Taking my research idea outside my paid job I'm doing a (paid, contractual) remote research internship with a research institute in Germany. My job is to come up with novel ideas, write papers for technical conferences and try to publish them. My supervisor here is A.

There is another individual B from a different institute in the USA, who has expressed interest in a research collaboration with me. However, this arrangement is informal, wherein he would provide his comments on my ideas and help me publish them. He would also be one of the authors of the resulting paper.

Now during my regular work with A, I had proposed a couple of ideas to him: he liked one but said the other was not promising. It so happens that I do think that the second idea is promising, perhaps even more so than the first idea that he liked.

So my question is, is it legal and ethical for me to take my second idea to B and ask him for help in getting it published? Before I start this endeavour, should I perhaps ask A in unequivocal terms whether I can take my idea elsewhere? If A has no use for the idea he shouldn't have a problem in allowing me to do so (I hope, but I'm not sure). Is this a reasonable question to ask a supervisor?

I feel like this is a grey area but I also think that the idea I have is a good one, and I don't want to waste it (by getting it published before someone else comes up with a similar idea).

If the idea is valuable you should talk to an attorney.

You want to avoid encumbrances.  If there is some small chance that if the idea hits it big, A can claim some ownership, the thing to do is to get a letter stating that A waives all claims around this idea.

There are also time-sensitive issues surrounding your situation from the perspective of protecting IP.  In your conversations with A and B, you might have "disclosed", starting a clock starting for patent procedures.

Again, if it's important, this is what lawyers are for.


Does submitting a paper in Latex format enhance the chances of acceptance? If there is an option to submit your paper in either Latex or Word, which format should be given preference? Does it affect the chances of acceptance? My paper relates to computer science & engineering, with a few mathematical formula, diagrams, and tables.

If both are allowed then both will be fine. I would choose the one I am most comfortable with. Using a program you are less familiar with increases the chance of making a silly error. Such errors are much more likely to work against you than the choice between Word or LaTeX.


Does an updated chapter in a book count as a new publication? I came across one of the edited books where authors contribute chapters that was published once in 2010 and the again in 2014. The two different books have identical (or almost identical) titles but different ISBNs and different DOIs. This means that a chapter that was included in both (same title, abstract and content, unfortunately I do not have access to one of the full texts) is counted as two publications. As far as I can tell, most of the content between the two books is the same.

Is this common practice generally or to certain fields? Is it ethical? How are these cases generally treated?

As a non-answer, but perhaps worthwhile, we could note that literal publication, revised publication, and so on, literally serves scholarly purposes. The potential objection is that this might score status or impact points unfairly. The error here is thinking in terms of status or impact points, especially as a back-forming regulator of permissible behavior.

That is, the real goal is not status/jobs/tenure – although those are serious things – but advancement of human understanding. In particular, rules of the game of status/jobs/tenure are not at all necessarily connected to issues about advancement of human understanding.

In particular, there’s nothing to treat. If some for-profit publisher’s self-promoting “impact factor” somehow counts this twice, this is no serious human being’s problem. The possibility that a corporation’s software misunderstands a new edition is in no conceivable way an ethical failure of people who write parts of something useful enough to be republished in a new edition.


Which preprint repositories assign DOIs for free? ArXiv.org does not assign DOIs to its preprints, but ResearchGate does. Are there other preprint repositories that assign DOIs for free?

Although meant for data, the Zenodo repository assigns free DOIs. Nothing hinders one from uploading PDFs there.


Working on a methodology different from advisor's expertise. How to proceed? I am pursuing PhD in materials engineering. My advisor is an expert in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and density functional theory. She works with nanomaterials and batteries. However, for my research, she wants me to work with finite element analysis (FEA) and smoothed particle hydrodynamics as I will work in simulating additive manufacturing process. She doesn't have knowledge or past experience on these methodologies.
I tried to argue about using MD for my research as there are groups who use the method in similar research work as mine. But she says that those groups are not doing good work and MD can't be applicable for my research. She says, just because they can publish papers doesn't mean that they are doing good work.
Now, I am worried that how I will get proper guidance if she doesn't know about my research methods. How should I proceed? I don't have a co-supervisor.

A PhD is a learning experience, so don't worry about stepping out into a new domain. It's also not uncommon for the supervisor to not be familiar with all the research methods you use, since the field has changed a lot since they were engaged in active research.
I understand that this seems daunting, but try to find a support ecosystem where you can get practical tips on day-to-day technical support. There are good resources available online, and very often you are expected to find those out by yourself.
If the supervisor is otherwise good and has a good track record, I suggest you continue with her and give it a shot with an open mind.
Finally, having dabbled in all the areas/tools you mentioned, I have to say I strongly agree with your supervisor, especially from an applied research perspective. In the long run, the effort will probably be well worth it.


How do you respectfully remove someone from your research group? Recently, I began my work on an independent research project. A few months ago, while I was writing the research proposal for submission, I talked with a peer of mine who hadn't done independent research. As a good gesture, I told her that we could work together on it, since it would help her resume. In the meantime, I planned, wrote, and submitted the entire proposal myself.

When I offered her this "opportunity", I hadn't really thought things through. Now, I've realized that there really isn't much that she can contribute to the project besides stick around and do manual data entry - all of which I can do (she studies physics, while this is chemistry research).

I've already began the project and she hasn't done anything yet (because she doesn't really have the skills or experience, and it'd be too difficult and time-consuming for me to teach her). While I could definitely keep her around since she wouldn't bother me, I feel like it'd be unfair because I would be doing everything, but she would also receive the credit for it (and my "contribution" would therefore be viewed as less).

I'm not sure how to tell her that I don't want to work with her anymore in a way that she wouldn't be offended, but also in a way that doesn't make me look too bad for "going against my word". Any suggestions?

How do you respectfully remove someone from your research group?

To answer the question literally, although there is no nice way to do this, you can be respectful by sending a brief, straightforward email (and do it ASAP): "I am sorry but due to changing circumstances I don't think we can collaborate more on project X. I wish you the best in your future endeavors and I'm very sorry for the unexpected change."

However, your real problem is (as others pointed out) that you seem to be an awful mentor: although you have given no indication that there is actually any barrier to the student helping on the project, you (1) told them they could help, and then (2) mentally retracted that offer, apparently without them doing anything to make a bad impression. So retracting the offer here is highly unprofessional and unkind.

  Now, I've realized that there really isn't much that she can contribute to the project besides stick around and do manual data entry

Can you really not think of anything she can contribute? You offered originally, so you should see this through and help her get up to speed. It will be a learning experience for her and an opportunity for you to become a better mentor.

  I feel like it'd be unfair because I would be doing everything

You seem to just assume that you will do all the work; you do not seem to treat the student like a collaborator, i.e. with respect and thoughtfulness.

  but she would also receive the credit for it (and my "contribution" would therefore be viewed as less).

Your focus on only your reputation here is telling. If she really doesn't help with the work, she should not be on any papers you submit at all, but instead you are worried about saving face and you would consider putting her name on a paper without her helping at all?

  I'm not sure how to tell her that I don't want to work with her anymore in a way that she wouldn't be offended, but also in a way that doesn't make me look too bad for "going against my word". Any suggestions?

There is no way. She may be offended and you are going against your word. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a respectful way to do it, which I have suggested at the top of my answer.


May I cite an unpublished exercise from a lecture? In a mathematics thesis I am currently working on, I use a statement we proved in the exercise classes of a lecture I attended last year, but neither the exercises nor the lecture notes have been published. I am wondering whether it is still possible to cite the exercise, and if yes, in what format.

You always cite your source as best as you can. If your best citation is “unpublished solution to a lecture exercise”, then that is what you should cite. If you can find a better citation, fine. If not, cite it this way.

Since you don’t want to rely on something unproven, you should include the proof. One reason to have a citation is to allow others to verify the result, so the proof should be somewhere where I can read it. If there’s no other place than your paper, that’s where it should be.

And to avoid accusations of self-plagiarism you should probably mention how the proof was created.


Is there a professional virtue in independent research and reviews? Is there a tradition for independent researchers to conduct, ie. write, and review others research on their own? That is to say, is such work outside the institutional and established realms something researchers consider to be of professional value career-wise?

I have recently finished my master's thesis and am - like I imagine other students who also finished a research degree - considering whether to pursue a doctorate. To avoid a "decay" in writing technique and interest in my field of study, I am considering writing independently, but still in the scientific vein to maintain these to a high level. However, I am unsure of whether this would hold a professional value - as in worthwhile to include on a resume - when written outside of a professional setting.

What are your thoughts on independent scientific writing, and its applicability to later career choices?

I am expanding my comments into an answer as requested by jakebeal.

