texts: Does transferring to a different master's program look bad (from the perspective of the school you're attempting to transfer to)?

texts:
Last spring I was accepted into a fairly selective master's program in the US (I'm American). I had to take a summer "refresher" class for the program, which I recently completed (~ two weeks ago). Halfway through the refresher class, I discovered a master's program at a different school (in the UK) that I am much more interested in. I hadn't considered applying to schools outside of the US, so of course I didn't notice this other program when I was originally applying to grad schools. I want to apply to this other program in the UK before I get too deep into my current program (I'm taking one class for the fall semester in my current program). My question is: does the fact that I am transferring affect my chance of acceptance into the program I am applying to?
I know I can't transfer any credits. That is fine with me. This other school is more prestigious, with much more research in my areas of interest, and would ultimately open more doors for me. I am just worried that attempting to transfer so shortly after committing to a different school will reflect poorly/decrease my chances of acceptance. How is this typically perceived in the academic world? Is there a certain way I should bring this up in my personal statement? I don't want to burn any bridges, but I want to do what's best for me. For what it's worth, one of my letters of recommendation is coming from a big name in the field (and they have close ties to the school I'm interested in).


texts: Past experience seems to be overlooked by future employer in recruitment process: Is that a bad sign?

texts:
I have been involved in the recruitment process for a researcher position in Europe and I have been informed I was accepted.
However, thinking about how the interview went, I noticed that most of it focused on the evaluation of the skills and the responsibilities associated with the future job opportunity. In particular, I was expecting the prospective employer to at least show some interest in my previous work (my recently-completed PhD* for example), beyond the common question of introducing myself. However, no questions have been explictly asked about it, which I found particularly odd, since both topics (PhD and new position) are closely-related.
Is the employer's lack of interactivity/interest in knowing more about a candidate's past experiences normal/common in such interviews or is it a bad sign?

*I don't know if this is relevant, but a PhD wasn't mentioned in the requirements for the position, but I applied anyway.


texts:
I am a postdoc in cell biology and I'm considering to change my career path after having spent the last 1.5 years in a lab that has completely destroyed my passion for the academic life.

Background: I was working abroad for a few years and, due to personal reasons, I asked a PI with which I collaborated in the past the possibility to go back to the homeland. I knew this to be a suboptimal solution but I needed to go back. This PI accepted and, to smooth the transition, I wrote a EU grant proposal, which was funded (yay!) to move back to my homeland.

The new lab is mainly a clinically oriented lab run by MD, but it has contributed to the field with nice basic science discoveries, generally with the help of collaborating lab. My tasks were to basically to setup and run the cell biology section of the lab.

For the first year, I was forced to write grants for the two/three PIs in the lab and I (33 y.o.). We got in total 3 grants (~ 2 M€).

My project theoretically started last autumn, but I was "forced" by the PI to give priority to these new projects rather than to mine. Due to severe issues with our collaborators, I got the cell lines I wanted to work on in my project with 6 months of delay, and other issues did not allow me to physically start my project before 8 months of delay. Now, after 1 year into my project, the experiments have still to start, mainly due to:

the lack of a proper organisation in the lab: there are no lab meetings, there is no supervision on the experiments, the PIs work in a separate premise. There's also a shortage of workforce, as they pretend that 1 person (me) can run the whole cell culture facility AND perform functional experiments AND order reagents AND collect quotations from vendors AND do conference calls AND analyse results AND go to the ethic committee AND write grants.
a proper lab structure: all the 4 postdocs in the lab are treated as technicians and the PIs do not have skills to understand the basic science we do.  The two/three PIs do not understand that these are severe issues and they are constantly asking for results.
a decent mentoring: as I'm the most expert person in the lab concerning cell biology, I'm not receiving any helpful mentoring tips from my PI on my everyday work. Moreover, being the only one to understand a topic implies that the discussions on my topic are generally between me and myself.

Now, after 1.5 years in this lab I would really like to leave that toxic environment but this will mean to stop my EU-funded project (12 over 24 months left) and will clearly burn all the bridges for future academic position in my city and, probably, in the whole country.

I'm considering whether to switch to industry jobs, but this would mean to start again from scratch and acquire new skills. I've notice I've acquired skills and achievements (papers, h-index, citations, etc..) that are now completely useless in the current job market in my country. I'll do what necessary of course, but it will be a bad hit for both the spirit and the career. Start from scratch in another field in mid-30s isn't often a very successful strategy.

Do you have any tips or suggestion to escape from this toxic situation that is now also significantly affecting my health?

Thanks :)


texts: Should I send a follow up mail to my potential PhD supervisor?

texts:
I recently applied for a PhD position in Europe. The deadline for applications was the 30th of September (so almost a week ago) and the starting date for the position is January 2021. I won't graduate until June 2021, but nevertheless, I decided to send my application since I'm really interested in the position. After sending my application (3 weeks ago), I contacted the professor with the question if it's possible to start later, after graduation, and he told me that they need to discuss this and that I could apply.
I would like to send an email to ask if they already decided if it's possible to delay the starting date and to ask when I can expect to hear back from my application (there is little information about the admission procedure on the website). I don't want to be pushy, but I really want to show that I'm really motivated. Should I send an email or should I just wait until I hear back from them? How long should I wait?


texts: Is it safe to commit to the hiring process of an academic research position without an official offer letter?

texts:
After being offered a postdoctoral position by email, I was asked by the university’s administration to submit some documents allowing them to start the hiring process. According to them, this process will take 2 months.
I was wondering if it is wise/safe to wait this long without an official letter at hand. If not, how should I proceed?
Note that I am aware of the position details based on the job description and the discussion with the PI, but I was expecting some official document (signed by the administration/PI).
I have seen this similar question, but I have added a country tag to my question so that I can get specific answers.
Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts on this!


texts: France/USA collaboration funding for young researcher?

texts:
I am a French citizen, I defended my PhD in Paris in November 2014, and I am working as a post-doctoral researcher in the US since December 2014. I am working in between Astrophysics and Computer Science. I have already submitted several NSF proposals to get additional funding in the US (but I am waiting for the answers).

I am currently searching for European of French funding opportunities (1 year, 2 years, or 3 years programs) that would allow me to create my own collaboration plan between France and US. Ideally I would like to be able to travel back and forth both countries. I already have 1 lab in each country that would be interested, and if necessary I can also add one non-academic partner that is interested in my work.

To what programs should I look?

EDIT: The biggest list of potential programs, the better


texts:
In the past, I was only teaching graduate-level courses where I was creating the material myself. It was slides with material from various books, research papers, and my own work. Accompanied by exercises and small projects that I would build from scratch.
This year I have to teach a new undergraduate-level course. The material I need to cover is more standardized and there are at least two very good textbooks that cover the material nicely (pdfs available at the library, incl nice examples, etc.).

Should I still build my own material? It seems like a waste of time since the material is very basic and standard and I could not reach the quality of the textbooks that are at several revisions. On the other hand, I would avoid issues like this: Professor only teaches what is already in textbook. Should I quit going to the lectures?
If I teach the textbook, doesn't it feel like cheating? I mean, I'm explaining things they can find in the textbook. For some students, it's useful because they need someone to ease them into the subject before they dig deeper. For others, they can simply read the book.
Another way to go is to develop complementary material to the textbook (lab exercises, computer examples, etc.) but still, teach the book. But, I am not sure how I feel developing supplementary material to someone else's textbook.

Any experience to be shared or references?


texts: My University's communications office reserves "Dr" for MDs only - is this common?

texts:
I recently became aware that, when writing an article, my university's communications office reserves the prefix "Dr" for only those individuals with MD degrees.

For example, if Jane Smith holds a PhD, an article published through this office would state, "Jane Smith researches memory..." instead of "Dr Jane Smith researches memory" or "Jane Smith, PhD, researches memory". But if Jane holds an MD, the statement would be written, "Dr Jane Smith researches memory."

The communication office's response to this is that "Dr" is most often associated with medical doctors; also, the AP guide recommends this approach.

First, is this a phenomenon in other institutions?  I am at a large public university in the US, for reference.  Second, the office may be correct that "Dr" is associated most with physicians, but does anyone have a citation for that?  Third, I couldn't find this in the AP guide--any hints on where to look?


texts: At what point can I call my professor by their first names as an undergraduate research student?

texts:
I'm currently working closely with a professor on a research project as an undergrad student. I always address her by her last name: Dr.xx. However, this makes me feel distant from her.. I am wondering by which point I could call her by first name?

Here is some background info:
I got to know her in person by taking a class taught by her and then started working together on this project at the end of last term. We had meetings together for a few times and exchanged a few emails back and forth. She always addressed herself by her first name in the email but I insisted called her Dr.xx to show my respect. However, some of her grad students in the lab are calling her by first name...

Thanks!


texts: How to keep one's focus during discussions, meetings and lectures

texts:
I noticed that I have more and more serious problems keeping focused, and despite my efforts to fix it the problem is just getting worse over time.

When I'm in a research-related discussion with someone, my mind easily wanders, and I won't be able to recall the last thing other person was saying so I have to politely ask them to repeat it.  Usually this is because I'm still thinking about the last idea they mentioned instead of continuing to listen to them talk, but sometimes it's just as if my mind just turned off for the duration of a sentence of two.

