texts: Would getting a faster MSc instead of just BSc affect admission chances for PhD?

texts:
I will try to describe my situation briefly.
The university I'm currently studying at offers a 4-year Bachelor program in mathematics.

I am currently in my 3rd year and the program for the 4th year consists only of optional courses (which I choose). As I have taken a rather high amount of optional courses so far, I can satisfy my ECTS requirements for the whole program in 3 years. The university, in this situation, would allow me to graduate at the end of my third year. Then, I could pursue an MSc. degree at the same university for a year and graduate with an MSc at the end of my 4th year of study in the university.

I would like to note that this has been done before by other students here and I'm not fantasizing.

My intention is to apply for a PhD at a university in the USA after the 4th year. (I am not a US citizen and I haven't studied there).

My question is: would getting an earlier BSc and MSc degree affect (negatively or positively) my chances for admission in a top university in the USA?
Should I just graduate with a BSc. in math?
I know that sometimes having a MSc. from the same university can be a negative sign. Should I be worried about that?

Some other background:
My current university is not really "elite" of any sort; it barely enters the top 600 in the world. I have a few published articles and I have participated in conferences. I am also currently pursuing an internship in a research institute in the country.

Thank you.


texts: Is the Nature publishing group's "Scientific Reports" journal well regarded?

texts:
The Journal "Scientific Reports", published by the Nature publishing group, is gaining popularity with time (impact factor now around 5.2). It highlights its editorial policy as one that is focused on scientific rigour and validity, rather than perceived impact.

My question is:

How well regarded is "Scientific Reports" in the academic community compared to other more-traditional ones, especially in the physical sciences and engineering?
Also, does the fact that it imposes article processing charges and publishes only open-access articles reduce from its perceived rank as a journal?
Is its high impact factor a result of these factors, or is it actually due to high quality articles published in it?
Many researchers know that some well-regarded specialist journals might have relatively low impact factor, but their reputation is still top-ranked. Say, for example, that I have a paper in physics or engineering, and I could either publish it in a specialised Physical Review or IEEE journal versus Scientific Reports, which one would be more well-regarded (assuming the first two have less impact factor than Scientific Reports)?


texts: How to postpone a skype interview by a potential supervisor if you are not fully prepared? Is it advisable to postpone?

texts: How to postpone a skype interview by a potential supervisor if you are not fully prepared? Is it advisable to postpone, if you are only prepared some, and are not fluent in talking your research since English is not the first language.


texts: Get funding for a research period abroad while being a PhD student

texts:
I am a second year PhD student in computer science, in Europe. For a number of reasons, when beginning the PhD I decided to keep on with my previous job, doing an unfunded part-time PhD.

Now, I have decided that I would like to continue with academic career, and I would like to spend a part of my third year in a foreign university, ideally in the US.

The issue is that I can not do this with my own money (that I don't have :) ), as to do this I would have to leave my job, for sure. So, currently I don't have any funding.

So my question: there exist some kind of funding to cover this kind of research periods abroad? And also, where to look? My own university, the European union or the future hosting institution?


texts: Could conducting collaborative research with more than one professor BEFORE applying for a PhD lower an applicant's chances of acceptance?

texts:
I have been doing teaching work in my field (i.e., language/linguistics) for several years while at the same time conducting and publishing research (I am from a developing country). All of these projects have been collaborative, with two being conducted alongside two different professors. Now, I feel I am ready to apply for a PhD but one of the professors, who is also abroad, is keen on doing a couple of more projects with me. I am concerned and ambivalent about this for two reasons:

The first project we did together was relevant to my research interests/expertise and my role/contribution was clear there. But, the new projects are at best tangentially relevant to my interests and future research area. I am worried that conducting research on such topics could mean (to a potential PhD supervisor or graduate admissions committee) that I am somehow intellectually disorganized or still undecided about my main interests.

Relatedly, I am concerned that reporting even more collaborations on my CV at this stage may put off potential PhD supervisors who may become suspicious of my commitment to their program or think my attention will be divided.

Is there any validity to these concerns? Or, am I just passing up on a good opportunity to expand my research profile?


texts: Is it a good idea to put equations in a research proposal?

texts:
I am preparing a grant application for personal funding to carry out a 3-year project. The topic is in the field of computational condensed matter, and the work will focus on i) method development, ii) computational implementation, and iii) application of method/code to interesting systems.

I think it's easier to bring across some points by (light) use of equations, but I'm not sure if the reviewers will frown upon it. The committee members should be either experts in the particular subfield or at least fairly familiar with it (i.e., it's not a multidisciplinary committee).

This website for instance states that

  [...] the best proposals contain no equations at all!

So, is it a good idea to include equations in a research proposal or should I strive to avoid them?


texts: How do government research labs compare to research positions in academia and industry?

texts:
So what I’m wondering about is how research positions in government run research labs with organisations like Australia’s CSIRO or America’s FFRDC labs compare with equivalent positions in academia and industry.

What are their pay and conditions like, relatively speaking? How much job security do you have? How much control do you get over your topic of research?


texts: How are best reviewer awards given (in a computer science conference)?

texts: I have often seen people(postdoc, etc.) listing in their CV or webpage that they were awarded best reviewer for conference X. I have recently been invited to become a reviewer for a conference, which has made me ponder over what are the criteria for giving such awards? (My field is computer science if that makes a difference.)


texts: Am I allowed to teach my online students someone 's book?

texts: Is it legal to teach my online students someone's book without getting the permission from the writer? I emailed him many times but he didn't answer me.


texts: Does a person enter a PhD from a masters program, or is applying to PhD a separate process?

texts:
Right now, I work full-time and am applying to EE grad school (part-time) for next Fall.

Does a person apply to Masters Program, earn the Masters, and then they are eligible to work on Phd?

Or is applying to Phd a separate application process? I am in USA.


texts: How to create a grading rubric that properly incentivizes and challenges students

texts:
Since I haven't do much TA duty (only 1 semester so far, starting 2nd one), I have struggled to come up with a good way to grade homework. My last grading rubric ended up creating strange incentive pattern wherein people will do all the optional questions, while completely ignore the required questions (or just write some random nonsense to get some extra pity points); and since I posted my rubric publicly, I couldn't change it. Since I am about to grade the first assignment of this semester, I need to come up with a new grading rubric, so I need help with the following optimization problem.

The situation is as follow. Every assignment will contains around 5 required questions, and 1-3 optional questions. Required questions would be very simple and can be solved by understanding the material, while optional questions would usually require new ideas. I have freedom in choosing any 3 required questions to grade (and they have to be the same questions for all students), and anyone optional question to grade (could be different question for each student). I might award completion points questions I do not grade, but since I am not supposed to grade them, I cannot discern whether the problem is actually solved (and given the amount of grading I have to do, I can't really afford to look into more than 4 questions per student).

I want to have a grading rubric that create the incentive such that students are most likely to do all the required questions and at least 1 optional question, subject to the following constraints:

Doing something extra never hurt the grade (even if "something extra" is a drawing of an goat).
Solving harder questions get higher score than solving easier question (note: I get to pick the maximum score for each question).
Maximum possible score can be obtained from solving all required questions only.
When it comes to required questions, partial credits must be awarded for answers that get certain part of a correct answer.
For questions with explicitly multiple parts, every part must get the same maximum score, and any solved part must be awarded scores (note that in a multiple parts question, it is very common for part (a) to be much easier than part (f)).
Anyone who attempted all questions (both required and optional) get at least 50% of the maximum.

Anyone can help me with a good grading rubric?

EDIT: since I can't make comments, I will clarify some of the answers/comments below.

First, about grading randomly comment. That was exactly what I did last semester. Grade random required questions, grade all optional questions (since you know, they are not required, so it would be unfair if some get points and some don't for the same work), and give optional questions much higher maximum points (since they are much tougher). Result: people only do optional questions, since these are the only one with guaranteed points, and give a lot more points.

Second, point #3 makes perfect sense, and I don't see how it is restrictive. After all, other questions are known as optional for a reason: people don't need to do it to get full score. And #6 is what the professor requires of me: the class is supposedly a hard class that is optional for the major and is also regularly attended by people who are not in the major that are simply interested, so he doesn't want to fail anyone who put in "honest effort" (that's the word he used, so I guess 6 goats and 1 turtle won't count, but a bunch of gibberish equations would).

