Is Publons a reliable reference to show peer-review experience in a faculty application? I was invited for an interview for a tenure-track position. Since I was highly active in peer-review service, I highlighted this in my cover letter as well as my CV.

When an interviewer mentioned it (in a positive way), I emphasized that I have already included my Publons profile where my peer-review works can be checked. He said "I've never heard of it. Do you have any certificate or recommendation from the journals."

Then, I felt it was better if I did not mention Publons at all (it would look more normal). Was it a problem of my interviewer OR it is not common to include a peer-review profile in the application?

My impression was (maybe I am wrong) that if you simply mentioned it, we would believe you. Now that you want to prove it, you should do it in an official way.

Then, I felt it was better if I did not mention Publons at all (it
  would look more normal). Was it a problem of my interviewer OR it is
  not common to include a peer-review profile in the application?

I have seen a number of people (myself included) include a peer-review profile. In my case, it simply lists the journals I have reviewed for. At this point, it's actually more the list of journals I frequently review for.

I think the issue is more with Publons - in my experience, there hasn't really been a strong need for tracking credits the way they want, and I found it was more hassle than it was worth to keep it up-to-date (as if you have a Publons profile and highlight it, the implication is that it's accurate).

Essentially, I trust what you've told me. Because specific reviews, rather than the abstract concept of being an active reviewer, isn't really much of a consideration for me. It's a nice thing, and I appreciate seeing it mentioned as I do consider it a professional obligation, but Publons inherently wants there to be a quantitative impact based on volume and I...simply can't be bothered.


Is it appropriate to say "hi" to a professor in email? There is a professor with whom I've taken two courses so far, and who has also agreed to write me a reference letter for graduate school when I complete my undergraduate program. I usually write to all professors "Dear Prof. [...]" or "Hello Prof. [...]", but some professors reply to me as "Hi [...]", which is OK. However, I'm wondering if it is also okay to reply "Hi Prof. [...]" in North America?

In this type of situation I always take the lead from the person I am writing to if they are more senior than me. This means that I start off the conversation using "Dear Professor X Y" and only switch to using "Hi X" once they do.

I use the same rule of thumb for working out when to switch from using titles and surnames to first names. In most email communications I find this is normally after only one or two emails.

In other words, formality and respect are nice, but so is being friendly and saying hi.

Note: academic cultures do vary, and I am basing this on my experiences in the UK and EU. My impression is that in the USA there is a greater social distance between students and academics and therefore more formality is expected.


My current PI is telling me that I am a very shy person and he is really pissed off, what I should do? Today in the lab we had a birthday, I had participated, but not so much as I feel anxious in crowded areas. I felt very shy and that's true, so I withdrew from the party after 15 minutes and wished everyone well.

Later, my PI informed me that he is extremely pissed off and did not like the fact that I am a very shy person. I am supposed to select a potential supervisor; the one whose work I am interested in also has also a shy person. The PI (head of the lab) informed me that he cannot assign two shy people to work together (me and the prospective supervisor) as he thought we are going to fail to make significant work.

The ugly truth is that I am an indeed shy girl for many years and I lose many social opportunities, likely marriage opportunities because I don't interact so much as other girls. However, I look very confident in voluntary works, teaching and giving talks.

I know it sounds controversial, however, I began to lose my self-confidence and esteem although I had a strong character.

The question: How I should react towards this?

This answer will only focus on long term strategies that might help you avoid such situations as you move forward.

To succeed in academia you can't really seem to be shy and certainly not seen to be less of a contributor because of it. No matter how good your ideas are, if they don't get considered then you have very little impact.

However, that doesn't mean that you can't actually be shy, or introverted. Many successful scientists are very introverted and even some are quite far out on the autism spectrum. Shyness isn't a defect or a flaw, it is just a personal tendency. Introverted people, in fact, often are extremely productive as they gather internal strength from reflection, consideration, and thought.

But the trick is to learn to act as if you have a different set of preferences than you actually do. You can act like an extrovert naturally would even while remaining an introvert. You play a role in public situations that lets your thoughts and needs get notice in the deliberations and conversations.

But it is a skill that can be difficult to learn. I know, and I did it. The "face" that I show to the world has evolved over time. I once suffered from an "inability" to speak up when I should have and it cost me extra years in a doctoral program. But after that, I learned how to play the role so that my ideas weren't ignored by those with a bigger mouth.

In fact, you aren't limited by your shyness unless you let it overcome you. You can look people straight in the eye and explain your ideas to them. You don't need to defer to louder people.

One person, a friend, who is very prominent in the CS community and is a marvelous public speaker is naturally, and in person, extremely quiet and has some characteristics of autism. But he taught himself to do what needed to be done to have his ideas accepted and to act in public in a way that seems to others to be comfortable, even if it is not. One of his tricks was to join an acting group in which he learned how to "put on" a role and act within that role.

Some people just freeze when confronted. Other people explode into inappropriate behavior. Both of these need to be avoided. Practice is what you need to overcome them if you tend to do that. Preparation for meetings, with notes on what you might want to say can help.

Finally, let me note that people reading your several posts here probably don't think of you as a shy person. In your writing, you are able to say what you want to say. Some of that is the anonymity that the site affords. In a sense, you can hide the "real you" behind a certain invented persona. The trick is to learn to do that same thing in person. Invent a persona for yourself and act in the way it suggests, hiding your "real self". Yes, I do the same thing here as Buffy.


Using a public GIT-Hub repository (that was a homework of my group) in my Bachelor thesis I have a question concerning my special case.

In my bachelor thesis, I must implement a CI (e.g. Jenkins) server and show its functionality based on a sample project. This work is handed to other students in order to let them try out the technology.

There are many projects available which I could use as a sample project on Git Hub but I wanted to have a simple one and thus I have chosen a Git Repo containing a former homwework (a small game) that I have written with colleagues. I know that public Git Repos are basically Open Source but still I have questions.

Questions:

Do I have to mention my colleagues, who implemented that homework
with me, explicitly in my Bachelor Thesis?
Do I need my colleagues agreement that I can use this project for my
Bachelor Thesis?
Does it make any legal difference if I provide a link directly to
this sample project or if the project is just visible in
screenshots without showing an explicit URL?

Do I have to mention my colleagues, who implemented that homework with me, explicitly in my Bachelor Thesis?

Depends on what referencing system your given institute uses. Most likely, it would be a good idea to mention that in your reference. For example, if you are using the Harvard system:

[Surname], [First-name] et al [System (e.g. Github)] [Year of creation], [Repository Name], [Version #], [Type of 'thing'], accessed [Access date], [Repository URL]

  Do I need my colleagues agreement that I can use this project for my Bachelor Thesis?

As long as you correctly reference it, and that you don't use it commercially you should be fine, but just doing something like emailing them asking if you can use it as an example for your assignment would do no harm.

  Does it make any legal difference if I provide a link directly to this sample project or if the project is just visible in screenshots without showing an explicit URL?

Legal difference? Yes. If it would ever come to such, giving the actual URL would/could effectively protect you, as the opposition could claim that you edited the screenshots or that they weren't of the correct repository in the first place.

To be honest, I would prefer to have a few extra words in my bibliography rather than be taken to court and be prosecuted.


Is it okay to grade some students harder because of their perceived potential? If a college professor has a clear rubric for their expectations for an essay, is it unethical -- or even illegal -- to grade certain students harder than others?

A few students I know are in a college English course. They are producing better essays than other students, but have recently been making C's instead of A's because, as the teacher says, they are "held to a higher standard" than other students.

Is there some action that can be taken to remedy this issue? They aren't out for blood, just the grade they have worked for.

Edit: Thank you all so much for the replies! For clarity: we are residing in the U.S. and the professor himself sent an email explaining that their writing is exceptional and as such he will hold them to a higher standard than their peers.

It is legitimate if, in a single course, there are two "classes" of students taking the course for different forms of credit (such as a course with undergrads taking the course for undergrad credit and grad students taking the course for grad credit, or majors taking a course with students majoring in something else), it is legit for the prof to deliberately and transparently hold the different "classes" of students to different standards.  This should be made clear to students registering for the course and should be made clear on the first day and on the course syllabus.

The best and most legitimate way to make this distinction is, even if the course is taught together with the same prof, is for the different "classes" of students to register for, what appear to be different courses with different course numbers in the school catalog or schedule.  So seniors would be registering for ECON 458 and grad students would be registering for ECON 558.  The "two" courses happen to be about the same topic, meet in the same room at the same times, are are taught by the same prof.  But that prof can assign assignments to the students expecting grad-school credit that is not assigned to the undergrads.  And that prof can apply a stricter measure of performance to the grad students.

Other than that, the same standards should be applied to every student throughout the course.


Is there a way to see which papers have used a particular R package? I'm a new user of an R package (tidy text mining) and I'd like to see what papers have used this package as examples for the kind of things I can do with it. Is there a way to do this?

