Is it academically dishonest to submit the same project to two different classes in the same semester? I overheard a student who said that they would use a project done in another course that semester as the final project in an entirely different course. (Let's call the original course Course 0 and the second course Course 2.)

I know it's bad practice to submit work to a class which had been submitted in previous semesters, but I've never heard of anyone turning in the same work to two different classes concurrently before. (Perhaps because opportunities to do so are rare?)

In any event, my initial feeling is that this is dishonesty, but I can't put the reason why into words.

So, is submitting the same project to course 0 and course 2 concurrently dishonest?

For the record: the project involves coding in a certain software (not for the sake of coding, it's just a means to an end), I do not know the name of the student who expressed their intent to do this, but I do know the professors of both courses. I'll edit this section with more pertinent information should anyone want it.

EDIT For the Comments:

The code really is a means to an end, and I furthermore would not describe either course as a programming course. The idea is to perform data analysis on a dataset of the student's choosing.

Whether it is or not, the professors in the courses will have the last say. If either of them considers it dishonest or otherwise improper, for any reason, you will wind up in a bad place.

But there is an easy way out. Just ask both of them for permission to do this. They might say yes, or no, but then you have a clear answer. They might also give permission provided that you go a bit beyond the bare essentials to demonstrate sufficient work (and seriousness) to cover both.

But doing it without notice or permission seems dangerous, no matter the ethics.

And, you can even come off looking good on this if you actually make an offer to do more than the minimum and submit the result to both. It might mean a bit less work for you overall, and might also teach you some things you wouldn't otherwise have learned. Even for a previously submitted project, offering to extend the old work can be a plus.

FWIW, I would probably be inclined to permit it, with the proviso of some added requirements.

And, I actually did this in secondary school because I changed schools. I asked an instructor at the new place if I could submit a report that I'd previously worked on, but wasn't actually graded for (since I left). I was given permission and it saved me a bit of work.


Rejection of a job offer in favor of another. Is it worth trying to fight back for the first one? I have a problem - I am looking for a job and I was on one of the job interviews, which due to the type of this job(electronics constructor/designer) it was the "target" choice that I dreamed about. The only drawback of the offer itself was that it is in a city far from the city where I come from.
Although I like this city anyway, the fact of moving and arranging my life completely from scratch has made me feel that I have to be a bit more careful with job searching, otherwise the possible failure in new job will cost me much more.

Unfortunately, it is not without significance that in my own region to find a similar job is almost impossible without experience - and my experience is only as hobbyist and and a little from the university (master degree).
In the meantime, however, after I agrred to join #1 workplace and waiting for a job letter with official employment offer, another company called me, but now in my neighborhood, to which I applied a long time ago and arranged a job interview the same day, 2 hours after. However, they offered me a completely different position in the office, related more to the supply of electrical parts.
On the one hand, at first, they offered financial conditions very similar to 1 # job (it was suspicious, because I used to be in the internship four years ago in #2 workplace as an electrician and I know that in general they paid very little to most employees), but this kind of job was not my dream and I still preferred to be in the electronics developing team - just like in # 1 job.

However, after all, after 2 days (although the boss from 2 # job insisted at the beginning, to let him know about the decision on the same day as the conversation), I chose the second job, which wasn't an easy decision. I still had remorse, but somehow I was explaining myself that it would somehow go away.
At the end I will write why I did not finally take the first offer.
But then something that disappointed me happened. The company boss # 2 arranged all terms of cooperation with me (including monthly wage) with me and directed me to make occupational medicine before work. On the second day I was to receive a referral for this research, but an hour before HR recruiter call me and says that the boss decided to reduce the monthly salary by about 20%, which made me (dutifully or not) angry. I quit this offer no. #2 finally, but and I know that if it was not a fraud and missing a promise of the company, I would choose the first offer (#1).

Why I rejected #1 job at first? I analyzed my fears, motivation, all pros and cons (both a few days ago and at the moment) and I know that:
1) #2 job boss pulled the wool over my eyes with potential opportunities, "fake" salary and why am I the most suitable person. First workplace employees were more careful and conservative when it comes to talking about work. Once, they even stated that their work is specific (after all, a work related in a way to the military industry). More infos I really learned from the profiles of other electronic designers from their linkedin profiles. the fact, however, that they called me for an interview a little later than they promised, in addition, they asked me for patience, because the recruitment is delayed in time.
I already sensed that they did not like someone like me with a miserable experience, but now I was sure they were waiting for somebody more experienced - and ultimately they might take me for lack of other possibilities. And that's how it initially happened - before I rejected their offer in favor of work no. # 2, I rejected # 1.

Now I see that I lost with my naivety and ability to persuade skill of the boss no. # 2. I lost also with my fear of the unknown, which in combination with moving so far from my home, probably also a lack of believing in my own abilities caused that I got scared of offer # 1, which I regret; c

It could never hurt to contact job #1. Maybe they will still need you. I would recommend that you avoid telling them that you are only applying to them because another job rejected you. People do not like being the fallback plan. Simply explain that with more time to consider your options, you came to realize that Job #1 is an excellent opportunity and that the move/distance from you current location should not be a barrier to pursing the important opportunity with #1.

Understand, of course, that they may have already filled the position with someone else. In that case, all you can do is move on.

p.s. Never deal with people who renege on agreed to terms of employment. That should never be tolerated.


Assistant professor does not collaborate with or cite fellow department members, despite them being experts on the topic I serve on a Promotion and Tenure committee for an assistant professor who has (in my opinion) a lack of professional courtesy and collaborative attitude. This professor will collaborate and publish with graduate students or faculty at other institutions.

However, has conducted at least 5 small research projects, that have been published in regional or national research conferences, where faculty in our own department who are experts in the field were not included and even their previous published research not referenced (I think there's a clear issue with reviewers, but).

Only after it is clearly and sometimes loudly pointed out "you did this whole project and didn't even reference any of XXX's work or ask them to be part of the study in his/her area" will this faculty member ask people to review the article for journal submission.

Further, there are a few faculty across the country, who could be external reviewers for this individual. They have also witnessed this lack of collaboration and professionalism.

While collaboration is not a measure of success in the P&T process, the quality of the research conducted and published should be.

My questions are:

How do I guide, mentor this young faculty member through the promotion and tenure process, so that they understand the importance of collaborating with the experts within the department?

How do I address this issue during the P&T meeting with the rest of the committee?

You seem to think that an assistant professor should collaborate within your department.  However, a more common view is that an assistant professor should be an independent researcher.  An assistant professor should clearly distinguish their research from that of other faculty at the same institution.  Assistant professors do not want to be asked, "Why should we grant you tenure when we already have a tenured professor who can do the same research?"

Without more detail added to the question, it sounds like the assistant professor's collaboration strategy is okay.


How to deal with an unreasonable reviewer asking to cite irrelevant articles? Two years ago, when I was doing my master’s degree, I was working on a computational project. My supervisor was well-known in the field and a highly reputed person. We were doing a great job, trying to solve a long-standing problem.

When we made significant progress in our work, we wanted to publish it in a journal that has significant outreach for works related to our problems (We were working on flow acoustics). So we submitted out our article to a journal. The article went into review. Came back after two months. There were two referees. One of them was positive and then came the arrogant reviewer report.

  I feel that the authors of the article have no knowledge of how certain computational methods can never reproduce physics.

  Authors should try to reproduce the result with more reliable experimental procedures. [cites two articles from author A, B, and C]

  Furthermore though the computational method is validated against work of author D, I believe authors should at least try to validate their procedure with works of [cites again different article from author A, C, and B, C, E and X, C]

  Authors did not cite relevant literature [mulitple articles from author C]

  I recommend publication after major revision.

It is rather obvious that author C is either our reviewer or someone close to our reviewer who is asking to cite irrelevant articles and threatens to reject our work on no scientific basis (our computational methodology was well established, robustly proved, highly cited and widely used). Unfortunately, the journal had no appeal process.

We wrote in our rebuttal to the editor that if author C is one of the reviewers, we would like to be peer-reviewed by a different reviewer.

However, the editor never seemed to care. No care was taken by the journal to provide us a fair review. Is there an efficient way to tackle such arrogant reviewers?

From your answer, we can guess that you received a "major revision" decision. In that situation, your job is to modified your manuscript according to the reviewers' comments, not to try to find out who are the reviewers. Taken out of context, the comments you mention do not seem arrogant. Those comments are usual demands from reviewer, but I can't judge, not knowing your work, if they are relevant.

In that context, you deal with those comments like with any other comments:

You accept and make the changes where appropriate.
If the comments are not applicable, you explain why to the editor and let him/her judge.


How do you deal with extremely timid/shy students in small classes? Note: I'm not an academic, but I had a student like this as a colleague while in high school (12-18 in a school for students with Asperger's)* myself and I think that this is a worthwhile subject to discuss.

Sometimes you have one or two REALLY shy students in a class with a small headcount. Students that never raise their hands in class, never ask questions, never notify that they have a problem,... The really severe cases will internally panic when you ask them a question and just shut down completely, not even making a sound or a response.

