texts: Supervisor does not ask for opinion of graduate student about an undergraduate thesis that the graduate student assisted with

texts:
As a graduate student, I have recently supervised an undergraduate with their thesis work in co-operation with my own supervisor. I took care of the daily in-detail supervision, and my supervisor had the "grand overview" of the project and where it should lead to. This went on for almost 7 months.

Today, in roughly 3 hours, is the defense of the undergraduate. However, my supervisor hasn't asked me for my opinion on the thesis that was handed in. Actually, since it was handed in 2 weeks ago, I haven't been asked about it at all. The thesis will be evaluated by an external referee and the supervisor at a public defense today -- if it wasn't for the undergraduate student telling me, I wouldn't even know that the defense was today!

I find this weird, and to some extent unprofessional. As the main leader and supervisor, they should, in my opinion, discuss the thesis with me to hear my opinion and include me in this process. After all, I did help with the "brute work".

Part of me wants to let my supervisor know that I feel a little left out. On the other hand, I don't want to be difficult. What do you think I should do?


texts: Do graduate school admissions committees care about an official bachelors degree, or just the relevant coursework?

texts:
I am a second year undergraduate in in Math+CS interested in applying to some CS graduate programs (in the US).

Since I began my degree I purposefully put off taking a series of general education requirements with the intent of instead moving quickly through my main CS and Math coursework so that I could begin doing undergraduate research as soon as possible. If I continue this strategy then by the end of my third year I would have finished all the core coursework for both a Math and CS degree, along with a significant number of graduate courses in both departments. I also am actively working on some research projects which might lead to publishing as a first or second author in a relatively good journal, and some good recommendation letters.

Overall I feel like I could have a pretty competitive graduate application by next fall, except that I would not have the necessary general education requirements to be officially granted degrees by my university.

Would a graduate admissions committees be at all concerned that I did not officially complete my degree? Are there any reasons to hold out on applying until my fourth year (other than the possibility of taking more coursework, doing more research, etc.)?


texts: Chances of getting a postdoc with low number of papers

texts:
I'm a Ph.D. graduate in biotechnology/molecular biology, who is actively seeking a post-doctoral position at a US or Europe-based institute. I'm neither from US, nor from Europe. Thus, I believe, my chances of getting a postdoc position is slightly harder, compared to some others.

My Ph.D. supervisor was very strict in allowing Ph.D. students graduate, only after at least 3 different projects have been completed. My first project was completed long time ago and its paper was published at a high-impact journal. However, my second paper was rejected by an editor, thus we recently divided it into 2 sections and submitted them to average-impact journals. They are under review right now.

The 3rd project's paper will be submitted in 2 weeks.

I've contacted many well-known professors in my field, and they do respond to my e-mail, mostly saying they are interested in accepting me in their group, only if I can secure my own funding. Or, they say they are waiting for a grant to come up.

But, every e-mail I get from them sounds very familiar to each other. They either have no new grant, or would like me to have my own funding.

A PI I know recently told me, my chances were extremely low if I did't have at least 4 published papers. I've got 1 published, but 2 "under review" articles, and I'm the first-author of all.

Do you agree with this PI? Should I wait until I get to reach to the level of having 4 published papers, which might happen after 6 months or something. Or, do you think papers "under review" are nearly as impactful as papers "published"?


texts: What do you do when your best friend cheats and has become top 10 in class of 250?

texts:
My very best friend cheats, not just looking over her shoulder for two answers, I mean full out cheats - raising each grade from what would be a D to an A. I feel very guilty for doing something wrong, so I can not cheat.

I have a rank 35 in the school (I have only made 3 B's in 4 years of school). Most students above that cheat constantly. She takes mostly AP classes and I do too, but I am getting very frustrated that she and others look very intelligent when they cheat on the whole test before hand. My friend always brags about how she will be awarded a very prestigious award for her grades in Calculus, but my friend just told me she cheats on all the tests. Just recently she got a list of all the answers for a test and just bubbled each in knowing nothing. She will be awarded with many awards she does not deserve. I just don't think it is fair considering colleges look at rankings.

I don't want to lose my friendship with a really close friend, but I can't let this stand. I have tried warning her it was a bad idea. She wants to be a medical doctor and I feel like its important now for her to not cheat. People say that bad things will happen in the future because of what she does now, but I honestly believe she will continue to cheat without consequences.

Side-note: Another friend said, "Why would it matter if she cheats, that isn't affecting you." I just feel like it is affecting me when rank is what colleges look at.

What should I do?


texts: Who should the authors of a corrigendum be?

texts:
I have discovered an error in my paper published in a journal. I am a PhD student and the original paper was published with my advisor and two other researchers from different universities. The correction of the error, which was a significant amount of work, but luckily ultimately did not change any of the conclusions, was done in collaboration with my advisor, but without almost any interaction from the two external coauthors of the original paper. They know about it, though, and agreed with the changes I made.

So my question is: Should the authors of a corrigendum always be the same as the ones for the original paper? If this matters, my field is numerical mathematics/scientific computing.


texts:
Currently, I am a Master's student, and I sent an email to a professor from another department in my university. The email was about a topic which could simply be answered as yes or no. But, I have not received an answer from the Professor yet, and since I use official university email account, I have no doubt that it was not classified as spam.

It will be nearly a week, what should I do next ? Should I go directly and talk with the Professor, assuming that he did not notice my email ? Even if I was not able to arrange an appointment with him via email, should I directly knock his door, will this be considered rude ? I don't think it should be difficult to say a simple no as an answer.


texts: Are Prior Publications allowed in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory?

texts:
I have a paper written that is about 17 pages. I plan to submit a shortened version of it of only the main ideas to a conference with a 10 page limit next month, but I also want to submit the full manuscript for review to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory in parallel. I was reading their FAQ and I read the following paragraph which really confused me:

  Policy on prior publication

  Contributions should comprise novel and
  previously unpublished material; however, prior publication at (or
  parallel submission to) conferences does not preclude publication in
  this Transactions, provided this is properly referenced in the paper
  at the time of submission to the Transactions. Thereafter, submission
  to other journals is precluded, unless the paper is rejected by this
  Transactions, or is withdrawn. If all or part of the paper was
  previously presented at one or more conferences, a statement such as
  the following must be included in the authors' footnote on the first
  page of the paper at the time of submission: "This paper was presented
  [in part] at ... [and ...]."

  If authors submit a paper that is a nearly verbatim copy of a prior
  conference publication, they have to indicate to the editors in a
  cover letter why they feel that republication is warranted. Editorial
  decisions will take into account any previous publication of submitted
  material.

Here is what's confusing me. At first, they say that its okay to have parallel submission as long as this is referenced in the paper. Then they say but we have to indicate this to the editors with a cover letter. I am confused, is what I am doing okay or not?


texts: What and how to write about these problems in my CV when I apply to phd program in Europe

texts:
I completed my Masters in mathematics in my home country (a developing country in Asia) in June 2020. I applied to 6 professors to do a PhD in the last semester of my Masters. I was rejected for 5 and funding couldn't be arranged for the 1 in which I was accepted. So I thought I would try next year in both my home country and abroad (Europe). I didn't apply earlier to any of my home country's universities.
So, I started studying  for the qualifying exam in my home country while side by side studying some more to apply for PhD programmes abroad. I took the exam for PhD admission in my home country in December and received the result in early January. The result was lower than I had hoped for, although I don't yet know if I've been accepted.
My father is using this to make cruel comments to me, hurting my mental health. This contributed to me being depressed and missing several application deadlines for European universities. I completed only one application on time. Since then I have received medical help for my mental health problems.
How should I explain why I didn't apply to other programmes to the admissions committee of the university I did apply to ("university X")? Will it hurt my application if they know my father is against my decision or that I have had mental health problems? Should I lie (e.g. say I had COVID)?
If  I get an interview call from university X can I request to be interviewed later than other students so I have time to prepare?
I am really passionate about research and also returning to academia after quitting would be really hard for me. I don't want to do a PhD in my home country because my experience is that the quality of teaching is low.


texts: Mentioning future work, that is now complete

texts:
I am presenting a paper at a computer science conference.

The paper I submitted to the conference mentioned future work that would significantly enhance the utility of the method.

This work was work that was always planned to be part of the same "project" as the work in the paper, indeed the conference paper is presented as a part way step towards doing X, and the future work is what takes it all the way.

The extension was quite involved (and not quite complete when I submitted the paper for review). They day before I left for the conference that work was "completed", in that a journal article about it was submitted for review.

Now when I present at the conference, in the conclusion I want to mention the future work – at least to the extent that it was described in the conference paper.
Should I go into more detail?
Should I even mention that "This work is now complete, and is under review for publication"?


texts: Do Postdocs have any seniority ranking or progress?

texts:
I am seeing many people doing postdocs for years, or even nearly a decade, well into their late thirties. Do they usually have progressive salary and responsibility, as one could expect in a job?  Is your fifth or sixth year as a postdoc essentially the same as your first month after PhD., but with some extra publications?

For clarification, this is what I mean by progress.

