texts: What can I do when a manuscript is Completed Reject after 5 months of the submission

texts:
I submitted a manuscript five months ago, today I received a rejection letter, completed reject. There are many comments from the reviewers and one sentence the reviewer said:

"It is a good idea to explore further the relationship between
interactivity and map interpretation in the context of thematic
mapping. The authors are right to say that these are commonly used
representations and that we need to know more about how, when, and why
they work. However,the article as presented has major issues in terms
of its formation, execution, and interpretation that I do not believe
can be resolved in a major revision".

I would like to know:

is there any possibility I could send it to another journal, when I
solve all the issues they have sent?
does completed reject mean I cannot send it to that same journal again?


texts: How to avoid exceeding normal page limits after revision?

texts: I wrote a manuscript that was the maximum length (without any page charges) and sent it to the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics. Now the revisions have come. I am in the process of revising it, but I see that after revision there may be an addition of 1 or 2 pages more. Now for these 1 or pages I have to pay approximately $250 which I don't have. How do I avoid this over-length after incorporating all the revisions?


texts: Is it worth writing and publishing a survey paper while a PhD student

texts:
There are opportunity costs associated with spending time on writing a critical analysis of the literature and submitting that review article to a journal as opposed to conducting research (although the two aren't mutually exclusive). As a PhD student, is it worth spending the time to write and publish a review article as opposed to just pursuing research, without impacting the graduation timeline? And if the review article is published, would it be reasonable to incorporate it in one's dissertation?
This question is of particular interest to me since I also work a full-time job and only have enough time to allocate to one, maybe two, major projects for school at a given time.
This question has been significantly revised. The old version of the question is below.

My PhD program (United States, Computer Science) recently changed the comprehensive exam requirements so that we now have to write a research survey critically analyzing an area of our choice and orally defend it. The expectation is that the survey, either as is or with some additional work, would be of publishable quality, although there is no requirement for it to be submitted or published. My advisor is encouraging me to strive for actually submitting the survey once completed.
For those familiar with the either formal or informal requirement to publish a certain number of papers in order to graduate, how would publishing a survey impact that paper count? Should or would surveys be considered to count towards the paper count requirement? Additionally, there are opportunity costs associated with writing and trying to publish a survey, such as not being able to dedicate as much time to research; however, writing the survey will certainly help with research.
I understand there are many factors in play with respect to the type of program, quality of the survey, committee members, advisor, etc., but high level considerations would be appreciated.


texts: How to reference sources when I only took the ideas?

texts:
I am writing my essay where I analyze how different text search algorithms work and compare their efficiency in specific situations.

I did not actually take even a sentence from where I have read about the algorithms, everything is written by myself, how I understood it, but of course I did not invent those algorithms, and I want (and I think this is a compulsory) to actually refer to those sources, but how do I do it? Should I simply create a footnote even though my essay does not contain any sentence from that source? My essay is going to be passed to some plagiarism checker, therefore, I do not want any problems with "fake footnotes just to make my essay look stronger" or something like that. We use ISO 690 citing style.


texts: How to get objective advice on my CV and career progress in detail?

texts:
My research is in computational modeling of an additive manufacturing (3D printing) process.
My PhD advisor and now my postdoc advisor seems satisfied with my research output. My collaborators (professors from my university and other universities) seem happy with my work. I like my research field and there's so much to learn. I enjoy developing problems and finding solutions. I am decently published (8 publications) in my field and have received some commendation for my papers.
However, I feel I am wasting my time. I have been feeling this since midway of my PhD. I feel that my research is too easy and doesn't impact society or scientific community in any way. I think I am just good for short term projects and I am not required anywhere for permanent position.
I want to have an objective opinion on my experience and my career path. Is there any place to get that?
I am interested both in staying in academia or working in industry. I have applied for positions in industry, but openings are bleak at the moment and I haven't heard from them.


texts: How can one successfully run a reading group?

texts:
This is related to "Skimming through a math paper with a group" and "What do professors gain out of teaching reading courses with individual Ph.D students", but from the other side :)

I've experimented with various ways to run my advanced Ph.D seminar, ranging from almost-lectures to "students present papers" to "students present textbook-level material" to "let's all work on a problem together". I don't think any of them have really worked to my satisfaction in the sense of ending the semester feeling that students have a command (as opposed to knowledge) of the material.

I've been reading about the Oxford tutorial style approach, which can crudely be approximated by:

professor assigns reading material once a week
students form pairs and meet with professor once a week for about 1-1.5 hours.
students run the meeting (maybe one person presents and the other critiques, or they work out shared portions of the material on the board). Professor keeps quiet as far as possible except to unblock.

This format sounds tempting, as something that might work with a small group (at most 10 people). Does anyone have experience with this format and would it be suitable for advanced material at the graduate level ?

While I'm hoping it doesn't matter too much for this discussion, the topics for the seminar would be in theoretical computer science.


texts: Can a professor fix a mistake in grading after the semester has ended?

texts:
Let us assume that a professor is handling a course on statistics for undergrads.

They conduct exams and evaluate the answers and award marks to the students.

Suppose that the professor committed some mistakes, unknowingly, during the evaluation of a student's answers in one of the exams, and as a result, there is an error in the final grade of the student in statistics, and it is not noticed by anyone, including the student.

If the student realizes the mistake done by the professor in the next semester, then is the professor still responsible for the mistake that was committed? Or is the professor not responsible for their actions since the student was calm throughout the semester?

If the professor is responsible, then what is the action they need to do if the administration does not allow to edit the grades after freezing them?

Assume that the professor distributes the answer sheets after their evaluation for clarifying doubts of students regarding her evaluation. And the student can approach them at that time in case of any issues i.e.,  wrong marking.


texts: Should bullets appear before animations, or animations before bullets?

texts:
I'm designing curriculum that involves many steps and a correlating animation to go with it. The end goal of this curriculum will be to turn into a video where it might end up on Youtube (or something similar) for self-study.

Each animation has text that goes with it that describes it. My question is, Between the Animation and the Text, what should appear first? Please also include why you think it should go first.

I am not concerned on whether I should or shouldn't have animation or text. For the sake of this answer, both must be there.

To help frame the question, I created two simple slides/videos:

A. Bullets before Animation

B. Animation before Bullets

Which of these two options leads to better learning/retention? If one is better suited for video and self study, and the other is better suited for in-class live-teacher presentation, please let me know and why you think so.


texts:
A few years ago, while still an undergraduate student, I published a paper with one of my professors, who is fairly respected in his field (respiratory medicine). Several years have passed and I am no longer in the same field.
Recently, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he has made several media appearances promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine. Given that several clinical trials have shown there is a lack of evidence supporting the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating Covid-19, most scientists would regard this view as unscientific.
Given that we have a paper published together, am I facing any reputational risk?


texts: What to include in a Festschrift (memorial publication)?

texts:
A now deceased professor would have turned 100 year this year. What is the best way to honor his achievements?

Should a Festschrift (memorial publication) include:

Personal anecdotes on how you first met his thoughts in university
Personal reflections on what his thoughts has meant for your career further on in life
Review of publications
Links to others reviews of his publications
A detailed paraphrase of his most important works, step by step
etc


texts: How to deal with professors who don't follow the text

texts:
I'm a first year math grad student. As an undergrad, all my professors followed the given text book closely, making lecture easy to prepare for and very predictable. As a grad student, my professors seem to cover material mostly in the book, but in a different order, with different notation, or different content entirely.
The result is that I have essentially no way to prepare for classes. I can only show up to lecture and hope I can keep up. If I want to review, I can only read their handwritten notes. My understanding is really suffering because I can't reinforce the content by seeing it repeatedly and clearly. I know it's unreasonable to expect professors to merely regurgitate a textbook, but this is how I'm accustomed to learning. What can I do to learn material better in these situations?
Edit: Thank you for the replies. The consensus seems to be that lectures shouldn't reinforce the text. They should provide a bigger picture, a linking of ideas from the expert's point of view, and understanding details is the job of the student on their own time. This makes total sense.
I think my issue comes from spending valuable time studying the book, then having the professor totally skip that topic and go to another, never to mention the thing I spent hours studying. My effort is wasted, and I have to expend double the effort to understand what is covered. It seems like the answer is to just learn what I can and not see that effort as wasted.


texts: How to convince your PhD adviser about the research value of the topic?

texts:
I'm already in the second year of my PhD studies and my advisor insists on pursuing a very vague track, in order to produce some results that may be publishable. The problem is that the topic itself was extensively studied in the past two decades and there's little maneuver space without overlapping with others' past ideas (it's in applied Computer Science). My adviser seems to be constrained by his grant committee to have a solution for the topic's problem using a certain kind of technique that will be outperformed by other, more specific algorithms right from the start. Although it has other benefits, they're not interesting for this particular topic (since they're not going to be used in any way).

To put it simple, how can you tell your advisor that what they want you to do is like killing flies with TNT and then have the denotation site rebuilt in order to get rid of those flies? (in an elegant way, of course).