They aren't bad students, far from it. They make their assignments, score well on tests and succeed in the exercises. They just are REALLY passive in the classroom, to the point of almost starting to cry when the teacher asks them something. They also only have that problem in class: when they're among friends during non-class time, like lunch or break, they're quite open and talk rather freely.

As an example, the student from above was so shy that he couldn't introduce himself during the very first week. In the first 2 years, he couldn't give any public speeches, even after much encouragement from the teacher. You couldn't get any more than 2 consecutive words out of him. When the teacher addressed him because they wanted to involve him, he did the above mentioned shutdown, even after repeated encouragement. He loosened up somewhat over the years, but it was still such a surprise when he first willingly raised his hand (sometime in the 4th year), that he got a positive note in his weekly report just for that.

The problem is that it's not always immediately obvious if the student struggles with something. Sometimes, a student like this hopelessly fails an entire class because he didn't understand something from the first year and was too shy to ask for help.

What methods can a teacher use for students like this?

*While I mention a student from SEN education, this question also can apply to non-SEN students. And while this question mentions a high-school student (which I understand is not entirely on-topic in here), it also applies to higher education with smaller groups.

I think stating very clearly that you are available to answer questions (and not just while in class) like office hours or before/after class is important. Some students are more comfortable with email, make sure they know they have your email and that it's ok to use it. Give some positive reinforcement when students ask questions.

I teach graphic design so I don't have a lot of students (20 at most usually) and a lot of classroom time is dedicated to problem-based learning and most of my teaching is coaching. I go see every student to check how they're doing and ask if they have any questions. It's difficult for them to get their work criticized in front of everyone at first so I'll do small group meetings instead of whole class presentations.

I think most shy people can open up when they're around people they trust so I think establishing trust with the student as a teacher is crucial. You can make them work in small teams so they get to know each other better and build up slowly from there.

I don't think it's something you can fix in a single course so there is only so much you can do without affecting the whole classroom.


What can a student do if he has problems with homework problems that he is unable to solve? In university courses, is it possible or good habit to ask help for homework exercises one can't solve? I mean, someone might think it is cheating but on the other hand, should a student be stuck in some particular problem for days?

The course I take is about version control on git and there are questions in an online system. One question has six different true/false questions, where one can choose on different alternatives. The system has informed me that my answer is incorrect; however, it does not explain why my answer is incorrect, and I'm not able to figure that out by myself.

In higher education, the role of educators is to help facilitate students' learning. One of the main mechanisms for that is to provide students with high-quality feedback on their assessments. Simply delivering lectures is not very efficient.  Testing students using multiple-choice questions through automatic tools is also not very efficient. Even giving students a grade without explanation how it was produced is not very efficient.

If you are struggling with a task, you should approach your lecturer/professor, show them your best attempt, and ask for feedback, specifically, an explanation what is incorrect in your attempt and what you should work on to improve your understanding of the subject. And no, "your answer is wrong because computer says no, now go away and try again until it says yes" is not good enough. Politely ask for clarification of the relevant material, not mechanics of the automatic assessment.


Should I take the TOEFL exam if I have graduated from a high school in the U.S.? I am currently a B.Tech. student in India, and am applying for Master's courses in the U.S. I took the GRE exam a week ago.

Does having graduated from high school in the U.S., where English is the native language, count as certification that my English is good enough? Should I still take the TOEFL exam?

Every school words the requirements, if any, for the TOEFL a little differently. For example, Harvard GSAS:

  Applicants whose native language is other than English and who do not hold the equivalent of a US Bachelor's degree from an institution at which English is the language of instruction must submit scores from the Internet based test (IBT) of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)

A quick look suggests that in general native language and the language of your Bachelor's degree is what matters and not the language of your high school.


Is there a search engine to show citing articles' extracts Sometimes we need to see what other researchers say about a specific article. Usually, I check citing articles manually then search for my specific articles in their references.

Is there a search engine that can show extracts from the citing articles. Following is an example to clarify this.

Article (1) is cited by Article (2)
I am looking for a search engine to show that Article (2) cited Article (1) as well as to show where Article (1) was cited inside Article (2).

You can use www.semanticscholar.org to see the extractions of the paper citing the specific article you want. In other words, you will see what and how other researchers use that paper, if applicable.
To do so, you need to type and search for the paper you want. You will see a section called "Citations: Publications citing this paper," and you can read the extractions from this section.
It is easy to use and free. The only limitation of this service is that it might not cover all databases as much as google scholars or other paid services. However, they are increasing their coverage day by day. In any way, it is a useful website to add your research arsenal.


How do I cite an unpublished work in my paper? which incidentally is my second submission to the same conference The problem is I completed a work earlier and did another work which extends this work. However, I haven't got the earlier work published. I plan to send these two papers to a conference but I do not know how to cite the work of first paper in second paper.

Many people, including myself, use the following style:

  Author. “Paper Title,” manuscript, year.

  e.g.:
  [13] A.N. Author, “Paper Citation Rules,” manuscript, 2013.

If it's your paper you can also cite it as

  Author. “Paper Title,” submitted, year.

The proper citation style may depend on the conference you submit your paper to. In my area, theoretical computer science, there are no strict citation rules.


Postdoc in the US : what salary should I ask for I live in France and I'm currently applying for postdoc positions in fundamental mathematics, at several universities in the US and elsewhere. For my application at the University of Denver, I'm asked to give my desired salary, and I have no idea what to answer... I don't know at all what are the standards in the US, I don't even know if it's homogeneous or depends on states... So two questions:

1) Do you have an idea of what could be a standard income for such a position? (To be more precise, it's a visiting assistant professorship with a teaching load of five undergraduate courses over three quarters during the 9-month academic year.)

2) I don't know if the desired salary is taken into account during the search process. Do you think I should ask for a lower salary in order to have more chances to be hired? Or should I, on the contrary, ask for a higher one and expect they will bargain?

Thank you in advance, I'm a bit lost since it doesn't work at all in the same way in France...

First, it is important to understand that a visiting assistant professor position isn’t a postdoc in the sense that you are being hired primarily for research and based on your research background.  This position will be funded by the institution rather than by grants. Teaching will be an important part of the job, and your teaching experience will be important in the selection process.

The American Mathematical Society publishes an annual survey of faculty salaries.  I’d encourage you to look at the survey to get a sense of the range of faculty salaries in the US. Figure that a VAP will be paid slightly less than a first year tenure track assistant professor.  If I had to guess, I’d expect a position like this at UD to pay somewhere between $60K and $70K.


How to quote from a source in a different language I'm writing an essay in English, but much of my source material is in Spanish (my first language). I know how to reference my sources in the bibliography, but how do I quote within the text? Do I translate it myself and still use quotation marks?

Your method sounds good. Indicate somehow that you translated, either by saying so once at the beginning of your essay, or individually with each quotation.

General advice: Who are you writing this for?  If for a a class, ask the instructor.  If for a journal, consult the editor.


How can I conduct research when my college has no such facility? In developing countries like Nepal, people don't usually carry research activities during undergrad studies, but I want to get into it from undergrad itself. I am currently studying research articles, consulting professors and will be contacting governement research organisation to ask for support for devices required.

Since you specified Nepal, I'd like to make a suggestion - there are some excellent research institutes in India where you can apply to be a 'Junior Research Fellow' after completing your Bachelor's. You won't get a degree, but you will get a modest stipend and the chance to boost your research profile.

I had some friends from Nepal during my undergraduate studies, and a few of them applied to these places, got selected, and after a year and a half of doing research there, went on to top-notch European and American institutes to do graduate studies. I hope you look into it. Good luck!


Global database of study programmes? I'm interested in finding all undergraduate/graduate study programmes on the topic of "Sustainable Consumption".

Is there a global database across all universities and teaching institutions that allows the user to search for study programmes filtered by a certain topic?

I'm not sure that you will find a global database, but for graduate studies and beyond, the Euraxess portal is pan-European and all EU-funded positions must be advertised through it. Unfortunately, "Sustainable Consumption" does not return any hits on the job search, but perhaps other keywords will be more successful.


Mentioning student name changes in a letter of recommendation What is the best protocol for handling a student whose name has changed from the time when a letter writer knew the student. For instance, suppose Pat Jones has become Pat Smith. Do we write

  Pat Smith (né(e) Jones)

or is this unnecessary? I would think that the name should match what's in the rest of the application, but I would imagine it would also be helpful to make sure that the name change is noted, just in case there's some inconsistencies in the overall record (for instance, I doubt that all universities would change transcripts of alumni).

Why not ask the student what they would prefer?  I can imagine situations (for example, if the student changed what gender they identify with) where they might not want the name change mentioned too much, or they might appreciate you explaining the circumstances.  You're writing the letter for student's benefit, after all.


What differentiates Bioinformatics from Computational Biology? I am a university level student of Computer Science. I like to know what really differentiates Bioinformatics from Computational Biology in terms of the core area of study and the nature of subjects and curriculum. In addition, which discipline is more Math/Stats oriented or in other words which one requires sound foundation and skills in Maths and Statistics and what level of Math/Stats is desired?

