Which publication information should be mentioned in CV : Online first, or volume(issue)? One of my research work was published in the year 2015 as Online First article and has also received a few citations.

Just recently, it got published in the formal Volume (Issue), pp. 1234 -- 1250, 2017.

I had listed this publication as 2015, (In press) till now. But, I am now confused, whether should I remove the year 2015 completely from my CV, or should I keep both like (Online first, 2015), Volume (Issue), pp. 1234 -- 1250, 2017 ?

It's really up to you how you list your references, what I do is to list it with the updated information on the CV, due to:

This reflects the actual state of the article which will come up in searches.
The later date of the full publication shows that the article is one of the 'latest' in the field.
The article often has the published online date anyway, alongside the other important dates, at the beginning of the article.

I have always taken the CV as being a way of 'showcasing' the latest state of the researcher's work.


Normal career path for lecturer in Computer Science I'm 27 and looking for advice on the career path for lecturing in Computer Science. At the moment I have just started a job at a blue chip company in Software Engineering. However my prime goal is to become a lecturer.

My education background is a little sidewards in terms of fundamental knowledge in Computing (details in algorithms, memory, programming) as I have a BA in Graphic Design and a conversion Masters in Computing (which skimmed the subject).

I would be interested in pursuing a Phd in Computer Science focusing on HCI/ software engineering. However my concern is whether or not I have the confidence in the fundamental knowledge as I only achieved a Pass on my Masters.

So my question is, would taking a postgraduate diploma in Advance Computer Science benefit before fully undertaking a Phd?

Both courses would be undertaken part-time whilst working.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I think that would depend on where and what you teach.  I've been a "computer science" prof for years because at the beginning of my career while working for a "dot com" I was asked to substitute for a class at a very famous design school and the instructor never came back.  Then I went to the department chair with a bunch of suggestions for things I thought they could improve in the program and they made me an assistant professor.  Then they put me in charge of the technical faculty.  Then they let me expand "coding" classes out into things like physical computing and HCI.  And because of this experience (teaching, curricular development, faculty leadership, not to mention panels and publications) I've been hired at other places, and go back and forth between industry and teaching.

It does sound like you're in the UK but I know a lot (most) schools in the US will hire people with very strong industry experience even if they don't have a Ph. D.  So while having a Ph. D. might be a clearer path to some extent, teaching gigs are competitive no matter what you do.  Working in the industry might not necessarily work against you!


How can one differentiate between Dr. (PhD) and Dr. (MD or DO)? Reading the question posted here left me with a more general question:

Given the professional title and name: Dr. (First Name)(Last Name), is there some way to differentiate between the holder of a philosophical doctorate and a medical doctor? Wouldn't it be more appropriate for a PhD holder to have the title (First Name)(Last Name), PhD?

You can't immediately tell from the title, but then titles are not typically used by an individual to broadcast their occupation - we don't have variants of "Mr" for plumbers, bank managers, or rock stars - despite their very different occupations. Rather, the title is to be used by others when addressing that individual, in order to signify a degree of respect, typically for a particular level of training, qualification and responsibility, or else for a particularly respected position in society. Even the term "mister" is a meaningful sign of respect that historically would not have been as widely applied as it is today - the ratchet of etiquette has gradually eliminated everything below it.

The actual title "Doctor" means "teacher" (from Latin "doceo", "I teach"). This title is more often more relevant to PhDs than MDs, so you probably have your suggested solution backwards. That said, the solution is really neither necessary nor appropriate. Much like "Master" (from Latin "magister", in this case "teacher"), "Doctor" signifies that an individual has not only gained enough competency to practice in a particular field, but has developed enough expertise to instruct others. An individual who is sufficiently qualified to practice but not teach would historically have been known as a "journeyman", roughly equivalent to "professional".

In short "doctor" refers not to a field of expertise, but rather to a level of expertise.

Incidentally, most UK surgeons drop their title of "Dr" and revert to "Mr" after joining the Royal College of Surgeons. I've heard through a friend of at least one surgeon who reacted quite angrily at being addressed as a mere "Dr", which in such circles, due to a collision between traditional titles and modern medical training, could be unkindly translated as "trainee".


Question about arXiv replacement restriction and contacting moderators Background: I submitted an article (denoted by A) on arXiv half a year ago and have replaced it several times later. Due to frequent replacements, one of my further replacements is removed, and I'm restricted to replace the article at most once per calendar month.
Question 1: Several days ago I submitted another one (denoted by B) onto arXiv and succeeded. Now I have some new ideas added to B and want to replace it. I wonder if the restriction is only on article A, or both article A and B? In other words, can I update B within this calendar month?
Question 2: I sent several e-mails to arXiv moderation (help@arxiv.org), but all of them are rejected, saying "Your message was missing suitable identifying information" etc. Nevertheless, I've included all relevant informations following the instruction, also "Dear arXiv," is added in preface. Can someone show me how can I modify my message to deliver my email? Are arXiv moderators really that hard to contact with?
Any suggestions is appreciated.

I retried sending emails to arXiv moderation but all my attemptions failed. Therefore I update the article B directly, as a result, the replacement succeeded. Thus, question 1 is solved.
Still I have no idea about the second question, since all of my 2 mailboxes (academic/private) failed to deliver the email.

My best suggestion is to stop making replacements so frequently and wait until you think you have a ready pre-print, before you submit to arXiv. The arXiv is, after all, an archive for pre-prints and articles, and not a server for uploading new drafts on a daily basis.
I honestly fail to see the need to make updates to an arXiv entry, more frequently than monthly, on a regular basis. My own work-flow - for an article with many replacements - is roughly the following:

Pre-print ready, upload to the arXiv.
(+2 weeks) Get comments on the arXiv pre-print from colleagues, incorporate then, make a replacement, submit to journal.
(+1-2 months) Get comments from journal referee, incorporate, make a replacement, resubmit to journal.
(+1 month) Possibly final comments, final proofs, replacement to final version.

I assume that you upload your work to arXiv to allow other people to read it. Consider that it only serves to confuse your readers, if you make too frequent updates. I would never expect that a pre-print I have once read, will change drastically on a weekly basis after I read it the first time.
Perhaps you should re-consider your format? If you want to be able to write down thoughts quickly, and release them to the world, perhaps a blog would be more suitable?


Applying to Professional Masters Program after Working with Low Undergrad GPA I am looking to apply for a professional masters program in computer science (M.E. in Computer Science) that is designed to for the working software engineer. It is not advised for those interested in doing computer science research in academia. I have been looking at universities that offer this professional masters degree, and limiting it to ones that have a fully online degree. I plan on applying to most of them.

I have been working full time as a software engineer since I graduated with my B.S. in Computer Science (Graduated in May 2015). I now have 3.5 years of work experience and I am highly regarded by management and coworkers. I have been critical in ensuring the success of multiple projects. I have also excelled at learning all sorts of new things as part of my profession.

Unfortunately, I graduated with a pretty low undergraduate GPA (Mine was 2.62). There are a variety or reasons for this: dealing with a life threatening illness that impacted me for multiple semesters, a curriculum that was more challenging than nearby universities, a second B.S. degree (Mechanical Engineering) in a subject I am nowhere near as good in compared to software engineering.

My hope is that by working as a very successful software engineer, I can counteract my low undergraduate GPA. Is 3.5 years long enough to reduce the importance of my undergrad GPA when applying for a professional masters? Should I wait longer (like 5, 7, 10 years)? Is there anything else I can do to help address this negative? Thanks!

It depends. It all comes down to the program you are applying to and how much they rate your undergrad GPA vs work experience in the process. Just because the program guide or website says that you should have a 3.0+ GPA from a related undergrad field doesn't mean that it's necessarily a hard and fast requirement.

I was in a very similar situation and was rejected at my first application, but there was the possibility to appeal the rejection. I called and talked with what would eventually be my adviser and was allowed to reapply with 2-3 letters of recommendation from senior co-workers (you might want to do this at the first application) and allowed into the program on a probationary period. I had to complete a set of undergrad level comp sci maintaining a B (3.0) or higher GPA before being admitted to the starting the MS level courses.


Relative representation of scientists and engineers on major experiments (especially particle physics) I am interested in other academics' experiences with large experiments (especially something like the LHC). To what extent do the "engineers" who design and build the machine (solder electronics, assemble quadrupole magnets, etc) interact with "scientists" who determine the program (who might want to test their 11-dimensional model etc)? Do the two sides take an active interest in each other's work and give constructive suggestions to one another? Are the technicians all hired locally? How many in the "engineering" camp have PhDs?

(It's also possible to label the two groups "experimentalists" vs "theorists", though for the former I really mean people involved in the construction and day-to-day operations - I'm not interested in semantics here)

While the Higgs was at a sigma of ~4, I heard that postdocs and PhD students at CERN could volunteer for maintenance and similar tasks, and that those who did would have their names on the "Higgs paper" (hence the notoriously large author lists). Was this true and is it still the case?

I heard that postdocs and PhD students at CERN could volunteer for maintenance and similar tasks, and that those who did would have their names on the "Higgs paper" (hence the notoriously large author lists). Was this true and is it still the case?

