texts: What can academics and students do to reduce racism in academia?

texts:
I am a postdoc at a university in the UK. Before I came here, a friend warned me that racism is common in the UK. True enough, during my first few months here, I have already received a couple of racist gestures and jeers, including one instance inside the university campus, possibly from a student.

What I would like to ask is this: what part can we play, as academics and students, to reduce such instances of racism in the academic settings?

I come from Indonesia, and being Chinese, racism has been a part of my life. I have seen signs of improvement, but when I grew up, I still remember how it was. I am not complaining about UK, although I must admit that during my study in Norway, I experienced hardly any instances of racism or discrimination whatsoever. I am not asking which country is the worst. I share my experience just to show that it is real. I am not asking how to cope with racism, either. I am asking if there is anything I can do, or we can do, as academic community, to reduce instances of racism in academia, to make it a better environment for an increasingly international academic population. I am citing UK, because that's where I am now; it could have been another country. But wherever I am, I have a part to play in making it a better place.


texts: Points to remember when having to write recommendation letter yourself

texts:
While it is an unethical academic practice, it is a fact that most recommendation letters for MS degrees in US and Europe from countries like India and China are written by students themselves. Students apply en masse; the faculty strength in departments in many universities is small; the few professors hardly get the time to write recommendations for all applying students. Moreover a 4-year engineering degree is dominated by coursework and professors are unlikely to get to know students outside the classroom.

Let us set aside the question of whom to blame for this practice and look at the question that comes up on most applicants' minds:

"In the event that I have to write a recommendation letter on my own, what are the points I need to bear in mind?"

I have the following points:

Ensuring similarity of language among all letters from a particular professor
maturity of presentation and avoidance of blandishment
Creating tonal differences among different recommendation letters.

Could someone elaborate on these points? The third one is oft-quoted but is found to be very tough to execute in practice.


texts: Group-building for project, how to handle non-response?

texts:
I recently switched to a new university and our professor asked us to make groups for a big project next semester. Since I was new I sent an e-mail to everybody available if they are free.

I got a response and answered with the topics I wished to pursue. I haven't heard from him since 4 days.

In the meantime somebody else contacted me with matching interests in topics.

What is a professional way to get an answer from the first student? Should I just set a deadline?

How can I handle the second student the best way?


texts: Does the location matter in a PhD choice?

texts:
I am passionate about research, I believe in science and I get excited about it. For this reason, I have decided to start a PhD. Last year I started a PhD in a foreign country but it turned out to be unsatisfactory from different points of view - the work was poorly organized. The supervisor was not providing guidance and knowdlege and I decide to try to change the situation. I won other 2 position in Europe and this was a surprise for me, it means that people really see that this is what I really want to do. Having 2 options was not easy and in the end I decided to go in a very good university in Sweden with a very good project and a lot of industrial connections. My boyfriend is currently living there and he told me how well the PhD are structured in Sweden. I am very very sure that on the working aspect I will have absolutely no problems. I have a lot of fears when it comes to the weather. I have lived in central Europe and it was not sunny everyday and for me it did not matter. Soon I will have to leave my country for Sweden and I started to not sleep at night, to abuse a little bit of alcohol (I am ashamed of it, but yes) and sometimes I cry all the time saying that I do not want to spend my years there. When I think about the project and the university I am very very happy, when I think about the country less, because when I was there, I had not really a good feeling. I do not want to quit my second PhD. I want to start a new PhD being sure of what I am doing.
What should I do? It would probably mean that I will not have a possibility anymore and so I have to give up the idea of getting a PhD. I don't know why I changed my mind, if it is just fear or I really do not want to go.
Please, do not close the topic, I really need an advice. How much social life and location can make a difference in your life? I would like to hear some experiences.
Thank you!


texts: Should I change PhD programs based on available recreational activities?

texts:
I just started a PhD at a US top 10 uni on the east coast. I'm studying for my generals in January right now and recently got situated in a research group.

During my applications to grad schools, I intended to go into a certain subfield of physics. I narrowed down my choices based solely on which faculty in that subfield were at which universities and eventually chose my current location because of the brand-name recognition (I intend to go into industry after graduation). When I got to this university this fall, I switched subfields entirely.

The thesis project my advisor has for me is interesting, he is rumored to be an excellent advisor, and the lab dynamic is actually great. But there's something unsettling about knowing exactly how the next 6 years of my life will be. I am getting really anxious about being stuck on the east coast (which I find to be miserable, no offense) doing exactly what I see his current graduate students doing, 2 weeks off per year, in the same tiny shared office and lab space.

I am really getting the urge to transfer to UC Boulder or San Diego where I feel like I can live my life in an enjoyable way outside of the lab while still getting a great training. I also have deep regret for choosing this school based on its faculty for a subfield I am no longer working in. I feel like I would have chosen a uni at a better location had I known this.

I'm not sure what to do. Is transferring the right move? How different will my career prospects be with a PhD from UC Boulder vs Harvard/Princeton/Yale if I'm going into industry? If I wanted to transfer to a different program, would I need to apply for Fall 2017? (Application deadline in one week). Am I expected to explain why I am transferring? What would I do over the summer? Do I need letters of recommendation from my current institution, given that I haven't done much here?


texts: Does simple paper take less time for publishing?

texts:
Suppose a simple to understand paper is submitted to a peer-review journal and the length of paper is also small. Suppose it takes at most 10 hours for an expert to review the paper.

Then, is it true that the paper decision will come very quickly or are there any rules regarding minimum time for decision based on journal?


texts:
There's something I am not able to understand. I'm a CS master student in Germany. Now I'm doing my master thesis. Before starting my thesis I had an image about PhD students which turned out to be wrong. Always thought that PhD student work much much harder than us and have too much stress. Or that they wake up at 5 am and keep working all day and night! But then when I started working on my thesis, my supervisor was so nice that he gave me a place in his office. Since then I always see the PhD student coming to their offices at 9 or 10 am and leave at 5 pm. I also see them waste a lot of time by hanging around or going for smoking every 45 minutes or so. They even spend almost one complete hour having lunch and then having coffee and desert!!!

Is this the normal life for PhDs or is there something wrong here?!!


texts: Is it unethical of me and can I get in trouble if a professor passes me based on an oral exam without attending class?

texts:
I have been experiencing anxiety based on some recent events. During my last semester of college I enrolled in a language course in a language in which I was already fluent. I did this to enable quicker graduation.

After the first two weeks of the class, it became apparent I wasn't going to benefit at all from this course. Additionally, as I was soon graduating, I had other work to perform. I asked the professor if I could stop attending classes and simply turn in the homework by the end of the semester. I did this while speaking the language that she taught. She said "yes".

I didn't attend class for a month and a half, and didn't hear from the professor again. Towards the end of the semester, I emailed the professor to inquire what she wanted me to do to pass the course. She scolded me because she wanted me to attend at least some of the classes (I had misunderstood her in our first conversation). She then told me that despite that, it was OK, she would give me a passing grade (via oral exam), as "you are fluent in the language and shouldn't come to class as it will seem unfair to the other kids."

This appeared to me as if she would pass me based on merit alone. I was VERY shook up, and called her again the same week telling her that I feel like withdrawing and holding off graduation and just taking a different course next semester before starting grad school. She reassured me I'm all set and I need not worry.

Graduation happens, however I was still uneasy as I was preparing to start grad school. I felt like I cheated the system. I contacted her again, and again she told me not to worry. After the first week of grad shool, I called her again and demanded I take the midterm and final for the course in an attempt to ease my mind and worry. Scored 99 and 96 on them without studying.

I still feel really guilty for some reason, and I'm still trying to cope with this. Its honestly affecting my performance in school. MY worse nightmare is that my undergrad will find out and take away my degree and that this will affect my grad school as I needed a bachelors to enter. The professor made it seem as if she was taking a risk by letting me do what I did. She made it seem I was doing something illegal. She told me not to tell my classmates..

As such, my question is: If what happened was found out, would my grad school have grounds to kick me out? If my undergrad found out, can they pull me degree?

Edit: Thanks for the answers, I guess why I'm soo stressed about this is because, to my understanding, she made it obvious that I and the prof. were doing something against school policies, I knew about it and didn't think much about it.


texts: Is it plagiarism to publish work that is contained in a final report to the funder?

texts:
I am trying to sort out if material contained in a final report can then be published in a scientific journal.  The final report can be accessed through the funding agency, but is not peer reviewed.  While I thought this a straight forward question I am not finding a clear answer.

The final report is used by the funder to demonstrate the work completed by their funding.  It is not copyrighted.  It is available through the web.  It contains objectives, methods, results, and discussion much like a scientific paper, but it is not peer reviewed.

I did check with a publisher and their reply was that since the material was not copyrighted that it could be used in a publication.


texts: The professor takes me only if I continue up to finishing PhD. What should I do?

texts:
Education in my home country is very expensive and getting scholarship for postgraduate studies is not possible because I have a poor BSc (low GPA, no papers, etc). So I decided to study my Master degree in a country with much cheaper tuition fees, so that I can make up for my academic record and getting an admission for PhD with scholarship in my home country. Unfortunately 'the custom' in the new country is like that the professors (would-be supervisors) are those who give the admission and they strongly prefer to take students who will stay for PhD as well. But I want to come back after finishing my Master degree especially for being with my family.

