PhD in a less desired field To keep the long story short, I kinda have two options for a PhD.

Option 1

Do a PhD in engineering at a mediocre university in a developing country. Chances at the very top institutions in the same country are not possible due to some uncontrollable constraints.

I love engineering related study. However, there are some drawbacks. Opportunities here seriosly lack during and after the PhD. Funding will mostly be scarce and I will have to work while studying or lean on my own earnings to sustain my life. Also, postdoc chances even at decent universities in the world are extremely low. The county is corrupt, so without (non-merit based) good contacts, chances in good academic and industrial positions are also minuscule.

Option 2

Do a PhD in social sciences at a respected university in Europe or US.

Compared to option 1, opportunities and funding seems to be very well

Although the field is social science, some interdisciplinary study opportunities that require engineering skills might be available. Also, the study area I am interested in is a newly flourishing sub-field. But, still the emphasis is on social sciences. I am also interested in social sciences too, but nowhere close to my interest in engineering.

Questions

Should one choose option1, just for the sake of the love of engineering?

Or, should one choose option2, as engineering specific love might be temporary or be some kind of short-sighted guess for someone who is not very experienced at research to clearly determine his future interests?

Obviously we can't answer this question explicitly for you, since it's an opinion.  But I would approach it with this thought process, and maybe you would find it helpful too:

First, I would hold each option up against an outside third option of not doing a PhD at all.  Assuming an average outcome, would be willing to chance an engineering PhD if it meant a lack of funding and job opportunities?  Repeat with the second option - would you be willing to suffer through a social science degree you don't necessarily love, just to have better prospects?  Or would you rather do whatever it is you would do without a PhD?

If both of those answers are that you would rather do the PhD, I think the real thought needs to fall on the second option.  A PhD is a huge, often demoralizing undertaking.  You will almost certainly want to quit at times.  And while most fields, as you said, allow some interdisciplinary flexibility, at least at first you will almost certainly be immersed entirely in the field itself.  Do you enjoy this field enough that it could sustain you through down periods?

Also, European and US programs are often quite different, in particular in that US PhD programs start right out of undergrad, then do several years of coursework that earns you an incidental Masters, followed by your research.  European programs generally require you to have your Masters coursework done already, then you come in to the program just to do your own research.  Make sure you're familiar with the structure of the programs you're interested in - it's possible that might help narrow your choices down some.

I would also add, especially for the engineering program, that you should talk to some people who have gone through it if you haven't already.  Find out first-hand how good or bad the opportunities were.

Good luck!


Getting reference letter from professors whom I took their class-should I make any impression except my grade? I am a master (international)student in Germany, I will apply Phd in Canada or US. There will be a gap year between my graduation year and entrance year.
Now my plan to get reference letter is as follows: One letter from my thesis supervisor. Another two letters from the professor whom I took a class with and got an A.
Now I am not sure if any of the professor will remember me after (at least) one year. Surely I got best grade in their exam(oral), but this does not guarantee the chance.
The question is, should I made a impression to them, like directly(politely) ask them if I can get a reference letter from them in the future?Or just wait till the application time and sending emails to ask them? Or any other?

If you are still in contact with these professors, visit them now and let them know your plans and that you will ask them for letters in a year. This way they know what is happening and can also give you any advice they think relevant. A conversation would be best (not emails) as they get to ask you a few questions if necessary. So, the first option in your last paragraph is best, I think.
It is risky to rely on the memory of professors. We are a forgetful lot for many things.


Do books need a URL when cited? I'm writing my thesis with Latex and I use Mendeley for the citation.
When I add a book and specify some attributes, like title, author and ISBN, Mendeley automatically adds some missing attributes.
One of those attributes is the URL of a book. Usually, this is a URL from amazon.com or books.google.com.

After generating the document with Latex, the URL also appears in my bibliography. It could look like:

Peter Smith. A Long Book Title. Pearson Education, 2008, p. 530.
isbn: 0-123-54431-2. doi: 10 . 1336 / 976 - 3 - 434 - 03844 - 5. arXiv:
arXiv : 1011 . 1889v3. url: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/012345678?ie=UTF8&tag=petersmith-20&linkCode=as2&camp=4321&creative=4567&creativeASIN=087239586.

So the URL is very long and, in my opinion, useless. This is not the "real" URL of the book (not the URL of the author or the publisher) and I don't think, it adds any value to the bibliography.

In Mendeley, when I click on Tools->Options->Document Details, I can specify which attributes I want to appear. Sadly, I can't uncheck URL in the document type Book. So I assume, this is important?

Can I just manually remove the URLs of all by books?

Yes you can remove the URL as you have the ISBN number for each book; which is a unique identifier, universally given and searchable.

Note On The Generated URLs by E-Commerce Websites: Also make sure the on the URL you are using. The URL you posted is a generated one from Amazon that has number of variables for marketing purposes.


No response after PhD interview I had a face-to-face interview at a German University for a PhD position on Feb 12. The project is co-supervised by two professors. I was asked to prepare a presentation of my Master thesis for the interview. I was told that they invited only 4 out of 90+ applicants. It went okay and the sit-down interview after that went more or less fine. They seemed to value my enthusiasm while doubting my mathematical backgrounds. At the end of the interview, they asked me to send my transcript. I sent it the very next day (Feb 13) through email and got a reply from one of the professors on the same day that said they would soon be in touch with me regarding the position. However, I have not heard from them yet. I sent an email politely asking for an update last Friday (March 1) to one of the professors, but no reply again. Should I send an email to another professor? Or should I wait? Also, does it look like I am being refused? Any help would be good.

Thanks!

Wait.

You aren't refused until they say so. It may be that you aren't first in line, but you are certainly still in line. They have no advantage in stringing you along. But they may be waiting to hear from others. That can take a while.

The time has actually been very short. The institution probably has rules about contacting candidates other than officially.


Can i submit a revised version of a retracted paper to another journal One of my paper was retracted die to honest error (statistical error). is it possible to submit the revised version of the paper to another journal for consideration of publication. Thank you

Of course! If you couldn't submit the revised paper elsewhere, it would be dead to the world - never to be published - which is not a desirable outcome if your paper contains new results.


Can a university claim patent rights for inventions performed on my own time? I'm working for a university as a research programmer (prof staff, exempt) on an external grant ("soft money"), and there is a clear understanding between me and my immediate supervisor/PI, and at least one other PI, that I can use a certain non-trivial amount of my time each week to work on my own projects (the so-called "20% time").

I've tried investigating what the university would officially think of any such endeavour, and I found the IP policy (IU) that seems to suggest that patentable inventions unconditionally belong to the university, whereas general copyrightable work does belong to its authors (unless they perform such work specifically for university use, e.g. course materials).

Apparently, the policy even says that it covers even non-paid individuals, part-time individuals and students (which are not even just "non-paid" for their activities, but are actually required to support the university by paying tuition and various other fees).

Supposedly, it basically applies to everyone who uses University resources, however, the term University resources itself is not defined amongst all the other terms that are, in fact, defined very specifically for this exact IP policy directly within the policy.

Does a public university in the US really have such powers to implement a policy like that, and to claim patent rights to inventions which are not performed in the official line of duty and even oftentimes outside of the work clock?
Have such policies ever been reaffirmed through courts?  Especially when applied to non-compensated employees, or the various slave labour?
What do I do to avoid being covered by such policy?

Must I never perform any parts of my own research on any equipment purchased through university, even on grant money?
Cannot use the monitors owned by the university together with my personally-owned laptop?
Cannot use university's internet connection to connect to my externally hosted personal servers, where the use of university's internet connection is merely coincidental to my own research on my own computing resources, and could easily be replaced by an off-the-shelf 30$/mo service from elsewhere without any significant side effects? (I'm just using ssh, basically.)
Cannot use my non-trivial work time that was allowed for my own research by my supervisors to do my own research?  Do I have to request to be re-classified from being a full-time employee (1.00) to being a part-time employee (e.g. 0.80) to have my 20% time unencumbered?
Cannot sit in my office space doing my own search?
Cannot sit in a university building whilst doing any such research of my own?
Cannot be anywhere on campus doing any of my own research?