Sometimes (not often) papers will formally cite the package.
This is more likely to work if the authors have published a peer-reviewed paper that describes the package; it makes it easier to cite/more likely to be cited. In the case of the tidytext package (which may or may not be the package you're referring to), you can find the citation info here. More generally, try citation("package_name") within R. On Google Scholar, this page lists the articles that cite Silge and Robinson 2016.
Or you can use Google Scholar, which does a full-text search and may pick up the name from papers that mention it even if they haven't formally cited it.

Silge, Julia, and David Robinson. “Tidytext: Text Mining and Analysis Using Tidy Data Principles in R.” Journal of Open Source Software 1, no. 3 (July 11, 2016): 37. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.00037.


As a lab assistant, how many hours per week am I expected to be helping out? I am in my third year of computer engineering studies, and was offered a position as lab assistant in the electronics lab. I am oriented towards software, so I'm not exactly interested in the subject itself, but to my understanding, being a lab assistant is quite a good thing for the CV, plus it's good to be a familiar face to a professor or two, and I like the work, so I'd generally like to continue.

What makes me skeptical is the fact that I am in the lab for two hours on Monday evening (I miss the first hour due to an overlapping class), three hours on Thursday evening, and six hours on Friday from 3pm up to 9 o'clock, which brings the total time up to 14 hours. While I can probably cope with that, I was also asked to grade some reports (is it even legal for undergrads to grade undergrads?), a subject I want to discuss on another question.

At any rate, I have felt a big impact on my independent pursuits since I started, namely some days I'm at the campus all day so I don't feel like I'm doing much, and I really can't stand not doing stuff.

The question comes down to this: As an undergrad lab assistant, how much time am I expected to devote to the lab, and how much work am I expected to do at home? How serious a commitment did I make?

In graduate school, this would be dictated by your GRA (graduate research assistant) contract, which would specify a minimum number of hours you would be expected to work on research each week.

As an undergraduate research assistant, if you're getting paid OR if you're receiving credit for your work, I would expect this to be dictated by your contract or a syllabus (respectively). If neither of those conditions are true, then this is a matter to take up with the professor you work for. Consider telling them that you would like to cut back on your responsibilities to pursue other interests, but know that they might counter with telling you that you're no longer needed. Negotiate carefully and respectfully.

For the record, 14 hours doesn't seem too extreme, even for an undergraduate research assistant. And if you're being paid, whether or not you can be asked to grade depends largely on the terms of your contract, though it doesn't seem unreasonable. In any event: negotiate respectfully with your boss, just as you would do in any other job.


How important is mathematics in engineering research? In EE/EC/CS departments, there are certain fields that are theory-based (like the algo or complexity groups), ones that lean towards systems implementation (OS, programming languages, etc) and others have a component of both (like networking).

In such a field like networking, there are professors who work on hard-core math modelling (example) and people who work on implementation and protocol design (example). From what I glean from my own paper-reading experience, the natures of these papers are as different as chalk and cheese: the math papers seem to look for ways to cast the problem in a mathematical framework and try to derive their results from such a set-up, while the implementation-oriented papers conceive of some algorithm and a protocol (based solely on logical argument rather than any rigorous mathematical premise) and present the results of their software simulations.

While on paper people argue there is no divide between theory and practice, at least to me the approach towards research differs widely between faculty members in the same field and department. Now to my questions:

How important is math emphasis in an applied field like networking? Industry work is almost always simulation-based from whatever I have seen. After all, networks are there to be implemented and deployed, so why bother about probabilistic modelling?
When there are two modes of research in a particular field, will the PhD student's approach play a role in faculty recruitment?
Is there a widespread notion of one being superior to another? I know of professors and students who widely emphasise math and pooh-pooh "S-BAA: simulation based on arbitrary algorithm" type of papers.

How important is math emphasis in an applied field like networking?

Networking is an enormous field, which runs the full spectrum from pure mathematics to actual real-world deployment, with many shades of applied mathematics, algorithm development, modeling, simulation, and experimentation in between.  There are far more than "two modes of research" in networking, as you put it.  Mathematical emphasis is fundamental at the mathematical end of the field, useless at the deployment end, and somewhere in between in between.

To put it differently, it depends on what you mean by "networking".

Why should an engineering department award a degree to a thesis where the problem has an engineering cause, but everything is simply applied math?

There is no contradiction here.  I'd estimate that somewhere between a third and half of our engineering faculty at my university can legitimately call themselves applied mathematicians.  There was even a small but serious proposal a few years ago to move our mathematics department into our college of engineering.

Will the PhD student's approach play a role in faculty recruitment?

Of course!  Hiring patterns at my own university (in both CS and ECE) suggest that the networking PhDs most likely to be hired as faculty comfortably bridge the so-called gap between theory and application, speaking to both camps in their native languages, and applying techniques from both camps to Actually Make Things Work.  (Sylvain's answer is consistent with this observation.)

Is there a widespread notion of one being superior to another?

Of course.  Networking people are people.  As in any other wide-ranging field, many experimentalists think all theoretical work is pointless symbol-pushing, and many theoreticians think that all experimental work is mindless hacking.  They're both wrong.  Some theoretical work is pointless symbol-pushing, and some experimental work is mindless hacking, which is exactly as it should be.  Neither viewpoint is "better"; they're just different.

Not chalk and cheese, but chocolate and ginger.


Would this be considered a valid reason to apply for deferral for graduate school admission? I have been recently admitted to a top 5 graduate school in the US and I am considering deferring my admission by one year.
My reason is that I am currently pursuing a master's degree and under normal circumstances, one can complete it in 3 semesters, however, I am in a position to graduate in two semesters. Still, I would like to work on a research project with my supervisor (who is very famous in his field) in the third semester starting this fall to hopefully publish something useful.
Do you think that this is a valid reason to ask for a deferral?

You can ask the program what their policies on deferrals are, but I wouldn't defer for this reason.
Your goal at this point is to move to the next step. You've been admitted to a PhD program, so you completed that transition, it's time to start working towards your PhD.
It's perfectly reasonable to finish up previous work as a side project (you don't want to delay progress on your PhD, but it's worth dedicating a bit of extra time to polish up a manuscript and get it through review). Assuming your start time is fall 2021, you still have several months to push the project as far as you can. I would strongly suggest that approach rather than trying to buy another year, even if it's permitted to do so (it may not be).


Out of a long list of suggested master thesis topic, how to decide which one to choose? I'm currently doing a master in mathematics, and will start my master thesis in a couple of month. My university provides a list of (suggested) topics. I'm finding it difficult to choose though, since these are my criteria the topic must satisfy:

I must find it interesting/enjoyable.
It must be something relevant/new. This is because I intend on doing a PhD after my masters, and I think it would increase my chances of getting into a good program if my thesis topic is about an area that is still actively being worked on.

These are basically the only two things I care about. However, I do not feel like I'm in a position to determine if a given topic satisfies either of those criteria.

Most of the topics require a lot of reading before I can understand what they are about, so I don't know yet if I would enjoy it because at the moment I don't understand the topic. Even more problematic is the second point, since I have absolutely no idea which topics are currently considered 'hip' or however one would call that.

So I'm asking what the best way to go about this would be? I realise there might not be a clear cut answer, but I'm looking for some suggestions on what to do here.

Background: while I'm not in mathematics, I have some experience crafting these lists.

I would not worry too much about it being relevant/new/hip. Usually, thesis topics are chosen so that they have at least some opportunity to be analyzed in a novel way (they peeked the interest of the advisor). I would therefore advise against choosing your own topic, unless you really know what you're doing and what the state-of-the-research is in said topic.

It is, however, crucial that you are interested in the topic, because this is what will determine whether you'll have the discipline and energy for persevering. You said it was hard to determine this a priori, but I suggest you at least try to get a faint idea anyway so that you can narrow down the list to up to three topics.

Besides interest, it is also very important that you talk to the respective faculty/advisors, in order to make up your mind about with whom you want to work. This may prove to be an even more important point since their support may ultimately be crucial in securing that PhD offer. Additionally, I find that talking to people often allows you to get many clues as to what kind of researcher they are and whether that conforms to who you'd want to be.


To what extent do PhD students in computer science collaborate equally with other PhD students when working on a research project? I hear a lot that PhD students are expected, and for the most part, work independently on their research projects. This seems to be reflected by how being a 'first-author' on a paper is highly valued as that implies he or she has done the vast majority of the work.

However, I've found from my own experience that I'm a lot more productive with my ideas if I'm working together with one of my peers on a research project.

So I'm wondering how often does equal collaboration between peers occur. If it does not happen often, why isn't it encouraged more?

The PhD is generally awarded to students for their individual contributions to science. That's the whole point. It's not only about advancing science, but advancing science yourself. Otherwise, we would grant a new PhD to each member of a research team every time they had significant new results. Everyone is aware that it's possible to be more productive in teams, but the degree itself is really only about what you can add. So the encouragement to work on your own is there to make it easier to demonstrate what you have personally added to the body of knowledge in your area. Distinguishing your work from another student's could be very hard if you do everything together. This is the traditional view at the very least.

