an application of standard mathematics to a particular engineering problem.


texts: How to show that the department fits my research goal?

texts:
In the question about choosing research ideas to include in a statement of purpose, JeffE advised how to write the last paragraph of the SOP:

  How does my department fit your research goals? (If the rest of your statement is well-written, the reader already knows the answer to this question, but you also need convince the reader that you know.)

What should I really say here, without having repetition? This is the sum up part, which doesn't need to explain again, and should be short. I would add that this part also needs to raise the emotion of the readers. They have used their rationale enough in the main part. Whether I succeed in satisfying them or not, I have already tried my best, and there is no need to prove that I'm good anymore.

Or, as JeffE says, I need to convince the reader that I know I'm good*. My preference is to make the scarcity here, because the feeling of losing is one of the most strongest emotions. However, when I have the draft proofed, it is highly criticized that it is hubris, or at least unnecessary. I have given my rationale, but no one respond. Here is the draft:

  To sum up, I hope that If I get admitted, I will be a valuable asset to the lab, the department, and the university. I will be a new researcher with a compelling plan to maturing the theory; a new student who can enrich the diversity of the X department; and a future scientist working to accomplish the Y school’s vision: create a better world.

So:

How to write this part?
Should I use this part to raise their emotions?
Should I use scarcity to raise their emotion?

*Emboldening is only to emphasize the needed words, not to be hubris.


texts: Applying for an MPhil or PhD in Computer Science at Cambridge University

texts:
I am an MSc Computer Science student in UK. I love to study and I would like to apply for a competitive place. I'm interested in Cambridge PhDs, but I have no previous experience in research (except for the BSc Thesis, which I wrote after a 5-months internship in University).

I've found that Cambridge has an advanced degree, called MPhil, which could work as a starting point for a PhD.

Does anyone here know something about MPhils, and their differences with Masters and PhD?
Would it be a reasonable idea to seek for a PhD at Cambridge, spending one year more with a MPhil?

I hope someone can give me some information,
Thanks to all,

C.


texts: Should I include 'future work' in a paper, when I don't intend to do that future work?

texts:
I am in the process of writing a paper that I think introduces a novel concept.  There are some related factors (perhaps even foundational factors) that should be worked out in order to perfect my idea.  I plan on putting these ideas in a 'Future Work' section of the paper.  However, I have no interest in actually doing anything I put there.  After this paper, I want to move on to another topic.

Should I include those ideas in 'Future Work'?  Should I state that I have no plan to work on them myself, so as not to leave anyone interested in the work 'hanging'?


texts: Why do some universities not have a comprehensive exam?

texts: I spotted that some universities do not have a comprehensive exam for their PhD students while it is standard at most universities (specifically for computer science). For what reasons do some universities drop the requirement of comprehensive exam? What is the impression towards someone who has graduated from no-comprehensive department?


texts: Intellectual Property Rights When Moving University

texts:
I am considering moving institutions (from a one UK University to another), but I am concerned about what Intellectual Property (IP) rights my current institution may retain. Some of my PhD students, one of whom has been funded by my university directly, would move with me, or at least I would like them to. I am also unclear about the rights they/I would have to the research they have already done. Their projects would naturally remain similar, but I see no obvious commercial potential, and have no intention of trying to find some.

My questions are:

The University's policy is clear that they own all Intellectual Property I produce during my employment. I assume this can't apply to projects that have not got to the point of being protectable/tradeable but where one project begins and another ends is not always clear. Many of these projects naturally build on work I have published, or is in the process of being published. How can I tell/establish what exactly they have rights to?
How do I 'leave' them with what they own so that I can make a clean break.


texts: In my CV's Education section, in particular, in its Ph.D. part, I listed, along with the full title of my dissertation and the date I defended it, titles and names of my dissertation committee members. Two of them are full professors and one is associate professor. I have decided to list them as such, but I am having some doubts about whether in this context "Professor AAA" should imply a full rank or just a title (so, no "Associate Professor BBB"). Your advice will be appreciated.


texts: How to handle rude and distracting fellow graduate student who sits in the same office?

texts:
In a nutshell, I hate one of my fellow PhD students. I am sitting in the office with that fellow graduate student who frequently interrupts me when I want to focus on my work. He also often is very insulting to me in front of other fellow graduate students.

I general, I try to be nice and respectful to my fellow students, but I suspect this makes me a perfect target to him. Also he seems very nice to other people, just not to me. I wish I could change the department because its actually a major drawback and affects my whole PhD life, since I currently meet him every day all the time. I frequently miss lunch or some activities of my lab, since I know I couldn't handle his presence. But I don't want that my social life suffers because of him. Do you have any tips on how to overcome this situation successfully?


texts:
Most of the questions about teaching assistantship portray TA'ing as a waste of time that only damages research. Although I am not TA'ing this year I consider applying for a TA position next year, because I feel I kind of missing it and it actually helps me to focus on my research.

Are there any clear benefits of TA'ing for one's studies and research?


texts: Should I write a "proof" to a professor I don't know?

texts:
TL;DR

I solved two integrals left unsolved in a paper I'm reading. Should I notify the author?

I am studying in a finance master and we have been assigned a project for one of our class. This project consisted in some literature review and then a small implementation.

Reading one of the papers, in which the author propose a new density p  to model a random variable, there is written that

They can't find analytically the constant c that makes p a density (basically could not compute the integral of p)
They write that numerical simulations show that E[X]= theta but an analytical proof was still missing

I have calculated in closed form both integrals, and numerical simulations suggest that my results are correct; I will probably add this to the project I'm writing.

Now the question is: should I send an email to the author about this? If so, how to phrase such an interaction? I guess that I'm looking for something along the lines of "thank you, well done" with maybe a short mention if they get around to modify the original paper.

On the other hand, the paper is old (2007) so I don't even know if the author is still interested in that.

