Can I work on open-source projects while being a part of an academic institution? I'm working on a software framework with the goal of creating something that is open-source, so that the scientific community can use, understand and improve it freely.

However, a little birdie told me that universities have rights to all the work we do as researchers.

How can I develop and distribute the software on a collaboration site and at the same time make sure that the university does not have rights (making it proprietary)?

Optional question -
What about the projects that are owned by other institutions, and I modify it (by making some changes to their source code) and push it to the main repository. Will my university insist on partial rights to this software if I worked on it?

Yes, it is very possible to work on open-source projects in academic settings.  The exact legal and technical details vary from university to university, but many universities are very open to open-source contribution.

There are a lot of variables that you don't specify in your question. I am most familiar with U.S. universities, so my answer will focus on those.

Short version: work with your adviser to discuss it with your Office of Technology Transfer.

In most U.S. universities, the university owns rights to code that is created as a part of sponsored projects or with their resources. The following easily trigger it:

Using the computer provided by your university
Being funded on a research grant
Being funded by the university

Often, work done entirely on your own time on your own computer equipment, sufficently unrelated to your paid work that it cannot be considered part of it, is yours without any problem. Coursework is also often yours, although using university equipment may muddy that point. The exact details depend on university policies.

Your university policies will contain information about the precise rules. However, there is often a fair amount of difference between how the policies are written and how they are implemented in practice. I have been affiliated with 3 universities, and at all of them have had no problems obtaining suitable permission for open-source software release.

The relevant office is generally the Office of Technology Transfer or something like that. You should start by talking with your adviser - they will start the Tech Transfer discussion - but there is a good chance that your adviser will not actually know the detailed rules of your university. In practice, there's a lot of open-source code released without going through the proper channels for official university sign-off.

Some universities officially vest faculty with the authority to authorize open-source release of software developed under their supervision.  If that is the case, then the conversation is very short.

In other cases, tech transfer will need to approve to have everything be formally legal. It is possible that they will not fully understand what is going on - I've seen cases where the relevant authority didn't really understand software copyrights and open-source licensing.  My current institution's tech transfer office takes the perspective that their job is to help faculty achieve their goals with technology licensing and commercialization, and has worked with me to get university counsel to sign off on a couple of standard open-source licenses, making subsequent releases very easy.

Unfortunately, most universities' formal policies for invention disclosure and review do not interact well with the realities of open-source software, particularly continuous development in the open.  You'll need to work with university officials to navigate that.

I have generally found university officials to be receptive to my argument that open-source release is a cornerstone of my approach to disseminating the results of my research and promoting reproducible research in my field.


Mendeley - add notes to research I am using mendeley to save papers etc. which have come up during my research. However, I am often having some ideas about problems which are interesting or some links which are worth reading later. I would like to add this to mendeley easily, sth like a workable document.
Is sth like that possible? What are you using for a problem like that?
I appreciate your answer!
Update
I am looking for a way to add general notes, which are not paper related?

Mendeley does let you add notes to your papers: On the right where the bibliography data is normally displayed there is a tab label notes.

Additionally you can add annotations when to a document you open in Mendeley using the buttons at the top.


Writing to a reviewer to inform that one is not journal shopping? I submitted a paper to a reputed journal on behalf of my organization (research publications are not very common here). The double blind reviews were received 8 months later when I had moved on to an entirely different project. Both the reviewers indicated accepting the paper but required huge modifications along with generation of more results. The re-submission date was 10 days after I received the reviews, though the modifications would have easily taken at least two months.

Since, I didn't have access to the resources (server, bandwidth etc.) and none of my co-authors were interested in reworking along with a dismal response from the management for request to reallocate the resources, I tried to do it in my spare time but the paper was automatically withdrawn since 10 days had passed. After a few days, the senior management suddenly enquired the status of the paper and forced me to resubmit to the same journal as is.
Obviously, the paper got rejected within 2 months. Editor didn't gave any comments except that the reviewers are suggesting to reject the paper.

I have the following confusions: (Didn't think they make separate questions)

Should I ask the reviewer what were the reasons for rejection (which I doubt is re-submission without modification if it went to the same reviewer)
Should I explain him that I was not journal shopping and the situation was such that I had to resubmit the paper? (Since I am pretty young and do not want the future papers to be rejected in conferences where same editor comes up).
I have now incorporated the suggested changes and wish to resubmit. Should I now resubmit it to the same journal or to a different journal?

I'll start with some remarks on the past events:

“the re-submission date was 10 days after I received the reviews” — If the reviewers had asked for large modifications, I am convinced you could have asked the editor to allow you more time to resubmit the manuscript (unless it was for a special issue).

“senior management […] forced me to resubmit to the same journal as is” — This is very wrong, and you should have said no (backed up with strong arguments, of course). Resubmitting the same manuscript, unmodified, to the same journal, is ethically borderline. Depending on the exact requirements for submission of the journal, and the information you gave to the editor, it may even be unethical (many journals ask “has this manuscript previously been submitted to this journal?” — if you say yes, the unmodified paper will be flat out rejected, if you say no, you are lying).

Now, regarding your questions:

“Should I ask […] the reasons for rejection?” — You can. I am guessing that the editor somehow didn't realize that it was a resubmission, if it took 2 months for it to get rejected. Thus, you probably got some new referee comments. However, if the editor didn't tell you… maybe the reviewers just flat out recommended rejection, with no comments.

“Should I explain him that I was not journal shopping and the situation was such that I had to resubmit the paper?” — I don't think so, and certainly not in these terms. There is not “situation such that I had to resubmit”: you resubmitted, and the blame of that bad decision lies with you. Pressure explains it, but it doesn't justify it.
If you want to contact the editor, I would do it very differently. Simply apologize to him for the bad decision, explain that it was done under pressure from your organization and you realized only afterwards that it was wrong. Say that you hope it won't be held against you in the future.

“I have now incorporated the suggested changes […] Should I now resubmit it to the same journal?” — I don't see why not… just make sure you carefully explain all the changes made in response to the reviewers, as a regular resubmission, and explain your earlier resubmission (apologize!).

To be honest, I don't think it will leave a bad stain to your name in the future: everybody makes mistakes, especially young researchers who don't yet understand fully the rules. Being honest and upfront in your future interactions with the editor should lead him to form a good opinion of you.


About recommendation letters University requirements might be different but most of them ask for recommendation letters. Leaving everything else (Degree, GPA, publications) they rely heavily on the recommendation letters. Not one but three recommendation letters. At least in my field (Life sciences) it's a well known fact that you have to be recommended as if you were the next "whatever genius you like".
Since the PhD positions are limited because of many reasons (from "money" to the fact that "some top universities are proud of having a 5% acceptance") students must apply to at least (say) 10 different universities/institutes to have a minimum chance. Of course, they can be realistic about their chances and apply for the less crowded opportunities. That would mean making a list of your top 20 places and applying for the 10-20. After all, if they were "the next genius" they wouldn’t have any problem with recommendation letters. So far, so good, but they still need those letters.
As far as I know, a "normal" pre-PhD person might have at most 2 different research experiences so if they are able to get one professor to write something good about them they're OK.
However, this means that these 3 persons have to be willing to write 10 letters for you (and logging in the online system which asks them a lot of questions about them and about the student). Basically, they can:

1) Do copy-paste and change the name with a generic great letter. This means your recommendation letter won't be about you (or will be as yours as anybody else's)

2) Write a great unique letter

Usually a PI would have tons of students asking for recommendation letters so it's a natural part of their work to do some writing but it's still a big favor. If a PI writes too many outstanding letters the system will suspect He's a fool or even worse a liar. So my guess is that they just write "great" letters.

But, how is a great letter composed? Are the writers really aware of what they have to write? is the same letter suitable for two PhD programs? What if they're in different countries (I've been reading that south American and European PIs write "too realistic" letters for US PhDs and US PIs write "too good to be true" letters for European standards)? Then, should a pre-PhD student work in both continents first and then apply? How to deal with the fact that the PIs may be unknown? How to deal with the fact that you need many different PIs writing you many different letters? How to ask your PI a recommendation letter to "leave" him/her?

I know that it's not ONE question but for me it's part of the same problem.

Usually a PI would have tons of students asking for recommendation letters

...which is why the experienced ones will say no to anyone they don't think they can honestly give a strong recommendation.

  it's still a big favor.

No, it's not.  It's their job.

  How is a great letter composed?

Most successful reference letters follow the same general outline:

A short blurb describing how long the writer has known you, and in what capacity (student in class, independent study, senior thesis, lab slave, coauthor, squash partner, etc.)
A detailed description of why (not just whether) the writer thinks you are a strong candidate for PhD admission, and in particular your potential for independent research in direct, personal, technical, and credible detail.  This part is different for every letter.
Direct comparisons, by name, with other students the writer has worked with and/or recommended in the past.
A short blurb describing the writer's credentials and experience.

  Are the writers really aware of what they have to write?

In general, yes—after all, they read recommendation letters themselves (or they're the wrong people to ask)—but the only way to really be sure is to ask them directly.  If they are anything but confident about their ability to write you a strong and effective letter, ask someone else.

  is the same letter suitable for two PhD programs?

