How is the career path of a full-time Research Associate different from that of a tenure-track / full-time professor? Recently, I saw that a post-doc, "assistant professor", converted to become a full-time Research Associate at their school, moving all of their online content out of the department faculty page and onto their own, personal website.  I am guessing that they are no longer in the running for tenure-track jobs and are happy being full-time researchers.  It seems they are still publishing and doing what they love.

What is the difference between becoming a full-time Research Associate and staying on tenure-track and waiting / hoping to become a professor?  Do you give up something substantial by taking yourself out of the tenure-track race?

(To me, it seems that all they gave up was a faculty homepage.)

For reference, it's a large U.S. research university.

Tenure in the US, and I assume most other places, implies a lifetime commitment to employment. You can't be fired for any but egregious misbehavior. The research associate probably doesn't get that guarantee and may work on a fixed term (but renewable) contract.

The very idea of tenure is to make it possible for tenured faculty to explore unconventional and even controversial ideas without fear of retaliation. Sometimes that is abused, but mostly it seems to work. Academic Freedom is based on tenure.

Tenured faculty have different responsibilities than (only) research. Most teach. Most advise graduate, and maybe undergraduate, students. Most have committee responsibilities - for the governance of the department and the university.

When General Eisenhower was made president of Columbia University it is said that in his inaugural speech he spoke at length about all the great things "the University" would do for "the Faculty". After he finished, one of the top faculty members, I don't know who, perhaps a dean, rose and said something like "With all due respect, General, the University can't 'do' anything for the Faculty. The Faculty IS the University." That is an old tradition - the governance of the university lies in its faculty. It is going out of style nowadays, but remains a dearly held tradition. Tenured faculty (some at least) take that responsibility very seriously.

The research of tenured faculty and that of research assistants (or associates or ...) are likely funded in the same way. That would mean grants at most large places and internal funding, perhaps, at small colleges though small places don't typically have pure research positions.

It may be that the transition of the person you "saw" was caused by information that he/she was unlikely to achieve tenure and took the research option. Tenure is far from automatic and in many places is very difficult to get and lacks rationality. Some are "denied" tenure for no better reason than that the university is reducing the size of some department due to falling student enrollments. A person can even get a positive vote/recommendation from the tenure committee and department but be denied tenure for financial reasons.

On the other hand, the person may have decided that the non-research responsibilities of tenured faculty simply weren't appealing and wants to devote him/herself solely to research, though without the lifetime employment guarantee.

Complicating the decision is the fact that in most places, if you actually apply for tenure, go through the process, but are denied, you are usually asked to leave. There may be exceptions for some, but that is pretty typical. So, reading the handwriting on the wall may be wise for anyone who is borderline in any way or in a situation in which tenure is unlikely for any reason.


Am I allowed to republish / distribute abstracts? Example: I have a document containing 1,000 abstracts of research articles from different publishers. Am I allowed to distribute this document for free online? If not, has anyone being sued for doing so?

Am I allowed to distribute this document for free online?

I'm not a lawyer, but I doubt it.  Copyright certainly applies, but you might be able to argue that this falls under fair use, depending on what you are doing with the abstracts.  As I understand it, some things are definitively covered by fair use, while others may fall in a grey area.  If this matters to you, then you should consult a lawyer, because no one else can give you a definitive answer.

  If not, has anyone being sued for doing so?

In the U.S., I doubt you'd have to worry about being sued or facing criminal charges for this sort of copyright violation in practice (although I repeat that I am not a lawyer).  The most likely scenario is a DMCA takedown notice.  If your university or ISP receives such a notice from a publisher, they will remove the file from your web site.  You could try to convince your university to take a stand based on fair use, but it's not at all clear that you would succeed.  Even aside from whether it really is fair use, universities can be risk averse and may well decide it's not worth the effort to contest the issue.

Perhaps you could restrict your attention to papers with a suitable Creative Commons License.  For example, PLOS journals use the CC BY license, which allows this sort of reuse (with attribution).  If you just need some collection of abstracts, for example as a test case for text processing or data mining algorithms, then this might work fine.

On the other hand, you may want to use very specific abstracts.  For example, you might want to compile the abstracts of all the papers you can find in your subfield.  This seems riskier, since big commercial publishers typically don't want competition for their search tools.  You could always try asking the publisher for permission (I have no idea how likely they would be to grant it).


Why do reviewers summarize a promotion application? In another question, it has been justified that reviewers summarize a manuscript to help busy editors who cannot read all manuscript. I do not agree with this even for manuscripts, as the Abstract should do this.

However, I have seen a similar behavior for reviewing job/promotion applications. For example, the report started with this paragraph "the applicant has graduated from ..., worked at X from 2010 to 2013, has published x papers ...". The judging committee already know these facts, these are in the application.

A job/promotion application is different from a research article. These are facts, which can be read in a brief CV (the committee can ask for 2-page CV). IMHO, the report should be straightforward, and clearly telling why the person is or is not recommended for the position. Summarizing the application is waste of time, like summarizing the CV in his cover letter.

I think it is vital responsibility of the promotion/search committee to carefully read the application.

Is it really necessary?

In a typical letter, the overlap with the CV is just a small portion of the letter, so I don't see why it's a problem.  (If it accounts for most of the letter, then something is wrong.)  You're right that it's not logically necessary in a world of people with perfect memory, but it helps remind people of the basic facts and puts the subjective comments in context.  Only a terrible letter would announce "Smith has published seven papers" and then never say anything more about the papers.  It's much more reasonable to lay out the facts and then go on to offer more detailed and evaluative commentary.

There are also issues that are specific to letters of recommendation.  For example, letters of recommendation are often updated over time.  Perhaps the first letter I write for a graduate student is part of a fellowship application.  When she graduates and applies for postdocs, I substantially edit the letter but don't necessarily rewrite it from scratch, and the same document may even last until her tenure case (of course it evolves dramatically over time - by the end four or five substantial changes have been made, and almost none of the original letter remains).  Now one purpose of reciting basic facts is to make it perfectly clear that my judgment really is based on her current accomplishments, and not just thoughtlessly recycled from a previous letter based on older information.  Of course this is far from the only way to show that, but it can't hurt and might sometimes help.


Are there any (online) communities for independent researchers? Perhaps a bit of background on myself is useful in this case. I've obtained a bachelor's and master's degree in pure mathematics and applied mathematics, respectively. Although I would like to do a PhD on a topic that is somewhat related to these fields, I suspect I will not be able to obtain a position due to my GPA (7.0 out of 10) and limited amount of contacts in academia (I've graduated almost two years ago).

Despite of the limited perspectives for an academic career, I still have loads of ideas for research, and I'm eager to publish articles as an independent researcher in my spare time. More often than not, however, the research ideas only partially pertain to my area of expertise. Usually, I would like to apply some statistical methods to do research in some social science. For instance, I'd like to do a statistical comparison on the holocaust victims of different countries, or on the methods through which the media can influence governments.

While I may be quite good at formulating research questions and doing statistical analyses, I often lack the relevant domain expertise to substantiate the article with relevant information, and relate it to prior research in the area. Therefore, I would like to work together with people who are more knowledgeable in these fields, and write papers together.

Being outside academia, however, often makes it difficult to find people who'd like to collaborate with me. Thus, I wonder whether there is some international community of independent scholars. Preferably, this community would be backed by some website through which I can find like-minded researchers who'd like to work with me. Ideally, the website would have some kind of SE-like interface, through which on can propose ideas for articles. Then, others can respond to the idea, and "matches" between researchers can be made.

Having a background in mathematics, I know of the so-called Polymath Project for massively collaborative mathematical projects. This is related to, but not exactly, what I'm looking for. For one, it is restricted to mathematics. Moreover, it is not especially geared towards independent researchers, and the concept is not to have some kind of match-making system for researchers and their ideas.

Questions

Do you know whether an international community of independent researchers exists?
Is it backed by the website I've just described?
Are there any projects like this currently under development, or have they existed in the past?
If it doesn't exist (yet), do you think it's a good idea to create such a community and website, and do you have suggestions to make it a thriving, long-term community?

