Do not have the right tools for my thesis problem I am pursuing a PhD in analysis and partial differential equations. My advisor has given me a problem which actually turns out to have a very large algebraic geometry requirement. Although my analysis is very good, my geometry and algebra have always been a little weak. I find the problem very fascinating and, surprisingly, the problem can even be stated in a way that even a first year undergraduate could understand it.

Now, I'm essentially stuck. I do not know if learning all the geometry that I never learned before would help me out. In fact, I doubt it. The other thing is that I feel that for a problem that can be stated in simple linear algebra / calculus terms, such weighty tools might not even be required and some kind of partial results should be obtainable with whatever knowledge I have.

The fact that I am not making any real progress is making me feel very insecure and making me question whether I can become a mathematician. I need some advice.

Should I set myself a time frame and bundle up things as well as they can be bundled up?

Should I set myself the challenge of learning all the geometry that may/may not work?

Should I quit?

I had exact same problem in a different domain. I think this little story of mine will help you:

6 Months Before Thesis Submission: I was almost done with the whole thesis, then suddenly the supervisor decided to force me into adding another aspect of my work to my thesis. Basically another chapter on the whole matter that I already solved and concluded, but with a different tone (as it was another domain parallel to the domain that I solved).

Panicking Period (1 month): I panicked like hell. The whole thing was done and she wanted me to go to a domain that I ignored since I put my foot at a university.

Exit Strategy (1 month): The time was running out, I said to myself, well I will find 'easy references' that tackled this issue in a very simple way, will learn them, then write the chapter about it and then I will cite them. I found around 20 references on the subject matter.

Gold mining (1 month): It was one the most fun period of my PhD!. I narrowed these 20 references into 1 (thats right!), and then learned its related references.

Writing Period (2 months): Wrote around a 35 pages based on that reference and my work. It actually gave depth to my thesis, as I explained and tackled the same problem using a different method.

Putting my foot down and submission (1 month): Let the game of cat and mouse begin!. Supervisor did not liked the approach I was taking. I did explain that it is actually a very good and important reference, and this chapter is enough on the matter. She disagreed and I did not gave up.

Defence: Fortunately or unfortunately, one of my examiners where a master in the field I tackled and wrote a chapter about. He loved it. In fact 70% of the defence time was about the material I wrote on that chapter.

Conclusion: Be honest with yourself. At the end of the day, if you can defend what you wrote and contributed, then well, you be fine in defending your thesis and your whole PhD.


Difference between article and letter in Nature As I was reading today an article from Nature I was wondering: Does anybody know what's the difference between article and letter in the Nature Journal?
The blog of Nature points out the following:

Articles are original reports whose conclusions represent a substantial advance in understanding of an important problem and have immediate, far-reaching implications.
Letters are short reports of original research focused on an outstanding finding whose importance means that it will be of interest to scientists in other fields.

Source:
http://blogs.nature.com/nautilus/2009/12/difference_between_nature_arti.html

They have a difference in the allowed length, and the importance of the results. Articles are longer and supposed to have "far-reaching implications". In other words, no chance to get an article unless you revealed that the moon is actually made of cheese or the like.

Letters are shorter, yet still very prestigious.


How to address an author showing replicated results from his paper? I have replicated a method of interpolation recently proposed by certain author, and I want to tell him that I have done so. I suppose the author is interested in knowing that students are engaged with his work and are using his findings. But I'm unsure on how should I address him.

Should I just write to him saying that I have applied his method to new data and found the same results?
Should I also send him my work? Or is it too rude to send him the attachment (it is my thesis actually) because he may not be interested in reading it?
Should I also comment the results in the same email?

I don't know to which extent do I have to show him my results, because I don't wan't to overwhelm him but neither should he be the one asking for more info.

Don't send your thesis unless requested.  You may write to the author and say that you were interested to read his or her paper, that you applied the method to data from Argentina and you obtained similar results as described in the paper.  You may give a little hint about any interesting quirks you found along the way but that is optional and if you do it, you must be very brief in this initial email.  The author may be interested enough to write back enthusiastically, asking for more information, and then you can send a summary and your thesis.  You may get a conference invite out of it.  You may get an invitation to collaborate.  You may get a reference to your thesis in this person's future work.  You may get some new ideas for future work of your own.  This email you will send will be a fun bit of icing on the cake for you, after a lot of hard work!


phd admission- both professor from same university agreed to be mentor 2 professors from the same university same department have agreed to be my mentor. But none have funds, prof.1 may give me TA, while prof.2 can give me RA. Which one should I choose? Can I put 2 applications with 2 different SOPs and then decide later which prof. to go for?

I would counsel against two different SoP statements. If they are compared then it makes you look like you don't really know what you want. The university might be fine with two separate applications (or not).
But more important than the source of funding and the activities to earn the funds is the question of what would the research be with each of these people and can one of them better support your career. Make your decision on that basis.
Bot the TA and the RA experience can be valuable for an future academic, but in different ways. But that is less important than the research opportunities.
I'll guess that the TA position is probably easier to manage your time than the RA position, but that isn't necessarily true, depending on the nature of the university and of the field and department.
You might consider trying to set up a three way conversation to see if the two profs have some advice for you about which would be more suitable and advantageous. But that assumes that you know something about them first and are sure that it won't generate bad feelings.


How does a philosopher publish a paper? How does a philosopher publish a paper? Does it work as in natural science where the steps are:

Find an appropriate call for papers
Submit a paper within a deadline
Receive anonymous peer-reviews
Send a final version for publication in the proceedings

The main difference with the publication process in the humanities is the emphasis tends to be far more on single-author works, and the primary publication venues are journal articles, book chapters in collections, and monographs (i.e. a book). The heavy difference is in the tilt towards books in many humanities fields, sometimes referred to as a "book culture", but this is not universal across fields (or even sub-fields). Journal articles are still pretty typical fare, even in book cultures - the main difference being "can an academic in that field get tenure without a book or two or three".

But yes, there are indeed philosophy journals, and this page gives a nice quick overview of what are considered a few of the top ones. As a general idea of the publication process, check the memo to authors for The Journal of Philosophy, or the Instructions to Authors for MIND.

These are not so much calls for papers, as they are open to submissions to whatever is considered on-topic and relevant/good for that journal (read the journals guidelines/author guide for starters, and if it seems of interest you'll want to read through previous proceedings of that journal to see if the type of work published there suits you). Calls for papers on more specific topics would be more expected of special editions that some journals put together on occasion.

But yes, looking over the author guidelines you see its all pretty standard fare in terms of process. Most use some form of blinded review (usually at least the reviewers don't know who submitted the paper), and some use triple-anonymous where even the editor doesn't know who submitted the paper. The rest of the process is pretty standard - the editors can desk-reject what the like, the remainder of interesting papers get sent out to reviewers and send back the reports, the editors review the reports and then decide on a course of action, there may be revision rounds, etc. If the paper is ultimately accepted they work it up and publish it in according to their schedule, which is usually once every X months.

Journals are less driven by deadlines in terms of submission periods, because of course if you miss the date for X proceedings there is always X+1. But overall, the humanities have a publication culture that is at least not completely alien to those of us who have most of our experience in the "other culture" (to reference C. P. Snow's formulation of two cultures, though in practice there are far more than two).


In which situations can I claim that additional data is needed for an existing research paper? I wanted to write about a certain computer science topic, and after a while I figured out that the same research question was taken already. Still, I think that not all problems where addressed in this paper so I believe there's still room for me to conduct my research, and additional data would do be needed. Also, looking at the current research paper, I think it lacks enough motivation.

I'm finding it tricky to justify that. Any help or similar experiences are appreciated.

A paper rarely addresses all problems and it is normal for other papers to follow.

However, a paper that lacks motivation needn't demand a subsequent paper. That said, you might be able to identify new applications for the paper, which could merit a new paper.

If you're finding it tricky to justify [a new paper], then perhaps no new paper is needed.


When and how should you talk to a professor if you think you deserve a different grade? I recently was returned a midterm I wrote. One question I interpreted differently than what was intended. As a result I got 0.5/3 marks, which isn't a big deal but considering the test was only out of 15, it adds up. Due to timing conflicts I'm unable to meet the prof during office hours, but have scheduled to talk to him after next class.

I'm getting a bit stressed out, I'm uncertain what to say and what to ask for. If I had interpreted the question he intended it to, then I'm sure I could have gotten full marks. Any suggestions? This is the second time it happened but the first was only for 0.5 mark, so I let it slide.

The question had to do with output of a program and asked "what are all possible outputs of the program?" and I wrote down the correct answer, but what he was getting at was if the program was rerun the output may be in a different order so he wanted the answer to have all possible permutations.

Does anyone have recomendations on how many marks to ask for or have a policy on when to talk to the prof when you think you deserve more marks?

Does anyone have recomendations on how many marks to ask

Yes, one: do not, absolutely, ask for a specific amount of marks. Explain your interpretation, but leave to the professor to decide whether you deserve more marks or not and, in case, how many.