Note that a detailed response to your question, as well as any answer tailored to your specific case, will need to be given to you by a lawyer. And, if you think of doing anything that could even remotely be considered borderline or controversial… just ask a lawyer. And even if you don't do anything borderline, better safe than sorry!
Now, I want to explain some of the background of that answer: I have acquired some experience of my own, though not in the US, on dealing with being employed as a full-time researcher and professor, yet maintaining a certain level of activity outside of my employer. I actually produce intellectual property on my leisure time (both copyrightable materials and patent rights), and have consulted with law professionals on how to effectively keep control of my own IP (as opposed to that which I create for my employer).
The main conclusion is: you actually have to be very careful to be able to fend off any potential claim of your employer on the IP created. Of course, it's a risk of the “if it comes to that” variety. If your university is not interested in pursuing any claim to such IP, you may never have a problem, even if you did not clearly separate your own IP from that created for your employer. But… you never know what may happen in the future (e.g., your current understanding with the dean may not hold in a few years), so you should take maximal precautions.
In short, you should assume the following:

Everything you do on company time is owned by the company. I'm pretty sure that this includes your “20% time”: if it's 20% of the time the company pays you, it may mean that they leave you free to do research in a direction you choose for yourself, but it is still research you performed as their employee.
You certainly can't expect to be paid 40 hours a week, work 32 hours for your employer and then spend the remaining 8 hours for someone else, can you?! (in this case, the “someone else” is yourself as a freelancer)

Don't use resources from your university. This is also very typical of contracts and, at least the few European countries I know, the legal status quo: use of company resources means the company has rights on your production. This includes every resource you list, even smaller things you may not think of, like email account, FTP/web/ssh hosting, internet connection, …

Everything you create while inside the company is not yours. Walls, internet connection, desktop, electricity… are company resources. While courts in some jurisdictions have recognized that certain limited activities done inside the company, such as reading email during lunch break, may fall within the personal sphere (and not the professional sphere), it is not likely to be the case for any larger activity.

Finally, if you think of doing on your spare time anything that is thematically closed to your day job, take care: it becomes hard to claim that your own activities are not linked to your university position and resources, and do not in any way interfere with it, if you are a computer science researcher by day and patent new sorting algorithms by night :)

And, did I mention? Get help from a professional, aka lawyer.


How common is it to outsource tedious research tasks to undergrads? How ethical or common is it for grad students to actively hire undergrads into their lab for the sole purpose of outsourcing tedious labour?

Is this frowned upon and is it really any different than a typical undergrad research opportunity.

I am a graduate student, and I often hire undergraduate research assistants.

My primary motivation in hiring undergraduate research assistants is to create opportunities for these students to get a sense of what research is about, gain some experience that can help them get a job or admission to graduate school, and help them figure out what they want to do next.

Sometimes my undergraduate students do work that is tedious, because research can sometimes be tedious. This is especially true when they are inexperienced, because it can be hard to see the bigger picture behind what you're doing. (They may not even have the necessary background to understand the bigger picture, at least not until they've taken some more advanced coursework and read a few dozen research articles.) A good supervisor tries to help students see the big picture, but it's hard.

Supervising undergraduate students is a lot of work for me. I don't do it because it somehow helps me progress in my research by offloading tasks that I really need to get done (if anything, it slows down my research). Usually the work I give to undergrads is work that isn't on the critical path for my own personal research, because I can't trust that it will get done quickly/correctly. And in most cases, by the time my undergrads have learned enough to really be useful to me, they're graduating.

I hire these students because I remember how meaningful my undergraduate research experience was to me, and I want to pay it forward.

To directly answer your question,

  How ethical or common is it for grad students to actively hire undergrads into their lab for the sole purpose of outsourcing tedious labour?

It's probably much less common than you think, for the reasons described above. It can happen sometimes in the context of a research effort in which someone has to collect a lot of data, and it doesn't require any knowledge or skill to do so. But even then, it's often quicker for the graduate student to do it himself.

When it does happen, I see no ethical problem as long as the nature of the work is disclosed to the undergrad before he/she accepts the job. Compared to many other student jobs (working the phones and calling alumni for donations, for example), being a pipette monkey is actually probably one of the better jobs.


How do I phrase (in my thesis) that results in an important study are wrong? The title probably comes off wrong, I tried to keep it short. I do not necessarily want to make an absolute statement like "that is wrong". But I do need to address the problems I am facing with a study that is important for my thesis.

There is a relatively influential paper which I have used again and again in my studies, and it shows many very interesting experimental results. I could successfully recreate most of those results, and my research is based on them. However, there is one result where I have to conclude that it is basically nonsense. I have repeated the exact measurement again and again and could never recreate their result. With my new theoretical knowledge I can also safely say that the result shown in the paper makes no sense and has to be wrong, while the one I get from my own measurements makes perfect sense.

So my research means that a result that was described as useful and interesting in this paper is wrong, and therefore not useful. My plan was previously to do multiple studies based on it, and now I want to make clear why that is not possible. So I need to show that their results are wrong, and mine are correct, and I need to explain why that is so.

I have the facts on my side, but I just cannot think of a way to do this in a professional manner. I do not want to sound like I'm reveling in a "gotcha" moment, and I do not want to step on anyone's toes. I just want to make clear that this particular topic is a dead end.

I want to address this in my "Discussion" section of this chapter. I would be grateful for ideas how to approach this. Should I give them the benefit of doubt? I worry that this will water down my own results, which are directly opposed to theirs. Should I think of other potential explanations, like "maybe what they show is a measurement artifact", or will that come off as condescending?

I think you can be pretty straightforward, especially in a thesis.  Describe the experimental disagreement first (amount of it and number of measurements in your study versus the earlier work).  Next para, state that theoretical considerations also support your measurements versus the earlier study (~amount of difference and explication of the theory rationale).


Should I resubmit a rejected paper to the same journal? Suppose you submit a paper and it is rejected with no suggestion of resubmission, but there is substantial feedback. Do you fix up the paper, based on the feedback and resubmit? Or fix it up and submit to another journal? What heuristic do people use, if any? Or is every case different?
I had a bad experience a few years ago. Briefly: Paper rejected after 1 yr. Fixed it up, resubmitted. Major revision decision after 6 months. Fixed up, resubmitted. Rejected again after another 6 months. This literally went on for years, and was quite, quite horrible. The original draft was in pretty bad shape, in hindsight, which partly explains it, and I'm more experienced now. I guess it was one of those character-building experiences.
However, I'm wondering if on balance, if the journal doesn't want it, whether it is better to cut your losses and move on?
For the record, I'm leaning in the direction of submission to another journal if initially rejected without the suggestion of resubmission. If the journal suggests resubmission, I suppose it is a more ambiguous situation.

It depends on the reason for rejection.

If a paper is rejected because it's off-topic, it's not really interesting, it's not really new, etc.: then perhaps you were too ambitious.  A paper may be perfectly written and the science may be very decent, but still rejected from Nature, because its impact is not really large enough.

However, if a paper is rejected with a motivation like this topic would fit our journal, but some major aspects are missing in the study, and they are so grave that we choose to reject, then you can start over and submit a fixed study.  In fact, I have the impression that some journals that have fixed deadlines for revisions, will reject if it is deemed unrealistic to submit the revision in time.  Otherwise, there could be a huge difference between the submission date and the publication date, and that isn't beneficial to anybody.


Submiting a two page paper to a math journal I recently posted my two-page paper to arxiv and sent it to the editor of a good journal. The editor responded:

  "Your result is not substantial enough" and so it was rejected."

I cannot say that I totally disagree with the editor, the paper does not make any significant progress on number theory but I can't say that my paper is totally without value. It is the first time I have tried to publish a paper, and I am confused:

Was my paper rejected because it is too short?
Should I submit it to another journal?

I would really appreciate if someone gave me some advice on how to proceed.

I am no expert in number theory, so I can't really help you with the last question (if you should submit your paper to another journal). However, it sounds like the editor stated the reason for rejection pretty clear: In his impression the results are not substantial enough. This is a valid (and frequent) reason for rejection. So in this respect you are in good company. If the editor did not state explicitly that he finds the paper "too short" than there is no reason to believe that this was the reason for rejection.

To get good feedback on how to proceed with your paper and your research you should ask your advisor (or find one).


What reasonable steps can I take to report misbehavior by publishers to the wider research community? What resources are available for reporting unethical practices or misbehavior by publishers? I'm aware of Beall's list, are there other efforts to objectively identify publishers with low standards or other practices that are detrimental to the research community?

Is it helpful to submit info to organizations like COPE?

This meta discussion is of interest and might suggest that AcademiaSE is not a suitable venue for sharing information on specific practices.

If the matter concerns a mathematical journal, you can submit your case to the European Mathematical Society ethics committee

Note that even if this committee has been established by the EMS, they should consider non-European issues as well as issues from European publisher, journals and authors.

Of course, their power is somewhat limited but given their status, they could have some impact by simply issuing a public statement.


ZbMATH and conflict of interest ZbMATH sent an article for post-publication review. As of a little more than a month ago, I worked at the same department in the same university as one of the authors. We have not cooperated on a paper, but have otherwise interacted.

Should I decline to review the paper due to this conflict of interest (as I would do with a peer review for e.g. a journal article), or do zbMATH reviews have more lax standards for conflicts of interest? The reviews are post-publication, and for a review database and not a journal, and furthermore they are not anonymous, so they are quite different from journal peer reviews.

The review guidelines of zbMATH did not mention conflicts of interest.

ZbMath is like Math Reviews in concept. It publishes summaries of already published articles, to help those perusing the literature to find articles of interest. These summaries are, generally speaking, not evaluative, rather informative (in some cases the published reviews are simply quotations from the article's abstract) and they are signed. Since there is no evaluation, there is not much likelihood of conflict of interest. A reviewer could downplay an important paper by writing a short succinct review, or exaggerate the importance of a minor paper by writing a long review, and one perhaps occasionally encounters things like this, but neither really does much damage, except perhaps to deflate or inflate an ego.