To avoid consequences and also ethical reasons telling the truth that I won't continue to PhD is a must. A friend of mine suggested this website. I would highly appreciate for any advice for the most suitable ways of approaching and opening up the issue with the would-be supervisor?


texts: Who should be first author? Theory person or Experiment person?

texts:
The situation:

Two PhD students named 'Theory' and 'Experiment' are working on a project. Both are experimentalists by training but, from experiences working on a separate project, Theory comes up with an idea for a new experiment. Positive results from this experiment would have a small but significant impact on their field. However, Theory does not have expertise on the particular instrument required to conduct the experiment so, with the blessing of their adviser, Theory enlists Experiment who is an expert at using the instrument. Theory guides the experiment but the execution is all done by Experiment.

Happily, the results are positive!

The question is, given that Theory and Experiment agree to share first authorship, who should be listed first?

Edit: after writing this I found this thread
Had the idea vs. did the work: Who should be the lead author? which is very similar to this question.

There's also an interesting discussion of the issue in this blog: https://funkdoctorx.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/co-first-author-and-cvs/


texts: Are there benefits to taking a year off before entering academia after completion of the PhD?

texts:
I am submitting my PhD for assessment in the next fortnight, by the end of the year, it will be complete.  Currently, while studying (and to pay the bills), I am a high school teacher.  Getting into a postdoc or lecturing tenure is quite difficult in Australia (particularly in my field - Physics).  So, what is likely to happen is that I'll be high school teaching next year as well.

However, while teaching, I intend writing more papers (3 already published, 4th submitted) - my current supervisor (=advisor) has indicated that he is more than happy to collaborate on these ongoing projects, post-PhD (but is not in a position to offer a postdoc position).

So, generally speaking, beyond writing more papers and building up the research profile, what other benefits are there to stalling entering academia by a year?

In my case, it would be almost like an academic-gap-year except, I will need to be still full time employed.


texts: When Submitting Code To Publisher Must It All Be In The Same Language?

texts:
I might have the opportunity to submit a paper to an academic journal and also submit my code for it as well. However, I tend to do my projects across different coding languages because sometimes i'll be working in one language and then find a particular package available in another - so I work back and forth between languages.

I am just concerned that if I submit my paper and I am asked to supply code for replication purposes that it would be frowned upon that all the code is not central to one language. For example - I might do some of the project in Python and some in Matlab, and I would have to submit code for both languages.

Has anybody had experience with this?


texts:
Is there any research/study/survey that looked at the location of predatory publishers? (e.g., x% are based in country A, y% are based in country B, etc.)

I am mostly interested in English-speaking venues and the field of computer science. Trends over time are welcome as well.


texts: To what extent should relevant background be discussed vs. just referenced?

texts:
Is is perfectly appropriate to refer reviewers to other papers for understanding a concept or writer must include the concept in his paper too?
What should be done while keeping brevity, plagiarism and complexity of idea in mind?


texts: Disclose industry salary as COI at academic conference?

texts:
I'm a recent transfer from academic to industry research. I am submitting to a conference in my new company's field, and I am disclosing COI -- organization (my company), relationship ("employment"), relationship ("salary from employment"). Then they want "dollar amount". Regrettably they are not more specific than that. Is it customary to put:

one year's base salary?
total income from my employer for one year?
all they have ever paid me?
something else?


texts: Going into a PhD expecting to take longer

texts:
I'm in the following situation: currently I'm finishing my Master's in (mathematical) Logic in Amsterdam. I'm interested in doing a PhD (preferably in the US), either in something more applied or in continuation of my current research (set theory/proof theory). I've understood this logic department has excellent placement for PhDs (many go on to places like CMU, Oxbridge, Berkeley, Stanford) and the study program is considered fairly intensive. However, I have significant chronic health issues preventing me to study much beyond 70% of what is considered ordinary full time studies here, without it affecting my mental health (although I should add that in this program around 25-40% of the people don't fully reach the 100% rate). The illness does not affect my ability to do mathematics, just how much I can do effectively of it in a day. Therefore, in all likelihood I would need more time, or at least the possibility of more time, to finish a PhD successfully. Say the average time of some PhD program X to finish is 5 years, I might need 6.5-7 years. I've read many questions on this site related to my situation, but I get very mixed signals in the answers.
So:

Given the situation is it even reasonable to attempt a PhD?

Suppose I were to apply for a PhD in (say) the US, and I am honest and upfront about the  situation to my potential supervisor, would such extensions be possible? Or would it just mean an instant rejection?

If I'm open to pursue more applied avenues (logic in computer science perhaps) would this change the answer to the above two questions? The reason I ask is that I've gotten the strong impression that such programs are in general somewhat less intensive than those in pure mathematics. But this can also just be a symptom of superiority feeling that floats around in many pure math departments ;)


texts: What is the fair way to grade in this pandemic?

texts:
I am a second-year student at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research.
There's been a lot of discussions among students and faculty in my institute regarding the grading system to be employed due to the coronavirus pandemic. As only the midterms could be taken, and as the number of cases has been rising daily, there aren't any plans to open the institute anytime soon to take the end semester exams.
What is the most appropriate thing to do in this situation?
Is it fair to use the midterms to decide the final grade?
Edit :
My institute follows the conventional A/B/C/D/F grades for grading, there are some suggestions by the institute and I am listing them below:

The institute wants to award grades on the basis of midterms but if you aren't satisfied with your performance, you can give an end sem exam for any particular course whenever the institute resumes (which no one has any idea), but the grade boundaries do not change.
The students have to inform two weeks after the grades are assigned that they want to take the end sem exam or not.


texts: Percentage of tenure track positions promoted to full professors

texts: I wonder if there are statistics on the overall percentage of people promoted from tenure track positions (assistant professor) to full professor in fields like mathematics and science (first-rate institution is OK).


texts: Is it worth to split my book into articles and publish them individually?

texts:
In continuation of this question:

I have written a book with a new mathematical theory. I am an amateur mathematician.

I want to publish my book as LaTeX source under a copyleft license.

Does it make sense to split my book into articles and publish articles individually in math journals (after my book is already available)?

If the content wins over form, this seems unreasonable: My book is already available, why to publish articles? Moreover: Won't availability of the book already containing the content of the articles an obstacle for publication of the articles?

Having said that, I have already published one article. My second article was accepted for publication, not published due a LaTeX error and now again in review in the same journal because I made some changes in the article.


texts: Interview strategies for faculty positions - to focus on their research or your own?

texts:
What's the best approach for talking to faculty that are in distant/unrelated areas during a campus visit for a faculty position?

Is it preferable to show that you are interested in their research and open-minded about learning new things by asking them about their research, or to try to focus on your own research and the expertise that you offer?


texts: Asking 'silly' questions to doctoral supervisor

texts:
My doctoral supervisor is very helpful and I really enjoy working with him on various problems. I have officially entered my second year of doctoral research this month. During discussions, I get few basic (probably, 'technically silly' as I would put it) questions that occur to me at times. But, I don't ask these question to him as he might think I am 'dumb' and I lack technical fundamentals. Then, I suffer a lot on the topic by crawling in the books, internet; sometimes I find answers to my questions, sometimes I don't. I get annoyed with myself sometimes.

There are many supervisors and Ph.D. students out here in academia.SE. Could you please suggest me on the following questions:

Should I ask such questions at all during a discussion with him?
How would a supervisor feel about a doctoral student asking such dumb questions? (This part might be opinion-based. I would like to see some experience to interpret my situation.)

Note: The questions are related to the research he has pioneered in. It is not always true that I would find the answers to my so called 'silly' questions by Googling. Many research papers don't even bother to contain such internal details on the topic. The only possibility is either I figure out myself or ask my supervisor.

Some (un)related questions (in different situations and contexts):

How to ask dumb questions
"You are paid to answer my questions!" - how to handle silly questions?


texts: What exactly should I add in an extended and revised version of my research paper?

texts: My original paper has already been published in the conference proceedings. Now, the body organizing the conference has invited me to submit an extended and revised version of my paper to be included in a new book.


texts: Answering an email regarding recommendation letters

texts: I asked a professor for a recommendation letter last Thursday to apply to a certain grad school program (and others), and she agreed to do it. However, I received an e-mail yesterday from her that said that the deadline is too soon (I completely understand that I was irresponsible), and that she may not complete it in time. What would be a good/diplomatic way to respond? I do not want to give the impression that I'm forcing her to write the recommendation letter for me.


texts: How common is it to switch to a tenure-track position from a non-tenure-track position in the same institution?

texts:
I am looking for answers from the perspective of U.S. institutions.  At some institutions (e.g., mine), a faculty member is allowed to switch tracks at the institution once in their career at that institution.  For example, a person who was hired as a non-tenure track research assistant professor can petition or apply to be a tenure-track assistant professor.  The process is a bit vague, but it happened to someone at my institution recently, which got me thinking about the question.

The person--let's call him Dr. X--started out as a research assistant professor in Department Y on Well-Funded Project Z.  Due to administrative...restructuring, which dissolved Department Y, all of the professors in Department Y had to choose a new department in the School, and all of the professors working on Well-Funded Project Z ended up moving to Department A.