I am including these links here so that everyone can look into the right definitions of these interdisciplinary fields of study:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_biology
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_and_theoretical_biology

Looking forward to professional academic information and advice. Thank you

I often see the word Bioinformatics more related to DNA and sequencing than Computational Biology. It is more descriptive.
Computational Biology seems more used when referring to proteins structure, interactions or drug design. It is usually more guided.

In Wikipedia both terms are synonymous.


Can I force my professor to give me a copy of his powerpoint presentation? In a class, students asked the professor to give us a copy of his powerpoint presentations, but he refused and claimed this is personal property.

Students need the presentations to review the topics presented throughout the semester.

Is the course presentation personal property of the professor or part of the educational materials which must be delivered to the students?

  Edit:  Related question, but from the perspective of the faculty member:
  Is it common to provide digital notes (slides or handwritten) for students?

You wrote:

  Students need the presentations to review

Back when I was your age (of course I have no idea of your age but I am guessing you are a traditional undergraduate student), we had to take notes using these two antique tools called pen and paper.

I don't think even one of my professors gave me anything, other than pausing so I had time to write down the important points.

You have to take some responsibility for your education - don't just blame the professor for not handing you what you want.

There is teaching research showing that students who take notes retain much more information than those who do not. It could very well be that the professor is trying to take advantage of this knowledge to force you to learn more.

dmckee's answer is also great. The prof might be using this as leverage but in the end, you did not create the slides, they are not yours to demand. While many profs do freely give out their slides, it is actually unreasonable for you to demand them.


I am going to start my PhD in the next few months. How you would you recommend that I start networking? I am an Indian and I will be starting as a Chemical Engineering Ph.D. student in the US this fall semester and I am looking for some tips regarding how I should start networking before I start my graduate studies.

Professional networking is best done in person, therefore if you want to begin networking before you start your graduate studies your options will be limited. Check various social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) to see if any of the researchers/students at the school have social/networking groups set up. If they do, try joining/following those groups, introduce yourself as a new student and take it from there.

Additionally, check the university website to find the list of professors in the department. Usually these lists include their email address and a link to their research websites, or a list of their research interests and publications. Identify a couple researchers whose work interests you and skim a few of their most recent papers. Then, contact them, let them know you're an incoming student and you've read their work (mention a specific paper of theirs you liked) and ask if you could meet them to discuss their work when you arrive in September. That way, you can introduce yourself to several professors and make it easier to establish contact with them when you arrive.


What are the benefits for a PhD student working on small problems vs solving a big problem? I am a PhD student working in theory (computer science). I am confused about one thing, and I am only the researcher in my group. I work on 2-3 small problems which I am trying to combine and publish. Although my results on these 2-3 problems are not big (the idea is also not big), I have tried to solve 2-3 small problems and have gotten a result that makes a paper, according my colleagues in the university. I have seen researchers (very senior) whose work seems to be very non-trivial to me (as compared to me). I am confused about this: should I work on one particular problem for a year and get a result (there is a high risk with this thing) or should I work on 2-3 small problems and combine them to make a result?

Question: For a PhD student, what is good about working on a few small problems vs solving a big problem? I have heard and have seen the profile of some professors in which they say/write that PhD students (mostly) do survey kind of things. I don't know this is true or not.

[I'm an American theoretical computer scientist; some of this advice will not translate well to other fields and countries.]

  I am confused about this: should I work on one particular problem for a year and get a result (there is a high risk with this thing) or should I work on 2-3 small problems and combine them to make a result?

Neither.  You should work on problems if and only if

You find them interesting.
You enjoy being frustrated by them.
You have time and energy to work on them.
You (and your advisor) believe you can make progress on them.
You (and your advisor) believe you can convince your target community to care about them.

As a beginning PhD student, your first goal should be to publish something.  Don't worry about whether it's big or small.  It doesn't have to be important.  It doesn't have to have anything to do with your later thesis research.  It doesn't have to be in a top venue, although it does have to be in a venue that people actually care about.  Your only goal here is to successfully walk through the process of writing, submitting, revising, publishing, and presenting a research result, so that later, when your much harder research isn't going well—and that will happen—you have direct evidence that you can do publishable research.

Once you have that, your next two goals are (1) publish something at a top conference in your field, and (2) have something rejected from a top conference in your field, and then later publish it anyway.  Note that these two goals can be met by the same paper.  Satisfying these goals requires understanding the expectations/standards/style/taste of the community you're aiming for; this understanding is far more important than (but related to) whether the result is "big" or "small".  Again, both of these goals are important bulwarks against Impostor Syndrome.

If you've gotten this far, whether your realize it or not, you've built up some significant expertise and intuition that is unique to yourself.  Exploit it.  Your next goal is to exploit that and publish two or three papers on some common theme — similar tools, or similar problems, or at least similar venues.  You don't have to fix the theme in advance; you may not even understand what the theme is until you're done, and that's fine.  Your earlier papers can be used as part of this body of work, but they don't have to be.

In parallel, you absolutely must publish something without your advisor.  That can be part of your coherent body of work, but it doesn't have to be.  It can be a solo paper or with other collaborators; that doesn't matter so much.  But it is absolutely vital that your advisor is not a coauthor.  In particular, your advisor must not contribute enough to the paper to deserve to be a coauthor—gift non-authorship is just as unethical as gift authorship.

On the other hand, your advisor must be fully aware and supportive of your independent work, while they keep their hands off.  If your advisor is likely to object to you working independently, you need a new advisor.  (If your advisor's objections are dictated by your university, you need a new university.)

Once you have a coherent body of work, all that's left to do unify the presentation (especially the terminology and notation), write a coherent introduction/literature survey/conclusion, cram everything into the horrible thesis style dictated by your university, and convince your thesis committee that you're done.  Congratulations, it's a thesis!  This is the easiest of all the steps listed so far, and by far the least important.

Over time, as you gain experience and confidence, your results will naturally get "bigger" (at least on average).  Don't worry about making it happen; as long as you keep working on things that you enjoy being frustrated by, it'll happen on its own.


Would a paper on the integration of multiple technologies make sense? I am currently working on a project for my research internship. This basically consists in taking a few pre-existing concepts and pieces of technology and combining them into a new product/tool.

Apart from publishing results of testing the tool's effectiveness at solving the problem, would it be possible to publish a paper about its development? or does the fact that no new technology was created not make it novel research?

I work in the field of robotics applied to the human body. The device will help users maintain a proper posture.

I realize this might be opinion based, but I still feel that it's relevant.

The general criteria for something being publishable is that it advances human knowledge in some way.

As you note, it is clear that a scientific publication can be made about the efficacy of your creation at its intended task.

Whether there is anything else beyond that, however, depends on whether the things that were learned during the development and integration process are interesting and generalizable in some way.  Some possibilities:

Did you have to combine the existing elements in an unusual or unexpected manner?
Was there a process that you followed that will make it easier to design more things of the same type?
Was this an example of an emerging set of cross-field collaborations that in itself would be interesting to tell other practitioners about? (e.g., is "postural robotics" an area with a lot of potential that other roboticists would like to hear about?)

It might still be, however, that there are no other papers in this particular effort at the moment---and if so, that's OK too.  Don't try to slice the salami any thinner than it should be.


Can I apply to CS graduate programs and take a year off before actually enrolling? I am a 4th year Math and CS undergrad with definite plans to enter graduate school. However, I know that I want to take a year off between graduation and grad school, but I don't know if I can apply this year and take a leave of absence or something like that. Should I not apply and apply after my year off?

As keshlam truly mentioned, you need to check the existence of any deferral plan for that program.

If your admitted position would be a course-based one (like MEng), the deferral possibility would be applicable, noticeably. But in the case of the research-based programs (like M.Sc., M.A.Sc., Ph.D. and so on), the deferral chance might not be high, because such positions are often defined based on the funding, provided by either industrial or governmental customers and would not be postponed, considerably. If so, you have to reconsider to apply.


Is knowledge of foreign languages per se helpful for graduate applications? Would this be considered at all, or is this not even important? I am not talking about fields which have these foreign languages as their object of study, or where it is obvious that the language would help (if I were to study French Literature, knowledge of French would obviously be important).

But what about fields which are primarily English, so say I want to do my PhD in Political Theory. There are probably a few articles in foreign languages I could make use of, but English seems just fine. Would knowing a foreign language still be an advantage, or not really?

I'd say that if the programme(the course) does not include or require any other language than English, the knowledge of the other languages "might be"(so it does not have too much chance) taken in consideration. This probably also depends on in which country you are going to study your PhD. But they focus on mostly the subjects related to the course, and the degree you have graduated with. But I think it would help you getting a job after your studies. After all, if you learn a new language you don't lose anything but gain knowledge of a different culture (unless you consider the time spent for learning is lost and was not worth).


Can individual sharing of a published article form a copyright violation? It is very common for researchers to share published articles upon individual requests, and many copyright transfer statements explicitly allow this.