IGDORE, a large organization for independent scientists, hosts an online forum titled On Science and Academia. This is by far the largest online meeting place for independent scientists to my knowledge. IGDORE membership is not required to participate. I am not a member of IGDORE, and I have seen others with traditional university affiliations participate as well.
I've found the website useful to meet like-minded people, and I believe they would be receptive to requests to collaborate on a particular idea.


Students bringing babies to class I'm a student; recently, in one of my classes, a fellow student brought their baby in a stroller. She may have asked the professor beforehand for permission to do this. The baby cried, made loud utterances, and loudly kicked the inside of its stroller. Several students, including me, found this very distracting. The professor didn't react to any of this. What should he have done? Should students be prohibited from bringing babies to class, or are there some circumstances under which it should be allowed?

I didn't complain to anyone, as I assumed that the student brought her baby to class because of exceptional circumstances and that this wouldn't become a habit. I don't know whether anyone made a complaint. This has only happened once, during the most recent lecture.

A blanket ban on bringing babies to class is probably not allowed at many institutions. However, I agree that if the baby is acting up, then the supervising parent should take the baby out of the classroom so as to minimize disruptions to the overall lecture.

This should be reached as an agreement outside of class time so that the lecturer is not placed in the position of having to stop lecture to ask the parent to remove his or her child from the room.


If I take a PhD from a not so well standing university, will I be less respected in science? Let me give you additional context on the question.

I am a master student in Computer Science (hopefully graduating this year). I want to do a PhD later on (after working in the industry for a bit). I am currently writing a paper with an aspiring associate professor. He doesn't have a lot of heavily cited publications yet, but he is aspiring to go to more prestigious conferences and pushing himself. The university I go to doesn't rank high in the world ranking of the universities, but in my country it is one of the top universities.

My question is, then: If my advisor isn't a star scientist (yet) and if my university isn't some worldly famous one, can I still be a well-respected scientist, provided that my work is actually good? I guess that the broader question I am referring to is: Is there elitism in academia, or is it merit based?

Thank you in advance!

Your career depends much more on what you do than on the university you attend. Even for doctoral study. It is true that getting the first job may be easier for those from internationally known research universities, but once you have a position, you also have opportunities, just as does your current advisor.

Also, consider that some students at those top 50 universities won't finish, and some of those who do will face burn-out. Others will just not live up to their "early potential" and not advance very far or fast.

But there is some elitism, of course. Oxbridge is world respected and much is expected of their graduates. On the other hand, Harvard University has an excellent reputation, but it graduates some awfully stupid (and dangerous) people. In the long run it is "merit" that rules the day. It is often written that there is "nothing more dangerous than a C student from Yale". Don't be that student.

I encourage you to stretch yourself toward the "best" university within your reach, though "best" can mean a lot of things beyond world ranking. But then, do your best and work collaboratively with others to advance your field.


European BS - American PhD (Graduate Admission) I posted something similar a while back and it was closed, but I believe this post will be more suited for discussion.

I'm heading to Europe from the U.S. to complete my BS in physics. I intend on returning to the U.S. to complete a PhD (ie. no masters degree in-between). I'm aware that the European system has a three year BS program, as compared to the four years that are done in the U.S.

The central question is: Does having a three year BS affect admission into a competitive American graduate program?

From where I sit, I can't help but feel PhD programs will raise an eyebrow at applying with only two years of experience. All of the graduate application deadlines available online (Princeton, Cornell, Columbia) have a deadline of the 15th of December, which correlates to a little over two years of undergraduate education.

I've been lucky enough to have a huge head-start on the material (few formal credits, however), which means I could start research within my first year of study.

I don't think there will be a huge problem in taking a European bachelor's degree to a US institution, so long as you do a little explanatory work in getting ready to apply. The reason for this is that in those first two years, you will often have more major-specific work than most US students will have completed in three years!

So, I would recommend contacting the graduate admissions of programs you're interested in applying to, and explaining your situation to them. Take a look at the undergraduate programs they offer—and in particular, the list of required courses, and show that you have a similar amount of preparation (or more!). Then ask if there's anything else that you need to do.


Creative Ways of Getting Teaching Experience Here is my situation, I'm about to graduate with a Ph.D. within the next few months.  My dissertation is done, so I can dedicate quite a bit of time to the issue I'm describing.

At the moment, I have never taught a college level course.  For the entire length of my program I've been on the research side.  I'm very frustrated by this, as "teaching" was always my personal number 2 choice after graduation (number 1 is not in academia, a long shot and not relevant to this conversation).  (And just to remove those suggesting that I should have asked to teach, I have -- for years -- but that's water under the bridge as they say)

Due to this lack of teaching, I've done everything I could think of: I've taught mini classes to staff and my cohort on specific topics (e.g. LaTeX), and when available, I've taught at university programs for high schoolers.  And, I've recently, applied to every community college in a two hour radius (our university is in the sticks, so that isn't actually very many), to try to get an adjunct job.

But my fear is that the community colleges won't care about my research or other experience -- they will just note that I don't have teaching experience, so I won't get those positions either -- which means I'll graduate without ever really teaching.

So, here is my question:  Is there something I should be doing that I'm not already?  What have others done in similar situations?  I'm starting to get very concerned about the long term implications of this hole in my CV -- especially given I could really see myself at a lib arts university.

First of all, put down all of that experience on your CV, and when you apply for jobs, make sure you write a great teaching statement on some of these experiences.  Make sure to talk about any courses you designed (the LaTeX one, perhaps?), and don't disregard the high school teaching at all.  I was a high school teacher for seven years before I went to get my PhD, and when applying for college teaching positions, I played up the fact that teaching high school is (in some ways) more challenging and that it made me a better teacher.

I believe that with your current experience, you have a good chance at one of those community college adjunct positions (depending on your field), so don't sell yourself short yet.

One other option that might not sound so great but could at least get you into the classroom is to apply to adjunct positions with for-profit colleges (U. of Phoenix, etc.).  If you can disregard any problems you might have with that "type" of education and dedicate yourself to doing the best you can for the students, it would give you experience.  The problem may be that you're in the sticks.

Speaking of living in the sticks, are you able to move for a semester?  If you're flexible enough, you will be able to find that adjunct position (Alaska?  Kansas?  Puerto Rico?).

Let's say you can't find a teaching position.  What's stopping you from developing a full-up course, even if you won't teach it now (or ever)?  Be creative, and design the course you've always wanted to teach!  You can then put down, "designed xx undergraduate course, which included a unique assessment plan and a flipped classroom approach, blah, blah, blah."  A bit hokey, maybe, but it's something.

Depending on your field, you could branch out and apply for positions or volunteer to teach classes that aren't directly in your field.

The bottom line is (and you seem to already know this): you have to be as flexible as you can if your goal is simply to get college teaching experience.  But try to think if there are other ways you can be even more flexible, and something is likely to come your way.


Graduate Research After Retirement I will be retiring in a few months with a successful research career in industry (>100 journal papers, >300 conference presentations, >50 patents).  I am interested in doing research in an academic lab after retirement.  My current expertise is in applied plasma physics, but I am interested in doing research in either astrophysics or biology.  Any suggestions on on how to find such opportunities or how does one get involved in research in a new area when one is 60+?  I won't be concerned about compensation and I am well adept at the numerical, statistical and mathematical methods employed in research.

This is harder to answer because you seem to want to change fields. Otherwise, and if you are near to a research university, you could just ask to be allowed to attend research seminars in the field you already know. You would probably be welcome and could give some help to various students with their own research.

However, to change fields, there are things you need to know to get to the research frontier in the new field. I assume you know this, of course. The ideal way, assuming that money is no issue, would be to apply for another degree in the new field. If it is close enough to your current interests it would probably be expedited to some extent.

But the way to get good advice is to visit some place that you might be interested in and talk to researchers there. I'm guessing that this would be easier with a university than elsewhere. Even better if you already have some research ideas. But note that the request is a bit unusual and many places don't have the time or inclinations to do things that don't fit a given mold.

