texts: What affiliation do I choose if my scientific work is unrelated to my job?

texts:
I left academia, but occasionally I am coauthor of a paper. These papers are in the area of research I did at university, but now I am working in a different industry.

Asked for affiliation, I am not sure whether I should state my company's name (although the company does not take part in the research and it is not done during work time) or if I should say "affiliation: none", which also seems strange.

My company has no policy (at least: as far as I know) that forbids to mention its name, nevertheless working there is not related to my research.


texts: Graduate Certificates or Additional Masters as addons for Terminal Degree?

texts:
My Background

Currently I have an MFA in Interactive Design and Game Development.  I work as a software engineer (in higher ed) and teach adjunctly.  In the next 10 years or so I see myself moving more into teaching.

My Question

Do Graduate Certificates hold the same value in conjunction with a terminal degree as masters degrees?  Which is the preferred for additional degrees show casing abilities in other areas?  With the end goal of either doing research for a university or working towards becoming a professor?

I've tried finding an answer to this on google, but really haven't come up with anything relevant.  I've also checked out the Ph.D vs Masters Discussions on here.  Any information and help would be appreciated.

Update

I would like to teach at a research university or technical university.  My main area of emphasis has been where computer science and programming meet design.  Specifically in the web, multi-media, and game development.


texts: I wrote the whole paper, but did only a very small part of the research. PhD student wants to be first author, but didn't write. Is this okay?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate who recently was involved in writing a paper where I did most, if not all, of the work writing the manuscript. The PhD student basically "dumped" his project into my lap after a year of sitting on the results, and asked me to write it. I wasn't really involved in the project, except for a few small things in the beginning.

I'm currently listed as third author on the paper; the second author is completely out of the picture, and has not contributed at all to the paper (the PhD student has at least provided some edits). Should I argue that because I wrote the paper, despite not doing all of the research that the second author did, that I should be listed as second author?

As the deadline grew nearer, I found myself picking up more and more of the responsibility of the paper. I was initially happy to be third author, but when I found myself writing the entire paper, I think that my contributions are a lot greater than I had initially anticipated.

However, I've never been involved in writing a paper before, so I don't know what the etiquette is for these types of scenarios. Should the second author be listed on the paper at all, or should we swap places in authorship? I don't think that the second author will even read the paper before it's published anyways. Should I talk to the PhD student that I think I should get more recognition for the work I've done on this paper, because I feel like I honestly should be first author considering that if I didn't write this paper, it never would have been written, or should I just be happy where I am?

I'm not really sure what to do! Any advice would be immensely helpful.


texts:
I have developed a logic and consistent body of research of 8 papers about a research topic. I've heard I can do a PhD by published work. It is just compiling the papers and writing the scope and importance of the papers  in 5000-10000 words, then the viva.

I know universities in the UK where I can do this, but they charge like 5000 GBP for the submission.

Do you know other universities in other countries that charge less? I am thinking of norway, finland, germany, as they seem to have low tuition fees. However, I am willing to consider any country in Europe.
I am living in Portugal, so I would need to submit my thesis online, and travel to the university for the viva

Any help appreciated,
Thanks,


texts: Career effect of embargo on doctoral dissertation

texts:
I have a question about how my dissertation embargo period would affect my future work, so please help and share your ideas. I will appreciate any thoughts here.

My PhD degree is material science. I finished my PhD degree oral defense last week, and I am about to submit my final dissertation to the university. As for the dissertation embargo period, my university offers 3 options: (1) release immediately; (2) hold 2 or 5 yrs; (3) indefinite hold.

I personally want to embargo my dissertation for 5 years for publication reasons, but my PhD advisor recommended me for choosing indefinite hold first. He said because we are trying to apply for a patent which may take a really long time, and he also mentioned that some chapters are cooperated with industry partners and they don't want them to be released.

Most of my chapters have been published in peer-reviewed journals, which means even if my dissertation is under embargo, people can still know what my Ph.D. research is about.

But I still have a question: If I choose to embargo my dissertation indefinitely, will this affect my future career in a bad way?


texts: How do I find a research assistant positions (life science) in USA if you're an international student and outside of USA now? Is unpaid job possible?

texts: I have a Master’s degree, and want to apply for PhD. I want to find a position during the gap year. It is also possible to do 2 years. But I am not in USA. So, How do I find a research assistant positions? Is unpaid job possible to get visa?


texts: Why is there a 14-year difference between the submission date of this arXiv paper and the date in the paper text?

texts:
I am so confused. This paper is listed as having been submitted in 1999, but the date below the author's names inside the PDF is 2013.

What is the meaning of each date?


texts:
I have recently published an article in a "renowned" open access journal which cost us 2000 USD. I say 'renowned' - not to brag, but to highlight that the journal is not the kind of new age OA journal from which I would expect questionable practices.

Another group of researchers now started the process of submitting a comment to our article, to which we crafted a reply. After review, the journal now wants to charge them, as well as us another 2000 USD each for the publication of the comment/reply pair. This comes as an absolute surprise to me.

In my opinion, this practice is actively discouraging scientific exchange, and it seems simply excessive to ask for another 4000 USD. Furthermore, should the reply not be considered part of the comment, therefore, if anyone, the commenter should pay for the publication cost?

I am wondering if anyone has heard of something like this or has experience with publishing comments/replies in Open Access journals?


texts: Is there any university in the US offers PhD admission for the Spring? I'm trying to apply for the Cell and Molecular Biology at any university in the US


texts: I shouldn't have got a PhD. I am not suitable for research in my field. How should I proceed?

texts:
I shouldn't have got my PhD. I have published 5 papers in Q1 journals. But that has been possible because the topic is hot right now and much rigor is not required for publishing.
I can use an open source or commercial software without knowing how it works in detail and churn out papers. I am just pushing some buttons in a black box and getting results.
I can't teach the numerical method behind the software or the mathematics involved because I never understood it. Other students who work on this field take courses and have thorough understanding of the subject. They go on to teach the subject. While I am poor in mathematics, I am just dumb and lazy to self study it, solve examples.
I am publishing papers now at a decent rate, but I am lacking depth. I am not suitable for my field of research. I don't know if I can do anything about it now.
I recently got a PhD and searching for postdoc positions. I just don't fit anywhere. Everyone wants someone who is expert in the theory or have strong mathematics background. I have neither.
I shouldn't have got my PhD. I think, my advisor, committee and university just wanted to get rid of me.


texts: How to motivate people to participate in a survey, can I include a call for participation in a paper?

texts:
I am designing a system which is based on text sentences of a specific domain, so that no corpus exists. In order to evaluate, which types of phrases occur, and how often, and to not be biased by my own input, I need theses sentences from other people. Thus, I created a Google forms survey.

Despite posting on relevant mailing lists, offering a significant shopping voucher for a random participant and having my twitter call re-tweeted hundreds of times, I only received about 50 sentences, mostly from my colleagues. While this allows the development to go ahead, I fear that it doesn't give me a picture as accurate I would like of the typical input, especially the rarely used phrases. Also I expect it to negatively impact the credibility of my paper.

My questions:

How can I motivate more people to take part in the survey?
Is it OK to put the URL of the survey in the first paper and hope that this attracts more participants for an improved version later on or is that seen as unwanted advertisement?


texts: Can I add a poster session to my CV if I wasn't there but had my name on it?

texts:
I worked on research that was presented as a poster session at a conference. However, I was not the first author and didn't attend the conference, but my name was on the poster. Is it still okay to list the session on my CV?

(I'm aware that poster sessions are not a big deal, but I'm very early in my research career, and I did real work on this project, so I'd like to be able to take some credit for collaborating as long as it's ethical to do so.)

Update: Since the field seems to be an important factor, this would be in linguistics.


texts:
I'm a senior in mathematics at the University of Illinois (Urbana). I will be graduating sometimes in 2017, and I would like to go to grad school straight after graduation.

How many credit hours of mathematics does an average successful student take before applying to graduate school?


texts: Approaching Professors for Technical Consulting/Endorsement

texts:
I work for a technology company and our company is interested in inviting some professors to review some of our recent technological innovation. It'd be more like writing an endorsement, or a preface for a book (and of course the professor needs to be comfortable with our work), so we can promote our products to the clients.

We don't have strong academia connections, so we might have to write some unsolicited emails to approach professors. Are there some tips regarding this kind of emails? I understand professors receive thousands of emails every day, so I want to make sure our email doesn't get buried.

Also, should we bring up compensation numbers in the first email, or this should be left for future discussion?


texts: Are replies from editors automatically generated?

texts:
I never reply to editor's and conference organizers' mails, since I somehow always thought that they are automatically generated and replying just to thank would be considered as spamming, since they probably write to hundreds of people.

But is this really true? Do editors prefer not to get trivial replies to their email? Are their emails really automatically generated, or just some parts of them?


texts: Why do publishers still print a 'Half title' page?

texts:
Isn't a Half Title redundant, when the Title page already states the full half Title?   See Wikipedia:

I know why books must have blank pages, but why not leave this page blank?

I instance The Happy lawyer. The front cover contains the full title The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law. Then the first Half title page states only 'The Happy Lawyer'. Just after p. xiii (The Foreword), but before p. 1, is another Half title pages that states only 'The Happy Lawyer'.