All this being said, discussions, brainstorming, help diagnosing problems should all be a part of students working with others (students, postdocs, researcher professionals, the supervisor, and other faculty). You just have to keep your work separate enough that you can make an easy case for yourself when it comes time to defend your dissertation.


Are college students forbidden from sharing their grades with other students? I am currently in an anatomy class and had an issue. I and three other students worked on an 18 page packet together. We had the same answers since we worked on it as a group.

However, two of us received a 35/50, one of us had a 50/50 and the other had a 30/50. When we asked the teacher why we got different grades, we were scolded for sharing grades with each other and told we were not allowed to.

I can't seem to find this anywhere in our welcome packet or any paperwork and I was wondering, are we really not allowed to tell other students our own grades?

I have a lifetime of experience in academia in the US, and in all of my experience your instructor's claim is completely without merit.  There is no regulation or cultural norm that requires students to keep their grades confidential from other students.  Moreover, comparing assignments or exams for learning purposes and/or to confirm that the grades have been assigned fairly is a very common practice among American students: at any American institution I would assume students have a "right" to do so unless given explicit information to the contrary.

So, bottom line: there is a very good chance that what the instructor has told you is bogus.  What should you do about it?  I would begin by politely asking your instructor whether there is any written confidentiality agreement that you are subject to.  If he says yes: good to know!  If he says no: I would seek aid from someone at your institution.  Good places to start are (i) your faculty advisor or (ii) your student ombudsperson.  Eventually you may want to speak to the department head and/or the relevant dean, but I would proceed carefully and get as much advice as possible rather than escalate too quickly.  It is very likely that you are in the right here, as others should recognize without your needing to press too hard or further antagonize your instructor.  (Someone at an American institution who says this to a student is likely to be well towards the "unreasonable" end of the spectrum, so I would try not to hand them an excuse to retaliate against you.)

Good luck.


My mentor during my master's degree was a PhD student. Does this lower my chances to get a PhD position in good universities? My master's mentor was a PhD student in my university.

I had an interview in a Dutch University for a PhD position, and the committee made me feel weird about my former mentor being a PhD student. Although the University and my supervisor have said it was okay, I am still a bit worried about my chances.

Does having a PhD student as a mentor lower my chances?

It is important here to distinguish between what is on paper and what is the day-to-day reality.

As other have mentioned already, it is common for masters students to be supervised on a daily basis by a PhD student. However, I have never heard of a PhD student being a formal supervisor for a masters student. I very much doubt that this is your case, but stranger things have happened.

What is far more common is that you are accepted for masters work at a lab/department/research group etc and the main supervisor (at least on paper) is the group leader. Then s/he may delegate the day-to-day supervision to a PhD student who is (hopefully) knowledgeable in your field. This is especially common if the group leader has a large group with many grad students, collaborations and possibly even administrative duties. None of this is of any detrimental impact to your chances to being accepted as a PhD student later down the line.

If you are in doubt, ask yourself the following questions:

who advertised the position?
who did I have to contact to be accepted to this position?
whose name will be on the first page of the thesis as a supervisor, once the thesis is formally written?
who is paying for the direct or indirect costs of my research?

If the PhD student tutoring you is the answer to all those questions, which I again doubt very much, then it may very well be so that people look at your future application with some hesitation, probably due to how uncommon and somewhat unrealistic this is.

There is however the possibility, if you are doing your masters at a company, that your formal supervisor is a PhD student, who also happens to be doing research at the company. But even then I would probably argue that formally there is a professor at some affiliated university or research institute who's the actual supervisor, at least on paper.


What is the difference between project and thesis? How project and thesis differs in terms of creativity ?

which one is original ?  project or thesis ?
any formal definition for project and thesis ?

It differs by school. Technically, a thesis is a claim that can be proven or disproven, but, in practice, the term "thesis" is often used for a project (for undergraduate or Master's degrees). On the other hand, a PhD thesis is not just a project; it should advance the state of knowledge in a field in a way that can only be done by someone knowledgeable in the field.

My department is considering renaming our Master's thesis requirement to Master's project, to acknowledge that it need not be a research contribution.

Of course, even a project can entail publishable work or advance the state of the art, but it need not.


Applying to schools in the US - Theoretical fundamental physics I am a theoretical physics masters student, currently on the process of applying to universities. I find it incredibly hard to gauge which universities I'm most likely to be accepted in. All the professors I asked, suggested me the top universities in the US.

With my grades being a first class in my undergrad(standard for theory?), and my physics GREs being about 670(kinda bad..) I find it really unlikely for me to be accepted in these schools(Princeton, Harvard, etc.)

Since I already have taken modules in advanced theoretical subjects, that might give me extra credit, but I don't have much research experience(at least in theoretical physics).

What kind of schools would be a more suitable choice for me?

Acceptance to a doctoral program in the US requires a broadly positive background and evidence that  you will succeed in the program you apply to. It is unlikely to hinge on any single thing. But letters of recommendation are very important, especially if they come from established researchers, preferably well known.

But the US has about 130 top research universities (R1). Some of them have larger programs and others are small. Relatively speaking Harvard and Princeton are small in any given discipline. State funded universities tend to be larger.

No one can predict what will happen based on such limited information. I suggest that you apply to several places, some at the top, as you have been advised and some others that are still excellent.

You can also do a bit of research on the places you might apply to. Figure out who is on the faculty and what their specialties are. Look at a paper or two from some of them to see if you are still interested. Note that a "top" university may not be "top" in every field. Look closely but cast a wide net.


"Caught" in a plagiarism program for an exam but not actually cheating So I'm in a very strange situation.
I got a mail that said that there is a suspicion of cheating in my Python coding exam.
It said that I and two other students have very similar answers on the test so I contacted these students and compared our exams. It is very strange because this was an exam for basic Python and the questions are not very hard. The thing is that we had similar answers on a couple of questions but there are not a lot of ways to answer the questions.
I don't even know the other two students.  We will have a group meeting this week and I have no idea how this will go. How can I prove that I did not cheat?

Don't panic. If you did nothing wrong, all you need is to explain what you did and everything shall be OK.
Based on some similarity metric (computed automatically or spotted by a naked eye), your lecturer or teaching assistant marked your work as a potential case of collusion (working together on individual exams). Now you are invited to a meeting, whose purpose is simply to investigate what happened. As a lecturer, I attend them routinely (from the other side than the one you find yourself in), and I can tell you that 50%+ of cases are dismissed immediately.
During the meeting, you will be asked a number of questions. One of them is likely going to be "did you work together with someone"? or "did you share your work with someone"? Answer honestly and provide details when they ask you to. Don't stress out and try to remain calm and polite as much as possible. If you need support, you usually can bring a student union representative or a personal counsel with you.
Don't overthink it. You are not accused at this stage, the misconduct is only suspected by the system. This meeting is not a trial, it's more like a routine checkup. There can be similarities between you work and the work of other students, but as you said, if the problems are simple and straightforward, the similarities are quite possible.


Should I write my name with an already gained bachelor title in another bachelor thesis? I am writing my second bachelor thesis for a completely different degree and don't know if I should put my name with my already gained title(B.Sc) onto the title page. I live in a country where even bachelor titles are added to the name most of the time, but am not sure if I should/could do that for my  other bachelor thesis. The thesis is written in english, if that's important.

The good news is that it doesn't matter. Very few people will read the thesis. If it is normative in your country to add B.Sc after a name, then you have the right to add it wherever you choose. This is not normative in the US or UK, where I have worked. However, there's no requirement that all titles be used, even in formal contexts. In sum: you can choose.


How to publish my PhD as a monograph when examiners are unable to oversee the process? Before my viva (as they call it in the UK) one of my supervisors strongly hinted that one of my examiners would likely be interested in supervising me with the writing of a monograph. Three months after my PhD was awarded, I decided to contact both examiners and both responded that they did not feel qualified: one does not hold a doctorate, the other's main disciplinary area is outside my own.

Fair enough.

I was given your typical stock advice to publish and review but my heart is still set on publishing a monograph.

There are a couple of professors throughout the UK and North America whom I am keen to contact as potential supervisors for my project on the basis of our  shared research affinities. Do I just send them an email? What is the protocol?
This newbie academic does not want to commit any faux-pas!

Is a monograph or book of some sort an independent endeavour?.

Sigh.... post-PhD distress

Be upfront and honest, and ask!

Make contact with these select few. Explain that you've received interest in producing a monograph, but those doing so later declined their support because their qualifications or subject knowledge are, described much lesd tactfully than you should, inadequate.

Describe your reasons for contacting them in particular - yes, personalise these requests. Ask if they are available to lend support, and whether they would desire to do so. Don't send a copy of your thesis, but make it clear that you will on request, that is, if they don't indicate that they looked it up already.

If you get declined, thank them for their answer, and for any helpful critique or advice they give. If they accept, discuss with your university to see what support you can get from them -  if you have their backing already, this is a good thing to mention in your approach to potential collaborators.


How do I create a diagram in this specific style? I am unsure if this is the right place to ask this but I have seen this style of diagrams (shamelessly stolen from this question):

mostly in an academic setting, i.e. assignments, exams, publications, etc. Anyone have any idea how these diagrams are created. Are they created in Latex/Tikz/PGF, illustrator, paint, something else?