Top research universities differ quite a lot in what is possible. Some might be extremely rigid about rules and requirements and others might be extremely flexible. So you may need to look around a bit.

There is one additional issue, however, that might get in your way. If anyone starts to think that by working for "free" you are displacing someone else who might be early in their career, you won't be terrifically welcome. You will need to finesse that.


Use of Jargons in my Statement of Purpose It is generally advisable the use of jargon's and abbreviations be avoided in your statement of purpose. So if I would like to mention a few MOOC's(which stands for Massive Online Open Class offered at portals like Udacity,Coursera,etc) and the flow of my SOP necessitates the use of the word "MOOC", what do I do? Is the term "MOOC" known widely (which I believe is true) or do I have to mention "Massive Online Open Class" (atleast for the first time). This usage could be decisive in situations where there is a strict limitation on the word count.

One of the most important rules of writing is know your audience.

When you're writing a statement of purpose, you are addressing an audience of experts in your general field. So, everyone in your field will know the basic terminology and jargon that is common to people throughout your field.

Therefore, if you are using a specific term that is not in standard usage throughout your community, you should not assume that everyone will know what it means. Therefore, for the first occurrence, you should write out the term in full. After that you can certainly list an abbreviation.

On the other hand, if the term is normally  or better known as its abbreviated name, then you don't necessarily need to expand it. In my field, for instance, there is something called the Bogoliubov-Born-Green-Kirkwood-Yvon hierarchy of equations. However, because it's such a mouthful, it's pretty much universally called the "BBGKY" hierarchy. In such a case, providing the full name isn't going to make much of a difference; if your audience doesn't know the abbreviation, giving the full name won't hurt. But this is such a narrow case of exceptions that in general it's a good idea to provide the full name at least once.


Submitting ACM Conference papers to ArXiv I'm a little confused. The ACM Author Rights and Publishing Policy states:

  ACM authors hold the right to post copies of their own peer-reviewed accepted ACM works on any non-commercial repository or aggregation that does not duplicate ACM tables of contents, i.e., whose patterns of links do not substantially duplicate an ACM-copyrighted volume or issue. Non-commercial repositories are here understood as repositories owned by non-profit organizations that do not charge a fee for accessing deposited articles and that do not sell advertising or otherwise profit from serving articles.

However, the ACM Fair Access site states:

  Can I publish the published version of my publication on arXiv?
      No. An ACM author cannot grant arXiv.org or any other publisher rights to distribute their works that have been published by ACM.

SHERPA/Romeo shows ACM as being a "Green Publisher", which would support the case that I can upload to ArXiv.

Dissem.in states that I can upload pre- or postprints under certain circumstances, but does not explicitly mention Arxiv, positively or negatively.

So, what is it? Can I submit a paper I published with an ACM Conference (ACM WiSec, if that makes a difference) to ArXiv or not? As I understand it, ArXiv is a non-profit, so it would fit the terms of the publishing policy. Or is this related to the rights you have to grant ArXiv upon submission?

If I can only publish a specific version of the paper, which one?

This is a matter of obsolete documentation.

The current version of the "ACM Author Rights and Publishing Policy" you linked to is v9, last revised in 1/2016. This version says that authors have the right to:

  Post the Accepted Version of the Work on (1) the Author's home page, (2) the Owner's institutional repository, (3) any repository legally mandated by an agency funding the research on which the Work is based, and (4) any non-commercial repository or aggregation that does not duplicate ACM tables of contents, i.e., whose patterns of links do not substantially duplicate an ACM-copyrighted volume or issue. Non-commercial repositories are here understood as repositories owned by non-profit organizations that do not charge a fee for accessing deposited articles and that do not sell advertising or otherwise profit from serving articles.

(emphasis mine.)

The previous version, v9 with a 5/2015 last revision date, only gave authors the right to

  Post the Accepted Version of the Work on (1) the Author's home page, (2) the Owner's institutional repository, or (3) any repository legally mandated by an agency funding the research on which the Work is based.

The Fair Access FAQ page is from before January 2016, and reflects the old policy.

The current policy as of January 2016 does allow the accepted version of the work to be posted on "any non-commercial repository or aggregation that does not duplicate ACM tables of contents" such as arXiv.

malexmave confirms after contacting ACM:

  FAQ was indeed outdated. Posting the peer-reviewed / accepted version to ArXiv and other non-commercial repositories is fine (but not the final version). Policy change does not apply retroactively, only to new papers under the new policy.


Should a personal statement for grad school discuss large challenges in personal life? "Large" includes "health issues", among other things.

I know someone facing this situation. She has successfully used her story in applications to important programs during undergraduate, and it did explain some time she had away from school (I believe this includes broken time during her undergraduate study in total, I also think it was earlier on.)

There are reasons grad school may be different: "Can she finish?" is arguably top concern and this concern is agnostic to reasons and may be as simple as "troubled past, troubled future." And also simply the fact that people discriminate - conscious biases and unconscious biases are both common. There's a reason employment law (and I believe similar laws hold for grad school admission in the U.S.?) protects against asking about stuff like this.

Plus my general feeling is that a personal statement can really only hurt you. It helps them know the person they are evaluating but obviously the rigor of course study and research experience is what counts.

In short, would the professionals here corroborate my instinct? Or does personal story like this sometimes add positive weight to an application? And, often enough that it may in fact be worth it?

I'll specify this is a science field for U.S. schools, I'm guessing that might help understand the circumstances but probably I don't need to be more specific than that.

My own experience includes the opposite of what you describe. I have evaluated statements of purpose (SoP) with specific stories of overcoming adversity where the story helped me conclude that this was a courageous person worth taking a shot at. This was, of course, accompanied by strong grades (though not necessarily stellar) and supportive letters.

I strongly disagree with your notion that an SoP can only hurt you.


How do I deal with postdoc acceptances that come in before my preferred institution makes its decision known? I will graduate soon from the doctoral program. I will apply for multiple postdoc positions. The results of the one that I really think is great for my career will be probably announced later than the others. If I accept an earlier offer, and later learn that I could also get the one I desire the most, then I will really regret. However, I don't want to risk by refusing an early offer, since at the end I may get nothing.

Do you have any recommendations for such situations? Have you ever experienced this dilemma? How did you manage it?

This can be difficult. If you get an offer with an uncomfortable deadline, I would recommend bringing it to the attention of departments which you prefer (and/or individual faculty at those departments).

This is not guaranteed to push them to make a faster decision, but it could.


Should graduate applicants follow instructions by department NOT to contact potential advisors? I am applying for doctoral programs in biostatistics and have read multiple places to attempt to set up contact with a potential advisor before applying.

What if the department website specifically says to not contact potential advisors? There is a research lab I am very interested in joining (my top pick), but I still should not contact this professor, right?

Here's the exact wording of the website:

  "Should I contact faculty about RA opportunities?
  No. All applications are reviewed by our admission committee and students do not need to (nor can they) try to find their own mentors prior to admissions. Having an interested faculty member in no way influences the admission process, which is based on an evaluation of your application only."

There are multiple practical reasons for not asking you not to contact advisors prior to admission:

Advisors may not know how many RA positions they will have available until later in the year, and departments do not want that to discourage people from applying.
They may have an established procedure for allocating students to research groups; "jumping the gun" would therefore be discouraged.
They don't want undue influence from various faculty members lobbying the admissions committee in support of "their" candidates.

Note that this is also because at many schools—particularly in Europe—individual faculty members are responsible for advertising their open positions. This is not the normal procedure in the US, thereby leading many schools to explicitly state that students should not directly petition individual faculty members.


What to do when you are invited to another university? I am currently a Ph.D. student. I was invited for a week by a professor from another university in a second country. He told that he likes me to meet his research team, and to show me what they are working on. This collaboration is intended to be a preparation for a postdoc position in his department.

At the current situation, I do not know what exactly should I show him. I thought of preparing a presentation about my Ph.D. work. Besides, discuss several things.

Also, Is this something that can be written in my CV?

