texts: Individual contribution to PhD thesis as a part of bigger project

texts:
I have a question related to the personal contribution to PhD thesis (physics, materials science), when it was a small part of a big project and there were no real hypothesis or problem in your thesis "topic" except "we have these samples, go investigate them and find some results to report on"
(yes, it is not the right way to do projects, but it happens and a good lesson for the future, which projects you should avoid =/).

As an outcome, PhD thesis is based on results, half of which was obtained by collaborators (other students). It is rather common situation as far as I understood - one group prepares samples and performes characterization; then you, being from another group, get these samples and investigate them using different methods. But then you use results of the characterization (made not by you but it is a part of joint publication) in your thesis before discussing data you got by yourself, because it makes sense to show the characterization to have a complete story.

The question: is it acceptable to submit a PhD thesis written in this way, where you did about 50% of all discussed results, the rest is done by others and this rest is included in joined publications? Surely, in every chapter it is mentioned if you did the measurement or it was done by coauthor/collaborator.

Have a great day and thank you in advance!
Hope I could explain more or less clear, what I would like to know.


texts: Conferences as publication venues – black and white or is there a grey or third way?

texts:
There are two ways of treating conferences that are commonly mentioned on this site:

Conferences are publication venues for papers (or similar). Submissions will be subjected to a serious peer review, are citable as evidence, and are a relevant achievement.
Submitting the same material to two different conferences or a journal and a conference would be considered self-plagiarism.

This applies to computer science and engineering (or at least some subfields thereof)
– for details, see: Is the status of conference publications in Computer Science really absolutely unique?
Conferences are not publication venues.
The material presented there is typically also published in journals, books, and similar – but this process is not tied to the conference; it may occur before the conference, later, or even not at all.
Submissions are only subjected to minimal review¹, are not citable as evidence, and not considered a big achievement.
Participating in conferences is still considered important though.
It is common that authors present the same material at different conferences.

This applies to the majority of fields.

¹ to weed out utter crap or to decide what should be a talk and what a poster

In light of this Meta question, I am interested whether the above two cases are the only two.
To me, it would not be surprising if this actually is the case, as the two categories have a self-preserving mechanisms.
For example, for a conference belonging to the first category, weakening the criteria for submission would usually be a bad move.
On the other hand, I am very well aware that I do not know every field’s customs.
Hence, I am asking: Are there conferences that hold a status not described by the two categories above?
Please answer only if you can name and describe such a conference – if this question remains unanswered, this would be an acceptable and meaningful outcome.

Note that this is only about what is submitted directly to the conference for the purpose of being presented there.
Whether articles corresponding to the presented material will be collected for a book, special issue of a journal, or other form of proceedings – be it with separate peer review or not – is irrelevant for the purposes of this question.


texts: Is it reasonable to start a PhD during the Master's dissertation semester?

texts:
I would like to start my doctorate in the same university during the last semester of my Master's. Do you think it is wise to do this?

Think that I will have to start writing my Master's dissertation, meanwhile taking PhD courses (both starting 2016's fall and finishing by mid 2017's spring) and right next to start my PhD thesis (2017's fall).

So, what is your advice?


texts: Masters thesis if course credits have expired

texts:
I was enrolled in graduate school from 2000-2002 but did not complete my culminating paper before departing for law school.  I always wanted to complete the paper and the degree.  I have now encountered an problem that I suspect would serve as an excellent topic for completion of that degree, if I had encountered it prior to 2010. I was in an urban planning degree program.

Is there any way to revive the courses on my transcript and complete a paper to complete the degree? If so, through which institution if my original institution deems my previous credits expired.

Alternatively, what would be the best means to work with someone to do the research and writing to get the paper into a peer-reviewed journal if I am not enrolled a a university?


texts: Can we call someone a junior researcher if he or she has obtained their Ph.D recently and also has research stay abroad?


texts: Is Lambert Academic Publishing a reputable company?

texts: I was contacted by the Acquisition editor of Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP) to publish my bachelor's thesis as a printed book. Is LAP any good? I have no idea about it; I have just heard that it's a freelance publishing house.


texts:
My coauthor and I work at some organization. After I started working with him, people told me that he allegedly took some data (used in the paper) from the organization without authorization (He was let go from the organization.)

I received a letter from the organization stating that he indeed took the data without authorization. He explained that if I finished the paper he will send the paper to the organization for clearance. I asked him to show me the document, but he only replied: “I am in good relation with that organization.” So, I gave him benefits of doubts and I did all the work, including every calculation.

While he had been claiming that “the data breach is a rumor”, I confronted him over the phone and he finally admitted that the data breach is a fact. I myself have acquired clearance with the organization regarding the data breach since then. However, he refuses to withdraw from the paper.

As for the paper, I have proved every single result, every single calculation, and every single sentence of the paper. He did not do anything. I asked him and he cannot define a very basic term used in the paper. He said: “But it is not honest to ask me to remove my name only by simple assumption like the one you raised.”

I would think of proceeding as

ask the coauthor to provide me the formal paperwork on this issue,
if the coauthor fails to provide me these documents then I would need to drop him from the paper.

Do you think it make sense? Are there any other procedures that I need to follow?


texts: When would it be appropriate to disagree (in a publication) with a paper you have proofread?

texts:
I have been asked informally to proofread a paper by a colleague on topic X with an application on Y (constituting about 10% of the paper). After my comments (and those of others), the article was submitted. While it was in review, I looked at Y in more detail for my own work. My own research has led me to believe the conclusions on application Y are quite incorrect.

The paper is now accepted for publication and only typographical edits are accepted, so although I communicated my concerns to my colleague it cannot be included in his paper, even if he wanted to. Would it be wrong for me to prepare a paper on Y myself, disagreeing with my colleague's article (because I had foreknowledge about that article)? If yes, how long should I wait before considering sending something in myself? Naturally, I want to stay on good terms with my colleague.


texts: Want pursue phd in Machine Learning but having a networking background

texts:
My situation is similar to but not same as -UG different field than phd
Please skip to edit 2 below if you want to know the problem in short.
Details
Talking of my career so far,

I completed undergraduate in CS(computer-science) with WSN (wireless-sensor-networks) as thesis topic (Networks)
Joined an MNC(multi-national-company) in Android GPS team and stayed for a year (More Networks! )
Completed masters in CS with Social Network Analysis as main thesis. At this point I got interested in ML (machine-learning), NLP(natural-language-processing) and during my entire program I took related courses.
Joined another MNC 11 months back, in their router OS QOS (quality-of-service) team (Networks again! )

I now want to apply for a PhD in ML / NLP from colleges like Carnegie Melon or N NUS, Singapore. But I find I don't have enough recommendation/ work experience in the same field.
What should I do - Personal projects in these areas? Personal publication? Working with a startup in these fields ?
Kindof desparate now to prepare and apply for some program within the next year.

I know its difficult to suggest something that will definitely work in my case but still wanted some advice from the community.

Edit:- Expanding on the acronyms as suggested in comments. Sorry for the long background but I wanted others to understand my situation by stating "some" of my backgound.

Edit 2 : -
Editing this again to highlight my problem in short. I want to pursue phd in fields(ML, NLP) in which I have somewhat less experience. My GPA is not extraordinary for an international student and have only single recommendation in the same. I do have a publication but not related to these areas. Any suggestions for getting my CV to be accepted by any faculty in ivory colleges?


texts: 9 years too late to ask for letter of support?

texts:
A friend of mine applied to a distinguished professor and he asked for 5 letters of support. So, she reached out to someone she did a significant internship with 9 years ago and he doesn't seem to be responding. He had been helping her out until a few years ago. I thought it was a bit rude after all the hard work she put into the work.

Is she doing something inappropriate?

She has other supervisors from the corporate world. Can she nominate them instead? Would it work?


texts: Should I become a reviewer for Math Reviews after leaving academia?

texts:
After finishing my PhD in mathematics not long ago, I decided to move away from academia and pursue a career in the commercial sector. I'm currently not affiliated with a university. In the long run, I might return to working at a university some day.

Recently, I recieved an invitation to become a reviewer for Mathematical Reviews. I'm flattered, but also hesitant as I can't fathom how much extra work this will be and if there's a benefit for me, besides learning more interesting things in my original academic field of expertise (which I've moved away from a bit).

How much work is it to review 1 paper per months, roughly speaking?
Would you see being a reviewer as an interesting CV item outside of academia?
Doing the reviews is usually not paid, correct?

This question is similar to Should I agree to review papers as a postdoc?, which didn't give me quite satisfactory answers since I'm not in academia anymore.  It is also similar to Personal advantages of being a referee once you quit science? but that one is not about math reviews, which are different from refereeing a paper for a journal.


texts: Contact programs about wrong dates for part-time research assistantship in college?

texts:
So I am submitting applications for this cycle (Fall 2021). I graduated from school a few years ago and did occasional part-time work as a research assistant in college. In my application, I recorded September 2014 to September 2017 as a research assistant. Though I just realized, I was a research assistant from January 2015 to September 2017. So I was one semester off. This was an honest mistake, and since this was 5 years ago and part-time, I was a little fuzzy on the dates to be honest.
Should I reach out to programs pre-emptively? I don't want them to think this was intentional.
EDIT: Fwiw, the application was submitted about a month ago.
EDIT2: I ended up writing a brief email like the one in the comments section. Will update on outcome


texts: When is it most appropriate to post a preprint?

texts:
I am a student who is very enthusiastic about open access and sharing research. When I worked with my former supervisor, we would write a paper and then post it to a preprint server (e.g., arXiv) at the same time as submitting it to a venue. My current supervisor, however, is of the mindset that we should post a preprint after receiving confirmation that the paper was accepted to some venue.

