Discussing work in progress I am about to begin my hunt for post-doc positions. As such, I will be discussing my dissertation work in some detail with potential post-doc advisers.

I am currently in the data collection phase, and none of this research has been published. I am somewhat worried because, as a requirement for my PhD, I have to contribute novel research to the field. I hope to submit a part of my dissertation to a conference; however most relevant conferences are not until next summer, and submissions are typically due early next year. In other words, this research will not be published for a while.

Is it appropriate to ask for some discretion when discussing my dissertation with professors who do similar research?

I think the following won't apply to you, but may be useful for people in other fields with the same question.

If you work in a field where putting preprints online is an accepted practice, then write up your work and upload a preprint.  In this way you clearly establish priority without needing to wait for the article to be refereed.

For instance, in Physics, CS, and Math, most researchers put preprints on arXiv.org.


Life as a math professor I am currently an undergraduate math major in my 3rd year (in America). I have taken lots of pure math courses, and anything I put in my resume tells potential employers I'm probably going to be an academic.

However, I still would like to know from current researchers what is it like to be a math professor. More specifically, I have already guessed at basically what they do (research approachable problems, teach zero or one or two classes at a time, go to conferences and seminars to get ideas, life is probably easier after tenure and more stressful before, pay is sufficient but probably less than industry). When I look up career-related questions on this site, I generally get questions dealing with the items mentioned above.

But what is the job satisfaction like (people probably get impressions from colleagues)? What sorts of things should one consider before committing to an academic career (as it's a long road)? What is the work environment like (what sorts of people with which one has to interact)? Which types of people generally like an academic environment?

In my opinion, it really depends on the type of academic job that you want/are able to land. Professional life in (1) a top tier research university, is different than in (2) a medium tier Ph.D. granting department, is different than in (3) a Master's granting department with a more modest research agenda, is different than in (4) a predominantly teaching oriented, four year college.

The teaching load/research expectation continuum certainly varies across the four. On one end of the spectrum, say at (1)-(2), the teaching load will be light (as you describe) but with research expectations in terms of papers in top tier journals and landing external funding that is very high. However, even if the actual course load is less, you will spend a chunk of time working with graduate students in reading courses, research seminars, their thesis, etc. As you move from (2) to (3), the research expectations decrease as teaching loads increase. In (4), you very well may have no requirement to produce original mathematical research in the form of journal articles, but instead be expected to demonstrate "continued scholarly activity" which can take a variety of forms. On the other hand, you may be teaching 4 classes a semester.

Pay, generally---but not always and certainly not uniformly---decreases from (1) to (4). The autonomy of academic life is usually very attractive and serves to counterbalance a salary that is less than what people in some mathematical specialties could garner in industry.

In my opinion, the type of job one shoots for (and will eventually find success/satisfaction in) is a combination of one's passions (research vs. teaching vs both), innate talents (again, in both research and teaching), aspirations, competitiveness, willingness to deal with pressure, and geography, to name a few.

As a nod to pragmatism, one thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of jobs are in (4) and (3). Jobs in (1) and (2) are highly competitive to land. I have many friends in all four categories who are happy and very few (none?) who are unhappy, although admittedly the latter category probably self-selected out of academia.

Finally, since you are a third year undergrad, you will get a MUCH better sense of how much you really like mathematics in graduate school. During that time all of this should crystallize greatly. You will also get to see the profession much more up close than you do as an undergrad. It is great that you are thinking of these things now; keep your eyes and ears open in the coming years.

This is all just my two cents. Certainly others may have very different opinions, experiences, and perspectives...


Failing on purpose an oral exam I am not well enough prepared for an oral exam I will have soon. I should probably pass the exam but with a bad grade I wouldn't be happy with. This comes due to some bad time management and some personal problems during the semester. Unfortunately I still decided to take the exam....

Since we have 2 tries I am planning to fail it. Now I am unsure how to do it politely. Is it ok to come by and see how the exam is, but answer bad on purpose or should I sent a mail that I'm not well prepared and apologize and come to the retake date?

I'm grateful for any advice how to handle the situation.

Don't waste other's people time, and be respectful to your professor and to your fellow students as well. Send an email and apologize: the time slot allotted for you can be better used in another ways, e.g. to improve other students' exam schedule.


Is it usual for a PhD thesis to have two distinct subjects? In my PhD studies I have slipped off my original track of research. This was also caused by the fact that I found out that my work can be generalized to a broader scope. It is not so bad, during this detour I did a lot of work.

But then I tried to get back to my original subject and did a lot of work there too. So now after 3 years of studying, I have several papers and a lot of data for both tracks. I don't think that the results in any one of these tracks are sufficient to graduate, but together they are.

Should I:

try to find a unifying theme and try to make my thesis seem unified on the outside, or
should I transparently say that my thesis is about these two subjects?

Option 1. At least in computer science, it happens often (but not always) that someone works on several somewhat disjoint but somewhat related problems. It's all about the glue and the story; if you can sell the cohesiveness of the thesis in the abstract and introduction, you're golden. Be upfront about the fact that there may be some disjoint problems, but try to find and highlight the unifying themes.

Here's a quote my advisor always tells us which has relevance to this: "all wells, when dug deep enough, lead to the same water source."


what does [citation] mean in google scholar search results? What does [citation] mean in Google scholar search results and why is it not clickable? I know there is also an option to include citations but I am not sure what that means? If something is cited is should exist somewhere.

example:

  [CITATION] Use of detergents in the analysis of fibrous feeds. IV.
  Determination of plant cell-wall constituents PJ Van Soest, RH Wine -
  J. Assoc. Off. Anal. Chem, 1967

[Citation] means that Google Scholar has not been able to find a source for the publication, but that it has inferred that it exists because other publications cite it.

Taken directly from Google Scholar help
"These are articles which other scholarly articles have referred to, but which we haven't found online. To exclude them from your search results, uncheck the "include citations" box on the left sidebar."


Professor didn't acknowledge a late hand-in by email. Is it appropriate to follow up? I missed a class where I was supposed to hand in an assignment.
I arrived at my school at the end of the class, and the teacher had already left, so I sent them immediately by email.

It has been a week, and I understand that they are probably busy.
I imagine that a professor's inbox can receive so many messages that they don't have time to read all of them either.

This is an important grade in an important course for me, and I would like to make sure that they have actually seen my message, and that they are willing to grade it (instead of failing the assignment).

Is it appropriate to follow up on my first message, asking politely if they could confirm that they have seen the email?
Will that just anger them?
I don't think I will have an occasion to see them in person to ask.

It depends on the procedures at a particular institution, but using email as a delivery vehicle for assessed work is so unreliable and untrustworthy that at many places it is prohibited. You should consult your local rules.

Email is unreliable because, for the sender there is no guarantee that anything arrived. It could have been blocked by various spam filters on the way because of content, type of attachment, or originating domain. Did you use the institutions own email account to email from, or an outside one?

Email is also unreliable because the time in transit can be variable. It is also insecure as the message could be tampered with in transit as third parties are used for delivery.

You may not be aware of the recipients mailbox situations. It could be overflowing with messages. You do not know the message delivery rate; how many are received per day. You have no knowledge of what the situation looks like from the other side.

For the recipient is is untrustworthy as they have no assurance of authentication, that the sender is who they say they are.

These, and many other reasons, are why many places use a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) for the submission of graded assignments.

For you, however, without contacting the person directly you have no way of finding out if the work was received, and when it was received, and whether your email would be acceptable.

However, if email is an accepted or required form of submission, you could not expect an acknowledgement either. It would be quite time-consuming to individually reply to each message that was an assignment submission.


Processing of GRE subject scores at the institution I took the physics GRE and at test time sent my scores to my physics department at my school. I later saw my scores and realized that I did very poorly. I am now in the process of applying back to the same school but to a different department which does not require the physics GRE ("Subject test scores are optional but desirable, preferably in Physics...").

If the department looks for my GRE scores, will they get my Physics GRE scores along with my general scores?

The department I am applying to does not have a specific code, just the school code, whereas I sent my score using the physics department code. I am interested in finding out how GRE scores are handled when they are sent from ETS to a school.

Different departments often fetch the GRE scores from the central repository of the Graduate school, would which be fed by official scores from ETS.

So, if the program has declared the GRE score as either mandatory or optional material, the score will be sent there, automatically, from the graduate school.


team authoring question I (a grad student) wrote a paper and sent it off to a journal for review as first author, with my coworkers as the other authors. A professor on the team says that another student wrote much the same paper, using possibly some or all of the same data (it's mostly secondary data), and, I suspect, the same or very much related theory. I am not on paper 2, which I haven't read. This seems a little weird to me. Is it? I wonder if it will impact my chances of getting my paper published if, say, the paper gets rejected where it's been sent.

Both of those individuals are on my paper. Also, I don't think they could not know this was happening since the team has a formal paper proposal process related to publication that has to be followed to prevent problems . Who knows, though?

