texts: How does it look to apply for two academic positions at different times at the same university?

texts:
Last year, I applied for a visiting position at a school that I was shortlisted for. They notified me of this and mentioned that they would choose one candidate from the shortlist for a campus interview but that there would be no phone/skype interviews before then.

This year they have an tenure-track open area position advertised in the same department. In the meantime I've taken a visiting position at a selective liberal arts school that is competitive, well-regarded, and in the same wheelhouse as the one in question.

How would my previous application affect this one, if at all? Having made a shortlist, I at least assume I was viewed favorably. But given that I'm applying at a school where I wasn't offered a visiting position, would it make me look worse than an unknown candidate to apply for the tenure track one? Or would it potentially be helpful given that I was ostensibly viewed favorably last time? Or does it make no difference?

I mean I probably will just apply anyway, but I'm still curious about whether or not this will make a difference.


texts: How many people are generally shortlisted for a postdoc interview?

texts: I just applied for and got shortlisted for a Skype interview. In a mid size University and Department in Germany (in Physics), how many people are generally shortlisted for postdoctoral positions?


texts: Efficient use of the class time when all lectures are already on Youtube

texts:
I am teaching an obligatory course to undergraduates. There are about 160 registered students, divided into four classes of forty. Each class is three academic hours.
Last year, my lectures have been videotaped and put on Youtube (with my consent). The students probably liked it a lot since over 80% of them stopped coming to the class and just watched the lectures from the convenience of their homes.
This year, I have to teach the same course again, and it seems to me a waste of time to say the same things again when they are already videotaped. So I thought of making it obligatory for all the students to watch the videos of last year before class (or just learn the material from the textbook, if they prefer). Then, I could use the class-time more efficiently, e.g.:

Answer specific questions of students about the material;
Give personal feedback to students regarding their homework submissions;
etc.

The problem is that the 20% students who do prefer to learn in class than at home might object to this, since this puts a lot of extra-load on them – they have to watch a video rather than just sitting in class.
So my question is: how can I efficiently use the class-time, while still being fair to all kinds of students?


texts: Finding a place in interdisciplinary sciences as someone who develops computational methods and algorithms for other fields?

texts:
I have a strong background in programming and I'm interested in solving computational problems in other areas like physics or economics. During my bachelor studies I have been involved in several research projects. However, my contribution was mostly limited to solving computational problems. The theoretical side of our research was done by others and I'm far away from really understanding it.

Is there a possibility for someone like me to find a suitable job in academics? Someone, who likes to apply computer science, but not just as a tool for solving simple problems. I'm thinking more in terms of developing algorithms or methods for other sciences, which can be reused and published.

Or is it the fate of computer scientists, who work interdisciplinarily,  to only be "used" for programming purposes and not contribute to their group's research any further?


texts: My university requires unrestricted access to my personal laptop. What should I do?

texts:
I am not sure that Academia is the right place to post this, as it would probably be better suited for Law.se.

I am a student in Italy. My university requires unrestricted access to my personal computer for an afternoon to install a certain software. I obviously have security concerns, so I have contacted the responsible for my course to know if I could be given the key to install such software personally. He has explicitly stated that there are no alternatives to the standard process of giving in my computer to the tech department for one afternoon.

On one side am reluctant to give unrestricted access to my computer for security reasons, as I have personal files stored on my machine; on the other side I need to have access to such software because it is required for a course in the future.

Is such a request even legal or a common request in academia? How can I avoid giving unrestricted access to my personal machine while still obtaining this software?


texts: Same problem solved in a totally different way

texts: If I solved a already solved recent problem with a totally different method, can I communicate my solution in a journal? How likely is the acceptance of my paper?


texts: Should I list all of my scientific writings and technical reports (including those written for coursework) on my resume?

texts:
I am an undergrad preparing my resume for grad school application. During my undergrad I have done many projects, including a few real research projects and also those for courses as final projects, that were just about designing something rather routine (a simple robot for example), or a compilation of other research works. Most of these class projects have had a report (a writing).

Since I have just one official peer reviewed conference paper, is it a good idea to list all those technical reports in my resume in the Publications section? Or, conversely, adding these may decrease the value of that peer reviewed paper and making the resume look unprofessional?


texts: Are there any guidelines for how to distribute images in a (bachelor) thesis?

texts:
I am preparing my Bachelor thesis (it has to be around 20-25 pages long in case it makes a difference) in Biophysics and I want to put some images at the very beginning as a way of introducing and making clear the physical processes and systems that I'm going to consider through the whole thesis.

I am writing my thesis using LaTeX and a one column style and I don't really know where and how to put the figures. For the figures that contain results of simulations and similar things it is easier because I can almost always put two of them together so they cover the whole width of the text, but if I put a schematic drawing of some process I feel that there is a lot of blank space around.

What I have done so far is to change the style to two columns in that part of the thesis and use one for the image and the other one for text. Is this acceptable? What is usually done to avoid having a lot of blank space around the figures?

Also most of my figures are interspersed thorough the text (I am using LaTeX automatic positioning so far) because I feel that it is easier to understand the process if the schematic figure that I'm referring to is next to the text. Should I continue doing it or should I put all of them at the end of the section or of the whole thesis?


texts: Referring to professors by their first names, when giving a talk,

texts:
I find then when giving a talk it feels weird / too formal / easy to stumble with my words when having to refer to a professor in the audience as "Professor Last Name", especially when their last name consists of multiple syllables.

As a student, is it acceptable to address professors by their first names, when giving a talk about my research?


texts: Is it a bad thing to ask for an extra recommendation letter?

texts: My professors have written and submitted the letter to all schools that I applied. However, I was thinking about applying to 1 more school. Does it reflect badly on me?


texts: Is there a search engine to show citing articles' extracts

texts:
Sometimes we need to see what other researchers say about a specific article. Usually, I check citing articles manually then search for my specific articles in their references.

Is there a search engine that can show extracts from the citing articles. Following is an example to clarify this.

Article (1) is cited by Article (2)
I am looking for a search engine to show that Article (2) cited Article (1) as well as to show where Article (1) was cited inside Article (2).


texts: Asking for more time to respond to admission offer

texts: I have an admission offer from a European Ph.D. program, and they have given me just 1 week to respond. Considering it is really early to hear anything back from the US universities (and I am keen to attend some of them over this school), how can I politely frame an email to ask for additional time, so that they don't get offended?


texts: Cultural Differences in the Hard Sciences

texts:
I saw this question, and I got interested.

Besides a culture or country having a lower level of technology or research ability due to wealth, access, etc, is there any difference in how cultures study and research hard sciences (think physics, chemistry, etc) differently from one another? E.g. does an Eastern European scientist think about or conduct scientific research differently than a scientist from the United States, Australia, Africa, or any other country or culture? I don't need an exhaustive list, if there are strong differences, but some examples would help in my investigation. I am trying to decide if I want to pursue a graduate program in physics/materials science abroad, or just stick to my own culture, for now, since it is what I am used to.


texts: Can I ask a reference letter from my Operating Systems professor while applying to Machine Learning programme?

texts: I am going to apply for a Computer Science master's programme in the field of Machine Learning or data science, but I asked a professor who taught me a different subject (Operating Systems) for a reference letter. Does it matter since these are two different subjects?


texts: Is it unethical to ask for homework help on StackExchange?

texts:
Sometimes when I have been struggling on a problem set for a while, I'll post a question on StackExchange, openly acknowledge that it's homework, and ask for hints (not the full solution).  Typically people give good advice and help me think about the problem in several different ways, and I end up learning a lot by asking the question.

Now the thing is, we are probably not supposed to ask the Internet for homework help.  But in my classes it is perfectly acceptable to go to TA office hours, where most of them will tell me the entire answer instead of giving hints.  Often I've seen TAs present the solution on the blackboard in front of about 20 students (because all the students need help on the same question).  We're also encouraged to "collaborate" with other students, who will usually tell you the entire answer instead of giving minimal hints to help you along.

Is it unethical to ask for homework help on StackExchange given that I learn a lot more than I would using officially sanctioned methods?

(If it matters, I post on math.stackexchange, and this is for classes like real analysis and abstract algebra.)


texts: Google Scholar intitle and OR search combination

texts:
I would like to use the following type of search in Google Scholar:

virtual reality and retention intitle:"Visual cues" OR "cueing" OR "signal" OR "signalling"

Thus, I want to search for Google Scholar entries that have "Visual cues" OR "cueing" OR "signal" OR "signalling" in their title. However, this search does not seem to work as intended as it leads to more than 40,000 results which clearly do not all include the keywords in the title: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=virtual+reality+and+retention+intitle%3A%22Visual+cues%22+OR+%22cueing%22+OR+%22signal%22+OR+%22signalling%22&btnG=.
Is there a different syntax to achieve my desired search?
Thanks in advance for your help!


texts: How To Professionally Address A Mental Breakdown

texts:
I’ve been fairly strong throughout Covid, able to push myself to work every day (6-7 days x week) because my thesis project has been somewhat compromised by Covid that this is my unfortunate reality. However, we have just entered our country’s third lockdown recently and just yesterday - out of the blue - I broke for the first time in my life.
I won’t go into the details, and I’ve made efforts to reach out to a therapist.
I have signed a contract with another faculty member to work with them because my supervisor can no longer support me, and right now I am unpaid because of an agreement we made so that I could be paid “up front”, but I can no longer do this work given my extremely broken state of being. So in essence, I owe them hours, and I am currently on no income for the foreseeable future.
I am unsure how to communicate this in a professional manner, though, because I don’t want to hold the project back out of respect, and I also signed a contract. So I’m hoping to get some advice on the best way to approach this. Unfortunately, taking an official/medical leave of absence is not possible for me.


texts: Does a present-day editor tend to sieve out submissions before sending them out for review?

texts:
Out of curiosity, I would like to get a feeling of what is the attitude in general for a present-day editor of a prestigious (not an objective modifier, of course) journal to deal with a new submission before sending it out for review.