At least when I'm talking to one person, I can always ask them to repeat what they said or ask them to slow down.  But when it's a group discussion or a lecture/talk, this is not possible.  When I was an undergraduate and attended lectures regularly, I didn't have this problem.

Am I alone with this problem, or do others encounter it too?

What strategies can one use to improve concentration and comprehension?  How can I train myself to focus better?

I am very concerned about this problem as it affects my academic work and performance.


texts: Gaining research experience after undergrad

texts:
I have a 7.7CGPA (uncurved) from undergrad, 2 internships and therefore my chances of getting into a good CS Phd program are pretty slim. I can get a recommendation letter from the CTO of the startup - he is an academic from a top-institution(Duke PHD, Harvard Medical School researcher, MIT research scientist) but I don't think that would help much.
I am wondering what would be a viable way to get research experience after undergrad. I am also wondering if I'd be credited if I only help around with the code on some research project?
Additionally, if yes, how do I go about doing that? Is it just emailing some professors and asking them if they need help on some programming related to some research?
Thanks in advance.
Addendum: I am currently based in Europe.


texts:
Is it acceptable for a math paper to have no concluding section? The structure is currently as follows:

Introduction (known results + the paper's main results as 3 theorems)
Preliminaries (proper definitions of all the things and recalling of results used in the proofs)
Proofs (actually, several lemmas and proofs of them, and of the theorems)
Open problems

It's quite a short paper. I thought that since the Introduction is actually containing all the important stuff, making a Conclusions section would be only repeating the same stuff again. However, I'm not sure if this is considered a poor style in maths.


texts: I have a lot of extra room for classes. What should I take?

texts:
I'm currently in my second semester of college at university in the United States, and am currently majoring in Computer Engineering. I passed a lot of AP tests in high school, all of which gave me college credit. Because of this, if I take only the bare-minimum of required classes for my major, I'll end up averaging ~10 hours per semester for the next 6 semesters. Due to the way pre-requisite classes are set up, it's impossible for me to graduate early. And besides, I have a full scholarship, so I don't want to graduate early.

My question is this: I can take as many credits outside of my major as I need inside my major. How can I make the most of this freedom? I plan to pursue a career in robotics (Ideally at NASA, but that's a long shot), so I want to use my next three years to help that dream. The way I see it, there's a few obvious options:

Dual Major. I could probably get a dual major with any other engineering major if I was determined enough, but Computer Science or Electrical Engineering have enough overlapping classes that they would make the most sense.
Triple major. This sounds pretty ridiculous, but it is an option. I could potentially major in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Electrical Engineering and still graduate in the normal 4 years while taking a maximum of 18 hours per semester. Of course, this would be pushing it a little. If I had one conflict of two different classes being taught at the same time, I wouldn't have room to fix it. And then there's the problem of stress: I'm taking 18 hours now, and have loads of free time, but half of those hours are freshman-level courses. I think I'd be able to handle 18 hours of junior- and senior-level classes, but I can't know until I try it.
Take interesting classes. There's a lot of classes that I'd like to take that aren't required by my major (artificial intelligence, digital image processing, intro to relativity). However, there's not really enough to fill the amount of space I have.
Take fewer hours and get a job or internship. This is not much of an option, because my scholarships require that I take at least 15 hours per semester, which still leaves a lot of empty space in my schedule.
Start a Master's degree. My university allows undergraduate seniors to begin working toward a graduate degree if they are taking few enough undergraduate credit hours. My goal is to attend a different school for a Master's degree, but that plan will probably change several times between now and when I graduate. (I'm a teenager. We make stupid decisions.)
Research. I go to a fairly large university, so there's plenty of research opportunities.
Study abroad. This is fairly low on my list of priorities, but who knows? That may change. It's always an option.

The idea of taking a lot of classes solely because I'm interested is very appealing, but I have a feeling that it wouldn't add as much to a resume as, say, a dual degree. And I am very interested in the material in my major, so it's not as if I'm going to have to suffer through my required classes.

So, in summary: I have room to take an entire second major's worth of classes in my next 6 semesters of college. What should I do to best further my dream of working as a NASA robotics engineer?


texts: Research assistant: I am responsible for scheduling subjects, how do I deal with attrition in my PI's longitudinal study?

texts:
At my place of work, among my other responsibilities I am responsible for following up with and scheduling participants in our longitudinal study. This study has been going on since the late 80's, and many of these subjects have been coming in since they were children. For context this is my first job since completing undergrad.

At first productivity was high. I was scheduling more subjects per month than my PI had seen in several years. As time went on, it became apparent that this glut of subjects I scheduled in the first few months was a result of a build-up during a transitional period shortly before I was hired. Not many subjects were scheduled for a span of about four months before I was hired, and these neglected subjects were the cause of my high numbers.

Since then productivity has steadily lowered.

I then began blaming myself. Spending hours on the phone each day attempting to contact subjects, while not difficult, is draining. I do sometimes procrastinate when I should be working. However after months of serious attempts to bring my numbers up, I feel comfortable stating that my work is not the issue.

It seems apparent that the study, or at least it's current phase, may be winding down. Due to the nature of our research, many of our subjects have a troubled home life, severe substance abuse issues, and are estranged from their families.

Often our contact information for our subjects is out of date. Many of our subjects use pre-paid phones and change their number often. Our study is also based in NYC, and many of our subjects have moved several times over the years. I currently use White Pages Premium, White Pages Pro, Facebook, and just googling people's names when the info we have in our records does not suffice.

On top of this, many of our subjects are now at an age where it is simply not worth it for them to come in. They either make more than what we offer in compensation at their jobs, are too busy with their careers, or have family to take care of.

My PI has been concerned with productivity as we will be applying to renew a grant soon. I'm trying very hard to bring in more of our subjects, but it feels like there is only so much I can do.

As this is my first job, I'm worried that this could seriously affect my career/hopes for grad school if my PI feels that I am to blame. How should I navigate this situation? Are there additional resources for tracking down these subjects I should suggest to my PI?


texts: Changing research disciplines during Graduate school

texts:
I am about to start a masters on track to phd program at a graduate school in the US. I study archaeology and intend to focus my masters on a geoarchaeological research project. My archaeological background is focused primarily on geochemical studies of lithic assemblages and as such i have developed a foundation in geology and chemistry (although haven't had any formal training) alongside my archaeological knowledge.
However, my interest in earth sciences, particular planetary science, has recently grown and i am wondering if it is possible to swap disciplines furthur down my grad school career. At the moment i want to see through my archaeological training but want to know if it is possible to skew my research towards planetary science/geology for my phd if the interests still persist.


texts: Confirmation review (upgrade from MPhil to PhD) chair can ask a lot of questions

texts:
Recently a friend o mine has her update meeting and there were two examiners and a chair.  Chair has asked much more questions than the examiners and he put her in a hard situation and eventually the examiners decided to fail her based on the chair comments.

Does really a chair there to ask questions or just modareta the meeting? My friend wants to  make an objection to their decision mainly because of the chair approach and role.

Does it make sense?


texts: What GPA is considered as Competitive for top five schools in Engineering in US

texts:
Some prestigious universities like Caltech, Stanford, MIT and Berkeley never disclose their information regarding their cut off major and cumulative GPA for M.Sc and PhD programs in engineering. I also aware of the fact that graduate schools will look at the whole package and make their decision based on sets of factors like letter of recommendation, statement of purpose as well as GPA.

However, since application fee is pretty high it is not worth it to apply to schools that you know you have a slight chance of getting into it so, I would like to know what would be the acceptable GPA (Both major and Cumulative) for applicants to be competitive for top five schools in the world?


texts: Will my supervisor also mark my MA dissertation? How will this be fair?

texts:
I am wondering, because she is the only one in the department who is specialised in the area I worked in. But then also she worked with me, so she will recognise the things I've written - apart from that there is probably noone else who tackled exactly my topic.

How is fairness ensured here? It does not seem possible to mark this anonymously really?


texts:
In my paper I need to cite an Android application.

There is an official way to cite the site Google Play?

I know the tag @misc on BibTeX, but I am looking for a standard style, if exist.


texts: How to politely negotiate PhD funding offer?

texts:
I have been fortunate enough to get accepted with 5 years guaranteed funding to my 2nd choice graduate school. While the guarantee is great, the funding is only for 9/months out of the year. Would it be rude to ask them to guarantee summer funding to me for the first year until I can write a grant to get on a RAship? I know I should be more appreciative, since not everyone gets funding, but just an increase of about ~3k a year would make living there so much better and I do not want to accept an offer at a lesser institution just because of money.

What would be the most polite way of doing this?

I want to make it clear that I am not trying to get more money for the sake of getting more money, moreover that I am just not comfortable with so little money and such a high living cost in that area.

Thank you for your time.


texts: Is there a valid way to put up a paper on arXiv or GitHub and make it private just before a conference?

texts:
I wrote a paper and it has been in limbo for more than a year because I need to re-write the code in C++ to get more proof of my algorithm before sending it to a conference.
To avoid being scooped, I considered putting it on arXiv, but was wary of exposing the algorithm to the public and I heard that it messes with the conference reviewer's double blind review.