Another instance is Better Never to Have Been. The front cover contains the full title 'Better Never to Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence'. Then the Half title page states only 'BETTER NEVER TO HAVE BEEN'.


texts: Professor asked to write part of reference letter due to time constraints

texts:
I am applying to graduate programs and one of my research professors will write me a recommendation letter, but wants me to write a rough outline of the letter. He will add his own content and edit all my work, but wants me to highlight things he might not know.

I am not sure how to write this outline, advice from people who have written graduate recommendations on what to put in one?


texts: To what extent should I follow "style rules" in academic writing?

texts:
Some journals request that authors follow a specific style manual (e.g., APA or Chicago manuals of style).

One style rule is to avoid starting a sentence with an abbreviation (with some exceptions).

However, I found it unnecessary to spell out abbreviations like ANOVA (analysis of variance) or FMM (finite mixture models) every time I start sentences with them.

Should I strictly follow such rules in academic writing?

Edit: My field is biohealth sciences.


texts: Why are cumulative tests typically weighted so high (U.S.)?

texts:
Is there an academic justification behind most U.S. classes weighting exams at very high percentages of the overall grade in a course? So if a student does exceedingly well throughout the course in all projects, but bombs both tests, their grade is drastically skewed towards the exams rather than the coursework leading up to the exams.

Full disclosure, this happened to me this semester. I have a 97.75% on our projects throughout the course (4 major projects, each taking ~20 hours to complete). However, I admittedly bombed the final and did fairly poorly on the midterm (37% and 70%, respectively). Projects in our course are weighted 60%, but the remaining 40% is entirely midterm/final. My final grade for the class is hovering around 80% before the curve.

I want to understand the mindset behind these weights though, and where the idea of heavy cumulative exam weights came from? In other words, if I've demonstrated the understanding of the material to almost perfect standards, but I failed to represent that on a test, how does that translate to me being given a grade that doesn't really represent a strong understanding in the subject?


texts: How do you interpret the feedbacks of my boss

texts:
I have a PhD in biological sciences but working (for two years by now) as a data analyst (I can say something like a bioinformatician) in a university analysing cancer omics

My boss says that I am an excellent bioinformatician but I must learn how to structure my data when presenting or even before any analysis

He says I would not get any credit unless I learn this

Every morning we have online lab meeting, when seeing my colleagues presentation I feel too bad about myself

I see how they are deep and accurate in their statement

But me only see frigid feedbacks, even PhD students in our lab don't take me serious never ask me to help them in their data

I feel too isolated.. I am getting to the end of my career but everyday I feel the current position would be my last job opportunity in my life

How would you approach such an annoying situation in your academic life?

Thank you for any word


texts: As a freshman student going into a Community College pursuing Engineering, I deal with a lot of STEM-based subjects such as Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Statics, and etc. Currently my problem is that I still haven't found an effective studying strategy and I'm currently struggling with practicing problem solving. Since there are around a 100 questions in each textbook, I find it to be very tempting to try them all which as a result leaves me with no time to study other subjects or spend time with other things. What's the best strategy to counter this problem?


texts: Do scientists generally use their name in their discoveries themselves or does someone else do them the honors?

texts: For example, was the term Newtonian physics coined by Newton himself or by someone else? What about Hamiltonian or Langrangian physics?


texts: Suggesting research topic of personal interest to my PI

texts:
I am currently performing some purely data driven research as part of my chemistry undergraduate research course. Through this work, I have developed a keen interest in what I’m doing.
Several papers that are similar to the work I’m doing have mentioned the current lack in certain aspects within this research area. This really got me  thinking about how that drawback can be addressed. This would however involve a lot of research and literature search for data mining. I really think that this would be a very interesting topic to pursue further. However, given how my research course is laid out, I should only focus on my current goals.
Regardless, I really want to propose my ideas to my PI and get them interested in this. Due to COVID, our interactions are very limited and only once a week over zoom. Therefore, I don’t feel like I have built enough rapport with them to suggest this. Additionally, given that I’m still an undergraduate, I’m not sure how seriously they would take my suggestion either.
Should I just go for it? Is there a manner in which I should approach topic? I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks!


texts: What date goes on your hardbound PhD thesis?

texts:
I submitted my thesis in 2013 but passed my viva (the oral defense/examination) in 2014. Should the date (month+year) which I put in, on and around my thesis be,

When I submitted my soft-bound copy to the examiners.
When I passed my viva (the oral defense/examination).
When I submitted my hard-bound copy to the university.

A fourth option is,

It depends on your university.

(Note that I am at a British Uni, so I presume that this is governed by something the British Library said...but what they said, I cannot find...)

This seems to be ridiculously hard to search for, but I apologise if it has been asked before.


texts: I like my supervisor but not how he does things; What do I do?

texts:
I've already got a little experience doing self-led research but not in doing setup for the domain in which I work. I really enjoy talking with my supervisor about actual research topics, but I don't enjoy the workflow he suggests.

For example, there is a particular software development toolkit I've been told† to use, but it's constructed in such an unorthodox way as to be unusable outside of a certain development environment in a very specific way (in Eclipse IDE) and isn't compatible with development conventions which are nearly ten years old (Maven). I only found this out when it was too late and have had to jury-rig everything as I go, and now, due to having thrown together a bunch of weird stuff together without testing it properly (having been given the green light by my supervisor, respecting his decision that it would work fine), I've spent six months collecting data which is messed up to the point of being unusable. My supervisor was also surprised, admitting that he didn't expect any sort of problem like that (which is why he recommended throwing the said things together).

I like and respect my supervisor but can't help but feel the whole project has gone sour thanks to "just doing it the simple way" which has turned out to be unbelievably complicated and now it's very likely I spent all that effort for nothing. What can I do when I respect my supervisor's research advice but don't like doing things the way he does? — What kind of "workflow" can I form where I take his research advice but still do things "my" way... or at least to know what implementation advice I should take with a grain of salt? Obviously it works well for him, so I feel even more disillusioned that I'm the one with all these problems. I feel that just saying "no, your software doesn't work" would not be constructive, because it does seem to work... for him.

† Being more sure of the nature of the working relationships at the department, I now feel that I could have politely declined at the time without offending said person as long as I was confident and produced results.


texts: One line thank-you emails to lecturers/professors - yes or no?

texts:
I have always wanted to know the answer to this question (sorry if it's silly):

If a professor or lecturer answers a question or gives advice when replying to an email I sent them, in general, do they prefer if I send them a one-line email saying 'thank you!' or no email at all? If I send a one-line email I'm worried I'm just clogging their inbox, but if I don't send any email at all, I'm worried I'll seem cold/selfish.

Thanks in advance!


texts: When someone cites one of your papers, is it a good idea to send an email to the authors to show appreciation?

texts:
For an early career researcher in physics or science in general, is it a good idea to send a "thank you" email to other authors who cited one of the researcher's papers? Will this be perceived in a positive way and even start a possible collaboration, or it will be cheesy?

Notice that in physics, where people post online versions of papers before publications (on the arXiv), it is very common (sometimes annoying) to receive or send letter to request citations to your own paper when one finds a similar/related but yet unpublished work.

This question obviously applies only to early career researchers who receive few citations per week.


texts: Is it possible to get a PhD Degree in from USA or Europe after doing Masters from India

texts:
I am a Chemical Engineering Masters student from India and I wish to pursue a PhD degree from some reputed US or European Universities.

I have heard from my seniors and from internet searches that generally good universities do not admit students who directly apply for a PhD after a Masters degree from India and expect them to take a Masters degree from their university before going for PhD.

It maybe that such instances would have occurred for some particular cases and cannot be generalized, but as I said that it is just what I have heard over from people and I wonder if it is true.

I have been searching all over the internet regarding this but quite a few websites exist where this question has been answered convincingly. So I thought to post it here in stack exchange so that I can get some better answers. Any help would be appreciated.


texts: How important is having research experience in the same department you are applying for?

texts:
I have a B.S. in math from the United States and am returning to school in the US for a second B.S. in microbiology because: 1) I have no research experience; 2) I have no excellent LORs as a result of 1; 3) I can finish this degree in 3 semesters.

One would expect me to do research in microbiology / bioinformatics during this degree. However, I want to do graduate studies in statistics.

Is it frowned upon to go to the statistics department for research? On the other hand, would LORs from microbiology / bioinformatics have significant weight to statistics programs? When?

I'm asking because I need to be a student for legality purposes otherwise I would have to be paid, and I doubt that I would find a paid position. Microbiology is the fastest and cheapest way for me to get research experience.


texts: Job application: What are "scientific highlights"?

texts:
A job opening for a tenure track position specifies that the application must include "scientific highlights".

Now I am puzzled by this. I've applied before for tenure-track positions, and I've never heard of such a thing.
I don't get the difference with other more standard ingredients of an application, such as research statement, list of publications, cv, cover letter; this is even more puzzling because these latter standard ingredients are also specifically required in this job advert.

Any clue?


texts: Can the editor of a book add citations of individual chapters to his own citation count?

texts:
Supposed someone is the editor of a book, in which individual chapters of the book are contributed by different authors. Other researchers cite individual chapters of the book.

Can the editor of the book add these citations (for the individual chapters) to his own citation count?


texts: Grading by assigning points to exercises

texts:
For grading exams, I usually assign points to the exercises in such a way they sum to 100, and then I correct the exams by giving partial points based on such assignment.