If anyone has suggestions about how to broach this topic with my professor that would be great.

Yes, the situation is weird. Yes, it could cause you problems with your paper and also with the other paper. But it is pretty hard to say how it would play out as it depends on who sees the paper (editors, reviewers, ...) and the minute-by-minute timing of things.

But the problem goes deeper than that. Two nearly identical papers out of the same lab at the same time is what is weird here. It should not have happened. There is some mis-communication within the lab that should be fixed. I can't say whether it is a general problem or not, but that should be investigated.

My suggestion isn't very satisfying, however. If you want to maximize your future collaborative opportunities beyond your degree then a way should be found so that this doesn't become a zero-sum game.

One way to do that is to put a hold on publication of both papers and a short period of discussion about going forward. One possibility is to merge the papers (along with the authorship). If your field isn't overly anal about who is "first" author then it should be easy to work out authorship.

I know of one case in CS, and know both parties, where two students at different universities did essentially the same work at the same time and submitted their theses simultaneously, both for graduation and for publication. It was really good work that answered a fundamentally important outstanding question. However, the graduation of both students was held up for a year while people at both universities investigated the situation. It was determined that the work was truly independent and so both graduated and have gone on to great careers. I think that both theses were published though they overlapped considerably. But the determination was not only that the work was independent, but that it was not the case that either should have known about the work of the other. That is to say, it was neither malfeasance nor negligence that caused the issue. But still, it took a year.


Consulting while being a postdoc I would like to hire a postdoc who is working for another institute as part time consultant for my (proposed) federally funded project (in USA). But I don't know if this is even possible for a full time postdoc paid by a private university. Is this a plausible scenario, or should I forget about it?

Having done such an agreement in the past, it's certainly a plausible scenario. A couple things to consider:

Consulting means they can't access their university's resources. If you need that, it'll likely need to be a subcontract, and there are some institutions that allow postdocs to do that on their own, and some that do not.
There are almost certainly rules at the postdoc's university regarding consulting - it can be everything from "don't do it" to "don't let it interfere with your job here" and everything in between. They should check to see what the peculiarities of their institution entail.
While it may or may not be required, the postdoc should almost certainly clear the consulting work with their supervisor.
Non-U.S. citizens working in the U.S. have a different set of requirements, and again, they should check on the specifics of their situation to make sure they're allowed to do so.

TL;DR: It's perfectly plausible, but the specifics vary widely.


Should I do someone else's peer-review work? My secondary advisor approached me; he is on the program committee of a conference and asked if I were willing to review a research paper that is in my avenue of research. The review is part of the peer-review process, to determine acceptance.

I accepted, but it turns out it he is planning to submit the review himself, just asking me to write it for him.

Should I protest? If they are my words, my name should be on the review. But I don't want to raise a ruckus if it materially doesn't matter anyway.

Do I gain any benefit if it is me who submits the review instead of him?

No, you gain no benefit if it is you who submits the review instead of him. If you conduct a review on his behalf, you gain the advantage of his mentorship and advice. It will be good experience for you, as you will get to work through a work in progress and understand more deeply how submitted papers are evaluated. If you are concerned about credit, ask him to mention to the editor that he asked you to do the review and these are your comments. Ideally, he should ask the editor for permission before sharing the submitted manuscript with you, as it was sent to him under a condition of confidentiality.


At how many citations should I make my Google Scholar profile public? I have recently got another citation, which brought my citation count to three. Even though I am proud of my three citations, others may find it funny or pitiful. So I am having doubts whether I should make my Google Scholar profile public and share my achievements with the world. Most profiles on Google Scholar I click on have over 100 citations. I will be lucky to get that many in 20 years.

I think the decision to make the Google Scholar profile public depends on citation count + several other factors. The other factors that come to mind are: my age, number of publications, field, level of the institution I am affiliated with, etc.

I am 30, a young economist still working on my big paper, I have a PhD from a low level university in Eastern Europe, presently working at a not so high level university in China, but I have aspirations to make it to an average American or Western European university.

It seems to me that public Google Scholar profiles are for accomplished researchers and I should just wait for a decade or two. But what concerns me is that as I attempt to publish my next paper or apply for a grant or a job, the editor/reviewers/committee will bring up my profile on Scopus or some other portal, which will be missing some citations. In my case, Scopus shows two citations instead of three! I feel like someone must be laughing at this point, but I am sure even the best go through this stage in their careers.

Does anyone have an advice for me and other scientists with less than 100 citations? When do they usually open up Google Scholar profiles in prestigious universities? In not-so-prestigious universities? On your faculty?

As someone who is currently on a search committee for two tenure track positions in mathematics, I can tell you that "hiding" your profile certainly won't help.  In the job search process, potential employers are going to want to know about your research and its impact.  It's common to check on Google Scholar, Math Reviews, Web of Science, and similar databases to see what impact a candidate's research has had.  Many of the candidates for faculty positions that I've seen don't have public profiles, and in my opinion this makes them look weak in comparison with candidates who do.

If you don't have a public profile then someone trying to evaluate your research who looks at Google Scholar will probably find one or two of your most cited papers or perhaps find nothing and assume that you have essentially no citations.  Another possibility is that they'll find a confusing bunch of papers written by other authors whose names are similar to yours.  Having a public profile ensures that they'll see all of your publications and citations.  Even if there aren't many citations yet, this also shows that you're aware of the importance of documenting your research activity and its impact.


How is the "special aptitude for in-depth independent scientific work" proven if the professor candidate does not have a doctorate? My PhD is almost finished (writing last paper of the cumulative dissertation) and I have applied for a full W2 professorship at a German university of applied sciences .

I have been invited by the appointment committee to give a lecture. However, I was informed that I would only be shortlisted if I can demonstrate a “special aptitude for in-depth independent scientific work” (German: “besondere Befähigung zu vertiefter selbstständiger wissenschaftlicher Arbeit”). It is required by all German higher education laws (e.g. §25 NHG).
The request was made by HR relayed through the committee as far as I can tell.
(I am a German citizen, so this is not visa-related.)

How do I show this without a doctorate? My list of publications is comparatively extensive for a doctoral candidate.

With your PhD thesis close to handing in, and in particular a cumulative PhD thesis together with "list of publications is comparatively extensive for a doctoral candidate" they may say that you have already shown the qualification, and that they expect you to finish before starting the professorship.
I don't know about FHs (universities of applied science), but at universities the procedure will usually take many months, so I'd say this expectation can be quite realistic.
More generally speaking, FHs (and technical/applied departments at universities) want to have professors with industry experience. In that context, experience of e.g. many years as a group leader in industrial R&D that did not end up in a formal thesis can easily be at least equivalent to the amount of research required for a PhD thesis or a habilitation.
Again, in these fields it is maybe more common than in more theoretical fields that the decision of doing a PhD thesis is not made directly afer Diplom/Master but after a professional career is well established and the candidate finds themselve doing & liking research.
Last and hopefully least, there is the rather unpleasant possibility that the application procedure is rigged up to comply with formal procedural requirements but make sure an already known favorite candidate gets the call: in that case, "clearly impossible" candidates may be encouraged to apply rather than telling them that their application is hopeless and they shouldn't waste their time.

That being said, I don't see particular red flags in the described situation: as OP does not yet fulfil the criterion that would automatically put a check-mark to the aptitude for independent scientific work (doctorate) saying they need to show it in some other manner is probably the normal formal way of HR burocracy.

Recommendation: talk to the committee/HR, saying that as you have not yet finished your PhD (but are close to handing in) and seeing that whether you should list your publications? Should say that the PhD certificate will be handed in once you have it? Or something else?

I don't know for sure, but I almost expect that the committee will have to certify that you have the required aptitude rather than you declaring anything.


Should I avoid local journals? I am considering where to submit a recently finished preprint, and one of the best fits is a journal associated with the country where I'm working. That is, I'm a postdoc in one of main cities of X-land, and the jounal is called 'X-land Jounrnal of Mathematics'. Is the connection an argument in favour or against publishing there?

The arguemnts for publishing in XJM are, I think, quite natural: given that I'm working in X-land, I want other X-ians to be interested in my work, and they're perhaps fractionally more likely to have a look at XJM than YJM for Y != X. Assuming that publishing a paper in a journal is mutually beneficial, it stands to reason that I'd be happier to help XJM than a random other journal (even if infinitesimally so).

On the other hand, I have heard arguments in the opposite direction. The key worry is that the paper may be taken less seriously, and some slight academic nepotism might be suspected. That is, someone could see the publication and think it was just published because XJM looks more favourably on papers sent from X.

Are any of these concerns valid? If given a choice between publishing in a "local" journal, or an equally good "non-local" journal, which is a better idea? Or is it just the same, and I'm massively overthinking?

The field is pure mathematics. I don't want to name names, but the population of X is of the order of 10 mln. I realise the points "For" are very minor, and the arguments "Against" are probably minor too. I'm not originally from X, but would gladly hear how the answer would change if I were.

