texts: Where I can post a supplementary video for my published paper?

texts: I have a paper submitted and accepted in a journal (Biology and Environmental Sciences) and it has a supplementary file which is a short video coverage, however, the journal does not support this but I have uploaded the video to Vimeo. Do you have any suggestions where I can store the video and generate a DOI (like other journals) then attach it to my paper?


texts: Professor will agree to be my thesis advisor but only if I can find a co adviser, what does this really mean?

texts:
I am in my first year of my master's program in computer science. I have been sitting in on one professors lab meetings whose research I am really interested in when I asked him if he was comfortable working with me on a master's thesis he gave a response which I am having trouble interpreting. He said that he felt comfortable in the sense that he felt I would do great, but he didn't feel comfortable being the sole adviser due to the number of current master's students he was already advising.  He said he would be my thesis adviser if I could find a co-adviser. He is a new professor at my university and does not yet have tenure as this is his first year.

My question is was this a gentle way of letting me down or is it common for busy professors to suggest co-advising?


texts: Using Tech. Reports to 'protect' IP before presenting unpublished work in a conference

texts:
The question is in the title, really. It is similar to other questions, such as:
How much information should I divulge about on-going unpublished research at a conference?

However, I am wondering if publishing an internal (i.e. non refereed, etc.) technical report actually protects me from any plagiarism if I should encounter one.

I know people sometimes publish in arxiv for this purpose, but I have two concerns: a. it is not customary for me to do that, and b. I am not sure it is considered 'unpublished' for the sake of publishing in a refereed journal later.

What do you think?

Thanks.


texts:
Subsequent publications rely on the exact same set of funding agencies.  In total, that is an alphabet soup containing no less than 35 acronyms.

I'm using the exact same paragraph in the acknowledgements.

Would that be (self-)plagiarism?

It does seem to fit the definition, but... it seems silly to rewrite or to add a citation...


texts: Will journals care if I post a "collected works" on my homepage?

texts:
I am considering posting a "collected works" which incorporates all of my papers (up to this point) on a particular subject. This way, someone new to my work can get it all in one document. I plan to update it as I do more research.

It is not intended for publication (and will never be submitted for publication).

Much of the content will be copy/paste from papers which have been published. I'm thinking something like one chapter for each paper. My formatting will be generic; I'm not grabbing screenshots of the published edition or anything like that.

Is this typically something that would be allowed?  Does the content of my papers belong to me, so long as I do not try to publish it elsewhere?


texts: Co-authorship just because a Professor provides me the employment?

texts:
I am a postdoc at a European University. However, I am planning to quit my postdoc in a month or so since the research environment and the city life is not to me liking.

Also, I work with a Professor who is very polite, but also very busy with meetings. My salary comes from the project he administers, so he is the boss of the organization and the project.

For the past four months I have been working on a problem day and night including weekends as I found the problem very interesting and challenging. The theoretical part of the work is complete. It is a "complete" solution. He had NO contribution at all in this. Not even a single email exchange. He is too busy with meetings all the time. He is in the department twice a week for two to three hours at a time. I am also managing his master student as he has no time.

He is definitely polite and nice though, but I have not received any input from him other than giving me printed research papers. But he always asked me to give him the PDFs of lengthy derivations which I did. But I am dealing with analytical/numerical Navier-Stokes equation and its variations, so you can imagine how much terse that is. He has the entire theory now with him from my work. He may have been a good researcher in the past but no contribution to this work. And he had no proper publication in the work that I am doing so I am not sure how much he can contribute in writing the paper.

Now remains the numerical part which I believe I can do in next 2/3 weeks. And I have the ability to write the paper by myself when I have the numerical solution.

I talked to him and asked if I can work for him based in another city. He said if it is a week visit, that is fine, but not otherwise. He said it clearly that "I will not pay you to work somewhere else."

I still have a cordial relationship with him. No worries on that part. So, I am going to leave the place and the position in a month or two for sure.

So, he gains co-authorship just because he has the authority to provide employment? What should I do? Please help. I could have continued to live in the city though it was little boring for me, provided I was able to get inputs from my collaborator, or if he had given me necessary freedom to collaborate with other researchers, which he hasn't.

Update 10th June, I have resigned now. This problem has evolved into a new stage. Please post your replies there:

Gifting co-authorship if the topic of research was suggested by my boss?

and

Acknowledgment of funding and adding an affiliation in exchange of permission to use experimental data?


texts: Is there a more user-friendly way to download multiple articles from arXiv?

texts:
I am subscribed to the arXiv daily digests for my subject area. I find myself, every day, doing the following, when I get to work:

1) Browsing through the arXiv email and right-clicking on the articles of interest to me (to open each of the pages in a different tab in my browser)

2) For each of these pages, downloading the pdf by clicking on the link, re-naming it <article-title> by <author name(s)>.pdf, and saving the pdf in a directory on my PC

[3) the directory is then automatically synched to my tablet during the day]

4) Looking at the articles on my commute home on my tablet.

I am bored of doing (2). It only takes 10-20 seconds per article (depending on things like how many carriage returns or inappropriate characters I have to remove from the cut-and-pasted article title and author names -- e.g. math characters (I am a mathematician and symbols in titles do not cut and paste well)) but when I'm interested in 5 articles and one has a lengthy title with carriage returns and symbols in, my mind wanders and I start thinking about whether this has already been automated by someone, because it seems to me that there would be no obstruction to doing so in theory, but I would not be capable of doing it myself.
Does such an automation exist?


texts: Is it legal to discuss exercise problems and solutions for a textbook?

texts: Is it legal for a website to create an entry for a particular book, and add all the  exercise problems (not the question completely but just the question number) and create a reddit kind of discussion channel for people to discuss different solutions ?


texts: How and when should I identify my specific research interests?

texts:
I am a Computer Science graduate, who is passionate about Computer Science and various topics and want to explore them in and out.

I am interested in research but I cannot refine my interests to a particular topic. It is possibly because I did not get a chance to play with various stuffs and do various projects. So how should I refine my interests to a particular topic?Is it too early to think about it,that is should I wait for getting a Masters or am I right to think about it currently?


texts: Is expanding the research of a group into machine learning as a PhD student risky?

texts:
I have the opportunity of doing a PhD under the supervision of an expert in medical imaging at a top institution. Currently their group does not conduct research into the application of machine learning to medical image acquisition and processing. The purpose of the PhD studentship would be to pursue research into this. The department has significant machine learning and signal processing research groups whose seminars I will be able to attend and academics I can have contact with.

The supervisor has not for some time (before deep learning) pursued research in machine learning. The PhD itself is as yet not strongly structured and will initially require a deal of exploration and prospecting before its final form is decided.

Given that there is a safe fallback of medical imaging I do not foresee a risk to completing the PhD. However, as the only member of the group pursuing machine learning would this be a very risky PhD to embark on, particularly considering that afterwards I intend to pursue a career in academia? Are there any benefits?


texts: How to handle conflicting instructions when applying for a grant?

texts:
I'm applying for a grant renewal. There are subtle and not-so-subtle differences between the solicitation document and the submission instructions document with regards to which materials (e.g. the proposal narrative, personal statement(s), CV(s), research schedule, budget, transcript(s) for student(s), etc.) are required for new proposals vs. renewal proposals.

Obviously, the best path would be to contact the funding agency to ask for clarification.

How might one proceed if contacting the funding agency to ask for clarification isn't an option?

Should I assume the solicitation as written overrules anything else? Would it be best to just include all materials mentioned in either document, or does it hurt to include "unsolicited" materials?


texts: Master's and Bachelor's theses on the same topic?

texts:
I am a student of a M.Sc. in Economics.
For reasons that are really beyond my control, a week ago I was asked to write a one-page draft of my Master's thesis topic, so that I can be assigned to a supervisor. The draft must be handed in by July 31st. This notification came out of the blue for me (and my classmates), so we don't really have anything in mind so far.
Of course, I have thought about the potential topic of my Master's thesis before. However, I haven't been able to come up with a subject that is "satisfying" yet. So far, I have mostly encountered topics in which I don't feel like I could give a significant contribution.
On the other hand, I am still quite excited about the topic of my Bachelor's thesis (which I wrote about a year ago). I remember being kind of "proud" of this thesis, mostly because it stemmed from my original idea. I used a methodology that I found "creative" to investigate some classical questions related to International Economics. I recently read my thesis again and found that there is much room for improvement. With the experience I have gained in the last year of studies, I feel like I could research this topic in much more depth.
Do you think I could choose this topic (or a strictly related one) also for my Master's thesis? I fear this could be regarded as a "lazy" choice by someone who would review my academic curriculum in the future. Is it possible to write both your Bachelor's and your Master's thesis on similar topics?
Thank you in advance for your help.


texts: I am an undergraduate student in the field of information technology. Recently I worked on an academic project under a supervisor. We want to publish it. My question is: Does the person who submits the manuscript to a journal become the corresponding author of that paper? That is, if my supervisor submits the manuscript, will he become the corresponding author by default? Can’t he refer the correspondence to me?


texts: Do I need to contact professors before sending my postdoc applications?

texts:
I intend to apply for a call for a postdoctoral position. Is it necessary to contact professors before sending my application formally? If so, which documents should be sent? Is my CV enough or should I also send a research statement?