As for the answer below. I won't make the mistake of making the rubric public anymore, the students would have to ask for that in which case I can explain to them. Grading the best looking optional problem will violate constraint #1 here. This is because it is really hard to see which answer are better without and detailed look, since optional problems have lots of intricacies, are long, and tend to have fewer parts. And if I judge wrong, it means someone who attempt 2 problems might end up with a low score because I picked the bad one, compared to someone who only do 1.


texts: Is it better to start the paper title with a verb?

texts: I heard one of my lecturers says that it is always better to start the paper title with a verb. According to the lecturer, the verb leave that impression about something has been accomplished. For example, use Design, develop etc. I tried to find any supportive resources about that but I could not. The other question, is it better to use verb-ing or not (e.g. Developing vs. Develop)? Most of references that speak about choosing title do not pay much attention to the syntax.


texts: Word choice for salutation in a formal email to your PhD adviser, Is *Dear Boss* appropriate?

texts:
I am a first year PhD student in France, born and raised in India. It is not customary in here where I am doing my PhD to call one's adviser boss but I do, partly due to my reluctance to call her by the first name, partly attributed to the culture in which I am brought up. As one comment suggested, "Dear professor" would have been an appropriate choice but she doesn't have any teaching duties and is a full time researcher. I would have used "Dear Madam" if I were in India but no one here use that. I think "Dear Dr. X" is too formal and no one here use that either. Many prefer "Hi X" but I think that is too informal.
Now that I am writing an email, Is Dear Boss an appropriate salutation? If not, what would be an appropriate salutation in a formal email?


texts: Can an international PhD Student in Australia make a living with an APA scholarship and 8 hours teaching work per week?

texts:
My "problem":

I am from Austria and currently in the process of applying for a PhD position in Brisbane, Australia. My supervisors said that I might be eligible for an
APA (Australian Postgraduate Awards) stipend which is supposed to cover my living expenses in AUS. Receiving this scholarship would also mean that I wouldn't be paying any tuition fees.
The total stipend amount is 26,288 AU$ / year. And as far as I know, I would be allowed to work up to 8 hours a week to earn some extra money (I.e. as a teaching assitant).
I don't know how much the hourly rates for this type of job are, but if I speculate and say it's about 20AUS$/h, this would result in a total weekly budget of approximately 660AU$ (including wage and scholarship).

My question:

Can I make a living with this amount of money in an expensive city like Brisbane? Could I maybe even safe up some money to fly back to Europe once a year to visit my family and friends?
Any experiences or useful links of (international) PhD Students in Australia are appreciated (I.e. on insurance costs, etc.).

Note: I know that the Australian Government says that the average living expenses per year are AU$18,610, but they don't explicitly state how they calculate this sum. When I checked the costs for housing, food, insurance, etc., the sum exceeded this official number by far.


texts: What is an optimal reading order for a set of related papers?

texts:
A common problem I encounter every time I do a literature search on a new subject is determining a reading order for papers.  It feels akin to jumping into a prolific sci-fi fantasy series, but since there usually don't exist enthusiastic fan bases for a random subset of papers on numerical methods for PDEs, I'm always struggling to figure out how to get started.  My default is chronological order (oldest to newest), but this frequently poses problems if the oldest paper is using outdated notation or technology.  A newest to oldest reading order has the problem that it might assume background information from previous papers, which leaves me feeling like I have to keep jumping around texts and never really get a coherent picture of any of them.

Does anyone have better ideas for determining an "optimal" reading order for related academic papers?  Perhaps a simple metric for ranking importance (but not citation counts, since this would skew towards older papers).

Note that when I say ``read a paper," I'm already employing a multi-stage technique where I read the abstract, conclusion, and introduction, then skim the text, and afterwards decide whether it's worth downloading and reading in detail. So the set of papers I have now, I've determined are worth really reading in detail.


texts: Simultaneously submitting, one paper got rejected, other didn’t - what to do?

texts:
There is a result R and teams T and U.

Team T submitted into a journal result R, but not on Arxiv. Team U then submitted result R to Arxiv, without knowing about the submission of Team T. Team U also submitted to a journal after publishing on Arxiv but got rejected. Now the paper of Team T is already published, but later than the Arxiv submission of Team U.

What should or can the Team U do?


texts: What to change between Conference and Journal Paper?

texts:
If one is extending work previously published in conference proceedings, what must be changed?

Specifically, does one need to change the Introduction, Background Work, or similar sections that are not actually the new material being presented?

I understand that some journals use a plagiarism detection system that would throw serious red flags if sections were untouched; so, how do editors view this?

It seems reasonable to not have to modify every sentence, especially where the material has not changed.

Thoughts?

Edit: Typically, 25-30% new material should be presented, but does this have to come at the cost of rewriting some portions of the work that remain the same?


texts: The status remained "awaiting for reviewer selection" after 5 months since re-submission

texts:
Anyone give me some advice:
I have made a major revision after receiving one very positive feedback and one very negative feedback for my manuscript. Then I revised and resubmitted. It is almost 5 months since resubmission. The status is remained “Awaiting Reviewer Selection” since then. I have emailed the editor several times, but I still have not received the feedback.
Have anyone had this experience and please give me an advice.
Thanks!


texts: Whom to cite from an article: the reporter or the person who provided a quote to the reporter?

texts:
I am reading this 2016 article: EI benefits (The Globe and Mail)

The article is written by the reporter R. Younglai. In an academic paper, I am talking about a specific theory/concept which is mentioned in a number of sources, including the Globe and Mail article.

In the article, R. Younglai quotes a university professor

  ... blah blah ...
  "It is sort of ironic. When a big negative shock comes, the unemployment system is not generous enough. When the economy starts improving and the unemployment rate starts going down, it is too generous," said Miles Corak, an economics professor with the University of Ottawa.

In my paper, I am discussing this concept. Who should I cite - the reporter or the professor who gave the quote?

Here is my sentence with the in-text citation:

  ... blah blah blah concept ... (John 2013; Jack 2015; XXX 2016).

Should I cite as (Corak 2016) or (Younglai 2016)?

Note that I don't want to write "According to the report by Younglai (2016), Miles Corak said ..." because there are many other sources in the same citation parenthesis.

I am following the Chicago Author-Date style. I can't find anything related to this in the guide.


texts: Buying out of teaching duties vs. all duties using grant money

texts:
My university (in Europe) is currently reconsidering its policy regarding professors (assistant through full) buying out of certain duties using funds from research grants. The new proposal is that the grant money will only be used for buying out of all of the duties at once (research, teaching, administration, ... -- all of them). This is in contrast to, say, buying out of teaching alone or out of all duties but research selectively.

The proposal also includes a clause that the funds obtained by the university from researchers buying themselves out of duties, specifically the amount corresponding to the research duties, will be used for "other initiatives and priorities", i.e. not for supporting research directly.

I see some problems with this policy and wonder if my concerns are justified.

If one does not have a grant, one uses, say, 50% of one's time for research as stipulated by the job contract. One gets remunerated for all the work one does, including research (that seems a natural assumption to me). Under the proposed policy, if one has a grant and buys himself/herself out of all duties, one will still do research for 50% of the time as before, plus another 50% of the time because of the research grant.
What is the logic behind buying oneself out of the 50% of the job one will actually be doing anyway?

Perhaps this could be understandable if the funds were used by the university to employ another person to do all the duties of the original job position, including 50% research, but this is not the case according to the proposed policy. The grant money corresponding the 50% of the research work will not be used to fund another researcher but rather to fund other activities. This seems to partly defeat the purpose of the research grant: the money that is earmarked for research is taken by the university and spent on something else.
Even though one has to buy oneself out of all duties, the university still expects to have its name on the academic production from the grant. So even though the university is not supporting the professor financially, it still wants to receive the benefits that come with achievements in research.

I might be oversimplifying things as I am not very familiar with the system, but the elements indicated above seems problematic to me.

Questions: Does this policy proposal sound fine? Is such practice popular in other universities?


texts: Does any university require students to release their source code in order to graduate?

texts: I wonder whether there is any university that requires students to release their source code (or at least part of it) in order to obtain their PhD.


texts: How do journal editors and reviewers view previously published conference paper?

texts:
I am submitting my paper to a journal, but a very small part of the work was previously presented in a quite prestigious international conference (although not the top). The journal policy allows for this, given the revised journal version has at least 30% novelty as a thumb rule. It even allows some copied texts and figures, which I do not have.

So from what I see, it is not absolutely necessary for me to mention the conference edition as part of this work although I am citing it as relevant, along with other references. But researchers will understand that it is not black and white, but gray. The previous research will always somewhat influence the future research.

If I do mention the conference presentation as part of the submitted work, will it make the work more authentic to the reviewers? Will they somehow take it more seriously, so to say? I am interested in the opinions of experienced reviewers and editors.

Just to make it clear, in my field, journals are considered more prestigious and they publish the more refined, expanded versions.

Also, this journal has an anonymous review process, but not double-blind.


texts:
Do US universities offer Graduate Paid Internship programs in CS/CSE?

That is, studying MS in CSE while working as a paid intern in a company, which is arranged by the university itself?

If yes, do they have any age limit?


texts: Academic Amnesty-vs-Transferring: how does each affect graduate school admission?

texts:
I entered college back in 1994 and was academically dismissed in 1999, and needless to say my transcript is atrocious. I only require a few semesters to graduate and I am planning to go back to get my bachelors and then masters. I was accepted for reenrollment by my old college and was offered an Academic Amnesty program where I can get a fresh start on my GPA. The transcript will still show all the classes previously taken, but the ones with D’s and F’s will not count towards graduation requirements, and my GPA will only be calculated using the newly taken classes after reenrollment. So technically I have a chance of achieving a 4.0 GPA. Down side is that there is no online class option, so I will have to do evening classes or leave work early two days a week for a few semesters.

Please correct me if I am misinformed, but I believe that transferring to another college will in essence do the same thing. Transferrable credits move over, new GPA calculation, etc. But the transcript with the terrible GPA will still exist at my old school. One major plus for this option is that I can transfer to a college offering online programs so I can pursue my degree with minimal affect to my job.