Can a student be a provider of letter of recommendation for research based MS - USA I belong to an environment where gaining a valuable/ meaningful Letter of Recommendation (LoR) is difficult. There exist various reasons, from they themselves not being researchers to fake letters; but that is not the region of interest for this question.

I have been working in the industry for couple of years, where I had the opportunity to work with a Masters student. I mentored her, worked on a project, and we have proposed a new algorithm. That is pending a review, but we have put a pre-print on arXiv. A notable thing is, there was no other project guide. I, and my student, we both believe and agree to the fact that I led the project and saw it to the succession, be it the underlying mathematics or drafting a paper.

I am applying to US universities for MS degree in Computer Science. As mentioned above, running out of quality recommendations.

So the question is: will it be considered a quality letter if my student writes it? The thought of doing so occurred to me while reading that, in the application, review committee looks out for the direct proofs that persons is capable of conducting a quality research. I felt that this project is my biggest evident proof.

I already agree that from person to person, the scenario would differ. But objectively, are there solid reasons? Have you witnessed such a case in the past? If yes, did it have a positive impact?

There's nothing to stop you from submitting a LOR written by your former student but it's very difficult to see how such a letter could help you (in either business or academia).  If you can't get someone who has supervised your work to write your letter, you should at least try to find a peer who could do it.


Is ignoring emails acceptable in academia? As a grad student, I just find it tremendously frustrating when emails are ignored by faculty (both at my institution and at other places). Is this acceptable? I'd be content with a simple response with one line along the lines of "I have read this email and am busy right now, will respond in X days when I can write a more detailed email." I understand that, as a first year student in my field, I'm not really in a position to request anything of anyone, but it just seems like common decency.

Instead, I never hear back, as if my email has been jettisoned off into oblivion.

I agree that it can be frustrating, but this  is not uncommon in a big organisation (I don't think this is specific to academia). People get a lot of e-mail, and are very busy. Answering each and every email can be a lot of work in an already fully packed day. This either leads to people forgetting, or simply ignoring their e-mail to some extent. Also remember that something might be a really high priority for you, but a relatively low priority for the person you mail. So I don't think ignoring mails is acceptable, but sometimes understandable.

I think the best way to deal with it is to try and work with the system. If you see that professor X is very unresponsive to his mail, approach him in person. If a department does not return your mails, give them a call. This kind of personal approach makes it harder for those persons to ignore you, an email is very easy to ignore.


If I've decided to go to Grad. School for Mathematics... a little late? Two questions following a bit of background:

I'm currently a 4th year Physics/Mathematics major to graduate in the spring, and I'm beginning my applications for Grad. school. My goal is theoretical/mathematical physics. Just the idea of applying pure mathematics to physics is exciting to me.

I've taken the Physics GRE Subject tests and all that great stuff, but the more I think of it... the more I feel I prefer mathematics, and as a result---mathematics graduate studies; I'd still like to apply this to physics, eventually, but what I really want is the pure, abstract math first.

1) The next Mathematics Subject GRE is in April. If I want to get into a mathematics graduate program, have I missed my shot?

2) How viable of an option would it be to switch from a physics grad. program into a mathematics one in the same university?

The next Mathematics Subject GRE is in April. If I want to get into a mathematics graduate program, have I missed my shot?

Yes, it will hurt your chances for this year, but you might still be admitted.  Admissions committees can sometimes be flexible about requirements like this if you give a good explanation, so it could still be worth applying (but what the chances are depend on the department and perhaps even the specific committee members).

  How viable of an option would it be to switch from a physics grad. program into a mathematics one in the same university?

As a general rule, being admitted to one department does not make it easy to transfer to another.  If you have good interactions with the mathematics faculty, then that might help some, but you would still have to apply in the usual way (and the chances of admission would in general be comparable to what they might have been if you had not been in the physics department already).

[Added in edit:] On the other hand, you may be able to accomplish your goals in either department.  You can certainly talk/work with faculty from both departments, at least informally and perhaps through some sort of formal arrangement.  If you do work in the intersection of both fields, in the long run it won't matter very much which department your degree was from.  Mainly, it's a matter of which requirements you'll have to complete in the short term (will you take more physics classes or more math classes?).


Two concurrent different versions of a paper to journal and conference; do I need to paraphrase? I know that, especially in computer science, it's legal to publish an extended version of a conference proceedings in a journal if the 'new' content is above 30%. However,

Is it ethical (and legal), to send the extended version to a journal if the conference acceptance still not announced yet provided that I disclose the situation. Will the journal accept it?

As Alexandros says, first you need to make certain that the journal you are submitting to allows content reuse by the typical guidelines, as not all journals do, even in CS.

Assuming that is the case, the typical custom is to wait until your shorter paper is accepted to a conference, though it doesn't matter if acceptance has been announced to anybody besides you and the conference program chairs.  There is nothing hard and fast about this custom, however, since your manuscript will be separately reviewed by the journal to its own standards.  Confirm with the editor that it's OK before submitting and clearly disclose the situation in the cover letter so the reviewers will know as well.

If you do this, however, you are taking a risk, because your submission to the conference may not be accepted.  If your paper is rejected then you probably cannot submit to another conference.  This is because the new submission would now be a subset of a paper under review, not an extension.  You might thus end up with a piece of work that stays in limbo for much longer than usual (CS journals often don't have much sense of urgency, because of the existence of conferences).  You need to decide whether you are comfortable with taking that risk.


Is a professor allowed to ask me what grade I got in a previous class? I'm a student in Michigan, in the United States. I've just started a class for which a previous class was the prerequisite. The professor of my current class asked that I give him my grade for that previous class. (This was an e-mail sent to me and all my classmates.) I don't like the feel of it. Does he have any right to that information? Obviously he isn't going through the system to get the information, and I feel like it's because this isn't on the level.
On further research, I found the FERPA website. It declares:

Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student in order to release any information from a student's education record. However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR § 99.31):

School officials with legitimate educational interest;

There are additional parties/conditions, but this is the only one that even comes close to my situation. Another reference I found is Huntingdon College's General FERPA Information, which defines a school official as:

a person employed by the College in an administrative, supervisory, academic or research, or support staff position;

There are other definitions, but again, this is the most applicable to my situation.

In the US, federal student privacy laws (FERPA) dictate that schools restrict access to student educational records, so that only those with a "legitimate educational interest" can access them. Most universities interpret this such that the student's academic advisor can automatically see their full transcripts in the student record system, but not every professor of every class the student takes.

However, just because access is not automatic, does not mean that it is not allowed. If a professor has a "legitimate educational interest" in a student record, then they may request access to that record. (For example, from the student's academic advisor.) "Legitimate educational interest" will be defined in the school's Student Records Policy and in their annual FERPA disclosure. For example:

  A school official has a legitimate educational interest if the official requires the information for the purpose of fulfilling his official duties, including but not limited to:

  performing a task that is specified in his or her position description or contract agreement;
  performing a task related to a student’s education;
  performing a task related to the discipline of a student;
  providing a service or benefit relating to the student or student’s family, such as health care, counseling, job placement or financial aid;
  maintaining the safety and security of the campus; or
  participating in or conducting studies, evaluations, or assessments of educational programs.

Finally, as the student, you are permitted to disclose your student record to anyone you want. Someone with no educational interest in your record - e.g. your parent - could ask you questions about your educational records, and you would be free to disclose that information or not.


List *all* journals for which one has done peer-reviewing Can it be counterproductive to list in one's CV all journals for which one has done peer-reviewing (both top- and low-rank ones), or whether it's better to list only the top ones and omit the ones too low.

The area in question is pure math and, if there are any journal metrics that might make sense to look at in the first place, I'd be happy to provide them to get a feel of the situation.

I expect the answer depends on your circumstances.  Here are some cases that might apply.  I can't specify precise cut-offs between them, but I doubt it matters too much if you're near the dividing line.  (Keep in mind also that you may have specific rules to keep in mind.  For example, some particularly bureaucratic universities have guidelines for exactly what you must or must not include in your CV.)

For most junior academics, I think it's helpful to list all of them, and it's almost certainly not harmful, assuming they are at least respectable, mainstream academic journals, even if they aren't prestigious.  Each time you've been asked to referee a paper is a vote of confidence from an editor, and it's worth demonstrating that you are starting to become widely known.  Listing seven journals, some really not prestigious, probably looks better than listing just the two or three more prestigious ones.

For people coming up for tenure at research universities, and even more so for mid-career academics, I'd recommend focusing primarily on prestigious journals.  At this stage the goal isn't just to show that people have heard of you, but rather that editors of excellent journals trust your opinion about important papers.  (But be sure to add some short comment to make it clear that this is a selected list.)

Once you are sufficiently senior and widely known, I don't think there's any need to bother listing journals you've refereed for, except perhaps very briefly to indicate that you still do your duty.


Presentation of Research Hypotheses (APA 6th) How is the research hypotheses presented in a qualitative research?