So if arXiv and HAL archives do not have the option to keep a paper private, would uploading the paper to GitHub in a private repository serve as proof if I ever need to prove that I came up with the idea first, if I've been scooped? This way, I would be able to give private access to the repository to whoever is investigating. I wonder if this would get counted as scooping if the person who scooped the idea never knew about my paper because it was in a hidden private repository.


texts: How to let a PhD student know that their research is not as good as they think it is

texts:
I am a postdoc and I have been talking to a PhD student about his research, as his interests are closer to mine than to his advisor's. He is generally nice, smart, and hard working. However, I think he has an unrealistic opinion of his own work.

He has written a paper and wants to submit it to the top conference in my field. (I'm in computer science, so we publish in conferences, not journals.) Unfortunately, I don't think his paper has a chance of getting in. His paper would be a long shot even for a second- or third-tier conference. His paper is also dismissive of prior work, which may offend the authors of that prior work (who are likely to be reviewing his paper).

What should I do about this?

It would be helpful to him if someone gave him a reality check and told him to rewrite much of his paper. However, it is not really my responsibility (or place) to do this. (I'm only two years more senior than him.) If he does submit, he will get a reality check from the reviews, but it would be good if he got some more "gentle" or "constructive" feedback.

I have limited experience with advising. Perhaps someone more experienced can tell me what would be appropriate in this situation. I feel like more than a subtle hint is needed.


texts: Materials & methods in multi-phase experiment

texts:
I'm about to write my thesis (which will also be the basis of a journal article, though not written by me). I was wondering how the materials & methods section should be written, when an experiment has multiple phases. I personally find it clearer, when for each sub-experiment, the materials are listed separately. There will be some repetitions of general materials (i.e. pipets, containers, etc.), however. I was just wondering what can be considered the best way to do this.
Another thing - during my studies, lab assistants sometimes insisted the materials section should list exactly how much of a certain material is used (i.e. 10µl solution). Is this necessary, when the exact amount is already mentioned in the methods section?


texts: I was graded unfairly on a group project

texts: We had a group project that involved 4 people. 3 of us worked really hard. Personally, I feel I did about 1/2 the work. We had a Viva at the end of the project. I got nervous and did quite badly. When the grades were out I got a B, same as the guy who didn't really do much. I'm wondering if it's a good idea to ask the professor to consider re-evaluating my grade.


texts: Submitting paper to IEEE journal using the standard `article`/`proc` LaTeX class

texts:
Do IEEE Journals accept LaTeX-formatted manuscripts using the standard article or proc class provided by LaTeX?

It is not made clear to me, if I should stick with the IEEETrans class IEEE has provided me with or I can just use the standard article classes - pre-installed with LaTeX - and submit my manuscript this way.

Thanks in advance


texts: List of all the Universities/Colleges in USA

texts: I am looking for list of all the universities/colleges in the USA. I read somewhere that there are around 6000 universities/colleges in US. Also, I want a list of the engineering colleges in the USA


texts: 1 PhD student, 2 institutions...1 of them completely closed to talking

texts:
I want to get some advice about this difficult situation concerning one of my PhD students.

Some time ago I wrote already about my status: I am assistant professor in Germany and very recently I got an offer for another permanent position abroad. I accepted it and in some weeks I will move there.

The problem I have is the following: my PhD student is paid from my personal grant that will be lost the time I will move (let me say that until very recently I didn't know that I could not move this grant, in part because I was not well advised. So now I do not have margin of negotiation with my new institution). However, I have had an agreement with the Department of the old institution and they will pay him from the remaining money of this personal project that I won in a competitive way (namely, this is not money from the department, strictly speaking).

The problem goes when I propose to the department a cotutoring: this means that I would be the advisor in my new location, and the head of my group (who completely agrees) to be the second advisor here. There are plenty of agreement between universities (at least in Europe) on this form, and in my new affiliation they are very happy about this idea and they have already provided the general agreement they use.

The problem comes from my previous institution: they just say NO from administration, and they do not give any other choice for this. So: what should I do? This seems to me very unhelpful, even more considering that the money will finish at the end of the year and a coadvising would help on the search of extra money.

Also, this would mean that officially they are proposing me to "forget" of being his official PhD advisor (after 1,5 years of work, which is half of the PhD this is unfair from their part towards me...).

How should I deal with this situation?

Let me mention that the main idea for this coadvising was that in this way we could ask for funding in a coadvising setting. This is necessary as in some months the money will be gone, and we need to get extra money for him to finish (6 months- 1 year)

Thank you


texts:
I will be serving in my very first NSF Panel as a panelist and reviewer. While I am excited, I am also anxious to do a good job...
Please provide any words of wisdom to be successful in this endeavor. Also please suggest if there are any Rubric that you aware with respect to
reviewing NSF proposals... If so could you share / provide pointers to it...


texts: Why does arXiv have a multi-day lag between submission and publication?

texts:
If you go on the recent pages (now, 8th December 2020, 19:24 Italian time), there is for example the article "Exploring the Usage of Online Food Delivery Data for Intra-Urban Job and Housing Mobility Detection and Characterization".
This article is under the heading "8 December".
But if you click on it, it was "Submitted on 4 Dec 2020".
Why there is a lag between submission time and the header under which it appears for recent publications?
I guess the arXiv staff have to approve the article before is being published .... is my guessing correct?


texts: Do academic reviewers have a duty to critique authors who submit questionable research?

texts:
I recently reviewed a paper that made some very strong claims that were not supported by the data. However, it was much more than that. These claims were so extreme that that were actively misleading: e.g., "The present results represent the most important findings in personality psychology to date." (Not as bad as this example, but not too far off..)

I wrestled with two options in my review.

A.) I could respond in a scientifically disinterested manner: e.g., "These strong claims are not supported by the data. Please revise them."

OR

B.) I could go beyond that and politely "critique" the authors for their questionable practice: e.g., "These strong claims are not supported by the data. In fact, they represent such an "overselling" of the manuscript's findings that they are actively misleading. Please revise them and we urge the authors to avoid such hyperbolic claims in the future."

In the end, I went with something like option B.) because I think that there is inherent value in stating firmly that these kinds of practices are not okay. As a scientific peer, I did not at all appreciate these obvious efforts to oversell the results for the sake of "a top publication." As reviewers, we are the guardians of scientific literatures, and when appropriate, perhaps we should scold our fellow researchers for questionable scientific practices to deter them against such behaviors in the future.

This begs the intriguing question: Do academic reviewers bear a responsibility to critique authors for engaging in questionable practices that undermine the validity of scientific literatures?

Very interested to hear the views of others!

Edit: "Reviewer" is intended to refer to one's role as a reviewer of publication submissions for journals.


texts: List unpublished masters thesis in preprints section on CV?

texts: After I've defended my masters thesis, if I haven't published it anywhere, should I list it in the preprints section on my CV?


texts: Prevent plagiarism after rejection of a paper?

texts:
After reading the question What to do if a referee plagiarises the result after rejecting a paper?, I wonder what can be done to prevent this.

I also recently got a conference paper rejected with a good (but not very good) idea. Reviewers gave me 2 × weak accept and 1 × accept and only the meta-reviewer rejected the paper with bogus arguments.

The next conference where I would like to submit is in a few month such that nearly half a year is in between the two submission deadlines of the conferences. I don’t know how may people had access to my work and would like to protect my idea.

I can maybe upload it to arXiv now before submitting it to the conference. Some conferences are fine with this as for example ICML:

  Publication at http://arxiv.org explicitly does not conflict with
  ICML.

but I am afraid that this can become problematic for other conferences.

What else can I do?


texts: Is it bad form to ask someone to be my advisor over email?

texts: The faculty, of course, will not first hear from me over email - we have maintained semi-regular research-related meetings over the semester. I have not yet asked her to be my advisor, but now since the academic year has ended, I want to make this an official advisor-advisee relationship. I'm wondering if it would be bad form to just ask the question directly over email, as she doesn't seem to be around the department anymore. I should add that I am already a PHD student in the department, and funding is provided by the department, so I am not really asking for money either.


texts: My paper has not been published because I did not show up for the conference presentation

texts:
My paper has not been published because none of the authors presented the paper.  My supervisor (my co-author) was at the conference, but he did not show up to present. I can only assume he was tired that day (he is an old man), although he did manage to present two other papers. He also failed to inform the conference committee of his inability to present.

This is an IEEE conference. The paper was not published in IEEE Xplore, but even worse, it is not even mentioned in the proceedings.

What is really annoying is that they still want me to have their permission to submit it to another conference. This is what is written in their email:

  Your previously-submitted IEEE Copyright form transferred ownership of this paper to IEEE. However, if you would like to resubmit this paper to another conference, please request permission to do so by sending an email message to pubs-permissions@ieee.org.

They also did not reimburse us for the hefty registration fees.