I should mention that my advisor has a different area of expertise than the one chosen for my PhD program and often seems not to having the slightest hints on what state of the art means for that particular field and why it is important not to reiterate past methods and algorithms just because they can be applied in a slightly different field from the one they were initially proposed for.


texts: How to deal with a micromanaging supervisor?

texts:
I am doing my PostDoc with a reputable professor, who achieved a lot in our research area. I really learnt a lot of things from him, but the problem is that I am uncomfortable with his supervision.

He is kind of person who wants to show that they are open and accept different opinion but when we start discussing he does not accept the other opinion and very often justifies his opinion by "If I was a reviewer I would reject ....". After a few discussions with him, I just say you are right. He has also an annoying attitude; he points out what he does not like directly (which is not always from the aspect of wrong and true) and if he believes something is wrong, he shouts and says it is wrong (even if you are presenting). At work, he has opinions about everything and I should apply (not because it is his opinions but because we discussed and his opinion is always true).

When we write something together based on one line idea, of course, I write what I think is right, but he just gives the feeling that you are doing something stupid and says it does not work (it is still an idea). Overall, I am allowed neither to do mistakes, to disagree with him nor to give wrong assumptions.
-I would prefer that he gives his opinion by saying I prefer this idea better and pointing out a wrong assumption by saying I don't think this works. Evaluating me (monthly for example) instead of just saying directly you are wrong (because most of the time the mistake does not affect the work). -

Since I started working with him, some colleagues just left because not agreeing with him (I don't know the details) but he told me that because they were not able to do what I asked them for. Also, during our meetings, he made so many people cry, especially girls because of his way of criticism.

We are now writing a proposal together and he asked me to write about his ideas, but he does not like that I am just doing what was assigned to me and not taking lead and drive the proposal. Actually, I don't feel that I am allowed to do thing by myself because he is pointing out everything so I just wait for his orders.

Before, I just accepted this fact and to deliver the work and accomplish his orders until I finish my PostDoc contract, but now he behaves as a micromanager and wants me to take lead. The two things don't match in my opinion.

I don't know how to deal with this situation.


texts: Is it always OK to ask for a copy of the lecturer's slides?

texts:
Weeks ago I attended a lecture/seminar in NYU Shanghai, and I am not a student nor an alumnus of it. After the lecture I attempted to ask if I can have a copy of the slides because the content is so interesting. The lecturer said to me that I'd better email her later and she will send me it. And I searched Google for her name and found her email address and shot her an email(using my hotmail email address), but now I still have not recieved the slides.

I thought she doesn't know me and hence might don't know that I am not affiliated to NYU Shanghai. But it seems that she doesn't have any reason to share with me the slides.

When I was a graduate student I attended a lecture on open source and what the lecturer said about it is still whirling in my head: the slides that are not allowed to share are not valuable enough to be shared. I love such ideas, abeit sometimes too idealistic.

But when is it appropriate to ask for a copy of the slides and when it is not?

EDIT after one day of waiting and two additional emails:
Following the suggestion by @WolfgangBangerth I sent the lecturer one more email and she redirected me to the host of the seminar and then I cold-emailed the host with some explanations such as who I am, how I relate to the university and why the slides are important to me. Just now I recieved the slides from the host. Thanks.


texts: What are the subjects that one must learn while an undergraduate to pursue an academic career in Biophysics?

texts: I am an undergraduate student pursuing a B.Sc(Hons.) degree in Physics. I want to pursue an academic career in Biophysics. So, I wanted to know which subjects are required for higher studies in Biophysics. In my course, we get to choose one ancillary subject for the first two semesters, then another ancillary subject for the next two semesters. The final two semesters are fully focused on Physics. I am about to complete my second semester, and I took up Mathematics as my ancillary subject. Now, I need to choose between Chemistry, Computer Science or Microbiology for the next two semesters, and I am not sure which one to choose. Microbiology is looking like the obvious choice but I think that knowledge of Chemistry and Computer Science is also going to have applications in Biophysics. So could you help me out by telling me which one of these subjects would be most beneficial in learning, keeping in mind that I want to pursue Biophysics in the future?


texts: For schools that require "at least 3" letters of recommendation for a grad school application, is it smart to send 4?

texts:
I am applying for math PhD and may have 4 letters of recommendation: One from my masters advisor, one from a professor I'm doing a small project with, one which I did undergrad research with and took grad algebra with, and one I took grad complex with. The last one is more recent in terms of me knowing him, but I did very well in his class.

For schools that either say "at least 3" or do not specify, should I do all 4 letters? Do I run the risk of the committee choosing the first 3 that they see, and discarding the 4th?


texts: Is depositing a document already available online in ResearchGate a problem?

texts:
Yesterday, I deposited an online document into my ResearchGate. My adviser prepared this document for a research proposal. I did not change anything and even I did not wrote that document at all because he just wrote that proposal and because my name was there I thought it's a good idea to put that in my ResearchGate account. Because it's already online somewhere and people could find it by searching in Google but it doesn't have DOI. Today, my adviser sent an email to me and said you can't publish something with my name without my consent and you should remove it from ResearchGate. I apologized and removed it immediately. I'm wondering because I did not publish it I just deposited that document into ResearchGate, which is already online somewhere else and people could find that. Furthermore, even I did not write that to need approval for the content because he wrote that completely. Right now it is completely deleted and I don't care really but I just feel that it was true that I should be blamed or not? I appreciate any idea or suggestion.

Edited:

I don't think my question was vague but I just reiterate my arguments more briefly again maybe it makes it clear.

This document, which we are talking about, has two authors: me and my adviser. So it's not the work of other people.
This document is publicly online in an university website and people could search it in Google, find it and download it so nothing is private, confidential or in the copyright of an publisher.
The document is written by my adviser based on a draft which I gave him sometimes ago So it is not a "new" document which I wrote it by myself to say ok you published something which is not reviewed before publishing.

So, I don't know what's wrong to upload a document, which is already online somewhere else, in ResearchGate for better visibility. I mean it's already out there but because it's not in a public research repository maybe has less visibility and that's it.


texts: I found a trove of Computer Science Masters thesis unprotected on a respected uni's website

texts:
I was looking for some technical documentation in relation to development of a specific piece of software, using a Google search such as "ACMESoft" "ACME_Rhino" filetype:pdf.

I found a PDF hosted on a European University's website which looked to be of interest; detailing some generic processes in relation to my search query.

I haven't read much of the PDF though, since I then went to see what other resources were available, so I browsed to a URL such as https://fileserver.someuni.ac.at/files/cs/pdf/ instead of https://fileserver.someuni.ac.at/files/cs/pdf/0815.pdf - and a full Apache webserver directory listing was presented to me.

It occurred to me that these PDFs were all people's thesis. I clicked a couple to check, and some were lengthy documents - Masters etc.

I didn't go to university, so I don't know whether these documents are supposed to be public-domain or not; but it would appear to me they shouldn't be.

Is there anything I should do in this situation?


texts: I have been accepted to an event where a keynote lecturer is a plagiarist

texts:
After some decades an event on my research area was announced in my city, so I decided to send my abstract, which was accepted.

However, they recently sent me the programme and among the keynote speakers was a person whose doctoral thesis contains uncontroversial plagiarism. (About 30 pages of his thesis are just a translation from two papers written in English by other scholars into the language in which the thesis was written.) There are no legal charges against this lecturer. Instead, the plagiarism was revealed by an apparently anonymous source about two or three years ago through a mailing list.

I know that at least some of the organisers of the event were in such mailing list, so they do not ignore the charges and had the chance to test whether they were true or not.

I have considered that maybe the best option to withdraw my lecture from the event explaining exactly why to the organisers. This, though, would not help at all, since they already know and do not care. Else they wouldn't have invited him as keynote speaker.

Other option that somebody suggested me is that I use some minutes of my lecture to publicly denounce him. (It just happens that my regular lecture starts right after his keynote lecture finishes.) But there are three problems with this:

When publicly denounced, this lecturer threatened to prosecute the source for defamation. (He's also lawyer.) I currently do not have a job nor a regular income that would allow me to face a prosecution, let alone to prosecute him.
It is very likely that most of the people that are going to the event already know. In such case, and since this is fairly yesterday news, I do not expect that there be any important reaction.
I am about to enter in the phase of defending my thesis, and this lecturer works in my institution as invited professor. Unscrupulous as he is, he may try to retaliate against me by using his power to delay my thesis dissertation. (I do not know how much power he has.)

Finally, you may be surprised as to how a whole academic community could care so little about this case. But I have to say that when the news about his plagiarism came, I myself didn't dare to publicly speak disapproving his behaviour because of what I said in the third point. Still, it was surprising to me that, although I know that several professors disapproved of his actions, apparently none of them publicly manifested their disapproval. I later knew that this wasn't the first time that something like this happens in my institution.

I'd like to know what is the most ethical or less unethical thing to do in this case. One thing is for sure, though. I do not think it would be right for me to go to that event, and speak after him as if he were a respectful scholar. And I am not going to.