It is a basic tenet of academia that the identity, geographical location, or institutional affiliation (or lack thereof) of a researcher should not matter when it comes to publishing their results; all that matters is that the results are of good quality and of interest to the research community. According to this ideal, academic research is an enterprise open to anyone, anywhere. So, yes, your goal of performing independent research is a noble one and certainly has value, both to the community and to your own professional prospects. However, it is important to stress that this value will be created primarily if and when you are able to create research that's good enough to be publishable in a peer-reviewed journal, and not before. If you are serious about being an independent researcher (or any kind of researcher, really), publishing your results should therefore be your goal.

In the comments you point out your belief that journals rarely publish the writings of independent researchers. I agree that that is very probably true, but one should be careful not to draw the wrong conclusion here. It is not so much that journals are snobbish and elitist and simply refuse to seriously consider papers from an author with no institutional affiliation (although, to be sure, one cannot entirely discount a small and mostly unintended psychological bias making it marginally more difficult for an independent researcher to get their work accepted). Rather, the main reason is that independent researchers face multiple obstacles to creating good work in the first place. Those obstacles include:

Independent researchers don't have a lot of contact with other researchers from the community who can tell them about the state of their field and give them ideas for good research problems to work on.
Independent researchers usually don't have anyone to criticize their ideas and give them feedback. Such feedback can be quite crucial to making progress in one's research.
Due to their lack of contact with their discipline, independent researchers often don't have a chance to become well-versed in the terminology of their field and in the cultural norms of how research in their field is typically presented. They may develop good research ideas but do so in an insular fashion using their own private language, terminology and presentation style, which makes it much harder for them to communicate their ideas to others.
Importantly, independent researchers are not paid by anyone to do research, which usually means that they have to spend most of their time and creative energy working a "normal" job. This puts them at a significant competitive disadvantage compared to non-independent researchers.

Let me now get to your question. Even if you never publish your results, I still think there is value for you to try to work on some research problems in your spare time. Aside from the fact that research can be a lot of fun, it will certainly develop your intellect and probably help you develop professional skills that will come in handy at one point or another, whether you continue to pursue a doctorate or end up in an industry job. However, as far as things that you can put on your resume are concerned, I don't think private research writings that you wrote for your own amusement but are not of good enough quality to be published in a journal, or at least as a conference poster or on a reasonably good quality online blog, will be of much value on a resume.


How to get Chartered Engineer in the UK? Should I pay some fees (every year) to keep this title? I have completed PhD in Computing in UK. Can I apply for a CEng title as I have a Computing degree (not exactly engineering)?

If I get one, should I pay some subscriptions (every year/month) to keep this title?

What are the advantages of having CEng?

A CEng qualification (it is post-nominal) is awarded on the accreditation of the engineering experience and qualification achieved. The full specification of the necessary standard is shown in the document entitled The UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC). Although CEng is not a title it does enable you to work towards the Engineering title of EurIng (pre-nominal) which is awarded by FEANI.

In Academia in the UK it would be expected that researchers and Academics in engineering (STEM) hold both professional and academic qualifications and titles as they are part of the education path for professional practicing engineers. Thus only possessing a PhD would make you a less qualified than other applicants or colleagues. For career development it is useful to have a full set of qualifications, including membership of the relevant professional bodies.

A BSc and MSc (in an accredited degree subject) would normally be considered the academic level necessary for the CEng topped up with an appropriate amount of relevant professional practice. If the PhD contained an appropriate amount of project management and technical engineering content it could satisfy the professional component of the CEng, but not always. Sometimes a period of employment might be needed to top-up.

A fee is payable for the application to cover the accreditation of your qualification and experience and then an annual membership fee thereafter. If you stop paying the membership fee you are not considered an active professional and therefore the qualification/title lapses. If you use the qualification/title without paying professional fees then this is considered an act of unprofessionalism.

I have a set of such qualifications in computing and use the letters:

  Eur Ing MBCS CITP CEng

in formal academic contexts. It is useful in explaining to students about the paths to qualification and professional practice in our subject. It also shows that the person teaching them is fully qualified to do so, and knows the material from professional practice and not just from books.


Does failing in a different program affect graduate admission application? Suppose, someone failed in a STEM grad program 'A', and hence it is incomplete.

Then he gets acceptance in a non-STEM grad program 'B', and completes it.

Now, if he applies for a position in a funded Ph.D. program related to 'B', would he face hard-times in getting an acceptance because of his previous failure?

Why or why not?

Kindly, explain.

It might.

First off: there is no record of you failing the program so it’s unlikely that anyone will know unless they actively try to find out. So, I wouldn’t highlight it. If they do find out, I strongly recommend telling the truth, it’s easy to find out whether you we’re enrolled. From now I’m assuming that the committee somehow finds out, or you tell them.

You have tried to get through one grad program and did not succeed. Taken on its own, this sends a negative message to the admissions committee, especially if your prospective topic is relevant to your past CS experience.

But grad applicants are humans, and humans make mistakes. You need to tell the grad committee what you learned from that experience and why do you think it won’t happen again. Don’t make it the focus of your application (again, they probably won’t know). You need to tell them what your strengths are and how you’d fit the grad program. As with every case, it’s hard to say how they’d react, because we don’t know what your portfolio is like.


Animated Presentation Navigation Some days ago, I saw an animated presentation, that was very awesome. I am trying to google but not able to find the way to how to create it in Microsoft Office or Libre Office.

There have a lot of image sliders presentation like that are available on internet, but I want presentation with slides. I have attached an example of slider HERE.

Requirement: 1. First slides have links as thumbnails to another slides, 2. when I clicked on any slide, it open that slides. 3. when I click next button or click on slide then next slide will displayed and previous slide will fade out 4. at end of the slide first slide will open again.

There is a wide variety of presentation tools with all kinds of features. However, for an academic presentation (I assume that this is what the question implies, otherwise it is off-topic on this site), animated transitions between slides and, for the most part, on a slide are highly recommended against. The main reason is that they significantly distract an audience from the essence of the presentation, thus, negatively impacting both the audience and the presenter.

When referring to the on-slide transitions above, I said "for the most part", because there are cases, when on-slide animated transitions are actually appropriate and helpful. For example, when a particular slide describes dynamic elements or nature of a system, it is helpful to illustrate the dynamics of changing state of the system's elements or features with animated or otherwise dynamic transitions.

Speaking about presentation tools, most software offerings (standalone and online services) offer the rather basic features that you mention in your requirements. For example, besides Microsoft Office and Libre Office, you can take a look at academically-focused Beamer (very flexible and highly recommended) and knitr software, as well as online services Bunkr, Speaker Deck, already mentioned RevealJS, Prezi (don't like it and don't recommend - similarly to @Nox, I get dizzy from their standard transitions), Keynote (AFAIK, it's Mac-only), SlideRocket and many more. If your subject matter allows story telling (which is what should be the core of ANY presentation, regardless of the domain), but in a more visual way, check Amazon StoryTeller and PowToon.


Picking referees for a staff review? For an interim (or tenure!) review, are their guidelines in place for choosing "neutral" referees, if asked?

Obviously choosing the PhD advisor (and probably postdoc advisor) is a no-no, but are there other things to take into consideration? For instance:

How important is the standing of the referee?
How well should the referee know the candidate?
If someone is working in an inherently multidisciplinary area, how should the referees be selected? According to the "home department" of the candidate, or are other criteria more important?

tl;dr: You want a letter from God.  Until then, do not work with God.

Reference letters for promotion and tenure cases are supposed to be impartial evaluations of the quality, importance, visibility, and impact of the candidate's research, their standing in the research community, and their promise of future intellectual leadership (or in the case of full professor promotions, their proven intellectual leadership.)  So the people who write those letters must be credible independent judges of those qualities.

Here are the rough guidelines applied at my university.  Specific standards my be different elsewhere, especially outside the US — Ask your senior faculty mentors, department chair, and/or dean! — but I suspect the general principles are common everywhere.

Referees must be familiar with the candidate's research.  Promotion letters must discuss the importance and impact of the candidate's research in detail.  It is especially helpful if the candidate's work led to a breakthrough in the referee's research.  (Obviously, you can't dictate the letter; you have to choose a referee that can write such a letter.)  It doesn't matter whether the referee knows the candidate personally.
Referees must be experts in the candidate's research area.  For successful cases, this criterion should immediately imply the first.  However, "research area" must not be defined so narrowly that there are only a dozen experts in the entire world, or the impartiality of the referees is not credible.  Editors-in-chief of major journals, committee chairs of important conferences, and officers in relevant professional societies are all good choices, but for the most part, the expertise should be visible from the language of the letter.
Referees must be obvious experts in the candidate's field.  Here by "field" I roughly mean "department".  The letter-writers will be scrutinized by faculty committees at several levels (department, college, and campus), most of whom don't have the expertise to make a direct judgement; they have to rely on the trappings of success instead.  At my university, it is a de facto requirement that all promotion references must be full professors (preferably with chaired positions) at top departments, in top colleges, in top universities.  Professional society fellows and major award winners are even better.
Referees must be obviously impartial.  Thesis and postdoc advisors are right out.  At my university, any faculty member from the candidate's PhD department is barred, but this is not universal.  Frequent and/or recent coauthors/coPIs are out.  It's okay to have a few letters from former collaborators, as long as the coauthored work is far enough in the past and represents a small fraction of both the candidate's and the referee's research record.
Referees must be familiar with the promotion standards of the candidate's institution. At my university, this means that almost all letters must come from faculty at top American universities.  I was explicitly warned not to ask for letters from European researchers, because they tend to write blunter ("more honest") evaluations than Americans, and in any case, European promotion systems are different.  This is another reason for needing letters from top institutions; a supportive letter from a significantly lower-ranked school will likely be viewed with suspicion, because the writer "doesn't understand our standards".