In your later years, do you get to build and lead a small team of junior researchers who you hire from your grant, whom you can give some instruction, or you divide the tasks of a more ambitious project and you take some supervisory role in addition to your own hands-on research? I do not expect it to be completely managerial because I know postdocs love the actual research…but at least some mark of seniority and experience?


texts: Is it okay to get a letter of recommendation from my employer who is a scientist but not an Ph,D?

texts:
I've worked for 3 years in the same field which I'm going to apply in. And my boss belongs to the same field too. He completed his M.tech.

I am taking three LOR's. Two from qualified Ph.D professors from my undergrad and one from my boss who works in research but is not a Ph.D.


texts: What is the equivalent of European "seminar" in US universities?

texts:
At my Czech university where I study computer science (but I believe math and physics are organized the same way here), most courses have both lectures (professor presenting the topic to a large class) and "seminars" (TA giving exercises and homework to a smaller class).

I believe courses at US universities have different structure and that the term "seminar" has different meaning. But there has to be something like our "seminars", right? What is it called? How does it look like?


texts: What percentage of admitted phd students have peer-reviewed publications?

texts:
I'm interested in knowing what percentage(a rough estimate) of admitted phd applicants in top-60 university have peer-reviewed papers.

I'm particular interested in theoretical computer science.


texts: Is it rude to ask the status of an application?

texts:
I have applied for a PhD position in October 2015. I was not informed about the result since then.

Is it appropriate to send a mail to a member of the hiring committee (with whom I have contacted before applying) to ask about the process? Or should I wait for them to contact me?

The university is in Sweden and I have contacted with the member prior to the application since he is the head of the research group that I intend to work in.


texts: How have perceptions of ResearchGate changed from 2014 to 2018?

texts:
About 4 years ago, a question was asked about usefulness of ResearchGate for academics. Judging by the most upvoted answers, the portal had a rather negative opinion back then. However, social media trends tend to change on much shorter timescales, and my experience with RG has actually been slightly positive. This makes me curious as to how the perception has changed since then.

To quote the previous question, I would be very interested in knowing if, as of 2018, ResearchGate is a good way of increasing the visibility of your publications and finding fellows with common research interests, or is it just a "waste of time"?

Since the above is - as many have rightly pointed out - too opinion based, I would like to ask, more specifically: In what ways has ResearchGate changed over the last 4 years? How do these changes affect perception of ResearchGate in the academic community?


texts: How are reference letters for postdocs submitted?

texts:
I am right now beginning my first application for my first post-doctoral position. The announcement lists a series of documents which should be submitted, including (quite predictably) a reference letter from my supervisor.

How would such letter normally be delivered? I am asking because of a certain cognitive dissonance. On one hand, the application lists it just like another document, which would suggest that I should simply get it from my supervisor and send it together with all the remaining paperwork. On the other hand, I remember that when I was applying for my PhD, the process of submitting references was rather more complicated, and specifically excluded me having access any of the reference letters. So maybe I should ask him to post his opinion directly to where I'm applying. How do these things typically work? (I imagine that if no clarification is given, there is a universally agreed way...)

If it matters, I’m now in UK, and applying for a position in Eastern Europe. I study pure mathematics.


texts: How do you promote your papers in Mendeley?

texts:
A colleague of mine says mendeley is a good place for promoting published papers to be read by peers. However, as I tried, it is a private library for a person or a group of people.

Am I missing something? Is there an option to promote your uploaded papers publicly?


texts:
I have just received feedback about my PhD (in my University, we do not do an oral defense, our dissertations are peer reviewed) - and I have received great and useful feedback and criticisms which will be a breeze to respond to.

Also included in the feedback are some very kind and positive comments about me as a scientific researcher.  This leads me to my question, would it be appropriate to use the positive comments from the examiners when applying to academic positions? This of course, while preserving the anonymity of the examiners themselves.

Something along the lines of "Examiners to my PhD dissertation recognized my ability to perform task, stating positive comment".


texts: My department has changed its favorite fields of research. What are the consequences?

texts:
When I was hired to a math department (in the US) my field was among the favorite directions in the department. Few years later the department decided to put more attention on some other areas of math.

I am wondering what might be the practical consequences of this decision for me. E.g. whether my research will be considered to be less important for the department from some point of view? Will I get more administrative duties? Will it be harder to get grants for my research? Any other consequences?

I have a tenure position.


texts: What master combines application development and modeling and simulation engineering?

texts:
I am engineer in  process and chemical engineering but now I am working for a small company where I am research and development engineer (most of the tasks I work on is developping applications and now it was said I am going to work on modeling and simulation)
I would like to know what kind of master can I do in order to have a diploma covering application development and modeling and simulation?


texts: Grad school hasn't responded to me two months after the results are supposed to be out

texts:
I applied to a few grad schools and my top choice school hasn't responded to me. They confirmed they received my application and all my documents. I even got in touch with a professor who said she would be happy to take me into her lab. On the website, it says we should receive their decisions by the end of March, and right now, it's almost the end of May. I've tried contacting the admissions coordinator, left him a vm and email, contacting the professor, and also the people I was in touch with regarding my documents. No answer from anyone.

Did they forget my application? What do I do? I don't think I'll be accepted at this point and I'll go to my second choice school. Can I ask for my application fee back?


texts: Several month ago I received the decision letter on my manuscript which was submitted to a credible journal. The paper was rejected; however, one of the reviewers suggested that the paper is better submitted elsewhere as a short technical paper. So, I've searched but couldn't find any prestigious journal that receive such type of papers. Is there any specific type of journal/magazine for such papers (in computer science)?


texts: Is it possible to do a Master's and PhD at the same time?

texts: I am currently in my master's and about to start my research. Is it possible that I can do my research with any institute in Europe or do my Ph.D. at the same time but from different universities?


texts: Is there a known relation between course pass rate and student feedback?

texts:
I analysed the relation between the feedback scores of my courses given by students against the average grades of the students in these courses. I found a moderate correlation (Pearson r) of 0.595. i.e. if the grades are better the students tend to give better evaluations of my teaching.

While I kind of expected something along these lines I then correlated the pass rate (= students with a positive final mark divided by the number of students) of the courses and mean student feedback and found a striking correlation of 0.898 (note that for Pearson r 0.0 would be no relation and 1.0 would be a perfect relation).

At the time I grade the exam I do not know the students’ feedback and at the time the students give the feedback they have not written their final exam yet but they have the results of the midterm exam and several marked assignments/papers (the combination of both usually being a pretty good predictor of the final exam and grade).

My analysis is based on a relatively low number of 10 courses (amounting to about 610 hours of class room presence).

Therefore my questions are:

Is there a known relation between pass rate and student feedback?
E.g. a publication that analysis this on a larger scale? Or are my
results just an odd outlier?
If this holds true would it not question the meaningfulness of
feedback scores as making a course easier gives better feedback
(tenure decisions etc)?


texts: Getting faculty position in the US: after Postdoc in the US or Lecturer in the UK?

texts:
I am a postdoc in a US university (Rank A, edit: R1). I tried to get an academic faculty position in the US, but was unsuccessful. I got an offer (lecturer in the UK system) from the UK university (say, Rank B, edit: "new university"). Is it worth to accept the offer, and again try from the UK to get a faculty position in the US? Or I should try to get another postdoc in the US only? Would it be difficult to get the position once I move out from the US?

I have gone through In order to get a CS faculty position in the U.S, should I have a Ph.D. from an "American" university?, Is it more difficult to score a Tenure Track position in the US when applying from outside?, and What should a faculty member outside of the US do to move to a top-tiered American university?. But still not sure in my case.

One of the reasons of not short-listing is that I do not have a PhD from the US, (I thought). I got only two on-campus calls (from college/new univ. only) for the interview out of many.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!


texts: How much time should be allocated to supervising undergraduate researchers?

texts:
I recently asked this question about how many office hours per week are common for undergraduate lecturers but then I just read this one about supervising research done by undergrads. This got me thinking that perhaps my previous question was going in the wrong direction.

I have >300 students in 3 different subjects. 200 of those students are in one subject and that subject requires students to do extensive research. My challenge (explained in the question linked above) is that I seem to have too little time to properly support this many students.

These are business students so there is no lab. The research is reading the literature, finding data, integrating the two into some meaningful insight.

So, my question is, when supervising undergraduate students who are doing research, how much time on average, per week, per student, should this consume of the supervisor's time? 15 minutes? 30 minutes? 1 hour?

Edit: To put this in perspective, the students are not writing a bachelor thesis. However, they are expected to put in about 100 hours of non-class time (after the class time has finished) doing their research and writing it up. The final product is about 4,000 - 5,00 words (so far less than a thesis).


texts: Presenting a paper at a conference/seminar that is currently under review by a journal

texts: Do you think it is against the academic code of conduct to present a paper at a conference or a departmental seminar that has already been submitted to a journal for publication?


texts: A PhD program is asking how long I need to make a decision

texts:
So, I got an unusual (to my understanding) question from a program today asking how much time will I need to accept or reject an admission offer. It's the only school that has contacted me so far and I am completely unsure how to answer that.

Does anyone have any suggestions what to do in that situation? I mean, it all seriously depends on circumstances, right?


texts:
Does a PhD student and first author choose the journal or their supervisor?

