texts: Does a recommender need information about my current job?

texts: I have asked my PhD supervisor to write a letter of recommendation for me for faculty positions. He has asked me to first write three paragraphs about my research in my current postdoc studies. Is this normal? Why would he need to know about my postdoc research?


texts: Master’s program rejection with no reason. How to appeal?

texts:
I recently applied for a master’s program and I fulfill all their requirements. In addition, the application fee was around 100 USD that had to be paid in advance. I got the following answer today:

  I would like to thank you for considering XXX for your graduate study. We have very
  carefully reviewed and evaluated your application to the Master of Science in YYY program for the Fall 2020 semester and I regret to inform you that the
  Admission Committee has declined your application for admission.
  We hope that you will pursue all of your other options for continuing your education and
  achieve academic success in another graduate program.
  Best wishes for success in achieving your academic and professional goals.
  Sincerely,

Is this normal that they do not provide at least a very brief explanation on why they refuse my application, since I fulfilled all the requirements?
Now, how to appeal, i.e. I do not know why they refuse me so I do not know what I should tell them.


texts: How do I politely remind a professor to respond to my request for feedback

texts:
I have just started my MSc studies. My professor asked me to do a literature survey and I sent some papers to him 2 weeks ago. He wanted some time to check them, but I have not yet got any email. I think two weeks is quite enough to check them.

should I send him a reminder?

Would it be a polite reminder?

Email subject: "kind reminder"

Dear Prof. XXXX,

I would like to check if you have had time to read papers that I sent to you on X July. I would be grateful if you take a moment to look into it.

I will be waiting for your answer and many thanks in advance.

Best Regards,


texts: Could a "phantom" citation in WoS be a problem?

texts:
I have recently noticed that for one of my papers Web of Science shows that it is cited in a paper from totally unrelated area. This looked strange, so I checked the paper and found out that it does not cite my paper. (One of my coauthors has the same initials and surname as author of some papers cited there, so the problem might have be caused simply by automated script.)

I have contacted them using the form on their website, explained the mistake and asked them to remove the incorrect citation. The reply was along the lines: "Thanks for contacting us. Cited references have been reviewed. Requested cited reference already available in WOS." This reaction suggests that they thought that I am requesting adding a citation rather than removing it. I am not sure whether I should waste my time in trying to contact them with the same issue again.

  Are there some reasons why having some superfluous citation in WoS or similar database could cause problems for me?

When I think of any situations where numbers of citations of my papers would be needed for some kind of evaluation, the list of citations would be very probably prepared by me and not drawn directly from some indexing service. So I can simply omit the incorrect citations indexed in WoS. And even if there were some situations where somebody uses WoS as a way to evaluate my work, being cited in one paper does not influence the total result too much.


texts: How important is the GRE for top engineering schools in the US?

texts: I am wondering how important is the general GRE exam for top 10 schools in the US in engineering? Do they use it as a factor to admit students or it can be only used for funding or none/both of them?


texts: Are faculty salaries negotiable in general? Wherever they are negotiable, how could applicants gain insights about the statistics of offers or the extent of safe negotiation?


texts: Can I upload a Book to Arxiv which I have already Published?

texts:
A few years ago I published a book on mathematics and physics.  This book received positive feedback from people who read it, but was never widely read and has not sold that many copies.  At this point, I would prefer if the book were just made freely available as it is probably never going to make a huge amount of money anyway, so I was wondering if I could make some alterations to the manuscript and then upload it to Arxiv with a summary of the content and the intended reader?

Would this be copyright infringement as I suppose I have already signed a contract with the publisher?  I don't remember the details of the contract, but I suppose the publisher would not want me to do this, as it means people who might happen to want to read it will do a Google search and see that there is a free PDF copy, whereas the publisher would want to make money from the book wherever possible.  Is there something about Arxiv which sidesteps this copyright issue, as I am uploading a slightly different document to Arxiv which will exist independently of the physical book.


texts: Are researchers permitted to mislead subjects about the purpose of a trial?

texts: I think much research would not be very successful if the subjects knew the purpose of the research. When researchers gather human subjects for a trial, can they provide the subjects with misleading information about the purpose of the trial?


texts: Is there a way to register now for the GREs, or attend grad. school some other way?

texts:
I have my Bachelor's and want to go to grad. school—and I want to go as soon as possible. I recently quit my industry job (I hated it) and am now searching for a job at a university. I can't register for the GREs now, it's after the deadline, but there are some other options I've thought of:

Take classes in a Master's program, take the GREs in April and try to get into a Ph.D program
Apply to universities that don't require the GREs (some in the US, but most in other countries)
Find a way to register for the GREs

My degrees are in, and my target field of study is either Physics or Mathematics. Do you folks have any suggestions, or judgments regarding the viability of my above presented options?

(P.S. - This question is not off topic. Any single person who did not register for the GREs, but still wants to begin grad. school could use this question. Nothing depends on "personal preferences" because my personal preferences [outside of wanting to begin grad. school ASAP] are in no way relevant. The answer accepted is appropriate, and easily generalized.)


texts: Is it a good idea to go to a university just because of its high international ranking?

texts:
I'm an international student and I'm currently studying pure mathematics in undergraduate level with a relatively low GPA (~3.5/4.0). I've recently read so many positive reviews about the universities in Singapore. I checked the "National University of Singapore (NUS)" on the internet for its international ranking and it was ranked 9th in mathematics!

How much do you think the ranking of a university positively affects my future career? For example, one of my dreams is that I can study in some Ivy-league university in the USA or some grand ecole university in France like Paris Sud 11 in the future, but because of my low GPA I'm afraid that that will never happen for me. Do you think that going to the NUS can help me to get accepted into world top universities in the future?


texts: Reference letter, personal vs prestigious?

texts:
I am currently seeking reference letters from professors for my masters application.  It struck me that the professors that I'm close with, who know me on a more personal level (through projects, work, etc.) are not as academically renowned as some other professors who may only know me as one of the many students who got an A in their course.

I would like to know how their reference letters fare when used to apply for masters in prestigious universities.  Is a more personal reference letter better, or a letter written by a more well known professor?


texts: Can admission/funding (PhD) of international student be cancelled due to corona virus situation?

texts: Is it possible that a school cancel the admission and/or funding of an international student because he/she cannot travel because of the current travel bans? What are the possible scenarios for the admitted graduate students of fall 20? Especially what might happen to the fund? Will it be canceled if one semester is deferred?


texts: Citing many map shapefiles from the same website

texts:
If all the files I've downloaded come from the same website, do I have to cite every file separately, or can I cite the website that contains the files and get it over with?

The files are shapefiles.


texts: How to calculate overlap with a previous publication

texts: I have a paper that was a published in a conference proceedings. This paper was extended and turned into a journal paper. However, some things like figures from the motivation section or the experimental setup (used same metrics) are the same. The journal paper was reviewed, and one reviewer raised some concerns about a possible overlap with the conference paper. At the moment I'm preparing a response to his comments, and would like to present a percentage of the overlap. Is there a method to calculate the overlap with a previous publication? Are there any common guidelines that are used when presenting an overlap with a previous publication?


texts: Book with comprehensive description of (history and operation of) Harvard university

texts:
I really am not sure if my question falls under this Stack Exchange forum, but I am going to try.

A friend of mine asked me if there is a book with some sort of comprehensive description of Harvard university. For example a book covering the history of the university, the schools and departments, fraternities/sororities, services available to the students, as well as potentially other useful general-purpose information regarding the operation of Harvard university. Personally, I have never been to Harvard (or MIT), so I have next to zero knowledge about answering the question immediately.

One educated guess was to try to figure out if there is a relevant book by Arcadia Publishing. However, searching for harvard university did not return very relevant results.

Another idea for searching for a relevant book, was through the bookstore that is usually found on big universities. For instance, UVA bookstore has an entire collection with books about UVA. Of course I believe that this can not be the norm in general, but Harvard has a longer history than UVA so I would expect for someone to be able to find a few general purpose books regarding the history, the structure, and the relationship of the university with its students (with elements from modern time as well). Unfortunately, I am not entirely sure which bookstore is the official one for Harvard university - assuming that there is one.

Finally, from what I understand, there is also scattered information available in electronic brochures that is created by schools or departments and is potentially related to admissions for new students. However, there is no such information gathered in a printed book - at least nothing that I could find. Perhaps you know something related for a specific school, e.g. Engineering and Applied Sciences, Arts, etc?

Are there any people out there who have graduated from Harvard and can potentially point me to the right direction? In which bookstores would you search around Harvard so that you can potentially find a book (or books, where different books specialize on different aspects of what I am looking for) with this kind of information? Can you also provide me with some online references?


texts: How is an LOR presented when applying for grad school?

texts:
I am going to apply for grad school starting this December. I have heard that an LOR is pretty essential in the process. I have a few professors I can approach. But my question is: how do you present an LOR? By that I mean, should it be sealed in an envelope, giving the impression that I have not peeped into it, before submitting it for grad school?

What if my professor mails me an LOR instead of writing it? Do I take a printout and do the above?

Also is there a particular format I should be aware of? And what else should be there on the letter, apart form the content itself, college stamp/seals or anything of the sought?