Multidisciplinary research makes this much more difficult.  The strategy I would recommend (and have applied myself) is to find referees that cover most of the different disciplines of the candidate's research.  To pick a random example, a candidate studying molecular simulations might request letters from other molecular simulators, from other computational scientists, and from polymer chemists.  This may require a higher than usual number of letters.

An additional complication at most US universities is that a majority of the referees must be chosen by the candidate's department, without the candidate's knowledge or direct input.


For government / industry research posters, should I include my university's logo? For an undergraduate putting together a research poster describing research worked on at a government lab, is it appropriate to include the undergraduate's home institution in the Acknowledgements section?

Assume, in this case, the undergraduate institution has no involvement in the research.

Here is how I would think about it:

You were at the government lab when you did the research, so its logo definitely needs to be there
You are preparing the logo and presenting the poster while at the university, so it's reasonable for its logo to be there as well.

With such things, it's usually better to err on the side of inclusiveness: people or organizations are much more likely to feel it's problematic to not be included than to feel it's problematic to be included, as long as there is some reasonable connection.


Waiting to hear back from a professor—how long should I wait? I have been contacting professors about openings in their lab for a PhD position. One professor who I really want to work with contacted me back immediately and told me he would turn over my info to senior lab members (CV, transcripts) and that they will then get in touch with me.

It has been 10 days since that correspondence, I have not heard from anyone else in that lab and I do not know the contact info for anyone specifically, i.e. the professor did not mention exactly who would be looking at my info (although on their lab webpage they do list post-docs and PhD students with contact info).

I would like some feedback about when and how one might contact the professor to check on the status. My thought is to reach out to the professor if I have not heard anything in 3 weeks. I would say something like "Hello Dr. Soandso, I really appreciate the opportunity to be considered for a spot in your lab. 3 weeks have past since our last correspondence, and I just want to check that I did not overlook any communication from the senior lab members you mentioned. Thank you very much for your time." I keen that 3 weeks is a good amount of time for a follow up email.

Thanks everyone!

This is business, send a nice and polite email to your professor to ask him if he has news since you don't.

Don't wait 3 weeks on a job application.

Obviously, maybe he'll say 'it's summer everyone is on vacation', maybe he forgot, maybe his colleague forgot. Show that you're willing to work with them, just don't spam their mailbox every couple days.


In what language do scientists communicate with each other in European research institutions? I was just wondering out of curiosity. Nothing relating to my own circumstances.
In what language do scientists in facilities like the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (whose campuses are there in Barcelona, Rome, Heidelberg etc...) communicate?
Do scientists communicate in German in the Heidelberg laboratory, or in Spanish in the Barcelona lab? I am assuming so because obviously the majority of the scientists in Heidelberg laboratory will be German and the majority in Barcelona will be Spanish and the majority in Rome will be Italians.
Is this true?

From my perspective of working in multiple European universities in different countries:
In a "closed" conversation setting, it will exclusively depend on the people involved in the conversation. The prime requirement is to use a language that every participant understands and speaks. A secondary concern is to use a language that people are particularly comfortable in. As a result, a meeting of two German researchers and a German student in a Swedish university will usually be held in German.
In an "open" conversation setting, people usually prefer to use a language that will allow other people to understand and join the conversation (usually English). Exceptions happen and might be considered as rude by some.


Is it compulsory to have a master's degree in computer science for research jobs? I hold a bachelor's in computer applications. I have got my bachelor's degree from India. Now I want to get a job in research institutes or labs at Europe, USA or India. Will I need higher education like master's or PhD? Money does not matter to me.

It is highly unlikely that you'd get a permanent research position in CS with a bachelor's degree. It's also unlikely (though not impossible) that you'd get one with an MS degree (for example, it might be possible to enter an organization after an MS, and then move internally into their research wing). The most common path to getting a research job at an institute is after a Ph.D.


Attending university as an adult freshman After graduating high-school, I did not attend a university and instead decided to enter the work force. Eight years hence, I would like to pursue a university degree but I am not entirely sure which credentials are important for an adult freshman. Are my high-school transcripts still relevant almost a decade after the fact? Do universities consider professional experience in their admissions process (I have 6 years professional experience related to my intended field of study)? Do I have a shot at competitive university even though my academic history is essentially nothing? With sufficient review, I expect I can achieve high standardized testing scores, but I wonder if that will be enough to compensate for such a huge gap in my academic career.

The crux of my question is: how should an adult freshmen prepare before applying to a competitive university?

I would say definitely - it's worth a try. I am studying at a university that usually ends up high in rankings (although it dropped quite a bit now because of student feedback), the oldest person in my course is about 9 years older than the rest of us. He spent around 5 years after school working (he had already worked there during school) and then two years ago took some additional courses at an adults' school and applied here. What should I say, they happily took him and he's constantly getting the best grades in the year.

As you mention that you have professional experience related to the subject, I think you may find it interesting that his years of work were completely unrelated to the subject he is studying now. I think that's a good factor as well.

I think in such a situation I would put much more stress on what I have done since school rather than what I achieved at school. With such a long gap, what happened at school should be practically irrelevant unless you can demonstrate what strengths you have taken from school that you still maintain today. This should go by the same reasons for which certificates such as IELTS or TOEFL are not accepted more than two years after getting them.

Finally I should add that this is a UK university. Procedures in the USA may of course be very different and so may your chances - but in any case it's worth a shot. It can't get much worse than having your application rejected can it?


Missed Assignment due to Covid-19 I was flying from Canada back home, after all the in-person classes and tests were canceled.
So my country(Kazakhstan) has strict laws that were enforced in regard of the new pandemic. They include closing a passenger of an international flight coming in to Kazakhstan in a quarantine hospital.
In my case there was only 1 city that had a working airport in the country, my only resort was going there and later traveling to my city.
The whole process took place in a prisoner-like environment in which i was held for 4 days. By my release from the first city, i was already late on one of my assignments, and by the time I actually got home in my city, but without luggage and got back to relatively normal state, i was late on the second one.
My question is, should I be contacting my professor about this messed up situation, or should i consider something else. Im asking this because the missed assignments could make me fail the course.

There will be some flexibility for the assignment(s) due around the closing / travel / quarantine times - all you have to do is talk to your professor.

However, you need to do this as soon as possible - if you wait 2 months it may not be accepted as people are making exceptions now.


How to run a fiscally independent research department? I spoke with a professor and learned that The University of Tennessee chemistry department turns a net profit. It receives zero tuition money.  It has patents and research grants. How does it achieve this? Is this a common thing?    How to find/execute profitable patent producing research?  And How to win grants?

How to find/execute profitable patent producing research?

There are a large number of soft-money research centers that are essentially stand-alone - they have to bring in enough research money to cover their costs, and don't receive tuition support, TA lines, etc. I suspect the most common place to find them is in the biomedical field. I worked for one when I was a postdoc.

How does it achieve this? There are a number of ways to do this. A generous initial endowment can help. Patents, and the licensing revenue that comes from them are, for some fields, a major source of income. And then there are grants. Lots and lots of grants.
Do they have strategies that get them here? Yes. One does not get there by accident.
Is this model reproducible? Given there is more than one such organization, the answer is clearly yes.

Whether it's desirable or sustainable is, on the other hand, another question. In my experience, there is an immense amount of pressure on the senior leaders of such organizations, because if grant funding doesn't come through, there's no safety net, and you're immediately talking about firing people. And because the operating expenses for any academic unit are quite high, they often depend on a small number of large grants to support them (for example, where I was a postdoc, I don't think it was possible to write enough NIH R01-scale grants to cover things).

That's a very high risk position. If a program gets cut, funding falls through, etc. there's suddenly a massive hole in the budget.


Do refreshments attract audience to seminars? In academia, is there evidence that including phrases such as "refreshments provided" in a seminar announcement increases the average attendance (even slightly)?

I think you should approach the question slightly differently - don't ask whether more people will come to your presentation because there are refreshments. Instead, ask whether refreshments will enhance the overall experience. In my experience, refreshments help to keep the group together after the event is over, which in turn allows for people to mingle, share ideas, and get to know one another better. When refreshments aren't provided, people tend to bolt out the door immediately following the end of the lecture. In this sense, refreshments give you the chance to build community, and give undergrads, graduate students, and junior scholars the chance to bend the ear of a senior scholar.


