texts: Reviewing test answers with students using a Course Management System

texts:
When I give an online test using a Course Management System (aka Learning Management System, LMS), I like to use the "review answers" capability to go over the test with the class and highlight questions that many of them got incorrect. This can reveal common misunderstandings, poorly worded questions, things I didn't teach adequately, etc.

But given that the recommendation is to scramble the order of the questions and even the answers, how on earth can that work? This is why I DON'T scramble questions and answers.

Does anyone have a way of dealing with this? I have spent hours searching the web and found no reference to this issue. But anyone using a LMS must have encountered it? Thank you!


texts: Bachelor's thesis can i use wordings from my supervisor

texts:
I am in the middle of writing my bachelor thesis and recently submitted a paper that I wrote with my supervisor about the same subject to a conference. If it makes any difference, I should mention that I am the first author.
I would like to use the paper (15 pages) as the basis for my thesis (about 40 pages), i.e. I want to re-use most of its content without changing the wordings.

My supervisor told me that it is okay and I have read that it is even common practice among some institutions to reuse your own previous work for a bachelor, master or PhD thesis.

However, I am not quite sure if it is acceptable to reuse paragraphs which my supervisor wrote as co-author to that paper. In the Statutory Declaration that has to be attached to the thesis it is stated that I wrote the thesis just by myself with only the help of the cited material. Do I have to reformulate the ideas in this case?


texts: How to cite something when you cannot remember where you've read it?

texts:
Let's say you're writing a paper about a novel problem in Mathematics. While writing the paper you remember an interesting result concerning a different related problem. You can derive that result from memory, but you cannot remember where exactly you've read it - it could've been a paper, a pre-print on Arxiv.org, a post on Math.SE, a book from the library, a lecture that you've attended, etc. No matter how hard you try you cannot find the exact source.

What is one supposed to do in this situation?


texts: Switching labs, need advice on how to communicate with old PI regarding project

texts:
I’m currently a master’s student (rising second year) wanting to applying for PhD, in the US. I completely switched field with the M.S. program so when I chose a lab, it was not an entirely educated choice. Now, after the first year, I knew what I’m passionate about and I am switching to a new lab once the fall semester starts.
I already told my current PI that I’ll be moving and he is supportive. However, he wants to push me to finish my current project, which he says won’t take too long. From my experience working on the project, I know that is not true. I also want to apply to a PhD program with the research interest of my new lab, so work in the new lab will be my priority.
Usually, I wouldn’t mind work the old lab project on the side to finish it up. But I’m taking 60 credits at a prestige private university that’s well known for its stress and heavy course load.
I told my PI that I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew and it’s in the lab’s best interest to find someone who can focus and prioritize his lab work. I would be actively in contact with my successor to help them familiarize with the data. However, he keeps saying this isn’t much work, and I should be able to finish it.
What should I do? I want a good letter of recommendation from him for the PhD application too.


texts: What is an "evidence based" teaching statement?

texts:
(I'm a PhD student in mathematics, for context.)
What do people mean when they say that claims in a teaching statement should be "evidence based?"
For background, I have been watching my wife go through drafts of teaching statements and she has been getting pretty relentless criticism that it's not enough to say, "I design my courses to achieve X, Y, Z," she somehow needs to provide "evidence" that the course achieves these things.  I used to think this meant I should really keep very exhaustive data of how my students were doing (i.e. spreadsheets with test scores), but I'm not sure that's realistic as a PhD in math (as opposed to a PhD student in education).
What can I do now, as an instructor, to facilitate writing an "evidence based" teaching statement in the future?


texts: Purpose of humanities PhD interview for less prestigious program?

texts:
everyone—

A quick and vague question. I've applied to 9 English PhD programs this cycle at institutions that vary greatly in prestige. Only one of them, the least prestigious program, requires a brief video interview for "finalists" (about 15 minutes), in which the candidate discusses his/her interest in the school, academic interests, and career plans with a member of the department.

I was just selected for this yesterday, and the interview is tomorrow! I wanted to know if anyone has any insight about the true purpose of such an interview, which is rare in the humanities, and seems redundant considering that the proposed topics of discussion are all covered at length in my application. It's especially bizarre considering it's not an especially prestigious program/their funding isn't great/etc., so such a step seems less necessary than it would at very competitive programs.

It occurrs to me that they may want to ensure that finalists are genuinely interested in their program before potentially wasting offers on candidates who regard the school as a backup? Of course I'm taking the interview prep seriously, but any extra insight that would help me be more strategic would be much appreciated.


texts: How important is the academic reputation of a graduate school to its Ph.D students when they are looking for jobs in North America?

texts: When academic committee consider an applicant for postdoc or tenure track positions, how much do they care about where the applicant got his Ph.D? Suppose two applicant have similar accomplishments in their research, will the one who graduated from a more prestigious school gets the offer first?


texts: How do I orient myself to the literature concerning a research topic and not be overwhelmed?

texts:
I'm in my first semester at a Master's level program in mental health counseling, and I have aspirations of perhaps eventually getting my PhD. I'm presently working on a project for a class about PTSD and after about a day of digging, I found a plethora of theoretical models; some of which are older, some of which are newer and have been built off of previous ones. Traumatology is a much larger and more developed field than I had initially thought, and there are numerous complicating issues, one example being the interaction and overlap with dissociative features/disorders and developmental pathways and models.
I'm starting to get overwhelmed by all the connections I'm seeing and all the articles and books I want/have to read in order to do a half way decent job, and it doesn't help that I'm on a time crunch.
I have had this experience in my undergrad a bit, but managed to scrape by with a research paper that didn't end up amounting to much. I was not satisfied with that outcome, and don't want to repeat that in any of my Master's level courses, but I find myself uncertain of what effective research even looks like or what to expect from myself.
I have 3 questions, the first two are iterations of the same question.

How could I orient myself in the literature of any given field without "getting lost" when pursuing a research project, an overview, or even just a rudimentary understanding as the basis for a question in a different field that has some interactions or influences with the one I am investigating?

For instance, perhaps I decide in my PhD to develop a project on topic x and want to include perspectives from fields y and z, which I have a good foundation for but am not intimately familiar with the literature or theoretical models of the fields themselves.

How do I know when I'm trying too hard to understand/give an account for a phenomenon that is not immediately and directly relevant to the topic of my paper?

For instance, if I'm really interested in doing a paper about the relationship between some particular feature of the interactions between pathology A and B,  but I get caught in the weeds in trying to understand/explain to the reader competing behavioral models for understanding A and contrasting the cognitive and behavioral models for B.

How do you deal with feeling overwhelmed when doing research?


texts: Where does the funding in business school PhD programs typically come from?

texts:
My classmate is in a prestigious business school PhD program - stats / operations research.  He told me that they have no teaching duties, and they aren't allowed to do any external internships.  The business school's Dean has been furious about letting their PhD students intern in the past and then losing many students early after they land lucrative full-time offers from industry.  So apparently, the stipends are increased to make up for the new rule that the students cannot seek internships before finishing their PhDs.

Where does the funding typically come from for business school PhDs?

For reference: United States.


texts: What can I do to make figures I've created generally available so others can use them?

texts:
I have spend over a day making beautiful figures in Tikz
for project proposal seminar.

The figure are beautiful (the code is not).

These figures are to an extent reusable,
since they are about existing well known methods.
I didn't use the diagrams from the papers as I wanted to take advantage of the extra space I had on a slide, rather than the narrow 1 column images from papers. Also because I didn't want to try and cut any images out of the paper PDFs, since I would lose the vector scalability.

What can I do, to make these images generally available so that others can use them? (Benefit the community by saving others time)

Further more, when I publish my own work with figures, what should I do with the figures to make them available? Should I perhaps on my website with papers, include a .zip of the paper source and images?


texts: Is it a good idea to go for multiple bachelor's or master's degree?

texts:
I have a bachelor's degree in Physics. I am currently doing my master's in Physics with a focus on machine learning. I want two thing for future:

I want to gain coursework experience from different country - I am fascinated how coursework, be it undergraduate or graduate level, is done in different countries and I want to experience that.
I want to be a veterinary professional. (I wanted to teach at one point and do research. Therefore, had a plan for PhD but I no longer want to be in academia). That could be a veterinary nurse or a doctor.

I didn't share this with anyone as I was afraid of being judged as immature or naive. I would really appreciate any advice on what I can do to achieve my goals. Are my goals justified?


texts: How often do graduate students help connect professors with each other?

texts: I know that a couple of UChicago professors told me that, especially if a graduate student ends up co-advised with two professors. Maybe there's an additional factor too: maybe students actually have the time and flexibility to communicate with other professors, which could possibly help initiate collaborations between them?


texts: Implications of being accepted without funding to a computer science PhD in the United States?

texts:
I was accepted into Ohio State University CS PhD without funding.

I have heard that people who can show their capability may get funding after getting into the program. Is this understanding correct?

Is being accepted without funding a dangerous sign? Does this means that the faculty doesn't care about you?


texts: Journal's website states different and much higher impact factor than what I found on Scopus. What do I do?

texts:
I looked up the website of a journal where someone I know had published research. They listed their Scopus impact factor as a number that is much higher than when I searched the website of Scopus.