This definitely looks like LaTeX rendered fonts, however, there looks to be some imprecisions in the alignment of the wheels, which might imply they are organized by hand.

Perhaps it is a combination of LaTeX and Inkscape?  Inkscape can export to LaTeX-embeddable files so that LaTeX is in charge of rendering text.


Is a paper that takes existing techniques to solve a practical and more specific problem valuable enough to get published? Let's consider a paper that uses many different techniques to solve a practical problem. The techniques that the paper uses have all already been published by others. This paper only modifies or customizes these techniques a bit to fit the particular question that the paper is solving.

The techniques used are from different disciplines. So the paper is more or less similar to an integration of these techniques. These different techniques were proposed or published for a general purpose with no specified applications before. Now this paper integrates them together and solves a rather specific and practical problem.

I understand that this kind of very-specific-problem-solver application paper will get cited less often than those algorithm papers that may be applicable to many applications. However, let us leave the impact factor issue aside first.

Is this integration and application valued by the peers? Is this paper valuable enough to get published? (not considering its impact first)

In my opinion, yes.

You paper will prove that those techniques are useful and usable by using them to solve a practical problem. I consider it a contribution to human kind, thus valuable to get published.

Whether or not it will be accepted by journal/conference is another issue. You should try. Please send it to be peer-reviewed.


How has the current governmental funding affected NSF GRFP? As I was reading about the NSF GRFP, I came across this article detailing how the GRFP would be significantly defunded as per the governmental budget at the time.

I'm sure the landscape has changed since May. However, I haven't seen any followup articles. I also notice that within the solicitation for the GRFP, it states the following:
"The NSF expects to award 2,000 Graduate Research Fellowships per fiscal year under this program solicitation pending availability of
funds."

However, I am not aware of a way to check the funding for these awards. Can anyone confirm that the number of GRFP awards will be halved this coming cycle?

There is no final decision yet, but the following commentary from the American Institute of Physics suggests that there might not be major changes to the size of the program:

  Of particular note, the Senate report does not accept the administration’s request to reduce funding for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), and “instead provides the fiscal year 2017 funding level” for the program. The administration has requested to halve the number of new participants to 1,000. It is unclear if the Senate directive applies to GRFP funding allocated through the research directorates or just EHR funds.

It is worth noting that these changes would apply to the next cycle, not the current one.


Perception of Phi Beta Kappa on a resume? I'm a student in the US, about to graduate with a BS in zoology. I've just been invited to join Phi Beta Kappa and am trying to find some more up-to-date discussions of whether or not it's worth it and I see a lot of conflicting opinions/information.

It costs $99 for me to join, which some have said reflects poorly on the society, while others say PBK is super prestigious and eye-catching. I've seen some saying it has gotten them positions, and others say its meaningless or they even look down on people who include it on their resumes.

I'll most likely go to grad school eventually and have no intentions currently to do any work/study outside of the US (I've seen many folks from outside the US saying they see honor societies and have a negative reaction because of Greek Life). Anyone have thoughts on this?

I am looking at this from a European perspective.
Also I focus on the perception and not whether this is accurate, which does not matter that much – whether you like it or not.
You can neither expect readers to research this detail of your CV to fully understand it nor to suppress subconscious bias by the impression they get from items they do not fully understand.

As confirmed by some of the comments by other European members here, the vast majority of information of US Greek-letter societies that trickle over to Europe is about drug abuse, sexual misconduct, dehumanising initiation rituals, and nepotism. Therefore mentioning a membership in such an organisation (without any further explanation) risks leaving a bad impression. At the very least I would try to mitigate the risk by explicitly denoting it as an honour society – which can only have so much effect since that’s not a protected term.

Also, while a little Internet research suffices to debunk the worst associations, it does not leave the best impression:

It’s surprisingly difficult to find a recent independent characterisation on this society. You mainly find self-representation and Wikipedia (which is currently dominated by self-representation). The best you can find with reasonable effort are two articles from 1996 and 2005, respectively, about declining membership and recognition, in which the society leaves a rather entitled impression. Also, this very question and others on this site are already amongst the first things you find. This somewhat suggests that the society has since evaporated into meaninglessness.
The society’s main activity appears to be selecting and recruiting new members and documenting their achievements, which strikes me as awkwardly circular. There a few awards, scholarships, and fellowships, but these seem secondary.
The primary selection criterion seems to be grades, scholarly achievements, and learning another language, which should be featured on your CV anyway. It seems like a society that charges mountains to put a golden badge on them stating their height (analogy stolen from Leonard Cohen). Thus, listing membership appears to be somewhat redundant.

Mind that this is just an impression (after all the difficulty of finding information from reliable sources is one of the things that form this impression), but at the very least it suggests a considerable marketing failure.


Too burnt out to continue MSc I finally realized that there is a term for the situation I am in,"burned out". What can I do to recover from a short term burnout?

I am at the the last four months of my MSc program and I haven't started my thesis yet. The reason was complicated, the MSc program was quite different from the one I had in mind. So, from the start I felt I was wasting my time by continuing at the program. The only reason I didn't quit is because the scholarship is sponsored by the company I used to work. I am still their employee and I am expected to join them once I finished.

If I quit, I wouldn't get promotion not to mention the "he wasn't able to graduate" rumor. Besides, I am supposed to serve three years as a pay back for the scholarship they gave me.

Despite my adviser's genuine effort to help, I am not able to pull myself and do something. I continually failed to see my adviser despite having an appointment with him.  The only thing that crossed my mind for months as a solution is SUICIDE. I am deeply stressed and have presumably stress initiated headache that lasts for weeks.

What would you do if you were in my position?

Talk to people. Here, elsewhere on the internet, but most importantly in real life, whether it's with people from your program (if you feel like opening to them) or at a local discussion group or whatever. Don't isolate yourself.
Recognize what you are experiencing: describe its symptoms, put a name (or names) on it, identify it. Recognize that it is quite common, and that there are solutions.
Make some time, even if it's not much, to do something else (vacation, volunteer work, some time with family, …) to put things in perspective. This should help you evaluate your overall goals, and decide what you are willing to do to achieve them.
Talk to key people involved (advisor, your boss at the company), and let them know in a professional way that you have hit a bump in the road.

From you post, it sounds to me that you've made a great deal of progress on that path already! You'll get through that hard time, believe us.

I'll maybe add something more personal, regarding the “if I quit, I wouldn't get promotion” part: advancement in your work is not the ultimate goal, it is only worth pursuing if it makes you (and the people around you) happier, directly or by achieving other goals. If it makes you miserable, you have to realize (and accept) that failing is an option.


How do I ask a professor at a different department whether I can attend his classes? There is a professor in Department X. I will be applying to Department Y & Department Z for a MA that really fits my interests. Now, I am wondering whether the professor in Department X will also hold classes in Department Y & Z, or whether these classes are shared and accessible over multiple departments anyways (how does this usually work in the UK? I don't really know). How do I ask him this question, how do I best phrase it? I am a bit unsure about this. Right now I have

I am currently thinking of applying for X at Uni X, and am wondering whether I could then attend your courses too?

but it sounds a bit strange to me? (English is not my native language)

Don't act yet.

There's no need to ask yet. You aren't enrolled at the university, so there's no need to ask. If you must ask, then ask an administrator, rather than the professor. (Professors are busy, they'd rather have fewer emails.) Assuming you're accepted, then you have several options.

Exception: You should ask if your decision to enrol depends on the answer. (See comments for further discussion.)

Just turn up.

You can sit at the back of the class and ask the professor afterwards, e.g., Hi, I sat-in on your course today and I really enjoyed it. I'm not formally registered, but I'd like to continue attending, is that okay? You can answer any follow-up questions in person. For large classes, this approach is fine. For smaller classes (or tutorials, lab sessions, etc.), you might want to ask in advance.

You needn't ask: Attending an occasional class on which you aren't registered is fine, but it is courteous to ask. (See also Allowing a student to sit in during class.)

Ask in advance.

You can attend the professor's office hours and ask something along the lines of, e.g., Hi, I'm studying ..., but I'd like to attend your class ..., is that okay? Again, you can answer any follow-up questions in person. The same question can be asked by email.

What's better?

It really depends on the professor. Personally, I'd favour a student just turning up to my class. It requires the minimal effort on my part.


Order of authors in a paper I have worked on few research labs and performed research as a master's student with PhD students and faced similar issues.

It has been papers that I have contributed most of the work for that paper, including producing results, and writing. Yet the PhD student wants to put my name second due to seniority.

When I first got involved I understood that the order of the paper authors is important in showing the amount of contribution. It feels extremely demotivating to know someone else is getting credit for the very hard work I done and makes me want to stop being involved in research.

Questions:

What is the best practice to decide the author order for CS/AI/ML related conferences?
When everyone has contributed equally and ordering by name, is it the first name or last name you order by?
When the order of the authors doesn't match the level of contribution, what is a good way to bring it up and to who?