Software for tracking next manuscripts to submit I manage a research group and need to track, for all manuscripts I am going to submit soon, things like funding agency I need to add for that manuscript, authors for the other, potential journals for submission, etc, etc. Currently I build an excel sheet but things are getting very complicated due to all details I need to add, and wonder whether you have the same problem and which solution did you find, if you can share it, or if you use any other software for this.

I've found that a carefully formatted spreadsheet (Excel or otherwise) is extremely useful and effective for managing my publication workflow.

To illustrate how I organize myself, here is a screenshot of a de-identified snapshot of my spreadsheet from late last year (there are also some removed columns, e.g., regarding internal processes):

In particular, this is organized as follows:

Each entry begins with the title, venue where it is submitted and type of publication (My type key is: J=Journal, C=Conference, W=Workshop, A=Abstract, BC=Book Chapter, TR=Tech Report, Tut = tutorial, E=Editorial, P=Patent)
I sort by date of initial submission, adding a new sheet each year. When a manuscript is rejected, revised, and resubmitted elsewhere, it gets a new entry.
The main workflow is submission, revision, final; each gets two columns, one for date and one to mark completion.  After that, I track when it appears and if I've put it where it needs to go.
For an easy "at a glance" understanding of the sheet, I color things green when complete, orange or yellow when I've got an impending action (depending on urgency), purple when I'm awaiting action from the other side, and blue for rejection.

All together, this lets me see at a glance where I stand in the publications process for a potentially large number of active manuscripts, and what I need to deal with most urgently at any given time.


How can I make my work available to the community, when it is in conference proceedings that are not online and self archiving is not allowed? I have two articles published in a conference proceeding which are not accessible on the Internet. The publisher published three selected articles in SCI journals, but the rest of the articles are not available online on any kind of platform except for the list of titles, which was published at the time of the conference.

I want to self-archive the article in a public library (Arxiv etc.) but the conference publisher refused and said that the copyrights belong to the publisher and I cannot make it available on any other platform.

In the given situation, how can I make my work available to the research community?

This is a challenging situation to be in. If you have signed over the copyright to the publisher, then you cannot legally redistribute the work without the publisher's authorization. I assume you did not realize the publisher's policy was so restrictive when you first submitted the paper; you might want to make a note to self to take a closer look at author rights before submitting, in the future! (And warn friends and colleagues away from that publisher.)

Copyright protects expression of ideas (e.g. the text and images), not the ideas themselves. Even if you have signed away the copyright to your paper, you are free* to write a new paper on the same ideas, using new text and images. So, I suggest:

Write a new version of your paper, without directly copying large parts of the conference paper verbatim. It can be a much shorter version. Include in it a note saying that the version from the conference proceedings is available on request; give your email address so that people can contact you for a copy.
You own the copyright to this new work. Post it on your website, on arXiv, anywhere else you like.

This way, people can still learn about the contents of the conference paper, and can contact you if they want you to email the full version, which you can't redistribute online.

* Free, in the sense that no copyright restrictions apply. However, in terms of ethical standards on duplicate publication, if you want to publish a new paper based on the same ideas in another conference or journal, make sure the new venue permits it.


How do I comment the code I wrote for a course I am lecturing in? I am an assistant professor for a course on audio signal processing (for engineers) and I often write snippets of code to try to help the students follow the material. In addition, I get to lecture (1) one session of the course.

I have a lot of code I wrote over the last couple of years for this particular session but I realized my comments on it are not consistent at all and I have not found any sort of standards or guidelines for pedagogically appropriated commenting style.

Should I comment this code like I normally do with any code?

I usually add a header comment explaining which course the code was written for and something about what it is showing. But I also tend to comment the code with some trivialities in order to state somethings that I think would be obvious to developers but not to engineering students.

I think the Linux kernel is a good standard.

In general, don't explain what are you doing, that should be obvious from the code. Do tell why you are doing it. Let me show an example:

data_padded = pad_with_zeroes(data, 2**ceil(log2(len(data))))
fft(data_padded)

Everybody can see that I am padding it with zeroes, and any engineer student should see I am doing it to the next power of two (modulo bugs). But they may not be aware why are you doing it: a comment should point out that a FFT is fastest when the input length is a power of two.

Also, since this is a very technical setting, add the full names of the algorithms, with alternative names if they are common, and at least a reference using the same definition as you are. Tracking down factors of 2 π can be a pain.


Stay at university for summer or apply for other research programs? I am currently a 3rd year undergrad who assists with research at my current university. I have been working on a project since September 2019, and the PI says it is possible to get a publication with further work (though I know the project is still relatively new now). Should I assist with research in this lab for the summer, or apply to other programs like REUs?

I received the opportunity to attend a REU last summer but chose an internship instead. For reference, I am hoping to attend a medical school in the future - I hope it's ok for me to post on this academia stack exchange since it is research-related. Thank you for reading!

Think about what you want for a career. Don't try to nail it down too firmly yet, but think about the options. Do you want an academic career? If so, you will want a research doctorate at some point (beyond a medical doctorate, perhaps). In that case, having a publication and some research done early will be a boost. Your current situation is more likely to result in a publication than a short term REU, I think. Also, if your relationship with the PI is a good one, it is less risky to stay where you are.

But if medicine is you real goal then research publications are probably less important and getting a broad outlook will probably serve you well.

The trade off is specialization vs generalization. Having a broad view of all that is possible in the world is a good thing, but academics at some point need to specialize in quite small areas. Your call, of course.


Should I reject a request if I've already reviewed many papers from the same author recently? I have received requests to referee three different papers by a certain author in the past year (one of them twice, after it was rejected from the first journal). I work in applied mathematics, and in my field three to four papers per year is the typical output of a reasonably prolific author (excluding those who manage a large research group).

I am starting to think it would be fair to decline the last review, because I don’t want to have too large an impact over the career of this author. Moreover, I believe that having a variety of opinions would improve the general outcome of the reviewing process. Is my reasoning sound? Is “I’ve already reviewed many papers from the same author recently” a valid reason to refuse? Is there any good way to decide how many is too many?

You don't say whether you've recommended the papers for acceptance or rejection.

If you've recommended them for rejection (but nevertheless you view the work as being a reasonable specimen of the form, i.e., not egregiously flawed or crankish), then I think your idea to spread the opinions around is a good one.  Sometimes I get sent a paper for which I think "I don't value this paper much, but so far as I know someone else really could."  In that situation I often decline to referee it.

If you've recommended both of them for acceptance: well, you would think the same argument should apply, but I don't find it as compelling!  Rather than declining to referee, you could just continue to read carefully and not assume the work is good because you found the prior work to be good.  And if you really have a clear idea that the author is consistently doing good work -- there's no conflict of interest there!  By consistently recommending their work for publication, you are helping them out but also the field.

  Is “I’ve already reviewed many papers from the same author recently” a valid reason to refuse?

I think so, yes.  In fact almost anything is a valid reason to refuse in the current climate: so many papers are being written and processed at this point in time that anyone person has to limit their involvement.  Editors are getting turned down by referees all the time.  If you decline, do it quickly and suggest other possible referees, in all my experience they won't bat an eye.  As to

  Is there any good way to decide how many is too many?

I think it has to come down to your own judgment, because (of course, right?) this also depends on your other professional responsibilities.  As has been discussed on this site before, try to apply golden-rule considerations to your general refereeing policy.

Having said all that, I did want to make one counterargument: in all parts of mathematics in which I am familiar (which ranges from very theoretical to very moderately applied), refereeing papers takes a long time in part because the task truly is very intellectually demanding.  For a given paper, there are a number of people whose expertise is so unusually close to the topic of the paper that they can evaluate it much more easily and quickly than most other experts in the same area.  In many parts of mathematics, this number is very small -- sometimes, unfortunately, it is zero.  If you are part of a cohort that has unusual facility and ease with the author's work, then maybe you can do in a day or week what some other (expert) mathematician would take months to do.  In that case you should think again before declining, it seems to me.


How many professors should I contact before applying to Graduate School? I'm in the process of developing my academic profile and am starting to create a shortlist of programs to apply for. I plan on applying to 8 Grad schools (although I do not know which they will be yet.) From what I've read so far many of you recommend undergrads seeking to attend post graduate programs first contact a professor to see if they are taking on any new students. Now I obviously won't go with the buckshot approach and submit an email to everyone. However, I've also read most professors do not apply. If I plan on applying to 8 programs, and most professors don't reply,or are not available to take on students. How many professors should I contact? Like I said I won't just randomly send emails,  I will get to know them and their work first,  to see if I would be a good fit. I'm currently down to 40 possible programs of which I'm certain I can find at least 20-30 individual professors who would fit well with me. Would it be wise to find, assess,  and contact as many as 30, in the hopes that maybe 10 or so reply? Thank you.