I am not exactly familiar with academia, all I know is the number I read on the Scopus website (assuming I read the correct one, don't know), seems much lower than the one listed on the journal's website, in other words, the impact factor on the official journal site may be fake and the actual factor might be lower.

What should be done now? I don't wish to accuse the journal of anything malicious before I understand what's going on and what exactly an impact factor is or signifies.


texts: Is a computational scientist/engineer a viable professional goal?

texts:
One one hand, there were attempts to give some meaning to the term on Wikipedia; there is a page on SIAM's website and a Master's program at Stanford.

On the other hand, there are very few jobs which use the term. However, there are positions with "Computational" and "Engineer" like "Computational Imaging Engineer", "Computational Biology Engineer" and so on.

I assume that skills and knowledge, which are necessary for doing a job with "Computational" in the name are, roughly, the same. Consequently, if a person has a core set of skills and knowledge, it should be easy to apply them in different fields.

Am I right in my assumption, and "computational scientist" is a possible career goal? Or it is too broad a term (e.g., a synonym for "applied mathematician") and should not be considered as a specific goal.


texts: Should we include tool usability evaluation based only on the research team opinions in the paper?

texts:
My team is developing a tool which solves certain problems we encountered in our work. We decided to describe the tool in a paper and attempt to publish it. We got stuck on evaluating the usability of our tool.

We found a SUS measure - Subjective Usability Scale, which appears to fit our case. It consists of a few questions that users of the tool should answer. The problem here is, that our tool has only been used by our team (sample size 7) and it is difficult to get a broader range of users to test it.

In such case, do you think we should include the evaluation using such scale based on our team members only? Or should we rather skip the evaluation part completly and simply describe the tool leaving the evaluation to the reader based on the features of the system we described.
If we should include it, what statistical method should we use to compare our results with the reference results of the SUS scale?

https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/system-usability-scale.html


texts: First author submits manuscript before final approval of all co-authors

texts:
A first and corresponding author has submitted a co-authored manuscript after having circulated a near-final draft. She has freely accepted some comments of her colleagues' and rebutted others, but only shared the final version after submission. This is despite some co-authors specifically asked to view the very last version once more before the submission.

The manuscript is for a normal issue of a peer-reviewed journal. The referees' comments have been dealt with. All kinks concerning methodology, results and conclusions had already been ironed out. The remaining comments were of linguistic/stylistic/presentational nature alone and improved the readability of the paper appreciably. For example: removing repetitions, streamlining the content, splitting paragraphs into block of homogeneous content, and so forth. Let's regard these interventions as important for the standing of the paper --- see this guide of Elsevier's for a general appreciation of why linguistic editing is relevant to proper scientific writing. In other situations where 'heavier' matters of content might have been at stake, this post's concerns would hold nonetheless.

The reasons for not circulating the final version are a self-imposed deadline, tied up to office holidays, and the reasoning that the time for applying linguistic changes is over. This latter point is immediately questionable since the bulk of polishing takes place at the end of writing, almost by definition.

Within the authors' team, two lines of thought emerge as to whether the first author ought to share the final manuscript before definitive submission. Some say that the first author has the authority of moving on; others say that the first author should not submit without giving her colleagues the possibility of seeing what happened of the last remarks.

The journal's authorship guidelines are curt.
Note that the journal is not interested in authorship ranking that are internal to the group; it only deals with the roles taken by one author as correspondent.
Quoting the most relevant ones, these boil down to the following:

to be such, all authors must meet all of the following requirements a) providing substantial contributions b) drafting or revising the work c) giving final approval of the version to be submitted for publication;
the responsibility of the corresponding author is to dialogue with the co-authors and act on their behalf.

There is an interesting paradox in this formulation. A corresponding author will invariably act on behalf of people who have approved the manuscript, whether all collaborators have been asked or not. Those who do not approve are, or may fear to become, no co-authors. The first author can easily find leeway to disregard some collaborators, and move on with the submission with a malformed sense of entitlement. Co-authors may easily lose the aegis of the first author.

Say. The colleagues who demand a last glance at the final manuscript may face a rejection in the line of "co-authors only suggest, first author decides". This could be rebutted with something like "the first author is not fully acting on our behalf, though; she fails in acting as  corresponding author". Then, the challenge could be "you are missing the point on the way it works; she's the first author, do you really want to be co-authors?". The first author thanks and submits, some co-authors only see the show.
Further discussion is deterred by the fact that, once the manuscript has been submitted, the situation can only be reversed by summoning up the editor. This step might be felt as overly confrontational, and the authorship guidelines above may not help the editor much either.

My question is: does the first/corresponding author have an obligation not to proceed with submission of a manuscript before having given all co-authors the final say to what will be submitted?


texts: Is it bad to apply for a second postdoc immediately after starting a first one?

texts:
I have finished my PhD in pure mathematics 3 months ago, and have just (one week ago) started a 1 year post doc appointment in another area of applied mathematics (it has only very very minor links with my PhD, and I really don't know how it will turn out - but I am not very into it so far).

I have had this offer for a few months, and took it because my other post doc applications in areas more closely related to my original topic were rejected; I was on the shortlist many times, but ended up 2nd in the final choice.

Now I have yet another opportunity to apply for a post doc in a topic that is close to my PhD, back in my home country, with people who are world-leading experts in my field, at a world leading, prestigious department and university (my current one isn't). Another advantage is that my current post doc only has guaranteed funding for 1 year, while the one I want to apply for, has 2 years.

This post doc has a provisional starting date in 2 months time. This means I'd have only worked in my current position also for only 2 months.

In my situation, is it advisable on the application form to state that I have currently just started on a post doc, or say absolutely nothing at all (i.e. not even mention this on my CV)?

I am worried that it won't look good on my application that I am applying for new jobs after having barely started the first one.


texts: I have recently appointed to be a reviewer for a congress in my specialization field. The problem that I got is which affiliation should I put? Actually I am working as a lecturer in two universities, part time, but also I am making my first year of Doctoral studies in a third one. I was thinking to put the last one, should that be correct? or should I talk with my supervisor first?


texts: Conference submission while article under review for journal

texts:
My co-authors and myself have recently submitted an article (in the wider field of economics) to a journal and we now wish to submit the same article to a conference while the article is still under review at the journal. There will be no such thing as published conference proceedings and as far as I can tell not even a working paper version of the article will be made available online.

Is there anything unethical about doing so, i.e. submitting an article to a conference while it is under review for a journal?

I am asking since for a journal submission one would write in the cover letter something along We confirm that the article has not been published or is under review elsewhere. Now I am drafting the cover email to the conference submission and I was wondering whether I should include a similar phrase and if so what to write?

For a conference submission, should (must/can) I indicate that the submitted article is currently under review in a journal, or would I not want to write any such sentence?

Currently I would not, since as long as the article has not been accepted it is still work-in-progress and as such perfect to submit at a conference (economics conferences also tend to attract fairly advanced-stage papers in my perception).

I have asked my co-authors, who are experienced and established professors in the field, on the first question and they both saw no problem. I am asking for a second opinion to calm my mind since I am likely over-thinking the issue and unsure how to address it.
I have found one related question:
Simultaneous submission short version to conference and full version to journal
but in that field it is common to have a conference paper first, often followed by a journal article. As I stressed above, the difference here is that there is no conference publication as well as the very different fields.
Submitting journal version of an article while conference version is still in review
asks about the other way round, submitting to a journal while the conference article is still under review. Here is different in that the article submitted is the same, there is no conference publication and the order is the other way round.


texts: Can we have a citation in the Works Cited and not use it in an essay?

texts: I have a citation of an online article that I used in my research for an essay, yet I haven't referenced this citation anywhere in the essay. Should I keep the citation, or delete it because nothing refers to it?


texts: Should references in foreign language be translated to make popular audience get familiar with how academia works?

texts:
Typically, references in foreign language are cited with title and journal name in original language, whether they are academic or popular science books. As pointed out in this answer, popular science books, written by native authors and published by different publishers, report English, German and French references without any translation.

Of course leaving the identification of the references is vital. However, I wonder if this is the best practice for the audience who are not familiar with how academic works, especially kids. I imagine that having them written in their mother tongue will make them compelling and informative enough to read, and after reading them, they will know at least these things:

Academic researches are published in academic journals, collaborated by many authors
Titles tend to be very specified, journals are very niche
Consistency needs to be maintained
And whether they understand them or not, some terms will get into their mind, enhancing their vocabulary. To put it as Wittgenstein, "my language is the limit of my world".

The book I'm translating is What If? from Randall Munroe. It's academic enough to have several pages of references, but entertaining enough to have comic on it. What I am trying to do is to find the balance point to make an academician and a kid both happy. One reference of it goes like this:

  Merlis, Timothy M., and Tapio Schneider, “Atmospheric dynamics of Earth-like tidally locked aquaplanets,” Jounal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 2 (December 2010); DOI:10.3894/JAMES.2010.2.13.