Lately, I feel this is a poor choice: students which obviously don't get the topic sometimes get acceptable grades (because they sum some points for every exercise), while some students who understand the topic get bad grades (because they didn't do all the exercises, but some exercises they completed very well). Is there any resource (i.e. book or article) discussing this methodology of grading? What are the alternatives?

I think I'd like a grading methodology that analyses the whole of the exam not as the sum of the parts, but first I'd like to read about pros and cons.


texts: What to do if a colleague plans to submit the paper you worked on together without your name on it?

texts:
I have been working with another postdoc on a paper, here is what happened: I presented a work of mine before it was published (but it is in my thesis and on arxiv) and he decided he will use the same exact model with a slight change. I have talked it out with him and finally with my lab adviser as he was not collaborating, and we decided to send the paper as coauthors after our adviser mediated the issue (though it was bumpy), even sorted out whose name goes first etc.

The methodology belongs to me and the application area is the same (topic), although he has written all the code practically (he said he wanted to learn and build a more modular code etc) I did contribute by writing small scripts but he ended up not using them.

My advisor has asked their collaborating institute whether I could join (the irony that my methodology is stolen but I need a pass to join the project) and they did approve it (I have all exchanges and emails). I spent countless hours discussing and working on the project with him, as he is working on another project I have little clue about the execution but he had to travel often and he made a presentation to the partner institute. I also suspect that my adviser got the patent of the code on his name as I have noticed he took my name out of contacts on github recently. I had not asked to be in the copyrights of his code but he has told me that I was going to be there relating the model. My adviser only wants to please the partner institution I am afraid. I was away for a week and before that my colleague and I saw each other very briefly and all sounded to be on track. He has run over time for the completion of the project so he is not working here anymore technically. Today I get no reply from him on multiple attempts and I learnt that he has removed his computer's hard drive and my adviser is off for vacation for an unknown time.

I suspect that my colleague will try to send off the paper we were supposed to write together without my name on it, I have email exchanges as proof but most relied on my adviser, whom I don't know if I should trust after the copyright issue. What do I do if he sends the paper without my name? Do I write to the editors? His partner institution? Is there a board for this?


texts: Is it OK for the supervisor to expect half of grant money which student got through his help?

texts:
My supervisor has told all his PhD students (more than 20) that from now on if a student gets grant then half of it must be given to group so that it could be used for the expenses for other students like conference travel. I have not applied for any grant and at the moment I am not planning to. I just want to know if this is ethical?

What I feel is that supervisors are there to supervise and it is their job. They are paid for it. If they want money, apply for grant by themselves, why expect money from a poor student?

Please not that the grant which the student gets is specifically for students. And supposed to be applied only by students themselves.


texts: How important is the write-up of a PhD thesis for an academic career?

texts: How important is your written PhD thesis for an academic job search, assuming the results are already written in papers? Do search committees ever read your thesis in addition to your papers? My PhD advisor said that the written thesis is not important and I can write whatever I want as long as it's not about Star Wars.


texts: How to deal with a professor that continuously dismisses student questions?

texts:
I'm taking a distributed systems course at a well known university in the U.S.

I've noticed my professor has three primary forms of responding to student questions during his lecture:

Immediately answers with, just a minute, we're going to cover that
Immediately answers with, that's what we just covered
Spends a couple sentences briefly explaining why the student's question doesn't apply / doesn't work

Almost no dialog is ever spent on further explanation, but rather on disproving. So, instead of recognizing student questions as a lack of understanding, it seems to come off as defending what he already covered and moving on.

As a student in this course, how best do I approach this?
I fear this may be just a personality trait / teaching style that he's acquired, and I wouldn't want to offend him with "Your responses to questions are unhelpful." — But maybe this is the best option?


texts: To what extent do the religious beliefs of an author affect a paper's chance of being accepted?

texts: Implicit gender bias is present in academia (at least in the sciences). I've heard that some journals hardly accept any manuscripts written by Muslims. To what extent do the religious beliefs of an author affect their paper's chance of being accepted? Have there been any studies that look at implicit religious biases?


texts: I suspect an author of a paper I'm reading was listed improperly - what to do?

texts:
I was reading a paper. And the list of authors looks suspicious. Three of the authors are at some random place I haven't heard of and the fourth author is a well-known professor at a top university. The paper itself is not very good.

I suspect the well-known author may have been listed to improve the paper's chances of acceptance. (Most reviews in my field are only single blind.)
Of course, it is possible that nothing is wrong - I can't be sure.

Is there anything I can or should do?


texts: I am planning to apply to Masters/PhD program in economics but my grades in first and second year are terrible?

texts:
I am planning to apply to some North American Masters and PhD econ programs this upcoming fall. While I meet all the minimum requirements to be eligible for admission into all the programs, I am pretty nervous about my first and second-year grades: they are horrific. Now, I know that a lot of people say that freshman performance doesn't really count, but my situation is a bit different from the rest.

When I was first enrolled in an undergraduate program at the university, I studied business. Like many other freshmen out of high school, I didn't care about grades. All I wanted to do was pass my courses and get the degree. In my first year, I did pass all my courses, but my average was below the honors program requirement and the academic office issued me a probation warning. Probation warning caused me to panic a little bit, but it still was not enough to make me a better student. In my second year, I failed a couple of core business courses and I was put on probation as a result. Over the course of two years, I did not meet the class average in any of my classes. The University allowed me to come back into the program after I would have taken the year off, but I decided to withdraw from the institution and reapply into a different program at another university.

Fortunately, I was offered admission into one of the English programs at the university in the town where my parents reside. Since I earned some credits from the previous institution, I was registered as a second-year student. This time I performed much better. My average improved drastically, it increased from mid/high 50% to 79%. I scored above class average in every single course with the exception of one. This was also the year, I was taking a calculus course which pushed me to switch from Honors English program to Double Major in Economics and English after an excellent performance. In the previous academic year (2017-2018), I obtained an 87% average (for that year alone) in English and Economics courses. Right now, I am taking math courses in the summer and some advanced ones in the upcoming graduate year.

Based on my recent performance at my current undergraduate university, I think I have decent chances to be accepted into at least one of the graduate problems. But as I mentioned earlier, my performance at my first university is terrible. How much of a problem do you think my two years in business would cause me if at all?

Thanks


texts: Changing PhD Programs? What to put in my application? (UK-based)

texts:
Background:
I started my PhD a few months ago. I haven't actually been trained to do anything because they say they don't have the time for it. I've been understanding but I'm becoming very frustrated. In addition, it looks like my project might not work out at all and some other P.I. advised my supervisor to change the direction of my PhD completely. I've come up with a few ideas I could do in the meanwhile but most of them have been rejected. I feel helpless. I have voiced my concerns to my supervisor but nothing has changed.

I am considering re-applying to other programs so I have other options if this situation remains the same. Ideally, I would like to submit my applications without my supervisor knowing. Is it possible, and more importantly is it a good idea? Furthermore, I know I have to disclose that I am currently doing a PhD but how much will this hurt my chances at applying to other places and how do I go about it? Do I just mention it in my CV or should I attach a letter explaining my situation, will anyone even read that? Do I still have a chance to get into another fully funded program?

Sorry for the million questions. I would really appreciate if someone who's been or knows anyone in this situation could help me out. Thank you!


texts: Is it possible to get PhD in Statistics for an actuary?

texts:
The question is pretty straightforward.

I'm an actuary with a bachelor and a master degree in actuarial science. I have already worked in the insurance industry, I have programming experience and some data science/machine learning background thanks to Kaggle, MOOCs and similar stuff.

As an actuary, I have had a lot of stats classes but I'm not sure if what I have studied is enough for a PhD in Statistics or if I lack a lot of things (i.e. I have never studied measure theory). What do you think about it? Is it possible to enter in a good statistics program in Europe?

My research would be in ML and similar things applied to actuarial. I also want to enter in a good university because I want to become a professor.


texts: Revising thesis into a publication : Can I use the same language or must I paraphrase?

texts:
I'm in the process of revising my MA thesis for a publication. I am not clear whether I can just copy and paste information from my thesis and do minimal revisions, or I should paraphrase my thesis to a large extent so as to avoid self-plagiarism.

Any feedback would be appreciated!


texts: Where to apply for MSc depending on GPA?

texts:
I am an engineering undergrad in my third year. The question that I am asking might sound like a duplicate but I seek some rough statistics. What classification might be roughly correct for institutions offering MSc degree for their average acceptation GPAs?

To visualize, I do not expect a 2.8/4 average student to be accepted to MIT except extreme cases. Would it be "roughly" correct to make a tabulation as follows:

top-20:   3.7/4

top-50:   3.5/4

top-100:   3.3/4

top-200:  3.0/4

I am aware of that it lacks real statistical information and there are many external factors shaping this kind of generalization, however, it would be helpful for making "realistic" degree applications. Any improvement would be appreciated.


texts: I submitted my PhD recently and am waiting for the oral examination. Though I have started looking for postdoc positions, the possibility of being without a job, even if for a small period after the viva, is quite frightening. How can I cope with it?


texts: Deceased author and conflict of interest statement

texts:
I am submitting an article with heavy heart. The main author of article passed away just a week ago. This work was suppose to be submitted by him. Now this responsibility came to me.