Are there any other formalities that I should be concerned about?


texts: What is a final undergraduate paper called in English?

texts: Here in Croatia, when students are finishing their 3rd year of undergraduate courses, they usually write a paper called "Završni rad" (eng. Final Work/Project). I'm trying to communicate some things with foreign colleagues and I'm wondering what that would be called in English


texts: How to list an unfinished PhD on a resume

texts:
I started studying my PhD with a federal scholarship that was supposed to sustain all my expenses and allow me to study without the need to work. Long story short, between family and mortgage payments money was scarce. My relatives helped with some of the expenses, but after 2.5 years, there were just too many pressure from financial problems, and I was not having a good progress in my investigation, that my advisor and I decided to suspend the PhD and that I should focus on getting a job.

To that extent, is it a good idea to emphasize that I started a PhD but was not able to finish it, or will it create a bad image about me not ending what I start? Should I wait until they ask what I did for those 3 years to tell them I didn't finish it? The PhD is in my CV, as started but not finished. Should I keep it that way or should I erase it?

To note for the possible answers is that I already have a Master degree in the same specialty as the PhD, and this is happening in México.


texts: Is it safer to carry on undergraduate research areas to gradschool or start from scratch in an unknown area?

texts:
This question is in spirit a very general one. When a person (say in CS) is choosing among multiple options for gradschool, which one would experience and prudence point towards? Along with research interests and all that, things to factor in would be the extra strain involved, to be honest.

Case in point:

Choice A: PhD advisor in the field of computer vision and machine learning. My undergrad experience was mostly in image processing, with one instance of training a rather vanilla backprop neural network. So this would be pretty much be building on the base of undergrad research experience. Yeah, the school is a tough one, and my math background is rather sparse. lots of catching up to do on the maths front.
Choice B: PhD advisor does work in graphics. mostly interactive graphics, lighting models and all that. These are topics i am vaguely familiar with, never having taken a graphics course during undergrad. Nor did any research project on that. Its a fresh topic for me, but I am not qualified enough to judge whether to pursue this or not.


texts: Sending my research proposal for a professor or offering to work on their project?

texts:
I am trying to contact with professors to showing them a research proposal that I want to work on for master degree. Some people advice me to not do this, because professors get fund for their ideas not mine, so if my research proposal was incredibly liked by a professor, then he will have no fund to do this research project. So, I should contacting to offer working on their research ideas. I am not insisting to work on my idea, and to be honest my main goal is to reach a research project in brain computer interface field(I'm interested in any research project in that field) and I'm sure that I will show a great effort, hard working and innovative thinking, Which will supporting me to get a PHD position.

Have saying this; how to know future research projects for a professor to offer working on? or it's possible to work on  project in progress.


texts: Is it possible to retrieve easily all the Nature papers featured the cover since 1950?

texts:
Is there a way to read efficiently old papers? For example, to read all the Science and Nature cover papers since 1950?

How do you read old/fundamental literature?


texts: Does a prestigious internship (at google) help for PhD programs in Computer Science?

texts:
If I have the option of choosing between a (non-research) internship at Google and a REU program at a non-prestigious university, which one should I select? After graduation, I intend to pursue a PhD in Computer Science, hopefully in machine learning.

Which of the two offers should I accept to improve graduate admissions? What if the intern position is directly in what I want to work in, i.e. machine learning?

I know research is valued more for graduate admissions, but a machine learning internship at google seems like a valuable asset.


texts: Winter internship for Indian students (computational physics)

texts:
I am 3 year BS MS dual degree student (at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research) in Physics and I want to learn computational skills for my future career needs because we don't have computational physics course till the 8th semester.

Do we have any provision of winter internship in India?


texts: How involved should your PhD adviser be in your project?

texts:
I just completed my first year at a PhD program at a University in the United States. It's been a semester since I joined a lab and I'm slightly confused about my decision at the moment. I feel like my academic advisers are not as involved in my project as they should be.

I'm working on a joint project between two professors in a field that is new to them, besides their expertise on instrumentation. Both my advisers are well accomplished in their respective fields but their experience in the area that my project is concerned with is (at least on paper) substantially less (only one publication from the lab so far). Besides, there is only one other graduate student involved on this project while all other group members work in a different area, making it difficult for me to get any help from members in the lab. On top of this, I meet my advisers only once every 2-3 weeks and although they are extremely patient with regards to my queries, their feedback hasn't been very useful yet.

While I was aware of this situation before deciding to join the lab, I went ahead with the project for its future prospects and overlap of required skill set with mine. It also offered the opportunity to build up a lab almost from scratch with very experienced advisers, which I thought, was great. While I don't hate working on my project, I'm concerned since I haven't made much progress and am not sure if what's happening is normal. Both my advisers are experts in instrumentation, which is a major hurdle in the project (and hasn't been tackled by any other group yet), but aren't aware of the current scientific problems in the field.

Finally boiling down to my questions:

(i) I often find myself worrying that the problem I end up working on for the next few years as a graduate student might turn out to be insignificant or turned down as trivial by experts in the field. Am I thinking too much?

(ii) I often hesitate digging deeper into articles in my field (not directly related to my project) wondering if it's useful at all, considering that I'd be all by myself if I pursue it and would thus stand no chance against other research groups that are actively involved in the field. Is that reasonable?

(iii) Would it be rude to confront my advisers with these concerns?

(iv) Would it suffice for me to get help from another faculty on campus and continue with my project?


texts: Is a PhD (economically) still worth doing?

texts:
I used to think that with every degree you get your salary goes up.
Universities produce more and more PhD's and i learned in economics 101 that once the supply is higher than the demand, the price (here salary) will drop.

Even if you get a little bump in salary, you have to take into account, that you are joining the workforce 3-4 years later and therefore "loose" those salaries.

From an economical standpoint : Is a PhD still worth doing ?

( I know, doing a PhD is not "just" about the money )


texts: Is it okay to view my recommendation letter once I've been accepted at a college?

texts:
I had a really reputable person write me a recommendation letter for colleges. He told me that he wrote the best recommendation letter in his life. He told me that the recommendation letter hints that I'm the next Steve Jobs and that I'm enlightened etc.

I waived my right to view the letter. I was accepted at many colleges. Now, I think as the recommendation letter is very strong and from a reputable person: it may help me in my future elsewhere.

I really want to see what he wrote. Is it okay to ask the college where I am accepted to give me a copy of the recommendation letter? Otherwise, is it okay to ask the professor who wrote the recommendation letter to send me a copy?


texts: Appropriately thank a supervisor for giving you a chance when you actually failed?

texts:
In general:

What is the proper manner in which to thank a supervisor for allowing you to take a really long shot? I am talking about when a professor (supervisor) who did not really know you decides to give you a chance, even though there is clearly a very low probability of success. Especially in the case where the supervisor invested significant physical resources and/or their time and you still failed to accomplish the goal (in this case research result). I am looking for a formal and appropriate way to convey my gratitude to the professor for taking the risk. Again this is in the context where you have specifically failed to reach the goal and cost the supervisor in question a good deal of resources in the process. Is it even proper to convey gratitude at this juncture for giving you an outside shot at tremendous opportunity? Or should I just be extremely apologetic?


texts:
I’ve red that some universities in Japan offer a non-degree program called research student. I want to know:

Why do students usually apply as a research student?
Do research students work on things that haven’t been done before? Or do they work on anything that interests them (of course) but that is not necessarily new?
How does a research student differ from a master student? What does a research student presents in his/her last year?


texts: Higher impact factor vs. more focused journal

texts:
I am going to publish a paper and I narrowed my alternatives down to two:

the first journal has impact factor 9.2, but it has a broader audience, in terms of research topics.

the second one has impact factor 3.8 but it is more focused and more familiar to my research community. The paper may be seen more easily by people that work in my field.

The paper would be in the scope of both the journals, which alternative would you pick?


texts: I have egregiously sloppy (possibly falsified) data that I need to correct. How should I go about this?

texts:
Several years ago, I did a summer project as an undergrad with a PI not at my undergrad institution (I'm in grad school now). Now, the project is finished and he wants to publish it with data that I've gathered.
The problem is, after checking my data, that the spreadsheets that I used to calculate the data are very inaccurate, to say the least. I can't remember exactly what I did, but there do seem to be some egregious inaccuracies (as in, values from the wrong dataset) in my spreadsheet compared to the raw data from the instrument either that I was colossally bad at copying data over correctly (all of the data in my spreadsheet do appear in the raw data someplace, but not necessarily in the right location, the right dataset, etc.), or worse, I'm terrified that I may have done it deliberately at the time. (How would someone be able to tell?) I did analysis with the faulty data back then and produced graphs.
Obviously, I will have to supply the correct data analysis before it gets published. But is it ok to explain it as "I majorly screwed up the analysis and made a lot of data entry errors, here's the corrected version"? I'm hoping that my PI will just use my corrected data and analysis and just focus on that instead trying to pore over my wrong spreadsheets to individually compare all the changes, many of which are embarrassing at best and look suspicious at worst. I am not under any suspicion of wrongdoing thus far.
I redid my data analysis with correct data entry and the results look messier on most of the things I messed up, though they do not affect the underlying trends. Not sure what this means - how likely is it for honest error to have the effect of making data look cleaner than it actually is? Also, my god, I was awful - mishmashing data from one trial with another, copying data from the wrong wavelengths and/or from the wrong trial, wrong normalization numbers, etc. etc. etc.
If you were a professor and you were approached by a student who says that made egregious errors on past data analysis and the corrected data looks not nearly as good, what would you think? Would you think they were honestly trying to fix a mistake, or trying to save face and cover for past misconduct?


texts: Are there statistics for the share of work which is put into planning, performing, analyzing and documenting of an experiment?

texts:
I was wondering if there are statistics of the ratio of effort (or time) for the different steps in experimental research?