I'm only going on my own experience here but I believe:

Location of the journal should only be taken into consideration after some other, more important, factors.

You should choose a journal that is a good fit for the topic, length and style of your paper.
You should pick a journal with at least one editor who will know roughly what you are talking about.
You should aim for as good a quality journal as is reasonable for the quality of the paper (this will most help your career).
There may be certain journals you just prefer to avoid (obviously junk/scam journals, but also eg. many mathematicians avoid Elsevier).
You need to consider any publishing costs (eg. for open access journals) and any rules you must follow (eg. UK open access requirements).
Where your field allows, avoid sending multiple papers to the same couple of journals (which could suggest one or two editors happen to like you).

Once you have a short list that meets these requirements, you could reasonably choose a local journal in favour of a non-local one. I think the other requirements will avoid the suggested negative impacts, when your work is viewed as a whole.


Listing article updates on cv What does the crowd think about how to list an article update on a cv?

For example, I have a peer-reviewed encyclopedia article that the publishers have asked me to update after 2 years. This updated article still has the same title (after all, it's the encyclopedia entry name) but content is approx. 25% different, and will be peer-reviewed.

What is the best way to indicate this new contribution on my cv?

BTW: I am, perhaps obviously by the question, early career.

Let me assume that you already have listed in your CV the earlier article (the version 1) in the following way.

  Author Name, Title, Encyclopedia, Version 1, Dated online: xx-xx-xxxx; WWW: website

Now, you could just replace the above with the following:

  Author Name, Title, Encyclopedia, Version 2, Dated online: xx-xx-xxxx; WWW: website (Web version 1: website)

Though there is 25% difference, I would not go with redundant information in a CV.


Is the the peer-review process different for special issues? When I submitted my manuscript for a special issue of IEEE journal 3 months ago, the status of my article was:

  [Administrator]:  [name of publication manager]

  Under review

Yesterday it changed to:

  [Administrator]:  [name of publication manager]

  Awaiting Recommendation

I am afraid that my article may be desk-rejected because

  [Administrator]:  [name of publication manager]

hasn't changed to

  [Administrator]:  [name of associate editor or editor-in-chief]

Question: Is there any difference in the peer-review process of general submission and submission to a special issue?

Yes, there's a difference in the peer-review process for general submissions and special issue submissions. That's because very often, the special issue involves a guest editor who's not otherwise a member of the editorial board.

In your case I suspect the journal administrator is acting on behalf of the guest editor. That is, the journal did not register an account for the guest editor. The guest editor is still making the decisions, but the journal administrator is inputting those for the guest editor, which is why it appears as though the journal administrator is "awaiting recommendation".

It's unlikely your paper's being desk-rejected. It's been three months. If you do indeed get a desk rejection, that's a black mark against the journal.


Should I write a bilingual email to a professor who can't speak German very well? Should I write a bilingual email to a professor who can't speak german very well?

That's basically the question. I don't know if this is the right thing to do, because it could mean that I underestimate his abilities.

English is the language of academia, so write in English. This is especially the case if his primary language is English.

In the reverse scenario where the professor is not very fluent at English but is great at German, still write in English, but feel free to sprinkle some German (e.g. in the salutation or signature). If he responds with more German, then you can use more German too.


Is a Double Degree equivalent to 2 single degrees? I want to study Bachelor of Mathematics at university in Australia. While I was surfing the various courses, I came across something interesting. It was Bachelor of Mathematics and Bachelor of Computer Science at University pf Wollongong (which takes 4.5 years to complete). I was like wow how does this work, Same qualification, and two degrees for 4.5 years. A single degree alone takes 4 years. But then I started to think, wait a minute this seems too good to be true.

(Note that my intention is to study Mathematics and do a PhD in Mathematics, I don't want to get some limited mathematics knowledge if double degree has half of both. At the same time I would love if this is full of both, so in that case I will apply to this.

Please help me on how this works , what are the limitations, will I get the same recognition and knowledge as students studying Math alone?

I took a double degree in Electronic Engineering and IT (Computer Science) from QUT. It required more time than either of the single degrees, and the course load was considerably higher per semester. At graduation, I received two separate degree certificates from QUT — I have two Bachelor degrees. There were some restrictions in the number of elective subjects we could take, since the core course load was higher.

Of course you need to check the course content and course load (and duration — a Bachelors degree without honours in Australia is usually three years, not four), to be certain it's right for you.


Could teaching at community college for a few years harm my career? If one aspired to a traditional, research-based academic career in a major university, would teaching for a few years at a community college (say, after the Master's) be damaging to one's CV? I'm worried that it would create a record of affiliation with a low-ranked university that would make people see you as "from" that university, and thus be biased against hiring you. Is there any truth to this?

I'm worried that it would create a record of affiliation with a low-ranked university that would make people see you as "from" that university, and thus be biased against hiring you. Is there any truth to this?

I think it depends when you do it.  If it is in between your master's and PhD, as you somewhat tentatively suggest: well, I know many people in my academic field (mathematics) who paused in between degrees to teach at the high school level, most commonly for two years.  I have seen absolutely no stigma attached to this.  On the contrary, when people have to make lightly educated guesses as to whether a certain candidate will be a good (read: not problematically bad) teacher, then holding a teaching job for more than one year pushes that guess in a positive direction.  Teaching at a community college is generally viewed as a "higher level job" than teaching at a high school, so I think this should carry over.  As a specific example, within fairly recent memory we took a PhD student who had been teaching at a community college.  She got her PhD and now has a tenure-track job at a university.  So: no stigma here.

(The above answer assumes that you have made it into a PhD program and have kept up your "higher academic skills" as much as other candidates.  Whether that is the case is up to you.)

The part of your CV after you get a PhD will be viewed with much more scrutiny, both in terms of chronology and specific jobs held.  If you want to get a tenure-track job at a research university, any post-PhD academic employment other than a postdoc or tenure track job at a research university will count against you.  (Sorry.  I don't make the rules -- I'm just reporting the situation as I see it.)  Even taking an industrial job might not count against you as much as teaching at a community college: in my neck of the academic woods an "industrial job" is an enigma of blankness eliciting neither delight nor scorn -- our eyes just slide right off of it.

Let me say though, that while teaching at a community college between degrees is a possible trajectory to an academic career, it does not necessarily make sense to me for someone to plan on that in advance.  That is to say: why are you contemplating taking a break of several years from your graduate studies?  If the answer is because you feel a bit burned out or that you want the chance to figure out whether an academic career is for you, I think you need to know that the post-PhD academic job market is one step shy of airtight at the moment.  It is not for the faint of heart or the uncertain of commitment.  I suggest you think carefully about your long term goals and whether a PhD is really a necessary part of them.


Is it fair to my PhD student if I ask them to do "miscellaneous" work for a paper they're not going to be a coauthor of? I've started work as an assistant professor recently,
and my first PhD student has just started her first semester.

I'm working on a paper with my collaborators
which is almost ready to submit.
I am thinking of asking my PhD student
to help us in the writing of the paper
by drawing a graph using LaTeX/PGFPlots.
However, I am not sure if this is fair to her.
Here are how I see the pros and cons of giving this work to her.

Pros:
Offloading the drawing of the graph to her
would be beneficial to me because it would save my time.
In addition, she would be learning skills
that are useful in her academic career.
Indeed, I have used LaTeX and PGFPlots in my two most recent papers
and will almost certainly use it in the papers I write with my PhD student.
Cons:
I am afraid that she might feel taken advantage of,
in that I am offloading menial and tedious tasks to her,
asking her to do work for a paper
without allowing her to benefit by being a coauthor.
In our field (a type of applied mathematics),
the real work is doing math theory,
formulating problems, solving them or proving math results.
What I am asking her to do (drawing graphs)
is sometimes an important part of paper writing,
but not nearly as important as mathematically rigorous work
such as developing theory and proving math results.

Note: I estimate that it would take me 3-4 hours to draw the plot,
although it may take her a longer time (perhaps one or two days),
given that she is fairly new to using LaTeX/PGFPlots.

Thank you all for your answers and comments.
I posted what I decided to do as an answer below.

Preparing a graph from already-generated data, to me, doesn't merit co-authorship but would justify a mention in the Acknowledgements. However, something that takes two days out of a student's time (even if it would only take you 3-4 hours) seems like a lot to ask for just an acknowledgement.

How useful is learning the process? If it's legitimately training that's important to her future career, that might tip the balance toward asking her to do it. However, I think my default would be to do it myself.

One other part of the equation (probably and hopefully only a very small part) is that the student is female, based on the pronouns in the question, and female scientists are often expected (from unexamined assumptions) to disproportionately look after administrative work.


Are contributions to conference proceedings considered to be "archival" publications? While technical papers are generally considered to be "non-archival" and journal papers "archival", I couldn't find a clear statement about papers that appear in conference proceedings. Does it matter in which for the proceedings are published, e.g. only online, on CD/USB drive, or printed with/without ISBN?