Is there a generally-accepted time to post a preprint?


texts: Communicate Author or Publisher for asking detail?

texts:
I have trouble finding out an expression in a theorem (click here to the problem)of a paper by Yann Bugeaud (page 12) , and I tried to contact the author through his e-mail but he didn't reply (don't know whether his e-mail is invalid or he ignored intentionally).

I already asked this question on Math Stack Exchange without success. I have also posted it to math overflow, but it seems to me, it will not get much response.

Under the circumstances should I contact the publisher/editor of the paper or is there any other way to get the detail of the paper?


texts: Why does my PhD supervisor not talk to me directly?

texts:
There is an incident between me and my PhD adviser, which is repeated for the second time (The first time was a couple of months ago), and its details are:

My PhD supervisor talked about me and my problems to one of the post doc scholars in our department, who is not my PhD adviser's post-doc. The first time my PhD adviser talked to this post-doc about me, he said that I was not present at a conference and presentations. In fact I was, and even in some of those presentations my PhD adviser was present and I'm pretty sure he saw me there explicitly. But I heard from this post-doc a week later that my PhD adviser was not happy cause he didn't see me there... I never received a notice from my PhD adviser and he never talk to me about that. As a result, I said that maybe was just a mistake and moved on.

Today, I heard from this post-doc again that my PhD adviser is angry cause I removed a document that he requested me to update that yesterday. In fact, I updated that document just a couple of hours ago and fortunately it is uploaded in the box and could show the details of changes to that file and how many version is uploaded. Also, box could show who viewed or downloaded the files and the last time my PhD adviser saw that file or downloaded was yesterday, when he requested me to update that and I did it today morning. I'm just mad and angry because if there is a problem with me or my work or my personality or whatever why my PhD adviser does not talk to me directly? He could just send an email to me say hey what the hell are you doing?! instead of talking to other people and I incidentally hear the problems from other people behind me?! I'm just angry and please excuse me for typos or rude language.

My question is: what can I do to solve this problem and why my PhD adviser does not talk to me directly about my problems? I appreciate any suggestion.

Update:

I talked to my PhD adviser right now and he was quite okay and cool with me and did not talk about the incident that post-doc talked to me yesterday. So, I think something is wrong with this post-doc... I really appreciate if someone help me to find a proper way to tell this post-doc that my issues or problems are not his/her business...


texts: How to get into computer science research as a college student

texts:
So I saw this article on getting into computer science research; it helped me but I still have questions more relevant to my position.

I'm getting ready to start my sophomore year at my university. I'm a computer science major (software engineering concentration), good GPA; I'm also thinking about doing a minor in physics, and minimally my masters in either computer or electrical engineering. I've been programming since the beginning of high school, and I know (based on my college classes) that my skills are strong. I have a lot of projects on Github and a personal tech website that shows my skills.

I'm very interested in getting into research, I feel like that's really my thing, but I don't really know where to start. My question is basically how should I go about it in a college environment. I'm assuming that getting to know my professors would be best; would it be a good start to contact past professors and maybe my upcoming ones for this fall? One professor I had in my first semester was in research so I feel like that would be a good start. Or should I go to my advisor first? I want to start looking now, but school starts in a few weeks so I could always wait till then.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

PS: Apologies in advance if the tags or anything isn't right; first time posting here...


texts: Should I remove a coauthor if he did something detrimental to the project?

texts:
I am corresponding a paper and the status of the paper is under review after first revision.

Recently, I realized that one of my coauthors had done some bad acts against the project (related to the paper) in the past and now I want to delete his name from the author list.

Meanwhile it should be noted that his contribution to the study had never been scientific and I wrote with negligence his name. However, my big concern is now that removing his name might be unethical.

How can I deal with this important issue?


texts: Finishing up an honours project dissertation, discovered an engineering law that means the majority of the designed system isn't needed, what do I do?

texts:
I created a concept offshore pumped storage hydro system using the open sea, pipelines and concrete vessels to simulate the upper/lower reservoirs and conduit of an onshore scheme, where the natural slope of the seabed would act as the head. I designed the concept and how it would all be installed/set up to show that it is technically feasible, while also assessing the economic feasibility ie capital/operational costs and revenue.
While writing my discussion however I came across Torricelli's law, which essentially negates the need of the piping from the surface as the system would perform in the same manner at a reduced cost. I don't really know where to go from here because it means that the majority of my methodology isn't required, and the economic justification would be completely changed as well due to the removal of all the materials/installation costs.
Do I include this in the discussion and just admit that the concept has it's flaws, then list what could be done in the future work? It's due soon so kind of freaking out right now after spending so long designing and justifying it.


texts:
I am often called upon to give a "lab tour" to visitors, including but not limited to:

prospective graduate students
candidates for summer research positions (including undergraduate and high school students)
researchers or executives from our "industrial partners"
professors and graduate students from other universities, who have come to speak in my department seminar series
journalists or other media representatives

The goal of these lab tours is to leave the visitor(s) with the impression that we are doing interesting, important, and exciting research.

The research that goes on in my lab mainly looks like... students sitting at laptop computers. We are a telecommunications lab. A lot of the experimental equipment we use is not actually housed in the lab, and the pieces that are there in the lab are not that unique or interesting to most visitors. (Think a few Openflow switches and lots of wireless devices, none of which is particularly visually exciting.)

Given this, I am wondering how to use these "lab tours" to my best advantage. What can I do in a lab tour that I couldn't do with, say, a visitor sitting down in my office and talking to me over my desk?

Right now we mainly walk around the room and talk about the posters hanging on the wall, giving any students who are around a chance to give their elevator pitch. This doesn't seem very effective, and visitors often seem kind of bored.


texts: Data Set Definition , Where to Place (Introduction, Material and Methods)?

texts:
Machine Learning , Data Mining studies uses various data sets. If used data sets are not well known data sets, following points of these data sets should be explained. More can be added but these points comes to my mind immediately.

features/attributes (number, data type, domain definition)
How many instances exists in this data set?
Test / Training data (Random Sampling, All data used..)
Feature Reduction techniques
Any preprocessing/post processing

Thus my question is: Where should I put this data set explanation in article sections?

Introduction
Methods (Experiments)
Or entirely new section under Data Set heading?


texts: Should the PhD proposal be discussed and adjusted by supervisor and student before formal application?

texts:
Many social science departments in EU/UK recommend getting in touch with potential supervisors first before submitting a formal application which involves a proposal. Should the applicant approach them with a proposal already (very) specifically written? Or just broadly stating research interests and the intended project scope for the next few years?

Is the PhD proposal supposed to be well-prepared before initial contact with potential supervisors, or agreed and finalized after consultation and discussion to fit both parties' interests?

I understand that academics get many emails from potential students, so I wouldn't imagine they'd like to read through everyone's proposals. This question is informed by other posts like this, this, and this - but most relevant discussions I see here on SE are either quite specific to the science/engineering community or North American system, and I'd like to hear about what is the expected pre-application communication in UK and EU, and/or in other disciplines, especially in social science.


texts:
I will publish a conference paper and as I'm a PhD student the committee asked "If the corresponding author is a PhD/MSc student, he/she also should send a Publication Approval Letter from his/her supervisor".

What does it mean? What is a Publication Approval Letter?


texts: When to apply for permanent positions while having a lengthy postdoc

texts:
I am less than half way through a five year postdoc/fellowship in mathematics. Some places have talked to me about possible tenure-track positions over the past year. As the years go by, I am getting conflicting opinions on whether I should stay put for the full five years and then go with momentum on the job market or put out applications selectively each year. In the latter case, I don't know how selective to be as I don't know what "level" of institution I should be focussing on. My mentors give conflicting advice on this, so I don't know where to go with this. The places that have hinted at positions are solid, but not perfect for personal reasons.

My questions are as follows with regards to going on the market early:

How do you know when you are "ripe" for the tenure-track market?
Will I be shooting myself in the foot applying this year for a position that may have a position in my last year of postdoc?
If I take a permanent position early, will this make it much more difficult to obtain a better position later?
How can you tell what level one should look to shoot for when applying early and not wanting to take too low of a position on your (personal) ranking?


texts: Why do a second PhD in a "neighboring" discipline?

texts:
I recently received an application for a PhD position from someone who is already working as a postdoctoral associate. The difference in fields is not particularly large—I work in chemical engineering and materials science, while the applicant originally is coming from computational chemistry.