There are a lot of maintenance and monitoring work performed by Ph.D candidates and postdocs at CERN and they may be entitled to have their names in a paper if they comply with the minimum requirements.

There are a minimum of night shifts and work hours in one of the experiments to be completed in order to participate as co-author in the papers produced due to work performed during the internship. If I am not in mistake, you need at least 6 months working in one of the experiments to comply with the minimum work hours demanded for co-authoring.

Usually the ones attending internships at CERN are from experimental particles groups with collaboration to one of the experiments (CMS, ATLAS,etc). They are not purely experimentalists, but I am sure that they can not be purely theorists.


Who is the copyright holder of a PhD thesis published in ProQuest? I have a Ph.D thesis obtained from ProQuest. I would like to reuse some of the figures from it in my own work.
Every page of the PDF contains this message on the bottom:

  Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

How can I find out who is the copyright owner? It is not listed anywhere in the PDF, and I can find nothing useful on ProQuest's website.

The thesis is from the 70s, and the author has not been academically active since then. Tracking him down seems unlikely.

The original author is probably the copyright holder.

Two other options: it is possible that it is the university/research institute (see, eg, this MIT policy for an example) but this is relatively unusual; alternatively, if it was done with industrial sponsorship, the company might own copyright. If either were the case, though, I'd expect to see some kind of indication on the thesis itself. Absent a clear hint (eg an existing university policy, a commercial-looking funder) that someone else would hold copyright, I'd work on the assumption it's the author.

You can try and trace them - this is not quite as impossible as it sounds, as the university alumni office may well have contact with them and be able to pass on a letter. If you have tried and failed, you might still have the option of using them without permission and an apologetic footnote...


Do I call my supervisor “dean” or “professor”? My supervisor is the dean of an engineering department at my university. Should I address him as Dean Smith or Professor Smith? Personally, dean sounds a little clunky for me talking to my faculty supervisor but I’ve been using it so far, and he hasn’t really mentioned anything about it.

Is it normal to address someone as dean or should I start using professor instead?

Also, I don’t know if he’s the type to care about such things.

If you don't want to ask him directly (the easy solution), you could always ask other students what they do.  In general, I would stick to "Professor Smith."  People don't have be called by their full titles (I would never want or expect to be called "Associate Professor Webster").


Independence as a postdoc working with former PhD supervisor Having recently finished my PhD, I have now secured funding to act as PI on a project.

I continue to work alongside my former PhD supervisor, with the old supervisor listed as a collaborator on the new project.

The former supervisor frequently refers to me as their 'postdoctoral fellow'. Question 1: Is this appropriate, given that I am the PI on the new project? The former supervisor is certainly in a higher position than I (Professor, whereas I am indeed a postdoc), but I feel that I should not be considered 'their' worker.

The current project requires me to use equipment owned by the former supervisor, and we closely collaborate on a lot of work. I value the impact my former supervisor has had on my career so far, and would hope to continue to work with them in the future. Question 2: How can I best make clear (respectfully) that they are now a colleague?

(UK based)

The former supervisor frequently refers to me as their 'postdoctoral fellow'. Question 1: Is this appropriate, given that I am the PI on the new project?

I have never encountered a "postdoctoral fellow" that does not have a supervisor.  But my experience is far from global.  As this article on postdoctoral research says, "Depending on the type of appointment, postdoctoral researchers may work independently or under the supervision of a principal investigator."  Later it says "In the US, a postdoctoral scholar is an individual holding a doctoral degree who is engaged in mentored research and/or scholarly training for the purpose of acquiring the professional skills needed to pursue a career path of his or her choosing."

If you are the PI on your project then yes, I suppose that must mean that you do not have a formal supervisor.  However you can still have a mentor...and you should.  Your former PhD advisor's description of you as "theirs" need not imply that they view themselves as your boss; it may only mean that they are affiliated with you and are taking a role of mentoring you, as seems to be the case here.

Let me also say that in that this person who is formally associated with the grant is your former PhD advisor and in that he owns (you say) the equipment that you are using both give him more oversight than some other independent researcher would expect.  If I borrow my friend's car that does not make her my boss, but it does give her some supervisory role over my use of the car.  A senior academic who owns equipment you are using should have some supervisory role in your work.

  Question 2: How can I best make clear (respectfully) that they are now a colleague?

I don't see what behavior of the supervisor indicates that he does not view you as a colleague.  I have a postdoc, and I view her as a colleague: a junior one, in which I have some supervisory role, but still a colleague: I have some projects she is not involved in, she has some projects I am not involved in except to hear her talk about them, and there are some projects we do together.  If she decided tomorrow that she only wanted to work on her own projects alone, that would in my view be suboptimal for both of us, but it would be her right.

In some fields postdocs are treated rather differently: they are the highest level of workers for the PI professor.  But since you are a PI, that is not your situation.

Having a senior colleague who can mentor you is extremely valuable.  I continue to mentor my PhD students after they get the PhD -- well, so far I have one, but soon two more -- but this mentorship is limited by my time and energy.  Any mentor should be guiding his/her mentees towards greater mastery, independence and autonomy.  Gradually the influence of mentors wanes: when I was an untenured assistant professor I had a research mentor and a teaching mentor; as a tenured associate professor I have no formal mentors anymore....which is a shame, since to paraphrase Yoda, much to learn, I still have.  But my work is still evaluated by more senior people -- that is a ubiquitous phenomenon in academia -- so it is still important for me to maintain good relationships with senior colleagues.  Unless people are literally telling me what to do, I tend to let it slide when people treat me with less "seniority" than I think I have.

I am a little worried that you may have your eye on the wrong problem.  You have a one year position: what happens next year?  That's the key question, and your future relationship with your advisor is a key part of the answer.  You don't need to kowtow or be subservient to him: on the contrary, you're the PI, so when it comes to the work itself you get to call the shots (and you should).  But you are still looking for a lot of help from your supervisor -- help landing the best possible future job, if nothing else.  So trying to insist "You're not my mentor; I am fully independent from you" in a one-year position seems really to be a strategic mistake to me.  Instead you should apply yourself and show your former PhD supervisor how much stronger and more capable you have become, and then they can write you an excellent recommendation because all of your post-PhD growth and maturation took place before his eyes.


Suffering from a third world country academic culture I live in a third world country where I have no chance of getting into good graduate schools in my country for MS CS which are tickets to US Ph.D  programs. I am not a perfectionist but other schools have no connections with current research community or professors there have no idea how to write a recommendation letter.

Problems:

Working full time, no chance to relocate to other city or job. I always get a biased approach from professors here when I approach for collaboration as an outsider. Impossible to get into their MS programs for me so I have no chance for getting some research experience or any recommendation letters.

What should I do ? I am continuously doing self study on some topics but biased approach and discrimination in my country gives me no chance. I have started to think of completely burning all my books and other stuff because all my efforts are useless going nowhere purely based on where I live.

Do you have any suggestions? Is there a way to find a professor outside this system lacking funding or student, with whom I can work remotely? I can work for free if it comes down to it.

This is an outside possibility, but, have you considered enrolling as an external student at an overseas university?

Admittedly, I am not sure of US universities, but ones here in Australia often have a large proportion of external students - with delivery given online and/or by post (usually the former).  An example is the university I am enrolled in (in Queensland) - I completed my MSc while I lived in Tokyo, Japan.

Just wanted to add - don't burn the books and especially don't give up (but understand the feeling, albeit from a different viewpoint).  I commend you on your self-discipline and determination - these traits will hold you in good stead when you find your path.


How should a new professor sign their name in emails to students? I just finished my PhD and am starting an adjunct position at a local community college.  I was responding to my first email from a student when I came across a problem I've never had before: I don't know how to sign my email.

Some options I've considered are:

First Name: this is how I've signed every academic email my whole life.
First Name Last Name: I have signed business, legal, or other official letters like this, and I suppose since this is my first job I could sign it the same way?
Professor Last Name: this makes the most sense because that's what I want to be addressed in the classroom, but I have never seen a professor write their title out like this.
Initials: I always thought professors signed their emails like this to shave precious seconds from their inbox time, but I'm now suspecting it has more to do with avoiding making the decision of how to sign.

I'm sure the best answer isn't going to be one of the above suggestions.  No matter what I pick, I want to be consistent, so there's no confusion as to how I should be addressed.

Edit: this is in the US.

Sign as you wish to be addressed by the recipient. When I sign an email with my first name, I am giving the recipient permission to address me by my first name. I almost always sign off with my first name, but in the rare instances that I don't want them to address me that way and do want to retain more formality, I use "Dr Firstname Lastname" instead. If I'm really feeling ambivalent, I'll use "Firstname Lastname", which I feel leaves the decision up to them.

I usually also have my full name with title and contact details in the sig at the bottom of my email, separated from my sign-off by a line containing only "--". This is so my contact details are handy, but also for clarity -- even if I am giving them permission to use my first name, it is sometimes useful for them to know my position and qualifications.