This is in the case where negotiations have failed.
Who should get the final say or keeps this right?


texts: I could not apply for a scholarship that I cleared the cutoff for. Can I mention that I was eligible in my graduate applications?

texts:
I am a physics undergrad in India thinking of applying for a Ph.D. in the US sometime later in my life. I got 96.6% in my class XII, due to which I was eligible for a scholarship in our country, given to top 1% of the students in pure sciences for research.
The problem is that I did not know much about the scholarship (it wasn't particularly popular in my college when I started it) and got to know the full information about it on the very last day of the form submission. So, me along with 5 of my friends, went to the college and and requested the principal to sign it for us. But she shooed us away saying that she would not sign it in any case saying that

we were a disgrace to the punctuality expected from us

and ended up not signing it at all.
Now, I know that it was my mistake too to be notified properly, but that is not the point of my question. The cutoffs came some months later and they were 95.2%.
Now, the main question- Is it possible at all for me in the future to somehow mention that I was eligible for this research scholarship. Because I don't honestly think it was 100% my fault. Perhaps the teacher was being a bit too hard on us.


texts: What are potential hassles of publishing papers with family name preceding given name?

texts:
As some of you may already know, family names precede given names in Eastern Asian culture, and furthermore  given names (e.g., Lingfeng) are more differentiable than family names (e.g., Li). This is quite the opposite of Western names.

As an Eastern Asian who just started my career in academia, I am seriously considering publishing my future papers under Li Lingfeng instead of Lingfeng Li (just an example). To me the benefits are two-fold.

This preserves my culture better, and I don't think nowadays Westerners will have problems identifying my family name is actually Li. I guess they are already familiar with this name format, given that in mainstream news (such as BBC or CNN), Chinese names always appear in its original form, e.g., Mao Zedong rather than Zedong Mao?
Citation Li et al., 2016 is way less distinguishable than Lingfeng et al., 2016. It's every researcher's dream to get famous. I think this at least helps clear some ambiguity?

Will this unconventional way of writing my name cause trouble in my future academic career? What are the foreseeable hassles that it may bring?

It will be even more amazing if someone could also help me with this bonus question: for immigration purpose, will it cause me any trouble if my publication records don't match exactly my foreign IC that writes Lingfeng Li?


texts: My advisor wants me to reinvent the wheel

texts:
My advisor introduced a model 15 years ago, published a lot of papers (including PNAS). Now, he makes me incorporate this model into well-established model from the neighboring field of research. I think he just tries to stay in the known waters (cite his own papers, etc). Of course, he is well aware (but not proficient) that everything we try now to research was already published in this neighboring field.

What should I do?

Continue to reinvent the wheel with minor modifications (people from the neighboring field will probably laugh)
Try to switch the project (although it will be hard)
Freelance in the "spare" time ;)

Edited after Piotr's remark. Hope that nailed it down a bit.


texts: Is an unexpected reference letter inherently a black mark?

texts:
I recently applied for a math postdoc in Europe. I contacted the number of letter-writers requested in the job ad, all of whom agreed and sent in letters for me. I also included the names of these people in my application.
I then found out that someone else I didn't ask, but who knew I was applying for this job (and would have been my next reference if the number of letters requested was higher) sent in a letter on-spec, without informing me in advance. Is that going to hurt my application at all, assuming that the letter is good? I'm worried it will make me look disorganised for omitting a letter-writer name, or similar.


texts: how to bring into full play what was prepared during faculty interviews

texts: A faculty interview is short, whether it be a skype one or an onsite one. Esp for the former, as interviewers have tight and non-negotiable time limits, it's so short that there's little space beyond answering the interviewers' direct questions. In a short interview, as one invariably improvises, no matter how well they were prepared, it seems. Many rehearsed lines (not necessarily the exact wording, but topics planned to highlight) are forgotten. How to bring into full play what was prepared?


texts: Is it common for universities to have multiple boards (eg, a General Planning Board, a Finance Board, etc.) and what is the typical name for these?

texts:
I am wondering if it's common for universities to have multiple boards, each with a specific mandate to manage and carry out initiatives in a specific field, such as General Planning, Education, Finance, Global Initiatives, etc. I am particularly interested in universities in the US and the UK.

These boards would be hierarchically under the main governing board of the university and would be staffed with professors and led by trustees from the board. They would be at the administrative level.

Would it be more common to name these boards committees or subcommittees?


texts: I was invited to an unexpected and urgent second postdoc interview (in less than 24h) - Is this fair?

texts:
I had postdoc at a top 10 university in the world. The email of the first interview said I should expect questions around the job description. The first interview was very smooth and I felt very good about it.
A few days later, I received an email in the afternoon, the email said I have a second interview tomorrow morning and I should expect questions around the job description (I think these are just automatic emails).
The second interview however, was a bit different. In order to decide between me and another candidate, they said they needed a technical interview which they presented a problem I needed to solve in 10 minutes, the problem required a lot of programming skills and classic concepts. I haven't programmed in a while now and nothing in the job description not in the email says "programming skills".
I gave okay answers and played it safe a lot in my problem solving approach. I couldn't solve the problem in the given time because I simply needed to refresh my memory and remember some concepts, but I did get a "thumbs up" from the potential PI when I was explaining some stuff. Unfortunately, I wasn't selected and I think the other candidate gave better answers.
Now days later, I can't stop thinking about that whole process. Normally, if the panel expects a presentation, they mention it in the invitation email. It's very weird and a bit unfair to do that to candidates they clearly liked in a very short amount of time. I truly believe that the interview could have been way better if they mentioned anything about a technical interview. Just because one candidate performed better (obviously, people are different), doesn't make the evaluation process fair. What do you think about the situation, is this a normal routine for postdoc interviews?
PS:
The postdoc was in the UK and I live in north Africa. I am saying this because perhaps it justifies why the HR send an email and didn't call (perhaps they can only call candidates within the UK). The field is Computer Science.


texts: What kind of assistance from graduate institution can I expect in transferring parole?

texts:
I am currently applying to graduate programs in physics across the US, though primarily in California. I am a New York State resident currently on parole for a violent crime committed in 2005. I have been on parole for over 3 years, and will be released in the Summer of 2016.

I am going to have to transfer my parole with only several months notice, which will be a hassle. My hope is that my academic accomplishments will result in my parole transfer being completed without resistance.

If anyone has any idea what I can expect from a graduate institution in terms of assistance in the process, please respond. I foresee the process being a rough transitions if the state to which I transfer is not welcoming.


texts: Rehearse or memorise to improve my presentations?

texts:
This may be a dumb question. I would like to improve my presentation skills.

So should I rehearse my presentation at least 5-10-20 times? Or should I memorise my presentation and practice it enough?

When rehearsing, I make my presentation in front of a mirror and observe that I deliver the same messages in a different way in each time, while if I memorise what to say for each slide of my presentation, then I deliver the same messages in same way very confidently each time I practice in front of a mirror.

So I am getting confused which one is the better method to deliver an effective presentation?


texts: What are the primary causes of conflict between PhD advisors and their students?

texts:
Here's a very interesting analysis from a professor's point of view on the primary causes of conflict between PhD advisors and their students:

  In my experience, incompatible personalities account for a large
  fraction of the conflicts that I have run across over my 13 years
  since college.  Basically, the student has the wrong advisor.  No one
  is at fault – it's like a marriage that doesn't work out.

I would like to get some more perspectives on this question though, as graduate students may perceive this question differently.


texts: What are some options for a graduate student abandoned by Ph. D advisor?

texts:
I'm currently doing a PhD in applied mathematics,  I'm about to start my final year.   The problem that I've been working on for the last 2 years was originally proposed by my advisor and one of his colleagues.  The direction of research wasn't that good,  the problem had already been studied by previous researchers and there is very little one can add to what's there already.

I discussed this with my supervisor early on,  but he suggested I persevere because he saw some promise in our approach.   In these 2 years I have struggled to find something worth mentioning,  and have only produced meagre results at best.   What's worse is that my advisor has virtually no interest in what I do.  I don't think he's actually read any of my work, or even read any of the surrounding literature.  His advice has not been so useful.

Without anybody to guide me and without a clear problem to work on I feel really lost and a bit cheated especially considering the amount of attention he gives to his other students.  I'm no genius but I've consistently helped his other postgrads do their own research (in completely different areas), and while our advisor has guided them into publishing several papers each, I'm sitting here clueless,  with absolutely nothing to show for myself.

Sorry about the rant,  but I'm really lost.  Any advice would be appreciated.


texts: Whether to use Dr or Prof when addressing oneself in an email?

texts: I feel awkward addressing myself as Dr. X or Prof X. I know that this is common practice (e.g. in emails, letters, etc..). In emails, I prefer to just use my initials or first name. Is this a common experience (i.e. not wanting to be addressed as Dr. or Professor)?


texts: Is Google Docs an appropriate tool to write a PhD thesis?

texts:
I am quite early in my PhD program, and am deciding on what tool to use to write my documentation, principally my thesis.  My prefered tool would be markdown / latex, but my primary supervisor really does not like it, to the point that collaboration with this involves printing the document, hand writing notes on it and me transcribing these notes to the original.  My supervisors prefered tool is microsoft word, but I use linux and running a virtual box just to do my writing is a significant drain on the resources of my computer, I am often writing while running computations.