At least within the US, yes, definitely.

  What if they're in different countries?

Ask your references directly whether they understand the cultural expectations in those countries.  But in my experience (in computer science), these differences are shrinking rapidly.

  Then, should a pre-PhD student work in both continents first and then apply?

Nobody can tell you what you "should" do.  There's an obvious tradeoff between breadth and depth in your pre-PhD research experience.  The choice depends on which is more likely to provide evidence of your potential as an independent researcher.

  How to deal with the fact that the PIs may be unknown?

There is no such thing as an unknown PI; everyone has a professional web page, and everyone can use Google.  (Corollary: If someone doesn't have a professional web page, do not under any circumstances ask them for a letter.)  But more junior writers do need to provide more narrative detail in their letters, to make up for being less known and less experienced.

  How to deal with the fact that you need many different PIs writing you many different letters?

What is there to "deal with"?  With rare exceptions, you need three our four PIs to write one letter each, possibly with some very minor customization.  Ask them if they are willing to write you a strong letter.  (Use the word "strong" when you ask.)  If they say yes, give them everything they need to write a strong letter, including time, and then get out of the way.

  How to ask your PI a recommendation letter to "leave" him/her?

Directly—just as if the PI were actually a responsible, mature, adult human being—and far enough in advance that they can plan for your departure.  Anything else would be incredibly disrespectful.

(If they get huffy about the idea that you might pursue opportunities elsewhere, then be very happy you asked—you really don't want to work for them.)


PhD student and slow, painstaking writer. Any advice? I am a PhD student (in the UK, and part-time, member of faculty at the same time)
But I struggle to write well and fast. To quote my supervisor:
The greatest weakness [of your report] is a ground hog day feel to it. I feel like you've woken up and started your narrative afresh at various places (this may be the reality) but a more consistent effort could improve efficiency of expression and clarity.
If effort alone solved this, I wouldn't be asking this question, but this does point to a long-standing problem. I am a slow, painstaking writer, with a history of overcoming impairment / clumsy pen-holding. Even in my native language (French) and in any topic.
My usual "strategy" has been to accept that limit and work with it, by:

Focusing on science (computing was transformational for me at school, thanks to typing and programming Maths/Science homework)
Displacing writing with work that provides material - preparing diagrams, software, bibliographies, synthetic tables, that can make their way in the work
"pre-writing" - like a procrastinator using pre-commitment, writing for a conference paper because the short term and specific focus kick-starts a short document
"recycling" writing. Starting again appears to fail, so I rework existing wording and presentations, e.g. merging an earlier report with a conference paper and new material; torturing sentences to adapt them to a new order...
Building a top-down structure first, and focusing on structure - to avoid the patchwork quilt impression that re-using written material would leave.
I have tried recording myself, as my speech can be clearer, but this has proved very inefficient too - suddenly a lot of umming and erring; speaking above family is also not always an option.

But (as well as still being a lot of work) this results in the poor efficiency of expression and lack of clarity that my supervisor remarks. At worst, the work can be a collection of tables, diagrams, bibliographic notes, commented to give them context. Hopefully it is not always as bad, but:

What other strategies would you recommend?
My "paradigm" has been to accept, my limited writing. What practices would help me change paradigm? If am not limited to my history, what would I do to level up?

This is not a complete answer as it is only one possible strategy, but it became too long for a comment.
My advice would be to read lots, and not just academic papers and textbooks. Read well-written fiction, in English preferably, since that is the language you have to write in at the moment. I personally like the Sherlock Holmes stories as they are short and fun, though the language is a little archaic due to the time period they were written in. Otherwise just browse the fiction section of your local bookshop (or online equivalent) until you find something that catches your attention.
When reading, think about how the author varies their language and sentence structure according to the effect they want to create (short, sharp sentences to show surprise or anger, for example). Try to notice how they build the narrative, and how they structure the story. However, don't do this for every single book you read as that would quickly get tiring. Prioritise reading enjoyable books and over time you will hopefully get a feel for how to construct pleasing sentences and sustain longer passages of writing.
It could also be that your technique of amalgamating past work leads to your "ground hog day" style. Out of all the possible strategies you list, I think that creating a structure and sticking to it will be the best for helping you to avoid this problem. Let me use my thesis writing strategy as an example:

I made a list of all the chapters I would include and a one sentence description of the material that would go in each chapter.
For each chapter, I made a bullet point list of all the topics that would be covered in that chapter.
For each topic, yet another list or short description of the key points I needed to cover.

Overall, I ended up with something like this:
Chapter 1 (background cosmology)

introduction

historical overview
topics covered in this chapter

general relativity

field equations
FLRW solution
figure showing spacetime shapes

dark energy models

LCDM
quintessence
k-essence

Chapter 2 (methodology)
etc ...
This structure leaves me with an almost paragraph-by-paragraph plan of what to write. Then it's just a case of filling in the blanks, i.e. writing a paragraph or two for each of those items on the list. Adding material such as tables and figures comes last, though their rough placement does appear in the list. The additional benefit of this is that you can show your plan to your supervisor even before you finish writing, and they can suggest things that you missed or topics you could skip.
Finally, your comment about clumsy pen-holding made me wonder if you have considered the possibility that you could be dyslexic? There are many strategies to help with that which I won't go into here; a quick google search should help you. If you think that could be part of the problem, your university may have an office specifically for supporting students and staff with dyslexia (and other related difficulties) and I recommend you get in touch with them for some one-on-one advice.


Standing/sitting practices of an instructor A question on this site deals with health aspects related to the posture while delivering a lecture.
My question is about the statistics regarding the same practice and its effect on students.
In general, the success of a lecture may depends on several factors like lecture notes, interactivity etc. Is standing/sitting (of an instructor) in classroom one among them? Does it effect teaching success in any way? Are there any stats related to it?
I know about some institutes having an explicit rule that an instructor should not sit while delivering a lecture and they provide neither chairs nor tables. Is this rule implemented in the institutes of many countries?
Note that sitting or standing by an instructor in this question refers to the instructor who either sits or stands throughout the lecture or at least 90% of the lecture.

Does it effect teaching success in any way?

Effective teaching engages with students.  If there are many students, you cannot engage with all of them effectively from one place.  For example, I walk to the part of the room where students are not paying attention; then they start paying attention.  I do not recommend either standing still or sitting still; sitting in a moving wheelchair would work fine, though.  That's not quite what you asked for, but it works.

Is this rule implemented in the institutes of many countries?

I've never heard of it.  I think this rule would be illegal in countries that protect workers with disabilities.


Citing own results which were obtained under former name I'm giving a talk about results I obtained in my MSc thesis, some time after which I changed my last name. The result will be published under my former name. How should I state it during the talk? I want it both to be clear that this is my result, and that if someone wants to look it up they should do so under the former name.
Since I've seen it's customary to state own results using only the initial:

  Theorem (Y., 2016)

I thought I should write it as:

  Theorem (Y. (under Formername), 2016)

Theorem (Y. (under Formername), 2016)

Is fine. (I have personally never seen a paper that state[s one's] own results using only the initial. I presume it is specific to the OP's discipline.) Alternatively, Theorem (Y. (formally Xxx), 2016) or my preference:

  Theorem (Xxx (now Y.), 2016)

I favour this option because the bibliography will contain Xxx (2016), not Y. (2016). (At least, it won't unless you modify the bibliography.)


Why was Roy Fielding's thesis on REST not adopted immediately? Roy Fielding's thesis ( Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures  ) was not implemented/adopted immediately, was there any specific reason for this ? The thesis was submitted in 2000, however the REST architectural design became popular in the last 3/4 years. I may be wrong but that's why I like to know better. I understand that under SOA, SOAP was popular and well standardized before the REST era. Was this lapse in adoption a function of academic or industrial factors ?

Maybe the evaluation was insufficient or not convincing  enough for real world deployments. What academic lessons can be drawn from this ?

If someone claims that (s)he found something good, then that alone is not enough. Mistakes happen, even without mistakes correct conclusions given the evidence present can later proof to be incorrect. So a single publication alone is often not enough, it needs checking by others, replications, etc. before a conclusion is widely accepted. That takes time.


Can Research Hypotheses be Contratictory Among Them? I want to know how to proceed in an experimental research, where there is a conflict between different theories with different predictions. I.e. the theory A predicts X > Y, while the theory B predicts X ≠ Y or X < Y.

So, can I, based on the conflicting theories, adopt and test both hypothesis in my research? Or do I really have to pick one?

From a statistical point of view, there is no reason you cannot have the
null hypothesis that X = Y and the alternative that X unequal to Y. Then when
you get data you can assess which is greater and by how much.

Before you start you should do a 'power computation' to find what the
sample sizes need to be in order to have a reasonable probability of detecting
a difference of a size that is of practical importance. (Technically,
'power' is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis, at a particular
significance level, if the difference is at least D --- ideally, where D
is chosen to be a difference large enough to be worth talking about.)