So the obvious question is, why would someone want to pursue a second doctoral degree when they already have one in a related field, and why would I, as a potential advisor, want to consider someone interested in doing this? (For instance, it seems obvious that the person wouldn't likely need as much training as a novice, but there would also be the challenge of trying to find such a person gainful employment afterwards.)


texts: Can I, when writing a book, make use of a physical model made up by someone else?

texts:
Currently, I'm writing a book about everything from A to Z [physics, the science of the brain, AI, many more scientific topics, the "philosophy" (the workings) of the sciences, economy, the destruction of Nature and can she still be saved for future generations, the place of the sciences in society, etc.].
I'm a big fan of a certain physical model: The Rishon model, invented by Haïm Harari. Can I use his theory without further consequences? Or is it good propaganda for his theory?


texts: Can a Computer Science Post Baccalaureate Student get Graduate Assistantships?

texts: Recently, I have been going around university websites to find a good post baccalaureate computer science programs. Most of them cost around $45k for living and tuition. Well, I was wondering is there any chance that post baccalaureate Students get Graduate Assistantships? Or Are they eligible to do any other on-campus Jobs?


texts: Format of In-Text Citations for Military Publications?

texts:
Though I've scrutinized the APA 6th Edition and online examples, I remain confused about how to format military publications for in-text citations.

In text, is it sufficient to cite just the military branch as the author; or should the citation also include the type of publication; or something else?

Example 1

... (U.S. Army, 2005) ...

vs.

... (U.S. Army, Army Mentorship Handbook, 2005)

vs.

neither of the above; format as [your example] instead.

Example 2

... (U.S. Army, 2012) ...

vs.

... (U.S. Army, ADP 6-22, 2012) ...

vs.

neither of the above; format as [your example] instead.

Added Background 10 Sept. '16

I'm the editor; not the author. This is my first experience with a military-laden dissertation.

As best I can tell, the only APA guidance is the first sentence on p. 174: "References...are cited in text with an author-date citation system..."

I did find more information at
  http://libguides.gwumc.edu/c.php?g=27779&p=170369
  where Example 4 affirms APA p. 174.

That would indicate that "(U.S. Army, year)" and nothing more is sufficient. But the sheer quantity of similar citations (i.e., the lack of variety) makes any one in-text citation seem somehow insufficient.

Maybe I just need to ignore my discomfort?


texts:
I'm writing a proposal to acquire funding for a competition to be hosted at my university.  The competitors are restricted to graduate students who are engaged in research under the auspicies of a faculty advisor from my university.  In the process of making my proposal more clear and precise, I find myself struggling with the problem of defining what exactly is (and more importantly, what isn't) research.

At first, I equated research with publishable in a peer reviewed journal, but I soon realized that the terms publishable and peer reviewed would have to be defined... And even if I do that, then I would have to define the words that I used to define those words, et cetera ad nauseam.

I want to approach it the same way I would approach mathematical set theory:  it's either research or it's not, and there should be no room for ambiguity.  But I suspect that any attempt to define research this way will certainly either circumscribe or inscribe the set of all things we call research.

I don't think this is necessarily the best way to approach defining what is research, especially for my purposes.  Is there another way I can approach clarifying what constitutes research as opposed to other publishable works in the context of academia?


texts: How to get a .edu email address as an independent mathematician?

texts:
I am a hobbyist mathematician in China. I study maths by myself and make some course videos to teach commutative algebra, functional analysis and other topics on the internet, like the Khan Academy and MIT open courses.

Now I need a .edu email to get into some sites such as ResearchGate and arxiv. Is there any organisation that will help me like this: I show them some material, such as videos and papers, and if they think I am no weaker than some college teachers at least, they would give me a .edu email?


texts: Submitting future research plan when intending to leave

texts:
I am a junior faculty member at a European university. Recently, I was requested to submit a research plan for the next few years, as is typically done with junior faculty members at this university, and I will be meeting with my department chair to discuss it.

However, I am planning to resign soon, to pursue a non-academic career. I have had a few job interviews in the last 2 weeks, and have more in the next couple of weeks. While some of the jobs that I interviewed for seem promising, I haven't received an official offer yet.

At this point, I wonder

if I should be upfront with my department chair about my intention to leave,
or if I should keep quiet, submit my research plan and discuss it with my chair, and put in my notice only when I receive an offer

My concern with Option 2 is that there is a 3 month notice period in my contract, and if I were to resign at a later time -- e.g., in the summer, the department might not have enough time to make backup plans for the next school year (e.g., finding someone to teach my classes)


texts: Am I obligated to work on a project unrelated to my thesis because PI asked me to?

texts:
My principal investigator (PI) got a grant from a company and wants me to work on this. However, this is not related to my thesis at all and we might not be able to publish anything on this.

My question is: am I obligated to work on this just because I'm part of the lab?

This is in no way related to my thesis and I'm not interested in the work simply because I'm the one who is going to have to stay late working on it and not get anything in return.


texts: Will a paper be retracted if a flaw in released software code invalidates its central idea?

texts:
Say I have written code that performs a physics calculation. After this, I get a paper published based on the results of the code. In the interest of advancing the progress of science, I upload the code used for the paper on, say, GitHub. I also post a link to my code on GitHub on my website. I do this to facilitate discovery and use of the code by those who are interested in my results. Imagine that someone, in the process of reproducing my results (using the aforementioned code), discovers a flaw in the logic of the code. Correction of this logic flaw leads to invalidation of the central idea of the paper.

Will this lead to retraction?
Will there be any positive gain to me as a result of publishing of the code?


texts: Is it appropriate to express concerns to a professor about a new exam format?

texts:
I'm taking a math class at community college. The class has three regular exams (25% of grade) and a final (25%). Normally, the professor generously grades the fifteen-question exams with partial credit, but because of the COVID-19 crisis, we have had to move everything online.

I received excellent scores on the first two exams, but the third exam we had to take online. In the new, twenty-question format, she obviously could not offer partial credit because a computer scored it. Going into the exam, I didn't feel unprepared, but I ended up getting a terrible 62%. But then, the professor announced that the entire class had performed poorly on the exam, and she gave us another day to retake it. I had already spent an entire day studying and working on the exam, and I knew it would be dropped anyway, so I declined. I still don't think that there was much that would have changed if I took it a second time without being able to see what I got wrong. When I did get it back, I found that several of my mistakes had nothing to do with math and were a result of failing to correctly enter my results into the computer.

I don't know how the rest of the class performed on the exam compared to me, but the professor was concerned enough to give an extra day, so I'm willing to bet it was around the same. Needless to say, I strongly suspect that our collective failure is a result of the new exam format. I think that our grades depended on the partial-credit scoring. And now, the final, worth 25% of my grade, is coming up on May 18th.

I have a 98% in the class. If I get a 60% on the final, it will completely destroy my grade. And what's most disturbing to me is that so far, there has been no correspondence on what the final will look like. In terms of format, I don't know what I'm studying for, exactly. If it is going to be similar to the third exam, then I'm very likely doomed. With my two AP exams also around the corner, in the same week, it is causing an undue amount of stress.

I really appreciate the professor, and I naturally want to remain respectful and stay on good terms with her. Is it appropriate for me to voice my concerns? What kind of language should I use, and which parts of what I have disclosed here are appropriate to include? And what reasonably should I request?


texts: Should live sessions be recorded for students when teaching a math course online?

texts:
I am a course instructor. In my courses, which are now online due to the pandemic, I have optional live sessions. In those live sessions, I give examples of how to solve problems (it's a math-based course), and answer student questions in a group setting.
This design comes as close as possible to pre-pandemic settings: students were never required to attend my lectures, but were always encouraged to do so.
Lectures have never been recorded.
I think that if I were to provide recordings of these live sessions, more students would not bother to attend. I strongly believe that attendance at these sessions is pivotal for understanding, and that watching posted videos of these sessions will not have the same effect. However, some students have indicated that they strongly prefer recorded videos, so that they can watch them in their own time. I specifically do not want to allow this, as I think it discourages proper time management and may lead to problems down the road.
There are already additional posted videos to help students who may be struggling with the content.
Other instructors: do you record your live sessions? If so, why, and if not, why not? Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts, and why?
EDIT (clarification as asked for in a comment):
The institution I teach for has emphasized the importance of teaching time management skills to first year students. These are first year courses, and so I am expected to teach time management in addition to math.
Additional notes of clarification requested in other comments:
All of the content I discuss in the live sessions has also been provided in multiple other formats: text, linked videos, etc. I think the value of the live session is the fact that it is live. When I was in undergrad, if I didn't attend a lecture, I didn't understand the content. Some lectures were recorded, but since I couldn't ask questions in real time, I couldn't benefit in the same way. There are already videos of this content - why would recording my live sessions add value if this is the case?
Adding another point to the discussion
Does anyone have any concerns regarding intellectual property? At my institution, all course materials created (including any assessments, posted lecture notes, lecture videos, etc.) are the property of the institution as far as I know. How should intellectual property rights factor into this discussion, if at all?
And another point
My understanding of the goal of putting instructional materials online was to preserve the "in person" experience as much as possible during the pandemic. If there is no live component that is unrecorded, that doesn't hold true to the pre-pandemic experience.


texts: Tips on answering "What can you do to enhance our department?" and "Why are you a good fit?" type of questions in job interview

texts:
I am preparing myself for a job interview for a lecturer position.  According to many articles on academic job interviews, a common question to be prepared for is that " what can you do to enhance our department?"
I'm  not sure what exactly the committee would mean by that? I understand that I should tailor my own answer but question is not really clear to me.


texts: From which activities am I (not) excluded by not registering for a conference/symposium?

texts:
I'm a student about to start my master studies and I'm starting to have opportunities to take part in a symposium and a conference.