Thanks in advance for any advice.


texts: Length of statement of objectives [mathematics / MIT]

texts:
While most other schools seem to have some recommended length (e.g. 1000 words) for the statement of purpose, MIT (maths) simply states

  Please explain why you are a good candidate for graduate school. You should describe why you wish to attend graduate school, what you would like to study, and any research experience you have. Describe one or more accomplishments you are particularly proud of that suggest that you will succeed in your chosen area of research.

As a mathematician I would like to keep it short because if I was in their position the last thing I would want is another long essay. However, since there is no possibility to upload a CV (and I am afraid they won't take a very close look at my website) I am inclined to describe my research experience as well as experiences with researchers (showing that I do take initiative, am not easily discouraged, etc.) there. This rather detailed description turned out to have 995 words.

Should I try to keep it shorter at the expense of, say, descriptions how I got interested in a particular field?


texts: Receiving a bad grade from close professor?

texts: Hello I am doing my masters and I got relatively bad grade from a professor. I am going to do another project with him in this semester. I think I deserve a better grade but the problem is that only way to re-evaluate my report is to make a complaint to study committee or to dean. My professor is a very nice person and he is one of the best in the area may be the best,and our communication is good he even wrote "look forward to seeing you". He was very satisfied with my lab. work but I messed up writing report, because he said that I should not write lots of theory but now one of the evaluation report says I should have write more theory(He is not the only evaluator, there are 2 more sensors who I dont know). It's so sad that I got a bad result, but I also don't want to lose healthy connection with the professor. I am doing my masters one of the best universities in Europe and I want to do Phd after my masters so grade is important for me and also recommendation is important for me. I dont know what to do, do you have any suggestions?


texts: Will a 5 year gap between Undergrad and PhD hurt my chances?

texts:
I am a 29 year old with an Undergraduate degree from Berkeley in Biochem. I graduated in 2012 with every intention of applying to PhD programs after taking a year or two off to work.

Due to some health issues and the economic slump I was unemployed for awhile. Now I've been working in the Biotech industry for 2 years and with the support of my two bosses who are both science PhD's themselves I finally feel confident and ready to apply. By the time I intend to apply (this fall) I will have 3 years of Biotech Research experience. While I was an undergrad I worked as a research apprentice all 4 years so I also have a lot of experience in academic research.

My biggest question and concern is: will my time in industry hurt me? Could it be an asset? Can I succeed in getting into a good school as a less than conventional applicant?


texts:
I want to  continue working on the research I used to work on when I was in school.
The thing is that I am not a student anymore, and I also do not work for the company that works on the research project I used to work on. It used to work on the research project by myself while I was in school (a little help from professors), meaning I can probably work/project on it by myself.

My question is that since I am not in school anymore, do I need to concern the license issue as commercial? All I want to do is do my personal/individual research project and submit a work to academic purpose, such as journal or conference. I see some software or programming library I am using say "Acedemy" or "Commercial", and since this is for the academic purpose, I am not so sure which one I need to follow.


texts: Is it normal for a potential supervisor to not reply to a student even after they replied before?

texts:
I enquired about a funded PhD position which was advertised on the faculty website. The application involved finding a supervisor and getting them to agree to be a potential supervisor before applying formally to the position.

I contacted the supervisor, who responded straight away, and they said that my idea sounded interesting, but that before we could discuss it further he/she would like to know more about my previous research experience.

I sent this information in an email, but have not heard anything back since (it has been 5 working days). Does this mean that he/she does not want to pursue it further, or could it be that they are simply busy and considering it?

Should I contact them again?


texts: How to write practice exams as a student as a way to study

texts:
I'm an upper-division physics student. I have finals coming up next week and I want to take the advice of one of my professors from several years ago: write your own exams for practice and give them to peers. It'll help the test writer to review topics and your peers to have practice questions. However, my finals are all upper-division physics exams. Quantum mechanics, electricity and magnetism, and statistical thermodynamics. Homework and exams are generally pretty difficult, and I'm not sure how I can write an exam that will be on the same level that we can expect on the final.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make up questions to create a practice exam for study purposes?


texts: Add Everything to my Annotated Bibliography

texts:
A book I have been reading1, has two (complimentary) recommendations for PhD students:

Add everything you read/encounter to your reference management system
Keep a annoteded bibliography of everything you read.

They argue that (as I read it):

If you looked at a resource and found it was bad, then having a note about how useless (and why) it was will save you looking at it again, if you encount it later.
If you look at something and find it is good, then you will want it later, and want to know why it is good.
If you look at something and find it off-topic, then later you might realise a highly novel crossover between the topics.
The pain/effort of ever trying to find something you've lost because you though you didn't note its full reference down apparently haunts the authors to this day. Indeed the authors describe a article they've been looking for for decades and suggest that if a reader finds it, they would appreciate the contact.

Right now my Annotaed bibliography contrained 16 references (I've been keeping it for a week.)

13 to various papers in my topic area, or for the foundations that lead to it
1 PhD thesis in my topic area, which as well as being good work is also a example of a thesis, that i could use for considering structure
1 Article from another area that is explaining the need for manythings, including my topic, for their area
1 blog post that while I might never cite, explains a concept from my area that I was having difficulties with better than anything else I have read.

My Anotations vary from:

1 sentence summary of the papers topic
1 sentence comparason to another paper
several paragraphs explaining the content
notes saying that I don't quiet get what the paper is saying.
note saying that "This paper looks like it would explain paper X's technique but does not. Don't look here for answers on X."
A see also note
Or a combination of the above.

Is this how Annotated Bibliography's work?

It seems for several papers putting more detail would be a waste of time (Particularly the ones I am annotating with "Don't read this for X"

1 Petre, M., & Rugg, G. (2010). The unwritten rules of PhD research. McGraw-Hill International.


texts: Should I stay in my uni for four years even though I already have 50 credits?

texts:
Since University of Alabama offers me full-ride scholarship, I will probably go to this school rather than more competitive schools, not because I'm poor but because it seems silly to me to pay $200,000 for merely an undergrad education, even though I can buy a house by that money. I'm going to get PhD, and the name of undergrad school doesn't matter in my career. I'm worried about research opportunity in the school since I want to excel in admission of PhD program, but I think I can make up for it with my enthusiasm and knowledge. I'm going to major in Biology, and I want to study about regenerative medicine and stem cell in grad school.

Until I will graduate from my high school, I will certainly have about 12 AP scores (mostly 5's) and be able to get about 50 credits, even though the school's graduation requirement is 120. It seems easy to graduate within 3 years (or even possible to do within 2 years), but graduating early seems to put me in a disadvantageous position in grad school admission. I can probably get 70 credits in two years, and then what should I do for the next two years? Can I concentrate on research for this period, or should I take classes to get about 30 credits per year? Should I apply for grad program in the third year and try again in the next year if the admission won't be successful?

If you have some opinion not only related to the topics about college credit but also my choice of school, please tell me that, since I still can change my choice of university. Other schools of my choice are such as Reed, Carleton, U of Michigan, U of Wisconsin, and U of Manchester. I'm an international student.


texts: What is the license for the data shared on Jounral of Political Economics

texts:
I don't think Journal of Political Economics has suggested a specific license. However, the journal did say that the data policy is adopted from American Economic Review (AER). AER did suggest a license of Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 (CC-BY).

That license allows reuse of data without asking permission (I just have to cite it). So my question is, may I also use the data released by JPE without asking permission?


texts: Is sending fall semester transcripts beneficial even if grades show a downtrend?

texts:
I received my undergraduate transcript with the fall semester grades a week back; I was wondering whether I should use it over an old transcript for my application to grad school in the US (top 10 in physics).

Reasons for sending old transcript (latest: spring grades from junior year):

Spring semester showed good grades.
Higher CGPA (+0.05 on a scale of 10.0).
Subsequent fall semester shows a downturn in grades (-0.7 on a scale of 10.0).

Reason for sending new transcript (latest: fall grades from senior year):

Shows advanced physics and math courses; I have talked a bit about these courses and a project in my Statement of Purpose.

One reason for the less than ideal performance in the fall semester is taking a lot of theory courses; however, I have not "explained" this in my SOP as there aren't any failing grades (or really poor performance).

Does the choice between the two transcripts really matter or am I overthinking this? If it matters, I am an international applicant from India.

P.S. I have completed the essential courses earlier so that is not a factor to be considered.

Edit: As pointed in a comment below, this question is not a duplicate as my grades are quite good (sorry for not mentioning this in the original post).


texts: Should I let potential employers know I have a job offer?

texts:
I've interviewed for a few positions, one of which has made me an offer.  I'm very pleased with the offer, but I prefer some of the other positions.  I have the luxury of being able to take a lot of time to decide whether or not I accept this offer, so I'm certain I will hear back (either positively or negatively) from the other positions before a decision is required for the offer I've received.

I'm trying to decide between two courses of action, and I want to choose the one that will best help my candidacy with the positions I've yet to hear from.  Plan 1 is to do nothing and simply wait to hear back from the other positions for which I've already interviewed.  Plan 2 is to be in touch with the other positions to let them know I have an offer, and ask where I stand with them.