I didn’t contact any faculty, and I got into the programs where I was an obvious fit. I didn’t get into any others. Honestly, it did not even occur to me to contact professors. I am not sure this is particularly common in the social sciences and humanities in the US. In my program, only the international students pre-contacted professors.

To check, I would recommend reading “The Professor is In” to lean more about the graduate admissions and hiring process for the humanities.


What to do after accidentally submitting to a "fake" conference? I have always done my best to not publish in scam journals or fake conferences (even though I was working as a lecturer and was penalised for not having enough publications, the institution didn't care where the work is published as long as it was).

At one point I have submitted a paper to the internal conference of the institute, at that time I was told that there was going to be a new section at this conference which my work was suitable for. The abstract was accepted, the paper for the post conference publication submitted; but on the day of the conference I was told that my presence was not needed, and that the protocol of the conference was already being written, and my presentation was "discussed" and that I have answered all the questions.

I must admit, I did not raise the fuss. I was swamped with other work, so I thought that I would just build on that work and at least the publication would appear, I'd link to it, but no longer publish something in this institute internally.

I no longer work there. But, lo and behold, on their site, where the publication must have appeared, in that conference there's not even a section to which I have submitted. My questions about the situation are unanswered.

I do not want to abandon the attempt to publish (in the true sense of the word, i.e. making it public).

Now the questions.

Do I consider that particular paper published as a part of this conference? Can I reference it as published, since I was clearly told that it would be?
If I consider it to be unpublished, can I resubmit it somewhere else? Do I explain the whole situation during the submission?

P.S. Yes, I do feel quite stupid about the situation. I will be more careful in the future.

First of all, it seems like a good thing you moved on. That does sound like a rather toxic research environment. Especially that:

  The abstract was accepted, the paper for the post conference publication submitted; but on the day of the conference I was told that my presense was not needed, and that the protocol of the conference was already being written, and my presentation was "discussed" and that I have answered all the questions. (...) I no longer work there. But, low and behold, on their site, where the publication must have appeared, in that conference there's not even a section to which I have submitted. My questions about the situation are unanswered.

That does sound quite shady. However, I am not even sure why they would do this. You do not mention having to pay something (and, honestly, if they asked for a registration payment or somesuch when submitting to an internal conference, you really should have turned and fled immediately), and I am not sure what other gains they would have from accepting and then silently discarding a paper. Maybe this was after all an ill-handled organisational issue - for instance, maybe they indeed planned to have this "special section" but did not receive enough submissions to hold it, so they decided to just never speak about the "special section" again. I am in no way saying that this is the proper way to handle such an issue, but I could see this happening in some places.

  Do I consider that particular paper published as a part of this conference? Can I reference it as published, since I was clearly told that it would be?

As I understand it, your paper did not appear anywhere. It is quite officially unpublished. You can not reference it (at least without putting it up on a preprint server or something like that), and I would definitely not list it on my CV.

  If I consider it to be unpublished, can I resubmit it somewhere else? Do I explain the whole situation during the submission?

Yes, you can (and should) certainly submit somewhere else. I see no reason to explain the situation during submission.

Let me re-iterate my main point. Your ethical concerns seem to stem from your understanding that this paper is "kind of" already published, and that submitting it again would be a double submission / self-plagiarism. In my understanding, this is absolutely not the case. Your paper was under consideration at another venue, but for one reason or another (does not even really matter why) it never appeared there. Hence, the paper is unpublished and you are completely free to do whatever you see fit with it. Essentially, the situation is the same as if your paper was rejected at the earlier conference. That they sent you an acceptance is not the important part, the important part is that your paper is nowhere published.


Why would a "poorly written" paper get a reject and resubmit decision rather than major revision? Recently, I got a reject and resubmit decision from a reputed mathematics journal. I received two referee reports: the first referee suggested improving the presentation, with no recommendation of accepting or rejecting my paper. The second referee also suggested improving the presentation, and pointed out some mistakes to correct and gave a recommendation to fix the errors and resubmit.

The editor's comment was:

  The paper is poorly written. Therefore, I suggest to rewrite the paper according to the suggestions of the referees and then to resubmit.

Could anybody explain me why the decision was reject and resubmit  rather than major revision? Under what circumstances might editors make such a decision?

A "major revision" decision generally implies that, if the reviewers' concerns are addressed, the paper will probably be published. (See this related question, What does a "major revision" mean?)

Sometimes when a paper is poorly written, it's hard for reviewers to judge its technical merits. (Because the presentation is so poor as to make it difficult to understand.) In these cases, a "revise and resubmit" decision often makes a lot of sense. It wasn't possible for the reviewers to properly evaluate the paper, so it's hard to say with any confidence one way or the other whether the paper will be publishable if the presentation is improved. The obvious course of action is for the authors to improve the presentation and resubmit the paper for a proper review.

Based on your description, it sounds like that may be what happened in your case, as one reviewer wasn't able to comment on anything besides presentation.


Is it acceptable to request information from US math departments about the job placement of recent PhD graduates? I am a first-year math master's student looking to apply to math PhD programs next year.

Is it appropriate for me to cold-email a US math department to request information about the job placement of recent PhD graduates? For example, I may want to ask how many graduates with which advisers managed to get postdocs and eventually tenure-track positions at either research universities or liberal arts colleges. Another example is that I may ask how many graduates with which dissertation areas eventually obtained non-academic research jobs (e.g. Microsoft Research, NSA, US national laboratories).

Besides asking departments directly, I can only think of the Math Genealogy Project, which is not always complete, and the Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences, which has excellent data but only for broad groups of departments and broad classifications of research areas.

You could email either the departmental graduate advisor, chair, or POI but be prepared to be disappointed -- either because they don't respond or they don't have the data you want:

Until you've been offered a position, you are just one of a hundred plus applicants. Your likelihood of getting a response improves when they are courting you not when you're an unknown student emailing out of the blue
Running this type of stats takes time and energy as many departments don't have a mechanism for tracking former students. We often only do this on a departmental level during an external review (if even then) and so the data can be several years old and not very granular
individual labs or professors may track this but their n can be so small as to be meaningless (is a prof who places 2/5 really better than a prof who is placing 3/8).


To what extent can I refer to closed-access reviewer comments in my public task management workflow? I have written and submitted a manuscript to a journal owned by Oxford University Press. This manuscript describes the associated source code, which is stored in a public GitHub repository. The journal has sent this manuscript to reviewers, and they have responded with some suggestions on how to improve the code. I would like to implement these suggestions in my code.
To what extent can I refer to these suggestions in my public task management workflow (ie GitHub)? I'm not even sure who owns the IP to the peer reviews themselves, but I assume that, since it's a closed review system, I am not allowed to reproduce the comments. In that case, can I paraphrase these suggestions when I write my GitHub issues? Each GitHub issue is a public thread for tracking information about tasks, their scope and their progress. If yes, can I explicitly tag these issues as being derived from peer review? Or will this leak too much of associated IP? More broadly, how can I balance my desire for open and transparent software development, with a closed review process?

I think the other answer and comments focus too much on the legal aspects involved. There is also a community moral aspect to it. There is a good discussion in the Publons article Who owns the review.
The comments that the reviewer makes are meant to be only for the author(s) and editor. For the editor to help make a decision on acceptance of the paper and for the author(s) to either explain this decision or help improve the paper. Quoting this comments elsewhere isn't really part of the traditional process.
However, the issues raised by the reviewer need addressing in the code and you are following code practice by tracking issues using an appropriate (open) tool.
I think its important that you remember that the reviewers recommendations are just recommendations that you need to interpret in any case before you make any changes. I would recommend to make issues/tasks using your interpretations of what needs to be done. You should be able to state clearly both what needs to be done and why without quoting the reviewer at all.
This way you avoid any problems relating to copyright at all - publishing interpretations is fine. The recommendations are there to be acted on so there's no need to bother a probably already over-worked editor. More importantly this approach makes you think about what the changes are and why they are needed. This will help your understanding of the issues and how to fix them better.


Is there typically a pre-screening process for doctoral admissions in the US? I am applying to doctoral programs in the US and I am wondering: is it common for applications to be filtered before they reach the hiring committee?

In the typical selection and admissions procedure for doctoral students, what happens after the deadline for applications has passed?

For US universities applications are almost universally prescreened for completeness and meeting any stated minimum requirements. The prescreen in process is almost always extremely rigid when minimum requirements are set. The wording on website is often confusing since sometimes schools want to be able to make special acceptances to people who do not meet the minimums. This requires someone from the department to beg and plead with the admin team. One place there is generally no flexibility at all is TOEFL requirements. It would be perfectly reasonable to call/email the department and ask, large departments get many such requests every year. Just realize that the answer will likely be the minimum is the minimum.


Transferring Master to Master, different country/ LOR issue I'm currently undertaking second semester in MA program.
As an international student, I am unhappy with living here in this country, so I'm considering to transfer to another university in the US but a similar MA program.