For example, the statement of the problem is stated this way:

The study generally aims to -----. Specifically, it seeks to find answers to the following questions:

Now, I'm wondering how a research hypotheses should be presented

As far as I am aware APA style does not have specific formatting for problem statements or hypothesis. The APA Example paper lacks a clear problem statement and has a paragraph that describes what was done.

  In the current research, therefore, we compared young and older adults’ detection of four
  categories of emotional information (positive high arousal, positive low arousal, negative high
  arousal, and negative low arousal) with their detection of neutral information. The positive and
  negative stimuli were carefully matched on arousal level, and the categories of high and low
  arousal were closely matched on valence to assure that the factors of valence (positive, negative)
  and arousal (high, low) could be investigated independently of one another...


Citation of different types of sources In my small research paper (Bachelor level, university of applied sciences) that I'm writing for my internship, I want to make use of certain frames from videos that have been published by the company I'm interning at to showcase their product.

Now I'm wondering how I should go about including the source for the still (and while I'm at it, different materials).

Currently APA is used for all citations, now I'm left wondering how I should incorporate sources such as:

A frame from a video (the timestamp might not be accurate enough, considering the video's are 30 frames per second?)
Internal documentation/communication/imagery which will never be released to the public
screencaptures of 3D models

the question is quite straightforward for source number 1, however, for sources 2 and three it might not be so simple.

Source types 2 & 3 have either a group of authors, no authors mentionned, or a single author.
They also are highly confidential, and it is quite a lot of material.

So, my questions are:

How do I go about citing a specific frame of a video?
How do I deal with citing confidential information

Another consideration is the sheer amount of information, we're talking hundreds of documents, images and videos. Do I actually have to cite each one individually?

Considering most imagery used in my research will be put in the appendix, with it's own caption, do I need to incorporate the citation part ((company name, author, year)) within the caption? Or how should I handle this?

You can use Microsoft Word on the add reference tab-new source (Im using Word in another language, so the term might vary in english, and click on the extended info. There is an option for multimedia/digital mediums.

You dont need to add the specific frame. You cite the entire video and where you retrieved in case it's online (or as movie if its a movie). The reference to the frame or the second where it was paused goes in your text, not your cite or reference (at least not in APA).
Cite the manual normally but the author is a corporate author.
It's still an image and the citing/reference so t depends where you saw took the screen-cap. You cite is as multimedia/digital medium and rather than 'retrieved from' you can say 'captured from' , otherwise, the normal way works and you ad din your text when describing the image directly as a screen capture.

And yeah... generally you need to cite individually if you are using them individually. You dont need to cite 10000 articles, just the ones you are specifically using. If they form part of a collection then you cite the collection but add the specifics of what you are using. In this case, APA might not be the best citation style, so consider using another one if you are not required to use APA.

Regarding the confidentiality of documents, it is very situational.

For example, there are articles/papers that cite for example a prehispanic codex of which there is only 1 copy in the world and the author has that copy in it's personal library, so it isn't really available for others to revise.  However, when it comes to 'confidential docs', if you have permission you can mention it in your text as "Personal Communication", or as the type of document from company X (if you have permission for it) , but the thing about citing is not only to give credit tot he original authors, but to lets other researches be able to peer review your work too.

So, if there's a way to retrieve that confidential doc (like when it is going to be declassified at some point) you can cite is as the type of document it is with a corporate author. If it can't be retrieved/revised by anyone else then just mention it in the text but don't make a reference out of it.


When a graduate student be a part of a research grant, does he get paid in addition to a university stipend? This year I will graduate from a European university and willing to start a Ph.D. program in the USA. As a graduate student, there is a “guaranteed financing” opportunity of approximately $ 32,000 per year. My question is when a graduate student is part of a research grant (ie NIH / NSF grants) of his PI -in their own lab-, does he receive payment in addition to the guaranteed funding stipend? Does income from the research grant -if some- and guaranteed funding stipend different things?

In my experience, “guaranteed funding” means that (depending on field) you will be either working for a PI who has grant money to pay you or working as a TA (with the possible exception of your first year, where their may be general department support while you find an advisor). Because graduate stipends are typically on a pay scale, working on a grant can be expected to bring you up to the guaranteed level, but not put you above it.

To support the guarantee of funding, the university (or a unit within the university) may have a reserve fund with money that can be used to cover gaps in PI funding (which may come with TA obligations).


Should I publish in a second rate journal published by a maybe disreputable publisher? I've been invited to write an article for a special issue of an open access journal. According to the prospective guest editor, the editors say that “All papers invited by the guest editor will be published free of charge.”
The journal is published by a publisher that was included on Jeffrey Beall's list (https://beallslist.net/) of predatory open access publishing companies in 2014 but was removed in 2015 following a successful appeal. Nonetheless, criticism of the publisher continues.
I read the Wikipedia article on the publisher and it appears that this publisher maintains a minimum of respectability, even if criticisms continue. But I'm worried about associating myself with a disreputable publisher. On the other hand, I am an early career academic with only two peer-reviewed publications and would like to add more. Should I do it?

Of course not. If you spend the time to write a paper of decent quality, publish it in a journal of decent quality.
If a car salesman invites you to buy a car, would you do so because of the invitation, despite his questionable reputation?


Intellectual theft by a colleague, how to respond? A recent exciting but unpublished discovery of mine was scooped by a colleague. I am a PhD student and I shared the discovery with the colleague a year ago. The colleague is a professor who came from the research group I work in. I found out about the scoop through my adviser who attended the colleague's talk about the discovery; the colleague's group did similar research that led them to the same discovery after we talked.

Obviously my adviser and I were surprised, upset, and angry. Initially after my adviser confronted the colleague about this the colleague was argumentative but eventually saw the light and became apologetic. The colleague offered to retract the paper that was accepted for publication but not published until we've published our findings (it's taken so long to publish for good reasons). However, the colleague is still pushy about trying to get at least something from their research out, but it is our judgement that any of their results would scoop my discovery.

Although I haven't talked with the colleague since this happened (my adviser has been mediating), I get the impression that the colleague did this intentionally with the hopes that it would go unnoticed by us.

So my question is this: what should I do to ensure this colleague receives their comeuppance i.e., does this deserve some sort of punitive action on my part? I haven't asked my adviser yet and any suggestions I receive here will certainly be discussed with my adviser.

It sounds like your adviser is already on the case -- let her handle it. She may know the colleague better, may know better how to handle such situations, and is in a position where she may not care about consequences any more if she calls out the colleague about the issue (because she already is a professor). You, on the other hand, do not have this luxury and consequently would be better off letting someone else handle this as long as you think that it is handled in a way that goes in the right direction.

So, rather than being involved yourself, let her handle that and keep you updated as to what is happening.


How important is outreach for applying to tenure track professor position? I often see outreach listed in the CVs of professors, which makes me believe that doing outreach is beneficial to advancing a professors career. What I'm wondering though is if this is only import for going from assistant professor to associate professor or if outreach can also be beneficial to securing a tenure-track professor position. I find this is especially important to know since most universities limit the page numbers of a CV submitted during the application process, so I'm not sure if an outreach section is beneficial or detrimental (since it would mean removing another part of the CV).
What is the overall thought across different fields (I'm in Physics but curious if the same thoughts are held in Chemistry, Mathematics, Computer Science, etc.) on the importance of outreach when applying for tenure-track professor position?

Pertinent to academia, I think of outreach as activities that bring academic subject matter and/or expertise to a community audience, often an audience that is under-served.  Activities might include lectures or presentations to community audiences presented in laymen’s terms about subjects that are esoteric but interesting; interacting with elementary students to make a topic (like programming) more understandable or to engage them in the scientific process; mentoring high school students doing a science fair project.  There are others.
The degree to which describing involvement in outreach might help an application for a tenure-track position may depend on factors specific to the institution and its values; the teaching responsibilities of the assistant professor position; and the degree of prior involvement in outreach.  For example, a university that has a stated commitment to the community in which it resides might place high value on prior involvement in outreach because outreach aligns with the values of the institution.  If the specific department has an outreach program (e.g., it holds regular coding camps or has a formal affiliation with an elementary school) prior involvement in outreach might strengthen the application because it demonstrates experience relevant to the department.  Outreach that has involved interactions with students at any level may be more important when the Assistant Professor position will involve teaching undergraduates because it provides some evidence of prior experience in teaching/interacting (hopefully) positively with young people.  But the outreach should be clearly and unambiguously meaningful.  “I spent 1 week as a counselor at a math camp” probably doesn’t help and may hurt.
Finally, in a space-constrained CV, description of outreach should not displace documentation of specific requirements of the position (e.g., education, research experience, involvement in professional societies, publications/presentations.)
The goal of the CV should be to “market” yourself for the position.  If you’ve documented what needs to be documented and documenting outreach might help your application, include it.