Also, the proof was nothing too complicated. I mean I spent a lot of time on it (mainly because of my inexperience) but it certainly doesn't feel like anything too difficult. Probably I just "saw" the right path to do it and once you see that, it's pretty easy.

Is this something common to do? Are professors pleased to receive such an email or just annoyed?


texts: What does it mean when a STEM researcher has a lot of "solo" publications?

texts:
This is related to advisor selection for North American universities, STEM majors.

I noticed some profs tend to have a lot of "solo" publications, meaning that he or she is the sole author of a journal/paper for over the span of quite a few years. This tends to be from earlier on during his or her career as a researcher.

Is this common in academia? What would cause this to happen (not saying that it is a bad thing) and does it hint at anything about the particular researcher?


texts: My professor assigned a final paper due the 12th, and while our exam period extends to the 23rd of December, all my exams were scheduled on the 11th and 12th and a couple before. As this was one of my more interesting classes, I asked the professor if I could have a couple days' extension, because I'd rather not rush the paper but actually engage with the sources. While some might prefer to get on break early, having back-to-back final exams is extremely exhausting, and having them spread out would be much preferred in my eyes. So I explained the circumstances and requested an extension (well in advance) but never got a response. After a couple days passed, I tried again to no avail. I have emailed the professor before and they responded but now seem to be ignoring me. I was one of the only 3 students to have perfect attendance out of a class of about 50, so I thought they would understand my genuine interest. Also, I know 3 other students who got like two week extensions on earlier papers, so I thought it should be fine. Any idea on how to proceed?


texts: How to negotiate the salary for a UK faculty position?

texts:
Following several interviews, I have been offered two faculty positions in the UK. Salary is among the factors I consider to choose one of the positions.

How can I reasonably negotiate the salary? Can I suggest the highest value in the range advertised? Or I shouldn't be greedy.

In general, how negotiable is salary in the UK universities?


texts: My advisor wants me to make my PhD thesis weaker

texts:
I am a final year PhD student in mathematics at a university in Spain and about to submit my thesis in a few weeks. During the last months, I have been writing up the remaining details of a project. Let me make clear that this project is not the only one contained in my thesis. However, it is the heart of the thesis and the other projects contained in my thesis, while in some way independent, yield interesting results when combined with the project I am talking about in this question. Moreover, the topic of the project was proposed by my advisor, but I mostly worked on it without talking to him (he was visiting other universities and sick for a very long time, and there were other reasons as well).

The project is a classification of certain objects, meaning that it consists of two parts:

Giving a list of examples of said objects;
Showing that the above list is in fact complete.

While coming up with the examples was kind of hard at the beginning, it was pretty straightforward and algorithmic once I got the hang of it (I always told my colleagues that one could teach a chimpanzee how to do it). The mathematically involved and complicated part is to show that the produced list is in fact complete. This involves several creative ideas and is highly non-trivial.

My advisor now thinks that the thesis is too long (it is about 130 pages, part 2 being roughly 25 pages long), and that I should remove part 2 from the thesis (i.e., that I should not show in the thesis that the list is complete): according to him, a longer thesis has more potential of containing small, subtle mistakes, and obviously mistakes are bad. He said that he cannot be sure that everything is correct, since he never read all details and I need to submit rather soon. He is also travelling and busy until I am supposed to submit.

However, I do not want to cut the second part of the thesis, for the following reasons:

I already have the proof, and I am sure that it is correct. Why should it not be included in my thesis? The alternative is to include an unproven claim in the thesis, similar to "the list is in fact complete, which we will show in a forthcoming paper".
If I remove it and only keep part 1, my results are incomplete and the project only consists of "describing some examples", which is - as I explained above - pretty easy once one knows how to.
Obviously, I want my thesis to be as strong as possible.
The interplay between all projects of my thesis cannot be made as strong, as well.
I know who the referees of my thesis are going to be, and one of them is notorious for being a very harsh grader. While I am pretty proud of my thesis in the current form, I am afraid that removing part 2 will affect the grading of my thesis.

I explained my point of view to my advisor, but he kept saying that the thesis is too long (apparently the period of time the referees are given to evaluate the thesis is pretty short) and that it is too unsafe for him to submit it as in its current form.

How should I behave in this situation? I am extremely thankful for any advice!


texts: Should I address a "Charge de Recherche" or "Directeur de recherche" in France as "Prof."?

texts:
In France, the following are two of the main ways people get promoted in academic positions:

Maître de Conférences (assistant professor whose responsibilities include teaching as well as research) -> professeur (professor)

and

Chargé de recherche (in charge of research) -> Directeur de recherche (director of research).

Note that in the second sequence of academic promotions, one doesn't have to teach and the positions are mostly dedicated to research (although one can opt to teach if s/he wants to).
My question is: while applying to a position (postdoc/permanent) in the team of a chargé de recherche where s/he is the PI of the project, should one address her/him as a professor ("Prof."), say in the cover letter? It's technically incorrect it seems, but perhaps no harm is done because their positions are equivalent to those of professors anyway.
I'd like to know the viewpoint(s) of someone(s) who's familiar with the French system!


texts: Does publishing in journals known as "predatory" hurt one's reputation?

texts: Does publishing in what is known as a "predatory" (such as OMICS) journal diminish ones reputation? Do these publications help at all when applying for grants (or do they impede ones chance)?


texts: How much time is typically spent reading reference letters?

texts:
For graduate school applications, I have to submit three reference letters. For those who are on the admission committee, how much time do you spend reading these letters?

EDIT: I am applying to PhD in the hard sciences.

EDIT2: I am applying to schools in the US.


texts: How to list an old manuscript on my CV/website?

texts:
A while ago, I wrote a short paper and posted it on arxiv.

My paper contains an observation that some idea in another paper can be used to give an alternative proof of some other result. I like the paper and other researchers have responded positively to it. However, since it neither contains a new result nor a new idea, the paper isn't really suitable for the usual publication channels. Thus I have not published it in the conference or journal sense.