Would Plan 2 make me a more desirable candidate with the other positions, as they might see my offer as further validation of my credentials?  Or, might initiating with the interviewers in this way be detrimental to my candidacy, perhaps making me seem pushy or self-centered?  If so, I would rather just wait for them to run their course of action (Plan 1).  As I've said, I have plenty of time, so I don't want impatience to hurt me.

If there is a good chance that my meddling will be detrimental, then I'd rather be hands-off here.  However, if it's more likely that informing the other interviewers of my offer will give me a boost, then I'd want to do so.

Thanks for any clarity you can provide!

Edit: For a bit more information and context, the position I've been offered is a non-academic research position that my advisor has described as "prestigious."  The other positions for which I've interviewed (and which I prefer) are mostly academic teaching-centered positions (visiting assistant professors, tenure-track at smaller four year institutions).


texts: Conference; withdraw submission before results notification

texts:
In conferences, especially in computer science domain; is it ethical, accepted and legal to withdraw a submission before the results notification/announcement?

Anyway, what if it has been just accepted!


texts: How to express about getting informed about a specific position

texts: I am going to prepare a cover letter for postdoc position. I was informed about this position by my Phd advisor. I am looking for a proper statement about how I was informed about such that position, which must be express usually at the initial paragraph of a cover letter. May you please tell me how would be a good statement for this type of info.


texts: What incentives do academics have to write text books?

texts: As noted in this question, academics should write research articles. In many fields, these are way more important than books. It's original research that counts for getting a PhD position, a post-doc, a tenure-track position, grants, etcetera. Writing a good textbook about an advanced subject is very difficult and very time-consuming. Its advanced nature means it won't sell many copies, so the money can't be much. Then why is anybody writing advanced scientific textbooks at all? What are the incentives?


texts:
We are writing a paper, and want to share the raw data.
My advisor suggests that I share the data as an Excel file, but I believe that a plain text file (such as a text-delimited or comma-delimited file) would be better.

Is there a standard format for sharing data?
How do I convince my advisor that a plain text file is a better format for sharing data?


texts: Ethics and etiquette, and permissions of posting student work to my online "teaching portfolio"

texts:
I want to create an online teaching portfolio on my website, and I want to post examples of student work on my blog and teaching portfolio.

What are the ethics and etiquette of posting student work online?  What are the steps I should take in doing so?

I know it is standard to take out any names, but do I need to ask the student for permission if I post their assignment without their name?

I want to post student work not only for my portfolio, but also as examples for my future students for the kind of work I am expecting.

If it matters, I am in mathematics, and teach at the undergraduate level.


texts: What the benefits of summer school when working on masters degree?

texts: I have recently started my graduate studies and I am still new to some of it. I always worked in the summer during my undergrad, but I've heard that working in the summer while working on  a masters isn't what I am supposed to do. I can believe this, but I am confused. What are the benefits to taking a few classes in the summer? I don't need to retake anything because I failed or need the requirement, because I am just starting out. I need some advice on this.


texts:
I participated in a conference (oral presentation), It is my first conference ever as I am in my first year of PhD. The conference ended 3 weeks agp now and they still did not send me any certificate of attendance/participation. How much time does it normally take to get certificate of participation in a conference?
Note : the conference was five days long (Monday to Friday, about 10 partcipants each day).


texts: Does your final-year GPA matter once you apply for graduate school during your undergradate study?

texts:
I am a final-year undergraduate student studying Anthropology. And I am willing to apply for graduate school. And I am curious whether one's final-year GPA matters. Because once you apply and receive an offer, you will not have received your grades for the courses you took in your final year.
If it does not matter once you receive an offer, then what about schools that require a minimum GPA in their applications? As an example, if I receive an offer from a graduate program that requires at least a 3.7 GPA, but my GPA drops below that number once I graduate, would that be a problem?
Thanks a lot!


texts: Presenting unpublished work at PhD defense. What will happen if the committee are excessively critical of the results?

texts:
I am about to defend my thesis and part of my presentation would involve results and conclusions from my two unpublished works. Personally, I am confident about the results and conclusions. My advisor is yet to work on the drafted manuscripts so she is familiar with the results but has not critically thought about the numerical methodology implemented or any other issues with the results. I have presented the results in different conferences, but again, no one really asks questions at conferences. These were not conference proceedings, so no peer review has been carried out yet.

So, I was wondering, what will happen if the committee (who are experts in my field) sees a potential fault with my work which I might have overseen? What if the potential fault undermines the works I have done? Will that lead to a negative outcome in my defense?


texts: Letter of recommendation from a professor with whom I took a class

texts: I understand that there are many posts similar to this, however I believe (upon reading other posts), that this thread would not be redundant.  I am an undergrad currently applying to grad schools and am in the process of asking for recommendation letters from professors.  Prior to my current university, I was at a different institution where I took courses.  There is a particular professor I am interested in asking for a letter from, however it has been two years and since then he has moved to a different university.  My reasoning for asking him for a letter is that I took his PhD course as an undergrad and received a better grade than over half the PhD students (not trying to brag but trying to emphasize there are some non-generic characteristics about me).  In addition, he is a well-known individual in my area of studies.  Given that I took his course two years ago is it still appropriate to ask?  A concern of mine is that it will be a generic letter of rec which I have read admissions committees don't like.


texts: Should I drop out of gradschool or finish out a Masters?

texts:
I am currently in my first year as a PhD student in inorganic chemistry, however I am not excited about the research in the group. After some thought I desire to get into a bio-related field (completed my B.S. in Biochemistry but did my undergrad research in Chemistry). Since I joined as direct-PhD student I can drop down to Masters route but according to others in the group the average time to complete a Masters would be around 3-3.5 years. My other option is dropping out at the end of the semester and reapplying to other programs or working as an intern to gain more experience and then apply.

I really want to get into a reputable university as there is a huge difference in the opportunities available as I have seen from doing my undergrad in a small school vs the current school which I am in.

Would finishing out a Masters in chemistry be useful in getting into a better grad school program or would it be wise of me to drop out now. My thought is that finishing a masters would show that I am competent enough to be a graduate student even though I lack the acumen that others may possess who have done research in the field.


texts: Do I have to include thesis topic/advisor name after career change?

texts:
Here is a related question but not exactly what I'm looking for

Should one include irrelevant background on CV after career change?

My Scenario:

I dropped out from a Ph.D. program in [subject X] and got a M.S. in [subject X]. One of the M.S. requirements was a thesis. My relation with my former advisor was horrible because of [a long story of advisor-advisee confrontation]. I do not want anyone asking his opinions about me.

I'm currently a Ph.D. student in [subject Y] and I want to construct a CV for the purpose of personal academic website under my current department.

In my education section of CV, can I omit the name of my advisor/thesis topic? For example,

[time] M.S. in [subject X] [name of University]

instead of

[time] M.S. in [subject X] [name of University]
Advisor: [Name of Advisor]
Thesis: [Topic of Thesis]

In the future, if I end up in getting a Ph.D. in [subject Y] and picking up master along the way. Can I completely remove everything related to [subject X] on my CV that is used to apply for postdoc. position in [subject Y]?


texts: Host prof stole my Ph.D. topic during my visit

texts:
I have been a visiting researcher to fulfil my Ph.D. and to do the experimental step of my Ph.D. A month ago I understood that my host professor stole my Ph.D. topic and idea and he is writing a proposal about my project and wants to apply for a grant for it. I come here to do some cooperation with them but he stole it and wants to have the idea for himself.

What can I do to protect my project? Is there any place that I can complain? I am working a lot on my Ph.D. and don’t want to see that this person easily steals it.


texts: I would like to ask a question about the meaning of the status "Draft" of my submitted article in a Taylor and Francis journal?


texts: Where can I learn more about the differences between areas of chemistry at graduate level?

texts:
I'm a 3rd year undergraduate student studying chemistry, and I'm starting to think about grad school. I've enjoyed the different chem courses I've taken, so it's hard for me to pick a subcategory of chemistry to study.

Are there books or other resources available which describe in depth how the rubber meets the road for the different fields of chemistry? I've spoken with my professors somewhat and I plan to continue doing so, but I would like a text-based resource which I could refer to and look up or research the words and concepts contained in it.

A related, but different question is this: What are the most important factors when considering graduate school in chemistry?


texts: Prospects for getting an assitantship | How do professors hire in Canada?

texts:
I have applied to one of the top engineering school in Canada: UoT, University of British Columbia & UWaterloo.

I've interviewed a professor and he sent me his most recent research publications after the email. I asked a few prospects of the future project he wants me to work on and he even encouraged me that we can think of using a methodology (that I previously worked on) in his future project.

He's told me he's reviewing all the people who opted for his research supervision. More info in this thread 1.

So, what kind of chances are there for getting a Master's assitantship based on the professor's response? Do all professors have this enthusiasm while discussing with prospective students?

I apologise for this very specific question but anxiety kicks in during the admission process :)


texts: Quality of an image for publication reproduced from another source

texts:
I have my paper back from a reviewer. The main point is that a quality of the image is not good enough for the publication. I reproduced this image from another paper (with permission) but the only thing I could do, was a print screen of the original and paste into graphical software. I improved the quality by smoothing, but it is still not good enough for the publisher.