I am curious whether this is a common occurrence.  I was casually talking to another, more senior professor (who also involved in Well-Funded Project Z), when it was revealed to me that our institution allows professors to change tracks once in their career.  I was wondering if others had seen something similar at their institutions, and related to that, is it ever a good idea to ask when interviewing for a non-tenure-track position whether there is a possibility of switching to a tenure-track position down the road or what the institution's policy is surrounding switching tracks?


texts: If I have a list of abbreviation at the beginning of a paper, do I still need to give the full word when I first mention the term in paper?

texts: Do I still need to write e.g. "willingness to pay (WTP)" when there is already a list of abbreviations containing WTP at the beginning of my paper?


texts: Do journals issue any certificate when they publish an article?

texts: I am new to this field. I have published one review paper in a journal recently. Do journals issue certificates after publishing manuscripts?


texts: Should you include uncited papers in your CV?

texts: Is it convenient to include in your CV papers that have not been cited at all along several years?


texts: Is it ethical to refuse enrollment of a previously dishonest student if you are the sole instructor for a required course?

texts:
I am currently teaching an upper level course, and have caught a student plagiarizing this semester.  This course is required by our department for a degree.  I have strict policy on my syllabus that states plagiarism will result in failing the course, a judicial review incident report, and refusing to accept them as part of future cohorts.  Next semester however, I am the only instructor for this course, and possibly again for the following Spring.

I've been pushing my department to add more instructors, as I don't like being in a position where students who are incompatible with my teaching style are forced to take me over and over again, but they are having a difficult time finding someone.

Personally I do not want the student in my class again.  They have been nothing but trouble the entire semester.  From my interactions with the student, they don't have the required prerequisites at anywhere near a passable level, they are disruptive during class, and I had an inkling that they were trying to cheat off their neighbor during examinations.  (I had ensured that every other test was different so I didn't pursue this)

Should I just grit my teeth and waive this policy since they have no other path to graduation?


texts: In the United States, how customary is it for professors to not check their emails around Christmas?

texts: I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining, and I understand professors and academics are humans. My question is more of one of inquiry rather than venting. I have e-mailed a few professors for certain professional opportunities. This is not my first time doing so, and I am familiar with proper e-mail etiquette and how to write a message to minimize the chances of a glaring ignore. I have also received replies in the past. However, I have e-mailed a few professors about a week ago, and my inbox is crickets so far. On average, is it customary for academics to take a break from e-mailing during the Holiday break?


texts: What should I do if someone is claiming my research on ResearchGate?

texts:
I've got a case where 90% of my academic publications are being claimed by a professor at another university with the same name on ResearchGate.  I've sent several email requests both direct and through ResearchGate messaging to ask him to remove those publications from his profile.  This has been over several months with no response.

At this point, I'm thinking of sending a registered letter to the professor and his department chair to correct what I see as academic theft through inaction.  However, I realize that ResearchGate is mostly at fault here.  There is no mechanism to dispute ownership once assigned.

Thought about doing a DMCA takedown notice of the offending pages.

What is the best way to resolve this?


texts: Are there websites for hosting solely academic videos?

texts: I have a video from my simulation and would like to add the link to my journal article. However, I do not want to post it on YouTube since I do not want my video next to some random video. Are there websites dedicated solely for this purpose?


texts: How to make up for lack of publications in CV?

texts:
Just for some background information: I’m currently enrolled in a MS/PhD integrated program and finished my first semester last fall. I’m planning to opt out and apply to PhD programs this year and if all goes well then I’ll be attending school in the fall of 2021.

I’ve been looking into schools, labs, and professors that I may be interested in working with, and have fortunately found quite a few. Just an FYI, my field of interest is geometric deep learning in CS.

It is a little early to be asking, but I’ve sent emails asking professors if they believe they’ll have spots open in their labs for 2021. Some professors specify on their websites that if you’re going to send an email to attach a CV.

As of writing this, I don’t have any publications in journals or conferences. I submitted one as the second author in January to an international conference, and am involved in three other projects. However, I’m not sure if the results for the acceptance or rejection for these papers will be announced by the time I actually apply. Thus, the “Publications” section of my CV would essentially be blank.

What would be some advice for someone in my position? Should I specify the progress of the work that I’m doing or elaborate on my research interests?

Any tips or advice are appreciated. Thanks in advance!


texts: Entering Economics Ph D from M Sc Behavioural Science

texts:
I am an Economics undergraduate from India and I wish to at the end become a researcher in Economics after having a Ph. D. in Economics itself.
But given my interest in Behavioural Economics, I applied for and received an offer of admission for an M. Sc. in Behavioural Science (the institute is ranked in top 20 for both Economics and Behavioural Science globally by several organisations), so that I get a better view of the psychological side of things as well.
But I am worried if this temporary detour can negatively affect my prospects for getting admitted into a well ranked Ph. D. programme in Economics. In particular, I have heard that mostly candidates from extremely math heavy backgrounds are preferred for Economics Ph. D. courses and M. Sc. Behavioural Science may not be counted as a particularly math heavy programme, although the programme does include a fair amount of both Economics and Statistics.
Are my concerns valid? Will a master's in Behavioural Science seriously negatively affect my prospects? Should I go ahead with my plan or not?


texts: What is a graduate research assistantship?

texts: What is the actual meaning of being a research assistant? I have only heard of masters in science and PhD.


texts: What is the limit on reimbursement of indirect expenses due to attending conferences (e.g., baby sitting, winter coat, etc.)?

texts:
Going to conferences induces some costs on a researcher's personal budget. In all places I know, expenses directly related to travel and accommodation are usually covered (travel, hotels, food), but there are also some indirect expenses that aren't typically covered.

I'll only give one example, that is directly applicable to me: when I'm away I have to get a baby sitter for the kids (for the days where my wife can't pick them up, say). However, I'm sure there must be other examples.

Are there institutions that cover these “hidden” (or indirect) expenses? What rules do they follow? It must be difficult to know where to put the limit… (“hey, I'm going on a conference in Sweden in December, which means I have to buy myself a new coat! can I get it reimbursed?”)


texts: What are typical examples of 'Reference Misuse' when defined as 'using references to support predetermined arguments rather than illuminate debate'?

texts:
A research ethics article recently appeared that described the results of a survey in which academics were asked whether they had participated in various forms of research misconduct. The responses were organized into specific research misconduct memes, such as 'Fabrication', 'Falsification', 'Authorship Abuse', and others. These all had a short generalized description that seemed typical.

However, there was one category whose description baffled me, meaning that I wasn't sure what they were implying (i.e., what is a typical example in general and would there be typical example in my field (physics).

The category was 'Reference misuse'. While I could think of some practices sleazy in physics that might be called reference misuse, I was otherwise feeling ignorant.

So, what standard example(s) should it conjure up in my mind when 'Reference Misuse' is defined  as 'using references to support predetermined arguments rather than illuminate debate'?

(The article that was being summarized the discussed in the blogs is  ”Academic Integrity: Exploring Tensions Between Perception and Practice in the Contemporary University” by Joanna Williams and Dave Roberts. It is published by the Society for Research into Higher Education on 30 June 2016). The authors and others report on it in Times Higher education which is where I was reading about it.


texts:
We are supposed to cite product's pages on Amazon (to cite the price).

Which informations are we supposed to put in the bibliography?


texts: what do you do if you have test anxieties?

texts: What is the best way to resolve test anxieties?


texts: Should I put "PhD Candidate" in a book biography?

texts: I am a PhD Candidate and fortunate enough to be an author on a technical book. Should I put "PhD Candidate" in the biography? The book will persist forever, but that title will not (presumably, I will graduate).


texts: How can I find open physics postdoc positions in Europe?

texts:
What are the most common ways to find open postdoc positions in physics, in Europe?
I use inspires and academicjobsonline, but on both sites, there almost haven't been any new positions in my field (4 in total since december).
Are there any other sites / tricks I'm missing?

(EDIT: my subfield is theoretical QCD)


texts: Is it possible for research paper to have a similarity of 2 out of 100 using iThenticate?

texts:
I'm involved in TPC (technical program committee) task for some international conference. In one paper I'm reviewing, I noticed that the similarity index is just 2% using iThenticate which seems impractical (for me).
Though the type/context of the paper is an essay paper, discussing current status and challenges of some phenomenon/technology/topic, there like no graphs and discussion of numerical/simulation results. I'm suspecting whether the authors  are trying to cheat somehow?
Any tips how to proceed since this is my first TPC task?


texts: Does a bibliography-only citation count like a regular citation for the author?

texts:
There is a very nice open source toolbox for Matlab which I have used for proof of concept. However, the real implementations in my field are almost always done in C++. I really like to give credit to those behind aforementioned toolbox and I have two of ways of doing so.

One is to add a sentence in the paper similar to:

  one can achieve this using toolbox Foo (Foosmith 2015)

I’m not really fond of this approach because not only does it occupy valuable space, but also somehow states the very obvious (somehow an insult to the intelligence of the readers).

My second approach is not to cite them in the paper but add them in the bibliography (can be done with \nocite{} in LaTeX). My question is, if I follow this path, would it count as a citation for the creator of this toolbox? If it matters, my paper is to be submitted to an IEEE conference.


texts: What is the difference between "docent" (lecturer) and "Universitair docent" (Asst. Prof.) in the Dutch system?

texts:
I see many job openings for "docent" or "Universitair docent" on Dutch job boards. Curious, I checked out Wikipedia for more info and, while I learned about the structure there, it isn't clear to me what the differences in the two profiles are. The salary scale is the same, after all.