I'm quite happy to just leave the paper as an arxiv preprint and not go through the publication process. However, I'm currently applying for jobs and I think that it looks odd on my CV/website. I list it under "Manuscripts" but that feels out of place, as all the other papers listed there are recent and most are currently in submission. It is "published" in the literal sense of being publicly available, but I don't think it's right to list it under "Publications" either.

How should I list this old arxiv preprint on my CV and website, if I have not "properly" published it and don't intend to?

Of course, one resolution to this is to find somewhere to publish it. But I feel like that is a waste of time (and also too late for the current job cycle).


texts: Transitioning out of a PhD program and into research in industry

texts:
After a bachelor's and the master's degree I decided to do the PhD and now I'm a first year CS PhD student in a very good University in Europe. However, I'm not living a good period of my life since I'm not finding motivation in this path, both for personal and work issues. I'd like to work in another country and find a good company where I can code that it's what I really love in this field.

However, I wouldn't like to do the task of a programmer where usually someone above you asks to develop a particular software for a client. Instead, I'd like to implement software that could be used inside the company by using personal or technical paper's ideas. It looks like this kind of work is more suitable for people who already have a PhD or who have experience with research.

With this two premises I would like to ask a couple of questions.

Is the interruption of a PhD a disadvantage for the applicant?
Is it possible to find a research work without a PhD?


texts: How many grants it is possible to have simultaneously?

texts: It is feasible to assume that you cannot have more than one grant, since getting a grant means that you are paid for a research project and you cannot work on too many projects at once. So answer should be one. Nevertheless there should be some researchers that have more than one grant. How common is that? Is this field related?


texts: Is there a list of all online creative commons based journals?

texts:
I know there is a good list of all paper peer-reviewed journals but I would like to know is there one specially for creative commons based online journals? I am kind of trying to figure out which is better to publish in terms of access to "outsiders"-people who aren't research scientists and most likely will never care about research journals but if I post a link to my paper on a social media site would make the effort to see it. Is there anyone here who has experience with such audience? Publishing not for the colleagues, but for the general public. You know people these days don't like to pay to view something on the Internet and if your audience isn't a member of a faculty impact factor is crap. But I wish to know can my papers go through at least some kind of(even very rudimentary)peer-review process. This is why I am looking for a list of free online journals who have at least someone with academic background on their editorial board.

Does such a thing exists?


texts: How to search in Google Scholar within a particular conference?

texts:
Using Google's search operators, guide, we can restrict our search to that of a particular web domain, eg: site:twitter.com Paul Daniels

Within Google Scholar, can we perform a similar in nature search but for articles within a particular conference (or journal)? I am looking an operator specific to Google scholar which I expect would resemble conference:NIPS Paul Daniels


texts: Do unethical acts that are tangential to methodology taint research?

texts:
It's well-known that unethical acts can render research virtually unpublishable, but the cases we hear about tend to involve situations in which the methodology is tainted - for example, fabrication of data or unethical experimentation on humans.

Do unethical or unlawful acts that are tangential to actual research methodology likewise taint research?

For example:

A researcher is unlawfully present in the country in which they do the research, or lacks the legal status to do it there (e.g. overstaying visas, attending a university on a tourist visa, dodging a border checkpoint, etc.).
A researcher falsifies their academic credentials in order to get access to lab space, equipment, or grant money (e.g. the research itself is sound, but the researcher would not have been allowed unsupervised access to the university's microscopes had they known that he didn't actually have a PhD).
A researcher conducts research using stolen equipment or supplies.
A researcher commits a crime in order to hinder, delay, or incapacitate a rival researcher (e.g. sabotaging someone else's lab, murdering them, stealing their lab notes in order to deny them access to them, fabricating allegations to get them thrown in jail, deported from a country, expelled or fired from a university, etc.).
A researcher unlawfully uses performance-enhancing drugs without a prescription to maintain concentration on their work.
A researcher carries an unlawful weapon (e.g. concealed handgun without a permit, rifle unlawfully modified for full auto, etc.) for personal protection when gathering field data (e.g. where the researcher would have otherwise not gone there out of fear of violence).

Are there best practices or general principles on when such unethical acts taint research? Obviously, I'm not asking whether or not someone can, or should, get away with committing these acts, only whether or not they also would prevent publication. E.g. could someone say, "Yes, I blew up Dr. Smith's telescope and hit him with an axe so he couldn't beat me to publication, and I accept my 20-year prison sentence for that, but I was, in fact, the first to complete a spectrographic analysis of that planet and write it up so I should still be allowed to publish."?

This is not a request for personal advice! I'm just curious as to what actually happens or is supposed to happen in these cases.

My "guts" say that this would depend on the degree of non-academic misconduct - for example, that murdering a rival would prevent publication while parking unlawfully in a no-parking zone in order to make it to a meeting on time would not, but is this actually the case? Is every case evaluated independently, or is there a bright-line rule?


texts: Alternatives to supervisor for letter of recommendation

texts:
I am applying to an executive MBA program. Of course, letters of recommendation are needed. My supervisor has, on multiple occasions attempted to discourage me from applying to any graduate program. He has said than an MBA is a "waste of time". He has said that a PhD would "not help" me. The only programs he has expressed any favor with are those that are 1) on our campus and 2) are simply training in skills that I already use in my current position. He has claimed that he could, personally, "certify" me regarding management skills. He's a professor at a university biological research department. I have been working for him since about 2002, with a brief gap where I moved away to care for a relative. It essentially looks like I will not get a letter of recommendation from him.

What can I do?


texts:
The author Anonymous has 74,305 publications in the Scopus publication database.  Those include 32,476 peer-reviewed articles, most from the 1980s and 1990s.