I notice that some journals of high impact would state it as an editorial policy that an editor may desk-reject (so to speak) a submission without finding a reviewer if the submission is so-and-so. Then I think that, if I am an editor, I definitely do not want to waste any reviewing resources; hence I become a pre-reviewer in this sense. Does this line of thinking apply to most editors? If this is the case, then a submission passing over an editor's inspection means at least that the editor feels that the submission is potentially publishable; but to what extent this implication is true?


texts: How to ask for advice regarding a position?

texts:
A colleague of mine has notified me of an upcoming opening for a TT position in my field in the US. She told me to contact a colleague of hers in the department hiring to "ask for advice" regarding the position.
Being from Europe, this a bit unusual and I am at loss about what I should ask for since the position already comes with a job description? Is this just a way to informally establish contact? What types of question are appropriate/inappropriate to ask the person in this situation?


texts: Why are the number of reported sex crimes so high at Ivy League Schools?

texts:
It seems like the % of sex crimes (rape, statutory rape, etc.) are way higher at ivy league schools / schools with a low admission rate compared to other schools.  Other crimes like assault and robbery are higher at schools with a higher admission rate.

https://www.collegecrime.org/schools
https://www.collegecrime.org/school/5225/criminal/harvard-university

Why is this?


texts: Do short journal papers ("brief reports") count less than regular papers in psychology?

texts: Many journals in psychology feature articles of different lengths, often labelled as "brief report" (4000 words) vs. "regular article" (12000 words). Are shorter articles generally considered as equally valuable and important as long articles, i.e., do they count as a "full" publication in the field of psychology?


texts: Should you include your collaborations in your CV?

texts:
Should you create a section listing your research collaborations in your CV?

If yes, should you name of collaborators (who might not be known to the audience) or list the institutions and their countries with which you have collaborated?


texts: Should I embed a related work section in the introduction, and how would I do this?

texts:
I am in the final stage of completing a thesis.

Context: I propose a new knowledge representation to tackle information overload in science (E-Science, scientific communication, linked data). Specifically, I created a knowledge representation of scientific problems.

In the introduction, I motivate the need of the new artefact based on two things:
1. A general need for digital knowledge representations for automatic reasoning, being able to filter out relevant aspects of scientific work to make them findable,
2. The unavailability of a knowledge representation for a specific aspect of scientific work; namely, scientific problems ("challenges", "gaps").

Other approaches that present a digital knowledge representation of aspects of scientific work were included as related work, but they also exemplify that the aspect I focus on is missing.

Do I incorporate this related work in the introduction, or present them in a separate related work section?
Would it be better to state "To this day, no representations of scientific problems exist" in the introduction and show the other approaches in a separate related work section, or is it nicer to show these other approaches in the introduction first (by including a subsection with all related work - separate subsections per approach - what would the title of this subsection be?), to then base the motivation of creating this new representation in an "approach" subsection which contains the research questions?


texts: who should I contact for the Faculty interview follow up: Department head or Search committee?

texts:
One month ago, I have done a campus interview for a possible academic job. Now I am thinking to send a followup e-mail. I would appreciate to let me know whom should I include in the follow up e-mail.

When they invite me for the interview, there was a search committee chair and 5 other search committee members. However, during my campus visit, I met more than 20 faculty members including the department head and school dean.

What I am thinking to do is to send an e-mail for the department head and cced to all the search committee members including the chair. Is this the correct approach?

Or should I send a follow up e-mail to the search committee chair and cced to the committee members.

Thanks


texts: I want to know a little about everything, not everything about a very specific topic. Is this a good/bad mindset for a career in research?

texts:
Lately I've been wondering if I should drop out of a PhD program (in economics).

After graduating with a bachelor's degree, I desperately wanted to know more about the field, and I enrolled in a PhD program. I passed qualifying exams without any problems, and it's time to do research.

The problem is, as I am beginning to realize, I am not at all sure if I want to do research. I believe what I really like is learning new things and applying that knowledge in e.g. conversations, real world problems, etc. I'm generally very happy and excited when I finish reading a paper, a book chapter, or solve a mathematical problem.

But the fun stops there. I have no interest in thinking up my own problems because the way I see it, there are already so many papers or books I haven't read, that I'd much rather spend my time studying the material than going really deep in one particular subject and focusing on it for the next few years (and probably even longer if staying in academia after graduating).

Is this a common way to think at this stage? I've talked about this to a friend in the same program, and he doesn't seem to understand. He is the very opposite of me: he did quite poorly in the exams, but seems to have quite a few ideas (of which most are flat out bad and have been shot down by his supervisor). Whereas I haven't even presented any ideas yet because I don't have any good ones, and would rather study more.

I've realized that perhaps I am just an information sponge, and not a researcher? Can anyone relate to that? I feel like I want to know a little (well, a lot actually) about everything, and not everything about a very specific topic.


texts: After six months under review and after an e-mail to the editor

texts:
I submitted a 3-paged paper to a journal of MAA at November.
I did not get a responce from the editor until the  fifth of May so I decided to send an e-mail to the editor to ask (in a very polite way) if my paper is still under review.
But, I still did not get an answer and now I am not sure what to do.Send another e-mail?
Maybe I am wrong ,but how long should I wait to get a responce for a note which is 3 pages long?Forever?
So, my question is:
Is it appropriate to send another e-mail to the editor or should I wait?


texts: Is it fine to cancel class on days before national holidays, due to low attendance?

texts:
So, thanksgiving break is coming up. On my campus, a large portion of the students leave early Wednesday to get back home. The break doesn't officially start until Thursday, but since that is the holiday the students (understandably) leave earlier.

I teach on Wednesdays (among other days). I had forgotten about this poor attendance when I planned my syllabus and am currently planning to teach new material next Wednesday.

Now, I anticipate about 75% of the class (50 total students) will be absent. They knew I would be teaching new material that day, since it was on the syllabus.

Do I cancel class so that the majority of students don't miss a lecture? Do I hold class but post my lecture notes so that the students who missed could (theoretically, at least) make up the work they missed on their own?

If I cancel class, I could shift around material so that nothing is lost (by moving a review day). However, something feels "wrong" about cancelling a class that the university has scheduled to occur because the students decided they wanted to start their vacation early.

Is it fine to cancel a class because you don't expect many students to attend?


texts: Is it normal for an instructor to charge students to complete copyrighted homework?

texts:
I have a class in a US university that is using a 3rd-party site to charge students a fee to access some of the homework essential to the course. One of the instructors (not mine) holds the copyright to these required Excel spreadsheets, and so every student is being assessed a small fee in order to complete their homework.

With online classes using an ebook publisher's website, paying to be able to do homework is common practice. But that fee is usually assessed and disclosed as part of the textbook/ebook access fee. For this course, we are already paying such a fee for the ebook publisher's website.

Is it normal (or generally acceptable) for an instructor to create a privately-owned website in order to collect "copyright fees" from students because that instructor created original homework files? Is it normal for instructors to require students to pay to use intangible, intellectual property? Or, failing being a regular occurrence, does it at least happen with a high enough frequency to be a noticed, if not often used, practice?

We are explicitly being told the charge is for the use of the copyrighted materials and is a copyright fee, rather than a licensing or maintenance fee. I've never come across this or even heard of it being done before, so I call on the experience of those more grounded in academic norms.

This isn't a matter of purchasing supplies or textbook fees, as those are already assessed by the University or comply with University policy. The nature of the assignment and materials is also not so complex or technically difficult that assignments, or reasonable alternatives, could not be provided using existing University resources.

While I greatly appreciate the input of the SE community, I know that I also have ways to investigate this at my specific institution and am not using SE as a substitute for doing my own due diligence.


texts: Specific Weakness in GRE Quantitative Section - Looking for Advice

texts:
I took the GRE about a year ago (for an MA program). I did very well on Verbal, but only so-so on Quantitative. I'd like to retake the GRE for applying to PhD programs.

My issue with the Quantitative section was simply time management. I understood all of the questions, but I guess I just didn't have an effective strategy for how to tackle them.

Does anyone have any specific recommendations for time management strategies on the Quantitative section? I'd be interested in books, online tutorials, and even tutors in the New York City area.


texts: Ways to demonstrate ("show-off") contributions as an undergraduate in research

texts:
I am an undergraduate   CS  student at a US college. Before this summer, I contacted a professor in Game Research and was offered the opportunity to work with one of his PhD students. Currently, I am focusing solely on this opportunity. I wrote lots of code and helped the PhD student run experiments and collect data.