Given that all the work which needs to be done to start (literature review, funding etc.), I would assume the following steps are necessary:

Planning of the experiment (or simulation)
Performing the experiment
Analyzing the acquired data
Documenting the findings

Are there statistics or other research on how the overall work splits up into these steps? (Something like Planning: 10%, Performing: 5%, Analyzing: 50%, Documenting: 35%)


texts: COVID-19 and decrease in research productivity

texts:
I wonder if there are any statistics or study analyzing the impact of isolation, teleworking due to COVID-19 pandemic on res.earchers' productivity.
From the beginning of the pandemic, I really feel that my productivity and enthusiasm in my research have decreased. I would like to avoid any opinion-based question but I would like to know if there are some recommendations to solve this issue


texts: Monitoring employee's work habits - is it acceptable and how to express dissaproval appropriately?

texts:
I've recently started as a Lecturer but have been with the same University on a fixed-term contract some time prior. My University is mainly using MS Teams as the official chat, e-mail, calendar and everything else integrated platform, the use of which has obviously increased heavily due to the currently work-from-home (WFH) policies. While I have received such a "analytics report" prior to WFH as well, I strongly suspect they have increased in frequency over the last couple of months (I haven't actually checked the date of every single report). These analytics are based on our online activity and contain assessments such as:

  Your work patterns the last 4 weeks:

  68% (time) Available to focus

  This is the time you typically have leftover to focus on your tasks outside of meetings, emails, chats and calls.

  15 Quiet Days

   These are days without interruptions of meetings, emails, chats and calls outside your working hours set in Outlook.

  Productivity insights:

  Quiet hours pattern

   Your work during quiet hours has increased from 0.5 to 2 hours over the past few weeks.

  Time spent in email

   Your email hours have increased from 2 to 7 hours over the past few weeks.

While I can understand the need for the University to hold records of our online communications (especially when e.g. students are involved) to protect itself and provide evidence in case of any disputes, these statistics and analytics feel invasive and make me extremely uncomfortable.

While some of my colleagues have a blanket concern about any of the data being collected ("as it could be used against us in any dispute with the Uni"); I am personally less worried about raw data justifiably collected, as I can offer my own interpretation of that if needed. However, the above analytics are done by an algorithm which (especially as somebody working with machine learning) I would never trust to evaluate something as subjective as research work. I am worried that the summary could give a false picture of my work. And being so closely monitored just feels uncomfortable. I.e. I don't understand how they measure "how much I work during quiet hours" (and can't find the info easily). I also tend to work well in "bursts" -- have some slow days and then work long and late several days in the row when I get in the "zone" (making the "quiet days" information of dubious benefit).

This becomes even more important now during the WFH times. I have some colleagues who are very reluctant about using any such services due to security reasons, and due to this I can't bring myself to properly encourage them to use the provided services. But using such services is one of the very rare things that alleviates and eases WFH for some of us (and has generally been well-accepted by most of my colleagues). Every time I have to use a collaborator's personal phone number to attempt instant communication (the equivalent of poking your head in somebody's office, which I would typically do by pinging somebody on Teams), I want to lecture them on how much more difficult they are making the WFH situation. On the other hand, every time I get yet another "analytics" e-mail, I want to follow their example, and only log in to official Uni services for 2 hours a week during the official team/school meetings, instead of begin available from morning to evening (my typical work hours).

So, my questions are:

Is this appropriate, typical, allowed?
How would I go about expressing my disapproval?
Do you think I could influence all or any of this by expressing disapproval?
(all this considering I am a very fresh Lecturer in a fairly new organisation still finding it's way, so I don't have leverage to kick up too much of a fuss)


texts: Is it academic misconduct to post assignment solutions on public websites?

texts:
I belong to Computer Science background, and most of my assignments are programming based. I usually use Github(private repos) to maintain assignments during the semester. Since I only have limited private repos, I usually make the code public once the semester is over.  In a few subjects, the assignments remain same over semesters but usually the instructor use tools to check for plagiarism from previous submitted assignments for the new submissions.

Seeing this question, Are there universities that consider it academic misconduct for students to publish material created by faculty?. I became curious that whether posting solutions to assignments of courses comes under academic misconduct or dishonesty ?


texts: What does it mean that after withdrawal of arxiv paper 'previous versions can still be retrieved'?

texts:
I'm considering withdrawing an arxiv paper (it has some errors, I think a fresh start is the way to go) but I'm confused about the warning that 'previous versions can still be retrieved' - will these be at least as difficult to retrieve as the (soon to be withdrawn) most recent version? (I looked at a few related questions but they didn't seem to address this specific question - e.g. Substantial update of an arXiv paper, Made an arXiv submission too early; How to minimize the damage?)

If the most recent withdrawn paper became harder to find that the older versions, that would not look like a good outcome to me.  I doubt that the latter is the case (it would be silly) but I want to confirm this before going ahead.  Thanks very much.


texts: Is choosing a journal editor in submitting a paper an important step?

texts:
I just submitted a paper. The journal asked me to choose an editor to handle the paper. I chose the first editor and didn't think much about it.

Is this step of the submission process important?


texts: What, if any, roads are open to graduate schools for athletes with borderline grades?

texts:
My understanding is that colleges with sports programs will admit students with "low end" but not "off the charts low" grades if the respective sports teams want them. By this, I mean grades just above the "cut-off" for admissions, without having to make a special case or allowance for the athlete.

Suppose a certified athlete tried to get into a graduate program with similarly minimum grades. To take an example, suppose the Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter retired, went to college, and got something like a 3.3 GPA which is the cut-off for certain graduate school programs.

What constituencies (if any) might such a graduate applicant have (e.g. celebrity value)? Or are "athlete" slots open only to undergraduates?


texts: What to do when the tools I am supposed to compare my work with are no longer maintained and functional?

texts:
Recently I got a review asking me to compare my work with a few more works in the same domain. Now in my work, I developed a tool, and have made it publicly available. I have been asked by the reviewers to compare my tool with a few other tools available. While trying to compare I found none of the tools are maintained publicly. I have mailed them for the codes of these tools but no one replied. The executables are also not available. I mailed them for these executables only. But no one replied. What should I do?

Note: There were 2 reviewers. One said either compare properly or remove this section totally, other asked me to compare the works. Apart from this comment, all other comments have been addressed.


texts: Do US Universities commonly offer admission without funding?

texts:
I am offered governmental scholarship (GSch) that I do not want to use for some reasons. I also don't want to lose the chance of PhD in a top university. I would use GSch, if I cannot get funded admission from a top university. Please read my previous question for more explanation of my situation.

My question is that do universities offer an admission without funding? So that, then I will have a chance to say 'I have another source of funding. Let me do PhD there'. For example, will I know I am in the waiting list? Do they put all the rejected students in the list?

Or should I mention about the GSch at the first place? or maybe I should mention it only in applications of some universities.

Would I loose a good acceptance chance of mentioning at the first place, if I wait for rejection/waiting list decision?


texts: What is the equivalent of an Australian or New Zealand honours thesis in British universities?

texts:
Although it is somewhat discipline specific, in Australia, to receive honours for a bachelors degree, a student must undertake an additional, optional year of fulltime study, turning a three year degree into a four year degree. Generally, the vast majority of that year is spent conducting an independent research project which is written up as an honours thesis. An honours project generally has two supervisors, and is examined by two independent academics, including one from another university. In my field (human geography), they are usually 12,000 - 20,000 words long, and generally include the collection and analysis of new research data. Although they are somewhat more detailed and verbose, an honours thesis in my field should contain research equivalent to one or two academic papers in terms of the quantity and scope of the work, although obviously quality varies from student to student.

1st class honours in Australia is generally sufficient for admission to a PhD program here, although a scholarship will generally require either exceptionally high grades or additional demonstration of research potential.

I understand that a New Zealand honours is similar to its Australian counterpart.

I have supervised several honours theses in Australia. I am currently applying for lectureships in Britain, where I understand that the honours system is quite different. How can I explain succinctly to a British audience the scope and magnitude of honours supervision? Is there a simple equivalence with some other form of thesis in Britain?


texts: Germany PhD application: "Work Certificate"

texts:
I am a master’s student (physics) in the US, and I am applying to this PhD position in Germany. This is what the application website says:

  Please apply online and provide a cover letter next to a CV in English, as well as your work certificates in one single pdf-file.

I just want to make sure what “work certificate” means. Is that just transcript/enrollment certificate from my master’s and bachelor’s university?


texts: How can I tell if a journal is reputable?

texts:
In a lot of research you have to site sources from a "reputable" journal. I've seen journals that have opened simply to post that bigfoot exists and won't take anything other than more or less garbage papers. Not to mention the problem with people "fixing" data to make their paper look legitimate when it's not.