If you fail to reject the null hypothesis, you will not have a "statictically significant" difference
to discuss, but you should be able to cite an updated version of the power
computation to say that the true difference, if any, is likely to be smaller
then D. If you reject the null hypothesis, you may want to present
confidence intervals (say 95% intervals) to give an idea how large the difference is and with
what margin of error.

From a political point of view, you may find your adviser or those who
are willing to support your work strongly on one side or the other of the
debate whether X < Y or X > Y. Then you can write your proposal in terms
of testing the null hypothesis (that X = Y) against whichever alternative
(research) hypothesis is favored. But if possible, make sure your methods,
sample sizes, types of data, and so on, have anticipated the possibility that the
truth is in the other direction from the popular view, so that you will
still have something to publish, even if the prevailing view is wrong.


Introductory Structure of a Report Reviewing Established Knowledge My question is set in the context of engineering and science. I wish to understand the contrast between the introductory structure for a report investigating developing/unproven research with the introductory structure of a report reviewing previously developed knowledge.

For example how the introduction would be structured for a report titled 'A New Method to Measure the Affect of Variable X on Response Y' in contrast with a report titled 'A Review of the Function and Application of the Transistor'.

My old university structures the introductory section to a generic scientific research report as follows:

Coverage of background, history and state of current events. Description of what is known already.
Description of the current state of events from where this report is
to be launched.
Clear indication of the scope of the report, what will and will not be included, such that it is possible to estimate its completeness at any given time.
Presentation of a 'roadmap' indicating how the report will approach the topic.
Written in the future tense.

Source: HAUC Guide to Report Writing.

There is understandably a clear theme of addressing a problem or gap in current knowledge. This focus is also present here in an informal guide to writing a research report from the Cambridge University Engineering Department.

However this structure seems awkward when applied to a report intended to collect and review knowledge already in existence, where the author is not trying to formulate knowledge but simply organise and clarify existing knowledge.

I would be grateful for suggestions of how the introductory structure would change for this more review based report style. Are there formal names for these two different types of report? Is there an accepted 'proper' structure for the introductory parts of a report reviewing existing knowledge.

A document that collects and reviews knowledge already in existence is usually called a literature review.

It might be done according to a structured protocol, in which case, it is also called a systematic review.

And a systematic review that statistically analyses the data from existing primary research is also called a meta-analysis.

There are some excellent guides on how to write literature reviews, and Doing a Systematic Review: A Student's Guide  - Angela Boland et al is easy to read; it is primarily aimed at Masters students, but I think it's a good beginners' guide for most people who have to write a review, and don't yet have the experience.

Your introduction will typically identify what you are reviewing, what the context is, and possibly why this review is timely. It might identify how you selected your sources, and what the inclusion and exclusion criteria were (if this is so short that it does not merit a methodology section), and how many documents are included.

Many fields have journals dedicated to reviews: it would be worth reading a few reviews in your field, to get a feel for the structure. Your target journal's "guide for authors" may offer specific guidance: if it does, follow it!


Bulk download of arXiv (or other publication data set) with metadata AND citations This is to extend the question:
Getting a dump of arXiv metadata

I would like to download arXiv in bulk, and found a useful answer above for using this syntax:

http://export.arxiv.org/oai2?verb=ListRecords&set=math&from=2015-01-01&until=2015-01-31&metadataPrefix=arXiv

However, in data there is not a field for citations.
I wonder if there is another dataset.

In
https://arxiv.org/help/bulk_data
there is no description about citations, apart of an old dataset (KDD) of 2003.

Is there any parameter to extend the above query and also fetch citations?
Is there any reference to see how arXiv metadata are classified?

Any other dataset of articles possible to freely download?
I would like to use a dump for testing visualizations for knowledge discovery. If there is already a sample DB standardized / polished, it will be really helpful not to have to polish / curate data.

arXiv's metadata does not include any citation information.

If you are interested in citations in arXiv documents, your best bet is probably to extract them from the PDF files using a dedicated tool (Cermine, pdfx or pdfextract for instance), or from the LaTeX sources, by inspecting the .aux files.

You can download PDF or source files using the dedicated bulk data interface. Using the OAI interface for this purpose is not recommended as it generates a lot of traffic on the main arXiv site.

You could extract a similar dataset from PubMed Central using their API. If you are looking for something broader (not restricted to a particular topic), you could use COnnecting REpositories (they have full texts from a variety of sources, with an API).

You can also use a pre-curated dataset such as the Microsoft Academic Graph.


Given a journal policy that authors must share original data, am I free to use this data without granting original authors authorship? There is a large database maintained by a group of scientists. This group of scientists have made a considerable effort to get many other scientists to contribute to this database, and make it available to other researchers, on the condition that to access some of the data, some data contributors may request authorship. This project has been very successful and many publications have resulted from this database.

Recently, some authors used the entire database in an analysis, and gave associated authorship to respective authors when requested. However, this analysis is published in a journal with a specific data sharing policy that reads,

"(Journal X) requires authors to ensure that data and materials integral to the paper are available to readers in a form which allows for verification and replication of the results in the paper. Where feasible, data should be included as part of the article or as supporting information, however if this is not possible, we expect authors to make use of public data repositories and include the appropriate links and identifiers within the article. It is the strict requirement of the journal that authors will agree to make their data and materials available to readers upon reasonable request, and corresponding authors will be reminded of this at acceptance stage. Please note that this policy also applies to any custom software described in the paper."

To me, this means that if I request this data, then the original authors can no longer require me to include them as authors in any subsequent analysis I generate and choose to publish. However, it only says they have to share the data with me. It says nothing about how I am allowed to use said shared data.

Question: if I request this data, am I somehow obligated to offer authorship to the original data generators?

I'm not a fan of "mandatory authorship" on published information: I feel that once something is published, one should collect one's rewards by means of citation rather than by strong-arming people into giving you an authorship.  Mandatory authorship on already-published data feels to me too much like a form of salami-slicing on a dataset.

That said, the journal's policy does not appear to say anything at all regarding authorship.  Therefore, the default position would seem to be that the authors must share the data with you (as mandated by the journal), but are also free to require authorship as "payment" for sharing.

The journal, however, may feel that this goes against the spirit of their data sharing agreement, and if so, then you may be able to obtain the data without being coerced into authorship.  I would thus recommend, like @BrianBorchers notes in the comment, that you write to the chief editor(s) and ask for a ruling.


Can I put the proofs to my lemmas/theorems/corollaries in my appendix? I have proofs that run on for up to 10 pages. To aid in readability, I would like to discuss my theorem, and the lemmas that support it, without the noise of these lengthy proofs. Can I move the proofs to my lemmas, theorem, etc., into an appendix? Or somewhere else more appropriate?

Can I move the proofs to my lemmas, theorem, etc., into an appendix?

Yes - this is often done in journal articles. You might want to put a sketch of why your claims should be believed in the main text, with a pointer to the full proofs in the appendix.

But, you have tagged this thesis, so it would be worth discussing this with your thesis advisor, as they may have a different opinion for your particular field or their particular preferences/style.


How important is specialisation in a master's degree? My university offers an optional specialisation (e.g. algorithms, software engineering, networks...) during my masters program (which will appear on the degree). To qualify, you basically need a certain amount of credits on that topic.

I think I rather not specialize, so I can hear a broader spectrum of topics.
How important is such a specialisation for future job search (in academia and industry)? Does it matter at all?

I can just answer your question from the industry side:

I know enough people that don't even work in the field where they studied. Here in my department (in a well known company) we have guys from computer science, engineering and electrical engineering working on the same tasks. It's more important to have a technical degree than have a good specialization. Most of the hard skills you need for your work aren't taught in university. The important skills are the soft skills that the job will give you (to complete in stem fields with good grades will show them that you are not totally dumb and have the stamina for hard tasks).

Visit the courses that sound useful to you. I did it that way and am completely happy with my decision.


Abbreviation for "this study" I am writing a scientific paper and compare my results with those of other studies in several tables and figures. When presenting the data, I have one column in the table/ one axis in the diagram, where I provide the sources of the data (with very low space). The other studies I can abbreviate with the reference, e.g. [31].

Does anyone have a good idea how to abbreviate the reference to my own data? I could write "t.s." for "this study", but it seems strange to me.

Best regards

Wilko

As already indicated in my comment, you can use a symbol such as an asterisk to denote the work at hand. Then, explain the meaning of this symbol in the table caption where you should have the space therfor.


How far into the program should a doctoral candidate transfer to a different school? I read the thread about PhD students transferring to a different school. How far into the doctoral program can or should such a transfer be done?

Related:

Is transferring to another university an option for an unhappy PhD student?
Can a PhD student transfer to another graduate school after advancing to candidacy?

There really aren't "transfers" at the PhD level as there are with undergraduates. What might happen at best is that you:

Get some credit for coursework done, or for core-course requirements (like stats, etc.)
Rarely, a student can come in with their MA/MPhil and waive coursework and advance to candidacy.

But everything at this level is ad hoc. Sometime, students can switch programs -- especially if it's in the context of their advisor moving from University A to University B and taking their students with them, other times it's impossible.