Questions:

Should this be done? I guess yes, despite of the current practice. How far should this be applied? Having the origin text first, the translation first, or only the translation if other identifications exist such as DOI or URL? As long as the audience can trace the references on their own, then there's no reason for not doing this, right? What if only some references have DOI, and some others have dead links? Should I add the DOI for every academic papers? What to do with blog posts and YouTube clips?
Is there any drawback of this? Would the readers lose their interest in the middle, or having no interest in reading them at all, hence wasting the translating time?


texts: What is the correct way of citing scientific publications?

texts:
The APA citation basics write:

If you refer to the title of a source within your paper, capitalize all words that are four letters long or greater within the title of a source: Permanence and Change. Exceptions apply to short words that are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs: Writing New Media, There Is Nothing Left to Lose.
(Note: in your References list, only the first word of a title will be capitalized: Writing new media.)

(my highlighting).
I realize that this is a matter of choice and convention, but as I read scientific publications in Computer Science, it strikes me how often these practices are mixed.  In the document, the "capitalized" version is predominant, but in reference lists, they are quite often mixed.
When I was in school I remember being taught that this was the right way of writing headlines, so I understand those who force bibtex to cite this way by curly-bracketing first letters.
But what is the reason for this convention?  Is it fair to say that it is incorrect?  Otherwise, how can it be argued to use small caps in the reference lists?


texts: Is it common to have a personal copy of one’s own PhD thesis?

texts: I worked very hard on my PhD thesis, and I think it would be cool to have a nicely bound physical copy of it. I’m simply wondering if obtaining one is a common thing to do.


texts: Asking to visit a university, and be given workspace for a week

texts:
We have a few questions on offering to give a talk at a university.
And the general response is that is pretty acceptable.
It is basically asking to be invited as a speaker.

What I am wondering about is:

I am asking to be invited to speak and to be given a working space.

Details:

My university has a spare office or two in every department for "visiting academics". Is this typical of universities?
I believe they are intended for professors on sabbatical. But perhaps not exclusively so, last year an engineer with a well-known company's research group invited himself to use one such space in our university.
We also have a few spare spaces in the lab, I've never seen our space used by a visiting student, but friends in other labs tell me they fairly regularly have visiting student's in their labs.

I am going to a conference about a month before my PhD thesis is due.
It is in a city where I have a few contacts.
I've heard about some of the work their groups are doing, and I'd like to be able to meet with them.
I'ld also like to have a place to sit and work on my thesis when I am not.
I thought I might talk to my contacts and see if I could arrange to be invited to give a talk about my thesis work, and also be given some space to work.
(Whether a desk in a lab, or in an office, is of little consequence.)
I thought perhaps a week before the conference would give me plenty of time to meet with people and have deep discussions etc.

Asking for an invitation is of-course a favour, but I'm not sure how big a favor I'd be asking.

Is asking to be invited to visit a lab for a week a big favor?
Is asking for space to work on top of that a greater favor? (or is that implied?)


texts: How do you make connections to faculty outside your department?

texts:
I feel like the answer to this question should be obvious, but it doesn't seem to be.

Anyway, in my second year on the tenure track, I find myself more confined to my corner of the ivory tower than I intended to be, and would like to branch out and meet other faculty in other areas.

My research (in theoretical math) is very specialized, so I don't have collaborations in mind. Also I would rather not volunteer for university-wide committees, as these look rather boring and I don't find myself inspired by the administration's pet projects.

Rather, I have in mind something intellectual and fun, that recaptures some of the enjoyment of being an undergraduate and hopefully leading to making new friends. For example, semi-public lectures on chemistry, theology, art history, virtually anything intellectual, ideally followed by discussions and debates over beer...

Obviously, the first step is to do a better job of carefully looking for opportunities at my particular university. (These have been a bit hard to suss out, but I could stand to look harder). Nevertheless I would be interested to hear success stories. What have people done to make connections outside their own field of interest?

Thank you!


texts: I misunderstood an assignment, how to write to the professor apologizing and asking for extension?

texts:
I am a final year student in India and have been selected to do my final year project abroad in a German university. The professor sent me a programming assignment to do 3 weeks ago; the assignment was to be on JSF (Java Server Faces). Instead, I misread it as JSP (Java Server Pages) and have been working on that ever since.

So recently I re-read the initial email detailing the assignment and I realized my blunder. I have to submit the code with JSF but I will need an extension from my professor. I want to write a professional apology letter but I am unable to find the right words.


texts: Can one do mathematical physics research without much knowledge of physics

texts:
I've looked around a little but did not find something that really answers my question.

I'm a (pure) math student currently applying for Ph.D. My interest are in fields that are closely linked to physics, mainly PDEs and analysis in general. I have basically no basis in physics except for some very basic reading.

My question is: is it really possible to do good research on the maths of a subject such as quantum mechanics, kinetic theory, general relativity, etc... without prior knowledge beside maths ?

I should finally add that this question is for a Ph.D. in West Europe, and that the programs I target do not have a taught component (even if it is probably possible to follow some courses if necessary).


texts: Is it usual to ask for several references for postdoc positions?

texts:
I have seen postdoc job adverts which were asking for as many as three recommendation letters, despite being supervised positions and inviting freshly graduated PhD students.  Is this practice common and reasonable?

As a more practical question, how should an applicant deal with this situation?

It seems to me that it is not unusual that the only person a student worked with extensively is their advisor. In fact it would even seem like a good thing to have an advisor who does not lead a large group and has time to work closely with all their students. Yet such students would find it rather difficult to obtain three recommendation letters.


texts: An important information is missing from my paper under review

texts:
I have a paper under review (Second round) after a minor revision. The journal has limited page length and I contacted the editor to ask whether I can add additional pages but he said that it is only possible after acceptance. One information which I thought less important seems very crucial, where other researchers asked me about it after a presentation of my research. In addition, the lack of this information in the implementation will completely deviate the experimental results.

I am wondering how I can add it after the acceptance of the paper. Should I inform the editor for another review round?


texts: Is it right and polite to ask for a free copy of a published paper?

texts:
There is a published research paper I would like to read. The website it is published in, charges what I think is quite a lot of money, considering that I won't use this for research or work.

I want to read this paper because its about a subject I am really interested in, but has nothing to do with what I study. I am a software engineering student and had never participated on any kind of research and I do not quite understand how all this things work.

So, the question is: is it right to ask for a copy of this paper to its author? If it is, how should I do it?


texts: How do I tell whether I need another advisor?

texts:
I am a second year PhD student in math. I recently feel miserable working with my current advisor so I am considering switching advisor or adding a second advisor.

A few problems I can think of at this moment which make me want another advisor include:

He constantly forgets meeting. For example, I schedule it with him on Wednesday. He would probably forget it on Friday. Of course this is minor if I send out a reminder in the morning on the day...
I feel he is not able to suggest me good references or offer help. I am surely not an independent enough student that can work on my own yet. I kept desperately seeking answers online, asking everywhere, and probably spamming the authors who wrote the papers... This is probably the right way of doing research, but I doubt whether I could speed up my progress a bit if I could get more help from my advisor.
I guess one reason also for the last paragraph is he is giving me something that he is not very familiar with. I believe this is probably the case with most advisors. But once I tried to search for a long time and just could not find an object in the problem that he suggested me, and it turned out he remembered it wrong... I just wish he could be less careless.

I actually kind of transferred following my advisor to this university, so I tried to work with him since I came here, though I actually did not really start working with him in my previous school and came here as a first year student. I always thought seeking for another advisor would again take effort, and the miseries come and go, so I just did not do anything with it.

What I am thinking now is, if everything like the above is normal for a math advisor, then I would like to convince myself and go along with it. My miseries are probably just what I need to bare to do math, but If it is not, I really hope to get more help and support from my advisor for my next a few years in grad school. I guess one direct reason why I am posting this is I have not made any progress reading one paper (not even doing a problem) since 3 or 4 months ago. I could not answer my advisor's questions about the paper perfectly as he wants and he would not let me move on. I do not really see the meaning of doing it and he could not give any suggestions, and I started to hate the math and lost motivations, so I think I definitely want some adjustment, either real or mental.

Thanks in advance for any advice.


texts: What are the repercussions of a "vote of no confidence" made by faculty?

texts:
As an example of a vote of no confidence, recently, the academic world has been shocked by the Salaita case at the University of Illinois. I happen to be a UIUC alumnus, so I guess I'm more concerned about the current state of affairs in my Alma Mater. So I just read an article on the web about the case: More Votes of No Confidence, a Weird Ad, and a Declaration of a Non-Emergency. The article states that

Tonight, the major news out of the University of Illinois is that two more departments have taken votes of no confidence in the leadership of the UIUC: the department of history (nearly unanimous, I’m told) and the department of Latino and Latina Studies. The latter’s announcement reads:
The faculty of the Department of Latina/Latino Studies (LLS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign met on Wednesday, September 3, 2014 to discuss the University’s revocation of an offer of employment to Dr. Steven Salaita. We concluded that this revocation and the subsequent public statements by Chancellor Phyllis Wise, President Robert Easter, and the Board of Trustees about Dr. Salaita’s appointment demonstrate a clear disregard for the principles of academic freedom, free speech, and shared governance, as well as for established protocols for hiring, tenure, and promotion. The faculty of LLS therefore declares that we have no confidence in the leadership of the current Chancellor, President, and Board of Trustees.
That means that six departments have now voted no confidence, two of them fairly large departments, representing a significant number of faculty in the humanities. Word is that we should be expecting at least four more votes of no confidence by the end of the week, for a total of ten.