How can I tell if the journal (and subsequent articles) I'm looking at is reputable?


texts: Can I present myself as a postdoc at a given institution if I have a supervisor, but no official appointment there?

texts:
I have already finished my PhD at X university. I am now a postdoc at Y university and in collaboration with X university (by "in collaboration with X" I mean that I actually have two supervisors: one from Y and one from X).

Only Y is paying for me, and, I am currently working in the lab at Y university. But my affiliation is X and Y in the scientific papers. My supervisor at Y accepted that I also use the affiliation X.

As I am using two affiliations X and Y in my scientific papers, can I consider that I am a postdoc at two universities at the same time? Is it possible that I write in my CV that I am a postdoc at two universities even that X is not paying for me?

Any help will be very appreciated.


texts: List of Subject Dependencies for building a subject taxonomy

texts:
I am interested in compiling a list of learning dependencies by subject matter. E.g., you must know certain kinds of algebra before you can learn certain aspects of trig, and you must know how to add before you can do certain kinds of algebra.

This kind of hierarchy could be applied to math, computer science, biology, written/spoken languages, etc.

Is there a project like this already established? Is there a field of study that concentrates on an idea similar to this?


texts: Workaround for Horrible Thesis Title on Academic CV

texts:
I am writing an academic CV for artificial intelligence PhD programs. However, when it comes to mentioning my master's thesis, I am embarrassed at how horrible the title is. It was even criticised in my feedback for the work.

The title is:

  INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS ON THE FLEXOELECTRIC RESPONSE AND SWITCHING SPEEDS OF LIQUID CRYSTAL MIXTURES DUE TO THE ADDITION OF VARIOUS ADDITIVES

Is it bad to simply mention your thesis topic, and not the title itself? Is this going to haunt me for the rest of my academic career?

For example could I use:

  Thesis topic: Flexoelectricity in Nematic Liquid Crystals

when discussing previous projects on my CV (as I do not currently have my name attached to any publications).


texts: Do I have to worry about self-plagiarism if I do undergrad research on an original topic that I've put forth considerable information online?

texts:
I have a website and blog where I discuss an original topic for which I am considering trying to get a grant for undergrad research. I have basically fleshed out the entire theory on these websites.

My question: do I need to worry about self-plagiarism if I were to attempt to get a research grant and publish a paper on this topic?


texts: Leaving PhD for a professional master's program

texts:
I am in the 3rd year of a social sciences PhD program and just haven't found it fulfilling. I've tried therapy in the past, meditation, new diets, exercise, even moving to a new place in attempts to plow through the program. Those things improved my mental health somewhat but didn't make me more fulfilled with or interested in my work. Lately I've had my sights set on another career path that requires a professional master's degree, which is composed of coursework and internships. I've done months of research into this new field, talked with people in it and I have a bit of experience in it. I think it is right for me.
I've considered finishing my PhD and going for this new path afterwards, as I've already done a lot of fieldwork abroad (although much of my research remains on hold with the restrictions in place). But I don't see a practical need for the PhD anymore, nor do I have an interest in my topic. Plus my mental health has vastly improved since taking a break from the research and doing other productive things (volunteering, learning a new language, learning some programming skills for my new career path). So, I'm seriously considering leaving my PhD.
My concern now is if i apply for the professional master's program having left my PhD, I don't know how that will look to the admissions committees. I completed a different master's degree in the past and received many accolades over the past years, but I am afraid leaving a PhD will still look bad. Has anyone gone through a similar experience of leaving one graduate degree to go into another (either professional or academic)? How did it go? For those who've been on admissions committees how would you consider someone who left a grad program to pursue another in a totally different field and for very different reasons?
Edit: I should mention my advisor is not happy about my idea. I told them frankly about my proposal over email and they were shocked, and responded with a list of reasons why I should not quit. I will be meeting with them virtually soon and hopefully a face-to-face conversation will help them understand where I'm coming from... but their possible lack of support with my plans going forward is obviously worrying...


texts: Are papers on Research Gate publicly available?

texts: Do users need an account (on Research Gate) to view papers on the site? Or, are these papers available to anyone who finds the page for a paper (i.e., through Google Scholar)? Doing some investigating with different browsers and computers is a bit inconclusive to me.


texts: I have read research paper of the professor to whom i want to apply for internship but cannot understand it fully

texts:
I am currently an undergraduate student, in the 3rd year of my 4-year computer science degree and I want to email a professor to do a research internship with them. I went to some of their research papers, I liked the topics to which they are related as well as I enjoyed reading most part of it but there are some portions which I cannot understand fully.
While applying what is the best way to describe that I read their research paper and I am interested to work with them in this case?
Important note : I am from Theoretical Computer Science background


texts: Is it standard that universities in some countries don't give affiliated students/faculty email addresses?

texts: All my experience in academia in western countries is that if you're an enrolled student or affiliated faculty, you get an email address from that university. Are there countries where this is not common practice? And if so, is there a good reason for not providing one?


texts: Is it possible to be admitted to a masters in Germany with a 3-year bachelors from another country?

texts: I am a Nepali citizen and I have completed a 3 year bachelors from my country. I am planning my masters degree in Germany. Can I directly start my masters or do I have to do some courses?


texts: Which page range do you cite in an article in IEEE proceedings?

texts: In biblatex I have cited using @inproceedings with pages={3310--3317}. I myself only used a pdf of the article, which does not contain page numbers. Since I cite the article directly and not the book, do I cite the page range 1-7 or 3310-3317 in the text itself?


texts:
I'm a student doing PhD in North America. I wish to keep open the possibility of settling down in Europe, Australia or Asia. By settling down I mean getting a tenured professorship in good universities at any of the above mentioned places.

I'm just starting out with my research and I'd like to know if I can do anything right now, i.e. during my PhD to boost my chances.


texts: Unclear answer from my prospective PhD Supervisor

texts:
Is it positive to get the first reply from potential PhD Supervisor such as this:

“Thank you for your interest in our PhD programme. I take it that you have looked at our admission criteria. If not, I suggest you do so. Otherwise, it will be nice to discuss your research idea.

I am a bit confused as to how to correspond to this reply, whether he interested or not?


texts: Is there a theoretical-physics masters program that accepts mathematics graduates?

texts:
I plan to graduate with an honours (four year) degree in philosophy and a general (three year) degree in mathematics. Are there any physics graduate programs that might accept me if I were to apply?

For context: My plan-A is to work in academic philosophy. A physics education might not appear on the resume of most philosophy professors, but I suspect that knowing about physics could improve a philosopher's thinking about a number of questions. Accordingly, it seems worthwhile to study physics during either, a one or two year detour, several years of concurrent distance education, or the summer terms of my philosophy education. Self-study is an option, but I'd prefer to earn a credential in order to improve my future applications to graduate schools and to employers.


texts:
This is a quite broad question, to which I have some personal answers, but I think I need more different perspectives.

I am not talking about evaluating a peer's submitted work as a referee, but about evaluating applications ranging from small grants or sabbaticals (which have to be applied to at least in France) to tenure or tenure-track hiring. Such decisions have a small or huge impact on both others career and the overall academic system (by giving certain incentives), and should thus be taken very seriously. On the other hand, the time we are able to use for such evaluations is limited.

  How should we deal with this opposing constraints (evaluation is serious matter but time is limited)? What tools and proxys should we use or avoid in the evaluation process?

I am not asking about how the system should be (I know my answer: more automatic funding, sabbaticals and pay raises to have less evaluations made more thoroughly), but about what one wanting to take evaluation seriously (as opposed to a formal game that only needs an arbitrary answer) can do in the current system. Actions that might imply change in the system are welcome, as far as they can be implemented individually and the plausible outcome is considered rather than the ideal outcome if everyone did the same thing.

Edit in view of comments

Clarification about "the system": if needed please precise in your answer the relevant bits of information about the evaluation system you are speaking about, as of course things evolve and vary from place to place -- but the broad principles should be applicable regardless of the fine details so please keep this as concise as is relevant.

Example of subquestions: it has often been said that impact factor, or more generally the glamor of journal titles should not be used for evaluation. Is there a consensus about this? I don't know. They are used in practice, but are there good alternatives? Are there specific evaluation circumstances when one should use this proxy?

What about h-index and other citation metrics? When should they and should they not be evaluated?

The question is not so much about how much time one should spend (which is more or less a given), but how to achieve a reasonable result in that time. Also, what to do in a situation where one feels a reasonable result cannot be achieved?


texts: Should I notify people I mention in the acknowledgements section?

texts:
I recently finished a paper in which I received valuable feedback from two professors (neither supervisors nor coauthors) at some specific points, which ultimately leaded to localized significant improvements. I highly appreciated it and of course I added explicit mentions in the acknowledgements section stating their suggestions.

My question now is: I hardly will see again these professors for a long time. I thought about sending an email to them commenting on their inclusion on the acknowledgements... But then I thought that it should be something understood as obvious, without too much interest for them or even spammy. So, shall I communicate their inclusion in the acknowledgements section? If so, what will be the correct etiquette for such an email?

EDIT: As @StephanKolassa comments, another important and highly related issue is what is the best timing for communication, if this is considered adequate:

First submission
Acceptance
Publication (early access or traditional)


texts:
I am thinking of registering for nondegree classes at a local university to give an impression to future admission comitee that my GPA does not really reflect me. But I have some concerns. How should I choose which courses to take.