Importance of the current postdoc advisor's letter in TT job search I have strong publication record in my Ph.D. and 1st Postdoc that went for two years. Got 4 TT interview calls before last year.. but not successful in any. Last year did not apply, but this year, after fixing a few shortcomings noticed in my previous interviews, started the search again. In the meantime I published a couple of top journals as the corresponding author. However, I am not in harmonious professional relation with the present postdoc advisor. I am working for a little over one year in this position but did not yield any journal publication. I am sure that this advisor's reference will have negative impact on my search, if at all he agrees to write one. The only best way for me is avoid this advisor's letter, since I can arrange the required number of good letters from my previous affiliations. If I proceed with out my present advisor's reference, will it have any bearing on my chances? Expecting some suggestions from the people having experience in search committees.

In my view, strong letters are extremely important. You certainly don't want any letters from people interested in sabotaging you in any way. Even poorly written letters can be a setback. So can letters written by non-native speakers who may not grok the nuances of certain phrases.

There is the concept of Damning with Faint Praise that can be absolutely deadly in a letter. It can be intentional or not, actually.

Get letters from people who know your potential and are willing to speak for it. They need to know about your past work, of course, but people will be looking for potential and how it relates to a particular position.

If you have any doubts about what a person might say, ask them about it, or go elsewhere. In certain situations (non-native speakers, say) you might even request that a letter writer check their letter with a neutral third party, such as a department head. This would have saved me tremendous grief long ago.


How can I best approach journals and academics about paying to re-use content from their papers? Apologies if this is off-topic - please close away if it is.

I am currently engaged in writing a book. This isn't speculative - I have a commission and an advance and a budget to spend on securing additional things required such as images and photographs. And the subject matter isn't the sort of new-age nonsense academics get occasionally pestered with during their careers.

Although it's not an academic text, one of the chapters is quite academic in nature, and discusses some niche topics in archaeology. I'd really like to secure some photographs of the finds in question: they're easy to track down online.

This question - I'd like to use a figure from a paper; what's the best way to do this? - makes it clear that, as I suspected, I'd need permission (and like to pay a fee) to republish the photos. That's fine, and of course someone deserves remuneration for my profiting from their work.

The trouble I've got is that no-one I've contacted seems the least interested in helping. I've mailed several journal editors and contributors alike, asking for permission and offering to pay, but I've had no responses at all.

I was once a PhD student myself, and I'm aware that many academics are disinterested in such relatively trivial requests. But I don't know what else to do: if I can't secure at least a few photos, the whole book is likely to be cancelled. Who am I best off approaching about this, and how am I best off approaching them to try and generate some interest and engagement?

Many journals have a "Request Permissions" feature on their website. Open the paper of interest and look for a button with that label - often it's grouped with other options like downloading citations, setting up alerts, etc. Then follow the instructions given.

Although I've seen this in a lot of the major journals in my field, I've not done an exhaustive survey of how many journals have this option, so your mileage may vary. But it should be a good first place to look. To take an example from your comment, the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research is on JSTOR, and if you visit the page of an article, there is a "Request Permissions" button right at the bottom, below the abstract. Example here - I hope that the link is stable. If not, visit the latest issue and open any article.


A professor may have stolen an idea I discussed with him: how to proceed? I'm really not sure how to proceed from here.

I'm an undergraduate Computer Science student, planning to earn my MSc in the next couple of years.

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke with a professor (I'll call him A) on an informal setting, and, since he was my teacher on an area relevant to the subject, I discussed with him an idea I had, and about how I was trying to make it my own thesis project.

I have also previously "pitched" this idea to another professor (B). He liked it, and we agreed that once I graduated, he was willing to be my advisor, and I could work on it.

However, I was recently shown the list of thesis proposals for current students, and my idea was among them - being supervised by prof. A, and an unrelated professor, C.

The details are so close to what we have discussed that this is almost surely no coincidence.

Now, I can't say I'm 100% sure he stole my idea, but he didn't mention any of this when we talked, and this thesis list was made after our conversation.

Anything could have happened: either I'm right, or prof. C actually came up with the same idea, or prof. A had a similar idea in the past but didn't tell me about it.

I don't know how to proceed. I am already skeptical of academia - seeing my peers work on projects and write papers that didn't interest them, for the sole purpose of earning an MSc, means I'm not interested on working for it unless it's a subject I really care about. That is - I either find anything I want to work on, or I don't care about earning an MSc at all. This was the case. I found a project I wanted to work on.

My question is on the ethics of what may have happened. I have zero experience on academia or research environments, but I have always considered ideas as important as research. That is, copying an idea is as serious to me as copying research. This would fall into plagiarism.

Is this perspective shared among actual academics? Am I naive in thinking like this?
Am I right in wanting to "keep" an idea to myself, in order to work on it later?
Should I just stay quiet the next time? Shouldn't I be able to discuss these kind of things with people I consider to be honest or "bona fide", without having to be afraid of being copied?

I see multiple possible courses of action, but in the end, I don't know what I want to achieve. The thesis is already assigned, so I probably won't be able to take it away from the student who got it. I also don't know whether this is an ethics violation from prof. A or not, since this is "just an idea" that I voluntarily shared with him.

I can confront prof. A about this, either sending him an e-mail or speaking with him in person, to get his side of the story.

Or I can go to prof. B and tell him about this situation, to see what are his thoughts on it. He looked interested on working with me on this, so maybe he'll know better how to proceed.

What is the best (or "a good") course of action now? I don't feel I should forget this whole story and move on to a different subject, but I don't see what can be done now.

I think it's very clear that you should talk with (B). You had previously discussed this idea with (B) so s/he knows that it was something that you had been considering. Furthermore, (B) also presumably knows the situation within the department better than you. Maybe (A) is known for doing things like this. Maybe the overlap isn't as serious as you think and (B) can reassure you that you can still do your thesis as you wanted to. No one here can decide whether either one of these is the case.

One word of advice: in talking with (B), present this situation as something that you are concerned about, but stay unemotional and stick to the facts: (B) knows that you were interested in this similar project, you discussed it with (A), and now another student is doing this project with (A). You do not need to connect the dots and accuse (A) directly of plagiarism or dishonest conduct in an initial conversation with (B). If this is a misunderstanding or miscommunication then doing so makes you seem aggressive and prone to jumping to conclusions. If (A) did something that is as blatantly dishonest as you have suggested, then that will be obvious to (B) as well.


Is it common to end a Marie Curie IF fellowship early? Is it common for Marie Curie Individual Fellowships to end early? For example, if the scholar were to take up a permanent lecturing position after 1 year of a 2 year Marie Curie.

Would this be considered a bad thing to do?

I'm curious if others have been in this position.

I don't know if it's common—one would require statistical evidence to answer that—but it certainly happens. A former colleague of mine finished a Marie Curie early (not a year, but perhaps 9 months) in order to take up a different position. In their case it was not even a permanent position, but another postdoc (a Veni grant in the Netherlands), although they obtained a permanent position not long after (and cut short their Veni to take it up).


Is the knowledge gained from a masters conversion course suitable for pursuing a PhD? I am looking for advice on applying for a Phd in Software Engineering/ Human-Computer Interaction. I am currently working as a software developer and interested in pursuing an academic career in Computing at university level. I have recently completed a Masters degree in Computing with a Pass last year, however I have a 2:1 undergraduate degree in Graphic Design.

I feel that the subject knowledge I have only gained on my Masters may be less adequate compared to a 3 year undergraduate degree to pursue a Phd. Would my current knowledge and experience be suitable to apply for a Phd in Computing or would it be beneficial to undertake another/ specific course before applying?

I am in Psychology and not CS, but what we find is that students with a three year BSc are rarely competitive for a funded PhD and most must do a MSc course first in order to be competitive. We ran a MSc conversion course last year for the first time. These students faired better than undergrads, but not as well as the students on our straight MSc course. A number have continued on to the regular MSc course with the hopes of getting a funded PhD the next year. I think you would probably need a distinction on a conversion course in order to be really competitive for a PhD. That said, you can always apply and see what happens. Some places might offer you a 1+3 type program.


How does one ensure their knowledge of a field is complete when doing a literature review I am a new grad student who is both excited and scared as I embark on this transformational journey. One concern that I have is establishing a current snap shot of my field and identifying boundaries that are ripe for further exploration. This seems like an impossible task given the number of journals out there and rapid pace at which new material becomes available.

I have been reading some posts on this board and it sounds like literature review is only one phase as a graduate student and then you move on. Given that you are on a time constraint one has to move from a reading focus to a doing focus eventually. My concern is I am moving forward with only half the story.

My field is life sciences, specifically gene therapy.

This seems like an impossible task.

You're right, it is impossible.  One can really never hope to gain a "complete" knowledge of a field, or even a subfield.  You just have to do the best you can, in the time you have, to identify the most significant basic work related to your area of interest, and work that specifically addresses the questions you are studying.

Part of your advisor's job is to help with this; they should have a broader knowledge of the field, and be able to help direct your literature search and point out any glaring gaps.  But despite your combined best efforts, there will almost certainly end up being significant work that you overlook, or whose relevance you don't recognize.  That is just part of doing research.  Someday you'll learn about it and wish you had known it earlier, but all you can do is move on from there.


Are you required to trace back information on a subject to first publication for a citation on it? If there is a tree of papers on or involving X, all of which give a brief introduction to X and I need a citation for my use of X, do I need to give the root of the tree as a citation of X or can I cite any of the nodes in the tree that explain X for my use of it?