I am not sure how I can sign the conflict of interest statement on the behalf of deceased author?


texts: Contacting promotor and assistant/supervisor in regards to master's thesis after weeks of radio silence

texts:
I am a master student and currently finishing my master's thesis.
Ever since the beginning of COVID I have been experiencing depression and anxiety. This resulted in not being able to work as hard as needed on my thesis and led to a few delays of intermediary (but not compulsary) deadlines during this year. At the beginning of summer, my promotor, assistant and me made a raw time schedule to make sure I would be able to finish and hand in my thesis before the deadline.
About three weeks ago, I was supposed to send them a mail with my progress but due to the lack thereof and a multitude of anxiety attacks, I convinced myself it would be better to wait to send an email until I have something to show for. This anxiety related situation dragged out and now, with two weeks to go until the final deadline, I have most of my thesis written, except for the discussion of some results of my experiments (which I partly still have to create), and which is the most important chapter of my thesis.
My intent is to send an email on Monday, but I have no idea on how to address the situation. In my mind, they, my promotor and assistant, probably think I have given up on making the deadline of my thesis. I basically went radio silent for a couple of weeks and the guilt is eating me up. In addition, I don't even know if it is still possible to do the amount of work that is still needed to complete my experiments as I have not started my last one yet.
Could anyone give me some insight on how to handle my situation? Thank you.


texts:
Given a (rather large) list of authors, what is the best way to find the number of publications by each author?  The big problem here is author ambiguity (which John Smith, etc.) - the author list we have doesn't even include middle initials!  What we do have is the full name of a FDA Committee on which they have sat, which has some useful key terms (e.g., arthritis).

Ideally, some sort of API/automated search could be used given the large number of authors!  I've heard about some databases (eRA Commons, for example) but these don't seem to have a visible search page.

What is the best way to figure out publication number given these constraints?


texts: Can I re-apply for a Ph.D. to the institute I previously rejected?

texts:
Situation:
I had a firm interest in field A and applied to relevant schools.
I was admitted to Univ. X and Y's program starting from this fall semester.
X  is more renowned program than Y in my department. There was a professor (potential advisor) in X whose research works and style closely aligned with my own interests.

I enrolled X but rejected soon because I heard some bad instances from some people who worked with the potential advisor which were so critical that some students left his lab. After the rejection, I got another email explaining how those complaints can be misleading and some good sides of the potential advisor. I asked X to withdraw my rejection but soon canceled that query because I was scared of losing both schools when they find that I was doing this. But regretted so much that I asked X for reconsidering my admission again. Finally, professors in X officially declined my query, stating they would welcome my re-application in the next year.

I tried to settle down in Y. However, I couldn't find my interest in the works of the potential advisor in Y. I wanted a balance between quantitative and qualitative works, however, his works seemed to be inclined to the latter. In the field similar to A in Y, professors were either not taking students or out of the US for several years. I could barely find interest in research works done by other fields in Y. Because I want to do what I can passionately do, I decided to re-apply to X.

Questions:

Will my application to X be disadvantageous?
Should I write the reason I rejected and why I want to make a shift in my SOP?
If I participate in a project in Y, should I tell the advisor in Y about my decision? Should I have a reference from him?

Thank you for reading this long explanation.


texts:
What does it mean when a paper gets rejected stating "poor typesetting" as one of the reasons?

I downloaded a latex template of a journal and used it to write the paper.
When I submitted the paper to some another journal they cited as "poor typesetting" as a reason for rejection of my paper and said the writing needs improvement.

What does "poor typesetting mean"?Please help.


texts: How do I tell a professor who tells me he'll send in a recommendation but doesn't that I don't need his letter anymore?

texts: My professor agreed to give me a LOR. However, despite many reminders, he has yet to send it in. I called him up a week before the deadline and he was annoyed at this. I then considered asking someone else but he emailed me asking me for supplementary documents. Again there has been radio silence from his side after that. Now, the deadline has passed. I think professors can still send in LORs and I’ve asked another professor to write a LOR for me after explaining my situation.  My question is do I email my earlier reference to tell him I don't need his LOR anymore? How do I word this email? Should I show my indignation at being taken for a ride?


texts: Poster: Block spills over column: Should I write "continued"?

texts:
I am making a scientific poster. A block spills from the left column to the right column. So I divided it into two blocks, one with a heading in the left column at the bottom and one without heading in the right column at the top. The design of those blocks looks, as if a regular block was cut in half and placed where described. However, a colleague did not get that at once and wondered why the right upper block had not headline. Should I put a "continued" or "cont." or "cont'd" at the bottom/top of the two blocks, or trust my readers to get that?

EDIT: My blocks are:
1. Introduction
2. Discussion the challenge / issue
3. (the one split) about given a general solution framework
4. Given an example implementation.
5. Contact Information and Acknowledgments

I don't see how I could rearrange the blocks.

Also:

The conference gave specifications that it has to be portrait.
My (large) boxes don't allow row based.

Note: I am using tikzposter for my poster (in case someone cares).


texts: Pass/Fail decisions on 1st year PhD report

texts:
At my university in the UK, candidates doing a full time PhD (3 years) have to submit a 1st year report which includes literature review, the "gaps" that will be tackled by the doctoral work, expected outcomes, research methodology, Gantt diagram of the future work, the completed training plan, and some preliminary experiments (if any).
The supervisor makes a report about the performance of the candidate (training, attendance to meetings, etc.).
A committee of faculty members (excluding the supervisor) reads the candidate report and the supervisor report, and examines the student on the content of the report and challenges the topic, etc. It's like a mini-viva. The committee is called to make a decision if the candidate is able to complete the PhD in the next 2 years or not. If the answer is not, then the candidate gets another chance in 2 months and if they fail again, need to leave the program.
My question: How can one make a decision about the ability of a candidate to complete a PhD from their performance in the first year? I have seen people struggle in the first year and then do amazing work and vice-versa. Questions like "the ability of the candidate to perform novel work" cannot be answered after the first year.
I am early-career faculty.


texts: When an academic researcher receives a gift funding from an industry partner, does the academic researcher's university take a cut?

texts:
When an academic researcher receives a gift funding from an industry partner, does the academic researcher's university take a cut, or does the academic researcher receives the entire gift funding?

If this is university and country dependent, I am mostly interested in the United States, and I'd be interested to have some survey (e.g., x % of universities % take a 20-30% commission, y % of universities % take no commission).

@Closevoters: according to What is our stance regarding questions asking for survey of institution’s regulations?, the question is on-topic. Closing the question would prevent future readers to add surveys as an answer. For example, someone who work in the industry with many university partners might have a good idea of how often universities take commissions for gift fundings. Buffy's answer shows that one can give a good answer to the question, stating factors that may come into account.

In response to comments:

the expression "taking a cut" is neutral. I'm not trying to imply anything in my question.
Definition of gift funding: see https://doresearch.stanford.edu/policies/research-policy-handbook/definitions-and-types-agreements/gift-vs-sponsored-projects-and-distinctions-other-forms-funding#anchor-1102 (mirror) "A gift, on the other hand, is defined as any item of value given to the University by a donor who expects nothing significant of value in return". A gift isn't a grant or sponsored research project.


texts: What is a fair metric for assessing the citation impact of journals across disciplines?

texts:
To quote Thomsons "a journal's Impact factor
is calculated by dividing the number of current year citations to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years."

I assume that disciplines vary in

average number of citations per paper: Disciplines with fewer citations per paper will appear to have less impact.
citation half-life: Longer half-lives means under-estimation of impact relative to journals with shorter half-lives. The Wikipedia article on impact factors summarises a study that found that "the percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication varies highly among disciplines from 1-3 percent in the mathematical and physical sciences to 5-8 percent in the biological sciences." (Nierop, 2009).

Google Scholar uses the five year h-index. See this listing of top ranked journals with various psychology related keywords in their title. The five year h-index indicates the number of papers with an equivalent number of citations. E.g., a value of 20 indicates that 20 articles published in the last five years have received 20 or more citations.

However, while the h-index might reduce the issue of different citation half-lives, it does not resolve it. And it does not address the issue of differential citation patterns across disciplines.

Question

What index provides both a reliable and unbiased assessment of the citation based impact of a journal when comparisons are being performed across disciplines?

Reference

Erjen van Nierop (2009). "Why do statistics journals have low impact factors?". Statistica Neerlandica 63 (1): 52–62. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9574.2008.00408.x.


texts: What are diplomas, postgraduate courses, specialization, training courses?

texts: I am going to apply for some faculty positions. In the application form they need some information in the category titled: postgraduate courses, specialization and training courses and diploma. I have already attended several summer schools, workshops and also took several online courses (MOOC) as well as knowledge booster courses. Can these events be considered as one of the elements of mentioned category? Need to say, there exists another category for degrees obtained such as Master and Doctoral.


texts: University-wide use of cracked OS and software – how to fix this?

texts:
My university is using cracked OS and software throughout. The school is very huge at 70 hectares and there are buildings everywhere. All of the computers in the computer labs and offices are full of cracked Windows and software¹. In our computer labs, we use a cracked OS and software to program and design circuits. Also, the school is credited as a Center of Development which is a world-wide acknowledgement.

The cracked software tends to crash and produces a lot of errors leading to lots of data loss. Especially when it crashes without warning, and data sometimes can get corrupted.