If some internationally known professor gives an introductory course e.g. Introduction to Algorithms and if another internationally unknown one offers advanced graduate course, which one should I choose first ? Consider the future recommendation letters to United States schools I would expect from them.


texts: What is appropriate number of keywords for conference paper?

texts: What is appropriate or reasonable number of keywords in a conference paper (in computer network/security topics)?


texts:
I want to have a routine life habit: having lunch at lunchtime, having dinner at dinnertime, going to sleep at 10pm, etc. After all, a healthy brain is in a health body. Moreover, while I can prioritize my thinking flow over my hunger, other people that I care can't. One or two days breaking the routine is fine, as long as the "breaking the routine" doesn't become a routine.

However, this life habit seems unachievable to me, since my brain usually isn't tired when my body is. In uncountable occasions, I can literally stop caring the outside world to focus thinking about my problem. It's not what I want, but when the idea comes it's really frustrating for me to not thinking about it. I have the idea for this question when I was brushing my teeth before going to sleep, and after a consideration I decide to open the laptop to write it down, despite knowing it will take me an hour to think about it carefully.

I have tried many things to maintain the habit: taking notes, using calendar, using task manager. Sometimes the habit slowly starts, but is doesn't last for one month. I'm not feeling guilty about unfinished work, I'm feeling guilty about losing ideas if I don't note all of them down immediately. Noting briefly is only good for simple keywords to research later, not when you have a flood of idea.

So, is there any way to maintain a routine life habit?

Related questions:

How to avoid thinking about research in free time?
How to stop feeling guilty about the unfinished work?


texts: Is significant repetition across multiple journal papers (intro and model) an issue?

texts:
Let's say I've developed a model for some process X. Using my model I can investigate (a) the effect of changing a underlying assumption used in other literature; and (b) the effect of a different equation for calculating some part of X. The assumption and different equation are not at all related but my model is fundamentally the same. Given all this when I come to write a paper for each of my investigations my introduction and model sections of the papers will be very similar - likely with a small difference in the last few lines of each specifying what is different from the baseline case.

So my question is: is this repetition across multiple journal papers acceptable? Is it considered bad practice? Should my second paper reference my first due to plagiarism?


texts: What's my PhD status after I passed my oral defense (UK)?

texts: I'm applying for a postdoc. I passed my PhD viva in the UK, and was given minor corrections which I've submitted. What is my status? Can I say PhD (pass)? Or something better?


texts: What do the Dutch academic titles "prof.dr.dr.h.c.ir." mean?

texts:
Some Dutch academics - I think probably full professors with chairs - have a rather confusing string of abbreviated titles.

One example is prof.dr.dr.h.c.ir. M.J. Plasmeijer, but many other examples can be found by searching for that string.

What do these titles actually mean, individually and collectively?


texts: How to display and manipulate a structured 3D voxel image?

texts:
Can you please give a suggestion?
I have a .mhd image (Voxel 3D). I want to visualize it and manipulate it with the mouse. What you suggest?
Find the surface of the image and display with OpenGL. How I find the surface from voxel 3D? And convert to mesh surface .obj image?
Using VTK? (Do you think that is better?) (In future can imply royalties)
This is for an software application.
Thanks in Advance,
Luis Gonçalves


texts:
We, STEM students, until we get somewhat a permanent position in our career, we work in different labs, with different PIs and people throughout our student life, starting from bachelor to our post-doc; we like some, we hate some, and in rare occasions, we really like some.
Even though I'm just starting to my master's degree this year, I've worked with a couple of different PIs already, seen different research environments & groups, worked with many different Ph.D./Master students & technicians, dealt with much administrative staff, got around many unnecessary formalities.
Now, I'm currently working (as a short-term intern) with a brilliant PI, with brilliant Ph.D. students in an amazing institute with friendly & supportive administrative & technical staff.
Even though my current affiliation with this group & institute is temporary, it is quite possible (and probable) that I can do my Ph.D. here.
However, if I look into the past, it is clear that all those new experiences - working with different people, in different places - had a positive impact on me, and each case I was glad to move to a new research group, with a new project.
That is why I have the Marriage Problem: I'm quite happy with my current settings here, so if I want to do my Ph.D. here I'll know what I will be getting into, who I will be working with, what the research experience will be, etc.
However, if I choose (or want to) do my Ph.D. elsewhere, I don't know whether I will happy there, whether the PI will spare as much time as my current PIs, whether I will be able to work as efficiently as I'm working with my current PI, whether the actual research will be interesting as that of my current PI, whether I can get along with other students & staff, etc.
I'm sure that this is a common dilemma that many academics have faced/been facing during their career. So my question is the following:
What criteria are important to consider in such a situation? Would not-changing-PI have a big opportunity cost if you happened to be able to work with almost anyone you want? Would I be taking a lot of risks in the early stages of my career if I happen to pursue a research direction that I'm not familiar with? Can you share you experiences if you have any?


texts: I am curious as to how much time it takes to hear about desktop rejection from editors of Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing research, Journal of Consumer Research, Management Science etc. What does it mean if it says "awaiting COE decision"?


texts: Should I insert a colour bar if arbitrary units are used?

texts:
In a journal article, is it advisable to insert a colour bar (i.e. an explication of the colour scale) in a figure if arbitrary units are used?
If the colour order is already stated in the legend, does a colour bar add additional information in this situation?

An example can be found in this abstract. Imagine that this figure was generated by colour-mapping a signal in arbitrary units, if the legend had specified that the colour scale goes from red (disordered) to green (ordered), would the colour bar have been useful?


texts: Applying for postdocs: mention two-body problem in cover letter?

texts:
My spouse and I are both finishing Ph.D's in math and applying for math postdocs in the US. We work in different areas of math, but there are many departments in which both are prominently represented. A postdoc position in the same place is not an absolute must but a big plus for us, and would likely be a deciding factor if choosing between offers.

My question: would adding a statement in the cover letter to the effect of
"My spouse xxx is also applying for this position" be helpful, or is it more likely to disqualify both of us in the eyes of departments? We have different last names, so someone who does not know us well personally would probably not know we are together.

The advice for tenure track applicants seems to be not to divulge such personal information until the interview, but there are no interviews for math postdocs so I'm not sure whether the advice would be different.


texts: How often is a bad review from the reviewers due to the potential competition with your work?

texts:
Reviewers are expert in their fields who can understand your work but are also potential competitors if they worked in the same field as you do. How frequent is a bad review from the reviewers due to the potential competition with your work so they can stall your publication?

For example, if you were a reviewer, would you be excited to learn that I have published research that are superior to yours or prove that your research direction was wrong? Another extreme example, if you were an HIV researcher/reviewer, how excited/horrible would you feel if I publish a cure for HIV and will be nominated for Nobel prize tomorrow and you will be sitting down there listening to my talk?  What incentive do reviewers have to give out good/fair review?


texts: Spousal-hire arrangements at a postdoc level

texts:
In contract to available information for faculty positions, I would be interested to learn how to go for a spousal-hire arrangement at a postdoc level. In my view, there are three factors that might play a role (similarity of work, obviousness of the relationship, funding).

My specific question:

How would you approach as a rather obvious couple (based on overlap in the CV) an application to the same lab (due to the same sub-specialization)?

Two independet applications or single application?
Mentioning the partner or not?
Or applications seperated over time? I.e. one application and then asking for a spousal-hire arrangement during the actual hiring process?


texts: Prefer a conference or a not-so-reputable journal for an undergraduate's publication?

texts: Assuming I have a paper that objectively is not my best work so I know I cannot aim very high with it. I am trying to decide which would seem more beneficial in my CV, to have it published in a journal held not in very high regard, like say an MDPI journal, or have it published in conference proceedings. I should specify I am an undergraduate student and so what I am hoping for is to look as best as possible for a PhD application when my bachelor's is finished. This is not my first or only paper. Thanks for any advice.


texts: How to choose references for postdoc application?

texts:
I am applying for a postdoctoral position in Chemistry (mainly in US and UK universities). I have zeroed on two persons other than my mentor- One is associate prof. and other is an assistant prof. Both have taken my course classes as well as practicals in M.Sc. Both are widely active in their respective research field which aligns with mine.

1) Is it wise to give names of junior faculties? Do the academia look for the repute of the person as well or just they look into the recommendation letter?

2) Does any personal account matter while considering a recommendation or a generic looking letter does fine? I am confused between a professor who was a member of my advisory committee (familiar with me and my work and quite friendly) and another one who is an asst. prof., but is popular for giving excellent recommendation.


texts: To whom should the letter of motivation be addressed?

texts: I am applying for a Phd position advertised by the university. Should I address my letter of motivation to the potential supervisor? Please help me out.


texts: How to adopt flipped classroom strategies without student complaints?

texts:
I have been adopting flipped classroom strategies (in upper-level chemistry classes ~20-30 students), but I often get feedback from students that they want me to "just go back to regular lectures" and that they perceive the flipped classes as more work.

I think the results are positive for student learning in my classes, although I haven't done formal assessments. I also personally appreciate the change of pace and style. Previously students might have felt that I wasn't giving enough concrete examples and this definitely solves the issue, as well as making me more responsive to a particular class's needs.