Concretely I need to cite why using point wise mutual information can be used to improve co-occurence matrix based word embeddings. I do not really know where PPMI was first used for this purpose, but I have stepped down towards the root for a few papers now. Do I need to find the paper that first used PPMI for this or can I cite any of the ones I already found?

I (as a mathematician) would use one of three options:

cite the most recent paper. This is what I do when I only need a reference to the topic and no particular result in detail; ideally, the most recent paper is a survey (or sometimes I pick the most recent survey), this way I can skip a lot of references in my own article saying, "see [xyz], and the references therein." This somehow implies that the contribution of my paper is related, but it is nowhere necessary to know the exact details of the results of that source.
cite the original source. This is rare in my case, because over the years people have added so much knowledge that citing the original works seems to be a bit out of date. I only do this when I really want to stress that this origin is important for my work in particular. As I said, this rarely happens. I am pretty sure that many people who cite the original source have never read the original source and just cite it "because you cite it."
cite some other paper(s) "from the tree" (as you call it). This is what I usually need and do, mainly because I need to refer to several different details from different sources. Then I have a reason for referring to an "inner node in the reference tree" (neither root nor leave), and I would only do that if I can give a reason, either only to myself, or even write in my own paper why I pick this particular reference.


How often do you get to "play with" scientific instruments? I tend to learn and understand a subject to a much deeper extent if I am able to play around/experiment/mess with something that demonstrates the principles.

I'm starting a Neuroscience PhD program in the fall and would like to know how I could maximize the opportunities to experiment with various equipment at the university. I'm interested in working with things like fMRI, MEG, EEG, electron-microscopes, and supercomputers.

How easy is it to informally play with these types of equipment when they might be sitting idle?

Note: I'm looking to do this safely without any intent to damage the equipment. Primarily, I'm looking to replicate the findings of classic experiments and discover aspects that didn't make it into the published papers.

It depends to a large degree on who owns them.

If it's your lab group, and your supervisor's happy enough, you can probably use them whenever you like.

If they're owned by the department/division/etc then there's likely to be a formal booking system. Once you've booked a slot, though, I'd imagine you can do whatever work you like on them.

Provisos in this are cost and safety.

Cost, because some of the stuff you're talking about is pretty pricey. An fMRI session can be charged at over $400 dollars per hour.

Safety applies to you and the equipment. You may well intend to be safe and not damage the equipment, but that can be easier said than done. As such, you're never going to be allowed to use certain items without having gone through the necessary training - so you'll have to convince your supervisor that doing such training is a good use of your time/funding.

So in your lab, play around time will I suspect be limited, save on equipment you use daily. But if you must get your hands on a piece of kit, fear not, for there are workshops and courses you can attend! These often occur in conjunction with a conference/meeting/etc of some kind, where a sponsoring vendor will kindly 'donate' a piece of equipment (in the hope you'll buy the same brand later down the road) and as a group you get the opportunity to spend a while using it under the company representative's watchful eye. Keep an eye out for these, and try to arrange to publish a paper in the conference, or give a talk in the meeting, and I'm sure you'll be given the funding to go.


Is it advisable to get copyright on a research proposal and an academic article before submitting them? Is it advisable to get copyright on a research proposal and an academic article before submitting them?

Do you think there are some distinctions between the two cases mentioned (a research proposal and a scientific paper).

I refer to legislations of Western countries, mainly.

A copyright exists on your original work from the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form.  No marking or registration is needed.

Here in the US, this may be helpful:  Copyright in General

(In 1989, the US became a party to the Berne Convention, now followed by 171 countries.  So the law here should be similar to where you live.  But check your government's site or with an IP attorney if a lot is at stake.)


How do you re-learn a subject that you've started to forget? Due to my lack of revision I've realized that I have started to forget most of the organic chemistry that I had learnt a few months back (spend about 3 m/o on a textbook). I'm trying to think of how to get back my edge but I can't seem to figure out the best way to get back the working knowledge I had.
A brute force approach I thought was to reread the whole textbook, but it is a horrible idea to do as it sounds. So, other than direct prevention methods (revision) , how does one relearn what he once knew in the most efficient way possible?
Note: Currently my understanding is vague recollections of all the chapters I've done. Btw I've solved most of the textbook exercises already :p (though I'd probably  not be able to answer a particular question offhand right now)

If you took notes when you first learned the material, then start with those, and perhaps summarize them. Then, or if you don't have notes, I'd suggest going back to the exercises and doing them again, starting with the first chapter, rather than a random approach. Perhaps a few from each chapter. If you get stuck, then review the material enough to get to a solution.
If you really did know it, then it should come back with a bit of practice. Hopefully you weren't just kidding yourself on the first "learning". Then it is much harder.


How do graduate schools feel about a student not accepting an offer? I'm sure it's common for students to reject 1-2 recommendations for admission to a graduate school, because they often apply to several places and sometimes they get accepted in more than one place. But what impression does this give to the graduate school when the student doesn't accept the offer for admission (not sure if this is the correct term)? Specifically universities in Europe where a lot of them don't have application fees. If you apply again in the future, are they likely to not accept you based on this information they have about you from the past? Is that information used at all?

In my case it's admission to a Master's program.

Additional question: if I got accepted to my first choice, would it be better if I told the other universities to cancel my applications?

In general, there is not much memory for individual students who act responsibly. Turning down an offer in a reasonable time period is acting responsibly. Initially accepting an offer and not turning it down until the last minute after external and internal funding applications have been made, is less responsible.

I would let departments know as soon as you know you are no longer interested. That means if you have gotten into your first choice school with a nice/fully funded offer, you should turn everyone else down. If you have gotten into your first choice school with a crappy funding offer, you need to decide for the remaining schools what you would do if they gave you a great funding offer. Any school that cannot make an offer that you would accept, you should let know.


Seeking PhD students on traditional job sites I am considering seeking my first PhD student through a job site (indeed, etc).

I am starting an assistant professorship,hope to attract a PhD student this fall, and lack the name recognition to have students banging on my door. I would, nonetheless, like to have a certain amount of choice.

Edit: I should clarify here that I am an Engineer, but also have training in the social sciences. As such, my students will necessarily be interdisciplinary.

I have seen postdocs advertised this way. Thoughts on doing it for a Ph.D. student? Tips from those that have done it?

I am also curious: if this idea bothers you, why? Practically, why is this not commonly done?

Sorry, but that thought makes me a bit itchy. Maybe I'm just old.

Building up your reputation and visibility is a good thing, though. You might be able to do it with a university sponsored web site on which you have at least some control. Showcase your work and interests there. Publish links to papers if appropriate.

It is also a place to say that you are "accepting PhD candidates". If you have funding available be sure to say that as well as what topics you would be interested in supervising.

Another way to potentially find students is to attend conferences at which you are likely to find a good number of undergraduate (or MS level) instructors. Use the social contacts there to spread the word. You might possibly even get to meet a student or two. If you can get on the program, you also spread your reputation. These may be educational focused conferences, such as the SIGCSE conference of ACM in Computer Science. Most of the attendees there are educators and many are also supervising graduate students.

But, maybe you are just a bit bored. If you have the possibility (and are at a large enough place) you can associate yourself with working groups of other professors on topics of mutual interest. It may be that the group itself attracts potential students and you might benefit from that as well as the synergy of joint work.

I'm still thinking about your question and may add more as it occurs to me. I'd warn you, however, that with an advertisement you will likely draw a lot of responses that you will find entirely inappropriate and yet have to deal with. I'm thinking mostly of the ill-prepared who have little idea about what is required.


Advice on career move - from industry to academia I think my situation is somewhat unusual and goes into the opposite direction: I have the possibility to move from industry back to academia.

Background: I have been working in an industry position in my home country since I finished my PhD (6 years ago). My sector is going through mergers and acquisition, however my situation seems to be stable right now.

My job is kind of OK but I don't want to live in my country anymore. I always wanted an international career and dreamed about the possibility of going back to live in the USA again. For this reason, I applied and has been offered a postdoc job position (in the USA) and need to make a decision as soon as possible.

I do not mind going back to the lab bench and doing basic functions again, once it leads me to live in America. My overall idea is to work for 2-3 years in this postdoc position, so I would have enough time to obtain the permanent residency and then move back to industry, entrepreneurship,  or another postdoc position (I really don't want to get a teaching related position).

Concerns: Am I being crazy about considering going back to academia? My salary and benefits would be way lower, but I don't need much to live. There is no other way to move overseas with a guaranteed income.

It has been a long time since I left the academic universe, so I would appreciate any feedback regarding my plan.

Thank you.

Let me be clear: you don't want to move back into academia; you see academia as a stepping stone in a lateral move to a different country. I think this difference matters, because most of the conventional problems that people have when moving back into academia (is my track record good enough? are my connections still active? etc.) don't apply to you, given that you already have an offer. For your ultimate goal it matters little if you are successful or not in your postdoc. Consequently, I am not sure what good advice we can give you: if you want to move to the US, and this is a way to move to the US, what more is there to say?