Number formatting: use of digit separators in manuscripts I am reading through a manuscript that I am co-authoring with a colleague and I noticed that it used digit separators/marks for all the numbers (i.e. 2,500 instead of 2500). Maybe it's just me but I think this style started after my colleague started doing a post-doc in the U.S.

I have checked the author guidelines of a couple of journals that are likely submission targets in our field and they don't seem to include anything about decimal/digit separators. I also checked my previously published articles and noticed that numeric values were not edited (by press editors that is) to include digit separators.

Thus my question, is there a general rule-of-thumb regarding number formatting, especially considering digit separators?

Digit separators differ between countries, particularly since the decimal seprator is comma in many countries but a period in English/American. Hence in English you may use commas as digit separators while in other countries periods are used. Space is therefore the only separator that is not confusing. A general rule of thumb is to not use separators for single-thousands but start to use them for tens of thousands and up

1000
10 000
100 000
1 000 000

When using spaces in writing, it is good to remember to use non-breaking spaces so that numbers are not broken over lines.


How to address the lack of seminars in my department My CS department greatly lacks invited talks hosted by faculty members and/or seminars organised within/by the department. Except for the seminars done by graduate students as a requirement for their degree, during the last year there was no seminar organised by the department/faculty member. If curious, the department size is relatively small (around 20 faculty members) and some faculty members are well-known figures in their areas. As a PhD student I like seminars and wondered how to address this to the department.

It's hard to change the culture of a department as a student.  You should definitely tell your advisor, and the department chair, that you wish there were more lectures.  You might also talk to other students and encourage them to express their feelings if they feel the same.

Then you should take action.  Is there a student chapter of the ACM at your school?  If not, organize one.  Then organize monthly seminars by inviting faculty and students in your department and from nearby schools to present their work.  If you can get a little funding, invite one of the world leaders in your area to give a seminar at your school.  You might be able to get funding through the department or through the ACM (I know SIAM gives funding for such things).

It requires work, but it sounds like it will be worthwhile to you.  It is also a great excuse to meet important people in your field.


Where can I study what I really interested in as a postdoc researcher? I am a postdoc researcher in AI field. I was hired as a lead scientist in governmental project (named project A). I need to work on it at least eight hours on week days.

Apart from the study in the project A, there is another topic which is really what I'm interested in (named project B). I started the project B last year, and since then, I studied it after business hour every day with several researchers.

The progress of the project B is somewhat nice and we'll submit a paper by this summer. I'm totally fascinated on the project B. I wish if all of what I have to do would be only the project B.

But it was OK. The project A is also interesting and I can write many paper thanks to the project A and B. Moreover, there are a lot of nice and intelligent friends here.

However, recently, PI assigned me to another project (project C). The project C is totally out of my interest and expertise.

I feel it might be time to leave. Unfortunately, I've not had enough record to get tenure position (but tenure track might be OK). I can go anywhere if I can focus on the project B. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, it's very difficult to study what he/she wants as a postdoc researcher in CS field.

So, my question is if there is a position allowing me to bring my own research topic and focus on it?

For instance,

applying for tenure track in some country
going to private companies to raise money (like sales person)
spin out and become CEO of startup company (don't laugh at me...)
persuade the PI to allow me to study the project B (0.01% success rate)

I can not open the location of my work place, but here is one of the worst competitive country on the planet to get tenure due to a low birth rate and long long economic depression... I guess I need go somewhere outside this country.

As a tenured professor you can choose your research area basically as you want (sometimes there may be some pressure from above to go into specific directions but where I am (Germany) there is freedom of research). However you will have many other things to do which can not always choose (particular courses to lecture, administration, meetings, committees...). So it is not like you can do the research you want to do all day.

So, staying where area may not be as bad as you think now: You are assigned to project B now but 1. you may ask to also contribute to project A at the same time or 2. do a good job at project B and then ask your advisor to work on the project you would like.

Personally I don't know anybody who funds his research on some private basis. One guy I know works in some company where his work is a bit close to research and he manages to teach courses at the university and publish papers and books. I don't know if he works part time or not...  In Germany you need the title "Privatdozent" to do so or get a "Lehrauftrag" each term.


Willingness to share ideas that could turn into a paper Is there any research/study/survey that looked at researchers' willingness to publicly share ideas that could potentially turn into a paper?

I don't think that somebody should expect people here on Acedemia.SE to perform literature search for them (regardless of their motivation for a question), hence the feedback you've received so far. Having said that, I have briefly looked at the topic and have selected the following references that might be of your interest. The caveats are as follows: 1) the references below are intended to be used mainly not as primary sources, but as containers of more relevant references; 2) scope of the studies referenced below ranges from some specific context to more general knowledge sharing;

Keyes, Jessica. Identifying the Barriers to Knowledge Sharing in Knowledge Intensive Organizations. ProQuest, 2008.
Wang, Sheng, and Raymond A. Noe. "To Share or Not to Share: Is That the Question?" Human Resource Management Review 20.2 (2010): 115-131.
Pilerot, Ola. "A practice theoretical exploration of information sharing and trust in a dispersed community of design scholars" Information Research 18.4 (2013): 18-4.
Wang, Sheng, and Raymond A. Noe. "Knowledge sharing: A review and directions for future research" Human Resource Management Review 20.2 (2010): 115-131.


Defending A Thesis and Expecting The Worst For over a year I have been developing my thesis and there have been many issues in the process as neither me or my supervisor are experts in the field I am working in. My supervisor has been aware of my model and has, routinely, told me that they think my model is okay. So, I carried on under that assumption.
It is one and a half months away from when I was supposed to defend and I was told that I need to make a big change in my model because the results are too 'intuitive'. So I am feeling like I have to scramble to try and adjust the model so that I can give better looking results.
I am not sure what to do. I have no results I can write about and I am a month and a half away from trying to graduate, and over the 2 year expectation, and at this pace, it seems like a possibility that could continue into the new year and approach the 2.5 year mark. I'm not sure whether I should try to just defend the results that I had originally, even knowing that they are intuitive, or keep trying to find a way to change how my results come out to be less intuitive.
My supervisor told me that if I don't change my model, I run the risk of getting 'major revisions' and in my defense, if surely probed about the problem, I can't respond with 'well, my supervisor and I agreed this formulation was okay, and then one month ago she asked me to change it, but I did not feel I was able to make the desired changes'.
So I am feeling like I am in a very difficult position and I am wondering if it is common for people to defend their work knowing that they might get sent back for major revisions, and how to deal with those revisions when you are not feeling supported? It's unfortunate, because had I been told that my supervisor disagreed with the model several months ago, I could spend the mental energy to make these changes, but now I just feel like i'm scrambling to put something out i'm not proud of.

I doubt it is so common this late. But certainly it is common enough for setbacks to occur at any time. You learn as you go. Sometimes the lessons aren't happy ones. Research is fundamentally dealing with the unknown and it is difficult to schedule. It is impossible to schedule successful completion, actually.
I suggest that you have some options. Perhaps more than I can think of. But, for example:
You could take your chances and leave it as it is. Your advisor might not be happy and the committee might send you back to work.
You could give it (model updates) your best shot and hope for the best. This makes your advisor happy. Maybe it results in success and maybe in some fallback plan, but you can't know that now.
You could, perhaps, just reschedule your defense for a future date to give yourself time to get to a better result. For a doctoral thesis this would be the necessary option in most cases, I think. Perhaps less viable for a masters.
My own sense is that it is important to keep the advisor happy as they are an important part of your future success.


Is it worth it to self-fund for research experience post undergrad? Is it possible? I have just finished my undergraduate degree and plan to apply to grad school in Cognitive Psychology. I know my field and am in touch with researchers, some of whom I have approached for a post bac research position (international student talking about positions in the USA). People agree to take me on, but do not have funding most of the time.

Working in a top lab gives you cutting edge research experience which may lead to a publication, a very strong letter of recommendation and a research mentor. (Only the second part is an assumption, the first and the last have been established by researching and shortlisting accordingly.) My undergraduate degree was from a technical school and I did not have access to good research labs while in college.

I have two questions.

1) Firstly, is it possible? Can you pay your own salary as a RA and be on a J1 visa? I hope to pay myself for 6 months and then try to impress and get them to help me fund the remaining 6.

2) Is it worth it? I know I could work as an RA/lab manager but assuming I do not get a funded position. I obviously would first try to get a funded one.

Thanks!

Labor laws are changing, particularly in the United States, and many are interpreting what you would be proposing as an unpaid internship, which is becoming harder for schools to "get away with." For example, if I want to bring someone into my lab to do research, they are supposed to be either paid or receive course credit for their work. But what I can't do for potential grad students is let them work for extended periods of months on a research problem and not compensate them for their work.

So you may find that many people who would be interested in such an arrangement in principle may be hamstrung by their universities' policies.


Is passion a must-have for a Master's student? When I was accepted to become a Master's student, I had virtually no experience in the topics that my supervisor wanted to work in. Lately I've been catching up on background knowledge (I've been in the program for about a month), but I still haven't developed that ever-elusive passion that I probably should have by now.

So why did I choose to work with this supervisor? I chose a supervisor based on personality, and I decided to take a risk with a brand new topic because I was feeling jaded about what I had studied in undergrad.