Unfortunately, the reason you can't find a clear statement on this issue is because there isn't one.  The answer depends heavily on the field and the particular conference, and there isn't necessarily an absolute answer even in a specific case.  It may depend on why you care:

You may care yourself, because you want your paper to be carefully archived and made available in perpetuity.  In that case, it depends on whether a long-lasting, trustworthy organization has committed to providing access forever (and whether they have archiving contingency plans in case they go out of business).
You may need to make this distinction to assist in evaluating your CV.  In that case, the evaluators probably care primarily whether the papers are carefully refereed and in their final form, but the only way to know for sure is to ask them what their criteria are.
You may be wondering whether you can publish an updated version of your conference paper in a journal.  This depends on the customs in your field, and it requires agreement from both the conference and the journal.  The publishing agreement for the conference should specify what sorts of further publication are allowable (if it does not, then you should be sure to ask, since saying nothing suggests they do not expect any further publication at all), and the submission instructions for the journal may also address this issue.  If your submission is a revision of a conference paper, you should always specify this fact clearly and give a precise reference somewhere on the first page and in the cover letter, to make sure nobody could accuse you of hiding the previous publication.

The answers to these questions can vary.  For example, major theoretical CS conferences are archival in sense 1 (permanent archiving and availability) but not 2 or 3 (papers are not necessarily intended to be in their final form and definitive versions may be published elsewhere).


Is it crazy for a PhD student to pay open access fees out of pocket? I was preparing to submit a manuscript to a journal when I made a fatal realization: the journal publishes everything as open access and the author(s)/institution/funding agency must cover the cost ($500). This was a solo side project that I undertook on my own time with no co-authors nor outside funding. I was not expecting to publish this as open access as I was unaware of this policy. In fact, when I initially targeted this journal I thought that some articles were open access and others were not. Upon further inspection this is not the case. I'm clearly at fault for not being diligent enough about the journal's policies.

Now this situation would not be such a big deal except that

I'm a third year doctoral student and will be on the job market soon (I need pubs ASAP!);
I was planning on submitting this article and subsequently switching my focus to the dissertation;
It would take a significant re-work to tailor this paper to another journal as it is somewhat niche: the journal focuses on software publications across a range of disciplines, requires a fairly specific format, and limits articles to 3,000 words or fewer (note: I am not in a traditional STEM field, so I feel that my options for target journals are quite limited).

Am I crazy for wanting to just submit the paper and pay the open access fee out of pocket? $500 does not seem exorbitant compared to other journals' fees. Unrelated to my current situation, a few weeks ago I spoke with my advisor about creative ways to fund open access, but he stated that our university does not have options for funding - this must come through grants. It doesn't seem right asking him to cover the fees as he was not involved in the project and is not a co-author.

In this question, @ff524 suggests seeking funding through PLOS or a fee waiver through the journal/publisher. Other questions on Academia SE result in answers suggesting that authors request funds through the university, library, etc. When is it appropriate to ask for a waiver and/or seek funding from an outside source? Prior to submission, during submission, or after a paper is accepted? It seems like a massive waste of time to seek funding from multiple sources only to have a paper be rejected outright. At the same time, it would seem like withholding relevant information to wait until after a paper is accepted to ask for a fee waiver.

I don't think you're crazy at all. From a purely economic point of view, although $500 sounds like a lot of money, it is quite insignificant (in a US context) compared both to your future earnings once you graduate, and to the present potential earnings you are foregoing by attending graduate school in the first place instead of working at a "real job". Thus, if you truly think that paying the fee will help you get on with your other research projects and graduate faster and/or with a more impressive publication record, then, assuming you can afford to pay the fee without sacrificing other important or crucial things at least, it seems to me that paying the fee is a reasonable decision.

With that said, I think a note of caution is also in order. My main concern is that a good proportion of the journals that charge open access publication fees are predatory journals, and given that you are a graduate student and new to publishing, there is a risk that the journal you are considering publishing in could be one of those. I would therefore suggest not paying any fee until you have made absolutely certain, by consulting your advisor or other experienced researchers, that the journal in question is a reputable one and that publishing in it will actually further your career and goals. Good luck!


What should I do if advisor asks me to move to another university or lab for strange reasons? Summary: Yesterday, my advisor told me that he wants me to change labs through because I said something "inappropriate" that made the lab unstable.  He is a really famous professor and his citation is within world top 100 in our field. I don't want to lose the opportunity to cooperate with him. I have enrolled. He has no right to make me leave. But if he is unhappy, he could make me not able to graduate three years later.

Question: What should I do? Should I leave as he asked?

Details: At first, I was unsure what he meant by "inappropriate". He didn't specify, and I have only been here for like two months and only know 3 or 4 people. Maybe I said some gossip, but I mean no harm and I never offended him. I don't even remember what I said.

My guess is that since my grade is not good enough, the university didn't give me the scholarship that it had promised when I was admitted. I had used my own money for enrollment and then waited to be refunded when the scholarship came through. I am not the only one, and apparently everyone is afraid that their scholarship will also be canceled. The lab is expanding so fast but the funding is not catching up. And the professors in the scholarship committee are unhappy since he recruited like a dozen PhDs at once.

It seems that the professor blames me for telling the others that my scholarship was canceled, which caused the panic. My family is wealthy enough that I can self-fund, but that doesn't help if I am being forced out of the lab. This seems very unfair.

There are many plausible reasons why the professor may not want to reveal what exactly you said was inappropriate; most likely the professor doesn't want to inadvertently reveal the identity of the person who accused you of inappropriate behavior in order to avoid retaliation or further confrontations.

As a grad student, you are considered an adult and a professional. What matters here is not whether you intended to cause harm, but whether your behavior caused harm. As we grow up the world tends to become less forgiving of our mistakes, and the professor has every right to remove someone from their group to maintain a healthy working environment. Although it is also possible that whatever offensive thing you said was simply the last straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Either way, you should reflect on your behavior and tendencies and learn from the mistake. If there are mitigating factors (e.g., being a foreign student, mental health problems, etc.), ask the professor nicely to reconsider... but don't expect anything. Ultimately a successful grad school career depends to a large degree your relationship with your advisor. If the relationship is so broken that your professor is trying to kick you out without any prior warnings (I assume), then there is no point in forcing the matter, no matter how famous the professor is.

Also some assumptions in your question is unwarranted... Why do you think the professor has planted "spies" among the students? More likely the professor learned of the matter because someone reported you. I think you over-estimate how much the professors care about the everyday activity of their students.


Inviting someone to co-author a paper I recently passed the M.Sc.

While I was reviewing a paper I found it interesting and potentially useful. I am planning to adopt the analyses that are utilized at that paper in my area of interest. The applications are quite different.

Is it feasible, usual and professional to propose that paper's first author (he is a post-doc student) to participate in my future work?

How about the contribution, to be more exact, the order of names?

How I can politely ask him for his contribution?

How I can politely ask him for his contribution?

Just sent him/her an email with a brief summary of the ideas you are interested in and ask him/her if he/she is interested on the project, it has worked for me. Otherwise, try to attend one of his/her talks and approach him/her and the end of the talk, if possible.

How about the contribution, to be more exact, the order of names?

Perhaps it is too early to discuss about this ("Before one brings home the bacon one must kill the pig"). Who knows whether he/she is going to generalise or improve the ideas you propose or he/she would barely be involved in the project (you will come across all sorts of characters while doing research). A safe option is to use the alphabetical order. It helps to avoid many ego-fights. Start with a document without the name of the authors. If you end-up with something worthy of publication, put the cards on the table and ask directly "what order would you be more comfortable with?" or "would you be happy with the order 'ME and John Doe'? ".


Is it appropriate to use University/Company logos for Biography Slide? I'm making a presentation for a close-group conference, and it's the first time when I am making a Powerpoint slide with my bio. I have decided to put the Academic Degrees + the acronyms of the University names as bullet points, then add the logos from each University/Company at the bottom of the slide. The reason why I would like to do that is to add Design quality to the presentation. This also leads me to the question: when is it appropriate to use logo's of universities/companies when they don't belong to you?

I saw in a previous post this advice about using the letterhead:

  Once you're no longer affiliated with the university because you
  graduated or separated, then you should not use the letterhead.

Can it be the same for the logo on a presentation?

For information purpose this is unlikely a violation. The type of uses here is considered as nominative use. You're not infringing the institute or speaking on their behalf; it's simply "I graduated from XXX university and here is the name and the logo of that place." If you are very concerned, add a disclaimer at the bottom saying something like "Logos are for reference only, I do not represent any of these organizations."