The best outcome of this opportunity would be a publication and a recommendation letter. However, I am only 50% confident that I will be able to get one of the two at the end.

Are there other practical ways for me to demonstrate my contribution (that can help with future applications)?

Any other advice would help too.


texts: I know that the TVL system exists but I am not sure if TVL-E13/2 would mean it is 50% of TVL-E13 or what does the "/2" mean, could someone explain please? I've seen it in multiple PhD positions offers.


texts: Using open source code in my final year project

texts:
I am a final year undergraduate student reading for Bsc. Electrical and information Engineering. As for the final year project, I am planning to do a project on deep learning. After doing some literature survey I found a research paper that goes along with my research interest, and the project code is also available in GitHub.I want to recreate the research paper and do some additional changes to their research methodology and evaluate the results.I just want to know if it is a plagiarism to use that code, and will there be any obligations, if I am to write a research paper using my experimental results including the additional changes to the research.

Thanks in advance and sorry If am being naive, as I am new to this domain. If some one could be of any help to clarify this, it would be of great help.


texts: Is it possible to get into a good masters program in computer science with a 3-3.5 GPA?

texts:
I'm currently a third-year student at UC Berkeley studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics. I'm still on the fence regarding whether or not I want to pursue a masters degree, and am quite stressed about my chances if I do pursue that route.

My major concern is my GPA. To give some context, entering my sophomore year, I had about a 3.65. About to enter the spring of my junior year, I'm sitting at about 3.12. It hasn't been that the work has been "too difficult," it's that I honestly didn't put in the necessary effort these last two semester and as a result, received less than satisfactory grades. I've done the math and calculated that if I can average around a 3.8 for my remaining semester, I can get to around a 3.4 cumulative by graduation.

As far as outside the classroom, I've done a little bit, but not much. I did a very small research stint last summer, as well as being an academic intern (basically a tutor), and am working at a small start-up on the side right now. I'll also be doing my first internship this summer (most likely at Visa).

I'm just wondering if anyone could inform me about my chances of getting into a graduate program in CS. I realize that I probably won't be able to get into Stanford, MIT, or a school on the level of my undergraduate institution, but I would still like to go somewhere good (been looking at USC and Purdue).

Has anyone been in a similar situation and have any advice regarding grad work?


texts: What does "thanks x-institute for hospitality" mean in an acknowledgement?

texts:
What does

  The author wishes to thank institute X for hospitality.

mean in an acknowledgement?

Does it imply that they paid me a hotel or a per diem, or is it enough if they provided me an office during my visit to motivate that statement?

Edit. I was just worried if this could rather interpreted as the institute X paid me, which in other country could be seen as a double funding (which is in some programs not allowed).


texts: Does helping a PhD student with proofreading violate school policy in general?

texts: I am proofreading and editing a dissertation proposal for a student for whom English a fourth language--cleaning up the language for clarity and grammar, etc. The student has asked me to paraphrase the information of some articles so that s/he can use what is most relevant to her research. Is this commonly against school policy?


texts: I'm preparing to publish my first paper. I have a question on my name to use on the paper. I'm commonly known as Steve (which I've been using for absolutely everything) but my passport name is my Chinese name (which almost no one knows about). My enrolment is under my passport name. Do I have to use my passport name as the author of my paper?


texts: Impact of the quality of a presentation in a conference on the number of citations the corresponding article receives

texts:
Is there any research/study that looked at the impact of the quality of a presentation in a conference on the number of citations the corresponding article receives? (quality in terms of form, not the content itself)

I am most interested in the United States and the field of computer science.


texts: As a student, can I publish a paper without including the head of the lab as co-author, against his wishes?

texts:
My question is, how can I publish my results without name of my supervisor as a co-author? Do I need their name in my paper? Is it suspicious if I submit an article without his name?
I have a problem with the head of the lab that I performed the experiments there. He wants to be the coauthor but in my point of view he does not have substantially intellectual contribution to my work. He also, told me that he would send samples for the measurement to another lab. But, he did not. Whenever I followed up about the measurement of samples, he postponed to another month. It is almost two years. My supervisor is worried that the guy may make trouble for his profession. So, he said that I can publish the results that I have without his name. The article is just have two authors, another student and me (PhD graduate). Do you think that journals will publish our results or they will suspect about it?


texts: Including a research experience with no recommendation letter

texts: I am applying to graduate schools in the United States this year. I have research experience for one year in algebraic geometry. I learned a lot from this experience, mostly by reading papers, books, and doing calculations. I have produced no publication (algebraic geometry is a hard field). However, I have a conflict with my advisor and therefore can not include him as a recommendation letter provider. So can I omit this experience completely from my CV? would it be ethical? or should I mention it and risk the admissions committee drawing the conclusion that my research performance was bad and therefore reject my application immediately as many people here seem to suggest?


texts: Is it considered ethical to sign yourself with name followed by PhD when in fact your doctorate was a DTech?


texts: Introducing yourself to potential thesis advisor you didn't attend any class with

texts:
I'm studying CS and I'm really interested in a particular topic. There will be a course covering this topic in the next semester. The professor of this course never saw me but I will have to attend the course next year.

Since I am starting to think about the thesis, I thought this is a good time to find an advisor, and I believe he might be a good choice.

Is it unpolite/weird to contact the professor asking him to participate in one of his projects? This imply that I want him as supervisor for the thesis.
Should I send him an email or talk to him personally? He's quite famous professor here and probably receives tons of emails and will take some time to get a response (if any). On the other side, I'm very nervous about talking with him (shyness).
What should I ask him in order to "break the ice"?

some reference about the topic (I don't need them);
if he can show me some of his projects (and if I can join one of them);
or go straight to the point and ask him about the thesis


texts: Asking a foreign professor to be your thesis co-advisor

texts:
I am a master's student and I started searching for someone to be my thesis advisor. I went to ask a well-known professor from my university, that I wanted to work with, and he was happy to help.
However, he said that his and my area of interest at the moment don't align. But, he did say that he has a good friend in the US who does exactly what I am interested in and has set up a meeting between us two.
My professor said that I should ask him whether he would be willing to co-advise my master's thesis however, I am not sure whats the best way to ask this question.


texts: Will going to an university in UK be profitable for me in the future?

texts: I'm currently thinking in which country to spend my undergraduate period, UK or US. I'm going to apply for PhD program of Molecular Biology in US university after graduating from undergrad school. So, it seems better to stay in US during undergrad period to prepare for PhD program admission. But I prefer undergrad programs of UK, because of its specialized and accelerated curriculum. Is it a rational choice to go to UK just because of my preference of its curriculum?


texts: Letter of Recommendation from an unofficial college email ID

texts:
I will be applying for MS (computer science) in US schools. I am from a rural part of India where lecturers (who will be writing letter of recommendations) in my college still don't have official email id (e.g. name@mycollege.edu) and they use commercial services (e.g. gmail or yahoo mail).

What shall I do? Will it harm my application? I think so, because I doubt how it can be evaluated as not-fake.

My other option would be not to consider this LOR at all. I am currently working under a professor in one of the top institutes of India and I can get a recommendation letter from the professor. But I am working under him from past 6 months. How does this weigh against the LOR of my bachelor school lecturer who knows me for 4 years ?

To add more details, I completed my bachelors 3 years ago, so will this LOR be any of help since the lecturer only knows how I was 3 years ago, but not now ?


texts: Is arXiv a good path for very young researchers?

texts:
I am 15 years of age and I have studied Computer Science and developed strong programming skills (specializing in security and simulations). I have also done a few programming projects and made money off of it.

This said, I normally read computer science papers on arXiv (cryptography and security, mainly), and I have noticed that some of the papers published are tutorials, basics of fundamental theories and analysis of the most basics topics or techniques. I still read it in hope of discovering something new.

However, I sometimes end up learning nothing new and so I am starting to think that these authors are just publishing these material for sake of it or to reach some sort of goal.

On the other hand I feel like I could probably do a better job (not to sound full of myself) and probably even construct a interesting paper on an subject and write up a whole load of analysis and ideas and show proofs and such.

I would love to publish in peer-reviewed journals but I feel like my age may hold me back from my work getting accepted and my lack of connections with the academia again due to my age.

I have done a lot of research pertaining to the pros and cons of publishing in arXiv, I have noticed far too much negativity about it but since I am far younger than most researchers, would it actually raise my stature by showing my knowledge and interest at a young age and build my future opportunities in Academic grounds or is it more likely to tarnish it?

If it may tarnish opportunities, could you specify on how I could avoid this?


texts: Switching from physics Masters to machine learning PhD

texts:
I am doing a Masters in theoretical physics. It's been half a year since I've begun my Masters.

Recently, I find myself intrigued by machine learning and would like to do a PhD in machine learning after I finish my Masters in theoretical physics.

I am rather afraid to break it to my supervisor that I plan to move into machine learning after my Masters. I am also afraid how he might react if he finds out that I am taking courses in the Computer Science department. I plan to work with machine learning profs to get two recommendation letters, but I guess I must have a third letter from my physics supervisor. I am afraid that he will not write me a good letter for PhD admission into machine learning.

