texts: Updating Paper Status after Applying to Graduate School

texts: I heard back recently about my paper being accepted for publication. At the time of my applications to graduate schools I just wrote it was under review, should I attempt to update this status with some of the schools I applied to? If so, what would be the appropriate way to do this?


texts: As a postdoc, should I spend time learning new subjects or focus on applying what I know?

texts:
I've just started as postdoctoral researcher at a great institute. I imagine that they expect me to achieve good results and teach some classes.

But honestly, I feel that I still need to learn a lot more on many topics. So, is it a good idea to dedicate a few hours of my day to learn new topics? Or should I focus only on what I already know and on how to apply it in order to obtain more results?

It is a new stage of my life and any tip that may improve me as a researcher is very welcomed.


texts: What are financial prospects for a postdoc as compared to a PhD student without funding?

texts:
I am going to start my PhD, unfortunately, I did not get any funding. I am thinking of taking a loan so that I could focus more on my PhD studies, but the loan will need to be repaid after PhD. Therefore my question is if my financial situation is likely to be better as a postdoc than as a PhD student. My reasoning:

As a PhD student:
I have to pay academic fees,
I do not get funding or a salary.

As a postdoc:
I do not have to pay academic fees or any other fees to a university (am I right?),
I may get a salary but may not to.

How many postdocs do get paid? I looked at research groups I am interested in and they say, they do not have funding for postdocs and their postdocs usually are supported by some grant that they themselves have arranged before coming to the group. So is my financial situation going to depend on if I can secure a grant for my research as a postdoc or I should expect to receive a salary? How likely is the success in either ways?


texts:
I'm at the end of the second year of a phd in engineering. My project is going well: I'm involved in an international project and I submitted 6 journal papers and 5 conference papers.

The problem is the relationship with my main supervisor.

I have two supervisors. I'm working really well with my co-supervisor. He has always showed interest in my work and in me as a person. He provides me accurate revisions on papers, reports, oral presentations, and so on. At the same time, he leaves me free to direct my project as I prefer, as long as my work is coherent with the topic of my thesis and with the objectives of the project we are involved in.

Things are different with my main supervisor. He couldn't care less about my work. I hardly remember the last time he gave me any guidance or even corrected one of my papers. He requested I help other phd students and provide him with didactic material for courses.

I spent most of the first year helping another student, understanding that the work would be part of my thesis. At the end of the year my supervisor asked me not to inform the phd committee of my participation in that work, because it could damage the evaluation the student.

This year, something similar happened. One of his M.Sc students could not finish a job in collaboration with another professor. Now he wants me to finish that job, because he doesn't want to offend that professor. The problem is that he's not even in my research group, I don't have any experience with the subject and this is slowing down my work, as this job should be completed by the end of the year. My supervisor also gave me other extra work, telling me not to tell the other supervisor and not to add his name in my works.

The worst part came when my co-supervisor proposed me a postdoc position. My main advisor became arrogant, telling me not to f**k up things (litterally), that he's the boss and that if I want to go on working in research I have to stay with him.

I tried many, many times to talk to him, but his answers are always the same: "don't do s**t, remember who's the boss here".

Normally, I wouldn't ask advice from random people over the internet, but I really don't know what to do. Talking to him seems completely useless. Maybe I should talk to the other supervisor, but I'm not sure he would support me against a colleague. I'm afraid I could end up even more isolated.


texts:
There is a PhD project advertised by a professor and I want to avail that position. But that project is not clearly connected with my work in my MS research. (Advertised project is about quantum liquids while my MS work is about topological insulators). However, I know basics of quantum liquids and I find myself very much interested in this field.

Is it a good idea to mention that my work is not connected with this project but my very strong interest in this field is what motivating me to apply for this position in the motivation letter?


texts: Will bad grades in non-math classes affect admission?

texts: I'm an undergrad student at a fairly well known math program (top 20). I have taken several upper level undergraduate courses (real/complex analysis, honors abstract algebra) and graduate level courses (commutative algebra, topology) and I also did some independent learning with one of the professor here in homological algebra, and I did very well in my math courses (All A and A+). However, some of my geneds are not very good (I don't feel like I'm interested in learning them because I think they are useless and I would rather spend time learning math by myself rather than study for the exam). My question here is: How bad will it be? Will those general education courses hurt my chance of admission for grad school? Thanks


texts: What to expect from an HR interview for a postdoc position?

texts:
I had a successful technical round of interview for a PostDoc position offered by an NGO. Now I am told that I will be interviewed by the HR manager for the same.

I was told that I am technically highly suitable for the role. My question is what would the HR team might be interested to know further. Would they want to know more about personality etc.

Could anyone please suggest what to expect in an HR interview for a postdoc position?


texts: What is the justification for the typical punishment of a student who did not cheat but helped others cheat?

texts:
Imagine this scenario: you're in an exam. Somebody asks for your help to answer a question. You help them (whisper the answer, slip them a note, whatever). You get caught. You get punished.

That's fine. You're not allowed to help others cheat. You broke the rules. The university is liable to punish you. All of this makes perfect sense so far.

But.

In my experience, it is often the case that this student who, remember, did not cheat on their own exam, often receives a punishment directly related to that exam, i.e. they fail the exam.

This does not seem to make any sense at all. The wrongdoing of the student has nothing to do with their performance on the exam. They did not cheat. Therefore, their exam is a separate thing entirely, and punishing them by failing them seems like an arbitrary thing to do.

Let me give you an example. Say a student punches a teacher. Would this student ever receive a punishment like "oh now you have failed your exam in Abstract Algebra!"?

No. The punishent will be general (suspension, etc), but the exams are not touched.

So, in the above example, why is the student who helped others cheat being punished on their exam, when their exam performance involved no cheating at all? What is the justification for this?


texts: What is the gross salary like for university engineering professors in Pakistan?

texts: What is the gross salary like for Assistant professors in Pakistan in publicly funded universities in the area of engineering?


texts: What should I do during my PhD program to get a faculty position right after PhD, and how can I accomplish them? (Field: Statistics)

texts:
I am starting my PhD next year (2019), and I have some concerns.

I recall one of my Professors from my undergrad years was telling me that in my field (statistics), excellent Statistics PhD graduates are taken for a tenure-track Research Professor job directly after their PhD without having to do any postdoc. And I am hoping that I can secure a tenure-track faculty position directly after my PhD, because I will be around mid-30s by the time I finish my PhD (i.e. if all goes well), and I would like to land a good career by then.

What are the things that I should do during my PhD program to get a faculty position right after my PhD, and how can I accomplish them?

I will be taking my PhD in Statistics in Canada, but I want to get hired by research universities in US as a tenure-track Assistant Professor directly after my PhD, if I can.

Thank you,


texts:
I found an interesting figure in a review which has no reference ( i assumed that it belongs to the review author if i am wrong kindly correct my idea) , can i paraphrase the caption or use the figure information and paraphrase it ( deal with it as any original data from any article review ?).
additionally, what are the elements in the review paper that belongs to the review author ? is it just the conclusion and the non referenced figures ??


texts: How many papers does a mathematician publish (on average) in a year?

texts:
I wondered about the number of papers published by mathematicians because I heard that they publish less than other academics or scientist.
It would be nice if you could distinguish between the number of papers published by PhDs, Postdocs or Professors.


texts:
I'm a tenure track professor in computer science at a teaching-oriented university. I still have a number of years before I go up for tenure, but want to start preparing early. One of the metrics I will be judged on is teaching effectiveness; namely, some objective, quantitative measure of student learning. I've talked to my (recently tenured) colleagues about this, and it sounds like no one has any idea of best ways to measure it; everyone kind of offered some discussion of test scores, called it a day, and got tenure. I would like to be a bit more principled in my approach, but am unsure how. A pretest seems like the most obvious, since it seems that you would need a baseline to measure effectiveness over the course of the semester. But, I primarily teach intro programming, where students have no background knowledge (those who do are in another class), so giving a pretest seems pointless.

In particular, I have honed in on wanting to teach critical thinking skills (somewhat in line with "How to Think Like a Programmer") and have slowly changed my approach in that direction, but am even more mystified about how to measure that.

In general, looking for recommendations on how to go about assessing teaching effectiveness in a quantitative way in the computer science field.


texts: How are department budgets funded and disbursed at undergraduate institutions?

texts: While the answer is probably highly dependent on field and institution, I am curious as to the different ways departments get their money from the college/university (how is the amount determined?) and then how does the department spend it? Specifically, do faculty in the department get some set amount for which they can use for supplies, equipment, etc?


texts: Are Doctor of Arts (D.A.) degrees in math taken seriously?

texts:
Morris Kline's Why The Professor Can't Teach mentions many problems in current mathematical education in university.  The author said the Doctor of Arts (D.A.) in Mathematics was created to solve these problems.  But I noticed that there are only three universities that have this degree in the U.S. (even in the world).  They are

Carnegie Mellon University,
University of Illinois at Chicago and
Idaho State University.

I even heard an associate professor in CMU said they want to halt this degree. So my question is, has the D.A. degree in math been taken seriously?


texts: Difference between internal and external doctoral studies in Germany

texts:
As I am looking for a PhD scholarship in Germany, I've come across an internet site which contains a database of scholarships. One of the questions asked there is whether I am pursuing "interne Promotion" or "externe Promotion".