I would like to know how much emphasis graduate schools put on each scenario.

If I transfer to an online college and graduate with high GPA, would graduate schools also look at the transcript from my old school and average it?
Or would the GPA from the institution that I get the degree matter most?
If I have a solid GPA after the Academic Amnesty option, would grad school not care?
Is an online degree a significant negative?


texts: Is it okay to ask advisor how I am doing with my research?

texts: I have some idea of how well I'm doing with my research in PhD, but maybe it differs from what my advisor thinks. Is it okay to ask (e.g. at the end of a meeting) how well I'm doing with my research? Can I say "Oh, by the way, how am I doing with my research?"


texts: Getting into the Computer Science Industry

texts:
I am a soon to be fourth year graduate student in mathematics (PhD track). Originally, I wanted to work in academia, but am realizing this is an uncertain path. I feel compelled to finish my PhD degree because I have only two years left (next academic year I must attend as well) and am already pretty far in. But, I want to prepare myself in the meantime for the likely possibility that I will not get a job in academia.

I would like to get into computer science. I did a minor in computer science during my undergrad, so it is not completely foreign to me. But, I do not know what I should do next. Should I be applying for masters programs in CS or is there a better path to get into the computer science industry? I have seen that people have been successful with coding bootcamps and what not, but is this the kind of things that most employers are looking for?


texts: Postdoc in good environment, but haven't accomplished anything on my own: How long is it reasonable to stick around?

texts:
I'm about 5 months into my postdoc now, and I am seriously questioning the choice. Most posts I read about this mention bad advisors, situations with the lab, etc. but in my case actually everything about the lab is great. I'm at the top institution in my field, with an advisor that is well respected in the field and has been around for a long time. The advisor is also an extremely nice person, supportive and consistently provides positive feedback when you present work. The group is also great, full of really smart, but really friendly people. They work a lot, but that's really the only flaw in the group culture (aside from not being the safest in lab maybe). The group is also well funded, and my advisor is supportive of working on anything that is interesting. It seems like this should be an amazing opportunity. Resources galore, support, and scientific freedom.

But here's the thing, I'm totally miserable and haven't accomplished anything tangible that I can call my own. I have helped some people with their projects, but I haven't been able to figure out something to work on that is my own. My PhD used some of the same fundamentals, but this was a relatively big switch moving into the postdoc. I expected some time would be necessary to learn new things and get going, but I barely feel like I've moved forward. I tried several ideas, but nothing panned out. Now my advisor has suggested a new project to make this device, it would be slightly more related to my PhD and we have some of the resources needed to do it, and wrote a proposal to get more, but I'm still really struggling to get going. I feel like this new project doesn't involve many fundamentals, and is just engineering together existing pieces that have all been done before. If it works it might be interesting, but I really struggle to see how I could use it to do fundamental science, which is what you need to apply to academic jobs in the field. I just feel like I am failing at a key part of being an academic, which is coming up with new ideas. At some point that has to catch up to me and my advisor will notice.

So what I am struggling with is whether I should stick it out and grind away on this new project that I don't have much faith in, find a new postdoc and try to move labs (I am not willing to move cities since my partner is also here doing a postdoc), or should I just start looking for an industry job in the area (which would almost definitely come with a much worse commute, but twice the salary)? But if I did the industry search I'm not sure how I could do that without telling my advisor because I would only leave if I got a decent offer. The other labs that would be relevant for my experience are a lot less well known, and I don't think any of them would have as nice of an advisor.


texts: If transitioning into academic position, should I buy my PhD graduation cap and gown?

texts:
My graduation ceremony is coming up in a few months,
and I have the option of buying or renting a graduation cap and gown.

I will be starting an assistant professor job this year, so I suspect (but am not sure) that I will need to wear the dress at graduation ceremonies at my new institution.

If I were to buy the graduation dress, would I ever need to wear it again?

Location: My new job will be in an Asian university.

What I did I asked a colleague at the institution where I will be working,
and he told me that indeed, I could rent a gown for free
if I were to attend a graduation ceremony.


texts: Can one blow the whistle on a professor who excludes students on the basis of their personal life?

texts:
This post is an attempt to reformulate this misunderstood question. I (and others) did add clarifying information, taken from the OP's comments, to the question, but I believe the whole Q&A&discussion sequence got so muddied that a fresh start would be the best way to get good answers to what the OP was actually trying to find out.

There is a professor in OP's department who only takes students who are willing to commit to spending all their waking time studying.  He manages to effectively excludes students who have families or close personal relationships.  He wants only students who will dedicate any free time left (after doing their required work) on related reading in their field.

The professor doesn't come right out and say, "Only single people who are driven to spend every waking moment on their studies are welcome in my group," but effectively, that is his policy.  Quoting from OP's comments:

  One way I hear about how he "weeds" out the normal people is by telling them how much work it takes to succeed, and gives examples of previous "successful" students, and what their lifestyles were. I suppose he says something like: "this is how much you know from being an undergrad, this is how much you need to know to succeed in this field, here is a humongous list of topics you should know before you can competently do research with me, come back to me when you're ready." But I don't think that's all he does.... I think he intimidates prospective advisees with his demeanor, and so this fact along with his reputation leads to him select students who work day and night everyday.

This professor is in the United States.  He is very good in his field and manages to get students who fit his requirements; but it doesn't seem right to OP (or to me), and we would like to know:

Is there any way of blowing the whistle on such a professor?


texts: If I have a PhD in computer science, could I contribute to philosophical outlets or would I need a philosophy PhD to do that?

texts:
In the future, I'm planning to pursue a PhD in computer science. Alongside making technical contributions to the field of computer science (artificial intelligence in particular), I'd like to give my philosophical take (or two) on where the field of artificial intelligence is headed.
My question is: If I get a PhD in computer science, would I need to get a PhD in philosophy in order to contribute to philosophical outlets that discuss computer science topics? More broadly, if I write a good enough paper, could I contribute to philosophical outlets in general or would me not having a PhD in philosophy be a barrier?
I was reading this answer and this part stuck out to me (a comment on the first answer):

I'm having a really hard time identifying a career path that requires
two formal PhD's, unless one discipline is in the humanities and the
other is in a STEM field, and one decided to start with the non-STEM
field.

I'm starting with the STEM field here, so I'm not sure if in my case it makes sense to pursue multiple PhDs.


texts: How to make good use of compulsory study plans in connection with PhD studies?

texts:
I am not sure if this concept sounds familiar to you but in Sweden PhD students are expected to have a study plan, which is revised every year, in connection with a meeting between the student, the primary and secondary supervisor(s). It's the closest thing I have to a contract actually.

Theoretically the concept is great, there's a formal demand to plan and revise the projects, so that things don't get out of hand. The study plan typically defines:

the nature and title of graduate studies
an expected time of dissertation
the responsibilities the student has towards the department (teaching, lab/IT responsibilities etc)
the extent of research/course ratio per semester
courses taken/planned
the project that planned to/will be a part of the thesis

Then comes a series of so-called "lärandemål" which I could possibly translate as "learning goals" mandated/advised by the board of higher education services (Högskoleverket) and what is planned/completed to achieve these goals. This piece constitutes a majority of the study plan essentially.

So far so good... I think conceptually it's a great idea. In practice, the part regarding learning goals becomes a whole bunch of formal gibberish that does not reflect reality but looks fancy on paper. My supervisor does not really care much about the plan, at least not in the format it's forced on both of us. I am not sure if this is the impostor syndrome speaking, but I feel like it's essentially an annoying piece of paperwork, on which I am forced to write what I am doing/have done in rather exaggerated fluffy words. I have also considered the possibility that I perceive it thus because even though I am very fluent, Swedish is not my first language. I could not say for sure...

I am trying to force myself to see the benefit in having and updating such a study plan. I could just do the minimal amount of work and get it over with, but seeing that this is actually my chance and legal right to influence the development of my graduate studies, I feel it'd be a waste of opportunity if I did not take the chance to make the best out of it.

Any ideas as to how I can make better use of these study plans and study plan meetings that go along with it? Likewise any plans as to how I can avoid seeing it as an annoying piece of work that has to be done and have no practical meaning?


texts: Providing APIs instead of directly providing data sets

texts: Several academic paper hosts such as PubMed and Cochrane give some machine readable access to their data by providing  APIs, but do not directly provide the data sets. Is there any reason why they don't provide some dumps of the data sets, aside from trying to save bandwidth and avoiding to cron dumps?


texts: Writing a reviewed article in resume/ Statement of purpose

texts:
I am applying to several places for Masters in pure mathematics in the month of December.

I submitted a paper in a math journal and received its review. The reviewer mentions and I quote "I recommend
this article for publication". However, he has suggested to make some changes and upload a revised version. I am working on the changes but it may take a while and the next review might take more time and thus cross the application deadlines.

Now for university applications, I want to ask what can I write in my CV/SOP to show the current progress as in it is almost sure that it will be accepted and writing just submitted doesn't show the actual situation. Also, writing accepted will be wrong as it isn't accepted yet.


texts: Exchanging co-authorship for proofreading?

texts:
Is it an ethical practice to offer co-authorship on a paper to a graduate student in exchange for proofreading the paper? By proofreading, I mean fixing small grammatical or spelling errors right before manuscript submission, not contributing significant comments to the experimental design or methodology that are later taken into account.