Offering to give a presentation about your work sounds like a very good idea. I would suggest contacting the professor as soon as possible saying that you would be keen to present your work. By giving them early notice, you give them the chance to either arrange something for you, or to pass your details onto anybody in the wider department who may run the sorts of seminars/colloquiums where such talks often take place.

In terms of other things you could do, if they've already told you that you'll be introduced to other members of the research team then that sounds like a lot of that will be organised for you. Another thing you may want to consider is to see what other regularly seminars, journal clubs, research groups, etc. already exist that might be of interest to you. If this is somewhere that you may have the opportunity to go and work at then you want to have the fullest sense of what your working environment would be like.

As for putting it on your CV, I'm not entirely sure that a visit is entirely relevant. If it was a visiting job then include it, but something casual like this probably not. It is the sort of thing that may be well worth discussing (if it's relevant) in a cover letter or supporting statement that goes alongside applications.


Something similar to MBA, but with support? If someone can't afford to go to school for an MBA, but wants to train to be a manager, is there some compatible Master's, which has a reasonable level of support (teaching assistantships)?

I would definitely suggest the Chartered Financial Analyst program (aka, the CFA exam, https://www.cfainstitute.org/pages/index.aspx) for learning the few "hard" skills I would expect a business manager to have -
 such as, accounting, basic finance, elementary quantitative/organizational skills, etc.

Not only is it basically free compared to the cost of an MBA - total cost = $4000 is possible - it is, with regard to the relevant, real, demonstrable skills and knowledge base, far more rigorous and comprehensive than probably any MBA program (explanation below).

While I am not exactly sure what you mean by "a reasonable level of support (teaching assistantships)", if interpreted as "a desire to obtain requisite knowledge", I believe this is the best route available regardless of how much money you have. If that interpretation is incorrect, then hopefully the following will help out a bit.

While the CFA program is considered to be a graduate level program, it is not an actual university "Master's". This may be of concern when considering the culture of management and, more generally, business today.

First of all, you can get an MBA in about 2 years. Furthermore, you can do so while applying very little effort. Of course this all depends on the school, whereas the CFA takes at least 4, if you make it through. (Last I saw, success rates for the level 1 exam were 33% - has there ever been an MBA program that failed 2/3's of their freshmen class in any given year? Levels 2 and 3 have rates slightly higher, somewhere around 45-50%)

Combined with the notion that university education, especially in these related fields, has been transformed almost completely into an instrument for class division and social hierarchy (and away from learning and education), it may be (and I am certain it is) that an MBA is not for training, knowledge, skills, performance, etc, etc. but rather as a prerequisite for acceptance into the management/business class/social structure.

For evidence of this see the growth in the administrative body of universities compared to faculty and combined with absurd growth in the costs of it and ask yourself what this does to the society at large and why it is necessary. Not satisfied? Need a stat?

According to the article by Andy Beckett in a recent Guardian publication, "In 2017, half of recent UK graduates were officially classified as “working in a non-graduate role.”[1]

Combine those tidbits with the fact that evaluating the success, merit or performance of managers, or of the tatics/skills/curriculum generally associated with their education is extremely difficult if not impossible. And the idea that what you are really paying for with an MBA is the acceptance into a social class may at least seem plausible.

Now, it is apparent that I am not a fan of the whole business world and the state of higher education but, I think it is hard to argue that the value in the MBA program is not, at least in some material way, dependent on what it means for one's social status. And this value must be accounted for when accessing the CFA program which is void of such factors.

Another commonly referred to source of business school value is that of "networking". I'd love to trash that idea as it is literally the opposite of what university education purports to be (pursuit of knowledge, anyone?) but, it does in fact hold some value somehow, and that source of value is absent from the CFA.

And, in demonstrating evidence for my claims against b-school and management and to back up the idea that we cant even be sure if any of it or its teachings have any value or truth at all, don't forget that the business/MBA led world recently failed to predict, understand, or even recognize the complete collapse of the system they were suppose to understand and were completely in charge of.

If you can ignore the emotions such a statement and its content may invoke and realize that my goal is to compare the program I suggested as an answer to your question, then it should be evident that while the points I have made may be debatable, hold some amount of truth. Because of this and that I don't think I fully understand what you are looking for, I think these points are relevant when considering alternatives.

Anyways, this got long, point is, if you are seeking to learn management principles you would be fine in buying maybe a couple hundred bucks worth of books. This is essentially the CFA is combined with a difficult exam to validate yourself with. Whatever the case, best of luck.[2]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/19/post-work-the-radical-idea-of-a-world-without-jobs
[2] Full disclosure,I passed the first 2 levels of the exam before focussing on software development. But I can attest the fact that it is pretty difficult but definitely achievable.


How to avoid desk rejection of a paper on novel findings? I've prepared a manuscript on biomedical sciences and my advisor, who commonly reviews papers from high-impact journals, and my co-advisor, who is in the editorial board of an open-access journal both liked it. I'm very sure that my results are novel, and I did my best to prove my hypothesis.

So, I sent this paper to high-impact (around 7) journals and both sent "desk rejection" one saying "it was out of scope" and other one suggested couple other journals. We couldn't send our manuscript to those journals because they had strict word limits.

So, I decided to send it to a medium-impact journal, and again they got us from novelty and rejected it in only one day.

Again, we sent it to a good-impact journal of Elsevier, and after one week in "awaiting editor decision or reviewer confirmation" now I see "decision pending", so we probably got another rejection.

Considering our findings were novel, our written language had no issues, and we tried to do our best with what we had in the lab, what do you think is the issue?

I really don't want to send it to a low-impact journal; so shall I consider some "nonspecific area" open-access journals?

both sent "desk rejection" one saying "it was out of scope" and other one suggested couple other journals.

I am not going to lie - "out of scope" is a bit the academic version of "it's not you, it's me" in dating. Don't take this feedback as "your paper is ok, this is just not the right place for it". It may easily also just be an editor trying to be polite.

I don't know how common desk rejects are in the biomedical sciences, but in computer science they are rare enough that getting one from a regular journal (as opposed to, say, Nature or Science) is a pretty hefty red flag against a manuscript. Getting multiple desk rejects would mean that I would very critically reflect on the manuscript before trying anything further. Specifically, you say:

  Considering our findings were novel, our written language had no issues, and we tried to do our best with what we had in the lab, what do you think is the issue?

I would encourage you to revisit these assumptions. I don't think that results per se are usually what gets papers desk-rejected, but either a completely inappropriate write-up, submitting to journals where your paper is entirely out of scope, or obvious lack of scientific rigour as expected in the discipline.

I have found it to be a good heuristic to look at a random selection of other recent papers in the journal you want to submit to. Even if your results are novel, your method and paper structure should be similar to some of those. If you can't find any recent paper that resembles yours, it may be out of scope. For empirical work, also take a critical look at sample sizes. If all papers talk about hundreds of participants or survey responses and you have a dozen, talking about the novelty of your results won't get you far - it may still be rejected for lack of rigour. Similarly, if (almost) all other papers are empirical and yours is completely theoretical, or the other way around, look elsewhere.

I am aware that I have not directly answered your actual question:

  How to avoid desk rejection of a paper on novel findings?

The real feedback I have is - ponder the possibility that, after multiple desk rejects, your problem may not be that your findings are too novel. Get external, unbiased feedback, and find out why the paper appears so problematic to people not close to your work.


How do you (digitally) catalog the books you've read over the years? I wonder how you  keep tracks of what you've been reading over the years. I'm not talking about things that are 'relevant' and 'precious' to your academic work (to that end, all hail to EndNote or Docear and such, perhaps), but I'm keen to know how you track the 'miscellaneous' books you have in your personal library and other reading materials that you've laid your hands and eyes on in some other 'unusual' contexts.

How do you help yourself with remembering some dots (over the years) so that you have an even better chance to connect the dots?