How should someone in my position proceed?
Shouldn't the conference at least mention the title of the paper in the proceedings?


texts: Doing high level thing great but forgetting simple things

texts:
I'm a mathematics PhD student and I have a question.
I am writing my thesis, and I'm looking for a postdoc too. I would like to do research long-term, but I am not sure that I will be successful as a researcher because of the following problem.

I am very good in the research that I am doing. Everyone confirms that I am very good in what I am working on. But, I have a big problem that I can not solve simple questions. Let me explain in further details, some month ago, I wanted to use the fact that supremum attains for every upper semicontinuous function on compact space. My supervisor asked me to prove it in front of him, but I couldn't do it. These happens a lot to me. My supervisor said he did not know how to possible someone do high-level research, but he couldn't prove simple things either. I am suffering because I think everyone can prove simple things, but they can not do high-level research. Does someone have any ideas or advice for me? I want to improve this issue, because I have a final exam for my PhD. I am so scared that they maybe ask some basic questions that I do not know.


texts: What are the 25th-75th percentile ranges for the annual income for graduate students in the United States?

texts:
And are there differences in average income between different types of fields, or different types of schools?

The diagram below says that the average income for grad students is $17k/year. But I'm more commonly seeing incomes in the range of $25k-$30k/year on PhysicsGRE.com...


texts: How much preperation is required for GRE

texts:
I am a student going into my 4th year at a Canadian university.

I am pursuing a degree in electrical engineering, although in the last 6 months I have taken up programming and have been working this summer as a C++ developer. I will also be working as a C++ developer part time during the school year.

My grades are good (slightly above A average. 9.3/10 on CGPA scale).

I do not know if I am going to pursue a post-grad, but I definitely will if the company I work for offers to pay for it.

From your knowledge and experience, how much preperation is needed for a problem-solving/mathematically inclined person to do well on the GRE?

By well I mean qualifying for top-ish schools in the states.

I'm trying to collect information to decide whether I should just wing it or prepare extensively after I graduate.

ps. Don't crucify me for a subjective question please


texts: How to pull back my paper from conference?

texts: My first year undergraduate teammate submitted our paper to two conferences yesterday. I am afraid that this can lead to self plagiarism. Help me. How do I withdraw our paper? What should I say to conference organizers? This is a deeply concerning problem. Please help.


texts: Should one mention multiple, albeit somewhat unrelated research interests?

texts: As the question implies,  I have two main research interests in the natural language processing and computational genomics domains.  While I have a preference for the former,  I am also very interested in the latter.  I ask because I am not sure if it would look like I am too unfocused for a PhD. Many professors seem to have multiple areas of interests,  some of which are not too related, but nonetheless I want to make sure that mentioning multiple interests will not hurt me.


texts: Is it ever appropriate to correct a non-native teacher's English?

texts:
Four of my Japanese teachers are, as you would expect, Japanese, and they all speak English fluently. But now and then, there will of course be slip ups: I often see small grammatical errors in one sensei's handouts. They don't affect the quality of the communication, but is it appropriate to point out these errors to the sensei?

I know that if I were in Japan, I would always want for native speakers to correct me if I made a mistake; more so in the written form. However, this particular sensei has been at my uni for something like 20 years, and her English is perfect in all other regards; I wonder if it wouldn't be a little insulting to point out otherwise negligible written/spoken errors. Nonetheless, I'd like to know what some teachers think.

EDIT: When I say my sensei's English is perfect, I mean that she is able to communicate effectively, not that her speech or writing are free from grammatical errors. Like any non-native speaker who hasn't learned from a very young age, she will sometimes say or write things that sound jarring in English grammar.


texts: Applying for a lecturership. What should I write in "supporting statement" through the on-line application?

texts:
I have already prepared my CV, my cover letter, my research and teaching plans, as well as a document with my previous research overview.

When applying through the university website, there is a mandatory "supporting statement" box to fill (max 2000 characters). "State your reasons for applying and why you meet the specifications".

It seems sort of obvious what I should write there, but that would be duplicating what I said in my cover letter, because it is basically the same.

Should I copy my cover letter there? That would be like redudant info, and also kind of lazy. But just rephrasing my cover letter also is kind of redundant.

What should I write there?

Thanks!


texts: Is there any self hosted alternative to Researgate/Academia/GScholar

texts:
This morning I've been looking for a self-hosted alternative to Researgate/Academia/Google Scholar/linkedIn; I'm currently using WP Resume but what I want is something where taxonomy etc are already adapted for a scientific profile.

To be more specific, a tool or set of tools

where you can add references such as papers/proceedings/Etc, add items to them and organize them
which can parse google scholar and others to get citations stat (a cron job could trigger that)
where you have your profile page with skills, lab(s) etc
of course with a sexy interface (usually the biggest challenge in opensource projects)

Somehow a ideal mix between zotero.org for displaying references and researchgate/academia for their interface and profile pages. And aggregating stats from various sources. http://simile-widgets.org/exhibit3/ is nice and could be used like Zotero does for timelines

I've checked github and the vast web but I found nothing. The homemade technical solution seems to be wp-publications+wp-resume+exhibit3+lots of taxonomy and design work

Have you heard about something close to what I want?

Thank you reader(s)


texts: After awarding PhD, if the PhD work is not worth or scientific misconduct of experiments etc. whether Can it be challenged?

texts:
I found people getting PhD without studying the concerned subjects for the work and did not do the experiment. Pictures and results were manipulated. published in Journal and got the Ph.D (by publishing in Paid journals and bribed the external examiners)

During this case, can we challenge the PhD degree? Kindly let me know what is the procedure.


texts: Is it proper to cite something when using it just as an example?

texts:
In academic writing, is it proper to cite something to provide it as an example of something else? For instance, we have lines like this in a number of our papers:

  Many research endeavors, including environmental and coastal hazard prediction [1], climate modeling [2], high-energy physics simulations [3,4], and genome mapping [5] generate large data volumes on a yearly basis.

Each citation is merely providing an example of a research project that generates large volumes of data (more often than not, it's not even a paper, just a URL), and content from the cited source is not otherwise used anywhere in the paper.

I suppose I tend to think of citations as references to work whose content contributes to a significant portion of content in the paper. A citation then indicates some kind of "weighty" relation between the paper and the thing being cited. In the example I provided, it seems to me that invoking the "weighty" power of citation simply to say "yes, such a data producing project of this type does in fact exist, in case you were wondering"--and doing so five times--is somewhat excessive and that it might serve better as a footmark.

To me it seems these should either be footnotes or just be left out. In any case, it seems they should not go in the bibliography.


texts: Letter of reference without referee email and phone

texts:
My university has shifted to a new location. I have a letter of recommendation in hardcopy form on old letterhead (i.e., with the old campus address) but with the current date. Moreover, my letter of recommendation does not have the referee's email and phone. The website is present on the letter but the university website also does not have the same email address from which my referee has sent an electronic email to my supervisor in their university abroad.

Is it necessary to have the contact details of the referee in the letter of recommendation? Can it affect my opportunity negatively?


texts: What does "First Class or 2.1 Honours degree" mean?

texts:
A PhD position for which I am planning to apply notes:

  Applicants should have (or expect to achieve) a minimum of a First Class or 2.1 Honours degree.

The position is in the UK, but I live in another EU country. What does "First Class or 2.1 Honours degree" mean, and how do I know if I satisfy that condition?

The grades at my university are given as fail, 3, 4 and 5.


texts: Authorship of PI and/or other advisor on independent work?

texts:
I'm a graduate student in a biological sciences lab. About 6 months ago I started an after-hours (does such a thing exist?) project with a fellow graduate student in a different lab doing computational physics. We principally work on the weekends and late at night, and I like to think that the time we use would otherwise have been spent playing video games, drinking, etc (not doing lab work), but who really knows?

Our collaboration has been extraordinarily fruitful and we have one paper ~90% written, and a follow up ~50% written. Both are highly theoretical, and have no direct relation to our respective theses work. Also, both our PIs know and are supportive of us pursuing this project, and neither has so much as even hinted at wanting authorship. And neither is an expert (or even an amateur..) in physics.

1) Should we include our PIs? They could potentially contribute to editing and big picture, but are not able to even assess the validity of what we've accomplished. As an "experienced" graduate student I know they shouldn't be authors, but they are also making it possible for us spend our time thinking, and they've supported our endeavor at least in spirit.

2) Suppose our PIs are not included. We're just two graduate students. Is it even possible to get a fair review with neither of us having the requisite degrees? How do we pay for publication ($1000-5000)? I'm interested in the "meta" discussion as much, or more, than the ethical discussion. For example, there is a third faculty member in this area who we've had some discussion of the science with, and who is a computational physicist. Should we include him on the manuscript as a signature of credibility? Should he be last author or a middle author, if so? If there are any physicists perusing, I'd be particularly interested in your thoughts, as my experience in publishing has been solely in the biomedical journals so far.