According to my colleague, the internal doctoral studies might mean that I am fully occupied at the university, whereas the external studies would occur if I were employed in industry and had to visit the university occasionally for getting feedback from my professor.

Is the explanation of my colleague correct? Are there any further nuances?

Also, why would it be asked for a scholarship?


texts: I was pursuing Ph.D. at a certain institution, let's call it X. After I started working, my experiments would fail repeatedly. My supervisor started calling me incompetent in the first two months of starting my Ph.D. Only later did I know that my experiments were failing due to some uncontrollable factor that I was not initially aware of. Later, I found research articles to support my argument and told about the same to my supervisor. Now, he was pressurizing me to do something unethical and I refused, quit the program after one year. Now, I am planning to pursue Ph.D. somewhere else, probably in the USA. Should I tell the admission committee and prospective supervisor what I went through and why did I left first Ph.D. programme?


texts: I have an (UK) ordinary degree in mechanical engineering. Is it worth the paper it's printed on?

texts:
I've had absolutely no luck with job hunting. After months of applications, I've only gotten two interviews (both last year, before the pandemic), and the jobs I got interviews for weren't even vaguely engineering jobs (one was just CAD doodling, the other was basically tier 3 customer service)

I understand most people have honours degrees, so the fact that I can't say I have a 2.1 or whatever is an obvious red flag.

Is there any future down this path? Is this really such a huge red flag for employers that there's nothing I can realisitically do to make myself employable in my field? Is there even a grad programme that would take me so that there's a chance I could get a degree that doesn't seem so worthless?


texts: What differences should an early career UK academic expect when moving to Australia (e.g., research culture, funding opportunities)?

texts:
I'm currently a Lecturer in Computer Science at a (medium ranked) institution in the UK and I've been given the opportunity to join one of the (top ranked) universities in Australia.

While I do consider the above to be very good news, I'm a bit uncertain what to expect in terms of the different academic cultures and expectations (from me) compared to being a Lecturer in the UK.

Also, are there funding opportunities in the Australian research funding landscape tailored to new staff? In the UK one can apply for an EPSRC First grant scheme but I couldn't spot such schemes for AU.


texts: IEEE-format author line when one author is "Senior Member" and another is unaffiliated with IEEE

texts:
I will shortly be submitting a paper to an IEEE-formatted journal. I am not affiliated with the IEEE, while my co-author is.

Currently, the author line reads like (made-up author names)

  Fred Boggs, Bob Fredds, Senior Member, IEEE

One of the reviewers expresses concern that "it is unclear if the first author is IEEE-affiliated" (no, I am not). How should I format this? I have been unable to find references in standard IEEE template files. Should I sign up for IEEE just to have something to write next to my name?


texts: Is it possible to defer graduate admission for one year?

texts:
I got accepted into the Phd program at a Top 3 university in US.

However, as I have an external scholarship (full funding for PhD study), I have to defer my admission to work at the scholarship sponsor research institute for one year.

I wrote to the department explaining my situation, but was informed that deferral is not allowed and I have to reapply next year.
Anybody had a similar experience as me? Is there a chance to appeal for my deferral request?

As I have my own fundings, technically speaking I do not occupy a quota in current cohort.


texts: Can an unpublished but accepted article be used for an MSc degree?

texts:
I have a student who is doing his MSc in CS. When he was finishing his courses we managed to present an article and it got accepted for a conference in the field. This conference is going to be in September approximately, and the proceedings will be out in March of the following year.
He wants to present this article as the research dissertation that is one of the requisites for obtaining the MSc degree. Would we have any problems if we publish this article in the database of our Faculty, because this could be available months before the proceedings appear? What can we do in this situation?
I was thinking that maybe the student could make a short paper describing the principal findings of the research we did, citing this unpublished work, and present that to our Faculty repository; would that be feasible? I personally do not believe that the student should have to do another research project, because he already got this one accepted.
Any advice?


texts: Contacting potential PhD supervisor - How should I reply?

texts:
I am in the process of contacting potential supervisors for PhD and I need a bit of advice on how to reply to one of them. I initially contacted him with the following email.

  Dear Dr X,

  My name is X and I am currently studying for an MSci in Physics with Particle Physics and Cosmology at the University of X in the UK. I will be graduating in July 2017 and I have begun to consider possibilities for continuing my studies as a graduate student. The 3 year doctoral program at Sokendai is one such possibility.

  I would like to do a PhD in particle physics. After reading some of your recent publications, such as ‘Measurement of Higgs boson couplings at the ILC’, I am aware of your research into the ILC’s potential and would be interested in applying to study a PhD with you. Being able to conduct my PhD in Japan is of especial interest to me, since the country is so heavily involved with the development of the ILC. I am excited to see how the ILC will further the field of physics both by itself and by complementing the studies being done at the LHC.

  Please let me know if there is a possible project for a graduate student for entry in October 2017.  I will be attempting to receive funding via the MEXT scholarship (university recommendation). You are welcome to contact my reference, listed in the attached CV; he is aware that I am applying for graduate positions.

  I look forward to hearing from you.

  Sincerely

  X

Now before anyone mentions that I don't have a research proposal (in case you were about to) I don't believe I need one at this point. I have asked my current tutor if it's ok to not have a plan and to only have an idea of what area you want to do research in (in my case the ILC) and his reply was "You would definitely not be expected to have a fully worked out research plan before you even start, at least not in any physics project I've heard of, because unless it coincided exactly with what the activity of the host group, you would be excluding yourself from working with them."

Now the supervisor in question responded with this:

  Dear X,

  Thank you very much for your message and your interest in ILC and Sokendai.

  I suppose you have already taken a look at

  http://kek.soken.ac.jp//sokendai_en/f_student/scholarships/
     http://kek.soken.ac.jp//sokendai_en/f_student/the-international-graduate-program/

  I am afraid the web page in English is not very well maintained and I suppose it was difficult for you to get necessary information.

  As you can see if you click on the second link above, the entrance day is Oct. 1 every year.
  The scholarship application is usually due sometime in December.

  I will ask the KEK Sokendai office to send you more information about the necessaryprocedure and paperworks.

  Best regards,

I don't think he fully understood what I was asking. I fully understand the admissions procedure at Sokendai. They expect you to have already contacted a supervisor, and for you to have received a letter of recommendation from that supervisor (by this I'm assuming it basically says they're willing to take you on assuming you get accepted). So now I am a little unsure of what to do. Does the fact he doesn't know the admissions procedure tell me that he doesn't take on grad students?

I was thinking of replying somewhere along the lines of

  Dear Dr X

  Thank you for your quick response. I am aware of the admission procedure at Sokendai, and one of the requirements is that I must contact a potential supervisor, someone who I would like to work with, before I apply as I must gain a letter of recommendation from them. I also need to develop a research proposal that aligns with the research being done by the supervisor.

I don't know if that's ok, and beyond that I'm kind of stuck. Any advice? (sorry for this long question)


texts: Dealing with syllabus error as instructor

texts:
I hope it will be forgiven that I am going the anonymous-coward route when asking this question.
I am teaching two courses this semester.  My university has been mandating lots of evolving changes to syllabi, so I tried to organise my syllabi so that I could make changes to both in one place, rather than having to do lots of cut-and-pasting.  (Basically, lots of \includes in a TeX file.)  Somewhere along the way, I messed up which parts were common and which parts were course specific, and I listed the same textbook for both classes.
Classes start Monday.  The bookstore listings have been available for quite some time, though I don't know how long.  I made the class syllabi available yesterday.  Today, a student wrote me and asked about the conflict between the syllabus and the bookstore's listing.  I immediately fixed the error and sent out a class-wide announcement.
Unfortunately, it turned out that a student had already purchased the wrong book.  I don't know if this student purchased the book through the official bookstore (which might be eligible for return), or from Amazon, or somewhere else.  (I have reached out to check, but I want to have some idea of how to proceed regardless of what the student answers.)  I also don't know if this student is the only one affected.
If the student cannot return the textbook, then they have suffered for acting in good faith on information that I presented that they could not really have known was wrong.  I therefore feel the burden of dealing with that suffering is on me.  However, I am not sure how to proceed.  The easiest answer—in the sense of easiest to say, and to justify—is that I should reimburse the student (and I have checked with my dean that I am allowed to do this).  However, the book is $300 new (a footnote here, about how little I as a professor am aware of the cost of the books I assign), and there are 30 students in the class, and I cannot afford to commit to this option without knowing how many students are affected.  Is there any other ethical way to proceed?
(Another option that has been suggested to me is to suggest that the student sell the book, and then reimburse them for the difference.  This would at least defray some of the costs for me, but I am not sure if it is ethical for me to put that burden on the student.)


texts: Chair of my committee keep adding and changing ideas

texts:
I am trying to defend my proposal and I have a very inefficient professor as the chair of my committee. He keep adding and changing ideas consistently. I get the feeling that he doesn't really know the details of my work. During discussions with him, he picks up some elements and asks me to add ideas and tasks that aren't applicable.

I am afraid that if I confront him (e.g. why his idea won't work, or what I don't like about it), he will take it personally. I spoke with one of his students and was told that he had picked a topic for her, which later on, an expert in that field deemed invalid.