I have an accepted article at the conference and was therefore allowed to register for the conference. This involved paying (not on me) the registration fee etc.

I don't have an article for the symposium but the symposium interests me a lot. The chairs offered student support i.e. (partially) waive the registration fee for some students even if the student doesn't have an accepted article (although preference is given to those that do).

It turns out I wasn't granted this support. However, I'm still allowed to attend the talks without registering.

So, if I don't need to be registered to attend talks: what does it exactly mean to be registered for a symposium and/or conference? From which activities am I excluded by not registering and for which ones am I not excluded?

The symposium is abroad but I will be there around that time by coincidence. Is it worth staying there for a couple of extra days considering the activities I'm eligible for?


texts: What does 0/3, 1/3, 1/4, 1/11, etc. mean in the context of assigned reviews in a journal management system?

texts:
I have submitted a paper in a mathematical journal 04 months ago. A part of the online system of this journal is showed in the following figure.

I see that, after 01 month, status of "Assigned reviews completed" is "0/3". Next, after 02 moths it is "1/3", after 3 months it is "1/10" and now is "1/11".

What are this means? What should I do in this case? A letter to editor for a inquiry or no?

Thank you for your comments.


texts: Are Master's becoming required for USA PhD programs?

texts:
In the USA, many universities enroll PhD students with BSc degree. I think this is the classical scheme, which remained in the US universities. In many countries, it is almost impossible to enroll in a PhD program without MSc degree.

I am curious how is the trend for MSc programs?

At least in the USA, do more universities allow PhD enrollment with BSc degree or those allowing are shifting to MSc requirement?


texts:
I am doing research that requires me to find a list of how many US National Merit Scholars were enrolled at each university for 2013.

I can find the 2014 list in the Annual Report the National Merit Society has on the website and I can find data pre-2013 at the Center for Measuring University Performance (at ASU). However neither an online search, the National Merit Society website, nor my university's online catalog were able to locate the Annual Report for 2013. I know this information must be out there (since the Annual Report for 2014 is a downloadable pdf), but is not easy to find. Does anybody know of a list (preferably online) of how many 2013 National Merit Scholars attended each university?


texts: Is it polite to ask for an attachment from the recipient?

texts: I applied for a Summer Programme, but l forgot to save the attachment I have sent. Now I need the attachment. Should I do the work again or ask for it from the recipient?


texts: How narrow or broad should I look for undergraduate research?

texts: I'm currently an American sophomore undergrad and I'm looking into research opportunities at the moment. My problem is that the area of mathematics that interests me the most is mathematical logic and set theory, and even more specifically inconsistent mathematics, but there appear to be no opportunities for undergraduate research in this field. I'm unsure what to do or what would be the most helpful choices for me at this point. I know my college recommends cold-emailing professors if I have trouble finding something, but I'm also worried that I'm narrowing my search down too much. So should broaden my search first, just go ahead and start writing emails, or do both at the same time?


texts: Is my research statement supposed to lead to papers in top journals?

texts:
I'm about to start a 2-year postdoc in math with a possibility to stay a 3rd year. This means I will probably be on the job market in one year. I am planning to apply for tenure-track research positions. As I understand it, to get a tenure-track offer I should try to get at least one paper in a top journal. When I look at my research statement, I don't think I have projects that will lead to papers in, say, the Annals or JAMS or Duke. I listed a few projects that I think can get done quickly but are basically extensions of other people's papers, the idea being that these are "low-hanging fruit." I also listed some long-term ideas but they are speculative and aren't concrete problems. If I follow the research statement I probably won't have a paper in a top journal. Am I doing something wrong?

Edit: I should also add that my letter writers all looked at my research statement (they requested it) and didn't say that anything was off.


texts: Do you have to follow the instructions for a statement of purpose/personal statement?

texts:
I'm currently preparing for PhD applications (CS) and had a question regarding the SoP/PS.
Many people have advised me to follow the guidelines prompts ("Why are you applying...," "What experiences prepared you...," etc.) but have also been advised to talk about future research.
I personally agreed with the latter and wanted to talk about what I was planning to do or why I am interested in the interests I have stated, but given that I have a 500 word limit and there are many more instructions I realized I'll have virtually no room for the other provided questions.
How important is it that an applicant follows the provided prompts? Would it be a red flag is they didn't? Thanks.


texts: How can getting a masters hurt PhD admissions?

texts:
TL;DR:

Find myself under-qualified for PhD programs but I'm afraid getting a MS degree will hurt my chances at a better PhD program.
U.S. based.

Longer background:

I graduated with a math degree in undergrad from a top liberal arts college.
Two years after graduating, working, and reading some textbooks and taking a course in my longtime interest, I decided I want learn / research Natural Language Processing (AI).
Downside: I've only taken one CS course during undergrad. I took a deep learning / natural language processing course this summer, and am taking a Data Structures/Algorithms class right now, but still I feel woefully underqualified for PhD programs.
Pros on Masters:

It will help me shore up the missing areas in my CS education.
It will let me know if CS is something I want to do for the rest of my life.

Cons on Masters:

Certainly two years gone.
I've heard that PhD programs often don't like MS applicants -- that they're held to a much higher standard, and that PhD programs may accept undergrads instead.
MS is a different ballgame from PhD programs.
Many MS programs are "cash cow" programs.

Pros on PhD's

I've published two math papers as an undergrad, and I enjoyed that experience a lot.
Being a professor has always been a long time dream of mine, however much it may be improbable.

Cons on PhD's:

I just don't think I'll get in having taken just 1 CS course in undergrad. If I do, it likely won't be a very good program.
I'll have committed to a PhD program even though I'm sure if I want to do this or not (which I may!! But I just don't have enough exposure to know).
I don't even know if I'll be sufficiently prepared to pass my quals.

TL;DR (after the background): Ultimately, I think I want to go to a PhD program. But I'm underprepared and want to scope out more and go to a MS program. But I'm afraid it'll hurt my chances for a better PhD program later.


texts: My friend listed my name as a co-author on two journal papers without my permission

texts:
Recently, I found that my friend published two journal papers. He listed my name as a co-author without my permission.

He used to send me a draft of the 1st paper, and wanted to add me as a co-author. After reading the manuscript, I found that this paper has a lot of serious problems. Thus, I told him that he needs to address these issues, and tell me how to solve them before submission. However, he submitted anyway, and did not tell me. In this final version, some major concerns have not been addressed yet. I am the 4th author of this paper.

The 2nd paper is about XXX. I clearly told him that I do not want to do any XXX-related research due to my religious belief. However, he added my name on this paper without my consent. I am the 6th author of this paper.

The editors of these two journals are his friends. Thus, he listed me as co-author since he wants to increase the global impact of these two journals. These two journals are not good. Thus, they did not send me emails about the co-authorship while submission.

As a co-author, I will be responsible for the content that I published. In my opinion, the 1st paper does not meet the academic standard. The 2nd paper is against my belief. I really do not want to be a co-author of these two papers.

Can anyone tell me what I shall do next? Since these two papers have been published, can I contact the editors to remove my name from these papers? Or even withdraw these two papers? Will this ruin my friend's academic life?

..................................................................

Thanks a lot for your help. I really appreciate!

If I withdraw these two papers, will there be some bad records online, e.g. records which show that my two papers have been withdrawn. Or can I just report that I am not the author of these two papers on pubpeer?

Thanks again!

..................................................................

My friend has contacted the editors. My name has been removed from these two papers.

Thanks a lot for your answers and suggestions. I realy appreciate!


texts: What to write in application letter to address poor grades in Greek and Latin for classical archeology masters application?

texts:
I am planning on applying to a Masters program in classical archaeology.

BUT I have a B average in Greek and Latin combined. However, I feel confident in my abilities and that because I had to work harder to firmly understand the languages that I will be a better teacher and be able to relate better to my future students.

What is a positive and effective way to address that in my letter?

Note: Unlike this question about overcoming a poor academic record in general, this question is about overcoming a specific deficiency in the introductory coursework that is considered essential for this area of study.

(The rest of my profile is as follows: I had one really bad semester when I transferred (all gen ed classes) and it totally screwed up my GPA. Since that bad semester I have built good professional relationships with faculty, done excellent work in classics, history and archaeology classes, presented several papers and did some independent studies (including one abroad on an archaeological field school). I have a clear vision of what I want to do for my MA thesis and beyond.)


texts:
In the field of engineering, can GRE General test score be substituted with GRE Math score?

Suppose a US university requires GRE general test score for PhD program, if an applicant sends GRE Math score, will that be enough?


texts: Is it ethical for a Professor to disseminate wrong answers online?

texts:
I recently took a class where the Professor created multiple online study guides, on popular student sites, which intentionally contained the wrong answers. He did this because his exams were based heavily on the end of chapter questions in the book. Also, the Professor told us at the start of class using Google to help answer the questions would be useless because all the top results regarding these chapter questions were his wrongly answered guides.

Was this ethical of the Professor to do? The book used in the class contained no answer (or partial answer) keys and no additional student material was provided for the book. I understand he did this in order to force students to read the book and keep them from simply Googling all the answers at the end of the chapter. However, this removed a way for students to verify their answers were correct.