[Story time, skip if you please] When I was 6 and started to have some sort of grasp of the alphabet , I was immediately told to make a 'Book of Books' by my godmother. It was a spiral notebook dedicated to the purpose of keeping tracks of all the things I was reading with details such as "title", "author", "page no.", "fav. quotes", and "one-liner summary". I also used colors, stickers and colossal-sized drawings/mind-maps while doing my catalogue work; simply because - ehem - the more stuff I filled up in there, the more sweets and ice-cream I got from my godmother. I kept up with this practice until I was 10 (then all good things come to an end, they say). Anyways,  I love this spiral notebook to pieces, and to this date whenever I look at it I can vividly recall the books that appeared in my life around that time. It's been super helpful and wonderful.

[Q&A time] Now at age 26,  I'm at a loss as to how to produce something similar: something simple enough but effective enough. I've tried to do it both manually (notebook/folder) and digitally (Excel spreadsheet/Goodreads) but nothing works anymore and nothing feels the same anymore.

With good old-fashioned lists, it's hard to retrieve things sometimes and it's almost impossible to 'share' it with anyone else. With catchy modern things, I can see book covers and retrieve/share book lists/recommendations with ease, that's wonderful. But because of this there's just too much 'noise' and 'temptation', and it's not like my life isn't miserable enough with Facebook and other ADHD-inducing platforms.

Please help! Any recommendation is much appreciated. How do you (digitally) track your personal libraries over the years?

I use a wiki these days! I've been using a personal wiki to collect notes about everything I learn, read and watch since last year and it's great. I've installed a DokuWiki on my personal website, and it's like my micro-wikipedia.

Installation is not complicated and anyone willing to tinker with tech should be able to find a way to get it working in a couple of hours.

Before that, I've used Evernote, and also note taking capabilities of my kindle for that.


Should a list of typos go in thesis defense presentation I have a list of about a dozen small errors I've personally discovered in my thesis. Is it advisable to have a slide during the presentation listing these? I understand that this is superfluous, insofar that the examiners will probably already have identified these, but I want to look as if I am aware of them coming into the defense. Is there any possibility it could be considered insulting?

I wouldn't suggest a slide for what is probably just a minor matter.

However, you could print out a list of them, deliver them to the committee prior to the event and say they will be corrected in the final version.

It may even happen that one or more of your committee members will have read your dissertation (shocking, I know) and will provide you with a few more.

But for the talk, focus on the insights in the work, not such minor details. Most people attending talks want that, in any case. The details can be found in the paper.


Use official titles in Acknowledgements I am writing the Acknowledgements of my thesis and I would like to know if it's necessary to use the official academic titles.
For instance "Thanks Dr.X for his invaluable help in ....", but it could happen that actually Dr.X is a Professor, or he prefers the D.Phil or PhD.
Should I make a little research to be sure that no one will feel "offended"?
Or is there some consensus about this matter?

Thanks in advance.

Yes, it is probably best to be a bit formal in acknowledgements. The difference would be two or more true peers, in which case they may collectively decide to be informal. But if you are a student, then it is wise to err on the formal side.


ibid or Ibid (Capitalisation)? ibid or Ibid?

Context:

In my efforts to use footnotes for the first time in my essay, I've come across a few problems (which you might know if you've seen Part 1 of the ibid journey.
I recently read online that it makes a difference whether you use ibid or Ibid (capitalization) in your footnotes and that there are even rules around this, at this site (I don't go to the school running this site).
They say:

‘Ibid’ should always be capitalized when it appears at the start of a footnote. If there is a pinpoint reference, that is, a reference to a specific place in the cited text, and the next footnote is to the same work and to the same place in the cited text, use ‘ibid’.

But, isn't ibid (or Ibid) always at the start of a footnote, so shouldn't it be always capitalised?

The Question

When should I use "ibid" or "Ibid" in my text? What difference does the capatilisation make?

Ibid is not a proper noun, so it's not capitalized as a matter of course. (Your own question contains several examples where lowercase 'ibid' is used correctly.) Whether it should be capitalized at the start of a footnote depends on the style guide used. For example, OSCOLA uses lowercase 'ibid', whereas the Chicago and Harvard styles use the capitalized form. When used for in-text citations it is typically lowercase, however.
Finally, when used with footnotes, 'ibid' doesn't necessarily occur at the start. In books I've seen 'ibid' occurring after parenthetical remarks, such as "For X, see ibid p. 50". Sometimes a single footnote is also used for multiple references, as in this example from the Physical Review style guide, where 'ibid' refers to the journal name:

J. M. Smith, Phys. Rev. B 26, 1 (1982); R. Brown, ibid. 24, 3 (1981); C.
Green, ibid. 24, 22 (1981).


Mentioning faculty member in SOP I have been advised to mention faculty members in the area I want to apply for (ECE PhD). My Question is: how much of an effect would this have on my admission? Maybe that particular faculty will not want to work with me but some other person in a somewhat related area will. Also how flexible would my choice of specialization be, when I am admitted to a university?

Although it depends on the particular institution, it can have a positive effect. If you do mention a faculty member as a potential adviser, be sure to briefly state why. Usually your explanation would be that you fancy the idea of doing research in XYZ and she is an expert in that area, or that you've read her papers about XYZ and you find them exciting.

Some research departments look beyond your academic qualifications, and "fit" is one of the possible criteria. Knowing that you've actually taken the time to look at people's research agendas and that you've concluded that there's a couple of faculty members you'd be happy to work with is a good sign.

Be mindful not to elaborate on things you don't have a good grasp on in an attempt to impress, as this can have the opposite effect.


How to respond to an unofficial PhD offer? I applied to 10 schools and have heard formally from 3, 2 rejections, 1 admission. I just received an email from another school (a very good one) saying that they are seriously interested in me, but would like to know if I am still interested in them. While I am very interested in this program, which is in my top 4, since I have not heard from the other 6 schools, I am not ready to make a decision. Does saying yes now mean I am committed to accepting their offer?

If they are still "seriously interested" in you, then that is not an offer on their side.

If you are still "seriously interested" in them, then that is not a firm commitment from your side.

Decisions are not binding until the ink is dry.


Regarding withdrawal of a paper which has not been registered for conference I had submitted a paper for an IEEE conference. My paper has been accepted for presentation and potential publication. However, I have not paid the registration fees and do not wish to  register the paper. I want to submit the same paper to some journal. So, is it necessary for me to withdraw the paper from the conference by writing some sort of email or Can I simply submit it to some other journal without withdrawing it from conference? I mean what is the need to withdraw the paper if I have not even registered it. Non-registration would automatically mean withdrawal

Some conferences will publish even without registration / payment (exceptions, special support, considered worthy etc), so you have to contact them to properly withdraw the paper.

You must properly withdraw the paper before you submit it to another journal as you cannot submit the same paper twice.


Is GitHub adequate for purposes of giving a manuscript a timestamp to protect against plagiarism? I wrote a paper that I want to put on my webpage, but that I don't want to publish anywhere.  I think that I need a timestamp on it, in case someone decides to plagiarize it.  Is GitHub adequate for this?

Let's be scientists (It was fun to try out):
below is a small repository, where I first tried 'lol' to have a timestamp in the future ... doesn't work; but at least in 'history' I could backdate (bit unlikely that I authored s.th. in git 1980 ;-).

But at least the day that I pushed is set by github.com. In total, though, I wouldn't trust this scheme. ``I forgot to push but look at the authored date, I totally solved it years ago''.

Jul 15, 2014

history
2b5d4208aa Browse code
choener authored on Jan 1, 1980

lol
fc2a68a571 Browse code
choener authored just now

https://github.com/choener/lol/commits/master


Can I publish a paper with new proof but the same result? I found a better proof for a theorem than a proof from a published paper. Is it possible for me to publish my proof with the same theorem citing that paper?

You can publish anything interesting.

There are instance where a new proof of a new theorem is not interesting. There are also cases where a better exposition of the existing proof is interesting.


What motivates researchers in industry to publish their results? Are there any references which discuss why researchers in industry publish their findings? For example, they might be motivated/required to publish as condition of some grants, to promote some product/firm, or to contribute to public knowledge.

