texts: Do all the co-authors of a publication own the content and may use RAW DATA, text, figure or table for their own publication?

texts:
A third co-author C of a study in 2016 available on-line (under subscription) want to re-use the data (included in the figures or tables) of this paper with for others co-authors (A, B, D, E). Co-authors C and A are in conflict.These data will be presented and analyzed in a different manner to support its own and new data set in a paper that Co-author C want to submit as unique author. Co-author C will only use the published data (and not the raw data) of the study of 2010. Some raw data are available on-line (under subscription). However, co-author C only collected but not processed an insignificant part these data. After asking the editor permission that co-author C have (he is limited to re-use only 3 tables or figures), do co-author C has the right to publish part of theses data in a new paper as a unique author? these data are considered to represent (30%) of the data set for the new paper. Does the co-author C has the right to re-use the data without permission of the others co-authors (A, B, D, E)? The same may be also applied to the raw data already published as supporting data? IS the co-author C allowed to include in "material and method " or in "results" section some brief sentences describing how he gets the some of these data and these previous results in its new paper as unique author?
The PI request to include all the co-authors (A, B, D, E) for the new publication of co-author C. Co-author C is not agreed as most of the co-authors (A, B, D, E) did not participate in the elaboration, analyze and writing task of the new paper.


texts: Where can I find good research proposals of researches in computer science? I specifically need to see some example methodology sections. I am writing a research proposal where the research problem is based on database systems and reinforcement learning. Writing the methodology section has become a great difficulty so far because there isn't any proper guidance or understanding I have on the area of academic documentation. If you can suggests a good book or a website to refer it's also helpful in this matter.


texts:
I am a fresh mathematics Ph.D who has begun a three year postdoc at University X. I applied for an NSF postdoctoral grant last year with University Y (with Y not equal to X) and did not get it. This year I want to re-apply. I like where I am and so I am planning to apply for the NSF with a mentor at University X. I have two questions.

Are there examples of a postdoc at an institution being awarded an NSF grant to stay at that institution (before their postdoc runs out)?
Are there any particular pitfalls I could find in applying at an institution that is already planning on paying me for three years? That is, if the NSF funds me then the job market "lost" a job in the sense that my postdoc position won't be replaced by my institution.


texts: How to handle severe illness in promotion and tenure reports?

texts:
I have been suffering from a chronic, progressive disease the last few years, but during this past spring semester, it advanced much more rapidly, leading to massive declines in both my physical and emotional health. My teaching evaluations suffered, since I was just not in a place to spend much time working on prepping for lectures, and the changes I had hoped to incorporate didn't work as planned.

What's the best way to go about making sure this information is properly documented, so it has as minimal an impact as possible on my promotion and tenure cases? We do an annual review, and I have already been in communication with my chair and dean, who are aware of my situation.


texts: Will 2 years of non relevant work ex affect ms in cs prospects?

texts:
I have completed Bachelor's in Computer Science ( from India) with an 8.7 CGPA. During my engineering I've done a couple of relevant internships and published a couple of papers. After graduating, I've done a two years non-relevant job in a reputed bank.

Will this non-relevant work experience hurt my chances of getting admit in a good university for MS in CS? (in USA)


texts: Is it appropriate to email an eminent researcher in your field?

texts:
Sometimes, I feel to contact some of the eminent researchers in my field for any of the following reasons:

Appreciating their research publication (recent times). They publish in top conferences, which are usually not hosted in my country or nearby.
Requesting comments on some of my research hypothesis
Sometimes just because I am a die hard fan of them. For example, probably the only reason I continued with research in Computer Science was due to Don Knuth.
Sometimes, to know what they think on some specific research area that has propagated due to there work. (Probably looks like some journalistic work)
For knowing how did they tackle the pressures or certain situation during their PhD or research. (Yes, it's vague but these questions come to mind and probably should be answered by oneself or personal interaction, but adding it for the sake of completion)

Since, most of them are located outside my country, I can't visit or phone them. So, how are such emails perceived. Is it appropriate to send such emails, given that they are expected to have very busy schedule and it would probably waste their time?

Though I have mentioned my field as Computer Science, the question should be applicable to all the fields.


texts: I sent an email to prospective Ph.D advisor asking for a scholarship in his university and position in his research group. His reply was only "please, apply mentioning my name", I didn't understand if he accepted me or not!


texts: What is the relative importance of the parts of my application?

texts:
I'm thinking of applying to American universities for a Ph.D in Maths and I'm currently studying in the UK.

I was wondering how important each of the pieces of the application are, which I believe are: my personal statement, the references I get, the GRE scores and my academic transcript.

Thanks very much!


texts: Can we use online video lectures to free university professors from lecturing for lower-division courses in mathematics?

texts:
During the 2020-2021 Covid-19 season, universities and colleges around the world made most of their math classes online over Zoom and many professors have their recorded lectures.
Most math lectures usually don't involve in-class discussions and for the most of the time, professors dominates the teaching. Oftentimes, excellent recorded lectures can be much better than live lectures in mathematics and other theoretical sciences. I have seen many students commenting under certain YouTube videos that those recorded lectures are much better than their professors'.
I wonder if we could possibly use those recorded videos (there are a lot of such videos modulo-necessary-editing during Covid-19 season. Building a system like (https://nptel.ac.in/) should be feasible) to free university math professors from repeatedly giving lectures on lower-division math classes like calculus, linear algebra or differential equations (but at the same time, asking them to hold discussion sessions and office hours to have more interactions with students and of course, grading homework assignments and exams), so that they could have more time on their research and teaching classes that are  more relevant to their research? I believe this is particularly important for the early-career mathematicians. Many postdocs in math are assigned with lower division classes that are kind-of digressions to their research.
This seems to be a win-win strategy for both professors and students in terms of the mathematics. If this is good then maybe it should have been conducted already like https://nptel.ac.in/. What would be the potential challenges for doing so for higher education in United States and Europe?


texts: Should you thank helpful referees in the acknowledgements section of a paper?

texts:
I submitted a paper to a [science] journal and received some particularly constructive feedback from the referees. I am inclined to add something to the effect of

We are grateful to the referees for their constructive input.

to the acknowledgements, as I have seen in other papers before. But is this considered appropriate?

On the one hand, it seems polite. But on the other, it's part of the job of a referee to make suggestions. Moreover, since they are anonymous and I am not going to specify their contributions, the only information provided in this remark is that 'someone suggested something' which seems a bit pointless.


texts: What to do with a paper with references but no citations?

texts:
I just received a paper for review that does not have a single citation (in the text) of its references.

I wonder if this is common in other areas non-CS related.

Since it is a conference, I don't think I should contact the editor, but I do think it should lose many points in its evaluation.

Overall the paper is well written, and they do not seem amateurish people writing their first paper.

What would you do in this case?


texts: How does one submit an article "informally"?

texts:
Although I have read a lot in my area of interest (plant taxonomy and botanical nomenclature), in am no academic of it, having only a Bachelor of Translation degree.

It has taken me two years of waffling back and forth before I worked up the courage to write up a quick note (something not entirely dissimilar to this in nature, mostly bibliographical, but necessary nonetheless) which I'd like to submit to Phytoneuron. I call it "informal" because it is an independent, one-man journal with a relatively unelaborated review process where one sends the prospective article straight to the editor.

However, I have NO idea what sort of language one in my situation can be expected to address to a journal editor. That I am diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and have been told before my writing can be overly formal to comical or insulting degrees at times is not helping my crushing nervosity about the whole thing.


texts: How to cite page from section-page number style document?

texts:
I've come across a problem during my bachelor thesis.

I'd like to cite a single page in a document, but it uses the "section-page" style of numbering pages of the document. It appear like I'm referencing pages 7 to 23, even it is just a single page. (I am using ISO 690)

What's the proper way to cite such page? Thank you.


texts: Can I cross-reference thesis chapters in my thesis literature review?

texts:
I am currently editing and updating my thesis literature review before submitting my thesis next year.

In reviewing the relevant literature, I find that two of my results chapters published as journal articles are within the scope of the literature review and I would normally cite them in a review article on the same topic.

Is it appropriate to cross-reference these two chapters in the thesis literature review and mention the results that are presented later on in the thesis? In other words, is it more important that the review is up-to date and includes all published data (including my own), or should it rather reflect the knowledge in the field prior to my thesis?


texts: When to approach my dissertation supervisor?

texts:
I am about to start a masters degree in the UK.
Our induction day is late next week and on this day we will have a talk on choosing our modules and preparing for the dissertation. Formal teaching begins in 2 weeks time.

On the website it says that we can select dissertation topics listed on the website or if we have a topic in mind, we can pursue this as long as we can find a supervisor.