He seems to be more interested in new topics that sound fancy or complex. The good part is that he is not very interested in the work itself or the result. What I mean that if I just want to please him I can through some of his ideas somewhere without much effort and he will be happy. After all, the ideas he picks are not within his area of expertise and he doesn't know much about them. But I can't do this for my proposal because it is hard to explain them to the rest of the committee members.
Any advice,


texts: Is it possible for a PhD applicant to be rejected against the potential supervisor's will?

texts:
I have been in contact with a potential supervisor in one of tier two US universities before applying and all the way to receiving my rejection letter a few days ago.

The individual department I applied for has seven faculty members including my potential supervisor and as I know he is not on admission committee.

I try to quote his responses to me in our email exchanges.

When I first contacted him in October to show my interest in applying for Fall 2017 semester he replied: "I am interested to have you as my PhD student. But, you should apply fast to be here by Spring Semester. I can get you on a research funding that I have for next semester on ***** Project."

I couldn't prepare my application materials on time and I was told: "It is too hard to get the I-20 in a timely manner that you can be here for Spring semester. So, I am changing my plan of the project to be able to support you for the next fall."

I updated my application for Fall 2017 semester.

Last time before receiving my decision he replied, "Your application has come to college and is under consideration, I supported your application strongly. We should see the result soon." to my email regarding application status.

After receiving my rejection letter I emailed him to let him know I was rejected and thanked him for his support during this period.

But I think he was as shocked as I was on hearing that I was rejected.
He replied: "Why, your application was rejected!!
Please let me know, I should be able to help you."
and "Everything were positive on your application from my last communication. I am thinking that  your application may not have gone from **** Department to college of Engineering and to Graduate school, I will check on that tomorrow morning and I will let you know."

Do you think is it possible a rejected applicant being accepted when their potential supervisor really wants them?


texts: Is experience teaching college statistics sufficient to apply for a non-research stats professor jobs?

texts:
I am a mathematics professor with a PhD and 12 years of math teaching experience, including 6 years post-PhD.

For the last two years, I have taught statistics every semester. It was a big change from math at first, but now I feel much more confident.

I know several people on this site have served on hiring committees. At a university with low research expectations hiring for a stats position, would an application such as mine be competitive with newly-graduated statistics PhDs?

To generalize, when applying for teaching positions in areas adjacent to your PhD, what evidence can you provide that you are able to competently teach in this area?


texts: Should I write a paper on open-source software I've built?

texts:
I have been fairly active in the open-source software community with a few projects that have gotten some attention. However, my reputation in the academic/publications world is a little bit low and I'd like to improve that.

I've seen papers written for all kinds of things ranging from simple summaries of a given project, up to discovering new ideas.

I'd like to write a paper about a specific open-source software project that I've built but I'm puzzled whether it would be appropriate to write a paper about it. After all, not many important software projects were published in the form of a publication.

Edit: as a concrete example, this is one project I've built: http://lmatteis.github.io/void-graph/ - it can visualize RDF structures as a dynamic graph which can be saved in SVG and used in presentations or slides. Would you find this appropriate as the subject of a publication?


texts: Do I need second master's degree or not?

texts:
I finished master's degree in "System analysis and management" (Engeenering). I have Bachelor's in Computer Science. Can I enroll to PhD in Computer Science now and change field research? Or me need enroll to Master's again (in Computer Science) for changing scientific research?

P.S. I'm going to enroll German or Austrian PhD.


texts: How to cite a database from R or another source

texts:
I use data() from R, i get the following info from the sunspot dataset:

  Yearly numbers of sunspots from 1700 to 1988 (rounded to one digit).
   Source: H. Tong (1996) Non-Linear Time Series. Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 471.

But in the way I need to reference it, It seems that it is not enough information. The data I need:

@misc{anudc:4896
author = {Claire O'Brien},
title = {{Impact of Colonoscopy Bowel Preparation on Intestinal Microbiota},
doi = {10.4225/13/511C71F8612C3},
howpublished= {\url{http://dx.doi.org/10.4225/13/511C71F8612C3}}

Im not sure about how to reference properly a data set, in terms of which info is enough, not the style of references.


texts: Why don't most law schools show, let alone teach how to draft and interpret, complete contracts?

texts:
The author's just referring to US. I don't know if Commonwealth law schools show students complete contracts and/or teach how to draft and interpret. But I'm flabberghast that you can graduate JD without actually reading a complete contract or sampling different types of contracts!

How "if you develop the critical thinking skills necessary to understand and interpret contract law, the ability to draft and interpret contract themselves will follow"? I don't understand this theory. At some point, won't new law graduates have to see and self-teach a contract before drafting and interpreting them?

If JD graduates have to work with contracts some day, why do law schools delay the inevitable? Even if not a mandatory course, why don't  law schools offer an optional 2L or 3L course on perusing, drafting and interpreting complete contracts?

      In class, most likely, you will never actually read a complete contract.  You will probably never study typical sections included in most commercial contracts. You will not see a sampling of different types of contracts. Instead, your contracts course will teach you contractual principles of interpretation. The theory is that if you develop the critical thinking skills necessary to understand and interpret contract law, the ability to draft and interpret contract themselves will follow.

Steven Sedberry J.D. (Vanderbilt). Law School Labyrinth: The Guide to Making the Most of Your Legal Education (2011) p 83.


texts: Can "revision authors" be dropped from a paper?

texts:
I have authored my first paper for a journal. I talked to some co-authors, hoping that they would help me with the design and intellectual work, but eventually their contribution has been minimal. I was not bold enough and they did not help. They don't satisfy the ICMJE authorship recommendations, since they have only provided manuscript review (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html), and provided limited feedback, and allegesly-impressed praise. All the design, and hundreds of hours of work is mine. They did not provide institutional or financial support and they are not my bosses or leaders.
Should they be excluded from the authorship? Do journals prefer a "well-published" teacher as the co-author of a paper?
I believe it would be overly fair to include them as acknowledgements, but I'm not sure what to do.
How do you suggest this "bad news" should be delivered to them? I really struggle with communication.


texts: Can someone apply for a Masters in Computer Science having two years Associate degree and professional experince in programing

texts: If someone has a associate's degree with relevant courses (math and physics) and more than 10 years of (verifiable) programming experience, is it generally possible to apply for graduate admission at a good international university?


texts: How can I find a good website for online tutoring?

texts: How can I sift through the many online tutoring websites to find one that suits my needs? (My own needs are reasonable compensation and a client base that needs to learn high school to college mathematics, but the scope of the question can include other potential needs for potential tutors. In this way I hopefully not shopping !)


texts: Strategy for revealing pregnancy to new department/department chair

texts:
I am a new tenure-track assistant professor who is expecting a baby in January (just after spring semester starts). I will be arriving on campus in the next couple of weeks and need to tell my department chair I am pregnant quite soon, as the teaching assignments for spring classes will be made shortly.

I am assuming that I will not get any leave and I will need to teach my spring class, either in person or online. This is because I am in the US, and FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) protections don't apply until one has been employed for a year and the university doesn't offer anything beyond what is required by FMLA.

My current strategy is to shoot the chair an email mentioning that I am on campus now and that I hope we can meet before the semester starts. During the meeting I plan to be straightforward and tell her I am expecting. I will tell her I am hoping to stop my tenure clock for a year and ask her to strategize with me on how to meet my teaching obligation in the spring, given that I will be due around the second week of classes.

What are the most important considerations when having this type of conversation with my chair? My main concern is my reputation in the department. I don't want to make a bad first impression, and I worry that some people might perceive this  unexpected turn of events negatively.

Update: I took the advice here and met with the chair about a week after I got to campus. I emphasized my commitment to my various projects and my plan for not losing momentum. She took everything in stride. Although I didn’t get a teaching release, she arranged for me to teach an online class where most of the work happens in the second half of the quarter in order to meet my teaching obligations during the quarter when I gave birth. This put me back to work at about 4 weeks postpartum, but I could do it all from home. Ultimately, I still tried to forefront my work in work conversations. I don’t think that the pregnancy affected my reputation in the department.


texts: I am applying for an institute and would like to upload my manuscript for a paper which is under peer review onto the Supplemental materials section. The manuscript contains the watermark "For Peer Review Only." Can I upload this version?


texts: What is the optimal way for poster presentation in conference?

texts:
I am presenting (PPT) my regular research paper in a computer science conference. Additionally, the conference has a poster session of 2 hr. What I find difficult in poster session is that the process of redundantly speaking the same things again and again.

E.g. If 1 person comes, I need to start. He may leave in half way. Then, next 2-3 person come, I have to restart.

What is the best way to deal with this problem?

One solution I think is: Wait for few minutes, let a bunch of people present and then start presentation.


texts: Did I lie to my friends about how long I have been studying?

texts:
During my freshman year of college, I had some academic difficulties and ended up switching programs. I then had to take a semester off, during which I visited a class as a guest. So, I am now in my fourth semester of calendar time, though my academic standing is that of a second-semester student.