Edit: In response to some of the comments, he was not bluffing. During the course I was unable to answer one of the questions (it turned out to be a misprint in the book) and tried using online resources. The wrong guides were easy to spot, because half the chapter questions involved determining which SQL statements were valid. Some of the guides were simply answered as A, B, C, D, A, B in order down the list. Other were just flat out wrong. Also, as far as the exams went, I shouldn't say they were heavily based on the book. The Professor literally copy and pasted the questions from his instructors manual and didn't bother changing any wording or the answer order.


texts: Should I include a paper presented at a conference of which only the abstract was published under publications in my CV?

texts:
I participated in a conference in which I submitted and presented a Paper. It didn't get published in their journal, but the Abstract and the Title of it got published in the "Book of Abstracts" which was received by all the attendees of the conference.
Should I write it under publications in my CV ?
If not, how should I mention it in my CV ?


texts: Students trying to negotiate away penalties for late submission of coursework

texts:
I'm teaching a course where coursework is submitted online.
Recently, an important group project assignment was due.
The students are required to submit a project report,
which contains a link to a video produced by the students,
usually uploaded onto a site such as YouTube, Google Drive or Dropbox.
We had announced that for every day that an assignment is late,
students will lose 10% of their score for that assignment.

As you might have predicted,
there were several student groups who submitted their assignments late.
The problem is that some of these students
have sent me e-mails begging me
not to impose the penalty for late submission.
They gave reasons such as:

The original PDF file which we submitted was corrupted,
so after the deadline, we had to submit the PDF again
There were some technical problems with the original video link,
such that it is not possible for the video to be viewed at that link,
so we had to upload a new video and are now sending you the new link
The project was due at 9 PM, and we submitted it at 9 PM
(see our screenshot!) but the system marked it as late

Initially, I told them that
they will be penalized as specified in the policy,
in order to be fair to the students who did submit their work on time.
However, the students continued to say that
I should be more considerate or fair.

In my mind, I want to say to these students,
"Stop wasting my time arguing for marks!"
But this doesn't seem to be
the right way for me to respond to the students.
How should I respond to these students
who keep on asking me not to penalize them
when the penalty is deserved?


texts: Why are some journals for research papers called “review”?

texts:
There are many journals from different fields feature the word review in their name even though they are mostly featuring research articles – and not review articles, book reviews or similar. Some do not even accept review articles at all.
Some examples are
the Physical Review series,
Geographical Review,
Drug and Alcohol Review,
Victorian Periodicals Review, and
The Linguistic Review.

The only thing in this journal that is somehow connected to review is the peer-review and the consequential revision of the articles, but if this feature were eponymous, I would expect names like Physical Reviewed.

The very sparse information about the history of these journals reveiled nothing about the motivation for naming them such, and neither did dictionaries. For example, from Merriam–Webster’s definitions of review:

  […]

  3 : a general survey (as of the events of a period)

  4 : an act or the process of reviewing

  […]

  6 a : a critical evaluation (as of a book or play)
     b :  a magazine devoted chiefly to reviews and essays

  7 a : a retrospective view or survey (as of one's life)
     b (1) : renewed study of material previously studied (2) : an exercise facilitating such study

  […]

None of these fits the aforementioned journals. They aren’t surveys, evaluations, devoted to reviews and essays, retrospective or renewed studies, nor do they contain them.

Why are these journals called review?


texts: How to apply for a PhD scholarship in USA if I'm European?

texts:
I'm Italian, I have a Master's degree, I'm going to prepare for the TOEFL exam. At the moment, my English is not at the level, but I'm studying for it.
In fact, I'm considering applying, maybe next year, for a PhD in the USA with a (funding) scholarship. I have a lot of doubts and I would like to know how to do it in the better way.

Can you tell me how to apply for these PhDs (step by step)?
Are there reserved positions for ethnic minorities?
Do all universities offer this opportunity or just some?


texts: Disclose mental health issue during PhD during an interview?

texts:
I am about to face an interview for a one year fellowship.

One of the criteria for the selection is length of time as a doctoral candidate.

While I am within my registration period, I'm allowed one additional year to submit my thesis and I'm about halfway through that very year.

Part of the reason for being "late" - i.e. taking the extra year to write which is in fact vary common despite being somewhat frowned upon by the programme I'm in - is that I had a long stretch of depression during my PhD which is better now.

Should I mention this during the interview?

Should I mention this only if they ask me about why I'm taking this time to finish?

Should I NOT mention this, but maybe hint at it in-between the lines?

Also, there's a non negligible chance the panel might be sympathetic toward the topic (i.e. I guess they might be people who I would deem more likely to take seriously the topic of mental health in academia, rather than having an opposing stance like "you should toughen up" or a dismissing one like "no big deal".)


texts: How can an author get assurance that his work will not be stolen by journal staff or reviewers?

texts: Suppose some author provides his original research article to a journal for publication. In this way, he is disclosing or revealing his confidential research work to that journal. Now, consider the case that his article gets rejected. So, is it not possible that whoever reviews that article can publish that kind of work and say that it's theirs? Since the original author's work has not been published and he is disclosing his confidential work to somebody, how could the author get assurance that if his article is rejected, his work will not be leaked by the journal staff in any form? What happens if this kind of thing happens?


texts: if it is the same data, but you put it in another style for your PhD thesis and created a new figure - does it still counts like "figure from publication "***" ?


texts: How interchangeable are PhD students to most professors?

texts: Do most professors value their PhD students, or do they see them as easily replaceable by fresh, new blood?  If a PhD student stops working, will the professor try to fix things, or replace him like a cog in his machine?


texts: Where do general researchers make general discussions, online?

texts:
I am involved in a project team to build a decentralized tool for researchers to share and peer-evaluate their findings, without any intervention of third party intermediaries (publishers, journals, presses, ...).

The team aims to work as a non-profit foundation, and the service (or the platform) of course is gonna be open-sourced free software. The problem is, in building the designs and specifications of the tool, we need opinions from the academics.

So here is the question. Where on the Internet can I find active discussions and opinions from researchers?
(I've been told often that many researchers use Twitter, but if that is the case how may I reach them? Does it work like hashtagging #ScholComm, #SciComm, or #Researcher?)

PS. for those who're interested in what the project is, please message me... or am I permitted to link it here?


texts: How much the previous university's prestige matters for a phd enrollment?

texts:
I'd like to apply for a PhD in Ancient History at Oxford in the future.
Currently I'm planning to apply for a ResMa in Ancient History at Leiden university, in the Netherlands, which is thaught in English.
Is it a recognised uni for classics in UK or the US or should I do a British university instead, such as Durham, Mancester, UCL, St Andrews and so on to have better possibilities to be taken at Oxford?
Thank you all!


texts: (UK, mathematics) Making the most of a teaching job as an aspiring researcher

texts:
I finished my PhD a few years ago, and since then have been hopping from temporary job to temporary job every year. They've all been research-and-teaching jobs, which has been exactly what I wanted. I applied to a whole host of jobs this year, and got one. It's a secure, open-ended job, in a location I think I could be happy living in for a long time. I'm incredibly relieved about this.

The one downside is that it's a teaching-only job.

Now, I honestly enjoy teaching, but it alone is not enough to keep me in this career in the long run. This job seems like a poisoned chalice for my research career: not only does it mean less research time, it also means I'm less likely to be able to attend seminars, I'll have minimal free time during other mathematicians' work hours to liaise with them, I'll receive no funding to attend conferences, I won't be able to swap out duties with other people to give talks, and so on. I won't even be housed in the same building as the research mathematicians, so even interacting with them over lunch is going to be difficult. I'm basically excluded from all of the things that are involved in being an active member of the community!

How do I avoid being funnelled into a permanent teaching-only career? How do I make the most of the time I have during this job? Am I going to find it more difficult to be taken seriously as a researcher after a few years in this job?

Edited to clarify: my department is not the mathematics department. It is part of the university, but it is a "learning and teaching"-style department: the vast majority of staff there are teaching-only. I don't know whether this makes a concrete difference, but it might well impact funding, internal policy regarding grants, the priorities of my line managers, etc. I have no idea. Anecdotes and experiences related to this might also be useful.


texts: Internship research is too complex for me to understand

texts:
I'm studying CS and this year I should obtain my bachelor's degree.
I'm required to do a mandatory internship, and I'm doing it with a professor that asked me if I would join his research project. Right now, my assignment is to search for a paper about a challenging task in computer vision and to implement it (prostate segmentation in TRUS images, without using supervised learning).
The problem is: I've only taken the first basic course in computer vision, and I don't understand at least 80% of every paper. What should I do? Should I tell my professor I'm not suited for this task? If I change the internship, and consequently, my thesis, I almost surely won't be able to get my degree this year.


texts: Publishing data under Creative Commons license: CC0 or CC-BY?

texts:
I am submitting a data article to an open access journal, with the data available in a repository (Open Science Framework). I need to add a license to the data repository. It seems from some internet research that the CC0 would be the correct option for a data set, but I have a hard time finding the difference between CC0 and CC-BY licenses.
So I have 2 questions: first, would CC0 be appropriate, and secondly, what is the actual difference?


texts: Leave postdoc in the middle of contract to start work with another professor while being in one postdoctoral research

texts:
I am little bit of confused. I have completed my PhD, I do not have any prior postdoc experience. Let me explain my current situation. I got a draft contract letter from lab in China (say, Prof. A) a couple of month ago. I have started the process, I am expecting the VISA within a month. However, the research field does not relate to my current research work. Day before yesterday, I got one reply from another professor (say, Prof. B), who's work directly falls in my PhD research area. This person has a very strong background. I was dreaming during my PhD research to do some work with him. Anyway, he asked me to write an proposal, he told me that the fellowship will be ensured after a couple of month. I believe that the fellowship can be granted, assuming his positive response from his side.