My question is: How did the school get away with this, and is there a way to report this to authorities? I don’t even think my country cares about software pirating anyway (Philippines). Is there a way to report this so that the software in every computer in the university can be replaced and upgraded?

¹ Everytime we turn on the computers, the first message we see is "Activate Windows Now", and when we open the programs we use, the first thing you see is the splash screen displaying "Cracked by PerTician Cracker".


texts: Masters in US or (Masters + MPhil) in UK

texts:
I am an engineering student studying in India, and I will complete my Bachelor's in Electronics Engineering in June. I am looking forward to pursue a career as a researcher in Machine Learning, Signal Processing and Computer Vision.

Which is better :

a 2 year master's degree in the US.
or a 1 year master's degree  + a 1 year MPhil degree in the UK.

What I think is the advantage of the UK approach is the following :

Since the Master's course in UK is mostly coursework based and I don't have a formal background in computer science, it would be much more efficient if I learn't the relevant concepts first, before starting research.
After the Master's course where I would have completed all the required coursework, I could spend a year in a more research oriented environment (during the MPhil degree).

As a result, I think the UK option is more suitable for me (it would be a more structured approach) as a student having completed his Bachelor's degree in Electronics engineering, and wishing to pursue research in a more computer science oriented field.

What I think is the advantage of the US approach :

I plan on pursuing a PhD degree in an institution in the US, because (please correct me if I am wrong) the chances of fully funded PhD's are much higher in the US, than in UK. Thus, it would be easier for me (from the admissions point of view) to study in a Master's and a PhD program, both in the US.

Basically, what I am asking is :

What are the merits/demerits of both the approachers, from the point of view of :

Me as a researcher in the future
Admissions to a PhD program


texts: What do I do when I can't find the source of this chapter of a book so I can cite it APA style?

texts:
I have found part of a book in .pdf file format and it contains some information I would like to use in my study. I'm trying to cite the book APA style, but I can't find any information on it whatsoever. I've spent ages searching around for any information I could find from within the PDF, but failed as only that specific PDF keeps popping up in the results. I can't make a citation if I don't even know the title of the book or the author.

My citation currently looks like this, with "Onbekend" meaning unknown and "z.j." meaning no year:

  Onbekend. (z.j.). Onbekend. Opgehaald van
  http://wps.pearsoned.co.uk/wps/media/objects/10977/11240737/Web%20chapters/Chapter%2012_WEB.pdf

Which is unacceptable.

The part of the book in question is here.

What should I do now?


texts: How can I tell if I'm making enough progress when working remotely?

texts:
I am starting a PhD abroad, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic I cannot leave my country at the moment. My advisor has agreed that I can work remotely (starting later is not an option). While we can Skype and most of my work can be done online, I am concerned that having no access to the department, not being able to attend seminars/workshops, and not being able to meet/talk to other students in person will put me at a big disadvantage.

I am keen not to spend these initial few months slacking off and want to catch any problems before it is too late. However, I have always found it difficult to judge my own progress when studying alone, and with a PhD it seems that it will be especially hard as I need to learn a lot of skills in a new area. Also, because my advisor seems like a very 'nice' person who does not demand that his students work very hard, I am concerned that he will not tell me if I am underperforming.

Would it be appropriate to raise this with my advisor, asking him to tell me if I am not doing as well as his students usually do? Or are there any strategies for people working from home to judge if they are doing enough?


texts: Adding a short (and interesting) observation to a submitted paper

texts:
About six months ago, I submitted a paper for publication. The paper is somewhat long and technical, and I believe that only a small number of researchers will bother reading it (nevertheless, I do believe that my results are nice). I still haven't heard from the referee, but I tend to believe that the paper will be accepted for publication.

A few days ago, I observed that the main results from my paper provide a completely new proof of an old classical result in my field (actually, they provide a new and significant extension of that old result). The proof of this observation is only one paragraph long.

My question: How should I publish this new observation?
I can add it to my old paper and resubmit it, but even if it's not too late to do so, I'm afraid that my result won't get noticed (as the long paper will only attract a small number of specialists). On the other hand, uploading a one page long paper to arxiv might make me look funny, and I don't know if any reasonable journal will consider publishing that ridiculously short note.

Relevant biographical information: I'm currently a postdoc. I want to get a decent TT job, so (sadly) it's kind of important for me to impress people in my field.


texts:
Apologies if this has been asked. I've been searching the website to find a comment on a post I read about online scheduling systems.

I'm looking for a free online system that will enable students to book in consultation times for their research papers with me on pre-set timeslots that I arrange. I have 300 students enrolled so would like to avoid the hassle of emails (if at all possible).

I know that doodle offers something like this, but I don't like the fact that doodle allows everyone to see everyone else's timeslot. I would prefer it to be a more private system for the students.

In a question/answer post I read, someone had mentioned a few websites but me being the idiot I am didn't write them down and now can't find them throughout this website.

Does anyone have any good suggestions? I would prefer to avoid the email back and forth while I wait for students to respond as to what time on a particular day suits, so a booking system would be ideal for both me and my teaching assistant.


texts:
In Microsoft Word and Mendeley, is it possible to jump to the complete reference in the bibliography section of a document using a hyperlink?
For example, using "Ctrl+Left Click" on figures or table cross-references will take to the corresponding table.


texts: Ethics of a journal requiring that submissions cite existing articles in the journal

texts:
Recently, I became aware by own experiences and friend's stories that some international statistical journals (whose names I prefer to omit) are rejecting papers because they do not include a reference of the journal in question. This is, if you do not cite a paper from journal X, then you cannot attempt to publish a paper in journal X.

This, of course, has an influence on the Impact Factor of the journal and the administrators are trying to increase this.

Are there explicit regulations regarding these issues? Is it possible to denounce this kind of behaviour?


texts: What is expected in a 5 minute postdoc interview presentation?

texts:
I have been invited to interview for a postdoc position at a good university. They asked me a different question to most of my other interviews. For the presentation they want me make a 5 minute (maximum) PowerPoint presentation on the following topic "How does your previous experience in vascular biology equip you to fulfill this post?".

How do I go about answering their question? I assume it would be: one very brief slide showing an overview of my career, then techniques so histology and why that’s useful to them. Do I show any of my own data?


texts: Mentioning a published paper from a current team member in a PhD letter application

texts:
I am writing a motivation letter for a PhD position related to antibody analytics. While I was researching the current research group I read a paper published by current team member "A" which I found pretty interesting, and honestly, also quite motivating.

I would like to include this in my motivation letter, but the problem is that "A" published this paper when she was working at another research institute. NOT the one I would be currently applying to.

Would it be a faux pas to mention this paper in my motivation letter?. On the one side it would show that I have actually researched them, and that I am actually motivated (which I explain why). On the other side, it could give the impression that I thought it was published by them, and I was not careful.


texts:
I am a grad level student and I am completing my last course this semester.
The professor is reducing our grade by 20%/day if we submit our assignment late.
It is a lot. For example, my grade is 18/20 and he reduced it by 4 because I submitted it a day late. My total GPA is A+. It is a significant amount of grade that he is taking off. This will ruin my grade.

I understand that a late submission is not good. Having said that, I have always been trying my best to submit them on time. His assignments were more difficult than what he was teaching us during lectures and I always need to study extra books and material to solve problems.

I was thinking of sending an email and asking for him to waive the penalties. Especially now due to COVID it is somehow cruel to enforce these penalties.

What would be the best way to convince a professor to waive late submission penalties?

Reason for late submission: Due to my research internship, I have been working part-time in a company in another city (not the city that the university is located). So it was pretty hard for me to keep up with the deadline. Before COVID, I had to even commute in between cities to attend classes and that drained me.

Edited: I wrote this letter, please feel free to edit or add more details.

  Dear zyx,
     I am writing regarding the late-submission penalties.

  Due to my research internship and displacement, It was pretty hard for me to keep up with the deadlines.

  During this time I had to commute in between cities and I had only slid to follow up the course and solve assignments that I can save them for submitting my assignments earlier.

  Not accessing the in-person classes made me spend hours studying other references to solve my assignments.

  So I was wondering if you could please waive late submission penalties?

  Best regards,

  XYZ


texts: How to avoid the repetition of "I" while writing a cover letter for an academic job?

texts:
I use active voice for cover letter and while doing that I end up with too many "I" and most of the sentences in my letter also begin with "I". This makes my letter quite boring. I would appreciate if you share your suggestion/tips to avoid this while writing a cover letter.

Since cover letter is the first thing that the potential employer notices, I want to write a concise and attractive cover letter. It will be also helpful if you share a link of a well-written cover letter.


texts: If I were to ask a professor on sabbatical to consult with him on a paper I'm writing, would I be imposing on him?

texts:
I'm a fourth year undergraduate philosophy student.

Last academic-year, I took a seminar with a professor that I had known reasonably well before I took the course. During that seminar we had several lengthy after-class conversations about a topic related to the seminar. The professor seemed to enjoy the conversations, and I think we developed a good relationship (as far as undergraduate student-professor relationships go).

I plan to write an essay and submit it to an undergraduate journal in December. I know that the topic of the essay is interesting to the professor and covers some unconsidered possibilities that the professor expressed interest in during our conversations. That is to say, I think he'd enjoy thinking about what I plan to write about.

This professor is the only one in our department knowledgeable about the subject, so I can't ask anyone else for their thoughts on the essay. Unfortunately, he's on sabbatical this year.