I, however, do consider this potentially inappropriate. For audience, mentioning the name is fine, but slapping the logo, emblem, or seal onto one's work seems like a much bigger deal. I have the following concerns:

I specifically mention it because you said "design purpose." Most school have required design rules when their logo is used. For example, there can be no any alteration of color or scale, no neighboring art components, no incorporating into any other artwork, etc. If you want to slap them all side by side, or worse mashing them into a "design," chance is one of the rules could be violated. It's not a big deal usually (aka you are unlikely to get a lawyer contacting you), just bad practices. I seriously doubt a university will come after any alumni just because they showed the logo inappropriately.
Depending on the audience this action may appear insecure or show-off.
What does this add to the purpose above the name? I can see there is a point if, say, you have emblems in blue, red, and yellow colors, now you just need a green to complete your Harry Potter school color collection, then I'll think "ha, pretty funny." Otherwise, just putting the logo with the name feels redundant.

Here is a page on upcounsel if you wish to learn more. Regulations may differ geographically. Ask the schools for permission if you're in the slightest doubt.


What do I need to do as a potential mature student in the UK? Please bear with me in this question despite its length. I'm only putting so much detail in it because I want to be thorough, as this is an important subject to me.

I'll explain my situation first as to provide some context for my dilemma - I'm 19 years old, soon to be 20 in a few months, and I decided last year that I wasn't ready for university for a number of reasons. The most prominent of these were a fear of falling into debt, not being able to support myself while there and also not being sure of what career path I wanted to pursue. In light of that, I decided to apply for an apprenticeship at a fairly prestigious but small software design company in the field of Business Intelligence. I got the job (and am on the way to completing the level 4 diploma in "Information Technology, Programming and Networking) and will be employed until 21, when my contract ends. Over that period of time I'll be able to save up a fairly substantial amount of money (for me),

I'm convinced now that I want to apply to a few of the top universities in the UK for Computer Science once my contract is over, but my A-level results aren't quite up to scratch for these. For reference, I have an A, B and a C in Computer Science/Psychology/Music Technology, respectively. What I needed was three A's. The universities I have in mind are Birmingham, Bath, the Imperial College of London, and Oxford and Cambridge - just on the off-chance I somehow get in or attain the necessary qualifications. The exact course that I've looked at is a five-year long MSci in Computer Science with a year of industry work/study abroad.

As a mature student though, I understand that I'll be subject to different entry requirements. One of these is an access to higher education course, but there aren't any within 50 miles of me that I can do a relevant course in via distance learning or even just evening classes, which means I'd need to do such a course after I finish my work contract in November 2016, further extending the amount of time before I can begin a degree.

If anyone has any experience in applying to a highly ranked university - especially in the field of computer science - as a mature student, is there any advise that you can give me?

As an extra note, I have emailed the universities in question to ask them for their advice and what would be expected of me when it comes to applying as a mature student. I haven't heard back yet, but I only sent an email last week.

I went to the UK to start my undergraduate when I was 27.  I was also not able to access the normal 'go-to-class' higher education courses.  My path wasn't computer science, but I think the general rules and requirements are roughly the same for each course.

In a mature student, UK universities are typically looking for enthusiasm, evidence that they are interested in the subject they are applying for, and that they are capable of doing university work.  Ideally what they want to see is that you have done some systematic course of study, typically in the last three years.  You have this (A-Levels and the diploma).  They also value experience - which you are getting by being in work in the area you want to pursue a degree in.

Your A-Level results aren't bad at all, but as you note fall short of what they usually want.   With your work experience and additional formal certification, it is possible that the universities will look more favourably on your application.  Remember that even if you were to go into university straight from A-Level, grade requirements aren't hard and fast rules.  Which leads me to the next bit that is important - the personal statement.  This is the point at which you can say that you are more than capable of doing the course.  Don't dwell on your A-Level results, they can already see them.  Instead you sell yourself.  Really- this can make an application very attractive!  It's not all about grades - especially when you are a mature student.

If you did want to pursue another formal course, have you looked at the Open University options?  I did one of their courses (one 10 credit course) as I had been nearly 10 years out of education, and quite frankly my A-Level results were not...great.  It needed a lot of commitment to study and work full time, but overall it was a good experience, and I felt the course was delivered well.  If you can find something there that is relevant, I can highly recommend them.


Is the conference "ICCTCEEC" a scam? I submitted a paper about 20-25 days ago in this conference http://ctceec.org/ knowing about IEEE involvement here.

Today I have got an acceptance email for my paper, The astonishing thing to me is, I knew at least 1-2 month is required to review this type of conference paper.

The conference date is 8 September, 2017 which is very near. Is there anyone who can assure me that this conference is not scam?

The website has a button that says "IEEE proof", whatever that is supposed to mean, which seems like the equivalent of a folder on your computer named "definitely not porn". Understand: they're trying suspiciously hard to use their (alleged) IEEE affiliation as a marker of legitimacy and quality.

Follow that link and enjoy that delightful prose:

  "We believe education is our motherhood and research is our motto. Our intention is to collaborate innovative brains at one place. So, here we are with "International Conference on Current Trends in Computer, Electrical, Electronics and Communication" (ICCTCEEC) platform to share, learn and discuss. We guarantee your pleasure because our city itself mean you what are we."

Let's say the intentions of the people who committed that website are not fraudulent that's still incredibly sloppy and careless not to have it proofread. Seeing this, I would doubt that anything else about that conference can be worth your time and money.

By the way, IEEE affiliation, even if legit, doesn't mean the conference is good or not spam.

The usual advice in these cases: consult with your supervisor and colleagues. There is typically a rather small number (~5) of conferences worthy of attending per field and any half-serious researcher knows which these are.


Reproducing experimental data from published work I am doing theoretical study of a material and in my recent work I have compared my calculated results with experimental results from another published work. During review, the reviewer has mentioned

In any case, the experimental data should certainly be reproduced and presented in the figures together with the calculation results

What does that mean? How should I proceed?

The reviewer appears to say that you should plot both experimental data and calculation results, perhaps in the same or a nearby figure, to allow a direct comparison between theory and experiment. In case you haven't already done so and assuming it's feasible, I'd suggest following the referee's advise. It'd make your paper more self-contained, and such plots can better demonstrate that your theoretical model describes the experiment accurately than some extracted numbers (e.g. averages) for which spurious agreement can occur more easily. You may ask the author(s) of the experimental study for data, or extract it yourself from their plots.


Should you send refined version of manuscript to editor three months after initial submission? I submitted a paper to a a good mathematics journal about 3 months ago, and have not heard anything yet (based on some of what I've heard this is fairly normal).  During that time I made some significant edits to the introduction and some of the proofs (the original proofs were not incorrect but now they are easier to read/understand).

Should I send the updated version to the editor?  If the paper is already being reviewed, then I wouldn't want to muddy the waters by submitting something new.  That's my only concern at the moment.  Thoughts?

I would not do it. If the referee is happy with the submitted version, you should add the changes when you send a revised version, explaining what you did with the utmost detail.

Keep in mind: if the changes are significant, and only to make the proof nicer/easier to read, it might not be worth doing it. Perhaps just add a remark explaining how to do it in a nicer way, or something like that. If you change the manuscript too much, you risk the referee to be very annoyed that he spent a lot of his/her (free) time reading and understanding the paper, and now he has to do it all over again. This is, of course, if the editor is also not very annoyed.

Minor changes are expected and very common, but major unrequested changes might not the best idea.


Can I submit a paper rejected from a tier-1 conference to a tier-1 conference again? I am in computer science (theory). Suppose, I submit a research paper to a tier-1 conference, and it gets rejected due to some issues in it. After doing correction, is it possible that I can submit it to a tier-1 conference again? Is there any rule or similar like: If my research paper gets rejected in any top conference, then I cannot submit the result in any top conference?

It is exceedingly common to get rejected at a top venue, improve the paper, submit to the same or a different top venue again, and get accepted. No conference or community that I am aware of has rules in place that would disallow this, or even any mechanisms to track it. To be frank, PC members don't know nor care if you already submitted your paper before to a similar conference and were rejected. They will look at your paper as it is now, and decide.

There is, however, one small caveat: if you keep submitting the same paper without changes to conferences with similar PC, people may get miffed that you are ignoring their comments. I have seen in PC discussions come up that reviewers were complaining that they received the same paper two or three times, without fixing even the typos in the manuscript. While it is still true that even in that case the paper should strictly speaking be reviewed "as-is", without taking the history into account, it is only natural that this kind of behavior leads to PC members not looking overly kindly on your manuscript.


Chance of funding while applying for multiple PhD programs at the same school I found the same question in here, however, my story is a little bit different:

I contacted a faculty member in one of the US institution and he promised an admission. But, for the chance of funding, he suggested me to apply to two programs, and I did so. Recently, I've noticed he is a faculty member at another program (third program) too. I asked him whether he recommends applying for the third program. His response was "I'm involved in this program as well. The chances of funding are pretty good. I would suggest you modify your statement...".

My question is does applying for three separate PhD programs can significantly increase the chance of funding? or conversely, as some stated before, does it have a negative impact on my application?

This professor is a faculty member in all three programs, and they are placed in different colleges.