In this case I need to take GRE which wasn't required in order to get in the current university, and hopefully meet the minimum requirements.
In this case can I make an excuse about unhappiness when asking for a letter of recommendation (LOR) from my supervisor?

Well then I need at least three LORs, but I have no idea where to ask for. I do have been volunteering at an organization for almost over 100 hours now, but is unpaid work okay to be considered as a strong LOR?

Imagine for a moment that you are a trailing spouse.  You have fallen in love with someone with a job in City X, and s/he is not in a position to relocate.  Transfers in this case happen all the time, and there would be very little difficulty in asking for a letter of recommendation (LOR).

I suggest you say to your supervisor, "I love the coursework here and I love working with you, but it's become necessary for me to transfer to City X for personal reasons.  Would you be comfortable writing me a letter of recommendation for University X?"

If you have a close relationship with your supervisor, and s/he asks you what the personal reasons are, AND IF YOU WANT TO REVEAL MORE INFORMATION, then you can add, "the culture and surroundings here are just torturing me."  But probably it would be best to leave this out, especially if you are not 100% certain your supervisor will not spread your comments around.

Bravo to you for taking care of yourself.


What style to choose MLA or APA? I will be writing an essay about Brexit and I am confused on which style of writing to use.

Unless explicitly stated by your instructor, I believe you should be free to use any. Just for the context about what you might find in the relevant literature, the MLA is generally used in the field of arts and humanities, whereas APA is mostly used in psychology and other social science. However, they are used across the fields too.


Acknowledgements section of the paper Conference papers are now double-blind. So when was the acknowledgment part written? If I write an acknowledgment when submitting the paper, isn't it easy to leak information? Is the acknowledgment written after the paper is accepted?
Thanks

Manuscripts should be submitted for double-blind review without acknowledgments, which are added after acceptance in the camera-ready manuscript.


Who "owns" a project idea after a grant application is rejected or declined? This past year I put in an application to a federal agency (US) for a post-doctoral fellowship and collaborated on it with a three profs/research scientists on the proposal.  If funded, one of them will act as my post-doc supervisor and the other two as collaborators, all bring necessary skills and methodological capacity to the project.  The project idea was my own that I had before meeting or discussing it with these collaborators, I chose to work with these people because they are researchers whose work I was familiar with and they are located in a city I'm interested in living in.

I have accepted a different post-doc since that application was submitted and I expect that application to be rejected because it was still a bit rough when submitted and it's a pretty competitive grant.  Since I took the other position, I won't be doing this project with these collaborators in under this recent application.  This is my first time as part of a multiple collaborator application, so I am wondering:

Who has ownership of an idea after grant rejection/do all members of a proposal collaboration have to be informed of any member independently moving forward with an idea from the proposal?

If you can prove you are the originator of the idea with timestamped emails, notebook with dates, journals, etc. then that may be sufficient to prove priority for the idea when registering intellectual property (IP).

If the collaborators furthered the idea with you, then they own part of the idea, and may make a claim to any IP that is generated.

If you worked on this idea / project while you were being paid by University X, then University X may also own partial rights to the idea/IP.

Keeping the previous in mind, anyone that contributed to the idea could use the idea in another proposal.

If you are the originator of the idea, you can submit the idea to another group. If intellectual property is produced from the project, others that helped you develop the idea (including University X) could try to claim partial rights. You are not required to inform prior collaborators that you are using the idea, although it is a courtesy to ask them to collaborate on the new project if it is accepted.

Normally, grant application ideas are somewhat vague since you rarely know what you are going to find during the project. No one "owns" this idea until it becomes intellectual property through patents, trademarks, etc. That is when you really need to consider who contributed.

Note: Intellectual Property rights differ in every country, and Universities have very different policies. Check your local legislation and University contract.


How to Write a Thank You Letter? My professor gave me a project and I have completed it successfully. Now he has told me that he will get funding for my project.

I am so excited about that. How can I write a thank you letter?

If I'm understanding you correctly, you worked on a trial project, it went well, and now you will be continuing work with a funded follow-on.

This doesn't really strike me as a situation that needs a formal or complicated thank you note. Just tell the professor that you're happy things have gone well and are looking forward to continuing to work with them. The best possible thank you that you can give is to continue putting in good effort as you continue to develop your work with this professor.


Presenting skills in a presentation for a PhD position I've got invited to a PhD interview in the field of computational physics. In the invitation mail I was told, among other things, that I should present my skills for about 5min. It is my first interview and I'm quite unsure how I design this part of the presentation. I thought about presenting the main skills for the position, where I learned them and where I could use them so far. But I don't know how to design the slides for this part. I would assume that it is pretty boring to simply listing them or shouldn't I do any slide at all for this part?
Thank you for any help and suggestions in advance!

Perhaps you should organize it around things you have done and then mention the skills it took to accomplish that. Projects undertaken, research done, ...
Some things are more nebulous. Do you read a lot in the field, and take (and organize) notes, for example. What have you written? What sorts of organizational skills were required for that?


How to deal with classes that I must cancel due to conference travel? I will be teaching a course which is made up of 13 weeks of classes
in the Fall of 2016.
Unfortunately, I will also be travelling in the middle of the semester
to a conference in the US from my home university located in Asia.
This means that for one week, I will not physically be in my home university and I will have to cancel classes.

Unfortunately, we cover quite a lot of material in the course. Therefore, I am afraid that if I cancel one week of classes I will not be able to cover all the material.
What are my options in such a situation?

I was considering recording a video of my lectures just for that week I am away.
Assignments can be submitted electronically so I could assign work for the students which they can complete and submit online.

What have other professors/lecturers done in such a situation?

I do it like this:

Try to let a colleague* take over. This almost always works with 'standard' classes (intro to statistics, this kind of stuff)
Plan the classes in such a way that the students are busy with something else in this week (e.g., data collection), so that a plenary meeting is not necessary.
Cancel - but if I would cancel more than one meeting of a course, I would probably get problems with my department.

* we don't really have the concept of a TA here, you are either teaching (then, you are a colleague) or not - so 'colleague' also can include graduate students that might be referred to as TA in other systems

(context: Europe/Netherlands; social sciences)


Is it common to not send rejection letters? I have been applying to some summer programs for undergraduates recently and I am seeing that some of them do not send rejection letters or emails, and instead only notify accepted applicants. I was wondering how wide spread of a practice this is in academia, meaning do graduate schools do this, do grants do this, et cetera?

Based on rumor, it is quite common not to send rejection letters at American universities.  I would expect that this happens at a substantially higher rate for undergraduate summer research programs because they have an exceptionally high ratio of applications to funding.  At many universities, the summer research programs are more competitive than the PhD programs but have zero administrative staff.  PhD programs, postdoctoral positions, and faculty positions also may not send rejections.  For some jobs, one will also find that nobody was hired at all.

Some Australian universities have an official no rejection letter policy.

I definitely recommend sending rejection letters, particularly if applicants paid an application fee.


When data is required to be submitted, is it before publishing the paper or after paper is published? Shall I submit all my data and models to my supervisor before publishing the paper or after the paper is published? I want to submit my data and models after paper has been published, atleast abstract has been sent to a conference and accepted. Because I am afraid that my data and models may be used to publish paper in other students name. What is the general norm that is foolwed in these scenario? What should I tell to my supervisor?

Discuss the impending publication with your supervisor before submitting it for publication. A few reasons for this:

If your supervisor's name is going to be on the publication, you should absolutely talk to him/her about it, because publications should never be submitted unless they are approved by all authors.
If your supervisor cares about you, then he/she will want to know how you are progressing. Having a paper ready for publication is a notable milestone, so it is something to update your supervisor about.

If your data and models end up being used by other students, all the better for you, since it means they consider your work important enough to work on. They're not going to be able to publish before you since presumably your data and models are complicated enough that they won't be able to complete the work before your paper gets accepted, i.e. you have precedence.

The only scenario in which this could be a problem is if your supervisor is unethical enough to steal your results, give them to another student, and get them published in the new student's name ... but in that case, why is he/she still your supervisor? It would indicate it's well past time to change supervisors.


Two PhD programs simultaneously in different countries I am currently a PhD student in my own country. I am also applying to PhD programs in the US right now. My intent is to try and work for both degrees simultaneously because I am worried about the current political climate and want to have a back-up plan in case something goes very wrong in some way in my home country in the coming years.
I have seen cases when people go to a foreign institution, study there full-time and defend their doctoral thesis back home using the research done abroad (of course, their home institution agreed to that). May this lead to problems in the future? For example, may the US institution retract the degree it granted if it becomes aware of the student having been a student at a different institution simultaneously?

I think it would be a serious mistake to try and deceive either institution. You could wind up ostracized by both and expelled. If both agree that you can do this then the only problem is being able to accomplish the task.
But, of course, you would need to work on separate problems as you can't get two doctorates for the same work. Your advisors in both places need to have the possibility of contacting one another.
All in all it seems like a poor plan. If your home country is in turmoil, make an exit plan, certainly, but this doesn't seem like the correct one.
And one doctoral research program is usually plenty for anyone.