Also, if I apply for a "docent" position, is it feasible to request that I be considered as a "Universitair docent" in light of my exemplary experience and so on?


texts: No summer funding, what to do during the summer?

texts: If a STEM field PhD student is not able to be funded for the summer, what do they typically do?  I'd imagine they can't afford to take an entire summer off from their research - or they would probably risk not graduating in the standard 5 years in a U.S. program - but at the same time it would be hard for them to support themselves, eg, cover rent and living expenses, if they aren't supported by their parents / family.


texts: How binding is a PhD application for theoretical vs. experimental physics?

texts:
Quick background: I'll be applying for PhD programs and most likely want to study theoretical condensed matter (though I'm open to other theoretical and mathematical fields). I find experimental physics alright, but it really doesn't excite me.

I've heard that I should apply as if I'm pursuing an experimental physics track, though, because it's less competitive, and then transition towards a theory group once admitted. Is this sound advice? It came from a rather respected source. Still, I am wary about misrepresenting myself and also concerned about getting stuck in a path that I don't intend to be in.

Any insight into how admission committees handle the experimental/theory dichotomy would also be appreciated. Thanks.

Additional Info: I'm applying within the US as a citizen. I'm finishing a MS in physics at the moment.


texts: Under what circumstances can the university council withhold Ph.D. degree?

texts:
This a case 28 years ago where the defense committee approved the dissertation and recommended granting the degree. The department council and the college council both approved granting the Doctoral degree to the candidate. However, the university council did not approve awarding the degree and did not give formal reasons to the lower councils.

  What are the norms in north American universities? Under what circumstances can the university council withhold (or deny granting the Doctoral degree) Ph.D. degree to a candidate?

I am not allowed to disclose the university name. The university is in the Middle East.


texts: Professor never sent in recommendation letter

texts:
I have been applying to PhD programs and asked multiple professors over a month in advance if they would write me letters of recommendation. For two of the programs, one out of the three professors never sent in their letter. One program is already almost three weeks late and the other is a few days late. Note that they did send in letters for other schools, so this has left me confused. I feel pretty disrespected and hurt as I spent quite a bit of time on these applications as well as over 200 dollars. The professor has not returned any of my emails. Note that I cannot or could not have seen them in person as I was out of the country.

With this said, what would the programs do? Will they just throw out my application?  I've also resolved to email the programs asking if I could have a different professor write a recommendation letter and send it in. If the programs agreed to this, how should I ask the new professor? They're the head of the department where the other professor who hasn't sent in the rec letter for the two schools works in. I don't want my email to be read as "you weren't my first choice for these programs but I kind of need your help". Would saying something along the lines of "Dear Dr. Professor, One of my letter writers for schools A and B never sent in their letters. After emailing A and B, I am allowed to have another letter sent in and am wondering if you would be able to write one for A and B?". Note that this professor did write letters for other PhD programs that I applied to, so I think it wouldn't be too much of a hassle.


texts: How to compose mathematical papers in engineering conferences?

texts:
I'm just preparing a paper in an engineering context about a new mathematical framework to do something novel. I've something around 9 definitions, 2 lemmas and 1 theorem (in addition to some remarks for further explanations). Currently, these items are successively placed in the manuscript, in that there is nothing between each pair in view of extra explanations (except those sparse mentioned remarks), like this:

Def. 1
Def. 2
Def. 3
Rem. 1
Def. 4
Def. 5
Def. 6
Def. 7
Lem. 1
Rem. 2
Def. 8
Lem. 2
Rem. 3
Thm.

In one hand, some people around me say that such roster of mathematical stuffs without extra illustrations between each pair of items is incredibly tedious for the reader, because the paper is supposed to be an engineering one.
On the other hand, I've faced with a 6-page limitation for this manuscript and can not elaborate the stuffs, considerably, without violating the restriction. Furthermore, I've done my best to apply the necessary explanations as much as possible by considered remarks. But there are still situations in which 3 or 4 definitions are located at the paper next to each other.
Is this a poorly-organized fashion of proceeding-paper composition (especially in technical fields, not pure mathematics)?
Any idea for better arrangement?


texts:
I am interested in understanding if measuring the time it takes for an adult to meet a training milestone is a training metric that is commonly used to assess progress and, if so, what adult learning theories or academics discuss this concept.

I would suspect that, during training, a group of adults would hit a particular milestone in a given range with some type of frequency distribution that would indicate normal.  I would further suspect that, as we approach either tail, there would be signs of something else going on that is either enhancing training or disabling it in some way and would be cause of alarm, where some type of training intervention would be required for the benefit of the student.

Conversely, is there any reasons why time to milestone is NOT important and should be ignored?  If so, what academic studies are behind that opinion?

EDIT:  I may have thought the topics of this exchange were a bit different, but my problem may generalize to those studying in academia.  Here's the specific question I have:

A debate is going on regarding the number of hours it takes for a pilot candidate to solo.  One side is arguing it simply does not matter, that it indicates nothing as far as the training is concerned or anything about the skills of the pilot after license.  The other side is arguing that it does matter because it indicates the health and progress of the training.  If you captured this solo metric across the US, you'd likely see a distribution of hours from something as low as 15 hours to maybe as high as 30 with the MODE somewhere around 20.  The latter group is arguing that, if your student is approaching 30, or even passes it, something's wrong in the training environment that needs changed.  It is a special cause variation versus normal or common cause variation.

I was hoping there was some literature that either supported or discounted the need to track time as part of an assessment in education or training.

Is this on topic for this group?  If not, please let me know so I can post in a more suitable group.  I was going to post in the Aviation exchange, but I don't think that is suitable because I am looking for more of an academic opinion.  Thanks!


texts: Can I become a research psychologist by studying maths and computer science?

texts:
I am currently studying maths and computer science in University of Barcelona, Spain, and I love research psychology. The question is: "is there a way to end up as a research psychologist following maths and CS studies? If not, what are the paths I could take without going far from maths?"
Thanks for your attention and apologies for my English!


texts: What a PhD student should do when their supervisor orders them to have a name on their paper just because of grant purposes?

texts: We are preparing a new paper and my supervisor tells me that we have to put the name of a person on our paper because he was involved in getting us the grant. He says it is because of future grants and that we want to show that he was involved in the research -- and obviously he was not. I think we are supposed to work with him on the last year of my PhD, but not now. My supervisor already knows that I am against it and tells me that this is an “order” and it is because of some sort of “politics”. I can reject but I am not sure what are the consequences. What a PhD student should do in such a situation?


texts: How do I request that previously taken classes be counted toward my current program?

texts:
I'm in need of some advice. I am a nontraditional student coming back to school for a degree in nursing. Before I initially left school I only had 2 prerequisites that I still needed to fill. Now I'm being told that I have 4 because I have to retake A&P 1 and 2 with cadavers.

I previously obtained B's in both sections. Is there a proper way to approach the chair or coordinator to a program and respectfully ask for the two classes I've already taken to be reconsidered as fulfillment for the A&P they want me to take now? The material is basically the same and quite frankly I would like to avoid repeating something I've already done well in so that I can move on faster and spend my money taking classes I have not had yet. This feels like a step back.


texts: Differences in opinion when teaching a course jointly with another instructor

texts:
I am working as a university lecturer in a local university in my country. I am sharing one course with another lecturer who has been teaching that course for approximately 3 years for now. A problem began when some of my students complained that they were not able to cope with the material. The dean was not willing to lose those students (as they pay a monthly tuition here); so he decided that myself and the other lecturer should switch groups.

Actually this situation has transformed in something worse. The other lecturer wants me to strictly follow the problems and solutions that he has on-line. I particularly do not agree with that situation mainly because I have a higher educational background, apart from research in my field of expertise.

I have written a complaint to the academic coordinator, explaining my situation. I feel the students here are treated like some kind of stocks in a bursary market. The university loses money if they leave. What would be a good thing to do?


texts: How can I prove that I didn't plagiarize?

texts:
This year I have decided to take a Computer Science course on FLVS, an online learning institution.

Throughout the whole year, I worked well, and I had a lot of fun with the course. I was close to finishing the second semester of it, and I randomly lost access to the course. I was surprised to find out that they took a some of my assignments (about 6~7), and they flagged me for academic integrity, claiming that I used the answers from an online answer source. Another problem is that because it's so many assignments, they have kicked me out of the course, without me even communicating with them the issue.

My teacher had no idea about this, and she can't do anything about it. She told me to talk to academic integrity themselves. I now have a 0 for the course, and I'm very angry, and I have no idea what to do. I can show them I didn't cheat by answering on the phone any questions they have, and I've already studied for the exam and I plan on taking it, and I'm very confident I can get a good grade. I've also used the knowledge I've learned from the course, and I've created iPhone applications as well as games and other software.

I've left the academic integrity team a message stating that I need to speak with them ASAP, but how can I communicate to them that I didn't plagiarize the work?

UPDATE: I have done some research as to how I present my case, and I found a couple things regarding appeals. FLVS claims that it's so called "academic integrity" team is fair and not biased and they utilize a lot of technology to ensure that their claims are as factual as possible, such as www.turnitin.com. I have found a Customer Support number that I can voice my concerns to, so I'm going to present my case to them.