I am wondering about strategies to overcome student apprehension about active learning styles.


texts: Is it normal for scholarship requirements to adapt to public values over time?

texts:
Looking at the Wikipedia article for Rhodes scholarship, several things Rhodes originally indicated in his will no longer apply. Among others, Rhodes originally excluded women & Black Africans. Both these restrictions have since been lifted. The article indicates that this is because of society's changing values over time. For example, there's this line in the article explaining why Rhodes excluded Black Africans:

In the context of the historical era, it would have been entirely out of character for Rhodes, and seen as absurd by the trustees and Oxford, to suggest that some of the scholarships might go to Africans.

Including women & Black Africans seems very natural to most people today, but according to the article there was also a time when public opinion caused the scholarship to exclude Germans:

In 1916, however, the trustees introduced a bill into the House of Commons that, catering to popular British sentiment during the War, "revoked and annulled" the scholarships for Germans.

Two questions about this:

Is it normal for scholarships, funds, etc (basically anything which a benefactor leaves to trustees to award in the future) to change their selection criteria in accordance with changing moral values, even if it conflicts with the benefactor's instructions?
Can the benefactor force the trustees to stick to his/her original moral values? If so, how?


texts: Will taking a gap year after my Master's degree improve or degrade my potential of doing a PhD?

texts:
I am starting a Master's conversion course (in Computing and IT Management) but I am still very unsure about all of the details about doing a PhD such as where and what I want to do it in. Some programs require that you have you Master's certificate to hand when applying too, and I haven't even started my MSc yet.

I was thinking of taking a gap year after the MSc to continue my entrepreneurial activities and goals, to find some temp/contractual work and to give myself more time to apply to PhD applications.

Would this be beneficial or detrimental to my applications and academic prospects?


texts: Subtle (and not-so-subtle) humor in scientific literature

texts:
Tonight I was scrolling through my RSS aggregator (which includes subscriptions for several journals I follow) and this abstract caught my attention. The article's title, as well as the name of the software it describes, includes a subtle reference to this popular internet meme. This gave me a good laugh, and an excuse to watch that ridiculously silly video again.

But on a more serious note, this is not the first time I have seen the use of subtle (or not-so-subtle) humor in the title of a scientific journal article, conference abstract, or poster presentation. Sometimes the humor is even injected into the body of the publication itself. But in general, we as scientists are expected to write in such a way that our findings are easily communicated and easily reproducible. The focus is on clarity, objectivity, and reproducibility.

There are of course no formal rules about the use of humor in scientific literature, but are there any de facto rules? Do these de facto rules depend on the field (computer science vs genetics) or the publisher (Oxford Univ. Press vs BioMed Central) or the journal's impact factor (Nature vs Frontiers in Genetics)? Does humor even have a place in scientific literature, or would we be better off without it?


texts: What is expected from a graduate-level term paper?

texts:
From what I have seen, many graduate level courses (in physics) in the US involve the submission of a term paper for a large percentage of the overall grade.

Wikipedia talks about term papers as:

  A term paper is a research paper written by students over an academic term, accounting for a large part of a grade. Term papers are generally intended to describe an event, a concept, or argue a point. A term paper is a written original work discussing a topic in detail, usually several typed pages in length and is often due at the end of a semester.

While the description is fairly self-explanatory, it doesn't talk specifically about graduate courses.

Is original research expected in the term paper? An answer here seems to indicate that this isn't the case for undergraduate courses. Is this statement applicable for graduate courses as well?

  If these are not much more than a term paper, then one person can probably do this by putting the assignment together on paper or in email and only answering questions during normal office hours. These kinds of assignments have clearly articulated goals and guidelines and apply techniques as laid out in lectures and homeworks.

Alternatively, is the term paper supposed to be like a short literature survey/literature review?

If I understand correctly, the student is usually free to choose a topic of his/her choice provided it is approved by the instructor beforehand. Sometimes, the instructor may also suggest a list of topics with references.

I'm primarily interested in answers relevant to physics courses.


texts: Advice on who to ask for a letter of recommendation for phd applications?

texts:
I am currently in the process of looking for a phd position (in math). Almost all universities require three recommendation letters (some only require two, but ideally I'd have three) from professors. The problem is that I went through my studies rather anonymously and don't really know anyone. For one of these letters I am going to ask the advisor of master thesis which seems like a pretty clear choice with no real reason against it.
Possible options for the others would be:
-The professor who held the seminar I was in last semester. I got an A+ on my talk and he probably has more to say about me than someone whos lecture I was in.
-The advisor of my bachelor thesis. The thesis was apparently considered very good in terms of mathematical content, but a bit flawed as there were quite a few small mistakes left (typos etc.). I also got very good grades in all of her exams. Reasons against her would be that the Bachelor thesis was in a different area of mathematics, I haven't talked to her for 2 years and that the accompanying seminar talk of my Bachelor thesis was rather mediocre.
-Any other professor in whose exam I had a good grade. There would be a few candidates, but besides from the oral exam I never really talked to them.
Another point mentioning is that I have excellent grades, so I guess that these letters are supposed to focus a bit more on soft skills (communication etc.)?


texts: Is this academic organization a predatory one?

texts:
I was reading about this organization that is called SAI (https://thesai.org/) which has a number of journals and conferences indexed in Scopus, but I am a little bit dubious if it should be considered a predatory one or not. I see that this organization appears in the famous or infamous Beall´s list (https://beallslist.net/), so should one avoid to publish its research in the venues organized by this organization? I have seen in Scopus that some of their papers are cited from other conferences hosted by ACM, IEEE or from journals from Springer. Bottomline, does anybody has any experience with his association or with the journals or conferences that they organize?

Thanks


texts: Google scholar citation problem with arxiv

texts: I have a paper that I uploaded to arXiv and google scholar listed it as a publication. The paper cites a number of my papers that are already published. However, Google scholar doesn't add arxiv citations to the already published papers.


texts: Mendeley: how to add document from bibliography entry?

texts:
I'm starting to write my bachelor thesis. It's my first time ever using citation software to manage the citations in the document and to generate the bibliography at the end of the document. So bear with me if my question is totally wrong.
Basically I added an image to my thesis. I found the image in paper A which in turn referenced the image from another paper B. Now I need to reference this original paper B.
This is the image on paper A
Bibliography entry on paper A
Now I need that exact bibliography entry in my thesis. I'm using Mendeley. I could manually enter the author names, the title etc.
But I'm wondering if there is a way to submit the entire entry and automatically add the document to Mendeley. After all the entry has all the necessary information to add the document and it is well separated by periods that identify each part of the citation.
So do I need to manually enter the document or can Mendeley automatically add it from the entry (second image above)?


texts: How to avoid a hostile takeover of first authorship during medical leave?

texts:
A colleague has approached me with a tough situation. I'm unsure how to advise her.

She is a postdoc, and will soon take a month-long planned medical leave. Her adviser, a senior research scientist, has a history of reshuffling authorships of papers of his subordinates during leave, sometimes to make himself first author. She had previously hoped to have the paper in question in submission, but “serendipitously” some last minute data is unavailable. Adding to her suspicion, the adviser has asked her to deliver all drafts and all data analysis code before leaving.

Her question, which stumped me: how can she safeguard her present first-author position? I will meet with her at the end of the week (17th) and share this thread with her.

Some details:

This advisor has reshuffled authorship on several previous occasions of which I am aware. He has suffered no disciplinary action from the department in these situations, and has a reputation for working to damage the careers of those that work against him. The unit has a history of turning a blind eye in these situations.
There's very little accountability to be had within this unit. Pieces of proof like emails and widely witnessed public statements are unlikely to be actual safeguards.
The advisor really does control all the inputs and outputs. This is true even after her return: he may switch authorship at that point over any real or perceived failure.
My feeling is the successful path here will involve some clever way to move the power in the situation from his side to her side.
Certainly, she is looking for a exit from the lab. A solution will substantially increase the chances she can take this first authorship with her.
My sense from our discussion is that early drafts and data analysis already shared, but the most recent ones are not yet. That said, the entire situation seems to suggest a lack of trust on all sides.
The distribution of work put into the paper is roughly: 95 % by my colleague, 4 % by another co-author, and 1 % by the supervisor.

EDIT: This has concluded. She used several of the strategies here, documenting extensively. Her adviser remover her from the paper and sent it for publication within 48 hours of her leaving. Upon her recovery, which took somewhat longer than expected, she appealed to the editor and the department. Her adviser ended her postdoc position, citing insufficient funding, and responded to the editor (how I'm unsure). She appealed to the university, which did not intervene. She has had no additional communication from the journal or her old lab. She has left, in some disgust, for an industry job.


texts: Will I get in trouble if I miscapitalize on the works cited page?

texts: I just realized after submitted my works cited page that I used uppercase letters instead of lower case. For example Federalizing Medical Campaigns against Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. Instead I capitalized it all. Is that something I would get in trouble for?


texts: Practice for publications in foreign language

texts: I'm an assistant professor in a non-English country. I work in control system and signal processing. I write publications in my native language. But I want  to get experience in publications in English. But I think my English is not so good. So I have small questions. Does anyone know courses or sites where I can practice? I know about Arxiv.org, but I am not sure it's best practice for my problem.


texts: Is it appropriate to show that a conference paper is prestigious by comparing the conference rejection rate to that of Science and Nature?

texts:
I have a paper accepted as an oral presentation at a conference that has an acceptance rate of 3.5 %. My field is computer vision and the conference is CVPR, the largest and most important international conference. In my field, conferences, rather than journals, are the main publication medium.