My field is mathematics and I am applying to positions in France and Italy.


texts: Why are (university-) teachers also examiners at the same time?

texts:
For most university classes I have come across, the professor teaching the class is also responsible for making (and usually grading) the exam, or holding an oral exam. As far as I can tell this is true in most (at least Western) countries.

There are a few exceptions, e.g. some (but certainly not all) universities do not allow the supervisor to be part of the examining committee during a PhD-defense, and many high school educations have a centralised exam at some point.

Does combining "teaching" and "evaluating" in a single person not create a conflict of interest - and why is this so prevalent at universities?

EDIT:

As people were wondering which conflicts of interest I was referring to: all of them :)

I was mainly thinking about the fact that teachers are usually evaluated based on their performance, which is either measured through e.g. student pass rates and/or student evaluations. Both of these provide an incentive for the teacher to make the exam easy to pass, either by making an easy exam or by preparing students on very specific questions in a hard exam.

But there are also arguments to be made that this system is not particularly good for the student-teacher relationship - I personally find it a lot easier to teach and motivate students when I am not evaluating them, because it has more of a "I am helping you to pass the exam", and less of an "learn this or I will fail you" atmosphere.


texts:
I am an undergraduate student with no experience and no guidance from any teacher whatsoever.

I have done research on Recreational Mathematics (Maths tricks). I have a lot of new tricks to introduce, in a completely new format.

But the problem is that there doesn't seems to been any research paper on this topic before, but there are many books. Can I quote books as a source of reference instead of research papers published? (I am quoting research papers related to the theorems and concepts I have used - but there is no reference to the trick on which I have worked upon.) Also the trick seems to be age-old and extremely simple, and I think that the inventor of it is not known to the world at all.

Can I cite the book? (I know that the author of the book didn't invent the concept behind the trick.)


texts: Get notification from the papers in the conference and the calendar

texts:
I work in the computer science field, and I would like to get notified when papers from conferences are available so that I don't have to be always looking to the conferences' webpage to see if they are available. Is there any service that do this?

My goal is just to find the latest CS papers to read. How people normally do? They are all the time looking for the conferences' webpage? They use google alerts?

I also would like to have a full calendar of the computer conferences that are available. Is there a webpage that shows this info?


texts: Conflict of interest/collusion in academic scenario

texts:
I know somebody, let’s call him Joe, who had been a good student. Being a good student, other students asked help from him to understand the class materials. In the meantime, our university started recruiting a lot of international students. These new students, especially those who had a lot of money started hiring Joe to teach them for a fee.

Then, I came to know that Joe charged these students a set fee for the semester with the understanding that they would get the expected grade. This means that he would do online quizzes, do any specific homework problems that students had difficulty, and teach them before a major exam.

Then, Joe became a teaching assistant and now he has access to more materials that normal students may not have. Since he is now a graduate/teaching assistant, he could potentially have access to quiz/exam questions before the exam and have answer keys for those tests. He continued to assist other international students for a fee.

Now, Joe is at part-time professor. He finished his graduate degree and the university hired him for part time teaching. He is continuing to help with quizzed, do homework and possibly leaking exam questions for other students.

In future, he may be hired as a full-time professor at the university.

Personally, I know this, and I do not feel this is right. I see a case of collusion and conflict of interest with this setup.

Should I inform the university about things that is going on? I am not sure if university knows about all the things that are going behind the scene.


texts: Can RUI grants be transferred to research universities?

texts: Suppose a NSF RUI (research at undergraduate institute) proposal is funded. Can the funding be transferred to a research university if the PI move to that university?


texts: Should a Ph.D. be done with a low h-indexed professor

texts:
I live in a 3rd world country and at one of top universities in my country a professor offered me a PhD position. I will pursue a part time PhD while working full time. I have to decide on whether or not to accept his offer.

My PhD chances in U.S. or other western countries where an established academic community exists is infinitesimal. This is due to my undergraduate degree is from another nationally lower ranked school than the nationally top ranked university I mentioned. Professors at my undergraduate school have no connection with western researchers and no cares about them, my undergradute professors also do not care about the international academic community.

Though the institution I was offered to pursue a PhD is nationally reputed and having a PhD degree from there carries a nationwise reputation, I believe that my postdoc chances from decent to good schools in western countries are very low. My professor has a title as Professor, but his h-index is extremely low (< 10), while his western colleagues usually have an index of greater than 30, and usually renowed ones have an index of gretaer than 50. Also his students do not seem to secure good postdocs.

I have started to dislike my professor too. I may work with him a few years and apply for a PhD after obtaining some publications, but still I will need his connections.

This might be my only chance for a PhD and I am not sure what to do. What are my chances in western academic system after this PhD ? Should a PhD done with a professor whose work does not receive much citations and who publishes rarely ?


texts: Should I share the prize money from a paper award for my graduate work with my former PhD advisor?

texts:
I am a postdoc, and with my former Ph.D. adviser have won a paper award which includes a sizable prize (10k+). I am the first author on the paper, and he is the second. The work is entirely mine, but he has been an excellent second author and mentor throughout this project and paper providing active feedback and many excellent suggestions along the way.  Both of us will travel to the conference related to the award, and both of us already have our travel paid for by grants. At the conference, we will give a presentation talking about the background of the paper in which I will be the principal speaker. The question is this: how do we split the award, or do we split it at all?

Please note that this is similar to the following thread, but the roles have been changed somewhat: Share prize money from conference presentation award with co-authors?

Edit: thank you everyone for your excellent advice. I have sent an offer to split the prize, as you suggest.


texts: When referring to study at Oxford why is the word "read" used?

texts:
When reading about people who have studied at Oxford the word "read" is used instead of study. Example:

"He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford"

Why when discussing study at Oxford (and maybe other universities) is the word "read" used?


texts:
I cannot think of an instance where I saw a figure inside a footnote in any published work, but in my specific case it seems appropriate to put one there.
However, since this is a rather uncommon thing to do, I am not sure how to label the figure's caption.
As @Alan Munn also pointed out in a comment to this answer, it seems odd to include it in the normal figure numbering, since - at least in the field of linguistics - numbering for examples etc. is separated from the main text.
As shown in the screenshot below, the figures in the main text are counted within chapters (Figure chapter.figure:), and examples in footnotes are numbered with the common lowercase roman numerals.
I will only add one or two lines to this note and its contents are a typical case for footnote examples, which is why I do not want to include it in the main text. Really the only odd thing is the additional figure showing the pitch of said example.

Are there any typographic/academic/editorial standards for this?


texts: Is it feasible/acceptable for me to convey my concerns to staff regarding performance of classmates on coursework reports?

texts:
I am currently doing Physics undergrad at a first tier university. Due to my previous experience in Mathematics and slightly advanced age (five years my classmates' senior) I look at my classmates from a different perspective, and am honestly slightly disturbed.

Despite having received a class in LaTeX (with the express purpose of encouraging its usage) most students continue to use Word for reports (with sometimes shambolic results), most students neglect bibliographies, and I've witnessed students using only Wikipedia as a source, even when I pointed out that some of the information was inaccurate and referred them to a paper with correct information.

I've talked to one of the librarians, and he virtually pleaded for me to bring up such issues with the staff. Stating that he'd like to give a course on how to use the library, access online papers, write a report etc. to first years. Most students I've talked to were unaware they had free access to most scientific publications, and almost none seemed to have ever read a scientific paper.

I'm not quite sure what to do. On the one hand I feel it's not really my place, and I have other stuff to do, it's not my fault if other students are sub-par, and they are unlikely to go very far anyway.
However, in second year (approx half of students fail out after first year in physics), my partner in Experimental Physics performed so poorly I ended up doing almost everything myself in order to ensure my continued good grades.

I got special commendations from two of the three PhD students overseeing my three projects (the third didn't have the time to actually grade my report yet), though I personally feel my reports were simply on par.

Is it feasible, or even acceptable, for me to communicate concerns with staff, or to relay the request of the librarian with my own concerns added?


texts:
I work in abstract mathematics and I'm currently in the mid stage of my PhD. I try to get bounds on computational aspects of mathematics. I have been working on one problem for almost half a year and I have got four/five really challenging questions in this way. I am trying to solve these new questions but some of them seem to be very tough. I have been able to solve some of these new questions partially, but did not obtain the optimal results.

Question:  Is it good to publish a research paper with many partially answered questions with sub-optimal results?


texts: How am I supposed to find 3 recommenders for grad school?

texts:
So early onto my undergrad, I knew I had to find 3 professors to use for letters of recommendation, but given the schedule these professors have and how many students they have to deal with, I find it to be almost impossible to find more than 1 professor that can vouch for me, especially after that long gap between taking their class and applying for grad school during my final year. I can simply just reach out to the ones that I got an A in, but I'm not their only A student and they likely forget who I am.

Add in the factor of the professors not being able to reply to my email and you are left with stress. Can anyone help me figure this out? I feel like this is by far the most difficult aspect of the application.

Also, how can you use professors for letters of recommendations if you decide to take a break between grad and undergrad?


texts: Applied to two MS programs, but one wants a decision before the other has made a decision

texts:
I applied to two graduate schools (both for an MS).  "University A" gave me an admissions decision already.  Upon reading their admissions letter, I have to make a decision within one week (it's currently mid-June).  Unfortunately, I still have not heard back from "University B".  They will be making their decision by July 31st.