Rule #1: Always try to pin these types of things down before performing the work.
Rule #2: Understand that academia (graduate school) is run on an implicit pecking order:

Departmental pressures and requirements > Advisor > PhD Student > Master's Student

This makes complying to Rule #1 very difficult in practice. Every early career researcher runs into the issue you have described in some form. (Not that this makes such practices right). People higher than you in the pecking order will use administrative leverage to get what they want.

Advisor: "I am the first author on this paper." (And if you disagree, you'll have to find a new advisor and lose a year's worth of work).
Department: "Give Professor Smith what she wants or we will not sign off on your degree."
PhD Student: "Collect this data for me. (And then try to convince someone that you actually did the work and not me)."

The order of attribution should be based on the order of contribution in most CS-based fields. Equal contributions are noted by alphabetical order of the authors' surnames, sometimes with a footnote indicating equal contribution.
I would bring the issue up first with the PhD student directly. I would then speak with his/her advisor. The advisor is essentially the court of last resort. An advisor also will be able to help with the navigation of what actually constitutes authorship for each party. At the very least, your own advisor should (hopefully) be able to help you obtain credit for your work in the form of a chapter in your thesis or something.
Going forward, I would be firm in establishing what the authorship expectations will be on any work you do. You will at times be forced to balance fairness in authorship and expediency in obtaining your degree.
I will note that I take the pecking order things into account when I interview applicants for a job. I care much less about author order and much more about what the person actually did for the paper. Thus, if the OP applied to a job with me, I would likely give his research the same weight whether he was first or second author. I fully understand that superiors sometimes take advantage of their underlings.


Is there a risk my Statement of Purpose will be plagiarized if I post it online? I am currently looking to send my Statement of Purpose to an English TA for editing. The problem is that I am afraid my Statement of Purpose might get plagiarized. However, since my statement is highly personalized, is my worry unnecessary?

This is very unlikely if you do your statement of purpose well: the document should be too specific to your situation and interests to apply to your English TA.

To reduce the chances of it being plagiarised, try considering some standard tips for a good statement of purpose [emphasis mine]:

  Tell them what you’re interested in, and perhaps, what sparked your desire for graduate study. This should be short and to the point; don’t spend a great deal of time on autobiography.
  [Summarize...] [r]esearch you conducted. Indicate with whom, the title of the project, what your responsibilities were, and the outcome. Write technically, or in the style of your discipline. Professors are the people who read these statements.

And so on. The common theme among these and the remaining tips is that the statement of purpose should really highlight your unique qualifications and interests.


I can't access a reference of an article I am reviewing: what shall I do? From time to time, I cannot access a reference of an article that I am reviewing, either because my university did not subscribe to some journals (and I failed to find it myself on sci-hub, Google, and other places), or because the article doesn't seem to be available online.

Pinging the authors of the article (either the one that I am reviewing or the one that was cited) may work, but not always: legal issues (some publishers do not allow sharing papers online), unanswered emails, blind review preventing from contacting authors, etc.

Shall I just ignore the cited article in that case, even though it could be useful to review the article? Or are there other options, aside from asking my library to pay for it (hoping they would agree)?

While online access is very useful, it is not the only access. Every university I have been affiliated has provided an ILL service either at no cost or a nominal charge (e.g., a $1 processing charge). US University libraries can make requests to both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Medicine. I am less familiar with the ILL system in the UK/Britain, but I believe ILL requests can be made, possibly through a university, to the British Library.

There are of course some articles/books that are truly hard to find (e.g., not held by the LoC with deceased authors). In these cases, it seems reasonable to request a copy through the handling editor. You should never contact the authors of a manuscript under review directly.


Is it OK to exclude 'extra courses' from the GPA reported in my CV? I am a PhD student in a physical science major. I finished ALL of my required courses. Assume my current GPA is 3.5. Currently, I am taking 'extra' courses from another engineering department. Some of these courses are indirectly related to my research, but some are completely unrelated (am taking them for pure personal interests).

Now, say I got less than 3.5 in these course. My official University Transcripts will include these courses and report a GPA of less than 3.5.

However, in my CV, I plan not to do so and exclude these courses, and report 3.5, nothing less. My stand is that these were not required in the first place, and some of them are even not relevant at all. It is not fair for me to have them included.

Is there any problem with this?

If you write

  GPA: 3.5

in your CV, this implies that your official cumulative GPA as per university records is a 3.5. So to write this is misleading, and unethical.

If you want to list your GPA only for courses in your own department, you can write

  Major GPA: 3.5

or

  3.5 GPA in physical science courses


If a student's work has been substantially (>80%) revised, is s/he still qualified as the first author? The issue of authorship is often a thorny issue in academia, so I’d like to ask for your insight into the authorship in the following situation:

My advisee’s MA thesis is mainly and originally based on a new idea from me. We worked together to refine the idea and turned it into a thesis. I worked closely with him, spending 6 hours per week meeting with him to examine the collected data (he spent about 4 hours per week for data collection). Finally, he completed his thesis with a lot of work and graduated. After his graduation, I approached the student and asked him if he would be interested in publishing the study. He declined this offer mainly due to his availability and due to his work but appreciated this possibilities. Seeing the potential of the collected data, I decided to do this alone.

To make the study publishable, I substantially revised more than 80 % of the student's work, using a different analysis method to recode the data and revamping the introduction, literature review, discussion, and conclusion sections. In other words, the revised paper, albeit being based on the student’s raw data set, is already substantially different from the student’s original work; the rationale is different and the focus is also different (just to appeal to the scope of the journal of our interest and the readership of the journal).

The revised work was then submitted to a respected journal. I took care of all of the responses and revisions (three rounds of major revision + two rounds of minor revision), and the paper finally got accepted. Of course, I asked the student to read the paper and he liked/approved the paper.

I listed my student as the first author and myself as the corresponding author. But given my student’s contribution to this publication, is he qualified as the first author? Or should he be listed as the second author and myself as first author? What should I do so that I can strike a balance between the ethical code and the effort I have put to this paper?

There is no hard and fast rule about what exactly qualifies a person for first authorship, which is why it is so often a thorny issue (except in those disciplines where the convention is to always list people alphabetically).  It is also often highly dependent on the particulars of a given situation.  For example, I have had situations like this a number of times and in some cases have ended up keeping the student as first author and in other cases ended up replacing them.

Accordingly, the principles that I would go by in making such a decision are, from most important to least important:

Did you previously make an agreement about authorship order?  If so, you should almost always respect that agreement.  Renegotiating, even if things have changed significantly, is likely to be coercive to the student given the difference of power between you.
How much work was the non-writing effort?  Advisors are often much, much better at writing than students, and 80% of the writing may be far less than 80% of the work that went into a paper, particularly if the advisor's writing focuses on the "supporting" material like references, introduction, discussion, etc.  If the student has put in a lot of hard work, especially if there has been significant intellectual work, in gathering the data, then I give the student first authorship even if I basically wrote the whole text.
Is the student interested in continuing in academia?  If authorship could be argued either way, and the student has any possible interest in continuing, it's generally better to put them first.  It's a gracious act promoting your proteges and you still gain recognition as the advisor on the paper.

In the end, it is likely that it will not be clear-cut exactly who should be first author.  Personally, I prefer to err in the direction of giving a student too much credit rather than too little, but others may choose otherwise.


Failing PhD, how to go forward? I have read many PhDs have a feeling of failure during their studies. At the moment I am seeking a reflection, from someone who is/has been a PhD and maybe a similar situation.

I found myself in a group of around 10 PhDs under 1 supervisor. All of them are non-native speakers, struggling with English, and speak their native language (which I do not speak) amongst each other. Meetings with my supervisor deteriorated into short, few minutes long conversations, where he presents his ideas, that are unprecedented in literature, or his previous research.

I have decided to detach myself from his suggestions and try ideas that I can reference in previously published literature.

To give the full story, I have followed his advice and suggestions, but this lead me to a dead end, twice. After quite a hard time, realizing that I am fighting my supervisors advice and undoubtedly a fear of another failure, I have stood up and started again.

A new idea, new approach. I took all the relevant courses and read literature. After several tests, the idea seemed to work.

But as of yesterday, I found a flaw and a possible problem that discards my 4 months or work.

I am a PhD for more than 3 semesters already. Within the first two I followed every word of my supervisor, working 12 hours a day, to deliver on his suggestions. This failed, his ideas failed, I have failed. I think I can blame him for the ideas, but I am to blame for my naivness to blindly follow something, that he and I knew nothing about.

The last semester was all machine learning and AI and 12 hours a day in a lab to make my own testing setup. Now I am facing a failure, or at least a very intensive feeling of failure.

What to do? Please, notice the word "forward" in the title means I am opened to any point of view. Leaving PhD (temporarily/cancelling), starting new PhD in English speaking country or working. I really don't know.

P.S.
The lady at counselling is very nice, but far from offering real help/career advice. Other PhDs cooperate together, but since there is a language barrier, I am left out. My supervisor has little / no understanding of machine learning or data I am working with.