In a cover letter I am writing, I want to reinforce how prestigious it is to have such a paper accepted, especially to a non-expert audience. Now, I know that Science / Nature have acceptance rates of around 7%, so I was thinking of writing something like the following:

"I recently had a paper accepted as an oral presentation at CVPR, at an acceptance rate of 3.5 %, which is half that of the Science and Nature journals."

Does this read well? Or does it sound arrogant? And is putting this in context with Science and Nature necessary, or is the acceptance rate itself ok on its own?

Thanks!


texts:
Say I have a list of conferences I'm interested in. How can I track the submission deadlines in a single platform?

I'm aware of wikicfp, but there you need to track individual events. If you are interested in conference X, you need to manually add X-2018, X-2019 and so on. In particular, it's really up to the user to have an updated list and thus error-prone.

It would be incredible if the webpage helped me create my list of conferences, providing rankings and filters by field for example. This may be too much to ask though.

In case it's essential for the answer, my fields are Operations Research / Theory of Computer Science.


texts: How can I get the rights to my final year project?

texts: I live in the UK, study Computing and I'm about to start my final year. I have been told by friends that the University holds the right to my final year project. Is there a way of getting the rights and intellectual property of my final year project?


texts:
I want to know your opinion about the following situation.

Having read all recommendations on how to apply to graduate school abroad, how to choose the professor to work with, I found a really interesting suggestion of someone. The person was describing the similar process applying to graduate school and in parallel he was looking for someone to work with in the same university, a bit early but if know what do you want to do, why not to do it. Having found a good candidate to work with, the person offered to work together for from few weeks to few months.

This person was lucky, he made a really good choice, they decided to proceed working together towards a masters degree and application to the university was a useless formality.

One minor point though, it was a quite expensive, to buy a fly ticket, rent a room etc.

What is your opinion about this form of finding a professor, do you have more examples like this?


texts: Responding to a prof's email about acceptance in a PhD program

texts:
I just got an early email from a professor letting me informally know that I've been accepted for the PhD (CS) program at his school in the US. I only just applied to very few schools (actually just two), and this school (and prof) was my top choice. Should I just excitedly tell him that I accept his offer? Could anyone advise me regarding the proper protocol for responding to such an email. And what sort of a reply the prof might be expecting. For example, could I immediately ask about the research projects I would be likely to work on in the email? Would he be expecting that? Or should I just keep the content limited to the fact that I accept this offer and am excited to work with him. Are there any other key things that I should ask him. I live outside the US and am not sure about the exact protocols at the moment.

Thanks!


texts: Language of instruction in the ATER positions in France, and resource for English speaking teaching positions in France that are not postes vacataire

texts:
For ATER positions in France, is the teaching always in French or it depends on the university? I've written to one or two departmental contacts for ATER position, but they replied that the teaching was in French, so I ask.
If I've to look for a teaching position in France at a university level that's not a 'post vacataire', what are my options?
A bit of background if anyone is kind to read: I'm in a bit of difficult spot as my permit will run out in a couple of months, but I love France and I'd like to stay here. Ideally of course I'm looking for a research position in statistical/mathematical machine learning (more specifically geometric learning) but I'm keeping myself open to teaching positions if the research positions don't show up quickly enough. But the postes vacataires don't usually sponsor a work permit, unlike postdocs and ATER, so my question in general involves resources for teaching positions in English in France at a university level.
Thanks a lot!


texts: How to stay motivated for grant applications

texts:
I find it increasingly difficult to motivate myself to write grant applications - in my case to raise money for a post doc fellowship.

It seems to me that all bureaus require descriptions and research plans tailored very specifically. This is of course their right - it's their money. I find it, however, quite difficult to stay on top of it. I spend typically 4-5 full time days writing an application (is that normal?), and spend a couple of days being quite gloomy and unproductive when a rejection letter comes, as a lot of heart went into it.

How does other junior researchers handle writing applications? Any tips for motivation? Do you work in groups, or do you have a specific nice routine with a friendly PI to go over it - I am of course discussing my application with various seniors. Some have good input, most just tell me: 'don't worry, you are bright, you will eventually get something'. What to do until that happens?


texts: Paper is based completely on my thesis, but I'm mentioned in the acknowledgements only, not as a co-author, what should I do?

texts:
I developed a medical device for my master's project. The general idea was initiated by my supervisor but the rest of the work is mine (Design, build up, test, measurements, results and some additional functions I added to the idea).

After finishing the master thesis my supervisor started to write a paper about my project. The information in the paper comes from my master thesis and it merely rewrites and summarizes ideas from my thesis. Additionally, all the results and discussions were also picked from it. I was away during this because I found a job in a different city. My supervisor then started to contact me and asked me to give him feedback about what he wrote and to explain the results and said that he would name me as the co-author. I was supporting until the point that I got very busy, but soon his questions become orders and he started to ask very silly questions so I stopped responding.

Finally, he threatened to acknowledge my contribution only, that is, to only mention my name in the acknowledgement and not as a co-author, because he was not satisfied with my support / me not responding to his requests for help with the paper.

The whole paper is taken from my thesis and all the results are mine on top of the added support that I gave but finally, he'll mention me in the acknowledgements only.

Is he right in doing this / allowed to do this and if not what can I do?

I am thinking of contacting the journal and explain all of this. What do you think?


texts: How should I deal with need-to-define terms in introduction?

texts:
I am currently writing a paper, which starts with an "Introduction" and a "Definition" section. Would it be OK if there are some terms I plan to define in "Definition" first appear in "Introduction", without defining it in "Introduction"?

If no, how should I deal with it?


texts: What happens when you terminate a UK Ph.D. in the second year?

texts:
I've read that after you "pass" the first year of your Ph.D.program you can either continue normally or stop and get a masters degree.

What procedure should one follow in the latter case? Do you get any official document (diploma, certificate) and if so, does this document have any value?


texts: Professional looking to gain research experience

texts:
I'm a public health professional working for a national agency in the UK. I'm really keen to gain some research experience, but despite my organisation encouraging staff to be 'research active' it's not something that seems particularly feasible within my current programme of work.

Does anyone here have experience of gaining research experience independently and/or on the side of their day job? I would appreciate any advice you would be able to share on developing a research profile or experience outside of your primary professional role.

The two suggestions I have had so far are conducting independent research, or seeking out part time collaboration with an academic department (subject to employer approval). To what extent do these seem like feasible options, and what are the challenges/opportunities you see with pursuing either of these approaches?


texts:
in a project proposal, I am asked to write a section where it I will describe the background. I am not sure this means my research background so far and connection with the proposed project, or general background of the field of research. It is for a postdoctoral position.

Thanks


texts: Possible reasons for an author to withdraw authorship from an almost ready paper

texts:
What can be some possible reasons for an author to request his name be removed from an almost ready paper?

The authors consist of 4 students and our professor. A few days before the submission deadline, the professor told us to remove his name from the paper for "personal reasons".  This makes me wonder if he thinks the paper is of very low quality. Is there any other possible reason?

The field is computer science. The supervisor contributed a lot and the paper was written for a conference.


texts: Can I get into a top 50 school with a bachelors degree from an unknown state college?

texts:
I went to a relatively unknown state college for my Bachelor's degree.  I've been working in the field for about 5 years now, but I'm interested in going back for a PhD.

Would it be nearly impossible to get into say, MIT or Carnegie Mellon given where my Bachelor's degree is from?

Also, how much does work experience account for in the selection process? For example work related patents or product development work.

Edit

Some of this question is duplicated see How handicapped am I in graduate admissions if I graduated from a lower tier university?

I would like to focus more on how relevant work experience can aid in the selection process.


texts: Conference submission along with submitting to arXiv

texts: I am about to submit an article to an international conference (http://www.mldm.de/). I am thinking also to submit to arXiv as well. Is there any problem with this?


texts: What is the best way to provide an erratum to the public until the journal publishes it, or if it does not?

texts: I published an article in a Springer journal. I consider it to be the basis of all my future research. An editor introduced errors right before publication without asking me and now the article, as it was published Online First, cannot be modified. The EiC offered to publish an erratum with my article two issues from now. He is going to have to find out whether Springer publishes online errata. (Do they?) In the meantime, or if the erratum is never published online, what can be done to make the public aware that that is not a correct version of the article? Would you publish a link to the article with your own erratum in your personal website?


texts: Is it possible to pursue two distinct research interests in the same discipline?

texts:
Is it possible or legitimate to pursue two distinct research interests in the same discipline in the context of an advanced academic career (PhD and beyond that)?

For example, can I  have two research interests the one concerning History of Economics and the other concerning Mathematical & Computational Economics in a PhD program in an Economics department where there are always professors that have these but usually not the same person?

Or for example, can I  have two research interests the one concerning Political Theory/Philosophy and the other concerning Mathematical & Computational Social Sciences(Political Science) in a PhD program in Political Science department where there are always professors that have these but usually not the same person?