Would it be rude to email the professor in order to ask him whether I might discuss my argument with him a few times during this term?


texts:
I am a researcher in South America and this year I will do postdoc in Paris for a period of one year. After this period, I will return to my country. However, I have an elderly aunt for whom I am responsible. She can not go with me and I would like to take a vacation to visit her. My question is: since I will only be in Paris for one year, can I have vacations? Could anyone explain how this happens in France?

Thank you,


texts: How to get Chartered Engineer in the UK? Should I pay some fees (every year) to keep this title?

texts:
I have completed PhD in Computing in UK. Can I apply for a CEng title as I have a Computing degree (not exactly engineering)?

If I get one, should I pay some subscriptions (every year/month) to keep this title?

What are the advantages of having CEng?


texts: Search for a WYSIWYG, non-latex Online collaborative paper writing Tool

texts:
Is there a tool that is

WYSIWYG and not latex (in fact any coding) base
online (for ease of collaboration)
Can write math equation
Does line numbering
Does equation numbering

Google Doc is perfect for 1-3, but they don't support 4-5 (unless you work around by using tables, but that's not really a nice solution)

Authorea and Overleaf does 2-5, but is very latex/code based. (Despite Overleaf's rich text editing mode, which is a step closer to what I want, but still quite far from the goal)

(At the moment, I am just using Google Doc and do all the numbering post exporting to .doc)

---------This is not the same question as Collaborative paper-writing with non-LaTeX-using colleagues------------

Reasons:

The author of that question clearly wants to use latex for his part of the collaboration, but wants a non-latex front end for his no-latex using collaborators. Unlike him, apart from writing equations, I have absolutely no intention of using any latex code. In fact, I will be satisfied with MS word type equation editor (as long as it lets me put equation number on it)
The accepted solution to that post includes solution like overleaf and Authorea, which I specifically said is not satisfactory to me because they are too latex based.
Another population solution to that post was Lyx, which clearly fails the 'Online' part of my question.

At risk of repeating myself, let me say this. That post is after a masked latex service. Whereas I am after a Google Doc with line and equation numbering feature. If I insert a table, I want to insert a table, not a \begin{tabulate\table} environment, if I insert of picture, I want to be able to drag and adjust its position. I want a truly WYSIWYG editor.


texts: Supervisor gave my PhD project to another student

texts:
I am a PhD student in life sciences. My PhD project's goal is to analyze specific data and to check a totally new idea in the field I am working in. This project is risky, however, very promising. With my supervisor, we planned all the studies and experiments before the start of the PhD, and he did promise that this would be my project. However, just as I started the PhD, he asked me to finish other experiments as I am the only one in the department who knows methodology and that work was crucial for the lab funding.

At the same time, he gave my project to another student claiming that he wants to know results and to publish this as early as possible. This student started the experiments and to analyze data. Moreover, my supervisor presented him to our collaborator (well known and influential scientist in the field) as the main researcher.

At this point I am desperate. Yes, I am jealous, but just don't know what to do in this situation. I came to this lab only for this project. I tried to mention this to my supervisor, but he just said: "Well, these findings are very important to us and I want to know the results as soon as possible".

It's only 4 months into experiments and I hope that someone could suggest how can I change this situation.


texts: Rescinding or deferring admission over a break up

texts:
I have a full ride for a grad program at a good school
I've recently gone through an awful breakup with a girlfriend of 7 years
I now want to take an extra year before going to school, for many reasons. I could explain them to you all here, but that seems beside the point; assume they are compelling enough.
In my head, my justification sounded very legitimate and serious (the tale involves depression and hospitalization, an abrupt change of living situation, etc., all just before enrollment)
Now, typing out an email to the department, I feel totally immature. I try to word it more professionally, which only makes it look like I'm trying to be vague about my immaturity, which perhaps sounds even more immature.

How can I talk about personal relationship issues to people who it matters to, but for professional reasons, and not feel like I've tainted my name at the school?


texts: Do professors get paid for supervising students?

texts:
Do professors get paid for supervising PhD students / honours student's projects?

If so, typically how much?


texts: Is it appropriate to contact a journal about grammatically erroneous editing?

texts:
Recently, I submitted a paper to a maths journal (which is a decent journal with a solid editorial board). It was eventually accepted after making some revisions suggested by the referees, at which point I uploaded my final submission. This final submission was then edited by a copy editor at the journal; as well as the usual cosmetic changes in ensuring that my papered adhered to the cosmetic style of the journal, the copy editor also made several grammatical changes. I then was given an opportunity to read through this edited version and suggest any final corrections before my paper is uploaded to the journal's website.

This, of course, is all fairly standard practice. However, many of the grammatical changes made by the copy editor were incorrect. Of course, I noted this in my comments, so I hope these changes will be reverted before the paper is published.

  It is appropriate for me to take further action in notifying the journal (e.g. a member of the editorial board) that a copy editor is repeatedly introducing errors?

This of course seems a little petty. On the other hand, these same grammatical errors occur repeatedly throughout papers in this journal (at least in recent papers published online), and I'm sure that I'm not the only reader who finds these mistakes irritating.

In case anyone is curious about the errors, the most common mistake is that the copy editor repeatedly replaced with a comma my usage of a semicolon before an independent clause, especially such a clause in the imperative mood: an example would be something like "This can be proved via the method of Gauss, see [1]". Other such comma splices were introduced - all by replacing semicolons with commas.

Additional grammatical mistakes were introduced that were clearly incorrect: for example, I perhaps overuse the phrase "Note that", and this was pruned on a couple of occasions by the copy editor, but in more than one case, the rest of the sentence wasn't edited to ensure that it still made sense.


texts:
If some measure of quality improves to 150 % of its original value in a study from condition A to condition B, would it be most appropriate, in terms of scientific writing (computer science specifically), to describe that as:

  a 1.5-fold improvement

  a 1.5× improvement

  performing 1.5 times better


texts: Tablet/e-writer/pressure pad for writing with normal pen and paper, but electronic output

texts:
I would like to be able to create short 'video tutorials' or 'video lectures' where I draw on the screen and record my voice. I know that I can use OBS software to capture an application window and my voice to make the video and that is not the problem.

The question I have is about how to draw and have the image come up on the screen.

What I would like to do is to draw on a piece of paper with a normal pen on top of an electronic pressure pad, so I can see what I am doing on the paper and also record it on a screen.

My question is 'Is there any electronic writing device that will work with a normal pen and paper on top of it?' -- I am not asking what is the best way or the best device, I am just wondering if it is possible.

I have read this question and the answers, which is somewhat similar, but different because the question is just generally about capturing writing on a whiteboard or paper and not about writing on paper. I have also seen this question, which is again less specific than the question here.

I am aware that one answer would be to have something like a document viewer with a camera above the piece of paper, but I would like to try to avoid that if possible so my hand does not get in the way.

So far I have only found either pressure sensitive pads to write on, where you cannot download the image like this one.

Any suggestions very gratefully received.


texts: Ethics of gathering data from social networks for research

texts:
I am starting to work on my thesis on analyzing the social network. My question is about using ethical procedures to access data.

Is it ethical to use Facebook messages as the source of my data if I have permission from the other users?
Is it alright to create a chatroom to create a chat/web page to get the data, is it the right way to go?


texts: Teacher has done nothing all semester - should I say something?

texts:
My Teacher for a required course has been completely unreliable for any amount of actual teaching. He is honestly the worst teacher myself or pretty much any of the other students have ever had.

It's online, and it's actually very obvious that he's taken the format of his lesson plan directly from another teacher as many of his materials have their name listed instead of his. He'll ask for things on assignments that are very confusing (for instance, meet with your groups and discuss x) and the student body will be frantically messaging each other trying to figure out if we missed something because we were never assigned groups etc. It's not just us asking each other either, we send him messages. At several points it took him until after the assignment's deadline to respond to any one of us, so this isn't a one off occurrence.

His version of MLA format that he expects is adjusted, but how it's adjusted is up to speculation and seems almost dependent on how he's feeling. The only thing that he actually has to grade (since everything is online - he just pointed us to do pre-programmed worksheets from the book company) are three written reports at the tail end of the semester.

The problem with those reports is that because of the unclear formatting I, and a few others, received a drop in grade with no explanation or "this isn't what I was looking for". Nevermind that we've been wondering what he's been looking for but rarely responds to anyone about anything. The same thing happened with the next assignment but I lost significantly fewer points and I have zero idea what the difference was between the two formats.

I understand that Teachers have to work incredibly hard and they are often undervalued comparatively to that, but even giving him an incredible amount of leeway I have to be honest and say that he should never have picked up this course if he wasn't actually going to teach us. Is this something that I should bring up to the school's HR? This semester has been absolute torture for all of us and it's ridiculous that anyone should be "taught" like this.


texts: Should I mention that I'm currently studying in CV?

texts:
I'm currently taking course in Business Intelligence and writing a CV to apply for jobs. Should I mention the fact that I'm currently taking this course in my CV? Since I have no previous work experience I'm  having trouble with filling my CV with information.

That's what I came up with so far:

Summary:
A highly motivated, results-focused SQL Server/T-SQL/SSIS developer. Currently in finishing stage of BI Developer course.