That said, I can't help but wonder if there are not much more direct ways to achieve what you try to achieve. If you are employable now for an US company, can't you find a job remote and move directly to industry? If you are not employable for an US company, will a postdoc really change this? If you don't mind a pay cut, would an internship not be a better way to get into companies? Have you fully understood the visa implications? What will you do if at the end of your postdoc no industrial positions are forthcoming?

All in all, this seems like a fairly contrived way to achieve your goal. I am not saying it's necessarily a bad idea (there may be industries were "being around" is required for job hunting, although my field - IT - is certainly not one of them), but it feels you should still explore alternatives before committing to this plan.


Co-authors/PIs in a grant are misrepresenting their CVs. Any suggested actions? I am currently part of a larger and quite broad in terms of expertise research group that is preparing a proposal for a grant / research center. Part of the proposal is a summary of the CVs for the co-investigators (CIs) of the project which also includes successful grant applications and previous funding.

There I noticed that some of the CIs have included grants and funding from foreign agencies (some of which more than a million dollars) that were not awarded to them or they were not involved in the application, they were just part of the research center that the grants were awarded to, or grants that were awarded to their supervisors.

This obviously makes their CV appear a lot stronger than it actually is in the application but it appears to be quite unethical to include them like that (the phrasing in the CV does not state that they actually got the grants but does not represent their actual contribution). As these are CIs that I do not directly work with and, for example I have not met one of them, I am not sure what the best course of action would be.

I think you should bring this up. The motivation to bring this up is, that a tampered CV will most likely be detected by the referees or the agency and if so, this may most likely affect the chances for getting the grant negatively. Since the overall goal is to get the grant, you should bring this up.

So, you could approach your supervisor and note that you are not sure if the CVs are clear enough about these grants and that it currently looks a though these CIs won these grants personally which seems implausible to you. If your supervisor agrees, you (or they) can simple ask the respective CIs to clarify if these grant were actually awarded to them or their institution and, if applicable, be more clear in their CVs.

Including grants where you have been only one CI of many and that have been awarded to an institution in CVs is common, but I advise to be precise  here. Something like

  Grant XYZ from agency B, 1.000.000$ (contribution of Prof A: subproject 300.000$ and design of general strategy)

could be appropriate.


In a yes/no question, a student gives the right answer and an unnecessary but wrong explanation. How to grade? Example:

Q: Does Venus exhibit retrograde motion? (1 mark)
A: No. This is because Venus orbits the Sun and not the Earth.

The first part is correct: Venus does not exhibit retrograde motion. But the explanation is incorrect: the reason Venus doesn't exhibit retrograde motion is because it's closer to the Sun than we are. Mars for example also orbits the Sun and not the Earth but does exhibit retrograde motion.
Do I award 1 mark or 0? On the one hand, for obvious reasons, the grading scheme only covers whether the student said "yes" or "no". Based on that, I should award 1 mark. Further, if the student hadn't written the incorrect explanation, then the answer is perfect, and it feels wrong to penalize the student for going beyond what the question asks for.
On the other hand, the explanation is clearly incorrect and the student should've known the correct explanation (it's part of the curriculum). It also feels wrong to award full marks for semi-incorrect answers. For example, if the student had written something silly such as "This is because Venus is made of Swiss cheese", do I still award 1 mark?!
Ideally, I'd award 0.5 marks, but for various reasons, fractional scores aren't permissible.

You asked for a yes/no answer (which, as you've discovered, has its disadvantages) and got one plus some other stuff. You should grade the yes/no answer and ignore the other stuff. If you like, you could add a note like "You got lucky! This is actually because..."

The whole point of yes/no or MC questions is that you grade only the answer, and assume that type-1 and type-2 errors cancel out or are normalized out. That paradigm doesn't work if you don't uniformly ignore everything other than the answer.

More concretely: other students likely got this question right using the same incorrect reasoning, but didn't write their reasoning down. There is no way to identify these students; so, you need to make sure they get the same score as this student.


Supplement and letters What does it mean for journal to be "letters journal" and "supplement journal"? For example, Nuovo Cimento (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuovo_Cimento) journal has this distinction.

Is "letter" a synonymum for "note"?

Letters are supposed to be short articles with innovative content, easy to communicate for the general scientific community.

From the Physical Review Letters website:

  It publishes short, high quality reports of significant and notable
  results in the full arc of fundamental and interdisciplinary physics
  research.

I've never heard about that another definition, seems like it is specific from the Nuovo Cimento journal. I would think that it publishes long articles with exhaustive detailed technical/theoretical reports.


Pros and cons of teaching assistantship as a masters student intending to go on to industry job Background:
In the final year of my masters. Not seeking to apply for a PhD program in the future.

Situation:
I have a potential opportunity to TA a grad level course. Highly confused about taking it up. The opportunity is good however along with the 2 courses that I have to take for graduation, I also wanted to take up another extra course to gain new skills for use in the industry.

Ideally I would want to do both - the extra course and also the TA work. However since I have not taken up a TA opportunity before, I fear balancing 3 courses + the TA work would be a potential overload. However once I leave grad school, I won't be able to have a TA opportunity nor will I be able to take the extra course that is offered here. The TA work would be around 15-20 hours per week. I also have to pay for the extra course I take up.

Any ideas/suggestions would really help. Answers from an industry standpoint would really help.

I can't really comment on the financial side, that all depends on your own financial situation. The main advantage of TAing, besides the money, is that if you want to teach in the future in any capacity then getting some experience teaching is vital. If you don't plan to teach in the future, then the work experience is probably negligible. There are probably some "soft" benefits that could be useful in industry, such as learning to effectively condense and explain material in your field, but I doubt they would be very helpful in terms of getting hired.

In terms of balancing work, that also mostly depends on the courses and your own productivity. I will say that at many PhD programs, 3 courses + a 15-20 hour TAship is a pretty standard workload for the first couple years (assuming you don't do significant research your first year or so), so it's probably doable.


Pumping up my GRE score, or getting some publishing under my belt? I took an nontraditional track to academia. I went from the professional world, to full time community college educator (media/communications). Now as I plan to go forward, I realize that I NEED a PhD to move on.  Problem, my GRE scores is awful and my Masters was a tacticians degree rather than a theoretical one. So I have no publication history.

So in order to get into a decent PhD program (I will have to change fields from Communications to Education since there are no PhD programs in my field in proximity to my tuition reimbursing institution), should I focus on pumping up my GRE score, or getting some publishing under my belt? While the second sounds like a lot more fun, I wonder if a good set of publications would matter if my GRE is abysmal?

I suppose you mean the GRE general test, as opposed to the subject tests. The general test is easy enough to study part time, and there are openings to take the test almost everyday. Plus, you get to send only the best score now, via "Score Select". So, there shouldn't be a problem doing both at the same time.

IMHO research experience greatly trumps GRE scores. Great GRE scores won't help you get admitted and bad scores won't necessarily cause your application to fail. Good research experience, from my experience applying to grad school twice and speaking to professors, is solid gold.

Bear in mind that during the PhD, you will have to juggle coursework, teaching and keeping up with research in order to find an adviser during the first 1-2 years. In comparison, studying for the GRE while doing research is almost trivial. One trick is to not spend too much time actually studying for the GRE. Instead, get a book like Princeton Review, learn the tricks and game the system.

Tl;dr - Do both at the same time!


Using Paper under review as a Scientific Report in PhD application I have submitted a paper at a conference and it is currently under review. Can I use this paper as a 'scientific report' (asked to assess candidate's writing skills) for a Ph.D application ?

So long as this is for an internal evaluation process that doesn't involve any form of "publication," it's hard to see how this could be a problem. You retain rights as the author of a paper, especially if it hasn't been published.

If you have concerns over whether it is allowed, you can always ask the conference organizers if it's acceptable. On the other hand, if you are concerned whether the department you are submitting to will accept it, ask the department.


How to overcome preconceived ideas about social scientists? I have the opposite problem to this question. Often when I talk to someone from a 'hard' scientific field I am 'taught' how statistics work or how programming works. It is a bit like being mansplained but by a hard scientist (hardsplaining, would that be a word?). Once someone was surprised that I know what the Runge-Kutta method is, and I have lost the count of how many times I have been lectured about stuff like the normal distribution and inferential statistics.

Now, I work with quantitative social science, using statistical methods that many would consider quite advanced (e.g. exponential random graph models for social networks, panel econometrics, simultaneous equations) and had the necessary mathematical training for that.

I am also very familiar with several programming languages. I usually write a lot of code in R or Python, besides being proficient in statistical scripting languages like Stata. I also know a good deal of NetLogo and Java, which I used when I did agent-based modelling. I would write my stuff in Sweave and LaTex if most journals didn't ask for a word document.

My understanding is that precisely because of the observational nature of most social science data, those of us who are into quantitative methods are forced to learn very advanced techniques to deal with issues such as selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity. Furthermore, the intrinsic 'messiness' of social data means that we have to be quite good at data management, usually learning a programming language or two in order to clean our datasets. Moreover, the emergent nature of social phenomena has motivated many of us to use multi-agent simulations in our work, demanding us to learn how to program.