P.S. 2
I am temporarily in a bad mood. It is hard to admit, but in this and previous situations I had break downs. Crying in my room, in my office or anytime when I realized, what failures I had been through, and that there is probably no one that could help.

Failing is part of research! We all fail; those that haven't are surely not trying hard enough.

If you're failing too frequently, then

Search for easier problems
Discuss ideas with peers
Find a mentor
Collaborate with another student
Work more closely with your supervisor
Attend seminars and conferences
Study textbooks on the research process at PhD level


Resubmission after Rejection My manuscript is rejected by the editor after receiving the reviewer's comments. The rejection is based on the comments from the reviewers. Two reviewers rated my manuscript as important. I received a full 2-page long comment from reviewer 2, which after all recommends re-submission after extensive revision. The problem is that one of my data is not relevant to the rest of the manuscript. So the manuscript needs extensive re-write, re-collect of the irrelevant data. The rest is ok. This is the reason for the rejection from the editor. So if I revise and re-collect the data, should I re-submit it to the same journal with a rebuttal letter?

Unless you were told not to resubmit then a complete reworking of the paper (from the data up) could be submitted. It might be rejected immediately, of course.
But I caution you about a "rebuttal". If you try to explain why they were wrong to reject the paper it will probably fail. If you, instead, submit a note of changes, updates, and improvements of the paper it will be better received. Unfortunately the word "rebuttal" is often misused in this context and the literal meaning gives the wrong impression about what should be included. If you think you need to explain why the editor was wrong, you should save yourself some time, effort, and pain and jut submit the paper (with improvements) elsewhere.
But note that "reject" means different things to different journals. Sometimes it is absolute and final (i.e. "go away"). Otherwise it just might mean "you've got a lot of work to do here - more than we care to deal with". Hopefully the rejection note from the editor lets you distinguish which situation applies.


As an undergraduate, how can I explore research topics that may interest me without having a background? I'm a fourth-year undergraduate looking to apply to graduate physics program this year.

My problem is this: I don't know how to pick a study/research area for graduate school. I enjoy my undergraduate courses greatly yet I have no idea how I could develop an interest in a specific topic.

For example, I enjoyed my electromagnetism class but I know there are hundreds of research areas in that field. Moreover, there are hundreds of other research areas that I've never even been exposed to. I've tried to look at papers but many feel a bit inaccessible because they are highly technical and specialized. Often, it's hard for me to understand what's going on there.

In summary, here are the two problems that I've come up against:

The topics I've studied as an undergraduate are far-removed from the frontiers of research.
I don't have the prerequisite knowledge to understand many of the methods and results of papers that I read.

So my question is this:

Is there any method to effectively 'explore' research topics without having a background?

This is a good question and I'm sure you're going to get a lot of "try doing X" style answers - however, I think it's important to zoom out for a second and remember that there are two forces which decide what topics researchers investigate.

The first comes from within - what you are most motivated and passionate to research, giving you a strong pull factor in that direction. Alternatively, some topics you will find totally and utterly boring, and there is a strong push factor there. When you are young, it can feel like this force is the only force guiding your learning, since you pick your elective modules, you choose which Wikipedia articles to read, etc. This is probably why you feel that choosing a good topic is going to be really important going forwards.

The second force comes from academia itself. Some topics are "sexy" and funding opens up for those topics, pulling researchers in. Other topics go out of fashion, pushing researchers away. This force is created by the hundreds of thousands of people working and funding academic research right now, and is totally out of your control. The significance of this force grows as you mature through your academic career, so while right now you probably barely feel it (beyond the fact that the electives you can choose from are decided by academics), in the future you will be acutely aware of it and how much of an influence it has on your research area. If you ever listen to someone accomplished explain their academic career path, they'll always tell you it was "unusual" because they started in X and ended up doing Y. "Unusual" career paths are so common place that these days i'd only be surprised if someone said they started working on X when they were 25 and now at 60 their still working on X. That would be unusual. Of the hundreds of researchers I have ever met, I can only think of 2 or 3 people like that.

So long story short, I wouldn't bother researching around to find other topics you may or may not be interested in, because it simply doesn't work like that - particularly in practical/applied Physics or life sciences. You will get funding and find mentors only in the topics society/academia finds most important. To go against the flow in this regard early on is to commit career suicide, since everything you do will be that much harder. No mentors, no funding, no one wants to accept your poster presentation, no one wants to publish your paper, no one asks you to review anything, etc. So from that point of view, if you want to make smart early-career decisions, look at new/expanding areas of research and find a way to make it your own. Learn to enjoy it because you are the best at it and you are energized by the progress you make, not necessarily the subject matter itself. Keep the things you love as hobbies, or save them until tenure :)


Has a doctoral degree any value outside of its main area? The phd area is Computer Science and the other area can be anything - if this info makes any difference...

I am asking from the practical point of view, specially something that can be evidenced by real examples. Some career that requires/rewards the degree despite of being completely outside its scope would be a good example.

I was worried about asking something a little open, but I see it is pretty common by here, e.g. - the opposite of other more harsh communities.

Though the topic of your dissertation may be extremely narrow and focused, the process of acquiring a PhD teaches you the skills to attack virtually any problem very deeply, if given sufficient time.  Ultimately, the PhD is just a piece of paper.  The real value of it is the ability to produce something of value to others (i.e. research, a product, etc...).


May authors opt-out of the proceedings of a conference? Many conferences in my field (theoretical CS) are organised as follows. They are run by academics, as an endowement, scientific association, or some other not-for-profit organization. Each year, submission and reviewing are done on some platform like Easychair, producing a list of accepted papers. The authors of these papers are then requested to submit a final version of their work (or camera-ready) for inclusion in the proceedings of the conference. The proceedings are managed by a for-profit scientific publisher (e.g., Springer, Sheridan Communications, etc.), and the authors are asked to sign a copyright transfer agreement, so that the publisher can sell the final version on their website. The publisher may edit the final version, but in most cases it doesn't: the publisher's only role in the conference is apparently to compile these proceedings.

To make papers more broadly available, it seems to me that authors could prefer to simply host the final version of their work on an open repository like arXiv, as they often do anyway, instead of publishing their work in the conference proceedings. (Alternatively, they could simply submit the title and abstract to the publisher, along with a pointer to the arXiv version.) This would save authors the effort of dealing with the publisher's formatting requirement, and would also avoid any potential legal issues with the copyright transfer (which do not always allow authors to host their work elsewhere). Further, it seems to me that it would make no difference to all the rest of the conference organization.

Hence my question: Are some conferences OK with authors hosting their work somewhere else than in the publisher-run proceedings? More generally, do conferences care whether the authors of an accepted paper actually submit a camera-ready version to the publisher? If yes, why, and what happens when authors fail to obey? If no, why do authors bother?

(I imagine that authors may want to include the accepted paper to their résumé, but instead of listing their paper as being "published in the Proceedings of XYZ", they could point to the arXiv version with a note "Accepted/presented at the XYZ conference": presumably, this should make no difference?)

(Related: this question suggest that some conferences allow what I propose (for different reasons, apparently), but I have never heard about such conferences in my subfield. Why aren't there more of them?)

I don't know if there would be any negative consequences from the conference from refusing to include your paper in the proceedings, but there are several positive reasons to do so. I don't know about theoretical CS, but I understand that for many sub-disciplines of CS, the conference publication is more imporant for your career than any journal publication. So, if yours in one where the conference article is more important than the journal article, you may have already accomplished the most important part for you already by the time you give the talk. That being said however, you might still prefer to put the paper into the proceedings volume since:

it should be easier to find and refer to for future researchers and yourself than if it is on your website or the arXiv
a journal special issue is probably considered more archival than arXiv.org by some
if your discipline is other than I mentioned, you now might be considered to have a more prestigious journal article as well (depending, often, on whether others understand the level of peer review associated with that conference).

If this printing is a free service of the conference and goes in the publisher's digital archive, I'd be inclined to take the opportunity over trying to host it myself or arXiv it, and I have done so, even though CS is not my primary discipline. I'm not a big fan of the copyright transfer that is basically required to allow the big publisher or the professional societies to publish a copy of your work that they did not author (at least in the US and Europe).

I'd say that it's unlikely to be a big problem with the conference for you not to publish in the proceedings, though you might get some pressure from them to include your article. Some of the organizers, if they are common one year to the next, might remember your refusal and hold that against you the next year, but that would be unethical in my view, so they might also just let it go. As long as the paperwork to submit the article to the proceedings comes after the conference, there's not much they can do to you before the conference (like pull your talk), so I wouldn't worry too much about that. Finally, before you sign the copyright transfer with the publisher, you have an opportunity to read the publishing agreement and decide if it currently or ever will meet your standards for openness. If it doesn't or never will, then you can make that call as late as possible if you want to.


What tone to use in the personal statement? The guide in Berkeley states:

  The personal statement should give concrete evidence of your promise as a member of the academic community, giving the committee an image of you as a person.

So what tone should I use here? If as a person is as yourself, then is it better to use informal voice, like writing in a blog? Or should I keep the formal voice as most statements require you to be professional?