I'm not entirely sure what to do here.  My preference would be to go to University B, but if I don't get in there, then obviously I'd like to go to University A.

Would it be wrong to accept the offer to University A, and then withdraw later?  Or, would it reflect poorly on me if I asked for an extension to make a decision?  I find it strange that University A wants a decision so quickly, seeing as how you can apply for admission for the fall quarter up through mid-August.


texts: Accepting a scholarship for masters just to get the money and fund a future masters

texts:
I have been offered a scholarship for a masters in theoretical physics at my home university, the scholarship covers the fees along with a decent stipend but I would rather pursue a masters in maths at a different university.

I feel alot of pressure to take the money for finical reasons but ultimately its not what I want to do. Part of me is considering accepting the offer and using it to save for a masters in maths. I feel I will be at a disadvantage trying to do a PhD in mathematics if I take this scholarship since I will have effectively spent 2 years of my prime going doing the wrong route.

If do a masters in maths I will likely have to take out a loan of about 8000-10,000. I'm afraid this will be too much to pay of with a PhD stipend and result in me having to work for a year or two again delaying my career.

Would the time spent doing a masters in theoretical physics put me at a disadvantage when applying for math phd's?

Do typical PhD stipends have enough room to pay off loans?


texts: Are there any funding sources available for OA/APC charges?

texts:
I'm a self-funded part-time PhD student. My (UK) university does not provide funding for OA charges/APC for self-funded students. I had a few situations now where I've struggled to come up with funding for charges. Up until now my supervisor was able to help through grants he held.
This is getting a bit awkward and doesn't seem sustainable though. I've spoken to my department and library and they couldn't help. Is there any source of funds for APC that I could apply for in my situation?


texts: Internal PhD thesis reviewer pulled out a month before the thesis due date: Is this allowed? What to do next?

texts:
I have been a PhD student in an institute for the last 4 years and now my deadline to submit my thesis is in another 40 days. When I joined the institute, official papers were signed stating that Professor X will be my first reviewer and will grade my thesis. By regulation, the first reviewer has to belong to the same faculty, but he was not from our group, and we did not have much contact with each other.

Now that I am ready to submit my thesis, he decides to back out on reasons stating that I was not in touch with him (but I was never told by my supervisor or by him that I need to regularly contact him).

Does this happen and is this allowed since official University papers were signed 4 years ago saying he will be my first reviewer?


texts: Why are MBA programs closing in the United States?

texts:
There are various reports about full-time, on-campus MBA programs closing its doors, e.g. from LinkedIn:

  MBA programs are getting axed: The number of full-time MBA programs in
  the U.S. declined by 9% between 2014 and 2018, the Wall Street Journal
  reports. Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and the University of Iowa are
  among several universities that have decided to shutter their
  full-time programs, opting to offer online programs and specialty
  business masters instead. Applications to full-time MBA programs —
  even at elite programs like Harvard and Stanford — have declined in
  recent years,

and also reports about applications dropping steeply, e.g.

in summarizing from a 2018 report [PDF]:

  Applications in the United States are down 6.6 percent -- while they are growing in Asia, Canada and Europe.

  –"M.B.A. Applications Drop (Except Outside the U.S.)",  (2018-10-08)

Why is this happening?


texts: How many minutes per day do most professors spend reading and replying to emails?

texts:
I know that the time greatly varies from professor to professor, but what are some good 25th percentile to 75th percentile estimates? And does the time spent reading/replying to emails generally increase when the professor is teaching a class?

What are some other factors that influence the number of emails a professor receives?


texts: Is there a rule for repeated letters when creating acronyms/initialisms/abbreviations?

texts:
I'm writing my master thesis and I've created an initialism that has the letter S repeated three times in a row (the initialism is OSSSP and stands for Optimization Search Space Scope Parameters). In my opinion, the constant repetition of letters in initialisms, abbreviations, and acronyms makes them look ugly, but I couldn't find a well-accepted rule for what to do in such scenarios.
Turn my initialism in something like 'OS3P' is an option, but it seems to be naive and informal. If I knew how to do it for this specific case, choosing synonyms to replace the original expression would be an option too. Any other thoughts on this?


texts: Should I put funded projects/grants on my CV where I am not PI?

texts:
I helped writing some project/grant applications. In those applications, I am not the PI and not a funded member. Still, I am listed as an external collaborator, or a person of interest, or potential hire. So, my involvement is as "co-author" of the application (although only the PI is listed) and as "person to be involved". I guess this is the case of several other researchers.

Is it usual to put those instances on an academic CV? If so, how?


texts: Is salary of a faculty member increased automatically year-by-year in the US and Canada?

texts:
In the universities in the UK, Australia, NZ etc., the salaries of university faculty members increases automatically year-by-year in two ways: 1 to 1.5% increment for inflation correction, and by climbing in the salary level (e.g., lecturer level 5 to level 6, etc.: What is the average salary of assistant professor in New Zealand?).
Is the US salary system similar? Say, someone is hired at a university in the US as a tenure-track faculty member. Does this person get some annual salary increase till he\she gets the tenured? Or they have to wait till obtaining the tenure to get some pay raise?


texts: I am a Re-Applicant for MS/PhD program,can I copy snippets of my previous SoP for my new application

texts: I am applying for masters program after a gap,I had a few rejects last time and re applying to those universities this year again,will it be ok if I copy some snippets from my old SoP for the new application's SoP


texts: Are Researchers at Private Companies Allowed to Publish Papers?

texts:
I'm an academic researcher with a very good publication track record in computer science.

I'm considering the possibility of applying for a research position at a well known telecommunications company with a large research department. But I still would like to have the possibility of publishing theoretical work.

1) Are researchers in private companies usually allowed to publish theoretical work produced in cooperation with researchers outside the company?

2) Are researchers in private companies usually allowed to publish theoretical work produced inside the company?


texts: Do the reviewers ask the authors to send their programming codes for the paper?

texts:
I am writing a paper for a Elsevier journal in optimization field. I was curious to ask, Do the reviewers ask the authors to send their Matlab or,.. codes of paper to proof their validness or honesty?
And If yes under what conditions this decision is usually made?


texts: I am a PhD student seeking to collarborate with PhD student/professors from other department. How can I make this happen?

texts:
I am a PhD student seeking to collaborate with PhD student/professors from other department.
I have never made such an initiative before, and I lack the general idea on how to start.
In particular:

If I already have some specific research questions in mind (which I will use for my dissertation research), is it important to ensure that the research lab is a reasonable match to my specific research goals? For example, if my field is natural language processing and I am specifically interested in doing a research in Transformer language models, should I ensure that the potential research lab for collaboration is also heavily into Transformer research? or can I try contacting any natural language processing labs in general, even if the lab's subarea of research is not a great match to my research goals?

My main supervisor is open to the idea of collaboration. To make the collaboration to happen, can I just contact the individual researcher/PhD student whom I am interested in working with? or should I first contact the professor who is leading the lab that the researcher/PhD student belongs to?

Should my main supervisor contact the research group on my behalf, instead of me approaching them?

If I collaborate with a research lab in different department, does this automatically mean that I will formally be a member of that research lab and have the professor who is leading the lab as my co-supervisor?

Is it okay for PhD student to collaborate with research labs from different university (assuming that my main supervisor is okay with this)?

Thank you,


texts: How to survive as a postdoc with unsupportive mentor and team

texts:
I am at the end of 2nd year postdoc at a famous CS lab in the US. I have changed my research area (but related) that I worked for my PhD.

1) My current project and the lab focus are different than what I was working on earlier in academia. Moreover, the problem I'm working solely on is widely-accepted as hard to tackle. I have some preliminary results but not enough to publish a paper. An alternate (inferior) approach at some other university (with grad students) took almost 4 years to run. I'm being constantly told that I am unable to progress as they expected. This is de-motivating me to hold on to addressing this problem. With no visible publication yet, peers and other colleagues are assuming that I'm not worth researchy material. How do I take these criticisms constructively and stay focussed and solve the problem.

2) From my PhD, I had 4 publications in top rated conferences in my field. There is another group in my own team who work in the same area. When approached for collaboration with them so that I can use my expertise in the current projects, they do not include me in any work. What puzzles me is that why do they not understand (or why am I unable to convince them) that I hold expertise in that area and could very well contribute to their work. They are happy to take a novice with little-to-no knowledge of the field, but do not want me. They had few publications this year, where I could have very well been one of the co-authors. Due to points (1) and (2) I have no single publication; neither as a main author in the new research area nor as a co-author in my area of expertise, which makes it very hard to proceed to next level of career. I spoke to a senior scientist about this, he replied that most of the postdocs and few staff are so insecure of funding, that they do not want anyone else to be included in their close-knitted group. How do I overcome this?

3) There are couple of postdocs in my team each with their own mentor. My mentor is fairly junior having recently converted to scientist, himself being a postdoc for few years. Other mentors are more senior to my mentor. I feel that my peer postdocs are being guided and mentored very nicely; they are invited to talk to any visiting scientists, work with summer students. My mentor has 3-4 summer students every year; but does not want to me collaborate with them. This is reducing the scope of any joint publications with them, while others have atleast 2-4 papers per year with the summer students.