Should I simultaneously apply for multiple jobs in different ranks at the same university? Say this year the university A advertises one postdoc and one tenure-track position. If I prefer the tenure track position, but am not sure that I can get it, what should I choose between the following two options?

Option A: Apply for both postdoc and tenure-track positions.

Option B: Apply for tenure-track position only, hoping that even if I don't get it, the university will consider offering me the postdoc position.

I thought that Option A is safer, but some of my friends say the opposite. They think that if you apply for both positions, then even if you are good for the tenure-track position, the university will tend to offer you only the postdoc position, the lowest rank that you asked for.

Do you have any insight on this?

For more information: the job market I am referring to is the US'.

What if we have other situations: postdoc/lecturer, lecturer/tenure-track, or postdoc/lecturer/tenure-track?

My experience is in mathematics in the US. My personal experience is that people will not read anything especially deep into applying for both jobs.  Everybody understands that the market is tough, and basically expects everybody to apply to every opening.  I've seen instances where a person was considered both for a postdoc and TT position at the same university, and this was not seen as an issue at all (there was much more strategizing around the question of whether they would come for a postdoc).

In the vast majority of cases (without, say, a severe geographical constraint), I think if you consider TT and postdoc at the same place as both reasonable options for you and plausible possibilities, you're probably kidding yourself on one score or another. Generally if you'd even be seriously looked at for a TT job at University X, then when the postdoc committee looks at your file, they'll say "We could hire this person for a TT job.  There's no way that a postdoc at University X is the best job they'll get." and they probably won't offer you the position.    But unless you feel confident about which way it is, I don't see any problem with applying to both.

EDIT: One thing I'll add, which is mathematics specific: if you're applying MathJobs, the visual difference between applications for the different jobs is negligible.  There is a column where you can see what positions the applicant applied for, but it's not very noticeable.  So, it's quite possible the committee for one job won't even notice you applied for the other (I have seen this happen).


Can you obtain detailed date information on publications when using Google Scholar? My question is related to Google Scholar. I know that I can search articles by specified year or year range, but is it possible to obtain detailed dates of publication/indexing in Google Scholar? If so, how could I do it?

Sometimes.

There is no way to search by more specific date ranges but an exact date might be available for a particular paper. For example, this paper shows a publication date of 2014/4/26 but this paper only shows the year, 2015, but no month or day.

Otherwise, if Google Scholar doesn't show the date, you can follow the link to the publisher's website which might have it. For example, IEEE lists that second paper as having a conference date of "Sept. 29 2015-Oct. 1 2015."


Is there a way to check for similarities within a single text? I am reaching the final stage of my dissertation which means editing, rewriting, and more editing. I am looking for a tool which can help me in this process by checking for similarities within a single text of 150-200 pages. I will probably detect similar phrasings of key points manually, but I could use some automated help to make sure I don't repeat things in the same words. I know Word and other software can compare documents to look for similarities between two documents, but is there a way to look for similarities within a single document?

Thanks.

This may not be the best solution, but there are lots of string alignment software packages readily available. Specifically, biological sequence alignment software is highly abundant. I actually did this once before using EMBOSS.

For many of these you'll need to convert your text to FASTA format, which I've written a script for:

#!/usr/bin/python2.7
import string
from sys import *
from Bio import SeqIO
from Bio.Seq import Seq
from Bio.SeqRecord import SeqRecord

def stripPunct(astr):
    #For now, only output letters to satisfy EMBOSS
    tmpstr = astr.translate(None, string.digits + string.punctuation + string.whitespace)
    #tmpstr = astr.translate(None, string.whitespace)
    return tmpstr

def main():
    txtfile1 = open(argv[1],"r")
    txtfile2 = open(argv[2],"r")
    txt1 = txtfile1.read()
    txt2 = txtfile2.read()
    txtfile1.close()
    txtfile2.close()

    txtstrip1 = stripPunct(txt1)
    txtstrip2 = stripPunct(txt2)
    seq1 = Seq(txtstrip1)
    seq2 = Seq(txtstrip2)
    rec1 = SeqRecord(seq1,id="FILE_ONE")
    rec2 = SeqRecord(seq2,id="FILE_TWO")
    out1 = open(".tmp1.fasta", "w")
    out2 = open(".tmp2.fasta", "w")
    SeqIO.write(rec1, out1, "fasta")
    SeqIO.write(rec2, out2, "fasta")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Here is what a matching alignment looks like:

My use case was slightly different, and I was comparing between two different but related manuscripts we'd written. For your purpose, you'll want to find a multiple sequence alignment package, since you'll want to find matches other than the best match (which would just be the entire document since you are comparing a document to itself).


Centralized DB For EU Projects' Publications & Deliverables A lot of times I face a difficulty in finding the public deliverables and/or publications lists of EU FP6 and even EU FP7 projects.
Usually, these are hosted on the respective projects' websites.
Lately, I've been finding sites that don't list them or are down because of misconfigurations, expired leases, etc.
I've found that repositories such as Cordis et al. usually only host flyers, awards, and posters for example, but no deliverables & no bibliography.

I would like to avoid the brute-force methods of:

Tracking down the publications lists for each PI assigned to this project for the time span of the project and sifting through it for project-specific publications.
Tracking down the PI's and mailing each until I receive responses with parts of bibliographies and possibly even some of the public deliverables.

My question, in two parts, is as follows:

Is there a centralised database that hosts public deliverables and publications lists for EU FP projects?
If not, are you aware of any method other than the above (time-consuming) brute-force techniques?

The EU funded a project termed "The OpenAIRE2020 Project" specifically to address the kind of issues I describe above.

"50 partners, from all EU countries, and beyond, will collaborate to work on this large-scale initiative that aims to promote open scholarship and substantially improve the discoverability and reusability of research publications and data. The initiative brings together professionals from research libraries, open scholarship organisations, national e-Infrastructure and data experts, IT and legal researchers, showcasing the truly collaborative nature of this pan-European endeavor. A network of people, represented by the National Open Access Desks (NOADs), will organise activities to collect H2020 project outputs, and support research data management. Backing this vast outreach, is the OpenAIRE platform, the technical infrastructure that is vital for pulling together and interconnecting the large-scale collections of research outputs across Europe. The project will create workflows and services on top of this valuable repository content, which will enable an interoperable network of repositories (via the adoption of common guidelines), and easy upload into an all-purpose repository (via Zenodo).
OpenAIRE2020 will assist in monitoring H2020 research outputs and will be a key infrastructure for reporting H2020’s scientific publications as it will be loosely coupled to the EC’s IT backend systems. The EC’s Research Data Pilot will be supported through European-wide outreachfor best research data management practices and Zenodo, which will provide long-tail data storage. Other activities include: collaboration with national funders to reinforce the infrastructure’s research analytic services; an APC Gold OA pilot for FP7 publications with collaboration from LIBER; novel methods of review and scientific publishing withthe involvement of hypotheses.org; a study and a pilot on scientific indicators related to open access with CWTS’s assistance; legal studies to investigate data privacy issues relevant to the Open Data Pilot; international alignment with related networks elsewhere with the involvement of COAR."

You can search by project name here. The publication list, project duration, participants and other information related to projects is accessible this way. I'm not sure if the information is comprehensive.
It appears that the OpenAIRE site also stores information from other funding agencies such as the NSF and the Australian Research Council and provides a tonne of functionality beyond what I mention above (search by doctorate thesis, open access, language etc.).
I've found deliverables listed under reports. However, I can't find the deliverables of certain projects I am interested in, so the same may apply to you as well.
As far as I am concerned, I've answered my own question and I'm sharing what I've found with you.
I'll leave the bounty and the question up for another 3-4 days in case anyone else has a better response to add.
Cheers!


Doubts when looking for possible PhD supervisors I'm currently in my last year of my master in environmental engineering and I'm strongly thinking about doing a PhD afterwards.

I'm looking around for possible supervisors working with research topics that I'm interested in (especially micropollutants removal from water), but I don't know how to assess their and their research group reputation. What would be the best method to assess that?

Also how early is it acceptable to send an email to inquire about a possibility to conduct a PhD project with them, especially if they work in a different university and thus know nothing about you?

To know about a research group reputation, you have to follow their research works (most likely that there will be a dedicated webpage for their group which lists their works). If it is not a research group then you have to shortlist a few professors and visit their webpages to know more about their works.

Now, before emailing anybody, you have to come to a decision point and zero in on few works that they have published or are working on. This will give you a focus area. Further, you have to understand them a bit and if you find them too much intriguing then you should email them.

Further questions on how to email professors can be browsed in academia SE.


What is the effect of background music in educational videos on the learning outcome? Is there any research/study/survey/... that looked at the effect of background music in educational videos on the learning outcome?

I am aware of (1) but they focus on educational virtual environments.