I guess that the guide encourages applicants to not hide behind a neutral tone. You should "be yourself" and write in the way you normally talk to people in the workplace.

You may consider reading your personal statement (or asking someone to read it), and then try to assess the tone and imagine how you could describe a person who wrote it. Can you say something about the author which is not already explicitly mentioned in the text? If you can not see a specific tone and can not guess anything beyond what is already written, then the personal statement is probably too neutral.


Starting over six years again after Ph.D. I graduated with Ph.D. in 2012 from SUNY-Albany College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, with B.S. in Physics. Then I could not find a related job to this day.

In 6 years, I managed only to get two different full time jobs in entirely different fields, and they did not last.  I believe one of the major obstacle in my goal is that I am Deaf, and the employers do discriminate.

So, now I am enrolling into community college to try to get in an internship program in Computer Science/Engineering in Spring 2019.  One of my major defects was that I did lot of modeling and simulations on a platform, but without a computer program language (C++, for instance). Another major defects: the program was not ABET certified, did not have any undergraduate engineering courses (AutoCAD, statics, etc), exhausted references.

As I was working on this course of action, I realized that most college and universities tend not to admit people who has advanced degrees (both undergraduate and graduate programs).  Granted, the community college will provide me with additional training and coursework to cover some of the defects such as basic engineering courses, programming and possibly one more math course.  But how do I get back into advanced research and coursework, or at least do advanced research (postdocs generally requires recent graduate within 3 years)?

First of all, you don't need a job at most colleges, you just need one of them. So don't let a bunch of closed doors bother you. Many others are still open.

You can definitely still do postdocs. Some schools have strict rules, many others do not, treating it as a generic at-will employment job with whatever name the prof wants to give the role. I knew someone who came back to a postdoc after over a decade in industry (they left again in a few months for another industry job though). I know others who have stayed in the role for way too many years. There are also similar jobs with other names like research scientist that you can get in academic labs. It's kind of wide open if you are willing/able to relocate. Pick some big schools and monitor their job opening list.

You can also take classes at many (perhaps all?) major public universities via some variant of an open university system, requiring little more than permission of the instructor (and some cash). There will likely be a limit in the number of classes you can take this way but it can get you started. Ace a few classes and you will have a much easier time moving to the next step.

Lack of ABET certification is not a huge deal, by the way. It's a lot of paperwork and many universities don't bother with it. It's more important that the school is regionally accredited. Then we can trust (at least somewhat more) that you were actually taught what your transcript says you were taught.


List dollar amount of small grants on C.V.? This is related to this question, but I don't believe a duplicate since the dollar amount there was impressive, whereas mine are not.

I have been awarded several intra-University small grants ($2-4k each), about one a year, during my Ph.D.  These were funds to cover research expenses, rather than to cover my stipend, and I believe I've used them productively.

Should I list the dollar amounts of these on my C.V.?  On the one hand, listing them shows they're not just honorary amounts.  On the other, the amounts are not enormous either, and there are all the usual disadvantages of listing (setting the wrong tone, etc.).  Plus it just makes me a little uneasy.

Background here is: headed into a soft money position eventually, and my stipend is fully covered without conditions, so I've had no need to apply for any of the big extramural grants.

I would say yes. I have done so from when I received my first grant/stipend. I ceased listing once I received a permanent position (or thereabouts) and started getting multiyer grants from national sources.

As long as you think adding it shows that you are active and competitive (well merited) in terms of receiving the trust to receive money it will be a good thing. You need to constantly evaluate the possible pros and cons of adding informaton to your cv, including funding. I would imagine that being in a soft money situation, listing funding will only be a positive. But, be aware that gaps in your funding stream may become question marks unless they are explicitly explained.


How do I convince professors about my research interests? I'm applying to a coursework + thesis masters programme and am wondering how specific do I have to be when mentioning my research interests in my email to a potential advisor. I have applied to another programme before and I think I was too specific when I spoke to the prof. He rejected me immediately because he thinks that our interests do not fit.
As an undergrad applying into a masters course, do I also need to have a research topic ready when contacting the prof? I have trouble refining my research topic as I'm applying into a specialization I've no experience in.
I understand that especially for coursework, there is a chance that our research interest (or topic) might change over time, and in some schools/faculty, masters students aren't really given the full autonomy to decide on their research topics.
How can I convince the prof without sounding like I'm trying to fit into the lab's interests or without deviating too much from his interests?
Thank you.

In my experience (North American research-intensive universities) and point of view, this is a good question without a hard-and-fast answer.

having a specific research topic in mind is good in that it indicates that you've made an effort to think about the topic. However:

new researchers (undergraduates) often have very unrealistic ideas about what constitutes a practical research topic, especially for a beginner in the field who will have a limited amount of time to work on the project;
even good research topics may not fit in well with the specific research program of a particular researcher. As researchers are often supporting master's students from grants, their students' projects need to fit into the scope of the grant.
researchers (and fields) vary hugely in the amount of independence they give to (or expect of) master's students. You might be able to get some ideas about a particular researcher's approach if you can track down masters' theses of their previous students and look at the range of topics covered.

It's fine (and probably best) to say "I have the following ideas about new projects I could work on ... but of course I would be happy to work on new or existing projects in your lab ..."

similarly, it's good to express some knowledge of/interest in the potential supervisor's field. HOWEVER: I get a lot of e-mails that say something along the lines of "I'm fascinated by your work in XXX and YYY", where XXX and YYY are topics that can easily be picked off of my web  page or a glance at my CV or Google Scholar page.
The most compelling aspect of an application/e-mail is evidence that a student has previously engaged with something about the subject. Even if you haven't done anything in the particular field, it  helps a lot if you highlight things that you know/have done that will make you well-prepared for research in the topic — this could be course projects you've done in related fields, or courses you've taken (or things you've taught yourself) that are good foundations for getting started in the field.

I appreciate that the last point is hard if you're just entering the field for the first time, but talk is cheap: demonstrating that you've already taken some steps to prepare yourself is much more convincing. If you can't do that, then demonstrating some awareness of which aspects of your current training would be useful is helpful.


how to deal with this prof when he gives you his lowest grade? Now our marks came out and the average is 94 and he gave me 2 marks less than the average of the class. (This means that I have got the lowest grade in the class)

I am overthinking these days and getting a headache.
I really want to figure out what is his intention and why is he playing with my future?

I always study hard to get everything done in high quality; I always compare my work with other classmates to correct myself; I do not know why he gave me his lowest grades?

Should Ph.D. students get higher than master students? is there any range?
or
I am getting this just because I am a girl...

You should assume the grading is fair, unless there is a reason to believe otherwise. Based on your question and comments, I don't see any reason to believe that discrimination is involved.

You state that you did everything that was required, just like the other students. That doesn't mean you should get exactly the same grade as them. Perhaps your presentation was not as clear as the others or your project had some minor flaws. It is very hard for you to judge that yourself -- you are neither an expert like the professor is nor objective in self-evaluation.

You received a 92, which is below the class average of 94. To me, that still sounds like a good grade and you shouldn't be concerned. Trying to argue for every last point is not productive -- it's called grade grubbing.


How many credit hours of mathematics does an average successful student take before applying to graduate school? I'm a senior in mathematics at the University of Illinois (Urbana). I will be graduating sometimes in 2017, and I would like to go to grad school straight after graduation.

How many credit hours of mathematics does an average successful student take before applying to graduate school?

This tends to vary a lot, but here's what I'd consider reasonably good preparation for pure math graduate school in the United States:

Three semesters of calculus (possibly less if you've had calculus in high school)
A semester of linear algebra
Two semesters of abstract algebra
Two semesters of real analysis
One semester of complex analysis
One semester of topology
At least 2-3 more semesters of advanced electives.  These can vary a lot, but it helps to have some expertise in a few different subfields of math before attending graduate school.

So it seems that I'm recommending at least 12-13 semesters of mathematics.  Assuming 4 credit hours for a one semester course, this is 48-52 credit hours of college mathematics.


Scantron Tests For Math Courses I'm a student at State University of New York. My math professor gives scantron exams which consist of true/false questions for calculus and graph theory courses. Each question presents a problem and a solution, and all I have to do is just mark it right or wrong (by doing calculations on a separate sheet that won't be collected). I'm a transfer student, so I've seen how real math exams are written. The first time I saw it I was quite surprised.

Is this kind of testing typical for math courses?

UPDATE: after taking 2 exams this week, one in graph theory and one in calculus 3, I can say with certainty that scantron exams are useless. Why?

In calculus 3 I got 11 correct answers out of 12, and I was guessing 5 questions. Together with the curving that my professor did, I got 95. I didn't know the answers for almost half of the exam, and yet I got an A!
In graph theory I got 19 correct answers out of 25, and I was guessing about third of the questions. After curving, I got 86.

End of proof.

Multiple choice exams certainly do get used in math, by many people and at many places. (At the university I'm at, we use them for the calculus sequence, and then move to short answer exams after.)