What should I do?


texts: Are there tools to implement an institutional open access policy?

texts:
Many universities have adopted open access policies, giving their employees an incentive to make their scholarly articles freely available online.

To enforce this policy, universities should ideally keep track of the research output of their employees, and remind them to upload their papers if they are not freely available yet.

This is a rather time-consuming task: I wonder whether there are tools to facilitate or automate this process.

Such tools could perform some of the following tasks:

Track the published papers and match their authors with the employees list (probably using some bibliometric platform like crossref.org)
Locate freely available versions of these papers
Run a repository where the papers can be uploaded (there are plenty of tools available for this task)
Manage waiver requests from researchers who want to opt out of the policy
Provide statistics about the publication practices within the institution


texts: How to deal with professors who don't respond to emails?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student in India who is struggling to get professors to reply to my emails. I believe that my emails are well-drafted. Here is an example:

Dear Professor X,
I am Y, a student in your Machine Dynamics and Vibrations
class.
Is it possible to make the recorded lectures on MS Teams available to
us so that we can revisit the lectures in case we have doubts, sir?
Thank you.
Warm regards

I never received a reply to this. Some other emails that I have sent were related to technical issues during online tests, a result that I got as part of research, and an email to my department head which addressed questions regarding extra credits transfer, thesis work etc, all of which are important and urgent. I never received a reply to any of them (these emails were all sent to different professors).
This is not just my experience. Other students who try to contact professors in my department via email, be it a question about the course material or a question about the exam syllabus, some of the professors simply don't respond.
It is common for students to directly message the professor on WhatsApp. I try to avoid this since it feels like I am impinging, but I have found that some professors respond exclusively to WhatsApp messages and nothing else. But some others don't even respond to this.
I avoid calling as much as possible. In the few situations that I have had to call, the professors didn't seem very irritated, but since I have not done this much, it's hard to generalize.
Due to COVID, a face-to-face conversation is out of the question.
Some options I have considered:

Contacting the department head, but he is also quite similar in this regard. I contacted him about information regarding extra credits and such, but never received any reply.

Making this issue known in our class committee meeting (a meeting between a few student representatives per class and the professors to discuss class progress and any issues faced by either the students or the professors) but I find that in these meetings, simple suggestions go unheeded (after repeated begging to add a lock to the girl's washroom, it never happened) or professors become outright hostile if any problems against them are raised.

I can probably take it up with the academic Dean (a sort of head to the various department heads) but again, professors here are generally serious and don't take criticism well. I am worried that this might affect my grades (this has happened to other students in the past).

At this point, I am happy with the rare monosyllabic responses I get from professors. What do I do to fix this? I appreciate answers from anyone here but if there is an Asian POV, I would specially appreciate it. Thank you.
Other info that might be useful:

Some other colleges have policies regarding not responding to students' emails, but mine doesn't.


texts: Include personal link to poster in Graduate School CV

texts:
I am currently editing my CV for grad school applications with Latex. In my list of conference presentations (posters and an oral), I have provided hyperlinks to arXiv citations of my abstracts, but I don't have a citation hyperlink available for one poster presented at two (1 state & regional) conferences.

Would it be considered unnecessary or weird to an Admissions Committee to include a Google Drive, for instance, to the actual poster? I feel like including it so that the committee can actually look at my research projects if they desire.


texts: What are the major differences between PhD programs in mathematics and PhD programs in other STEM fields?

texts:
I am currently two years into a math PhD program at a mid-tier state school. I read a lot of advice about getting a STEM PhD on the Internet, but a lot of it seems very inapplicable to mathematics.  I don't have a lab or a PI, I don't need data, and my assistantship consists solely of teaching.  None of the advice I read sounds anything like the experience I'm having here.

Compared to other STEM fields,

How common is it for math students to be supported by external funding (e.g. NSF GRFP) rather than a TAship? How common is it for math students to do internships in industry to gain practical experience?  How common is it for math students to do outreach or volunteer work during graduate school?
Does a math department generally provide support and guidance to students when it comes to finding and applying for fellowships and internships?  Is it a common attitude that it is the student's responsibility, if he wants those things, to undertake all steps of this process by himself?
Is it normal for math departments to disregard students' research interests in favor of mandatory coursework?  For example, because all of my time is tied up in the 1st/2nd year courses and exams, I have been unable to do any research for the last two years, despite being very prepared and capable on my first day. (I published during undergrad and was chasing several promising ideas when I arrived.) When I asked to be allowed time to do research instead of taking classes, I was rudely shut down.
How often do mathematics departments get together in social or community events, such as departmental happy hours?
How is networking different in mathematics?  Do professors generally have connections in industry or prominent members of their field, or is that a rare thing?

(Note. I'm sure it is evident from some of the above questions that I am feeling a little put off by my department. The point of this question is not to seek out sympathy or validation.  The department just seems stubbornly uncooperative, and completely uninvested in my future, which is not what I was expecting. I want to know how common this is- whether it is unique to my department, or the nature of the discipline.  But this is a peripheral point, the question I'm asking is about how these factors work in general, not just with me.)


texts: Isn't it injustice on behalf of editor to assign article status as "under review" when actually it is not?

texts: This happened to me second time that my article got rejection after several months of review when article was not under actual review. Ten months ago I had submitted my work to mathematics journal of Elsevier, one month after submission my article status changed to under review, and I started waiting for review outcomes, but after ten months of review, editor responded: "I have checked your manuscript with care and I come to conclusion that your work is not suitable for publication in our journal". How could they take 10 months to decide the eligibility for aim and scope, why they put "under review" label for article when actually it is not under review?


texts: Is it worth it to self-fund for research experience post undergrad? Is it possible?

texts:
I have just finished my undergraduate degree and plan to apply to grad school in Cognitive Psychology. I know my field and am in touch with researchers, some of whom I have approached for a post bac research position (international student talking about positions in the USA). People agree to take me on, but do not have funding most of the time.

Working in a top lab gives you cutting edge research experience which may lead to a publication, a very strong letter of recommendation and a research mentor. (Only the second part is an assumption, the first and the last have been established by researching and shortlisting accordingly.) My undergraduate degree was from a technical school and I did not have access to good research labs while in college.

I have two questions.

1) Firstly, is it possible? Can you pay your own salary as a RA and be on a J1 visa? I hope to pay myself for 6 months and then try to impress and get them to help me fund the remaining 6.

2) Is it worth it? I know I could work as an RA/lab manager but assuming I do not get a funded position. I obviously would first try to get a funded one.

Thanks!


texts: "The Immigration Reform and Control Act" (IRCA) for EU applicants

texts:
I'm a European Union citizen living in EU and applying for an assistant professorship position in US. The application form asks the question

  For purposes of compliance with The Immigration Reform and Control Act, are you legally eligible for employment in the United States?

I know too little about U.S. immigration laws, and the text of the mentioned act looks complete gibberish to me. Could anyone say what the standard answer to this question would be and why?

Remark: this question is formally different from the one stated in a question on general eligibility (first, here the context is a particular legislation act with its own terminology, second, there the question contains "presently", and, third, there no answer refers to IRCA explicitly). In law matters, this difference may be important.


texts: How would I judge the status of a researcher without talking to them or reading their papers?

texts:
I was using Google Scholar to judge the rank of a researcher, but then realized I couldn't find everyone I wanted to and came across this question which highlighted this problem. Looking at Scorpus, which was suggested in that same answer, seems to downvalue any non-Elsevisor publications and not have any current data (from the last year). Microsoft Research seems altogether unintuitive to use and doesn't seem to have h-index at all. I tried PublishorPerish, but filtering data to find the correct researcher's papers seems ridiculously difficult.
I would like to be able to judge status somewhat programmatically, understanding there may be some flaws in this method, as it would be somewhat cumbersome to do it by hand on the scale I would like to. I will probably supplement it my sorting the top 3-5 by hand, but I would not like to do the entire set by hand.
Is there any proper solution to this problem? If not, what is the generally accepted method to do this?
At the behest of many people, I am a student, but this question is geared to generally understanding the current methods of researcher evaluation, not necessarily just by students


texts: Are professors obligated to accept supervisory role? If not, how does it work?

texts:
Firstly, I am not specifically talking about PhD supervision. I think that's less relevant for my question since a PhD supervision is usually a mutually beneficial arrangement, as the professor gains a PhD student to help them with related research.

My focus is more on supervision of bachelor and masters theses. In these, there is less benefit to the professor to act in a supervisory role.

So with that in mind, if a student contacts a professor because they need a supervisor for their bachelor or thesis project (something which is a requirement in order to get the degree), is the supervisor obligated to accept this role?

I don't think the answer is yes, since people usually say that if you want to get a supervisor, you should ask your professior if he/she wants to. So the words imply that the professor has a choice and could turn you down.