4) I am not gaining any visibility in terms of invitations to serve for program committee or workshops, where my peer postdocs have bunch of them in hand, owing to the support from their mentors. All postdocs have more or less the same number of publications in similar venues. I agree that it has to do more with networking, but due to the nature of work, I hardly get time to attend any networking opportunities barring 1-2 workshops a year. This is not helping me boost my research career.

I want to get feedback on how do I boost my postdoc career and survive here if at all I want to. I personally think my mentor is limiting the options that I have to improve networking skills, collaborations across projects. I feel so isolated and dejected. I am willing to learn any skills that I may be lacking.

Thanks,
K


texts: Does dedicating to god undermine my aspiration on research in-front of review panel?

texts:
I need to submit and present well documented research reports of mine to a panel of experts. It is well known that there is a custom of including dedication page to any significant reports.
I want to include the statements like

Dedicated to god <-name->

My colleagues are cautioning me to not include such statements due to multiple reasons. The key reasons include: panel mates may be atheists and hence may not receive it properly, it is not encouraged for a research aspirant to mention god related statements in academic matters etc.,
I am interested to know the validity of the second reason: is it true that dedicating my report to god can be taken as a pit to my research aspiration?


texts: PhD from low-rank school (post-Soviet country), a couple of years in industry. What are my chances?

texts:
I've received my PhD (or rather, candidate of sciences degree) this year, and almost immediately applied for a job in a well-enough-recognized tech company. In a couple of years I'm going to take my chances at looking for postdoc position in Europe/US. Please help me evaluate my assets.

My current job involves a fair amount of research and a bit of engineering. It's pretty much related to the field I'm interested in (applied statistics/machine learning).
I also have somewhat around three years of work experience as an engineer/software developer.
I did my PhD thesis in a relevant field as well, but my university is pretty low-rank. It's recognized within my country, but most people overseas have never heard of it.
I haven't been able to publish any papers in international journals yet, though I'm determined to do so. Will it increase my chances?

I probably have a chance at applying for similar industrial researcher position (a fair amount of people from the company transfer to Google/Microsoft/other places on a regular basis), but at this point I'd really like to try myself in academia.


texts: What is the etiquette for making an appointment to request a letter of recommendation?

texts:
I'm currently a college sophomore looking to transfer to a university overseas, and I need a letter of recommendation from my adviser in order to apply.

Usually, in order to get in touch with my adviser, I just sign up for a 20 minute time slot, but that system is usually intended for students to quickly discuss class options.

I feel like signing up for the time slot and asking her for a letter of recommendation in person with no warning is sort of rude, and I've also heard that asking for a letter entirely over email is also rude. So, scheduling an appointment over email seems like the best option, but I'm not sure if I should explicitly reference my transferring and the letter of recommendation, because that seems tantamount to just asking over email. Any suggestions?


texts: How to stay organized while conducting research?

texts:
Doing research, there are plenty of stuff we should take care of, different articles and notes, websites etc..

It is sometimes hard to stay ordered and not to get lost in too many pieces of information. How do you organize your work? Are there any helpful software tools to conduct research projects — in my case, a thesis?


texts: Difference between "letter of motivation" and "research statement"

texts:
I am applying to a PhD position (theoretical physics, Austria) and the application asks for a letter of motivation, a CV, and a statement of research interests.

Given that I have no publications/employment, my CV is just a brief list of some grades, my skills relevant to the position, and a description of some of my coursework. My research statement describes my interests and experience in the field and gives more details about my research experience and its relevance to the PhD project.

So what is a letter of motivation supposed to contain that has not already been addressed by the other documents? I am not familiar with European academic requirements here.

Many thanks for any guidance.


texts: NSF two-ninths salary rule vs. NIH model

texts:
National Science Foundation (NSF) in US enforces a limit on salary compensation over all grants, often referred to as the two-ninths-rule:

  Summer salary for faculty members on academic-year appointments is
  limited to no more than two-ninths of their regular academic-year
  salary. This limit includes summer salary received from all NSF-funded
  grants.

So, for a 9-mo faculty who can fill up to 3 months of their own summer salary, NSF as the sole source of salary compensation doesn't work no matter how many grants one has.

Compared to the NIH model where there is no such limit, in fact 100% of salary can be recovered in theory via NIH grants, this is a rather strong limit.

What is the motivation of the NSF two-ninths-rule? Why not three-ninths to cover the whole summer salary?


texts: Accepting a postdoc position (in a different field) after industry

texts:
After a PhD in Biomedical Engineering (focus on Imaging and Robotics) with a decent publication record and some prestigious fellowships, I took on an industry research position at a well-known company, where I've been for 1.5 yrs. Still, I've kept one foot in academia with the goal/hope of one day returning (for the usual reasons: opportunity to do longer-term research, publish, mentor, etc).

Specifically, I've been collaborating with a well-known PI from a different field (Neuroscience) who needed help with a "side-project" (applying machine learning and related techniques to complex neuroimaging data). The project has gone further than expected, and we are close to publishing a paper. I expressed interest in continuing this work and, to my surprise, he invited me to interview; it went well, and I've been offered a postdoc position. Furthermore, since he lacks computational expertise, he wants to set me up with a co-mentor who is renown in the machine learning field.

I'm looking for opinions on how risky it'd be to make this jump. My concerns are:

Field change. While I've taught myself a range of computational techniques through this project (and through my industry
job), my prior publications were not in this field.
Neuroscience is even newer for me. Even assuming a productive postdoc, I worry about my
competitiveness for future TT positions compared to people
who did their PhD's in these exact areas (what do I bring that they couldn't bring?). I'm also concerned
about my CV appearing disjointed.
The mentorship situation, since the PI himself is not a computational     expert. The people in the co-mentor's lab are experts, of course, but I do not know them as well (yet).

Reasons this could be great:

I get to do more long-term, basic research in an area
in which I've always been
interested.
The main PI and I have worked well together, and he is genuinely interested in mentoring me, helping me apply for postdoc/early-career funding, establish independence, etc.
If the co-mentorship situation works out as planned, I'll receive great training from both sides.
Hopefully by having a head start and being close to a paper
already, I'd hit the ground running.

My options are pretty straightforward: Say no and continue my current industry job; say no and start looking for strong postdoc labs closer to my area of expertise (or another industry research position that prioritizes publications and longer-term research); or jump on board and swim!

TLDR: I'm "stuck" between two good options - terrible situation, I know. Still, I've been on the fence, as it's hard giving up a permanent position in industry for a risky alternative. I'd like to know if my concerns are valid, and I'm curious what others would do in my shoes. Apologies for the overly long post, and thanks very much for the feedback!


texts: How to stop being obsessed with manuscripts status

texts:
I have two manuscripts with status under review (and a third with ``ready for decision" status). I can't stop refreshing the journals homepage especially the one in the decision status. I know there will be an email. But I feel I'm too much on refreshing. I do check every five minutes or less.

I do have a conference submission though where I'm not doing any refreshing. I know notifications will be out on a certain date.

I feel I'm too obsessed. How to stop doing this?


texts: On working as a freelance copy-editor in graduate school

texts:
Is it advisable for a graduate student to work as a freelance
  copy-editor (for few hours a month, for papers in his/her area of interest)?

This topic emerged a few days ago during a conversation among a few colleagues of mine; we came up with the following upsides and downsides:

Upsides:

(1) increased financial independence;

(2) valuable training.

Downsides:

(1) possibly time consuming and stressful.

  Is there any other upside or downside we may have overlooked? (For
  example, could this kind of experience turn out to be a positive
  addition to an academic CV?)


texts: What kind of audience can I expect for a scientific talk at University?

texts: I have been invited as a Guest speaker to a scientific workshop at a University. I know there will be faculty members but will there be students present as well? This is my first time as a Guest speaker, so any information of what happens in such events would be helpful.


texts: Awaiting recommendation will take how long time?

texts:
I submitted a paper to some journal. Within less than two months it came for minor revision. Then I submitted the revised manuscript in 10 days. After two and half months the status got changed from awaiting reviewer scores to awaiting recommendation. Now it is almost 3 weeks. Still the status is same. How long I should wait for the final verdict?
Thanking you.


texts:
I would like to reference some material from Android documentation (such as Sensor Events and Sensors Overview) into my M.Sc thesis, talking about the details of sensor services in Android.

What is the appropriate way of referencing such material? Should I use endnotes or footnotes? If using endnotes, what's the standard style?

I am using LaTeX and BibTeX for citations.


texts: Can you do research in same field as your diploma and another field at the same time?

texts:
How liberal are institutions with regard to doing research in a different (unrelated) field than the person's diploma?

For example, if a person with a diploma in pure mathematics wants also to do research and programming in IT (specifically in XML), can he do it in his work time?

Does it makes sense to obtain a second diploma (Is Bachelor enough?) in order to be able to refresh the brain by switching between two different jobs during work time?


texts: Scimago (Scopus) or Journal Citations Report? Which one is more important?

texts:
I am aware that Scrimago and JCR are both authoritative sources. It seems that Scrimajo includes more journals.
I was wondering which one of them is more widely used and more important?


texts: Post doctoral fellowship in France and Switzerland

texts:
There is Humboldt experienced  Research Fellowship in Germany.
Is there any such type fellowship  in France & Switzerland?


texts: Posting peer reviewed but not yet accepted papers to arXiv

texts:
Here  Elsevier say that authors may put preprints on arXiv, and that they may put accepted versions on arXiv. They define a preprint as something that has not been peer reviewed, nor had any other value added to it by the  publisher.