I know the best thing that can happen in the current state of affairs is that UIUC's own faculty boycott the Board of Trustees and Chancellor Phyllis Wise.
So my general question is, what are the implications of such a vote? What does a "vote of no confidence" really mean?
EDIT
As suggested by @MadJack, here's the New York Times article on the case of Salaita.


texts: Publication - discovered an error in the proof of theorem which the referees have not spotted, what to do?

texts: I have finished my Phd in maths shortly. A few days ago, I have heard a revision decision from a very good journal where I submitted my paper. The comments from referees are generally fairly positive, and are not too difficult to address. However, I have found a mistake in a theorem proof,  which the referees have not spotted. This mistake is difficult to fix, or may be unfixable. The theorem is the extension of the main result of the paper. I assume it is not an important result, as there are no comments or revisions from referees on this part. Then how to write to the referees to address this issue? I imagine it would annoy both the referees and the editor. When I am going to submit the revision, is it better to remove the wrong theorem or to keep it there? Many thanks.


texts: Is it ok if I haven't decided my research topic when I first meet with a potential phd advisor?

texts:
I'm currently in my last semester as a master student and planning to apply for phd degree. I'm going to have a first meeting with my potential phd adviser in a few days and I'm really nervous. All I know is I'm confident about what I've studied and I'm prepared to do the phd study both mentally and physically.
I'm wondering what is the expectation for a professor to accept phd student in general? I've read several research paper of his. However, I only have a general idea about my future research but not a specific topic. Is that ok? What is a decent way to respond when the professor asks about that?

update:
The field I'm studying is applied math and I'll doing my phd study in the US.


texts: A researcher that I know organizes a symposium within a strange conference and has asked me to go. What is the appropriate etiquette for declining?

texts:
I have been invited to a symposium related with my research field within a conference devoted to a broad area in Mathematics, not really associated with my field. This symposium is organized by a researcher that I met in previous, well-established and respectable conferences.

The problem is that I have never heard before about that conference to any colleague in my field, if we exclude the emails sent by the conference organizers asking researchers to attend or to organize a symposium within the conference (I have received myself a lot of them in my email spam folder). Indeed, I am really confused about the reputability of the conference itself, and I tried to find it out without too much success in this closed question.

I have decided not to attend the conference given the information that I have at hand, since as a young researcher I want to stay as far as I can from potential predatory conferences. Also the funding money for attending conferences is limited and I think I will get a better value for it on another conference.

Now, my question is regarding the way and etiquette for rejecting the invitation. My initial idea was to be honest and tell the symposium organizer about my reason to not accept the invitation (not feeling confortable in that conference), without making up any excuse such as problem in the dates or whatever. But maybe in that way I will hurt his/her feelings, something that obviously I do not want.

What will be a honest and polite way of rejecting this invitation?


texts: How to decide the appropriate level of explanation for math in academic papers?

texts:
In any academic paper dealing at least in part with math, the authors have to make a choice how much explanation to actually give the math.

It can range from pretty much no explanation:

  Given a foobar of 12, a ackbar of 57, and general frobnosticating
  parameter of 9, the resulting nyan level will be 8.

To belaboring the obvious

  The first three people went into the city. Later, four more people
  went into the city. This meant that seven people had gone into the
  city which is derived by adding the first three people to the next
  four people. We add because people are individual units and moving
  them to a new location neither combines or divides those units.

How does one decide the appropriate level of explanation? Is there any sort of standard that can be appealed to decide when something is clear enough?

The actual background for this question is that I've looked at a paper for a colleague. It is in a non-mathematical subject but does engage in some mathematical reasoning. I think the paper doesn't explain enough, but my colleague disagrees. I have to work at figuring out what calculations were done in the paper and the justification for many of the inferences he draws. That indicates to me that the explanation is insufficient, but is there a less subjective standard I can appeal to?


texts: How to make students learn prerequisites

texts:
Throughout this year (at least some of) my students found it hard to follow the theory part of a computational physics course I thought. This was mostly because they lacked the mathematical foundations they should have learned already years ago.

Since I did not want to lower the course level to that of an introductory course in mathematics, I adjusted it only insofar that I tried hard to simplify the presentation.
In addition, I offered my help in consultation hours and the possibility to discuss selected exercises in detail during the lectures if I get detailed questions (which I almost never got). Finally, I tried to design exercises in a way which should make them learn basics as well. I also announced very early that knowledge of basics will be a strict requirement for the exam. The students already have a Bachelor degree and should in principle know how to learn from books by themselves. However, many of them preferred to stay idle throughout the year and to wait for the sample solutions I slowly and reluctantly handed out. They then tried to learn those (more or less by heart) instead of learning the methods behind. This happened even though I had announced that this would not be useful, especially because they are allowed to use all written/printed resources.

Now a relatively large number (1/4-1/3) opted out (did not hand in a solution) and will repeat the exam in 2 month. This apparently means that they want to use more time to prepare themselves. Others will speculate that the next exam will be similar (since I thought the course for the first time they did not have any old sample solutions).

For at least the first group of people the declared goal of making them learn the basics might therefore be reached. However, I would like to achieve this in a less forceful way such that the lectures become more enjoyable for them. So, how can I make them start to learn the the prerequisites early? In a sense I would like to change their general strategy to wait until the end and to solve the problem of completing the exam by learning by heart.

The problem is complicated a bit by the fact that the audience is mixed from different fields with different degrees.

The obvious solution to improve the teaching of their early math courses is unfortunately not something I can provide without a general strategy change by the University. Obviously I will always try to improve the quality of my own teaching but I do not want to reduce the level of the course to zero. My course already included a brief repetition of required basics.


texts:
I am working to get a PhD, maybe next year this time around. Currently, this is my second year. I have published 3 papers. All of them are not about one problem but consider different problems. My strategy to find a research idea/problem is given below.

1 - Read papers whose titles are either interesting or I have some apriori understanding of those titles.

2 - Understand those papers as best as I can. That is, I try to understand each detail presented in the paper except the simulation results (this is because I think simulation results are hard to reproduce).

3 - I analyze the paper and try to find a very small problem which can be addressed (i.e. I can solve it) by the methodology of the paper.

4 - If I am successful at step 3 I start working on that problem otherwise I repeat the process from step 1.

By applying this strategy I have been able to write 3 papers and I have submitted a fourth (I am not satisfied with those papers because at very best they can be considered average papers). But my concern is that the problems addressed in those papers do not belong to one area. As far as I have seen, for the profiles of some of the renowned researchers in my field their PhD work is focused on one area. One main thing I console myself with is that almost all of those researchers had good supervisors. My supervisor does not even read the draft/reviews of my papers and the suggestions that he provides during the meetings are so broad that the problem becomes intractable. Under these circumstances what are your opinions: Is there any better strategy to do research?

I will be very thankful to you for providing me suggestions or commenting on my dilemma.


texts: Can I Plan to Write a Scholarly Book in LuaTeX or ConTeXt

texts:
This is a general question only. By now I am only a graduate student, and you might laugh at me for this, but maybe some day I will publish a book. I am considering to use LuaTeX or ConTeXt, but I am afraid most (if not all) publishers cannot read them. Does the writer necessarily has to sent the publisher his or her work in the format publisher can open?

I know most journal publishers accpet LaTeX only for article submission. But what about books? Imagining the book is completed, reasonably proofed, and has accordingly compiled a PDF, and the writer sends the PDF to the publisher. I assume the book is of some value, of course. But the source is written in LuaTeX, or ConTeXt, or some rare format.

Will it still be unreasonable that the writer collaborate with the publisher in a format only the writer can open? Or even if he or she uses a format the publisher cannot read, is it possibly viable that he send a PDF file only, that the publisher suggest corrections and advices on format, and repeat the process, allowing the writer to make change?

If a certain format is almost universally rejected, I will think twice in what format should I write my miscellaneous notes, thoughts and sketches related to my field, since it is hard to tell whether in the distant future I will organize material into a book.

Supposing not, what formats do scholarly publishers approve in general? I suppose pdflatex-compilable LaTeX files is almost universally acknowledged, but are there other options? Some say that a small percentage of publishers also accept Microsoft Word, and I am aware that, but I hate Word, sorry.


texts: How do I cite an unpublished work in my paper? which incidentally is my second submission to the same conference

texts: The problem is I completed a work earlier and did another work which extends this work. However, I haven't got the earlier work published. I plan to send these two papers to a conference but I do not know how to cite the work of first paper in second paper.


texts: Can I bring a spouse along for a conference?

texts:
Is it possible to bring my spouse along for overseas academic conference? (My spouse will not be attending the conference. Airfare and accommodation for my spouse will be paid by us.)

The intention is for my spouse to visit the country and for us to do some sightseeing together during weekends/ off days.

Are there any things to look out for? Has anyone tried this before?

Thanks for any feedback.


texts: Will a PhD help me as a startup founder?

texts:
I'm planning to get double honours in CS and Pure Math. (Link to my previous post.) But I'm very confused about getting a PhD. Will it help me as a startup founder?