I'm not asking "how do I find my subject?". I want to know if this lack of an all-consuming obsession with a particular subject is a real cause for concern. What should I do, and what do you suppose my supervisor would want me to do?

Passion is not necessary for a master’s degree.

You’re still at the stage of your career where you’re getting your feet wet with research. The important thing right now is to separate your feelings about research in general from your feelings about the specific research topic you’re exploring. You can always move to another topic for your PhD, and nowadays, you’ll almost certainly have to change focus areas multiple times in your career.

At this point in your career, being able to determine that:

You love research and your focus area;
You love research but not your focus area;
You love your focus area, but not doing research in it; or even
You don’t love research

are all perfectly valid outcomes because they will help you to decide on a long-term path.


Preparing oneself for jobs after PhD I'm a student doing PhD in North America. I wish to keep open the possibility of settling down in Europe, Australia or Asia. By settling down I mean getting a tenured professorship in good universities at any of the above mentioned places.

I'm just starting out with my research and I'd like to know if I can do anything right now, i.e. during my PhD to boost my chances.

You should familiarize yourself with recruiting procedures in Europe/Asia/Australia and how they might be different from the US. while its early now, you should (when your research direction starts crystallizing) familiarize yourself with research in your area being done in institutions of interest, and identify people at conferences to chat with.

The main disadvantage you could face is a language barrier, local competition, and general lack of awareness because of distance. But except for the first, the others are less and less of a problem.

But at least for the first few years of your Phd just focus on finding interesting research problems to work on and do work that people will pay attention to. Thats much more important  :)


IEEE membership for academic and professional career I am currently studying for a master's and I will continue my academic career to post-doctorate. I am involved in the research projects of my organization and I will continue my research and development on my organization as well. Now I want to make the IEEE membership account where I can access related research papers for research and development.

Which type of IEEE account is suitable for both an academic and professional career as in my case?
Can a student account also be used in professional research and development?

Student membership is for students only. Once you lose that status, then you will require a professional membership.
Student members have access to the IEEE digital library through the library of their institution. Professional members have access also, but it requires fees, perhaps a subscription.
But one can gain access if the employer holds an Institutional Subscription to the library.
This is similar to the ACM which has its own digital library, available on similar terms.
But, otherwise, a student membership has most of the advantages of a professional membership but at a lower cost while you remain a student. There isn't really a distinction between Academic and "Professional" membership.


Use the ACM ICPS template I got a paper accepted with the feedback

"Use the ACM ICPS template"

However, I used the latex template found at http://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template (\documentclass{sig-alternate-05-2015}) and had followed the ACM citation style... or at least, I thought I had done so.

The feedback does not give any further detail on how the paper has failed to conform to the ACM style. As this seems to be a prerequisite for the camera-ready version, does anyone know how I can work out whether I have adhered to the style demanded, and what steps I must take to fix my paper?

ACM templates have a number of different options, and it's quite easy to not select something in the variant options that is desired by the particular SIG that you're dealing with.

Double-check the options, and if you still can't figure out how you aren't in compliance, the only thing to do is to write to the folks who sent you that message with a polite question along the lines of:

  "To the best of my knowledge, I am complying with the template.  Can you please let me know what you see that needs to be changed?"


Ownership of an Idea Suppose that I am a PhD student that works as an RA in the lab of my PhD advisor. While I am in the lab, I come up with some interesting idea, and then I spend time reading and planning out a possible paper that I could work on related to this idea. I spend about a month doing this. I have mentioned a vague description to my advisor about this idea, but have not had any real discussion with him and the advisor does not really know what the idea is. I have made no concrete action on the paper in the form of writing anything, experiments, etc..

Now suppose that I have left the lab for whatever reason. My previous advisor tells me that I must write him up a full description of my idea and research plan, arguing that I was his RA while I thought of the idea and therefore it belongs to him. His reason for doing this is he wants to give the project to a different student in the lab who will carry out the work, and I will be an author but not the first author. However, I already have plans of completing the project in my new lab, which I have told my old advisor, but he doesn't care. If I do not describe the idea to the professor, there is no way he can do this since I never really told him the idea in the first place.

Is it within my rights to refuse to describe to him my idea? As in, can I get in trouble with the university? Could I get in trouble legally? I am not asking about political ramifications, the practicality of doing this, etc., only whether it is my right.

The legality will depend entirely upon the nature of the intellectual property agreements you have signed or agreed to at your local institution, or that are otherwise in force in your local jurisdiction.

But based at a quick high-level read of your description, you seem to indicate you were paid to perform work as a research assistant, and during the conduct of that work you spent a significant portion of time planning a research project. By any definition I have ever seen, this would count as "work product" as part of that position, unless it somehow greatly differed from the nature and subject of the work you were being paid to perform. Even if it was different, most IP agreements tend to be very favorable to the "employer" part of the relationship (because of course, guess who writes those documents).

You'd have to speak to a lawyer for specifics, but in general you would be expected to provide any working materials, artifacts, or other creations/documents you have regarding the project to your former employer if requested (and really as a matter of practice). I have not heard of any situation where this requires extensive new creation, though - so creating a plan and description beyond what you had during that time would be beyond the pale.

From the perspective of this disinterested third-party, however, it kind of sounds dangerously like you want to have been paid to perform work, then keep that work to yourself for your own future advantage and benefit while shafting the people that paid you by not providing to them all the benefits they paid for in good faith. This is certainly not a pro-social behavior, and sets off alarm bells that you don't sound like a kind of contributor I'd be comfortable working with. At the same time, telling someone else to give up an idea so you can assign it to someone else so that they can be the first author and the person who came up with it will be in some subordinate position is also not pro-social, and is a big red flag that I wouldn't want to work with a person like that in the future either!

You are most certainly in your rights to decide ongoing involvement with a project, however, so if you want to turn in your old work ideas, wash your hands of the situation and tell them you don't want to be involved as an author further as you will be pursuing a similar-but-different line of research than what you had initially planned, you could do that. But I would really, strongly suggest you get any new advisor involved in your new lab involved before you decide on any such course of action, because if a professor did this to another professor it would likely be seen as quite aggressive and possibly the start of a long rivalry. Very dangerous for a person in a more fragile position to try to do!

I would tend to err towards "I have lots of ideas, no need to get hung up on one single idea that someone else was paying me for". If the check cleared, I prefer to give people what they paid for and part ways, wishing them the best of luck and removing myself from ongoing entanglement if the relationship is no longer a positive one.


Is there any way to show that authors are equal in arxiv names? I have a paper which the first two authors are contributed equally, is there any way to show in arxiv page (or scholar page) that authors are equal? Maybe a star on names in submit names or something.
thanks.

There does not appear to be any facility presently in these archives of papers to indicate that contribution of both authors was equal.  (I suspect that this is mostly because it is not actually specified in most papers, so it would rarely be able to be known from reading the papers.)  In the absence of this, the best fall-back position is to specify this explicitly in the paper with a statement of contributions.  Some journals are starting to require this anyway, particularly for research papers submitted by teams of people.  There is no reason that you could not add it into your paper if you wish to specify the contributions of the authors.

In regard to this issue, it is worth noting that, except in a relatively small number of cases, the ordering of authors is generally weak information about the magnitude of their contributions to a paper.  Conventions and interpretation of the significance of authorship order differs by field.  In some fields it would be assumed that earlier authors did the majority of the work, and in other fields there is no such assumption.  The main time when you would infer higher contribution from earlier listing is when you have a paper where the first author is a PhD student at a university, and the later authors are academics in the same department, in which case this is usually a paper where the student has done most of the substantive work and the latter are supervisors who have contributed advice, reviews, etc.  In most other cases it is difficult to infer contributions solely from the ordering of the authors.


What does "open" mean in science? I understand that open science is based on open data, open access, open source, open methodology, etc.

However, what does "open" exactly mean in context when we talk about "open science"?

"Transparent"

If I had to condense the meaning of open in open science to a single word, it would be transparent.

The primary purpose of having open source software, accessible data, open access publishing, permissive licensing, and all of the other things we associate with open science, is to "open up" the scientific process as much as possible: allowing and enabling free and anonymous scrutiny of research outputs and the process that produced them, and for the repurposing of those outputs and processes for new research.


Can I avoid getting a PhD recommendation letter from my bachelor thesis co-supervisor, if I have one from my head supervisor? I will be applying to PhD science program in the US.

I want to avoid taking recommendation letter from my bachelor thesis co-supervisor since he might not give me the best recommendation entirely due to reasons other than work.

To compensate, I will have a very strong recommendation from the head supervisor who guided my bachelor thesis, who can write about my contribution to the same thesis project.

In this circumstance, will it look suspicious from the application point of view, if I do not have the recommendation from my co-supervisor ?

It looks totally normal to hand in the letter from the main supervisor instead of the co-supervisor. If you need a second letter, ask someone from another project. I would not advise to hand in two letters from the same project anyway, it looks as if you have nothing else to offer.


Just citing what they cite I’m not a professional academician by any means. I’m just a medical student trying to write a paper in my spare time.