They do not seem to say anything explicitly about posting intermediate versions, that is, versions that have been revised as part of the peer review process but have not yet been accepted.

I would like to post to arXiv a significantly revised version of a paper that has been accepted subject to minor revisions. The Elsevier website does not seem to address this case. Is posting the paper acceptable? Is it common practice?

The rationale for wishing to post this version is to be able to refer to new results it contains. But I can understand a journal not wanting such intermediate versions to be posted. Their peer review process has added value, but until the paper is accepted it's hard to give the journal credit.


texts:
I'm a master student in psychology. A year ago, I downloaded a lot of free clipart online to create my study stimuli. For example, some clipart are from this website: http://clipart-library.com.
I basically created my study stimuli using clipart from multiple sources. I finished writing up my thesis and plan to publish it soon. However, it occurs to me that if I publish my study with a few figures of experimental stimuli, it may incur copy right issues. I'm wondering what would be the best option for me at this moment? Should I not include any figures in my publications?


texts: Job after post-doc - Whom to list as referee?

texts:
I'm currently a postdoc (in computer science) and planning on applying for faculty jobs soon. During my 3 postdoc years I've had a couple of papers with 2 "superstars" in my field, whereas my current boss is somewhat less renowned.  Most job ads seem to require 3 referees.

Now my question is, who should I list as referee?

my PhD advisor + the 2 superstars
my PostDoc supervisor + the 2 superstars
A different combination?

Would option 1 or 2 be perceived as unusual?


texts: Use of Jargons in my Statement of Purpose

texts: It is generally advisable the use of jargon's and abbreviations be avoided in your statement of purpose. So if I would like to mention a few MOOC's(which stands for Massive Online Open Class offered at portals like Udacity,Coursera,etc) and the flow of my SOP necessitates the use of the word "MOOC", what do I do? Is the term "MOOC" known widely (which I believe is true) or do I have to mention "Massive Online Open Class" (atleast for the first time). This usage could be decisive in situations where there is a strict limitation on the word count.


texts: Why does the number of publications for computer science and economics PhD students differ by so much?

texts:
As a CS PhD student, I'm often surprised at how few papers econ students have when they go into the job market. Even students at top universities typically have 3-4 papers, mostly still unpublished, whereas it is not uncommon for CS students to have more than 10 papers by the time they graduate -- some CS undergraduates already have 3-4 papers or more. As this blog post confirms:

  CS candidate typically have many papers while economics students typically have only a few polished papers.

I can see a few reasons that contribute to this, but I don't think they satisfactorily explain the phenomenon.

Econ students often spend the first year only focusing on classes and qual exam. However, a 1-year difference in a 5-6-year program is not that much, and CS has classes and qual exam of its own, though admittedly more relaxed.
The publication venue for econ is journals whereas CS publishes in conferences. However, top CS conferences usually have acceptance rates of 15-30% and people spend a lot of effort polishing their papers before the deadline, so I'm not sure how much more polished econ papers can be, whatever "polished" means. Moreover, many CS conference papers are turned into journal papers without major additional contribution.
The econ job market places a great deal of importance on a single "job market paper", so there is less incentive to work on other papers. However, wouldn't other papers to go along with the job market paper help toward a better profile? Even if econ students don't want to start big projects, there are journals such as Economics Letters that accept shorter papers, whose website even says explicitly: "especially young researchers and advanced graduate students are encouraged to submit their articles."

As I said, I don't think the reasons I described satisfactorily explain this huge difference in number. What am I missing?


texts: How important is to maintain an online/digital presence for a graduate student?

texts:
I am a graduate student in the physical sciences working towards my Ph.D and planning to finish in less than two years from now. In this age, where data mining/collection/analysis and then selling/using it for profit has become ubiquitous and quite easy because of the internet and the ever increasing plethora of electronic devices, I have become a little paranoid and worked quite hard over the past decade to keep myself anonymous and to stop anyone from piecing info about me as much as possible. I do regularly google myself and see what I can learn about myself.

So the thing is, I don't have a webpage of any kind. No blogs! Certainly no social sites. No professional/connection profiles like on LinkedIn. Even the university provided webpage/space is unused and I try to control where my university email is published. Only the people who know me and have met me face to face (personally and professionally like at a conference) have my info to get in touch with me. It would be quite difficult for someone who I don't know to get in touch with me even if it is research related. A potential employer will have a very hard time trying to find anything about me on the internet.

So my question is how detrimental is this behavior to my professional future? Just how bad is it really, assuming it is bad? Do I really need it? Will this hurt my chances in the future when I try to get a postdoc or a job in the industry? I haven't published anything yet but I will very soon and then I expect to have at least another paper before I graduate. Furthermore, I really don't know what will I be doing after graduation. I might do a postdoc at a lab but then after that I don't plan on staying in academia. I might just stay at a lab or go to the industry working for a R&D somewhere. I am also toying with the idea of just starting my own small business. It could be something completely unrelated to my degree like a bakery or a bookstore.

But let's stay that even if I decide to stay in the field like working at a national lab and publishing regularly, can this be done without a public online presence?

BTW, I am in the USA and I don't plan on ever moving out of the States so the postdoc/lab stuff will be here in the States if I decide to do it.


texts: What would a good written policy for scaling exam grades look like?

texts:
I'm not in the habit of scaling exams, although I'm aware that the practice is widespread and highly recommended in some circles (such as grading on a curve). To my recollection, none of my college instructors scaled exams or wrote any policy about such on their syllabi. I'm wondering if one did commit to an official policy of scaling exams, what would a reasonable written policy look like?

The goal here would (hypothetically) be similar to Krantz in How to Teach Mathematics (Sec. 2.10): "My main goal in formulating my grading policies is to make the greatest number of students feel that they have been treated fairly (and, not incidentally, to reduce student complaints)." Secondarily (and again hypothetically), to defend against possible future administrative complaints that the instructor is not matching some recommended grade proportions (same section by Krantz).

Please assume that the individual exams are adequately fair assessments themselves (not broken, vague, or overly-hard questions, cover same topics covered in class and homeworks, sufficient time permitted, significant advance time taken assessing questions and grading rubric, etc.).

Background: I'm at an open-admissions community college where high failure rates are historically common, often half or more of many math or computing courses. Among the things I'm worried about if I started doing that are: Would there be any lower bound to what might wind up being passing work?

For example, I had a colleague at a different university (top-20 in U.S.) who got in trouble a number of years ago in that, when pressed by students on his scaling policy, said that if every single student got a zero on a exam, then the scaling process would turn all of them into 100% marks. Surprisingly, the students successfully organized a total boycott of the final exam, and my friend followed through and gave 100% marks to everyone as per his word. (This turned out to be quite embarrassing for him.)

So I'm wondering what kind of formal, mechanical policy for scaling would prevent no-lower-bound situations similar to this one?


texts:
I want to apply for a part-time (65% week hours) PhD position in Germany. The duration of the PhD is 3 years.

Actually I don't understand why some positions are full-time and some part-time, while the duration is the same. After graduation is there any difference between this two groups?

Salary group is 13 TV-KAH and I don't know how much they pay. I appreciate if you could explain it. I read some questions about this topic but I didn't find the suitable answer.


texts: Should I have a recommendation letter form my boss in industry?

texts:
Background: In the next few months I will be applying for graduate school for a PhD program (or Master's if I have to go that way first). The degree will be Electrical Engineering focusing on Computational Electromagnetics (CEM). I have heard that the letters of recommendation are crucial, and should absolutely be written by people that personally know your work. Right now I have two candidates willing to write for me: (1) a tenure-track professor for whom I have worked for 2 years and although her expertise is not in CEM, the work I do for her requires a similar skill set. (2) a tenured faculty who has had me in a class, is a nationally recognized expert in CEM, and has worked on a project with me outside of school (specifically he was consulting where I was working over the summer).

Issue: For the third letter, the most readily available option would be my boss at my summer internship. He has known me for about 2 years now, he is a double major in Math and Comp Sci, and has a Masters in Comp Sci. He has also been doing work in CEM for a few years so he is an expert in that area as well. However, he does not have an appointment at a school right now (although he surely could), but instead works in industry. Keep in mind I will be applying to programs that are top 50-30 overall, but are top 25-10 in CEM (i.e. Ohio State, UTEP, U of Houston).

Would he be considered a strong letter writer, or should I seek another letter from a professor (who may not know me as well and/or may not be an expert in CEM)?

Note: although my internship is in industry, my job is to do research and development, so I am not questioning whether my background is strong, I am questioning whether the third writer's profile would be considered strong/adequate by the committees.


texts: Asking for a letter of recommendation from a professor who's witnessed my breakdown

texts:
I'm currently applying for an intensive language program, and I've taken courses with a professor whose letter of recommendation would likely carry a lot of weight– he speaks the language fluently, and has spent years studying the country. His course is also the only one I've taken that is directly relevant to the language program I'm applying to.