The only thing that is stopping me from getting a PhD is time. I have excellent grades(almost perfect GPA). I'm very motivated to launch startup after graduating(maybe after working for a year or so). The only thing that's worrying me is that if I get stuck on a problem while working at my startup and the problem involves some sort of research, Will I be able to do research and solve that problem with my background(CS and Pure Math)? Say that problem is related to machine learning and involves creating a more intelligent machine.


texts: Mentioning slipshod undergrad research or not in top graduate school applications?

texts:
I am recently writing my statement of purpose (or research statement, if you prefer this) for my graduate school applications (in the field of EECS). I have two conference publications, paper_A in one mediocre conference (1st author) and paper_B  in one famous (but not yet top-tier) conference (2nd author).

I am completely happy with paper_A, despite its publishing venue being mediocre, simply because I did it completely myself and knew exactly why I was doing that. So I had a great time talking about that work in my statement.

On the contrary, paper_B, although accepted by a famous conference, really tortures and discourages me a lot while I am writing about it. Being the 2nd author, I now feel that there doesn't make much sense doing that work, and what we have claimed is weak and untenable. While elaborating on paper_B in the statement, I even gradually lost all the confidence about myself, which I have gained from writing about paper_A!

My targeted schools are those top-tier schools. So I am afraid this slipshod piece of research may even backfire, since the critical faculty may find my work lousy.

So should I simply delete that paper from my statement and CV? But, its publishing venue is indeed a famous and widely acceptable one. Or should I present the complete me to the committee with all my works? But, will that piece of slipshod research backfire and hurt me?

P.S.: One side information that may help. paper_A is in the area that I wish to apply for, and paper_B is more like a side work, which I don't wish to continue in my graduate research.


texts: How do I get a professor at a different institution to read my essay draft?

texts:
I would like to send a draft of mine to a specific professor. I would be very interested in his comments, however, I am not a student at the moment, so I am not at his institution nor at any other.

Is there any way for me to send him my draft in an email and introduce myself, without sounding rude & incredibly in love with myself? I believe that asking s.o. to read a 5.000 - 10.000 word essay is maybe a bit much? I have no idea how to phrase this or not come across as very demanding and arrogant and I am incredibly concerned.


texts: How do you go about asking your advisor/research assistant supervisor for a week off?

texts:
Spring break is coming up and I plan on taking that week off to go traveling in Europe.  Do I ask my supervisor/advisor for permission or do I just inform them that I am doing so?

Do I do it via email or face to face?

Thanks!


texts: Asking to present paper as first author, when the second author's travel has already been booked

texts:
I recently published a paper at a technical conference in computer science as the culmination of my bachelor thesis. I'm the first author for it, and my 2 supervisors are the other co-authors.

I pursued this thesis in another country A, and after completion went back to my home country B. This paper recently got accepted for oral presentation at a conference to be held in A. Upon requesting for funds to attend the conference, my supervisors said that this is not possible since the conference is local for them and thus it is little to no expense for one of them to go and present the paper.

Since this is my first scientific publication, I am very excited for it and wish to attend the conference to present the paper. I searched around a lot and managed to scrape together some financial assistance from various sources. In spite of this, I will still need to pay a large amount of money from my own pocket.

Since this requires a large expenditure from my end, I wish to confirm with my supervisors whether I will get to present the paper or not. I think that since I am the primary/first author, the opportunity should be mine – but I'm not sure what is the norm here. Is it a reasonable request if I ask my supervisor to present our paper since:

I'm the primary author.
I'm spending a lot of my own money to attend the conference.

The primary issue is that one of my supervisors has already registered for the conference – so I fear that they may cite this as a reason for not letting me present the work. Any thoughts/comments?


texts: What is the purpose of the centralized CollegeBoard instead of individual universities giving their own entrance exams?

texts: Why does CollegeBoard (the organization that does the SAT, GRE, etc.) exist? Why don't universities just give their own entrance exams? It seems such centralization of power in CollegeBoard would be a bad thing for diversity in the universities.


texts: Where to find topics and problems to write about?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student in English Language Translation. I would like to do research and write papers about topics or problems that are available in this field of study.

I googled about possible places where I might be able to find topics or titles to write about (like websites of universities, academies or int'l schools) but I couldn't find any.

Is there any up-to-date database or website that provides such lists?


texts: Where can I find descriptions of arXiv categories?

texts:
I've recently gone through the arXiv categories (quite randomly) and found a couple where I'm not too sure what they are about. Is anywhere a description of the categories?

For example, I'm not too sure what the following are about / what I should expect to be in them:

Learning
Computers and Society


texts: ratemyprofessors' alternatives for francophone or German-speaking countries

texts: Are there some equivalent/alternatives for the sites like ratemyprofessors.com for francophones or German-speaking countries?


texts: How to tell my research advisor I'd like to drop a class?

texts: I'm currently in my first semester pursuing a PhD in Computer Science.


texts: Assessing the citation rank of a conference

texts:
How can I determine how much is a specific conference (in ICT field) cited ?
There are conferences that are quite influential with respect to that, and others which are less. How can I find that information about a specific conference ?
BR
Ilja


texts: Guides for being an independent/freelance researcher?

texts: Are there any books on how to be an independent/freelance researcher?


texts: Finding appropriate journal for submitting a modest paper in mathematics

texts:
I've finished master studies in mathematics. Now I'm working on some papers, but I'm not so familiar with journals. I've submitted papers in some journals with impact factor, but it was rejected, while some other journals accept them (I doubt they accept anything for money).
My question is: how can I find an appropriate journal for a modest paper?


texts: What are the archiving policies of arXiv?

texts:
In this answer it is suggested that arXiv, as its name would suggest, is archival. One of Beall's criteria is that a publisher is potentially predatory if it

  Has no policies or practices for digital preservation, meaning that if the
  journal ceases  operations,  all  of  the  content  disappears  from  the
  internet.

The only thing I can find about digital preservation on the arXiv website is

  arXiv submissions are meant to be available in perpetuity. Thus, arXiv has high technical standards for the files that are submitted.

While it is good that the articles are in a format which will allow access in perpetuity, the primer says nothing about what happens if arXiv ceases operations. What is the arXiv policy in regards to digital preservation?


texts: How do I ask a faculty member if I can work with him?

texts:
There is a postdoctoral position that I would like to apply for. One of the requirements for it is to identify a working group and a faculty member that you are interested in working with. I have never done this. How do I ask a person whom I've never met/worked with if I can work with him ? I mean, what is a polite way to say, well, compared to everyone in the group, your work seems to be the closest to what I want to do, so can I work with you please?

I would be very grateful for any input. Thanks in advance !!!


texts: Why isn't it the norm to have research repeated immediately by other academics?

texts:
The potential benefit to society of good research, and the potential costs of acting on bad research, seem to be extremely high in both directions.
Why is it the norm to simply peer review research, including the methodology, but not the norm to have the actual data collection and experiments re-run by other academics for cases where it is relatively low cost and fast to do so? E.g., where a second experiment/data collection run would take < 20% of the cost of the original research and < 3 months to conduct.
If this were standard practice on inexpensive, short term studies it could improve trust and integrity in research, so why isn't it standard practice?
Note: I tried to tag this 'academic-integrity', 'integrity', and 'statistical-significance', but no such tags exist!


texts: How should a supervisor deal with a PhD student who behaves badly

texts: If a PhD student who behaves badly, e.g  being rude to other PhD students/staffs, distracting people in the same office by talking loudly or making noise..., should his/her supervisor do anything to deal with that student? If the answer is yes, what should a supervisor do?


texts: small sample for an article proof, how to deal with it?

texts:
I have written an article about using technique X as a methodology for lecturing an Information Technology classroom. At the beginning of the experiment I hypothesize that the use of this technique would have a negative effect on the learning outcomes of the students, even though a colleague was pretty sure that it was going to be the opposite way around. Anyway, when the experimentation part ended I was right, the methodology applied was worse than the old method applied and we wrote a paper about this experience. The problem is that we tested the methodology only in a small group of students, 30 approximately, but we have some doubts if it could get rejected because the sample is too small considering other experiments in which there are involved hundred of students.
Bottomline, how to deal this issue in a research paper? Should I only present the results and not make any statistical hypothesis testing? I have performed an h-test, but one colleague told me that still the sample is too small.
Any help?


texts: Is EF-SET English Certificate accepted for higher education or jobs across the world? Did anyone try using that? I have not yet seen any place where they accept this.


texts: I'm very new to the research domain and I'm extremely confused, let me explain further. For the literature review I've done assume that I have 1 topic, that comprises of three research papers say A,B,C. Now I put these papers in chronological order, I then take paper A and summarize it. What I mean here is that I discuss what the papers purpose was, how the authors met the papers purpose and mention the results. After this I then explain what is learned from each paper and what I can take forward in the proposed research and Introduce the next paper, in this case paper B. I do the same process for paper B etc. My question is that I've been told that this approach is wrong and that a literature review is like "telling a story" but frankly I can't see where I'm going wrong?? Can someone please help explain where exactly I am going wrong?


texts: Should glossary links be used as much as possible?

texts:
There are two terms in my thesis that I'm using throughout the entire work. They have been added to the glossary for that reason. However, by the time I got to chapter 4 or so I've stopped writing them as PDF hyperlinks (so that they can jump to the corresponding entry in the glossary) because I got really tired of it.