UPDATE #2: After speaking with customer support (see update above), the person on the other line wrote down my grievance in an email, and she sent it to the academic integrity people. I also received a copy of the email. She told me she's sorry for my problem and taht I should expect a call in the next 48-72 business hours. Hopefully I will fix this.

UPDATE #3: We had a long talk with the academic integrity team yesterday, and apparently (I had no knowledge of this) they claim I have copied work from my twin brother Varun from about 20 assignments. Going through these assignments, there seems to be evidence of similar code, but that's because certain instance variables and functions had to be created as per the assignment's instructions, but the overall design of the program is different. They also say that we had the same typesetting (meaning me had him the same spacing and tabs and white space), although we're both very experienced programmers, and we follow the conventional format of tabbing and spacing. I'm most likely going to court :D.

UPDATE #4: This is the best part. After talking we academic integrity before (see above update), we decided to check all of the assignments she flagged and come up with legitimate reasons as to why I didn't cheat on them. After coming up with a long list, we sent an email to the academic integrity people and told them that we came up with a lot of reasons as to why we didn't copy, so she said that she would call us in a couple of days. After 2 days, she sends another email stating that her reasons are legitimate, according to her "boss", and that she won't discuss the issue any further. I am now super angry about this, and I have legitimate reasons as to how I didn't cheat. She won't tell me anything, and my teachers haven't returned any of my calls. I really hate FLVS.


texts:
I am teaching my first non-examinable graduate course this Winter term. This course is for students ranging from Masters' students to PhD students in Pure Mathematics and is a course for students to see a topic that is a bit more specialised than the typical qualifier type course.

Since it is a bit more specialised, I am having a bit of an issue figuring out where to start. I can start with a bit of background at the risk of boring some of the more advanced PhD students working in my field, or I can tell the students that are not as adept where to find that material to catch up. I am leaning more towards the latter so that I can have more students taking the course, but the course is only 16 one-hour lectures and I want to get to some interesting material that can help someone starting to work in this field. I am also concerned I might be being overzealous in what I can accomplish in this time and might speed right through details that would be useful. (My imposter syndrome is acting up and making me feel like a lot of this stuff is trivial when maybe it's not!)

The question is this: How do you in a topics course balance giving general theory and also the more specific information that is relevant to the current research trend? I'm afraid if I spend too much time on general theory, I may end up not touching on what research is being done today. Would this be bad just spending the last lecture or two in a topics class just punting the question "What's happening nowadays in this field?"

Thanks in advance!


texts: Is "focussed revision" ethical and are my grades likely to be affected if it is deemed to be against university policy?

texts:
I am a second year student in Mathematics in the UK and my Calculus lecturer practices something which he calls "Focussed Revision". What I've heard from students in years above me is that "focussed revision" is essentially the exam questions that are going to be in this year's exam with numbers/functions changed.

Is this allowed or is it a "different university, different rules" kind of subject? If it is NOT allowed, is it possible that my grades will be affected if somebody finds out?


texts: "Poster presentation" vs "poster only" in academic conference

texts:
I want to submit an abstract. I have three options:

Oral presentation
Poster presentation
Poster ONLY

What is the difference between 2 and 3?


texts: Applying for PhD programs after graduating from a small/unknown college

texts: I have just entered my final year of Undergraduate degree in Computer Science and engineering from a rather unknown/not-popular college in India and I want to get admittance in a PhD program in Computer Science. I'm thinking of applying for colleges in the USA and I'm worried that graduating from an unknown college will affect how universities will perceive my application and I regret my decision of joining this college in the first place. I still have one year before I apply. I want to know what I need to do to maximize my chances of admission. And any general suggestions you'd give for a fourth year student who is looking to get into research programs.


texts: A potential supervisor said 'happy to supervise me for PhD', but I'm not in the minimum requirement. Is it guaranteed to be accepted? (UK)

texts:
After the interview, a potential supervisor said: "Really Happy to Supervise You" with possible funding. However, the problem is that I'm not in the minimum academic requirement (grade) in the university admission (UK University).

In this situation, can I be accepted from the university for the PhD? Is it Guaranteed?? (* I did not apply officially yet).


texts:
I would like to ask you about the correct behaviour when applying at different universities for different PhD positions.
Currently, I won two PhD positions and a second shortlist for a third one. The third one is the one I really want, but the interview will be held on campus and due to coronavirus pandemic it has been postponed after the mid of August. I have strong academic and personal reasons to go for the third one, but of course I am not sure that I will win it. Now I have to decide between the two I already have. I would feel guilty to tell yes to one of them and later on withdraw the offer.
What is the acceptable time to change your mind? Should someone follow his personal motivations or be ethical?
Thank you,
Joy.


texts:
Original Post:

I recently attended a lecture with highly technical content.  One of the middle slides in the deck had a particular phrase that reminded me of something that I had read several years before.

It took me a few minutes, but I found the original source (another slide deck) and am shocked to find that the professor lifted 35 slides verbatim from the original source.  The University holds students accountable for plagiarism and strictly defines plagiarism such that this clearly fits.  The slides were used verbatim and no credit or reference was provided.  Further, logos were added and color schemes were changed to make make them look slightly more like original content.

What should I do?  This professor has a professional full time job and I can imagine this getting swept under the rug, but this is clearly plagiarism and is spelled out very clearly in the student conduct code.

Is this an overreaction or should I pursue this?  This is confounded by the fact that I am very disappointed by the rigor of the course and feel like the professor lacks adequate technical background to teach the course (I guess my suspicions came true).  I'm really busy at work so don't want to deal with a big todo, but believe this really discredits the academic integrity of the course.

Additional content in response to comments:

The University defines plagiarism as "Using another writer's words without proper citation."  There is no proper citation given here, and these are not educational materials.  This is 35 slides from someone else's tutorial presentation.

I do not believe that the professor and the author of the original content have a relationship.  I have emailed the author to enquire about any permissions or relationship.  Still, even with permission, this is still plagiarism as defined be most people and as defined by the University.

All original works in the US are implicitly copyright protected, so there is also a copyright issue, but this is not currently my concern, though it could be of interest to the original author.  I have emailed him, so this is up to him.

This is a US institution and is a top tier highly respected school.  I am also not a lay student, but a Ph.D. with a degree from a top tier university who has served as a faculty member at two top tier universities (including this one).  I have also taught undergraduate courses in the past.  I have never engaged in this type of plagiarism, have never known colleagues to do so, and am shocked that so many people suggest this is par for the course in teaching.  My doctorate is from a school that prides itself on its honor code and takes honor code violations very seriously and I have served on the honor council and deliberated on a case of plagiarism in the past.  I really am shocked by this incident.

Response from Original Author of the Slides:

I have received a response from the author of the slides and he states that the work is his original work, that there are no additional authors of the work, that no one has been given permission to present the work, and that he believes his copyright on the work has been infringed upon.  He has requested additional information to assert his claim on the copyright.


texts: How should I list presentations given at workshops on my CV?

texts:
I'm in a humanities field, and I'm wondering if presentations given at small workshops should be listed in a separate section of my CV, for instance between "Invited Talks" and "Conferences".

Small workshops differ in several ways from conferences in my field: they are normally more competitive, participation for speakers is often fully funded, and they are usually attended by a broader audience (whereas at conferences you're speaking to other conference participants). I would consider acceptance at this type of workshop more prestigious than a conference presentation but less prestigious than an invited talk.

Thoughts on giving these workshops their own section? If not their own section, should I give them a sub-header under "Conferences"?


texts: What's the point of "CV available on request"?

texts:
A certain fraction of personal websites of researchers has a hint along the lines of "CV available on request." I always found that a bit odd. Are there any situations where a researcher would

Actively ask another researcher for their CV; and
Would be more inclined to do so because they have such a hint on their website?


texts: I'm an average CS engg grad who wish to go to Japan. I've got to know, in India applications for MEXT will start from 2nd week of April, and I haven't found any resource online. How and what should I prepare?


texts: Is it bad to make a joke during a presentation ?

texts:
I am a PhD student in economics and working on stuff like Hopf bifurcations and limit cycles used often in mathematics.

One of the graphics that I will use for my presentation is very similar to one of the photos in album booklet (dark side of the moon) of the legendary progressive rock band Pink Floyd. Here is the link ;

Album cover

It is like a limit cycle (it is a heartbeat sequence, note that there are also bifurcation analysis for heartbeats) and gives a quick idea about the concept.

I am wondering if it is really appropriate to make this kind quick jokes during presentations. Anybody having bad experiences about that ?


texts: What are the benefits and drawbacks of timed online exams?

texts: I have seen several ideas for online exams but one thing that is not fully discussed is what are the advantages and disadvantages of timed exams? This will be helpful to many, especially during these times.


texts: Giving talks on ongoing, unpublished research (dangers of getting scooped?)

texts:
In my school sometimes the graduate students have to give a talk on what they are up to, i.e. present their ongoing research. Often at this stage the work is not published yet. This is an internal event within the school, within the department. The audience are mainly other graduate students, and professors.

Are there any tips to give such a talk? More specifically, how to reduce the risk (if any) of getting scooped, and ideas stolen? The context is in the subject of mathematics/ mathematical sciences.