I am mostly interested in the field of computer science > machine learning / NLP / data mining, in English-speaking venues and in the USA.

It would be ideal if there were any studies that looked at those reasons directly, but I am also interested in answers supported by experience. I am especially interested in trying to rank those reasons (e.g. 30% of papers were published due to grant conditions, 50% for lab/researcher's credibility, 40% for the firm's visibility, etc.) or at least have a sense of what the main motivations are, and which potential motivations play only a minor role in the publication intent.

First of all, it's important to understand that the boundary between "industry" and "academia" is a lot blurrier than may be obvious.  It is certainly this way in the United States, and what I hear from colleagues in Europe leads me to believe it is similar over there as well (though the specific mechanisms may differ from country to country). As somebody who straddles that boundary myself, I see a lot of different people in industry publishing for a lot of different reasons.  At the end of the day, however, it mostly all boils down to the same core reason as in academia: credibility.

Despite all of its flaws, scientific peer review is still the best established means that our society has come up with for judging the credibility of factual claims (side note: legal and political systems are primarily concerned with justice, rather than facts, which has subtle but significant differences).  When a scientist working in industry wants to establish the credibility of their work, peer review is an excellent choice for doing so. The reasons for wanting to do this in industry are very similar to those in academia:

Scientific credibility from publications improves a researcher's ability to secure funding.  This is true both for external funding (e.g., from government agencies), and in competition over priorities for the allocation of internal funding.
Establishing credibility increases the likelihood that others outside of an organization will choose adopt the ideas or products that you are advocating.  For example, published scientific studies are critical to establishing claims of safety and efficacy in the process of drug development.
Publications also establish a researcher (and their organization as a whole) as a contributing member of the community: as they are sharing information and working openly, so will others be more likely to share information with them and work together in return.
No company exists in a vacuum: participating in the scientific discourse can help resolve the problems that a company is facing in its own work.  This is particularly true regarding standards and instrumentation, but extends more broadly.  No matter what organization you work for, most of the smartest people work somewhere else, and demonstrating the scientific value of your problems by means of publication can attract the interest of others to work on those problems for their own reasons.
Scientific credibility also can improve one's standing in an organization, leading to promotions in your personal position.  Some companies even provide a tenure-like status (and I believe in some European countries you can actually get tenure in a company).
Personal pride plays an important role too: industrial researchers are no more immune to ego and vanity than academics.  If you've got a point to make about an idea (or lots of ideas), the scientific literature is one good place to advocate for your view and obtain satisfaction when others respond to it.

Finally, industry/academia collaboration is very common, and even if the industrial partner might not have published on their own, the academic side of the collaboration will want to publish, and the industrial partner will rightfully be included in the author list.

As these apply in general, so to do they apply to machine learning, natural language processing, and data-mining.  Certainly this is a good description of why the researchers in these areas in the company I work at publish quite strongly, and fits what I see from others in the area as well.


Is it unheard of to pursue writing a relevant master's thesis while enrolled in a capstone-project based masters program? I am currently enrolled in a capstone project based maters program (in Analytics, from a business school) openly geared towards developing practical industry specific skills for its students.  However, I am beginning to feel strongly that my calling might be to attempt to pursue a career in Academia.  Without opening a can of worms about how a pivot ought to take place (or might very well be improbable), I am wondering if I might be able to have my cake and eat it too.

Though my program obviously does not outwardly support it, assuming (BIG assumptions probably) I was able to build the appropriate relationships, invest the sweat equity, and carve out a pathway, would that even be possible?  Or have I jumped the shark here?

Thank you in advance for your consideration!

What's possible is based on what a professor (who has enough authority) will approve. So if you can get the capstone director on board, it is probably possible.

The program may also hesitate to let you NOT do the project that tests and shows off your practical, industry-specific skills. This sounds like a core part of their degree program, including (potentially) the soft and practical skills.

What else should you consider?

For this project to be as good as it can be and valuable academically, you need to identify who has the skill to evaluate your work. To what extent are the faculty of your program industry-based versus academic? For this to help you toward your goal, you would want to work with a professor who has a Ph.D. and actively publishes peer-reviewed work.

If you stick with the project-based capstone, here are some additional alternatives toward your goal:

Take a specialized class that involves a writing research paper with an academically-oriented professor. It may be easier to wrangle in an extra class into the program than to substitute the major requirement, and it's a smaller ask of that professor, if they do not know you well yet.
Try to find a job doing research work with a business school professor. (This might be while you're studying, during a summer term, or after you graduate.) The practical analytical skills you're learning will probably help you wrangle data for a professor, who in turn can show you what they look for in analysis as an academic, rather than as an industry analyst.

Business school professors are probably going to be more open to this than most other professors, especially if the university has few or no doctoral students in business. At the same time, they may be unused to professional students approaching them about research, and they may be wary or protective of their time.


Take advantage of coursework based masters program As mentioned in my other post [How negative to go in a statement of purpose? I tried grad school once before and now I am applying again. The first time I did not feel I got much from the experience for lots of reasons. The program then and the program I am applying to now are both coursework based not research based.

For this question I want to focus on the feelings of the courses. Mostly the class topics were interesting, like in the catalog, but lectures and homeworks were not very hard. Almost like intro level classes even though it was grad school. Or like an extra year of undergraduate. I thought I would be expert or closer to expert but I did not feel different at all after those classes. I feel like I should have got more out. And yes it was a real accredited university not a for profit school or diploma mill.

I want things to go better next time around. My question is what I can do different to get more from the experience? Appreciate the advice!

EDIT:
The answer helps but I asked because I feel like I do not know enough even to know where to start with approaching instructors with higher order questions. I did not mean the class was so easy because I am expert. I meant the class did not add much to what I already know. The program is designed for skills for industry not preparing for academia or research if that matters. In other words I did not really feel I got new skills.

If I understand correctly, you are yet to be admitted to a graduate school and wish to know how to absorb the course in its maximum if you get admitted.

When you are attending the course and not feeling that you are getting enough, which you mentioned as your earlier experience, the way forward is to contact the instructor personally for higher order questions with evidence that you are indeed interested and capable of solving them. I am sure that if the instructor has had research experience in the particular subject or at least a closely related subject, which is almost the case in universities, he/she would be able to help you in this regard.

Now, how to approach the instructor is a different question. You must do an initial search on your own about the core problems in the topic, find a problem  and try to come up with a solution of your own. Success or not, you may then submit with explanation your analysis and ask them for their comments. Chances are that you will be rewarded for your work, at the very least you may get a contact recommendation to another faculty who is working in the field.

All of this are referenced to a future period of time, I think this case is valid since you have clear plans to join a graduate program from the spirit of your question.


In a revision, is it essential to address editor comments, even if they misrepresent a reviewer comment? We recently received a "revision" notification for a submission in a good journal. The reviewers raised a few valid concerns. In addition to the reviews, the notification e-mail also contained a summary by the editor. The editor asked us to make a change which was not explicitly requested by any of the reviewers, but could be read as a wrong interpretation of one particular reviewer comment. Performing the change would take a substantial amount of work.

Would we hurt our chances if we didn't address the editor's summary, including the comment?

Your best bet here is probably to contact the editor requesting clarification on what’s being requested before you put in a lot of work. Perhaps something along these lines:

  Dear $EDITOR, we welcome the reviewers’ feedback and would like to obtain clarification on the recommended changes. Reviewer 1 has suggested $THING1 but the summary proposes $THING2, which is different because of $REASONS and would be a broader change. Could you please clarify whether these broader changes are required, or if it will be sufficient for us to address $THING1?

Or, if you really don't want to do $THING2:

  Dear $EDITOR, we welcome the reviewers’ feedback and would like to obtain clarification on the recommended changes. Reviewer 1 has suggested $THING1 but the summary proposes $THING2, which is different because of $REASONS. It is not feasible for us to do $THING2 because of the amount of extra time this would involve. Would it be acceptable for us to submit a revision that addresses $THING1 without the broader changes implied by $THING2?