In the case that the copyright transfer statement does not explicitly allow sharing the published article in any form, is it allowed to share a published article upon request? So suppose that the copyright statement is completely mute on the topic, it simply transfers all copyright aspects to the publisher, except for intellectual property etc. In that case, as the author of the article, is it even forbidden to mail a version to a fellow researcher, or a co-author of the article?

Does this also hold for the pre-print version? For an early draft?

Sending a published article to a colleague, or to someone else who has requested it, or even to a co-author, almost certainly qualifies as distribution, which is one of the six rights reserved to the copyright holder under US law. So yes, technically it would be illegal. There is a fair use "exemption" that could be relevant in some cases, but that varies depending on the specific circumstances.

Whether this also applies to a preprint or to an earlier draft depends on whether those things are included in the copyright transfer agreement.

Of course, as mentioned in the comments, it's unlikely that a journal publisher would care enough to actually make a court case out of a researcher sharing just a few copies of a paper. Honestly, it's unlikely they'll even find out.


Do academics actually work "full-time"? My current postdoc position requires that I work 41 hours per week during a 5-day work week.  As my first post-graduate position, I decided to take this seriously and actually track my hours. (People at labs have to do this anyway, so I figured it could be a helpful habit.)  I found that except for the weeks where I definitively over work, I often can't meet 41 full, productive hours.  Accounting rigorously for breaks, I often fall short by a couple hours, and even then, I know that some hours I log as working, I'm usually struggling to focus.  Most weeks I feel guilty and make up for the hours by staying late or working over the weekend, which is of course undesirable.

So I wonder: is anyone actually productive all hours of their work week?  Is there any research on how to optimize one's mental energy during the work week?

Please refrain from answers like, "You're being too hard on yourself." I'm a freshly minted PhD, of course I'm being too hard on myself.

Full time is a misleading term. Postdocs, I suppose, normally have supervisors who set the conditions for work. Something like what you've experienced. You meet those expectations or you have problems. So yes, such people normally work full time by the supervisor's definition of it. It may include scheduled hours or not. Lab work often needs to be scheduled, but some lab work needs to go on day and night.

Professors, on the other hand, especially tenured professors, normally don't have supervisors in the same sense. They set their own conditions of work. They set a schedule and keep to it sufficiently well that they can be productive. But the schedule might be erratic.

I've known professors who are able to take off a couple of hours in the middle of the day to take a bike ride. But they may also work after supper or on week ends. I doubt that many of them keep a listing of total hours worked. I never did.

In fact, intellectual work is better driven by ideas than by a clock. If I'm building something important, the clock may completely abandon me and I'll work until I am exhausted or the idea flow stops. If I don't have any interesting ideas, then sitting at a desk or computer has no value whatever. I'm better off going off on a walk or something relaxing. That doesn't mean that my brain shuts off. I just stop trying to force it to work when it won't.

Time is a terrible measure of productivity for intellectual work. There is no assembly line for good research ideas, though proving it out can be a bit more methodical, even tedious. But that's why post docs work a fixed schedule.


Negotiating with journal publishers about intellectual property of the paper? One of my colleagues told me authors after acceptance can negotiate about the intellectual property (IP) rights. It is frustrating to wait for peer review long times, and after acceptance publisher asks you to agree with his copyright without any modification.

I am keen to know when is the best time to negotiate my IP rights? Can I write to the publisher when the paper is under review (or even before submission)?

I would not try to negotiate author rights before the paper is accepted, for two reasons.  First, from the point of view of the editor and the publisher, it is premature and may be a waste of time (since, statistically at least, your paper has a significant chance of being rejected).  Second, this negotiation could, in principle, influence the decision about whether to accept your paper (though of course it shouldn't).

Instead, educate yourself on what the publisher will allow, beforehand.  Use the Sherpa/RoMEO database to know what rights a publisher will allow you, before you choose where to submit.  If you choose a journal that already allows you the rights you want, then you will avoid the problem altogether.

Finally, after acceptance use the SPARC addendum to assert the rights you intend to retain.

For one story of negotiations where I didn't follow my own advice -- but things turned out fairly well -- see this blog post.


How to gracefully leave a lab due to poor infrastructure and aiming to move into a new field of research? I am an early career postdoc in a prestigious high-ranking university in US. I did my PhD in from a good state university in US and published a decent number of papers. My current PI has no expertise in my field but wanted to delve into a completely different area and hired me to start a brand-new project. I have obtained some preliminary data that can be used in grant application but nothing publication worthy. I believe I could have obtained better results if I were working in a more suited environment.
I joined this lab just before the pandemic and had to go for a long hiatus. Due to covid related restrictions, I was only able to start working regularly from November. During this 5 months, I have realized that the infrastructure of this lab is very poor which is surprising because the lab is well funded and have good number of postdocs and students. We do not have basic supplies like ethanol, bleach, chemicals like glucose, Tris etc. We do not have enough pipettes for everyone, tube holders, even no boxes in -20 or -80 to store samples. All of us keep our samples (eppendorfs) in 50ml tubes. The grad students share pipettes. We do not even have centrifuges.
We share the lab space with two other labs, and it is a normal custom that we always ask chemicals or using their instruments on a regular basis (bacterial shakers, centrifuges just to name a few). These instruments are not shared, it is their lab property. They are generous enough to share things with us, but you can sense that they are not happy. I feel that my PI is just using them to survive. I understand that I can always order chemicals, but I cannot ask him to improve the infrastructures suddenly. In addition, the lab environment is weird, there is no communication between lab members. The lab is super quiet, and nobody talks with each other except when they need something.
In my PhD, I never had to worry about infrastructure, and had all the necessary instruments required in a regular lab. After my PhD, I was super excited to start my postdoc and working on this challenging project, but I am appalled to see the lack of infrastructure in my current lab and want to leave this lab asap. Moreover, during this pandemic, my research interest has changed. I want to diversify my experimental biology background and move into virology. I am frustrated and worried about my career progression and feel I cannot achieve anything from this lab. I love this project, but I can not work in this environment and start working on my area of interest.
My plan is to find a better lab to do another postdoc in virology, but I am worried that if I cannot publish from this postdoctoral stint, people are not going to hire me. I feel I have already wasted one year in this lab and without a publication, finding a decent postdoc will be tough. My contract ends in next February, and if I want to leave early that might result in a strained professional relationship. I also need reference letter from him for my next postdoc application. Is it possible to leave the lab without burning bridges? How can I tell him that I want to move to a different direction of research and leave as soon as possible?

Start interviewing now. When asked, explain your interest in changing fields and that your current postdoc is not a great fit for your new interests.
If your PhD advisor will write you a strong letter, having a letter from a job you only held for a couple months won't matter much. Likewise don't stick around to try to publish something unless you're very close. The most important thing you can do for your career is to get a job you like and will work for you ASAP. Losing a couple months is OK. Losing three years will torpedo you.


How can I tell if an unsolicited offer to publish a book with Springer is legit? Our team had a paper recently published in Energy and Buildings, and one of us (not the main author) received last week an email from someone claiming to be an editor with Springer.

According to this email, the editor was "impressed" with our paper and invites us to write or edit a book.

I have a nagging feeling that this is one of thousands of similar random emails sent to the authors of published papers. How can I know if this is a legitimate email, and whether it would be worth the effort? The email address comes from a springer.com domain, so it's probably not a random spammer.

Book editors sometimes send unsolicited e-mails to people who write well on topics that can attract an audience, so this could well be legitimate.  There are a lot of scams, but generally from publishers you've never heard of.  On the other hand, there's no reason to think these signs of initial interest will necessarily lead to an actual contract.  If it interests you, it can't hurt to look into it.  If it doesn't interest you, you can safely send a very brief reply or even ignore the e-mail.

Whether it's a legitimate e-mail shouldn't be too hard to figure out.  If there's a return address from springer.com and someone claiming to be this editor responds to e-mail sent there, then it's probably legitimate (although in principle it could be a rogue employee or a hacker inside Springer's network or yours).  If the e-mail asks you to get in touch in some unconventional way, such as a private e-mail address, then it's probably not legitimate.

Whether it's worth the effort depends on the circumstances.  Springer publishes some truly excellent and important books, as well as others that are mediocre at best.  Whether publishing with them is a good idea depends on your career plans and book ideas, as well as what you think of the contract they offer and their publishing practices.  You should take a look at what else they have published recently in your area, as well as what has been published in series handled by this editor.


Found a mistake in my paper after submitting the final version. What should I do? Recently my paper got accepted in a journal. After that we submitted the final version with all corrections. Now I found an error in the way I calculated some type of numerical error. I don’t think correcting the numerical errors will change any of the conclusions of the paper.

What should I do in such a situation? Is it necessary to submit an erratum to the journal?

The first thing to do is to contact the editor and ask for advice. Follow it. The second thing to do is to check the conclusions of the paper to assure yourself they they are still ok. The third thing to do is to prepare an erratum note in case it needs to be sent.

But the editor may have a solution if you are fast enough.

But if the conclusions are compromised you may need to ask if the editor can pull the paper while you go back and rethink everything.