We are currently preparing a paper on the initial work of my PhD, and this is being done successfully through google docs.  Would this be an appropriate tool to use for my whole thesis?


texts: Why are meta-analyses the most quoted type of research paper despite being often flawed?

texts:
Meta-analysis represents the statistical pooling of several individual studies focusing on a specific research question, ideally conducted within the context of a systematic review of the scholarly literature.

Several examples of meta-analysis are available, with the first ones already appearing in the mid '50s, despite this term being proposed first by Gene Glass.

Indeed, it appears that meta-analyses continue to have substantial success in the scholarly literature, and often appear among the most quoted types of research design. Yet, a plethora of meta-analyses of suboptimal quality is being currently published, and this unfortunate trend does not appear to cease.

Which are the main reasons for this success? And, most appropriately, is this scientifically sound and reasonable, given the epidemic of meta-analyses often of suboptimal quality (Ioannidis 2016) or overlapping in content (Biondi-Zoccai et al, BMJ 2006)?

Disclosure: I am the first author of Biondi-Zoccai et al, BMJ 2006, and I have coauthored dozens of meta-analyses.


texts:
I'm looking for some career/life advice. I am currently 9 months into my first postdoc job in the US (originally 1 year contract) in the life sciences, after finishing a PhD in the UK. My contract ends later this year so I'll have been here 1.5 years and I'm not sure I want to renew it. I know most postdocs are usually 2-3 years in length, but I think I am ready to go back to the UK once the contract ends. The project is great, the lab is amazing and I've gained so many new skills. I know that finishing the project would be great for my career. But I've had some bouts of bad luck in my personal life and it has really affected me. I miss my family and friends at home and now I'm torn between my career and mental health...

Talking to my supervisor, she is understanding but also doesn't think I will have enough data by August for a paper as it's a huge ongoing project. I'm wondering what the damage would be from having that 1.5 year postdoc abroad on my CV without any papers. Or would employers look at it and be understanding that it might be difficult to be far from home or that I have at least gained valuable skills despite no papers as it was less than 2-3 years?

Anyone experienced similar situations or have any advice?


texts: Does scientific experience matter for a funded PhD application?

texts:
I have some scientific experience, some papers in conference journals with impact factor, and a couple of papers in scientific journals. I am in a bad situation and may be unable to keep my current PhD (I am a final year student without funding).

I would like to know if I have good changes to be accepted in a funded PhD program in my field of research in another University in EU because of my research experience, or do only the BSc, MSc grades really matter? Mine are not too high. Also, do the MPhil grades also matter for application to a funded PhD program? Mine are high. People aren't supposed to have one when they apply.


texts: Am I allowed to modify figures of a dissertation for my dissertation

texts:
Can I modify a figure of someone else's dissertation and use the modified picture in my dissertation? Or might this be a problem regarding the copyright? Of course I would cite the source which I got the picture from in the form:
Picture_X (Own figure based on [Mr. X, 2020])


texts: Could faculty members earn a degree while being employed?

texts:
Is it possible for faculty members to enrol themselves for a degree while being employed? I have seen professors attending classes occasionally, but how about earning a full degree?

I guess this may not be an issue within a university, but what if the professor wants to earn the degree with another university in the same city, for example?


texts: Version control for research and teaching statements

texts: Every time I apply for a job I write a new cover letter, research statement, and teaching statement. While each statement is personalized for the specific job, I tend to do a lot of cutting and pasting and little new writing (yes I have a whole collection of past statements). This seems like something that might be useful to keep under version control. how do people manage the different versions of the cover letter, research statement, and teaching statement?


texts: Can publishing on arXiv create copyright issues?

texts: As an undergraduate I'm relatively new to academia. I was wondering if publishing a paper on arXiv could potentially be an issue if I were to want to get the same paper in, say, Nature, for why would Nature be okay with their material being openly available online? Isn't there a copyright issue here?


texts: Can one 'wear out' an editor with bad papers?

texts:
Should the fact that a journal's editor is 'human' be a factor in submitting manuscripts?

Example - say I'm writing 4 manuscripts. The first three are 'bad' and the fourth is good. Then I submit them to the journal, one every 6 months or so. The first three will be rejected. But will they affect the ruling of my 4th submitted manuscript, even it is much better?

I.e., should I keep in mind that the journal's editor gets my manuscripts and by the time I get to my 4th and 'good' manuscript,  will they already have a biased opinion on my works?


texts: How much are local (same state or country) applicants favored in PhD admissions?

texts:
How protectionistic are PhD admissions?

Here, protectionism means to favor residents of the country (or state) the university is in, as far as PhD admissions are concerned. Usually, protectionism arises due to funding restrictions or other burdens of a financial nature (e.g. tuition waivers).

But how much of a disadvantage are foreign students at, when it comes to PhD admissions?

I understand that the answer differs from a country to another, and from an institution to another within the same country. And even different fields within the same institution have different standards, so please pay attention to context when providing answers.


texts: Applying to work where I said "no" in the past?

texts:
I'm currently applying for lecturing jobs at a couple of universities (in the US), and one of these is a place that had accepted me in its Ph.D. program a few years back, an offer which I ended up turning down to go somewhere else (this was done in a very courteous way and I do not believe I left a bad impression).

Do you think my history with the school could have an adverse effect on my current application?
If not, is there any reason to  mention somehow that I applied to their graduate program (I'm worried that if I avoid the "elephant in the room" they might become suspicious)?


texts:
What are advantages and drawbacks of starting a computer science PhD funded both by the university and a company, compared to a PhD fully funded by the university?

I can provide more details about the context pointing out some hypotheses that I have done so far.

A company:

will provide proprietary data;
will stimulate about solutions for current issues;
will impose constraints on PhD topic (it could be slightly modified, but no more);
will impose some constraints about publications, e.g. they would delay publications until new outcomes are started in the company production line.

On the other hand, without a company:

no proprietary data;
less stimulating scenario compared to issues coming from a real scenario (?);
free management of PhD topic (you could modify significantly during the 3-year research);
no problem about publications;
more "theoretical" research.

I will appreciate any experiences, especially computer science area.


texts: How does academia handle those with test anxieties?

texts:
Suppose you truly know the material but cannot perform well in a testing setting because you have real diagnosed anxiety or testophobia. How is it accommodated?

I was considering this for someone who has to take the qualifying exams as well.

So how do professors and administrators handle testophobia/test anxiety?


texts: How to export search results from Elsevier?

texts:
I am doing a systematic review and I am cataloging my searches.
I've already exported the search results from IEEE, and from Springer, with one click to an CSV file.
So I wonder how to do the same thing with the Elsevier site https://www.elsevier.com/search-results
In the IEEE site I've just clicked here and saved the CSV file. Same in the Springer site.
Does anyone know how I can download from Elsevier?


texts:
Chemistry major here, let preface this by saying I don't know anything about anything. That being said, as a student attending a school that is not very well known for its academics, I always figured that I needed to do whatever I could to be competitive. My fear is that I'll get into the world of academia and find out that I'm leagues behind my peers in terms of education. I'm probably overthinking things, but I just don't have enough information to know where I stand. So the honor's program sounded like the obvious decision at the time. In addition to the sweet-sounding benefits listed on the program page, it would maybe help close the gap between the difficulty of my school's chemistry program vs a top 50 program.
I did some looking around, and it seems that at most schools, an honor's program is something that students are jumping to get into. It's considered a pretty big deal to be part of it. But from asking around my school, the sentiment seems to be the exact opposite. Most students here don't tend to respect the honors program from what I can tell. They say that the extra work isn't worth it, so most tend to drop out after sophomore year. And I think that's because the benefits aren't as meaningful to, say, a CS major. I think to one entering the workforce immediately after graduation, honors college holds much less weight. My guess is that because my peers are here to put in their 4 years and join the workforce, they don't really care about things like prestige or standing out. Which makes sense for them, but coming from someone who has different goals, I don't know if their opinions are applicable to me. I have yet to talk to a hard science major about this, so I don't know how much importance something like honors college carries to us.
To be perfectly honest, a lot of what honors college entails just sounds like fun to me. I would love the opportunity to do it. But I can't say it's worth it if the extra workload has the possibility of tanking my GPA. Does anybody have any experience with an honors program at school, and how it's affected their career and their enjoyment of college? Thanks in advanced.


texts: Possible to use exchange semester credits for master's degree at exchange university?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student from South Africa about to enter my fourth year of study in economics. Key to what you should know is that our (in South Africa) academic year starts at the beginning of the calendar year. So my home institution's first semester is at the same time as European second semesters. As part of my degree I have to complete an exchange semester abroad. This typically happens in the second semester of third year. However, due to COVID, things have been shuffled around and I will now be doing my exchange in the second half of 2021, my final semester of undergrad (second half of fourth year).
My ultimate goal is to get a master's degree from the exchange institution in Europe. My exchange semester will be after I have completed all my home institution credits, and it will be a first semester at the home institution. By virtue of my already completed credits, I am eligible to register for all the required subjects (minus thesis) for the first semester of the master's degree during my exchange. Thus, my plan is to do the first half of the master's degree (1 year programme) on my exchange. Then, I want to use those classes as credits towards a master's degree, and finish the second half in the semester immediately after my graduation from my home university.
In principle, I have the support from the head of department for economics from my home university and that of my degree programme head. I have also finished with undergraduate economics (my major) early, and will be starting with postgraduate economics as an extra in the semester between now and my exchange (only possible due to special permissions).
My contact person at my home institution's international office is not entirely supportive of the idea, and is worried that there may be an issue with using the same credits for two degrees.
My grades are excellent, and my extra-curricular experience is also very good. Based on the requirements, I suspect I would be very eligible for the master's programme at the exchange institution.
How doable is this? And what would be the best course of action?


texts: Communication & Networks v/s Signal Processing & Optimization - what area to work in?

texts:
I am an electrical engineering undergrad with an interest in communication theory, networks, signal processing and optimization. I have PhD offers from two groups - one working in communications & networks and another working in statistical signal processing, compressive sensing & community detection. How do I decide between the two? It is my opinion that currently communication theory and networks have become a mature field with not much scope for rapid growth or fundamental path-breaking research, while the work in the other group is quite more "in vogue" due to machine learning based applications and has the potential to solve more fundamental problems.