It's all up to the university, the program, your advisor, and the alignment of the stars in heaven.

Otherwise you apply as a new student and start off at zero. Most students who do this do it in their first or second year, it becomes much harder the more advanced you are.


Software for managing departmental alumni relations My department is looking for a CRM tool to manage its relationship with graduated students (either on BSc, MSc or PhD level). What we want to achieve:

Show our candidates that you can get a well paid work after graduating Physics in Poland (they don't believe such positions exist)
Allow our department to track careers of out students and possibly change study program to better fulfill their needs
Gain input from former students
Allow current and former students to view/apply for job opportunities (people from our department who start a company often look for people with similar education level)

All these use cases are more or less practiced now, but mainly using emails.

I was wondering what are established practices, particularly in Western Universities (since Polish ones tend to lag somewhat, especially when it comes to such problems). Do your departments do any kind of alumni tracking? If yes, what tools do you use?  If not, why not?

LinkedIn is a fine resource for this sort of thing, especially for keeping track of alums' careers and contact data. I encourage my students to link to me for exactly this reason.


How do researchers ask others for comments and advices for their research? I have self-funded, 8-page long research which is highly suited a famous researcher, in both their academic and personal interests. How should I ask them for comments and advice? I am not asking them to be my advisor or to provide me funding, but a direction to continue my research. A letter of recommendation would be great, of course.

Should the research be written in an attachment, or in the email right ahead? They have to read the research anyway, right? It has a preamble, which conveys the mathematical results in Apple's advertisement style, and has received extremely positive feedback. Should this be placed at the top of the email, even before the salutation? Many presentations do this way, and it does create more impression than the traditional approach. How would other researchers normally do in this situation?

My current approach:

A salutation and a hope that the letter isn't sent when they arn't too busy.
A three-line paragraph just for choosing a proper pronoun. I want to show the respect, but using "professor" multiple times feels distant, which they might not want to be.
A five-line paragraph telling how they fits me (not because they're famous, but because they have niche expertise on the topic), and what my goals are (funding, advice for career path)
A five-line summary of the attachment
A three-line sentence to introduce referees
A thank-you conclusion, re-acknowledge that they're busy but still spending their time reading my letter. Hoping the best for them and their family.

My worry is that they wouldn't open the mail at the first place, or find the summary to be too "astonishing" to be true.

A friend of mine wrote an undergraduate thesis that was groundbreaking original research.  Nobody at his university had the expertise to evaluate it, but one of the faculty suggested he send it to a fairly famous professor at another university.  He did.

That professor read his work and sent him some feedback, including several (correctable) errors he noticed.  He also made sure my friend's application to his program was approved and he was offered their best fellowship.  Eventually my friend attended that doctoral program and the professor he had contacted was his advisor.  He also published the a journal article based on his undergrad thesis in one of the leading journals of his field.

This is an unusual story; most "self-funded" research is not of that quality and many famous researchers don't bother to read that sort of email.  If your work is of that kind of quality, and if you are lucky enough to find a researcher who opens and reads it, this approach can work.  If you believe you're in that situation, definitely do send the manuscript in your initial email (or post it online and provide a link); the likelihood that the researcher will follow up and ask you for a copy, when he/she has no evidence of the quality or relevance of your work, is extremely low.

Always start with a salutation; the last thing you want is to come across as being rude.  I would keep the email short, but long enough to show the researcher that you've done serious research and that it's relevant to his/her interests.  Roughly the length of an abstract, though in your email you can describe things less formally and point out specific connections with the recipient's work.


Is UK QTS a global status or is it per-subject? I am considering taking a PGCE course to get myself QTS.
The only PGCE offered in the area, however, is Mathematics.
While I am sure I can teach Maths, I'd rather eventually teach softer subjects.
Upon attaining my QTS, will I only hold that status for teaching Maths, or for teaching in general?

This is what the Target Jobs website (first result on Google, I'm sure there are other sources) has to say:

  Once you have achieved QTS, it's legal for you to teach any age range, although it's not easy to move from one to another.

They also say that if you specialise in primary school teaching (ages 5-11) you would be expected to teach every part of the National Curriculum (i.e. everything from Maths to Modern Languages, Physical Education and Art).

If you specialise in secondary school teaching (ages 11 upwards), here what Target Jobs says:

  Initial teacher training in secondary teaching entails a specialist subject, but once you've gained QTS, you're legally qualified to teach any subject. It's common to find teachers in schools teaching subjects other than those they specialised in during their teacher training.

So it seems that if you qualify as a maths teacher in secondary teaching you can easily change subjects. However, it's much harder to change age ranges once you have specialised.


Should I put conditional admittance to Master's program on resume? I was recently conditionally admitted to a Master's program for Computer Engineering at a University in the United States, the condition is that I complete 3 graduate level courses in order to be officially accepted into the program.
I would like to put on my resume and social media websites that I have a Master's degree in progress, I believe I am in the right to do so because I am taking graduate level courses that are part of the process of receiving the Master's degree.

Is this bad practice or unethical to label as the Master's degree as "in progress" if I do plan on meeting the conditional requirements to get myself officially into the program?

Thanks for the help!

If you're planning on attending this Master's program, it's not clear what you have to gain from a more impressive resume and social media profile right now. You already got into the program, and by the time you're applying for jobs or further graduate study, this issue will have long since disappeared. I don't think the university would revoke its offer if it found out you were publicly advertising yourself as admitted into their program before you really are, but it could come across as unprofessional. After all, taking three graduate-level courses is much more than a formality. The odds of a bad outcome may be minimal--most likely no one will care--but why risk it?

By all means, brag to your friends and family, but do it verbally.


Master thesis advisor gave me an ill-defined question. I worked on it for a year! My master thesis advisor gave me an ill-defined question. His expertise is in mathematical optimization, but he wanted to shift to heuristic optimization so he assigned all his graduate students topics in that field although he actually doesn't know much about it.

He assigned me a problem. I had a feeling that it was ill-defined. I worked on the problem he assigned me for a year but now the numerical results affirms that I was right.

I am not sure how to deal with the situation. Should I waste more time trying  to re-formulate the statement of the problem? I feel it's unfair for me to be both the student and the mentor! What is his job, really? If I'm to do everything on my own...

He doesn't know anything about this field he forced his students to work in.

However, if I quit probably no one is going to believe that it is his fault as a mentor and won't find anyone in the department to write me a recommendation letter to start fresh somewhere else.

So, what are my options now?

Is it advisable to tell the truth to other professors? Will they believe me?

You (and some of the commenters) have a misconception about mathematics, and even research in general. You need to dispel that and present what you have done and learned in a way that satisfies your advisor so that you can finish your degree.
Comments about research in general
If your advisor knew the answer before giving you the problem, then it wouldn't be research. Research is an exploration of the unknown. All research questions are "ill formed" at the start. People notice an anomaly or a missing piece of theory and ask "What in the world is going on here?". There are not immediate answers. Einstein said “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”.
Since you are exploring the unknown the results could come out to be anything at all. You start with an idea that "might be true". If you set out to "prove that it is true" then you are doing propaganda and not research. You want to take the attitude that "How do I show whether this is true or not?". Starting with preconceptions can easily lead you astray into scientific misconduct. Reality is brutal.
And no, in doctoral research you don't need "positive" results. You need to discover the truth. Learning and establishing that some hypothesis is false is just as valuable as knowledge as knowing that it is true.
Comments about mathematics in particular
Mathematical research shares a lot with research in general. It is a search into the unknown to find truth. But establishing that, for example, Fermat's Last Theorem was false would be precisely as valuable as showing that it is true. Possibly even more so, if it led to new insights. But it is what it is, not what you want it to be.
And, again, if your advisor knew the answer to the question posed to you, then you wouldn't be doing research but only, perhaps, confirming something already known.
What to do
You actually have written your solution within your question. You say "I worked on the problem he assigned me for a year now but now the numerical results affirms that I was right". That is a result. It is precisely what mathematics is about. Write that up. You have been successful at doing mathematics. You haven't failed. You have succeeded. You have insight into a problem. Perhaps you have insight that no one else in the world has at the moment.


What defines a PhD dissertation/thesis? This might be a bit of an abstract question, but what defines a dissertation? Some colleagues and myself have been debating this and some are arguing that three peer-reviewed publications or a long monograph make a dissertation. However, others are arguing that the dissertation is defined not by the length or number of publications, but the significance of the contribution. Is there any scholarly consensus on this, or is this a continuing discussion in academia?

Don't have a source, and things may be different in different parts of the world, but I've always considered a dissertation to be:

  A long monograph submitted in partial completion of the requirements for a PhD

Dissertations are generally submitted by grad students as they complete their PhDs -- other academics might publish long monographs, but that wouldn't be considered a dissertation.
Certainly I don't think there is a well-defined standard for how significant a contribution has to be to merit a dissertation -- it's whatever the committee will accept (though in principle, it should have some new advance, not merely a survey or report).
Some institutions may allow you to staple together your papers to produce a dissertation; most require a separate document that re-hashes work that may (or may not) have been published elsewhere.