Say I have already found a topic that I would like to pursue.
Would it be inappropriate to contact the supervisor for that topic this early before the start of term?
Or should I wait after induction?
I do not want to miss out on this topic.


texts: Relating job hunting and PhD preparedness

texts: I am applying for a PhD in neuroscience and one of the requirements on the application is to write a supplemental essay about a time you experienced failure. I wrote an essay about finding a job after undergrad and the times I was rejected and what I learned to ultimately land a job after several rejections. I want to conclude the essay by writing a sentence or two about how the job hunting experience will prepare me for some responsibilities during my PhD. I'm having trouble relating the skills I learned while job hunting (tailoring applications, organizing application materials, networking, interviewing etc.) to what is done during a PhD. Can anyone suggest what I can connect this to? Thanks!


texts: Publishing a paper with questionable statistics

texts:
I've submitted a paper to a reasonably good journal in my field. One of the reviewers questioned the statistical methods and recommended major revisions. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the analysis, I sought help from a statistics expert and whilst they said that my analysis wasn't strictly "wrong" they suggested that I correct my p-values for multiple comparisons in order to pacify the reviewers. The issue is, when I applied the correction none of my findings came out to be significant. I am fine with that, for most of the paper we're describing general trends anyway, so I think that removing mention of significance isn't a huge deal, and everyone talks about the need to publish negative findings, so why would this be so bad?
My advisor however disagrees, they think that the adjustment is too stringent and we're penalizing the findings unnecessarily (I am using false-discovery rate, so the most lenient you could get). They also think that if we remove the mentions of significance the paper is likely to be rejected because then we don't have much to back up the trends we're presenting. My advisor wants me to go ahead and resubmit the paper by making slight adjustments. This would be the first paper I've published as first author, and I am struggling to get onboard with blatantly ignoring a the statistical error I would be committing for the sake of publishing it. My advisor has agreed for the correction of the p-values to be applied and discussed in my thesis.
My dilemma lies in whether I try to fight my advisor on this (I don't think I will win), or do as they ask and hope the paper gets rejected, or maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion and my advisor is right. I am concerned that I will regret publishing something I know to be questionable for the sake of publishing.


texts: Extension of international internship in France

texts:
I am an undergraduate student from India and I was offered a year long research internship in France for my undergraduate thesis. However, since the French government does not allow for internships greater than 6 months my hosts proposed they'll get me another internship for the following 6 months in any of their partner organizations and I could continue my research on the same topic.

But recently I came across this blog where they mention (the fourth point) that "students cannot complete more than 6 months of internships for each year they are enrolled in school".

Can someone who has been in similar situation or is aware of the french government's internship policies please confirm if this is actually the case and if so does this apply to all students or only students of French universities. And if it is indeed true for all students is there any workaround for this?


texts: Deferring admission to a computer science graduate program

texts:
Background: I have the opportunity to pursue a Computer Science graduate degree at a well respected program (around top 20). I spoke with the professors at the university and I feel like I am a good fit with their research program. My ultimate pursuits are to complete a PhD in CS. I've done research as an undergraduate and it has only confirmed my notion that I want to pursue a research track career.

More background: I applied to jobs (in case I was rejected to all the programs I applied for) prior to hearing back from my respective graduate programs. I accepted a position for an industry job (this was to secure I wouldn't be both unemployed & not in school).

Dilemma: Turns out my top graduate school is very interested in me, and I'm very interested in them. I would rather go to graduate school than work in industry forever. The industry job pays very well. I am split between A) working for a maximum of 1 year(It would only be 1 year, seriously I do not care about the money enough to work past a year) and B) going straight to graduate school.

My concerns are as follows, if I choose A):

Could I potentially defer my admissions?
If I am not allowed to defer my admissions, would I have a good chance of re-applying and being accepted a year later?
Would my potential advisers look down on me for deciding to work a year?

I already made my mind up it would be a 1 year gig if I decide A). I know some people say once you make money, you may not be able to readjust to the graduate salary pay. But I don't think that will apply to because I'm going to live very frugally with or without industry pay.


texts: What criteria would you assess to gauge whether to quit a Ph.D for a job in industry?

texts:
Just started my second year of a 3.5 year EPSRC funded Ph.D (in engineering, and using some machine learning) in the UK. I have recently finished my confirmation review so have secured the funding for the remainder of the Ph.D.

I have a conference paper from my first year, but I have spent most of the year up and down with the ebbs and flows of research and I am not sure I can handle it mentally anymore.

I am looking at applying for data science/analyst positions. I think I am far better suited to a life in industry.

Part of me thinks I should just try and grind it out and finish (maybe this is second year blues?), but part of me also just wants to get out and start progressing with my career (I already have a Masters degree).

At what stage would you consider leaving a PhD in order to pursue an industry career?


texts: Should I explain my poor performance during undergrad, due to mental illness, when applying for PhD?

texts:
I was mentally ill for the first three years of my undergraduate studies (altogether, I had the diagnoses of severe depression and anxiety disorder for about five years). The diseases delayed my progress considerably. However, I recovered, and have done extremely well after that.

Two programs, both top-ten globally, are interested in hiring me. I have not listed my grades on my CV to avoid giving a bad first impression; I have instead highlighted my achievements: publications, prizes, research experience, etc.

How / when should I mention this? My BSc is average and MSc very good. I hope they do not care about the undergrad grades. If there is an "other information" box in the applications, should I state something along the lines

  My performance during my undergraduate studies was not good due to severe illness. However, I have fully recovered, and done very well since

I know there is a previous question about getting a bad transcript past admission committees. However, I think my qualifications are really good without the bad beginning. Also, I would like not to mention I was mentally ill. What to do here?


texts: Why are Macbooks so ubiquitous in Science, if they are status symbols

texts:
In Biology, I was told, you will almost not be able to find a professor that does not have a Macbook. And as soon as they have enough money, students and scientific staff will follow.

But also in my own field, mathematics, I have seen lots of highly respected professors with Macbooks.

Now, I have never worked with a Macbook myself, but I have helped out colleagues with problems a few times and I have really have not encountered any advantages over a regular and half as expensive Windows laptop, or an even cheaper Linux laptop.
Those that I know good enough to question their choice of laptop confirm exactly my suspicion, saying they thought it was pretty/everyone in their lab had one, or swear by it but never had a different laptop.

Is there something I am missing about Macs? Maybe some recent convert out there?
If not, why are academics so keen on status symbols? Isn't academia the one place where content should count, not looks, or even worse, depiction of wealth?

EDIT: while I agree that this question is prone to flame wars and the question about mac vs. anything else is also not really new, I DID want to know about the specific situation for scientists and the two answers so far are exactly of the kind that I wished when I was posting the question. Now of course mentioning that Macs might(! "if they..") be regarded as status symbols attracts attention to my question ;)


texts: How long can you give job talks on your thesis-book project?

texts: I'm two years out of my PhD in the humanities and have given a couple of job talks since, all on material from my dissertation.  Not only have I spent months trying to make the talks themselves as good as possible, they're based on ideas and material I've had the entirety of my PhD to feel confident about presenting.  My question is: at what point on the market do universities expect you to present new material that's not part of your dissertation research?  I'm at the very early stages of developing my "second book project," but my research / argument aren't nearly as developed!


texts: How not to get drowned in details and questions?

texts: Hi I am a perfectionist electrical and electronics student who struggles with studying because I cannot focus on the subject or context as I cannot let go of the questions or details that trouble me. I always feel like I must be an expert regarding the subject and be able to answer all the questions that one might raise no matter how stupid or unrelated those questions are. That is why I am not academically successful and satisfied. What mindset should I adopt to overcome this situation? I feel totally frustrated and hopeless. I tried out psychological help but it keeps coming over and over.


texts:
I've managed to secure a National Environmental Research Council (NERC) funded PhD project (I'm a UK resident and student), and understand that the funding comprises of:

Tuition fees
Stipend
Research training support grant (composed of research and training budgets)

So the tuition fees and stipend are paid year on year, but there's a single figure associated with the research and training budgets for the duration of the project.
I'm confused as to what the research and training budgets would or could be used for? Also as to whether it is something that is paid to myself, or something to be claimed against? I've tried searching for information specific to NERC or other DTPs, but can't seem to find out any information.

I hope this doesn't come across as dense! Thanks for any help you can offer.


texts: Can't find research area in my master thesis topic

texts:
I'm master computer science student. I would like to do my master thesis in a company. I got a topic from a company but the problem is when I show my topic to my professor he said he didn't find research in my topic. He said that this is normal when you take topic from a company.

I really want to do my master thesis with company because it will level up my career.

I read some papers I tell my idea about the research area but my professor tell me you are in root domain there a lot of branches.

How can I find a research area and how can I impress my prof?


texts: Time management during a poster presentation competition

texts:
I had a poster competition and given 4 minutes to explain everything in brief to the judges plus 1 minute for Q&A. I prepared in that way and explained my work to the judges in 3 minutes and 58 seconds. One judge asked me a quick question and I answered it also quickly. As there were another few seconds left, second judge asked me another question and I also explained it very nicely. Finally one person with a stopwatch told me you finished everything in exactly 5 minutes.

When the result got announced, I just got shocked because out of 3 winners at least 2 were there who neither maintain the time nor could answer the judges' simple questions properly. The best poster award was given to X who took 7 minutes and 35 seconds to finish her presentation (with 3 additional time notifications:-please conclude, please conclude, please conclude). One judge asked a quick question to her and she took additional few minutes to answer. The person with stopwatch told her that she took a total of 9 minutes and 54 seconds.

So I am curious to know whether the judgement process does not consider the time management? Or it just depends on the judges' own interest? I had a chance to ask about my presentation to one judge during the end day dinner. Below are the relevant one:

Me: How was my presentation, any suggestions please to improve it?