Now, my concerns are as follows:

I have heard that the contract in China a bit tough. It is not easy to break contract during the middle. My initial contract period is one year, then subsequently can be extended upto  three years. My plan is to go China first, then after 6 months, once the proposal is granted, I want to move to 2nd guide (Prof. B). Is it feasible? How can I make sure there will not be any official problem during the process.
It looks odd, if I want to leave any position after six months, then why should I join there? My point is, I don't want to loose current opportunity, I am uncertain about the future response and funding from Prof B. One point, the current funding in China is a huge amount almost double with respect to the funding assured by Prof. B.
Is there will be any way out like, I may go to the Prof. B with the permission  or collaboration with Prof. A. After all, everybody is looking forward collaboration. However, I am not sure about this. Is it normal scenario in postdoctoral research?
Should I discuss the matter of collaboration to Prof. B, with Prof. A, or vice-verse?


texts: Is it okay to clarify to a PhD interviewer about a question that I was hesitant to answer then, but am not now?

texts:
Today, I had a PhD interview and the interviewing professor asked me about my plans after completion of PhD. I clearly stated that I wanted to fund my own startup and setup my own venture, to which he cross-questioned that why do I need a PhD for founding a company. Even though, I tried to to clarify that my venture would be based more on the research that I'm going to do, he seemed a bit unsatisfied with the answer.

Finally, he told me that if I had any queries or had to say anything, then I'm free to mail him regarding this.

My real answer to his question "why do I need a PhD for founding a company" was that "I didn't want my years worth of research work to end up in some corner of an archiving website, where no one is going to take a second glance later. So, I wanted my research to bloom into a company for the public benefit."

But I was extremely hesitant to give this answer to him back then since it could have implied that his work is also in "some corner of an archiving website, where no one is going to take a second glance later" which would be extremely demeaning.

But, now that I think about it, I feel that I should clarify this stating this proper reason in an email which I gave above.

Would it be a wise idea to do this? And if it isn't, is there any other way of putting it to express my idea to him?

All inputs are appreciated.


texts: Assistant Prof. doing a post-doc or MSc at the same time

texts:
I have a PhD and am a junior Assistant professor in tenure track. I had a chance to do a post-doc at an ivy league school, but accepted the tenure offer from a more teaching and less research school. I want to advance my career, and I believe part of the reason I couldn't get into a research school was my PhD university which is well known but not in US.
I am thinking of doing a part time post-doc or getting an MSc in an ivy league school to help me advance my career (Machine learning/Data science field). Publication in my field take a lot of time and by the time that I have made an established publication stream I will not be as young and ambitious as I am now.
How awkward is it if an assistant prof does part time post-doc on summers (when not in contract) or even during the year?


texts: Can I tell my advisor I want to finish my PhD in 6 years?

texts:
I am international student, studying PhD in Electrical Engineering at UNC and just finished my first year.
My employer gave me full scholarship to US. So, I have 6k monthly salary while they cover all tuition fee and medical.
I would like to take my time to finish it in 6 years. No rush as I am enjoying staying in US and very fortunate to have my children study here.
However, my advisor is pushing me to work harder, he plan to graduate me in four years. How can I tell him my opinion? I am afraid it will give him bad indication that I am not serious while I am interested to do good but at longer time.
Thanks


texts: Is it rude to request a read receipt when emailing the professor?

texts: Today I suddenly found that my email server requests a read receipt every time when I send emails. Since I am recently exchanging messages with a potential Phd supervisor, I wonder if this will make him feel that I am rude and annoying? I have already turned this feature off!


texts: Changing majors for masters degree specifically in Europe

texts:
I have done my bachelors in Electronics & Communications Engineering from India and I am currently working as a software developer with 1.5 years of experience.

I would like to do my masters from Europe but either in Computers or Software Engineering field. Is it possible to change from a field like electronics to software specifically in Europe ( preferably Germany or Netherlands).

I know it is quite common in US but I am not able to figure this out about European universities.


texts: How to make citation for a new paper in arxiv?

texts:
I have uploaded a preprint to the arXiv. I can find it in google search now. However, I cannot find it in google scholar. The reason for searching in Google scholar is that I want to make a BibTeX citation for my paper as below. Do I need to do something for my paper to appear in Google Scholar or do I just have to wait?

@article{tatarchenko2017octree,
  title={Octree Generating Networks: Efficient Convolutional Architectures for High-resolution 3D Outputs},
  author={Tatarchenko, Maxim and Dosovitskiy, Alexey and Brox, Thomas},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.09438},
  year={2017}
}


texts: Anonymous Student Feedback: Moving forward from abusive comments

texts:
I'm looking for some guidance from some senior/experienced academics situated in the teaching space.

As a relatively new lecturer (though I have some experience in lecturing in the past) I'm always looking for ways to improve my teaching. After doing a bit of research around how different lecturers etc approach student feedback, a number had stated that using anonymous feedback solicited during the semester can be really helpful.

So following on from that, I put on my learning site an anonymous feedback form for students that could let me know how they think the unit is going and what could be improved. The idea behind this was to get real-time feedback that could be implemented throughout the course, instead of for the following year.

I left this open since week 1, and perhaps that was my mistake. Despite barely being into week 2 (in which week 1 was just a basic introductory lecture to the course) one student has provided some anonymous feedback, which isn't feedback at all. Rather, it is just a string of abusive, sexist and foul language comments.

Due the alarming nature of the feedback, I approached a mentor/supervisor about what I should do. They were conflicted, because on the one hand, the nature of the comments were highly inappropriate, abusive, and raise concerns about the safety of my person in my teaching space. However, no specific threat at this time was made. On the other, having anonymous informal feedback throughout the unit is a good way of getting students to reflect on their own learning experiences without the fear of being reprimanded re assessments, and help me improve my teaching in the process.

I'm caught between continuing to allow anonymous informal feedback, or taking this option away and informing students of the reason. No other student has provided any feedback. Only myself and my teaching assistant have access to the feedback. Only students enrolled in the unit have access to the form.

Experienced lecturers/professors, how would you handle this situation?

This response here has been somewhat useful for future tips:

What is the best way to solicit teaching feedback from students (before the class is over)?


texts: Do I need to re-send the same GRE test score if I want to apply for the same graduate program again?

texts: I applied for a master program of university X two years ago and was rejected. Then I went to another master program and now I am about to finish. I want to apply for the PhD program of university X this year, and I have no plan to re-take the GRE test. I am wondering if it is need to re-send the GRE score to the same department of the same university.


texts: PhD from university where I did my bachelor's degree or master's degree?

texts:
I currently live in New Zealand an I'm studying animal science. I got my bachelor of science in New Zealand (from Massey) and my masters from Melbourne University.

Do you think it is strange if I go back to New Zealand to the same University to do my PhD? I've heard that it is good to go to different Universities for all your degrees to show that you are "open-minded", but if I have already gone to two different universities for my bachelors and masters, am I already showing that I am "open-minded"?

Thanks,

Chris


texts: Change of affiliation after acceptance of a paper?

texts:
I will change my affiliation from University X to University Y in mid February, and I have got a paper accepted just before I move. The proofs will be sent back to the journal just a week before I change my affiliation.
Is it valid to use my new affiliation in the paper? This would be useful as it will count towards my publications in my new institution.
I have already signed a contract and will receive my new email address soon, however, my start date in my new affiliation is just a week after I submit the final version of the accepted paper.


texts: Should I treat specialized wikis with the same scrutiny as Wikipedia itself?

texts:
Suppose I am making a paper on the impact of popular TV shows on the spread of correct knowledge and facts about current and past events. Shows like South Park, The Simpsons and likely others often feature recent events in their storylines, as well as past events as well. These shows often have specialized wikias, usually in the form of "showname.wikia.com".

These wikias are mainly maintained by a dedicated subgroup of the fanbase for that show, people who usually know a lot about it. This means that the information on there comes from more reliable sources. In addition, since most of the information stems from individual episodes, there usually isn't any information about that episode outside of the wikia or the episode itself.

In cases like this, would it be appropriate to use the wikia as a source?


texts: How can one know if some of the content presented by a paper is protected by a patent?

texts:
How can one know if some of the content (e.g., an algorithm) presented by a paper is protected by a patent?

Papers rarely mentioned that a patent has been filed for it.


texts: "It is our policy not to include attributions of figures and tables" - what does this mean?

texts:
I just received some proofs of an accepted paper, for me to review prior to publication. The email from the publication staff included the following paragraph:

  It is our policy not to include attributions of figures and tables. If you feel that such citation is necessary in the case of your article, please indicate so when sending your page proof comments and corrections back to us.

(no other relevant context.)

Does anybody know what kind of attribution they are referring to here? I have a hard time imagining some kind of attribution that would ordinarily be appropriate, but could be removed as a matter of policy (ethically).