How much does it cost the publisher to publish an academic article? I am interested to know the cost of publishing an academic article. I do not mean in the simple sense of "what does a given journal charge an author to publish?" or "what does an association or publisher charge a library for access to the journal?"

Instead, I want to know the actual costs of translating a manuscript into a final publication (for web or print). This matters for open science - and open access specifically - because there is an enormous amount of debate about the financing models for open access journals. The two dominant models are one where the end-user pays (library, reader, etc.), which is often seen as antithetical to open science, and one where the author pays a fee after manuscript acceptance. Neither the charges paid by libraries nor the charges paid by authors necessarily illustrate the true cost of publishing an article (due to "prestige", between-publisher variation, profit margins, journal bundling, discounts, etc.).

So, what is the actual cost? And what are components of that cost (e.g., copyediting, typesetting, server space and internet bandwidth, etc.)? In short, if an author (or someone else) were to express academic publishing costs on a per-article basis, what would that number be?

Ubiquity Press breaks down their £300 ($500) APC as follows:

38% indirect costs for things not related to the publishing of a single paper but which are needed for the business (£114 or $190)
34% covers editorial and production aspects, which appears to be the costs associated with producing the paper, managing submissions, responding to authors, preparing proofs, typesetting, XML etc. (£102 or $170)
16% is a waiver premium charged so they can offer 0 or low APCs to people who genuinely cannot pay (£48 or $80)
8% is used to pay for indexing, archival (in case they go bust), DOI etc (£24 or $40)
4% goes towards costs of billing you and taking payment (£12 or $20)

Depending on what you consider to be the actual publishing costs (here probably the 34% editorial & production costs + 8% Indexing & Archiving) you would be looking at ~ £126 or $210.

Ubiquity don't break their indirect costs down into server/platform costs; this all goes into the 38% indirect cost column.


What author position on publications is best for early-career academics in physics: First or last author? I am physicist, I do research in theoretical biophysics, and I just got a permanent position. I am still collaborating with my former postdoc advisor, with whom I already published, and we are about to submit a new paper.

When I was a postdoc, the best thing for my CV was to be first author. It is not entirely clear to me what would be the best thing now for my CV. Should I aim at being last author, corresponding author, or still first author?

I have asked this question to people working in different scientific areas, and got very different answers.

In general, I think last author. I'm pretty close to your field, though at a similar career stage, so I'm not the person making the decisions on your grants, so take this with that in mind! I'm also going to answer for the US, since that's the culture I know best.

In my experience, biophysics follows the cond-mat tradition of last author = group leader. Therefore, you being last author with a PD/grad student first author could indicate that this is a project that you led, and a student that you mentored, and that your PD advisor acknowledges this as "your" project. If there are only two authors, I think it doesn't matter as much. Being last could mean that you were the project lead, or that you left the manuscript in such a bad state that your PD advisor had to do most of the editing and then put him/herself as first!

I think the strongest sign of independence would be: your trainee first and you last. The worst sign would be you first, your PD advisor last (i.e. you are still just following their instructions, rather than developing your own topics.)

One caveat: that analysis assumes you're at an R1 or otherwise have students/PDs who can contribute first-author-level effort. I've also seen: trainee moves to a position at a non-R1, and doesn't have graduate students, but continues a collaboration, and usually publishes papers with former PD first, then UG trainees, and PD advisor last. I don't know how common that is, though, and if you're in that situation, it might be worth mentioning to your department chair that that's how it works, and that you are not just salami-slicing your PD work.


Returning to grad school after several years in industry, who to ask for references for NSF graduate fellowship? I got a masters degree in computer science in 2012 and worked in Microsoft since then. I'm returning to get my PhD starting spring 2017.
I would like to apply for the NSF grad fellowship but having been out of school for so long and not being in school at the time of the application, I'm not sure who to ask for references. I have exchaged a lot of emails with my potential advisor on possible research directions and he will be reviewing my application but I'm not sure if that's enough for him to write me a letter.
For admission, I got letters from my former professors but I'm not sure if those will be strong enough.
I have a really strong research proposal. (At least thats what my potential advisor says)
Do I have a chance without strong reference letters?

I have reviewed for the NSF GRFP before, including a few applications from students with extenuating circumstances.

Your potential advisor can still write you a reference letter. I have seen some first-year graduate students get relatively strong reference letters from their new advisors. The advisor writes their impression of the student based on the first 3-4 months of working together, plus the student's application materials to the graduate program if they were particularly strong. The best thing your new advisor can do, though, is attest to the level of support you'll get from them and the university for your research project and training endeavors. If they can speak to the feasibility of your project and how it potentially ties into the work that they're already doing in the lab, but still how it stands independently, that could go a long way.

And yes, your other recommendation letters should be from those former professors, who can speak about your scholarly promise. The best thing would be if one of them could address the gap in some way and confirm that they are confident you are passionate and that your time away only renewed your passion for graduate school, or whatnot. A reference writer who believes in you and who you provide with a resume and a statement that attests to this might be the best person to do this.

If your supervisors at Microsoft were not PhDs and did not do research they are not suitable references, so don't submit any from them.

However, I would also consider whether you might be eligible to apply next year, and consider waiting to apply in fall 2017 if you are. The NSF says this:

Applicants who have completed more than twelve months of graduate study or have earned a previous graduate or professional degree are eligible only if they have had an interruption in graduate study of at least two consecutive years prior to November 1 of the year the application is submitted. To be eligible, applicants must have completed no additional graduate study by August 1 of that year. Applicants must address the reasons for the interruption in graduate study in the Personal, Relevant Background and Future Goals Statement.

It sounds like you might be eligible next year as well, given that most school years don't begin until after August 1. You may be more competitive next year as your advisor would've known you for a year and you may also be able to get one other reference letter from someone at your graduate institution. Since you can now only apply for the NSF GRFP one time, consider when is the best time to apply.


Percentage of waiting-list students offered a PhD position As a result of comments on my earlier question, I am posting another question.

Is there a rule of thumb for what percentage of waiting-list students is eventually placed, or invited, for a PhD position.

No, there really isn't a rule of thumb for this.

For graduate departments that admit on a fixed cycle, they generally have a certain number of places open each year. They admit from their applicant pool a number of applicants that, when all decisions are made, are designed to give them their target number of enrollees. If, for some reason, the number of students who accept is significantly smaller than the target, and there were good students who were wait-listed, they may be offered admission, although this is by no means guaranteed.

For graduate departments that do rolling admissions this is obviously not an issue, as they don't need a wait list.


Am I likely to be perceived as less successful if I start as an assistant professor at age 40? Several professors, including my former advisor and a senior member of my research community, have been encouraging me to apply for a faculty job. I am torn about it mostly because I am 40 years old. Leaving a job in a research lab to start as an assistant professor would in a way seem like a starting all over again.

I believe that my pre-PhD experience leading projects would lessen the learning curve that new tenured track faculty goes through. On the other hand, I am not sure if there would a be a stigma associated with my age. I would have gone for an academic position ten years ago in a heartbeat, for the research, freedom, and teaching. But I had personal reasons for not being able to pursue PhD sooner.

Is it too late to do it now? Would the low academic rank to age ratio make my job harder, leading to possibly being prejudiced that I must not be successful to still be at the lowest branches?

There are several threads here asking about pursing PhD later in life, but I do not recall any of them addressing starting an academic carrier.

I would say it depends. In the following question, JeffE resoundingly stated that age does not play into the decision whether to appoint somebody for an academic position. Yet, ETH Zurich (one of the world's premiere institutions in the technical sciences) even publicly states that they will rather not hire an assistant professor older than 35 (see the information box on the right).

Pragmatically, you may be a bit out of the norm. This may give you a small edge in some cases, and may be a small disadvantage in others. For every academic that is concerned about your age, there will be another one that values your industrial experience. I would say, if age is the only thing holding you back, then go and apply for assistant professor positions.

  Leaving a job in a research lab to start as an associate professor would in a way seem like a starting all over again.