However, I'm not sure if it would be appropriate to ask him for a letter of recommendation. In the first course I took with him, I did relatively well; I got all As on my assignments, but I rarely spoke with him, and never really stood out.

The second course I took with him (the one that's relevant to my language program) is what worries me. During that semester, I had a family emergency/mental health problems, and, after multiple meetings with this professor, I ended up receiving a G grade in the course (meaning that I have to submit the coursework I missed by the end of this year). He's seen my outlines for the essays I owe him, and he's admitted that they're pretty much perfect– but I haven't submitted any actual essays. However, we've spoken at length about my family emergency/mental health issues, and we've grown somewhat close (he also has had some experience with mental health issues). I feel like he understands why my work ethic suffered, and doesn't seem to hold my delayed coursework against me.

So, my question is: should I ask him for a letter of recommendation? I feel like his recommendation would go a long way on the application, but only if his recommendation is actually a strong one. Despite his understanding of my personal circumstances, I'm not sure if my coursework has been good enough for him to feel comfortable giving me a glowing recommendation. I also don't want him to feel pressured (out of, I don't know, pity for my situation) to give me a recommendation letter. Any advice?


texts: What is a letter of teaching philosophy?

texts:
I am currently looking for jobs (lecturer in Mathematics) and I have been asked to include a "letter of teaching philosophy". Could any of you please explain what this is or point me to a reference? I couldn't find much after a Google search.

What should I include? I understand what my teaching philosophy is. For example, this includes:

Preparing slides.
Going from General to Particular.
Presenting examples.
Encouraging students to participate (e.g. by saying "well done!").
Pointing out additional references.

Are this sort of things what I am supposed to include in the letter?


texts: Conference Paper/Poster version of Bachelor Thesis - should I cite the thesis?

texts:
My B. Sc. thesis is shortlisted for a young scientist award, which allows me to take part in the respective society's yearly conference for free, submit a full conference paper as well as present a poster. The paper has already been submitted after positive abstract review, I'm currently creating the poster.

While selecting publications for the poster, I noticed that I did not cite my own thesis in the paper. I suppose that this happened rather unconcious, probably because I viewd the paper as another version of my thesis - I used the same data and methods, and only created new illustrations and of course rewrote the text.

I am wondering: would this be considered self-plagiarism? And could this potentially be harmful or may it be considered to be of low importance. Is there anything I can do about this? My field is earth observation btw, if that is of help.


texts: Should I withdraw a paper from arXiv if it does not contain any new research?

texts:
I had submitted a copy of a reading-cum-review project to arXiv in my undergrad sophomore year without really thinking of the consequences. The paper was announced and eventually moved to the General Physics section.

The issue with the paper is that it does not contain any new research and the review is far from being exhaustive. Besides, it was typed in a very unprofessional manner with too few references for a review paper.

Now that I am a grad student and need to associate a real journal paper to my arXiv account, I was wondering if having such a paper on arXiv hurts reputation in the long run. Is it usual to have casual reports uploaded on arXiv, or is it advisable to withdraw it and start afresh?


texts: Can I send my journal article (under review) for a invited Elsevier book (not-to-be-refereed) chapter?

texts:
I just got an invitation from an editor of a non-refereed book. Is it considered self plagiarism if I send one of my journal article to the book?

The book is hard to define. It is more like a textbook rather than a review volume.


texts: whether to send a follow-up email asking for research internship

texts: I send a email to inquire about a research internship 3 weeks ago to a professor leading a research group(they clearly state that they have on their web-page) and I like the research group's research area a lot, since my own field now is close to theirs. But I acted stupid in the email that I didn't mentioned anything about their work, just saying that I am doing research in a similar field(although I have read their papers, I didn't recognize the importance of talking about it by then due to inexperience). And the professor didn't respond me. I guess he just ignored it as a SPAM. Do you guys recommend me send a followup email to make up for it? Or it is no use reach him twice that he would merely consider it an annoyance?


texts: In my first year of a research postdoc in math, I think I may want a teaching-only career. How should I prepare for the job search?

texts:
I got my Ph.D. in math in the last year and am currently in the first year of a 3-year research-oriented postdoc at a large public American university. I am finding it harder and harder to focus on research, not necessarily because of teaching, but for various reasons which I don't think are relevant to the question, and I am beginning to think that I would like a career as a lecturer. I enjoy teaching quite a bit, and I think I'm fairly good at it. If, as I originally intended when I accepted the postdoc, I still planned to apply to research-oriented tenure-track positions, I know what I need to do to be prepared for that process (whether at a large research school or a smaller college which still requires research of its faculty, e.g. a tenure-track position with somewhat higher teaching emphasis). But it seems from looking at purely teaching postings on MathJobs that, for example, I will definitely need three letters of recommendation addressing my teaching. I honestly don't know how to go about finding people to write these letters (for the tenure-track career path I would expect to have to get one teaching-oriented letter). I have a teaching mentor who has observed me a couple terms who could presumably write one letter, but I don't know about the other two. Do chairs write teaching letters? I'm frankly a bit afraid to tell anyone at my institution that I'm not sure I want to do research anymore, since they hired me with a reduced teaching load to give me more time for research. I actually really like the place where I am, and think, at this point anyway, that I would like a lecturer position here, but as I'm currently doing a postdoc here, I have no idea how likely it would be to be hired as a lecturer (even with, let's say, an excellent teaching record).

Note that I'm talking about a lecturing position, where the only expectation would be teaching and possibly also service. I'm not talking about the tenure-track jobs with more teaching emphasis which still require some research output (although I guess it's possible, though by no means certain, that the research incidentally produced from my thesis could make me eligible to be hired for such a position). But I think that I really just want to focus on teaching (preferably at the university level).


texts: What is the difference between a Case Report and a Brief Report?

texts: What exactly is the difference between a Case Report and a Brief Report in the New England Journal of Medicine?


texts: Writing a commentary to a scientific journal without one's advisor

texts:
I started as a research assistant in a new lab 10 weeks ago. I have a six-month fixed-term contract, which was supposed to be extended to a PhD project in 2017. However, my supervisors have been mean to me (I don't quite understand why) and therefore I do not plan to stay in the group.

I have one unfinished paper (from the previous lab) which I plan to submit as soon as possible. The situation is quite clear: it was work that was started elsewhere, which I complete on my own time, and hence my new supervisors will not be co-authors.

I have been advocating against a certain practice in my field for about one year. I have received good comments about it. I would like to try to publish a short commentary in a leading science journal about it. However, I am not sure how to go about doing it. I would like to be the sole author, and not even discuss the work with my new supervisors. If I do it on my own time, is there potential for problems regarding authorship? It appears this particular lab has a policy that the supervisors co-author everything. Anyway, the usual protocols (e.g. Vancouver) suggest that without contributing they should be not. From a legal perspective I guess there are no problems, since the work (1) concerns a very general topic, (2) constitutes only of the idea, and does not need any resources from the university, and (3) I did it on my own time.

One thing I am also wondering is what to put as an affiliation. Should I put my present lab? Since it is the place where I work... Actually, doing that will have a positive effect to the lab's funding prospects if it is mentioned as an affiliation. On the other hand, I guess it could be used somehow against me in the worse case.

What should I do?

Please note that this is about a commentary, not original research. I think that makes this question different from many others.


texts:
So I attend a small(top 20 ranked) liberal arts college. I want to pursue graduate school in Mathematics. I am currently a junior, so by the time I would be submitting my graduate applications next year, I would have completed only 1 course in real analysis, 1 course in abstract algebra, and 1 course in Complex Analysis. I am unable to take topology due to the very small number of math classes which my school offers Everything I hear suggests that this is not enough preparation for grad school.

Also, I will not have had any applied math courses beyond ODE at that point. In addition, looking at the sample GRE subject tests-I fear that it would be difficult for me to get a decent score if there are some questions about field theory, topology, etc. which I won't have the background to answer(although I understand the test is very difficult anyway). I also am unsure of which are of math I might most want to pursue at this point.

Anyway, would it be a good idea for me to start in master's program first? In that case, I would probably have to go somewhere in state. I live in New York, so that would might mean going to SUNY Albany, SUNY binghamton, etc., which are ranked in the 80s by US News. In a masters program, I would be able to obtain the desired preparation for grad school, explore applied math, and study for the GRE more, and try to go into grad school with more of an Idea of what I wanted to focus on. My other options for masters programs would be going to something at a Place Like Miami Ohio, North Dakota, University of Alaska Fairbanks which have funded terminal masters programs for people interested in strengthening their mathematics for graduate study.