I ask because in my old lab we had several international students and several fluent English speaking grad students, and the fluent English speakers are listed as co-authors on several papers where they have contributed nothing more than small grammar corrections.


texts: What to write in the section "what will be the impact of proposed research on development of applicants academic profile"?

texts:
I am applying for a post-doc fellowship and one of the section in the application form is "what will be the impact of proposed research on development of applicants academic profile".

I have a limit of 1500 characters. What exactly should I write in this section? The research proposal and an abstract of it are in different sections (as well as the list of my main publications and my CV). If I understand it properly, it is not the same as statement of purpose.

Should I mention my current or past interests/skills/research? Or write only about my future? I have no idea how will my fellowship and up if I am successful or not with publications etc. So how can I know what will be the impact on my future? I hope for the best of course, but I pressume I cannot base this section on my dreams. Or can I?


texts: How do I stay motivated with repetitive tasks as an undergraduate research assistant?

texts:
In a nutshell, I'm drawing circles on images for most of my day (more precisely, ROIs around cellular components in fluorescence imaging). I volunteer to do this on weekdays from 10am to 7pm, and I stay late until 9pm once or twice a week to finish the day's set of images when it's considerably large.

I'm spending at least 45 hours per week drawing circles. I'm working efficiently (it takes me on average of 15 minutes per page of stitched images), I try not to take breaks to maintain momentum unless I'm noticeably slowing down (and limit them to 10 minutes), and I try not to take more than 30 minutes for lunch.

I understand that monotonous tasks are a key part of research, and it's suitable work for me as an undergraduate (as they're low-risk and require little experience). I'm also lucky to do research so early in my career. But in the evenings, I begin to think of all the other undergraduates out there getting ahead doing amazing work (like Martin McLaughlin, who already produced publishable, original work in his first year), and I feel discouraged and expendable.

And it's entirely my fault, too. If I spent my time in high school more effectively by learning Python coding for automation, statistics, and understanding more of the relevant literature, I could be so much more useful to my supervisor doing more stimulating complex tasks.

It's been a month since I've started, and the long hours of this repetitive task are wearing me down. But I don't want to let my supervisor down, so I intend to keep getting the daily image set done each day. She hasn't required me to set these hours or get the image set done each day, but I've been doing this for so long that it's expected (though she's always very appreciative each time I submit, and she works longer hours than me).

I plan to continue until the project is complete when my supervisor graduates in December (lessening hours to the evenings when classes resume). Until then and for future research opportunities, how can I keep myself motivated with monotonous tasks and avoid burning out?


texts: Physician assistant school rescinded my acceptance

texts:
I'm in a complicated situation. I was accepted to physician assistant school and was told I'm one of the most qualified candidates. I'm also a mother of 2 children (under age 3) and living with their father who doesn't want me to go to PA school (because I'll have more freedom).  But not only is he physically and emotionally abusive, but he stopped paying for my cell phone and started throwing away my mail (from my school and everyone else)  to limit my communication with anyone. (Note: I'm three months postpartum and have stayed home to care for my kids  waiting for school to start, and have no income of my own). I communicated this problem with my school via email as they could not reach me by phone. Even though it was embarrassing, I gave them specifics of my circumstances. Yet I Iived up to my promise to keep up with their other requirements.

Yesterday, I was shocked to learn that they rescinded my acceptance because I couldn't be reached by phone during the last month (but did respond to all correspondence via email). I explained the extenuating circumstances, and even presented evidence from police reports proving what was happening at home.

To make matters worse, my parents and I signed a lease on an apartment a block from school and agreed to help me pay for it so I could have a stable living environment with less distractions (constantly wondering if I would be forced onto the streets out of my abusive partner's apartment). We already signed a lease for the apartment.

I know that I honestly put forth my best effort to fulfill pre-matriculation requirements and to communicate with the only means I had (the computer). I couldn't go in person because I have no car. Graduating from this program was my ticket  to financial freedom out of this oppressive situation, and I feel like this school is going way too far to rescind my acceptance based ONLY on the short term termination of my phone.

How can I get the school to remake their offer?


texts: Citing a document without year information

texts:
I have to cite a product manual in a journal paper, but the product manual do not have a year mentioned on it. The content of product manual has not changes over the years. Could this type of documents be cited in a paper or thesis?

If you have not seen a manual like this, then this is an example: https://www.specmeters.com/assets/1/22/6460_SM1002.pdf


texts:
I recently came across this query on a LinkedIn group. The exact query was:
"Does anyone know if there are journals in image/signal processing, CV or related ares, which have no page limitation and have ok/reasonable reputation? I have a theoretical paper which has 50 page."

Online journals could theoretically have no page limits but they still end up having limits/bounds. Why is it so?

Are there any such journals which allow for publishing of large sized papers?


texts: Is it okay to copy paste some part of my Bachelor's thesis literature review for my own Master's thesis?

texts: So my bachelor's thesis and master's topics bear some similarity. Now I am doing literature review for my master's thesis under same supervisor. Can I copy some relevant parts (about 10 pages long) from my old bachelor's? It's just the literature review, not the findings.


texts: I am working on a confidential research project. I'm not allowed to talk to anybody outside of the group without explicit permission. However, my colleagues from other groups are curious of what I am doing. I don't want to damage the working relationship but I just can't share too much details. Should I lie something (they won't know) or ask them to shut up?


texts: Am I interested in a Math-Fin PhD for the right reasons?

texts:
For the last few months I have been deliberating whether or not to apply to Masters and/or PhD programs in and related to Mathematical Finance. I am currently wrapping up a Mathematics Bachelors at my University, and have already received an offer to work as a Quantitative Analyst at a top 10 bank upon successful graduation. I very much loved the work I did there, and absolutely can see myself doing this type of work for a long period of time. However I have also been strongly considering graduate study in Mathematical Finance.

Some of my reasons for wanting to do a Mathematical Finance PhD are the following:

I love the work I did, and I love doing research in Quantitative Finance. The rest of my reasons are financial and career trajectory related.
The best offers in industry for Quants are usually off limits to anyone without an advanced degree in a Quantitative Discipline. Getting a Masters or PhD would significantly improve my long run earnings potential.
The more interesting roles (for me at least), namely those related to Capital Markets, are highly competitive even to those with strong degrees and work experience. Having a PhD could help me stand out from an already exceptionally talented crowd.
I have a significant amount of student loan debt from my undergraduate studies. If I go for a PhD, I can keep that debt deferred and invest any unused amount from departmental support and a part time job allowing me to grow my assets.

Some reasons why I am still unsure:

Although I have been already doing research in this area for years on my own, and I loved my internship experience, I am well aware doing a PhD is a whole different ballpark. Its a potential 6 year commitment, and not being able to remain committed for 6 years could screw me.
Since a lot of my concern is financial, is this really the best financial decision? It's not unreasonable that I could receive multiple pay increases after starting my job and bonuses that by far compensate me for not going to grad school right away.... In such case, I may not be better off for keeping my loans differed and investing the money I make.
Quality of Life: With my job, I get weekends, and depending on the needs of the business, evenings as well. With a PhD I am well aware that means potentially a 60 hour commitment. If I work part time for extra money, that means essentially no life outside of work. To be honest, for the majority of my undergraduate studies, I have had almost no life. Only Study and Work. I don't know if I can do that anymore. Honestly I am quite sick of it!

My current plan is the following: Apply to a select subset of highly competitive programs with good industry connections and or placements. If I can get into one of these programs, great! Otherwise, continue onward with my job, and perhaps a few years down the road pursue an MBA. Considering what I mentioned above, is this plan advisable, or perhaps should I consider a different route? Are the any other PROS/CONS that I have not considered? There are also other types of programs that are similar in trajectory e.g. Computational Finance, Financial Engineering. If I do go for a PhD, should I instead pursue one of those programs instead? I'd love to hear from anyone who has been in a similar situation!


texts: Who draws the good diagrams for the motivation of an article

texts: I see some papers (more specific Magazine, Tutorial, and state-of-the-art papers) contain good illustration to highlight the motivation of the article. It's not about simple flow chart or block diagram with notations, however, some extra effort that makes a paper more exciting. Is there any professional team (e.g., journal's editorial team) to make these type of illustration or do the authors themselves draw it? I feel that art and science are not really far apart, rather they are combined.


texts: How to concentrate during conference talks where the quality of the presentation is poor?

texts:
I have read a lot of tips on how to give a good conference talk: know your audience, give context, don't talk too fast, give your talk a clear structure or story, minimize text on slides, etc.

However, more often than not, presentations I've been to break most of these tips (quickly flipping through walls of text and equations while droning on in monotone), and I find it very difficult to concentrate on the talks.