My question is: what should I say when someone asks me how long I have been studying? I have been saying that I am a second-semester student, but this is not really true, and it seems likely I will be discovered and called out. Did I lie? If so, what should I do if I am called out? I do not want to lose my friends or lie to anyone.


texts:
I am trying to compare PhD training programs of different universities, institutes and departments in my field of interest. One of the comparisons I made is where did the previous students go after they finished their PhDs; how many papers did they write during their PhDs; and how much are they cited 1-2 years after completing their PhDs.

Now, comparing the citations counts is difficult. They vary quite a bit. How many times should  a successful young scientist be cited 1-2 years after completing his or her PhD? How about an average one? What is the minimum number to be able to continue in academia? I understand that exact numbers are difficult to provide but I would guess you senior scientists can provide good estimates.


texts: Should I point out typos on students' important forms that I am signing?

texts:
A prior student of mine is applying for a prestigious certificate in her field. She is asked to list relevant accomplishments. I was asked by the student to sign a this verification form since I am in a position to do just that: verify the accomplishments. Upon reading the accomplishments, I noticed a misspelled word. It's one of those words that is commonly misspelled, and I suspect this will limit her chances of being accepted.

Should I mention this to the student prior to signing my name? I am torn between wanting this student to succeed and having the student be self-reliant.

Additional info about this student: This student is only a "student" in that he was in a professional development course that I had a hand in teaching. He is actually a practicing K-12 teacher.

There was some discussion about the nature of the misspelling. The two words confused were colleague and college.

I suppose the term self-reliant was a poor choice by me in my original question. My question is more accurately stated as Should I point out the typos when the student was not directly asking for such feedback. It is not my intention to teach the student a lesson, as my question came across.


texts:
Is it appropriate to include a talk one has given into an application to show familiarity with a certain topic?

For example, if a possible future employer demands some knowledge about a certain topic, would it be appropriate to include a seminar talk I once  gave about that topic into the application? Or would that be considered inappropriate or unnecessary?

Assume that I don't have published any papers about that topic yet or taken any graded courses.


texts: What to do if the editor's decision is not in your favor?

texts:
I had recently developed a method and submitted as a manuscript to a journal. Out of four reviewers, three accepted the method and asked for some clarifications about the method:- 2 with major revision and 1 with a minor revision. But the left one,say X, has rejected and just written one line in his/her report i.e. "I feel the approach made in this method is not valid."

Editor's decision: Reject

So I revisited all the approaches, discussed with  our group leader and co-authors. Our leader is advising to submit to other journal. But I would like to reply to X and the editor that my approach is quite valid. So how can I do it?

Is their anyone who is the superior to a editor?

Moreover, I am wondering how the editor took a negative decision just based on one reviewer's feeling? I would appreciate both the editor and reviewer, if they could have provided some hints why does the reviewer X feel this is not a valid approach.


texts: How to argue with postdoc hired for a project, to work on tasks from another project

texts: I have one postdoc hired on a H2020 project for 18 months. Fortunately, she worked rather well and all her tasks are going to finish soon (11th month of the project). I would like to reallocate her to other projects my group is working on now, and which fall a bit outside of the initial H2020 project, but in any case, she has the competence and capabilities to move to the other projects. I briefly talked her about this and she says it would be unethical and illegal to work on something she has not initially hired for. I think that even if these new tasks are not directly related to the H2020 project, if she works on them and gets new publications, it would be a clear benefit for her, and I told her, but she continues to refuse to work on them. How would you argue with her to move to the other tasks when the H2020 tasks are finished?


texts: Is it safe to use overleaf.com for research articles?

texts: Is it safe to use overleaf.com for writing research articles? Some springer.com journals provide a template. The submission is also easy by clicking "submit".


texts: Hiring Committee preference of academic CV structure

texts:
I am interested in applying for US math postdoctoral positions.The positions involve mainly research with light teaching duties. These applications will be assessed at departmental level by a hiring committee.

Consider the following headings:

Research Interests
Publications
Education
Awards and Honours
Teaching experience
Talks

After presenting contact information, in what order do members of a hiring committee typically prefer to view such information, and why? For instance, is the order (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) preferred over, say, (1, 3, 4, 2, 5, 6)?


texts: Using postdoc as a bridge to switch fields and transition from academia to industry

texts: I am finishing a Ph.D. in psychology, but my goal is to find an industry job in biomedical engineering. Would an academic postdoc in biomedical engineering improve my prospects for an industry job in that field?


texts: Is there an easy way to check for the "expert appeal" of some reference?

texts:
Is there an easy way to check for the "popularity" (or more particularly, "appealing to experts") or citations of some reference?
That is, when I find some reference and want to check how "good" it is w/o having to read the thing.
Some confusions:

There can be quality papers with low citation counts. E.g. if the
paper considers an unpopular subfield/subtopic. Or if the topic is not an active research topic at the moment.

A highly citated paper can be false if it's popular due to biases, rather than accurate paper. E.g. some psychological paper that studies something which feeds people's "subjective validation". That is, people believe a paper is good, because if fits their intentions.


texts: How to react to your work being cited incorrectly or in a misleading way?

texts:
This morning when I opened my email I was very excited to find a Google Scholar update telling me of two new citations from two different sets of authors each to a different paper of mine. As usual, I immediately checked the papers to find out if the authors were praising or criticising my work (or perhaps they found a mistake in one of my papers!). To my surprise, in one case the authors wrote a misleading statement which resulted from stretching quite a lot some of my conclusions. In the other case, the authors simply made an incorrect claim (details below for the curious). It's not the first time this happens to me - I even got one citation completely out of context once. How to react to this kind of situation?

Details for the curious:

In the first case, the authors cite a paper of mine where I compare two different methods to calculate elastic properties of materials. My main conclusion is that one of the methods converges much faster than the other one with the size of the basis set - in other words, it's computationally much cheaper. For calculations with usual basis sets the first method is much more accurate than the second one, with disagreements between the two in the order of 10% or even 20%. They claim that I show that both methods agree within a 1% of each other, which is misleading at best, because for the second method to agree within 1% of the first one one needs to do a very expensive calculation. That is one of the main points of the paper and it got completely overlooked by the authors.
In the second case, the citation is plainly wrong. The authors cite my paper as an experimental work on InGaN semiconductors while it actually is purely computational.


texts:
I remember that at some point there was a quota system that colleges used to get the minimum number of certain demographics into their school. I remember that this was stopped.

Why is demographic information asked during college applications?

Are they using it solely for statistics, or does the choice have an impact on the chances of getting into the school for the student that is applying?


texts: Biological data being used by an unpublished research paper is considered proprietary

texts:
This question may be too specialist to be on topic here. If it is off topic, please feel free to transfer it to another SE site, or close it, as
appropriate.
I am planning to publish an applied statistics paper. This paper
develops an algorithm and then applies this algorithm to some data. I
obtained most of this data from the site http://www.imgt.org. The data I am
using are immunoglobulin and T cell receptor nucleotide sequences, in
the form of FASTA files. I'm using around 200 of these.
Here is an random example of the data I am using (click on [6 Sequence (FASTA format)] to get the FASTA file).
Now, I have a problem. In Warranty Disclaimer and Copyright Notice, is written

The IMGT® software and data are provided as a service to the
scientific community to be used only for research and educational
purposes. Individuals may print or save portions of IMGT® for their
own personal use. Any other use of IMGT® material need prior written
permission of the IMGT director and of the legal institutions (CNRS
and Université Montpellier 2).

I just heard from Prof. Marie-Paule Lefranc and she replied:

I have no objection that the data you retrieved for your work from
IMGT/LIGM-DB be made available to the reviewers, but unfortunately we
cannot authorize a script or a distribution of the IMGT/LIGM-DB files
with your code to the users.
You can provide the users with the list of the IMGT/LIGM-DB accession
numbers you used, with the source of the data clearly identified:
(IMGT/LIGM-DB version number) and reference to NAR 2006.

Well, this just made my life more difficult. To start with, I'm
puzzled by this. Isn't biological data like this public domain? Is it
really possible to treat immunoglobulin and T cell receptor nucleotide
sequence data as proprietary information?
I just wrote back and asked Prof. Lefranc what license the data was
published under, which I had not done earlier.
Additionally, how does one make data available to reviewers and not to
users? That is awkward, to say the least.
Also, the data is inconvenient to download. As you can see
from the example above, the FASTA file is displayed in a web page, and
is not downloaded by that button. One needs to clean the web page to
get the FASTA file, which is a pain. As you can see Prof. Lefranc also
disallowed the use of a script for doing this. What this most likely
means in practice is that no user will ever actually test the code,
because obtaining the data is too difficult.
I realise that the users of this site may not be comfortable offering
what is essentially a legal opinion, and if so, can anyone suggest a
more authoritative source to ask about the legalities of this? Thanks.


texts: Asking for the second/third recommendation letter, should I tell the referee he is writing the third letter?

texts:
Many have suggested me to include a sentence like this while asking for recommendations:

"Do you feel that you are able to give me a strong reference?"

I am afraid that my third referee, who was only a professor of one my courses, knows me but not well enough to give a "strong reference". So if I asked him this way, he might ignore my request.

I could also tell him that this is the third letter, so he does not have to exhaustively write about my every strengths. But telling him that he is only the "third” might be considered impolite? Because, emotionally, everyone wants to be regarded as an important person.