And so if the answer is indeed no, how does the system then work? What happens if nobody wants to supervise one particular student? Is that student then just screwed?


texts: Applying to PhD programs in mathematics, how to address (now resolved) health issues that affected GPA and subject GRE scores?

texts:
I want to apply to a doctoral program in mathematics (I am currently a master's student) that is strong in algebra. The schools I found that have what I am interested in are "tier 1" schools with very competitive admissions and I am not sure what to do to improve my application. I had to withdraw a semester after my first year of graduate school because of several health problems, and when I went to the doctor I was told I had severe iron deficiency anemia as well as another medical issue I do not want to discuss here. I had it for almost ten years, but my previous doctor never diagnosed it. My GPA has suffered a lot from its side effects (it is 3.3) and also my subject GRE from undergrad is terrible (560). I was not able to retake the subject GRE because of a time conflict.

I want to apply for Fall 2016 because my health is a lot better now, but I am not sure what to do to make my application better. I feel like if I try to explain my health issue it will look like I am trying to make excuses. I have done seminar presentations, gone to an algebra conference, and done independent work without a faculty adviser (they always seem to tell me they are too busy or that I should stop studying material outside of classwork).

If someone can offer a suggestion on how I should approach explaining my situation or could suggest something for me to do to make myself more competitive, it would really help.


texts: I'm starting to prepare my application for scholarships to do MSc in Europe. One of the requirements, of course, is the motivational letter. I was interested: how personal should the essay be? How many hints about your passion in the chosen MSc programme are ideal? I don't want to sound pathetic and unrealistic in my application and will try to convey as realistic motivational goals as possible in the letter. But are there boundaries where being too personal in your statements will be considered a negative thing?


texts: What does "restricted admission" mean in German universities?

texts:
While browsing the web-sites of various German universities I have come across the term "restricted admission". What does it mean?

Do German universities discriminate students on the basis of their age?

Is there anything called "unrestricted admission"? If so, what does that mean?


texts: Is it possible to cite from an unknown source without plagiarising?

texts:
I am currently writing a document that needs pictures for visual representations of my topic. I’ve been browsing around on the Internet to find such picture. I found a very good picture that could be suitable for my topic. Unfortunately, I do not know how to cite this picture.

The reason why I say I do not know how to cite this picture is because it is a picture from a textbook (or article) that someone decided to upload on Pinterest. I know this because the picture has a small caption at the bottom that says, Figure 1.2: Blah blah blah.

Is it possible to cite something like this? Should I move on and try to find a substitute? My document will be published in the United States.


texts: Preprints conflicts between Research Gate and Journal

texts: I uploaded a preprint paper to Research Gate. Then I realized that it is not allowed for the Journal I submitted my paper. I removed the paper from RG, but it was around two days available. Will I have any problem with the publisher in case the paper is finally accepted?


texts: If I don't know whether a staff member has a PhD, should I address her as Dr. in my emails?

texts: There have been a few circumstances where I've had to email an authority at my school and didn't know whether they had a PhD (e.g. An instructor of mine who I knew had been a PhD candidate a few years earlier, but perhaps graduated since then). In these cases, should I address the person as Dr.?


texts: How can I prove that I did a review for a journal?

texts:
About two years ago, I did a review for a journal (Engineering Failure Analysis, which is published by Elsevier). At that time my affiliation was different from today and I used my institutional email at that time to register as a reviewer in the Elsevier website. But right now that email is deleted and I don't have access to that email. I need to show somewhere that I did a review for this journal and they need some evidence. Despite, I have access to my account in Elsevier (The email is deleted but the account in Elsevier website remained unchanged and I have access to it), I can't find their acknowledgment email for my review. I asked their editorial office and their editor-in-chief 3 times and still after about 1 month I didn't get any answer yet. So, basically I want to know is it enough to take screen capture and show that I did the review to proof or not? Cause in some websites like Publons, it needs to send the confirmation email to their email server to be able to put it in your webpage and count it as a review, but I don't have that confirmation email and I don't think I could get that due to they're ignoring my emails. Any idea, suggestion, and recommendation is appreciated.

Also if somebody knows some sort of customer service or front desk information for Elsevier, I will appreciate if he/she could give it to me cause maybe it could be helpful to contact them directly. I searched a lot in their website but I didn't find anything about how to contact them.


texts: Looking for a postdoc 2 years after PhD completion - no advice from adviser

texts:
I completed my PhD in 2016, kept working on my last paper until a month ago (Aug 2017) and now that it's all done my advisers have stopped responding to my e-mails. I am currently looking for a postdoc, after taking some time off academia, but my advisers have not provided any information or advice on how to identify opportunities and approach potential advisers. I have been sending e-mails to people I am interested in working with but almost none have responded. Do you have any advice of what i could do to continue forward in my scientific career?

P.S. I got along fine with my advisers and published regularly and overall did well in my PhD. So I am very confused of why it has been so difficult to move forward.


texts: Curving grades without creating competition among students

texts:
I've recently taken a new position within a math department at a large university. The department has an official policy that in most lower-level undergraduate classes (let's say anything in the calculus sequence and below), roughly half of the students should receive A's and B's, and the other half should receive C's and below.
I tend to disagree with this policy, but being new to the department and rather inexperienced with the student population, I'd like to honor the policy for the time being. So for the first time in my teaching career, I plan to curve my class to achieve a desired distribution.
One tenet of my teaching philosophy is that I try to be as transparent with students as possible about how they will be assessed, and how their performance will translate into a letter grade. This means that if I am to institute a curve next semester, I want to be able to tell students exactly how the curve will work. Of course, I'm very worried that telling them only half of them can get A's and B's will create a very competitive environment, so students will not want to study with and help each other, so learning will suffer (in fact, I'm almost certain this will happen). This leads to my question:

How can I simultaneously

tell the students how I will assign grades,
achieve the distribution desired by the department, and
still get students to buy into working together?

Seems impossible to me - maybe it is...
One quasi-solution (which potentially strays a bit from condition 2) is to have guaranteed grade cutoffs. For example, if a student achieves an 80% in the class, she is guaranteed at least a B-, even if 75% of the class scored higher. In this scenario, the perceived effect of any curve is that it "can only help and not harm." This could give students at least some sense of being in control of their own destiny and that they are not only being assessed in comparison to their peers.
The problem with this solution is that determining those grade cutoffs can be tricky at the outset. If I make them too high, then at some point in the semester it will become clear that the curve will supersede the cutoffs, and competition is likely to creep back in. If the cutoffs are too low, then I could be locked into awarding an overly generous distribution that would be frowned upon by my department.
What can I do?


texts: More or less sections/subsections in a journal article?

texts:
When writing an academic paper, sections help organize the paper and make it more navigable for the reader. I can imagine a number of pros/cons of having more or less sections in a paper, but I'm not sure how to weigh them all when writing my paper.

My Question

How should I determine how many sections/subsections/etc. to include in a scientific journal article?

Obviously this is very paper-dependent, and is subject to the publisher's standards. I'm not looking for advice for a particular paper; I'm looking for general guidelines that would be useful for an academic paper in any scientific field (i.e. I want this to be of value to the community).

How does this depend on the length of the paper?
How can I determine an appropriate branching factor? (How many sub-sections per section?)
How much text per section is too much or too little?
What other considerations are important?


texts: U.S. grading system: Why discrete grades?

texts:
Background

In the U.S., many colleges adopt an A–F grading scheme, topped with pluses and minuses.

Professors vary in the way they assign A to F grades, but my sense is most rely on discrete “bins”. For example, some professors use relative grading and (roughly) give an A to the top third or the class, a B to the second third, etc. Others will give an A to students who get between, say, 100% and 95%, and A− to students between 94% and 90%, a B+ to students between 86% and 89%, etc.

Using discrete bins necessarily implies some knife-edge cases where a student is right at the border with the next bin, and it would have taken very little for that student to jump into that next bin and improve their letter grade by one “level”.

That would be all fine (I guess) if letters where only honorary titles, and what mattered was the actual underlying percentage grade. However, in most places (i.e., all the places I know), it is the letter grade – and never the percentage grade itself – that is attached to the student’s academic record.

This could be an issue per se if a student wanted to show proficiency in a particular topic and got, for example, an A− that was in fact very close to an A. That student’s academic record will forever show very good but not perfect for that course, whereas it should really indicate almost perfect. This creates understandable frustrations from students who nearly made it.

Things get even worst when averaging through different courses and computing one’s GPA, since most colleges then use a scheme like the following one:

A: 4.00
A−: 3.67
B+: 3.33
B: 3.00
B−: 2.67
C+: 2.33
…

Again, this means that the half of a percent a student needed to jump from an A− to A will have a significant effect on that student's GPA, where really, the effect of getting one more half of a percent should be negligible, regardless of the baseline percentage one is starting from.

In a world where GPAs are taken so seriously, this means that half of a percent can make a significant difference in a student’s life and career. Again, this can create understandable frustrations for students who nearly made it.

My question

I know that there are “palliatives” to deal with the discrete grading scale and avoid some of these knife-edge cases, such as rounding up decimals. In all fairness, I don’t think those are real solutions (rounding up decimals just moves the problem from one threshold to another), but that's not what I am interested in here.

What I would like to know is:

Are there any arguments in favor of using a discrete grading scheme like the one above?
Or is just a product of history and the difficulty to coordinate practices across the vast number of U.S. colleges?