Judge: Your presentation was one of the best. But why didn't you    explain your results more explicitly? (Pointing the best poster    awardee) X explained her results very clearly.

Me: I had only 4 minutes.

Judge: Yaah, I can understand it. But you have excellent fluent and    good depth of your research objective. Keep it up.


texts: How to prove/deal with plagiarism that is hidden behind bad synonyms?

texts:
I have had more than one undergraduate student who I have very strongly suspected of routine plagiarism that I cannot prove. There is a certain style of writing that is just inexplicable except as an effort to avoid plagiarism detection.

I will give an example from a case I was actually able to prove. The student wrote:

  Free enterprise prejudice is changing in the current period as another U.S. racial conviction framework at a moment that African Americans are a vigorously urbanized, broadly scattered, and occupationally heterogeneous group; when state arrangement is formally race nonpartisan and focused on anti discrimination endeavors; and when most white Americans lean toward a more volitional and social, rather than innate and organic, translation of blacks' burdened status.

This was clearly an attempt to plagiarize from one of the readings in the course:

  Laissez Faire Racism is crystallizing in the current period as a new American racial belief system at a point when African Americans are a heavily urbanized, nationally dispersed and occupationally heterogeneous population; when state policy is formally race-neutral and committed to anti-discrimination; and when most white Americans prefer a more volitional and cultural, as opposed to inherent and biological, interpretation of blacks' disadvantaged status.

This kind of plagiarism is totally missed by SafeAssign, the detection tool that I have access to. When I am able to prove cases like this, it's only with much effort. Of course, I can just give students F for writing incoherently, but I would like to have these students removed from the course. I can only do it if I can prove the plagiarism.

Can anyone recommend any strategies for dealing with this?

EDIT: I of course do try to explain to the student that this is not an appropriate way to paraphrase. They typically say that they understand... and then they do the exact same thing on the next assignment.


texts: Could I choose a PhD supervisor from a different university?

texts: I want to apply for a PhD at a Canadian university, but I currently am in a Masters Program in the US. If I attend this new university, would I be able to choose a PhD supervisor from my current university?


texts:
I am soon finishing my PhD in computer science and I decided to leave academia for the industry (not industry research).

I am not clear about what to include in the CV.
I currently structured it like this:

Education
Work experience (including teaching positions and internships)
Selected Honors, Awards & Fellowships
Programming Skills
Selected journal publications
Selected Workshops, Schools  & Conference Talks

which in its current version results in a two page CV.

I am neither sure about the ordering of the above items as well as the importance of each.

For example while I have ten publications I only mention two of them in the CV. On the other hand I mention about eleven Workshops, Schools  & Conference Talks. I think this is not the right balance. On the other hand I am not sure how much companies (like Facebook, LinkedIn, ...) care about theoretical publications. I also do not mention any research visits I did.

So my question is, what academic information do you include in a CV for non academic positions and how important is each of the items?


texts:
Can someone please help me out here?

I have a research proposal to present. I had a novel idea to present.
First things first, I googled the idea and could not find it anywhere. So far so good. So I wrote down in my research proposal that 'No system had implemented (insert my idea here)...'.

However, when I peer reviewed this writing to a friend, he strongly suggested me to cite the above sentence 'No system..'

My doubt is how do I cite it? I did not find the idea anywhere.

Is my choice of using this sentence 'No system..' wrong?


texts:
Do academic peer reviewers receive any salary?
If yes, what is the annual average?


texts: Is it okay to share a tex template from a journal for teaching purposes?

texts:
I am a graduate student in a university. I was an undergraduate student on the same university, and I have good feelings for the workplace where I did my undergraduate studies (very much so that I keep close contact with the students).

In order to enhance the writing abilities of the students (it is a Mathematics course), I had the idea of making a "toy" journal, where students would be able to submit what they were studying/thought was interesting/etc. The main objective is to improve writing and exposition capabilities, and providing motivation for the students.

In order to make the idea go forward, I considered taking a (tex) template from a journal and sending it to the students for them to write using the template. This would be excellent in terms of efficiency. However, I feel that even though this "toy" journal has only internal intentions and is only this: a "toy" journal, there may be some ethics issue on taking a possibly copyrighted asset.

I would like to know:

Are there any issue with the above, given the intentions?
If there is no issue, is there a standard way to ask for permission?
If that is not possible, are there any good free templates available?


texts: When my work is presented by colleague at conference I don't attend, do I include on my CV?

texts:
My colleague has been presenting our work overseas. I'm primary investigator and first author on the work/papers. Should I or can I be including these presentations on my CV?

My context is that I'm a doctoral student in healthcare discipline and using the CV for grant applications.

Thank you!


texts: What is the best way to "fire" my advisor?

texts:
I have had it with my advisor's unethical behavior, demanding people to be removed from papers, removing my cosupervisor without telling me and insinuating that he has "appointed a new one".

What is the best way to break up with him? The PhD school already has a procedure in place, but do you advise I speak with him before I start this process?
Do I tell him the very truth for why I don't want him anymore or simply state some other reasons and stroke his ego anyway?

UPDATE: He wouldn't meet with me, so I didn't even have a chance to be hesitant about speaking with him. He suggested a third supervisor other than the one I had chosen, and I respectfully declined.


texts: What merits acceptance for rapid publication in letter format?

texts:
Ive recently been asked to review for a letter format journal (articles less than 4 pages) for rapid publication. The same standard criteria of original content, novelty and relevant references as for other journal publications are required. Looking to the referee guide of the journal, it is stated that

  When reviewing, reviewers should ask themselves 'Is this paper suitable for rapid publication?'

I am unable to find any discussion or guideline that clearly state what merits acceptance for rapid publication compared to the normal peer-review process for journal article submissions. Publishing as a IEEE letter vs article gives some input from the guidelines of IEEE JMEMS, where the author should argue why it is eligible for rapid publishing, although, Im not sure if this guideline is general for all journals.

I can understand that rapid publishing has benefits for authors and can be required by publishers due to competition. But I dont see what I, as a reviewer, am supposed to look for.

Since the letter format is short, not all aspects can be covered in the submission. Since the decision is binary (accept/reject), questions related to the submission cannot be answered or clarified by the authors through the review process. The situation arises that the submission can be original and novel, but may lack investigations or results. Should I still accept?


texts: Should I mention future works in my SOP? (CS PhD Fall 2022 USA)

texts:
Background: CS Undergrad applying to CS PhD Programs
I am working on my senior thesis and have thought about 2 major chapters. Assuming I apply to my preferred universities by dec 1st I will only be able to complete 1 chapter by then. Is it reasonable to discuss in short about how I plan to complete it within the SOP?
The topic I'm working on is something I want to continue working on during grad-school and is the professor's area of interest as well.
Question Is this something one should write about in their SOPs?


texts: "Warning signs" that candidates should be aware of during an academic job interview

texts:
I know that a big part of academic job interviews is for the candidate to evaluate whether they want to be in the department (not only whether the department wants them).

Are there some non-obvious general factors that signal a possibly dysfunctional department, or an otherwise undesirable position, that a candidate should be aware of? For example (but not limited to), is a poorly attended job talk, or only meeting a relatively small fraction of the faculty, a warning sign of something awry?

I'm asking this question because I have had two successful interviews and am weighing competing offers. This has left me considering some of the finer aspects of the interview experience.


texts: "References" in research proposal for PhD application

texts:
I am currently writing my "research proposal" for my PhD in Statistics application. I'm using quotes because technically this is not (or could not be) the actual research that I will perform during my PhD, but some sort of exercise to prove your writing skills.
By the end of the template I have a slot under the name "References", and I've seen this kind of thing in other research.project templates that I've submitted.

I have some doubts regarding this, should I include all the references I've used while writing the research-proposal, or instead should I include the bibliography that I consider relevant, even thought it wasn't explicitly used in the text.

Furthermore, should I also include there the references regarding my statement of purpose, or is it better to write them down after the letter itself?

I am worried because I am asked to provide a "State of the Art" and of course I am citing a lot of articles, even thought I don't consider them strictly necessary for my research and I don't want to write down those references in the slot "References" if not needed (given that I can at most include 10 articles).

Hope you can give me some clue.
Thanks in advance.


texts:
My project is based on data hosted by a different university than the one where I used to work. When I requested the data, I understood that the work (and cost) to extract it from the database increases with the number of items I wanted. I had no research funds at the time and therefore asked for a rather small sample, with an informal agreement with the director of the inistitute that the person extracting the data would be my collaborator and coauthor.

Several months passed before I received the data and then the sample turned out to be too small to be really useful. I did not make another request as the data extraction process appeared so time-consuming. Instead, I moved on to work with other projects for a couple of years.

The data became relevant again when I started as a visiting researcher at this institute. Although I wasn't employed by the institute, I had direct access to the database and could download all of it in a matter of minutes. I expected that the person who extracted the first sample would be willing to collaborate on data classification and other things where he was an expert. Instead, he seemed hostile and would only answer to exactly what I asked, rather than make an attempt to be helpful.

The most recent development is that the institute made most of this database and classification open for anyone to download.