Choosing between a one page abstract in conference proceedings and full version on arXiv, or publishing full paper in conference proceedings In some conferences in computer science, the authors of accepted papers have a choice between publishing the full paper in the proceedings, and publishing a one-page abstract with a link to the full paper in arXiv.

The rationale for publishing a one-page abstract is that the authors may want to submit the same paper later to a journal, and some journals would not consider publications that appeared in conference proceedings.

This raises two questions:

Why should it make a difference to a journal, if the paper is published in conference proceedings, or in an arXiv paper linked from the proceedings? In both cases the paper is visible online.
Why should it matter to the author, if the paper is published in the proceedings or in arXiv? both cases the paper is visible online. Apparently, there is an advantage to publishing a one-page abstract with link to arXiv: if I later upgrade the arXiv paper, people coming to the paper will notice and may choose to read the newer version.

Is there any disadvantage to publishing a one-page abstract rather than a full proceedings paper?

You are basically choosing whether you want this paper to be considered "published" in its current state, where "published" means "published in a peer reviewed venue."

If you decide that this paper should be "published" now, then you may be precluded from "publishing" it again in essentially the same form. Hence the option to "publish" only an abstract, which won't preclude later submission to another publication venue.
If you decide that this paper should not be "published" now, then for many purposes (e.g. promotion and tenure at some institutions, hiring processes that count the number of publications) it isn't credited as a publication. This may seem like a useless distinction, but bureaucratic processes are often a little bit stupid like that. Furthermore, there is a possibility that it won't ever be "published": it is accepted for publication now with 100% probability, but once you decline that offer, you no longer have 100% probability of acceptance somewhere that you'd like to publish.

Depending on the maturity of the work, the quality of this conference proceedings, and your future plans for the work, you may decide that you are ready for this paper to be "published" now in this conference proceedings, or that you're not.


Is it typical for colleges to cancel a course well into the semester? What options does an instructor have in this case? I'm teaching as an adjunct at a community college in the US. One of the courses I'm teaching has very low enrollment. Now, several weeks into the semester, the college is considering cancelling the course. I am not happy about this as it would significantly impact my income. The course is unusual (for reasons I won't go into in an attempt to preserve anonymity), and had I anticipated that low enrollment might lead to cancellation I might have chosen one of a couple other employment options this semester instead.

I can look into the legal aspects elsewhere, but I wonder whether this is a common scenario? Do instructors in this situation just accept the loss of income? I never encountered this before my previous teaching experience.

I have seen this happen at community colleges, although perhaps not past the two-week point.

I hope you have been actively trying to promote interest in your course!

At this point, your best bet, to try to keep the course alive, may be to gently try to get some of your students to lobby for keeping the course.  Be careful how you do this.  You don't want to give them the feeling they are on a sinking ship.  You can just mention that the enrollment is low, and it would be helpful for all concerned if the students were to let the department know that they feel the course is important for them, in their program of studies, and important for the department.


Missed registration deadline that was not announced for second exam of a course, how should I proceed? I am an undergraduate student in Germany.
Due to scheduling problems I couldn't attend an exam last semester. Subsequently, because of COVID-19, the date for the second exam was unknown. To register for an exam you need to access the list where all university courses are listed, and then just click on the exam and press on a participate button. I did not want to register for the second exam before the date was announced, because I did not want to have this show up in my grades if I did not attend.
The professor only sent the e-mail of the date of the exam to those registered for the second exam, excluding the students otherwise registered for the course or the first exam. Also, no information on the second exam is available on the course page. Yesterday, I got an e-mail from the professor about hygiene and covid measures in the exam which apparently is this Friday. Also, the deadline for entering was 2 weeks ago. In all the other courses I participated in, all attendants of the course got information for the second exam.
After explaining the situation to the professor I got the answer that attending now is not possible.
This is an incredibly bad situation for me. My whole plan on finishing my degree in time depends on passing this exam. Otherwise I won't be able to attend a lot of courses that have this course as a prerequisite. Effectively, I will need a year longer to finish my bachelors.
How shall I proceed? Do I have any rights for a third exam in this situation?

As proposed by @Sumyrda - remember Monica, I post my comment as a possible solution.
As a lecturer at a German university, I suggest the following: the informal appraoch is via the lecturer. If s/he does not register you for your exam, try a formal approach via 'Prüfungsausschuss' or the 'Prüfungsamt'. I can only speak for a few institution I worked for (from rather small to bigger universities): the processes are quite different and thus are your option to register for tests, exams or written essays, etc. Since COVID19, universities have opened processes here and there for exceptions, especially concerning third tries on exams and registration processes. However, these are regulated on a institutional, often even on a chair-basis.


Is it a good idea to do MS two times in separate disciplines than a PhD for an industry job? I am getting admitted to a school(college as it is called in many parts of the world) that provides 5 years integrated BS-MS dual degree in the natural sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Bio). You can major in anyone and minor in some other discipline in this school.

However, I am very interested in taking up CS (which is neither offered as a major neither a minor here) and going for an industry job for eg. as a data analyst or machine learning scientist in some IT firm.

Note: I am not interested in a Ph.D. or making a career in academia.

So, is it advisable to go for another MS in CS from some separate school after doing the integrated degree from here? Do universities in US/UK accept students for an MS if he already has an MS in a separate discipline? Will it help me in an industry job?

I also have a second option. Dropping my first year and getting admitted to a separate school which offers a CS degree next year. Is year loss advisable? (Advisable in the sense will it have any detrimental effect in my future career?)

Don't make some elaborate plan of doing this entry degree and then another one.  You could even consider to drop out of this school and go to another that has CS. Or just go to work, in whatever IT position you can find.

If you feel like you must stay in the school you are at, my advice is to do whatever subjects appeal to you and just try to pick up some computer skills as available from whatever courses, projects you can.  Or even just on the side for fun or for small pay.

P.s.  Pick up as much statistics as you can.  That stuff never goes out of style and is incredibly relevant to computer algorithm optimization (as well as all kinds of other practical things)

P.s.s.  You are young and should somewhat be open to different careers.  Machine learning is a bit of a fad.


Can a poorly done second degree ruin one's academic record? Currently I have a BSc degree in Computer Science, and in the future I plan to get a Master degree in Computer Science. In my opinion, my BSc grades are good enough to help me be accepted at good universities in my country.

Also I'm considering doing a second BSc degree (in Electrical or Mechatronics Engineering), but I don't think I'll have enough time to study in order to get very good grades.

Could this ruin my academic record? Would it lower my chances of being accepted in a Master's course in the area of Computer Science?

Yes.

I think it is pretty obvious that if you provide the transcript for your second degree, a poor performance harms your chances.  This provides relevant information about your academic ability and/or work ethic, which a graduate program would consider.  It might even be weighed more heavily than your first degree, since it is more recent (and in a relevant subject to your planned masters').

So the question becomes can you just not tell graduate programs about your second degree?  I don't think this is a viable option.  A graduate program will expect you to submit information about all previous studies.  Not submitting a transcript for a second batchelor's degree will most likely be breaking their rules.  You would likely have to be deceptive in any application, interviews, and discussions with the potential graduate institution.  I think this is just wrong, but even if you don't have any moral qualms about it, you are placing yourself in a very bad position.  There is a chance you could get away with it, but you also might get caught, and that would have serious consequences.


Can a student with a weak or average undergraduate math GPA realistically become a professor? I just finished my second year of undergraduate studies as a double major in computer engineering and mathematics at the University of Iowa. Although I came in believing that I wanted to become a software engineer, I've become more interested in pursuing math as I learn more about it.

To be completely honest, I was somewhat directionless and unmotivated when I started my studies and I didn't quite achieve the grades that I wanted. I finished my first year with a GPA somewhere around a 3.45 on a 4.0 scale. However, I managed to put forth a lot more effort into my coursework this year, pulling my overall GPA up to a 3.60 (and achieving a 3.8 this last semester).

The problem is that my mathematics GPA is still somewhere around a 3.48. The graduate school at my university requires a 3.4 to pursue doctoral studies in math and (assuming that my grades continue to stay on track) I know I will be able to satisfy that.

My question is, are my grades able to become competitive enough to reasonably pursue a career as a tenure-track professor in math at a state university? I still have two years of undergraduate coursework plus all of graduate school and post-doc studies to make myself more appealing, but if I've already caused too much harm to repair then I'll probably skip graduate school altogether and go into industry as a software engineer.

I don't know all that much about expectations and qualifications for becoming a mathematics professor so I was hoping that somebody who might be a little more knowledgeable here could help give me some guidance.

You shouldn't give up hope yet, and you should follow your dream while having a backup plan or two in case things don't work out.

Nothing that you've written rules out the possibility of your going on to graduate school, but it also isn't sufficient to ensure that you will be adequately prepared for admission to graduate study in mathematics.  What you do in the next few years will determine whether or not this is possible.

There are many more steps beyond simply getting admitted to a graduate program and it's way too early to predict things will ultimately work out for you.  Take it one step at a time, and be prepared to reassess your goals in light of your future successes and failures.