texts: Two distinct papers solving same problem to same conference, allow update post-acceptance?

texts:
Authors A and B both submitted different full papers solving the same Computer Science problem X to a prestigious conference and were accepted. They each have clearly distinct approaches, studies, and novel contributions. The conference camera-ready deadline has passed, but the conference has not happened yet.

Is there any known precedent to deal (or not deal with) situations like this? Should special provisions be provided to allow the authors to update related works to reference each other?


texts: Is the gap between lower- and higher-ranked graduate programs in pure math really that big?

texts:
Initially I asked this question on math stackexchange but it seems academia stackexchange is more appropriate place for this.

Note: a question similar to that I'm going to ask was discussed here, but answers to the questions I'm going to ask were not covered there.

Basically, I'd like to understand how significant is the gap between lower- and higher-ranked graduate schools in mathematics. I'll be referring to the USN graduate schools ranking. Let me fix the notation straight away. By 'higher-ranked schools' (which I will also refer to as 'top schools') I will mean top 10 (or if you want top 20) and by 'lower-ranked schools' I will mean schools ranked 20-40 (all according to USN).

What I understood from the question I provided the link to above is that being amidst 'top students' at a higher ranked school is more beneficial than being amidst 'average students' at a lower-ranked school. Also, higher-ranked schools may be more diverse and provide more opportunities in meeting people from other top schools as well as in obtaining a job in the academia.

But I still have a couple of questions.

The first one is about the first two years of the study. Is, in general, the instruction level at lower-ranked schools worse than that in higher-ranked ones? Also, are graduate corses at 'top schools' more difficult to master and to pass? If so, does it imply that one needs a better preparation (i.e., a stronger mathematical background) to succeed in a top graduate program? Also, does it imply that the students enrolled in a top program will eventually have a better mathematical background that will make it easier for them to conduct research? If you have anything else to say about the coursework at top universities in comparison to that at lower-ranked universities, I would appreciate it.

Secondly, in the question I referred to above (or elsewhere), some people mentioned that exposure to new ideas in various branches of mathematics (which is one of the advantages of top programs) is a consequence of the size of the department and the 'quality' of faculty/post-docs/students. Whereas I do agree that students at top universities are more knowledgable and creative, I cannot see why the other assertions hold. Correct me if I am wrong but the the math department of say Stony Brook or Indiana (ranked 25 and 34, resp.) is not smaller than that of Chicago or Columbia (ranked 5 and 9, resp.). Furthermore, the vast majority of professors in all of the places mentioned are alumni of Harvard/Princeton/Berkeley/MIT/Chicago/Stanford (i.e., a top school in my terminology); post-docs also come from very prestigious places to all of the four mentioned universities. So what makes Chicago or Columbia 'better' than Stony Brook or Indiana? Just their name? (Of course Chicago may have more publications than Indiana but I don't think that graduate students feel it.)


texts:
So a little context. I'm a second year masters student in theoretical physics and last year I almost had a burnout. I mean that I had symptoms of burnout but it was not severe enough to be an actual burnout (luckily). What stressed me out most was the frequent deadlines. The material also got harder compared to my bachelor which contributed as well. After taking it easy for a while now and talking to a psychologist to help cope with stress I'm feeling much better. I would rather not have this experience another time or even worse. So, since a lot of theoretical physicists go into academia my question is how likely are you to be stressed in academia? Or more specifically

How likely are you to be stressed in academia? Do you know examples of people who are very stressed/not stressed at all?
If it is stressful, is it possible to reduce your workload? Or is it possible to manage this stress?


texts: Can I work on old manuscripts using personal time?

texts:
I submitted few manuscripts to some journals during my PhD and moved to other institute for postdoc (full-time) in few months before. Now one manuscript has come for revision and other manuscripts may come soon. I have following many questions in my mind.

I am wondering is it ethical to spend some time to make revision of my old manuscripts in holidays/weekends in my house without using any resources from Institute?

Should I need to discuss this matter to my present supervisor or Institute?

Should I acknowledge my present Institute? Is it also necessary to change my affiliation?


texts: Tips and tricks for presentation demo for academic job interview

texts:
I am working on different research projects. I was asked to give research demo on an on-campus interview. I am thinking of the two following strategies:

First is to give overview of the projects I worked on (one or 2 slides), and then present in detail one of my latest published papers.

Another one is to give a overview of papers for each project with not going in depth.

I am wondering about the best way to impress the research committee. I am working in very hot areas in computer science. If there is any presentation/demos to share, I would be very thankful


texts: Currently taking graduate course as an Undergraduate

texts: I am currently taking graduate algebra as an undergraduate (junior) in University of Toronto Mathematics Specialist, and I just took a midterm today. Since I am an undergraduate, the grade matters. In order to get a good chance to go into graduate schools for Math in Canada and USA, do I need to get a A or A+ in graduate courses as an undergraduate? Or, is A– alright? (In my university, C and below are considered fail for graduate courses only) Or should I get at least an average grade on that course as an undergraduate competing with graduate students, instead of worrying about actual letter grade? (this is about absolute vs relative too)


texts: Do you have to wait for confirmation from the journal to consider an article withdrawn?

texts: If you'd like to withdraw an article for any reason, can you start submitting elsewhere once you've notified the journal, or do you have to wait for a response? How can this be handled in case the journal is not responsive?


texts: What should I do if I do not like research in a particular field?

texts:
This is my last semester as an undergraduate and I am taking a graduate course in a physics field I was interested in (won't mention the name since I do not want to offend anyone who is researching in this field). The class ends with a report in which we have to summarize research in a particular subfield. Looking over and reading papers to write this report, I realize I do not like this subfield at all. The papers are confusing and technical; I have a basic understanding of each of them but not a thorough understanding of all of them. So far I have read 7 papers and I am comfortable talking about and explaining the methodologies and results of 3 of them; for two of them I am comfortable talking about the methodologies but not the results; and for the last two I have a vague idea of the procedure. I also do not have the stamina to read more papers. I find the topic boring, complicated, and difficult.
What should I do? Should I abandon the idea of going to graduate school? I do not really want to go to industry that much and I really do like physics. Or should I try exploring a new field in physics? Or will an advisor in this field be helpful, since I am reading the papers on my own to write this report and no one is guiding me?
Any advice will be appreciated.
PS: I am not enrolled into a graduate program yet.
Update:
If I go to another field in physics, what should I do to see if I like researching in that field? Should I read papers, introductory textbooks? What papers would be the best for a beginner like me? How can I find introductory papers on, let's say, arxiv (is there some kind of section called "Basic"). I am not enrolled in a graduate program yet, and thus I do not have an advisor, so I like to know what I should do in the meantime. Also, my parents and relatives are not researchers so I am kind of alone in this right now.


texts: Does submitting an enrollment intent mean that I am commiting?

texts: I recently got accepted into two universities for the Fall 2013, and both of them asked for me to submit the enrollment intent. I submitted the intent for one of them but then one of my friends said that since I did that, it means I HAVE to go there. But I am still deciding where I want to go. The other university has asked me to send in the form within 2 weeks otherwise I would loose a seat. So let's say if I send an intent to them too, would I be able to pick which one I want to attend when I make my final decision in a few weeks?


texts: Should I inform students that there are cheaper alternatives to the on-campus book store?

texts:
The bookstore at my American university is an outpost of Barnes and Noble, charges much higher prices than can be found on Amazon, and in my opinion offers very poor service. Among other things that upset me, they prohibit students from browsing the stacks of textbooks -- instead you are supposed to tell the staff what you want, so they can retrieve it for you.

I prefer to mass e-mail my students in advance of the course and urge them to buy their books for my class at Amazon, used if at all possible.

Is there anything unethical, or that could possibly get me into trouble, about this?


texts: How large may included parts from other people's work be in an academic paper?

texts:
Of course, it is absolutely important to quote all thoughts that did not originate from the author. This makes one think that it would be OK to include works of others when referencing them correctly.

For example, consider that one had that really great list of problems that also apply to your own paper. Is it legal and/or legitimate to write about that list, include the key points in your work and reference the original author?

I am facing that situation where I want to include some key aspects but quoting all of them and describing them individually feels like copying too much, even though I explicitly state that the aspects originate from another paper with referencing to it.


texts: Is co-first author or co-corresponding author better for a postdoc's job prospects?

texts: I'm a postdoc in computational biology. I've been given the opportunity to choose if I want to be co-first author (listed second) or a co-corresponding author (possibly listed next-to-last or third from last) on a manuscript based on my contributions. It has been beaten into my head that postdocs looking for a job are judged by their first author publications, but I've also recently heard that having corresponding author papers highlights your ability to plan and supervise a study and may help you get a job. Which option is better and why? I'm already listed on a separate manuscript as the last (and co-corresponding) author.


texts: Author wants to withdraw or insist on re-reviewing at proof stage of publication

texts:
I am editing a small scholarly journal published by a learned society. One of our authors, after his manuscript was finally accepted for publication and he had signed and returned the publishing agreement (with copyright assignment), is trying to negotiate after receiving the first proof version.