What should I do to get out of the original data use agreement? I feel trapped in a forced collaboration with a person with whom I'm not in speaking terms. I'm not in a position to renegotiate or entitled to any help from the institute, as it is not my employer.

I took this situation more seriously than anyone should, as my depression renewed and I went to psyhotherapy for nine months. That's telling something about the amount of time I have wasted with this dilemma.


texts: Postdoc in the US : what salary should I ask for

texts:
I live in France and I'm currently applying for postdoc positions in fundamental mathematics, at several universities in the US and elsewhere. For my application at the University of Denver, I'm asked to give my desired salary, and I have no idea what to answer... I don't know at all what are the standards in the US, I don't even know if it's homogeneous or depends on states... So two questions:

1) Do you have an idea of what could be a standard income for such a position? (To be more precise, it's a visiting assistant professorship with a teaching load of five undergraduate courses over three quarters during the 9-month academic year.)

2) I don't know if the desired salary is taken into account during the search process. Do you think I should ask for a lower salary in order to have more chances to be hired? Or should I, on the contrary, ask for a higher one and expect they will bargain?

Thank you in advance, I'm a bit lost since it doesn't work at all in the same way in France...


texts: How to answer to this polite, but strange request?

texts:
I am a young postgraduate researcher, and I have developed an algorithm to measure the blood flow from echographic signals in a novel manner. I currently only have one published paper from my pregraduate years, on which I am 4th author, and it is not about my current field of research.

Long story short, my algorithm is unpublished and works quite well... so well that recently a PhD in electrical engineering from the other side of the planet saw a summary about it on the net, and sent me an email asking for some data, so that one of his undergraduate students can reproduce my program. They assure me that they won't use it for publishing, and both the PhD and his supposed undergraduate sent me several emails already. When I asked for precisions about their project, they just in essence replied: "We don't really know yet, but we would like to reproduce your work"

I don't know what to answer... moreover, the data they are asking for (a video of an echographic exam) can be found in 10 seconds on Youtube. What should I do?


texts: How to deal with a colleague who won't accept they're wrong

texts:
Sometimes an argument will arise between collaborators where two (or more) contrasted views or (mis)interpretations of a scientific issue exist. Sometimes both views are partially correct, sometimes they're both incorrect, and sometimes one is correct and the other is not.

Some people don't handle being wrong in a very "gracious" manner, even after realizing they are wrong, and will not admit their mistake. I have a previous experience with a more senior colleague who would not admit they were wrong even after confronted with a lot of evidence. I should also add that I was intimately familiar with the research problem at hand and they had just some very superficial knowledge of it, which probably led to their mistake. I suspect that at some point they realized they were wrong but were trying to hold the upper ground ("I'm right because I'm the more senior person") and "win" the argument. Also their ego got in the way of reason (not the first time that happened). The situation was very frustrating for me and things went sour with this person, not only because of this incident but also because of previous history.

I am facing the same problem again (with a different colleague who is also my senior) and would like to handle the situation in a less destructive manner. However, I cannot write a statement on a paper that I know to be wrong just to avoid hurting somebody's ego.

What is a good way to resolve the issue with a colleague who you know to be wrong, anticipating they may have a hard time admitting it?

Just to clarify (based on what I can read in the comments): my question is not about situations such as pointing out a mistake by the speaker at the end of a presentation, sometimes even with the malicious intention to embarrass a "competitor" (things you witness at conferences!). In such situations influencing factors are, e.g., present audience and lack of time to think things through. It's about stubbornly persisting on one's mistake even when confronted with evidence and given the time to think about it.


texts: Is it acceptable for a student to hire a tutor to explain and fix homework mistakes?

texts:
In a course we have a lot of hard homework. We are allowed to share solutions etc, as long as each student's doesn't just copy but understands what he/she writes.

Is this acceptable to hire a tutor help me solve the homework I can't solve?


texts: Increase chance of reply when e-mailing an eminent researcher?

texts:
I found this question, but it does not exactly match what I would like to ask. In my case, it's almost surely appropriate to send the e-mail (since my adviser suggested it), I'm just wandering as to what is the best way to formulate such an e-mail.
The situation
The situation is that there is this bigshot researcher in my field, who designed an experimental framework that is very widely used (which I want to use now). In the paper describing the framework (not so recent, ~2005), he compares 5 (then) state-of-the-art methods, and those 5 are still used as comparison references.
The problem is that, even though implementations for the reference methods are provided, I can not find the parameters used to initialize the method.
It is stated in the paper that the parameters suggested by original authors of the methods are used, but, after weeks of digging through the framework paper, papers introducing the method for the first time, and even trying to guess the parameters so they match the ones used, I still can not get the ones used. Since I want to test the method with slight modifications and not just use it as reference, I can not re-use the implementation provided but instead need to run my implementation with parameters I can not find, and introduce modifications to that.
In short
So, to summarize and generalize: After a few weeks of looking for it, I can not find some parameters used in a (seminal framework) work published in 2005. These parameters are not needed to reproduce the work, but are important in extending it. My adviser suggested e-mailing the author of the paper (who is a well known in the community), but since he is so well know and I'm a lowly PhD student I feel kind of uncomfortable sending this e-mail.
The question
I do understand that this is probably the best (and possibly only) approach to getting the information I need, even if it is not very probable that it will work. With that (and my fear of bigshot academics) in mind, my questions are:

How to best write such an email? Besides the basics (be polite and concise) I don't know where to even start.
Do you have any advice on how to increase the chances of getting a reply? Maybe including my adviser in the CC of the e-mail would be a good idea, indicating my relation to a more established academic?


texts: What to reply to your former supervisor that wrote that your paper "isn't worth much" before submission to a journal?

texts:
I am a recent Ph.D. graduate in computer science.
In the last few months, I wrote a paper about an aspect of my thesis, with the collaboration of my former supervisor. We found a call for papers for a "special section" of an important journal, that is a section focused on the data set we are exploiting. The submission deadline was set to the end of November 2014, but surprisingly we just discovered that it has been post-poned to the end of March 2015, a four month delay.
I did not know if it was better to send this paper to this "special section" or to the "normal track" of the journal, so I asked here on Academia.

User Geoff Hutchison suggested to me to contact the editorial board and ask them if I could have all the original time schedules. That means to have all the notification and re-submission dates as they were not post-poned, except the final publication date.
It seemed reasonable to me, so I wrote to my former supervisor (who is also the co-author of the paper, even if his contribution to the project and the paper is only around ~5%).

He replied to me in a very ill-mannered, thwarted and angry way, stating that "writing this request to the editors may cause a lot of problems", that I am "not able to understand how lucky we are for the existence of this special section", "having the paper accepted in this special section may be the best thing that could ever happen to our our paper", that I "should focus on how to improve the paper, instead of inventing new ways to create problems", and I should "understand that the paper isn't worth much".

What to reply back to this "gentleman"?

The paper is mine, comes from the doctoral thesis of mine, from an idea that I had, and was written entirely by me. My former supervisor just reviewed and corrected it.
I am not going tolerate this disrespectful behavior, and cannot stand having a co-author that considers my paper "not worth much".

[EDIT]: Thanks to all for your contributions. I'm asking to you all some suggestions on how to manage this situation: should I trust someone that is the co-author of my paper and thinks that the paper "isn't worth much"? In my opinion, this statement is in contrast with actually being a co-author of the paper.
How to let him know that I did not like his ill-mannered way to reply back to me, without damaging my perspective paper submission?


texts: My professor keeps opening my office door without knocking at the door

texts:
Is it polite when my professor keep opening my office door without knocking at the door whenever he wants to ask anything?

Since the door closed, I am supposed to hear knock before breaking into, or rather, busting into the room. Is it polite?


texts: Submitted to a non Scopus-indexed journal, later found that University only accept Scopus journals. How can I submit to another journal?

texts:
I submitted a paper to Thomson Reuters ESCI Journal, and they are asking me to complete a registration and pay a fee of around $400 to publish the paper.

But later I found that my University gives preference to Scopus-Indexed journals. How can I cancel the previous submission (the paper has not been published), and how can I submit to another Scopus-Indexed journal?


texts: Use of Wikipedia images I created myself

texts: I have created several images for Wikipedia and would like to use them for my own poster/talks as well. However I am concerned that my colleagues will assume that I took them from Wikipedia and will consider it bad practice to use images from Wikipedia instead of my own and secondly to not reference them. How would you clarify that?


texts:
Lets assume that A wrote an article in 1999 and A included a part taken from B's source written in 1998. How do I paraphrase that part, and how do I cite it?

Like this; Blablablablabla blabla (A, 1999).
Or like this; Blablablabla blabla (B, 1998).
Or something different?


texts: How much do soft skills matter for admission decision?

texts:
By reading the very intersting question Priority of application materials for admission decision about which material is most important to be admitted as PhD candidate, or PostDoc or researcher, in a university, I started wondering on how and how much soft skills count, for the same objective.

As you know, besides academic degrees, grades, publications, reference letters, technical skills, project proposals, and etc., there are also soft skills that are considered by talent scouts to choose who engage.

For soft skills, I mean competence like:

public speaking
active listening
ability to manage relationships
ability to show interest

In scientific admission procedures, e.g. for PhD or PostDoc admission, how much do soft skills count?


texts: University reputation vs department reputation for industry jobs

texts:
There are obviously many other factors that are going into choosing a graduate school including supervisors, research interests, etc. but I'd like to leave those out for a moment and focus on just one decision parameter.