A comparison between the two areas with regards to future research and job opportunities would be great.


texts: How do I cite — in APA style — a Creative Commons licensed image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons?

texts:
Suppose I wish to use this image in my paper: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_white_tiger.jpg
+--------------+
|              |
|  IMAGE HERE  |
|              |
+--------------+

Figure 1: A white tiger in captivity (Morin, 2018).

How do I properly cite the image in the references section?
My attempt:
Format:John, D. (Year). Official description. Publisher. Retrieved on Month Date, Year. https://www.example.com/image-source.jpg. License.

Morin, B. (2018). Standing white tiger (Bengal tiger species ) with open mouth, at Singapore Zoo. Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved October 8, 2020. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_white_tiger.jpg. CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Suppose the English description does not exist; only the French description exists. How should the citation look like when there is only an official description in French? My attempt:

Morin, B. (2018). Tigre blanc (espèce Tigre du Bengale ), la gueule ouverte, au zoo de Singapour [Standing white tiger (Bengal tiger species ) with open mouth, at Singapore Zoo]. Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved October 8, 2020. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_white_tiger.jpg. CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Are my citations of Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons licensed images correct in APA style?


texts:
In some countries, whenever someone applies for a Ph.D. admission, the universities ask for a research proposal. A research proposal includes a literature review and bibliography.
If the research is paper-based research, i.e. no popular survey or experiment is involved, I see no further need for research work.
For instance, say, someone wants to redefine and redescribe the origin and purpose of British colonialism in India.
In this case, if the researcher has already read the needed resources and done his desk-research, the only task left is writing a thesis that may take at most three months.
What is the difference between preparing a research proposal and writing the actual thesis in the case of theoretical research?


texts: What happens if the editor cannot find reviewers?

texts:
I submitted to a journal a couple of months ago. The editorial flow is somehow quick and very transparent. I receive notifications for all events happening to the manuscript.

Unfortunately, the managing editor contacted me three weeks ago. They informed me that the assigned editor could not commit to the job and left. Another editor was immediately assigned.

However, I was contacted today by the new assigned editor. I was informed that all the contacted reviewers so far either refused to review the manuscript or did not respond to the invitation. They are now looking for other reviewers.

Despite the bad luck surrounding the manuscript, all of this happened in a reasonable time and I am satisfied with how quickly they react.

Nevertheless, these events made me reflect. Even if an editorial board possesses a fair network of reviewers, there is still a little risk that all the contacted reviewers either refuse or do not reply.

What happens if no reviewers could be found for a submitted manuscript? Is the journal going to reject the manuscript because of a lack of reviewers?


texts: While doing anthropological fieldwork I shared some films on a hard disk with an international research scholar in the same field it also had my unpublished data and chapters in progress. While her research objectives are different there are overlapping areas of interest. She borrowed films but we did not get a chance to have any mutual exchange. I did not mind this but later I realised she was having fun at my expense. Now I am scared I compromised my data and chapters. Since they are very personal and open to interpretation I am still hoping it is safe.


texts: will having a different academic name than official name hurt?

texts:
My academic name school+B.Sc. is Rajesh without a surname, and in passport and all other docs it is Rajesh Lobhani that has the surname. I live in India and wish to work and do phd in Australia.

Doing M.Sc. currently so do I change my name(for M.Sc) or let it be? The procedure involves changing Xth and XII standard school name, and it very difficult.


texts: Professor wrote to me saying he supports my fellowship application to the committee

texts:
A professor I want to work with (at the university I applied to) informed that he is awaiting some funding news (for a project I had expressed interest in working with him on) and he also stated that he has highlighted my name to the fellowship committee.
Any idea what that means? Is that a positive development with regards to me getting an admit/fellowship?


texts: How to make my research productive when my advisors don't give me constructive feedback?

texts:
Thanks all for your kindly replies. This is my first time to post something on this website and I also read some other posts. I realized that I didn't get the purpose of this website. So I revised my post.

I am a 3rd year PhD student with Mechanical Engineering background. I have two advisors. One of them is a researcher in our department and another is a professor. Both of them had good papers published before. But maybe recently they are not that into research. The citations are going down. I feel like they think about my research only during the meetings. Their typical mentoring style is:

Let the student find research gaps. The student should justify why this problem is important and why people care about it. They never tell you that "you should work on this problem"
The student should be able to seek sources to solve the problem himself/herself, either doing literature search, or talking to other students. They never work side by side with you to figure something out
They meet students every week. During the meeting, they will throw a bunch of questions, such as "why did you use this example to validate your theory?" and "why did you propose this solution?".
When the student ask them questions, like "which system do you think is better for our situation?" and "Should I add this feature to our system?". Their answer would be "You need to find out yourself", "talk to xx", "what do other people do?".
They give suggestions. But they usually say "I am not telling you that you should do this and you need to decide"
When I follow their suggestion but things don't work out as expected, they would say "we didn't say you should do this and you need to think"
They never check your math. If your math goes against their instinct, they want you to explain in pure English instead of going through math.

I admit that my advisors' questions are good. The questions are usually the ones we will encounter during presentation. I also agree that my advisors give me lots of freedom to do research. But sometimes I feel like I don't know how to swim, they just throw me in the water and let myself figure it out. No doubt that my research is going super slow because I had lots of trial-and-error and I did lots of repetitive things. But they are still pushing me to publish paper, which makes me very upset. So how to make my research productive when they don't give me constructive feedback?

I have thought a lot about what I want from my advisors. Here is a list and I am not sure whether or not I am expecting too much:

When finding a research problem, because I didn't have a big picture of this domain yet, I was expecting my advisors could tell me what people care and why.
After deciding a research problem, I would like them to give me suggestions on what kind of skills that I should get or what courses I should take in order to be able to solve the problem.
During the research, when I need to decide something, like what assumptions I should make, I am hoping my advisors can help me decide. They have done research so many years and they should know what assumptions are realistic and what are not.
I hope my advisors are on the same page with me, not only the big picture but also the details. I can find solution or work on math/simulation by myself. But I hope they could understand my solution and my math. I may not always right on math. I hope someone could point out my mistake if there was. I don't want the reviewers to tell me that my math is wrong and to reject my paper.


texts: Telling my bachelor thesis supervisor about my mental health issues

texts:
I am in the process of writing my bachelor thesis, but my mental health has been in very bad shape lately, although I'm starting treatment soon. I am confident that it already had an effect on my productivity, and I can see the treatment procedure also affecting my productivity in the future. It was therefore advised to me by the "student advisor" (a member of my faculty that advises students about general concerns) to let my thesis supervisor know about my problem.

However, I am not sure how to go about doing this in regard to how specific I should be in describing my issues. One possible option would be to let him know that I have some sort of mental health issue. The benefit of this would be that he might be somewhat more receptive and understanding of my decreased productivity (and possible other problems). On the other hand I'm afraid it might be a bit harsh on him, because he might me reluctant to mark my thesis as insufficient or to have tons of negative commentary. (realistically speaking, I'm sure everyone involved in grading my thesis will understand that me not passing will not affect my health positively, to say the least) How should I approach this problem?


texts: Is it unusual for a prospective university to offer a bonus to your stipend after visiting?

texts:
I am a prospective PhD math student. This year's application season has brought me down to two schools to choose from:

Medium-sized department, ranked <80 on US News (whatever that means), very welcoming people, potential advisor is very young but seemed like we would "click", surrounding area and city is beautiful, program looks awesome.
Larger department, top 20 program, potential advisor is famous in his field, current advisor says I would work well with him/he's a cool guy, don't know much else since I've not visited.

I am waitlisted at university 2. University 1's initial offer to me included the standard stipend along with a decent fellowship. I made a visit to university 1 and talked with many professors and my potential advisor. After this visit, they offered me a ~17% increase in my stipend due to some professors advocating for me who were apparently impressed (whom I do not know other than my visit). I feel that this is a good sign, but I am ultimately pursuing a career in academia. So I know prestige plays a big roll in future jobs. Assuming I have an offer from university 2 as well:

Questions:

Is this late stipend increase offer typical?
Based on your experience and insight in the job market for academics, which university is the better option?

Thanks for your time to read.


texts: Asking for an invitation letter before applying to the Fullbright Scholarship?

texts:
So I'm currently applying for the Fullbright Masters Scholarship. I want to do Masters in Computer Graphics and there are very few universities in the US that deeply explore that area namely, Utah, Cornell, Stanford etc. The problem with Fullbright Scholarship is that they are responsible for placing you and there is no guarantee you get the University you want.