Appropriateness of prospective PhD supervisor reviewing scholarship application before submission I'm currently in the process of writing an application for a PhD scholarship at a British university. The school's system requires a CV (resumé) with attached cover letter, along with a few other documents.

My intended supervisor is someone I've already worked with for my MSc thesis, and he has said that he's willing to proof read and suggest changes for my cover letter, using his knowledge of the university's system and what the interview panels are generally looking for to help word it in such a way to tick the boxes that he anticipates the selection panel will be looking for.

He hasn't shown my cover letter to anyone who will actually be involved in the selection process, and he himself will not be involved in the process in any way, but a part of me is still concerned that such help might be giving me an unfair advantage over other applicants who don't have the same kind of relationship with their prospective supervisor. Is receiving this kind of help OK or not?

It is totally normal that somebody helps with applications.

This is true, for example, for applications for scholarships (where potential supervisors help) but also for applications for grants (where, e.g., many universities have specialized units to help applicants to formulate their proposals).

Regarding fairness: I do not think that this is the right question. Unless the rules for the scholarship do not state otherwise, you can use any help to prepare your application you can get (of course, cheating is not allowed - e.g. accepting help for an online language assessment by a native speaker would not be okay).


Does modifying the grades multiple times make me look unprepared/unprofessional? As a TA, I have to grade students' assignments.
The main instructor usually has requirements regarding the minimum average grade for the class.
At the same time, it is tricky to predict the class' performance until I have graded about one third of the students' papers (for larger classes, and one half for smaller classes).

Even then, unexpected things can come up. To ensure fairness as well as fulfill the minimum average grade required by the instructor, I often have to re-grade their papers multiple times. For example, when first grading Josh's work, I gave him 4/5 pts for question 1. After finding out some others did better than him (but still not entirely correct), I gave the other students 4/5 and take one more point from Josh, and this process keeps going on and on. As a result, when I return the assignments to the class, their papers are full of my corrections for their previously assigned points.

I did mention curving to the instructor, but he didn't seem to be OK with that. In fact, he manually re-graded the first HW instead of curving it, which made me feel bad (and insulted).
It doesn't seem like the students have an issue with the way I grade, but I still wonder whether modifying the grades multiple times make me look unprepared/unprofessional?*

Modifying the grades consumes extra time and effort in addition to that required by the grading itself, so regardless of professionality, you should try to avoid it. I assume that you have all (or large number) of assignments to grade available at once.

Your problem is that you start to grade to early.

First, read all the answers, mark mistakes, write comments, or whatever the standard procedure is. Do not assign any points except full points or no points, and those only in the situation where you are certain that that will be the final score. (Empty answer, total nonsense, perfect answer.)

You'll have to do this anyway, so it does not slow the process of grading. It gives you a good sense of the answers of the students, and so makes it easier to come up with the grading scheme (rubric, I guess, is the jargon here).

The next step is to write your grading scheme. Be as precise as you can, considering the successes and mistakes of the students. Ideally, this should so accurate that the actually grading would be merely comparing the assignment with the grading scheme, but this never happens in practice.

Before you start to grade, check a number of papers and which grades they would get. Check that this is appropriate. If yes, then grade the papers. If no, then revise your scheme and retry.


Is there a website for rating and reviewing journals openly? I always found remarkable that whilst the job of all my colleagues boils down to publishing papers, everyone seems so reserved and hesitant when it comes to discussing journals openly.

For instance, rather recently a website was created with exactly that objective, named Journalysis.org. Apparently it seems to have been shut down, as the link doesn't work from my side.

http://www.nature.com/news/rate-that-journal-1.17225

Some specific academic spheres have forums about this, e.g. https://journalreviews.princeton.edu/ranking-peer-reviewed-journals/

Please, can you give me examples of some broader websites or discussion Forums to openly discuss science journals?

I know just one site where you can review the manuscript submission process. It is called SciRev.org:

  The idea for this website was born from our own experience with the scientific review process. This experience is similar to that of many colleagues: endlessly waiting for an uncertain outcome. Through SciRev.sc we aimed to improve this situation by offering researchers the opportunity to share their experiences and select an efficient journal to submit their work.

I don't know if this website is well-known by the scientific community, but I consulted it because I had some problems with a particular journal and I found comments from researchers that had the same issues as me. I think that it is pretty useful.


Is there a way to report to google scholar some systematic mistakes? I've noticed, for citations, that some BibTeX files provided by google scholar are having regular errors (I believe these are errors).

For bib items, there is the "pages" field, in which we could input a range or a number of pages an article has. I've found at least two journals (in a short time span) whose articles have a wrong "pages" field. For instance

@article{baffou2009heat,
title={Heat generation in plasmonic nanostructures: Influence of                  morphology},
  author={Baffou, G and Quidant, R and Girard, C},
  journal={Applied Physics Letters},
  volume={94},
  number={15},
  pages={153109},
  year={2009},
  publisher={AIP}
}

or

@inproceedings{ammari2015super,
  title={Super-resolution in high-contrast media},
  author={Ammari, Habib and Zhang, Hai},
  booktitle={Proc. R. Soc. A},
  volume={471},
  number={2178},
  pages={20140946},
  year={2015},
  organization={The Royal Society}
}

Similarly, this last paper is not a proceeding, but an article from the journal "Proceedings of the Royal Society".

Probably there are some other mistakes around.

I know that these data are collected automatically, but, is there any way to report the errors to help google scholar to perfect their algorithms?

(Edit: I am no longer at Google Scholar, so I cannot fix issues for anyone anymore.)

I am an engineer on the Google Scholar team.

Errors in citation data provided by Google Scholar can occur either because of an error at the source or a case that is not handled correctly by our algorithms. We have automated monitoring systems in place to detect errors that occur widely and bring them to the attention of humans, but it is not possible to catch and fix every possible case at the scale at which we operate.

You can use our contact form to contact us but we do not provide any guarantees of responding or fixing the problem within X business days.

Regarding the paper "Heat generation in plasmonic nanostructures: Influence of                  morphology", we have provided the citation data as it appears at the source.

<meta name="citation_firstpage" content="153109" />

I believe for some physics journals it is standard to cite the first page only instead of a page range.

Regarding the paper "Super-resolution in high-contrast media", it is our mistake that we have classified the venue as a conference instead of a journal. Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.


How should I handle students who ask questions that are "beyond the scope of the course" as a TA One of the most common replies I have gotten as a student in engineering is the phrase "what you are asking is beyond the scope of this course". But I always found it a bit funny coming from the prof since he or she most reasonable have a thing or two to say about the subject. Furthermore, whether something is considered "beyond" sometimes depends on a prof's temperament, on a good day a topic that is beyond will be addressed, or a busy day that topic is hold off indefinitely.

Now I am a TA for an introductory calculus class. Often there would be a handful of students come into the class with years worth of experience in calculus. Sometimes they will ask a question that is addressed in an upper year course, sometimes the question would have to resort to complex variables, sometimes it relates to physics.

How should I handle students who are interested but asks question beyond the course in the sense it requires an additional course or two to truly appreciate its importance or at least to see how the actual calculations are performed.

I could tell them the answer but sometimes it can lead a student down a rabbit hole which can be devastating given how busy first year students are.

Further, I don't want to disrupt their "natural course" by saying something that may prevent independent self discovery.

Lastly, I don't want to say something which could be misconstrued as a test topic.

At the end of the day, how should I address the questions that are deemed beyond the scope while not withhold information.

"This is beyond the scope of the course" is not a great answer without further clarification or commentary.  As you say, the ethos of the university is that your instructor is someone whose qualifications and expertise lie far beyond the scope of any undergraduate course.  The answer is justified for a student who asks a certain kind of question in class, because class time is limited and one must exercise judgment about what to say and cover in that limited time.  Going off on a lengthy digression that is likely to be of interest to only one student and perhaps not even well understood by her is not a good use of class time.  So I would expect an instructor to say "Come talk to me after class if you are interested in that."

If a student comes to talk to you in your office hours or your spare time, I think that she deserves some kind of answer.  The answer may in fact be that the question lies beyond your expertise (and there is nothing inherently wrong with that; there is a lot of stuff out there...), but in that case you should still spend at least a little while trying to direct the student elsewhere, either to the appropriate reading materials or to some other faculty member who can better help them out.

If you do feel that you know the answer to the question -- or at least, enough of the answer to the question -- then, sure, take a crack at answering it.  It takes a lot of expertise -- subject expertise, pedagogical expertise, and practice -- to be able to give answers to such questions which occupy a reasonable amount of time and are at least somewhat meaningful to the student.  This may involve for instance asking some quick questions of your own, trying to understand the student's background and the true direction and depth of their interest.  One mistake that even seasoned pros make is to open up the gates and flood the student with information of a quantity, density and sophistication that is beyond what they can be expected to process in the moment.  If someone asks you about the example of a conservative vector field on the punctured plane which is not a gradient field that you discussed in class, you should probably not respond by giving them a half hour lecture on DeRham cohomology.  (At least not at first.  One of the amazing things about teaching is that the chance that a multivariable calculus student really is looking for a lecture on DeRham cohomology in answer to their question is very, very small...but it is positive!)