What shall I do?


texts: Publishing (and being cited) in youtube, twitter, or facebook

texts:
This question here  left me thinking that maybe I am too old and intolerant towards those things young people are doing.

I always think that academic publishing is peer-reviewed articles, or material that goes through some other academic filter, like a publisher or a conference board.

Are youtube, twitter, or facebook acceptable venues of academical work? Are they sources that can be safely ignored? Excepting the case pointed out by the respondent, which is that the object of the study is youtube, twitter, or facebook, obviously. In this case, it must be cited.


texts: Is it necessary to provide links to the mentioned softwares' websites on my CV?

texts:
I am writing my CV and, in the Skills section, I have listed the name of the softwares that I've worked with. Some of them are well-known softwares, but some are open source codes that may not be known to many people. So I linked to the softwares' websites when I felt is necessary.

I wanted to ask if this is appropriate, and is not insulting (presumptuous) to, say, the professor who is reading my CV.


texts: impending deadline for tenure-track offer, with other applications in progress

texts:
I have been applying for tenure-track positions this year, and just received an offer from University A that I'm pretty happy with (I was relieved to get any offer at all, in this particularly difficult year). I have been given just over a week to make a decision, and have been told that this isn't really negotiable, because the next candidate in line has a different deadline shortly afterwards, and the university doesn't want to lose that candidate.
However, I have a different application in progress for University B (in a different country), which I am much more interested in. It's not necessarily a better university, but it already has a presence in my research area and there are other people in the department I know quite well and would be excited to work with, and in addition it's in a city I much prefer. I've spoken to a professor at University B, who said there is strong support for my application and I should expect an interview invitation very soon, but that they don't think it's possible that an offer can be made before the decision deadline for University A (it seems that both universities were affected in different ways by COVID, and University A brought forward their process while University B delayed it).
So, it seems like I have a few obvious options:

accept the offer from University A and withdraw my application from University B
give up the offer from University A and cross my fingers for University B (I have already been told by a much less desirable university that they will make me a non-tenure-track offer, so at least I have this as a backup)
accept the offer from University A, but continue with the University B application process, and renege on my agreement with A if get an offer from B (presumably this would come with a rather hefty hit to my reputation, and I would definitely feel uncomfortable about doing it).

There are also some slightly less obvious things I am considering:

accept A's offer, and if I get an offer from B, ask them if I can delay it by a year. So at least I would have spent a year at University A, and technically not have violated my agreement (though I imagine I would still upset some people by doing this?)
do some snooping to find out who is next in line for University A, and try to speak to them directly, in case they themselves are not that serious about University A or have some way of negotiating more time to decide on their current offer.

Are there any viable options I am not considering? Is there some way I might be able to pressure University A into giving me more time? Does anyone have any thoughts on the relative costs/benefits of the various options?


texts: What should go in a CV for first teaching position at a community college?

texts:
I am looking to apply for a teaching position near my town at a local community college. It's a part time position teaching mathematics (and from my research its up to highschool/first year calculus).

I am currently a PhD student and have never applied for an academic position like this. The job posting only requires a resume/cover letter and nothing about a teaching philosophy statement.

The question is regarding my CV or resume. I think at this point in my life, my CV is my resume. Here are the relevant sections (in this order) I have in my CV right now:

Education
Teaching experience (minimal, just TA duties, no formal experience)
Professional experience (my two full time jobs I worked after bachelors)
Workshops/Certificates (workshops I've attended, certificates from coursera/edx)
Relevant coursework (a summarized listing of my courses, for example writing "Real Analysis" instead of "Real analysis 1, real analysis 2" and similarly "singe, multivariable, and vector calculus" instead of "math 100, math 120, math 220")
A list of my programming languages. (in categories such as "general: C++/java..", "mathematical: matlab, maple, R" ... )
Activities and interests (my memberships and associations with clubs such as the AMS (American mathematical society).
supervisor (my two supervisors and their emails)

This ends up being a nice clean two pages. My cover letter (which I have yet to write) will be at most one page.

So the question is.. is my CV properly formatted? What do I do about my lack of teaching experience and how do I address that?


texts: On MathJobs, what does "Faculty contacts in our dept?" means?

texts:
I've noticed that several MathJobs applications asks "Faculty contacts in our dept?", always with this exact, confusing wording.

I'm not clear what this means. Can someone explain?

Is it, "do you personally know anyone in our faculty?" or is it "who is the person in our faculty that's closest to your research area so that they can evaluate your application?"


texts: Does using complex mathematical notation detract the reader from a paper?

texts:
I'm currently writing a paper on analysing miRNA targeting in animals. It's principally a statistical analysis involving many graphs.

However, to explain the creation of one of the graphs, I've resorted to using set theory notation, as this, to me, seemed the most efficient way of explaining how the graph was produced.

However, this may potentially have some issues:

1) Will the use of terminology that is outside the theme of papers in this field detract from the description? Such that few people who read this paper will understand set theory and therefore many will not understand the mathematical notation? The description, I hasten to add, will be a tenth of the length when using set theory notation.

2) Evidently, concepts should always be written as clearly as possible, but where is the line formed between explaining concepts in words, as opposed to mathematical notation? Why would one choose one way over another?

3) Should you make assumption of the mathematical understanding of a person reading the paper?


texts: How bad do your teaching evaluation scores have to be before you should leave them off your resume?

texts:
I got a 4.0 out of 5.0 on my teaching evaluations.  The average grade in my department is a 4.5.  Should I put this on my CV/resume?

For reference, I am a PhD student and this is the first class I've taught.


texts: Should I be patient with this postdoc application?

texts:
I applied to a postdoctoral position some time ago. In early September, I had a skype interview with the Prof., and I was told I had made it to the short list and that I may be invited to give a seminar as part of my application. Time passed and I didn't hear from the Prof. So, in early October, I emailed again just to check if I was still under consideration. I was told that yes, but there were some issues with scheduling. Now, its halfway through November and I have not heard back. I understand all Profs are busier than I can imagine, and, maybe, I should just be patient. I am really excited by the prospect of the job, and this is my first round applying to a postdoc position. So, I am wondering if this is the norm, if this happens sometimes. or if this never happens [and I should forget about the job :(].
Thanks


texts: As an undergraduate in the field of biology/Chemistry, I've seen plenty of professors recommending at least two textbooks for a mere credit hour of two, each of which comprised of more than 1000 pages. I'm somehow confused by this huge amount of text and it came to my mind to only rely on my class notes instead of the books from now on. Plus some of these books, despite being said to target undergrads' needs, are so hard, complicated, and extensive that even many master's candidates wouldn't take a look at according to my conversations with other people in the field. How should an undergraduate focus on the subjects with this bombardment of information, specifically how should an undergrad prioritize among textbooks, class notes, papers to be read(if any)? and roughly how many textbooks should one read for the whole four years to obtain proficiency in the field? (Is it a good idea to count them in the first place?)


texts: How to cite a game and props invented by the researcher?

texts:
I am editing a paper to comply with APA 6th edition standards for credits, citations, and references. But the situation described next is new to me, and I could not find a satisfactory answer in the manual.

The researcher invented a game specifically for the study. The game involves props that the researcher also invented (i.e.,as part of the game invented for the study).

The author did disclose that the game was invented for the study. However, because this game could be used for commercial or charitable purposes, it "feels like" it has an intellectual property aspect to it where the author should be credited at one or more places within the manuscript and not just on the title page.

For example, the paper has a picture of the props, but no credit. Should there be a credit, and what does it look like?

Similarly, should there be a citation (where?) and a reference for the game (what does it look like)? Currently there is no citation.


texts: Writing a recommendation for highschool student

texts:
I am a full time researcher at a research institute, we are part of a university, but the institute does not have students, just researchers. I mostly have assistant researchers and interns that are undergrad. I am thinking of bringing on a final year highschool student who is really promising and has been winning some awards.

They are interested in me writing a recommendation letter (to US schools, but we are outside US). Is this advisable?

My main concerns are the appropriateness of a research based letter for undergrad admissions, as well as not being a Professor or Senior faculty as mentioned in questions specific for graduate school.  However when I think about myself, I am pretty sure I had high school teachers write my recommendations, non of which had a PHD nor, obviously, were professors.


texts: I haven't spoken with my advisor in months because of a personal breakdown. How do I reestablish contact?

texts:
I'm a second year computer science PhD student. I switched research areas during my third semester and did an independent study with Professor X. He basically gave me a bunch of papers and textbooks to read so I could get up to speed on the field and told me to ask questions as they come up. Things did not turn out too well because (1) everything moved online (COVID) and (2) I had a breakdown, ultimately resulting in me barely communicated with Professor X. I'm in a small reading group he leads, so he knows I still exist, but we have not actually exchanged speech in months.
To briefly explain the breakdown: I grew up with alcoholic and abusive parents and had everything under control for years, but my emotions just exploded out of nowhere. I've been seeing a therapist, and I am faring much better now.
I did read the papers and most of the textbooks, but it took much longer than it should have because of my breakdown. I also came up with a few research questions I'm interested in pursuing, but I don't know how to proceed after ghosting Professor X for months. I want to hear what he thinks of them, and if he thinks they're good, ask if he has any advice. However, I imagine he does not have a favorable opinion of me right now. I'm not sure if a professor would want to work with a student after something like that, and quite frankly, I feel horrible. I emailed him to see if we could meet, saying that I fell off track last semester and want to make better progress. I haven't received a response yet, and I do not know if this was the right way to proceed.
What can I do to help this situation? How should I explain my lack of communication without providing personal details? Will I have to find a different professor to work with? If anyone can offer any advice/insight, I would greatly appreciate it.
Note: Professor X is not technically my advisor at this stage, but I use that term in the title for brevity.


texts: What would happen if I am doing my PhD on a topic and I find a very recent paper with the results I was obtaining?

texts: I am doing my Ph.D. in maths and working on something. However, I was wondering what would happen if someone publishes similar results to the ones I am obtaining while I am working on that.  I have no control over that because it may happen that the result is totally new and therefore I couldn't check before starting to work. Will all the time spent being lost? Are my results valid for defending my dissertation?


texts: Proper way to Format text related to Functions in an Article about a Computer Package

texts:
I am new to software development and my background is not in computer science. I am writing an article about a software package I developed with some collaborators and I was wondering about the proper way to format the appearance of certain text in the body of the article. The article is being written in latex. It is not technical documentation, just the proceedings from a conference.