My assumption was that by this point the reader should know what the glossary terms mean.

Is this okay or should I use glossary hyperlinks as much as possible?


texts: Why is an academic CV not the place to sell?

texts:
In a comment, ff524 said this (and got confirmed by scaahu, Nate Eldredge below (not to mention the number of votes)):

  Actually, academic CVs are typically not as sales-pitch-y as non-academic CVs. They are usually a very formulaic listing of all the academic things the candidate has done, with no editorializing or embellishment [...]. The "sell" is reserved for other parts of the application.

Why? I know that there are some differences in academia than other environments, but I can't think of a reason why a CV shouldn't be a sale pitch. Sure, we have other metrics to evaluate that, like h-index, but what is so wrong that putting other things (like about me, objectives, other courses, English certification, class standing, etc)? I am asking this question in general, but I also ask it from the new young student standing point in specifically. I know that if you are a novice, LOR are very important. You can say that a CV should be concise and into the point, but a half-page long CV may show that beside that point, you have nothing.

I just wonder what is the harm of making the CV like a sales pitch?


texts: Should I retake the general GRE or focus on subject test?

texts:
I took the general GRE two years ago and received V167/Q161/W5.0 or V98%/Q78%/W93%.

I am applying for PhD programs in applied mathematics this fall and plan on taking the GRE mathematics subject test.

My question is, should I focus on doing well on the subject test or also study and retake the general exam?

If my general exam scores are "good enough" then I suppose I would like to simply focus on the subject test. On the other hand, I am slightly worried about my 78th percentile score in quantitative reasoning.


texts: Post-doc for two (two-body problem): How to search, apply, and improve our chances?

texts:
My significant other and I are doing our PhDs in physics, and we both want to continue in academia and to stay together.
He did his masters in a first-world country and I did mine in a third-world country (but in one of the best institutes of the region), on the same topic. We both had very high qualifications and we are young. We are now doing our PhDs at the same university (the first-world country one), continuing on the same topic. I will probably end up with considerably more peer-reviewed publications than him, but he will probably complete his PhD in a shorter time. He also did some teaching and, so far, I have not. He will also finish ~1 year before me, as he started earlier, and it's very likely that he will get a 1-year post-doc at the university where we are now (bridging the gap until I finish). By that moment we will both have to apply to postdocs.
These are my questions:

Improve our chances: In general, is there something we can do now to give us higher chances of both getting post-docs in the same institute/city? In particular, can we do something to have more similar chances? Do you have a rough idea of how many positions we should apply to in order to have a fair chance of finding something together?
Search: How should we look for postdocs that allow us to live together? I imagine looking for institutes that offer 2 or more positions on the same topic (I have not seen many!), or cities with many institutes (although we are not fans of big cities...). Do you know other or better ways?
Different topics?: We are both very open regarding the topic and country of our postdocs. I would be particularly eager to change to another branch of physics. Would this give us more chances to find positions at the same institute/city? Is it even realistic to try to apply to to a topic that is not tightly related to what I did? Would it be a bad move on the long-term if we split to different branches of physics?
Application: Is not being yet married a disadvantage at the moment of applying? Is there any way to apply as a couple or do we just have to apply independently?

Thank you very much in advance.


texts: Getting into an engineering or physics graduate program with a C in Calculus 1 and 2

texts: I am a physics major in my second year. I do well in Physics, but math is my weak point. I struggle through it, I understand it, but my grades are poor. I am interested in studying specifically aerospace in grad school if I can (that's a separate matter). Would graduate admissions turn me down if they see poor Calc 1 and 2 grades?


texts: Can I use the sentence "Most of the references in this paper" in my paper?

texts:
My paper was accepted with major revision and the 2nd reviewer pointed in a comment that the problem I'm tackling in my paper is not obvious or as important as I'm thinking it is...

Yet, almost all of the references I used point out that this problem is a major drawback! And it was the main motivation to the others (most of those papers were published in the last 3 years, Q1 journals in scimago, ex : IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, some cited up to 200 times)...

So just for the sake of this reviewer, I want to point that most of the references in my paper show that the problem I'm trying to solve is a real one.

So should I write :

  The problem X was reported in [ 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8..., 15 ]

Or is there a nice way to say :

  In most of the references in this paper, the problem X was reported and was the main motivation...

Or should I just try to convince the reviewer in a separate motivation letter?


texts: What does it mean when a manuscript submission systems lists the status of a paper as "Archived"?

texts: I submitted a paper in journal. After one day status is Archived. What is meaning of it? I did't get any communication information. Thanks.


texts: should one add to the CV papers that appeared in conferences with no proceedings?

texts:
Should I put on my CV papers (or "talks") that appeared in (peer-reviewed!) conferences that have no proceedings? Should I avoid duplicates if the same paper also appears in another conference (with proceedings)?

Should I make it clear that the conference has no proceedings, or just list it in the "Conferences" section? If it changes anything, my field is Computer Science.

EDIT:
some conferences are peer-reviewed but have no proceedings. Call it workshops if you wish. You submit a paper, and a committee  selects 30%-40 of the papers - each submission gets a slot in presenting the results during the conference/workshop, however no formal proceedings is issued.
(I'm surprised no one heard of such conferences; maybe I'm using the wrong terms; sorry for that)


texts: Why was Roy Fielding's thesis on REST not adopted immediately?

texts:
Roy Fielding's thesis ( Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures  ) was not implemented/adopted immediately, was there any specific reason for this ? The thesis was submitted in 2000, however the REST architectural design became popular in the last 3/4 years. I may be wrong but that's why I like to know better. I understand that under SOA, SOAP was popular and well standardized before the REST era. Was this lapse in adoption a function of academic or industrial factors ?

Maybe the evaluation was insufficient or not convincing  enough for real world deployments. What academic lessons can be drawn from this ?


texts: How can I get recommendation letters for PhD application, while just starting a PhD program?

texts:
I am starting graduate school (PhD program) soon, but there's a very high chance that I can't stay in this program for non-academic reasons. Now I want to apply for somewhere else, but I don't know how I can get reference letters.

Since I applied for so many grad schools last year, my very patient and kind professors from my undergrad program submitted their letters for me at least 20 times. I bothered them a lot, they were very helpful, and I got into a relatively good program. I even went to them and gave them the good news of receiving and accepting the offer.

Over the last few months though, my situation changed, and now there's a considerably high chance that I wouldn't be able to stay here after this year. I can't get any letters from my professors this semester, because I'm just starting the courses, and I suspect I won't even have the midterm results out by the time I'm applying to PhD programs for next year. I also don't have a an advisor yet until the end of the first year. So, it seems like my only option is getting the letters from my undergrad professors, but now I have two problems:

1 - I have their letters on a dossier service, so I thought about just using the service to submit their letters to those schools that accept the dossier service. But is that ok? Shouldn't I tell them that I'm using their letters? They submitted their letters for my applications last year, and they don't even know I'm applying again this year.

2 - Even if I could use the dossier service, most of the PhD positions I'm applying for, don't accept the letters from the dossier service. In fact, since I'm mostly applying for positions in Europe, I'll probably need to have the letters directly sent to my prospective advisors. How can I ask those professors for submitting their letters yet another round?! I can't even explain the reasons to them, as probably they won't want to read a long email with details about my personal life, and I'm not there to go and talk to them in person. Is it a good idea to have the dossier service email the letters to the prospective advisors?! Could I ask the schools/advisors to make an exception and accept the letters submitted through the dossier service?!

(I did my undergrad in the US, and I'm currently a graduate student in the US.)


texts: How do I ask a professor to contact another professor he knows to accept me as a Masters student *via email*?

texts:
I did research with a professor during my senior year (2017/2018) and we published a paper together. He wrote me a letter of reference for my grad school applications.

One of the professors I'm interested in working with at another school is his sister-in-law. I've tried emailing her to no avail. I had a friend suggest I have the professor I know email her instead, since even the fact that they're related aside, a professor is more likely to respond to an email by another prof.

This is identical to this question: How do I politely ask a professor to contact another professor he knows to accept me as PhD student?

However, the answer to the previous question suggests subtlely bringing it up during a conversation. I'm not in school anymore (just graduated) and don't meet this professor in person anymore so I need to do this via email.

I was hoping someone could give some advice about how to compose an email politely requesting him to contact his sister-in-law on my behalf? I feel fairly embarrassed having to do this since I am asking for quite a bit of him, but I figure it's worth a shot. Worst case he says no.


texts: How to write an email to a potential PhD advisor that I have worked with in the past

texts:
I am just finishing up an MSc degree in Canada and am looking to begin sending inquiry emails to potential supervisors regarding available PhD positions (also in Canada). However, I am unsure how to approach one specific scenario:

I am looking to email a potential supervisor who I have worked with in the past although not very closely as he has never been a direct supervisor and is at a different university. However, he still knows most of the pertinent information that I would typically include in an inquiry email (e.g. current school/program, research topic, GPA, etc.). He also knows that I am aware of his current research and his recent publications as my research is closely related and we have completed fieldwork together that is related to both of our topics.