(1) Fassbender, Eric, Deborah Richards, Ayse Bilgin, William Forde Thompson, and Wolfgang Heiden. "VirSchool: The effect of background music and immersive display systems on memory for facts learned in an educational virtual environment." Computers & Education 58, no. 1 (2012): 490-500. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=4113404139067026741&hl=en&as_sdt=0,22

See Moreno, Roxana, and Richard E. Mayer. "A coherence effect in multimedia learning: The case for minimizing irrelevant sounds in the design of multimedia instructional messages." Journal of Educational psychology 92.1 (2000): 117. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.92.1.117

  The authors tested the recommendation that adding bells and whistles (in the form of background music and/or sounds) would improve the quality of a multimedia instructional message. In 2 studies, students received an animation and concurrent narration intended to explain the formation of lightning (Experiment 1) or the operation of hydraulic braking systems (Experiment 2). For some students, the authors added background music (Group NM), sounds (Group NS), both (Group NSM), or neither (Group N). On tests of retention and transfer, Group NSM performed worse than Group N; groups receiving music performed worse than groups not receiving music; and groups receiving sounds performed worse (only in Experiment 2) than groups not receiving sounds. Results were consistent with the idea that auditory adjuncts can overload the learner's auditory working memory, as predicted by a cognitive theory of multimedia learning.


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

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

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

A good way to start could be drumming up a short list of concise, but interesting questions you might ask him about his work. Then try to connect it to your own work or tease out how your interests going forward actually build on this idea. You can try to ask if he/she'd be interested in collaborating, but big names are notoriously hard to get a hold of, even for their own students, let alone other students outside their wing. Don't know if this is the case for your field, but I'm fairly sure it's a common problem.

A more realistic expectation at this point would be for you to (1) pique his/her interest and ask if it's alright to keep them updated about your project or keep in touch with his/her work. (2) Begin the project on your own, and keep them updated when you've demonstrated a good amount of progress (and success!) in the project. (3) Then, down the road, they'd be more interested/motivated to collaborate on a paper.

Good luck!


How to evaluate the skills that students build while getting to the answer? We are running a hands-on laboratory that is part of a larger electric circuits course.  I've been doing a review of our lab manuals and am realizing that there is a large discrepancy between what we are asking students to submit about the lab and what we hope they will learn in the lab.

For example, one of the key skills we want the students to gain in lab 1 is to be able to look at a circuit diagram, identify the physical components on their bench that correspond to the symbols in the diagram, and appropriately wire up the circuit.  In the lab manual, we just ask them "what is the voltage across X?"  The problem there is that whether it takes them an hour or a minute, or whether a TA gave them excessive help or they did it on their own, is not captured at all in the evaluation.  However, asking them to describe their process or something like that often results in vague answers that aren't much help.

It seems to me that we need a way to evaluate the skills as much as the end result.  What are some strategies for doing such an evaluation?

Have the students evaluate each other's work

This is focused on the specific example you gave of identifying components in a circuit, but I believe the same applies to most scenarios.

The problem as I understand, is that you are giving them tasks for creating circuits - but without a way of evaluating that they really understood what they did, other than whether the circuit works or not.

One option would be to create a number of circuits and have students draw up circuit diagrams based on what they physically see. While this would allow you to see how well they can identify the components - it will be an enormous amount of preparation for you.

Instead, I'd suggest you have the students make the circuits in one lab lesson. This gives them the initial opportunity to learn how to convert the diagrams into a working circuit and get a physical idea of how the components look and interact.

After this, redistribute all of the circuits to other students and have them evaluate their given circuit. This can include drawing up a circuit diagram as well as evaluating any problems they've found in the circuit or changes that should have been made.

Ideally, you will be able to provide a selection of different circuits diagrams initially, so everybody will be creating something different from what they end up evaluating (e.g. ensure everybody who made circuit "A" evaluates a circuit "C" etc.)

As the circuits will be varying quality, it obviously would not be fair to use this for grading. But it will allow you to evaluate how well they are achieving the outcomes you set, in general. It will also push them to think more about what they are doing (i.e. avoiding pure memorisation) as they are being given potentially badly-made and faulty circuits by their peers.


Publishing in 'leftist' journals or book projects: Impact on career? I am aware that this question is of different relevance for each science field. I am asking as a social scientist/sociologist here. The line between research and own political opinions is more or less clear/diffuse for other fields.

In short, my field of research is relevant to some more or less intense political discussions, especially coming from the political 'left'. Along with my own political believes (which I don't discuss here), publishing in some journals or book projects is interesting for me a) because it advances my research on specific topics b) it allows me to articulate critique and take a position in public discourse c) advance critical sciences and critique in my field -- and in society as well.

Is it a problem for a pursuit of an academic career, if I publish some papers in 'political biased' journals/books? Of course my own choice of jobs/funding etc. is selective and tends to exclude opportunities that are for example 'too conservative' for me. However, sometimes you cannot chose freely. Further, said publications can be omitted in my publications list; but internet makes one transparent. Has anyone of you made any experience in the either way? Or has anyone expierienced conflicts?

There is nothing wrong with communicating your research to (a part of) the general public. In all likelihood public funding was used to pay for part of your research or used in your university, so it is only fair to give something back when you can. I would not hide it either, that only looks suspicious. Instead I would just add a section to your CV for communications with the general public. It would often be viewed as positive, though other things like publications would be valued much higher. Who knows, maybe you will end up in a very close race some day and that little extra is just enough.

If those pulbications have nothing to do with your research than those are just your private actions as a citizen. You don't need to mention those in your CV, but I don't think they will be held against you.


Is it ethical to apply for a short-term grant with a partner/spouse/girlfriend? My partner and I live in different countries, and we have been discussing a research topic for some time but have had difficulty making progress due to the distance, local responsibilities, etc.  We have recently found a visiting researcher grant that would allow me to visit her for a couple months and work exclusively on our project.  We would both continue to receive salaries from our respective institutions (the grant requires this), and we plan to request only enough funding for travel and basic living expenses (i.e., a round-trip flight, daily meals, and daily transport; the latter two, because her country is more expensive than mine).

Are there any ethical issues with us applying for such a grant?  We do not, for example, plan to request housing funds, since I will stay with her.  We are not sure whether we should disclose our relationship status in the application, because it's a small grant, and it could be seen as distracting or superfluous information. (See also the discussion under @DanRomik's answer.)

Edit: to be clear, we are each qualified in our fields to carry out such a project.  Indeed, we've already been carrying out the project, but at a slow pace, and the main goal is to have a couple months of focused effort on the project.

Provided you are qualified and intend to do a good job under the grant, I see no ethical considerations at all. Many people (most?) applying for grants in other countries have a variety of goals, not all of which are relevant to the position itself. Wanting to live in Paris is pretty common, I'd guess.

There would be an issue if she is the decision maker on who gets the grant. In such a case she should recuse from the decision and pass it to others, such as a superior. But otherwise, there should be no problem.


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

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

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

In the US, a class that counts for 3 credit hours normally meets for about 3 clock hours per week. It is often one hour at a time over the course of the week, though it might be otherwise. The typical student in such a course is expected to spend an additional six hours per week on the course, for nine hours total. I'll assume similar expectations for Israel, though I don't know.

You have an opportunity here to "flip" the classroom, though with a few caveats. To flip it, the students would spend their time as follows. About 3 hours per week watching the videos and taking notes. About 3 hours working independently in studying separately from the professor, and about 3 hours in a face to face situations.

A good use of the last segment, in a field like CS, is to have the students work together in pairs and small teams on exercises related to the lectures in the most recent video(s). If you use too much of that face to face time with questions then there will be little time for active work, so a better plan is to have a way, such as a mailing list by which students can ask their questions as they arise while watching the videos or afterwards. To make this as efficient as possible, the students are encouraged to answer each other's questions online and the professor need only enter the conversation when there are misconceptions expressed.

But, much of what would be "homework" is done with the professor (and TAs) present to offer advice to the teams. Teamwork (and pairing) is most effective here since the small groups can often answer their own questions as they arise so that the prof need not answer every such question or deal with every difficulty. The goal is that very few groups are truly "stuck" at any moment, which is normally not the case for students working singly.

So, an hour of watching videos, an hour in "class" working problems and the remaining hour is for other exercises or readings. This balance can give the required reinforcement and feedback that most students need in order to learn. The mailing list ties it all together and lets the students make progress at nearly any time of the day or night without overly burdening the professor.

Also note that with a mailing list, any question asked and answered is seen by every student. This alone is an advantage, especially when students "don't know what to ask" or are too shy to bring up what they see as their own failings. Other social media might work, but I found a simple mail server to be a good tool.

The main caveat is that a 50 minute video is a bit long for concentrated study. Better if they can be broken up into 10 minute segments. Even a recommended pause after 10 minutes or so for reflection is a better solution than a long video. Then, the student watches for a few minutes, perhaps formulates questions for the list or for later study, and then repeats. All of this prior to the face-time that will provide reinforcement of the ideas.