Why would anyone write a peer-reviewed paper anonymously?


texts: A current PhD applicant in a dilemma between current lab and other programs

texts:
Some of my backgrounds: Currently a master's student in a good but not top school. Now in a research group that could have been more productive. I am applying for PhD programs in this round of application (applying in 2020 and entering in 2021).
I talked with my current advisor and told him that I need a LoRec from him for my PhD application. I told him that I still haven't fixed my list of schools, which is true because I am still balancing my choices. He hinted me between his lines that he is interested in transferring me to his PhD student. He also suggested (in a very refined way) that he has enough fund to support me through the whole PhD program so I don't probably have to fulfill TA at all. His words were specifically made super easy and obvious for an ESL student to interpret: I can choose to continue to stay at his lab, or go somewhere else. This puts me at a dilemma:
The bad thing about it is that I do want to reach higher. I want to try and see if I can get into any of the top programs, because the ranking of my current program is a little bit low, and also my current advisor has a group that's not producing a lot of papers in past few years. The group members are all nice people, but I am worried that staying in the current group will not be the best investment I can make out of my next 6~ years.
The good thing about it is that accepting this "oral offer" at least gets me secured. I do have a very competitive GRE, GPA, and (I guess) quite strong letters, but this still doesn't ensure me or guarantee me about anything- I may be rejected by all the programs that I want to go, and the possibility of this is not low. If I just tell my professor that, yes, I want to stay, then of course I don't have to go through all these risks.
I can't really lie to my current advisor as if I am devoting to his lab while sneakily applying to others - On the one hand, I am really bad at telling lies. For real. I can barely lie on how much money I am earning even. On the other hand, one of my LoRec is from him, so once I give him the list of schools that he should send his letter to, particularly all of which are obviously better than my current school, then he'll know what's happening of course.
Is there any way to talk with my professor so that not only can I secure my potential position at this lab, but I can also apply to other schools with his letters, without making any negative impact either on him or on my application? I have no friend to talk with about this issue [they think I should find a job and start to earn a life]. I feel like I am being a greedy naughty bad student, but I don't have any idea how I should choose or what I should do. Any suggestion?


texts: In Preparation For The Job Market - On Day 1 of the PhD

texts:
There's a higher likelihood everyday that I am considering pursuing a PhD in my field, and ultimately, in applying for positions as a professor down the road. What I am trying to do is think ahead as to what some extra pieces of my application could include that are not research related. I understand that every field is different, but there are most likely numerous qualities and characteristics on an academic application that are not bound by discipline. So the question I would like to figure out is what type of professional development activities I can work on over the course of my PhD that would contribute to a well-rounded academic resume.

Obviously, publications are key components in an application and over time those will (hopefully) manifest as research continues. What I am trying to do now is target other areas that will allow me to round out an application in the future. As an example, I am currently taking a Teaching & Learning Program with the Graduate Studies department at my university and the program draws on the "Science of Teaching and Learning". In contrast to research papers, this type of thing may be minor, but I feel that developing these sort of auxiliary components to the overall application over time are all important.

So pursuing development to become a better educator (and this is because I actually want to, not because I feel compelled to) is one thing that I can do in the present to help prepare me for the future. I am wondering what some other things can be done over time (especially over the course of a PhD), that can contribute to a strong application aside from research activities. Below is a list of some things that I have thought of that could be developed over the course of a PhD that could A) help a future application or at least B) make my life easier down the road (haha).

Developing a sample of introductory course notes for in class & online learning (boo COVID-19)
Pursuing professional development activities in teaching and learning
Developing introductions for certain technologies that have some relevance in my field, but can be overlooked at the undergraduate level (Programming Language or Geographic Information Systems)
Writing tips and advice for undergraduate students

I debated asking this question, because it sort of feels like a shopping question, although after some thought it felt like more of a professional development question.


texts: Capitalization conventions for departments, schools, etc

texts:
(Disclaimer: I'm unsure if this is more appropriate here or on English SE instead; Please do migrate this if deemed more appropriate elsewhere)

Are there any general guidelines on when/how to capitalize departmental names which are "pseudo-proper" names, e.g. the department of applied stochastic basket-weaving science in the school of textile engineering at Dartmouth College? — at least in terms of "grammar" (term used loosely here), the the in the example above seems enough: In this usage, it's understood there's only one department of applied stochastic basket-weaving science in the school of textile engineering at Dartmouth College, and there's only one school of textile engineering at Dartmouth College. However, in isolation, such names are often seen in "title-ish" case:

  Department of Applied Stochastic Basket-Weaving Science

Likewise:

  School of Textile Engineering

However, would this style of case still be applicable when using these terms in running text?

  At the Department of Applied Stochastic Basket-Weaving Science (ASBWS) in the School of Textile Engineering at Dartmouth, methods have been developed for using the fibers from old baskets sitting on your grandmother's windowsill to create weapons for the battlefield of tomorrow.

This looks like A Lot of Unnecessary Capital Letters to me, but perhaps my judgement isn't correct.


texts: APA citation of two articles with no author, no date, and the same title?

texts:
I'm looking to cite both of the following articles:

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Free_Speech
https://ballotpedia.org/Institute_for_Free_Speech

For web pages like this, my understanding is the citation should look like this:

[Title]. [Web Site]. Retrieved from [URL]

Since both have the same title, how should I distinguish between the two in in-text citations? Should I list both the title and web site somehow?


texts: Realistic expectations from a postdoc in terms of publications

texts:
I am in the process of applying for a postdoctoral grant and I was wondering what the expectations are in terms of journal publications when I plan?

Would it be fine if I plan 1 paper per year if I have no PhD students? Is 2 papers/year an exaggeration?

Input from senior members, possibly those with selection committee experiences would be great.

Field: engineering (electrical and electronic)
Country: Australia, EU, USA


texts: What papers can you ask someone to cite for using your software?

texts:
Ofen Software authors request that users cite a paper of theirs in publications resulting from projects using their software.