I have to decide between two places A and B for my physics PhD. A is a big state school whose department is ranked very high (top 10 in the US) but the school itself is otherwise unremarkable. Most people outside my field would not have heard of it. B is a very prestigious private university with a decent but not spectacular department (top 30 ish). However, although B isn't great at physics, it consistently ranks among the top 10 schools in the US overall.

If I'm looking at industry jobs after graduation as my primary choice and academia as a secondary choice, which one should I pick?


texts:
Is it possible the recommendation letter be sent directly to the recruiter by the person who writes it?

Also, does the letter needs to be signed by hand? Maybe is enough to see that the letter comes directly from the sender, but is not signed.

Thanks


texts: Is an Executive Doctorate different from a typical PhD with respect to the level of assistance that is permitted on the dissertation?

texts:
I began tutoring an Executive Doctorate student last fall in a class that he was taking. After that class ended, he was able to begin working on his dissertation and wanted my help for it as well.

Here arises the problem and the question. He has been asking me for increasing "help" on his dissertation to the point of asking me to read articles and find citations and to rewrite sections of his dissertation to address concerns from his committee.

My initial thought is that this is something I should not do, but as he is not a typical PhD student, I am unfamiliar with the expectations. So, what exactly is the difference between an Executive Doctorate (also called an Executive PhD.) program, and a typical PhD program, and does that difference allow for him to receive this much assistance on his dissertation?

More information: Looking a little more, the program he is enrolled in is listed under the Doctoral Programs section of the page listing all of the programs offered by the department.


texts:
I am a Ph.D. student in pure mathematics and I am in my final year of graduate studies. I found that academia is not suited for me: unstable job, low salary, and a self-sacrifice culture that it is based on the motto "Publish or Perish". I want to ask you what are the odds to get a good job with a Ph.D. in pure mathematics? I am truly lost. I consider myself a big failure. I have expended three years of my life in pursuing a thing that it is useless and purely theoretical. Currently, I only want to make some good money in the industry. I want to ask you: what can a pure mathematician do in the real world? Is there any kind of investment banking or hedge funds interested in hiring mathematicians holding a Ph.D. in pure mathematics and a master´s degree in big data and business analytics?
Thank you very much for any response.


texts: Getting into grad school with a bad record.

texts: So I'm currently in junior year of my undergrad as an Electrical Engineering major. As of this moment my GPA's 3.25; however, throughout my college career I've had to retake courses multiple times in order to get passing grades, and I still have some B's and C's. I plan on talking to advisors for grad school but at this rate it feels pointless to even consider thinking about applying in the future. Especially because the classes I retook were classes I initially failed, and because sophomore and freshmen year I was a different major (Biology) so it's going to take more time for me to finish my undergrad.


texts: Searching a pdf journal paper for mathematical symbols

texts:
When skimming through a long mathematical paper (in pdf format), I often find a mathematical symbol (often in greek and with subscripts/superscripts) that was defined previously somewhere else within the paper.  Of course, it's not always easy to find where the parameter was defined, so I resort to using the FIND tool.  However, simply copy and pasting the symbol to the FIND tool doesn't seem to work well, since the symbol cannot be copied exactly.

Is there a better way to perform an automated search a PDF document for a particular mathematical symbol if I don't have the original latex file?  Especially ones with subscripts and superscripts?


texts: Does FERPA require parental notification of disability assessment?

texts:
There are significant barriers asking and negotiating disability supports and accommodation at a college/higher education level. There is also a lack of awareness and education of the rules and expectations on both the learner and the educator.

A recent question seemed to describe a disruptive student who did not want to accept supports due to parental disapproval. There was some confusion whether FERPA rules covered disability notification and whether parents are routinely contacted when disability accommodations are requested.

There might also be barriers if students require new assessment documentations as their childhood assessments may not be recent enough. Access to healthcare may mean that parents are notified by health providers. Students may also need to request accommodations when they are not fully aware of their limitations and available supports.

I guess I am keen to clarify the rules around FERPA and parental notification: to what degree is notification required?


texts: Proving that the PhD work was done prior to someone else's patent

texts:
I'm in a peculiar situation, which I'll try to describe as concisely as possible.

Around three years ago I worked on something and I published a preliminary conference paper, which described the idea in great detail. I'm currently working on a PhD that's about this topic I published 3 years ago. Today I found out that there exists a patent that was accepted last year and it's like 50% about the same idea I published in that conference paper. Not 100%, it has some unique stuff in it and I'm pretty sure they didn't try to steal my idea, they probably came up with it on their own, that's why it has some additional features that I don't even need. But it's similar. I still haven't finished my PhD, but I'm worried—can this patent be a problem for me? I can prove with that conference paper that I was working on this idea years before the patent was submitted and published.

What would be the best course here? I was thinking of citing this patent in my PhD, but if nobody said anything about it until now, I'm worried I just might start opening too many questions.

Any kind of ideas are greatly appreciated. I'm really, really worried that my PhD thesis can become invalid because of this patent. Is that possible?


texts: Should I correct a mistake on an arXiv manuscript, that I found while refereeing it?

texts:
I recently received a request to referee a manuscript for a journal and, while doing so, I pointed out a crucial mistake undermining most of the calculations. After two unsuccessful answers on the part of the authors (where they addressed other concerns of mine, but basically ignored the mistake I was pointing out), I recommended the journal reject the paper and they did so.

Very recently, and within a couple of weeks after this rejection, the authors have openly posted their article on arXiv, without correcting their mistake. While I understand that manuscripts from arXiv should be taken with a grain of salt, as it is not peer reviewed, making a clearly incorrect result public seems wrong to me, both from an ethical standpoint and from a practical one as it might mislead researchers.

I am unsure how to proceed. Should I ignore it or take some measures such as publishing a reply/correction? If the latter, is there any way to do it for arXiv submissions? Is it possible to do it anonymously?


texts: How to deal with repeated resubmissions of a bad paper (as a reviewer)?

texts:
(Context: theoretical computer science.)

I just received a review request; I have previously reviewed three previous versions of the same submission (twice for conferences, once for a journal), recommending rejection each time.  For one of the conferences, there was discussion between reviewers and PC members; all reviewers agreed that the paper was “strong reject”.

Between each iteration, the paper has been lightly revised, but never addressing two fundamental problems: the novel content is very insubstantial, and the write-up contains substantial self-plagiarism.

The author(s) have/has extensive publication records, containing some genuinely significant work, but also a very large amount of repetition, often to the extent of self-plagiarism.

My current response is: accept to do the review (first letting the editor know that I have reviewed earlier versions and recommended rejection); then see what significant changes have been made, and if the major problems haven't been addressed, re-reject with essentially the same criticisms as before.

A generous referee might reasonably judge the work substantial enough for a third-tier conference, and not notice the self-plagiarism; so I guess the paper will probably strike it lucky and get published sooner or later.  Is there anything else I can or should be doing to forestall this?  Or should I accept that bad papers do get published, and that the damage the authors are causing to their reputation with referees/editors along the way is enough censure?


texts: Why writing about experimental results is difficult?

texts: When writing about experimental work, you either describe other people's work or your own. In both cases you're not inventing anything new (at the stage of writing). Then why is it so difficult?


texts: How to convince my supervisor that he is wrong?

texts:
I do not have any particular situation at hand but I am about to start in a new short-term (research assistant) position. The thing is, I will be working on a topic that is very controversial. There are papers (appearing in top journals) explaining how my supervisors and their colleagues got it all wrong. On the other hand, there are reviews (in top journals also), summarizing how many important insights have been learned, and how things are progressing very nicely. It appears to be a kind of battlefield.

I have not yet started in the position, but I have been reading several articles about the research topic. I already know that I will disagree with my supervisor about many things. There will probably be difficult conversations. If we get everything right, maybe we could resolve some of the major issues, by discussing both perspectives thoroughly.

I think I will need very good negotiation skills. If we have exact opposite views with my supervisor, I must do what he wants, but I also want to do what I want. I want us to succeed. How do I prepare for this? How does one convince her supervisor that he is wrong about something? Of course, I will be wrong many times as well. So I should also think how to quickly realize that I am wrong about something.


texts: How to find an appropriate journal to submit to when working in a new, unfamiliar field?

texts:
I have developed a new method to form a single-atom chain (break junction) in physics, which so far has results from calculation and simulation but not yet experiment.

How can I find out which journal is suitable for publishing the work?

My advisor is not familiar with my research field. I am exploring a whole new field.


texts: Are Honorary Degrees Awarded to Those Lacking PhDs?

texts: Have honorary degrees ever been conferred on someone lacking a PhD?


texts: How can I ensure that my software is correctly cited?

texts:
I have the following situation.

I have published a paper and in order to get and analyse the results for my research I created some software. I want to make my software open-source, so that anyone can do research with it and change/improve it for their purposes.

But I would like people to cite my paper if they are going to publish anything using my software. So if someone is just using it for fun, I do not care, but if someone modified it and used his modified version to collect/analyse the results, which he publishes in any paper, I want him to cite the paper I have wrote.