  How should I handle students who are interested but asks question beyond the course in the sense it requires an additional course or two to truly appreciate its importance or at least to see how the actual calculations are performed.

You take a shot at it.  Make your first shot very brief: just drop some terminology and try to give a sentence or two expressing one of the main ideas in broadest terms.  In the above case, you might say "Whether every conservative field is a gradient field depends on the domain.  We saw that this is the case when the vector field is defined on the entire plane [or all of three-dimensional space...].  It is also true if the domain is something like an open disk or ball.  It turns out though that 'holes in the domain' lead to conservative vector fields which are not gradient fields."  (By the way, I first wrote more and then deleted some of it!  Restraint is truly hard.)

  I could tell them the answer but sometimes it can lead a student down a rabbit hole which can be devastating given how busy first year students are.

I'm not really sure what you mean by this.  The type of personality that is going to be "devastated" by learning that things go deeper than they currently know does not seem well suited to higher education.  If anything I feel exactly the opposite way: as an educator at any level, showing students the rabbit hole is one of the most important things that you can do.  Especially, getting an undergraduate degree is all about learning just enough to get an awareness of the true depth of knowledge and acquiring a sound foundation upon which more knowledge can be built.

  Further, I don't want to disrupt their "natural course" by saying something that may prevent independent self discovery.

Again, I don't really buy into this.  Students who want to be sufficiently well insulated from being taught things by other people do not belong in a university.  Self discovery is a wonderful and important thing, but it is enriched and reinforced by prior knowledge and coursework, not ruined by it.  There are plenty of things to discover for oneself, and anyway you are only telling them a little.  It seems very likely that such a conversation would if anything trigger the student's independent learning and self discovery, not inhibit it.

  Lastly, I don't want to say something which could be misconstrued as a test topic.

This is why it's best to address such questions outside of the classroom, or at least outside of the class session, and ideally with only the students who are explicitly interested.  It should then be much clearer that what you are telling them is not a test topic.  If there is any ambiguity about that then you should resolve it.  For instance, maybe the question actually is closely related to a test topic but comes from a direction in which the student does not see that.  In that case you should point out the connection to them.


How should I react to seeing another student cheat on an exam? Today I took my midterm exam for one of my classes.  I saw that a student next to me was using her phone, and as I turned my head she hid it. At the end of the exam I wrote a note to my professor, I didn't mention the person's name, but I said that such type of behavior is not acceptable and that he should notice it next time.

I am kind of nervous that I will get in trouble for it, Did I do the right thing? What if the professor penalizes me?  I studied really hard for this exam and I figured that it wasn't fair for my classmates and I to see a cheater get a good grade, and us a lower grade.

You were right to inform the professor of cheating, and you shouldn't be penalized for that: your grade in the exam should depend only on what you wrote in your answers and nothing else.

However, I don't understand your motivation in writing the note. You should consider what you were trying to achieve by writing it. The way you describe it, the note sounds like it was lecturing the professor on how to do their job, rather than doing anything about cheating. You describe cheating as "unacceptable" but, by not naming the cheater, you show that you're more willing to accept cheating than the consequences of standing up to it. But, of course, it's your choice and your evaluation of the consequences is the most important.

You should perhaps consider other ways of dealing with the cheating. Other options include writing an anonymous note naming the cheater to the appropriate administrative staff. If you're worried that that would still leave you identifiable because the cheat knows you saw them, you could just start discussing the issue with other people in your class. If it becomes common knowledge that some unnamed person was cheating in the exam, peer pressure might stop that person cheating in the future.


What does the "C" mean in "Mater. Sci. Eng. C" ISO4 standard naming for the "Material Science" field is as follows:

Mater. Sci. Eng. C
Material Science & Engineering: C

What does the C mean?

The ISO code does not refer to the field, but to a journal. The C is not an abbreviation; rather there are 4 journals with this name, each with a different focus, indexed A, B, C, and R.

A focuses on Structural Materials: Properties, Microstructure and Processing
B focuses on Advanced Functional Solid-State Materials
C focuses on Materials for Biological Applications
R is for review articles

Such a nomenclature is generally used when a journal's scope has become too broad and it needs to be split into multiple journals. Physical Review uses a similar system, for example.


What are the pros and cons of doing PhD study at a big vs. small department? Crudely, it seems better to study at a big department - one has more peers, more seminars, and is also more likely to find a faculty member with the same interests if one's interests change during the program. However some top-tier departments appear to prefer to stay small, e.g. Caltech as a whole. That seems to imply there's a downside to becoming a big department, which is part of the reason they haven't expanded (I'm guessing they aren't staying small because they lack the funding - they're top tier after all).

For the student, is it preferable to study at a big or small department? What are the pros and cons of each?

The main disadvantage of being a student in a big department is that the professor can not actually provide in-depth mentorship to that many people: your "real" advisor will most likely be some post-doc instead. The quality of post-doc advice is more variable since they haven't had as long as a professor to prove and improve themselves. (This one bit me personally, and I switched from a largeish department to a small one where I like it much better.)

On the plus side, a big team will likely have several different funding sources, so if your main grant runs out but you don't have enough work to graduate yet, it'll be easier to find you another contract to tide you over.


Professor doesn't respond to notice of inability to take a test in his class I currently have a concussion that has hindered my ability to do work or study. I went to the doctor and got it diagnosed (got a medical note and all that). I have a midterm tomorrow, and I emailed my professor yesterday regarding my concussion and asked to make it up sometime the following week as I am in no shape to take the test. However, he has not responded (even after I followed up on email). He also posted on my classes discussion board, so I am not sure what to do.

Professors get a lot of emails every day, and depending on the size of your class, they could be getting even more. I would not after only a day

In any reasonable department, you are fine.  You documented your case by emailing him as soon as you knew you needed to reschedule, and have a doctor's note dated yesterday. If you really want to cover your bases, call his office and leave a message.

In the US (at least), it should not be necessary to go to the exam and ask to be excused*. You don't say how bad your concussion was, but I know that the last time I had a bad one, it would not have been safe for me to travel.

Please rest, you have all the documentation and can figure it out after.

As pointed out in the comments, if your professor is truly a nutcase, you may be able to go to your disabilities services department for help.

* Some might wonder if you're healthy enough to do that, why can't you take the exam?


Reviewer makes an obvious and serious mistake and paper is rejected Long story short: Submitted a paper to a very respectable (but not TOP) journal in the TCS community. Received 2 reviews. The one was alright, not extremely enthusiastic but a decent review.

The problem is with the 2nd one: The reviewer failed in the most obvious way to even understand the statement of the problem, and said that "I cannot convince myself that the paper is correct". The misunderstanding is on the definition of the problem.

for the TCS people: its a standard resource allocation problem where we want to optimize some objective function. The reviewer's objection is that if we assign the same item multiple times to different users we could achieve a very different objective value thus the analysis on its bounds we give could not possibly be correct!

This does not any make sense since on the definition it is said explicitly that each item must be assigned once. In any case, it's the most standard definition of a very well known resource allocation problem!

Anyway, after the rejection of the paper based on the above reason, I contacted the Editor in Chief of the journal, asking for a 3rd reviewer to resolve the issue (I was not offensive to the 2nd R). The EiC responded immediately saying that a 3rd R could indeed resolve the issue but there is nothing the EiC could do because the handling editor communicated to the EiC that the Com. Editor trusts the expertise of the reviewers, and thus the rejection decision is irrevocable.

I want to ask:

How normal is this situation? We are talking about an old and very well respected TCS journal, not some hocus pocus unknown journal.
Is there any safety net for such kind of obvious mis-managed cases?
Any particular advice for the incident? I am not very interested in the obvious "deal with it, it happens" answer. But observe that I am in a point of my career that an extra journal publication could mean a lot, since I am trying to find a permanent position and I cannot wait another year for this paper to go through such a process.

Note: I see few people misunderstood my comment. My comment is not targeted to the reviewer who might have made an honest mistake. It happens and I do not blame her/him. My point is mainly on the way the journal handled the situation,  even when the very serious and very easy mistake was brought up to their attention. I was mainly interested if such a reason is valid for straight rejection (usually there is some revision needed which we have the chance to explain to the reviewer and the editor where they have been mistaken), and what to do when this happens. As mentioned again, I do not have 30 journal papers so that I could say this won't make any impact in my CV. I am applying for permanent positions and a +1 (very good) journal might make some difference. Thus my main question: is there any safety net that prevent non-professional editors make such unjustified and arbitrary decisions with such huge impact on us? And how this affect only us as authors? Is there any way to make journals (in general) act more professionally (without making a war against them): sadly, from the comments below, I guess not, besides boycotting the journal, but they couldn't care less.

It is pretty normal for a reviewer not to get the gist of your article and then the article gets rejected. I find that the best way to deal with that is to remember that the reviewers are reading the article more carefully than the future readers. So if they don't get what I want to write, the future readers are surely not going to get what I want to write.