He insists on adding new content and a new reference to the main text of the article, which I, as editor, will not allow. He is offering to resubmit the manuscript with the new content included, and to wait for the results of a completely new peer review. He is very persistent about including the new content which, I think, has no impact at all on the overall quality or on the conclusions of the paper.  The reference is a fresh (2015) self-reference, so I assume that he simply wants to increase the visibility of that other paper.

One of my main problem with the new reference (and the related content) is being to one of the author's own paper published in a predatory open access journal. The publisher is listed on Beall's list. When I pointed at it, he said that his paper was subjected to valid and rigorous peer review and other people's bad experience have nothing to do with the academic validity of that specific paper. I disagree, and as I am responsible for our published content I feel adding the new reference is a risk to our journal's reputation.

It would be a waste of our journal’s resources to disregard that we have the copyright of a manuscript, which we accepted for publication after rigorous peer review. We do not feel that we should comply with what the author wants, and we feel that we should publish the paper even if the author will not approve the final proof.

What do you think about this situation? I have a few other options, namely to reject the paper altogether and to go on with the new round of reviews. Both choices would make me feel being strongarmed. Any advice would be appreciated.


texts: Is a MOOC "degree" worth putting on your resume?

texts: I've read an article about a Chemist who completed another bachelor's degree in Philosophy by finishing free MOOC courses. His new "degree' may not be academically accredited in any Graduate School of Philosophy. But is it still worth mentioning in your curriculum vitae/resume as a new "degree"?


texts: Is it common that my work is wasted since a collaborator who is the first author does not submit the manuscript that I have worked on?

texts:
I am a postgraduate student at a research-oriented university. I had spent about 2 months to work on a project. I collaborated with another postgraduate student who is the first author.

In the project, I mainly contributed to the paper writing such as whole parts of introduction, background, related works, discussion, and conclusion. Also, I wrote some subsections in the main body and made most of the figures and tables in the paper.
So I think I put a decent amount of time and effort.

But my collaborator wants to discard this paper since he/she thinks the methodology of the paper is too outdated and thus it cannot be accepted for the top journal/conference.

It seems my 2 months of work is wasted. What do you think about this situation? and What should I do?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts and advice.


texts: Ethics of writing another paper to be graded for use as a work sample

texts:
A particular program I would like to apply to requires a recent (past year) graded work sample in either science, history, or the social sciences.

Of course, I would like to present myself in the best light, however, the assignments I have been given fail to capture the rigor I would like to show. My course assignments have been rather standard and have not allowed me to express any special creativity or interest. I understand that the purpose of such a requirement is to assess how well I write and the topic should be immaterial, but I feel much more confident submitting a piece not in my coursework.

In an academic situation, is it considered unethical to write my own research paper on my own topic and submit it to my teacher for grading, with the intent of using it as a work sample? I would want the paper to be graded  as honestly as possible of course. I care less about the numerical grade and more about the content and style of writing.

I would appreciate your input. Of course, this would only work if my professor agreed.

Edit: Just to clarify, I do not wish to be deceitful in anyway, however, I could not find evidence of any convention governing this sort of situation. This would be a sample of my work and I am not sure how it would be any different from submitting an open ended assignment. The paper I am referring to would be related to the subject, and in the subject I am thinking of, it is a logical extension of my interests beyond the course. Again, since the requirement is a graded work sample, I wasn't sure if it had to be technical coursework.


texts: I'm an undergraduate mathematics major student, I'm about to graduate by the end of this semester, I want to do postgraduate studies, but unfortunately, I live in a developing country,  and I don't consider working with any of the faculty members at my university because I will waste my time on a low quality research experience and the atmosphere is so depressing. I want to do a quality research paper so it enhaces my C.V when I ask for P.hd scholarships in Europe. Can I publish independently and how hard it might be?


texts: Is paper reviewing for journals that are not JCR-listed worth the time?

texts:
Is it worthwhile to spend some time as reviewer of journals which are not JCR-indexed? I do not know in the rest of the world, but in Spain all that matters are those listed in JCR.

NOTE: I am a robotics PhD student yet, and I probably should focus on my research now.


texts: Got stuck with overambitious master thesis

texts:
I feel that I can get into big trouble very soon. I have been working on my master's thesis in computer science area for about 3 months(out of 6) and still haven't achieved any meaningful result. Although I am working really hard(at least 8 hours per day + some time during weekends), I can't see any hope how to complete this research in remaining 3 months and compile it as a thesis.

The problem is that my supervisor selected very ambitious project for me. Initially, I was a bit scared, but general idea was looking quite meaningful. He promised that "we will be the first who have done this, bla-bla-bla....". In addition to this, he also offered quite generous funding. And I swallowed the bait)

Now, after several months of research, I can claim that the method we are developing looks a bit meaningless(that is why there are no any research on it). Maybe if we dig deeper, this will start making sense, but MS thesis is just for 6 months, I cannot afford doing this research for 1-1.5 years.

So now I am considering dropping out of the project and finding a new supervisor.
Would you recommend doing this? Or, otherwise, how to deal with MS research which yields no results? How this can affect my grade?


texts: How to quote sources in multiple languages in a list of references with APA (and MLA)

texts:
The APA Manual of Style covers in detail the issues associated with translating references into other languages. However, it fails to give any answer to my question (just as any resources I have been able to find on the web): how we should be treating the 'explanatory' elements of references such as 'Original work published', 'Retrieved', "Manuscript submitted for publication', 'Doctoral thesis', and so on?
Here are two examples of French references:

Villeneuve, E. (2020). Éducation [Thèse de doctorat, Université de
Tours].
Villeneuve, E. (2010). Éducation. Educatio. (Œuvre originale publiée
en 1922)

When inserting them into a list of references compiled for an English-language article, should we keep the 'Thèse de doctorat' and 'Œuvre originale publiée en' elements in French or should we convert them into their English analogues 'Doctoral thesis' and 'Original work published'?
Actually, the same question is valid for MLA, where I fail to find any explicit recommendations.


texts:
I am thinking of pursuing a degree in Biostatistics (instead of just Statistics).
I am wondering if such decision will limit my career prospect to the field of Biostatistics. Is it feasible to think that somebody with a Biostatistics degree can work as, say, a quantitative social researcher or a data miner? The reason why I am considering Biostatistics program is because I get to take an epidemiology course, which to me sounds interesting. However at the same time I don't want to limit my career prospect strictly to the field of biostatistics....

thank you :)


texts: I won't be applying for master's programs until next year. Should I start studying for the GRE now?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate in mathematics, and won't be finishing my Bachelor's degree until next Spring or next Fall (2016). I plan on applying for a master's program before possibly moving onto a PhD (if I like the research) after I get my bachelor's.

Should I start studying GRE-type material now, even if just in my free time, to hopefully have a bit more of an intimate knowledge of the kinds of questions it will ask, as well as really solidify my problem solving in those areas? Or is that overkill?


texts: Are all permanent positions "tenure-track"?

texts:
I was offered a permanent position as a "senior researcher" in Europe without teaching responsibilities. As some of you may know, the term "tenure" is getting more and more popular in Europe.

"Can this position be called "tenure-track" since, to my best knowledge, tenure is connected with professorships?"

After reading the comments below of why "are you asking that?"

Here is why:

What can I write in my CV to say that I'm proud of my permanent position?
Feeling honoured of that, and before leaving my current work, you know in academia, your colleagues might ask what is your next position safety-level? Is it professional to say "a tenure position"?


texts: Is a Graduate Performance Diploma considered an academic degree for purposes of PhD admissions or faculty job search?

texts:
This question might be appropriate for music SE but I am looking for more academic views.

I know of Associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees.  Inside of these are different fields.  I have also seen JD (law) and DM (music).  I have recently seen "Graduate Performance Diploma".  While I usually do not think of these in an academic sense, Johns Hopkins, which I consider a good school, offers this diploma.

What is the purpose of this degree?  Is it only to give more practice time for a musician in an academic setting, or would earning this diploma have some weight on acceptance to a doctoral or professorship?


texts: Applying for a PhD in Europe as a South American. Do i convert all my grades to GPA or ECTS scale

texts:
I'm applying for a PhD position in Europe. I'm from South America and our grading system is quite different. As a requirement i need to send a transcript. Do i need to convert all my grades to GPA or ECTS? (Also, do you have any useful information on how to do it?)

Thank you.


texts: Level of detail when reviewing a PhD thesis - very picky (draft) reviewer

texts:
I am currently finalizing my written PhD thesis. I think in practice it is often the case, that a PhD student has a formal advisor (often head of the lab, very busy) and then an actual advisor who is much more familiar with the PhD's work and progress. Often this actual advisor is a PostDoc and the student has regular meetings with him. This is also the case for me. With the PostDoc I have weekly meetings. I meet my formal advisor unregularly/randomly, about once a month.

So, I finished a first complete draft of my thesis and handed it in to my formal advisor, because he is my official advisor. As expected my formal advisor sent the draft to my actual advisor. My formal advisor is often traveling and very very busy. So I did never expect him to read the full thesis, let alone providing detailed review of my work.

The thing is, that I know that my actual advisor can be very picky about language stuff and how scientific texts are written. I know this from writing papers together with him which was always somewhat cumbersome due to his over-detailed reviews. His reviews were always very thorough causing some headache and also sometimes a shaking head on my side.