My understanding is that the package should be written in typewriter text font:

We developed the \texttt{Package Name} package to solve a problem

The issue I have is the correct formatting for functions. Should we include parentheses or not when discussing functions in the body of the text?

Should I write the form without parentheses:

A useful function is \texttt{ function1 } which performs a task.

or should I write the form with parentheses:

A useful function is \texttt{ function1() } which performs a task ?

Unfortunately my collaborators are unable to assist me right now and I have heard conflicting arguments from different graduate students and I have not been able to find a journal article which discusses a function in the body of a text.

I am not requesting information about the format of code or output, just the proper way to write about a function in the body of the text (i.e. inside a paragraph).

Thank you for looking at my post.


texts:
I studied physics for my undergraduate and master's and I've been offered a position in the computing department for my PhD in the UK. The topic is quantum information (hence, the overlap with computing does make sense) and there is no coursework. I'm very happy with the offer and my supervisor. The only problem is that I am a bit nervous about being in the "wrong" department, given my background.

I see myself as a physics student and I can't really picture calling myself a computer scientist. I'm much more comfortable talking about, say, condensed matter than algorithms and data structures. I'm more interested and would probably get more out of a physics department talk than a CS talk.

Should I request a change of department but with the same supervisor before I begin? Alternatively, could I just hang around more at the physics department instead and not care about the official affiliation? Or is this a non-issue that I'm needlessly worried about? In case it matters, my funding is from a university level scholarship, not a departmental one.

Related but different question: Problem of mentioning the department affiliated with PhD degrees


texts: How much information is too much for a statement of purpose?

texts:
I've read a lot on what to include and not to include in a personal statement. I have some short specific in that regard.

At my core, I think I want a PhD more than anything because I want to deeply challenge myself.  Obviously, I have a passion for my field as well, but if someone asked me why I was doing it I'd say it's because of the need to push myself.  Is this something to say in a personal statement, or am I better off leaving that out?
One school I'm applying is a top 10 school, and it's a bit of a reach for me.  Is it a bad idea to say that I've always wanted to get into that school specifically?  Will that imply that I'm applying for the wrong reasons?  This school is right next to where I grew up, and I've always wanted to study/research there.

The personal statement is the only thing holding up my applications.  I feel like I'm afraid to say a lot of things because I don't know if they'll be perceived in a positive or negative light.

Thanks for any help.


texts: Ethics of asking a colleague for a citation

texts:
A colleague scholar was an editor for my latest published article, in which I heavily used her work and cited it. She then sent me one of her papers, so I could review it informally and give her my comments on it.
At one point in the paper, one of my articles could fit perfectly as a citation. Is it ethical to suggest that she does cite my article? And how should I go about asking her? Directly in my comments to her paper?


texts: Switching from academia to industry-software

texts:
I am an associate professor at a university in the US and I teach Computer Science. I am feeling stuck in my career and want to switch to industry. I have given many interviews but they only ask for programming and they consider me for only similar jobs (the same kind that my own students are being considered for). With my experience managing several student projects at the university I feel that I can do a lot more than just write code. I have so many ideas but I feel frustrated that nobody is willing to give a chance.

Anybody here switch from academia to industry successfully? any pointers?


texts: How do I get feedback after a failed tenure-track job search?

texts:
This year I went on the job market early (one year before the end of my postdoc). I applied selectively but to about 30-40 positions across a few countries. I had one campus interview. After the campus interview, I asked for feedback and the only information I got from the hiring committee chair was vague praise and that the department just chose someone else.

Is there a better way for me to try to obtain feedback about what happened while I was on the market or about my file? I feel lost on how I can possibly make my file better without a second set of eyes.


texts:
For my research I need to find academic event corpora. Unfortunately the question Computer science central source for CFPs was closed as a "Shopping list question". In my case I am interested in datasets that link

Call for Papers
Conference Home Page
Papers published for a conference e.g. via proceedings

So far I found (on top of the list in the other question):

http://www.openresearch.org
http://portal.confref.org/
https://scholia.toolforge.org/ (based on Wikidata)


texts: Is it possible to complete a PhD program early to leave it with a masters?

texts:
I'm extremely unsure of what route I want to take in life.

I desire to study at a top UK university, studying earth science. I've found a PhD course which sounds like a dream (it teaches all the skills I would wish for). No one in my family/ancestry has attended in university (I come from a long line of farmers from a developing country), never mind a top institution. While this gives me the desire to apply for graduate studies, it leaves me unsure of my capabilities or what possibilities exist within graduate school.

I'm uncertain if I'm cut out for a PhD. Originally I was only after a masters, but this PhD seems more appealing in terms of skills taught than everything else I have seen.

If I were to take an earth sci PhD at a top UK uni and decide it isn't for me, is it possible to complete it early and leave with a masters?

Further Details

I wish to study at graduate level at a top uni.

I've decided to go for a 1-yr masters to play it safe, as I'm unsure of my abilities. However, masters all seem to either be one long dissertation or a dissertation alongside lectures/field trips. I would love to also learn "hard skills" related to lab work, programming, etc...

Found a earth sci PhD that teaches programming, thesis writing, maths, lectures across multiple departments, earth science overview, project planning. A well rounded course! I would love to take this course, but as mentioned, have no idea if I'm capable of composing dissertation level research/thesis/publications.

(I've struggled to figure out if you are able to drop out after 1/2 years and receive a masters of sorts, but here is the link to the course)


texts: Best practices when hosting visiting speaker (especially with the questions part of their talk)

texts:
I'm an undergrad and I have invited a speaker to come and speak in my department. He's a mathematician at another university, and although what he will talk about is relevant to mathematics, it's not an academic talk or seminar. It is an academic speaking to other academics and students in an academic setting, however.

I've organised this completely alone so it's down to me to introduce the speaker and make sure the talk runs smoothly. I've never done anything like this and I'm worrying about how I should do it. I'm especially worried about how to run the questions section - which will be a substantial part of the time (at least 15 minutes of the hour).

Here is how I imagine it should go:

I thank people for coming and introduce the speaker.
I sit down and the speaker... speaks.
At the end of his talk I stand up and ask if there are any questions. If people raise their hands I'll point at them so they can ask the speaker their question. I'll keep an eye on the time so when there are just a few minutes left I'll say "there's time for just a couple more questions".
After the last question, I'll thank the speaker again and that'll be it.

Should I be doing the questions? Or should I let him call on people himself? (In the latter case, how should I make sure we stay in the time limit?). Where should I stand if I'm moderating the questions? The lecture theatre has a stage where he will stand to give the talk. Should I just stand to the side of him? If I'm standing up there, is it ok for me to ask questions (particularly if nobody in the audience is doing so)?

This is in the UK, in case that's significant.


texts: Single or double thesis for double major?

texts: I am having a double major in my BSc, first one is Electrical and Electronic Engineering and second one is Computer Science [probably it was a bad idea because my cgpa is low, but anyways I have decided to do it]. Now it is time for thesis. Since both of the major are closely related, either I can go for a single big thesis that is something in between both of the courses or I can go for two different thesis. Now the thing I am concern about is that, single thesis or double thesis which one will look good at my Masters Admission Application?


texts: How do I benchmark research if there is no previous work against which I can compare it?

texts: I'm working on a paper that there is no previous paper for it to distinguish. its an old tool like ant colony optimization that is used on a new approach. I have sent the paper to a journal and they have said it doesn't have a good benchmark.


texts: How to properly credit other people when writing a text book?

texts:
In many textbooks, authors usually write about other people's research results without the type of detailed and extensive citations typically seen in a research paper.

Often times without any credit to the original researchers/authors.

In fact, the type of "neutral" tone used when authors talk about recent research areas makes it seems as if those areas have existed for hundreds of years.

  For example, consider the sentence, "Xtacking is a type of 3D NAND with higher bit density and faster time-to-market." Xtacking was invented in 2018, and no authors
  is attributed.

I think this is more or less an accepted convention. And I understanding that having an excessive amount of citations will hinder readability.