Since I've a couple of personal research projects already on my Github, I was hoping to email a professor asking for an invitation letter from his university if I appear promising. However since, this is a Masters, I certainly don't want to get bound and give my Master's thesis under the same professor as I haven't even explored all the sub-areas and haven't developed my interests fully. I was thinking that an invitation letter from the university I wish to join will certainly bolster my chances of getting placed there.

So is it appropriate to ask for an invitation letter under these circumstances and if so, should I explicitly mention that I've not made up my mind regarding a specific research area? Any tips or advices are helpful as this is my first time.


texts: Is there anything to do while waiting for results of a thesis examination?

texts:
I handed in my PhD thesis for examination. From reading the examination instructions it appears that if I get my degree, it could be between 6 weeks to a year. It all depends upon the comments I get back from the examiners.

My plan during that time was continue work on my research, get more results and publish more papers. Also, help out other PhD students in their research.

Considering the time-frame is so variable, is there anything else I should be doing or planning? The only advice I was given, was don't take a holiday.

BTW: I am quietly confident that the examination results I will get back will be positive.


texts: How to cite earlier work, discovered only at the end, that claims similar results to a recently completed project?

texts:
At the end of writing up our manuscript, we discover that there has been another earlier study in a very different context (but using a physical model very similar to ours) that claims a similar result.

We were not inspired by this earlier work and we could not have found it until we had our results; so this is not a case of not having done proper literature survey a priori.

So, do we cite them within the main text's introduction and results despite not having been inspired by it at all? Or do we cite them during the concluding remarks highlighting the similarities?

In either case, our results certainly complement theirs.


texts: Citing a paper that led to the discovery of another

texts: Whilst reading a paper I discovered another and I am now building upon the latter. Should I cite the former paper, since that's how I discovered the latter? Or does it suffice to cite only the latter?


texts: Trying to switch fields from PhD in computational biology to postdoc in machine learning/stats, how to increase likelihood of success?

texts:
All of the following takes place in a UK university.

I have a BSc in Physics and an MSc in Computer Science. My thesis was on applying various machine learning/statistical techniques to biological datasets. I wanted to do something similar for my PhD, however my supervisor left the university.

I am now in the first year of my PhD in Computer Science, specifically Computational Biology. My work focuses on comparing different techniques (physical/statistical/machine learning) in single cell simulations. I am finding it hard to incorporate machine learning techniques into my work as there aren't many datasets for the kind of thing my supervisor wants me to do and so the machine learning approach is proving tricky.

I desperately want a job/postdoc in a machine learning/stats environment.

Lots of post docs I know switched field after their PhD e.g. Astro-physics to machine learning, dependable systems to machine learning, Biophysics to compiler design. In my case would anyone in the ML community take me seriously? (I thought my Msc would help me out...)
I have taught myself a fair bit of ML and stats, is there anything else I should do to increase the likelihood of getting an ML/stats postdoc?
Would anyone in a stats department take me seriously as I have no maths degree?
Do people that change career areas have successful careers or is this normally a red flag?


texts:
I as a student have done various courses at my university and for each of these courses a textbook was prescribed. On the other hand, the instructor provided his notes as well. The textbook was huge (approximately 500 pages) whereas the lecture notes were only 100 pages and really short and clean. During my studies, I rarely used the textbook but relied on the notes and I think that I just did fine. I am not the only student who rarely uses prescribed textbook but other students also think the same in my classes. The students that I talked to prefer notes mainly because

textbooks are expensive so not everyone can afford buying 5 textbooks each academic session (5 subjects per session) which makes it 10 textbooks per year and the average price for each textbook is $150;
textbooks are huge (about 500 pages) so students prefer to use notes which is clean, short, and summarized;
It is true that during an academic session, a student studies for a particular subject, but he may forget some of the material so he needs to study it again few days before the exam. Studying a 500 pages textbook few days before the exams is practically impossible given the stress and pressure that students face when they get near the exam.

The only benefit of the textbooks that I can tell is that if you find a particular concept unclear, you can look at the textbook for clarification but most students really do not do this. If they struggle with a particular concept, they go to the office hours of the instructor and ask for clarification. The textbooks also have many exercises so if any student needs to do more exercises, they can uses the prescribed textbook but I have not seen any student who does this.

What is the purpose of a prescribed textbook in a course taught by instructor and why do instructors emphasize reading it?


texts: Potential consequences for a PhD student using a cracked software

texts:
A friend of mine, along with ~10 of their colleagues, recently received an email from the IT department saying the department is investigating those students for using two pieces of cracked software.  Apparently, the vendor contacted the university about this.

My friend was asked NOT to remove the software from his computer. Moreover, IT staff checked his computer without him being around (privacy breach?). They were emailed and asked several questions as well like: "Do you have the license?, do you have the software?, and is there an IT staff member overseeing your computer?"

They are now waiting to hear back.

My questions are:

How serious is this based on the above information?

What are the potential consequences?

Is it possible to get a fine for this?

Would there be any academic consequences?

Note: While using cracked software is obviously wrong, their research demanded using such software. The advisor knew this and allowed it to happen. So part of the responsibility should fall on the supervisor as well (my opinion).

Addition: This is a large North American university.


texts: Strategies to manage long-term course development

texts:
I'm in an interesting position in that I get to work with multiple instructors on multiple courses.  I'm usually tasked with coming up with draft assignments, rubrics, and other learning material.  So far I've been approaching this on a basis of "oh, the instructor asked for X, so I'll do X".   Each new project is essentially its own thing.  However, I'm noticing that:

a) my colleagues do the same thing, so we are all the curators of huge, generally unorganized and possibly duplicate databases of course material
b) I basically forget about a piece of material once I send it to the instructor.  There's not continuity, evaluation, or improvement.  If the instructor has feedback, I'll incorporate it at a later date, but I myself am not really spending the time to generate a plan for continual improvement of the learning material.

What are some strategies for managing this type of development over multiple courses and multiple semesters so that I can maintain, upgrade, and evaluate my learning material without spending so much time in administration that I can't develop anything new?


texts: When is the typical end of interview invitations for faculty positions?

texts: Is there a date when interview invitations stop going out? Some said that interview invitations will come between mid-Jan and mid-Feb, so can an applicant  assume that by March or mid-March there will be no more interview invitations?


texts: A professor wanted me to wait for his decision. It's been about 10 days, what should I write to show that I want to know how long it is going to take?

texts:
I am a PhD applicant and a professor interviewed me for joining his team. I waited for his intention regarding my case, after two weeks he emailed me that I should "wait a little bit longer". It's been almost 10 days from his email and about a month after our last interview. How should I write an email to show both that I am still waiting for his response (and interested in his work),and I need to know a timeline for his decision?
*It is already late to get an admission!


texts: How much am I allowed to edit my ESL friend's Master's Thesis?

texts:
I am lucky enough to be on a good schedule with my own edit: Thesis  and have a little extra time. Earlier in the year, I offered to edit one of my classmate's/close friend's dissertation in Computer Science. I made sure to leave enough time to do this in the writing process and they gave me a copy to edit a week before the deadline.

The time frame is fine, but the issue is I am unsure of how much help I am allowed to offer. They are an ESL (English as a Second Language) student, and I don't believe they have had much formal English training. Our University makes clear that they accommodate ESL students, as it is a large portion of the student base. The dissertation guidelines note they don't come down hard on syntax and grammar, but that the paper does need to make sense in written English, and that the examiners can't grade a paper they can't understand.

I'm looking at the paper now, and it's pretty rough. I'm not going crazy over the syntax and am helping with that some. However, I'm finding I'm having to make a lot of corrections and completely restructuring sentences and paragraphs in order to make the sentences make sense.

My question is how much should I be fixing? How much would I be allowed to fix? I am mostly worried about plagiarism, as it would be obvious that my friend's paper has been dramatically changed. My friend's supervisor has seen some drafts of his writing, and it would be obvious if the writing was suddenly much clearer. Getting a paper edited is not against the rules, but I have to make so many dramatic edits I'm worried it may risk plagiarism.

When there's a bad argument, I don't rewrite it, but just write a sentence or blurb below it to guide my friend to making a better one. Like, "do you have evidence for this?" or, "this is not relevant here, move to...".

Thanks for the advice!


texts:
To give some background, I am a TA at UCLA for a lab class. They submit their assignments to TurnItIn, which you may know highlights any text pulled from another place.

I made it clear that they are not to work together and that no text in their reports should be found "anywhere else in the universe."

After the first week I caught a group of two plagiarizing. I repeated the "your text should not be found anywhere else in the universe" talk. I gave a long speech about academic honesty and such. One of the plagiarizing students dropped the class herself. I didn't take action on the other, besides a stern talking-to.

This week, two more students blatantly copied chunks of the other's paper. Whole paragraphs. I couldn't believe it -- I had just explained to them the week prior how easy it was to spot plagiarism. I brought them outside class one at a time and asked them what happened. I showed them the highlighted TurnItIn gradereport and their reports side-by-side. They each said they worked together, but didn't copy (slim chance. And still against the rules.)