I don’t have an excellent grasp of the literature in this field. A lot of the information I’m learning comes from a single excellent review article/book chapter.

Here lies my question. This book chapter will say, e.g., ”such and such [1][2]”. Do I just cite the book chapter when I describe such and such in my background? I think not; I should probably cite [1], [2], or both.

So, the real question: is it OK/acceptable/ethical to just believe that [1] and [2] contain such and such; and just cite them without actually reading the papers? To be able to do this would save me quite a bit of time.

You need to make an effort to get and understand the work related to yours. That is the only way you can make sure you are building on them, not misunderstanding. If you cite it, it means to me (as a reader) that you did use that work to reach your conclusions. You might get away with citing indirectly stuff you didn't check in detail, i.e., "Smith [19], summarizing previous work by Adam [1], Eve [2] and Noah [3, 6], states that...".


Do I belong in academia? I went to a great college, did well enough to get into a good master's program and probably land in a good phd program at some point. But I don't know if I'm meant for this.

I'm 27 and coming out of a few personally confusing years of life. Here's what I've found after a few months of postbac studies (I'd been working for a few years):

I don't love reading as much as I used to, and I definitely don't read as well as I did a few years ago. My professors say I write really well, and I'm doing well on exams and assignments. I am not the best in my classes, but may be close to it.

I can't decide what I want to study. I thought I was set on a topic in history, even based some master's applications on it, started a paper on it. Then the election happened and now I feel like my talents and energy should be spent on something more immediately useful, like working at an organization focusing on voter turnout, racism, minorities, rights, etc. This is the hundredth time I've changed my mind about what to study. It's included psychology, psychiatry, political science, policy, history, social work. Lately, I just don't see the point anymore.

I lose steam and motivation quickly. I was super motivated at the start of the semester, only to really lose it after the election. Now, everything seems a little pointless. I'm behind on reading and some homework, and have only managed to stay on track because I'm bullying myself into it. Even then, I'm sure I'll be behind for a while. I've tried really hard to get back on track but it's a bumpy road. Yesterday was great in terms of productivity, but today is terrible.

I don't think well on the spot and under pressure. I usually think of appropriate responses and counter arguments long after the conversation is over. I come from a family that wasn't at all academic, and I think this went a long way in shaping my academic personality; I don't have opinions on everything, and even when I do, I'm not quick to share them unless I'm 100% sure they're factually sound.

Most significantly, I just don't know if I'm as good enough as my peers. I know I'm better than a significant number of my classmates, but I'm not as well-read, well-spoken, confident, or quick as some of the best. I write slowly, I don't read Spinoza for fun, heck I don't read unless I have to or remind myself that I'm not reading enough.

I care a lot about the world, I care about making a difference, I am motivated by people and results and challenges that I believe I can tackle. I know I am smart and creative, even though I am not the best student in most of my classes (this takes a lot of courage to admit).

Can anyone offer me some honest advice? Be as critical as you can. Resources would also be appreciated. Thank you!

One of the stand-out conversations that I'm still grateful for with my PhD advisers 15 years later went roughly like this:

Him: So, what do you want to do after you graduate in 6 months?
Me: I don't know. [... beating around the bush for a long time, wanting him to tell me that I'm talented, know my stuff, and that I should definitely stay in academia and become a prof...]
Him: [Not budging] So I hear a lot of reasons for basically every option. What do YOU think you want to do?
Me: [Beating around the bush some more.] But I think I really do want to go for a postdoc and try that professor thing.
Him: [Without hesitation] Well, see, there you go! If you really want it, I'm sure you can make it, but only then. YOU need to want it, not me.

The thing is that in academia, you compete with the best in your field, the most motivated ones, the hardest working ones. It's a tough environment to be in, and one you have to love. If you have doubts, if you have to force yourself to do something you don't love doing, then that's not your career.

And there is nothing wrong with that either: There are many other, equally fulfilling professions where you can make a difference for your country and society. Choose something you love -- because that's where you're going to make a difference!


Who gives a consent for data publication? I spent a year in a foreign country. Now I am at home.

The problem is that my advisor and me did not prepare any research publication. My project was to arrange for some experiments which my advisor wanted to publish together with the other researchers' experiment. These researchers are not in the advisor institution.

I finished my job successfully but the second party did not (their explanations are like they are not satisfied with the results). My input looks publishable as a separate paper but my advisor does not give their consent. Despite almost a year passed from the initial deadline of our coworkers, they are unable to contribute.

Is there anything I can do to publish the results of my own work?

Please do not suggest writing regular reminders, I do this routinely, however, it seems that this project is not on the top of the priority list of anyone except myself. Sorry to be verbose...

Actually, you don't have too many options except keeping your advisor busy about it. There are some universities apply the rule that if the data do not get published in 2 years or so the advisor can publish it wihtout the consent of the student. However in your situation you don't have right something like that. On the other hand, if you persuade your advisor that you are willing to publish a paper using only your data you may get your advisor's consent. Good Luck


Is it appropriate for a PhD student to write reference for a PhD applicant? I am a PhD student, and was recently approached by a (very bright) student in an exercise class I teach, requesting a reference letter for his PhD application. This makes me wonder: Is it OK for a PhD student to write a reference for a PhD applicant?

There are obvious reasons why I might be able to say something informative: I saw a lot of his solutions to assigned problems, and I saw him work through an extended period of time (as opposed to say, a lecturer, who only sees his grades, and possibly final exam). However, I am concerned that I am not senior enough for my opinion to be taken seriously. Is it a legitimate concern? Would the student be better of asking someone more senior?

I think this is in part a cultural question. For example, in the US, I think letters from current graduate students are not given nearly as much weight as from more "senior" professionals. However, in German schools, it is quite common for senior doctoral students to write letters of recommendation for undergraduates, particularly in disciplines such as engineering, where the group sizes tend to be quite large, and in many cases the professor in charge of the group may never meet the undergraduate in question.


How to prove episodes of academic misconduct? My former PhD supervisor asked me different times to produce false results, including complete fabrication from scratch of otherwise non-existent results. I always managed to get away from that and I have never published nor submitted anything falsified. However, I still think that this must be reported, partially because he may do that again with other students. Also, the other coauthors (including professors) have never known about this.
Unfortunately, I have no written proof of his behavior, not even email, as he has always asked me in person.
How can I proceed in such a situation?

If a professor wants to falsify data now, the professor probably falsified data in the past.  Look through previous publications by that professor for data that is obviously falsified.
Plagiarized images are the most commonly detected form of fabrication.  Not all image reuse is falsified data, but if two publications present the same image data as if they were recorded separately, this is proof of falsification.
People who falsify data are likely to engage in other academic misconduct, such as plagiarism.


Should I publish work from my undergrad now that I am in graduate school and no longer working in the same field? During my undergrad (past 3 years) I worked in a niche ecology lab and during the time generated some data. The work I did was not exactly groundbreaking but I think it was solid publishable work and could find a home in a decent journal.

My PI is encouraging me to write up my work and submit it for publication in the next few months but I have just started graduate school and am working in an entirely different field (Biophysics with a sprinkle of cell biology).

Considering that I expect writing up the work for publication will be a significant undertaking (seeing how it would be my first time writing a paper for publication), and the disparity between the subject of the paper and my current/future research, would it be worth the time commitment to follow my PIs advice and write the paper? Would there be any real benefit for my career in a different field if this work does get published?

The experience of having gone the whole way through the publication process is very valuable and will benefit you when you start writing up your new research.  In the long run (say by the time you'd be applying for tenure-track jobs) having a publication in another field won't help your CV much because people are looking at your research program.  But in the medium-term if you apply for postdocs you may not have many (or any) actual publications (given the time it takes to write-up and submit research) and it's going to make you look better because it shows to potential supervisors that you're responsible and capable of completing a project.


Uninvited involvement in postgraduate supervision What is your opinion about another member of staff, uninvited, requiring postgraduate students to discuss their research with him, not even informing the actual supervisor and even requiring / insisting on significant changes? This uninvited intruder has considerably less supervision experience, research experience and in fact lower indices and international accreditation than the supervisor but is the head of department. There is no problem in terms of relationships between the various students and supervisor (in fact those relationships are good - quite possibly excellent). When the topic is raised by the supervisor with the HoD he says it is normal academic practice. He has never indicated that he thinks there is any problem with the current supervision.

My impression from your question is that you are very upset by this. My first advise is not to take any of this personally, and assume that everybody involved means well (even if the execution of those intentions may leave room for improvement).

The process you describe does not sound uncommon to me, though the execution seems (based on the limited information in your question) awkward.

In academia advisors have a lot of power over the people they advise. The vast majority of advisors handle that power correctly. But if you hand many people such power, then there will always be some who abuse it. Abuse can take a lot of forms, it can range from not adequately advising the advisee, up to abusing their labor or worse. So it is sound policy to regularly (say once a year) "check up" on all advisees, no matter if there are complaints or not. That way the university can keep an eye on whether the advisees are "on track" and give the advisees a more or less secure possibility to voice other concerns.