There are also a few schools which offer post baccs in math, and I know Canadian universities do fund masters students, although their system is different in that they rarely admit students directly to PHD programs. Are these(and if any, which ones) masters programs a viable idea for trying to get into a better PHD program? Or would I need to get a masters program from a school which is ranked more highly?


texts: Moving from engineering to astrophysics (postdoc)

texts:
I have seen an interesting postdoc position in computational astrophysics (focused on planet formation). I am a PhD in engineering, and I do research on mathematical modeling of hydro/fluid dynamics and some MHD. The postdoc position is requesting experience with computational fluid dynamics. I have experience with all the approaches and methods listed in the job description, although with different applications, and my PhD course satisfy the requirements. However, I have never done research in astrophysics. The position would start in the end of 2021 so I’d have some time to read books and related papers.
Do you think it is doable or should I look at something closer to engineering?


texts: In a statement of purpose for a PhD in computer science in the US is it better to express interest in a single subdiscipline or multiple?

texts: It seems that if I were to just express interest in a single subdiscipline (computer networking for example), and none of the networking professors are taking on students, I would not be considered based on any other merits my application may have. But if I were to express interest in several subdisciplines it may be difficult to create a structured statement of purpose.


texts: Will a mistake in my data collection for my thesis effect my whole grade?

texts: I am currently doing my undergraduate thesis for psychology. I noticed in my data collection when asking the participants age i asked it wrong e.g. 18-21,21-25. Age is not one of my variables i am testing in this study and will have no implication on the results of my study. If i acknowledge this as a limitation and state how it wont impact results will this still have a big impact on my grade?


texts: Can a professor force you to buy a book, for use in his exam?

texts:
I'm a first year law student in the UK. For our EU Law class, our professor declared that we must bring an unannotated physical copy of Blackstone's EU Treaties & Legislation 2018-2019 to our exam and use it. Thus we must buy it.

Our Prof admitted that these laws are free online. But we obviously can't bring our own printouts to the exam, as the invigilators can't check each student's printout.
The professors for my three other classes don't require us to buy any book for the exam, as they'll provide us with the legislation for the exam.

Thus why don't the EU Law professors do the same? I wonder...laziness?

Our professor ought to provide the legislation, because the book

is a waste of money. Statues and legislations change yearly, and this book's going to be outdated. In fact, scroll down the Amazon page, and you'll see that the book has a new edition  published yearly.
is too eco-unfriendly! 1 sheet/2 pages  x 696 pages x 200 students = 69,600 sheets! And the professor has been requiring this book for many years.
may be unaffordable. It's £14.99 + £3 VAT, which is under the poverty threshold.

I emailed our professor many times, but he never replied. I prefer to stay confidential, and not to confront him or the administration face-to-face. I emailed the administration, but they just keep repeating the professor's order to buy the book.


texts: How much domain expertise and network does a special issue guest editor need?

texts:
I have been invited as a special issue guest editor.  The journal is genuine (I have both published and reviewed there multiple times) but not very prestigious and sometimes seen as "easy" to get into.  So far the special issue has a title and a deadline, but the scope is yet to be defined by the guest editors.  The title is broad enough to be its own journal.  Within the fields that would fit with this title, my expertise and network range from "a little" to "none at all".

I've been a little surprised by the invitation because I thought guest editors were senior researchers in their field, and no matter how much introspection I do on the impostor syndrome, I'm not a senior researcher in this topic.

I tentatively accepted, because being a guest editor could be a great learning experience and would enhance my CV, and perhaps I don't need that much domain expertise if the other guest editors are more experienced experts and my role would be rather to carefully read papers, reviews, replies, and more reviews, before accepting a paper (or not)?

Now it turns out nobody else has accepted yet and I've been asked to find others, and I'm getting cold feet.  Could people who have experience being special issue guest editors, or who are otherwise familiar with these roles, give some advice?

In special issues, are guest editors usually senior researchers with a lot of domain expertise and an extensive network in the field?  Or do you also encounter those whose expertise is at best tangentially related?
How much of a handicap would it be to lack the in-depth expertise?  Is this a debilitating limitation or one that can be reasonably accommodated?

The field of Earth Observation / Remote Sensing.  The publisher is based in Switzerland, specialises in open access, and its journals are indexed by the usual places,


texts: Does the GDPR cover reviewer blacklists, and if so, how?

texts:
I've served as an area chair for several conferences.  Following the review period, the program chairs asked the area chairs to submit to them an annotated list of problematic reviewers. Mostly these were reviewers who failed to submit a review at all, despite repeated reminders, but we were also asked to identify reviewers who submitted exceptionally low-quality reviews, such as reviews that were so short/vague as to be useless, and reviews whose factual errors were so glaring that it was obvious that the reviewer either lacked even the bare minimum subject-matter knowledge, or else didn't bother reading the paper at all.  The purpose of collecting these lists was to construct or to supplement a blacklist for use with future program committee invitations.  That is, people on these blacklists would not be invited to review for future conferences operated by the same scholarly society.

I am wondering whether the coming into force of the EU/EEA General Data Protection Regulation has any implications for these blacklists.  In particular, is the blacklist itself considered "personal information", and is it even lawful to compile such a list?  Can the reviewers mentioned on this list use the provisions of the GDPR to force its maintainers to disclose their presence on the list or even to remove them from the list?  How about the area chair comments used to construct the list—are these something that blacklisted reviewers can force the conference organizers to turn over to them?

I realize that this is a question about legal principles and practice, and so might be also (or maybe even better) appropriate for the Law Stack Exchange or a lawyer.  But since the question treats a uniquely academic scenario, I'm hoping that someone here might belong to a scholarly society that has already looked into the matter, and can therefore provide a brief summary for the present academic audience.


texts: Was supposed to do an oral exam, but was instead presented with my grade

texts:
Me and a group of classmates (each of whom including myself had been active participants of the course) got called to the professors office half a week before our oral exam and were each presented with a grade. We went there together and could accept or deny the professors suggestion.

It was clear from my friends that they were happy to accept it (the real oral exam is very difficult). I was personally very unsure how to feel about it, partly because we had just written a "pre-exam" in the morning of the same day and I had made some really sloppy mistakes. The grade I was given felt unjustified in how high it was. Of course by the difficulty of the actual exam it felt stupid in a practical sense not to accept the professors offer. I still made a meek attempt to protest, after which he insisted and I essentially made the choice to accept. Also partly because of my friends who I in the moment realised would look worse off had I not accepted.

The exam is not especially important, it is a course like any other in the end. And I know (which was the professors point) that I would have studied to take the exam and probably done ok. But I cannot shake the feeling that I made the wrong decision. Having done some thinking, it feels unfair towards the people who have to do the real test, and I imagine this situation is precisely why terms like "kissing up to the professor" exist. I feel shame because I participated very much in the course simply because I love the subject and for no other reason.

Was I right or wrong to accept the grade?


texts: Traspararent evaluation in lab exams -- good or bad idea?

texts:
In a traditional evaluation, instructors only let their students know their total marks when the semester results are released. The marks given for each student for each question is kept confidential.

In our institution, lab examinations usually occur before the corresponding theoretical exams. Hence, I tend to follow a more transparent evaluation where the students get to know their marks and know where they have gone wrong just after their evaluation. I do this so that they could rectify their mistakes in their upcoming theory exam. After all, the whole rationale behind education is that you get to learn wherever possible.

What are the pros and cons of this approach?


texts: Apply for a cluster for scientific computing from a developing country for academic use?

texts:
I don't have access to a computer cluster in my university. Is there website that accepts applications for free access to a computer cluster for scientific computing?

Further information: I am in Cuba. I need something on the order of 30 processors, about 50 GB of hard drive, for a week or so. I need to run programs written in C++ and Python.


texts: Is it appropriate to include additional materials in an academic job application?

texts:
I am applying to teaching jobs at small liberal arts colleges. They typically ask for the standard things: cover letter, CV, research statement and teaching statement. I feel as though a compilation of student comments and data taken from students in my classes (rating my enthusiasm and preparedness in particular) makes my application much stronger. After all, these are the types of things people look for when it comes to tenure review, so why not for a job application? My question is:

Is it inappropriate to include such additional materials in a teaching application?


texts:
I am doing a systematic review of the medical field. I am looking for the current definition of exacerbation in CF patients used in the literature.
my question is..
Should we include a book in the data extraction process of the systematic review?
Or just include the primary research articles?


texts: My first day as a teacher, how should I proceed?

texts:
Quick background; I study Computer Science and have been asked to take the role as a paid student teacher for college students.

I am extremely nervous about it, although it's a fairly familiar role as I'll be teaching what I learned only three years previous.

I'm far from the extrovert type and as such, find it really difficult to hold a room.  How do I keep the attention and respect of students that are almost my age?


texts: Is there a special name for a contributed talk given longer time slot?

texts: A conference symposium I'm attending has all contributed talks, no invited or keynote talks.  But in each session, one of the [contributed] talks is given a longer time slot than all the others (40 mins vs 20 mins).  Is there a special name for these types of talks?  How would one denote this on their CV (and should they)?


texts: If I think I have a publishable idea on a certain problem, how do I publish and proceed?

texts:
I'm new to research.  I'm working on a certain problem that has sort of been abandoned by all researchers (as far as publications go).  Anyway, I like it for its simplicity and easiness to grasp.  However, it's a new algorithm for a problem and a new way of possibly answering theoretical questions about the problem.

There is so little research out there on the certain problem, that it would literally take you a day or less to view it all and ascertain that indeed the idea hasn't been looked at yet.  I'm applying the well-studied field of integer programming / linear algebra to model each instance of the problem.

Anyhow, regardless of whether I answer a major open problem, I think the approach is valuable in itself, if for no other reason that it makes answering basic questions about the problem a lot more easy, sort of like how algebraic geometry answers questions about geometric objects using algebra.