Any tips on how to pay better attention and be able to learn something from these types of presentations?


texts: Is reading novels helpful for GRE Preparation?

texts: I'm going to start preparing for GRE. I have great enthusiasm for reading novels rather than memorizing words. Will words learnt from novels be helpful for GRE vocabulary? Which novels/writers books should be read for GRE vocabulary?


texts: Supervisor has said some very disgusting things online, should I pull my name from our paper?

texts:
I’ve been interning at a research lab for 8 months now, putting upwards of 10 hours a week into our project. We find out if our first of three papers was accepted for a significantly-sized conference soon, the next two will come in March. Basically, I’ve put a lot of work into this project and it’s almost over.
I looked up my supervisor’s name tonight because I wanted to read his other papers, but instead I found a lecture he gave a year ago on why homosexuality should be classified as a disease. He said tons of disgusting things in the lecture and I don’t want to be affiliated with him, especially because I’m still in undergrad so I don’t want this following me around forever.
Should I pull my name from the papers at the last minute and lose accreditation for the hundreds of hours of work I put in, or do I leave my name in and risk having a reputation as “that guy who worked with the huge homophobe”, and maybe having a harder time getting into grad school?
Could really use the advice. Thanks.


texts: Do colleges/professors sign contracts with educational publishers that require them to use the publisher's learning platform?

texts:
I am attending a community college in the US, and one of my professors has made it a requirement to purchase a login from McGraw-Hill Connect, even though our school is already set up with a decent online-learning platform. (This is a traditional class, by the way - not an online class.)

So far, the only material that has been placed on this McGraw-Hill platform (which I paid $120 for) is a weekly multiple choice homework assignment which could easily be handed out on a piece of paper or distributed via the previously-mentioned platform (which is already available to students taking the class and requires no additional charge).

What would be the incentive for a professor to require students to purchase this "extra feature" which, for my class, provides little-to-no real use and reaps in thousands of extra dollars for McGraw Hill? Is it possible that my professor is required to do this to fulfill some sort of contract?


texts: PhD student as corresponding author: author list and logistics

texts:
I'm a PhD student in the physical sciences and am looking for input regarding an authorship situation. My advisor recommends I be the corresponding author on an upcoming paper because I came up with the entire project, oversaw everything, secured the funding for it, and so on. I mentored an undergraduate who did a good chunk of work and made essential contributions, although I wrote up the manuscript and still ended up doing quite a lot, if not most, of the analysis. How would you approach the author listing in this situation?

In my field, corresponding authors (denoted with *) are typically the final authors, such that this would be: Undergraduate, Advisor, Me*. However, I have a few reservations about this. This is perhaps superficial, but I am concerned that not being listed as the first author will make my direct contributions subconsciously weighed less when applying for awards or academic careers. This is especially important because this is the paper that I want to represent my PhD, in the sense that when I apply for future careers, this is the research trajectory I want to make my own. I'm not sure if being listed last would help or hurt this. Of course, another option is to have it be: Me*, Undergraduate, Advisor. I suppose that resolves the prior issues and is more what I'm leaning towards, but perhaps I am being biased somehow in my approach.

Regardless, there's the separate issue that as "corresponding author", my contact information will presumably not be permanent. In this sense, it seems silly for me to be the author to which correspondence should be addressed, even if I do know the most about the details of this work. Perhaps then it might make more sense to be joint corresponding authors with my advisor?

What would you do? Note: I will certainly be discussing this with my advisor and co-authors to get their input.

For context, the CRediT roles are as follows:

Me: Conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, project administration, resources, software, supervision, validation, visualization, writing - original draft, writing - review & editing

Undergraduate: formal analysis, investigation, software, validation, writing - review & editing

Advisor: supervision, writing - review & editing


texts: Do journals in general have any kind of policy regarding papers submitted by someone without a research affiliation?

texts:
Assuming that there are no ethical or legal concerns involved, in general, how would academic journals handle research submitted from the general public (e.g., if a carpenter were to perform a study on memory)? Would it be published if it held to the same standard as other research, or is it rejected without review?

Edit: A lot of people are commenting on the fact that a person outside of academia probably wouldn't be able to write in a way that was required or have the sufficient training for carrying out a proper experiment. Not my point. I just want to know if there is a general rejection of articles purely based on the fact that the person doesn't have any affiliation to a proper research organization. We could for example imagine a former Nobel prize winner who has a lot of money and prefers to work alone.


texts: How to ask a professor via email about possible postdoc positions?

texts:
I have sent emails to a few (about 10) professors in different Computer Science research labs (related to my research interests) to see if they have any postdoc position available.
However, I received no response at all. Of course, one assumption is that there wasn't any open position in those labs matching my CV. However, I was wondering if the structure of my emails is good/proper enough to motivate them to look into my CV?

Generally, I use the following structure with proper modifications according to the research theme of the person:

  Dear Prof. X
  I am XX, a Ph.D. candidate in the XX group of YY
  University, which is under the supervision of Prof. ZZ.

  I am about to finish my Ph.D. study (in the submission phase) which is
  about using different XX methods (X, Y, Z) for the problem of XX,  and
  currently, I am looking for postdoc opportunities relevant to my
  skills and interests.

  I studied your recent research and projects and I noticed you have a
  strong research theme in XX and YY.  I am really interested in your
  ongoing topics of ZZ and XYX, and I liked your publications which
  focus on DD and FF.

  Therefore, I am really interested to know if you have any open postdoc
  position at your lab regarding similar topics in XX and YY. I have
  attached my CV for your view, but I also welcome any opportunity to
  discuss the possibilities with you in any formal/informal meeting.

  Thank you very much for your time.

I write the third paragraph based on the research themes or topics in the research lab that I find interesting and relevant to my current skills.

I'm not sure if the length is good enough, and should I mention which specific topics from their ongoing/past research I am interested in? or I should let it be open to any possible discussion? Also, I have not met them before, so I introduce myself at the beginning.


texts: Is it appropriate to have two tables side by side in an academic thesis?

texts:
I have about 5 relatively small tables which will be shown in the same part of my thesis. I think it might be a waste of space if I place one table per line, but I am not sure whether one should put e.g. 2 tables side by side in an academic thesis as I have never seen someone do this.

What is the convention?


texts: Should I still submit a manuscript to a journal if a member of the editorial board is advancing a competing theory that is incompatible with my work?

texts:
I have completed (my first) manuscript, which falls well within the scope of a particular journal.

However, a member of that journal's editorial board (or, to be precise, the editor's student) is aggressively advancing a model that, if valid, would essentially negate much of my work. At this time, the evidence for both competing models remains circumstantial, with the bulk of publications (but not quite a consensus) currently favouring my approach.

Of the individuals on that journal's editorial board, this editor works in the subdiscipline closest to mine, so my concern is that this person would be, from the journal's perspective, the most logical choice for my submission.

Is my unease over the possibility of editorial bias warranted?

What would be the most appropriate course of action in this case?

(Another potentially relevant note/complication: The work in which the editor is advancing this competing model is unpublished, and I am aware of it only because of word from colleagues. I received substantial evidence that the unpublished work exists; this is not based on hearsay. I note this because it makes it impossible to point out the potential for bias or a competing interest by referring to the extant corpus of literature.)


texts: Speaking to experience in a statement of purpose for a PhD program.

texts:
I am beginning the process of applying to PhD programs in Neuroscience for a fall 2015 start. I will be graduating this December with a Bachelor's in biology and math. I have been working as a research assistant for the last year, and our lab focuses on the role of extracellular matrix proteins in the col11a1-related chondrodysplasias. Although pursuit of a career in neuroscience research has been my goal, the biology program at my institution lacks faculty in this area; thus, my research experience is of questionable relevance to the programs I am applying for.

I have three questions related to writing the statement of purpose:

I've heard that I am supposed to discuss my background in research. If my research isn't entirely relevant to neuroscience, should I restrict my discussion to the lab techniques I've learned, or can I speak in technical detail about my projects?
As mentioned, my current university lacks faculty who do research in neuroscience. Should I mention this as justification for my choice to work in my current lab, or should I omit it, as it may reflect poorly on my readiness for neuroscience?
I have a 3.85 GPA and my GRE scores were in the 93rd and 95th percentile (verbal and quantitative, respectively). To what degree will the statement of purpose affect my application, given the weaknesses addressed above?


texts: Can Budapest Semesters in Mathematics outset the disadvantage of not attending a prestigious undergraduate for top graduate programs in Mathematics?

texts: I am an international applicant from a less prestigious school. Although with help of my coursework and recommendations letter from my advisor and internship advisor I hope I can make to Budapest Semesters in Mathematics. I also hope to get a letter from those professors in Budapest. However I am skeptical of how can it help my application for top Math graduate schools. Will a A from the toughest courses and a letter help overturn the fact that I am attending less prestigious school ?


texts: How much does reputation matter in NSF review panels?

texts:
I was recently advised to submit an NSF proposal to program A rather than program B since I am more well known in area A than area B, despite the fact that program B seems to be a much better fit for the proposed work.  The (rather senior) person giving this advice strongly believes that my reputation in A outweights the good fit in B, citing examples where a proposal had almost nothing to do with the solicitation but still got funded based on the reputation of the applicant.

Question: In reality, how much of a factor is reputation in NSF panels?  Does it vary much depending on the size/type of grant? As the number of people who know of the applicant approaches zero, does the probability the grant gets funded also go to zero?