The reviewer comment:

  The quality of the figures 1 and 2 is still not good. I recommend authors convert the schematics into vector graphics.

I can't find what and how to do it. Did you have a similar problem and solved it?

EDIT to explain what is on the figure:
The figure shows elements of a vehicle with dimensions (numbers), different coordinate systems, force... it is rather complicated and maybe I could redraw the arrows (alhough many of them) but the background is a photo of the element.


texts: I have found theses on a similar subject to my own, and want to use their references with my own text and a similar flow. Is this plagiarism?

texts: I'm writing my master thesis and found some master and PhD theses with the similar subject. They have lots of useful references at their introduction chapter, and I use those references and create my own text with a similar thought flow, would this be considered plagiarism?


texts: Do I need to cite a working paper that was written after I wrote/presented my manuscript?

texts:
I need some help deciding how to cite a paper that is rather similar to my own. I wrote a paper in Nov 2017 and presented it at conference that year when I was 8 months pregnant. Then I went and had a baby. I didn't submit it, because I was a bit overwhelmed and I felt like noone else was doing work on this problem so the paper was "safe." (I didn't get maternity leave so I just had to keep teaching my full load with a newborn - not something I would recommend.)

I presented a follow-up paper at Nov 2018 conferences and one of the other papers on my panel was VERY similar to my 2017 paper. It seems somewhat like an extension of my work, although they were not aware of my work. (Which seems a bit ridiculous because we go to overlapping conferences.) At least one of the authors on the other paper is senior/famous.

Now, I am pushing hard to submit my 2017 paper to an Economics journal this month. How should I cite/discuss their paper? Right now, I am leaning toward not talking about their paper but instead putting a note about their work in my comments to the editor and letting the editor decide how it should be included.

Since seeing my 2018 presentation, they added the following to their paper's conclusions: "During the course of writing this paper, we became aware of a working paper that [general topic] (see ...). [Then they explain in two sentences how their work is distinct, of course making my work sound a bit more basic than theirs.]"

Do I need to do something like this in my text? It feels a bit unfair since I demonstrably had the idea first.


texts: Should I just go to grad school during the pandemic or go to industry?

texts:
I've just got an offer from a top graduate program in Computer Science and also got an offer from the big company. I'm very happy and grateful for these opportunities, but I can't decide which one to choose. I managed to get into Master program with thesis option, but I haven't been assigned to any supervisor. I wanted to pursue graduate studies in ML (which was my goal after graduation), and we are usually given one or two semesters to find an academic supervisor. For these reasons, in-person interaction with professors is considered a very important opportunity to "get to know each other", but I'm afraid that this will unlikely to happen during the pandemic.
In the meantime, I have been job-hunting for more than 6 months. Out of hundreds of applications, only < 10 companies returned back to me. It didn't surprise me because I only have 4-month internship and 1-year research during undergraduate studies. Working at the company will definitely open doors to future opportunities but I feel like I'm deviating myself from my goal and I feel I'm already falling behind in life because I already had one gap year during my undergrad and I took one year break after graduation. Should I just go to grad school, or defer my offer of admission to the next year and work for one year?


texts:
My first attempt at this question was voted to be closed. Here's another attempt at the same question which I have broken into two different questions/posts.

I am an application programmer with 3+ years software development experience. I already have a Masters in Computer Applications from a reputed university in India. I am planning to apply for universities in the US and UK for the 2014 fall semester as I feel that my job is getting stagnant and I have always wanted to study abroad.

I am really not sure whether I want to take up another masters degree or apply for business school instead. Considering my indecisiveness regarding what I want to study, I have decided to appear for both the GRE as well as the GMAT and keep my options open. The first step for applying abroad is to take the GRE or the GMAT and I want to get done with this step by keeping all my options open.

I am planning to appear for the GRE by March 2013 and the GMAT by June 2013. That will give me enough time to apply for masters as well as business schools abroad. I understand that many business schools have started accepting the GRE but appearing for the GMAT will broaden my options.

Given the above information, What are the pros and cons of applying for graduate study in multiple disciplines? Has anyone taken this path and applied for a masters and an MBA in the same year?


texts: How often do publishers sue researchers for copyright infringement for putting their articles on a personal website?

texts:
I know that some publishers sometimes send copyright infringement emails to researchers putting their articles on a personal website. How often do publishers actually sue researchers for copyright infringement for putting their articles on a personal website? (assuming the authors didn't have the legal right to do so)

I am mostly interested in United States-based authors, but I am curious about other countries as well.


texts: Where do I get advice and guidance from in my PhD if my supervisor is not an expert in the field I am working on?

texts: I decided on my supervisor because he is the only professor working in this field in my country, and he is very resourceful. He helps me out a lot on every aspect other than technical guidance because he is an experimentalist and I am focused right now on numerical simulations. How do I find resources other than research papers for guidance on my PhD


texts: How does one find an advisor for an online graduate program?

texts:
I'm in an online part-time graduate program at a well-established state university in the U.S.. I'm having a hard time getting responses from professors when it comes to asking about potential research topics for a final project that is required for my degree and asking for them to be my advisor. I imagine it's a mix of things causing this:

My e-mail messages might be too long. Although they are direct, I haven't met these people before, and I usually give them a 2-3 paragraph message introducing myself and the goal. No more than this.
I'm in a M.S. online program. I'm not a Ph.D. student who is on-site, and thus cannot contribute more to whatever research they are doing as much as I could.

I've read advice online and haven't found anything about this particular situation.

How do people go about finding an advisor if they're in an online program? What can I do to maximize the chances of having a professor at least respond to an e-mail I send?

If this question is too broad, I can delete it.


texts: Should one apply for tenure track positions below current rank?

texts:
Should a full professor apply for an associate professor position if it's the only way s/he might be able to continue his or her career?

The situation in question involves a person recently promoted to full professor (after 5 years as associate prof. and 5 years as assistant before that, all at the same institution). At the time of application for the assistant/associate level position, the person will have held the rank of full professor for 1 year. The person's current position entails living 2500 miles apart from spouse and elderly parents for 8-9 months each year.


texts: How can a proof question be asked online?

texts:
Let us consider a quiz question whose answer is a proof. For instance, a question in mathematics, such as prove that for every natural number $n$ the quantity $n^3-n$ is even.

How could such a question be implemented in a computer interface so that the computer can check the proof for correctness?

A simple, yet unreasonable way would be to have a multiple choice format for the question, where every choice was one way of proving the relationship, but I guess the shortcomings of this are obvious...


texts: What does this professor mean by saying "I do not have time to respond"

texts:
I am an undergraduate in CS and engineering.  Approximately a week ago, I sent an email to a professor whose research really interests me.  I sent him couple of my questions and confusions rooted from reading his recent papers, but I did not get any response.  Consequently, I sent a short followup email to him indicating that email was sent a week ago, but he sent a short reply saying that "Sorry, I do not have time to respond."

Does it mean that he wants me to go away and never bother him again?  Does he not like me (we had some previous but positive communications) or not want to be bothered by undergraduates?  Should I perhaps send a followup email a month later?


texts: Suppose a student currently doing Ph.D in an institute wants to leave the institute and apply abroad for Ph.D. Should he/she mention the name of the institute he/she wants to leave? If the universities call the current PI, they will never get a positive feedback since the current institute will never want to lose their student. But the student wants to mention that he/she has work experience. What is to be done in this situation? Can the US universities reject the application based on the current PI's feedback in spite of the candidate having excellent grades and recommendations from previous PIs?


texts: What are the roles and responsibilities of an adjunct faculty?

texts:
Is adjunct faculty's duty limited to teaching? Do they have any role in course design, grading, etc.?

What are the other responsibilities, as an adjunct faculty?


texts: What is the meaning of promotor and copromotor in Dutch PhD thesis?

texts: I would like to know what is the difference between author and contributor in the Dutch system, and how to appropriately cite such a thesis? Only author? (APA format) Why this strange name promotor? Is this related to promotion?


texts: Lodging an objection to a decision to reject my Master application

texts:
I'm currently writing an objection to a decision to reject my Master application.

The decision is made by Admission office, not by Admission Board or Committee. All members of the Admission office are not members of the academic staff, so there is no at least one professor from the programme who participated in making this decision to reject my application. I checked this because in the email I received, there are the names of the members.

As they use the word "reject" it might lead someone to think that my application was not complete, but this was not true. According to this decision, my application was carefully examined and, in addition,  I was not informed that there is some document missing as it is stated in the FAQ on there website, i.e. they will inform me in the case of missing document or delay caused by more time they need to check my educational background.

In the email that I received there is no a reason why my application is rejected. Now I have to state clearly the grounds on which I object there decision.

I applied with not only BSc that meets the requirements but also with two year Master degree in the same field, successfully finished without redoubling the year, high marks. Before applying I informed the admission office for this and I did not have any remarks for my previous educational beckground as I saw that all requirements are referring to previous Bsc. I was even waved out from GRE/GMAT requirements.