So today I received a first review from him just for the introduction chapter which is about 15% of my thesis. His review is extremely detailed, he picks on each sentence, and often even words. He critisizes the word order of my sentences and questions every argument I make. He tries to be perfectionist. The result is for me, that I feel really bad when discussing the review with him. It is frustrating to get corrected that thoroughly and it makes me think, that I am too dumb for this. Moreover, I am sure that my quality of writing and lines of argumentation have a decent level of quality and I think he is over-interpreting most things. Of course, I try to not take the feedback personally, and see it as an opportunity to improve my work. However, I think his level of detail is a bit too much. It also means a lot of work for me (to correct everything) and I think, it will take at least 2 more months to hand in a final version.

One example of his reviewing, which I know from a colleague of mine: My colleague needed to verbally express that two things are connected. The reviewer suggested to use the word link instead of connect. My colleague followed the advice and replaced all instances of connect with link. At the next reviewing iteration, the same reviewer suggested to replace all instances of link with connect again... So you know what I mean? It's just too much and he even seems to have different opinions when reading the same text a second time.

I also want to make clear, that I am very sure, that my formal professor does not doubt my academic qualities. For instance, he is aware that I received a Best Paper Award for one of my papers and we always have nice discussions about different research topics. Hence, I think he would not deem it necessary to have my thesis reviewed that thoroughly. I think, if I would confront my formal advisor with the review of my actual advisor, he would be stunned.

Finally, my question is: Is it normal that a thesis gets reviewed that thoroughly, even when the advisor knows me (and the quality of my work)?

And more importantly: How should I proceed?
I obviously want to get this done really quick. Of course, I know that reviews are essential to improve the quality of my thesis and I am willing to put in substantial amount of time. But I think it's too much, if I need to change (nearly) each sentence of what I have written...
Should I talk with my formal advisor about that? What should I let him know?


texts: Is is possible to anonymously encourage one's US university to make content accessible (e.g., as per the ADA)?

texts:
I'm enrolled in a graduate-level program from a major US university, and these courses are predominately online. Classes are held via web conference, and most content is online. (It's not a public MOOC, but rather it's part of a curriculum with full tuition being paid, and relatively small class sizes -- less than 20 people per section.)

As an older student (but not disabled, nor a senior citizen (yet)), I do have many of the associated age-related challenges (bad eyesight, hard of hearing, hand tremors). As a result, I do make use of various assistive technologies (screen reader, captions, mouse-free keyboard navigation).

I find the program content to be not very accessible. Though, I admit I'm not that familiar with the accessibility requirements of the ADA. (I've listed some of my issues, below.)

I have commented & complained to both the administrators & professors. Not being disabled per se, my complaints don't carry much weight. Also, one prof threatened to fail me if I kept complaining & kept having problems (typical response: "none of the other students have complained / are having problems"), so I really don't want to be the torchbearer for this campaign. However, I'd really like them to stop & think about the choices they are making, even if the changes are only realized after I finish the program. They continue to make new content & new changes that impede accessibility. As far as I can tell, they either have no guidelines for accessibility, or they just don't care (the institution does have a documented history of ignoring accessibility requirements.)

Is there a way one can either raise this issue with the University anonymously (to avoid repercussions), or otherwise report them so that they can start taking this issue seriously?

Examples: zero captions for videos; very tiny content (browser zoom to 1000% (10x) makes it barely legible for me, but makes navigation difficult); many slides are "images" rather than text and therefore can't zoom/copy/paste; classes via live video conf, but A/V quality is often poor (profs not provided high-quality equipment, simply using iphone or such); online content is delivered in a proprietary adobe client (not HTML5) with poor accessiblity features; editing files requires using mouse with browser & can't use external mouse-free editors; not cross-platform, requires windows/mac (linux unsupported).


texts: How to neutralize an Ivy League obsession?

texts: Not disregarding that the Ivies are fine colleges in many aspects, how to deal with high-school students fixated on the idea that they need an Ivy league education, or otherwise their education would be second class. Or to deal with equally fixated people who think that academics in the Ivy league is the only golden rule (and the others are second class). Talking about this makes me sound a tad envious, but I like to make people see that many other colleges are fine too (although maybe not that famous).


texts: Master's Thesis - using wikipedia contents in application

texts:
I'm writing a mobile application which will be part of my master's thesis. In my application I'm using contents from the wikipedia (small fragments of articles and pictures) to present my solution on the specific data.

Must I add links to articles, images and to them licenses?

If so, where: README.txt / about section / directly in the written part? Thx in advance for help


texts: Does department receive funding for each PhD candidate

texts: The reason I'm asking is because my PhD supervisor "collects" - for lack of a better word - PhD candidates. She has at least 15 PhD candidates. None of them is being hired, except for one - as her private secretary. She also does not mind stringing out PhD duration by giving no input whatsoever but insisting that the research is still "weak" (without explaining how), and would let them go only after >5 years have passed. This makes me wonder whether the department receives money for each PhD candidate to finance the department, so that the PhD candidates' number and years spent there are of essence. I'm in Germany. We find the situation not ideal, but we are afraid to take this matters higher up, as we don't know if this might backfire. Is there anything to be done to get out of such situation?


texts: How to not get lost during bibliography research?

texts:
After a phd and a 1 year boring job in a private company, I finally found a postdoc position than looks very interesting to me.
I am very excited to perform research again, but I would like to avoid the mistakes I did during my Ph.D. to be more efficient.

I would say that my main waste of time was that I was too disorganized.
Often I did measurements, forgot to write all the parameters, and had to do it again. I think I will now be ok on this point, with but if you have advices here, I will happily read them.

Then, my main problem and one of the things I felt very inefficient at, was bibliography research. For example, when I wanted to get information on a very precise topic, I searched through google scholar or science direct and found several articles. I tried to picked the most interesting ones, but then I often got lost in the different references cited by the article. I always felt that I had to read every of these references to get things perfectly clear and become confident on the topic. Of course this never worked, because there are usually many references and references in those references (would take ages to read them all) ... So I often ended reading only parts of all the articles cited by the main article, barely remembering what I have read.

Does someone have an efficient method to avoid getting lost in all the articles cited in one article, and all of their references ... and so on?


texts: What does the path to professorship in maths and computer science look like?

texts:
I have a BS in math and a BS in computer science.  I attempted to get into a math PhD program right out of undergrad, but I was not prepared for the GRE subject test, so my applications did not go well.  I had to find a job while I thought up a new plan, and I have now been accepted to computer science PhD programs.

My ultimate goal is to be a professor and spend my life researching math topics in computer science, or just math.  I have a couple questions about getting to that point.  Should I get a PhD in math after getting one in computer science?  I read that math PhDs find faculty positions much more easily than any other kind of PhD.  Should I pursue a postdoc position at some point?  I don't want to be a "permadoc," as I've heard them called.  I also read that computer science PhDs often go to the private sector, but I don't think I'm interested in that.  What advice do you have to help me get where I want to be?


texts: Regarding applying to another university for PhD during the first year PhD program at a top research US university

texts:
I've received my Masters from one of the best universities (may be the best actually) for my area. Moved to another top university as my professor moved.

However, during this process I realized that my advisor can do a better job at handling the lab and careers of the graduate students. The current graduate student is in depression because of the work pressure and never spoke about it until recently. PI had instances of graduate students leaving the group because of the same issue.

The project I'm working is just fine and doesn't seem to be worth all the mental turmoil. Feeling a bit uncertain about the future of PhD with the PI.

Thought of transferring to another lab, but certain collaborations of the PI with other profs wouldn't facilitate that. I'm left with options of a change in the area of interest or move to another major or university.

So, for me to apply to another university or another professor, the major concern is the reason behind the move. I'm not quite liking the toxic environment in the lab and the way the PI advises and want to move out of it. However, the concern is that I do not want to mention about this directly in my SOP and in my meetings with other professors. As this might reflect badly on me in return. So I would like to know what is the best way to deal with this situation. Thanks.


texts:
I'm posting from an anonymous account, for reasons that will be obvious.

I'm an associate professor in China at one of the top 10 universities in China, and have been working in China for a number of years. Most research in our lab is respectable and unproblematic.  We get some papers in top journals and conferences.

As a native English speaker, I help on papers from graduate students.
Some of these papers are conference papers, and some are journal papers.  The conference papers I work on are international.

However, probably between 30% to 50% of the Chinese graduate students I work with copy and paste from the Internet into their research papers (from Wikipedia, from other papers, from software documentation, and so on).  The amount ranges from a sentence here and there, to whole sections.
It's usually easy for me to notice copy/pasted material (it's where they suddenly write like a native English speaker with 10+ years of research experience).  Yesterday, I encountered the worst instance of copy/paste I've ever seen, and I flatly refused to be listed as a co-author.

What's become clear:

The students generally think it's acceptable to copy/paste; they're unconcerned even if it's published.
Part of the motivation behind copy/pasting is that English is their second language.
The Chinese professors (i.e., their supervisors) mostly do not read their students' papers; they might take a quick check before submission.
The Chinese professors push the students into rushing to meet conference submission deadlines, and I feel this has a negative impact on both their research and paper-writing quality.
The university doesn't outright condone plagiarism, but they don't seem to think of it as a negative.  I get the impression that it's considered efficient use of time.  The focus is on getting it published, while significance, errors, and plagiarism are less important.
Many of the students do not intend to have careers in academia.  The paper will not have much significance, but it's either required for their degree, or their supervisor is pushing them into writing it.  They don't care much.