(For reference: I am new at this!)


texts: Should I reveal academic misconduct on grad school application?

texts:
I am currently applying to grad schools due soon, and on the system I am using to apply to different schools, it asks whether an academic sanction has been levied against me. In my first year of university I did have a sanction levied against me (assignment worth 5%), however, it did not end up on my transcript. I definitely learned from my mistake, and I know the ethical thing is to answer yes, but I do know that the people who review applications have stated that many people who had answered yes, don't always get accepted. As an applicant in Canada (University of Toronto St.George), will schools be able to know if I had an academic sanction levied against me if its not on my transcript? They only require my academic transcript, and letter of references, and from my understanding this may only be on my internal files, which won't be shared without my permission. I had a friend in a similar situation, however, the sanction will remain on their transcript until they graduate, thus they will have to answer yes.

Any help is appreciated

Thank you


texts: How can I get a paper if our library is not subscribed to the journal?

texts:
I am a PhD student writing my thesis, and desperately need some specific papers which are not accessible via our library subscription. I contacted the authors to get a copy from them but some didn't reply. There were not available in free repositories and buying the articles from the publisher is too expensive for me.

Is there any possibility for getting a few papers you need?


texts: Recommendation letters choices : is diversity an advantage?

texts:
I am currently in the process of asking people for recommendation letters for a Ph.D. program application. I need specifically 3 letters. I am lucky enough to have multiple people that I think could provide me good recommendations. My dilemma is therefore how to choose between these persons. One thing that complicates my choice is the fact that I am switching from one scientific field to another, let's say from physics to neuroscience. I also did my undergrad at university A and my masters at B.

I know that I will almost surely send recommendation letters from :

Masters supervisor in physics at B
Previous internship supervisor in neuroscience now a professor at C

Now for the third letter, I have to choose from :

Physics professor for whom I was a TA at B
Physics professor that I was on a committee with at A
Philosophy professor at A (he would probably write a very good letter)
Previous employer in a relevant industry (work with them for a year between masters and Ph.D.)

I am asking about advice for my particular choice, but also more generally: for this kind of application, is it better to prioritize recommendation letters from different universities, different sorts of work within academia (teaching, administrative, etc.), different fields or to consider people outside academia?


texts: Will withdrawing from a graduate program, affect my future admissions applications?

texts:
I am in an MS program at a big university in the US, where I pay my own tuition.

I am not happy with the quality of education I am getting at this university.

I am thinking that after this quarter is complete, that I want to officially withdraw from the program and go somewhere else. I think I can get much better education and for much less cost as well.

My question is: Will this affect me in any way for future admission to other schools? I am an A student, and I'll be withdrawing after the quarter is over, not in the middle.

Will the transcript contain some negative marker in it because I did not complete the MS program?  Has anyone been through this and found any negative effect when not completing a program?


texts: I just discovered some mistake after the online publication? There are two mistakes- instead of figure S4A (supplementary figure), it says Figure S3A at two places. It's very embarrassing, should I write to the editor about this?


texts: Advisor delaying response, proposing changes every now and then in last week, how to deal?

texts:
I have read various posts on SO related to my question, so the parts I got answer I am not putting here.

My advisor has asked me to write a paper and when I sent the draft it's with him until the last week of deadline for journal. Then he called me for meeting and I could clearly see the nice and crispy pages just printed without a single dot, and also he roughly turned pages and then told me do this and that. And these changes would take a lot of time. Then he again did the same and proposed such changes that are close to a whole revision and most of the times I ended up having to revert the changes. If to be honest, I want to tell him that please at least for one time read the whole paper, propose changes and let me do it then, it will save our months of time instead of keeping it with you for more then a month without reading. Same thing happened when I was writing my first annual report which had to be submitted before the 9th month of starting PhD, I submitted in my 7th month and ended up passing first year in 16th month after starting date.

I can't change advisor due to my study leave rules and my tenure of leave as well as the scholarship he gave I can't even talk to him as he is very reserved, not open for discussions or arguments.

Should I just do as it is or do I need to ask someone from management for help?


texts: I am re-taking the 4th semester. How does that look in the eyes of a graduate school admission committee?

texts:
I finished first year undergraduate studies at the home university and continued the second year (accepted directly into second year) at a top university in the field in  Europe.

It all started nice (i had top scores in the main subjects) but  soon I stopped going to classes (depression, no social contact) and I ended up failing the second  semester and therefore the year. Now i am re-taking the 4th semester and  I am in the top 10% (with rank 1 and 2 on two main subjects).

My question is: How does that look in the eyes of a MSc/PhD admission committee or even an employer?


texts: May I publish the slides from my presentation that use figures from published papers as examples?

texts:
I used some screenshots from academic published papers (e.g. figures) in my presentation that I gave to a group of colleagues. The screenshots were used as examples of how you should or should not do certain analyses or present certain results.

As my examples concerned screenshots of figures or tables from published paper these fall under copyright.  The copyright is usually held by the editors/publishing companies. The papers/sources are correctly referenced on the respective slide of my presentation that contain the screenshots.

Still my question is whether it is legal to publish (e.g. make online available) the slides on which the screenshots are given or would this infringe copyright? In other words: do I have to delete the respective slides before spreading my talk?


texts: Updating CV with Grant Funding Awarded but not used/PI internally but not externally on grants and contracts

texts:
I have a couple of questions about how to report the funding I earned or maintained while at my previous employer on my CV. I worked for a public university academic research center where we had several state government contracts. The center director was listed as PI on all of these contracts, even though I led every aspect of the projects (developing the scope of work, budget, managing the project and staff, etc.). The center director submits the contract (along with other contracts) to the state agencies and negotiates any final budget details. The total awarded over two years was about $900k. How should I report this funding on my CV?
The second issue is that I was PI on two grants (one for $245k and the other for $650k), one was awarded two days before I left the center and the other a month after I left. I wasn't allowed to transfer the funding to my new organization (a non-profit research organization), so the center has all of that funding and the two projects to manage. I oversaw every aspect of the idea development and grant application process and would've been PI had I stayed.  Can I report this funding on my CV? If so, how should I do it


texts: How can I tell if a paper is too old to be a reference for my research?

texts:
Current scientific databases hold papers that were published over the past few decades (I haven't checked what is the oldest paper available, but I remember seeing papers from the 1960s, there might even be older papers than that which are cataloged in current databases - not talking about the principia...). One can come upon such old papers either when searching through a database or as a reference in a more recent paper.

My question is: how can I tell if a paper is too old such that I had better not rely on its findings while performing a more contemporary research?

(It probably differs between disciplines, so I'm looking for some general advice.)


texts: Asking for a recommendation letter to transfer PhD programs from someone who I want to be my advisor if I don't succeed in transferring

texts:
I am a first-year PhD student in statistics, but plan to apply to computer science graduate programs in the fall.  Two of my recommenders, however, are professors who I would like to advise me if I were to stay in my current program.  Because I have a limited computer science background, there is a decent chance that I will not be accepted to good programs and will therefore stay in my current program.  I am worried that this will make it difficult to work with these professors if I do end up staying.

Is this likely to be a problem?  What's the best way to obtain a letter of recommendation while keeping the door open for that person to be my advisor if transferring programs doesn't work out?

Thanks!


texts: Peer-correction / evaluation of homework

texts:
Many MOOCs have a system where enrolled students get points for submitting homework, and for grading a fixed number of their peers' homework (On a MOOC i took earlier, each student had to evaluate at least three other randomly selected submissions).

I'm wondering if anyone has used this approach in a physical classroom with handwritten homework submissions. Apparently this is legal in the US, but I'd like to know if anyone has first hand experience with managing the logistics.

I'd keep a dedicated 'tutorial' hour for this where I could solve and discuss the homework problems on the board, and students would grade problems. Perhaps the most selfish benefit is that I am spared the drudgery of grading an scoring a stack of homework.


texts: What To Do About An Apparently Non-Replicable Paper

texts:
I am a beginning researcher in a particular real-world application space of machine learning, with papers published in the application space, but not in machine learning itself.  I have identified a paper that is important to my program of research to replicate, have dedicated myself to its replication for a longer period of time than I wish to admit (even anonymously), and failed.

I am asking this question anonymously, and not identifying the particular application space of the paper (beyond the much larger "machine learning" domain) because the community of the application space is relatively small and I do not wish to identify myself or the authors of the paper I discuss below.

Some salient details:

I'm aware that some papers in machine learning are viciously difficult to replicate, even under the best of conditions.  It is easy to find discussion forum  comments such as "I tried to replicate X, spent months on it, got nowhere," or "I was only ever able to get Y to work by doing thing Z that wasn't in the paper."
Despite that, the machine learning community thrives on Github implementations by original authors, and Github re-implementations by students.  This research group has to my knowledge never published any code from any publication, and while some re-implementations of various papers from this research group exist, this one has none.
It seems, at a minimum, certain key details are absent from the paper such as hyper-parameters, learning rates, and other customary details.  Although in other respects the reported architecture is quite detailed, this does cause me to wonder if the model is unusually sensitive to the hyper-parameters, or if some other small detail has been left out.
A typical piece of advice given when I ask other researchers about this is to e-mail the original authors.  I have done this, as politely as possible (making the explicit assumption that I'm just missing something and asking very specific questions, i.e., about the hyper-parameters directly, so as not to waste their time) several times, and gotten no response at all, even offering to post my own re-implementation on Github, to their credit.  (I've sent enough e-mail that I fear one more will make me look like a stalker.)
Another typical piece of advice is, "Can you fix it and publish the new and improved version?"  Believe me, I have tried, both minor variations on the paper, and updating it with more recent machine learning techniques, with no useful results.  I have nothing publishable for my efforts.