Technical skills:
Database: MS SQL Server 2014
Programming: SQL, T-SQL, basic level C#
Database tools: SQL Server Management Studio, SSIS

Languages: English(Fluent), Hebrew(Fluent), Russian(Native)
Formal education: BA in Business Management(Tel Aviv University)


texts: Most recommended automated way for conduction university exams

texts:
In most of the universities of India, conducting exams such as mid terms and end terms for a semester is as follows:

1) Designing question papers and taking print of them

2) Distribute it among students along with answer sheets

3) Invigilating during exams and taking attendance

4) Collecting answer sheets

5) Evaluation and rechecking if any student has issues

This process is tedious and most of the part is unproductive.

I want to know the method for conduction exams so that less human intervention is needed.

Does any good universities in any country automated these process of conducting exam and what are the steps in their method?


texts: External collaboration without doctoral supervisor - is it a fair request to pursue this?

texts:
I am about two-thirds of the way through my doctoral programme, and am intending to start applying for post-doctoral fellowships within the next few months.

I am fortunate to have already published a first-author publication with my supervisor, and have another under review. I have also brought projects to my supervisor that we are currently undertaking, but will not form part of my thesis.

I wanted to ask for your advice/thoughts on an issue. I have been approached directly by an academic that I greatly respect and have not previously worked with to undertake an analysis on the understanding that I would be first author on a write-up and they would take the last author. While I have a great relationship with my current supervisor, I am keen to try and publish an article without any of my existing/previous collaborators. My reasoning for this is that such a collaboration would enable me to clearly demonstrate my independence as a researcher and my ability to collaborate in any future fellowship applications (or other postdoctoral applications, for that matter).

I wanted to ask you all whether you feel that it is a fair request of my current supervisor that I pursue this external collaboration without them?

Many thanks for any advice you can provide.


texts: Who should write summary papers and what are the pros and cons of doing so?

texts: My advisor has suggested that I write a survey paper. I am concerned because neither my advisor nor I are know for, or are knowledgeable in, the topic my advisor is suggesting. We would be starting completely from scratch. I am concerned this will be an exercise in futility as our combined lack of experience would make our credentials questionable at best and make publishing our work in a quality journal either hard or not possible. Even if we can create a publishable work, I am concerned about how many PhD students undertake such a project. From my (admittedly) limited experience it seems like survey papers require an exorbitant amount of time and may not offer as high of a return on investment as research papers can for PhD students. I am in the computer science PhD program at my school if that helps. Are my concerns irrational? What are the pros and cons of a PhD student writing a summary paper? Thank you!


texts: Mentioning that a part of the thesis was done at another university in my PhD thesis

texts: While working on my thesis, and for about a month, I did some simulation studies on another university with the supervision of another professor. I want to mention this at the begining of the section where the results of this study are reported. How do I properly acknowledge this?


texts: Is it common for a university to remain unresponsive to queries?

texts:
I'm planning to study in the u.k. I've never been to the u.k. but is it common there to remain unresponsive to the students' queries?
I've sent a few emails to the student service team for some queries. They replied me once or twice and on one of them, idk if they forwarded it by accident ot not, they sent me the conversation they had about me through emails including the answer to my query. They were complaining to each other how I email multiple ppl at the same time. I'm not sure if that's a professional way to deal with anyone even though I'm a student.
After that, I sent a few emails because I urgently need to work on my visa, and they haven't answered to any of them. It's been roughly 9days since I sent my unanswered query.
Could they be ignoring my emails on purpose?
I've been informed that an organisation is to take certain period of time to reply before when I was emailling other institutes, but never experienced this unresponsive instutue...


texts: How do I choose an appropriate scope for a master's thesis in mathematics?

texts: I am a new Master's seeking student in Mathematics, and I'm trying to get a jump on my research focus/concentration for eventually writing my Master's Thesis. My interest is primarily prime, perfect, and Mersenne numbers. When I try to formulate a plan though, my ideas are always too broad and vague, or are way too specific. Does anybody have advice on how to decide on a topic? How long is the average such thesis? Perhaps what I thought was too vague and expansive would be a perfect length and I was just second-guessing myself too much.


texts:
There are two parts to this question.

As a student interested in pursuing a doctoral degree; how important is it to publish an article or "something" before one applies? Will it help your chances? I plan on writing a MA thesis but whether it is publishable or not, remains to be seen.
What are the main steps to go about publishing?


texts:
I'm currently about to finish my BA thesis, and my topic is bullying. I have read several books, studies, and such that can be connected to my topic. I finished the literature review, but haven't touched it since. However, when I recently re-read it and looked at the sources, I have found that a lot of my sub-chapters in my lit. review are really similar to those in the literature. For instance, in the work I read, the author mentions the consequences of bullying and I also have a sub-chapter dedicated to this. Or for example, I have read about strain theory in another one of the studies that I have also included and wrote about in one of my sub-chapters. I did not include every single aspect of these particular studies, just specific parts that I found relevant in my study.

My question is the following: Is this considered plagiarism?


texts: How do Academic Journals protect against empirical results given by bugs?

texts:
As the title says.

My background is in Economics/Finance(mostly), many topics in those fields (and I am sure other fields) require fairly complicated programming, enough to where one can easily screw something up. How do Academic journals defend against results that are generated by bugs?

As far as I understand nobody ever sees my code, it could be hundreds or even thousands lines of garbage code without a single function in it (not to mention no unit tests) laced with bugs, and I kept "fixing" things until my results "made sense", and then happily reported them. How could a journal tell that my results are trash?


texts: Using an image under Creative Commons license in PhD thesis

texts:
I would like to use this image of a Star Trek tricorder in my PhD thesis as cover art for an "Outlook" style chapter. It is listed as being under CC-BY-SA. I believe this is fine, but I wanted to confirm. As attribution, I have an acknowledgements section at the end of the chapter which says

"Chapter cover art from Bobbie Johnson, used under CC BY-SA"

Is this an acceptable use/attribution of this image? More generally, does using Creative Commons licensed material in my thesis pose problems for the licensing of the thesis itself? If I am reading it correctly I do not need to license the thesis under CC as long as I don't modify the image at all, is this correct?


texts: Attending supervisor's group meeting after thesis approval

texts:
I am a finishing Masters student. My supervisor approved my thesis recently, and I am waiting for the graduate studies office to process my thesis so that I can get a letter from the university that confirms the submission of my thesis and apply for a post-graduate work permit.

In the meantime, should I still attend my supervisor's group meeting? I do not contribute to the discussions in the group meetings anyway.

I cannot bring up the topic of attending group meeting because once before, when I asked him about the logistics of the final stages of the Masters program, he got really mad at me.


texts:
I am a PhD student and am thinking ahead to when I start up a psychology lab---what are some of the best data entry and management systems?  To avoid the "it depends" answer, below I list what I'm looking for.  If you must say "it depends", it would be helpful to know what it depends on (i.e., what the good options are for different needs).  I've done some work with data management systems in SPSS and Excel, and have not been impressed.

Here's what I'd use it for:

Entry of ~100 variables for every one of ~100 measures and ~10,000 cases.  In other words, the entire (merged) data matrix could be about 100 X 100 X 10,000 cells (10,000 rows and 10,000 columns).
Data involve human subjects and are mostly from questionnaires

Here are some things I'd like it to be able to do:

Data entry can be restricted to specified, plausible values for each variable (string, number, integer, value from 0-2, etc.) in order to minimize data entry errors
Double data entry checking (users enter the same data twice and the system flags discrepancies to minimize data entry errors)
Data from different measures are entered in separate forms, but data can be easily merged by one or more matching columns (full outer join)
Data can be easily imported into R (ideally in base R with a .csv or .txt file)
Efficient (time & effort) to open and use
User friendly (undergrad RAs would be using it)
Can interface to import data from other sources so that not all data are entered manually (iPad-entered data, website-entered data, physiological data, .csv files, tab-delimited files, etc.)
Data can have appropriate safeguards because they involve human subjects (e.g., password protection, encryption, others?)

Not necessary, but ideally it would be:

Low (or no cost) and a one-time license that can be installed on an entire lab's worth of computers
Platform independent (can be run on Mac & PC)


texts:
As a PhD student I generate a lot of pages with calculations, ideas and lecture notes.

Most of them are useful only for a short amount of time, but some may be important for much longer (when writing a paper, or when having new ideas to continue a once abandoned project). Typically I work on a few project simultaneously.

The question is, what is a good practice of taking and keeping notes? (With or without computer apps.)

Writing on single sheets (even if adding date and title) makes it easy to organize by topic, but also easy to loose. Keeping in one notepad makes it harder to collect useful things of one topic in one place.


texts:
For my bachelor thesis I needed a certain source. As it wasn't accessible neither on the net, nor in my library, I decided to ask the author directly. She was kind enough to send me a draft of the text in question, explicitly allowing me to use it for private academic purpose.

Now I'm in the middle of my thesis. How do I cite a draft that doesn't even have a date? If I had the published version, I'd simply cross-reference, but I don't, and adding the page number of a word document that my supervisor doesn't have seems utterly useless. Do I simply leave out the page number (it's a very short paper), or do I add the paper as an attachment?

I know this is something I'd normally ask my supervisor. Unfortunately, communication with her is not something I'm interested in, for personal reasons. I'm therefore looking for a reasonable advice that has nothing to do with her preferences.


texts: How can I best adapt my seminar slides for a virtual presentation?

texts:
I was recently invited to give a seminar talk at another institution. Ordinarily I would have travelled there for the day and given my talk in person. However, due to the travel restrictions imposed by the UK government in the wake of the coronavirus, I will instead be giving my talk via video conferencing.