What can a letter writer say in a teaching letter to make a candidate stand out? When applying to faculty positions at teaching-focused institutions, recommendation letters that speak to a candidate's teaching ability are (presumably) very important. But often the person writing the teaching letter is a faculty member at a research-focused institution, where teaching experience of faculty applicants is not emphasized, and so they may not know how to write a good teaching letter (due to lack of experience evaluating such letters).

For example, Pete L. Clark said in this answer:

  Many teaching letters are not worthy of more than a very brief reading. They simply do not separate out the candidate or provide any really incisive or useful information. If teaching letters are to be believed, then approximately 99.5% of all candidates are above average teachers. Why do I find myself skeptical of this?

What are the characteristics of a strong teaching letter? What can a letter writer do to emphasize a candidate's teaching abilities in a way that makes them stand out?

Of course it will depend on the candidate... but I'm interested in hearing from users who have been on search committees at teaching-focused institutions, regarding what kind of things they look for or appreciate in teaching letters.

I've served on many search committees in a mathematics department.  At our institution teaching and research are both important, and I wouldn't describe our institution as entirely "teaching focused."

In my experience, most recommendation letters that address teaching don't show that the letter writer has actually observed the teaching of the job applicant and don't say much about what the applicant actually does in the classroom or how effective this was in promoting student learning.  I'm generally impressed by letters which describe direct observations of the candidate's teaching.

e.g. "Jane had average student evaluations of 4.0/5.0, which is very good in my department." isn't very helpful (especially since I can read the teaching evaluations that the candidate submitted with the application.)    On the other hand, I'd like to see something like "As the calculus course coordinator, I met with John on a weekly basis and regularly observed him in class.  His lectures were well organized, and he regularly incorporated pair-and-share and other active learning strategies.  In interacting with students he consistently has a positive and encouraging attitude.  I have never had to deal with complaints from students in his sections.  John's students also performed well above the course average on common final exams."


Should I add the "presenter certificate" to the paper presented at a conference? I have presented a paper at a conference and received a certificate proving that I was a presenter.  The conference does not have an English agenda, so it would not be easy for an application committee to find proof that I was the one who presented it online.  I am now submitting the paper as one of my writing samples for a Ph.D. application.  Should I attach the presenter certificate to the paper, in order to prove to the committee that I was really the one who presented it?

As per the answer to your previous question, you are not required to spontaneously supply proof for everything in your CV, and it would look extremely unusual to attempt to do so in this case.

The fact that you could be asked to substantiate anything written in your CV, and the consequences of subsequently being caught in a lie, are considered enough of a deterrent to prevent people from lying about their credentials. The standard practice in academia is not to include "proof" of everything on a CV unless explicitly asked for proof of some kind.

So in answer to your question of whether you should merge the "certificate of being a presenter" into the paper presented at the conference as part of your PhD application: No, you should not. You should not submit such a "certificate" at all unless you are explicitly asked for it, and I have never heard of anyone being asked for such a thing.


How to Deal with Unfair Grading in Team Work? I was a part of a project course for about four months working as a team member in one of the teams, the project was extremely hard for all of us, but we were working real good together keeping up, but out of three of us, one was being a bit lazier than the other and usually me and one other of team members was doing most of the things, I hate to say I did everything, but as far as this is a case of rights and equality, I want to say that preparing all the presentations, writing the final reports, programming-side, all was on me.. Now when the grades have come out, the person that did the least has got the highest grade (5), while me and the other team member who did most got lower grades than them (we got 4). It wouldn't irritate me as much if all three of us had gotten 4, but it's ridiculous when the person who had put the least effort has gotten 5..

Grading was based on team members grading each other plus the instructors in charge of the course grading people too. In grading team members, I gave everybody full points, and I am very sure everyone else in my team also gave me full points, I have no doubts about that.

How would you deal with such an unfair case?

It seems to me that faculty fall into two camps on graded group work: the first is the camp that avoids it where they can, because it seems to always involve asymmetric work and annoyance, and the second uses it because they think working in groups and dealing with the inherent difficulties therein is an important skill.

Without any additional context, it seems like your professor falls into the second group.  Either that or they simply haven't reflected on the matter and are doing it because they (or the people who taught them) have always done it.  Regardless, they are unlikely to be receptive to your complaints.  Unless this is their first time doing it, you can be certain others have complained about this in the past.  In other words, part of the lesson was probably you handling the dynamics of group work, including asymmetric productivity and quality.

I should also point out that you gave this person you claim did less work a top score.  This leaves you with a very difficult case to make.

If you do decide to protest to the professor about it, I would phrase it as a question.  You want to do better, and you thought your whole group worked well together, so you want to be clear on how one person on the same project got a higher score than everyone else.  Was it based on some work they did?  Was it based just on grades from each other?  You'll get a feel quickly if the professor is interested in hearing your defense of the issue, or if you should just move on and treat it as a lesson for the future about group work.


Can the university force me to share my courses publicly online? I want to use my course material to write a book in the future As a response for the Covid-19 pandemic, my university built an electronic platform, and is now ordering professors to share their courses on it.

The school platform is open to the public, so I'd rather not share my documents on it. I've been using Google Classroom to share content with my students.

Can I rightfully refuse to use the school's platform?

Can I rightfully refuse to use the school's platform?

TL;DR: legally, probably not, but you are still more or less in the right according to the norms of academia.

Longer answer:

This isn’t so much about rights in the legal sense. The underlying context is that there is a longstanding tradition in academia that faculty own the rights to written (and other) media they create as part of their work. This is the case in the US where these rights are pretty universally respected as far as I’m aware, and in many other countries, and is true despite the fact that legally, in the US at least, employers in general can (and, outside of academia, generally do) assert ownership of all intellectual property generated by employees in a work context.

In other words, academic institutions have quite intentionally and explicitly given up some of the legal ownership rights they are in principle entitled to. As far as I understand, the guiding philosophy here is that faculty exercise a lot more freedom and control over what kind of materials they produce compared to employees in other sectors. That means the work is regarded as being of a more personal, creative nature, and it was decided long ago that that should mean that faculty would be the owners of the work. (Note: I am talking specifically about copyright; for other forms of IP like patent rights, a quite different philosophy and different policies typically apply.)

Coming back to your question: I think you are quite right to be concerned. Your university is at the very least showing itself as somewhat deaf to these very old and well-established ideas. But can you “rightfully refuse”? Legally, that’s less clear. But it would be quite reasonable to express a concern. At my university the administration has provided reassurance to faculty that their copyright over teaching materials would be respected during the COVID-19 crisis, and we were given quite specific explanations on how our rights would be balanced against the need to deliver our teaching remotely, including providing recordings, what steps we can take to prevent students from sharing our materials, and more. Perhaps by raising the issue you and your colleagues can push your own administration to also think this through a bit more.

Let me finish by encouraging you to also adopt a more flexible and tolerant mindset. All of us are called upon these days to get out of our comfort zone and appear in online videos and recordings, use online platforms with awful records on privacy, and generally engage in activities that in normal times we might consider distasteful and privacy-violating. We do this with the understanding that exceptional times call for exceptional measures, and that the highest priority right now is to keep the lights on at our institutions. As I said, I think your concern is reasonable and probably you can reach some sensible understanding with your administration about your class materials. But while you discuss the issue with them, try to keep some perspective and not make yourself too much of a pain in the butt. As important and valid as this is, people do have worse things to worry about these days.


When to book a flight for a faculty interview? A friend of mine got an invitation for an interview late April, so he was thinking should he book the flight now, or wait until last few days, in case he was invited for another interview. However, waiting until last 4-5 days would increase the ticket price and in worst case may not have any seats available.

should he book the flight now, or wait until last few days, in case he was invited for another interview.

If your friend has a bit of time to spare, I think a reasonable first step would be to check the flight options that are available right now. If it were me, and if it is feasible (depending on where your friend lives and which airport(s) is(are) nearby), I might narrow down my search to direct-flight options since I don't want to be sitting in airports all day long.

From this information, you can get an idea of the current availability and, time permitting, you can occasionally track this as time draws near for the interview to see if you need to act (if availability is dwindling rapidly) or if you have time to wait for any additional on-site invites to roll in. I realize that folks typically don't have a lot of time to devote to tracking flight availability, but it doesn't hurt to check it every now and then.

I personally don't like to delay booking the flight less than a week prior to the interview. I should add, though, that, if your friend gets additional invites, nothing is stopping your friend from booking a flight from the airport near the institution he/she is interviewing at to the next interview destination.


Is there any unwritten rule in the academia regarding the rate of paper publication during the PhD? Is there any unwritten rule in the academia regarding the rate of paper publication by a PhD student?

I.e. how many paper publication per year is considered as a good performance for a PhD student?