Is there an appropriate software license or other means for this purpose?


texts: With GRE not being accepted or being considered optional due to Covid, which other aspects of application will be given heavier weightage?

texts: Due to COVID-19 many universities (at least many Physics departments) are not accepting or are considering the GRE as optional. So, which other aspects of my application might be given heavier weightage? Of course, I'll mail individual departments and check with them. However, any suggestions here will be helpful in planning my path.


texts: I am a research undergraduate student who is in full time research internship in university. I realized that research needs A LOT of patience to obtain validated results A LOT of exploration. A LOT of roads and initial ideas that lead to no results or can't be implemented. I don't feel the dopamine rush that i feel when working on short term projects. So how do you stay motivated ? what's your secret ?


texts: Is it bad to apply to the same PhD program two years in a row?

texts:
I will be entering my first year of college next Fall. Even if most of my AP classes don't count for credit, I will probably be eligible to graduate after six 15–16 credit semesters. Though my desires might change throughout the next few years, I intend to pursue a PhD in Computer Science, Neuroscience, or something else that I'm interested in.

So, if I am eligible to graduate after three years, and I apply to and am denied from desired PhD programs, can I complete a fourth year of my undergrad and reapply to the same places?

I understand that each year of undergrad adds an additional valuable summer of potential REUs, internships, and other experiences. What are other reasons (besides the aforementioned and taking more credits per semester) people advise against completing undergraduate studies in three years?


texts: How to set up an efficient watch on publications in planetary science?

texts:
The number of journal on the topics tends to be quite high and most researchers of the field have yet to take on the habit of sharing their preprints on archive repositories (ArXiv or others).

Do you have any recommendation as to the best way to set up an efficient watch on what comes out ?


texts: How do I choose the right papers to write a review paper?

texts:
I'm writing a review paper. I'm in the field of computer science.

There are many related papers in my research area. Some are good, some are not.

I'm planning to include only Q1-papers based on Journal Citation Reports

But, does this enough for the paper?

Should I include other papers in Q1, Q3, Q4 and conference papers too.?

If I include all, it will make my review paper really long especially when I create a table to summarize all related papers.


texts: About completing Ph.D degree in the US Industry

texts: Fortunately I was able to continue my graduate studies at a US university, recently passing my Ph.D qualification exam, which put me one step closer to my final goal--the ultimate "Ph.D degree". But due to the limited resources at university, I was wondering whether I am able to complete my Ph.D research in materials science related industry instead of the laboratory of university, because eventually I am gonna work for the industry, I like their well disciplined as well as the goal-orientated working environment. I really hope anyone who has been through this can give me some information and useful suggestions, I am really appreciated....


texts: Effect of late penalties on cheating and late submissions

texts: Is there any research on the effect of late penalties on both late submissions and academic honesty?  I imagine that having some late penalties will certainly encourage students to get their stuff in on time, but I wonder if the effect is stronger (as in, fewer students submitting late, and more students submitting with plenty of time to spare) with stronger penalties.  But I have no evidence for that.  I also wonder if the strength of the late penalty has anything to do with cheating. Again, I envision a stronger late penalty would encourage more cheating, since there is more to lose by not getting it done, but I have no evidence.


texts: A single definitive paper, or an initial manuscript and a followup?

texts:
Suppose that someone wants to publish his idea and his first successful experiments in a venue and then perform some extra experiments (for a more powerful proof) and publish it in another venue.

Submitting the first to a conference hope to be accepted soon and then submit the second one after a while to a journal, referencing the first.
Submitting both of them to journals and write them in different manners.
Waiting until future experiments finish and combining them to be published as one journal paper.

I count, here, some negative and positive points of the ideas

In the 1st idea, the first paper proves that your innovation has improved a method in the state of the art and the second one refers to the first and says that this innovation, even, is able to improve other more-powerful methods in state of the art. Of course both of them are contributions. But, lacking the powerful contribution of combining them in one paper.
In the 1st idea, you are able to present your work in an international conference and take advantage of global feedback.
In the 2nd idea, you should suffer side effects of deleting some parts from each paper, to avoid plagiarism.
In the 2nd idea, you will have two journal papers which normally are more creditable than having one conference and one journal paper.
In the 3rd idea, you should wait for finishing the experiments.
In the 3rd idea, though you have one journal paper instead of two, this paper is published in a more creditable journal than others.

However, please let me know the optimal choice.


texts: Advice for first time mathematics TA during the COVID-19 pandemic

texts:
I'm set to start my first year as a TA at a large R1 institution. My teaching assignment consists of being a TA for an honors calculus I section. This includes holding a weekly problem solving session (in person) to about 20 students. The lecture, however, will be online. My general questions are:

Besides taking the obvious safety precautions, (my university has mandated the use of masks on campus) what else can I do to make my classroom as safe as possible?

What would you do differently as a TA during a global pandemic? Maybe grade more leniently? Hold online office hours?

What would you do differently as a TA between an honors and non-honors section? For example, I was looking into old assignments and one of the differences is that honors calculus I cover epsilon-delta proofs and place more emphasis on theorems such as the mean value and intermediate value theorem. I'm guessing there will be a larger percentage of math majors than in your typical calculus I class.

Thanks for your advice.


texts: How to counteract poor academic instruction and demanding workload at German university?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student at a university in Germany. I already hold a bachelor's degree in an unrelated field from a university abroad, and I also have a solid secondary school background with above
average grades in my school transcript. So I consider myself as having the necessary skills for academic success, in general. However, I am extremely frustrated with the state of my current studies.

I feel the teaching quality is very poor and the syllabus in any given subject is overly demanding. My biggest concerns are

poor teaching quality that manifests itself as insufficient instruction. An example would be the use of PowerPoint slides. The slides are, as a general rule, borrowed from other academics and often contain numerous mistakes or inconsistencies. I would expect a professor to spend more time at the blackboard actually showing how a problem is being solved visually step by step (as I often see in different online lectures from some other universities which turn out to be more helpful).
Unnecessarily demanding syllabi and mandatory homework assignments in
most courses. On average, according to my own observations, a 3-hour lecture covers about 30-50 pages of a textbook on technical/mathematical topics. The recommended curriculum for every semester includes 5-6 courses which sums up to 150-300 pages of scientific reading on a weekly basis to keep up with the requirements plus weekly mandatory practical homework assignments.

I would really like to get any feedback or ideas as to how I can act to either change the situation at the university (it's quite ambitious but someone has to do something) or improve my strategies in dealing with it.


texts: How to deal when submitting an extender paper to a journal from another editorial?

texts:
My situation is pretty simple, years ago I submitted a research article to an IEEE workshop and it got accepted. Actually I have made an extended paper of it and I am considering to submit it for a non-IEEE journal. I have read the information for authors of the journal which I plan to submit, and it does not say anything about extended papers. So I was wondering if I:

Should I ask first if they accept extended papers before submitting my article to this journal?
Should I just submit it and also include the original article from the workshop and point to them that is an extended article? This just in case that the submission site has an Observations or Aditional Sections part where I can explain this. Or maybe should I put a small presentation letter stating that I am submitting the original article from the workshop and the extended paper?

Which would be the best course of action?


texts: How to successfully train myself in multiple "meta" areas of my discipline?

texts:
I am at the beginning of my academic career (first "professor at uni" job after PhD). My official obligations are pretty standard: teach, do research, and faculty-related admin stuff.

Now, I have my area of research specialisation. However, on top of this, I have an ambitious goal to form myself in these meta topics (meta in the sense that they are not about changing my area of specialisation within my discipline, but rather about complementing and improving my general standing as a scientist and teacher):

philosophy of my science [which might imply some basic formation in wider philosophy of science and perhaps philosophy in general]
history of my science
educational/teaching literature [for improving teaching methods]
critical thinking methods [to improve research, debating skills, and to foster in students]

The list I gave is not exhaustive, but take it as a core.

As a further restriction, consider the fact that

my memory is fragile, and I mostly learn and retain through "learning-by-doing" [so just reading a book might not be enough. I need to do something with it, e.g. teach or research or form habits]
I want to have a life outside my job [i.e. any investment must not consume all my free time]

Given the above, the questions are, based on your experience:

is something like this feasible?
if so, how best to proceed? For instance, would you study all topics in parallel, or start with one, "finish it", and move on? Would you go DIY or take a course?


texts: Would you consider using another's analysis as a basis for your own analysis on a poem/story plagiarism?

texts: I'm just wondering what people think about this. I've had several literature classes where I'm assigned to analyze symbolism/figurative speech/other devices or themes and I almost always search online several analyses of the poem or story beforehand as a way of kick-starting my thinking process. However, I'm not entirely sure if this qualifies as plagiarism since many literary devices seem to be factual with not much room for opinion. I never copy the author's exact idea word-for-word, but my arguments seem to go down the same vein as what I've read because I can't help but be influenced.


texts: Filler submission to the American Mathematical Monthly

texts:
I have found an interesting (and novel) result that I would like to submit to the American Mathematical Monthly. I am aware of the journal's prestige and I understand that my result likely would not warrant regular publication. I am looking to submit my finding and brief proof as "filler", however, their website does not elucidate much information other than a LaTex template for such submissions.