Thanks for considering my dilemma.


texts: How feasible is a remote postdoc in Mathematics?

texts:
I will be graduating this year with a PhD in mathematics.  My research background is in analysis in a top 20 program in the US.  However, my family situation is such that I can't uproot my family any more than I already have, and I am thus geographically limited in our "in-person" options.  There are several universities and liberal arts schools in my native region, but these days it is increasingly rare to get a tenure track position straight out of the PhD, even for non R1-institutions.
So here is my question.  How open are math departments/potential mentors  to the idea of a remote research postdoc, assuming I can make trips to the host institution, say, two or three times a year? I'm looking both at postdocs in the US and abroad.
On one hand, COVID has made online work more a possibility. And if I stick to research postdocs, I don't have to be in-person for additional tasks (I might also teach online courses in other cases, but I don't want to bank on the continuation of this pandemic, which would just be, well, awful).  Additionally, as a mother I already do most of my research from home, and I have figured out to a large extent how to balance my personal life with my professional life under the flexible time schedules allowed by academia.  My CV and research activity, as far as I know, is decently strong (two published papers, one in a good journal, two submitted papers, one to a top journal, and several more research projects along the way, several talks, including some invited ones), and both I and my advisor had correspondences with some of the researchers in potential institutions, some of who also know I have a child, so they might be more understanding (or not).
On the other hand, I fear a remote option request might be read at best as a lack of commitment to my research, and at worst an insult to the department.  I know personally this isn't the case for me in terms of my productivity (it's been my default for a few years now), but there might be prior assumptions in play.  I also know that generally, math research is increasingly social and collaborative.  There are some advantages to being able to stop by an office next door and ask a math-related/ research question. I also recognize that universities are going to want additional teaching experience if I am applying to tenure track positions afterwards. My limitation to research postdocs also makes it that the total number of postdocs I'm looking at is less than most PhD's numbers of applications.
Should this not work out, I am also applying to non-academic positions as a back-up plan (gotta put food in the table), but I really do enjoy research in pure math and do not want stop doing it.


texts: adding pseudocode in microsoft word for master thesis?

texts:
I am doing my master thesis in microsoft word, and I have to add pseudocode in this format (or similar):

How can I add pseudocode like this?


texts: 14 months waiting for first review time to go elsewhere?

texts:
I submitted a paper to a journal , it was accepted to go to peer review and it has stuck there despite chasing up at 3 months 6 months 9 ,10, 11, 12, 13, 14 month intervals. time to give and go to another journal?
The first excuse given by the editor is that the paper is unusual and they had trouble getting reviewers. Then the excuse was they were changing the publishing process. The paper crosses entomology and physics disciplines. I m still waiting for the first review.


texts: Previous interests in a subfield which is different from your perspective advisor's

texts:
Assume that I'm interested in a certain broad field of mathematics (say A). Also, assume that have done a honors thesis during my BSc in a certain narrow-ish subfield (say A.1).

Suppose that I'm interested in applying to a certain outstanding university mostly because its graduate program offers, among other things, lots of good specialized courses and research seminars concerning various aspects of field A and related areas of mathematics (way more and of way higher level compared to any other university, as far as I know).

Now, suppose that (despite the breadth of the courses offered) the outstanding faculty members of this university who work in field A are interested in a subfield that is different and not very related, as far as I know, (say A.2) from the one I've done my bachelor thesis in (A.1).

Assume that I am eager to know more about this different subfield because it "feels" promising and interesting, but I'm not particularly familiar with it yet.

  Would my current (but fixable during
  the courses) lack of knowledge about the main subfield of interest of
  the faculty and my different "specialization" make my statement of purpose (where I've to explain why
  I've chosen the program) and therefore my application weak?

In short, is it acceptable to convey the following "message" in a statement of purpose?

  "I love the broad area A, my specialized knowledge
  of which is limited to a narrow-ish subarea A.1; and I'm ready to get the most out of the many courses
  and seminars that you offer. I'm not quite familiar with A.2 (the main subfield of interest of the faculty), but I'm willing to learn something new and I've a hunch that it's going to be fun."

Disclaimer (and clarification): This question was originally raised by a former classmate of mine and I post it on this board (with his approval) because I may probably find myself in a kind of similar situation in short time.


texts: What are typical examples of "scholarly work"?

texts: I am looking into applying to a teaching position at a liberal-arts institution. The application page asks for an example of scholarly work. What are good examples of scholarly work? For the sciences, is this like published articles?


texts: Can I apply to other postdocs after accepting an unofficial postdoc offer?

texts:
I am a PhD student in Applied mathematics. I submitted my PhD thesis (not yet defended) and am applying for postdocs. Until now I have gotten two unofficial postdoc offers: the PIs unofficially informed me about the offers mentioning the salary and duration. I accepted one offer by emailing the PI. However, I have not signed any contract yet. Till I get an official letter can I also apply to other places?

Any help/suggestions will be useful. Thanks in advance.


texts: Where can I find (preferably UK) statistics about where graduate students did their undergraduate course?

texts:
I'm currently trying to find out if the (very roughly paraphrased, possibly exaggerated) statistic that '1% of graduate students in mathematics go on to become a professor' varies according to the undergraduate institution those undergraduates came from.

One first part of this investigation is to find out what proportions of graduate students arrive from which universities (as in, how much different universities contribute towards graduate numbers out their undergraduate pool).

Where might I find such statistics? Would I be able to find statistics answering my initial question directly?


texts: Doing a second PhD in different field instead of a Habilitation

texts:
I just started a 3-4 year Post-Doc position in Department A, to work on a topic on the border between two fields on which they also work in Department B.

In some European countries the usual situation is to do a Habilitation in A.
However, theoretically it is also possible to get payed by department A, and working on projects for A, but doing a second PhD department B as an external PhD candidate (as if i where in an external research institute), in stead of doing a Habilitation in A.  Doing a "external" PhD, at an other place than the supervising Professor is quite common in Germany, Italy and a few other EU countries. But only if the other place is a research institute or company, doing that in another university group, or university is very uncommon/rare, especially when it is about doing a second PhD.
I am not easily persuaded by uncommon/rare by itself, so i would like to know the pros and cons of taking this unusual path?

Honestly only see more advantages (more collaborators, shared expertise) especially for topics that are on the border between two fields. A Habilitation can easily be waved if you have enough publications. It seems to me that a second PhD in B will later make it easier to change fields to B, beyond only the topics on the border between A and B. On the other hand i do not know any people who did something like this. And i can not really predict the consequences or reaction of such a unconventional route. And i also do not want to freak out my new boss by mentioning this idea, if the majority of you would consider it as very inappropriate.

What are the pros and cons of extending your research field by doing a second PhD in another direction stead of deepening while doing a Habilitation in the same field?

EDIT: The current Position is in Germany. Although i would be interested in staying in Germany, i would also like to hear about perspectives on this for  other countries. That also makes the value of the question more general.


texts: How to deal with a supervisor who engages in micro-management and does not give their PhD student any autonomy?

texts:
What should a PhD student do, when his supervisor actually give directions on each and every thing to do (forced spoon feeding) instead of letting the student do his research and come back with some ideas and discuss the pros and cons and then move accordingly? Which will actually groom the student research skills?

Also if at some point a student disagrees then the student feels the change in the supervisor behaviour (on the negative side).

What should be the best practice to keep the balance in working environment and work as well?


texts: What date should I put on a paper that I hand in to my teacher?

texts:
I know that it is important to have dates on papers that you hand in to teachers. I usually put the date that I start the paper, but sometimes I change it to make it seem like I'm not procrastinating. I've also used the date the paper is due. No teacher has ever said anything to me or taken off points for how I have the date.

So my question What is the correct date to put on a paper?


texts: Publishing a creative, important result – does it create any real finance opportunities (jobs, etc.)

texts:
I often fantasize that when I will get my work to successful end, then I will have new possibilities open – and that maybe I will even receive scientific job offers. The work is obtaining new important results in computational sciences.

But then I get to the ground, think that giving someone job is rather a necessity for the employer – and not an act of appreciation or even not an act of support. Then, my results are important and useful, so someone may need them. However, the results can be understood, used and further developed by some other scientist. So it will not be necessarily me, who will get the job.

One related example that comes to my mind is Stephen Wolfram, who is independent because he is earning money himself. So he was not appreciated by someone, instead he won his share in software market.


texts: Quitting a PhD program and starting another one: who is the legal owner of my research?

texts:
I am at the late stage of a PhD program. For some personal reasons, I have decided to quit this program and apply for a new PhD program in a different country.

I have presented one part of my research in an international conference, and I am about to submit it to a journal. Beside this paper, I have prepared 3 other papers but I have not presented them anywhere. I am the sole author of these three un-published works.

Now my question is whether it is possible to bring these researches to the next university and publish them afterwards? I am the legal owner of these researches? copyright-wise I mean.

I would be more than glad if anyone helps me in this tough situation.