Now the issue:

The professor that oversees my class doesn't have time to talk to me; hence I am here. He has given me two options: do nothing, or report them to the Dean of Students. If I do the latter, the punishment will extend beyond their grade -- they will probably fail the class, or even be suspended.

I want to punish them. But I don't want to ruin their undergraduate lives. Is my professor right -- I only have two options? (I cannot find any school-specific information about this.)

Or is there a better, less obvious way to handle this?

Update:

I talked around. It turns out that this kind of violation is serious, but it's not going to destroy their life. The Dean of Students people tend to be pretty reasonable when it comes to sanctions from what I hear. So I'm reporting it to them.


texts: Shall I tell my college professor that the reason why I am asking for a letter is I have to have a letter from college?

texts: I have graduated for almost two years so I have many other stronger referees; my college performance was not stellar. The only reason why I am requesting a letter from my undergrad profs is that the program I am applying to require one letter from college.  Do I suppose to tell the Prof this reason?


texts: How to search for a PhD student opening in Japan?

texts:
I noticed that the Japanese universities almost never advertise for open PhD student positions on the websites such as phdportal.com or academicpositions.com or researchgate.

I tried to check some Japanese websites, but they assume that the visitor knows the Japanese language, which is not my case.

However I really want to see how are the opportunities in this beautiful country.

Maybe I should search on more websites, than the ones I mentioned at the beginning?


texts: A paper review I've undertaken turning out to be harder than expected

texts:
I recently agreed to review a journal paper (in theoretical computer science). After I started to read it in depth, I found out it is much harder than I expected - over 60 pages with over 20 theorems with detailed proofs. Also, the topic is not exactly my expertise - I do not know a lot of the related works that the authors base their results on.
So far, I managed to verify about 10 of the shorter theorems. They seem correct, though I have some minor comments. The other theorems seem so long and complex that it will take me weeks to review, especially if I would need to read and understand the theorems in the cited papers that these theorems are based on. What should I do?

I thought of writing to the editor and explaining the situation in detail. Maybe the editor will be able to find another reviewer that will verify the other theorems. But I do not know how such letter will be perceived. In particular:

Is it common for a reviewer to review only a part of the paper, and leave the rest of the paper to other reviewers?
On the other hand: is it my duty, as a reviewer, to complete my review, regardless of how much time it takes?


texts: What are the expectations for a Ph.D. candidate in Scandinavia in particular?

texts:
I am willing to pursue a PhD degree in Northern Europe (mostly in Scandinavia).
So, I take advice from differen professors of my university.

The exact question I asked was:

  I want to complete my PhD degree in a Scandinavian Country

Some of them told me that it does not matter where I want to go.
Others told me that it changes with respect to the region I want to go.

I was ready to be satisfied with only one common advise, however, most of them told me completely different expectations.

They can be summarized as:

Cumulative GPA should be 4.00/4.00.
You should publish a conference paper.
You must publish a journal paper in a mediocre journal.
Most important thing is getting very good reference letters.
It is just luck. You should give every university a try.
They mostly look at your cover letter.
You should find someone that you know from that university. He/she should advise you.

Are these sentences professors' own expectations? Or are some of them completely true?

Or...
Should I take all of them into consideration?

To sum up:
I am pursuing a PhD in Scandinavia. What should I do? Are the expected qualifications same as US or Asian countries?


texts: What is the difference between "request for proposals" and "call for proposals" in the context of applying for funding?

texts:
Funders use different terms to publicize opportunities, sometimes issuing a "request for proposals" and sometimes a "call for proposals."

What is the difference between "request for proposals" and "call for proposal" in the context of applying for funding?


texts: Citing an accepted manuscript that hasn't yet been published

texts:
I'm writing a thesis for the master degree.

I'm going to include one of my conference paper in my thesis and I understand that it is common and acceptable for school regulations to include already published papers of my own work in my thesis.

But there is one problem. The defense of my thesis will be held in mid-April and this thesis will be submitted by the end of April.

But a paper I'm going to include in the thesis has been accepted by a conference and will be published sometime in June.

So, how can I cite my conference paper in the process of publication in my thesis?


texts:
I am planning on teaching a couple of math-y classes next semester that will involve a large amount of in-class group work and discussions, and relatively little lecturing.  There will be required outside reading for almost every class (3x/week), but as I am at a large public university where student work habits are not generally great, I am worried about making sure students stay up on the reading for each class.  Also, the students will probably not be in the habit of doing reading for math classes.

Currently, to encourage students to stay up-to-date on the readings, this is what I am thinking of doing:

Use books that are relatively easy to read and hopefully interesting for the students (closer to popular books than textbooks when possible), and try to make each individual reading assignment short.
Give simple quizzes on the reading once a week or so
Generally try to make sure the in-class activities are closely related to the assigned readings.

  Are there any other effective techniques that would help encourage students to stay current on the reading?

Note: while I want them to read certain things before each class period, I do not want to give a reading quiz every class period.


texts: How to encourage students to answers questions from other students posted in Q&A online places dedicated to the classroom (e.g. Piazza)

texts: How can an instructor or teaching assistant encourage students to answers questions from other students posted in private Q&A online platforms dedicated to the classroom (e.g. Piazza), put aside from adding some percentage of the final grade based on such activities?


texts: Admission for a PhD position in a Sweden university

texts:
I am a first year BSc student in pure mathematics. I like to continue my PhD studies in Sweden, directly after BSc or otherwise after having MSc. Unfortunately, not only free education for international MSc students has been stopped several years ago but also the living cost in Sweden is very very high. Only leaves PhD studies as a final choice as they pay for tuition fees and living expenditures.

I have heard that the only way to get a PhD admission (with scholarship) in a some university in Sweden is to do MSc in some Sweden university so that the professors will 'know' you; in other words, contrary to US or Canada, they prefer to know students in their classes than reading about them from the recommendation letters sent from other countries.

A friend of mine, planted this wishful idea in my mind that if I accomplish (much?) more in my BSc time that PhD students do required for their graduation (i.e. good published papers), along with other things [recommendation letters, GPA, etc] so it may make me more appealing candidate than a person whose professor knows him/her personally. [Q.1] Is this true? And if so, [Q.2] how much 'better' than minimum-required-papers-to-be-published-for-a-PhD-to-be-graduated I need to do? Is there any measure for 'better' papers at all and what are they?

PS I am sure a person who solves Riemann H, attaining an academic position let alone PhD is trivial; so obviously sky is the limit. I am wondering about the minimum of "impressive results" in research (capability to be a productive researcher) one needs to do for a guaranteed PhD position which should be achievable during 3-4 years time that I have.


texts: Value of recommendation letters from professors in a different field

texts:
I will be a second year math under-grad in September, and currently doing an internship at applied math research institute. However, my interest after my bachelors is to do PhD in pure math at a top math school. My question is:

How important would the recommendation letters from my current supervisors be while I apply to grad school? (Note: My supervisors are very active in their field of research, but are not quite famous.)


texts: Discussing work with supervisor in an invited dinner with his family

texts:
I am a grad student. I have been away for an internship in another city. My professor came to meet me at the weekend and he invited me to dinner.
I did not have any time to prepare and I did not bring a gift and he brought me a gift. I was embarrassed, really.

I recently got a result from my project and was very interested to show him my result as I had not seen him for a long time.  I am feeling so embarrassed.

Do you think these behaviors were rude? I was very clumsy. Could I write something as thankyou letter and apologize about not being prepared?


texts: Are “DIY projects” valuable or publishable?

texts:
I’m 17 and will be joining a UG physics program soon. I’ve done a lot of DIY projects over the years, ranging from electric arc speakers to air-quality and climate-control systems. Most of my projects involved Arduinos.

I’ve been thinking of conducting a five-year study on air quality and climate change using ten sensors (gas, dust, temperature, and humidity) and an Arduino. I will collect data for five years and then conclude my findings.

Can I publish such research anywhere?
Do these type of projects have any value or are they a waste of time?


texts: Do I need to change my CV when a former school changes affiliations?

texts:
Some years ago, I studied in a small training center that had a "cooperative arrangement" with a larger university. I earned a graduate certificate bearing the name of the university along with graduate credits and a transcript from the university, but attended courses in the training center. I put these details on my CV:

2005        Graduate Certificate in X        <location>, University of X

Recently, the training center and university ended their cooperative arrangement and the training center has a new partnership with another university. Do I need to adjust my CV to reflect the change?


texts: Is it ethical to ask a graduate student to help me with my paid external research?

texts:
I have a part-time outside job in addition to being a full-time professor.  I'm struggling with performing an analysis that I believe a graduate student would be able to help me with.  I suspect the student would be happy to do so, both because  of having a nice demeanour and also they enjoy interesting problems and are also applying to PhD programs, so being able to state that they helped me with my research would be to their benefit.  I'm not able to easily get my outside employer to hire them as a consultant.  Would it be ethical for me to ask for their help with this problem?  If I did, should I offer to pay them out of my own pocket (outside salary)?  Should I insist on doing so?  I'm thinking it would take a few hours.  FWIW, I'm not their official advisor, although my colleagues and I share that role in practice.

FWIW, one of the two outside organizations involved in this project is a non-profit, for which some people volunteer the time.  (I'm being paid by a for-profit company to do work with a non-profit organization they support.)