In other words, is anyone claiming that the discrete scale has virtues of its own other than the fact that it is used in so many places – creating comparability –, and that it would be hard to coordinate a change at all those places at once?


texts: Am I entitled to any benefit by implementing an idea from my professor's published paper?

texts: I'm an undergraduate student. A new professor joined our college this year. The new professor went about asking other department faculty about students proficient in programming and one of the existing faculty recommended me. Now apparently, this new professor is not so good at programming, and wanted someone to implement an idea from one of his already published paper. Now I have been asked to do it and I agreed, cause I like programming. Now my question is, do I stand to gain anything non-trivial from doing this? What would be the proper stuff that I could ask the professor in return for doing it?


texts: How can you compare the quality of conferences?

texts:
So I know with journals you can look up the impact factors, but is there any equivalent for conferences?
So I'm looking at IEEE's Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence Conference which seems to be always hosted in Chongqing (). Does it matter (like for networking or citations) if the conference is always hosted in the same city for international participants? The translation on that conference's site seems a bit off (using "Teacher Xu" rather than "Prof. Xu" as is used on the committees page).
Another conference I'm looking at the RSEP International Economics, Finance, and Business Conference? Is there any way to tell if it's legit and not a predatory conference (I didn't find it listed on Beall's list of predatory publishers)? Is there a site that keeps a list of legit conferences or what's the best way to find upcoming non-predatory conferences?


texts: What tone to use when talking about oneself in statement of purpose?

texts:
In what manner should one speak in her statement of purpose for phd applications?

Should she speak factually or slightly overly self-praising?


texts: Should TA work be listed in a CV for an internship in the industry?

texts:
Personally, I didn't teach but helped the professor conduct a laboratory course throughout the semester.

It was also not a paid work but I volunteered.

Should something like this be omitted from an industry CV?

Having little to zero working experience, could it be of any interest to a company?


texts: What are some reasons to get (or not get) a PhD?

texts:
Lots of people start PhD programs, but far fewer finish (in some programs the drop-out rate is 50% or higher).  Some people are motivated to get a PhD by: wanting a job in academia, wanting a job in industry, personal pride, or simply a lack of direction and an aptitude for the field of their PhD program.

Have you noticed that people with certain motivations are more likely to finish their PhD than others?  If so, which reasons correlate positively with success?  Conversely, do you have warnings for someone considering starting a PhD?


texts: Benefit of published papers for grad admissions

texts:
I'm currently finishing up my 3rd year of undergrad at a large state school and wanted to know how helpful first-author papers are for someone in physics when applying to grad school at a place like MIT or Caltech.

I've had the chance to work with two great professors in different areas of quantum physics. Thus far, I've published three papers as first author (one in PRX, two in PRL) and have three other papers in the works (one accepted to nature physics assuming some revision). Since my work was quite substantial, the postdocs and graduate students in both groups are using my techniques to study other problems and I anticipate having at least 5 other papers with my name in the 2nd and 3rd author position by the time grad admissions comes around.

In all cases I found/solved problems that were far beyond what my supervisors thought an undergrad could solve and they are both very happy with my work. I am wondering how much this would help with grad admissions? The reason I'm asking this here is I almost feel silly asking my supervisors since the schools I mentioned seem extremely prestigious and I wanted to gauge if I had any chance.


texts: Where to find latest videos of colloquia or other talks in your field?

texts:
I am wondering how I can find and keep updated of the latest colloquia and talks videos. I imagine that schools may take videos of talks they hosted and upload them somewhere. Of course not every school/department does this, and this depends on the field that one is interested in. But if I know where they are, I can check for updates manually, or set up some sort of feed/automated notification with keyword filtering.

To be more clear I am not looking for videos of online classes (e.g., http://coursera.org), but talks about the latest work in one's field.

The only ones that I found are Stanford and UC Irvine, but I suspect there must be more out there that are not on youtube.


texts: Finding high quality copyright free icons for computer diagrams in IEEE or ACM submission

texts:
I am a new graduate student in computer science and starting to submit papers to IEEE and ACM. I would like the diagrams to look as professional as possible. For example, if I am showing a digital attack on a computer network, I would  like computer and server node icons etc. I was able to find these common ones easily in many WYSIWYG graphics editors.

However, an icon of a "hacker" or "attacker" is harder to find by default since these are more 'niche' if you will. For these I notice that I can use IconFinder, however many icons have a Creative Commons license -- which generally means that I should attribute the original creator. Since I use many icons in my diagrams, it would be easier if I can find some that do not require attribution.

I noticed that the Creative Commons BY 3.0 license has a clause that says:

  You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the
  material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an
  applicable exception or limitation

Now I have two main questions:

Does that clause I quoted mean that I can use it in a paper going to
IEEE or ACM or such publications? Is that considered public domain?¹
How do you find icons that you can use freely in your paper without
the need for attribution?

¹ I realize this borders on "legal question" and someone might be reluctant in answering it. Just making it clear that I would not hold anyone or Stack Exchange liable for any advice given.


texts: How to build my CV if I have two MS degrees in the same field (and quit a PhD)?

texts: I got a MS degree in Statistics in University A, then I got admitted in the  Statistic PhD program in University B. However, I couldn't finish my PhD study, and I have to transfer to the MS program so that I can apply for OPT. Now I have two MS degrees in Statistics in both A and B, how can I list them on CV? And actually A is better than B... Should I write ABD on B? Thanks.


texts: What is the maximum depth of subchapters one should use in a paper?

texts:
I have a tendency to overcategorize things when writing a paper. Currently I’m working on my thesis and I’m concerned with my level of subchaptering. Right now I’m already down to x.x.x.x and I fear going down a level deeper would look bad. I think it adds to the overall clarity of the paper to categorize everything and would allow for more efficient lookup later on, but it’s not clear to me to what degree this should be done. Are there any general best practices? Are there any rules of thumb you use?

My faculty does not have any clear policy regarding this.


texts: What is the best way to keep your students from getting out of control?

texts:
I am new to teaching. Recently I was given the opportunity to teach at my own university (I am currently doing an MPhil from my university).
If a teacher fails to control his students once, he wouldn't be able to control them until the end of semester.

This is my first time in teaching and I am afraid that my students would get out of my control. They wouldn't listen to me, would misbehave and wouldn't let me give my lecture without interruption.

Please advise me the best way to keep my cool and prevent my students from getting out of control.

EDIT: I have not started teaching yet. I'll be starting my classes from next week.

EDIT2: The students are Bachelors students. I don't actually want to control them. I just want to maintain discipline in my class. I want to prevent misbehavior in my class. I have seen students not listening to new teachers and just pass the whole lecture passing comments.


texts: Applying to PhD programs in mathematics: would a letter of recommendation from my department chair at the community college be of any advantage?

texts:
I finished my MS in mathematics 5 years ago.  Over these years I have been teaching at a community college (primarily calculus 1,2,3 with analytical geometry and Ordinary Diff. Eqs).  When I was in my masters program I was having trouble narrowing my interests and decided to stop at my masters and start teaching. During this time as an instructor I have become very interested in some applied mathematics (biology in particular).  I plan to apply to several PhD programs in the near future.   With that said, I didn't keep in touch with too many people from the university I attended.  I did stay in touch with a couple of my professors (on a minimal basis) and plan to ask them for letters of recommendation.

My questions...

Would a letter of recommendation from my department chair at the community college be of any advantage (and even suffice as 1 of the 3 required)?  Or should I call a professor from 5-7 years ago that may remember the grade they gave me?  To me the latter seems very generic and I feel my department chair could say more about my dedication to mathematics and teaching.

Thanks!


texts: PhD supervisor is extremely "hands-off": How can I get better feedback for my research projects and cope with this situation?

texts:
I'm currently a PhD student at a US University. The relationship between my advisor and me is extremely hands off, and she only contacts me to help write grants and to review papers. While she does try her best to fund her students (including me), she doesn't respond to my emails, doesn't give me any feedback on my research updates, doesn't give any feedback on my papers, and doesn't appear to care about my career. I've had to strike it on my own on everything I do, and it's honestly getting exhausting.

I want to switch advisors but am approaching the end of my third year without any major conference papers and feel that it's too late to change my advisor. All of my paper submissions have so far gotten rejected, and getting any feedback from her is impossible. That, plus the fact that the coronavirus fried up the job market in tech just makes me feel completely powerless and desolate. What do I do?


texts: Approach the professors about making the course more "relevant"

texts:
I'm currently studying Industrial Engineering in Spain, one of the broadest degrees here that includes the subjects of Calculus, Fluid Mechanics, Electronics, Materials and Programming in C, among others.

However, there's one subject, Introduction to Computers, that I think has an outdated course. While this is a personal opinion, I do some extracurricular projects based on robotics (electronics + programming) and I see that there's a huge difference between the subject and what is being used in the industry.

In this subject we are being taught really low level computer operations and iteration, learning how to reinvent a wheel that probably no one of us will ever need to reinvent in our career.

How should I approach the professors about making the course oriented to the current years? I know I will not benefit from it, but at least my fellow mates would. As most courses here, it was probably written 15/20 years ago and hasn't changed much in the time being. Besides that, another related question would be, is teaching outdated material the norm in most universities?