Sometimes reviewers are just wrong: they are humans too and typically do this with a limited time budget (a larger time budget than future readers will want to spent on your article, but still pretty small). That is bad luck. Just improve what needs improving and submit your article to the next journal.


(How) can I evaluate, whether a field has a future or not? I'm new here, so I hope my question fits in:

I am trying to decide where I should do my master thesis, and since I am considering an academic career, this could be a fist step towards the field I will finally end up working.
With my education up to now, there are two fields, where I would fit in, and that's where my problem begins:

The one field I find far more interesting seems to be kind of "Out of fashion" (or at a dead end?) with lots of publications from the 80ies and 90ies, and nothing that looks to me like a big advance  since then. But of course that's just my un-informed impression, and I don't know how far I can trust that... I tried to ask a professor working in the field, whether he thinks, there will be advances in the future, but I formulated my question very carefully, since I didn't want it to sound like "is your area of research dead?", so I am not sure, if he did understand, what I want to ask and shrugged it off, if he was personally offended, or if he didn't understand the question at all.*

Dear people with experience in the academic world, how could I find out, whether a field has a future or not?

Is it presumptious to make these considerations as a student?

If my University largely reduces the funding of research projects on that field, is it a sign that I should forget about it?

If you were a professor/postdoc etc. in a field that has already seen its best days, would you tell a prospective student?

Does it even happen, that a field "runs down" ? And if, why? What does it look like for the people still working there?

How was it for you, how did you weigh the interestingness of the field against future job prospects, when deciding for a specialization?

If that makes a difference: Both fields I could choose are in the area of Biomedical Engineering/ Biochemistry - I do not want to name the field, because I don't want to be "the idiot that said xy was dead", and I don't want to offend anyone working on it. Also answers to my questions would be more helpful for me than opinions on the specific field.

Thanks a lot & sorry for the long wall-of-text-ish question !
- NewBie

*You get an idea how good I am with that kind of thing. Please help me.

You have started well by looking for recently published papers. If there are none, it could mean your field is very small and you will find it hard to get future jobs and funding or that you are not searching in the best places. Maybe you could ask the professor if he can recommend any more recent papers for you to read to "understand the current progress and see if it matches what you want to do" or something like that. If he says nothing has been published more recently you can ask why.

You could also ask about or search for conferences or meetings. It may be a field that does not produce lots of papers but still has a large community of active researchers, so would not seem "dead".

If your University has cut funding in that area it will definitely be harder to get a PhD there after your Masters in the same topic.

But it is an important point that the topic of your Masters doesn't have to relate directly to your PhD or future career. It's a good chance to try out an area you might be interested and see if it suits you, and in any topic you will learn research skills that can be put to good use in a PhD. I know many people who started PhDs in subjects they had never studied before, but you must show that you can learn new things quickly and have all the other "soft skills" of research: writing and presenting, finding and citing good sources, data analysis, critical thinking, using any relevant software or machinery... these will depend on your subject area.

You would probably produce much better work in your Masters project by taking the option you are most interested in. You can then have time to get familiar with the academic community, let your supervisor know you are thinking about the future and want to find out what it is like, and if it is a dead end you can take a different subject for your PhD so long as you are not missing any core skills.

Good luck!


Is it ethical to use already existing material to complement teaching? As background, I have a MSc in Chemical Engineering, and I am currently teaching in one of the first Fachhochschule-type institutes that have been established in my country. This institute stands as the middle ground between high school and university or industry, and I have been appointed as a teacher for one of the mandatory courses.
Due to COVID-19, all lectures are being performed online, and I have prepared the course material, such as slides for lectures and practicals. The lectures I have prepared cover about 80% of all course material.
I have found that one of my former professors' research group has published in their webpage the slides of a university course which comprises the missing 20% material of my course. Moreover, their slides are really well done, and it would take me lots of time (1-2 months) to prepare the same material from scratch. I have the idea of using said material directly in my lectures, by citing very explicitly the source, since it is very well made and clear.
Is it therefore ethical to do it?

If you cite the work you avoid plagiarism, other questions aside.
But the really ethical way to do this is to ask permission first and explain how and why you will use the material. If they have published it online there will probably be no reason to refuse you.
But another issue is how it will be perceived by your own students. Other questions here have revealed that some students feel cheated when this happens. So, make sure that you add value to the slides you borrow and that the value added is clear to your students. You may want to explain the borrowing to your own students as well.
In general, students want to know that you are spending effort on them.


Is it ethical for a journal to cancel an accepted review request when they have obtained sufficient number of reviews to make a decision? Is it ethical for a journal to cancel an accepted review request when they have obtained sufficient number of reviews to make a decision?

This happened to me recently and I think this is not the first time. They set a deadline for submitting the review, and sent a reminder. I did not reply, as I felt that I should be able to meet the deadline and even if I couldn't, it should not be a problem to submit my review slightly later. I am in the midst of reviewing this paper, and have spent some time on it, when suddenly they told me that my review is no longer needed.

I cannot know for sure if the way they work is as I described above, but that seems to be the case.

Edit:
Sorry my mistake, they had actually sent only one reminder, not a few reminders, as I stated earlier.

Update:
This is from the cancellation email I received earlier (note that I had accepted their request to review the paper less than a month ago):

  We have now received sufficient peer-review reports from other
  referees and would like to cancel our request for you to review the
  following manuscript:

  ...

  However, if you have already started your report, please forward any
  valuable comments you have as soon as possible. We apologize for any
  inconvenience this may cause and hope that we will be able to call on
  you to review for ... in the future.

Since I have started reviewing the paper, I wrote to them saying that I would like to send my review as soon as possible. The journal agreed to accept my review. In their reply, they say

  Since we have received enough review reports and have processed this
  manuscript further, the link to submit your review report was closed
  automatically. We have reopened the link for you.

I finished my review today and just submitted it to them. I could see from their system that there are two other reviewers, and both of them recommended minor revision.

I know that I should have informed them if I missed the deadline, but other journals seem to be OK with this. I think a 2-3 week deadline that this particular publisher gave is a bit short. In my field, 3 months from submission to acceptance is really fast. The average is more like half a year. Some can take more than a year.

Additional point:
In this journal/publisher, communication with reviewers are not handled by the editor.

I think that in this particular case, the journal behaved ethically. A deadline is a contract, and if one of the involved parties breaks that contract (notably, without seeking communication), it's up to the other party to decide how to deal with that.


Diploma equivalence from the old Belgian System I graduated from DRCongo, and here we still use the old Belgian system.
I did the  Polytechnic, and my diploma is called license en Polytechnique Option Genie Electrique et Informatique.
Basically, we spend one year in pre-polytechnic class, the 3 years of grade and by the end we get a diploma de grade for the first cycle and then we spend another 2 years to get the so-called diploma de Licence en Polytechnic. Basically here we spend 6 years at Uni to get that diploma.
Now that I am applying for UK universities I don't know how my degree translates in the UK educational system.
Should I call it a Master degree or a 2nd Cycle Bachelor Degree?

It's not a Masters and not a 2nd Cycle Bachelor degree, so you can't call it that. In places where you have free-form text, you can probably say that it's "comparable" or "equivalent to a Masters or 2nd Cycle Bachelor degree", but you should state the name of the degree you actually have first. If you encounter drop-down boxes in application forms that don't have your degree and no "other" category either, then you could probably pick the closest choice you have available.


Is it right for a conference to demand proof of purchase of flight tickets? After I have been accepted to present a paper at a conference, the organisers are asking me to fill in a registration form (participation and attendance are free) AND to produce proof of purchase of flight tickets. I find this bizarre and intrusive. Anyway, my travelling would happen between two capital cities in Europe (plenty of flights) and they demand the proof of purchase to include people in the first draft of the programme. It is a 3-day conference, so I would have to make travel and accommodation arrangements for 5 days many months in advance.

I do not think that the conference organizers have made good decisions about how to handle things.  However, it is understandable that they should want firm confirmation that people are actually going to show up.  Since they are operating a conference with no fees attached, it is unfortunately too easy for people to sign up, hoping to attend, but then cancel when it turns out the the time or funding are not available.  This is a regular issued for conferences and meetings without any direct fees attached, and there are several ways to deal with it.

Some conferences rely on personal relationships with the people who will be participating and presenting.  If the people who are going to be giving talks are known acquaintances of the organizers, these connections can be leveraged to ensure that the registered participants will indeed show up.  (The day after tomorrow, I am leaving for a free conference, which I am attending even though it conflicts with a family event that I might like to attend.  I know the people running the conference, and if I bailed out, it would cost me in terms of my professional relationships.  Since I committed to attend many months ago, I am sticking to my commitment.)

The people running this conference are taking a different approach.  They are not willing to put people on the presentation schedule unless they can verify that they have made travel plans.  While I can understand the motivation for this decision (they do not want people who are slated to give talks to cancel, leaving gaps in the program), I do not think that it is a good approach to take.  Asking for verification of flight information seems intrusive and unprofessional.  I see no reason to believe that the organizers are acting in bad faith, but I suspect that they may not be very experienced in running academic conferences.  So whether you feel like complying with their request for flight information depends on how you feel personally about this unorthodox request.