Accessing the arguments of lobby groups How/where does one get hold of the arguments put forward by lobby groups?

I am currently researching the topic of advertising as it relates to junk food. There are many arguments in favour of regulation/ban in books, papers and websites; however, I am looking for responses to these arguments by the industry. I keep coming across articles claiming that lots of money has been spent lobbying against regulation, but these are almost never referenced. Where should I look for the arguments of lobby groups? This seems like the only place to find the other side of the debate.

This is an area that is quite alien to me so any guidance is appreciated. Also, I'm interested in lobbying in any English-speaking country.

Lobby groups like having their arguments known. They publish them on their web sites, often as media releases. If you can't find what you want there, call them: lobby group representatives will be happy to explain their positions.

My husband works for a lobby goup/peak body and he quite enjoys talking to students who contact him with questions about his industry.


Chair Offers COVID-19 Compensation... But Asks ME to Put Out a Number The chair of my department has very generously offered to try and secure funding for some of the part-time and adjunct professors working in the department as compensation for adapting our originally in-person courses to an online format (this is in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic).  I currently am an adjunct only teaching one upper-division class at this institution.  The catch here is that my chair has asked me and the other part-timers to throw out numbers that we feel are appropriate.  I really have no intuition about what to ask for, or to simply respond (graciously) saying that I trust my chair's judgement and allow them to come up with a number for me/us.  I don't want to come off as greedy and pick a number they might claim to be inappropriate, but at the same time I feel that it's rather passive to blindly let my chair pick.

For reference, I'm a fairly new hire in this department and not really clear about my future there.  The chair and the other faculty are very friendly and inviting, so I'm not particularly worried about setting off any personality conflicts.  Just not sure what the appropriate response is here.

There are really two parts to the Chair's question:

How much additional work have you had to do so far? What additional work do you anticipate going forward? Are there any time savings that should also go into the calculation?
What is the appropriate renumeration for that work?

You should be able to estimate the answer to (1), and explain where the number comes from. You should certainly include this information in your response to the chair. Then, as in the answer by @Allure, you can propose that they pay you for the additional time at (broadly) the same rate as you usually expect to get. For example,

  Hello,

  I estimate that I've had to spend 80 hours preparing new material, and
  there will be an additional 4 hours work each week going forward.
  However, I'm saving an hour on travelling between campuses. Assuming
  this continues for the next 12 weeks, we're looking at something like
  120 hours additional work. I think my usual salary works out at around
  $30/hour.

  Thanks,
  Mndifldz

Note that all you have done here is state facts, so there is nothing anyone can criticise you for. You leave it up to the chair to do the maths, and decide what they can afford to offer. However, you lead them towards a number that (hopefully) you think is fair.


How do I get mathematics recommenders out of undergrad? I am a few years out of undergrad, graduated with a CompE BS with math minor, but was wanting to head into graduate school for mathematics and/or mathematical physics (particle or high energy theory). How do I get back into the mathematics/physics community to the point where I would have good recommendations for the next round of applications (currently I have none)?

Thanks in advance.

All graduate schools want to admit candidates who will succeed in their program, which is why most require an undergraduate degree.
Here is a quote about a Physics Master's Admission from the University of Tennessee.

  A student who enrolls in graduate study with the intention of attaining an advanced degree in physics will have completed an undergraduate major in physics or its equivalent.

Nevertheless since there is such a high overlap in math, physics, and computer science/engineering; you will likely be able to find a graduate program that will accept you -- especially if you are willing to take a year of prerequisite classes. Here is another quote about a master's degree in Applied Math

  The following prerequisites must be satisfied in our program or in course work passed elsewhere and judged equivalent by the
  department

  Numerical Analysis, Numerical Algebra, or Numerical Algorithms
  Methods in Applied Mathematics or both Differential Eqns. II and Partial Differential Eqs.
  Advanced Calculus
  Matrix Algebra II


What are the elements of an effective elevator pitch? When I go to conferences and try to network, I want to be able to explain my research in a clear and concise manner while still effectively communicating what I do.  What are the most effective ways of doing this?

An effective elevator pitch is between 30 and 60 seconds in length. Based on how most people speak, that's between 60 and 120 words. That's not a lot of time or verbiage, as this corresponds to about one paragraph in length.

If you look at the challenge as answering the six fundamental questions (Who?, What? Where?, When?, Why?, and How?), several of them have already obvious answers (these would be Who?—You!, When?—Now!, and Where?—My PhD project!). That leaves the three remaining questions: What?, Why?, and How?

Basically, I'd format the pitch as follows:

What is the basic problem?
Why is solving this problem important?
How are you solving this problem in an original way?

The other thing is to rehearse it until you can tell it without thinking about it—either because you have a rehearsed script, or because the key points have become ingrained and recallable without much thought.

======

POSTSCRIPT: As Artem mentions in a comment below, you should have different elevator pitches for different audiences. At a minimum, you should have one for experts in your specific field, one for other members of your profession but outside your field, and then a third for "general" audiences. Having one for family and friends who want to know "what exactly is is that you do?" probably isn't a bad idea, either.


Are MOOCs putting teaching professors out of a job? Have many teaching positions at traditional colleges been eliminated due to MOOCs (massive open online courses)? Is it as bad as industry jobs (for college-educated people) being offshored or automated?

I’m asking specifically about U.S. universities.

No. From The Kernel, 2015:

  Just a few short years after promising higher education for anyone
  with an Internet connection, MOOCs have scaled back their ambitions,
  content to become job training for the tech sector and for students
  who already have college degrees.

  At what was arguably the peak of the hype about massive open online
  courses, the New York Times crowned 2012 as “The Year of the MOOC.”
  That was the year computer science professor Sebastian Thrun announced
  that, after an experiment teaching an online course that attracted
  100,000 enrollees, he could no longer teach at Stanford; he was
  founding an online education startup, Udacity. That same year, his
  colleagues in the department, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, founded a
  competing MOOC startup, Coursera. Harvard and MIT also launched their
  own (nonprofit) MOOC initiative, edX. And universities around the
  world scrambled to partner with one or more of these organizations,
  amidst claims from investors, entrepreneurs, and pundits that MOOCs
  were poised to bring about the end of the university as we know it.

  “In 50 years,” Thrun told Wired, “there will be only 10 institutions
  in the world delivering higher education and Udacity has a shot at
  being one of them.”...

  Yet despite these well-rehearsed and triumphant stories of MOOCs’
  global outreach, the notion that MOOCs could provide higher education
  to everyone quickly proved flawed. The success stories were the
  exception, rather than the rule. MOOCs were lambasted for having a
  high dropout rate; the average completion rate still hovers around 15
  percent, a level that would be unacceptable for a traditional
  face-to-face college class. And when the demographics of “successful”
  MOOC students were scrutinized in one University of Pennsylvania
  study, it was discovered that 80 percent already had college degrees.
  Rather than providing opportunities for the educational “have-nots,”
  MOOCs seem just as likely to further the opportunities of the
  educational “have-alreadys.”...

  Thrun has abandoned his prediction that there will only be 10
  universities in the future. What he’s retained is a story in which the
  only reason for post-secondary education is to fulfill the needs of
  employers—something colleges, he claims, do not do well.


What is a better point in an academic career to move to the U.S.: as an assistant professor or after tenure? I am starting my second academic year as an assistant professor at a university in Europe. I'd like to move back to the US at some point in the near future. If I stay at my current university for 2 or 3 more years, it's likely that I will be offered tenure. Based on the openings I see in the US in my field, there are more assistant professor positions than associate professor positions.

Will it be better for my career prospects to apply now for assistant professor jobs in the US? If so, should I expect a reduced tenure clock?
Or should I wait a few more years and with tenure under my belt, apply for associate professor jobs?

As someone who is just now making such a transition, my sense that it's hard to make the transition in either direction at any stage of your career.

My sense is that as a less senior faculty member, you'll have an easier time getting things going, because the expectations on junior faculty are lower in the sense of ramping up the group in the first few years. But whether or not you should wait is really a function of what you're looking for in your career.


Prepared for 40 Hour Research Internship - Changed to 20 A bit of backstory- I'm a rising sophomore undergraduate student studying computer science who is strongly interested in urban planning as well. This spring, I put about 12 hours a week of work into conducting undergraduate research with a lab at my uni and was offered a funded research assistant internship with the same lab this summer.

As this is my first time getting a real job (outside of high school), I had assumed that I would be working full-time this summer without communicating with my professor that much. Obviously, this was wrong to assume, but I have since learned from that mistake and take full responsibility.

However, my professor recently wrote me an email saying that he expects me to be working 20 hours a week, even though I have worked 40 hours a week for the first week of my job. I contacted HR and they said I was down as a full-time employee, but that if my professor expects me to work 20 hours, then I should only work 20 hours. This is the first time we have ever really communicated about work hours at all.

To make matters worse, I had planned to write a paper this summer, but the timeline I composed had assumed I'd be working 40 hours a week. The paper's deadline is on August 1st, and I'm concerned I won't be able to complete research working just 20 hours a week.