This answer is coming very late, but may be useful to people who land up on this thread. By referring to different departments, I mean different PhD programmes.

Regarding the PhD application:

Since the same professor is in all the three departments and he is conducting research which are aligned with your research goals, there is no harm in applying to all 3 programs. It may make a stronger case for your selection as well (not a guarantee always, but no negative impact surely). The graduate committee is made of professors who are very well aware of the fact that almost all phd applicants apply to multiple phd programmes, the difference here is that they know where 2 other applications of yours went. They may ask you to set a priority, that's all. Showing interest is different from receiving an offer, professors may be interested in multiple candidates, but due to constraints give out offers to a smaller pool. They should not hold anything against you. If they do, you are better off not joining that programme.

I applied to 3 phd programmes in the same university, and got selected in my second choice. All 3 departments knew that I had applied to the other 2 as well. They had no issues with it.

Regarding funding:

Often different departments in the same university have different ways of selecting candidates and providing funding. In my case, two of the departments gave out department-centralized PhD offers, where we would have to choose our advisor after joining the programme. However in the third department at the same university, funding was through the grants of individual faculty. So the PhD advisor was fixed from the beginning, and the funding was specific to that project's requirements. You would have to ask the graduate programme manager for exact details.


What to do if a referee plagiarises the result after rejecting a paper? I find myself in an awkward situation. Nearly two years ago I submitted a paper to a reputable mathematics journal. After 15 months it was rejected with the rationale that there had been papers published (most since the submission date) that contained results that I should have referenced. I found that a little spurious, but moved on and put my work together with some colleagues and got our new paper accepted (pending some language issues) by a different journal.

However, one of my co-authors has found that my exact result (barring some small notational changes, but with the exact same language; I can recognise it as mine, I slaved over finding just the right words!) from my original paper has had the proof published in a book by one author of the references that caused the paper to get originally rejected!

My assumption is thus that the paper was sent to this person to referee and they liked the result so much that they kept it for themselves, which also explains the delay in refereeing... I believe that this author has also presented this result at a conference as their own work. They have a number of papers published on the topic in question from their doctoral thesis.

My question is what steps can I take now to re-assert my authorship?

I believe that it would have been simpler if I had also submitted it to the arXiv, but I wasn't sure (at that time) how that would be seen by the journal. I did give a presentation of my results at a local conference, so I would be able to produce credible witnesses to back up my claim, if necessary. The book published containing my work is largely the doctoral thesis of the author, so I am attempting to find a copy of the thesis since it was deposited before I submitted my paper to the journal. Can anyone suggest any other recourse?

My co-authors would prefer to err on the side of caution and include a reference to the result in our revised paper, but I would really like to reclaim my work...

I suggest that you write a formal letter to the journal editor who handled your submission.  (Make sure it is the same editor.)  Give all the relevant details, including dated copies of all correspondence (whether electronic or printed).

The editor should know who refereed your paper, and although the editor will not reveal their names to you (I assume that blind refereeing was done), he or she would be in the best position to act on the matter.

Perhaps the best thing that could happen is the editor agrees that some unethical behavior occurred, the editor helps you file a case against the erring referee, the erring referee gets penalized, and proper attribution is given to you.

Perhaps the worst thing that could happen is the editor does not believe your story, thinks you are just looking for trouble, and tells other editors and referees that you are a "bad, crazy person."  Or the editor does believe your story but is a close friend of the erring referee and so acts as if he or she does not believe your story.

Either way, at least they know that you are aware of this unethical behavior and this will perhaps discourage the erring referee to continue with the unethical behavior in the future.


Less desirable graduate school vs. more undergrad I finished my B.Sc. in physics 3 years ago, did a year of research, worked a year in tech, and have spent the last year off the grid living in the bush and running away from reality for a while. Now I'm going back for my master's or PhD, but I'm pretty rusty. I'm hoping someone out there might read this and have some good advice on the best way to do this.

My options are basically the following:

to do a master's in a field/at a school/with an advisor that are all
not ideal to me, because that's where I have experience and
connections
to spend a year or so doing a second degree in math and then going
    on to do a PhD after that.

My reasoning for the second option is that this will afford me better opportunities for better grad schools in fields I have more interest in. Simply put, I don't believe I have a strong enough application right now to get into the programs/schools/advisors that I want to get in with.

My undergraduate grades are fine (A-/A average), but not extraordinary enough to carry me by their weight alone. I have two publications and a dwindling number of connections who could write me strong recommendations. Maybe one or two at most, with two others who would write generically positive letters. I don't think this is enough to get me where I'd like to be.

Grad school seems like too big of a commitment to go somewhere/work with someone I'm not 100% on board with. Is this "greedy" to think this way? Am I being too picky/asking too much? Should I take what I can get now and not waste my time trying make things "perfect"? Every grad student I speak to has the same advice: "Unless you're 100% sure this is what you want to do, don't do it," so I'm kind of going by that.

Is it worth taking a year or so to pad my application with a second degree in math (new networks, fresh good grades, strong recommendations from professors if I can build relationships with them), so that I can get in where I actually want to go? Or should I just suck it up and do the master's that I don't care about, do it well, and then go where I want from there (keeping in mind that I'd be wanting to switch fields at this point)?

Thank you very much in advance to anyone who takes the time to read/respond!

My reading of your question is that you already know your answer. You don't seem to be time or resource limited (as many others would be) and you express pretty strong preference for a second undergrad degree.

The only caveat I would have is whether you are feeling inadequate when it isn't called for (Imposter Syndrome).

An undergrad math degree (outside the US, at least) might not require you to repeat a lot of things as it is probably focused on just the Maths. So it wouldn't be backing up, really. Actually I don't know how similar the Canadian Educational System is to the US. Down here an UG degree requires a lot of things outside the major (Language, history, ....). Other places an undergrad degree is more specialized on one topic. Doing it in a year or so would depend on the university hosting it. Your original institution might be the best place for that.

Also, rusty is bad. You will want to somehow bring your work process and thinking process back up to speed. Any sort of study can help with that, but a grad program is typically more intense.


Red flag - long interviewing process In December I applied for a post doctoral position. After 4 months I had my job interview and now one month later they are ready to make a decision.

Is a long interviewing process a red flag? I am concerned that this shows that the department has a bad organizational structure and decisions are slow to be made.

That is pretty normal. That does not mean it is good, but it is not worse than your average university. Two things play a role here:

First, universities are just large organizations with all the bureaucracy and inefficiency that comes with that.

Second, universities are often self organizing, that is, the professors take a large part of the management duties. That is a good thing, in the sense that decisions are made by people who know what they are talking about. But it also means that a large part of those tasks are performed by people who are not primarily managers and have competing priorities (research, teaching).


Ethics: Is it ethical for a professor to conduct research using a student's ideas without giving them credit? I pointed a professor (my major advisor) to a resource (a data set), in an email exchange during the beginning of the semester, he published a paper based on this data set several months later, however I had no idea he was working on the project. He did not notify or mention to me about using the data set.

The email that I sent to him earlier when I pointed out the resource had no reply back, however it did indicate in his response that he did not know about the existence of this data set.

When I had a brief (15 minute) meeting with him, he denied that the data set was my idea and said that it was his research colleagues who he got the data set from. I must mention that this data set is freely available and open to the public (online).

My questions are: Is this professor's behavior ethical? and Would I be able to bring this  as a complaint to a higher person in the department (since I have email evidence that he did not have knowledge of this data set prior to my informing him).

My final question to you all is whether I should stay with this person as a major advisor because I am having trust issues with sharing my ideas. The only problem is that anyone else I might choose as my advisor would result in me completely changing my area of research. Thank you.

Edit: Responding to the commenters, when I met with him in person, I he mentioned a paper which he authored, and when I asked for the citation he refused to give it to me saying, "I'll think about it". While my gut feeling is that I should change advisors, the other people in the department are not involved in my area of interest, and the other person who is conducting research in this field refused to be my advisor. What would you do in this situation?

Edit: Thank you for everyone's responses. Perhaps this was just a misunderstanding on my part.

On more than one occasion, a student has pointed out a resource to me that I am already familiar with. In those situations, I always thank the student but don't always mention that I was familiar with it. I don't lie and say that I hadn't seen it before, but see no reason to bring it up (since doing so might make them feel slightly disappointed). If it is open data which has relevance for their field of study it is quite possible that they were already familiar with it. Perhaps in their e-mail they meant that they were unfamiliar with a certain source that contained the data, even though they were familiar with the data itself from another source (such as, from research colleagues who presumably were aware of the source).

The fact that he published a paper several months later is strong evidence that this is indeed the case. The time frame seems too small for him to have begun the research after your email exchange, found something which was publishable, written the paper, and gotten it through peer review. Obviously I don't know the specifics of the case, but I find it implausible that he was unethical in the way that you claim.