As such an software author, what logic governs what kind of papers you can reasonably ask to cite?
I see 5 cases:

The paper is about the software explicitly. Eg Theano
The software is a direct implementation of an algorithm described in the paper. Eg anything from here
They created the software to use in research presented in the paper. It has not changed since.
They originally created the software for use in the research paper, but since then it has undergone fairly large changes as it has continued to be developed.  Eg DeepLearnToolbox
The paper has nothing in common with the software, except sharing an author.

In which cases is it acceptable to request the paper be cited?
5 seems like an obvious no-no, but are the others in the clear?

This question is the flip-side of Should I cite Papers to acknowledge usage of tools?


texts: Scholarship/Funding for working professional already holding MS degree

texts:
I'm a working professional trying to get into academia in a new field. I already has bachelor's degree in EE and master's degree in CS. I'm trying to get into pure math.
I have to take some undergraduate classes in order to strengthen knowledge. I'm trying to be a part time student and take only the courses relevant to the new field. Even so, the cost is significant. Even with in-state status, each course in UC Berkeley is about $3000. I need to take at least 6 courses in order to build a "math major" profile. I looked online, I won't qualify for "returning to school" scholarships because those are for people who don't have degree yet. Is there a scholarship/funding available for my situation?
I also thought about becoming a full time master/PhD student in order to  speed up the study. Can I still get TA/RA if I already hold a MS degree? However, to get into a good master program, I need to build my transcript with more relevant courses. Back to the same question...


texts: Do professors like answering questions from non-students/private citizens?

texts:
I am a non-student/private citizen and I am eager to meet with professors at universities in my area so I can ask these professors a particular question about a particular subject matter.  I want to ask them the same question to see if they all will give me the same answer.  Based on their answers, I will then decide whether or not to pursue writing an article to be published which relates to this particular subject matter.

I have sent emails to six local universities requesting a meeting with a professor in this particular area of study and so far I have only received one e-mail reply. In that one email reply, the professor suggested that I meet instead with one of their graduate students because his consultation fee is very high. I am still waiting for the professor to provide me with the names of these grad students.

I have decided to wait at least a week before sending follow-up e-mails, or perhaps calling them directly to ask for an appointment, because I realize that professors are busy people.

This experience with trying to communicate with college professors makes me wonder if professors, in general, like answering questions from non-students/private citizens. Is it safe to say that professors, in general, would prefer that non-students/private citizens seek answers from subject matter experts in the private sector?


texts:
I submitted a theoretical paper about new algorithms to a computer science conference. Now I found out that the most important theorem of my paper was actually proved 20 years ago (in a workshop paper with less than 15 citations). The other theorems/algorithms of my paper are kind of easy corollaries of this result, so this makes the theoretical contribution of my paper lower. However my paper connects these results to a lot of literature of past 20 years to which the old paper has not been connected before, so it still has good motivation and a lot of original contribution.

What should I do if the reviewers do not find this old paper and accept my submission? Could an accept turn into decline if I tell them about this old paper? Would it be ok to just add a footnote where this old paper is cited?


texts: Shrink the paper or pay for extra page charges?

texts:
A PhD student has started his research about two year ago by research scholarship from university. His supervisor won a huge grant on a topic very close to his research project couple of months earlier. He and his supervisor submitted a 6 page paper to a journal for publication. Editor's decision is that the paper should be published as a communication rather original research. This means that they have to reduce the manuscript to 4 pages or pay about 500$ for extra pages. The adviser asked the student to shrink the paper to the shortest possible version.

I have the following questions:

Can they pay the publications fees from the grant budget?
Can student ask the adviser to pay for the publication from the grant? What is the best polite approach for such request?
Should supervisor expect to put the grant number in the acknowledgement while he does not pay for the publication fees.


texts: How to invite potential collaborators for personal visit?

texts:
No starting point for scientific collaboration is better than face-to-face conversation. Conferences are good places to meet potential collaborator, but another way is to invite them to visit your institute/group and negotiate for possible collaborations.

However, when inviting a colleague from long distance (e.g. crossing the Atlantic), it is difficult to cover the cost of the flight (particularly as it significantly varies and hard to justify its necessity). Sometimes, the visitors has better access to available fund to cover his/her trip. Of course, it is easier to cover the cost of accommodation.

How do you invite a potential collaborator to visit your institute when you cannot cover his/her flight cost? Isn't it rude to invite someone and quote you must come on your own expenses as we cannot cover it? Note that the relationship is quite formal with least personal acquaintance (no joint work yet).


texts: Can international students in USA intern in summer in industry?

texts:
Can international PhD students go do internships during summer in industries?

Does their F1 visa status allow this?

From how I see it, this is neither an OPT or a CPT.

I asked my International Office and they said I could spend a term at another university because then I'm still enrolled Full Time (just at another institution) which I believe is fine with some paperwork. However, they are getting back to me (it's been a while so I am asking here) whether anyone else has done something similar?


texts: Best tool for digitally marking assignments?

texts:
I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good piece of software for marking digital (PDF) assignments. Specifically, I am marking a first-year mathematics course, and need to do the following for each assignment:

Open student's PDF assignment
Make annotations (really, the only two tools I use are red pencil/pen and text comments). I am using a Wacom pen tablet for this.
Save a copy of the marked assignment in the original directory.
Repeat x many.

I am currently using Foxit and was using Xodo previously, but neither tool feels quite right for the job. I would favour something that:

Makes the above process quick and easy
Interacts nicely with the Wacom tablet (Adobe Reader doesn't, for example)
Is lightweight and easily usable (really only need pen and text tools, and possibly rotating pages every now and then. Everything else is clutter)
Has a good workflow so I can mark as efficiently as possible.


texts: In a CV, how do I list my status of a PhD if I completed the oral exam, but not awarded officialy?

texts:
I have recently successfully completed my PhD Viva (oral exam) at a UK university. This means that my PhD project is formally over and I have a formal promise from the university that I will be awarded a PhD, under the condition that I submit a corrected version of my thesis, adding those corrections requested by the examiners, in due time.