If the students work in groups in the face-time periods, you may need to define the groups or at least guarantee that they mix it up. This helps avoid slackers. If you need to "mark" or "grade" participation, then you also want to consider peer evaluation within the groups. But the "extra" hour (not watching videos and not face-time) can also be used for graded work if you need that.

Another caveat is that you need some assurance that none of your students will be much disadvantaged with the system. People with sight or hearing difficulties might have a different response than those with more normal facilities, depending on what accommodations can be made.


Students requesting to switch partners mid term I'm a TA in a graduate level course. Students in the course have to hand in a weekly assignment which is done in pairs.

A few days ago, one of the students approached the professor and told her that they are not getting along with their partner and requested to join another pair of students, in practice creating a group of three students and leaving their current partner on their own. The professor asked me and the second TA for our opinion in this matter.

When we inquired further, the student stated (roughly) that they think the partner does not take the course seriously, does not put enough effort and expects them to do all the work. They also stated that success in this course is important for them and that they wish to work along with a similarly motivated student. (They named a specific student they would like to work with. That student already has partner so it would make a group of three students.)

While the request itself sounds legitimate, we are reluctant to comply with it, because we are not happy with the idea of students working on assignments in groups of more than two since we think this is unlikely to lead to situations where all students in the group put in a reasonable amount of effort. Also we are concerned of what will happen with the current partner of the student if we comply.
Thirdly, although we have no proof on this matter, both the professor and I independently had the gut feeling that the request might (mind you, I said might, again there's no proof and we may be totally wrong here) also be related to racial tensions.

A possible solution we were thinking about is to have a conversation with both students and see if we can make them work together in a more productive way.

I will be most grateful for any tips as to how to make this conversation  productive and as pleasant as possible to the students involved.

Also if someone has any other thoughts on this matter such as creative solutions or convincing arguments for/against the obvious solutions such as refusing the request, complying with the request, doing some reshuffling in the pairs in order to be able to comply with the request and still guarantee all students are working in pairs, I will be most grateful.

I would consider asking the student who is not getting along with their partner, whether they would consider leaving their current partner and work on their own from here on out. That way, the student still would have to do all the work on their own, but no longer has someone benefitting from their efforts without contributing.

If the student seriously considers this solution, you can be more confident that the complaint is genuine: if the student would be willing to go it alone, it is quite likely that the contribution of their current partner is near zero. But if the student is not willing to entertain this solution as a serious option, then you can derive the information that their current partner does contribute at least something to the team, and the request looks much less reasonable.

Based on the information you retrieve from this process, you can still decide to allow the student to join a team of three, or reshuffle some other way; asking the question does not commit you to actually make the student work on their own. But it might give you relevant insights.


Etiquette: Interrupting your supervisor having a meeting I'm doing an internship as a high school student in a lab and am wondering about etiquette in research/life. The problem is that I interrupted my supervisor while he was having a meeting to tell him someone from another country was on the phone (I know he regularly collaborates with researchers in foreign countries). I'm wondering whether this would be perceived by him as rude. He is still in his meeting so I want to know what to say to him when he ends it.

The details are as follows:

Due to some complications (unnecessary details) my supervisor and I have switched offices.

At some point while I was sitting in his office, the phone started ringing. Thinking that it could be urgent and knowing he was in a different office and so may not get to checking this voicemail, I picked up the phone. It ended up being one of his collaborators from another country who asked to speak with him. I went and found my supervisor talking to someone in person, likely another of his collaborators. I assumed that because this person on the phone was calling from another country, it was important; so I tapped lightly on the door and informed him that someone from country X wants to speak with him. He told me he'd call back the person later, telling me the phone call wasn't important enough.

In hindsight, I think I did two things wrong: (1) I picked up his phone, and (2) and I interrupted his meeting.

My questions are:

Is what I did wrong?
How should I approach him afterwards?

Is what I did wrong?

Picking up his phone might not have been the best idea, unless he specifically asked you to do so. What if the call received was a personal one? How would you handle that? Then interrupting a meeting to relay this information was not a good idea. However, you will make many wrong decisions but it's important to learn from them.

  How should I approach him afterwards?

I advise open communication this case. Begin with an apology then continue by explaining your reason and end by asking what process he would like you to follow should this occur again in the future. Finally, ask for clarification if the answer is vague.

Example:

"Apologies for answering your phone & interrupting your meeting"

"but I believed this call would be urgent."

"If someone calls again, what would you like me to do?"

"Should I answer & take a message? Should I ask them to wait? Should I interrupt you if you're in a meeting?"


Will taking 4 courses in a semester affect my chances of getting into grad school? I am currently a Computer Science/Mathematics student going into my 3rd year of a 4 year program. I spent a year in a different program at a different university and was able to transfer those credits, but I was not able to take courses in a way that I could graduate quicker. However, these credits do allow me to take 4 courses for some semesters instead of the usual course load of 5. Would taking advantage of this reduced course load to work on personal projects affect my chances of pursuing graduate studies in Computer Science?

Aside: I have good/strong grades so far.

I don't think it should be a problem, provided that you are taking some challenging Math/CS classes among your 4 classes.  If it looks like you're trying to skirt by with the bare minimum difficulty of classes, then taking a couple fewer classes could reinforce that negative narrative.  But as long as it looks like you're taking a challenging course load and doing well, I don't know that people will even notice the 4 vs. 5 issue (since there are schools where 4 courses is a normal load).


What to do about an unprofessional instructor? I'm a Chinese freshman majoring in statistics. It's not me, but my classmates who are suffering from poor teaching in their Python course. They have no prior programming experience, so they aren't aware of their instructor's mistakes, but I think this must be stopped.

Let me show you this instructor's unprofessionalism:

She teaches the students Python by playing videos to them, which show her giving lessons to the seniors. Actually, she didn't say more than several sentences during a four-hour class. If one can learn Python simply by watching videos, why should one bother to come to the classroom? Students need face-to-face teaching! Also, I guess her video tutorial can't be the best one among all those online resources.
The students don't have time to practice in class, because their precious class time is used to watch pre-recorded videos.
Here is some of her code:

s=input("s:")
patten="0123456789"
for x in s:
    if x not in patten:
        print('非全数字')

While it's merely an incomplete code snippet, I suppose the misspelling of "pattern", the existence of "0123456789" instead of string.digits, and the mix using of ' and " is enough to demonstrate her ignorance of good coding.

s=[11,22,33,44,55,26,47,88,12,19]
a=[]
for i in s:
    if i%2 != 0:
        a.append(i)
    else:
        continue
print(a)

Yes, this works, but it's definitely not pythonic, and my classmates are learning Python, not "C/C++/Java programming in Python". If I were the instructor, I would teach them list comprehension.

In fact, she is the chief editor of the textbook being used, and that textbook is also unprofessional in my opinion. For example, it opens a file using f=open(...), rather than with open(...) as f:.
She never ends the class on time. The class is scheduled to end at 11:30AM, but usually the "hardworking" instructor ends the class at around 12:00pm. Probably this is because her videos can't convey much information in 3.5 hours.

My question is: what can I do to help the students? I think Python programming skills are very important to statistics students, and my classmates deserve a better instructor. I didn't take that class, so I don't mind it if I do something that may anger their instructor, because she can't give me a failing grade.

My fellow students think this instructor is "not that bad", presumably due to their lack of programming experience, and thus are reluctant to make a change.

Well, my answer is twofold:

First, the teaching method ssems like a misunderstood version of inverted classroom teaching - maybe an explanation how the teacher could support the students better might help. But it would be best if this comes from the course members or some students organization and not from an "outsider" not involved in the class.

Second, the "bad coding style" - it's hard to tell what is good or bad without context. Some problems are obvious (e.g. "unpythonic" using of space characters, typos) and you could point to the official coding guidelines which are worth reading for any programmer anyway. Maybe you can suggest those as course material.

All other "probelms" you identified could be part of the teaching concept and there are rationales for each:

I would not introduce string.digits (and any other library method) to beginners unless they see a need for it. The task given could be a step towards generating such a need.
The mix of ' and " could have educational purposes as well (even though I would have used an example like my_string = "let's say 'Hello'").
List comprehension is hard to understand for beginners. It is a powerful concept for intermediate or advanced programmers, but usually beginners are having trouble understanding the nature of a loop.

Maybe you can offer to support the course as tutor / student teaching assistant or else, with this you could influence the course content and improve the overall situation.


When and how often is an associate editor not starting review process? Very simple question. Reading some Q&A here and experience from my own papers and reviews I'm actually wondering when and how often the associate editor managing a possible review process of a submitted paper declines to start the process.

Maybe for not reaching formal standards of the journal, or wrong scope. If these points are fullfilled, will the associate editor always start to look for appropriate reviewers?

Once I heard in a talk of a physical review letters employee they get 10.000 submissions per year and 1.000 articles are finally published. I cannot believe they start 10.000 review processes, this would be a waste of everybody's time. On the other side every physicist knows PRL is the most prestigious journal in the field and you cannot submit garbage. So I believe most of the 10.000 submissions fulfill the formal standards. Based on which criterions the associate editor will then not start the review process? Age/quality of references, abstract, his historic and topical background and expertise? I never was associate editor myself but I guess they don't read the full article, but skim abstract, introduction, figures, references and conclusion maybe?