Just for the record, I have postgraduate academic education from prestigious universities both in Computer Science & Applied Mathematics and in Social Sciences(mainly Economics) & Philosophy. For this reason, I want to maintain both my strong qualitative and quantitative skills and have these, two in each case essentially, quite distinct research interests.


texts:
Google scholar keeps a listing of my co-authors.
Today, a new co-author was suggested by email.
When I clicked "Add co-author", the reaction of google scholar was "Too many co-authors".

Is this is serious? Or is it a known bug?


texts: What happens to a professor if too many students drops out of his or her class?

texts:
I am taking a course this semester for an upper year undergraduate course in mathematics.

The course instructor had some experience of teaching lower year courses, and her performance in those courses has been noted as very good. This is her first time teaching an upper year course, her teaching style is minimalistic, instead leaving most of the questions (even the conceptually fundamental ones) to be solved by the students.

In this semester, she had made this course too difficult. There are many reasons, most of which I think surrounded the fact that she never reinforced any of the material she taught during the lectures and never had any checks in place to assess the class's over all understanding. The homeworks where injected with some tangential, open research type problems, and there were two very difficult midterms that were a bit detached from what she taught during the lecture.

The course started with 120 students and now we are at about 30 students. We just had the final, which was very lengthy and probably will be harshly graded. We are probably expecting around 25 students to pass, based on class averages from the previous midterms.

This course does have a steep drop rate from the previous years. But by looking at the course report gathered by some student union from previous years, the course would always start with 120 and drops to something like 70. The lowest was 5 years ago when the course dropped to 50s.

What are the possible consequences for the professor in this case? She is an assistant professor.


texts: Letter of recommendation for postdoc position

texts:
I am now applying for postdoc (mathematics) and starting to search for jobs in mathjobs. In quite a lot of situation, the job description ask for three letter of recommendation. My question are:

When they ask for three letter, for example here, can I have 4 or 5 letters sent to that university? (I planned to have 3-4 letter for research and 1 for teaching).
If I can only send three letter, is it preferable to have 3 letters all focusing on research aspects, or 2 on research and 1 on teaching (assuming that that postdoc job requires one to teach)?


texts: Welcoming collaboration in a cover letter

texts:
Let's assume you are writing a cover letter for a tenure-track position in the US in computer science. In the cover letter, you would like to express your affinity to potential research areas and your openedness to collaboration with the corresponding researchers. You do not wish to promise collaboration, since it always involves the other side.  How to formulate it properly and concisely?

Here is a sample I found somewhere online (don't ask me where):

  At the School of GreatDiscipline at the ImportantCity College I would:

  〈irony〉 grab away your students for my useless projects 〈/irony〉
  〈irony〉 spend lots of your money without return 〈/irony〉
  〈irony〉 finally reduce the percentage of women down to zero 〈/irony〉
  ...
  welcome collaboration with the researchers from the areas X, Y, and Z,
  ...

(Of course, replace the ironical parts by proper formulations.)
Here are some choices I considered:

[

be open to ...
envisage ...
favor ...
promote ...
facilitate ...
offer ...
welcome ...

collaboration with ...].

All of them seem not ideal to me; I'm stuck. Some of them might be even a poor choice. Any suggestion for an appropriate phrase?

An aside: This question primarily seeks advice from academics who have successfully gone through the tenure-track process already or are overviewing this process. If it is the case for you, say so.


texts: What consequences are imposed by an institution when a researcher commits plagiarism?

texts:
Not sure if you've been following the story of a South Korean Prodigy, who tried to get his PhD degree based on a proceedings article (copyright protected) that his advisor has previously published thirteen years ago, by duplicating everything word-for-word, and rearranging some equations. Not surprisingly, his article was retracted. The advisor and the student are still claiming innocence and saying that the reviewers of the article are not experts of the field. Their case is currently under review by their institution.

What I'm curious about is what happens when graduate students or more senior people are caught by plagiarism. In my fifteen years or so as an academic, I have never seen a paper so blatantly plagiarized, and it got me thinking about what I would do if one of the graduate students committed such plagiarism, and if I were asked to reprimand those who have committed plagiarism in an academic capacity (note that I am not talking about undergraduate students).

I would think that there should be a pretty severe punishment, since when the undergraduate students are caught cheating or copying their homework assignments, after maybe a warning, their transcript contains a record of it. If they continue to cheat, they could get expelled. And obviously, doing this as an academic is a much more serious thing.

So I am interested in those who have served as deans, or otherwise some kind of academic integrity panel in your institutions. Do these things happen frequently (obviously on a smaller scale)? How did you deal with it?


texts: How do I find a journal's type (e.g. SCI, EI)?

texts:
I'm filling out a form with information about my publications, and one of the fields is "Type of Journal." I'm not sure what this means, except that SCI and EI are possible values. I'm guessing the former refers to Science Citation Index, but I can't find what EI is. It seems this is something they are expecting me to know so I can only assume it is common knowledge among academics.

What are the possible types for a journal (if a comprehensive list exists), and most importantly, for any given journal how do I find its type?


texts: What is considered a good GPA for studies in Germany

texts:
Coming from a different schooling/grading system, I have very little feeling about what actually is considered a good grade for studies in Germany.

Here the passing grades are given in the range of 1.0 to 4.0 and there are non-passing (failing) grades, which basically tell how hard you failed.
Needless to say, 1.0 is the best possible and tells that the student performed perfectly, but what about the other grades. What does 2.0 mean? It is translated as "good" but is that average actually. How does the teacher/professor "see" that grade.

Moreover, what is the typical GPA average which gives a student a chance to be considered for a Phd position? Of course, the higher the better, but what gpa (in the german grading system) would be considered OK-ish for a phd application?


texts: Are journal back covers, inside covers (i.e. not front covers) worth the cost?

texts:
In two recent submissions, after acceptance the journal contacted me to see if I was interested in submitting an image for consideration as back cover, inside back cover, or inside front cover. The cover image would need to be produced by our side, but then we additionally would have to pay the journal a fee (~$1000) for the "cost of producing the cover."

While I know front covers are generally seen as a mark of prestige (at least in my field, physics/engineering), are these additional "cover-lite" opportunities worth the cost in increased citations, views, prestige, or other intangibles?

I should stress that the journals are established and well-regarded (i.e. not predatory journals). One is explicitly a for-profit owned by Wiley, the other is a society journal.


texts: Relevant experience but I did a mediocre job.. should I include it in the cover letter?

texts: I am writing a cover letter to apply for a paid PhD position. I was thinking if I should include the experience of doing my master's dissertation. The methodology is very similar to that of the project, but the problem is I did a mediocre job in the dissertation (got a C, meaning "Good"). I am ashamed by the grade and was thinking for this highly competitive position, a "good" job might be kind of bad.. Should I include it in the cover letter or just leave it and highlight my other experiences (which are not quite research-related)?


texts: Why is Google Scholar popular in some fields but not in others?

texts:
In disciplines such as computer science and engineering, Google Scholar is a fundamental tool in not only searching for recent work of a researcher but is also frequently used as a metric for the proficiency of the researcher.

I've noticed in many other fields, e.g. political science, or even math, Google Scholar is not nearly as popular.

Does anyone have any insight into why this is the case? Do these other fields have other tools they use to follow researchers or measure their output? Perhaps these factors are not as important in these other fields?


texts: Are law review publications helpful for gaining acceptance into a PhD program?

texts:
I'm currently finishing up my J.D., and I plan on practicing law for at least a few years. However, I'm also considering returning to school to study CS. In the meantime, I plan on researching and attempting to publish at least a few articles - perhaps some related to cyber law.

Given the less rigorous nature of law review, how would an admission committee view these?

Also, does the prestige of the journal matter - i.e. Harvard Journal of Law & Technology vs. Michigan State Law Review?


texts: Confusion between citation databases: how are they related?

texts:
I have seen in some faculties that I have been visiting that they give more importance to some citation databases than to others. About this issue, I have some confusions. I prefer to open only one global question here that cutting it up into smaller chunks because I believe the things I will expose are related:

What is the importance that some journals are indexed in Scopus and some in Web of Science or Thomson Reuters? Does Scopus have a better reputation? I ask this because I saw one faculty that strive to put their publications only on journals and conferences indexed by Scopus.
Is there any relationship between Scimago and Web of Science?
I found in the following link:
http://www.thomsonscientific.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlresults.cgi
that a journal in which a colleague has gotten his article published that appears on this list, does it mean that journal is indexed by the Web of Science? Even though I have seen in the webpage of that journal that it does not mention Web of Science perse.

Any clarification of these citation databases would be a huge help to me. The field that I am working on is Computer Science.


texts: Topics for on-site interview lunch and dinner time

texts: I want to seek some ideas about what kind of topics I can talk about during the dinner or lunch time during my upcoming on-site faculty interview. I will have a dinner with the searching committee, department head, and other faculty members in the department. What typical topics I can pick up to avoid silencing the time.


texts: Should I suggest my sources as reviewers?

texts:
Authors are often asked to suggest reviewers for their article. In my own experience, the principal domain experts I can suggest are often the authors whose work I have cited, but suggesting them might present a conflict of interest.

As an author, should I suggest my sources as reviewers?