PS: I would have no problem for getting recommendation letters.


texts: Dropping out of PhD in my home country to start a new one in the UK

texts:
I saw question similar to this but wanted to specify my problem. I did my Master in the UK and graduated in 2018 and decided to start PhD in my own country last year. As it took a little bit time to verify my degree in home country and application process had been closed, I had to apply in 2019 for 2020 academic year, hence the one year gap.
Now, however, I want to drop out of my PhD and apply for one in the UK. Significant difference in quality of education, lack of engagement with theoretical issues (and quite obsolete methods of doing things) and lack of usage of sources in English and my struggle to adapt again to academia of my own country are main reasons of my decision.
My question is:
How to explain it in my CV and justify it in order not to give a wrong impression? I mean, I could avoid writing that I had already started my PhD (which I did with my Master, applied already studying one in my own country and got offers from 5-6 UK universities) but filling the gap of 2-3 years constitutes another problem. Another thing might possibly be references because most people here do not have knowledge of English and it might sound odd asking them to write references for me.
What would be the best thing for me to do in this situation?


texts: Convince professor to allow submitting paper?

texts:
There's some  work X that I did with my advisor. We got stuck, and she thought it was too preliminary to submit for publication. She didn't think it was worth putting the effort to turn it into a submission. Now we're on to some other work Y. I'd like to submit X for a journal/conference, since it can't really hurt to submit. If anything, we might get useful feedback on future directions from referees.

What are some things I can do/say to convince my advisor to allow me to submit the work with her? For one thing, I'll tell her that I'm happy to do the writing up.


texts: Accepting An Academic Gift From Supervisor

texts:
I have developed a good working relationship with my supervisor and I have expressed my interest in wanting to pursue a PhD in the field that I am working in for my masters degree. I have expressed interest in a textbook from another author in a complementary field that I would want to hold in my collection as a PhD student, and if things work out, as a professor. As well, I am my supervisors first student that they have had under direct supervision after their own PhD, as are they my first research supervisor. So there is a unique 2-way relationship as well for the sake of context.

My supervisor has told me that she would be willing to purchase this book for me and I think that my supervisor would be doing this because they actually want me to have it for my future and in part as a gift to me. Personally speaking, I do not see any ethical concerns with this, but I suspect that I might not have a complete perspective on this type of exchange. Do you think that there are any ethical concerns that I should be cautious about?


texts: How to handle disagreement between collaborators on licensing academic code?

texts:
A group of students including myself have developed a certain program/algorithm. I as the main coder behind this group have provided 95% of all the actual code. The other two involved parties have given 4% and 1% of the code each.

The code was created in an academic environment for a paper, but the actual algorithm has applications not limited to the scope of what was worked on during the duration of our work together.

I wish to release the code as open-source as does the other party who contributed 4%, as it has other applications, and potential uses, and we don't want to limit its use.

The problem is that the 1% is adamant about not releasing any code and keeping it. He will not listen to reason.

Can we just use a majority vote to decide this? Do I as the main coder have more say than the other two? We do not want to get any external parties(ie., lawyers) involved.

This is not a question about the benefits of various licenses; we know what each licence does. As Simon statrs: "it's about team dynamics, within academia, where collaborators disagree about whether to release the code at all." Two of us want to release. One of us does not. How do we proceed in such a situation?


texts: I am tempted to thank the cast of a television show in my acknowledgement section of my thesis. Has anyone else done this?...the show was literally the only thing I would watch while writing...and I really don't have a lot of other people to thank.


texts: My thesis advisor is absent in my final stage of completing my Ph.D. programme

texts:
I am a mathematics Ph.D. student who are in my final stage of completing my Ph.D. programme. My advisor is visiting an institute for a few months. The institute that he is visiting is in another country; because of the visa requirements and many other practical reasons, I cannot go there with him.

Now my progress is, I have all the main results ready (most of them have been written down) and I need to finish writing my thesis in about three weeks. My advisor has guided my through all the mathematical difficulties; now he left me behind to write the thesis all by my own. Furthermore, he has clearly indicated that he will NOT help me with the writing process.

Now I need to figure out many things all by myself, from LaTeX to the organization, from the usage of languages to drawing pictures, etc. Also I need to verify the correctness and validity of all the results; he mentioned that he will not carefully read my draft. And I do not have much time to finish everything. I am feeling somewhat stressed and overwhelming.

In this situation, should I seek assistance from other professors/lecturers who do research in a similar field, or should I try to figure everything out by myself? Should I hire someone to proofread my thesis when the draft is finished?


texts: How can a commentary be published before the commentary it’s commenting on?

texts:
I submitted a commentary on a paper authored by the chief editor of a publication¹. After over six months, my commentary was finally placed in the peer-review queue. Before the review of our commentaries were even completed, two commentaries discussing our commentary were published. It should be noted that we still haven’t seem a response/reply to our original commentaries from the original author.

I am questioning the ethics of allowing commentaries of commentaries being published before the original commentary has been put "In Press" and would like to get other peoples perspective on the situation. Bottom line I am asking: Is there any explanation how this could have happened with an ethically operating journal or an ethically acting editor, respectively?

¹ I am being vague on specific details for a reason


texts: Is teaching for a biology program without "specialized accreditation" bad for your career?

texts:
I plan on graduating with my PhD in May and am currently job searching for academic positions for next fall.

I am looking into applying to be a full-time biology faculty member at a school which is accredited, but where the biology program does not have "specialized accreditation" for the field.

The question is: is it worth it?

I understand that attending a non-accredited school as a student can be detrimental to long-term success, but is the same true for TEACHING in a non-accredited biology program? Maybe more specifically, what are the pros and cons to working for a non-accredited program?

As a related follow-up: which would be better (or perhaps less worse) for my career as a university professor: full-time position at a poorly ranked non-accredited program or an adjunct position for a accredited program at a better-rated school?


texts: How can I convey my concerns about a University graduate program to the director without sounding like a know-it-all?

texts:
I'm in a graduate specialization program. It's expedited and it's a year long. There is an equivalent two-year Master's program for which I didn't apply. The classes are held twice a week in the evening. They are four to five hours long. There are Powerpoint presentations which the lecturers email the students a few days after the lectures.

(I was surprised the lecturers didn't provide us with their contact information (email) and so I had to contact the secretary of the program and ask her to email me their info).

Situation:

You'd think that some students would save some of their questions either for after the lecture or for a private communication via email.
There are a few students - usually the same ones - who constantly interrupt the lecturers to ask a question or to share an experience from their workplace. Most of the students work or have some sort of experience in the field of study.

I understand this is normal and expected to some extent. However, these questions lead to more questions, comments, chatting, arguing, even talking about politics with the lecturers, to the point that the lecturers can't finish on time. So far, none of the lecturers have complained about this. It seems that they want to accommodate us by finishing earlier and taking shorter breaks.

One of the lecturers had this to say:

  if you guys had not been working in [field of study] and were just undergrads, you
  wouldn't have all these questions...blah blah....I'm
  just going to answer this last question and no more for tonight
  though, so we can move on with the lecture...blah blah...

Yeah, right. It turns out that the guy who asked that last question happened to ask another question later on, and the lecturer kept answering questions the entire time.

Long story short, the classroom feels more like a chat room, or a cafe and the lectures feel like listening to a bunch of people talking about their negative experiences, bitterness and problems they are facing in the field, even politics (unfortunately it's relevant).

(I'm not saying this has not been valuable to a degree. I have found out interesting things.)

However, my goal is to either email the director of the program or meet with him and talk to him about my concerns without telling him or the lecturers how to do their job even though it may seem that way.

I'd like to be able to suggest (if it's a good idea) that the lecturers:

either accepted questions towards the end,
or ask those same students, who ask multiple questions to save the rest of their questions for either after the lecture or for an email.

Perhaps it's me and perhaps this is how graduate level classes are but most of the time I leave the classroom having a headache because of the constant asking-answering (I also find it hard to concentrate).

Question:

How can I convey my concerns to the director of the program, without sounding like a know-it-all? Is it even my place to make suggestions? I also want to be polite.

Clarification:

I don't want to approach the students or openly complain about it during the lecture.
The director of the program, who has given one of the lectures, had a very casual style himself and spent most of the time answering questions and/or giving us professional insight about really controversial topics which may or may not have been relevant to the specific field of study. (He's supposed to give more scientifically relevant lectures later on).


texts: Do I need to follow traditional cover letter style for applying for an academic position?

texts:
I am applying for a research assistantship at a university, and I am required to upload a cover letter for submitting my application. I am not familiar with cover letter, since I'd only applied to student positions before, where I was required to upload an SOP and a CV, instead of a cover letter and a resume. This application still requires a CV, and not a resume, but instead of SOP, it requires a cover letter.

I looked for cover letter templates online, and it has the form of a letter (starting with "Dear..."), and "sender" and "recipient" addresses on top of the page, which sounds weird to me since it is not 1918 ad I am not posting it to them, I am uploading it to their application portal, and my address is also on top of my CV and I separately enter my address when I fill in the application form (and they know what their address is, so I'd say they probably don't need me to write it for them on top of my cover letter!).

Is it just an outdated thing, or a convention that I need to follow?

Also, given the position is academic, do you think is it ok if my letter is some sort of a hybrid of cover letter and SOP?!


texts: Describing a still working self developed software system in a research paper. Which tense to use?

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Hello,

Ive developed a Software system, consisting of different parts for research purpose. And need to write a research thesis about this. Which will be my first scientific work in english ( iam not a native speaker, obviously).
However i'am not sure which tense i should use.