I am really interested in working on this paper, so much that I am even willing to put in time outside of my job to work on it, if necessary. My prof is unwilling to negotiate hours with me until mid/late July, and I plan on getting another part-time job now. I'm also taking 2 summer courses (online and CLEP though, so not too bad).

Should I propose to drastically narrow the scope of my paper so that I can finish it with a 20 hour work-week, or should I bite the bullet and try to keep working on the paper as it stands outside of work (time permitting)?

As in 50% of the questions on this forum, the answer to your question is: Talk to your professor. He may have a plan and can advise you on how to proceed. Or he hasn't thought the issue through and talking to you about it will make him articulate what his expectations are and match them with the ones you will have an opportunity to elaborate on this occasion. Or he doesn't have enough money to pay you for 40 hours and that's just the best he can do.

So many possibilities we all just can't know here but that a short conversation with the person in question can resolve!


Does publishing gives you an edge when applying for jobs in industry? I’m in the verge of finishing my PhD next year. I already know I don’t want to follow an academic career; still, I’ve come this far and will see it through (well... I have have a salary too...). I’m starting to look for positions in industry and would like to know how much having publications is appreciated by recruiters. Point in case, some data and drafts have been pilling up in my hard-drive during the last couple of years. Being honest, none of them make for a memorable publication or a significant contribution to science, but there is enough material for two or three submissions to specialized journals. Is it worth putting time and effort in finishing these papers if I’m going into industry? Will my CV look better if I add some publications on it? PS: This is in the context of the US and Europe and I’m getting a PhD in a STEM field.

This depends upon your specific position within any given company. Check out Science Careers for discussions about this, but a summary of some examples for publishing and not publishing:

Some position will not require or expect any publications. These can be technical (e.g., run a machine all day or develop new proprietary methods), managerial, or other types such as sales.
Some positions will want prior publications to show that you can complete research projects but not expect you to publish when you are working them.
Some companies such as environmental consulting firms expect their scientists to publish so that they continue to be experts in their field and highlight their publications on their webpages (e.g., WEST).
Some companies publish with their clients (e.g., look at the author affiliations on this publication).

In summary, publication expectations in industry range from none to regular publications. I suggest you find people doing jobs you are interested in doing, get to know them, and see what their specific expectations are for publishing. The Ask-the-headhunter blog contains suggestions for breaking into new fields as does the previously mentioned Science Career page. Also, the Chronicle of Higher Education has many resource for people seeking "alternative" careers (e.g., here).


Can I use my master's degree thesis as a Research Project Proposal for a phd application? Can I use my master's degree thesis (a pilot study not published) as a Research Project Proposal for a PhD application?

If you are asking whether you can repeat your MS work to get a doctorate, then the answer is no. If you are asking whether you can work to resolve still-open research questions that you already worked on earlier then the answer is a qualified yes.

But it depends on where you are and also on your advisor. In the US, for example, you don't normally need to make such a proposal to apply for doctoral study. Other places you do, and in those places the advisor will need to ok the proposal.

It's acceptance also depends on whether the advisor would consider the proposal to have sufficient depth to be suitable as a doctoral research project. So, again, if you are looking for an easy way through the doctorate, the answer would be a likely no.

But in the right place, with the right advisor, and the right problem, it can all come together for a yes, and your prior work might be considered a plus.


As a PhD student, is it worth spending time organizing a contest for a conference? I am a PhD student in computer science: is it worth spending time organizing a contest for a conference (e.g. a shared task for a conference in natural language processing)? I think that would be a great experience to have, and fits very well my research interests, but I am afraid it might slow down my research and therefore delay my graduation date.

Often in graduate school there are an abundance of neat opportunities and experiences; it can be difficult to decide which tasks to pursue. You'll need to consider the short and long-term career benefits of organizing the conference, as well as how it will be viewed within your program. In regards to short term career development, this may be an opportunity to provide an academic service activity for the conference, though there are often less labor-intensive ways to add that type of experience to your CV. However, if you're interested in a career in management or administration and want to gain experience in developing or implementing organizational activities, this might be a valuable long-term experience. Also, if the group task will result in data that you can later use for publications or products, it may be worth the investment; it may even serve as a unique research opportunity.

Whether you pursue this activity will likely also depend on whether your mentor is supportive. If you are concerned that this might delay your research and your graduation date, you will need to decide not only if you can live with pushing back graduation, but if your mentor or program will support that as well. If you are able to pitch this opportunity in terms of career development benefits, products, or even positive publicity your mentor or program may be supportive. They may even provide you with some undergraduate assistance to reduce the burden of coordinating the event. Before you have that discussion, make sure you have a clear picture of the pros and cons, as well as what (minimal) supports would allow you to take advantage of the opportunity at the lowest possible economic, time, and labor costs.


Finished a research paper and feel horrible now We've all heard of postpartum depression, though I'm not a woman so I have no idea what it's really like.

I am wondering if there is any medical/psychological evidence to support similar (reported) feelings after the completion of a big research project.

This is my (I'm the sole author each time) fourth time sending a paper to a journal after spending countless hours working to finalize the draft.
 This typically involves a frenzy at the end where I work 12 hours a day trying to perfect the paper. This is in addition to the stress incurred while actually creating the research  (in my case, mathematics) in the first place.

Each time I finish a paper, including my most recent, I have feelings of emptiness  and anxiety.  I'm not here for medical advice, I'd just like to know if anyone is aware of some scientific basis for these emotions.

I don't have a name for it, or a scientific basis, but I experienced exactly what you are describing: a general numbness/boredom that lasted a couple of weeks after seeing a paper published - everything was pretty hectic up until that point.

My guess is that this is due to something called 'lifestyle changes' (also a hypothesised contributor to postpartum depressions) - your life changes almost instantaneously upon submitting a paper. Before that you were totally hyped up, working really long days, getting by on the fear that things wouldn't work out and the adrenaline when it turned out they would after all. And then when you're done you are exhausted and all your previous drivers (that all related to getting your research project done) are gone. You have to recuperate and you have to find something new to live for (next project? family? a little bit of Mozart maybe?).

Good luck!


I found out that my PhD topic has been done before, what can I do , to make it an original topic without changing the main idea I am a PhD student , and I am in my first year, started four months ago

Ask your advisor. Your advisor:

Is likely to be the person most familiar with the direction your thesis is supposed to take, and therefore able to advise on how to modify it
Is likely to be much more experienced than you and therefore better-positioned to decide what to do next
Is likely to care enough to provide you with that advice
You can't do anything without your supervisor's approval anyway

It's possible you'll end up changing topics (since it's only been four months anyway), you might find that the previous work isn't exactly the same as yours, etc. But this is all speculation. Ask your advisor and figure it out from there.


How to communicate achievements on the StackExchange network in an academic CV or job interview? I think contributions to StackExchange constitute a valuable thing for an academic to do. In many cases such contributions are directly related to the aims of an academic department: community engagement, building new knowledge, etc.
This is particularly clear for sites that directly align with a particular academic discipline (e.g.,  mathematics, statistics, psychology).

However, many people in academia have not heard of StackExchange. They often won't have heard about the reputation system. They may not be aware of the high quality content that often appears.

Thus, as an academic, how should you share your achievements on the StackExchange network in contexts where how your performance is evaluated has material consequences? (e.g., a CV, job interview, grant application context, promotion context)

I routinely mention my participation in cstheory as a moderator on grant applications (under Broader Impact). I also mention it as part of 'synergistic activities' in my NSF 2-page bio.

For departmental review, I'd view this as external service.


How to make the most of an online research internship? I am undergrad who will be doing a research internship this summer in Physics. The professor I will be working under is from another country, so there is no possibility of working in-person. I have never met the professor beyond a few Zoom meetings.
I am worried that not being in that environment of working with other students and the professor, but instead from home, may encourage me to slack off or become demotivated. Since there are many academics here who have probably experienced online research and probably have some valuable tips, I would like to know:
How do I make the most out of this opportunity?

Keep a weekly (or even more frequent) meeting with the professor or supervisor to discuss progress, which will help keep you accountable. Furthermore, participate in virtual seminars, talks, and happy-hours that may be made available to you.
Most importantly, be persistent in your work. The high-school and undergraduate students that I work with who make the most of research opportunities do so by working hard and taking the opportunity seriously. The ones who do not tend to not put much effort into the experience. Additionally, unless the contrary is explicitly agreed upon, you will need to take initiative in your research. Do not just complete the tasks you are given; think about how your work fits in the broader research context, read papers and ask your supervisor questions, think about what additional experiments you can do, etc.


What is a common way to tell if an academic is "above average," or outstanding in their field? Is their h-index (Hirsh index) one of them? If one claimed that a particular scholar was "above average" or "noted" in their field, is there any good metric by which to support or deny such a claim?

Is there a generally accepted way to indicate that a particular professor or scholar is outstanding, or above average, in their field? I understand there are certain indicators, such as chairs, endowments, prizes, etc. But these don't really seem to help to compare one scholar to another, except in a sort of gross, simple count way (i.e. one professor has had more chairs than another)

Is it theoretically possible to create a "ranking" of professors in their fields, by some metric? Could their h-index serve as such a metric?