As an well intentioned (or so I say) advisor, I see such a process as a potentially helpful "second set of eyes". However, a lot depends on how such a process is implemented. At the very least, the purpose of this process was not clearly communicated to you, nor the status of his "advise".


Can I withdraw a paper from IEEE conference after signing the copyright form? I have submitted a manuscript using figures from google. I have cited the web pages from where I have found the figures in my article. The figures are actually figures of apparatus. Later I learnt from IEEE website that IEEE discourages usage of figures from web pages without prior permission which I have not taken. But I have submitted the paper and copyright form to IEEE conference. As the date for camera ready and pdfxpress is already over I can't edit my manuscript now as told by the conference chair.

What should I do now? How may I withdraw it from here and publish it in other place? Is it possible to withdraw after signing copyright? Is it worth requesting the conference chair to open the pdfxress for few minutes so that I may upload my new manuscript there? Please help me.

Email the programme chair and ask them how they would like you to proceed.  It is possible that they will still allow you to make changes to the paper, even at a late stage (provided it doesn't substantially affect the content).  If nothing else, they can ask the IEEE for advice, this is unlikely to be the first time this has happened, so there may be a standard answer already.


Should I be truthful about graduate school rejections? Suppose a student applies to a few good graduate programmes, but for some reasons, gains an admit in one great school and rejects in a couple of equally good ones. How necessary is it for the student to be truthful about his rejects? There are a couple of circumstances that arise here:

The student is invited to an interview at a school, where he is asked about his applications and decisions. Is it okay to lie that the results are pending? Or that he has been offered admits at a couple of places? It is likely that the student will face a dilemma if he feels the other decisions may affect this one as well.
Is it vital to be truthful at the graduate school you have joined? Is there any mutual communication between administrative sections of all top colleges, which may leave bluffing in bad taste?

As someone involved in graduate admissions decisions, I can say unequivocally that knowing a student has been denied admission at another program does not negatively influence my admissions decisions.  I have all of the application materials from the student, and (assuming the applicant is strong) the decision is sufficiently important that I will certainly look at and evaluate all those materials.  The decision of another school is not a useful indicator of whether I should admit you.

Indeed, if you tell me you have an offer from another top program, I might even be more cautious about offering you admission.  Why?  If I make all my initial offers to students who end up going to other schools, then I have to go back and dig through the applications and find the ones that didn't already accept an offer, which by that time will be lower quality applicants.  I know of one program where this happened last year and they resolved to make more strong offers to the second tier of (still quite strong) applicants this year.


Would a retired researcher mentor a postdoc with his/her own external funding? What about one without external funding? I'll be completing my Ph.D. soon, and am reaching out to people who I'd like to serve as my mentor. Two questions with regards to "academically" retired researchers:

If I have external funding, would emeritus faculty be interested in mentoring a postdoc?
If I don't have external funding (so would require my mentor to fund me), would a retired researcher from a research institution, or retired faculty, take on a postdoc, i.e., willing to spend time with and pay someone?

I have never seen this happen (though I haven't really looked into this), so I'd like to know if being a postdoc for someone retired is even possible. Both people I'm considering are still somewhat active in research (publishing papers, responding to emails).

I'm sure you'll find people who are "retired" (from administrative duties, from chasing the next funding proposal) and still are hard at work, while others just want to stay at home and look at the lake in front of the window.

If one of them would take you on as mentoree (made up word, I know) is anybody's guess. Perhaps they retired in part to be free of having to deal with pesky students. Maybe you are so outstanding that you lure the hermit back into active work.


Yardsticks for the worth of a Ph.D I am about to do a Ph.D. in applied Mathematics/Theoretical Computer Science. The organization I'm going into is not a university, but a research institute in Europe. I'd like to assess my prospects after the completion of the Ph.D. So I would like to know how my Ph.D. would appear to potential employers. Will I be sidelined because I'm not from an esteemed university in the US, or will the actual contribution or my thesis be what I'm evaluated on? Will the former overshadow the good work I may have done and detract from it?
I thank you for your answers.

There are two issues here. The first is the importance of the institute you get your PhD from being a University. This is a non factor as nobody cares about if you get your PhD from a research institute or a university. The second issue is the reputation of the place you get your PhD from. This has some importance, but your supervisor and the quality of the PhD are generally more important.


Can I get a university teaching job with only a bachelors degree? I have a B.Tech (Bachelors of Technology) from IIT Madras (class of 2000) and looking to change tracks from my current job in the software industry. In university, I specialized in computer science and engineering.

I want to know if I can get paid as a faculty for teaching at university level either in private or public universities. I’m also interested to learn what possible salary ranges I should expect.

(U.S. answer follows)

It is virtually impossible to get a teaching job at the college or university level without an advanced degree at the Master's or PhD (or terminal professional degree) level.  Most faculty have a terminal degree.  The opportunities for teaching with a Master's are limited, especially because competition is high and even collegiate level positions that are open to Master's holders still attract PhDs.  Master's degree holders are normally limited to non-tenure track teaching positions and adjunct teaching positions.

If you really do want to be a teacher without an advanced degree, there are opportunities at secondary schools, although most public schools will expect you to start working toward your Master's degree in either Education or your specific field within a few years after you begin.  Private secondary schools are less strict in this regard, but these days you'll find that most teachers will work towards their Master's even in private schools.  With a computer science / engineering degree, you should be competitive for teaching positions in mathematics, physics, computer science/technology, and possibly other sciences.  When I started teaching high school physics, my undergraduate degree was in electrical engineering (but I also finished a Master's in education).

There are obviously exceptions to the above -- Bill Gates could get a job teaching at virtually any school in the country, and he doesn't even have a bachelor's degree.  But, unless you are in a unique category like that, you should be prepared to get an advanced degree of some sort if you want to teach at the college or university level.


Etiquette to recontact the editor when he says the he will give the news as soon as he has some Assume that the last time that one has contacted the editor of a journal (about 10 months ago) to obtain the progress of submitted manuscript, the editor has said that he will give news as soon as he has some news.

In this circumstance isn't it rude to recontact him again to obtain news from the progress of the manuscript?

Other relevant informations: (1) The editor is very responsive and the journal is reputated.

(2) I have submitted my paper 26 months ago to this journal.

Edit: The question How long after first contact, where editor says "manuscript is still under review", is it okay to enquire again about status of manuscript? is relevant but the difference between my question and that one is that since my last inquiry 10 months has passed but in that question 2 months has passed.

Although it's arguably dependent on field, 10 months is well past the time it should take to be able to provide a status update.

I remember reading this story about a woman who was bedridden for years. A doctor eventually examined her and found nothing wrong at all. Asked what the problem was, the woman said a previous doctor had left instructions for her to stay in bed "until he returned". The previous doctor evidently forgot about it, and the woman just followed instructions. This situation is similar.


How do I remove an article from Scopus indexing? Due to some technical mistakes, I removed my published article from a journal. But the article was already indexed by Scopus. I need to remove the article from Scopus indexing database as well. Could I get some guidance in this regard?

I would suggest you contact them directly

And explain why they should remove the article, with actual proof that it's no longer available in the journal in question.


How to deal with an academic 'stalker'? Several years ago, my colleagues and I attempted to get a small paper published, it was rejected and we ran out of time - and as it was a 'side-project' type of paper, we left it at that.  We thought that was the end of it - this was not the case.

One of the reviewers who made themselves known to us wrote some pretty terse messages to us about his disagreement with what was a relatively minor point.  We graciously took his feedback as he is an established (published) researcher in that field. We moved on to different fields - which this reviewer has no published work in.

What has been happening since is that he will write an email questioning every single paper that I get published, not deliberately being insulting - but not offering anything constructive nor asking for clarification of the content etc.  He has admitted that what I research is beyond his area of expertise - examples of his questions are (remember, these papers are collaborative and peer reviewed):

"Are you sure you know how to use (equipment)?" - when the paper stated a previously published (by a separate author) protocol has been followed.

"Are you sure you did enough trials?" - this would be fine as criticism, except the next email stated "That many trials seems like overkill" referring to the same paper.

One particularly unhelpful comment from him was "Did you actually pass high school English?"

Criticism is fine, and is sought for any and all work that we do, but when the statements do not offer anything substantial, are contradictory or just rude - this is not criticism, it is unhelpful noise -especially when it is posted publicly where we display links to the work (he deletes his comments soon after most of the time)

How do I deal with this persistent 'academic stalking' while at the same time, not make a 'fuss'?

A general strategy you can try here is "respond to amateurism with professionalism".  Even if it looks like he's being unreasonable (as it currently seems to you that he is), just suspend disbelief, and, in a completely non-confrontational manner, engage his questions as if they were serious:

  I always appreciate constructive criticism [true statement!  you don't
  have to say that his was constructive, let him think what he
  wants...maybe he actually did think it was].  I didn't quite
  understand what led you to wonder whether I did enough testing of X.
  Did you see something in the results that made you suspect this
  specifically?  Just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

  Thanks for your input!

Treat it exactly as if it were a sincere attempt to help, that you had a question about.  It's possible (though I'm thinking you think it unlikely) that he really is sincere and has something to offer you.  If so, wonderful!  You get useful feedback from someone smart!