However, I wonder what is the most acceptable way to credit the original authors when talking about results in a textbook context.


texts: Should I ban electronic devices (smartphones, tablets and laptops) from a course?

texts:
TL;DR

In the coming semester,
I will be teaching a "seminar" type course with around 30 students.
I would like to disallow students in the course
to use any electronic devices (smartphones, tablets and laptops)?

Questions:

Is banning electronic devices in my course a good idea?
How do I enforce such a rule?

Background

In the coming semester, I will be teaching a "seminar" type course.
The course is fairly small, with fewer than 30 students.
We will spend most of the time in the course
listening to students presenting their ideas,
and the students critiquing and giving feedback
on other students' presentations.

I have had a few years of experience teaching
large lecture courses with more than 100 students per lecture.
In these courses, many of the students prefer
to type their notes on my Powerpoint slides,
rather than writing on a physical copy of the lecture notes.
Unfortunately, as I walk around the classroom,
I invariably notice that a significant proportion of the students
are distracted during the class by their electronic devices,
e.g., checking their Facebook, Instagram or playing games.
(I would estimate about 20% of students
are distracted at any given point of time.)

I have noticed that I work better without electronic devices
because I am less distracted and can focus better.
Consequently, I would hope to minimize the distractions faced by students
by disallowing students in the course to use any electronic devices.

Why do I want to ban electronic devices from the course?

The main goal of the course is to teach students
how to analyze and present business case studies.
The course is not one that is heavy on facts or memorization.
Instead, students need to use their powers of observation
to follow along presentations by their fellow students,
and to evaluate their presentation style, body language and slide design.

Consequently, for this type of course,
I do not see that electronic devices add any value.
In fact, there are many research studies which suggest that
electronic devices negatively affect students' learning.
For example, an article in Psychology Today writes the following:

  Cognitive capacity and overall brain power are significantly reduced when your smartphone is within glancing distance—even if it’s turned off and face down—according to a recent study. This new report from the University of Texas at Austin, “Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity” was published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.

  During this study, the UT Austin researchers found that someone’s ability to hold and process data significantly improved if his or her smartphone was in another room while taking a test to gauge attentional control and cognitive processes. Participants who kept their phones in a pocket or bag also outperformed those who kept their phones on the desk while taking the same test. Again, even if the phone was turned off and face down on the desk, the mere sight of one's own smartphone seemed to induce “brain drain” by depleting finite cognitive resources.


texts:
Hypothetical:

I found an error which fundamentally kills a published paper and re-opens a number of problems the paper claimed to solve.
Not only is there an error, but the results are actually wrong.  Part of another publication (by a different author) proves this.  Yes, I am 100% sure. Other experts have confirmed this in private communications with me.
I have nothing new to add, other than I can show the second paper proves the first paper is wrong.
I get no response from the first author when I let them know about the error.

What is my next step?

(A) contact editors of the journals with the incorrect results? and then what happens?

(B) post a paper to ARXIV?

(C) submit a paper to a journal?

(D) wait, do more research, and try to craft something more "substantial" for (B) or (C)

(E) do some or all of the above simultaneously? (please specify which ones)

I am not sure if my contribution thus far warrants (B) or (C), but I would like to receive some acknowledgement in print.

Something must be done because this error if unacknowledged will have a negative effect on future research.


texts: Transitioning from MS to PhD - International Student

texts:
I will be enrolling in a Master's program for Biomedical Informatics next fall.

I already know the faculty member that I would like to be mentored by (working as a student intern with one of his graduate students). However, I was told that I will most likely be assigned another mentor upon starting the program.

Would it be best to work under a new faculty member while under MS program and attempt to transition into PhD later and talk with the professor that I would like as my mentor? Or would it be best to talk to the professor before starting the MS program about possibly having him as my mentor in the first place?

Thank you.

P.S. Also, what is the best way of approaching a professor about receiving support as in funding?


texts: Do all versions of an arXiv paper appear in Google Scholar?

texts: I know that new arXiv papers usually appear in Google Scholar within a few days or weeks. My question is: if someone submits a replacement of his/her arXiv paper, does the new version of the paper also appear in Google Scholar?


texts: Why do universities fund Ph.D. students in the sciences?

texts:
I was recently accepted into an applied math Ph.D. here in the U.S., and being the 1st in my family to graduate from university, I had a hard time explaining to them why my university will be spending close to 50k on me per year (stipend, tuition, health insurance, fees).

I know that I will be working for the university as a TA, and that perhaps that will go towards covering some of the costs outlined previously, however, it hardly seems to justify the full expenditure.


texts: Are separate essays in a single volume (on a single subject) considered "the same source"?

texts:
This came up in a paper recently submitted and commented on by the tutor.  The paper relied on, and separately referenced, multiple separately authored essays in a single volume ("edited by...") on a single subject.
A comment returned was "... perhaps too much reliance on a single source (though the defining volume) ...".
This was a surprise as I thought that the separately authored (and credited) essays would each be considered a separate source (though published together).
Is this, perhaps, field dependent?
(This question is not in any way going to lead to any complaint about the remark whatsoever.  I just would like to know - as I said, I believed otherwise.)


texts: What are the main differences between Graduate school in the UK vs US?

texts:
I graduated from a university in Canada, and I have been focusing on applying to North American universities even though my GPA isnt the highest.
I recently started searching for MSc programs in the UK, and I noticed that entry requirements are much easier. For example, for the course-based , we don't need to secure a supervisor yet students still work on a research project. Whereas when I tried applying to McGill university in Canada, I was told that not having a supervisor will not allow me admission to the program.

Why is admission to graduate school much lenient in the UK compared to the US/Canada? are schools in North America known to have the best reputation in research? why aren't many people going to study in the UK if things were that easy?

I'm interested in knowing the main differences between the UK and North American universities.


texts: Should one cite a dictionary for every technical term?

texts:
The paper I am working on contains many medical terms -- particularly pathologies -- to which I write the description of each one along with related literature for their causes in a table. For this purpose, I refer a couple of medical dictionaries.

Should I cite each term with appropriate dictionary I am using separately next to each definition of the term? I believe this would overcrowd my reference section.

In some cases, I merge and use multiple dictionary terms to phrase my own description of the term.

Hence would it be better to just have a single reference to the dictionaries such as

The following medical dictionaries are referred for appropriate terminology: [15,16,24].

at a footnote or at the bottom of the table?

Should one cite a dictionary at all (for a survey paper)?


texts: Should I list talks I invited myself to give on my CV?

texts:
I'm traveling a lot this summer, and I invited myself to visit and give talks at a couple of universities in other countries.

Do I list these talks on my CV? If so, under what heading? They're not exactly "Invited Talks." I don't have a general "Talks" section on my CV because I want to exclude conference presentations (which are already represented as publications, and which nobody lists in my field). I could have a "Seminars and Colloquia" heading, but people might assume these were invited.


texts:
I read this question Does rigor/thoroughness of undergraduate program matter (for graduate/PhD applications)? and became very worried when I saw everyone blasting the OP for contemplating graduating in three years. The general consensus was that there was no reason at all to graduate early and that the lack of additional experience would hurt your chances at graduate school. I am concerned because I am graduating with only 2.5 years because I can only barely afford this by maxing out all loans.  I would love to be able to develop greater depth in my field. Instead it has been a constant sprint to finish before I run out of money completely. I was rejected from every top ten university, and the one token safety school I got into jacked up the price as soon as they found I had nowhere to go.

Are the criticisms that finishing too fast valid in the context of extreme debt? I am saving over $100,000 by finishing early, will this reason be accepted by graduate schools? I see that graduate students do not have to pay tuition and get a small stipend, this sounds like a wonderful way to pursue an education and is very attractive to me right now. I feel that my education is rushed and I have not had the time to contemplate open research questions which are very important for graduate admissions. Graduate school is also the path to a job in research labs or academia.

edit:
I have done well enough (6th in graduating class unless I mess up). They offer to tack on a year for a masters at your current rate, which is touted as a way extend finiancial aid. This is untenable for me.


texts: How can an undergraduate be recognized for work done on a paper, with a fellow PhD student and a professor?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student, and recently I was introduced a PhD student in my university's math department.

In a brief interaction with him, he mentioned that he was doing work in Differential Topology, an area which I happen to be self-studying at the moment. I asked him about his research problem, and mentioned what I was self-studying, and he offered me an opportunity to work with his PhD advisor (a former professor of mine), and himself, and stated that they were looking to publish a paper in mid 2018, and I could possibly be listed as a co-author.

He has yet to run the idea past my former professor, but he has stated that my former professor would be all on board with the idea. My former professor likely does not know or remember me, we only had one brief interaction during a class on Discrete Mathematics (coincidentally the interaction was about Differential Topology and some other Differential Geometric stuff, because he saw me reading a book on it before class commenced).

However, my university has no official undergraduate research program, so everything (i.e. any research conducted) will likely be done on an informal basis. My main question is this, how can I protect the work that I do on a project like this? What measures can I take to ensure that whatever work I do is credited, if the paper containing my work is published?

Firstly it should be noted, that regardless of whether or not my work will be recognized on the paper (if any contributions to the paper are made by my part) I still intend to take this opportunity and work with the PhD student and my former professor, mainly as it will be a good learning experience for me on how to properly do research, the possibility of being listed as a co-author is just an added bonus.