Yes, there is one and only one standard method that is universally employed by reputable academic institutions worldwide.  This is how you evaluate a researcher:

Read their papers.
Attend one of their talks.
Ask the opinion of other experts in the field.

This is how hiring committees and promotion committees do their job.  There are no shortcuts.  Parts 1-2 require that you have some relevant expertise; if not then you must rely entirely on #3.

Every academic is regularly asked to give an expert opinion through reference letters, which often are expected to include some sort of ranking (e.g. "Assistant Prof. X should be promoted because she is clearly as talented/better than Prof. Y who was recently promoted at Prestigious University Z").  How does one justify this kind of claim in the reference letter?  You guessed it:

Read their papers.
Attend their talks.


Do journals with double-blind review allow submission with some of the references are yet to appear but already accepted in another journal? There are journals which employ double-blind review. Suppose I want to submit in such journals but my paper to be submitted depends on another paper of mine which was already accepted in another journal but does not appear in its issue. In my view, this might reveal my identity and hence defeats the purpose of the double-blind review? Do these kind of journals allow such submissions? I read the authors' guidelines but seems this particular concern is not stated.

It's allowed. Ask the editor how they'd like you to blind this particular reference.


Do you consider it as weird if I thank the open-source community in the acknowledgement section of a paper? In a PhD thesis I read recently, the author mentioned open-source software in the Acknowledgement section, an idea that I liked very much (I missed that opportunity in my thesis).

Now I am considering to do a similar thing in the paper I am currently writing (working everyday on a Linux system with a lot of open-source software tools). Would you consider that as weird and inappropriate?

(My field is physics.)

Update: As mentioned by @pseyfert in the comments, the LHCb experiment seems to have an acknowledgement to open source software in their templates (looking at their paper repository, they seem to use that template), it reads "We are indebted to the communities behind the multiple open-source software packages on which we depend ".

I also mentioned technical forums and Q&A sites (about GAMS, C++, the GNU Scientific Library, LaTeX, Maths, Statistics..., in my case) in the acknowledgement section of my PhD memoir.

I do not really think that doing the same in the acknowledgement section of a paper is inappropriate. As long as it is expressed in the same terms as other acknowledgements, I actually think it is a good and revolutionary idea.

Of course, all the coauthors of the paper should agree in including that kind of acknowledgement, just as it would/should be regarding other acknowledgements.

UPDATE

To expand and complete my answer, I should say that, in my humble opinion,

the 'Acknowledgements' section of a paper is not usually mandatory;
in case there is one, it should be kept not too long;
you can mention anyone or any 'entity' you are thankful to;
if there are too many people or 'entities' to mention, try to select the most relevant ones;
you may consider to keep some place for sort of formulaic or routine acknowledgements such as thanking anonymous reviewers, etc.

But, of course, there should definitely be a place for the 'real' acknowledgements. If you are really thankful for the help from online communities, or you just want to highlight it, I think there is no problem. For me, it makes no difference with other 'personal' acknowledgements, such as thanking some concrete colleagues for reviewing a draft of your paper, for instance.


Could I get into a C.S. Ph.D program after an undergraduate from a totally unknown school? So I'm wondering what the chances are of me getting into a Ph.D program directly after undergraduate attendance at a school that is totally unknown on the computer science scene.
The school is well renowned for it's Business, English, and Pre-med degrees, but their computer science program is tiny and completely unknown. There are 2 professors, only one of which currently has a Ph.D. Their math department is also small, but the professors have Ph.Ds and a a long history of industry work and research.

But here's the catch, I know the professors there extremely well, and they all think I'm a bright student and have said that they would allow me to study whatever I want under their supervision. I could go as deep into the subject as I want. So I'm looking at studying subjects like complexity theory and theoretical cryptography my second semester at the school. This appeals to me greatly because I've always been an autodidact, and I honestly prefer teaching myself things over learning in a classroom.

Because of this freedom, I am fairly confident that I could graduate with some basic research under my belt in one of those fields. As I see it, four years of study seems likely to culminate in at least a single interesting finding of some sort.

If I apply to a Ph.D program directly after my time at this school, would I have any chance at all of getting in? I can foresee my application having challenging coursework on it, along with a little bit of research, but my undergraduate degree is from a completely unknown school.

TL;DR: Any chance of getting into a computer science Ph.D with a little research and a C.S./Pure Math degree from a totally unknown school?

The reputation of your previous program will be relevant when applying to PhD somewhere else. However, this by no chance eliminates your chances of getting into a good PhD program if your CV shows your competence compared to other applicants from other schools. In other words, in cases where the schools (and probably professors) are not well known, having publications in internationally reputable venues (not easy to do in undergrad) along with good standardized test scores might carry more weight than school-related attributes such as GPA and maybe even recommendations. (These will still matter, but less so when compared with GPAs and recommendations from highly known institutions/professors)

I will add this however. Being in a small and newly-established program can have other potential drawbacks. Assuming that a new and small program equates to less experienced professors and less budget, you will be missing out on the higher quality mentoring and availability of the required labs and equipment. Also, the student body will also be smaller, so you will have less chances to find people to collaborate with and share ideas. These drawbacks can be just as bad as the perceived reputation of the school for PhD admissions.


Is it possible to resubmit a manuscript to the same journal by a different author? I received a response from the editor in chief saying that he cannot recommend my manuscript for publication. But he encourages me to address all the 4  reviewers' comments and resubmit a substantial revision.
The manuscript was submitted the first time by the "second" author who used to be my PHD supervisor 2 years ago. Actually, i am the first author of this manuscript and would like to resubmit it by myself to the same journal. Is it possible to do that ?
I will keep the same authors and the same order as the previous version.
PS : I finished my PHD 2 years ago.
Why do i want to be the corresponding author ?
I have done all the job regarding this manuscript : writing, idea, simulations and corrections. During my PHD, I had too much troubles with my PHD supervisor. He even told me one time that if he modifies my manuscript he could put himself as the first author.
When I finished writing my manuscript, he offered his help to submit it to the journal in order to save time (because I had a full time job in a company). I accepted but told him to send me every update regarding the publication process. He didn't do that and didn't answer my emails. He waited 4 months to submit it without any modification or correction. Actually, he tried to delay the submission as much as possible so I give up asking about my manuscript.
Now, he is asking me to send him the corrections but this time I want to take in charge the resubmission to the journal.

As far as the journal is concerned, your paper was declined (if I understood you correctly) and the next submission will be treated as a separate paper (even though the journal may know it's a new iteration of an old paper and it may still get the same associate editor and reviewers). This paper may have different authors, substance, or whatever -- it's a completely different manuscript, so anything goes. Whoever does the "submitting" is not important: in some places papers are still submitted by departmental admins who have no other relationship with the authors.
Having said that, from your personal perspective, the situation is tough. It's really the conflict with your advisor and how you can resolve it. Perhaps your advisor now thinks that the paper needs substantial improvement and that's why he wants to retain control of it. He probably thinks that there's something good in it (that's why he wouldn't just remove his name from the list of authors and allow you to do whatever you want with it), but at the same time, he may see some issues, so he also doesn't want to have it published in its current form. This situation is as old as the academic world, and the only peaceful resolution is to somehow settle your personal conflict to the level where you can productively collaborate on the paper.


Acceptance into graduate math programs I have been hearing different views about my likelihood of getting accepted into a math graduate program.

  Which of the following factors contribute most to the acceptance of a non-math undergraduate into a math graduate program (please order them)?

  GPA
  Recommendation letters
  Publishing math papers

Since I am an engineering student I only registered basic math courses (such as calculus, linear algebra, etc.). However, I studied a lot of other more advanced courses by myself. My GPA is about 3.5. A lot of people have told me that I need to raise my GPA in order to get accepted into a decent math graduate program and this is worrying me.

Courses that I self-studied: Undergraduate abstract algebra, real analysis (with an introduction to measure theory), first 4 chapters of Munkres' Topology, elementary number theory, graph theory

Courses that I am self studying: Hungerford's abstract algebra, algebraic topology

Courses that I plan to study: algebraic geometry, algebraic number theory, complex analysis.

I also managed to finish 2 math papers. So the question is:

Where do I stand now?

I don't see this question as being definitively answerable without a lot more information, both about your background and qualifications and about where you are applying.  Grad schools differ enormously in their approach to admissions in unusual cases.  Some lower-tier schools are eager to take a chance on smart but nontraditional applicants who will be rejected by more prestigious universities.  Others have established rigid rules after having had bad experiences with admitted students who had inadequate backrounds or didn't understand what they were getting themselves into.