I am unsure of how formal to be or what to include in my email given that we do have somewhat of a pre-existing relationship. Typically I would try to speak in person with anyone that I already know but given that he is at a different university that wouldn't be possible without advance planning.

Any guidance on what to include in an email asking about potential PhD openings and hopefully arranging a meeting to discuss any opportunities in person would be much appreciated!


texts:
This post concerns grad school options.

I am undergraduate math major who is going to complete my studies soon. I am considering finance/financial engineering. How math heavy is the financial math compared to pure math? Is it equally as challenging and tough? I am basically considering to change to finance because pure math is rather challenging for me.

If you need more clarification, mention in comments.


texts: How do I get into a masters course in pure mathematics?

texts:
My question is as stated in the title and to elaborate more:

I would like to know if there are any standardized international exams to enter a masters course in pure mathematics (besides GRE Math) and available for a scholarship simultaneously? (I'm a graduate in Automotive engineering, 23 years old and don't have a math degree yet).

I have completed 5 courses related to engineering mathematics during my tenure as a engineer.

I've been prepping only on math (topology, differential geometry, advanced calculus, real analysis, etc.) for the past 6 months and am almost ready for an entrance exam.

Can anyone offer me alternate options or solutions on how to go about this?


texts: Finishing PhD early and becoming my PI's postdoc instead

texts:
I'm PhD student beginning my third year. I plan to graduate at the end of my fourth year, leaving me with about another two years in the program. However, at the end of a productive summer of research, my PhD supervisor has mentioned that I'd be on track to finish considerably earlier if I want to. My program uses the "three papers" dissertation model, so at any given time, it's pretty easy to gauge how close we are.

In fact, I do not want to finish early because I am really enjoying doing research with my supervisor and feel that I'm receiving outstanding mentorship from him. Additionally, four years is already fairly short for my program (which is usually done in five years), so it doesn't seem that there is much additional benefit to finishing before year 4.

Instead, I'm considering asking my supervisor if I should defend early and then become his postdoc for whatever remains of my planned four years. I imagine the benefits would be:

Since I plan to apply for faculty positions after this, I would have nominally "done a postdoc" instead of being fresh out my PhD.
I'd be off the hook in terms of departmental responsibilities, like TAing, for my fourth year.

Are there other advantages or disadvantages to defending early to become a postdoc? Also, are there advantages or disadvantages for my PhD supervisor?

More notes / responses to questions:

I have reason to believe that postdoc funding would not be an issue, so perhaps let's not focus much on that.
It may be relevant that my PhD supervisor and others believe my publication record (from before my PhD, totaling around 17 papers with ~7 first authorships) to be competitive for a faculty position without doing a standard postdoc (i.e., not the truncated version with my PhD supervisor that I'm proposing).
I had an early start with research and didn't go straight from undergrad to PhD

UPDATE: 2 YEARS LATER

After weighing the various pros and cons pointed out here and in live conversations, I ultimately did follow through with the above plan. It worked out great. I am a few months into a faculty position now. It's too early to say if I'll secure successful grants, etc., but I am having a great time and feel very well-prepared. Of course, YMMV, and there were certainly multiple elements of luck, but my n=1 experience with this unusual plan, at least, has been excellent so far.


texts: Going back to academia after quitting my Ph.D. and taking a year off?

texts:
I am a Ph.D. dropout with a one year of career gap. I want to return to academia, but now  I have realized that it was perhaps the biggest mistake to take a gap after quitting my Ph.D. The purpose of taking a gap was to work on my communication skills and get a  new perspective on my work and my career in science. This could have been done within a period of 2-3 months but it became one year long because of my own recklessness. I allowed myself to distract from my goal and I started working on my hobby i.e. Painting. I lost myself there and completely lost track of my time. I was really enjoying everything about this new venture. I took it as a challenge to become better at my skills in painting. Eventually, I became the best in my group and got lots of appreciation. But then, I lost my interest while realizing that there was no further challenge and all there was left is to work and work while crafting your art which was never going to be perfect. It made me realize that what I actually love is to take the new challenges and work on myself. To be an artist was never a career option for me, all I wanted was to learn the skills. That's it!

While counting my achievement in science, I  realized that it was an irresponsible thing to take a gap in doing something that has nothing to do with science. Earlier I had a scholarship and a very competitive mind that has led me to get a Ph.D. position in one of the best labs in the country. Now I don't have the scholarship. I want to go back to my world of research where I was accelerating exponentially. I want to tackle the challenges of science with a new perspective and better skills. I want to be productive more than earlier and ready to take all the tough challenges.
But I feel embarrassed about my past mistake. Because of this, I come across as someone who is not sincere about her career. But I can't help it because the truth is that I did behave insincerely by losing track of my time.  I should have been conscious enough to realize the consequences. Now, what do I do? The past has gone and the vision of the present is crying for a better future. How do I make things better like before?


texts: Should I take the GRE physics subject test for a chemistry PhD?

texts:
I plan on applying to top chemistry graduate programs (MIT, Caltech etc.)

I took the Chemistry subject test, score isn't in yet but I think  it's with high expected value (because I knew everything) but also high variance (because I worked...sub-optimally...and maybe made a ton of stupid mistakes) so it's a bit iffy.

I also noticed that I can answer most (~80%) of the questions on the Physics subject test and decided to sign up for that one too. It won't be a high score - I obviously can't compete with physicists - but just want to showcase my decent physics background (deeper than most chemists).

Is it in any way beneficial to send chemistry graduate programs also a mediocre physics score? Should I give it up and try to retake the chemistry test?


texts:
I want to apply for (top) US PhD programs until this December for being potentially admitted in September 2019.

This personal information is relevant to my question:

Bachelors in non English-speaking country (Sept 2013-June 2016)
TOEFL exams (Sept 2015 - Overall score: 106)
Masters in UK (Sept 2016 - August 2017)
Working in UK (Oct 2017 - present)

Do I have to sit again for TOEFL to apply for US Phd programs this year even though I sat successfully for TOEFL in September 2015 and even though since September 2016 I am living, studying and working in UK?

P.S.
If yes then this does not make any sense....haha....


texts: Pros and cons on commenting on public review papers

texts:
Journals such as AMTD and ACPD contain an open discussion where anybody can comment on papers under review. The peer-reviewers are still anonymous, but other people commenting are not. If I'm reading a paper and have questions about it, what are the pros and cons on posting them as public comments versus writing an e-mail to the author directly? On the one hand my comments may improve the paper; on the other hand, if I write something stupid or step on somebody's toe, that may harm my future career.

What do others think?

(Edit: I might add that in the case I have in mind, I am already in contact with the author)


texts: Is it a bad idea to do research with multiple different professors at the same time?

texts:
I want to go to graduate school to study computational molecular biology and biochemistry.

During my first three semesters as an undergraduate I finished my distribution requirements and started doing research with one professor.  During my fourth semester I started doing research with two more professors (working in computational biophysics and  computational linear algebra).  My work with two of these three professors has already led to work that will be published soon.  I am considering starting research with yet another professor (in statistical genomics).

Is it wise to begin research with yet another professor?  I fear that having engaged with too many professors makes my resume read like that of a dilettante rather than a promising computational biologist.


texts:
I'm trying to submit a paper on arXiv, but I can't figure out how to enter my name with accents.
It's supposed to say "Dörr", but arXiv turns it into this:
Image
I tried to enter the UTF character directly and also tried to use the latex syntax for accented characters, as described here.
Using a different browser didn't help either.
On the same site it says "make sure [...] that any accented characters are properly represented", so it has to be possible to enter them.
Any ideas? It can't be that difficult.


texts: Do I have to be secretive about my research until it's published?

texts:
I'm a Master's student studying Computer Graphics and Animation. I've already proposed my thesis and have been deep in prototype development for a while. I've gotten some pretty cool results already (mostly pretty pictures and animations). I'd really like to share some of the images I've created to get the attention/support of other graphics researchers and to encourage public interest in the field. However, from day one my advisor has encouraged me to keep most of the details of my research a secret until I've published my work. I've gotten almost the opposite advice from other sources.

Besides some protection from stolen ideas, what other benefits are there to keeping my work a secret until it's published (or submitted to a journal/conference)? Are there compelling reasons to start sharing some of my work now?


texts: Protecting yourself when leaving PhD which involves misrepresentation of results and potentially unsafe bio-containment procedures?

texts:
I am in the process of leaving a PhD program after less than one year. I have spoken with my advisers and am slated to leave by the end of the summer.

I have various reasons for leaving, including general disinterest in lab work and that is the official story that my advisers are giving.

During the course of my PhD, I have had to write some reports and an abstract for a talk that involve seriously stretching the truth. In short, I am misrepresenting the promise of the molecule that I am studying. I am misrepresenting this to the grant people. I am also omitting data that doesn't support the conclusions my advisers want, but not producing any false data.