I need the help especially from those who have expericence in the European (EU) Education Law or Dutch Higer Education and Research Act (WHW) to clearly state the Articles that are violated concerning:

The composition of the Admission office (I know that it is a practice everywhere in the world to have at least one professor, but I need an official document, I cannot only refer to the ethics)
The right of a student to have at least some information to know why the application was rejected as it has to state clearly the grounds of his objection
Is there any convention or document that clearly defines what is non-selected and rejected document (this document must be official)
Regarding the level of my previous education which fully satisfies the requirement, is there any ground for discrimination based on the fact that maybe I'm overqualified or overeducated, taking into considereation also the fact they told me previously that I can apply?

Thank you for your understanding


texts: Does hardware specifications need to be referenced?

texts: Split between this, when talking about hardware, do you need to reference where you got the information from? For example, "this firewall has xyz ports and is capable of IPSec", would I need to reference where I got this information from?


texts: What to do when people in a research group use different programming languages for computation (e.g., Mathematica, Python, Matlab)?

texts:
I am a very happy user (in 98% of the time) of Python/Numpy/Scipy (anaconda distribution). I switched from Matlab and do not regret the decision. I have reached a level of expertise, which enables me to help others with their computational tasks and encourage people to use Python.

Unfortunately, the situation is not that easy. A senior researcher in a very closely related working group is using Mathematica. One of his students is using Mathematica, one is not sure yet but honestly it would be stupid to use a different software.

If I switch to Mathematica, everyone may benefit from it (code sharing and building up knowledge). I think you can understand that my motivation to do so is not the highest (not again another language; I use Python, Fortran and a bit C++). Additionally, the Python user community is very vibrant, and they frequently come up with interesting projects.

In order to avoid a nonsense discussion about what software to use, let me rephrase my questions as follows:

Have you ever been in a similar situation (either as student or supervisor)? And if you have, did you try to get everyone to use the same language? Did any situation occur where it was good that not everyone was using the same tool?

EDIT:

My field is biotechnology. We do calculate: ODE'S, PDE'S,fractals, system of equations (ODE's, DAE'S, algabraic). Most of the time we do some rapid prototyping (e.g calculating linear pH gradients in chromatography, some combinations of reactors etc., using/extending chromatographic models). I am a PhD student and will continue as a post doc at the same institute including occasional lab exchanges abroad.


texts: Is there anything special to the CV format for PhD applicants in Germany?

texts: I want to pursue my PhD program in Germany. Is there any special format for academic CV to for applying there?


texts: Etiquette for contacting potential advisors after submitting application

texts:
I have applied to a bunch of PhD programs in computer science but have not heard back from several of them, and my top choices are among those schools. I am thinking about contacting a few professors at those institutions about their progress in the graduate admissions process, as I already have other questions that I want to ask them (questions about their papers, current projects, etc.)

Is it OK if I ask them about the status of my application and/or the admissions timeline after I ask my real question? Will the answer differ if I do/don't know them in person? Or is it best for me to just refrain from asking such questions in any case?

In addition, if I mention offers that I have already received in the email, will that be considered rude?


texts: Why do faculty use two different email addresses?

texts:
Why faculty usually have two official email addresses, the university and the department address?

Name@university.edu
Name@department.university.edu

Do they use the second more to communicate with students and the first for other tasks? They could use one and add emails to folders or labels.


texts: Recommendation letters when changing between two unrelated fields

texts:
I was a humanities major in undergrad and am now applying for a master's in engineering. The program I'm considering is a three-year MS that explicitly targets students without engineering backgrounds. To apply, all they require is proficiency in first-semester calculus. Besides a stats elective and AP credits, I didn't take formal math courses in college, but since graduating, I've self-studied the calculus sequence and differential equations, and I am currently working on linear algebra.

My concern is with getting letters of recommendation that will be relevant to the admissions committee. I have one recommender, my undergraduate thesis advisor, who can attest to my research skills and time management. For the second letter, I think it would be ideal to have someone who can speak to my math ability, as I can imagine that admissions will regard my self-study with skepticism. However, I've been out of college for a year and a half and now work overseas, so seeking a reference from someone in my university's math department is impractical.

Do you have any ideas for how someone in my situation could get a letter of reference from someone who can directly address my potential as an engineer?

Failing that, or perhaps in addition, can you suggest any concrete ways I can demonstrate my math ability to the admissions committee?

I've taken a look at these two questions:

Who to ask for letters of recommendation when changing fields after PhD?
When changing fields from undergrad to PhD, which department should recommendation letters come from?

I believe my question is distinct since I am looking to make a much more drastic switch between fields, and my competitors are also people who are changing fields.

Both my undergraduate institution and the graduate program in question are in the US.


texts: What role do professors on a graduate student's PhD committee serve?

texts: Do they discuss the graduate student in meetings with each other? Or do they have any obligations to interact with the graduate student in other ways?


texts: What is the difference between "interpreting" and "reporting" research in a scientific publication?

texts:
In line with this question, I would like help with writing a results section in a Computer Science paper.  There are many useful suggestions online [1 , 2], but I am confused about one of the key points in these links:

  avoid interpreting the results rather than just reporting them. Just present and report the observations and measurements, factually and informatively, without discussion.

What is difference between interpreting and reporting?


texts: How to advertise an academic job in a small Asian country to US/European candidates?

texts:
I am a mathematician, recently returned home to Malaysia after a decade or so in the United States.

I had experienced for myself the pain of the US academic job search in snagging my postdoc. Now I am on the "other side", so to speak. My institution, Xiamen University Malaysia, is brand new and growing fast, so we need to hire a lot of mathematicians.

From my time in the States, I know there are many brilliant, hard-working people with excellent research records who cannot get permanent academic positions in the west due to the scarcity of jobs. I think my institution would provide an excellent opportunity for them. Obviously we cannot offer the same financial package a western university can, and I'm sure it is difficult for a lot of job candidates to consider a move across the world, but it is reasonable for the cost of living, and we teach in English and offer a teaching load that is conducive to research. I think it would be reasonable for a western-based job candidate to at least consider us.

My question is, how do we get the word out in the west? The obvious solution is Mathjobs.org for the US, but we don't have the budget for advertising there. I have emailed hundreds of department heads in the US and Europe, but I doubt many of those emails got forwarded.  Are there any other avenues to try?


texts: Diploma equivalence from the old Belgian System

texts:
I graduated from DRCongo, and here we still use the old Belgian system.
I did the  Polytechnic, and my diploma is called license en Polytechnique Option Genie Electrique et Informatique.
Basically, we spend one year in pre-polytechnic class, the 3 years of grade and by the end we get a diploma de grade for the first cycle and then we spend another 2 years to get the so-called diploma de Licence en Polytechnic. Basically here we spend 6 years at Uni to get that diploma.
Now that I am applying for UK universities I don't know how my degree translates in the UK educational system.
Should I call it a Master degree or a 2nd Cycle Bachelor Degree?


texts: My Proposed PhD supervisor is ignoring my email

texts:
I made a contact with a proposed PhD supervisor( Professor), everything went well and she forwarded the email between her and the department Research committee secretary that I have been shortlisted for studentship and recommended for Fellowship, in the email she sent to me, I observed a remark on my application file (my entrance requirement was indicated with FAILED) and I quickly asked her if it won't affect my admission, but she ignored it, a later found out that all applicant were initially categorized as a masters holder (I am a bsc holder) before screening that was the reason why for that). After, a couple of days, i asked her if I was later shortlisted for Fellowship but she ignored the message, though the admission offer will be released in March.

My questions are these;
Hope I have not create a doubt in her mind towards me as a result of my inquisitive nature?, hope this won't affect my admission offer and lastly, how can I build the relationship back because she used to reply my messaged often and appreciate my research proposal?


texts: What software can this kind of graph be drawn on?

texts: I am a graduate student freshman.I am reading some papers. I want to know what software this kind of graph is drawn in? Can someone tell me? Thanks.


texts: How to use data from a colleague who retired in my thesis without commiting fraud or plagiarism

texts:
A colleague of mine who worked on the same project retired one year ago. I would like to use some of the data he measured and reproduce some of his figures. He gathered the data while performing a routine analysis of our raw material e.g binding kinetics or adsorption isotherms. In general, nothing groundbreaking. Unfortunately, he did not publish the particular dataset. As a consequence, I cannot cite him.

How can I use that data without being accused of plagiarism or fraud. Of course, I will ask him for the permission to use that data.

Would you state that in the introduction or the figure legend? And what would you write?