I developed the system for a research purpose(lets assume a red button which activates an alarm whenever someone is pushing it with a stress level than usual for this person, so the system needs to determine between usual and non usual stress level which is individual for every person)

After this step, i used this system in different setups and evaluated how the system performs in different setups ( IS the system able to track the higher stress level and activate the alarm. ( or do not acitvate the alarm if the stress level is usual for this person today [f.e. the person has a higher stress level the whole day, due to a fight with his girl friend in the morning, but the alarm should not ring as the persons stress level is higher than last week, but this level is usual for the todays condition])

Anyway, i know i should write the methodology part in simple present, because the experiment is finished whenever someone read this paper. ( the half of the participates watched a horror movie for 10 minute before they pressed the red button, while the other half watched the same movie for 1 minute before they pressed the button)

But what is about the part in the methodology chapter where i describe the system? The system is still there Anyone could plug it in, and hit the red button, and the red button would scan for the heartbeat rate and send the information to the controlling unit, the controlling unit would do some math and if the value x is above 2 and the value y is above 12 the controlling unit would send a query to the server which would do some math and send back a value z. If the revived value z is above 2*(x+y) the controlling unit would activate the alarm.
the system is still working the same way as it worked when i did the experiments.

QUESTION:
Which tense should i use to describe the developed system in the methodology part?


texts: Consolation position after tenure is denied

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In my department, an assistant professor was denied tenure. However, he remains in the faculty as a lecturer.

Is this the typical protocol of departments.  If a professor is denied tenure, do their departments typically offer them some sort of position of lower stature?


texts: How often do PhD students from top universities go on the academic job market and fail to get a job?

texts: I'm mainly interested in the field of computer science and how often students from top places simply fail to find academic jobs.


texts:
I'm going to meet a big scientist. What should I say in the first meeting? I want to impress him and become a friend of him so that I can do common projects with him.

Please help me. It is the most important meeting in my life.

Information about the meeting:
He is going to attend a conference in his country and I'm going to attend the conference, too. I want to go to him, say hello, and speak about his works. I'm a Ph.D. student in physics.


texts: Does lecturing for your PI count as a "guest lecture" for a CV?

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Sometimes it happens that a professor traveling has his TA or RA fill in for him/her delivering a class lecture. Is this experience appropriate for a typical engineering CV, and if so how would it be designated?

This question deals with what sounds to me a somewhat greater honor, being invited to give a lecture in another department at your school. The answers there suggest that this should be listed as a "guest lecture". A related question is whether my first scenario can be described as a "guest lecture". I have seen it described as such on CVs. But my recollection as an undergrad is when a prof mentioned a "guest lecturer" coming, it was usually a bigshot, or some specialist, not some Phd student.

I have a feeling that the professor in the first scenario would use whoever is TAing as substitute, if the TA was at all competent. I have also heard those on search committees say it looks like resume-stuffing and can do more harm than good. On the other hand, a well-received comment by @DavidRicherby in this post suggests that it is a good idea to include substitute lecturing for your PI on a CV. Do folks on search committees (whether at more teaching-oriented or research-oriented institutions) have an opinion?


texts: Is there any general consensus that either Elsevier or Springer is viewed as more prestigious for publishing in engineering?

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What (if any) is the general consensus out there regarding publishing in  one of these journals vs the other?

I am a mechanical engineer, specialising in fluid flow and heat transfer, so would it be better to publish my findings in a relevant Elsevier journal or equivalent Springer journal?

Is one or the other viewed by the academic community as more prestigious, or does one offer greater exposure for my work?


texts: Pre-tenure faculty - should I ignore all possible troubles to get tenured?

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I'm a tenure-track assistant professor who started in this fall. I heard that I should not get involved in any issues or conflicts to get tenured.  However, I am unsure about this situation.
I was in a romantic relationship with a professor in the school I was a graduate student in over 7 years in Illinois.  Recently I realized that he has been double-dating with a professor in New Jersey.  Actually their relationship was over 10 years.  Both are in my study field and they are pretty well-known.
I immediately broke up with him during this COVID-19. However, he keeps all of my stuffs in his place -- mostly books and personal stuffs (total about $5,000 books) and does not pay back the costs I spent for his trip (total about $15,000).
He says "just let it go".  He threatens me that he would contact my department chair and dean not to reappoint with me for my tenure if I bring any issues regarding my stuffs and the cost he doesn't send me back as well as his double-dating.  His point is "just stop contacting him".  Actually the relationship started because he kissed me during his office hours; he asked me to meet on Saturday to talk about my research and then he took me to his place....
The most important thing to me at this point is to get tenured in my current position.  Is it wise to let it go as he insists.  Or is it better to bring an issue like contacting his department chair to report his problems?
I'd truly appreciate your response -- it is very complicated because I am pre-tenured and all in the same research field.


texts: Pursuing a second masters in a more established school

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Consider this situation,

I get accepted for a second masters degree at the University of Toronto, and just before that I graduate with a masters degree in a much less established university.

Both degrees are in the same field, Computer Science.

Further, UoT knows that I am completing my masters degree.

My plan would be: to use this opportunity to get into the PhD program at the University of Toronto, because this is what I applied for in the first place.

Would you pursue this second masters?

Thanks


texts: Popular software used in research is incorrectly reporting solution is optimal: what to do?

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I have an example demonstrating the solution produced by a popularly used software package is not the optimal solution, despite the software claiming that it is. Several recent papers published from my lab have used this software in their evaluations, and I know it is extensively used in the research community to solve optimization problems.

So I am unsure how to report this bug; it is a proprietary, closed-source software. As a first step, I could contact the software developer about the bug, although they don't seem to have a straightforward method to report bugs.

But a larger issue is that papers published with results based upon a buggy software could be compromised. What if the eventual fix causes the software to take much longer to execute, so that running on large instances is now infeasible?

I have told my advisor about the issue, but he does not seem very interested, possibly because of the potential ramifications.

I am currently working on a project where I could have used this software; I now don't trust it and have switched to a much less powerful open-source alternative. So I guess my question is: how should I handle this situation?


texts: How do I read a textbook or monograph with good comprehension?

texts: I’m not a native English speaker but my reading ability is good. However, when it comes to academic books, I feel that my comprehension is slow. What strategies or methods can I use to help me improve that? I am in the field of computer science.


texts: How to do research in two very different fields?

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Most research profiles I've seen focus on a set of similar topics.
Does anyone have experience in partaking in / conducting research in 2+ disparate fields? (especially if 1 of the fields is pretty different than what they studied in an institution)

For example:

Pure mathematics and biology (e.g. solving an open math problem and studying purring in cats)
Aerospace engineering and psychology (e.g. modeling vortices and researching psychological effects of isolation)

If a person had interest in researching a multiple, ranging topics, what advice would you give them? How do you think they should go about doing it? (if you'd recommend they do it at all)

Edit - I'm an undergraduate mechanical engineering student. I'm interested in eventually researching two topics, one in my chosen field, one in genetics.


texts: Does anyone have rate the relative quality of scientific papers, rather than authors?

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I've seen plenty of places where authors are rated on how much they publish and are cited. There are also metrics like the h-index and i10-index that try and assign a number to the relative quality of a given researcher (for better or worse). But, is there anything similar for individual articles?

It seems to me that people would want an easy way to see if a piece of research has been reproduced or not, peer reviewed for quality of methods and/or analysis, retracted, cited by other papers, the quality of the papers cited, etc. I would think that this would be an extremely useful tool to help people see if the paper they are reading, and potentially citing, is a quality paper or not. However, I've never seen or heard of anything that does this.

So, is there a service or metric out there that has something like an h-value on a per article basis rather than a per author basis?


texts: Do author name(s) dominate the content of the paper?

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Suppose I did not publish any papers till now in reputed journals and I want to publish a paper with a novel idea. Colleagues are suggesting me to ask any expert to proofread the paper and then to include his name as one of the authors. But I don't want to involve any other person and want to do everything on my own and if any revisions are there, I revise my paper according to the comments by reviewers.  In addition to that that are saying that there is a possibility of immediate rejection without seeing the content if authors are new and English is poor.

Some are emphasising that the author names with a good track record can influence the reviewers to fasten the process of reviewing and avoids immediate rejection.


texts: How to highlight language abilities in cover letter for a scientific research position?

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I'm applying for a scientific research position at a Welsh university and one of the desirable skills is to demonstrate an understanding of the bilingual nature of the University.

As I am fluent in Welsh, I would like to add a sentence to my cover letter stating that I am a bilingual. I would like to write something that makes them feel that it is important to have someone that can speak Welsh and that this would benefit the university.

Can anyone suggest an appropriate sentence to include?


texts: Quote on testing, checking, and verification

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I'm in the habit of putting a motivating quote on the top of each of my syllabi. For my introductory programming course, I'd like to focus the class on the theme of testing and verification. Of course, this is also an important theme in non-CS disciplines, as well.

So I'd like to find the best possible short, positive (not sarcastic or negative), informative quote on the issue of testing and verification. Ideally this would be from someone fairly well-known or influential in the CS field, but that's not necessary. Web searches for this tend to dredge up pages on automatic testing suites and the like, so I'm hoping that someone here knows of a good one.