I've explained how serious a matter this is, over and over.  And honestly, I'm fed up repeating myself – it makes me feel like the university (and research in China) is a joke.  It makes me feel ashamed to work here.

I've tried repeatedly explaining this to everyone, but the seriousness is not getting through.  They just think I'm overreacting.

Q: How can I convince graduate students in China to not copy/paste from the Internet into their research papers?

I'm looking for an answer along the lines of "the negative consequences of copy/pasting from the Internet in publications are blah".  I have no intention to pack up and leave; I just want to get the message across and convince them that plagiarism matters.  So I'm thinking about writing a document entitled e.g. "why we shouldn't plagiarize" and sending it around.


texts: Can I collect meta information on papers and put this online?

texts:
For my thesis I have had to go through many different sources to find relevant literature. I want to share my reading list with others to make it easier for people who want to study the same topic to find relevant information. I have set up a little database with meta info (title / journal / author / date / abstract). My idea is to put this online so others can freely browse this. Is there any copyright issue (or otherwise important issue) to take into account? Can I put the abstracts online as well?

Each paper links to the journal's official website and I did not put any actual paper or PDF online.


texts: How far in advance of applying to grad school can I ask for a reference letter?

texts: I'm currently finishing the last year of my undergrad degree, and plan on applying to grad school in about 7 years. I'm taking a year off to work, then completing a 1 year graduate certificate followed by a 2 year diploma program and 3 more years of work experience before applying for a masters program, which requires 2 reference letters from relevant profs. I know I can ask instructors from the grad certificate and diploma programs instead of relying on professors from my undergrad courses, but that's still a 3 year gap between my last course and application. Do I need to wait until I apply for my masters to ask for references? Or can I ask in advance before graduating my grad/diploma programs, after explaining my plan to apply for a masters in 3 years? My concern is my profs might not remember me...


texts: Referee selection : Why would an editor pass up inviting the most suitable referees?

texts:
This question is related to this one, and is dual to it in some sense.

Assume PIs A and B publish a few key papers in what turns out to be a new mini-area. Their work is well received, and they arrive at similar conclusions using complementary techniques.

Several months later, A notices an in-press paper by C, which claims to significantly improve upon the work of A and B. The paper by C is substandard, however, reflecting an evident lack of understanding.

On alerting B, A discovers that C's paper was not reviewed by either of them.
A and B agree that C's paper makes a strong, unsupported claim, and that they would certainly have flagged it as problematic (as reviewers).

What reasons could a handling editor have for choosing neither A nor B as referees, given the high relevance of their work? Replies from people with editorial experience would be especially helpful.


texts: Who should be listed as authors on extended abstract of thesis?

texts:
I want to submit an extended abstract of my Ph.D. dissertation to a workshop that looks for summaries of recent work. My dissertation is based on several publications done in collaboration with other researchers (and my adviser).

Who should be listed as authors for the purpose of the workshop submission? Just myself, because I am the sole author of the dissertation, and would be the sole author of the newly written extended abstract. In which case, I knowledge my collaborators. Or do I list all the collaborators as authors of the extended abstract?


texts: What university affiliation should a retired member of staff use?

texts: University retired researchers often get privileges to use Libraries etc. When a retired member uses the university library for research are they obliged to mention the university affiliation in subsequent publications?


texts: If I receive an "honorary doctorate" from a reputable university, would it be wrong to refer to myself as "doctor"?

texts:
If I receive an honorary doctorate, would it be appropriate for me to refer to myself as though I had received a standard doctorate?

For example: Dr. Horse Hair, Horse Hair, PhD, etc?  Would I select "PhD" from the pull-down menu when submitting pubs?


texts: In the US as a grad student, is it normal to ask a professor for "extra" grant money for doing more research?

texts:
I'm currently a grad student in STEM in the US. I'm currently receiving a very modest stipend for acting as a TA, as well as getting credit for some research this semester. I'm also interested in doing some research not directly related to my degree for a professor in my department who has been publishing papers on another, tangentially-related subject.

Would it be normal/acceptable for me to ask for extra pay in return for working on my advisor's pet project, if he would benefit from the work of a research assistant? He's not asking me to anything I'm not getting credit for, I just had the idea that I might ask.

My current stipend isn't making ends meet, and, if I can't get a raise, I'm going to take a part-time job doing menial labor to avoid relying on loans. I don't mind the labor at all but spending the time working on research would be better for my career.


texts: How should I respond when an audience points out an issue in my research in my talk?

texts:
I am a PhD student, and just gave a talk about a model that my advisor and I have been working on in a small conference. During my talk, a professor pointed out that our model will have an serious issue in his field, which my advisor and I are not familiar with, so the model might not work. I wasn't sure how to respond to him at that moment. Fortunately, the issue only associates with part of my talk. And, my advisor was there, too. He responded to him that this part of the work is still in progress so I wasn't too embarrassed.

Therefore, I would like to ask, in general,

How should I respond when an audience points out that there might be an issue in my work during my talk?
How often does this happen in an actual talk?
How serious is this?


texts: Should I report my GPA on applications for an MA if it is not required?

texts:
I am applying to a Master's program using an online application where I must report my prior university education. The field to report my undergraduate GPA is not required and would anyways be verified by using my transcripts before admission. It would, however, be more convenient for the application committee to get a feel for my undergraduate record if I were to report it voluntarily since they would not have to immediately match my application with my transcript. It should be noted that other materials (like a statement of purpose) are separate documents.

How will reporting or not reporting affect my chances of admission? Are they more likely to reject an application where they can immediately see a lower GPA, or one where they are unsure of what it is at first? I feel that my GPA may be a potential weakness in my application and would prefer not to have it advertised.


texts: Believe in yourself or your supervisor for your own PhD thesis when you feel it is ready for submission?

texts: I am a PhD student. However I published more top-ranked journal articles than my supervisors within a 3 year period of time. As I am becoming more and more experienced, I feel uncomfortable whenever I talk to my supervisor for their comments on my PhD thesis. The comments are not penetrating and they do not seem to understand. It is hard for me to take their advice as I do not trust them enough academically. I told them I am not going to win a Nobel prize and I just want to finish my PhD to move on with my life, not a piece that I will be truly proud. Should I express my concerns to my supervisors openly by saying I am not comfortable with their advice, or what should I do with it? They are nice people but academically speaking, not strong enough.


texts: How do CS graduate school admissions weigh an unrelated master?

texts:
I am a Computer Science graduate living at a developing country and I have two options to choose,

Option I:
Pursue CS masters at a reputable, but not leading, national university with a limited alumni, a few of whom in the past has CS Ph.D. admissions from top 40 US graduate schools.

Option II:
A very prestigious scholarship provides me an opportunity to pursue a one year master's in sociology at a well known UK university. Then I can still continue with Option I. This will have a positive impact on my career at work too.

My final goal is getting a CS Ph.D. from a US university, but option II allures me. Will Option II have a negative effect on my future career from the perspective of an CS admission committee member ? Is it viewed as a total waste of time ?


texts: Applying for three PhD programs at the same school

texts:
I found three phd programs in one school. The programs and areas of research are close to each other and also close to my interests and I am interested in studying  in any of the programs. I contacted some faculty members and they encouraged me to apply.These programs have shared faculty members. In addition, applying for more than one program does not have additional fees.

I applied for programs a and b. I am wondering to apply for c phd program or not. Does applying for three programs have a negative effect on my admission chances? Applying for three programs means writing three SOPs to be read by a small group of professors.


texts: How do I cite one technical report from a project collection?

texts:
My group are working individually on different aspects of the same research project. We will releasing our individual papers as technical reports.

It seems to be a common courtesy when publishing a paper to include your own citation. How do you cite a technical report so that it is clear that it is part of a collection (a single project)?

I was thinking of filling in the project name in the "journal" field so it would end up something like:

Surname, N. (2015) "My Paper" in Our Project, Article 4

But that seems to be abusing the semantics of the journal field. Is there a standard way to do this?


texts: How to prevent physical/psychological health side effects of workaholism in academia and research?

texts:
As a research student, I spend most of my time working on my research career, even when I am at home, I am awake until 3 or 4 A.M just doing my research-chores.

As a matter of fact, long-term having not enough sleep, putting myself under huge amount of stress and hard work and more important, not getting enough exercise will directly put the person's health in to danger.

Q: How should a researcher balance their life to both maintain their health and do their academic job?