EDIT:

I forgot to mention that I will write my Thesis as a monograph and publish it later.


texts: How many first-author papers should I publish during postdoc to get a tenure-track faculty position?

texts:
I'm currently a 2nd year postdoc in mechanical engineering field working on bio-related applications. I have ~9 first-author papers during my Ph. D., but have not been able to publish a first-author paper during postdoc.
For anyone in a similar situation (postdoc in mech. working on bio stuff), what is the reasonable number of 1st author papers to apply for TT? If I have several non first-author papers, would that still "count" as my research output when getting reviewed by the search committee?


texts: What is considered a new submission and a resubmission?

texts: I submitted a manuscript to a journal and it was completed reject after 5 months, but they said they have found contributions. The reviewers presented many issues to be resolved, one of the most challenging is refered to the number of participant excluded from the experiment. If I include more participants explaining the reasons, this will generate different results, maybe. Would it be considered a new submission after solving this and other issues? or it is completed reject?


texts: Caption for a figure reproduced from a CC-licensed document

texts:
In a research paper for a journal, which uses Science magazine publication style, I'm reproducing a diagram from a document, which has a Creative Commons (CC)-based open document license. The diagram (figure) itself doesn't contain any license references, as is typical for most CC-licensed figures, however the whole original document contains the following statement:

  This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons
  Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License,
  creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.

Question: What should be the content and style of the borrowed figure's caption, considering the journal style and the document license? In other words, should it just be (X is reference number)

  Figure 1. The title of the figure. Reproduced from Reference X.

or

  Figure 1. The title of the figure. Reproduced from Reference X (CC BY-NC 3.0).

or something else?


texts: What exactly is an embargo for a journal?

texts:
I was trying to access this article and was told this journal is "embargoed" for more than a year. This is the first time I have seen the term embargo used in an academic setting.

This answer talks a bit about the idea of journal embargoes. Wikipedia has more information but I do not find it helpful at all.

As I read (on Wikipedia), it seems embargoes in journals are for future stories (and not for everything ever published). The article that I am seeking is from two years ago.

This question implies that embargoes deal with the relationship between publisher and author, which does not make sense in the context of my request.

This answer implies that embargoes are about limiting access electronically, but, again, it seems I can buy the article for $40 so clearly it is available electronically.

So, what exactly is an embargo (in this context)? Does it really mean that I simply have no access to this through my university account? It looks like it is available to the general public (if you pay) but not to those of us with access through university subscriptions.


texts: How to evaluate students? Resources on educational assessment for higher education

texts:
Most academics are involved to some level in teaching classes and evaluating students. I never got a proper education in teaching, unlike what we had for research, and neither did any of the lecturers and professors in my community: we learnt on the job, and for the most part reproduce what we have seen others do.

There is one area where I feel this is not enough, and I could be better: evaluations. We mostly do two sorts of evaluations: written exams (exercises with series of questions) and short bibliographic or research projects (ending with a short oral defense). In addition, many high school teacher friends tell me that research on the evaluation of knowledge acquisition (or student assessment) has made huge progresses in the last 20 or 30 years, that have completely changed the way they teach and evaluate students. Yet, I don't think things has changed so much in higher education, and I don't find around me any tools (lectures, seminars, tutorials, what-ever) to learn of this topic.

So: How can one learn to better evaluate student’s skills and knowledge acquisition? What are good (and modern) resources out there on educational assessment as applied to higher education?


texts: What is the real maximum score of subject math GRE scores currently?

texts: I know that every subject GRE test has the maximum score 990 and the maximum percentile 99. However, upon looking some data on the ETS website, I found that the math subject GRE score starts from 920. Also, I heard that somebody got score 930 and percentile 99. What is the truth? What is the maximum math subject GRE score?


texts:
I would like to ask if you think  the European COST Actions are interesting for researchers? Do you see any potential advantage to join any of them? If yes, I would like to ask you how I could join one action of my interest, they do not explain properly in the website.

Thank you very much in advance.


texts: Can post-doc researchers write a recommendation letter for someone applying for a PhD program?

texts:
I am wondering how it is treated if a post-doc researcher writes a recommendation letter for someone applying to get PhD admission.

Will the selection committee evaluate it properly?


texts: How Good Is A Recommendation Letter For MS in CS From A Workplace If It's Coming From A Mentor?

texts: I have 3 years of work experience in cloud computing and virtualization and am intending to illuminate this in my SOP. With what degree of credibility will the above mentioned work experience be accepted by admissions committees if I do not have any letter from my workplace at all? Also, since it is difficult for me to get a recommendation from my immediate manager at my workplace, if at all I do get one from my company, it may be from a colleague who was my mentor (no managerial role). How good will such a recommendation be? I already have two recommendations from my college professors, each of which highlight one of my two research publications. It is for the third recommendation that I have the choice between this letter from my mentor at my workplace and from an assistant professor at my college who had taught me in a number of courses and labs. Which recommendation should I go forward with? Please advise on these matters.


texts: Do professors change their impression of a previously bad student?

texts:
One of my friends (a math graduate student from my department) didn't work hard during his undergraduate studies, and his GPA was, naturally, low. He barely (and with some luck) got into grad school, where he works harder.

The problem is that as it seems, most of the professors have a very bad impression of him, both because some of them had him in their classes, and because our department is relatively small and professors exchange a lot of information and opinions about students.

Part of the problem is that his reputation is not (just) of someone who is not hard-working (that would have been easier to fix, perhaps), but at least some of the professors simply don't consider him as smart or talented enough, and that is based solely on courses he participated in -- neither of those professors had any actual mathematical interaction or deep conversation with him, except for his advisor (who knows he wasn't serious enough about his studies) and perhaps a few others, who seem to have a somewhat better opinion of him than most.

Is there a way for this student to change the impression people have of him? From your experience, do people really change their impression of someone, once new information is presented (or are they likely to still think of him as not smart enough to be a mathematician, but who manages to go through grad school with hard work)?

This question might be related, How to change the idea that supervsiors got about you? however I find the situation different: First of all, an advisor has a lot of interaction with the student, so he is likely to notice a change. Also, in the case of my friend, the advisor does believe in his potential, but probably doesn't share his thoughts with people since he's not one of those who talk about students with others, and mostly keeps to himself.


texts:
For a number of reason reasons I find myself in PhD position that involves very little real research activity and I'm having hard time to fully understand my situation.
To give some context, I started a PhD on a thematic scholarship on a project that I've not even touched since the start of the program and was eventually canceled.
Instead, since the start, I am working as developer for an experiment that require the production of specialized hardware.
My job could be described as "embedded hardware engineer", and my tasks range from designing very simple PCB boards to writing C code for embedded devices.
Given the scale of the project and the limited number of (human and practical) resources in this group, this endeavor was enough to keep me occupied full time.
In no part of this job I had to apply or develop any innovative algorithm or find a solution to a problem that was worthy of a publication. It's a very technical job and now I am facing the problem of how to push out a thesis on this.
I had some discussions with my advisers over this, but between political problems (e.g lack of people working on this experiment) and personal problems (conflict of interest and some people just being difficult to deal with) I've not found a satisfying solution; the idea is that I should write a thesis on the scientific context of the experiment (of witch I have a very limited understanding. I know how the instrument works very well, but nothing about the science they want to do with it).

Is my situation in some way "normal" or is there good reason to be concerned?
While the suggestion of my advisers seem reasonable and well justified, I don't think it's normal or fair to spend a PhD doing grunt work and then ask me to "arrange" a thesis on a topic I don't really understand (or care about to be honest).

Is it convenient to quit from this program if I want a "career change"?
I am not acquiring any meaningful skills that I couldn't get anywhere else. I feel like I am wasting my time and don't really want to lose another year(s) in this situation.
I would like to quit and build a more interesting career in industry (let's say, robotics or other embedded stuff). But many people heavily discouraged me from this, saying that a PhD is relevant title even in the industry and quitting is going to look bad on my CV. At the same time, I think that to continue means losing more precious time, that I could use to gain new skills and experience, only to get a (potentially irrelevant) title.


texts: What are the impacts of implementing a hot-desking model for grad student workspace?

texts:
The Dean of my faculty recently made the suggestion that we change the graduate student office spaces to a "hot-desking" or "hoteling" model. This is only being suggested for office space, not lab space which obviously has certain safety/operational requirements that would preclude this model.

In a nutshell, hot-desking involves shared office spaces (normally open-plan) where no individuals are assigned specific seating. Instead, individuals can pick any available desk whenever they enter the office. It is generally expected that individuals do not "claim" certain desks by leaving personal items on the desks.

The current state of the graduate student offices vary from department to department: from small offices shared by a pair of students to open-plan offices with around ten students. Current indications are that the Dean would like to have less desks than students, the rationale being that most grad student offices are half-full at any given time of the day (instead they would be working in the lab, performing TA duties, or working from home). My faculty is Engineering and Applied Science so most students have laboratory/experimental components in their research that take a significant proportion of their time.

The argument that I have seen for this model are that it encourages collaboration, but the more likely explanation in this case is that enrollment is up and space on campus is limited. I have found some articles online about implementing this model in a typical office, but I think there are many ways that graduate schools differ from a typical office environment.

As I said, this was a suggestion by the Dean, so he is looking for input from the students and faculty before they begin drawing up floorplans for renovations. I've taken part in a committee to investigate attitudes among faculty and students towards switching to a hot-desking model. The general feeling is between "not enthusiastic" to "downright hostile". I'm personally on the fence about the idea.

So my question is, what are the impacts of implementing a hot-desking model for graduate student workspaces? I am looking specifically for answers from students, staff and faculty in the sciences, applied sciences and/or engineering who work at a university that currently uses a hot-desking model. Can you say whether there are tangible/measureable benefits or drawbacks to more traditional office models?