I had already prepared some slides for this talk, and have given variations of the talk before. I tend to prefer a lighthearted style of presentation, and have a couple of humorous slides. I'm concerned that this style will not work well with a virtual seminar, as the audience feedback will be non-existent if everyone has their microphones muted and cameras switched off. I'm also not sure if I should change the layout of my slides in any way, to reflect the fact that people will be looking at them up close on their small laptop screens rather than from a distance in a lecture theatre being projected on to a large screen.

My question is this: how can I best adapt my talk in this situation? I'd appreciate answers that address dealing with the lack of audience feedback and interaction, as well as practical points regarding slide layout and so on.


texts: Research-assistant classification in C.V

texts:
I was a research assistant at a university when I had a master’s degree. Now I got a Ph.D from a different university. I want to apply for a faculty position.

In which of the following CV categories can being a research assistant be considered:

Work Experience
Training Course
Qualifications and Certificates

Needless to say, I have a report letter from the head of department, where I was a research assistant.


texts: Can a good but unremarkable PhD student become an accomplished professor?

texts: Given that PhD students and professors often need to use different skill sets to accomplish their jobs, are there instances of people who had good but unremarkable careers as a PhD student, but much more success as a professor? If this describes you, can you describe why this might have been the case? I personally feel that my technical skills are comparatively average to my peers, but my writing, conceptualization and framing skills are above average. My own PhD journey thus far is fine, but not remarkable. Assuming I manage to find a faculty position, do you think I might be able to have a more accomplished career than when I was a student? How might I do this?


texts: Graduate school applications: Should your answers be exhaustive or selective?

texts:
Should you see graduate schol application questions as opportunities to provide relevant positive information about yourself, or as fiats to list absolutely everything in a category of your experience?

For example, here are a few questions from Harvard's GSAS application (I don't know what, if any, general instructions are given--such as whether it says "Provide complete answers to each question" or "Please provide the following information"):

  Academic Honors/Fellowships
  List any articles, books, and other material published, and any    inventions.
  Other universities (Program/Department) to which applying
  Employment experience (including part-time) since secondary school

With some of these (#1, #2) it seems easy to believe one could choose which examples to report. That is, you wouldn't be ethically obliged to list that you once published a crossword puzzle in your town's local paper, or that you won the Latin prize in high school, even if both are true. Instead, it seems reasonable one would list the honors and publications providing the best evidence of one's qualification for the program.

By contrast, some of these (#3 and the submission of transcripts, for example) would seem to suggest that a thoroughgoing answer is expected. Others (#4) are in a gray area--it's not clear to me which approach should be taken.

There is usually a statement at the end of the application where you must affirm that your responses are "complete and accurate." However, I don't really understand what this means in light of the nuances above, and in the absence of clearer specifications. Please help!


texts:
So I am finishing my MSc in Europe and it looks like I will be headed to the US for a PhD. Along the way I have collected a small set of textbooks that I find particularly useful. From my experience, most academics have a reasonable number of textbooks in their offices so I cannot be the only one in this situation. These books can be hard to find and are costly to replace.

However, textbooks are pretty awful to carry around. Even a modest number make any box very heavy.

So what I am asking is this. Is it worthwhile to transport books around the world? Is there a best way to do it? Since I an impecunious student I am hoping to do this cheaply.


texts:
I am considering including a glossary and a list of notations in my PhD thesis on mathematics. Is it a good idea to write them separately or combine them?

For example, a typical entry of the list of notation is:

[a,b] The commutator of a and b, defined by [a,b]=a^{-1}b^{-1}ab.

An entry of the glossary is:

Commutator The commutator of a and b is defined to be the product a^{-1}b^{-1}ab.

(Note: the definition of commutator is well-known to mathematicians, but since another definition aba^{-1}b^{-1} is also possible, I would like to add the definition to avoid any possible ambiguity.)

I have a strong feeling of combining these two entries together, maybe even combining the glossary and the list of notations together.

Is it a good idea to combine the glossary and the list of notations in a mathematical PhD thesis?


texts: How many weeks of holidays does a Ph.D. student in Germany have the right to take?

texts:
As a Ph.D. student in Germany, what's the maximum allowed holiday time per year?
I heard of 1 month per year.
Thanks.


texts: I emailed a professor in Australia for a PhD program. In the response, and as a part of that, he told me "For scholarships, you need to be at least 85% and over". What does it mean? Is this refer to GPA or something else?


texts: How does a 1 yr. Visiting Assistant Professor (in physics) position look to a small liberals arts college

texts:
So questions similar to this have been bandied about a lot here but I haven't really seen an satisfactory response to this particular one. I gather that the Visiting Assistant Professor  (VAP) at a small liberals arts colleg (SLAC) blows your chances for schools that prioritize research (R1) tenure track positions. Fine, not going to get those jobs anyways.

But how does either an school with less research emphasis (R2) or a SLAC look at this experience on my CV?

Background: 5 years as a post-doc with no actual teaching experience. Only teaching experience was TAing in graduate school. Pretty strong publication record but not top of the world.


texts: There is an uncommon icon for my submission on EasyChair

texts:
I have submitted a manuscript via EasyChair. I assume that
iIt is still under review because I had no notifications of any sort.
When I click on my role on the main page, there is a link which allows me to download the manuscript I have submitted.
The icon is as shown below:

There is a paper icon with the number 1 in a red, rounded square on the lower-right corner.
However, normally, it is like this:

Which can be described as an open folder icon with a small black arrow pointing right on the upper-right corner.
Does this mean anything?


texts: Risk to academic reputation by publicly requesting pay-walled articles

texts:
The Twitter hashtag #ICanHazPDF has been popular among academics as a method for peer-to-peer exchange of pay-walled articles. Some people call this practice "piracy", and it could be illegal depending on the publisher policies.

Apparently, many users use it with real names and real profile pictures.

What are real risks to academic reputation and career of people by publicly requesting pay-walled articles?

I'm looking for an objective assessment.


texts: Careers at the National Research Council of Italy and difference from the university system

texts:
What is the organization of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR)? In particular, I'd like to know

How does one get a position there? I assume there are public competitions (as for university positions), but I've never seen an announcement: Are they very rare or just not advertised as much?
What is the career progression in the CNR? I've seen people being called "Technologist", "Researcher", "Senior Researcher", and "Research Director" within them: What are the differences/seniorities/career progression mechanisms?
What are the other differences between an academic career at a university and at a CNR unit? In particular, in terms of teaching load, administrative tasks, and salary?


texts: Will uploading a half completed paper to Arxiv hurt my chances of getting admitted to a grad school?

texts:
I worked on a independent research project during my free time in college. Nobody guided me and nobody assisted me. I developed a algorithm for a problem and I tried it out on few data-sets and compared it with some leading algorithms(Papers for which I could find implementation online) on the same data-sets and the results were great. I didn't get enough time to finish the paper and now I am working in a job.

I wish to apply to US colleges for spring for MS. As I don't have time currently, I am thinking of just uploading the unfinished paper that I prepared in college to Arxiv. The paper will just lists my results on 4 ~ 5 data-sets and nothing else as I don't have the comparison data with me anymore.

Will uploading a half completed paper to Arxiv and mentioning it in my SOP give me any advantage or will it hurt my chances of getting admitted?

Also what should my affiliation be in that paper?


texts: Should I quit if I'm having problems with the Marie Curie industry partner?

texts:
Unfortunately I am having a really hard time with the industry partners that have made me think I should quit. First of all, they are aggressive every time I come up with a research idea, and they shut it down in an aggressive way. I have been having some issues to be there to the secondments (bureaucracy not from my side). It is now on their side how to solve the bureaucracy. They have been trying to convince me the secondments are not important, and I can work for them from abroad. They are not being transparent or providing information about what they are doing to have me in place and finally one of them just got out of control and insane and scream at me in a meeting in front of everyone. Frankly I don't want to work with these people again.

What should I do in case of having troubles with the industry partner? What are the risks for the project, if I quit?


texts: Changing ordering of authorship in a proceeding

texts: In the field of applied math where a paper has been accepted for a conference presentation (talk), is it common for the ordering of the authors to be changed for a proceeding that entails thereafter?


texts: Will delaying entering grad school for a year to pursue study abroad put one at a strong disadvantage?

texts:
I'm a year away from getting my undergrad degree in (computer) engineering, with a minor in Japanese. I never had the opportunity to do a study abroad due to the rigors of the major. As some probably know, the JET program is a program by which selected individuals move to Japan to teach English at public schools for a year (or two or three, but not more, I believe). I've always been very interested in doing something like this, but I have always assumed that doing so would ruin my chances of getting into a graduate program or landing a good job upon my return.

It wouldn't be like attending grad school before entering the industry or vice versa, in that I would be teaching English for a living, not studying or working in my field. I could still self study, and my field gives me the advantage of still being able to apply my skills working on personal projects and open-source software, but I would certainly be removed from the industry and academia, I would expect.

I feel like leave from the field would look bad to any prospective schools or employers. How accurate is my assumption? Would a leave of absence to do something like this reflect poorly on me in the eyes of potential schools or employers?