Here are two final factors which complicate the matter even more in my mind (and which I think cause this not to be an exact duplicate of prior questions):

Although the lead author and their research group are well-regarded and well-published, this particular paper is published only on Arxiv  There is no peer review, no conference or journal, and there is an "at your own risk," factor involved.
Despite this, the Arxiv publication is gathering citations from other refereed publications, although it is not obvious to me whether the citing works' authors have been able to (or even necessarily tried to) replicate the results, either.

What can one, and what should one do, when one is Nobody from Nowhere as far as a research community is concerned, but is beginning to suspect that a cited but not peer-reviewed paper cannot be replicated?


texts: Latex submission template: keep figures to margin size?

texts:
For submitting papers to Elsevier journals, they instruct you to prepare Latex files using the Elsarticle class. This class has huge margins (as other questions have also touched upon), to give space for reviewer comments, etc.

I have large, landscape figures which fill whole pages. Do I need to reduce the size of these figures, so that they fit within the margins, or am I ok to keep them a sensible size and assume that this will be sorted by the publisher if it is accepted at a later date?


texts: After PhD, no support from PhD supervisor

texts:
I am writing here to get good advice for my career. I completed my PhD in Mathematics last year. I was quite happy after my PhD that I have gained a PhD degree, but I don't have any idea what I could do with this degree. Normally people apply for postdocs after doing PhD to become more independent and gain more exposure to research in their field. However, what can they do if their supervisor does not support them to apply for postdoc positions? What if their supervisor says "you are not an independent researcher, so I don't think you could really sell yourself as an independent researcher?"

I am stuck in my career after having lots of negative feedback from my PhD supervisor, who always says not to apply anywhere, and just stay here (my country) and integrate yourself with your colleagues. How could someone stop you or discourage you to apply anywhere else in the world?

One of the biggest and toughest situations for me is the field I had chosen for doing PhD has no funding all around the world and I can hardly find postdocs in my field. And even if I find an advertisement of a post relevant to my field, my supervisor discourages me from applying by saying that that is not exactly relevant to the field (topic) in which you had done your PhD. It's so weird to me that is it necessary to have the same topic for a postdoc to apply in which a person had his PhD? Can't we slightly change our research topic relevant to the field (same background).

The main problem is to apply for any postdoc we need a strong reference letter from our PhD supervisor. What can people do if they doesn't know what their supervisor writes about them in the reference letter? I spent four years in my PhD and not once did I did realise that my PhD supervisor is unhappy with my work. But now when I am back in my country on completion of my PhD my PhD supervisor has negative thoughts about me that I can't sell myself as an independent researcher, I will need guidance and direction.

And he is probably true, because most of my work in my PhD was done by him. And he never let me be independent throughout my PhD. I don't even know how people find topic of research/problem to work on and how do they find techniques to attach on the problem. I had been given a problem with my supervisor and direction as well. I had done all the coding by myself advised by my supervisor and later analysing results and proving those results was done by him. In the end of my PhD when I was writing my research paper I put his name on it where he said no to me and writing paper solely with my name only.

Currently, I am a lecturer in my country. However, to survive in an academia I have to publish papers and supervise master's students. However, I am not feeling myself independent in research, due to the reason I am applying for some postdoc positions, where I have no support from my PhD supervisor. What should I do at this point? Should I leave academia? Should I go to industry? To join an industry what skills I do need to have? How can I make myself a perfect candidate?

I am really stuck in my career without having any support from my PhD supervisor after PhD. I am looking for some really good suggestions for my career. I shall really be grateful.


texts: No Objection mail to potential advisor before mailing another in the same department

texts: I had mailed a professor in a certain department inquiring about graduate student openings and he replied saying that he lacks funding to hire anymore students. The same department has atleast two other professors who work in almost exactly the same domain albeit different numerical technique. My professor had advised me against mailing different professors from the same department, so should I request no objection from the prof who replied before mailing another one or can I go and mail them.


texts: I'll take a year to apply. Should I search for new logic projects or round up what I have?

texts:
I'm graduating in two months (Pure Mathematics), and I'm planning to take 2019 to prepare for applying to PhD programs in the US (in Mathematics or Computer Science, depending on the program). I'm not applying this year because of time constraints. My interests lay within the broad area of logic. I particularly like (generally speaking) to design effective procedures that have a strong theoretical background.

My issue is the following: during the last few years, I have been exploring different research areas (ordered from oldest to newest: a little of BigData, cybersecurity, three full years in a software engineering research lab, and a research internship in Coding Theory. My MSc thesis was in ordinal notations and proof theory, a somewhat abstract logic subject - which I loved).

It's a complex story, but I can explain why I did it: I was exploring! I don't regret any of it, as it was really fun and I, as a human being, have many interests. Now I know I want to focus in logic. My questions are the following:

1) Does it have a negative impact that I tried so many different things?

I'm expecting the answer to be "it depends on how you tell the story". I like being passionate about more than one subject, but can it be a bad thing?

2) Should I focus 2019 on getting more research experience in logic?

I have no intentions in using my time just to apply to the US. I know the obvious answer to this question might seem to be "yes", but what I'm not sure about is whether I should put all my effort in more concrete experience in logic, or if I should round up the things I have already been doing - for example, I can continue the research I did in the Coding Theory internship, which was really interesting for me. Also, though I don't support hunting, 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'. Anyway, of course it's not a binary decision.

Thank you very much for your time.

Guillermo.


texts: What are the default copyrights/IP restrictions for a work I post online?

texts:
Suppose I've put a PDF with an paper or treatise I've written, but not yet properly published, somewhere online. This place is not some document repository or a site that has some specific copyright assignment/assumption policy; suppose it's just a lowly HTTP server: http://some.where.org/foo.pdf . Suppose also that a link to it gets to some person with whom I've not made any explicit or implicit agreements regarding use of this work.

What are people allows or not allowed to do by US, EU and/or international copyright law?

Are people allowed to make online copies?
Are people allowed to make hard copies? Circulate hard copies? Publish hard copies?
Can people produce derivative work (e.g. applying the same ideas in some other context) and publish it, at all?
Must people credit me as the author, or can they just use the contents and forget about the author?
Are there any special restrictions if I mark my paper as a "Draft"?

Note: It's not that I want to prevent any of those things from happening, necessarily - I'm just asking about the defaults.


texts:
In many countries in Europe, you need to study for 8+ years in order to be ready to become a researcher, a proper academic. Think 3 years bachelor, 2 years master, 3 years PhD.

However, that is the case today.

As research advances and Academia builds on its knowledge, the required prerequisites for being able to understand what's going on and be able to contribute will increase as well. Thus, those 8+ years I mentioned ... they will increase as well.

Soon, it will get to a point where in order to be able to reach a point of being a "proper researcher", you will need to put in 10, 15, 20 years of study. At that point, it will simply not be feasible to become a researcher. People need to earn money, live life. Studying 15 years for a PhD makes zero sense.

So, is Academia a dying field?

Summary: As academics build on their knowledge, they also build on the prerequisites required to be able to become an important contributor. It will soon get to a point where the effort required to meet the prerequisites cannot feasibly be met.


texts: What happens when departmental tenure and promotion committee falsifies the record?

texts:
The department I work in has been dysfunctional, and there is a history of reversals of decisions where both yes and no votes were overturned by the university level committee. Very recently, a candidate who went up for promotion to full professor had a mediocre record, and the department T&P committee was trying to push her through. It was found out that they intentionally omitted her lowest teaching evaluation, and when confronted by a senior colleague, a member of the committee tried to lie about it to cover it up (the committee member tried to claim that they ‘sometimes’ drop the lowest and highest, but the evidence clearly shows that only the lowest was dropped). What is the likely outcome, if any?

Update: I should provide some context here. Three of the members on the tenure and promotion committee have pretty weak scholarship (less than what would be acceptable for tenure and promotion based on current standards of the department, but are associate professors though have not published in years). One member was an assistant professor who recently received tenure, but her status is still shaky and needs political support to keep moving forward. The candidate in question has a very close personal relationship with the T&P committee members. The department has substantially dropped in rankings from 15 years ago, where it was in the top 10 in US News to now in the mid-40s. There is talk of a merger with another academic program at the university. Of the faculty who were hired and went up for promotion, the ones voted up by the department were all previous graduates of the school, so there is indication that nepotism is in play. At what point will the upper administration say there is too much dysfunction and step in? What might be done?


texts: Could I get into a C.S. Ph.D program after an undergraduate from a totally unknown school?

texts:
So I'm wondering what the chances are of me getting into a Ph.D program directly after undergraduate attendance at a school that is totally unknown on the computer science scene.
The school is well renowned for it's Business, English, and Pre-med degrees, but their computer science program is tiny and completely unknown. There are 2 professors, only one of which currently has a Ph.D. Their math department is also small, but the professors have Ph.Ds and a a long history of industry work and research.