I'll give you my perspective as an co-Editor-in-Chief and previously an Associate Editor of the ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software (ACM TOMS):

As Editor-in-Chief, I take a brief look at each paper and decide whether it even makes sense to move forward with it. I would say that between 10 and 20% of the papers are already filtered out at this stage: They are not within scope of the journal, or are obviously not at the level we expect -- we get our fair share of submissions from second and third world countries (and some from first world countries) that are at the level of semester projects for advanced graduates.
As Editor-in-Chief, many submissions I get are not within my research area. The ones already filtered out above are obviously not acceptable, but then there are many that I suspect are not good enough, but where I don't know the area well enough to make the call. These get handed on to the Associate Editors, often with a note that they should take a look whether I'm right or wrong in suspecting that the paper does not meet our criteria.
As Associate Editor (before I became EiC), I then reject another ~15% or so based on my subject area knowledge.

So I suspect that for this journal -- a fairly reputable one with one of the highest impact factors as far as math journals go --, about 1/4 of the papers get rejected without being sent out to review. Of course, then another 1/3 to 1/2 or so of the rest get rejected after review.


Are there any open access databases of all (or close enough) academic papers ever published? (not full-text) Was wondering if there were any reasonably exhaustive open databases listing academic papers, with just the preliminary info, namely Title, authors, journal, etc. with or without abstract. I'm not looking for full-texts here.

I suppose you mean databases that are free to query so that you get to see all metadata stored without any subscription (i.e., not Scopus or Web of Science)?
Yes, there are various free platforms of that kind. My favourite (cross-disciplinary) ones are:

LENS.org (my favourite one - very comprehensive, and allows additional analyses and visualisations)
Microsoft Academic (not bad, powered by a semantic search approach)
Google Scholar (probably the most prominent one)
Semantic Scholar (another semantic search approach)
ScienceOpen (not too familiar with it)
CrossRef Search (only offers metadata about articles that have a DOI registered at CrossRef)
Wizdom.ai (offers interesting analyses, e.g. regarding research trends and grants)


Should I get a BSc at a top-ranked university or a MComp at a lower-ranked university? I'm currently in the situation of having to choose between the two options aforementioned in the title. The field of study I look forward to pursue is Computer Science. I would say that attending a course which offers a MComp would provide me with a deeper knowledge and a more elaborate skillset which I can employ after I finish my studies. However, I also have the option of pursuing a BSc at a top-ranked university which would probably provide me a higher-quality education. Moreover, the difference regarding rank (and supposedly quality) between the two universities is not big (namely, only a few places).

To sum up, which path should I choose for my academic preparation ?

If you can attend a top university, do so.  Having other excellent students around can provide a much better learning environment--to the point that in three years at a top place you may learn as much as in four years at a more mediocre institution.  If you do well, you can always do another one or two years of graduate study after your bachelor's degree.


Teaching the daughter of a lecturer, while being simultaneously enrolled in his course I'm a student in a bachelor program at a local university, while I'm also a teacher (professional school) of apprenticeship students within the same sphere of study.

A few days ago I received the participants list of a class which I going to teach next semester. I went briefly through the names and one quite unique name caught my interest. After a quick search on the web, I'm sure that one of the participants is the daughter of a lecturer who gives courses in which I'm enrolled at the university. He was grading my work and he will probably be grading my work in the future for one more course.

I had a few intense discussions with this lecturer about some topics of my studies. He also felt a bit insulted once because I missed some of his lectures, but we always stayed professional. I also feel that he graded my work and exams like the ones of any other student.

It's too late to find a replacement for me and this class? I'm wondering what should I do with this situation -- should I notify the school where I'm teaching about this?

I’ve had to teach colleagues children, nephews, and even the son & daughter of the Dean.

Be professional. Treat and grade them the same as any other student. They also think “oh sh*t s/he knows my Dad / Mum so I had better be careful”... :). Don’t call them out in class, but don’t avoid them either. If you do random questions and it’s their turn, then fine.

Don’t worry, they don’t go back to your Dean talking about your teaching performance. They just want to benefit from your wisdom / experience / knowledge same as the other students...


Can research paper information be used in thesis writing? I am writing my master thesis.  Can I put my research paper data in this thesis?  The research paper had been accepted in IEEE conference.  Is it ethical to put research paper data as it is. As this is my work, so can I use it ?

There are two concerns here:

Does the publisher of your previously published work object to your reusing the material in your MS thesis?  This should be addressed in any copyright transfer agreement that you signed.  Most publishers are actually OK with students doing this but a few are not.
Does your institution allow students to reuse material from their published research papers in theses?  Some institutions have rules against this.

You'll need to check on both of these issues.


What's my chance of getting into a good math or statistics graduate program, if I don't have impressive grades the first three semesters of college I'm a sophomore majoring in math and statistics at a large state university who has top 30 math programs. I really want to go to a very good math graduate program. However, my first three semester is full of Bs, and overall GPA is 3.5. And I happened to have a C and W on my transcript. My major GPA is pretty good though, a 3.98. But I'm still afraid that first year and half is going to hurt my chance of going to graduate school really bad. What do you guys think? Do you know where I stand? Anything I can do to counterbalance my unfavorable GPA? Thanks.

You major GPA of 3.98 is what counts most. "Full of B's" and overall GPA is 3.5 means "half A's, half B's," which is not at all bad. The one C and one W aren't great, but don't necessarily hurt you much. "Everyone" knows that when you take courses outside your major for "balance," you will likely get "worse" (and a few bad) grades. That's especially true the first three semesters.

I'd expect your GPA to rise to about 3.7 as you take more courses closer to your major in the later years. As long as you "finish" on a strong note, that's (mostly) what counts.


Are software citations indexed? It is encouraged to cite relevant software in research papers (e.g. MIT guide). The question is,
Are these citations indexed at all by any engine?
I can hardly find any software on e.g. google scholar to navigate the citations. For example, SageMath devs request to notify them manually about each citation to collect them on their page.
I am of course talking about software without an accompanying research paper.

Google Scholar does sometimes parse citations to codes; here is an example of the R library rvest:

In addition, as MoinMoin implied, many researchers write so-called data papers or software reviews that accompany newly published datasets or softwares. They are submitted to journals and undergo peer-reviews like other kinds of scholarly articles.
Journals increasingly support such data papers or software reviews. I am not only talking about journals that are specifically dedicated to such document types (e.g. Springer Nature's Scientific Data), but also to specified submission guidelines for this kind of documents at other journals (e.g. at PLOS ONE)
Some bibliographic databases capture such documents with a special category. At Web of Science, for instance, you can refine the results to 'data papers', 'database reviews' or 'software reviews':


I know that there is a preselected candidate for a position to be filled at my department. What should I do? There is a rather attractive position to be filled at my department. The heads of department are already quite sure about who should fill this position. Jobs being filled with preselected candidates are not exactly legal, but common practice in my country. Thus, there legally has to be a job announcement, as everybody has to be given the chance to apply for the job. There further is an equal opportunities office that ensures that all candidates are being judged by the same categories and no one gets preferential treatment.

I never found this practice of preselecting candidates particularly fair or ethical, but let's just say that up until now I had to deal with other challenges. Then I recently stumbled across the list of applicants for that position by accident (was still lying in the printer) and saw that I know one of the applicants who apparently will have no chance against the preselected candidate. It's not that I desperately want this acquaintance ("friend" is too much) to fill the job, but knowing a name on the "you're never gonna get the job"-list made the unfair treatment so much more real. I don't find it acceptable.

Things that speak for me to do nothing:

Most importantly: My contract will be finished soon and I was, am and will be dependent on my boss's willingness to  give me a contract or rather (because there is no funding) her cooperation on further projects.
The head of department is my direct boss and (in my opinion) a very likeable person.
I highly appreciate her concern for her staff, she nevertheless needs to make strategic decisions at some points, which comes with the job and is only professional - I understand.
Furthermore, as much as I know the preselected candidate seems to be a very good, high impact candidate who will fit in the department.

Things that speak for me to do something

Most importantly: It's a unfair/ unethical system and I don't want to stand by and watch
There is no funding for a future contract anyway (although my boss tried)
There may be many other candidates just as good or better than the preselected one

What should I do? I'm not gonna lie: talking to my boss (head of department) scares me quite a bit. But then again I don't want to go to higher levels, be the whistleblower and ruin parts of my boss's career...

[Update]
Based on your answers I did/will do the following:

I talked to a colleague, turns out she had the same impression and wanted to talk to me about it as well. So concerning the question "do you have proof?": at least I have another witness now. But then again, as Anonymous Physicist wrote: up until now, no rule was broken. However, we decided to closely follow the application process in hope that our concerns were exaggerated (which I highly doubt)
"maybe it was just a statement about the quality of the candidate?" It very much exceeded this, as my boss was talking about how important it is that they get the participant through the application process and what possible pitfalls could be. Nevertheless I'll talk to her in order to find out, what her behavior would look like if "someone better" shows up and if that'd be a case of nepotism (see answer of xLeitix).