I don't see any reason for you to switch advisors. If you unjustly accused him of dishonesty, the real question is if this advisor would still want to work with you as a student. Unless you have evidence which goes beyond what you have communicated here, an apology might be in order.


Would it be unwise to ask about the prospects of a publication for an undergraduate research position? If I am interviewed for a summer research program, would it be a bad idea for me to bring up the topic of publications? I've noticed recently that professors usually aren't comfortable talking about this, so would asking about this make me look bad?

I'm an undergraduate looking to pursue a Ph.D., so I'd like to make myself more competitive for graduate admissions.

It depends on the framing of the question.

Asking "Will I get a publication out of this?" would make me uncomfortable. I don't know you. I don't actually know your work. I don't know if you can write well. I've had promising undergraduate researchers who elected to spend the summer playing XBox and phoning it in. Or just getting tangled up in some sufficiently oddball idea that I can't get them out of in time for them to have done anything productive. I'm not going to promise those people there's a paper waiting for them at the end.

On the other hand, I actively encourage students to think about the potential for publication. Is that something they're interested in? Could this be turned into an undergraduate thesis project? etc.

Part of this is understanding where your project fits in the greater context of the lab's work - it might be a relatively small part of a larger project, at which point it's probably not going to get a paper all of its own. But there are also other avenues - for example, my current institution has undergraduate research showcases that include a poster competition.

So I wouldn't head straight for asking about publications in and of themselves, but rather consider framing it as how your research fits into labs work, what can be done with the output, etc.


Can I publish if I develop a tool, but it solve non important problem only? (Mathematics) My research is in mathematics.
I have developed an interesting quantity X. Combined with other quantity Y, I can solve a certain problem.
However,

I don't know if the problem itself is important or not.
It needs to combined with other tools to work.

Can I still publish my idea?

Based on your reply to @DanielHatton's comment, you may have some research to make in that subfield to know about uses of the tool you discovered. Make your research in the subfield your tool may apply to and talk to people.

If you find something: great, you now have an application for your tool
If you don't find anything: it doesn't mean your tool doesn't have any application, let me explain.

In my humble opinion, publishing findings which may seem to have no clear application at the moment could still be useful years down the line. There are examples in history where research work had no application for a long time before..it did (anyone having such an example in mind is welcome to edit).
(Unfortunately?) not all papers are ground breaking. Yours probably won't be (as the vast majority of papers), but it might, sooner or later.
So I would encourage you to write a paper about it. You also mentioned that you are a student and I think that practising paper writing is valuable for students. You'll have some experience in case you want to become an academic, and if you don't, papers always look good on a resume.


Which authority regulates the conferring of degrees in South Africa? In South Africa, is there a body that regulates the institutions that are permitted to confer degrees? If so, what is this entity?

Does it regulate:

The ability to confer academic degrees?
Which degrees may be conferred?
Which subjects may form part of that degree?
The content of the subjects?

There is a university in my country that confers a Bachelor of Science in Complementary Medicine, this degree includes subjects whose premises have little to no evidence for them.

The laws you want are the Higher Education Act 101 of 1997 and its amendments, and the NQF Act 67 of 2008 (NQF being the National Qualifications Framework).

They establish the Council on Higher Education and the South African Qualifications Authority, respectively, who between them bear responsibility for assessing, registering and accrediting institutions and qualifications in South Africa, and recognising foreign equivalent qualifications as appropriate.

I have not examined specific availability of courses, programmes, specialties or qualifications in the records maintained by either group.

However, Chapter 7 of the HEA, Act 101/1997 as amended forbids practise as a provider of higher education by anybody except "public higher education institution[s] and ... organ[s] of state" without being registered or conditionally registered, under that Act.

Section 66 of the same Act is of particular note. In full,

  66.    Offences

  Any person other than a higher education institution, who, without the authority of a
  higher education institution -

  (a) offers or pretends to offer any higher education programme or part thereof;

  (b) purports to confer a qualification granted by a higher education institution, or in
  collaboration with a higher education institution; or

  (c) purports to perform an act on behalf of a higher education institution,

  is guilty of an offence and is liable on conviction to a sentence which may be imposed for fraud.

  (2) Any person who pretends that a qualification has been awarded to him or her by a higher education institution, whereas in fact no such qualification has been so awarded, is guilty of an offence and is liable on conviction to a sentence which may be imposed for fraud.

  (3) Any person who contravenes section 51 (1) (a), 54 (7) or 55 (2) is guilty of an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine or to imprisonment not exceeding five years or to both such fine and imprisonment.
  [Sub-s. (3) substituted by s. 10 of Act 54/2000]

  (4) Any private higher education institution which does not comply with section 55 (1) is guilty of an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding R20 000.

Note that 51(1)(a) is the aforementioned ban on unregistered practise, 54(7) forbids the use of names like "university" or "professor" unless entitled to use them by correct registration, 55(2) concerns deregistered institutions returning registration certificates, and 55(1) requires the public display of (a certified copy of) such a certificate.

Penalties are either specified in the section or are set equivalent to those for fraud. Needless to say, if you believe any such laws and regulations are breached, you should contact either the CHE or the SAQA directly with your information, because these are offences held equivalent to fraud.


My Supervisor is not an expert I just started my PhD which is in Artificial Intelligence (AI).

My supervisor is specialized in Electrical Engineering with a hint of AI.

He knows that it is not his area of expertise and suggested if I can find a mentor who is more specialized.

I contacted many professors from other universities but no one accepted to become my mentor.

I'm not sure what to do now, especially because it is not easy to find another university.

Do you have any advice or suggestion for this situation?

You face a few options. Suppose that you insist that you must do your PhD in AI.

You should do whatever it takes to find a new advisor or an appropriate co-advisor. This includes talking to other faculty, the department chair, and even the dean of the college and graduate school. When "whatever it takes" fails to be a suitable choice, you must take a different approach.

Suppose that you decide or determine that doing a PhD in AI is not as important as doing a PhD at the university where you currently reside.

You should do whatever it takes to find an advisor + project that is of suitable interest to you for your work. This especially includes talking to other faculty as well as reading in other research areas. When "whatever it takes" fails to be a suitable choice, you must take a different approach.

Alternatively, suppose that you decide or determine that you will do the PhD in AI with only administrative support and no research support from a faculty advisor.

You should do whatever it takes to complete the appropriate research on your own. This includes reading journals and other dissertations in the field and communicating directly with other researchers in the field. This can/should include bringing faculty on to your committee who have the appropriate background in your chosen topic.

Suppose that you decide or determine that you must do your PhD in a certain topic (AI or something else) but for whatever reason cannot do it where you currently are.

You should do whatever it takes to find a new university + advisor + project that is of suitable interest to you. This includes researching where your topic is currently being done at other universities and contacting the faculty at that university directly to ask whether they have a potential opening for you to join the group. When "whatever it takes" fails to be a suitable choice, you must take a different approach.

At this point, you may likely realize that you will not be doing a PhD.


PhD interview questions I am going to apply for a PhD in an Australian University and I will have an academic interview.

I am going from a BSc to a PhD in applied mathematics.

At the interview, they usually give me time to ask my own questions.
So, I want to ask whether I can take one or two theoretical coursework that is taught in the university, if I feel like it is required. Is this a good question to ask at the end, or does it sound like I am not confident about my undergraduate theoretical knowledge, and would reflect negatively.

Also, in a question such as Why choose particularly that university is it okay to mention that I found that the university offers several scholarship and that having a scholarship benefits me immensely to carry out my studies. This I am going to mention after saying about the university and the department's recognition, and of a particular professor's work and that his work seems to suit my interests. Here, is it acceptable to mention the professor by name?

I never had to do an interview for my PhD position in the US, but it seems like asking process questions is reasonable. Going straight from a BS to a PhD program in the US is pretty common, but you generally do most of a Master's degree on the way by taking lots of graduate-level courses. I understand that this is less common in other country's systems.You should read as much as you can about the requirements for a PhD in your target university so that you know as much as you can about the process, and then ask, as knowlgeably as you can, questions like the one you've asked here. If you've done your homework, your question will sound informed, and they can fill the gaps in your knowledge without thinking you to be too ignorant about what's allowed and what's expected of you before you join the PhD program.

I wouldn't be too effusive about the program or professor when you are asked about your interest in the program. It might sound like you are trying to flatter your way into it which might be off putting to some interviewers. You should be fine saying that you are interested in topics like what Prof. X is working on, etc., but I wouldn't say that they're the best thing since sliced bread. Be honest without over selling it.


Applying for a tenure-track job at my undergraduate alma mater I'm in the final year of my PhD program (in Applied Math, though this isn't too relevant).  I made the personal decision a while back that I would only consider tenure track jobs if they happened to be in my home state.  My research is sufficiently applicable that I have industry backup plans that I would be perfectly happy with, so I don't see this as a bad career choice.