How should I list this state in applications eg. for postdoc positions? Given how different university procedures are in different countries and faculties, will it be acceptable to state “viva passed with corrections” for applications elsewhere in Europe, or are there better and clearer ways to phrase this?


texts: How to find response time for a given journal in engineering?

texts:
I would like to find journals response times? A google search does not give any good results. May be I am using wrong key words.

I am open to find particular subset of journal response times too. Any pointers about this is welcome. this answer gives a list of backlog for mathematical journals. Are there any such other list? How can I find them?

Thanks for comment.
Actually I would like to learn "From submission until a decision". I know "Total time from submission to publication" can take a lot of time.


texts: For a new assistant professor in CS, how to build/manage a publication pipeline

texts:
I am a new assistant professor in a research institute, where the number of top-tier publications matter a lot. In short, they simply count the number of tier-one papers.

I am highly advised to work out a good publication pipeline, in terms of how many papers are in progress (e.g., implementation), how many papers are under review, and also how many are in the preliminary stage to investigate the feasibility.

So besides "working hard", what are some tips, comments and advices on start to setting up a "publication pipeline"? To concretize a bit, what I can come up with are:

has one or two main research lines such that you can constantly publish your major research output towards some really prestigious conferences in your field, in CS it's like SIGGRAH, OSDI, POPL and so on. But of course, usually preparing such a work takes a very long time; my personally experience is about 1~1.5 year, when I was a Ph.D. student.
Simultaneously, become versatile in terms of skillset and therefore can quickly hunt for some (low-hanging) fruit. This can be much shorter, say 3~5 months, can still target on tier-one conference, but maybe not that "prestigious" ones. I am not going to name such conferences to avoid some arguments here...
What else?

All I can find is a thread here (https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php?topic=38427.0), but the message is a bit unclear to me. Any suggestion or advice would be appreciated a lot. Thanks.


texts: Are U.S. governmental reports a reliable source of information to cite?

texts: I am trying to cite this document but I found out that, apart from informal in-text citations such as 'according to x' (which I can cite as a secondary source because I was never successful in locating the original primary source), other information are not cited/referenced and there's no reference list. Can I rely on such information to cite the report? Why don't they provide references I can track for their claims? Do they consider such information as part of common knowledge?


texts: Would it be acceptable to report a professor for poor teaching / attitude in a Masters graduate course?

texts:
I would like some advice about a specific professor in my program of study. I seriously feel that this professor has a problem teaching graduate students. On more than one instance, class was let out one hour early because the professor did not have enough material to last the entire allotted two hours of classroom time. The professor is an adjunct, part time lecturer and the class only meets once per week. 15 weeks are scheduled on the syllabus. The professor does not actually teach but flies through PowerPoint slides that are not even his own. For our midterm, I was able to find the answers to the questions online even before the actual exam.

I am a graduate student and have paid serious money to take this course. I would like some advice as to whether its advisable to report to the departmental head or dean regarding this matter. One final note, many of my peers come from a culture where group solidarity is prized over individual rights. Thanks for any feedback!


texts: What can I do about someone publishing my work from GitHub?

texts:
I have many public repositories working on projects related to machine learning stuff, and it has recently come to my notice that someone has published a machine learning research paper based on one of the projects that I have in my GitHub with the same  results that would be obtained from running my code(without citing my GitHub, or taking prior permission).

I'm pretty upset. What can I do about it, from an academic route? And what could happen to the fraudster, if I do that?


texts:
I am an undergraduate student in Computer Science. I asked a supervisor for thesis and he must still send me the first materials for starting. The actual supervisor hasn't yet even told me exactly what I must do and is waiting for me to return from my Erasmus to start. In the meanwhile I discovered that another supervisor is doing something that interests me more. The research area is what I would like to study also in my graduate studies. Is it a problem if I change my supervisor at this point?

Thank you in advance for your answers


texts: Recommendation letters for assistant professor position (computer science and statistics)

texts:
I am applying for (research) assistant professor positions in the computer science and statistics areas. I have seen advice on having at least one recommendation letter outside of my graduate school institution. I have two letters from inside my graduate school institution.

One letter is from my major professor, who can comment on my ability to obtain grants and conduct research. The other letter is from a professor who can comment on my ability to teach and conduct research.

I am currently deciding about my third letter, and have two options in mind. One idea is my manager at a software company from my summer internship in 2016. She can comment on my ability to get work done, work with team members, demonstrate software development skills, and make connections (she told me I was persistent in asking for the internship position). The other idea is a professor emeritus who I worked with back in 2009 during a postbac position. He is now in his early 80s but still publishes research. He was the founding chair of an academic department (not directly related to what I do now though within the sciences and maths), won several prestigious awards, and served most of his time in academia. He can comment on my research abilities and initiative (he was impressed that I developed my own research ideas to fruition during my postbac). He has written a recommendation letter for me back in 2012 to apply for graduate school.

I would be grateful to hear opinions on this topic. Do you think either of these third options appropriate? Is one more favorable than the other? Most applications require exactly 3 letters, but some allow 4 letters. Hence, I can include both for some applications. Thank you for sharing any of your wisdom!


texts:
I would like to share under a Creative Commons license some course material (slides) I created. However, I used (abused?) of duly cited non-cc sources such as books etc. to prepare the course material.

Does using copyrighted material to prepare a course prevent to distribute the slides and source under a CC license? What would be the best way to deal with such a situation, which I believe is quite common in academia?


texts: Should mathematical symbols and equations be included in a word count?

texts:
I am currently in the process of finishing up my Master's thesis which requires me to disclose the exact word count.

My thesis contains a lot of mathematical symbols and equations and I am not sure whether those, together with table and figure captions, should be included in the final word count or not.

I know how many words, inline math and display math (in LaTeX terms) elements my document contains, but I am just not sure whether to count them or not.