Thanks a lot.


texts: What are the standards/expectations from a teaching postdoc contract?

texts:
Recently, I talked with a CS Professor regarding working in his lab as a postdoc. He said that he is interested in my CV/profile, but he can only give me a contract as a teaching staff until he gets the grants next year. However, he said that all the courses he currently instructs are given only in German (which is a constraint for me).

But I was wondering if I'm supposed to do teaching as a postdoc, I shouldn't be expected to act as a TA of his courses. Instead, I should be the instructor of a course and not his own course. At least, that's what I always imagine as the level of teaching responsibilities for a postdoc researcher.

Then, if that assumption is correct, I wonder if I can suggest a few topics that fit his group's research profile and is not given by other groups so that I can instruct in English. For instance as a course (or block course or seminar) in the international track. But, I like to know how realistic/practical this could be before discussing it with him.


texts: Is it okay to keep pdfs of journal articles from my previous university when my current university does not have a subscription?

texts:
I've been wondering about this for some time. I did my PhD at the big university A. I had access to hundreds of online journals and ebooks. I was downloading papers and ebooks, classifying them, reading them, taking notes on the pdf, etc. At the end of my PhD, I had some 1.2 GB of annotated ebooks, papers, and digital material. None of the material is confidential (no datasets, project material, etc.), just journal and conference papers, ebooks, book chapters, etc.

Fast forward today, I am working at a small university B, that is subscribed to a small subset of the journals/publishers of A. Is it ethical/ legal that I keep the material and use it for my research? Should I delete all the papers from journals my current uni doesn't have subscriptions?


texts: Where can I find research papers to read? (not currently in academia)

texts:
I have graduated from university and am no longer enrolled. Even while there, I didn't really have any experience finding and reading research papers written by others.

Is there an online database where people post their papers so that others can download to read?

Looking for a list of these databases/websites. Paid is okay too.

Update After reading the comments and answers below, I'd like to add that I am looking for research papers in the Computer Science / Computer Engineering / Electrical Engineering fields, and that I have graduated a few years ago from an undergraduate Computer Science program. I have not attended graduate school nor pursued a PhD.


texts: Whether to complete revise and resubmit that requires major changes or submit to lower impact factor journal?

texts:
I have just received an email from the editor of a major journal in my field (engineering). He's rejected the paper, but advised me to do some modifications. These are his words:
"..thanks for submitting your paper to "...". While the paper is well written and structured I see several limitations in the assessment of the method. I am rejecting it for now, but it could be reconsidered if the following issues can be addressed:
MAJOR
1.
2.
.
.
MINOR
1.
2.
.
.
..."

Minor items can be done easily. Major items, I believe, are not necessary. Most of relevant articles do not include them.
My question is: should I do these modifications and resubmit the paper to the same journal, or consider submitting the article to another less IF journal to save my time? What are the chances to get published if I did these modifications.


texts: How to prove that a student is plagiarizing with paraphrasing software like Spinbot?

texts: Plagiarism software will not detect assignments that use Spinbot or other paraphrasing software. How do you prove a student is doing so?


texts: Is there some generally academic accepted categorization of subject areas and subject categories?

texts:
My question in the title is general.  To help you understand why I'm asking the general question, I'll add ... the SJR (SCImago Journal) ranking is based on the SCOPUS database.  In both the Web of Science and SJR journal ranking, they categorize "Information Systems" under "Computer Science".  I'm personally interested if there are some other major academic search engine, that categorizes "Information Systems", somewhere other than "Computer Science"?

However, to answer my question, please answer the general question, since that applies to many more SE users.


texts:
In the field of numerical modeling, Researchers often times find conference papers or journal articles which cites an internal report as the core of the paper. The main authors may have access to the internal report but what about the others? How does one cite an internal report in doing further research based on the main article?

As an example, This paper and this paper cite both of the papers below -

M. Saeedvafa and R. J. Asaro, “Transformation Induced Plasticity,” (LAUR-95-482, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1995)
Saeedvafa, M, “A Constitutive Model for Shape Memory Alloys”, Internal MSC Report, (January 2002).


texts:
Short General Question

Is it possible to do a PhD in a seperate field apart from the field I had done my Undergraduate on ?

Detail Question

I am a holding a degree in relation to Construction Industry, but I love to do a PhD in Remote Sensing which is totally seperate field from my undergraduate program. but I have self studied Remote Sensing and Machine Learning for over a year and half as well as done my M.Sc research project using applications of Remote Sensing. In addition I have a promising research idea on Remote Sensing and Machine Learning. Thus is it possible to do a PhD in a totally different filed apart from the field I had done my undergraduate on.

Background,
I had completed my B.Sc (hons) Quantity Surveying and Construction Management with First class honors. Then I followed MBA and a M.Sc in Water Resources Management with 3.74 GPA
I had never followed Remote Sensing in my undergraduate program and only followed a one course module in my M.Sc as GIS and Remote Sensing and further studied it for my research project


texts: Is it possible to spend a couple of years after a post doc working as a bioinformatician and then return to academia?

texts: I have been a postdoc for 2+ years now with 1 high impact paper and couple more possible in the next 6 months. I have just got an offer for a Bioinformatician position with a decent salary (CAD 80K). I am wondering if it is possible to work as a Bioinformatician (which is a staff position) for a year or so and then pursue academia again? Will this be a good idea to take the Bioinformatician position now, whereas my current PI thinks I have a good chance to attain a faculty position in two years? I have a co-first author publication in Nature Genetics (IF 29), one co-first possibly in Cancer cell (IF 21) and at least one first author (probably IF 6). Thanks a lot for your feedback!


texts:
In the year 2000, someone probed the 3 dimensional quantum dots using a new condition which is important in semi conductor physics. But they basically solved the Schrodinger equation for ground state and discussed the consequences.

I have extended their work for general case , i.e, one can calculate "higher" state energy using those calculations. Also, I have pictured how the wave function looks like at higher states.

But I think that I have done just Math & some computations.

  My query is : Is this result publishable owing to the fact that I am a Junior year student and I did this work without any adviser.


texts: Is it bad to publish only in specialized math journals?

texts:
I work in the field of algebra (more specifically the representation theory of groups).  I published most of my papers in journals of algebra and another algebra journal of similar quality as journal of algebra and think about having some papers now in slightly better journals. (It would be good if the editorial board has some names close to my field of research, but this is optional.)
Here are some examples that come to my mind: Mathematische Zeitschrift, the Journals of the London mathematical society, IMRN.

Is it considered to be much better to have a publication in such a general journal than in a specialized journal like Journal of Algebra? I made the experience that sending my papers to Journal of Algebra, one gets a much quicker publication and the editors are closer to my field. So from my side I would just send all my papers to Journal of Algebra or another specialised journal, but I assume that this will look weird in my CV.  Does it harm me if I do this even when some of my papers could go into a slightly better journal like Mathematische Zeitschrift? I feel uncomfortable sending my papers to editors that are far away from my field of research.

Some secondary questions:

How bad is it to have a very good paper (that might be suitable for the best general journals) published in a journal like Journal of Algebra?
Can one give an approximate how much worth a paper in Advances of Math (or a similar or better journal) is compared to a paper in journal of algebra?
Like 3 Journal of Algebra papers = one Advances of Math paper and
6 Journal of Algebra papers = 1 Inventiones paper?


texts: References for PhD Application: Is reputation or personal relationship more important?

texts:
I am a Master's student who is currently applying for PhD programs. When it comes to the letter of recommendation, I need to choose one out of the following three professors.

Details are deleted due to personal matters. However the answers should still be helpful to a certain extent.


texts: How to create an environment in which students can report teacher-student sexual harassment?

texts:
I teach physics at a community college in California. A series of female students have told me about sexual harassment by the same tenured male math instructor. Two such incidents went like this.

one incident:

"Professor, I'm having trouble with my homework. Could you give me some help?"

"Sure, let's go have drinks and talk about it."

another incident:

"Professor, can I come to your office hours for help?"

"Sure. You know, my office is soundproof."

I reported the problem to the vice president who handles Title IX. She told me she needed the students to file formal complaints. In one of these incidents, the student was still enrolled in the guy's class. The VP said they could transfer her to another math class to protect her from retribution. I gave the students this information and suggested that they file complaints. A year later, it turns out that they haven't.

I suspect that almost no students at my school know how to go about reporting sexual harassment by a professor, and that almost none know that any measures could be taken to prevent retribution. My school is about to institute a mandatory online orientation, which will cover sexual harassment, but it treats sexual harassment as a general phenomenon and doesn't deal with any of the specific concerns, such as retribution, that arise when it's teacher-on-student harassment. I tried to convince the VP that we should do better outreach on this specific type of sexual harassment, e.g., with posters, including information about how students can be shielded against retribution. This seemed to make her very uncomfortable. I suspect that such a thing would upset interest groups such as the teachers' union.

A related aspect of the problem is that this is a community college, and it's a commuter school, so many students have weak ties to the institution and do not think of themselves primarily as students. The psychology is probably very different from what you see at elite four-year schools where you see this kind of thing.