But here's the catch, I know the professors there extremely well, and they all think I'm a bright student and have said that they would allow me to study whatever I want under their supervision. I could go as deep into the subject as I want. So I'm looking at studying subjects like complexity theory and theoretical cryptography my second semester at the school. This appeals to me greatly because I've always been an autodidact, and I honestly prefer teaching myself things over learning in a classroom.

Because of this freedom, I am fairly confident that I could graduate with some basic research under my belt in one of those fields. As I see it, four years of study seems likely to culminate in at least a single interesting finding of some sort.

If I apply to a Ph.D program directly after my time at this school, would I have any chance at all of getting in? I can foresee my application having challenging coursework on it, along with a little bit of research, but my undergraduate degree is from a completely unknown school.

TL;DR: Any chance of getting into a computer science Ph.D with a little research and a C.S./Pure Math degree from a totally unknown school?


texts: I want to approach a certain subject for my diploma project, but unofficially I may get a bad grade for doing so. What should I do?

texts:
I'll need to explain more just so my question can be properly understood.

I'm a 4th year Biomedical Engineering student from Romania, currently enrolled in the "Biomaterials and Medical Devices" engineering Specialisation. The previously mentioned specialization was indirectly chosen in the course of the 2nd year, when we were told to apply to either Biomaterials and Medical Devices specialization, either to Medical Equipment and Systems - with no additional information regarding the exact difference between the two, even when asked bout it.
Due to the fact that I had several failed exams which did not have the time to retake until the specialization lists were made, I ended up in the BMD spec. even though I chosen the other one.

In the last two years we took part in courses regarding mostly Biomaterials and very to no little courses about medical devices (those being Introduction to Telemedicine, Medical Databases and sort of an Introduction to Medical Imaging) - the problem is the aforementioned medical devices disciplines were common; by that I mean that even though we chosen our specialization, 4 out of 12 discipline in the 3rd year were made by both BDM and ESM students.

Now being in the 4th year, I have to choose my diploma project subject in the way that it will reflect the things I have learned along these 4 years, with a strong focus on the last two, when the BMD specialization was chosen. Almost all my colleagues are approaching subject related to the synthesis, functionalization and characterization of Biomaterials, while I want to approach a subject related to medical devices. Since Romania is part of the European Union, it has somehow standardized its higher education up to a certain point to which students from Romania can apply their knowledge in other EU countries with no problem. With that being said, there is a EU Directive about the meaning of medical devices and all its subcategories, which states the following:

  Directive 2007/47/EC defines a medical device as (paraphrasing): Any instrument, apparatus, appliance, software, material or other article, whether used alone or in >combination, together with any accessories, including the software intended by its manufacturer to be used specifically for diagnostic and/or therapeutic purposes and >necessary for its proper application, intended by the manufacturer to be used for human beings for the purpose of:

  Diagnosis, prevention, monitoring, treatment, or alleviation of disease
  Diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, alleviation of, or compensation for an injury or handicap
  Investigation, replacement, or modification of the anatomy or of a physiological process
  Control of conception

Source: Wikipedia

But apparently, the faculty has been less than keen to apply these standards to the curriculum. Another problem would be that the evaluating commission would be made out of, let's say, 10 professors with 8 of them specialized on a different branch of biomaterials. Therefore, I have to choose a subject that these 8 professors would understand to, so they can grade me. Henceforward, no software, medical imaging or other subject like these ones. There was one student last year who presented a database of imaging results upon biomaterials which could be sorted using specific filters - and even though the presentation was correct and the database was up and running, he was given a much lower mark due to the fact that these professors did not understand the processes that made the DB work in the first place. After all these, the pro-dean has to approve my diploma project subject, before proceeding to it. The pro-dean is an ESM specialized professor and expects to see something related to biomaterials in it in order to approve it.

Should I go on and approach a non-biomaterial or almost-non-biomaterial subject as the description of my specialization give me the right to do, or just give up and find one related almot or entirely to biomaterials?


texts: How to cite my own code in an academic paper?

texts:
I’m about to submit a research paper to the Intel STS competition. I am basically finished with everything about my paper, but I need to cite a certain algorithm that I invented in my own paper. I do not want to put it inside the paper because it’s outside the scope of what I talked about in the paper, and besides the paper is already twenty pages so I can’t fit in any more material.

Is it acceptable if I simply post the code to a website like GitHub, and cite the link in my references?


texts: Negotiating after receiving a lectureship offer in the UK

texts:
In Germany and in the US, usually people apply for multiple positions then start to negotiate with the universities that give them offers. For example, if you're offered a position from A and B, you can tell A that you have another offer from B, and to choose A you'd need x and y and z because this would help you do the research you wish to do.

Is it the same in the in the UK? I've come across this post: How to negotiate the salary for a UK faculty position?
in which one of the responses suggests that it might be insulting to negotiate the salary. But I wonder if it is the same for lab space, travel funding, etc..

So how are things done in the UK after the person has been offered multiple lectureships? I am talking about entry level lectureship (i.e., not senior lecturer, not reader, but rather "lecturer").


texts: Is it acceptable to write a scientific paper on an algorithm if better algorithms already exist?

texts:
Long story short, I designed a compression algorithm that performs well compared to some other compression algorithms.

I was wondering if it's acceptable to write a scientific paper on this algorithm even though there exist other algorithms which are faster and provide better compression ratios compared to mine.

Note: I've never written a scientific paper and am no longer in academia.


texts: Getting PhD in an adjacent field I plan to pursue

texts:
I recently completed a mathematics BA and have started 4 year ROTC commitment in the US military. The military has offered to let me get my PhD in Operation Research(OR) while being on Active Duty(full pay and benefits) starting in August. I had planned on becoming an academic after the military and my research interests are in Theory of Computation and Logic. Originally my career plan was getting a PhD in Math(logic or theory of computation), CS(theory of computation) or even Philosophy(logic), but getting in a PhD program right now fully paid for is very tempting. I am interested in OR, but I will eventually focus on Logic or Theory of Computation. If I do not purse an OR graduate degree I will be doing mostly managerial functions for the next four years. I think getting the PhD in OR and doing technical work might be a more efficient use of my 20's, than doing a traditional military leadership. I have noticed some very well respect Professors do not have their PhD in the exact field they are currently doing research.

To my questions:

Would getting a PhD in operational research immediately preclude me from tenure track position in Math, CS and Philosophy Departments? Even if I have a solid amount of publications?

If so, would already having a PhD hurt me if I applied for admission to a PhD program in Math, CS or philosophy?


texts: Should I quit a project where I can't see how to contribute?

texts:
I am part of a collaboration (i.e., researchers from different universities, not formally tied to a grant or deadline).  We all met for a few days to develop an idea, and it seems quite promising.  However, I did not feel like I contributed much, and since the project is a bit outside my expertise, I am not sure how much more I can even contribute.  (Of course, I can learn from them, but I am not convinced that that is a good enough reason to be apart of the project.)

Should I quit the collaboration, so as not to "get in the way" of the others?  Or is it worth staying on, even if my main contributions are high-level (e.g., organizing shared files, adding code descriptions, sending "check-in" e-mails, etc.)?

EDIT: Some people have linked me to my own question, which I think is different in nature; here I am asking about how to handle the dynamics within a particular collaboration.  Perhaps the underlying question is really, are high-level contributions worthwhile? Also, I have spoken with the collaborators, and they are fine with me on the project, but I wonder if they are just being nice or political. So maybe there's imposter syndrome involved as well.


texts: Should I include Abstracts (short descriptions) of research papers/thesis in my CV?

texts:
I am writing my CV for a postdoctoral position. I have just obtained my PhD. I have a decent number of published papers. Should I write a very small (2-3 line) description of what I have done in that paper? Maybe also with a smaller font and written in italic so that it is easily skipped if not interested. Same for the PhD/Masters thesis.

The counterargument is that short abstract would be considered negatively, either as padding or just making the CV harder to read.

Thanks!


texts: What to do when there is 'full-text request' in ResearchGate.net

texts: I am a member of ResearchGate.net and I sometimes receive this 'full-text request' for some of my publications. Thus far, I generally provide them an access to my publication. However, I am not sure if this is good since the profile of the person who made the request is not always visible. Perhaps, some people are taking advantage of this somehow. Also, could this lead to any issues with the publishing organisation? Any ideas and recommendations?


texts: Applying for terminal MA in sociology, concerned about weak letters and missed funding deadlines. Is it better to put off application for a year?

texts:
I'm strongly interested in a terminal MA in Sociology (because I am currently not willing to commit to the length of a US PhD program) and know that I want to work in research for social policy. I'm mainly looking at one-year programs in Europe (due to lower cost, larger quantity of good terminal programs).

Applications for funding deadlines are coming up in January. I have only recently been reaching out to my letter writers, and I haven't yet finished my writing samples, SOPs, or CV to send to them, so many of my letter writers do not have very much to work with since only one knows me well. I also missed every deadline for grants to study abroad, like the Fulbright scholarships. So I potentially will have weak letters of recommendation and few funding opportunities.

My question is how wise it might be to put off my applications for a year to instead try to work at a public policy research institute, then get together much stronger applications for funding next year with letter writers who might be more familiar with me and my interests.