The other thing that I have been doing is growing transgenic plants that express a drug for oral delivery in a food crop. Our lab does not have the proper approval from the university to do this, and we are growing it in a greenhouse without proper containment. I am not a plant scientist so I do not know the potential danger, but I do know the species I am studying has the potential to cross pollinate and produces many tinny seeds that get everywhere. I am concerned about the safety and another lab member has voiced his concerns to my advisers but no action has been taken. We are in the process of trying to get a permit to grow it, but it hasn't been issued yet.

By leaving my PhD, I have already lost all potential to enter my field of study so I am currently switching to statistics and happy about it. My concern is that I might be implicated in something if all this sloppiness catches up to my advisers.

What steps can I do to protect myself so that my work here doesn't come back to haunt me?


texts:
Most universities (at least in North America) have the concept of "Qualification Exams" taken one year after the student joins the graduate course. These usually encompass all that was done in the first year and as undergraduate and might also test some other (research abilities) of the student by asking him to present papers (s)he found interesting.

Some universities treat this as a formality and everyone who attempts usually gets through while some universities take quals very seriously and won't allow the student to continue if he fails the quals (maybe, they will allow for 2nd attempt). These universities might subscribe reading lists consisting of textbooks and papers which comprises of "must-have" knowledge of the field. The latter might constitute as a difficult phase for students who find themselves ill prepared in a certain portion of the exam. (For instance, a pure math undergrad moving to a PhD in Fluid Mechanics and asked to attempt an exam on Fluid Machines)

Assuming STEM graduate course in a university which takes quals seriously (with a structure of written test >   oral exam > interview/research proposal presentation),

How should a student approach these exams?
Specifically,

How is it any different from the undergraduate exams that students give?
Do you really "prepare" for these exams or should you bank on the courses you have taken and the homework you solved to get you through?
Repeatedly, I have been told by students (across departments and across institutes) that the faculty is only interested in the oral section of quals as a sanity check and to see whether you have the urge for learning something new; is this universally true?


texts: How does the quality of a PhD differ in Germany, Denmark, Sweden?

texts:
I am planning to apply for a PhD position in Computer Science but haven't decided yet which country to study in. So far I found interesting universities / research groups in Germany (where I am currently studying), Denmark and Sweden but the structures of PhD programs seem to differ widely. Therefore I was wondering if these differences also result in a quality difference.

Up to my current understanding the systems and differences are as follows: (Please correct me if I'm mistaken.)

In Germany Computer Science PhDs are usually unstructured, without course work. Only published papers and the thesis count. Exchanges semesters are not usual (at least at my current university). PhDs usually take up to 5 years.
In Denmark and Sweden PhDs are structured and include course work and usually an exchange semester at a foreign university.
In Denmark PhDs take exactly 3 years and in Sweden about 4 years.

Do these differences affect the overall quality of the PhD and the experience/ knowledge you gain from it?

For example, Danish PhDs are much shorter than German ones and include additional course work and an exchange stay abroad. I get the impression that Danish programs are much more guided than German ones but that you have less time to do research. Does this imply that you learn less or are students in a guided environment more productive?


texts: I am planning to complete a Masters in Physics (thesis based research) at my undergraduate institution after being rejected during PhD applications. I feel like this will bolster my research experience and strengthen my research application. After this, I plan to apply to PhD programs, both at my home institution and at other schools. Do PhD admissions committees favor a Masters degree with research? Did I make the right decision in going for a Masters?


texts: Prospects with a Computational Social Science degree

texts:
During college, I decided to use my free electives to pursue a second major I had an interest in (Sociology) besides my main focus on computer science.

I am contemplating applying to some phD programs that intersect both of these fields. However, I know these are new programs.

I have e-mailed a few departments but I get the vibe that they are more focused in getting people to apply to these new programs rather than necessarily being honest about prospects.

So my question is essentially, are there tenure track professorships that are interested in applicants with these kinds of backgrounds? And if so is it only a very small group of institutions?

Example of one of the programs I am referring to: Ph.D Program in Computational Social Sciences


texts: Can international students study via distance without applying for a visa?

texts: If an international student wants to study in a US degree program (AA, BA, MA, PhD, etc.), but entirely on-line while living in their home country, and without ever entering the US, can they skip all of the visa-related paperwork?


texts: What is the likelihood of a PhD admission if a professor agrees to supervise?

texts:
A very nervous potential PhD student here!

Long story short, I have been applying to quite a few bioinformatics PhD programs in the US and been rejected from most of them. I did my masters in the UK, and had unfortunately fallen ill during its course and had to take a break so didn't end up doing great. My undergrad GPA is ok (3.12). I did however do good work during my Undergrad and masters, and have a really supporting recommendation letter to show for it.

I had a very promising interview with a professor from a Flagship State University who has agreed to supervise and fund me (Research assistantship). Suffice to say our research interests match a lot and I also think the professor would be a great supervisor. The professor has also been actively following up on my application within the department.

My question here is, what are my chances of getting admitted?

The department doesn't have a "PhD program" per se (i.e. traditional program where students are admitted and then find a supervisor). Students seem to contact supervisor and find funding through that route and then apply. I am not sure how the application processes work in the US.


texts: Before interviewing at a grad school, how much background research should I do into its research groups?

texts:
I was recently invited for on-campus Interviews at Austria‘s top graduate school. I picked 5 Group Leaders, of which 3 will eventually conduct the interview.

Naturally, I’ll be prepared for any and all questions regarding my previous thesis, internships and classes.

Questions:

How much reading should I do about the research of the groups I’m interested in?
Can I expect detailed questions regarding their latest publications, etc.?


texts: Should I inform about an updated CV post deadline? (CS PhD USA)

texts:
Background: CS Undergrad applying to CS PhD Programs, USA.
(Assuming) I have a paper A in review at a Journal B, and I get the acceptance for the same 2 months post the deadline of applying.
Question:

Should I send the places I applied an e-mail saying that the paper which was in review (and mentioned in my SOP/LOR/CV) got accepted?
Does it have any effect on their decision?


texts: Download automatically all articles from references in a pdf file or on a journal website

texts:
I'm wondering if it is possible to download all articles from references  in a pdf file or on a journal website. For example I'd like to download all articles in the following references (I'm using the internet connection of my university, thus I can download all articles if they were purchased; I suppose my university did it):

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2012/170594/ref/

Thank you for your help.

Ps: I have also the pdf file of the article.


texts: How should I ask a potential advisor why they haven't published in the last 3 years?

texts:
I'm using a throwaway account for privacy. I know professors are human beings and "I can just ask", but, as this is the start of the relationship, I don't want to seem rude - or to seem that I am interviewing them. This potential advisor has published papers in top journals before, but nothing for the last 3 years.

I know this question is related: PhD with a supervisor who has not published anymore since 2014, but this professor is quite young, so the situation is different.

I think that if I ask them about "their current research interests" they will just talk about the current project that is about to begin - without addressing the issue I'm interested in.


texts: Can my supervisor use my code in his paper without acknowledging me?

texts:
A student performed a thorough review of the available algorithms in the literature and constructed several coding implementations that were shown to be far more effective than previous implementations known to the supervisor for the last decade. The fundamentals of these implementations, which already existed in the literature, were complemented with a major adaptation.

The supervisor used these implementations to perform a simulation that formed one piece of key evidence for the validity of his paper. The student was not in the author list, not in the acknowledgments section and his works are not cited. In fact, the vanilla algorithm presented in the draft was insufficient to perform the required calculations.

For the sake of posing a question, let's take these claims as true and ask:
- How should the student approach this matter?


texts: Should I publish a linear programming method despite my advisor's advice?

texts:
TL;DR: I developed a way of solving systems of equations which is up to 25,000x faster than base methods. I want to publish but my advisor doesn't think it's worth it.

I work as a data scientist with hyperspectral data. In this area, we treat every single pixel as its own system of equations. Because of this, we need to solve potentially thousands of systems of equations. Obviously, if we use traditional tools this is exceptionally slow and potentially not worth our time. However, each problem is relatively small, think 1 variable with ~100 non-linear equations.

I came up with 2 separate systems to solve these equations much faster. The first one adapts MATLAB's fminbnd so that every single one of these problems can be solved at once. This allows the function evaluation to take advantage of vectorized processing which in many languages, particularly research based languages gives a drastic speedup. See the MATLAB codebase. In addition, this allowed us to use GPUs to solve the problem resulting in a much larger performance increase. All told, this allows us to have a ~300-1000x performance speedup.

The second system is meant for solving much larger systems of equations. This uses the same idea but with a Levenburg-Marquardt implementation. This utilizes MATLAB's pagefun and with an aggressive implementation, this beats out the best global solver I could find by a factor of 25,000 for the same results (this method also allowed me to obtain an order of magnitude improvement for my results with a 4000x speedup).

While these results are impressive, my advisor wants me to focus on my primary research and wants me to present those results. I'd like to present both results as I believe they are both valuable to the body of knowledge but my advisor has always been honest with me and I feel like I should follow his lead.

Should I publish this linear programming method despite my advisor's advice?


texts: Is there any way to show that authors are equal in arxiv names?

texts:
I have a paper which the first two authors are contributed equally, is there any way to show in arxiv page (or scholar page) that authors are equal? Maybe a star on names in submit names or something.
thanks.