I'm not going to ask the staff member who sent me the email, because it doesn't apply to my paper anyway. I'm just wondering if anybody here knows.


texts:
I started my PhD program and have finished qualifiers already. I had a discussion about topics with my research advisor. However, my advisor admitted he does not know so much about the topic of my PhD.

Thus I had the following questions:

Can my co-advisor be from another institution?
If so, will this impact my thesis committee?


texts: Applying for MS, what role should a cover letter have?

texts:
I'm interested in applying for a MS in the natural sciences with professors some I have worked with in the past and other new ones. What role should a cover letter have as I reach out to these professors? My goal is to follow standard procedures but also not be excessive in my approach, thus I'm wondering whether to send one or not in the following context:

I'm not formally applying yet, rather I am early in the scoping process, reaching out to potential advisors to state my interest and request a meeting to discuss opportunities and options to work with them. I figure I will include my resume in an email reaching out to them, and that email itself is like a brief, informal cover letter. I have prepared a cover letter that I'd use in my formal application, but it is like a longer, more formal version of the email I'm sending to these professors.

Maybe for some or all cases it is more appropriate to send a cover letter and resume, letting those attached documents speak for themselves and keeping the email very brief? Some professors I'm reaching out to are people I cross paths with once or twice a month and am on a first-name basis with, some I have studied with in the past but they may only remember my face and not much else, and some I've never interacted with before.


texts: Should an application for a second postdoc position include a reference to PhD supervisor?

texts:
I'm preparing an application for another postdoc job; the end of my first term is nearing, and it has been 1.5 years since finishing my PhD. My thesis work was mostly done in not-well known research institute in a small country; my current postdoc position is in a significantly better university (world's top 100, strong in my area).

I'm somewhat reluctant to include my former PhD advisor as a reference because our relationship was strained in the last year of my studies.

The first reference I'll have is the PI in my current project. For the second reference, alternative options are:

another professor from my current university / project;
the director of the research institute I did my PhD in;
my former PhD advisor.

Which one would you suggest?


texts: Should I buy a printer or an iPad pro for reading articles?

texts:
I assume everybody on this site needs to read articles frequently, which is why I consider this silly question relevant. Due to covid and home-office, I've lost consistent access to a printer, so I contemplate buying one for printing articles, book chapters, etc. Decent laser printers can be bought from €150 where I live. However, large tablets, especially the iPad pro with a 12.9-inch screen, are becoming affordable. Used ones can be bought for €400. I'm not considering e-paper readers, because I do not like the slow page turnaround. Also, smaller tablets are out of the question.
Can anyone comment on using a large tablet vs. printing the articles? What is your experience and what device do you use for your reading needs?


texts: What are the signs that it is time to switch from thesis to capstone track?

texts:
The Master's program (Software Engineering) I'm enrolled in offers both a thesis track and capstone track. Currently I'm enrolled in the thesis track and I've completed all of the required coursework for the thesis track, but I've been stuck in the thesis proposal process for over a year now1 and I'd like to just graduate and be done. I suspect that I'm being "encouraged" to switch over to the capstone track without the Research Advisor outright saying it. What should I take as the signs that it's time to make the switch?

By stuck I don't mean that I don't have a proposal, I mean that I've been submitting revisions about once a month for the past year with conflicting feedback being received and no real progress towards having a Thesis Director.


texts: Is it reasonable to cite published computational results rather than reproduce them yourself?

texts:
In computer science, when we write an academic paper, we often have to include comparative results that our method has some kind of quantitative advantage against some other state of the art results.

While it is sometimes easy to reproduce a cited paper's results (e.g., classification of small datasets), other times it is very time consuming and you could spent the better part of your research time just writing code testing the other methods.

However, it sometimes happens that when we reproduce the method, we do not get the presented results. So it can be tricky to do that as well.

Is it reasonable just to cite another paper's results at face value?
What suggestions would you give to this conundrum?


texts:
I've started a PhD position at a university in the US, but I'd like to travel during my time there.  What's the easiest way to do something like that?  Are there fellowships or grants available for students who want to study abroad for a semester or year, and if so, how can I find them?  Or, is studying abroad typically a process that is dependent on who my advisor knows in foreign countries?

If it helps to answer this question, my field is statistics and I'm planning on focusing on spatial statistics.


texts: What are the most important factors when considering graduate school in chemistry?

texts:
I'm considering applying to chemistry graduate schools within the next six months and am hoping for some guidance in prioritizing aspects.  For instance, among my list of considerations there exists: renown of school, programs of interest, appeal of location, amount of financial aid, duration of program, and success of past alumni.

Do others who have already gone through this process have suggestions about how to prioritize these considerations?  Were there things in your experience that you thought would be important and ended up not being so.  Or visa-versa, are there aspects that you neglected and wish you hadn't?


texts: How to get in touch with professors in Japan for research projects/masters education

texts:
I have received a Japanese government scholarship for research and masters degree. While I originally thought it would be easy to get in touch with a professor after having received the scholarship, it's proven to be more difficult than I expected.

Do you have any suggestions?


texts: What could be the reasons to be rejected as a Doctoral Candidate in Germany?

texts:
Referencing my question here and the multiple suggestions to ask here as well.

What could be the reasons for (so far) only getting rejections on my applications as Doctoral Candidate?

Are there some special differences applying for jobs in the industry compared to academia (all applications were the same as I would apply for a job in the industry, which was always really easy and successful - max timespan from sending the application over the interview to job offer was about 1-2 weeks)?

Short background

I finished my master studies in 2014 and after 5 years of working in the industry, I want to change in an academic environment. My CV and skill set matches the positions I applied for pretty well, but I got only rejections.

During a short phone interview for one position, I was asked if I considered it well to take such a position because of the workload - for at least the next five years - and taking into account that I have two kids (that I mention in my CV - in Germany it is common to mention personal points in your CV). I wouldn´t have applied for such a position if I didn´t consider everything regarding this step.

I really want to change to an academic environment because I´m really unsatisfied working in the industry (although I´m rather successful and good in what I´m doing), but everything around the job - management and how it is handled and the politics around it, and everyone placing their own interests (in middle to upper management) above the product, the way the work is handled and how to improve the quality, product and the company. This (I think/hope) is way better in academia.


texts: How likely is it for an international student to secure graduate funding for a subject like Psychology?

texts:
I am international student who will be commencing an undergraduate degree in Psychology at a top-ranking university in the UK. I know it's a little bit early in my "academic" career, but I have been aspiring to become an academic for some time and due to personal circumstances, I have come to a crossroads where I have to decide whether this dream is worth pursuing, or if I should give this dream up permanently. One of my main concerns is finances, as due to the steep cost of my undergraduate degree, I will most likely be unable to continue onto graduate studies without funding.

It is my understanding that graduate funding for non-British and non-European students in the UK is rare. What is the profile of an international student who secures funding (particularly in Psychology or Neuroscience) in the UK, and is there anything I can do now or in the years ahead to improve my chances? At the same time, how likely can an international student with only a 3-year British undergraduate degree secure funding for graduate studies in other countries, such as the US, and again, is there anything I can do to improve my chances?


texts: How can I balance teaching computer-assisted skills and risks of cheating at exams?

texts:
The situation I have in mind is concerned with teaching introductory probability and statistics to business students, and there may be similar situations in other fields. Because of the risks associated to cheating in exams where computers are allowed, exams are restricted to basic hand-held calculators and datasets are consequently very small : compute mean and standard deviation for less than 10 data points, etc. As the material gets more complex (regression analysis) the sole option is to ask about analysis of printed computer output.

As a consequence, a lot of time is spent both in class and in student study time on learning such useless skills as computing standard deviations with a calculator (even I get it wrong half the time). This in turn leaves less time to teach what actually is useful : doing basic analysis with the computer (Excel, to start with). Another consequence is that it turns the students off any interest for the material as they understand that what is taught in class has little relevance for practice.

In short:

time is wasted on outdated methods
useful skills remain untested and mostly unlearned
relevance is lost (course is "boring")

I would rather avoid complex, time-consuming and costly methods of computer surveillance. Blocking wifi (jamming) internet access during exams is not an option due to local legislation and there is no access to a lab (students have to have their own laptops). Having the students use their computers as cheat-sheets is less of a concern.

So my question is: how can I improve the situation?

The main objective is to bring in more computer-assisted skills while limiting the opportunities for cheating.


texts: Postdoc at a research hospital for a physicist (non radiation)

texts:
I am a physicist with a background in computational physics and imaging, and I received an offer for a NIH postdoctoral fellowship at a very good research hospital on the East Coast. I would join a group of medical doctors working on a particular protein, and I am trying to decide if it would be a good choice career wise. The lab has good instruments, but I am a bit worried of being the only one with a quantitative background in the research group.

Is there anyone who successfully did the physics-medicine transition? And is it possible to go back to more basic science after a biochem-med postdoc? Other things I should consider?


texts: What to do when I suspect Research Integrity Office of covering up malpractice

texts:
Two years ago I read a paper that I thought had implausibly good results. The data were archived online so I examined them: they were clearly fake. The first author replaced them with other data which were also clearly falsified/fabricated.