What is the best motivating quotation on the importance of testing, checking, and verification for freshmen college (STEM) students?


texts: Advice on postgraduate study in experimental/theoretical physics for a 3rd year Mathematics student

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Firstly I hope this question is appropriate to ask here. I am a third year studying Mathematics at the University of Oxford, with plans to continue to 4th year to complete the masters course.

I have been considering many paths to take so far this year, I started off by looking into finance, this I found however incredibly unintellectuality stimulating. My passions have always been for Maths and Physics, this year I will be studying quantum theory, quantum computing, special relativity and fluid dynamics, which I will continue on into 4th year with the addition of general relativity, theoretical physics and other more general applied courses.

I'm very interested in applying for a PhD after 4th year, mainly because i've never been more fascinated by the subjects i'm currently learning, Quantum theory in particular is amazing and has really changed the way I look at the universe.

Unfortunately I'm only getting a mid 2.1, however it is from Oxford so I hope that this may carry some weight, but because of this I will be mainly focusing on applying to universities other than Oxford and Cambridge.

What I'm wondering is is there any point in following this dream? I'm extremely motivated but I feel not having a first might have ruined it for me. Can anyone recommend any strategies I can use to make myself more competitive?

Currently i'm planning on applying to universities for summer research assistant placements, paid/unpaid. I'm also reading the Feynman lectures to boost my background knowledge of physics, to help bridge the gap between physics courses and my mathematics course. Can anyone recommend any other books/ideas that could help me be able to apply for experimental physics? Also universities with departments that would be good to approach.

To sum up my long and laboured question, i'm extremely passionate about mathematical physics and the idea of stopping learning about it, and say going into a deskjob is sort of horrifying. Any advice anyone can give me I would greatly appreciate.


texts: I'm not aware of any PhD candidates patenting their novel work/product. Is it not ok to patent something you worked on?


texts: Is it immoral to show new students how to use Wolfram Alpha?

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Currently, I'm working as an assistant at the mathematics department of my university. My job consists of sitting for 20 hours a week in an office to which students come with doubts regarding all the basic math courses.

Today, for example, I was solving a limit in a class full of engineering freshmen. After I solved it, I checked the answer in Wolfram in front of the students and I recommended the website, as well as other useful sites such as Desmos, or Khan Academy.

My afterthoughts were: "what if they start using it when they're not supposed to? (i.e. exams and such)". Does the act of recommending such a site carry any moral consequence?


texts: More than 2 months with status 'Editor assigned ' ; is it normal?

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I'm a bit worried because my paper have been more than 2 months "with editor" status. It's a computer science journal , from a famous editorial.
Normally we have the option to send an e-mail to the assigned editor, but in this case there is only "view your submission".

In this case, what should I do within the following choices?
1. Withdraw
2. Make direct contact to the editor
3. Just wait
4. Other

Also, if I should contact the editor directly, How can I know which editor to contact and how can I found his contact address ?
Thanks in advance


texts: Publishing someone else's thesis work without their consent

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Finished my MRes recently. My supervisor has told me that their ex-PhD student (graduated a year and a half ago) had some results in their thesis that they hadn't published. He asked me to complete some additional lab work and tweak a draft paper the student had put together, then I could be looking at getting a lead author position.
It sounded great initially, but I was a bit curious about the situation with the old PhD student and asked one of the post-docs (who is connected to this work). They explained the ex-PhD student was working on the paper after they graduated, but after some personal situation (unsure what but sounded serious) they basically vanished and were uncontactable.
I was a bit uneasy about this. I asked my supervisor and whilst they said the PhD didn't confirm they were happy to have someone else write their paper they didn't respond to emails saying that the supervisor was planning this. So from my supervisor's perspective this is all above board.
For extra info I looked up the university's policy and it says that the copyright for the thesis, and all of the data described, is owned by the PhD student.
Could writing this paper potentially get me in major trouble? Wanting a career in research and a paper would be good but this feels like this could easily go bad given the universities position on IP ownership and it using the work carried out by the PhD student.


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I am a 29 year old female. I want to go back to school.  I have been told that I have a very good chance at getting into a very good graduate computer science program (machine learning, AI, robotics, theoretical cs, so many algorithms... it's the real deal here, you guys).  Due to cost, the fact I need to work full-time and giving myself the best chances for success, I will be doing this at a very slow, part-time pace.

As an undergraduate, I saw woman drop out for family, so my question is:

How common is it for women to drop out of graduate school because they have children?

I'm preferentially looking for answers that draw on personal experience or statistics.

Some additional background you might find relevant:

My boyfriend/fiance/partner of 10+ years died about a year ago.  I don't know what I'm doing about all that yet.

I have been out of school for a while.  You don't really need a degree in IT and I hadn't really considered going back because it didn't seem manageable or practical with the rest of my life.  But... now that life is gone, it's cool because it has to be, and I would have never even dared to dreamed about being able to enroll in this graduate program before.

I don't necessarily care if I have a family and/or kids but I'm fairly positive it will not happen on accident.  To me, being with someone or married does not automatically mean having kids, either.  For the sake of the question, when I am ready, I feel it will be very logistically easy for me to date again.

Articles like these motivate my question:

In the Ivory Tower, Men Only
Work and Family on the Rise among College Graduate Women
When Girls Don't Graduate
For Female Scientists there's no good time to have children

Helpful Articles:

Council of Graduate Schools' Master's Completion Project (Perhaps combine that with statistics on the rate of pregnancy / childbirth among United States graduate students? There's data for unmarried Chinese graduate students...)


texts: How to propose collaboration, when I have an idea for analyzing another group's data?

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My field is data analysis in which i try to invent/improve algorithms to better analyze existing datasets. During my search i noticed a good medical institute is trying to solve their problem from data analysis point of view, or in other words they are working on designing methods to decipher their own data.

Based on their publications i noticed that my method might have a better result according to what they look for. So one approach is to ask them if i can have the data and try my method and in case of success i can have my own next publication.

However, i also really like to have collaborations with that institute rather than just using their data, as in my field it'd be a great value to have close works with data-experts like them.

But i do not know how to approach them? and whom to contact? In fact, i already had a short talk with the post-doc involved in their project. Should i just contact him, or better to put their adviser in the communication loop?

Also, it would be naive if i say "my approach will work better than what you have devised so let's have collaborations!!", wouldn't be?

I would be so grateful if you could give me some advice on these situations!


texts: Justifying sub-optimal research quality by lack of supervision

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When starting a Ph.D. position, one naturally expects that there should be some kind of supervision of his work. That is, their advisors should be aware of the state-of-the-art and be willing to sit and discuss research directions and provide pointers to the literature. In some cases, advisors may be too "bossy," expecting their students to be "good soldiers" doing what they are told to do without many questions about its research value. However, it's also not uncommon for advisors to be "hands-off," basically  leaving their students on their own and so they come back only when they have something to publish.

Navigating solely through the literature is arguably the worst part of Ph.D Grind. It's all too easy for a student with undeveloped "feel" for problems to spend months trying to shape a proper research plan. That is what happened in my case, where I needed more than a year. Now that I've started with actual experimentation I realized that the workload may be a bit high for a single person. Therefore, I'm expecting that I'll need more than a year before I start publishing results.

Given that I'm working totally independently on my Ph.D. degree, can I state that to future academic employers as a justification for what could be sub-optimal research work? or would that sound like I'm not taking full responsibility?


texts: What are the ethical implications of lying to get into a course?

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I attend a small liberal arts college in the US. Through the cross-registration program, we are permitted to take classes at a large state university at no extra cost to us. However, we are only allowed to enroll in one course at a time; the system will not allow us to take two during the same semester.

Next semester, I am interested in taking two courses at the university. The will both be very small; certainly under 15 students each. Both professors have told me I cannot attend their class without being officially enrolled (I asked both individually). I have been considering attending both classes and asking both professors to fill out the cross-registration form that would allow me to enroll in their class, but only turning in one professor's form. From my previous experience at this university, the registration takes 4-6 weeks to come through, but professors, of course, let you attend class before that happens, so they may forget about awaiting the registration during that time. Even if they ended up finding out that I never turned it in, I would still have received a month of instruction before that happens, which I find valuable.

I am curious about the ethical concerns about this from the standpoint of the professors. Obviously by being there I am giving them more work, but they are not paid according to the number of students attending their classes. On the other hand, I know that class enrollment is really important to directors of departments and higher-ups in the university, so they are doing the work of teaching me without getting the benefit of one more student in their enrollment numbers. And from a personal standpoint, I would feel absolutely terrible about developing a good relationship with a professor and having them find out I lied to them.

I am not asking to be told what to do (it's probably not a very good idea), I would just like to know if there are any other concerns with lying to get into this course that I am not considering.

edit/update: Wow, I was not expecting to get so many responses. I'm not going to respond to comments and answers individually but I appreciate all your feedback, even though a few of you are a bit rude. I definitely will not be attempting to take both courses. Unfortunately, the program doesn't allow audits, so I am going to choose one of the two courses and stick with it. Thanks again for sharing all of your perspectives.