How does that vary from 1st to last year?

The answer to this is dependent on too many things for any reasonable answer. In some fields it is unusual for a doctoral student to publish anything before finishing the dissertation and even that might be published after the degree is awarded, if at all.

In other fields it is common for the dissertation itself to be a summarization of some set of already published papers, but even then, the expectations will vary with the field and with the individual university. They might even vary with the advisor.

Of course, there are papers and there are papers. When publications are required a larger number of less significant papers may not outweigh even a single significant contribution.

The situation is complicated by normal practice in some lab sciences in which papers have a large number of authors and each contributes differently. In such fields, precisely where you are listed in the list of authors can be significant and can indicate the "amount" of contribution. There are many questions on this site that come from fierce disagreements over author placement. Again, however, having lots of minor placements might not get you very close to completion.

Number of papers produced is a terrible measure of productivity. Citations of those papers by others is a better measure.

But to get an answer that applies to yourself, ask your advisor or some other professor(s) in your field and at your university. That will yield the only meaningful expectation of your progress.


On the verge of being "fired" from post-doc position, how to act towards supervisor? I am in month 5 of an extremely unfulfilling post doc position in France. My sole responsibility is debugging 10k+ lines of spaghetti C++ code. I am a mechanical engineer and although I did my PhD with a focus on numerical simulations, debugging isn't what I envisioned myself doing.

My current supervisor has been "controlling my life" by controlling when I leave from work by strategically placing meetings at such times. He has also suggested on numerous times, quite explicitly that I must not leave work until he does; and he is a workaholic - works 12 hours a day. This has continued for the last 4 months and this has severely affected my health. I am now depressed, balding and have lost 15 pounds of body mass.

Today I had a conversation with the director of my research lab and he hinted that since things aren't working out, "I may be given enough time to find employment" and leave.

I am confused, hurt and extremely displeased to say the least.

Losing my job would be very problematic for me, as I am an Indian citizen and it would affect my ongoing H1B processing for a faculty position in the US starting next fall.

My current contract doesn't state what the "rules of being let go" are. All it says is that I am required to work 35 hours a week. I have consulted a lawyer "friend" and he tells me that most contracts are at will anyway and for foreign nationals, once your contract AND work status are revoked, you may not be able to fight the system.

Considering that I will be given a few weeks to a month or so perhaps, how do I behave towards my supervisor. Should I show up for work or just say screw it?

There are two problems here. An academic dilemma and a legal issue. The latter is specific to country's immigration, workplace rules, your residency status, etc., therefore I will politely keep the focus to the first one. There are also good comments to your post, so keep them in mind as well. Needless to say, the legal problem could be more intimate to your situation but you will find actual support from a legal authority as you yourself have stated. Now, to the academic dilemma at hand: first of all, I suggest talking with your supervisor and make your position clear in an honest sober way. Your problem is a practical one and need not to be emotional. Here, I would suggest and stress on keeping the best of relations with your supervisor (even if you decide to leave or they decide to let you go), especially if this is your first ever post-doc position. This is important for two reasons: first, you want to leave on good terms even if it didn't work out for you and so you don't need to give an impression of personal grudge. Second, there might be opportunities in future where you will have to work/collaborate with the said supervisor or the university. You also don't want to ruin the possibility of good references for your own future work from this university - hope things will work out for you, and my two cents help. Good luck.


How can I make up for weak grades while applying for a masters? I feel I've received poor grades in my bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering - Second Class Second Division as per UK grading system. Having finished my bachelors in the UK I wish to enroll into a masters program in Systems or Mechanical Engineering in the US. I am currently employed by a logistics company in Dubai.

How can I improve my chances of getting into a grad school in the US with what I consider as poor grades? What other factors can strengthen my application?

I would look for a purely taught program (i.e., no research component) terminal masters program and demonstrate that you can, and expect to, self fund. The expectations of self funded students on terminal masters programs are very different from masters programs designed to feed into PhD programs. I would also target smaller programs where applications are looked at more throughly. The US system relies on standardized tests. Take the GRE and a subject test and do well (really well). Finally, think about why you did poorly in you undergraduate studies and what has changed since then. Then figure out how to express that in your statement of purpose.


Is it possible for reviewers to mistakenly reject a quality paper? If I am not wrong, turbo codes was submitted to the ICC conference and rejected but accepted later on.

I want to know if there are other similar works (strong works) that were rejected at first but then accepted and considered revolutionary.

Higgs's 1964 paper on the Higgs mechanism was rejected by Physics Letters (where his preliminary paper on the subject was published).

He was told that it was not suitable for rapid publication and that he should send it to another journal. However, he reportedly heard that the paper had been rejected because the editors felt that "it was of no obvious relevance to physics."

Apparently, Higgs acknowledged that the paper "had been short on sales talk," and after adding a couple of paragraphs it was accepted by Physical Review Letters.

Here is an early example of manuscript rejection, from 1842: Mayer came up with the theory of conservation of energy, and wrote an article explaining his idea that "energy is neither created nor destroyed." It was rejected by the leading physics journal of the time, ended up in an obscure chemistry journal, and was mostly ignored by physicists. When the physicists of the time rallied around Joule, who described conservation of energy later in the 1840s, Mayer suffered a mental breakdown. Towards the end of his life, he was finally given credit as a father of thermodynamics.

Nature declined to accept Krebs's paper on the "Krebs cycle" in 1937. The work later won a Nobel Prize. The letter from the editor regretfully informs Mr. Krebs that the editor already has "sufficient letters" for the next 7-8 weeks.

The seminal paper on quantum cryptography, Wiesner's “Conjugate Coding,” was rejected by the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. (A surviving copy of the original typewritten manuscript says "Submitted to IEEE, Information Theory" on it.) It was published about a decade later.

In the same subfield, the original manuscript by Bennet, Brassard and Breidbart that introduced quantum key-recycle scheme (QKRS) was rejected several times by major CS conferences including STOC, and was never successfully published.

Ernst's work on nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, which won the 1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was rejected not once, but twice, by the Journal of Chemical Physics.

Binning and Rohrer's report on their first experiments in scanning tunneling microscopy, which earned them a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986, was initially rejected on the grounds that it was "not interesting enough."

These are just a few examples. Many more have been compiled in various publications:

Here are some more Nobel-prize-winning papers that were rejected at first.
Here is a compilation of classic economics papers rejected the first time around.
And here are some famous papers in the field of medicine that were rejected the first time around.
This paper lists influential rejected papers, of which several earned their authors Nobel prizes and several became the most cited papers in their respective journals.
And here are some more reports of Nobel laureates who encountered resistance from reviewers and editors to their award-winning work.
And, yet another list.


How do PhD admissions look at A- grades from a Master's student in Math? I'm currently graduating with a M.S degree in Mathematics and looking into applying to PhD programs in Mathematics this Fall.

My GPA overall is in the 3.90+ range. Course grades are either A- or A. About 30% of them are A- with two or three courses I would assume to be critical.

I was wondering how PhD admissions view these A- in general. Talking with some of my professors and adviser, either admission committees would take A- as an A (not care) or have some concern, especially in those critical courses. Within the department, A- is more of "you did what you're supposed to, but you could've done better".

Overall, I think I have a strong application (great recommendations, high Subject Math GRE score, some experience in research), so I'm not too concerned, but how concerned should I be?

I will admit I'm being nit-picky, pedantic, and need to worry about more important things in life.

Your letters of recommendation will be much, much more important than the difference between an A- and an A. Spend your time on getting the strongest letters you can (and learning how to do this, if necessary).

Source: I have served on grad admissions for a top math department.


Can I ask for authorship/acknowledgement for writing small data analysis program for a large study? Earlier this year I entered into a high-profile molecular biology lab and started doing wet lab work (I am an undergraduate). Knowing that I have a computational background, my PI asked that I also help with a project that had been conducted over the last two years and was nearing its completion. I was told that if I made enough of a contribution that I could be listed as a coauthor. I wrote a program for the post-doc that is leading this project and used it to analyze the validity of part of his data. The most current (nearly final) version of the project's manuscript that is being passed around the lab unfortunately don't have my name anywhere on it, even though my code is listed in the supplementary information section.

I have always heard that you should get an authorship on a paper if your work resulted in a figure or sizable part of the discussion. My contribution to this project only slightly altered one figure, ensured the figure's validity, and got about 2 sentences in the discussion. My relationship with my lab and my PI especially is very important to me (I would love to continue my work here for at least another 2 years), so is it worth asking for a co-authorship, or at least an acknowledgement? Would doing so be inappropriate given my relative contribution (a month vs. 2 years) and status as an undergraduate in the lab?

Asking whether a contribution merits acknowledgement or co-authorship is always appropriate, as long as it is done in a professional and non-confrontational way.

The answer may be "no," but it's certainly worthwhile to ask. (And if the answer is "no," at least you have learned something about standards for authorship and acknowledgement in your lab/field.)