If he doesn't actually have a real question, this technique may make that obvious in a relatively non-confrontational way.  Part of the value of it is that you are not simply being the victim of stalker-y behavior, but professionally and politely holding your ground.  It is to be hoped that this will lessen the feeling of exasperation that would otherwise normally accompany this kind of childish bullying, if that is indeed what it turns out to be.

There are very intelligent and successful people in academia who are nevertheless  woefully underdeveloped emotionally; one way this will be manifest is in the need to tear down other people who seem to be having success, or demonstrating skill, or garnering attention comparable to their own. This can catch one off guard when it's coming from a successful and respected person, because you would think that their success would be all they need to feel good about themselves.  That, alas, does not turn out to be true.  If it's a chronic emotional problem, you are unlikely to get him to change his behavior; hence the advice to concentrate specifically on blunting his ability to make his problem your problem.

If the cerebral approach doesn't work or becomes too time consuming, you can always set up a filter to send email from that address straight to trash....

Escalation (adding this section after your clarified and expanded examples indicate that mere polite discussion may not work here)

[Fuss level: zero] Gather evidence.  You don't have to do anything with it yet.  Later steps I will describe will talk about possible uses.  It's just good to have in case you ever get into a he said/she said situation and need to be able to back yourself up.
Note that there is already a "fuss", to some extent.  Not your doing.  You can't choose to have this situation be "fussless", because the behavior is happening in public.  The question is to what extent you wish to participate in the fuss.
[Fuss level: low] A body of evidence might be useful for you to have handy if you wanted to petition a site administrator to block him from contributing comments.  The sites hosting your research results and facilitating discussion don't want their work compromised by trolls.
[Fuss level: medium] Does he work at an institution with a published policy regarding academic ethics?  Spuriously calling into question the validity of your results seems like it would violate ethical standards.  It might be enough for you to obtain a copy of the institution's standards, highlight the part that you consider him to be violating, and send that information to him, asking for him to comment on whether he agrees his behavior violates those standards.
[Fuss level: high] Same as 4, but with more fuss.  Contact the institution.  Ask to speak to someone about the fact that you feel that one of their employees is violating academic ethics.  Do they have a published policy?  Can they send you a copy?  Can you send them some redacted examples and have them confirm that they would consider that in violation?  You would like to resolve the matter with the individual privately if possible, but you want to be sure that you are interpreting their standards correctly.  Then, email the stalker and tell them that you've been in contact with the ethics office, not having mentioned any names of course, we can resolve this between ourselves, can we not?, and they agreed that the behavior is in violation of standards.  Would he be willing to simply stop commenting on your work altogether in the future?  It seems it would be better for both of you if he did.  You don't have to threaten exposure--you should be careful not to threaten, actually (to avoid any possibility that you could be charged with blackmail or whatever)--just state facts.
[Fuss level: nuclear]  Put all the evidence on the web, unredacted, and send a copy to his boss, his wife, and his students.  Let them know you really hate to bother them, but you need to ask them if they can contact his psychiatrist because he apparently needs his meds adjusted.  (<-- not a serious suggestion, but it was cathartic to type!)

Serenity

Reflecting on others' answers and comments, I feel that one more section should be added here, because there are practical things you can do to help the situation, from your side only, with zero direct interaction.  Although I would still gather evidence in any case (since it might be of value later should a dispute come to the surface), it is possible for you to improve your experience here by improving yourself.  It's easy and natural to focus on the fact that he is the aggressor and by rights he should be changing his behavior, and to forget that, completely independent of whether he stops or not you can choose to become better at not being affected by baseless criticism.

Give yourself a mental picture of a small child attempting to attack an adult who calmly holds himself out of harm's way by virtue of having arms twice as long as his attacker.  Your stalker has mastered the art of playing the flailing child--you can grow long arms.

Mentally rearranging your perspective on the whole situation can help.  You can say "I am going to end up better for this by learning the valuable skill of ignoring trolls.  Think what I would have had to pay a trainer for this, and he's providing me all this learning experience for free."  It is, after all, entirely possible that you are going to run into other situations in life where the ability to be calm in the face of baseless or childish criticism helps you out immensely, and this is an opportunity to learn that skill in a relatively risk-free environment (as the stalker really has no actual power over you in this situation).

In short, you have, effectively, been focusing on the question "How can I get him to stop this behavior, without making a fuss?"  But you can get an excellent result by instead asking the question "How can I get this behavior to stop bothering me?".  The second question can be pretty much entirely in your own hands, and the things you do to work on it will help you in other aspects of your life, even enabling you to help others deal with similar issues, etc.

It's more than just ignoring (which, I think it should be said, is fantastic advice if you can do it--I haven't gotten to that point yet personally)--it's a conscious decision to rise above the behavior of the other party.  Rather than "he's attacking me and I feel powerless to stop it without escalations that I am not comfortable getting into" it can be "he's attacking me, but I am using this as an opportunity to practice, and therefore develop the power, to not be affected by this behavior".  From the outside it may look the same, but mentally, this kind of approach can make all the difference.

I think this is both the best option and the hardest to execute on.  In the times when I have implemented such measures myself, I've found it to be incredibly empowering, and even in some cases ended up with unexpectedly good relationships with people that at one point had occasion (they felt, at the time, at least) to attack me, simply because I consciously decided that I didn't need to fight back.  I don't think I've faced exactly the same situation as you are here, but I believe this might help you and sincerely hope it does--best of luck.


Asking for a letter of recommendation after only some days of collaboration I plan to apply for a Master's degree at a new university, and I require three letters of recommendation to do so. At my current university, there are two professors I did seminars/my bachelor thesis with, and both have agreed to write one - so there is one left. However, among the rest of the academic staff, there is none who knows me well (meaning I had one or two lectures with them, but not much personal contact). So I am wondering, if the following alternative is viable:
After finishing my thesis, my professor has offered me to continue research, which has now developed into some mathematical software. Our idea was to integrate it in an open source project, so I participated in an hackathon-style event of said project, where I have met another professor. The event was only 2 days, but he was interested in my project and supported me a lot. Therefore, I consider asking him for the last letter of recommendation, as he probably has a better idea of my work than most lecturers at my university.
Is this reasonable?

The outcome of such things is unpredictable, but you might do well with this. But you can have a conversation first with this professor to see what they think of the idea.
Letters of recommendation are best when they make a positive prediction about your future success. It may be that this professor has already formed such an opinion and would be willing to express it formally.
You can ask, of course, but have a conversation first, getting their opinion on your future and how you can optimize it. A letter can flow from such a conversation.
Note that this is a US perspective and a personal one.


How to improve profile for graduate admissions in mathematics, when coming from a country where quality of math education is poor? What should I do after BS Maths before applying to a well reputed institute for masters and PHD in maths, given that my BS was done from a less developed country where quality of math education is very low?

You seem to be asking how to get admitted to a much better graduate program than your undergraduate program and record merits.  I'm sorry to say that unless you did something during your undergraduate program to make you stand out on a worldwide scale beyond what virtually any undergraduate ever does (in other words, a very low probability event), this is not going to be possible.

Why don't you set more reasonable goals?  If your education has suffered from coming through a systemically poor institution, I would suggest trying to get into a not-top-but-reputable program in a country with high academic standards (which gives you a lot of choices: US, Canada, Australia, the majority of Europe, Japan, some other parts of Asia...).  E.g. in the US even the 200th best university has a curriculum which is largely modelled on that of much better universities, some very serious faculty members, quite solid library / computer resources, and so on.  A student can "launder herself" by doing a master's degree at such a place.  By doing excellently on the coursework and exams, she would show that she has the same skills, knowledge and potential of a strong undergraduate major, and could probably get into a top 50 PhD program.


Requirements for getting into a German physics MSc I am in my second year of a BSc in Physics in India. I want to pursue my physics graduate degree (MS) in Germany. I want to know what graduate schools are looking for in my application there.

This seems to be a common misconception: An MSc is not considered a graduate degree in Germany but the second part of an undergraduate study that prepares for the research-only PhD. As such, the universities are required by law to admit all applicants that satisfy the formal requirements as specified in the examination regulations (Prüfungsordnung in German). (The only exception is if the number of applicants exceeds the capacity of the department, which to my knowledge is not the case for physics in most places.)

These regulations vary somewhat between universities and disciplines (and even different courses of study within a discipline), so you really need to look at the one of the specific university you're interested in (or google Masters physics admission $UNIVERSITY, if you don't know enough German), but it boils down to holding a sufficiently successful Bachelor's degree that is reasonably similar to the one offered by that university. What this means depends on the course of study, but as a rough guideline

the degree must be recognized as equivalent to a Bachelor's in scope (number of credits, mostly 180 ECTS) and depth (university-level);
the transcript must show certain courses deemed crucial by the department (the regulations will contain the list of courses, whose contents can then be looked up in the Modulhandbuch);
the diploma must show a minimum grade (again, this will be given in the regulations; I've often seen 3.0 or better according to the German grading system which goes from 1.0 (best) to 4.0 (barely passing).)