My question to anyone who is familiar with the filler submission process of the American Mathematical Monthly, what are the technical requirements of such a submission? I understand that they are shorter than typical papers but the tables of contents I see online do not seem to include any for length reference.

Thank you.


texts: Found out I might have unknowingly cheated after term completion

texts:
One of my classes had a midterm scheduled right after we were all sent home due to Covid-19. The professor said that for this midterm, we were allowed to use notes, both his and our own, browse the internet, and talk with peers during the exam. While this seems abnormal, we, as a class, checked multiple times and he confirmed this policy every time. Thus, during the exam, about 2/3 of the class (~10 people) got in one video call and were talking during the exam.

For the final, the professor simply said that the rules would be the same as the midterm listed above. To our discredit, no one double checked what the professor meant and simply went with it. Of course, the same ~10 people got on the video call again and did the final. It was not an easy final, despite us collaborating and looking at notes, leading me to suspect nothing wrong. The professor also had not posted a note saying collaboration was allowed on the exam, although this was the same as the previous midterm, so I thought he had just overlooked this. Looking back, I see the fallacy in this, but it did not seem important at the time.

However, recently I was talking to an acquaintance from the class, one of the 10 in the video call, and I found out that he had indeed checked with the professor about peer collaboration on the final, which the professor explicitly disallowed (this was during office hours). This acquaintance said he did not tell this to us as he needed us helping him on the final to pass the class.

I'm conflicted on what to do now, as it has been over 3 weeks since the end of semester (4 weeks since the final in question) and most of the class was in on the video call. If anything, all our answers were EXTREMELY similar (most were exact copies) to the point that it would be obvious we were collaborating. On one hand given the above, it seems unnecessary to dig this up. On the other hand, I'm not sure that I'm not reasoning my way through having cheated. Please advise.


texts:
I have written an article (2-column type), and would like to put an acknowledgement to acknowledge the non-substantial contribution of a colleague in the analysis of some data.

The structure of the article is

Introduction
Main body
-> chapter with the data
Conclusion
References

Where and how should I put the acknowledgements?


texts: How to effectively supervise grad student calculus teaching assistants (TAs)?

texts:
Those of you at universities where calculus is taught in small sections with graduate student instructors;
what sort of structure do you have for supervising/mentoring the graduate students and overseeing the administration of the course?

E.g., does this duty rotate among tenure-track faculty, do you have a dedicated instructor who does this on a long-term basis, or do you have some other structure?


texts: Recently published paper deliberately not citing our very relevant work -- anything to do?

texts:
Note that the difference between this question and a related question (Recently published paper does not cite my very relevant work) is that the authors in my question are fully aware of our work, whereas, in the related question, the authors were not aware of OP's work.

A recent paper did not cite our very relevant work.

There are significant overlaps among the scopes of the papers, and one of the important figures and the related conclusion are almost identical.

The leading author of the paper in question has been informed about our work even before we submitted the paper. I've asked for a reason for not mentioning it, and the answer was that our paper was noticed during the revision of the paper, and the authors do not feel obliged to mention it.

Is it OK to not mention a paper because of ``seeing it too late?''
Regarding this: does the date of submission/acceptance play a role?

Our publication date is before their submission date.


texts:
I was recently notified of an opportunity for a TA position.
The same email went to the whole department.
The position would be helping/teaching a class in a different
discipline than mine.
I only wanted to ask other people's thoughts about applying
because the message specified the only requirements to apply were to be a
PGR student in the department.
I would ask the faculty in charge of hiring but don't want to look
more stupid than I have to.
I would think that it wouldn't make any sense for me to apply
since my background is in what would appear to be an entirely different
field. But maybe I'm wrong??
Shouldn't they have also specified that it's open only to
PGR students in that field? My common sense says that they would expect
interested applicants to be able to understand that it's implied to be
for applicants studying or researching in that field.
But maybe there's something about TA positions I'm not aware of?


texts: It is plagiarism if my work is very similiar to something previously published?

texts:
I am a PhD student in economics and making a mathematical model of some stuff in a subject of my interest.

While I was searching papers on Google Scholar, I found a PhD thesis written 5-6 years ago in my university, in which one of the chapters is somewhat very close to my stuff.

Just for an important detail, my idea is totally different and I think it is an interesting idea but the model is just slightly different from author's thesis and the solution method is very close.
In particular, the model framework that author used is a very commonly used framework in the literature but accidentally my solution method is very close to the author's method.

For sure without doubt, I will give the exact reference with the chapter and state where my idea is different from author's idea.

My question is: is this a plagiarism? How can I avoid any plagiarism problems? Should I contact the author in order to invite him to be my co-author in this case?


texts: When applying for a higher education job, do I need to list my bachelors?

texts: If I did a bachelors a long time ago in an unrelated field and I am applying for a job that requires a PhD And a Master's should I put the bachelor's degree? Is it necessary?


texts: Should I invite my idle team mates to participate in our project discussion with our professor?

texts:
I am about to deliver one year-long project assignment I've been working at my undergraduate school. This was a group project, but out of the three of us, I was the only one to do work on it (100% of it). There were two team mates with me, let's call them X and Y

X was idle all the time -- he would seldom answer messages and stopped entirely after a certain point
Y was new to the field, and overwhelmed by the coursework. I recognize other courses kept him busy, but in the end he too produced zero amount of work

That being said, should I invite them to discuss this project with our professor/tutors, pretending we did it all together, or just declare myself as the sole worker, and why?


texts: Is GRE scores required before contacting potential advisors?

texts:
I am from India and want to pursue a PhD in robotics/control systems and am not quite sure on how to start applying. I have my GRE about a month away from now. Is it okay to start contacting/emailing professors before I take the test?
P.S- I have a bachelors degree. I have about a year of work experience, a year and a half research experience in a lab.


texts: Professor refuses letter of recommendation request

texts:
The application for TA fellowship, one normally takes recommedations from previous professors one has TAed under.
What he replied when I messaged him asking for a letter of recommendation:

  If you remember I had major difficulties with the group of TAs of last
  year: the group behaved as if its internships were the most important
  jobs and only if it had time and in marginal hours, it would do its
  job. I rarely got an answer from my emails, I had to send the same
  email several times. The group rarely answered students' emails and
  their assignments' questions.   I asked for the group's support to
  proctor the exam, and at the beginning, nobody was willing to help.
  You were more collaborative than the rest. However, I still had to
  invest a significant amount of time to compensate for the complete
  lack of support of the TA group. So, in these conditions is very
  difficult for me to write the very positive letter that you need to
  win the scholarship. I am sorry that I cannot be more helpful at this
  time.

All of the things he says are not valid for me.

I didn't have internships, students sent me thank you after attending office hours and I went out of the way several times to accommodate his requests. Although, I can remember I replied him a few times the next day due to other work. He also did several things like threatening TAs for complaints which very out of the line at my University and unheard of.

Can I dispute his claims? I don't want a letter of recommendation anymore, I feel under-appreciated for the work I put in. I feel like I should reply to him, but I feel a bit angry for

dealing with him with through the course for this
trying to go the extra mile for a future recommendation.

Background info:
The professor is not from my University and was hired to teach to a summer course.

Possible reply:
Attach a thank you email I received from one of students taking the course, and mention two times I went over the line to co-operate with him.


texts: What's a "methodological approach" for research (Master's thesis)?

texts:
I'm going to apply for a Master's program. Although I'm not going to change my general field of study, I'm going to change my 'track' (from Information Technology to Geoinformatics).

In the application form of the aforementioned Master's program, I've been asked to specify my area of interest and state a research topic for my Master's thesis and describe my methodological approach. I honestly have no idea how to fill this part, how can I choose an area of interest and more importantly a topic for my thesis when I haven't even started the studies? Besides, can someone please kindly tell me what the part about the "methodological approach" means? (Is it talking about choosing one approach between Qualitative, Quantitave, etc. approaches? If so, is it enough to just write down the name and add no details?)


texts: Can a graduate school change its decision, from rejection to acceptance?

texts:
I have heard stories that graduate schools revoke their offers because of various reasons, such as lying in the application and some other serious misconducts.

As the title suggests, can the opposite happen? And can you recall any such events? If you have, why did they happen?


texts: description of papers that have not been submitted to a venue?

texts:
I have some published papers and in my CV, I mention them under the heading of "Publications".

However, I have some papers that I have not yet submitted to a venue (conference or journal). I think that I cannot mention these papers as "Publications".

What is the best and more appropriate description for the papers that have not been submitted yet? e.g. "Research Papers"? Or "Research Manuscripts"? Or something else?


texts:
Over the last four years I did a bunch of experiments (biotechnology, protein purification). Some of them are more valuable, some of them were just poorly designed (e.g. temperature not controlled, etc.). Some of them turned out to be important one year after I collected the data.

The data is highly heterogeneous (microscopic images, ELISA, SDS-Page, HPLC of various suppliers, settling velocity, filtration tests etc.; formats are doc, tex, xls, txt, csv, tiff,py, ipynb, png,pdf and proprietary formats like leica`s lif format)

Usually, I started a new folder on our network drive for each task (like afm_particles/2015_01_13_particle_1). Over time I gathered about 50 Gb of heterogenous data.