Regarding grades, keep in mind that the world has seen a lot of grade inflation, and there are startlingly large numbers of applicants with nearly perfect grades.  You generally cannot impress an admissions committee by having excellent grades, although poor grades can hurt your chances.  Math departments typically care a lot about grades in mathematics and heavily mathematical fields (e.g., theoretical physics or CS), a little about grades in other scientific or engineering fields, and not at all about other grades, except that exceptionally poor grades in any field suggest the applicant is not good at getting things they don't care about done (which is not a good omen for their career).  I.e., math departments don't care if you get a B- in history, but getting an F in history could be a problem.

Recommendation letters are absolutely crucial.  In my experience they are by far the most important factor: other aspects of the application could hurt your chances even if you get good letters, but those other aspects cannot get you admitted by themselves.  If you can't arrange for enthusiastic letters that the admissions committee will trust, then you have no chance at all of being admitted at a higher-ranked school.  It's possible that a lower-ranked school might take a chance on you, but as I understand it every graduate program cares a lot about letters.

As for math papers, it's unfortunately not hard to write a near-vacuous or unoriginal paper and get it published somewhere obscure, and carefully evaluating a paper can take a lot of time and effort (refereeing is hard).  If you simply list a paper in your application, with no evidence of its quality, then it's unlikely anyone will have the time to investigate carefully.  The important thing for graduate admissions is not the publication per se, but rather the research experience that led to it, and you need a letter of recommendation that talks about this research and vouches for it.  (In fact, having such a letter can be very valuable even if the research did not lead to a published paper.)  This means you need a letter from your supervisor or mentor, or at the very least from someone who has read the paper and knows something about how it came about (for example, someone who can single out your own contribution if you had coauthors).  In principle, if you publish in an especially prestigious journal and without senior coauthors, then the journal's high standards might serve as enough of signal of quality by themselves.  However, this very rarely happens with undergraduate research.

So in short:

Bad grades could hurt you but good grades won't serve as a strong argument for admission.
Recommendation letters are crucial.
Research experience could help you get great letters but is very difficult to judge except through the letters.

However, as I said in the beginning, there are a lot of graduate programs out there, with different approaches to admissions.  If all goes well, you'll get strong letters from math faculty and will be admitted in more or less the usual way.  Otherwise, you may have to find a school that is willing to take a chance (usually because they have trouble attracting strong students with conventional backgrounds).


Writing an email to a professor for teaching assistantship for the second time I am a graduate student and I had asked for TA/grader position, with a few professors at my institution in fall semester. But at that time there was no position available. Now I want to send another email to them again, asking for a position in spring semester. Should I reply back to the previous email that I had sent, or should I send a new email? How to remind them that I had approached them earlier?

This is a highly personal opinion due to an individual's emailing habits, but I would not attach pre-existing email on something more than a month old.  If you talk to the professor about the opportunity in the future, just add relevant information to the current email.  No need to add the entire backstory, unless it has important information that cannot be conveyed otherwise.

"Hello, I had previously inquired about such and such back in the Fall and nothing came of it.  I was wondering about any potential such and such for the upcoming semester."


Studies over how noisy is it to accept/reject submissions This year, the NIPS 2014 conference did an interesting experiment: conference chairs duplicated 10% of the submissions (170 papers) and sent them to two different groups of reviewers. The result: 25.9% of disagreement.

This indicates that for almost every one out of four papers, the paper is accepted by one group of experts while rejected by the other group. This just shows how noisy the reviewing process is. I was wondering if there were other similar experiments for other fields and what the disagreement percentage was in each (regardless of the venue: journal or conference).

There have been many studies on this. Here is a recent meta-analysis of 48(!) of them:

  Bornmann, Lutz, Rüdiger Mutz, and Hans-Dieter Daniel. "A reliability-generalization study of journal peer reviews: a multilevel meta-analysis of inter-rater reliability and its determinants." PLOS ONE 5.12 (2010): e14331.

Here's the abstract:

  Background

  This paper presents the first meta-analysis for the inter-rater reliability (IRR) of journal peer reviews. IRR is defined as the extent to which two or more independent reviews of the same scientific document agree.

  Methodology/Principal Findings

  Altogether, 70 reliability coefficients (Cohen's Kappa, intra-class correlation [ICC], and Pearson product-moment correlation [r]) from 48 studies were taken into account in the meta-analysis. The studies were based on a total of 19,443 manuscripts; on average, each study had a sample size of 311 manuscripts (minimum: 28, maximum: 1983). The results of the meta-analysis confirmed the findings of the narrative literature reviews published to date: The level of IRR (mean ICC/r2 = .34, mean Cohen's Kappa = .17) was low. To explain the study-to-study variation of the IRR coefficients, meta-regression analyses were calculated using seven covariates. Two covariates that emerged in the meta-regression analyses as statistically significant to gain an approximate homogeneity of the intra-class correlations indicated that, firstly, the more manuscripts that a study is based on, the smaller the reported IRR coefficients are. Secondly, if the information of the rating system for reviewers was reported in a study, then this was associated with a smaller IRR coefficient than if the information was not conveyed.

  Conclusions/Significance

  Studies that report a high level of IRR are to be considered less credible than those with a low level of IRR. According to our meta-analysis the IRR of peer assessments is quite limited and needs improvement (e.g., reader system).

This meta-analysis includes studies of peer review agreement in economics/law, natural sciences, medical sciences, and social sciences.

Here is another paper, which includes a section on the reliability of peer review (i.e. agreement between reviewers) in which a number of other studies are summarized:

  Bornmann, Lutz. "Scientific peer review." Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 45.1 (2011): 197-245.

Specifically in computer science, there's this:

  Ragone, Azzurra, et al. "On peer review in computer science: analysis of its effectiveness and suggestions for improvement." Scientometrics 97.2 (2013): 317-356.

They measured inter-reviewer agreement in

  a large reviews data set from ten different conferences in computer science for a total of ca. 9,000 reviews on ca. 2,800 submitted contributions.

and found

  in our case we have six conferences with ICC > 0.6, i.e. with significant correlation, 3 conferences with a fair correlation (0.4 < ICC < 0.59) and one conference with poor correlation among raters (ICC < 0.4).

They also found that agreement on "strong reject" papers was much higher than agreement on other papers. More precisely,

  A more detailed analysis shows that if somebody gives a mark from the
  "strong reject" band, this increases the probability of giving marks not only from strong and weak reject bands (by 14 and 63% correspondingly) but also from borderline band (by 11%). In the "strong accept" set the probability of others giving a "weak accept" mark is 20% higher than the overall probability, but the
  probability of giving marks from other bands are almost the same as the overall probabilities.

  Therefore, we can say that we have marks skewed towards the "weak accept" and
  reviewers still agree on very bad contributions while disagree on very good.


Applying for (externally-funded) postdoc position: how to follow-up after 1st email? I would like to get a postdoc fellowship grant that is addressed to a specific department (in a particular top-tier university). Now I just need to get a professor there to accept to host me.

While I think that my chances of getting the funding are high, I've emailed a professor to ask whether I could work at his lab (with this funding), but got no response after an email a week ago.

I do believe that I'm a good match for the lab and a good candidate to get the fellowship, so... should I call/email this professor to follow-up? Otherwise, is it fine to just email another professor (in the same department)?

There's not a lot of specificity in this question, so I'll raise a few issues that struck me as being relevant:

You seem to be more interested in joining the department rather than working with a particular professor. The way you're describing it, you've contacted one professor but are prepared to contact another should this not pan out, heading down the department's staff list until you get a hit. I'm not going to comment outright on this technique or motivation. However, if you wish to be efficient about this, why not contact the head of department and state your case: you've got a fully-funded post-doc fellowship and would like to work in such-and-such area?
Your assessment of the chances of getting funding are not absolute and there might be some hesitation in the mind of the professor about the benefits of receiving the grant money on the one hand and your track record, competence, work ethic or some other factor on the other. It's not only about the money. What downside are we (or you) not seeing?
Not all fellowship awards are created equal. Money from some sources are prohibited by some labs. For example, if you came to us with money from British-American Tobacco, we'd be ineligible to even apply for, let alone receive grant money from important sources in the future.
The lab may simply be full. That is to say, someone has made a decision to impose a hiring freeze for reasons other than money. In my previous university, this happened just before "restructuring" took place resulting in major job losses.
Sending out email and expecting a quick response at this time of the year is extremely dicey. In my area, people go on holidays and don't emerge until in January or February. This might be poor timing.
Do you have any networks that extend to this lab or department? It might be worth your while mining them to see whether someone who knows someone can link you. A friendly introduction from a mutual acquaintance is much more effective than a cold call.

Good luck.


Can we put some documents which are not listed as required documents for jobs I am going to apply for non-tenure tack academic position and I have already prepared all documents. They did not list Cover Letter as a required document. I would like to know whether it is necessary or not to put this document in my application?

A cover letter is probably fine, provided that the application system will accept it. Some online systems can be strict about what they will accept. If they want a SoP (Statement of Purpose), they probably expect to see there what you might otherwise put in a cover letter.

But avoid including a lot of unasked for documents. The institution knows what it wants to see and wants all applications to be similar in structure just to ease the work of evaluation.

In required documents you can sometimes point to the existence of other things that people might want to see if you are seriously under consideration. But wait until you are asked to send those extra things.