Also I'm well aware, that it's probable that I may not make any contribution at all, however I am asking this question in the event that I do contribute some work towards the paper.

If it's of any importance, I have a good relationship, and am somewhat well known by other faculty members (Topologists) in my universities' math department, as they have previously allowed me attend lectures for their courses which are only reserved for students in years above me.


texts: Can I get into a funded graduate Psychology program after having studied Chemistry?

texts:
I have earned an Honours degree in Chemistry, but my heart is set on Psychology.  So, I want to pursue graduate studies in Psychology.

Is it possible to get fully funded admission in a world-class university? Should I do an online course for it? If so, which one?

If it's not possible to get fully funded admission this way. How can I make myself eligible enough to get into a world-class university with a scholarship?

Please note that I have searched a lot for it but did not find any specific answer for my case.  I also found a lot of online courses for Psychology, but not sure which will help my case the most.


texts: Reference on availability of source code used in computer science research articles?

texts:
I have several questions related to open-sourcing the source code used for a research article.

Is there any research/study that addresses any of the following:

What percentage of research articles are provided with their source code? (i.e. the source code is made available somewhere online)
What percentage of research articles provide the source code at or before the publication date?
What percentage of research articles who promised they will release the source code actually do so?
What percentage of research articles provided the source code at some point but then the latter disappeared?

I am mostly interested in the field of computer science > machine learning, and English-speaking venues.


texts: How to deal with animosity between different "factions" in a certain field?

texts:
In academia, there are sometimes sort of "feuds" between different researchers. For example, one such situation is described here: https://www.quora.com/Mathematicians-What-is-the-story-behind-the-feud-between-Shing-Tung-Yau-and-Gang-Tian?share=1
Lately, something like this has affected me. People I work with will bad-mouth other researchers in our field, or other researchers will bad-mouth people I work with. Sometimes, they will say that so-and-so's results are trivial or that they stole the results from someone else, or that they got a lot of help from a different mathematician and aren't actually very talented. The bad-mouthing seems to happen on both sides and seems to be born out of a kind of vicious competitiveness. Here are some of the ways this has disrupted my PhD:

I am really paranoid about people's intentions and even though it seems like, from the outside, that my PhD is going very well (going into my third year I have one publication already and am making good progress on other projects), I am certain some people in my own university even, have the impression I am not a very good mathematician because they think my advisor is a fraud.
I have recently had the opportunity to work with someone from the "other side" of this conflict and have not yet told my advisor about that. I am afraid she will be very angry with me if/when I do. To complicate things, my advisor has told me some of her research ideas in the past and is extremely secretive about them. I just don't have the same sense of secrecy about my own research ideas. Luckily I don't work on what my advisor works on but she still might be quite upset that I've been "talking to the enemy" so to speak.
Although no one has directly been "mean" to me the ways in which I have seen people try to tear each other down has contributed to my total disillusionment with academia and made my field seem like a place where people compete for reputation rather than trying to do real work motivated by curiosity rather than ambition. It's just very depressing and stressful to imagine having to deal with this kind of thing.

As a young PhD student, I am shocked by the way the "adults" in my academic life behave. My instinct is to pretend this doesn't exist and focus on my math. I do not make any judgments about who is right and generally shut my ears whenever these topics come up. To some extent, it seems very inappropriate to me that my professors and collaborators discuss these kinds of things with me at all. Furthermore, I think one reason I have been successful as a PhD student is because I am very friendly and open to people. This has allowed me to learn a lot and collaborate with a lot of people despite having little to no contact with my advisor most of the time (we are on good terms, she just doesn't really make time for me).
These conflicts seem to have been started long before I was even in college so from my perspective, it has nothing to do with me, it's not really my business, and I don't even pretend to know all the details of who did what and why. And yet people I respect a lot gossip to me like school girls as if they are trying to convince me of a particular position.
Question: Has any of you had to deal with this kind of mean-spirited competitive research environment? How did you handle it? Should I avoid working with people "across the aisle" in order to stay out of conflict with them? Am I being naive to try to be friends with everyone and not hide what I'm working on like it's a secret recipe?


texts:
(When I finished my computer Sci degree, I decided not do as PhD as I believed that in order to get a programmer position, most employers valued 3 years more experience as a programmer greater then a PhD.)

Reading this site, it seems normal for a PhD to take 5 years, however in the UK most people expect a PhD to take not much more 3 years unless the student is being lazy.

If I saw the CV of someone applying for a  computer programmer job unrelated to their PhD and they spend 5 years on a PhD, I would questions if they were worth interviewing just on that bases.


texts: Asking for data as a student - ease the pain

texts:
I'm a bioinformatics bachelor graduate. The group I'm currently working for does not produce its own data. So I often have to search the literature for available data sets. Luckily, tons of interesting data is now freely accessible over the web - which is really great.
However, sometimes data is mentioned in the paper, but not published or the download links do not work anymore.

I noticed that asking other groups for data can be really painful. I usually do not get a reply on my first email to the corresponding author. It does not seem to matter how many details I provide in that email about whom I am working for, what I am intending to do with their data, etc. Putting my supervisor in CC does not seem to help either.

The solution is very simple: After a week or so I ask my supervisor to forward my mail to the authors. The next day I usually have a very polite email with the data attached in my mailbox.

This is annoying in many ways: Firstly, I am waiting quite some time for the data. Moreover, I have to ask my supervisor to write emails for me, which is wasting both his and my time.

I'm quite surprised that some (many?) researchers apparently tend to ignore requests from students.

I'm wondering if this is a common problem and I'm looking for advice about how I can improve my emails to increase the chances of getting a reply.


texts: How to prepare for a (PhD or PostDoc) admission procedure?

texts:
"Luck favors the prepared mind"
( Louis Pasteur )

During the MS degree program or PhD program, it's advisable for a good student to get used to take a look on scientific activities of research groups he want to join, after graduation.
So, if the student decides somehow that he wants to try to join X, Y, Z groups, how should he prepare himself the best for the admission procedure?
What should he do before actually applying for that position in that group?
What should he do before the (formal centralized or informal) admission procedure starts?
Some of my own answers:
Task #0: he must read all the recent papers of the group he would like to join, and know very well those related to his research field.
Task #1: prepare all the admission material (we've already discussed about this)
Task #2...#N... what else?
What would you suggest to anyone to prepare himself to an admission procedure?
Thanks a lot


texts: How seriously do math PhD/Grad programs take grades in non math courses/overall GPA relative to relevant GPA?

texts:
I'm sure this question has been asked before but probably not to the extreme degree of my situation. I am nearing the end of my undergrad experience (Electical Engineering and Mathematics) and I want to at least apply to some solid grad/PhD programs in pure math. The problem is that while I have a top notch GPA in all of my math classes from Calc I to my graduate level real analysis class, I have a very poor GPA in just about every non-math or EE class I ever took. To quantify this more precisely, I get almost all A's with one exception (B+ in abstract algebra) in math classes but I get mostly C's and the occasional B in all of the useless gen-ed classes. For my electrical engineering classes, I also get mostly A's but a few more B's sprinkled in. I also got a "C" in chemistry for whatever that is worth.

I have been fearing that my distaste for the "liberal arts" might greatly restrict my choices for grad school. I'll say that I am at a state school that has a solid reputation for technical (think something along the lines of NC State) studies but is much more focused on the applied side of things. My main interests are in functional analysis and as you might guess from my user name, I really like wavelets. I was thinking about applying to somewhere like Rice, which might be a stretch given my mediocre overall GPA but perhaps with the right recommendations, I might have a chance. Can anyone with some experience in this area tell me if I am living in a fantasy land or if I have a realistic chance?

Edit: Just to make this more clear, lets say hypothetically that my overall GPA was 2.8 but my math GPA was a 3.95 and my EE GPA was a 3.75.

Edit: This question is a little bit different in the sense that my situation is probably more extreme and specific. I was hoping to get some feedback from people who have been in my shoes or known other people in my shoes. While the answers to the other question were somewhat enlightening, I am not a foreigner/ESL and I do not have that excuse for why I did poorly in the humanities.


texts: Is attending an academic conference beneficial if you are not presenting any paper? Does it reflect well in your CV?

texts: I have recently been given an opportunity to attend a conference on Robotics although I don't have any paper to present. The registration fee is around 7k. Before spending such an amount, I wanted to know if it is worth attending conference sessions just for its sake. Please help.


texts: As departments grow, they tend to hire people in the same area of research. And different people from different communities call things differently. For example, people in Statistics may call it "Statistical learning", while others "Pattern recognition". If several departments or people within the same department propose courses with similar content but different names and no one wants to change, what can be done at this point? Offer 2 courses but allow students to take only 1? Offer 2 courses and try to minimize the overlap? A senior faculty, chair, or dean should decide on 1 course only? Other ideas?


texts: I had an internship with the professor I'm applying for. Is it possible to ask for a recommendation letter?

texts:
I talked to a professor in a top US university and he asked me to apply but he said finally admission committee decides. If I go to his lab for a summer internship, is it OK to ask for a recommendation letter?

The point is that I'm applying for his position so I thought maybe his own recommendation letter works well!