One important consideration that you should take into account is whether there is an actual case of nepotism or not. Nepotism is if the preferred candidate is objectively inferior to at least one other candidate from all the information that is accessible to the selection committee. Or, in other words, if the head of the department is willingly hiring a worse candidate because they like them better, owe a favor to somebody, or have some other invalid reason to give one candidate preferential treatment.

The problem is that many "not really open" open positions aren't actually like that. In practice, what I often see as the main reason why a department or selection committee quickly zeroes in on a specific candidate is that they know much more about one candidate than about the others.

The most typical example is as such: There is an open search procedure, and a number of external candidates apply plus Alice, a candidate that has worked tightly with members of the department before, and which has been explicitly invited to apply. What you now see is a tremendous information asymmetry - the department knows little about the external candidates, but before they even open Alice's application folder they already have a great deal of information about Alice. They know what she can and can't do. Where other candidate's past successes are just a line in a CV to the committee, for Alice they know the full story, how she achieved them, what she has learned from them, and how this would help her be effective in her new position.

Recruitment is always a risky proposition, in academia just as in industry. We all have seen candidates that looked great on paper but turned out unsuitable for reasons that were impossible to glean from an application package. Faculty visits help, but how much can you really learn about a person in one or two days, especially in a somewhat artificial and often strongly rehearsed environment? In this situation, a risk-averse committee (and, realistically, this is basically every committee) has a strong incentive to go with Alice over a candidate that may have a slightly stronger CV, but also a much higher margin of error. As a consequence, a committee may prefer the "known candidate" Alice despite her weaker CV for completely rational reasons (which makes it different to nepotism). In essence, them doing so may be the optimal move for them given the information they have and how much they are willing to risk.

  What should I do?

Depending on how close you are to your boss, I would carefully try to find out why they prefer one candidate so much over the others (i.e., talk with them about it). It is completely possible that you may find that their reason is solid given the information that they have. Even if you disagree with their reasoning, understanding it may make the situation easier to accept for you. And if it turns out that there actually is a clear-cut case of nepotism (your boss knows the selected candidate is inferior, but decides to select them anyway), you have a much, much clearer argument for any potential whistleblowing.


How can I include figures with non-English text (and a translation) in the appendix of a research paper? I'm writing a research paper in English, but my data is in another language.
I want to include some pictures in an appendix, but they contain some writings in the foreign language.

How can you include translation in an appendix?

Is it a common practice to write the translation over the picture since it has the necessary space. I don't want to put the translation below the picture to avoid taking too much space.

As the comments state, if the wording is of any significance to understanding your manuscript then a translation is in order. Depending on the type of figure you have several options

If your figure exists in editable digital form, you can see if actually changing the wording is possible. Even better if the format is a vctor graphics is to redraw the figure completely.

If your figure is a bit map, you could ad labels to the figure and provide translations in the text or figure caption (preferably).

Clearly the possibilities vary with the format of the original but it will be important to make the figure as understandable as possible for people not familiar with your native language.


Plagiarism of former supervisors copying from my master thesis I graduated a couple of years ago performing a master thesis with two supervisors. They both were happy about it and wanted to write a paper from my thesis, including me as author, but after my graduation I didn't hear from them again. It is worth to say that my supervisors had the pdf file of my thesis and all the figures and plots in vector graphics.

To my surprise and deception, I found out that my two former supervisors have published a journal paper based on my master thesis, which is not cited. Not only they have reported all of my plots, but they have also copied the captions (with almost no modifications), equations, tables, and entire sentences (some of them just copy-pasted, other ones with very minor modifications). Moreover, the simulations section reports 2 simulations that I carried out during my thesis, and both the parameters, the plots, and the analysis of the simulations is basically copied from my thesis. After all this content taken from my thesis, I only see that the authors have just acknowledged me in the article for the simulations only, and not even for all the plots and all the sentences they used.

Needless to say, this situation makes me very angry and frustrated. I would like to know, given this situation, whether:

I can accuse my former supervisors of plagiarism, contacting the editor of the journal and proving that a very large portion of the paper is taken from my thesis, which is not cited. Although my thesis is not available online, the authors could have included it in the list of references, and I can prove that they have a copy of it;
I can ask to be included as author of the paper, since most of the work published is based on my master thesis, and not only the "simulations", as the authors wrote in the acknowledgements.

I can accuse my former supervisors of plagiarism, contacting the editor of the journal and proving that a very large portion of the paper is taken from my thesis, which is not cited. Although my thesis is not available online, the authors could have included it in the list of references, and I can prove that they have a copy of it;

Yes, you can do that.

  I can ask to be included as author of the paper, since most of the work published is based on my master thesis, and not only the "simulations", as the authors wrote in the acknowledgements.

Yes, you can also do that.  Based on the information in the question, you should be an author on the paper.  I suggest you contact your supervisors and ask them to fix the author list first.  If that is unsuccessful, you should follow your university's grievance procedure.  Contacting the editor should be the last resort.


How to be fearless as Ph.D student? I am a computer science Ph.D. student. I have written a couple of research papers and some of them are under review. I have started becoming fearless from some time as my past experience has told me that with time and with hard work every research problem is solvable to some extent (make something publishable out of it). I have tried to now pick the research which is less related to my previous research works. I am doing this thing on purposefully as I don't want to narrow my research domain. My belief so far is that pick something read few papers for some months and purpose a question take more months and then write it.

Question: I am wondering what are the other things which I can try to be more fearless or what are the things students should practice in order to become more and more fearless? I used to a person with lots of fear but now I have become confident. I know fear some time push me but after failing some projects I have become a fearless person.

Some meaning of the fear is to take the courage to pick a research problem and solve it and make it publishable.

I'd say that you must learn not to take things too close to your heart. "Fear" appears when something hurts our self-esteem. The key is to realize that in most cases it should not. Say, a reviewer rejects your paper, providing very harsh comments. You feel like jumping between a cold shower and a frying pan, but you should't. Reviewers don't know you personally, they are only doing a job of bashing your paper if it's not good enough. If you paper is not good enough, it doesn't mean that you aren't good enough, so your self-esteem shouldn't suffer. (And it especially shouldn't suffer if a reviewer is wrong.) Accept criticism and continue.

If you fail, often it means that you aim high, so it is normal to fail. We aren't in school where all problems have ready answers. Many directions are dead ends, and we must realize that it's OK to hit a dead end from time to time.

In a sense, it is equally important to practice humility. A huge number of talented people establish start-ups, record songs, write novels and draw comic strips. Most of them fail, this is just the way it is, and we shouldn't think of ourselves as exceptions. Accept that failures are as inevitable as gravity (so, once again, don't take it too close to heart). It is also useful to understand your limits. We all have stronger sides and weaker sides, and even our stronger sides in most cases won't get us a Nobel prize next year. Aim high, but stay realistic with your goals.

In short, be passionate about your topic, but try to keep your inner self "protected". It should not suffer when you are hurt as a professional (due to failures or criticism). It is hard, but doable to some extent.


How to show the accreditation of a university abroad I live in the U.S but got my undergrad from a university in another country.
Now I have applied for Masters in the U.S and the department of graduate studies have requested this information from me, How do I provide it to them? What are they looking for?

Also: The university is Sheikh Bahaei University

  Is the university where you obtained your undergraduate degree an
  accredited institution?  That is, is it of a reasonable quality in
  some quantifiable ways?

Various countries have different accrediting bodies. Wikipedia has a nice overview.

From what you've written, it seems like they are looking for some information about what body (usually a private accrediting agency or a government ministry of education) your undergraduate institution is accredited by. To use a school near me as an example, I might say something like:

  Brooklyn College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, as stated here.  You can see Brooklyn College listed on the accrediting body's website, here.

In your case, you can point them to this page, which shows that the university is accredited by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of Iran (which is the government body that is responsible for accreditation of institutes of higher education in Iran).


Should I let potential employers know I have a job offer? I've interviewed for a few positions, one of which has made me an offer.  I'm very pleased with the offer, but I prefer some of the other positions.  I have the luxury of being able to take a lot of time to decide whether or not I accept this offer, so I'm certain I will hear back (either positively or negatively) from the other positions before a decision is required for the offer I've received.

I'm trying to decide between two courses of action, and I want to choose the one that will best help my candidacy with the positions I've yet to hear from.  Plan 1 is to do nothing and simply wait to hear back from the other positions for which I've already interviewed.  Plan 2 is to be in touch with the other positions to let them know I have an offer, and ask where I stand with them.

Would Plan 2 make me a more desirable candidate with the other positions, as they might see my offer as further validation of my credentials?  Or, might initiating with the interviewers in this way be detrimental to my candidacy, perhaps making me seem pushy or self-centered?  If so, I would rather just wait for them to run their course of action (Plan 1).  As I've said, I have plenty of time, so I don't want impatience to hurt me.