How do I proceed?  Do I just spend a month perfecting the paper on my own and put it on arXiv?  Is that all?


texts: Is it possible to get a Ph.D. position in Europe after a one-year diploma?

texts: I had interviewed by a professor for a Ph.D. position in Australia and the application has been unsuccessful. However, the professor wrote I did well in the interview and encouraged me to apply for a one-year diploma or two years master's (As I only have a 4 years bachelor's degree). I want to know what is the main difference? I mean if I do a diploma, will I be eligible for doing a Ph.D. after that? Especially in Europe (as Europe needs a master's for getting a Ph.D.)?


texts: How can I find out the commission rates for agents recruiting international students to the UK?

texts:
Problem

In the UK, higher education providers often work with third parties called international agents to recruit international students.

In this system, an international student may request advice from an international agent. If they place that student with their client university, they gain a commission.

My problem is that I do not know whether my university is offering a decent enough incentive to international agents for them to promote us over their other clients.

What I've tried so far

To find out how much commission agents receive, I've tried:

Launching a survey on a LinkedIn group for higher education international recruitment specialists. This has had no responses
Googling the question, but I haven't found any suitable results
Searching on job boards, but the positions are often not advertised, as many international agent companies are small family-owned businesses

My question

This is a bit of a left-field question, but how can I find the commission rates for international agents when they recruit for rival universities?


texts: How to approach principal investigators for internship/job positions

texts:
What would you recommend as the best way of approach principal investigators for internship/job positions? I'm undergrad, with a planned graduation this winter and I want to get some experience before grad school.

Should I try 'cold' messaging? I want to go abroad and I'm not well networked there.
I've been on exchange and performed rather well. Can I use this experience to my benefit?

(Somewhat less important) Ideally I'm looking for research experience in Computational Neuroscience. I already have some research experience, I've done graduate work and I majored in cognitive science and mathematics but I come from a Liberal Arts & Sciences college. Will my LAS background be seen as a disadvantage?


texts: Accepted into university for MS in CS but rejected by professor for research

texts: I got accepted into a top 10 school for CS (Computer Science) but I was rejected by a professor with whom I wanted to work with. No feedback after resume submission, just "I found another student." If I can't find a professor that wants to work with me in something I'm interested in at a MS level, should I even attend? Or should I just try to write my own paper (sole author) and see what happens? I want the research experience for PhD applications in the future.


texts: Is it worth doing a poster presentation?

texts:
I submitted a paper to an IEEE conference (Computer Science). My paper was not accepted for publication but it has been accepted for poster presentation there.

The conference requires the authors to pay full delegate registration fees as is required for authors of published works. Is it a common practice ?

I was a novice student in the field when I submitted the paper, but have worked a lot in past few months in the area. And I am not looking for any specific inputs into that work anymore.

Is it worth doing a poster presentation in such case ?

EDIT: (some additional information)

It is not a top tier conference
I am self funded


texts: Pursuing integrated master’s and PhD in business

texts: My friend has a diploma (associate degree) in commerce. He has 35+ years of industry experience. He wants to do integrated master’s and PhD in business. How is it possible?


texts: What can a math major do to get into a computer science PhD program?

texts:
I graduated this past May from UC Berkeley with a degree in applied math. I realized that I am very interested in getting a PhD in computer science. However, my programming experience is mostly self taught and I have only one introductory class in Python on my resume as programming experience. Right now, I'm working at a startup building risk models using machine learning. I do some coding at work, but not a lot. My primary interest is in AI (especially it's applications in video games) and my top schools are Stanford, Berkeley, USC, and Caltech.

I'm willing to spend the next few years building up a resume so that I can get into grad school, but the problem is that I don't know what to do. I can talk to my employers and see if I can get more work that involves programming. I could also work with them to publish our findings in academic papers. I can work on some projects on my own, such as building apps or something. Or I could take extension classes in CS. What would be the best course of action? Should I go for a masters instead? Does anyone who got into a PhD program without studying the subject in college have any stories to share? (Note: I have not yet taken the GRE).

As a bonus question, if you think another school besides the four I listed would be really great for AI, which one and why? And as an extra bonus question, does anyone know if it's harder to get into Berkeley as a grad student if you already went there for undergrad?


texts: Is there any guide or organisation solution for increasing utilization of laboratory and lab equipment?

texts:
We obtained a report for the last academic year. A shocking revelation was that the capacity utilization* of lab equipment, laboratories, instruments and machines is only 37%. Everyone seems to be happy with this result, most of the comments are that science can't be lucrative and researchers cannot be forced to work with already existing equipment. If they want to expand research and buy a new machine (even if we have 3 already) that should be allowed. "Your grant your rules".

Is there any organization method to overcome this "abeyance" of overall facilities at faculty?

*Utilization was calculated by time and resources being used, versus number of publications and number of employees (students, professors, researchers).


texts: Can a university provide information about a student's activities?

texts:
In the United States, if anyone, be it a relative, a colleague, potential employer, or colleague, requests to the pertinent department, in the university I study/ied in, certain information about myself, will they be able to have it?

Is all this information, such as grades, year, internships I applied to, if I live(d) in a fraternity or dorms, etc., under the same regulation; or does each of them have its own set of restrictions regarding disclosure?

Finally, does that still apply to international students and/or people who have already graduated and thus are no longer in the institution? There is indeed the Buckley Amendment (FERPA), but it only covers educational records.


texts: Ethical Problems Brought by Academic Paywalls

texts:
The question is simple. I am working on a topic. I came across a paper that is behind a paywall which my research institution (i.e. university) has no access to it and it may or may not be relevant to my research. If I skip it and some reviewer says that work is quite close to the work I have submitted and I should cite it, or even worse it is so close that it is on the edges of plagiarism.

I have the option of obtaining it from different sources without paying. Should I take it to avoid such claim? If I pay there is a good chance that I wasted money. In today's world literature is so vast and there are so many false positives and a paper might cost up to 40 bucks.

Let me flip that question. Suppose I created a publishing firm. I and my mates do superb research and publish on a journal of our publishing firm. (Assume our research quality is good, so omit academic nepotism.) One catch, our firm charges and exorbitant fee (say millions) for granting access to libraries and universities. Then we start waiting. When I see other research quite similar to ours, I press charges that our work has not been cited or acknowledged and the situation is plagiarism. I am the academic equivalent of a patent troll, except that you cannot see my work until I sue you. Should the poor guy suffer a plagiarism charge just because I kept my research behind a paywall that he/she cannot reach?

Professors and other academic people I ask about it pretend to be either unconscious or dead. Just kidding, they usually offer to send the papers that I cannot reach. But it does not answer my question.

p.s. There is a similar question here citing the problem but not the ethical dilemma. Are there any known Universities that refuse to pay for paywall access to academic journals?

EDIT due to possible duplicate reports: There are three questions which all refer to the same problem: unfettered access to academic research. I paraphrase and summarise three questions below. Suppose there is a body of research (say, group of articles) that are beyond the researcher's reach due to lack of resources (no ILL, no institution access, no sufficient budget etc). Should the researcher take the "gray" ways to obtain it? If not is he/she responsible for research he/she does not have access to? If so, where do we draw the line? How much is too much to pay to access research? (hence the publisher question) It is not the 80s anymore. Research is published almost faster than one can read and it is readily available (at an inflated cost). So, thorough examination of literature to conduct original research is unjustifiably more expensive than before.


texts: Is it easier to get funding for a master's degree in North America or in Europe?

texts:
I'm getting my Bachelor's degree in Physics in a year and a half, I have a good GPA (~3.6/4.0) and I can score ~7.0 or higher in IELTS exam.

Which offers better chances for a scholarship for a Master's degree, North american or European countries? Is there a difference in accepting foreign (in this case middle eastern) students? Because I can't take both TOEFL and IELTS exams, I have to choose.

And when looking for scholarships, when should I start emailing professors and start sending applications?


texts: Differences between research in private labs and university (computer science)

texts:
I will talk about computer science.

Which is the difference between doing a research job in an industrial research lab (as Google, Facebook or microsoft Research) and in a university?

Looking at my field (artificial intelligence) I can see many big shots moving from university to private R&D labs, so I am wondering which are the main differences, say under the point of view:

Salary
Freedom of investigating what you actually like
Competition (is more difficult to get a job in a university or in a R&D lab?)
Stability of the job


texts:
I am making a diagram in my paper. In that diagram I use several squares of different colors and one rectangle of multiple colors. An easy way to get a rectangle full of colors is the rainbow flag. I am sympathetic to the LGBT cause, but I am not LGBT. I thought the flag could be a small gesture but I am not trying to make a strong political point.

One labmate told me to not put political symbols in papers (+could make people think I am LGBT, nothing wrong with that, but false); another says it's completely fine.
I am considering whether to keep the flag or find an alternative (different colors, structure, or move the colors around).

Any ideas/opions?


texts: No suggested reviewers capability in the peer-review journal

texts:
What is the implication of the peer-reviewed journal to state "you cannot recommend the reviewers"? (one can inform the "oppose reviewers" only).

What good does the journal get out of such a practice? Just curious.


texts: Most published math papers are answers to open questions posed by the authors of the papers, right? So why is this problem that the paper responds to is never explicit in the text by the authors? Would not that be an important thing since it would save time for other mathematicians not to waste time formulating problems that have already been answered? Or is an expert in the field able to identify the open problem that a particular paper responds to even if it is not explicit in the text? Could someone explain to me in detail how this works?