How do schools create an environment in which students can and do report teacher-student sexual harassment? Are there best practices at other schools (possibly schools similar to mine) that should be emulated?


texts: Why was I offered an associate professorship after applying for an assistant professorship position? How will this be perceived?

texts:
I have applied for an assistant professorship at a top-tier Chinese university. After interviewing with them, they are now offering me a position: an associate professorship!
I find this very surprising. It’s not that I don’t think I deserve it: I have been a postdoc for seven years, and my publication record is significantly better than that of the average Chinese associate professor in my field. But I have never heard of anyone completely skipping the assistant professor level.
I have two questions:
(1) What do you make of this?
(2) How will this unusual feature of my future CV be perceived by universities in the west, if I later try to get back?


texts: Why do papers sometimes appear unlinked in Google Scholar?

texts:
I would like to download this paper:

  O. Faure. Numerical pathwise approximation of stochastic differential equations.
  Applied stochastic models and data analysis, 1992.

but when I use Google Scholar, the paper cannot be accessed. I cannot even access the paper from within my campus firewall.

See the following image:

Why is the title of this paper black, not a blue link, in the list of Google Scholar results?


texts:
I had a student write an excellent Master's thesis which is not publishable as novel research but which I think would serve as a great introduction to the topic. Although the student is happy to have it posted to the arXiv, more needs to be done to connect the thesis to the existing literature. The student has graduated and is busy, I'd like to make the necessary adjustments myself, but I don't want to take credit for the bulk of the thesis which is the student's work.

Is it possible to upload an initial version (the original) to the arXiv with just the student's name, followed later by an updated version with me added as 2nd author? Will the arXiv correctly show that the first version was just the work of the student?

Also, are there are ethical issues I should be aware of? Assume that the student has been given the opportunity to make the changes themself, has declined, and endorses the above plan.


texts:
When one starts a PhD, should it be based upon interest or tractability of the project? If a project fails is switching advisors a reasonable option within the same department?
I have a couple options for PhD, one is an area I am more interested in but it's a more open ended problem with potentially less straightforward solutions. It also gives a background in more areas I am interested in learning and more industry applicable(focused on making novel system which works).
The other I don't think I want to work on for 4 years but probably will be more straightforward, it's also less useful to industry(I think) and more theoretical in nature. It is a continuation(mostly) of what I already know.
I'm not sure what to do, I have no interest in staying in academics so a PhD which is more focused on an applied topic which could be used to spin up a company is a lot more interesting to me but I obviously don't want it to fail.


texts: Can an applicant's funding offer for PhD programs in the US be taken back and given to someone who's already declined it?

texts:
This question pertains to math graduate programs in the US. Suppose a school sent a financial offer (TAship) to a student A and put a student B on the waitlist in the event that A declines the offer. Student A then declined the offer by signing the letter, so the school sent the offer to B.

My question: is it possible that the school will rescind the offer from B if A changed his/her mind later on and decided the take the offer given that

i) B has not yet accepted the offer.

ii) B has already accepted the offer.

iii) The date that A signed the letter to decline was before April 15th.


texts:
I submitted a review paper to a well-regarded A* journal 9 months ago. After about 6 weeks, I received a request for revisions. The email contained general comments from 3 reviewers and an attached sheet of detailed comments from one of them.
Unfortunately, two of the reviews clearly referred to one or more different papers; none of the comments were relevant to my article. This included very specific comments, such as spelling mistakes on a particular page, that made it clear the reviewer was reading another article. The third reviewer's comments were so general that, honestly, they could apply to almost any article, with comments such as "The paper needs editing for language and grammar" and "the references can be updated and expanded". I don't think the third reviewer's comments referred to my paper either (it was written and edited by 3 native English speakers and the language and grammar are pretty good) but cannot be 100% certain.

I emailed the editor to point out the mistake. I emailed the journal and received a reply to say my email had been passed to the editor. Time passed. I emailed again. And again. All my communications were extremely polite, thanking the editor for considering my article, explaining the confusion and requesting the correct reviewers' comments. There was no reply.

I contacted a colleague who is on the editorial board of the journal. He wrote 3 emails to the editor and received no response.

In desperation, I revised the paper, updating some statistics and adding a few more recent references. As much as was possible, I responded to the reviewers' comments as if they applied to the paper. I wrote a detailed response to the comments, explaining where they didn't apply and outlining the revisions. I resubmitted the paper.

It is too early to have receieved a response yet. However, I have 2 questions:

1) If I get no response now, what other action is available to me? I think the behaviour of the journal has been pretty bad. What recourse do I have? The nature of the article means there is no obvious alternative journal to submit to.
2) If the revised manuscript is accepted, it will be published as a peer-reviewed article without having been peer reviewed. What are the ethics of this and doesn't it make a mockery of the peer-review process?


texts: What to do when you plan to submit a paper and a senior colleague is independently pursuing the same research idea?

texts:
I am an assistant professor in a business discipline. A couple of months ago, I came across (through casual chat) that a senior colleague of mine plans to pursue a research idea that I myself was also planning to pursue. I asked whether I could join her and her co-author on the project and she declined. But she said I could work on it myself. We didn't share any details of our thoughts afterwards. So we don't know what exactly each other's research question and progress on the project.

I went ahead and explored the project with the research question I had in mind. Now I have a finished draft of my work. I don't know the status of my colleague's project.

Now I would like to submit my paper to a journal. But I am not sure whether I should publicize it by e.g. posting it online/on my website. I am afraid that my senior colleague (she will be on my tenure committee) will be pissed off if I do so. She may think that I am scooping her. On the other hand, without publicizing it, people in my field (or potential referees of my paper) will not know that this work is mine and the paper may not get exposure/comments (which may not be critical).

What should I do? I don't think I have done anything unethical, but somehow I feel that I am stuck in a dilemma.


texts: Accepting funding from a climate change denier

texts:
Abstract: A professor in my department, who seems to be a climate change denier, is offering me funding for a project that is NOT related to climate change. Should I take it?

For my stipend at the my department, I have to teach a lot. This implies 12-15 hours of work per week for the next one year. It is a lot of time I could put into research/writing papers instead.

I have been offered funding to conduct research under a professor. The research question sounds interesting, is unrelated to climate science, and is probably going to lead to publications along with relieving me of teaching duties. However, the professor offering this funding says that sea levels are not rising at an accelerated rate.

Perhaps one extreme way of looking at this would be that he is a climate change denier. However, he did claim that he does not know about other indicators of climate change- he only pointed out that sea levels are not rising at an accelerated rate, which is a claim made by climate change proponents.

He said that NOAA data suggests this. However, on doing a simple google search, I found this article on the NOAA website- https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html

To quote from the article, "Yes, sea level is indeed rising at an increasing rate. Global sea level has been rising over the past century, and the rate has increased over recent decades."
Hence, his source of information also seems to be spurious. Should I accept funding from him? It seems to look good for my life and career in general. But should I compromise on my beliefs and take funding from him?-


texts: Is it legal to use images from social networks for research?

texts:
I would like to use images from social media (e.g. imgur, Facebook, Flickr etc) for research (ie not for profit or any industrial use).

Would it be legal to use images (for analysis, etc), if I do not store them locally?
Would it be legal to create a dataset of such images, that I will later publish with my future paper?
If it is not legal, how can there be these existing computer vision datasets of thousands (and even hundreds of thousands) of images taken from Google search or social networks? Surely the authors didn't ask every owner for permission.


texts: How do schools have the same number of each week day?

texts:
My school is currently on a 14 week schedule where we're supposed to have 14 Mondays, 14 Tuesdays, etc. each semester.  Because of various holidays, that's harder than it sounds, and so we have a couple days that have to get adjusted; for instance, tomorrow is a calendrical Wednesday, but an academic Monday.

This has some drawbacks: some students have outside commitments (for instance, jobs) which don't shift just because our schedule does, and because the modified days always happen on short weeks, compliance is limited.  (For instance, it's already hard enough to get students to stay around for classes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, but it's really hard to get students who have class on Friday to realize when they make Thanksgiving plans that Friday classes meet on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.)

How do other institutions deal with this, and are there any particularly good solutions to it?


texts: How many referees are required on a resume/CV?

texts:
I have looked at a number of academic resumes to get a feeling for what people expect. I see that the number of referees that people give at the bottom of their resume varies quite a bit.

My question is whether it is essentially always better to provide more referees or whether one should rather stick to a maximum of say 4 ?


texts:
I have a figure in my paper. If there is much to say about the figure, I will have a brief title and a descriptive caption for it.

What about the figure about which I have not much too say? Do I replicate what I have written in the title in the caption?

Since caption is also used for reference, it must exist. Can I then remove the figure title and use the caption only?


texts: During college I was in an accident, changed majors & took a tough schedule, my GPA is low & no recs from a prof, is grad school still an option?

texts:
I was in an accident during college, and I graduated with a low GPA (just under 3.0 or so). I switched majors to Math and while I did well in some classes, in general I was a B/C student or so. I think if I went at a normal pace, I could have done much better. Since graduating I've worked as a statistician and a computer programmer. I don't have ANY profs to ask for a letter, but I think I have an employer reference.

Can stellar GREs help me get into a Math PhD?


texts: How to get back on track after falling behind

texts:
I'm a first year master student currently taking courses on the second semester. For the most part I did pretty good on the first semester except that I got behind in one course which is specially demanding and hard.