I am not looking for an opinion on hot-desking is good/bad, I already have lots of those from my own colleagues, thanks!


texts:
There have been a few "how old is too old to get a PhD" questions, and I don't intend this to be a duplicate--they were more focused on age from an actual admissions standpoint.

While I'm interested in general to hear people's thoughts on the question I posed, I'll also give my own current situation, in case anyone has thoughts here:

I'm currently 25, 2.5 years out of undergrad. I got my MS degree directly after undergrad, which took 1 calendar year/3 semesters. So I've been at my current job at a research org for 1.5 years now. My current plan is to apply for my PhD at 27, so I'd be starting at 28. I think this is the ideal amount of time to improve both my skills and my CV, but isn't too long that I will be middle-aged when I finish and have a more difficult life adjustment as a PhD student, and have less time in my post-PhD career. If it makes a difference, I'm in the social sciences/public policy field.

Thoughts? Am I dumb to wait until my late 20s? Should people all be waiting until they're 30 because they're too young and unexperienced out of undergrad? Is it undergrad-PhD straight through or bust?


texts: Is there any institution or report tracking academic fields in terms of funding (today and historically)?

texts:
I am wondering if any trustworthy sources exist, which track funding trends across academic disciplines over time.
Sure, anyone can think of some anecdote about how there's more money in robotics than in cultural anthropology – but is there any concrete place to check the stats, on either a national or global scale?


texts: Professor Matters for Independent Study?

texts: From what I understand, independent studies are important if you want to get into a good graduate school. But does it matter who you’re doing the independent study under?


texts: How can I detect a toxic environment while on the interview circuit?

texts:
If you are interviewing for faculty positions, how can you find out whether a particular work environment would likely be toxic? (Either generally toxic, or particularly bad for you as a {woman, early career researcher, researcher in a particular subfield, etc.})

Can such environments be avoided?

Can you ask about this during a visit or interview? Who should you ask (faculty, deans, students) and what should you ask that might elicit the relevant information?

Are there other ways to detect a toxic environment, besides for asking people who know to be on their best behavior for you?

This has been discussed here, here, and here for prospective PhD students, but not for faculty candidates (as far as I know). I believe the answers will be different for faculty candidates - for one thing, PhD students are likely to be honest when telling a prospective student about their advisor;  faculty members talking to a candidate about their colleagues, not so much. Also, the interview/visit procedure is different for faculty candidates, as are some of the relevant indicators of toxicity.

[Source: I read this question on FemaleScienceProfessor]


texts: My paper was accepted in Springer International Conference and National conference. What to do?

texts:
We had prepared the paper and applied for National Conference. After some days came to know about the International Conference and improved the paper and applied for it. After a month we got an accept mail from Springer Conference(Not expected as we are beginners). Today we presented our paper in the National Conference and our paper was selected as the Best Paper as well as got shortlisted for the International Journal. Now we are totally confused what to do ? Can we accept for publishing in the Journal but the Slight Modified (Improved) paper will be getting published in Springer Conference in July this year. Will this lead to any problem ?

This would help a lot in boosting our resume and also getting an Admit from Good University for my Masters.


texts:
Caveats and Context

I have been out of academia and the publishing game for nearly 2 decades so this might just be a question about changing mores, difference between disciplines, or just general mis-remembering on my part.

My question is driven by this question where someone is accused of self-plagiarism for reusing text from a grant proposal.

Comments on that question are making me feel like the definition of self-plagiarism has significantly shifted and things like below are not OK by today's standards.

Type 1: Self-Plagiarizing Proposals

This is almost a category error in my mind, of course text is recycled from proposals all the time.  I know that I have seen or even done:

Revising and resubmitting a proposal to a different funding agency when it was rejected elsewhere with minimal changes.
Reusing entire sections describing methods or facilities used in the research.
Reusing sections defining the problem space, notations, framing what we are working on.
Doing the verb tense dance to convert a proposal into a report, "we will investigate" -> "we investigated".

Type 2: Publishing Incremental Versions

It was not uncommon in my area to see the "same" paper move through the levels of rigor in venues as the work is refined. For instance you might see a paper start off as an unrefereed seminar paper, then move to a refereed conference paper and then finally be expanded to a longer journal article.  I thought this was normal and nobody tried to hide that they did this, there is always some text or comment describing how Paper X was an extended version of Paper Y that had been presented at BLAHConf in whatever year.

I even remember one of the paper indexing sites that would annotate the PDFs for you so you could see what text in particular was different between versions.

I don't think that this was the same thing as playing the MPU (Minimal Publishable Unit) game, but maybe it was.

Type 3: Reboiling the Boilerplate

This is one I was and am (in industry) flagrantly guilty of--all the time--every day.

Maybe this is just the result of working in an empirical data driven type field, but a significant fraction of presenting a result is recording the methods and techniques applied to the problem.  I don't feel bad going back to my previous text and pulling the paragraph describing my Turbo-Encabulator and then tweaking it to mention that it had been malleated by 1.5 nofer trunnions.

One important thing in this case is I am not actually referring to the previous text, that text and the new text are actually describing two similar configurations in "my lab".  It feels ludicrous that this would also be considered to be self-plagiarism in any useful meaning of the word.

Honest Question -- Not Yelling At Clouds

This question is not meant to sound ranty, I am safely removed from academia, I have no dog in this fight.

My question remains, are those cases of self-plagiarism by today's standards?  Has the standard shifted over the years?  Must all text be generated anew for every publication?


texts: Should I include web links in my statement of purpose?

texts:
In my statement of purpose, I want to include a web link to give details on research projects that I've worked on. I was wondering if it's a good idea.

JeffE recommended the practice, although I'm not sure if his recommendation is limited to the CS area. I also worry that this may be seen as a way to circumvent the length restrictions on the SOP.


texts:
I am a PhD student and we have a whatsapp group with all previous students from over the years.

I was trying to earn some good karma and offered to provide past exams.

I was always frustrated when other students didn't have them so I decided to provide them for free.

I, unfortunately, sent them from my university email account and I now have a potential misconduct charge.

Any advice?


texts: How do I ask the author of a book in English if I can translate it into my native language?

texts:
I want to translate an English book, but before translating it, I want to be sure if the author will permit me to do so.

I am not doing this for financial gain. Since it is a book about a new subject, my professor asked me to translate it, so that students in my country become better familiar with the topic.

Would you please provide me a good text to email it to the author?


texts: Ethics of "Double Dipping": Helping 2 professors with research during the summer

texts:
Some Context:
Over the past year, I have built relationships with 2 of the professors at my university. In this case, I was referred to Professor X by Professor Y. The professors work in two related fields (physics) and are friends.

I worked with Professor X on some of my research a few months ago and it went well. Professor X is allowing me to help him with his lab research over the summer and I am honored to do so. Of course, it would not be an every day thing and we will be working out a schedule.

Consequently, I spoke with Professor Y about a summer spot before starting my research with Professor X. Nothing was formalized here and I haven't spoken to Professor Y since beginning my research. However, I am very interested in helping Professor Y in her lab this summer.

My Question: Would it be seen as poor taste to ask Professor Y about helping in her lab this summer? In my email I would explain that I would also be working with her colleague.

I don't want to jeapordize my position or my relationship with either one of them, so, would it be considered "double-dipping" to help with both of them? If it is, would this have any adverse effects?

One option would be to ask Professor X if he would be alright with this. I am not sure about this option because again I don't want to put our relationship on weird terms.

This is undergraduate level, in the UK.


texts: Prepare presentation for Ph.D. Interview in Germany

texts:
I have been invited to the second round of interviews for a PhD position in a research programme in Informatics. I haven't submitted any research proposal, but now I have 2 and a half days to prepare a 15min presentation on the potential topic of my research "How to use X models to evaluate Y systems" (allow me to disclose some information) and do it via Skype - the panel will include my future supervisor, the director of the group and the programme coordinator and 3-4 other people.

The thing is I don't know much about the X models that will be used in the research, I only know them from a course in my master studies. My potential supervisor is aware of this since I have admitted it in my first interview. I have practiced many methods of evaluation in many kinds of systems, hence the acceptance to the second round.

I would really like any tips and suggestions on what to include in this presentation. Naturally,  I can't learn everything in 2 days for X models.

I have thought the following points:

outline how X models work
include limitations and strengths
examples on how they have been used in the Y field/ other fields
a potential methodological approach (how to do it will be difficult since I lack technical knowledge)
Expected findings

I also believe I should showcase the ability to think critically and that I can focus on the main frame.

Should I include my research experience/skills and how they relate to the work?

Any other advice?


texts: What reasonable steps can I take to report misbehavior by publishers to the wider research community?

texts:
What resources are available for reporting unethical practices or misbehavior by publishers? I'm aware of Beall's list, are there other efforts to objectively identify publishers with low standards or other practices that are detrimental to the research community?

Is it helpful to submit info to organizations like COPE?

This meta discussion is of interest and might suggest that AcademiaSE is not a suitable venue for sharing information on specific practices.