If there is a good chance that my meddling will be detrimental, then I'd rather be hands-off here.  However, if it's more likely that informing the other interviewers of my offer will give me a boost, then I'd want to do so.

Thanks for any clarity you can provide!

Edit: For a bit more information and context, the position I've been offered is a non-academic research position that my advisor has described as "prestigious."  The other positions for which I've interviewed (and which I prefer) are mostly academic teaching-centered positions (visiting assistant professors, tenure-track at smaller four year institutions).

The argument for plan 2 is that if you have an offer from employer A with a particular deadline but you would prefer to take a position with employer B, then if you don't say something, employer B could take too long to decide what to do and you'd be forced to take offer A before employer B gets around to making you an offer.

I've been on the employer side of this (as both employer A and employer B.)  Keep in mind that once a search committee has completed interviews it has to meet to decide on who should be offered the position and then this has to be reviewed by higher level administrators (deans or vice presidents) and that the process can take time (days or weeks.)  It may be possible to expedite this process if there's a particular deadline, or it may not.

I think that if you've decided that you'll take offer A by a particular deadline if you have no other offers (and that you wouldn't break your contract with employer A after accepting the offer), then you should tell the other potential employers about the offer and the deadline (I wouldn't mention employer A's name or the specific amount of the offer.) It's not likely to hurt your chances with these other employers, but it could help motivate them to get an offer out to you in a timely fashion.

I have received this kind of information from job candidates in the past.  Unfortunately, I've always had to say that (because we had other candidates scheduled for on campus interviews) that we couldn't make an offer before the deadline.


What does cfr. stand for? In a article I saw this expression:

  ... initial sample (cfr. Härdle et al. (2004))...

What is the meaning of cfr. or does it stands for?

Cfr is the abbreviation of the Latin imperative confer, which means compare with.
The common English abbreviation is cf.

Your citation can be found in this document, which is written by a Spanish group. A search of the Oxford Spanish Dictionary yields:

  cf.

  1 Abreviatura del imperativo latino confer, 'compara' o 'consulta',
  que se utiliza en escritos para remitir a un párrafo o libro que
  contiene información relacionada con el tema tratado.

  Usage

  También se abrevia cfr

The last sentence tells you that in Spanish cf is sometimes abbreviated as cfr.


How much does a professional qualification e.g. CChem add to applications for permanent academic positions or early career fellowships? I am a postdoc right now. I am not yet at the stage of applying to any permanent positions, but I am planning ahead. My aim would be to apply for early career fellowships within the next 2-3 years, or permanent academic positions a little after that. My current plan is to apply in the UK, though I am working in continental Europe at the moment. However, I am also open to taking another postdoc in North America, and I am also considering the possibility of applying to positions in Asia or elsewhere if UK does not work out.

I am aware that the things that would be most important would be my research topic and output. Some teaching experience (not so important for fellowships perhaps), and some "service to the community and professional development".

For the final point, I am wondering how useful it would be to try to achieve accreditations from professional bodies such as:

Royal Society of Chemistry: Chartered Chemist (CChem)
http://www.rsc.org/careers/cpd/practising-scientists/#cchem-tab
Institute of Physics: Chartered Physicist (CPhys)
http://www.iop.org/membership/char-sta/chartership/cphys/page_51812.html
Royal Society of Biology: Chartered Biology (CBiol)

and there are CStat, CMath, CSci etc. I am only eligible for the CChem.

Obviously, getting Chartered status in the natural sciences is not as important as it is for engineers. I have seen academics with all the Chartered qualifications they can get, and I have also seen (fairly senior) academics without any Chartered statuses. I can see that it is a "nice to have". My question is, how much would it improve my chances of getting a fellowship or a permanent position? Or, how many hours should it be worth to me in an average working week?

I'm a PhD physics student so have limited experience with this, but just based on careers talks and discussions I've had with postdocs and professors in my University, it's not worth very much.

Chartered status (CPhys) is meant to recognise that a working physicist is still keeping in touch with ground-breaking research, as well as having an ethical code and exercising leadership.

  Chartered status stands for the highest standards of professionalism, up-to-date expertise, quality and safety, and for capacity to exercise leadership and undertake independent practice. As well as competence, the title denotes commitment to keep pace with advancing knowledge and with the increasing expectations and requirements for which any profession must take responsibility. Source: Institute of Physics

This is very useful in industry to prove that you have not stopped learning after your degree or doctorate. However, in academia, I think this is somewhat superfluous because as a researcher you are always learning and will have to keep in touch with advancing knowledge to keep your job.

In summary, if you have all the necessary competencies and proofs already, it might be a nice shiny badge to pin on your jacket, but it doesn't carry a lot of professional weight in academic circles.

If you do leave the academic world and want recognition of your progress, then it would be very valuable.


Should I dress up for conference banquet/gala dinner? I am thinking about what should I bring to the conference.

Normally, will people dress up (like full suit) for the dinner?

p.s. I am in CS domain.

No. You do not need to wear a suit for presenting at a conference. Most of the times, CS conferences have the typical t-shirt (or shirt), jeans combination of computer / tech guys.

For the dinner, you can dress a little more formally (if you want) but still a suit is not required. In fact, if you are young (<30) , wearing a suit and a tie would probably seem a little weird.

Bottom line: Wear what you usually wear when you go to work for the presentation and a little more formal (nicer) wear for dinner.


Is it feasible to pursue PhD with BE Degree/16+ years of experience, and is it worth it? Is it possible to pursue PhD with only BE degree and 16+ years of Software Industry experience? I know that most of the institutes expect a Masters degree to pursue PhD.  Do they consider Industry experience to relax this criteria?

And, then the big question - Is it worth it to pursue a research/academic career after 16 years in Software Industry?  Has anyone done this? what are your experiences like?

Your assumption depends on your location. If you are interested in obtaining a PhD in Computer Science at a school in the US, then in fact many programs do not expect you to have a Master's degree prior to beginning your doctoral studies. However, if you've been in industry for 16 years, it may be difficult to secure the letters of recommendation required for entry. Certainly letters from employers are accepted, especially in your case, but if they do not show a strong desire and aptitude for research, they will not be worth as much. However, don't let that dissuade you. Apply anyway, if that's what you want to do.


Mapping connections between topics covered in academic papers - does such a tool exist? I'm interested in learning about how to go about writing a paper, and obviously, an integral part of this process will be to read papers written by others, and study those. I'm curious about the idea of using software mapping tools as a means of logging connections between certain papers of interest.

The following questions: Is there a network map of subjects and how they connect with each other? and Map (tree) of citations/references are related to my question, but I'm not sure the suggested software, Auto Desk
or Cytoscape, would be entirely appropriate for what I'm interested in doing.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

ScienceWISE is one of the attempts:

The ScienceWISE project aims to develop a scientist-generated on-line knowledge base fully integrated into the physics ArXiv.org
The ScienceWISE system allows scientists, in the course of their daily work to

dynamically generate professional-field-specific ontologies: add concepts and logical relations between them; provide expertly-written, community-ranked definition articles and links to other existing resources;
to create an interactive semantic environment, annotating scientific research papers, uploaded to ArXiv.org, and linking them to the ScienceWISE ontology, thus expanding content of their papers with supporting material in the form of encyclopedia-like articles.

(See also info on the arXiv: http://arxiv.org/help/sciencewise)


Use Investment Bank Report as Reference? I'm writing a thesis on a financial topic and some important arguments for my research can only be found in reports from investment banks, not scholarly sources. I think it's because the topic is very new but right now I'm not sure how 'respected' a bank report reference is. I'm talking UBS, Citibank,... The topic concerns QE causing distortions in the stock market. Is it considered acceptable to use a bank report as a source in a thesis?

Citing grey literature, such as investment bank reports, isn't unheard of.

There are a few caveats.

Discuss it with your supervisors early on: they will know the whens and hows of acceptable grey-literature citations.
It may not be easy to find useful citation metadata such as named authors.
Your reviewers / examiners may not be able to accesss the report, and that would be problematic for them, and thus for you.
You should not build arguments that are grounded only in grey literature. Corroborate with peer-reviewed literature wherever possible, even if it's just corroborating one aspect of the points you're taking from the grey literature.
Business reports often have some wacky form of encryption that hinders text searching, which can make including them in your literature review somewhat hazardous.


How to feel less guilt about teaching? I just got a permanent position. Hooray!

My question is the opposite of this one (that popped out as a suggestion from this site): How to care less about teaching?

During my PhD studies I TAed a little but was essentially told by everyone not to worry too much about it. During my postdoc I did not teach at all.

Now I will have to teach half a load the first year and a full load starting from the second year. This is a bit scary. I want to spend more time on teaching, preparing the course, actually learning how to teach (something I never did, it's just assumed that since I spent so long in universities I'm now a teacher through osmosis). But whenever I start doing that, I remember that I will never be evaluated on teaching in my life, and if I want promotions later, only my research will count. Any second more than the bare legal minimum spent on teaching is time not spent on research. How do I stop feeling guilt about this?