I am wondering whether professionals and scientists really hardly worked this much and how their healthy and balanced academic/work life-style is.


texts: Scholarship case - Accepting more than one university offer

texts:
I have applied for the said foundation as well as the Chevening Scholarship to pursue my Master's degree (Postgraduate).
Recently, I received two universities offers.
At the beginning and as a Syrian student, I did not know that accepting an offer may affect accepting other offers. So I accepted a university with an average ranking.
Now that I have received an offer from a better university, can I accept other universities' offers? Knowing that I need to accept at least two universities offers, because the universities that I applied for in the first scholarship differ from the other one. And each university is giving me 4 weeks to accept the offer, if I did not accept the offer I will not be able to provide my offers to the scholarship committee after 4 month if they picked me. Many thanks. I would really appreciate a prompt answer for this dilemma.


texts: Will my cancer ruin my chances of going to graduate school in math?

texts:
I commenced my bachelor of math 8 years ago and at the same time I was diagnosed to have cancer. Because of the treatment process and the emotional state that I was in, I only completed 3 subjects in the first year, 1 subject in the second year, no subjects in the third year and only 1 subject in the fourth year. By this time, I was feeling well, and I enrolled full time in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th year and I just graduated recently with a 4.0 GPA (out of 4.0 GPA). My academic transcript does not show my withdrawn subjects and it only shows my completed subjects.

So my first question is that should I tell in my application about this history? will it have any negative impact on my application? I am afraid that if I tell the admission committee that I suffered from cancer, they will reject me because they may think that if it comes back during my graduate studies, then the same thing could happen. Will it look really bad that I only completed very few subjects in the first four years?

How important is it for graduate admission committee that how long it took you to complete your undergraduate degree?


texts: How can I make an informed decision on whether to do a PhD in engineering or not?

texts:
About me:

About to start final year ChemE

Top of class/grades

Have completed 6 month co-ops in pharma and biopharma

Liked the work but think that I would much prefer development or research type work

I need to make a decision over the next month to either:
Take a graduate program/job in pharma or biopharma
Do a PhD (I have been talking to my professor who has agreed to take me on or else give me a reference for another college)

Take the graduate program and do a PhD simultaneously (difficult option but I know people who have done this)

I am really attracted to the idea of doing a PhD in a biopharma/biotech related space. I do not know if I am interested in academia afterwards or if I would prefer to work in industry. That said, I do not know much about the roles available to PhDs in industry.

I have heard that a PhD can give you more 'work freedom' and also a higher chance of working in cutting edge areas. Also the idea of working in a startup or starting my own company at some point is something I am interested in.

My problem is that I do not have the tools to decide what is the right decision for me. I would apprecaite any input or experience anyone has with this, or alternatively any advice on how I can make the right decision.

Thanks in advance. If I am missing key information here, apologies. I will add it in if it comes up in a comment.


texts: Can I include images licensed CC BY-NC 4.0 in a conference paper?

texts:
I'm writing an academic paper, which hopefully will be accepted and published in the conference proceeding.

In order to explain my idea, I'm also drawing a figure including a free image licensed by Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
The license states that I cannot use the material for commercial purpose.

I know that publishing activity performed by academic people for academic publishing is usually considered as non-commercial activity even though they receives salary from their university.

However, I have noticed that the conference committee will publish a set of papers including mine as the proceedings with price. Therefore, it might be considered as commercial activity. Also I'm worry that I will have to sign a contract to the publisher about the copyright transfer.

So, as a conclusion, is it OK for me to include images with CC BY-NC 4.0 license in my paper?


texts: Can anyone compare US and Singaporean higher education systems?

texts:
On the surface, Singaporean university system looks exactly like US system.

Can anyone compare US and Singaporean higher education systems from their own experiences?

E.g.

Quality of lectures
Stress
Cooperation/friendliness of professors/supervisors/TAs
Campus culture
Etiquette
Creativity vs rote learning
etc.

I am interested in Computer Science.


texts: How to write better teaching evaluations?

texts:
As an undergraduate student in the United States, it's evaluation season. While I understand that evaluations are supposed to help the course staff improve for future semesters; poorly worded questions can sometimes get in the way of understanding what they are looking for. I'm looking to get a better idea of what sorts of feedback are the most useful.

What are some things you look for in a good evaluation?


texts: What questions should I ask when I visit labs for potential post-doc employment?

texts:
I am approaching the end of the tunnel and starting to look for my options beyond the PhD. The few contacts I have initiated have been positive so far and I will be visiting some labs in the coming months.

I am wondering which questions would be good ask during these visits. What insights would be valuable to acquire after these visits?

Regarding the talk with the group/lab leader, I am thinking of keeping the conversation/discussion around research interests for both parties, as well as his/her expectations from me and my responsibilities, if I start a post-doc there.

With respect to the group members, I intend on inquiring about the social environment, work ethics/common practices, different competencies that are in the group. Edit: a good advice I recently got from an ex-colleague who's doing post-doc in the US now, was to investigate whether or not there is a tradition of inter-group competition, i.e. will there be another post-doc working on the same project?

Any comments/suggestions based on personal experience?


texts: Ethics of staying in PhD program with no intention of being an academic, and misleading my advisor about this

texts:
My field is extremely competitive for tenure track jobs that I:

will most likely be unable to land after graduation
don't even really desire anymore.

In comparison to my classmates, my research productivity is absolutely pitiful. It is stymied by an apathy for my subfield and academia in general that has developed over my 2 year tenure in the program.

Problem is, I can't get the industry jobs I want right now due to underdeveloped programming skills and inadequate networking. My best bet is to stick around and beef these up until I see an opportunity to leave.

If I drop out now with my master's, I will have to start out at square one and get entry level work that uses none of the skills I have developed (we're talking competition w/ HS grads).

However, I have already told my advisor about my doubts for a future in academia. They approved an academic leave request due to some issues in my personal life. At the end of my leave period, I have to tell my advisor that I wish to complete the program and stay in academia.

On one hand, my situation is not so different from any other PhD student forced to go alt-ac due to disinterest or poor performance, but on the other hand, I will have to mislead my advisor to return.

I only want to continue at this point for job prospects, and my advisor won't be inclined to take me back if I tell them this.

I am willing to pick up the pace with my research and get the PhD, so it won't be a complete waste for my advisor, but it will still be largely a waste of their resources.

A similar question by another PhD student can be found here - When is the right time to tell my advisor that I plan on leaving my PhD program?


texts: Emailing professor for help with (non class related) project

texts:
I am involved in an extracurricular university-affiliated activity for which I want to do an analysis involving computational fluid dynamics (CFD). There is a professor at my university who has much experience in this area and I would like to reach out to them to ask for suggestions on learning more about using CFD, and hopefully discuss it with them to get feedback on this particular project. I would also like to get involved in this professor’s research, however, this project would be a priority for me, so I would like to express that I would like help on this particular project as well as my interest in research.

I know the basic pointers for reaching out to a professor about research, but how can I express both of my requests at once? Would it be more effective to only request some guidance on the project? Would it come across rude asking for guidance as well as ask to get involved in their research?


texts: Skills gap for high-school to university transitions

texts:
I can find a bunch of articles about the skills gap between university graduates and job requirements, but it seems that there are limited resources on the skills gaps that high school students have coming into university.  Does anyone have any good references that might illuminate any skills gaps?  I'd prefer a world-wide perspective, but that might be asking for the moon.  I'm in Canada, and specifically Ontario, working in STEM.

To be fair, I can definitely pin-point some things I've personally observed, but I'm looking more for data and studies that are more in-depth than my personal anecdotes will allow.


texts: How does one balance between working on a research problem and writing up the results?

texts:
I currently have two months before I have to submit my master's thesis (its a one-year program in the UK) and just finished data collection. Analysing the data is a time consuming process and I'm starting to worry that I don't have too much time to write my dissertation. Will it be better to prioritize the analysis (and actually get some reportable results) or to get cracking on the writing once and for all (since our final grade would ultimately be based on that)? I feel like an even split between the two would be best but its hard trying to find the right balance. Both require very different mindsets. When writing I need to be in a quiet place where I can slowly churn out words and read (or skim) papers I come across. Analysing data happens in a noisy lab where distractions are everywhere but ultimately work gets done at the end of the day.

At this stage, should I just focus on getting the analysis done with (which could take weeks since its highly exploratory in nature) or should I try to somehow come up with a strategy to accomplish both?


texts:
I hold three offers from top-tier universities in the UK for a PhD in the humanities, with three great supervisors. However, one of the three has already let me know that the department has not nominated me for internal funding, which makes me quite pessimistic for the other two as well.

So, should I fail to get any funding from any of the three (and facing therefore the haunting perspective of a self-funded PhD), would it be a good idea to take a year off, work on my CV and skills, and then reapply to the same three uni's next year?

In no way would it be a 'wasted' year, since I will likely publish 2-3 papers (already working on two), I'll finish my Master's (I have yet to graduate), improve two foreign languages other than English, better refine my writing samples and researhc proposal and so on - so that I hope my profile will get more competitive for funding next year.

What I wonder is if this is frowned upon. I mean, if the admissions committee knew that I was admitted and then declined my unfunded offer, would this go against my chances of readmission (and funding)? Would the greater academic strength of my improved profile offset this possible act of academic 'unkindness'?

And how usual is it to turn down an unfunded offer hoping for funding in the following admission cycle?

(possible duplicate, as there are some similar questions, but the core of mine is the funding issue and how frowned upon is it to decline and reapply because of this)

P.S.: I am an EU national, so also consider Brexit and its possible consequences on funding awarding to non-UK applicants.


texts: USA - Undergraduate Final Transcripts and PhD Programs

texts:
I am curious about how final transcripts play a role in a graduate program that has already accepted you. For example, if a student with a 3.02 cumulative GPA was accepted into a Physics Ph.D. program that requires a 3.0 cumulative GPA, but does poorly during their last semester of undergraduate classes so their cumulative GPA falls to a 2.98 while still passing all their classes.  Would this student be subject to rejection from the Ph.D. program if they were already accepted into?