Yet, I get patronised by the person whose randomised experiment allow them to get away with a t-test. How to react when that happens without sounding too defensive?

I know that generations of armchair sociologists theorising about the social construction of this and that probably created this stereotype of the mathematically inept computationally illiterate social scientist, but I believe that this image doesn't reflect a great share of those in my field.

EDIT 1: Given the close vote, I'm adding this clarification to what I'm asking. I want to know of strategies, possibly by others in a similar situation, to assert their research credentials or skills in a friendly manner in a social situation where the phenomenon described happens. The type of prejudice that I describe sometimes leads my opinion or ideas to be disregarded because of judgements made based on an incomplete image of my field of study. I believe that there are others there in a similar situation (Economists, for example), who may have strategies to cope with it. There must be a nice way to convey one's competence past the initial impression caused by the stereotype.

I get patronised by the guy whose randomised experiment allows him to
  get away with a t-test. How to react when that happens without
  sounding too defensive?

I think this is the key aspect in your question. Once the "hardsplainer" starts patronizing you, you are on the defensive. And there is really no good way out of this situation once you react by starting to defend your methods.

Sometimes the hardsplainer will realize that his assumptions were erroneous and that you may indeed know more about stats than he.
Or he will in turn get defensive and start nitpicking your methods, probably getting in deeper and deeper water as he is discussing stuff he may not know much about. This is not a good conversation to have at social gatherings.

I'm afraid the second possibility will happen rather frequently, simply because people are not good at revising preconceived impressions.

So I'd recommend that you nip the problem in the bud, by not allowing your interlocutor to, in fact, preconceive the impression of "look, a social scientist, who probably doesn't know anything about statistics". Specifically, when you discuss your work, invest half a sentence to name-drop your analysis techniques.

  I'm looking at how foo relates to bar. Because I only have
  observational data, not experiments, I use econometrical panel data
  models, and I find that...

If you hint that you use advanced models right before the hardsplainer can get the wrong impression that he can lecture you with fundamentals, he will be stopped cold. (Of course, you don't want to overdo it to come across as an arrogant know-it-all.)

Yes, it would be nice if this were unnecessary, because people didn't have the preconceived notion that social scientists are inept in terms of statistics. Unfortunately, this notion does have a basis in facts. I do statistics for psychologists, and I see that while they do get a solid grounding in statistics, they do frequently misapply models, or interpret them incorrectly, or don't understand why p-hacking is a Bad Thing. Then again, some hard scientists do suffer from the delusion that being an expert in some hard science means that they automatically also are experts in statistics.


Importance of GPA and GRE scores for grad school admissions I was reading the following article by Mathew Might. HOWTO: Get into grad school for science, engineering, math and computer science
I saw the following the paragraph

What doesn't matter
GPA? I don't care if it's 2.0 or 4.0. I won't even look at it. The school you went to? I'll judge you the same whether you went to Nowhere State U or a top-ten school. Transcripts? Never seen one. GREs? Irrelevant. Where you work/worked? Unless it's a research lab, it's not important. I don't think these items have much predictive capacity as to whether or not someone can complete a Ph.D.

Is Mathew Might telling the truth?
For me it's very hard believe that GPA, GRE scores and undergraduate school don't matter. I used to think that they play an extremely important role in grad school admission.

I am not doing my PhD in CS or maths but based on my experience, I believe it's a yes and a no, more specifically:

  I don't think these items have much predictive capacity as to whether or not someone can complete a Ph.D.

... is an accurate assessment of the situation. Being a grad student is sort of waking up in a different world, what you have done previously isn't really indicative of what you are capable of doing during your PhD. Most PIs are aware of that...

  GPA? I don't care if it's 2.0 or 4.0. I won't even look at it. The school you went to? I'll judge you the same whether you went to Nowhere State U or a top-ten school. Transcripts? Never seen one. GREs? Irrelevant.

Sadly, I don't think this is all that common. How a professor chooses a student varies a lot, and I don't think your GPA etc will be irrelevant to some profs. Especially not if you are in a number-driven, cold-heart-competitive place...

What's more common however is that your grades won't be the only criteria. They will most likely not be a deal-breaker. You will most likely get a chance to explain why you did good on some courses and worse on others. Primarily you will get a chance to explain what you like to do with your career.


Where can I find referral for my post-graduate application? I'm currently in the midst applying to do my Master's degree in a university in UK. It is a distance learning course and I am a full-time working professional. The application requires me to name 2 referee and they should be someone who knows me in an academic or professional role.

I am feeling a wee bit uncomfortable to let my supervisor and boss know that I am intending to pursue Master's degree due to the fact that they value productivity more than academic qualification.

Furthermore, I was somewhat an 'inactive' student while doing Bachelor's degree. I've never participated in any organization or published any publications.

As such, is there any avenue where I can find professional referee who will be willing to look at my application and endorse my application?

As such, is there any avenue where I can find professional referee who will be willing to look at my application and endorse my application?

It can't just be based on the application, since the purpose is to provide additional information and personal impressions.  It's possible in principle to hire someone, but it's a bad idea in practice.  I see it on rare occasions in the U.S., maybe once a year or so.  Someone will have a letter of recommendation from an "educational counselor" or the like, who was hired to advise them on their graduate school applications.  These letters are almost entirely useless.  There's only so much information they could provide in principle (since the letter writer has no special expertise in the subject area and doesn't know the applicant particularly well), and the little they could say isn't particularly trustworthy due to the financial conflict of interest (they are hired to get people into graduate school, not to provide an unbiased evaluation).

As ff524 pointed out in a comment, you can ask colleagues other than your supervisor.  This is not quite as good as your supervisor, since they are not in as good a position to evaluate your work (and the admissions committee will assume that you asked your friends), but it's better than nothing and might be good enough.

Another possibility for getting an academic letter is to take a single class now, as a special student rather than enrolling in a degree program, and to ask the professor for a letter once you have impressed them with your class performance.  However, this could be time-consuming or expensive, and there might not be any suitable classes available to you.


Is it possible to keep publishing under my professional (maiden) name, different from my married legal name? I have a question about my choice of name for publication.
I recently got married and legally changed my name to my husband's surname (for example's sake: from Hunter to Jones).
So, despite legally being Ms Jones now, I would quite like to use the hyphenated name Hunter-Jones in the professional context and in publications.
This is so that people realise that it is still me and so that I can somewhat keep my maiden name.
Is this possible or do I have to use my legal name professionally and when publishing?
Thank you for any help

Yes. You get to decide what name appears on your publications.


What does it mean to get this message on EDAS? I submitted two papers to a conference on EDAS. I checked EDAS and I saw a change. They added this sentence at the end of both papers page submission:
"You have authored an accepted paper."

The results of the acceptance will be announced in 10 days, but I was wondering if I can take this as a sign of an accepted paper?
My advisor thinks otherwise, and he says we need to wait.

Thanks

The answer is Yes!
Although, you need to be careful that it doesn't mean all of your papers are accepted (if you have submitted several papers). It means, at least one of your papers is accepted.


How to attribute subfigures from other sources ? / Does cropping a figure consitute a change? I am writing a review article on common failure modes for a certain technology and to illustrate the different failures, I want to include a range of images from other publications. I have either obtained the permission to use the images or am using images from open access articles with a creative commons license. Some of the images I would like to use are (in the original source) part of a part of a single figure consistining of several subfigures (e.g. I would like to put only subfigure 2e from figure 2 into my paper). Does cropping a subfigure out of a composite figure already constitute a change or an alteration? If so, how should I attribute the changes in the image caption in my paper?
Maybe this is really trivial, I nevertheless did not really find an answer anywhere.

I don't see anything special.
A caption fitting the journal style but saying something like "taken from fig. 2e in ref #" seems perfect to me.
You are not cropping the subfigure.
But even in that case, and even if the figure would be data, you just add "spectrum, plot, whatever cropped" from....
Obviously what you let out should not contradict or shouldn't be much related to the point that you actually discuss.


How to deal with students asking very incremental questions? I'm a TA/grader for an online course in introductory programming. We have students ask us questions related to homework/labs/etc. on Piazza where we can have quick back-and-forth with questions and answers.

However, some students ask questions that are either require very basic logic, or are one of the first parts of the course. Also, some students ask for what we think of their code after every little change.

I (at least) try to ask them back questions that will lead them logically and to think critically about the material, and to come up with a solution themselves. However, this leads to not much success.

My question is how to best respond to students who ask us these questions.

You refer to a "quick back-and-forth" in your question. A danger with being too responsive is that it becomes easier for a student to ask the TA than it would be to reason it out on his own, look up material from earlier lectures or from the Internet, etc. It also encourages students to "check in" with the TA more often, e.g. about tiny changes to their code.

Perhaps limiting your responsiveness could help. For example, announce that you will visit Piazza at 4 PM every weekday and answer all the questions that have accrued since your last visit. Don't answer questions multiple times per day.

That way, students won't expect immediate "coaching" from the TA, and might be more motivated to work through small problems themselves.