Usually, I do not alter the data in place, but load it into an Ipython notebook and do the calculation and plotting with python. The calculation files are stored in the same folder as my data. I have a file called INFO.txt in every folder with a brief description of the data within the folder, experimental conditions etc.

Usually, I know where I can find my data, but recently I wanted to change a plot for my thesis and spent about 15 minutes searching for the right sub-folder. In the end I searched for the name of the file and found it. A colleague of mine quit his job a year ago, and if I wanted to reproduce his experiments, I would have to invest several hours in order to find the specific file containing the raw data (hopefully with physical units stated somewhere).

We do write quarterly reports and paper-based lab journals (some more thoroughly than others). However, navigating through my own data is challenging. Not to mention someone else's data.

How do you handle heterogeneous data collected throughout a project (3 - 5 years) ?

Have you found a solution satisfying for both, people who have to document it and people who might continue the project ?

It would be great if I can browse the collected data without going through all the subfolders. For example by some form of index with information for each folder like: title, short description, usefulness of experiments, worked out as expected, totally crap, totally different than expected but interesting.

Are there tools capable of such a thing (Linux, Windows) ?


texts: How much time are UK PhD admittees typically given to accept/decline an offer?

texts: Is there a general convention as in the US (i.e. "until April 1"), or is this highly institution-specific?


texts: A potential collaborator applies for a grant on his own: what should I do?

texts:
In response to a solicitation in an area of my expertise, I approached a known expert in a different field; I had thought of a way to apply that field to solve the problem.  He liked my idea and set up a meeting with him and his postdocs; over time, we went through several rounds of written communication, proposal outlines, research plans, and revisions amongst us.

Midway through, I learned more about the solicitation and concluded that it wasn't a good match; we discussed this, decided not to apply, but that the plan was good and that we should look for other sources of funding.  As we did this, we continued to do some revisions together.

A while later, he sent me an email that he found a good source of funding, that he has a good relationship with the source and doesn't really need a partner for it, and that he is going to apply without me.  I was quite upset, but, seeing that he was telling me and not asking me, and that I had no way to stop him, said "okay, makes sense, please send me a copy of the proposal and keep me informed."

In truth, his proposal was advanced far beyond what I had last worked on.  But, the core idea was mine; and I have the records to attest to that, not to mention that his postdocs could verify that as well.

Assuming he gets the grant, I have no desire to get a share of the funds.  At this point, he can do the rest of the work without me.  He really is an expert and manages a very large, very prominent research program with lots of high profile funding.  And rightfully so - he produces results.

What I would like is coauthorship.  After all, the entire approach is my idea.  I thought of using his area of expertise to solve a very high profile problem of growing importance in my field, and described to him in detail why all the indigenous methods to my field are failing, and why an approach drawing on his expertise could succeed.

What is the right way to handle this? I won't be satisfied with an acknowledgement at the end; I'd like to be one of the authors.  I'm happy helping with the research further though I'm not sure he feels he needs me.

And, moreover, is this type of behavior acceptable? Do I have any leverage here? Do I need it?

CLARIFICATIONS:

To clarify, while I certainly didn't do the research yet, it was more than just giving him an idea.  I sent an outline, discussed the plan, and spent hours revising and iterating on their research plan.  I'll be equally clear that the final proposal was very high quality, and went far beyond what I had worked on.
From the responses, it seems this falls into a grey area.  So let me revise my question: Given that he's probably going forward with this, what's the best way to approach him and ask to be a coauthor? I'd be happy being involved with the research itself, but I'm not sure he wants that.  He'd probably be best off career-wise keeping it to him and his students (and, mind you, this is a researcher who puts a lot of effort on career advancement - he's an equally talented businessperson, albeit in academic research, as scholar).


texts: Is it better to have a strong thesis, or to follow personal interests during PhD?

texts:
I'm a second year US PhD student in applied math. For the last year I've been working on one project with my advisor and another one of her students. We have also started a collaboration with a professor from another university on an unrelated topic. Both of these project are progressing at a fairly expected rate.

Recently, I have made headway on a "personal" project, which I expect to publish as a single author paper. As a result of this, I've been in contact with some people I met at a conference, and am planning to work on the follow up analysis with them and my advisor. I think this paper and the subsequent analysis will be significant enough that it could serve as the bulk of my thesis. However, I'm not that interested in this topic, and definitely don't want to spend my career on this problem.

I also just reached out to a new professor in our department about some projects which could be much more aligned with my personal interests.

At this point my main goal is to get a good postdoc and then a good tenure track position. I'm fine with grinding through any work for the next few years if it will help me get there, so my question is whether it will be more beneficial to continue with the personal project on which I've made the most progress, and end up with a very focused and "citeable" thesis, or to pursue problems I find interesting, and end up with a broader but perhaps less impactful thesis.

In either case I expect to work fairly closely with my advisor and one early career academic from outside my university, but if I pursue my personal interests, I'd probably end up working closely with at least one additional person.


texts:
Let's say I create an image which illustrates the ideas of others as part of a paper I write for university class work (so it's not about anything I want to publish).

A simple example: Foo Bar says in their paper: We have a state machine with states A, B, and C.

I want to summarize their idea in my paper, but they do not have a graphic to illustrate it, so I create a graphic for my paper looking like this:

A --> B --> C

Do I need to cite it? My text makes it clear that this is not my idea (and it properly cites Foo Bar), but just looking at the graphic, this isn't clear.
If so, how would I cite it? Would "Graphic Title (based on [Foo Bar, 2016])" work? Is "based on" strong enough to indicate that this is not a graphic created by Foo Bar or a graphic based on a graphic by Foo Bar? Would "based on work by [Foo Bar]" be better? Or is there some standard for this situation that I'm not aware of?

This question is similar to How to cite a rebuilt graphic, but not a duplicate, as I did not rebuild a graphic, but build a graphic based on a description.


texts: How do universities (particularly medium sized ones) plan their master course schedule?

texts:
I'm a student at a university of around 20,000 students (using the semester system, just to be clear) and it's currently summer/fall registration planning time, a time for me which is more stressful than any of my classes, with all of the various requirements that must be met, especially since I must fit in gened, major, and honors courses in my schedules.

As hard/stressful as it is for me, it must be an absolute nightmare for the university. It's not a large enough school that they can just offer 20 slots of a specific course (this happens, but only for nearly universal courses like comp I), and the majority of courses required for my major are offered once per year, in one section only.

How on Earth do schools deal with the logistical nightmare that must be planning hundreds of courses while avoiding conflicts which would make it impossible to meet requirements on time and making sure enough slots for each course are open?


texts: Do many academic institutions let students deposit their publications in the institutional repository?

texts: I'm a doctoral student and I've published several academic papers. My institution maintains a digital institutional repository, but it doesn't look like I can put copies of my work in it. When I finish my dissertation, a copy of that would go in the IR. It seems strange that the institution doesn't seem to have practices in place to take in other published work of students. Are there other academic institutions that allow this? If so, it would be great to have links to their policies.


texts: Programming languages in computer science / applied math academic journals

texts:
I am working on documenting a new algorithm to solve a discrete mathematics problem, hopefully to publish academically. In this article, I will need to provide code samples and attach or link to a full code listing.

In academic articles I read from late last century, it was customary to document algorithms in C (one example here 1). Counting problems that involved large numbers used double even if the precision was insufficient.

In today's academic journals, what language is used by leading discrete mathematics papers?

For completeness, following are the journals I would try to target. I don't have access to these anymore, otherwise I would just leaf through them all.

Journal of Combinatorial Theory
Discrete Mathematics
Discrete Applied Mathematics
Electronic Journal of Combinatorics
Advances in Applied Mathematics
Journal of the ACM
SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics
MAA Monthly
Computational Methods in Engineering
Computational Intelligence and Complexity
SIAM Journal on Optimization
SIAM Journal on Computing
Computational Intelligence and Complexity

1 Shirish Chinchalkar in "An Upper Bound for the Number of Reachable Positions", ICCA Journal, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 181-183, 1996


texts: Transferring out of Rank 1 PhD program to another PhD program

texts:
I'm a first-year at a top-ranked institution in a PhD program that I have not had a formal background in. My PI is really great. The only real flaw I've seen so far is that his students take a while to graduate (most seem to have taken 6-6.5 years...). But I enjoy the research, even though I've just barely started.

The problem is more with the department and classes. I'm truly uncertain if I will be able to pass (i.e. >= B) one of the required classes I'm in, and another class I'm taking I'm pretty much certain I will have to drop (before the deadline) because I just don't have the background necessary for it even though I was told I would. I've been studying for the upcoming exam for weeks, but I still feel very behind where I need to be. The fact that if I get below a B I have to wait a year to retake it is also off-putting. I don't think I could wait a year knowing my future hinges on one exam.

I really want to do a PhD though, both for my personal and career-related goals. I love research and being involved in that community. I don't love this stressful environment where professors seem to have no issue kicking you out.

If things don't go well, is it possible to leave this program to start anew at another program? I know this would burn all bridges here, but I'm just trying to brainstorm my options. I'm just not really sure what to do.

Of course, I will wait and see how I do on my upcoming exam, but I just frankly don't think it will go well. Does anyone have any advice? This all makes for a very stressful situation. I'll just keep studying for now.