I am not in this situation, I am just curious what the implications are for doing poorly on your last semester of an undergraduate degree after having already been accepted into a Ph.D./Masters program.

Thank you!


texts: Is it okay to be undecided in b/w industry or research in one's SOP for grad school?

texts:
I am a little unsure about whether I will end up doing research or being in the industry, after my masters. A good part of me wants to be in academia and I really liked the little research projects I took up during my undergrad.
Is it okay to be unsure and say that I want to explore a little more before I settle with the right choice in the SOP?


texts: Is it common for a university to buy a plane ticket directly?

texts: I was just accepted to a PhD program and they wanted to fly me out for an open house. They said they would reimburse travel costs up to $500. However the issue is I have less than $500 in my bank account and certainly not enough to buy a plane ticket. I emailed asking if they could buy the ticket directly. Is this common? Can universities do this?


texts: Role of positions' geographical diversity in (US) academic career perspectives

texts:
I'm curious about the impact of geographical diversity of positions (postdoctoral or junior faculty) on career prospects in academia.  In my current job search I see a small number of positions at universities outside the US that potentially fit my research interests and experience.  I am wondering whether pursuing these positions would be beneficial to my current long-term goal of returning to an academic position in the US.

What effect does international academic experience have on academic career prospects in the US?


texts: Recommended depth of mathematics for PhD in machine learning

texts: I am planning to do my PhD in machine learning. From my personal experience, I found that mathematics is a primary way to make a good research, but I'm doubting about the depth of mathematics required. Most of the impressive inventions in most of the computer science domains comes from mathematics only. But if I spend most of my time in learning mathematics, then I may end up with wasting my time. So, how much depth of mathematics is recommended to carry my PhD? Shall I study only books on machine learning or core mathematics also?


texts: Dealing with emails that could be interpreted as being endorsed by you

texts:
Student A had an examination the other day for a course that he liked very much and by a professor that he admires. There were only 4 students in the course.

After the examination he opened his email and saw that another student B sent an email to the professor including:

  "It was a difficult examination.  I hope you will consider this as
  our excuse for leniency. We all did the examination entirely on our own.
  We hope you have nice afternoon and the next month brings you a pleasant surprise just like we expect a pleasant surprise from
  you due soon!"

(the bold letters were not bold in the email, I just highlighted them for focusing)

Clarification: The email of Student B to the Professor was CCed to all the other Students, including Student A.

There was not any prior communication between students A & B about letting student B talk on behalf of student A.

Given that the examination participants were just a handful, Student A feels deprived of his right of self-expression, not to mention that having somebody telling to the professor that he wrote the examination on his own can be considered from ridiculous to seriously insulting.

What do you think is the right way for student A with respect to his typical relationship with the professor? Is just "letting it go" the best option? Is any kind of "corrective email to the professor denying the representative mentality of Student B", even in the mildest way overreacting and drawing attention when it is not needed?


texts: How long does it take to publish in IEEE transaction

texts:
I'm preparing a paper about Web UI Automation Testing, and would like to publish it in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

In this journal description they said:

  The IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE) is an archival
  journal published bimonthly. We are interested in well-defined
  theoretical results and empirical studies that have potential impact
  on the construction, analysis, or management of software.

I searched their website, but can't find a clear estimation, how long does it take to publish in it, but I have heard from one of my colleague, it may take about 9 months.

I need my paper to be published within 2 months, what should I do?


texts: Do hiring committees actually give preference to underrepresented groups?

texts:
For reference, I am a woman of color in mathematics and I am applying for academic jobs.

I noticed that many of these applications say something like "Women (and other underrepresented groups) are encouraged to apply," or "We especially welcome applications from minority groups, women, persons with disabilities,..."

Yet there is also a non-discrimination clause saying " All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, etc. ..."

Is preference actually given to these underrepresented groups? What impact does knowledge of the underrepresented group the applicant is a part of have in the reviewing process?


texts: How important are the grades compared to the cover letter when applying for a Ph.D?

texts:
Some months ago I finished my MSc. I immediately started to send several applications for Ph.D vacancies.
So far I've spent a lot of time in doing this, but there is only one place that did not reject me. This place was actually the least interesting for me in terms of the job, therefore I was not keen from it at all.
I believe almost no one applied for the place I was not rejected by...
As for all other applications, I'm seriously thinking the problem is my final MSc mark.
To tell the truth with my mark I can access to most of the Ph.D programs (it's a UK "merit").
However if I know there are almost no chances for me to do what I would like to do then I resort to something else and avoid waisting my time in writing cover letters that no one bothers.


texts: Should we reply to the editor after a paper has been rejected and we don't plan to revise/resubmit?

texts: After receiving a rejection (not revise and resubmit) decision from the editor/associate editor of a journal, should we write an email to thank him/her for the time, or just do nothing? I imagine one might do that out of courtesy, but then I don't really have much to say otherwise.


texts: Proper way to declare; "examples are ficticious for data protection"

texts:
I am currently engaged in some volunteer data work with a charity, I would like to create a write up of the work that can be shared with a few partners who do not have full access to the data.

The write up will be mostly statistical overview, which is not sensitive. The statistics are drawn from data-sets which are GDPR protected. In order to illustrate the data pipeline a few examples would be useful, so I will create a small fictional data-set with the same form as the real data.

To avoid any confusion, I need to declare that the examples are fiction (illustrative only) but the statistics are real. Is there a standard way to go about this?

It will look like;

  The result of the data pipeline will be to tranform mixed type data
  into a float vector the input is .... Output fields are .... For
  example;

  "Joe
  Bloggs|Carmarthen|06:00|Negative|1995|May|Finance|271946"

  will become

  "267.3|82.|168.|-35.|.0777|1648".

Note the example is not an anonymized record drawn from my data, it is pure fiction.


texts: What changes after peer review but prior to final submission are acceptable for a conference paper?

texts:
Suppose I write a paper and submit it to a conference. The paper gets some weak rejects and weak accepts and lots of criticism, but the conference is not that prestigious, so they accept it anyway.

Obviously, if I agree with the reviews, I will want to change the paper (which is in part what the reviews are for). But how far can I go with these changes? If the paper is computer science, for instance, I may easily run additional experiments, or slightly change the setup and re-run the existing experiments. If I submit the paper with these results, I will basically be publishing experiments that have not, in their current form, been peer-reviewed.

At what point do changes to a submitted paper post peer review become unacceptable?


texts: How difficult and common is it to switch labs after starting a PhD?

texts:
I am having troubles deciding between pursuing a PhD in lab that is more bioinformatics flavored or a lab that is more computationally flavored.

What are the risks associated with switch labs after starting a PhD? How difficult? How common?

Currently I have an advisor willing to take me into his computationally flavored lab, but their primary sub-domain is not one to which I am familiar. I would like some assurances that switching labs would be an option 6-18 months into my PhD.
The alternative is to continue taking classes as a non-degree seeking student until I decide on what lab I like. I have no intention on switching universities.
Note, with either lab I can keep the same major. In other words, the difficulty of switching domains is not what I am asking here.
This is located in the USA.
I have read other questions such as:
Hiring a PhD student who left another PhD position
Switch PhD program: how to contact possible PhD advisors when already enrolled in PhD program?


texts: Can I change my recommendation letter provider?

texts:
I wrote a few weeks ago about a conundrum I had with a professor regarding my recommendation letter for graduate studies in UIUC. I'm very grateful for everyone's responses, but I still have not received an LOR from this professor. My advisor has asked me to speak to him again (my advisor has spoken on my behalf as well), but I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth it.

Things may not just be uncomfortable with this professor due to our previous interaction, but he also seems to be caught in some private matters, and has had to travel on short notice to his hometown. On top of that, UIUC is a competitive school, so should I just change my recommendation provider? Is it advisable to do so? The professor I have in mind is fantastic, and I've enjoyed her courses and stayed in touch with her, but her field is non-technical. I already have recommendations from great professors in my field, though, and wouldn't it reflect well on my application to be recommended by a professor outside my field as well?

Any advice is welcome. I'm not sure if I'm overthinking this, but I've never heard of anyone changing their recommendation provider AFTER the application has been submitted.


texts: Can someone with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a Masters of Business Administration teach undergraduate courses in Political Science?

texts: I've read that it's quite common among students to take a graduate program which is different from the bachelor's degree. I was wondering if it is possible for someone with a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Master of Business Administration to teach Political Science subjects.


texts:
A funding organism is offering to pay for the travel and stay of young researchers to an international conference, when said conference is indexed (Scopus, WoS, ...). They insist on the fact that it’s the conference that should be indexed, not the proceeding or subsequent publications.

I never heard of a conference being indexed, and would like to know if this even exists.

I insist on the fact that the indexing in question concerns the conference, not the proceedings or abstracts.


texts: Posting previously published content on Arxiv

texts:
I have some previously published work in the computer vision domain, and would like to upload them to arXiv to provide greater accessibility.