I reported the paper to the relevant University. Several more versions of the data were produced, and the University's Research Integrity Office (RIO) closed the case apparently satisfied that the correct version of the data had finally been found. A corrigendum was published. However the new data contain suspicious patterns and several figures in the paper are cannot be reproduced. I don't know of any explanation for the multiple versions of the data. All versions of the had file-creation time-stamps that post-dated publication.

The original specimens are in the RIO's possession. A portion of them could be re-analysed non-destructively in 1-3 days (relevant MSc-grade experience required), which would help assuage doubts about the veracity of the paper. The RIO has declined to do this, citing lack of resources and personal skill.

Am I being unreasonable in expecting the RIO to do more than (apparently at least) take the author's word on trust regarding the final data being correct without verifying them?
How could I arrange for the specimens to be re-analysed by a third party so that the RIO/journal would accept gross differences from the final data as evidence of malpractice?
The RIO tells me that I should contact the author directly to address the irreproducible figures. I doubt the first author will be keen to cooperate - they almost certainly know that I reported their paper to the RIO, know that the RIO has closed the case, and I have no authority to compel disclosure of files etc. Can anything be done here?

I believe the RIO is seeking to avoid making an adverse finding.

PS. The University in question is a large, well-respected and well-funded institution.


texts: How much trust are you supposed to give a peer-reviewed article?

texts:
When something is peer reviewed, how much trust are the reviewers saying you should give it?

I'm not talking about whether peer review works, I'm asking what peer review means ideally.

For example, I know you should trust a peer reviewed article more than, say, a blog post. At the same time, if an article passes peer-review, that doesn't mean the reviewers are saying that the article should be accepted as eternal truth and never questioned further.

So how much trust does peer review give?

Should one trust that citations are claiming what is in the articles they cite?
If there isn't anyone who has disagreed yet, should I assume it's true for the purpose of discussions, without further examination?
Should public policy be based on it, without further examination?
Should I trust data to have been collected correctly?
Should I trust data to have been processed correctly?

This probably varies by field (for example, I imagine pure mathematics and related fields, which already have high standards for rigour, are endowed with a ton of trust once peer reviewed).


texts: Cold emailing potential search committee members

texts:
I recently applied for a tenure-track position with a regional state university. I know of the college but have no contacts there. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a proportionally large number of presentations at our field's research conference, including some presentations that align with my research. I presented at the same time as this one particular paper I am interested in by professors at this state college.

I would like to reach out to the author(s) to tell them that I would like to learn more. Should I also tell them I applied to their university?


texts: What should an unpaid research fellow do when they thought they would be writing papers but are instead writing grants?

texts:
I am an unpaid research fellow in a mainly clinical research lab. One can call it a "volunteer research position".

I thought my goals prior to the fellowship were to write papers, help with clinical trials, but I am being asked to write a lot of grants by both my PI and his colleagues, colleagues I have never met and have never worked under. Is this normal? And not small grants, fairly big grants that take hours upon hours to write.

Is this ethical on the institution's part?


texts:
I have an issue with my supervisor: he likes to write papers in MS Word and I like to write in LaTeX. We have had issues with editing and formatting, since it is difficult to do it, while working on different platforms.

Does anyone have any advice on how to resolve this situation?


texts: Aggressive stalling of a publication: how do I publish?

texts:
I am unable to advance three papers written while I was a postdoc, even to submission. Two coauthors constantly stall. They send 'additional rounds' of edits, pre-submission, with minor changes, stall for months, and create nonexistant parts of the academic process (ex. asking me to send a document containing all relevant passages from all cited works and defending their inclusion). Recently, they have also begun harassing other coauthors who support moving the work forward.  One has withdrawn from the paper, calling us 'dysfunctional'. He is correct. On the first paper alone, I have over 100 pages of email correspondence and no path to submission.

The reason is straightforward: they were my advisers. I left my postdoc against their wishes, but with eight months notice, and obtained a faculty position without their support. One explicitly told me he would keep me from publishing my work. He also funded the work, and created the dataset it was drawn from, which in my discipline means authorship.

So, how do I prevail? Publishing is consent based. My primary goal: publish these three works. Secondary goal: keep them from removing me and publishing my work themselves.


texts: Why retract a paper for intellectual property protection?

texts:
A recent entry on the Retraction Watch blog (“Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process”) highlights the retraction of an article in the Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology. The retraction notice has the following wording:

  We regret to inform that the published paper included a few parts that disclosed confidential information which should have been protected under patent law. We admit that the request for retraction is due to the indiscretion of the authors, and confirmed that editorial committee of KJPP have not conducted any fault in publishing the paper.

However, as with all retracted papers, the paper is still available online; even if it weren't, it was available for some time.

So, given those facts, what purpose(s) does the retraction serve? The confidential information was published, and you can't get the cat back into the bag once it's out. This indicates an ethical failure of the authors, but in that particular case isn't that something they should sort out with their employer and the financial sponsor?

It beats me.


texts: My PhD advisor is writing most of an article without considering some of my inputs

texts:
We are currently writing a first article with my PhD advisor. The research was mainly designed by him; I performed all the experiments and found a model to explain the results.

The article is soon to be finished. I am supposed to be the first author of the paper but at this point, I am more and more considering to ask my advisor to put me as the second author or maybe even ask to have my name removed.

My advisor wrote most of the article, which I already find weird given that I am the first author. This is not due to my lack of initiative, I've been explicitly told not to write some parts. It really feels that I am simply a secretary asked to check for typos, formatting issues, and to make graphs and figures as he sees fit.
When I correct some of his writing, he sometimes takes into account what I propose/correct, sometimes he disagrees and explains why, but sometimes completely ignores it (my comment is deleted and not addressed). Some of these ignored comments are not fundamental, but I find some others very important and I am really not comfortable with some parts of the manuscript (he knows this given that I wrote it in the comments).

As an example, my advisor is very excited by a small theoretical model I proposed to him once that could roughly explain the experimental results. Yet there are still gaps and unsupported hypothesis. He knows that I am very reluctant to make this modeling an important part of the paper (which otherwise present both qualitative and quantitative experimental evidence of phenomena not previously reported), but this is now becoming more and more important and is almost the central part of the article. We discussed that once, his answer was simply that I should be proud of myself to have explained something rather than be too critical.

Other examples include him writing something along the line of "when XX was observed, we systematically found that this was due to YY". Something I actually only observed once and I am not confident that it can be so easily generalized.

My question is simply how to deal with that. My relation with my advisor was great but it is becoming more and more strained (especially from my side) as this article evolves. Is this a regular flow between a student and its advisor during the writing process? This is a long, in-depth >30-page article, if this information can be useful. With my Master advisor I had written and published a short-letter (4 pages), and I was completely leading the writing.


texts: What to say to a student who has failed?

texts:
A student has failed a course I just taught. Grades were announced yesterday. This student sent me a very long heartbreaking email about how this means she will be kicked out of her program, how she tried very hard, and how she wants me to reconsider her final grade.

I'm relatively new at being a university instructor; this isn't the first course I've taught at a university, nor is it the first time I've had a student fail a course. But this is the first time I've had a student beg and plead with me, and I'm not sure how to respond.

I genuinely feel bad for her, as she tried hard and came frequently to my office hours, but I ultimately believe that she did not demonstrate on the final exam that she had a good enough handle on the course material to pass.

What should I say to politely tell her that she will still fail, without sounding insensitive?

Edit: Some more relevant information, since some have asked. The course in question is a calculus course for an Engineering program. The student has previously failed and retaken courses, but she is not permitted to have any more failing grades if she wants to remain in the Engineering program. Failing this course is essentially her last `strike'. She will still be allowed to study at the university, but in a different program.

Edit 2: Thanks for all the responses. I wasn't looking for moral justification for failing her or looking for alternative solutions to the situation. I was simply looking for advice on how to respond in a professional manner. And I certainly got that advice from some of the responses.

In the end, I essentially responded with a concise email stating essentially that, while I sympathize with her situation, there was nothing I could do in good conscience to modify her grade at this time, and that I did not believe she demonstrated sufficient mastery of the material to warrant a grade of 50% on the exam. Then I closed with "I wish you the best of luck in your future studies. Sincerely, [me]"

It still doesn't make me feel any better about failing her. :(

(I also will add that this my first time teaching this particular course, and I have certainly learned my own lessons for next time. In particular regarding common misconceptions in the material and what to focus on in the lectures. This will hopefully mitigate the chance of a future student failing in a similar way.)

Edit 3: A few comments have suggested that I might reconsider the student's exam grade. To be clear, this student had about a 50% average in the course going into the final and would have therefore needed at least a 50% on the final exam to pass the course. However, the student only received about 35% on the final (while the average for the class on the final was 73%). I could not, in good conscience, bump the score so significantly to warrant giving out a passing grade in this case.

It was clear to me that the student had failed. I was only asking for advice on how to respond to her request that I pass her!


texts: Comparing career prospects across fields in Applied Math

texts:
A professor casually mentioned that when submitting abstracts to a conference in some fields in Applied Math (such as numerical PDEs), it is highly likely that they will be accepted (unless the work is garbage) - unlike some "other fields" (like computational neuroscience).

By this I understand that those "other fields" are more competitive, but I am not sure if I am interpreting this correctly. In general, how does this affect career prospects on the long run? Will it be likewise a lot harder to get an academic job in such "other fields"?

P.S. I am in a U.S. college.