My university has not given any guidance on what to include in the word count, so I am wondering if there are any general rules that apply in this situation? The only thing I could find on the internet was from APS Journals:
 "The word equivalent for displayed math is 16 words per row for single-column equations. Two-column equations count as 32 words per row."

Any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated!


texts: Should I mention teaching experience in my cover letter?

texts:
I am applying for tenure-track positions in R1 (say, top 50) universities in Computer Science in the US.

When writing the cover letter, should I mention teaching experience and competence?
Or should I leave it for the teaching statement?


texts: Co-authors that quit during software development and such software is using later in a patent, should they be added as coauthors/inventors?

texts:
We have a situation in which we developed some software, where four previous members of our research group participated some time ago. Then they left the group, and said that from then on, they did not want to work on further developments of the code.
Now we have used that code, which has evolved a bit since they left, and we have applied it to some other contexts, in which we have made some discoveries, and it turns out we can file a patent.
The question here is, the old members that left the group and did not want to work on further developments of the code, must they be included in the patent as authors/inventors?
I would say the answer is no, since they said they did not want to work on further developments of the code, but since this software tool was a key step for the discovery reported in the patent, and they participated a bit in the past on the software, they should perhaps be included as coauthors/inventors.
Should they be included?


texts: What is the closest alternative journal to journal X?

texts: Does anyone know of a website or resource that identifies the nearest journal neighbours to journal X (any specific journal) in terms of content (perhaps defined by some distance metric defined on article keywords?). In other words, if I am rejected by journal X, which journals might consider the same paper?


texts: Guidelines for When to Acknowledge Research Assistants

texts:
I know that it is general practice to include a footnote on papers acknowledging research assistants who have contributed to the project.  I am wondering, however, if any guidelines or accepted practices exist for how to determine which assistants should be acknowledged where.  In general, since it is low cost to acknowledge assistants, it makes sense to be pretty generous in erring on the side of acknowledging.  But, in the interests of acknowledgments being honest reflections of those who contributed to the project, what about some of these particular cases?

Research assistant (RA) is hired.  Does a small amount of work, but not enough to be useful, and then quits.
RA works hard on project, but is very poor at communicating.  As a result, RA goes incommunicado for a while, comes back at the end of the period having put together a work product that is of zero use to the project.
Open-ended research project begins.  At start of the project, it is not clear which avenues of research / aspects of the project will turn in to productive papers and which will not.  RA does good work on an avenue of research that turns out to be a dead end.  Another avenue of research is more successful and results in a paper.  RA contributed nothing directly to the successful avenue, but did contribute to the larger open-ended project.


texts: Supervisor asking me to fabricate papers (and other problems)

texts:
I'm seeking guidance here for a situation which is becoming unsustainable. As you can get from the title, I don't get along with my PhD (STEM) supervisor.

He never cared of my thesis, he doesn't even read my papers at all. All he does is charging me with his ideas that every time turn out to be unsuccessful. Even worse, when an idea of his turns out to be unfeasible, he asks me to fabricate the results (and by fabrication I mean totally invented works). This has become systematic.

For a good part of my PhD I cut him of from my activity, I almost finished my thesis and I published 6 first-author papers, 5 non-first-author papers and about 10 conference papers (I'm not including bogus works in the count).

The problem is that I'm starting an abroad period at another university and I need his recommendation. It goes without saying that he started again with his unethical and time-wasting requests.

After my abroad period, I'll come back some months (six) and finish my PhD. After that I'd like to apply for a postoc in that university.

My question is, if I prove myself during the abroad period, would I still need his recommendation for a postdoc application? Mind that I also have a second advisor for that, in case.

In the six months between my abroad period and the thesis defense I'll be again at his will, so this mean again losing times at crazy ideas and faking papers. I need to dump him as soon as I can. Will I need him for a postdoc, if they already know me at the place where I want to apply?


texts: Can I receive both an NSF international postdoctoral award and salary from a foreign university?

texts:
Recently I was offered a full salaried postdoctoral position (not a fellowship) in Australia (with a long lead time).

I am a US citizen, so can also apply for the NSF international postdoctoral fellowships.

Suppose, hypothetically, that I apply for and receive an NSF award.

Is it acceptable to increase my postdoctoral salary with the fellowship, or would it not make a difference?

Given that I already have an offer in hand, if the NSF fellowship wouldn't increase my salary, then it isn't worth it to me to apply (I realize there are other benefits, prestige, that go along with receiving a fellowship, but I'm time-strapped at the moment).


texts: What can a student do if a professor makes special allowances for one student in a course?

texts:
In one of my software engineering courses, the syllabus includes two exams (midterm + final), daily quizzes + participation mark, spot quizzes and a group project.

A lot of us asked the professor to drop the midterm and add more weight to the project because we all wanted to build a beautiful project, so eventually we can also add it to our resume. The response was that it would not be possible to drop the midterm but the weight might be reduced, but would have to think about it. (Fair enough).

However, a week later we found out that one of the students in class got exemption from writing midterms, daily quizzes and spot quizzes. That student only has to worry about the project. We asked how this is possible and we learned of a special deal with the professor. So basically when the group projects begin that student will in charge of holding group meetings with different groups and providing feedback to the professor on their progress. So since they have a lot of "workload" they won't be writing quizzes and exams. This option was never mentioned by the professor when the class as a whole asked her to drop the midterm.

So I am wondering, is this legal or even possible? There are a lot of international students in the class too that are simply scared to speak up. I feel it is not fair that one student is exempt from doing all the work.

What should I do? Just keep quiet and mind my own business?

This is a Graduate Computer Science Program.

Additional Details

In the first two weeks the other student wrote quizzes like everyone else and the professor was not happy with the grades of quizzes of some people (everyone except this one person had good marks), so it will be worth a little less. Eventually a week later the student stopped writing quizzes after making this special deal.