How can I go about finding which licence statement to select for the particular conferences my work was published in (CVPR & ECCV)?


texts:
Suppose I found out an algorithm/theorem, which is easy to understand and may be easy for the experts in the field to get it (with either same or different language). But after literature survey, If I strongly came to know that it is not yet published anywhere. Can I send my paper to the reputed journal for reviewing?

In concise, my doubt is whether the novelty of a research paper refers to the novelty with respect to the existing literature or has to be completely new in that field such that hard to reach it.


texts: Are UK faculty salaries in computer science low compared to salaries in United States?

texts:
I'm looking at faculty ads for computer science in the UK and noticed that the average salary range seems to be significantly lower compared to the US. Typically, a starting Lecturer ( = Assistent Professor) can expect an annual salary in the range of only 35k - 42k GPD which is in the range of 55k - 66k USD.

On the other hand, if I look at the academic job market in the US, then this would be considered an average PostDoc salary at best, whereas the lower limit for computer science assistant professors seems to be around 80k. Considering that faculty gets this amount for 9 months in the US rather than 12 as in the UK and taking into account the higher income tax rates of the UK, this gap becomes significantly big.

Does the UK system include certain perks that the US system does not have that I'm missing here?

Are there other ways that UK faculty can make up for this quite significant gap?


texts:
Normally a professor is paid for eight to nine months each academic year for teaching several courses in the period. However, if a professor gets a research grant, he can support himself by the grant in the summer months, or teach fewer courses.

I'd like to know how it works exactly. Let's say, if a professor only teaches half of the normal load of courses, then he will receive half of his normal salary from the department and the rest is covered by the grant, right? If the grant is large enough, can he choose not to teach any course without loss of pay?


texts: How do I get an email alert when my paper is cited?

texts: I recently published a paper in a journal which does not offer a notification system to send email alerts when a paper is cited. The journal is a well known and has a high-impact factor in my field. Are there free services which can automatically send me an email alert when my paper is cited in another publication?


texts: Is a PhD from a developing country worth paying for?

texts:
In my country, Egypt, some well-known institutes offer PhD degrees. I want to apply for a PhD program in biostatistics for which I will certainly pay a lot of money.

How much would such a program increase my chances of joining academia in the USA or Europe?

EDIT: The OP didn't specify, and possibly doesn't know, whether the university in question is a diploma mill. To keep the question open, please assume that it is not; i.e., assume that the university is legit. If anyone is interested in whether it's worth obtaining a non-legit degree I recommend starting a new question. If the OP wishes to clarify later on he should simply remove this note.


texts: How does a professor lose their tenure over a sex scandal which he was not involved in?

texts:
The Michigan State University (MSU) has moved to fire the medical school dean for the actions of the child molester / doctor, Larry Nassar.  Why does that happen in academia?  I'm interested in knowing why the professors around a convicted child molester also have to lose their tenure and jobs.  Is this a typical procedure of American universities?

For comparison, a person working in industry who is guilty of sexual crimes usually seems to be solely responsible and only they are held accountable - not their entire department of managers.


texts: Invited talk had to be withdraw for visa reason, can it be on CV?

texts:
I had been invited to give a talk at a summer school abroad, but had to cancel due to a complex visa issue that could not be foreseen at the time I accepted to give the talk: it turns out that I'll be transitioning between two visas because of a job change, and will be unable to leave the country at that time. I had already spend time preparing and had bought airplane and train tickets. I've explored possible solutions to be able to attend in person, none of which panned out; I've offered the summer school to give the talk remotely, but this wasn't an option; I have since been working with the summer school to find a replacement and have offered to help them if needed. At this point I've invested a fair amount of effort, energy, and money into this invited talk that is not even going to happen. As a not particularly fancy postdoc, I only get very few invited talks. I was also looking forward to this particular summer school (which doesn't help with me having trouble letting go of this CV entry).

Is it OK to list this talk on my CV under the invited talk section, with some unambiguous qualifier e.g. "withdrawn for visa reasons", or perhaps something similar? Or would it do more harm than good?

Related question: Invited to give a talk but could not attend, can it be on CV? --> it seems the answer might depend on the specific reason for not being able to attend


texts: How to find the acceptance rate for a certain conferrence in a certain field?

texts:
I am trying to find the acceptance rate for the 10th WSEAS International Conference on computers. After doing some search on Google and on their website http://www.wseas.org/ I was not able to get a number. It says on their website that their acceptance rate is aprx 20%, but this could be for the most recent conference, and it could be for something other than computers?

I tried to find the proceedings online, but I was not 100% sure if I am looking at the right proceedings.

http://www.worldses.org/online/2011.htm


texts: Research Interest in physics (Transferring would be good idea?)

texts:
I'm a first year PhD student at a university in the USA. Still I haven't finished my first semester. After I come here, I feel right now, I like  a different  research field (based on job application and doing empirical research). The problem is that, there is only two professors who do that type of research work in my department. One of the professor doesn't have a good reputation doing research work and another one's  review is not good (I heard his from previous students. He is very rude sometimes, this scared me a lot). He is very furious if his students can't satisfy his expectations. Therefore I don't have wish to work under his supervision.

I have two options right now, 1. changing research field and 2. finding another university related to my research interest.

Please note that I have not taken the first qualifying exam and even my first semester core courses haven't finished yet. The university gives the MS certificate if anyone satisfies the requirement of MS.

I have received suggestion from one of the PhD student which is: I should take the physics GRE to increase my score and apply this upcoming fall. If I get admission, I can inform the International office that I will leave.

This suggestion didn't seem good to me because my department may take this in negative way, as I will require a recommendation letter.

What's your suggestions in this case? Should I wait more and talk to the professors after my qualifying exam regarding my research interest.


texts: Does showcasing pet projects on my personal blog compensate for not having references?

texts: If you have been working on projects independently and not under a professor, does compiling your work on a personal website/blog also serve as a good reference for an admission committee looking to select a graduate student for a Master of Science program? Or should a professor always vouch for the work you do? Thank you.


texts: How I can respond to this major revision?

texts:
Recently I have received major revision on manuscript submitted to springer journal. In the manuscript I have devise a methodology by which very decent results are derived and I called these results by name "X" in manuscript. The reviewers comments are as follow:

First reviewer: This reviewer praised my work but told me that my results should not be named as "X" because from properties of results I should better name the results as "Y" and he further suggested to correct some typos. Overall this reviewer is willing to accept my work.
Second reviewer: This reviewer asked me  that if  my results are of type "X", then I should prove certain properties that are required to call results as "X".  He further states that, if my results are not of type "X",  then the title, abstract, introduction of manuscript need to be reviewed.

Now actually my result are really not of type "X", they are of type "Y" as suspected by second reviewer and I mistakenly called them as "X". This name "X" is used in title, abstract and introduction. I guess changing name from "X" to "Y" would not effect the quality of my work.
But, if I do change the name of results from "X" to "Y" would the second reviewer likely to suspect the quality of my work or is it possible that he would reject my work ??
PS. Except naming, there is no other problem in my work.


texts: Is it a problem if I forget to add IEEE copyright clearance code?

texts: My paper has been accepted at an IEEE conference. The author instructions state clearly that I should add the "copyright clearance code" myself. I forgot to do so in the final version of the manuscript that should be going into print. Will this be a problem or even grounds for rejection?


texts: How does shifting of jobs affect designation and tenure in academia?

texts:
I would like to know how job transfer of faculty members affects their designation. Will they retain their designation (Prof/Assoc/Asst.) in the new institution?

Similarly if a faculty member faces an unavoidable need to shift job after getting his tenure, will his new department recruit him with tenure? Or should a few years pass in the new place before he is evaluated again?


texts:
I am a third year PhD student in a US business school. A this moment I have a couple publications in a totally unrelated field which are not important for my career. Regarding my PhD research, I just submitted my first paper in my field to a journal (we haven't received a response yet). This submission was done using my complete legal name. I have also done a conference presentation using my whole legal name and I have been accepted for at least 1 more in the next few months.

I happen to have a 4-word last name (two Spanish last names, one of which is compound) and I was thinking of shortening it (as I have found it is difficult to pronounce and confusing for most people in my field and there is always some issue locating my badge, etc.). My idea was to contract my first surname (the compound) into an initial, like a middle name, so I would be "Name S. Lastname". I am not thinking about changing my legal name, only using this contraction in my publications, conferences, etc.

Is it too late if I have already presented in conferences and have one submission (not publication)? Is there any social perception that name change is bad? Is there a way of making this name change effective in this first paper submission (i.e., when it comes back for revision, submit it back with my new name), or once submitted it is too late? Will it be a problem to use a name as a researcher that is not my whole legal name? Will it have an impact in the job market?

Thank you.


texts: How much can a one really bad semester destroy my chances for MS in the top US/Canada Schools?

texts: Due to some really harsh personal conditions, I had a GPA of 2.1 in my 6th Semester, now overall my CGPA is 3.3. I have a pretty good research experience. 2 Decent LORs, one from a highly esteemed professor, 330 in GRE, an international publication, couple national, an international intern. That semester had some major courses relating to what I am applying in MS(got C's in them). Should I mention why I failed to perform in that particular semester in my SOP? If then how much emphasis should I put on it?


texts: Applying for a post-graduate degree with an Italian three-year bachelor's degree

texts:
I will get an information science under graduate degree this July in an Italian university. I want to apply for a computer science degree at an American university. Here in Italy the high school lasts five years instead of four, and the undergraduate degree (laurea triennale) lasts three years instead of four.