I think you could do a few things to essentially work smarter not harder. My reading is that you want to do a good job on teaching in a time-efficient manner. You know that teaching can become a big time commitment, and you want to make sure you don't succumb to an unwise habit of too much teaching time.

First, consider getting a book or two on teaching and reading through them. I liked "What the Best College Teachers Do" by Bain. You might also check out some of the teaching columns in Chronicle of Higher Ed.

Second, build on the work of good teachers. Reflect on courses you have liked. Try to get syllabi from those courses to use when designing your own course. Or, get syllabi from colleagues at your new school. When you select your texts, try to choose those that come with extras like slides, exam questions, and cases. Try to use a common text so you can ask colleagues for their materials to customize.

Third, prioritize. For me, this has meant "working hard" on one class per semester and putting less effort into customizing and improving other classes. (Then rotating and improving a different class the next time.) I also prioritize what I will cover, as trying to squeeze a lot into a class takes more work than focusing on a more limited number of key takeaways. Lastly, put your efforts into things that are really value-added for your students. I'm not sure what this is in your field. In mine, it is arranging guest speakers and "real-world" assignments and discussion cases. For my students, grading is not as big of a value add, although feedback is useful. Strict grading can start to take up a lot of time if you let it.

Finally, check with your new chair to make sure you have a clear idea of teaching expectations. Each department has different expectations, so you need to get a handle on your particular expectations, not some vague idea you have from your previous institution or the internet. Good luck!


Applying for a postdoc with degree from different fields I have a master and bachelor degree in Aerospace engineering. Master degree was from the most prestigious institute in my country (India).

Then I moved on to my Ph.D., but this time into a different field. Physical Chemistry. Particularly because I wanted to do fundamental science rather than engineering. I am doing pretty good in my Ph.D. (in terms of publication and progress)

Will having a degree from different fields be a trouble when I apply for a postdoc (in Physical chemistry) in top universities (like Cambridge or Princeton)? Also will this affect me when I try for a tenure track position?

In my experience, people are much more interested in your publications and research specialty then your previous degrees.

A previous degree in a separate field is more of an asset that can open new doors; you are a credible person for any possible cooperation between your current and previous field (about which I know little; maybe creating or investigating materials that might be of use in aerospace engineering). Interdisciplinary work is difficult unless someone knows both of the fields and understands their concerns and languages.

I suppose someone might see a positive or negative signal in you having changed a field (learning an entirely new field in your PhD studies is certainly impressive, or maybe you lack some fundamentals in your new field, and almost certainly you stand out from among many other candidates whose master's degree is in a more usual field), but this could go either way and depends on the person doing the hiring. I would not be worried.


How much time do academics in fact spend refereeing the research of others, on average? This and similar questions ask how much time a researcher should devote to reviewing a paper, or to reviewing papers in general. But how much time do scientists spend refereeing papers as a matter of fact?

I am specifically looking for answers based on empirical statistics with a large-enough n, be it within one or across several disciplines. I'm not so interested in anecdotes or educated guesses.

Short answer: One day in a month.

In a piece on the "challenges and opportunities" of peer-review, Ware (2011, 25) estimates the median time spent per article to be 5 hours, and the average to be 8.5 hours. He acknowledges that these figures "vary by discipline and also by experience" (ibid.), but doesn't go into more detail. "Active reviewers" report an average of 14 reviews per year (ibid., 28). There is no explanation in the paper of what counts as "active" or how many papers the average academic reviews in a year.

However, in a follow-up publication, the same author defined active reviewers as those who review more than one paper per month (Ware 2016, 3). The same publication reports a follow-up survey with a slightly different methodology. Although the findings are therefore not directly comparable, their thrust is similar, with the average (mode) number of papers reviewed per month between one and two (ibid., 33), the median time spent on the last review at five, and the mean at 8.4 hours in 2017 (ibid., 34). The survey included more than 2000 respondents from different fields and demographics, with the arts and humanities somewhat underrepresented (ibid., 45).

Figures: Ware 2016. CC-BY-NC-ND.

References

Ware, M. (2011). Peer Review: Recent Experience and Future Directions. New Review of Information Networking, 16(1), 23–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614576.2011.566812

Ware, M. (2016). Publishing Research Consortium Peer Review Survey 2015. Mark Ware Consulting Ltd., Bristol, UK. http://publishingresearchconsortium.com/index.php/prc-documents/prc-research-projects/57-prc-peer-review-survey-2015/file


Can I cite a manuscript in term paper I am doing a term paper on the subject of minimum spanning trees algorithms,
I need to cite "Shortest connection networks and some generalization" paper for the prim's algorithm made by Prim, after searching I found a manuscript of the paper.
My question is, can I cite the paper? is this allowed in the citing formats?

Of course you can cite unpublished manuscripts; this is regularly done in academia. However, the important issue is that you must appropriately indicate that it is an unpublished manuscript, and cite (if possible) where the manuscript was found. This will allow for due consideration of the work in context.


Paper rejected due to short reference list Recently I submitted a paper to a journal and I got the following feedback from the Editorial Office:

  The reference lists of manuscripts submitted to our journal should include a variety of English-language journals that reflect the diversity of resources in the scholarly field of the manuscript.

  I regret to inform you that it was found to be unsuitable for publication because the reference list did not contain sufficiently diverse, English-language sources.

Now, my question is, if some research is novel and does not have much information about it on the internet (for eg, a newly developed algorithm), then how will such papers get published, if the editors reject it on the basis of the size of the reference list rather than focussing on the quality of the manuscript?

the editors reject it on the basis of size of the reference list rather than focussing on the quality of the manuscript.

I think that's a false distinction. From the view of the journal (and most publication outlets I know), one aspect of a manuscript's quality is that it needs to defend its novelty by appropriately considering related work.

The feedback does not mention the size of your reference list, but a lack of diversity, which indicates that your article is limited in the perspective of considered related work. For example, if your algorithm uses a new idea from X to solve a new problem Y and presents applications in Z, you should discuss papers about X, Y (or similar problems), and Z.


Can we use a book figure/illustration in a review article and cite the source without getting permissions? I included two figures from book in review article. I emailed the editor and author of the chapter for permissions, but they didn't reply. I also mailed CRC publisher for permissions, but still didn't get response from them.

If I still use those figures in a review article and cite the original source, will it be legal or not?

You cannot publish somebody else's copyrighted material in your own documents without a license.  Typically, the copyright is held not by the authors but by the publisher, e.g., CRC Press.

For most large publishers (including CRC Press, which appears to be owned by Taylor & Francis), they have a standard procedure for obtaining permissions for republication, e.g., to include a figure as part of a review article as you wish to do. Depending on the particulars, sometimes it will cost money and sometimes it will be free.  In any case, sending email will generally be pointless because they will expect you to go through the standard permissions process instead.

In this case, if you go to the CRC Press permissions page, it leads you to a general copyright licensing service, which has a "pay per use" system for obtaining, among other things, a license to:

  Republish an article, book excerpt or other content in your own books, journals, newsletters and other materials

Finally, note that it is sometimes worth checking whether an alternate free version exists.  For example, authors may have also previously included similar material in a US government report or other item where you can freely use the material (always with appropriate attribution, of course).


Talking about accepted offer in job interview I accepted an offer and after that got an iterview opportunity from my dream company. In the interview they had asked me if I have deadlines coming up. I informed them that I had to accept another offer since the deadline was before they invited me to the interview.
Will this create a negative opinion with interviewer or HR? Will the decision of considering me for next rounds be affected?

Thanks in advance

If you accept an offer you should immediately withdraw from consideration from all other potential employers. This is simply to preserve your own credibility for the future. Failing to do this will, perhaps, cause them to expend resources wastefully and it can come back on you in the future.

They won't want to talk to you in the future if they think you might do this again in the middle of negotiations.

Alternatively, you can back out of your earlier acceptance if possible so that you are really available. This is risky, of course. But this is a situation that if you try to play games, you will probably lose.


Can I publish a paper that doesn't have a specific question to answer? I have created a new data structure, and I intend to submit a paper about it to an ACM conference later this year. However, in writing the paper, I realize there is no specific "question" the research answers. I was simply curious if such a structure could be created. Can I simply write the paper, describe the structure and how it works, and then give a pseudocode example and perhaps comparisons to other data structures? The structure has some rather interesting properties, and I can see specific applications for it in statistical analysis. But beyond that, as far as I can tell, it's just a neat structure with some weird properties.

I would suggest that you investigate those interesting properties further and then have a paper along the lines of "this structure has this useful property, more-so (or less-so) than these other structures." That is justify why someone would actually use this structure.

Think about it from the editors' point of view. Why should this paper be published? If you can't provide an answer with a straight face then maybe you should wait until there is a purpose for it.