I have great relation with the Department Chair and I am also working on a project with them, I am not sure if I should bring this up in our conversation.


texts: Applying to several faculty positions within the same institution

texts:
The following question is not a general question about applying to many academic positions at different institutions, but rather about applying to several positions within the same institution (regardless of applying to multiple other institutions as well).

Starting questions are, as follows. What are the potential effects, following such strategy? Mostly negative, mostly positive, or neutral? A situation often occurs, such that an institution advertises several positions that I believe I would fit, however, among those, only one (usually) is the best fit (my preference), but others are also suitable (decent fit).

Therefore, my main question is twofold: 1) is it a good strategy to apply to all suitable positions within an institution; 2) if Yes, should I mention my preference, for example, in an application letter (if No, I assume that the optimal choice is to apply to the position with the best fit)?


texts: How to deal with ageism as a graduate student?

texts:
I have lurked on this site for some time and I have appreciated the intelligent, well-written answers to myriad questions.

My inquiry is the following: I have faced age discrimination in the program I am attending.  This has ranged from consistent age-related comments to rejection of research grants and programs based on age (statement that I am "over-qualified" and "too experienced").  I am in my 30s.  Most of the students are in their 20s.

Should I quit the program?  I am especially interested in the experiences and opinions of older students who have faced similar issues.

Please note that in order to improve the quality of my question I will update it with any and all needed points of clarification.


texts: Reasons for an academic to need administrator rights on work computer

texts:
Questions related to this in a not specifically academic setting have been asked elsewhere, notably Should developers have administrator permissions on their PC? and Should dev be admin on their computer? My question relates to my job as an academic at a (UK) university.

I moved to using Linux at work so that I did not have to have my computer managed by my university's IT service. This is purely because they are poorly resourced/managed and so addressing small problems takes a very long time. I might, for example, have to wait several weeks for a piece of (free) software to be installed. This imposes unacceptable (to me) delays on my research. They are now changing University policy such that all PCs connected to the network are managed by IT (reasonable), backed-up (reasonable) and local admin privileges are restricted to those who can demonstrate a genuine need for them (reasonable, but I am unwilling to go back to not being able to make progress because of them).

I am confident that one way and another in the end I can persuade them of my need -- but I would like to avoid the delays, meetings, and aggravation this will involve.

What are good, unarguable reasons, that I might need local admin rights. I'm currently thinking 'compiling code written by my co-author' but I might need something more concrete. They will not know enough about my research to know what I might actually need or not.


texts: How common is it for journal to reject a solicited paper?

texts:
A guest editor at a peer-reviewed academic journal solicited me to write a paper. I initially hesitated for lack of time. But the editor's invitation was courteous. So I sent an abstract, which was accepted by the editor.

I submitted the 6k-word paper a few weeks later, taking care to comply to the submission guidelines (I downloaded the journal's CSL file for bibliographic references, for example).

I just received a rejection letter. I know an invitation is not a ticket to bypass the reviewers. Still, I am rather stunned. I'll get over it, but I was wondering how common it is for academic journals to reject solicited papers?


texts: In the US, if I cannot finish my PhD in 5 years, will I lose my stipend and have to pay for my own living costs?

texts: The contract says financial support is for 5 years. I am not able to support my own living cost.


texts: Contact the editor on the acceptance chances of my article

texts:
I submitted a paper to a journal about two months ago and now the article has been under review for a month. It is my first article out for publication ever, so I am not the best at judging my chances of being accepted. However, I presented the paper on a conference and they offer the chance of entering it as a book chapter in a publication resulting from the conference. I now wonder if it would be ok to ask the editor of the journal if they can tell me some more on my chances of being accepted. Maybe they already got one review back and they can tell me what the verdict was there? Is this appropriate, and if so, should I explain truthfully why I ask this question to the editor?

PS: I would prefer the publication in the journal rather than the book chapter, but if I go for that option and it's not accepted I also can't be in the book because they need an answer now.


texts: Can grant money be spent on travel to program committee meetings?

texts:
Many research conferences hold an in-person program committee meeting for all of the members of the program committee, where the PC members make the final decisions about which papers to accept or reject.  (At least, that's how it tends to work in computer science; I don't know about other fields.)

Can program committee members use federal grants to pay for their travel costs to attend a program committee meeting, for conferences where they are on the program committee?  Generally speaking, what funding sources do professors tend to use, to pay for travel to these meetings?


texts: Should I talk to my supervisor about including a new field in my PhD?

texts:
I am a part-time PhD student coming towards the end of my first year – I have another five years left. My PhD is in Music and I do like my topic a lot. However, in the last 18 months I have also become very interested in an area that is not that related to music – computing and open source. I started looking at it as something extra to learn before my PhD started and am now finding it difficult to put down. As well as this, I would like to integrate some aspects of what I have learned into my PhD. I just don't really know what and how.

Is this something that I should bring up with my PhD supervisor or should I just "put up or shut up"? She may think it's a bit weird to mention it since she will probably feel that it doesn't really relate, however, computing (and its related ethics) are fundamental to the ways in which we undertake academic research these days. We've even had a few classes on software use. I feel that I could probably link the two in some way but little has come up yet which is obvious, though it may well present itself in the future. From past experience I tend to function at my academic best when integrating different challenging interests into my learning and I would love to integrate my learning of computing into my music PhD. I feel I have learned – and applied – a lot and I want to continue learning alongside my music learning and to combine the two in my topic.

Question: should I raise this with my supervisor, float some ideas past her about this or should I just ignore it? If I do the latter the question may well come back to haunt me further down the line. I don't think I "can" (nor do I want to) give this up, well, not without forcing myself to since it fascinates me. Do others have experience of wanting to mix in new ideas/subjects into their PhDs and how did you go about it?

For clarification - the PhD in Music is ethnomusicological, i.e. the PhD is to do with the study of music in culture and as culture rather than composition or performance.