A small example of what I mean: We had a programming exam with the Outdated LibraryTM, in which I decided to write the function map() as found in arduino. This made my code much easier to program/debug and faster to write. Most of the other students don't know something like this is even possible and need to go over each individual operation manually to map the different conversions.


texts: Attending lectures for a course I already passed?

texts:
Two years ago I took an upper undergraduate/graduate course which I passed with a good grade. Sadly I missed many of the lectures, did few of the suggested exercises and managed mostly by cramming a few days before the exam.

To little surprise but to my great regret, I have now forgotten quite a lot of the material. I cannot formally retake the course, but I have considered attending the lectures and work through the exercises, while not handing in any work. Would the professor, who taught the course the last time I took it, frown upon this? Would he question the grade he gave me and or consider me to be a poor student for forgetting so quickly.


texts: Handling PhD funding offers that come before hearing back from all schools I applied to

texts:
So I applied to several PhD programs at different schools of probably different levels of selectivity and prestige. From a few of these schools I have been admitted and in contact with certain professors there who are suggesting that I will receive full funding to go there. In one case, this funding will be in the form of a fellowship from the school. The only hang up is that they would like me to make a decision on these offers quickly. In one case, I think they want to figure out if I would accept the fellowship if offered to me so they can extend it to someone else if I wouldn’t accept.

The problem is, the two schools I am most interested in have not yet admitted me and no professors from those schools have reached out to me. I would like to know what the result of my application to these schools will be before deciding. Should I just tell the other schools to wait? I worry that I may not receive a fellowship offer from one of these schools for delaying my decision too long (and would maybe be funded through some other means). Another option I see would be to reach out to the universities that have not admitted me yet and try to initiate conversations about working in professors groups and gauge how they perceive the strength of my application.

To summarize my question:
What is the best course of action when a grad school (or specific professor you want to work with there) pressures you to make a decision on their offer before all other schools you applied to admitted or rejected you?

I am located in the US, sorry forgot to mention it


texts: Why should I enter a pure math PhD program if I most likely won't end up in academia?

texts:
Assumptions:

The typical pure math PhD-bound undergraduate goes into a pure math PhD because they are [insert reasonable prerequisites for pure math PhD, (not the focus of this question)] and they want to end up in academia.
(With some exceptions) A pure math PhD is for people who want to enter academia.

Since most pure math PhD students won't end up in academia, we must wonder, given the above assumptions, the following question.
Question

Aside from the easy answer (see below), why should the typical pure math PhD-bound undergraduate enter a pure math PhD program if they will (1) probably not achieve their goal of entering academia and (2) probably have a few hard years after their PhD in chaotically bouncing around post-docs (never knowing when the end is in sight) and eventually readjusting their career goals to go into industry?

(1), (2) are based on observations one can easily make by browsing this site and talking to professors. This question may be abstracted to

Why should one go on a 5 year journey to achieve something they will probably not achieve, and upon failure, will subsequently face irreversible consequences (i.e., time lost, financial insecurity, etc.)?

The easy answer:
The typical answer is: "Follow your heart, and do it if you can't imagine yourself doing something else." But this is an emotional answer which is automatically true for every undergraduate who is very serious about a pure math PhD. And just because you think something will make you happy doesn't mean you should always do it. Sure, a PhD is fun, but it seems like a PhD gets really not fun very quickly upon graduation.
Overall, it's very easy for naive undergraduates to accept this "follow your heart" answer because us pure math PhD-bound undergraduates tend to think "Others have trouble, but I'm special." That's an extremely naive and unrealistic way to address the fact that most graduates from pure math PhD programs experience employment difficulties.
My background:
Mathematics undergraduate applying to PhD programs. I like math, I think I'm mentally and academically prepared to enroll in a pure math PhD program, and I have aimed to enter academia for a while. I know that with the right institution I would love a pure math PhD, but I want realistic career goals and not some naive expectation of "grad school -> PhD -> post-doc -> tenure" in going into a pure math PhD.
Note: My background is not really a background. It is included to reinforce the fact that I'm your average pure math PhD-bound undergraduate, who would probably do just fine in PhD program, and therefore this question might apply to similar undergraduates who are also not trying to be so naive about their career goals.


texts: What is behind the "Indian Undergrad Research Experience"-spam?

texts:
Every now and then I receive an email claiming to be from some undergrad student in Math or Computer Science at an Indian university asking for a summer research experience in "my research group" (there is no such thing).

These emails all have a very formulaic structure. There always is a claim that the student read and very much enjoyed some paper of mine, but never any indication that this actually happened (ie no reference to stuff in the paper). In particular, these emails look like they could have been sent to dozens of people with a little bit of copy&paste. Attached are real-looking CV's.

Are these real students or this is some elaborate scam? If these are from real students, why do they think this could potentially work? Why India?

Edit: While I have only received emails like this from India, in the comments Tom Curch mentions having received some from China, too.


texts: What should I do if my parents are forcing me to study a career I don't want?

texts:
I want to study biotechnology and become an engineer. I'm a straight A's student and as the eldest daughter I'm quite disciplined. However, my parents don't want me to study that career and are forcing me to study instead finances. Reasons are that I have the "obligation" to continue the family's business, and that studying biotechnology on a nearby city would be too expensive even thought it's a public university.

I have already talked with my mom and just expressed her my feelings and wishes but she told me I was being ungrateful and selfish, and that I wouldn't last long on the cruel outside world so I should probably stick with a career that already has for me a planned success.

The thing is that no matter how good it sounds to stay I just feel miserable about it. I wish to become a scientist, to create new things and help others with my knowledge, to make history, and, forgive me if this sounds cocky, I know I have the potential to do so much more than just stay on an office.

I told her that I was considering just leaving and live on my own if the economical burden was a problem but she then started to scold me for having such a naive and foolish thought. That she knows best for me and that I shouldn't do something so stupid out of whim. That between all my sisters I was the best "shot" they had to push this family up to riches.
I'm considering now moving out as soon as I finish high school but the thought of me being wrong just crawls on me every night, what should I do?


texts:
Conference papers are now double-blind. So when was the acknowledgment part written? If I write an acknowledgment when submitting the paper, isn't it easy to leak information? Is the acknowledgment written after the paper is accepted?
Thanks


texts: Why doesn't a master's thesis get read by a PhD admissions committee?

texts:
I have heard from three professors internally at my school that my master's thesis will likely not be looked at by Phd admissions committees - these professors are frequently on the admissions committee at our Department, too - and that at most my abstract or graphs / pictures might be looked at very quickly or not at all.

Of course, writing a thesis still has great value for the student - we get some research experience that could perhaps help us develop more clearly defined goals for pursuing a PhD, and we earn a letter of recommendation out of the thesis.

But, I would like some broader information, so I want to ask the question here.

Has any of you who has served on admissions committees actually read a master's thesis before?  Why or why not?  Is it just a waste of your time and doesn't really give any indication regarding the strength of the applicant?

My main motivation for asking this question is to decide whether I should delay my graduation date and ask for an extension on my thesis, since I feel I am just starting to do something decent and want to continue it and not give up on it too early.


texts: Why don't we still have a good eInk reader device for research papers?

texts: There are so many people in academia. A lot of people who are not in academia also read research papers. And I'm not talking about the formatting part. I'm talking about just looking up research papers on journal websites and reading them on the device in if nothing else then, pdf format. Kindle is small for reading pdf. Sony's digital paper doesn't have a good browsing experience especially for research papers where you'll probably open multiple tabs/papers often. Also, these devices are considerably expensive for students.


texts: How to cite (unpublished) data set during peer review?

texts:
In the move towards open science, it is becoming common practice to deposit the data accompanying a publication in a dedicated data repository.

Often, authors prefer to delay the publication of the data set until after review of the manuscript is completed.
To facilitate this, many data repositories provide mechanisms to (1) reserve a DOI for the data set before publication, and to (2) generate a private link to the data set for the review phase.

My question is: As an author, what are best practises for citing the (unpublished) data set in a submitted manuscript?

One solution is to put the dataset DOI in the submitted manuscript (although it does not resolve yet), and to communicate the private link through some separate channel that the journal may provide during submission (but that the reviewer may not read?).
Another solution is to put the private link in the manuscript, meaning one needs to remember to replace it with the DOI during the proof stage.

Neither solution seems ideal and I'd be interested to learn whether better ones have been figured out.


texts: Academic integrity problem in PhD proposal to reuse ideas/ self-plagiarize?

texts:
Is there any integrity/plagiarism issue if I use ideas I developed/argued in my master's essays and dissertation in the PhD proposal? Can I do this? What can I do to prevent potential problems?

Edit: none of those essays or dissertation are published, if this helps clarifying. So even that they're not published, I should cite myself as I would with published work?


texts:
Given a DOI, how can I programmatically obtain all the author affiliations? The coding part isn't the issue, but finding a proper database/API is.
E.g. for DOI 10.1186/s12920-019-0598-0, the author affiliations are:

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, S7N 5A9 Canada
Division of Biomedical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, S7N 5A9 Canada
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Hainan Normal University, Haikou, 571158 China


texts: How one can learn to write successful cover letters and rebuttals to referees?

texts:
Having a good scientific idea and writing a good paper out of it are the most important steps in order to publish in high-ranking journals, but they are not the only steps needed. The other steps are writing a good cover letter (to convince the editor) and good answers to referee reports, if needed (and this is almost always the case, based on my personal and and colleague's experience). Cover letters and rebuttals are a sort of "grey literature", in the sense that are carefully written, but not published, but only read by a few people (editors and referees).