Well, lo and behold a tenure track job is available in the math department at my undergraduate school.  I'm excited to apply, but I'm wondering if anyone has any specific advice on how to structure my application since I know most of the professors in the department?  Is there anything I should emphasize or avoid?  Obviously I need to demonstrate that I've "grown up" since I left and could return as a colleague, but I'm not sure how best to do this.

I've seen job talks of people applying for tenure-track jobs at their alma mater. These talks tend to be more tailored more closely to the research within the department.

For example, these applicants tend (more so than others) to make references to specific projects conducted by professors within the department. I've also seen applicants make light-hearted jokes about the department's culture within a job talk before.

They also tend to be more savvy at answering soft-questions about why the department appeals to them and how they would improve it.

Showing that you're an 'insider' or 'one of them' is a useful strategy that I've seen.


Lab colleague uses cracked software. Should I report it? I've just (accidentally) found that one of our colleagues in the lab (who is a graduate student) uses a cracked piece of software on his personal laptop (We were talking near his station and a pop up went up and warned about the fake license of the software).

The software is an expensive one whose student version is freely available on our shared server; however, the student version's features are often not sufficient for our tasks. So I realize that he might have to do this to handle his job. I don't know if the supervisor is aware of this.

All in all, as it's not acceptable to ignore the copyright, should I report this issue to any responsible sector?

I don't feel that general academic ethics obliges you to report this, unless you have reason to believe that it might be endangering the research of the lab (giving inaccurate results, introducing viruses to lab computers, etc).

You will have to make your own judgment as to whether you are obliged to report by any of the following: your own personal code of ethics, your institution's policies, your lab's internal policies, your PI's expectations, threat of lawsuit from the software vendor, your local law, or likely consequences from any of the above for failing to report.  You could also consider whether to warn your colleague and give them a chance to remove the cracked software before reporting them.  But all of that is beyond the scope of this site.


Replacing tech reports: can we put good undergrad dissertations in arxiv? My department requires dissertations from all honours students (being England, that's basically all of them).  Some of these are extremely good, even though they are written by undergraduates.  My department for some years created a tech report series, which included undergraduate dissertations with high enough marks and the agreement of the supervisor, but now this system has gotten lost in a morass of web redesigns etc.

Is there any new norm for archiving good undergraduate dissertations?  We were thinking of just putting it in arxiv.org, is that considered acceptable?  We are writing an article and want to cite the dissertation for the full implementation details.

Yes.

Any research writing (paper, report, monograph, dissertation, preprint, etc.) approaching publishable quality is welcome on ArXiv, whether its'written by tenured faculty, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduates, high school students, or hamsters.

(I am the ArXiv moderator for cs.DM and cs.CG.  I have not, as far as I know, accepted a paper from a hamster.)


Starting a new academic society I am a microbiologist in the UK with a specialism in Mycology.

I feel that the British Mycological Society is no use and does not offer enough support to mycologists in the UK.

I want to form my own society for Applied Mycologists.

I was wondering what is the protocol for this? If anyone has any experience.

I have been a part of Canadian graduate student societies in the past, and I am not familiar with the culture/formalities of forming societies in Britain. I have been the Vice President (and acting President) of a 600 member society (pretty small) so most of my knowledge comes from personal experience.

Forming a society is actually quite straightforward, though a very involved process (it will not be easy). It's quite similar to starting a business. Essentially a Society is just a collection of like-minded individuals. Anyone in a free society can form a Society whenever they want, and have as few or as many members as they want, as long as they abide by their country's laws of course!

Zeroth Step: Maybe join the existing Society?

But before I get to the answer about how to found a society, have you considered running for Executive positions in the British Mycological Society? They would already be set up with resources, members, bylaws, etc. so it would probably be easier to join them and take up a leadership position to guide the society in the preferred direction than to create a brand-new society. Just a thought.

First Step: Learn about Societies

The first thing that you will want to do is take a quick look at Robert's Rules of Order, especially Section 68-70 in the Fourth Ed. You can find the fourth edition online in the link that I provided. If you want the latest edition (11th) you will have to buy it. I highly recommend this book and it has served me well in my society experience. The 11th edition has a tonne of info about how to found a society, how to write bylaws, how to track finances, how to hold elections and (most famously) how to hold meetings. The fourth edition doesn't have as much info about forming a society but it is still quite useful (and free!). It is written from a somewhat American perspective but I should think it mostly carries over.

You'll want to familiarize yourself with how similar societies are operated, what their constitutions/bylaws look like, etc. This shouldn't be too hard: you can probably check out the existing British Mycological Society.

Second Step: Find your supporters

Robert's Rules of Order Revised, 4th Ed., XII 70(a)

The second thing you will want to do (and maybe this is obvious) is find some like-minded individuals. At least ten would be a good starting point, depending on the size of your field (how many mycologists are there in Britain anyway?). If you already have a lot of connections in your field, take some time to meet with them individually and discuss with them why you think the British Mycological Society isn't working properly and what your vision would be for your own Society. Once you feel like you have a reasonable number of supporters, you should call a meeting with all of them together. They purpose of the meeting should be to come up with a shared vision of what the new society will be called and what its purpose should be.

You should also be discussing whether or not the Society will be feasible. Is there really a place for it next to the existing British Mycological Society? Will there be adequate interest from others in your field to make this a worthwhile endeavor?

Be careful about putting out some kind of public notice, lest you find yourself with the newly-formed society being taken over by strangers with different ideas from yourself.

Once you feel like everyone is on the same page and is actually committed to the idea of forming a society, you should move on to step two. If you can't get ten people excited about forming this society, then it probably won't last very long.

Third Step: Write your Charter/Bylaws/Constitution

Robert's Rules of Order Revised, 4th Ed., XII 67

Essentially you want to write a document that lays out the founding principles of your society, called a "Constitution" or a "Charter" or "Bylaws" (I prefer Bylaws myself). You'll see a lot of different preferences for what to call this document based on culture (here in Canada you will often hear the entire document being referred to as "the Bylaws"). At a minimum this should include:

Name and object of the society. (What the name of your society and what is its most fundamental purpose?)
Qualification of members. (Who is allowed to be a member of the Society? How can people become members? This would be a good place to include a non-discrimination clause. Are there member dues/membership fees? If not, where will you get your operating budget?)
[Executive] Officers and their election. (Who will run the operations of the Society? What will the positions be called, i.e. President, VP, Secretary, Treasurer?)
Meetings of the society. (How often are meetings held? When and where are they held? Who can call a meeting?)
How to amend the constitution. (Who is allowed to change the document and under what circumstances?)

You may want to form a small committee (3 to 5 people) to draft the bylaws because it can be hard to coordinate 10 people or more all writing the same document. Once you have a document that the committee is happy with you should call another meeting and present the draft to your supporters. At this meeting your supporters should have the opportunity to discuss the bylaws and amend them if necessary. Finally you should put the acceptance of the bylaws to a vote. If the vote passes then congratulations, you've just formed a new Society! If you can't collectively agree on a set of Bylaws, then your Society will not last long.

Fourth Step: Elect your Officers

Robert's Rules of Order Revised, 4th Ed., X 58-62

Your society will need Executive Officers to handle the day-to-day organization and operation of the Society. The titles and roles of these offices should be laid out in your Bylaws. You will usually need a President, Treasurer and Secretary at a minimum. If no one is willing to volunteer for these positions, your Society will not last long.

Fifth Step: Promote and grow

At this point you have the skeleton of the Society, maybe some of the internal organs (are you the heart or the brain?). You need flesh out your society with more members if you want to make any kind of impact. Start advertising the fact that there is a new Society in town. Maybe get some posters on campuses across Britain. Try contacting the biology department secretaries of local universities and ask them if they could pass along invitations to the students and faculty. Make some profiles on social networking sites. Put together some small events, like a networking social in a public place (so you don't need to pay rental fees). As you add more members you can start taking on projects like branding.

Keep in mind this will be slow going. You likely will have to work for at least a decade, if not more, before your society really starts to gain real influence in your field. It will be tough to get new members, especially if you have membership dues, because people might be worried that it is some kind of scam. This is why you need a dedicated group of founding members who can stick with the Society for the long run.

Sixth Step (Optional): Get yourself officially recognized by a larger organization

This is not necessary but can be helpful. For student societies, you often want to get your society ratified underneath your student union at whatever university you belong to (become a member society). This is often helpful because the union will have resources to help protect and promote your society. By "protect" I mean that they will usually insure your events so that you aren't personally liable if someone is injured at an event, etc. as long as you abide by their bylaws. I am not familiar with any similar arrangements for non-student societies.


Questionable content in student's theses If having some questionable aspects in the thesis - like not elaborated and rather simple theoretical models -, that did not influence the whole work and results, but might still arise the thought "Why didn't the student know/do better here?", can this have a negative influence when applying to some graduate school?

My recommendation is for the student to make it clear in the thesis that they know these are overly simple theoretical models. If the models don't significantly affect the main results, it is difficult to see how being honest can hurt. And trying to make it appear that the models are more significant than they actually are could definitely hurt.