So my concerns are:

Is there a way to get a list of all American universities that accept an Italian laurea triennale as an undergraduate degreee?
Since I will graduate in July and in most universities the next semester begins in September, I think that I should start applying from now. So the question is: do they allow students to apply even before they got the graduate degree and TOEFL?


texts: Should I submit a revised version of my paper before hearing back about the first version?

texts:
I submitted a paper to a decent mathematical journal more than six months ago. Later, after communicating with several people, I have come to find the notation that I used in the paper very confusing, and thus fear that people may have serious difficulty in understanding my work.

I have since revised my paper by eliminating some notations and adding more examples and explanations. I think the revised version is much better than the previous one, even though there are no changes affecting the results of the paper, and I haven't found anything wrong in the proof.

I am worried that the referees will be annoyed by the notation that I previously used, and thus lose interest in my paper. So, I am considering submitting the revised paper to the editor to help the referees better understand my work. But some people say the referees would be unhappy to see the revision if they do not ask me to submit one.

Two weeks ago, I got a reply from the editor saying the paper is still under review, but he did not say when the review would finish, saying something like "it is difficult to put excessive pressure on the reviewers." So, I guess the review may still require some time to finish.

Should I submit the revision or not?


texts: How can I reference an insight taught in Cousera's Lecture?

texts:
I took a specialization course at Coursera in which I have learned a lot of insights that would be essentially useful while writing my master's degree dissertation. How can I refer to them?
I've already found a paper that does this for another lecture at Coursera but I'm not sure if that is right:

Tieleman, T. and Hinton, G. Lecture 6.5 - RMSProp, COURSERA: Neural Networks for Machine Learning.
Technical report, 2012.

Could I use this same "model"?


texts: Is it worth doing a self funded MPhil in Mechanical Engineering, from UK?

texts:
I have an MTech in Mechanical Engineering from one of the good schools in India. I have been working in industry for the last 6 years in Finite Element Analysis. I have an offer for MPhil from the University of Newcastle, UK. However, this is totally self-funded. I would like to do a PhD, however funding options seem to be really limited.

Is self-funding a worthwhile route to consider? How valuable is an MPhil in industry?


texts: Data collection methods without fieldwork

texts:
I am a graduate student in education who recently had a child. I have devised a few plans/topics that would work for my thesis but I keep revisiting them because they require a lot of data collection in the field, something I am not sure I will be able to achieve with a young baby at home and no babysitter/daycare for now.

So here I am, trying to come up with various data collection methods that could work without having to be in the field:

Giving directions to a research assistant and paying them to do it
for me
Interviews through Skype
Surveys
Self-reports
Document analysis

What would be other viable options that I haven’t listed?


texts: Would a B grade PhD-level course in part time help or hurt graduate application?

texts:
After graduating from college, the student (in part-time) took a PhD level course while working. It was a very difficult hardcore course and the student got a B.

Would this grade help or hurt the student's application to for example a top 5 graduate school?

If it does hurt and the student is not required to report the grade to the schools that s/he is applying to, can s/he choose not to report the course?

Probably many of you might think that this practice is unethical; however, I do not see an ethical problem, as the school only requires the applicant to put on schools that they've attended for at least a year.

So let's put the ethical issue away. Would hiding that course from a resume help?


texts: Changing p-value adjustment method during major revising

texts:
I want to ask whether changing p-values adjustment method after I receive major revision is acceptable. I have performed some statistical test for like thousands of elements in the manuscript, and initially I used benjamini-hochberg adjustment and wrote the manuscript.
However, upon revising, I realized that there are many spurious results that very subtle change are considered significant. If I changed it to bonferroni correction, the result seems 'reasonable' i.e. spurious results are not considered significant.
Is the change like this accepted for major revision? In my opinion it is acceptable as we are changing to more stringent criteria (not bonferroni to BH) and the conclusion of manuscript does not change, however, I want to hear your opinion that how you feel if you are in this kind of situation as a reviewer.

Thanks in advance


texts: Does timing of PhD application submission matter?

texts:
Is there any benefit of applying in October as opposed to late December right up against the deadline? Do committees just meet after the deadline once all reviews are in? This is what I thought, but I have heard from a few professors that they sometimes look at applications as they roll in, and so it may be advantageous to apply early because they could remember yours.

Edit: One thing that I would have to weigh applying early against is the fact that I work at a research org, so waiting an extra 8 weeks or so could allow a new publication to come out and add that to my CV, or I could get on a new project in that period which would be relevant and look good to the programs I'm applying to.


texts: What does "the authors must present insightful implications based on their experimental outcomes" mean?

texts:
I am advised to revise my paper about a novel clustering algorithm. From the responses of reviewers, I have this question:

  "the authors must present insightful implications based on their experimental outcomes."

I haven't understood what the reviewer means? Does he ask about a real case study, because I applied my algorithm only to benchmark of the UCI Machine Learning Repository? Available: http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets.html.


texts: Is there a chance to get in math phd for a physics student?

texts:
Let me introduce my background first. I am now a mathematical physics master student in Germany. I obtained my Bachelor in physics in Asia, used to be a M.Phil student in my undergraduate's university, but then I decide to quit, switching to Germany.
I don't take many math course except calculus,linear algebra and topology. Rather I self-study mathematics, including abstract algebra,analysis,geometry,etc. So I am not sure my mathematics background is good enough or not. But at least I got 1.0 in both geometry in manifolds and group and representation. So I am optimistic about my background.
In next semester, I will choose as many math course as I can, but not all of them are basic course. So I do not have a formal background of a math undergraduate student as. Also I don't know if my master degree can be count as a master in mathematics.
Question: Based on my situation, do I have a chance(or how many chance) to get admitted in U.S or Canada school for a pure math Phd? I know that unlike Europe, it seems they required a background of mathematics. So I am afraid it may hurt my chance to get admitted.


texts: In US universities, how much academic information does a professor have about graduate students enrolled in his classes?

texts: Does he know immediately (from some internet / intranet access) which students in his classes are undergraduates, masters students, PhD students, non-degree students?  Does he typically have access to his students' transcripts, thesis work (dates submitted / approved / topic), and knowledge of his students' academic / research advisors?


texts: Private Git repositories for students, that don't become public later

texts:
Short version of my question: Is there a good way to provide students with free, private, Github-like git repositories, that won't become public later?

Background: In computer science, it is considered best practice to use Git (a version control repository) for software development.  Many universities want to encourage students to follow those best practices as part of their coursework, so they'd like to encourage students to do the same.  However, they don't want student work to be made public, as this creates a temptation for cheating.

Github in particular is popular, as it provides both Git repositories, an easy-to-use web front-end to Git, and a convenient workflow for collaborating using Git.  Github is free if you make your repository public; normally, you have to pay for a private repository.  Github has a special program for students: as long as you are a student, you can have private repositories for free, if you sign up for their student discount.  However, this only lasts as long as you are a student.  After two years, the student discount expires, and then the private repositories are locked; if the ex-student wants to retain access to their repositories, the ex-student has 30 days to either pay Github a monthly fee to keep it private, or they can tell Github to make it public and pay nothing.

One university I'm familiar with encourages CS students to sign up for a student Github account and put their projects and homeworks in private repositories.  However, empirically, Github's policies seem to encourage a certain number of students to make all their repos public after they graduate and their student status expires -- and then solutions are available on the Internet.  Because good software development projects are so labor-intensive to construct, many courses re-use projects for several years in a row.  Current students have reported finding this by search and are a bit worried that it'd be so easy for other students to cheat.  Therefore, recommending that students use a private Github account seems to create a two-year time bomb that will have unfortunate consequences for courses who plan to use their project for more than two years running.

Is there any good solution to this?  Is there a better alternative than Github that can be recommended to students?

In particular, a better alternative should meet the following requirements: allow students to have Git repositories for software development and collaboration with project partners; is free; is private; will remain private over time, without encouraging/requiring alumni to make their solutions public if they want to retain access to their solutions without paying; doesn't create extra work for instructors to constantly search Github to look for inadvertently-public solutions from past semesters.

I've seen How to deal with student putting their (home)work on github, but the solutions there aren't workable in this context: creating new projects every semester is not a good solution (it's been tried and leads to pedagogically inferior results).


texts: What is the meaning of "Mobility" in applying for postdoc positions

texts: I am going to apply for postdoc position in math. I have been asked for some documents  titled "Previous Mobility" and "Scientific background". I do not know what I can put in Previous Mobility, because I think it is almost the same with scientific background. I appreciate your assistance in this regard.


texts: Is academic collaboration overrated? Should one seek it or avoid it?

texts: In our country, the first author gets most of the credit and the other authors practically fall much behind. While, the first author should really get more point as he does maximum work, I find the others contributions are not as minuscule as indicated by the weightage rule. To be clear it is 70 percent of the first author and rest gets 30 percent divided by the number of other authors of the paper.