Therefore one can learn to write good papers by reading good papers, but one cannot learn writing good letters and rebuttals by reading them, since they are not published.

In the light of this, how one can learn  to write successfull cover letters and rebuttals?


texts: How do I put professional affiliations on a CV?

texts:
I am currently a grad student in Psychology. I have heard that many professors like to see a list of 'Professional Affiliations' on a potential employee's CV, because it is an easy way to see whether the two people have common interests.

My question is, are there any guidelines for what I can realistically put there? Should I just list conferences in which I am a current, paying dues member; or can I put any conference in which I've paid dues in the past? Or can I be even less strict that these guidelines?


texts: A high quality contribution but an annoying error is present in my published article

texts:
I have recently published a journal article in the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (IEEE TGRS). I can confirm that my contribution in the journal article is really of high quality and has promising results. Even my (very reputable) university congratulated me for my contribution during my PhD defense last year.

A few days ago, I discovered an error in my article. This error is really very annoying to me. In my article, I wrote:

  The database contains 200 images. We removed "23 images of type X", "32 images of type Y" and "12 images of type Z", and so as a result, we use 128 images.

And I mentioned "128" all the time in all my experiments.

That fact is that all my results are really based on the number "128". But if you look back, the total should be 200 - 67  = 133  not 128. So I missed to say in the journal that we have also removed "5 images of type A". In this case the total will really be 128 as I mentioned in all my experiments.

All my results are correct and are really based on the number 128. But any reader can say "the total number of images must be 200 - 67 = 133 not 128, so how the author got 128!".

This is really awkward for me because I did this work in a very reputable university and I really wanted that everything to be perfect. I am really sad and I feel the failure and a bit like "Perhaps I don't deserve to be at this university".  What do you suggest me? should I contact the editor? Is it better to publish the correction online via ArXiv or HAL?


texts: License and attribution of images in compiled work for public outreach

texts:
I am working on a lager poster about science which will be on display in a museum and may be made available online. I intend to compile it using images from different sources. Some are own work, some are Wikimedia Common (Public domain or Creative Commons), others may be plots/graphics from (mostly historic) journal articles (they are usually not open access).

To my understanding, the use of these sources for non-profit/academic purposes is free if attributed correctly. However, I am unsure about the consequences of compiling or slightly modifying these works. Journals may have their own license policies but my understanding is that reuse for such purposes is generally accepted. In addition plots which represent measured data may not be protected, it seems.

Here are some of my concerns:

Using a Creative Commons image may require me to publish the whole work under the same Creative Commons license. I suppose that this is not ok with licenses/copyright policies that apply for plots or graphics from journal articles?

The different images should fit in the design of the whole. In order to achieve this I may need to make minor changes, like cropping the image or changing the background color. Will such modifications be ok with Public Domain licensed images and the ones from journals?

May the license of the whole work be determined by the fact that I am working for a public university (even though this sort of work is probably not described in my work contract, so it could be interpreted as work which I do in my spare time)?

Generally, are there some good online resources which explain the license issues and attribution of images for this kind of work?

Here are some links I know:

http://creativecommons.org.au/learn/fact-sheets/attribution/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Credit_line

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/


texts: Colleague claiming first co-autorhip of my work

texts:
Some time ago I started my Ph.D. and my project was to attempt again to investigate a problem that a colleague (a senior Ph.D.) had failed to investigate because he lacked numerical/coding skills to attack the problem. Essentially our advisor put me to work on a line of research that senior phd had abandoned, and I started from his (few) old results, spent 9 months writing code and running the simulations, and finally obtained some interesting results. Senior PhD, though he mostly contributed with discussions and one plot, casually claimed co-first-authorhip by asking to our advisor when I was not there, but the request was refused.

For the last 6 months we worked on a natural continuation of the previous research. Senior phd insisted to collaborate intensely at the beginning and for the first month we surely did, but later he was caught by other things (writing 2 other papers, writing the PhD dissertation..) and I continued my work alone with a PostDoc. SeniorPhd always attended discussions.

It is now time to start writing the paper, and he said he would write it, as he has alredy written part of those results in his dissertation and because he writes faster than me (so we can publish before other groups) . I politely refused during the meeting, so he offered to co-write the results with me.

Our advisor ignored the issues and pushed to move onto other topics.

After that meeting, senior Ph.D. started to ask me to explain a few things that he still did not get about the method, and I explained him. He then proceeded to make a few very quick simulations to produce the first 2 figures of the paper and presented those to the PostDoc a few hours after I was done explaining him.

I felt as if he is trying to force himself as first author/coauthor by simply starting to write a research in which he did not do the majority of the work.

All the data is in a shared drive, so in principle, he could write everything up.

How can I confront the issue without looking like an asshole who refuses to be helped by a very kind collegue?


texts: How to respond to potential power abuse from project supervisor?

texts:
Over the space of a now concluding 20 week long project, my appointed supervisor has made a number of questionable decisions that appear to have negatively affected my work and solidified her grip over any avenues of complaint i can make.

One of the more recent incidents included her refusal to complete a strictly compulsory progress report, unless i removed a statement about her absence for a three week period that affected my ability to receive feedback. Stating during the incident, that if anything reported made her look bad, then it would be reflected on my final grade(As she is one of two, who marks the project).

Her general lack of support throughout the entire process has been difficult and while i appreciate that some supervisors and some students prefer the more independent approach, it doesn't work for me and I've made this clear many times. She has also enforced a number of design decisions that convert the project to a very similar format to one she had previously partook in. Additionally insisting on heavy reference to her previous work.

I'm at a loss of how to proceed and the advent of the global pandemic has only narrowed my ability to discretely contact any support staff.

UK, final year undergraduate student


texts: How to make a great first impression at a conference?

texts:
I was awarded my PhD in November last year and will be giving a paper at my first official academic "débtante ball": the most important conference of its kind (outside of N.A.) for my discipline.

The problem is that I am still suffering from the 'imposter syndrome' and this will likely inhibit me from participating in any small talk. Networking is essential  but I am too embarrassed to divulge my day time job is that a public school teacher. Elitists are unavoidable at these events and trust me, everyone else there is more accomplished than I am. The immediate demands and responsibilities of my profession have really prevented me from publishing. My one saving grace is that I am a very engaging speaker and my topic has popular appeal.

My objectives at the conference are to make my name better known, to highlight the originality of my research, and ultimately catch the attention of a publisher.

There will be a book fair but I believe its nothing more than kiosks with booksellers.

How do I maximize my time at the conference?
How do I make a lasting impression?
How can I overcome my inferiority complex?

Teacher in transition :/


texts: Order of author names in a textbook that is to be published

texts:
I am currently working on a book with several fellow researchers, and there seems to be a disagreement of how the author names should be listed. The book will be published by a major university press and will be listed on its website as well, so the order of names of the authors has become a touchy subject and disagreements ensued. I will describe everything in third-person to objectively portray the situation.

Z is the lead researcher of the project. Z has done more than 90% of the work and everyone seems to see this. Z is a professor.

A and B are staff researchers and their jobs were mostly editing and proofreading. A and B are professors as well.

U, V, W are graduate student researchers and have done the remaining 9% of the work, which were mostly grunt work that do not have particular intellectual value.

Now here is where the situation becomes sticky. The book made its way to a major press and A and B suddenly want a piece of the action. The problem is, Z's last name is the last in alphabetical order and making A and B authors will push Z's name to the back of the author list. While Z is considering adding A and B as the authors, U, V, W feel that A and B did not add much value to the book and therefore strongly believe that Z's name should appear in the front. Some even think that they themselves did more work than A or B, and A's name and B's name should not be listed as the author just like them.

Is there are way to resolve such issue? Is there a way to distinguish between the lead author and supporting authors, possibly by forcing the lead author's name to appear in the front? Or is there a way to make everyone authors of the book but make only the lead author's name appear in the book cover rendering the other two merely authors in name?


texts: Will I be competitive for college teaching jobs if I quit ABD?

texts:
I'm looking at quitting my PhD (4.5 years in) in engineering in the U.S at an R1. My advisor and I tried a new tack after I broached quitting this Spring, but I'm concerned that things aren't improving, and I would like to make sure I know my options if I make the decision to leave.
For background, I'm ABD (all but dissertation), love teaching, hate research. I have taught a few courses and have an internship under my belt. I particularly love teaching at the college level because I can experiment with different assessments and teaching styles and don't have to teach to standardized testing. I also enjoy teaching in my specific discipline. Looking for insight:

How feasible is it to get hired for a lecturer/instructional professor position with only a master's? My department won't do it. They literally fired the only person who knew anything about one topic because he didn't have a PhD. Is this common?

How feasible is it to get hired teaching math at a community college? My discipline does not exist at the community college level, but it's kind of math-heavy, so I was thinking about math departments. Do I stand a chance without an engineering PhD, much less a math PhD?

I appreciate any advice or suggestions!