UPDATE

After posting the question but before getting any replies, I emailed the student, asking them if they wanted to help, including a link to this question and cc'ing the director of the graduate program and the Provost, as a check on myself.

I just figured out the technical problem I was struggling with, so I no longer need help, and this question is moot.  I'll leave this question up, in case it's useful to future readers.


texts: Good source for pre PhD level papers/dissertations in Mathematics

texts:
I am looking for a good source to get my hands on some pre PhD level maths papers/dissertations, because I want to get a better feeling what is expected. (i.e. BSc and MSc Dissertations)

My department is unfortunately not at liberty to make MSc Dissertations available for copyright reasons, so I am stuck with asking individual people. In order to get a good overview I'd really like to get my hands on a much bigger selection of papers though, so I'm looking for a good online sources.


texts:
I recently moved to a Nordic country in an academic position. For my first grant application, I collaborated with other researchers at the university. As I was submitting the proposal along with the CVs, I noticed that two of the researchers had mentioned their religion. I have never seen this in academia, at least in South-east Asia where I spent majority of my work life.

Here are other details that I think are relevant:

Our research domain is engineering, not humanities or social sciences.
Both researchers are Muslim.
The funding agency is a private one that favors industrial collaborations.

My questions:

Is it appropriate to mention one's religion in an academic CV?
Does mentioning one's religion help in grant proposals or academic positions? I think in a fair world it shouldn't.
Do western countries, especially European, favor candidates who are Muslim?


texts: Is it ok for an examiner to hide exam reviews

texts:
We recently had our final exam for our bachelor degree and most of us haven't passed it, despite all the hard work we've put into it and the difference in our expectations for the results.

We asked for the reviews of the exams so that we can be better prepared for the next time we attend the exam, but we were declined that right with no clear explanation why. We presented our concerns regarding the the really short time the examiners were able to review the exams (it took them less than 2 days for the works of all the students graduating this year), in which some of the examiners responded with shouting in a really unacademic and aggressive manner.

We also heard about graduates who have had the same problem 2 or 3 years ago, and after making a little noise about it, their assessments have drastically changed in a positive way.

In the rules of our university, there isn't anywhere a rule for not giving review on the examined works, so we have sent a request to the rector of the university for letting us see the reviews of the exams, but we haven't received an answer yet.

My question is, is it ok for the examiners to hide the reviews of our works, and what can we do so that we get to the bottom of this?


texts: How to explain a recent bad semester to graduate school admissions?

texts:
I am an international student with a 3.7 US equivalated GPA. I applied to a grad school program in the US fresh out of undergrad and was accepted.

I was a part-time student at that grad school. During the next semester, I took up some courses at a local community college instead of the grad courses (physics 1, chem 2, o-chem 2, o-chem lab). I ended up having situational depression and got help really late in the semester. I was only able to withdraw from one course early in the semester, and failed two courses, and got a B in one.

I am currently re-thinking the grad program I applied to at first and want to apply to another one. However, this program is more prestigious. While my undergrad GPA  and experience are good enough for the school, I am worried about how my recent bad semester at the local cc will be interpreted to the admissions office.

BTW: These courses that I bombed are not pre-requisites for the program I am applying to.

Should I discuss this bad semester in my personal statement? Are my chances of acceptance really low because they are recent grades?


texts: Are pure mathematicians at U.S. universities expected to win research grants?

texts:
Are pure mathematicians, e.g., Algebraists, Number Theorists, Geometers, and Topologists, at good U.S. research universities expected to win research grants to fund their work, in order to gain tenure and be promoted?

I see a lot of questions here on Academia SE that talk about the need to win grant-funding, in order to survive in academia, but I'm not sure whether that applies to pure math professors.


texts: Am I allowed to show properly redacted exams to a colleague to determine if cheating occurred?

texts:
On an exam I recently administered, I discovered that several students had turned in essentially the same solutions for multiple questions. Before launching an academic dishonesty investigation, however, I want to make sure that it's not just "in my head" after reviewing too many exams in a row, or some other similar problem.

If I'm in the US, does the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) preclude me from showing a redacted version of the exam—one in which names and ID numbers have been removed, for instance—to a departmental colleague to get a second opinion? If so, then how can someone get a second opinion on whether everything is above board or not?


texts: Is there a programmatic way to check that a journal submission follows a style guideline?

texts:
Does anyone know of a programmatic way to check if an article submission matches a style guideline?

Submitters are likely to be humanists, so LaTeX is not an option. Assume the journal has a Word template they have provided - is there some way to write macros in Word that will validate a document against a template? Or, does OJS (Open Journal Systems - https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/) provide this functionality?

EDIT: Motivation - my main interest is in automating as much of the journal submission workflow as possible to streamline a possible new project, thanks! I figured having an automatic screen for "did they follow the style guideline?" could save human time :)


texts: Possible to leave a contract academic position shortly after signing new contract?

texts: I am an assistant professor on a year-to-year contract in academic med (I'm a PhD biostatistician). I just signed a new contract in July. I have been 'head hunted' to join a private company, and I am seriously considering it. What do I 'owe' in terms of my contact? I get the feeling the contact is more to protect the faculty member from the university and not the other way around, right? I would not be leaving until the spring, so 4-5 months notice. I dont have any teaching duties. Can I just give notice?


texts: Applying for two position at the same department

texts:
There are two advertised positions at one department. The department is approx. 30 people. So it is not a large institution where my two applications would be "lost". I am sure if I apply for both positions it will end up at the same people/commitee.
Both position are for scientific staff, not for postdoc. The two positions are quite similar but there are some differences. I think I match one position more than the second one. Should I apply only to one position or can I apply for both? The application has to be done through online submission system, i.e. it is not possible just write to the cover letter that I am eventually interested in both positions.


texts: Does Google Scholar limit the length of its search terms?

texts:
On researchgate, I found the following paper that describes the application of a systematic mapping. I was curious whether the describe search term could be also found using Google Scholar.

The search term is described as the following:

(group formation OR group creation OR group design OR group composition OR group organization OR team formation OR team creation OR team design OR team composition OR team organization) AND (collaborative learning OR cooperative learning OR cscl OR csgf OR social learning OR group learning OR team learning) AND (algorithms OR approaches OR methods OR software OR technique)

According to Google's search format, I changed the term like this:

"group formation" OR "group creation" OR "group design" OR "group composition" OR "group organization" OR "team formation" OR "team creation" OR "team design" OR "team composition" OR "team organization" "collaborative learning" OR "cooperative learning" OR cscl OR csgf OR "social learning" OR "group learning" OR "team learning" algorithms OR approaches OR methods OR software OR technique

Since the search does still deliver a total of 16.700 results, I recognized that something went wrong. For test purposes I added the following term at the end "test purposes only fgfgffff" and i still received 16.700 results instead of 0.

The URL looks like the following:

https://scholar.google.de/scholar?hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22group+formation%22+OR+%22group+creation%22+OR+%22group+design%22+OR+%22group+composition%22+OR+%22group+organization%22+OR+%22team+formation%22+OR+%22team+creation%22+OR+%22team+design%22+OR+%22team+composition%22+OR+%22team+organization%22+%22collaborative+learning%22+OR+%22cooperative+learning%22+OR+cscl+OR+csgf+OR+%22social+learning%22+OR+%22group+learning%22+OR+%22team+learning%22+algorithms+OR+approaches+OR+methods+OR+software+OR+technique+%22test+purposes+only+fgfgffff%22&btnG=

However, the term in the search field got reduced:

"group formation" OR "group creation" OR "group design" OR "group composition" OR "group organization" OR "team formation" OR "team creation" OR "team design" OR "team composition" OR "team organization" "collaborative learning" OR "cooperative learning" O

Am I correct that the provided example cannot be expressed within Google Scholar?


texts: What do I do with a write-up of possibly folklore knowledge?

texts:
Some months ago I was trying to wrap my head around some classical constructions in homological algebra. I spent quite a lot of time with this, and decided it was worth it to write it down. I did, it's almost 20 pages, and it's been sitting there in a file since then.

It starts pedagogically enough, reproving well-known results, and then it gets into "surely folklore" territory, i.e. not hard results about well-known objects that I have never seen in print (and I did search quite a bit for them). Then it goes on to prove an auxiliary result which is taken for granted in a recent paper (this was my motivation to do all of this).

It might be hidden in Cartan-Eilenberg (a quite hard to read book nowadays, in my humble opinion), it might not. At any rate, I don't know what to do with this file. Should I forget it? Be happy that I understood all of that, and keep it for personal consultation? Post it in my website? In arXiv? Submit it somewhere? I thought I could try to remove the certainly well-known stuff at the beginning, and only keep the "folklore" stuff; then it could be a less than 10 pages note.

The question is, then, how do I deal with "possibly well-known, possibly unwritten results about some well-known construction"?


texts: How does a faculty member get to work at two universities or more?

texts:
This question is a follow-up on a comment at a recent question, where Dave Clarke mentioned that an acquaintance of his has "3 professorships and 2 doctorates".

How does a faculty member get appointed simultaneously by two or more universities? Are all except one honorary posts?
Can any faculty member work with a second university with the consent of his present employer? What are the conflicts of interests that come into play usually?