Travel grants for International students in the US? I am an international student in the United States (originally from India) and have been here for my PhD in Mechanical engineering since Fall ’06. I've attended a bunch of conferences all in the US and Canada and mainly the ASME or APS DFD (division of fluid dynamics) meetings. As I get close to finishing my PhD, my source of funding (NSF) is running low!

As an international student, I find it difficult to find institutions that provide travel grants for conferences in the USA conducted by organizations such as the APS, ASME, AIAA etc. It is also unfortunate that India doesn't have travel grant opportunities for Indians students outside India.

Does anyone have an idea on where I might look? I have two conferences coming up: the ASME Fluids engineering conference in July 2012 and the APS DFD in November 2012 that I'd like to get travel grants for.

Usually the best place to ask for a travel grant is the conference itself. I see, for example, that the APS DFD 2012 meeting had a travel grant program (sure, now it's too late to be useful). Many big conferences have such programs and those that do not may have "fellowships", which give a reduced registration fee for select students.

Otherwise you want to look at framework programs in your field encouraging the mobility of students. It is true that it might have been easier if you were actually located in India, because of binational exchange programs and such, but you also have to realize that the travel costs would then have been greater!


Listing preprints on CV (undergrad) I'm now a second year math student at a top uni, and in the summer of my first year, I was a part of a small research team where we proved various new results related to Random Matrix Theory and wrote 2 papers on them. Now those papers are up on arXiv, but it hasn't been accepted to a peer-reviewed journal yet. My question is that when I'm applying for summer research programs etc should I list these as "preprints" on my CV even if they haven't been accepted to a journal yet?

If a publication is either published or accepted at a journal, list it under your "normal" publications - if you want, you can choose the caption "Peer-reviewed publications".  If it is not published yet, write "accepted at $JOURNAL", or similar.
If the paper is still under review, or otherwise not published at a peer-reviewed journal, but available as a preprint, list it under "Preprints".


How can I detect a toxic environment while on the interview circuit? If you are interviewing for faculty positions, how can you find out whether a particular work environment would likely be toxic? (Either generally toxic, or particularly bad for you as a {woman, early career researcher, researcher in a particular subfield, etc.})

Can such environments be avoided?

Can you ask about this during a visit or interview? Who should you ask (faculty, deans, students) and what should you ask that might elicit the relevant information?

Are there other ways to detect a toxic environment, besides for asking people who know to be on their best behavior for you?

This has been discussed here, here, and here for prospective PhD students, but not for faculty candidates (as far as I know). I believe the answers will be different for faculty candidates - for one thing, PhD students are likely to be honest when telling a prospective student about their advisor;  faculty members talking to a candidate about their colleagues, not so much. Also, the interview/visit procedure is different for faculty candidates, as are some of the relevant indicators of toxicity.

[Source: I read this question on FemaleScienceProfessor]

What I found useful was to be very watchful of how the interviewers act towards each other. Typically some sort of meal is part of an on-campus interview and you will be eating with several of the faculty members. If they can't make it through the meal without doing something objectionable you probably have a toxic environment. The funny thing is that they know to act properly towards you but will still forget to do so to their colleagues even though you are right there.

As an example there was one such dinner where I was pressured into drinking alcohol the night before the real part of the interview and the junior (and female) faculty member who was present was the target of most of the jokes from the senior male faculty members. Both of these details did not help their chances of getting me to accept their offer. Fortunately I had another offer to take instead.

This is by no means going to catch every situation you want to get away from but the general idea is to watch their behavior. In larger departments where the jerks are kept away from the candidates you may have to be more active in searching for these issues. I was mostly interviewing in small departments where I was able to meet everyone.


How do I go about getting into the engineering field with only a design degree from almost a decade ago? Due to health problems, I wasn't able to study well enough during my teenage years + 20s and I did not study or pursue something that truly interests me; instead I just graduated with a degree because it was easier for me at that time. My passion has always been in science - especially Robotics/Engineering or Physics. It has been bothering me for years and I know I can't get this thought out of my head unless I give it a try. I've been saving up money to study again and now I have the chance to do it, but I don't know how or where to start, not to mention I don't even know if it's "wise" to do it in my 30s.

My thinking is to ultimately get into a graduate program at a decent school; but before I do that, I'll need to have a foundation in math and science, and possibly a second degree in engineering or some relevant field. I tried so hard to find a school in the US that offers second degree in engineering but still didn't have luck, except for the ones that are less reputable in this field, and I'm not sure if it's going to be a problem when I try to apply for a more reputable grad program. So I assume it would probably take me 5-6 years. And by the time I graduate, I will be in my late 30s. I'm not worried about how much time I'm going to spend but I need to know if it's a field that welcomes older people to seek entry level employment after they graduate. Is there anything wrong with my "plan"? If so, what would be a better approach for me to do this? Any recommendations on schools/programs and how to go about it is highly appreciated! Thanks a lot!

You have a Bachelor's already, which already makes you nominally qualified for graduate school! What comes next is figuring out how to make an entrance into the field when you don't have a background in it. The Bachelor's system currently in existence generally requires a basic education requirement, so I wouldn't suggest going for a B.S. in physics or engineering. I would instead suggest one of two things, combined with a healthy regime of self-teaching:

Simply take courses at a local institution
Get an associate's in physics or engineering

Would this make you a non-standard applicant, having your most recent degree be an associate's, or a bevy of post-bac coursework not for a degree? Well, yes, but you're still qualified. You're really quite young within the camp of non-traditional, older students. If you can back up a shorter (cheaper!), more focused set of courses with some experience doing applicable work (volunteer at a lab, try to land a position as a tech at a nearby school), that makes you just another applicant, albeit one with very different life experiences.

There is a guy in my research group who has a wife and kids who transitioned into engineering when he was 30, and he swept right into an M.S. and then a Ph.D. program without getting a transitionary degree after eight years of no classes. It's definitely possible for top programs, as we're at a Top 15, but I would advise trying to get some experience and insight on the field at local institutions.


How to handle ethics review (IRB) when moving between institutions Is it convention for a researcher who changes institutions to reapply for ethical review (IRB) on ongoing projects at a new institution, or keep working with the IRB files at the institution where the researcher originally applied, until the studies are ready to be closed?

For context, I just finished my PhD in a social science and I'm moving to a new institution for a postdoc. As a social scientist, my projects are either solo or with a few co-PIs, so any answer may be different from people in the sciences.

For clarity, IRB is the term for US universities' ethics review committees. From Wikipedia: "An institutional review board (IRB), also known as an independent ethics committee (IEC), ethical review board (ERB), or research ethics board (REB), is a type of committee that applies research ethics by reviewing the methods proposed for research to ensure that they are ethical." source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board

When you change institutions, you will need approval from your new institution's IRB to continue any human subjects research. From their perspective, the new institution is about to "start" working on your existing project so they will review them as normal projects using their normal process. Of course, the review process might be different since the project is in process, data may have already been collected, etc. That may change the process of making a determination and might even change the determination, but it doesn't change the need for a determination.

This might lead to an interruption in your ability to conduct your research. As a result, you should contact your new IRB about any ongoing research project as soon as possible.

Depending on the stage of the project, the IRB could say one of many things. For example:

If you are still interacting or intervening with human subjects, you may need to either (a) submit brand new protocols for review or (b) have your new IRB delegate review to your previous institutions IRB. Both are common although the latter only really makes sense if your previous institution's IRB is going to continue overseeing the work (for example, because your have collaborators there).
If the project is at a stage where there is no further interaction or intervention, when data has been collected, and if data stored in a form where individuals are not identifiable, the IRB might say that you do not additional review at all since the work, at this stage no longer qualifies as human subject research. In my opinion, it's always better to let the IRB make that determination.
If data has been collected but if data continues to be identifiable or if analysis otherwise puts subjects at risk, you might need to put in a special request to analyze previously collected data. This is often a separate kind of application that can be a bit shorter and easier. I've had to do this even for projects that had been considered exempt at my previous institution.

As always, you are subject the rules of institution that is employing you. You should always check with them. I think it's not abnormal, in these situations, to set up a meeting with someone from the IRB to talk through these sorts of situations and make a plan of action.

[ For context, I am also a social scientist working in the United States. ]


Where should I put the "Definition of concepts" section in a Research Paper I'm writing a research paper and there are some concepts which I think would help a reader to understand the study better. However, I'm not sure where to put this section. Should I put it right after the Introduction? Or before Literature Review?

Conventions like this vary between fields.  Look at other papers in your field or subfield, and do what they do.


I have a Ph.D. in Educational Science from Iran. Do I need accreditation to work in the U.S.? I have a Ph.D. in Educational Science from Iran. Do I need accreditation to work in the U.S.?

You would need to be certified if you wanted to teach in the public schools (kindergarten through twelfth grade).  But there isn't anything like this for teaching in college.  It's just a matter of convincing the department that you're the right person for the job, based on your qualifications.

Edit:  I tried to make my first sentence clearer.