Now I'm taking the equivalent amount of work as before plus I'm trying to finish my assignments for the other class in order to get my grade. And I'm also collaborating in a research project which I wasn't doing last semester.

I'm having a hard time trying to manage my time in order to accomplish everything. As I don't want to get behind in another course I try to be on top of what I'm seeing in class. However I find that this consumes a lot more time than I expected and I never accomplish the goals I set for the day.

As an example, if I have some class the next day I try to really understand everything we saw the previous meeting, and by the time I manage to do that (if I do), there is only about 3 hours left to do everything else. In a normal day I expend all the time doing my "academic stuff" and I only stop for eating and sleeping. Where the sleeping time could vary from 0 to 6 hours depending if I feel I'm getting too far behind or if I managed to finish all I wanted for that day (rare). I have to admit that I always try to get the most miniscule detail and expend a great deal of time thinking how to go from point A to point B on the text which in some sense is a pedantic attitude. However, I find that if I don't do this, then the ideas are very shaky (there are holes in my understanding) and I tend to forget those very easily, which is not good for doing exercises or taking an exam.

I have tried to split the day in blocks and only expend a fixed amount of time doing an specific task. However, this way I feel I go so slow that I'm not accomplishing anything. So basically what I end up doing is working nonstop in one task (which can take more than one day) and then try to compensate for the other tasks I didn't do by cutting sleeping time or further delaying other work.

I sometimes think that if I'm working that hard at this level, I have no chance of getting a PhD or continuing in academia. I see that some of my peers have time to have fun, go out and still get good grades while I barely have time to enjoy a meal. I also get good grades (I have to in order to keep my scholarship) but I feel that the effort I'm putting is too much for the reward (not exceptionally good grades).


texts: Advice for having children during graduate school

texts:
My wife and I just found out that we're having our first child.  While this is a wonderful thing, it also concerns us a bit.  Particularly because we're on limited funds (TA & RA combined salary) and we're still 1.5-2 years away from graduating together.  Also, since our academic careers are so demanding, we're also concerned about balancing time taking care of our newborn.

I read the responses in this post, but I'd like to ask for more specific advice for new parents in graduate school.  What strategies have you used to enable you to handle having a newborn while both parents are finishing their PhD?  Both in terms of time management and making ends meet, financially.

Any personal anecdotes, experience, advice, and tips are welcome! :)


texts: Is it okay to get a Reference Letter from a PhD holder with years of experience in a related field that is not a Professor?

texts: Is it okay to get a Reference Letter from a PhD holder with years of experience in a related field that is not a Professor and can speak well of me because he/she was my undergrad thesis supervisor?


texts: Is it acceptable to ask for a first review midway through the review process?

texts:
I have written a paper on COVID-19 with data that goes up to the 31st of July. I would say that the interest in this paper will reduce significantly as time goes on. I submitted the paper to a fast-track process of a relatively high-profile journal on August 5. This is the second time I have submitted to the fast-track process of that journal. Last time, both reviewers were assigned in a single day, and the first round of reviewing was complete in two weeks.
This time things were much slower. Reviewer 1 took over a week to assign. According to status updates, Reviewer 1's review is in as of August 20. A second reviewer still has not been found. I asked the journal whether there was any way I could assist, and they asked if I had reviewer suggestions. I thought a bit and provided a suggestion. That was before the weekend and I have not heard back.
Here’s my conundrum: If Reviewer 1 has recommended rejection, then the paper will not be accepted, so I think waiting any longer is a waste of time. I would like to see Reviewer 1’s review and feedback, implement it, and submit to a different journal ASAP, preferably still in August (so the data is less than one month old). I feel this is an unusual thing to ask: “Based on Reviewer 1's report, is the paper likely to be rejected? If so I'll just withdraw, make the changes, and submit to a different journal now.” If we wait till a second reviewer is found, that review takes time, and then the paper is rejected based on Reviewer 1's report, then I will be quite frustrated. I will have waited for little purpose and the paper will now be out of date and less likely to be accepted by another journal.
There's always a certain amount of chance with submissions. Do the reviewers like your paper – that's often quite subjective. If they don't, I'll roll the dice again, and would like to ASAP.


texts: Can Indian citizen apply for PhD in Computers in Australia at age of 45 and expect an admit?

texts:
I have 15 years of work-experience in computer science and wish to pursue PhD program in Computer Science.
Can I expect universities to be responsive to 45 year old candidate?


texts: How can a student benefit most from an internship?

texts:
I am planning to apply for an internship in near future. My background is electrical and I did 2 classification projects based on ConvNet previously.
The internship mentioned that they need a data analyst, with background on Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence.
The task involves investigating the emerging tools, frameworks, and methodologies to facilitate the envisioned analytics and machine learning processes.

What training and courses should I take before entering this internship?


texts: How to efficiently proofread my own mathematical paper?

texts:
The main purpose of this question is to collect some advices to efficiently proofread my own mathematical paper (when there are two authors or more, it is easier since one is supposed to read what the others write). When we write mathematics, there are a lot
of not so minor mistakes we can make:

We omit to introduce a notation.
Non-uniform notations.
A sum should stop at n+1, not at n but the last term is not important.
Etc...

Of course, we would like to limit the number of such mistakes in order to save the reader's (and referee's) time.

One possibility is to wait a long period of time in order to "forget"  and read what is written, and not what we have in mind. Although "hurry for publishing" is very bad, we cannot always wait a lot of time (thesis defense, applying for post-doc/permanent position) and we would like to make the process fast.
An other possibility is to send a draft of the paper to a colleague. But he may be busy and not read too much into details. Anyway, when we are alone to write a paper, we would like to send to the colleague a document without too much typos and mistakes mentioned in the beginning of the question.


texts: Small bugs during review in software tool paper

texts:
I am reviewing a software library tool at the moment.
During the review, I found some minor bugs while running their examples. However, it seems like nobody else has these bugs (at least I cant find them on the Github issue page). Otherwise, the library seems to be great. Should I recommend an accept pointing to these bugs or post the issues on Github (which could technically reveal my identity though, which would be against the blind review process).


texts: Having a retired professor write my letter of recommendation,

texts:
One of my math professors (in a U.S. university) retired this semester.  He was one person that I had planned on asking to write my letters of recommendation this coming fall semester, when I send out PhD applications in math / applied math.

He is very old and he seems anti-social and seems to not communicate with our math department very much.  I am just basing this on some stuff that he says, which scares me, e.g., "tell them (our math dept.) that I said this..."

So, I wonder whether anyone external to our own math department would even know who he is - or whether admissions committees even value his opinions about grad students, at this point in his career.

Would it be best to find someone else to replace him as one of my letter writers?  Someone who is younger and currently active in research?  I do have replacements in mind, but I am somewhat attached to this particular professor, since I feel that I got my start in rigorous mathematics with him.

Edit:  To add a bit more context, he is a full professor and has served on admissions / doctoral committees at our department numerous times.  So, he's very much qualified, of course.  My main concern is that perhaps he no longer communicates actively with people internal and external to our department, but that is only my best guess.

Thanks,


texts: manuscript, excluding author names and affiliations

texts:
I have a paper submitted to a journal of Springer.
In the submission process, there is a note that "attach your manuscript excluding author names and affiliations but I did not do it.
What will happen in this case.

Thank you very much for your responses.


texts:
Many students arrive at University and struggle with the transition from school.

Has anyone run/attended a lecture in which some or all of the following topics - or similar - were covered? Note - I am envisaging a mandatory single lecture for first-years which is independent of course/faculty.

How to behave in class

e.g. little/no talking while the lecturer is talking; what to do if arriving late (go in through a rear door, and/or apologise),

How to ask help of a lecturer/tutor

e.g. make an appointment and arrive on time if you want to ensure you get attention; don't arrive unprepared - show that you've done some reading and/or attempted to solve the problem yourself; have a series of well-defined questions ready, rather than just "can't do it"; don't show up 24 hours prior to a deadline set a month ago asking for help that should have been sought weeks ago and expect miracles;

How to engage with lecturers

e.g. forms of address - initial formality (e.g. "Hello Dr/Prof. X") is very likely to be appreciated and then met with an invitation to be more informal (call me "Phil"). Remind that lecturers are often engaged in other teaching and/or research and may often be too busy to chat if you just drop by their office.

How to engage with students

Remind the students that they are adults, this is not school, there are now serious consequences for breaches of behavioural codes.

Note, this subject material is not course or subject specific, nor am I envisaging the lecture as part of a lecture course, where only a subset of the year group attends. I envisage a mandatory class that all first-year students must attend at the start of the year. Furthermore, it sets out only the basic requirements of behaviour - specific lecturers might have their own additional policies on behaviour that they follow in their class.


texts: What visa for a short term course in the USA?

texts:
There is a short term course in the USA in August I really want to attend.
It's a 1 week training at the University of Minnesota. However, I'm not going to enroll as a student at the university.

May I use the B1 visa to do so? Has anyone been in a similar situation?


texts: notification e-mail and invitation letter

texts:
I submitted a manuscript to an international conference. Later I'm told to download the invitation letter and attend the conference. The question is I have not recieved a formal e-mail notification, presumably titled Acceptance or Rejection Notification, of the paper. So what do you think of this? Are there any international conference that notifies authors by the provision of only a downloadable invitation letter but with no formal e-mail notification?
Thanks!