In addition, you need to

show proficiency in the teaching language as given in the regulations (this could be either German, English, or both). Most regulations I've seen also explicitly require a German language certificate
for the Deutsche Sprachprüfung für den Hochschulzugang (DSH).

Although these requirements will be checked on a purely formal level, there's usually some leeway in the proceedings; e.g, if you are missing some courses from point 2, you might be admitted under the condition that you catch up on them within the first year, and a grade worse than required by point 3 might be compensated for by a brief oral examination where you show that your academic performance from here on is likely to be better than in the past. (But it's important to stress that this is not required if you already meet all the formal requirements.)

As an example, you can look at the admissions page of the TU Munich (which is regarded as one of the more "professionalized", as these things go).


Lab journal best practices for pre-experiment research I'm interested in nuclear physics, and I'm building a cloud chamber. Because I'd like to do science fairs and (eventually) go to college and publish papers in the field of physics, I thought it would be good practice to keep a lab journal. (For reference, I'm in the U.S. and am currently, of course, an amateur.)

I am currently doing some research into how I want to construct part of the cloud chamber and also into which parts I wish to purchase. Is it best practice to record which parts I picked and why I picked them?

Note: If there's any information I should add, please let me know; this is the first question I've asked on Academia.SE.

Chemist by myself, but with interaction of physicists in material science, I would recommend to learn Emacs org-mode.  Beside Emacs being an editor you may tailor around your needs, org-mode will help you to get better organized (TODO lists).  Every thing you write in it will be plain ASCII -- hence easy to maintain, to backup, and to set up for version control; as shown here.  It will come with its own, spread-sheet calculator often found powerful enough, so launching a second software is no longer necessary.

You may export all, or sections of your single source file directly into a LaTeX document, or as *.html, or as *.odt to libre office writer, and it's markup often is easier to read (and type) than original LaTeX.  Export towards presentations (and even running a presentation) is possible too.  You may insert source code, and call for execution from this file, and use the results to be inserted again into your same document; for example pyhthon, or R.  Writing publications is eased a lot with org-ref, with a breath-taking demonstration here, yet ties well towards citation managers like zotero as shown for example here.

Hence it becomes much more easy to add, and later to retrieve every detail that would you or others allow to reproduce the experiments you did.  This includes the setup of your experiment, which devices were used and why these were chosen.  As an example, it is not this uncommon even to note the serial number of their amperemeter used, as some were regularly calibrated against reference standards.  Such in chemistry to note not only the chemical, but its purity, the quantity used, the vendor, and the lot of production.  In the end, it does not hurt to have much more information in the lab log (within reason), than needed to write the publication.


What order should teaching experience be listed in a teaching dossier when applying for teaching jobs? Should a teaching dossier list teaching experience in chronological order (starting with most recent) or should I order things by relevance to whatever I'm applying for?

I'm applying for a job which has listed teaching Calculus and Linear algebra as the primary expectation.

My more recent experience has been with Adult Basic Eduation which is not relevant to the posting, so my gut says not to emphasize this first.

Are my instincts correct?  Should I put my older work experience at the front?

There is no official standard, but chronological order is always easiest to follow. However, if you have a non-standard dossier, you could sort your teaching experience according to what is most important.

But the best place to emphasize your relevant experience is in the teaching statement.


Do students in taught programs need to go to their professors before publishing? I am a student in various graduate taught programs, but not a research student and I am not receiving any scholarships or grants from my institutions. I have prepared a paper which I wish to publish. The subject is within my field, but far outside of the expertise of any of my instructors, mostly because it deals with a language and other technical details which they are entirely unfamiliar with. As such, I highly doubt they could assist me in writing the paper.

I know that graduate research students should not publish works without their professor's permission. Is this rule relevant to students in taught programs? Can I submit my paper for credit in a course, without giving up ownership of the paper?

I know that graduate research students should not publish works without their professor's permission.

It's a little more complicated than that.  Nobody needs permission to publish anything that they did entirely on their own.  If you work collaboratively or as part of a team, then it's not 100% your work and you need your collaborators' permission.  If you do not collaborate but work under someone else's supervision, then it's still polite to ask for advice/permission.  (They might see it as more of a collaboration than you do, and in any case your submission may reflect on their supervision so it is reasonable to get their feedback first.)

  Is this rule relevant to students in taught programs?

If you have no collaborators or supervisors in the research, then you can publish it however you'd like.

  Can I submit my paper for credit in a course, without giving up ownership of the paper?

I don't know of any case where you give up rights to a paper by submitting it in a course, so ownership is probably not the relevant issue here.  In the universities I'm familiar with, you can certainly submit for publication an essay that was written for a class assignment (most such papers would not be accepted for publication, but a few could be).  On the other hand, you cannot get class credit for a paper that you previously wrote for another purpose.  The precise rules in your case may differ, but if you plan to use this paper for a class you should investigate your university's rules.


Is it appropriate to ask a professor via e-mail for a letter of recommendation? I have been out of school since May now, and I am considering applying for graduate school. I currently live nowhere near the university I attended.

Would it be appropriate for me to ask for a letter of recommendation via e-mail? If not, what would be the best option?

[Suggestions as to how I should approach such a communication would be appreciated as well.]

In-person requests are always the best route, because you can gauge willingness and eagerness to write the letters much more directly than via telephone or email.

However, if you can't be there, because you've moved away, then it is of course appropriate to ask for letters by email. Whether or not the professor will grant the request or not is of course a question. However, I would mention that you've moved (and where you currently are) as part of your request, so that the professor knows why you're not able to come in for a meeting if asked.


Is it "vita" or "vitae"? Why? I recently attended a "preparing for the job market" workshop for PhD students where the speaker instructed us in no uncertain terms that we should always refer to a "curriculum vitae" and never a "curriculum vita." Following the workshop, I made sure to replace all instances of "vita" with "vitae" on my website.

Today, though, the professor of a class I'm taking asked me why I had the word "Vitae" (on its own, without "Curriculum") on the menu of my website, suggesting that "Vita" might be more appropriate. I looked around this website to try to get some clarification and noticed not only that there didn't seem to be anything on this topic but also that some people use both spellings in the same sentence (e.g., "A 'vita' is just a short term for a curriculum vitae").

So, is it "vitae"? "Vita"? "Vita" when the word is on its own but "vitae" when it's "curriculum vitae"? Also, is there any reason (based in Latin or something else) for these distinctions?

Vita means life. Vitae is the genitive (possessive) form, of life. Curriculum means something like course.  So Curriculum vitae means the course of one's life, and makes good sense. Vita by itself also makes good sense, though it's perhaps less accurate as a description of the document in question. Neither curriculum vita nor vitae without curriculum makes sense.

Addition, suggested by Patricia Shanahan: All the words in bold italic are Latin.


Determining common knowledge in an unfamiliar field What is the best strategy to determine common knowledge in an unfamiliar field? I have provided an example below, but I am not looking for an answer specific to that example.

We have an answered question that addresses whether and how common knowledge should be cited. A more difficult problem is determining what is common knowledge in an unfamiliar field. In my answer to the question linked, I provide one strategy, examining introductory textbooks in that field. However, as was mentioned in the comments, not all fields have introductory texts.

As an example, I am working on an institutional grant proposal. The proposed activities have to do with increasing retention rates of freshmen students, particularly in the sciences. We are looking at targeting pedagogical reform in introductory classes and increasing engagement through more and better co-curricular experiences.

My background is in chemistry. I do not know what is common knowledge in the worlds of pedagogy and student engagement/retention. I have been reading books and articles on the subjects, and citation practices have been inconsistent. Some authors provide citations for everything, including broad generalizations and common sense, like:

  There are many reasons why an undergraduate student may choose to leave college.

And then others provide very few citations, including for statements that seem like they should have been based on a study:

  More than half of all students who withdraw from college are freshmen.
  Less than half of the students who declare science majors will graduate with a degree in a science field.

I realize that the former case may be from overzealous paranoia about plagiarism, and the latter case may be an example of poor scholarship, but this is difficult to assess as an outsider.

EDIT: For clarification, I am asking about determining when something requires a citation if I am writing in a field that I do not normally participate in. I know that I should always cite things that are new, obscure, or counter to prevailing thought. I wouldn't necessarily need to cite things that are "well-established" or "agreed-upon". After a certain point, if enough studies have reaffirmed the same result, or if the result has been so widely cited that it becomes well-known, it is pointless to cite it. It is currently silly to provide a citation for "The structure of DNA is a double helix formed by two complimentary strands held together by hydrogen-bonding between the base pairs." At one point, however, it was not silly, because this idea was new.

How can I quickly determine where a finding is on the continuum between new/obscure and well established?

By far the simplest way to get around this problem is to simply give it to a colleague who is more well-versed in the field and have them judge which statements need to be backed up by citations and which don't.

The next simplest way is to read papers on a very similar topic to yours (which, no doubt, do exist) and see what they cite.

On a related note, my advisor gave me the advice of "when in doubt, cite." His point was that the only real downside of an unnecessary reference is added length to the paper. If you get to that point, and the only thing left to cut is citations, then you can start to worry.