Assistant professor isn't the same as associate professor. Both are not the same as "starting all over". In practice, in most places I have seen, professors on all levels are able to work quite independently, so none should be seen as an entry-level job. Assistant professor may be entry-level in terms of professorships, but it is actually a quite senior position in the wider context of academia.


What does top-tier mean when referring to journals/conferences? I see people here often use the term 'top-tier' when referring to journals/conferences. Is it used to refer to the top publications in terms of metrics like the impact factor? Or is it used to refer to venues which are traditionally highly-regarded but not necessarily having high impact factors?

Top tier can mean a lot of different things to different people - and indeed, can mean a lot of things to different fields. Ask a diverse group of academics drawing from math, health science, and the humanities what a "good" impact factor is sometime if you have the chance - the variability is massive.

Personally, for me, when I say "Top Tier" I'm usually thinking of soft factors - journals where solid publications go, venues that you'd highlight on the cover letter of a CV, etc. That often has an association with Impact Factor, but it's not necessarily fixed. For example, PLoS One has an impact factor that's about on par with several journals I'd consider "Top Tier" in my field, but PLoS One isn't on that list.


What is the difference between SCI and SCIE? I knew that the difference between SCI (Science Citation Index) and SCIE (Science Citation Index Expanded) is that SCI has a list of top quality journals, while SCIE includes more than the former.

I found a link that seems to support this previous statement. However, I can't find any official information on this regard.

Does someone has some official links to what the difference is? if any.

Thomson Reuters customer support explanation on SCI and SCIE:.

  The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a sub-set of the Science Citation
  Index Expanded (SCIE), containing journals that rank competitively
  among the most highly-cited core journals in their category or
  categories. The Science Citation Index Expanded is essentially the web
  version of what used to be a database available only on
  CDRom/Diskette.

  When selecting the journals for the Science Citation Index we choose
  the top journals from each subject category and supplement this with
  top regional journals from each category to give broad geographic and
  multidisciplinary coverage. The evaluation of and acceptance of a
  journal for the Science Citation Index Expanded or the Science
  Citation Index is essentially the same with one major difference.

  This difference is in the application of citation analysis to the
  journal. While every science journal in our database is covered in the
  Science Citation Index Expanded and only those journals of relatively
  significantly higher citation impact are selected for the Science
  Citation Index. In other words, Science Citation Index covers only the
  most highly cited, highest impact journals in each category. This is
  because of the constraints of the CDROM and print media there is no
  difference in the selection process for Science Citation Index and
  Science Citation Index Expanded journals.


Finishing up an honours project dissertation, discovered an engineering law that means the majority of the designed system isn't needed, what do I do? I created a concept offshore pumped storage hydro system using the open sea, pipelines and concrete vessels to simulate the upper/lower reservoirs and conduit of an onshore scheme, where the natural slope of the seabed would act as the head. I designed the concept and how it would all be installed/set up to show that it is technically feasible, while also assessing the economic feasibility ie capital/operational costs and revenue.
While writing my discussion however I came across Torricelli's law, which essentially negates the need of the piping from the surface as the system would perform in the same manner at a reduced cost. I don't really know where to go from here because it means that the majority of my methodology isn't required, and the economic justification would be completely changed as well due to the removal of all the materials/installation costs.
Do I include this in the discussion and just admit that the concept has it's flaws, then list what could be done in the future work? It's due soon so kind of freaking out right now after spending so long designing and justifying it.

Torricelli's law/theorem is not an engineering law (which could be interpreted as having some legal aspects); it is a fundamental result from the physics of fluid flow.
The closely related theorems of Torricelli and Bernoulli are useful starting points for engineering work, but nothing more, since they are highly idealized and involve many assumptions. These assumptions have to do with compressibility of the fluid, friction during flow, wetting of the pipe walls etc.
Since you're doing experimental work, you can actually investigate how much these factors actually affect the intended use  and therefore establish how adequate the theoretical law is. If you focus on it from this perspective, I think your results can be valuable.


Tenured professor wanting to go back to school for a PhD in a different field I am a tenured professor in the field of education (learning sciences). I have been employed at my current university for six years now. Most of my research has been done in classrooms, researching the effects of instructional strategies on student achievement.

As I have been out in many different schools in different cultures and countries, I started to develop a new interest in the effect of physical environment on the behavior of students. Later I found out that the field is called environmental psychology and I am just so intrigued by the idea that school architecture and interior design can have impact on behaviors of students.

It has been about a year since I first started to feel passionate about the field. Now I am searching for graduate programs in the field. But giving up my current status and starting a new life as a graduate student requires a lot of courage. I have not heard of any professor who went for a second PhD degree in a different field. I don’t even know if they will let me in the program. I do feel like I can give up my current career for my passion in the new field.

Lots of people change their career during their lifetime. I have seen classroom teachers as old as fifty go back to university for a PhD. Why can’t a professor go back to school to change his/her field? But I guess I am afraid people will think I am crazy or that I might regret this later in my life. I am 40 years old, and I feel like perhaps this is my last chance for a field change. I would appreciate honest advice from other professionals in academia.

Tenure means you are set for life. If you have this kind of thoughts, you may not like the way you are set. A tenured professor has a lot of autonomy (especially in US). They have a lot of freedom in choosing their research. Among the things you can do as a tenured professor is switching fields. I'd advise trying to do that rather than get a PhD.

As a professor, people already know you are an experienced researcher and/or teacher, so it would be more likely for them to want to start collaborating with you. Plus, you have access to resources unavailable to graduate students.

What I would do:

Use my contacts (or go to conferences, write emails, whatever) to get in touch with an environmental psychologist.
Visit your new contact and sketch a work plan. Then see how you can find funding for what you plan to do together. You could also be a visiting professor for a while there and start working on a project you find interesting.
Apply for a grant with your friend and if you get it
Hire a postdoc. You can learn a lot by working with the postdoc.

I would add 5. live happily ever after as an environmental psychologist.

I would not do a PhD again if I were you, especially if it meant quitting my tenured job. Your family might not take it very well if you suddenly decide to forfeit your status as a tenured faculty. I think this will complicate things for you so much that it will offset all the advantages of learning the subject in graduate school.


How do I improve my rewriting and editing skills? When writing academic papers, I am really bad at improving what I have already written. I have heard that most of the time writing should be allotted to revisions. I know a few academics who are really good at keeping on revising until they are happy, but I simply can't do it. Knowing that a sentence/paragraph/section can be improved but not being able to do so is very frustrating.

My partial self-diagnosis:

I refuse to make big changes, probably since it is a lot of work. (This sounds like I'm just procrastinating.)
If write with collaborators (almost always), I do not want to change what they wrote or revised, unless it is obviously wrong. (This sounds like I lack confidence in my writing skills. Or I just don't want to upset my coauthors?)
Before rewriting, I can't even re-read properly. I don't want to re-read the paper carefully and create a current copy of it in my head. I tend to skip parts. Even after I have re-read the manuscript, it is not always clear what the current state of the paper is.

I am sure I have many weaknesses that I am failing to verbalize in this question, but I'd like to hear what others did to train their rewriting skills. Also, I want to hear how you rewrite.

FYI, I am not a native speaker of English but I have seriously written only in English. My field is science and engineering.

I recently posted a lengthy answer for a similar question a few days ago, the essence of which was to separate what you're going to say from how you're going to say it.

If you've done this for a paper, you can edit it focussing on writing style alone. This is a good way of avoiding the "big changes" you mentioned in your question: You will have made all these before actually formulating the text.  As a consequence, you should also know precisely what it is you are trying to say in each paragraph.

Iteratively refining a text can get you stuck in dead ends, e.g. if you choose a certain formulation and then can't make it sound right. One thing I often do when I get suck with a paragraph or chunk of text that I don't know how to fix, is to just delete it and rewrite it.

If you get stuck on the specific formulations themselves, i.e. you don't know how to re-write a certain paragraph, you could try explaining it (remember that you know what you want to say, but not how to say it) out loud to an imaginary listener.

Reading a paragraph out loud is a good way of forcing yourself to re-read it. It's also a great way of checking if something sounds silly or is not really comprehensible.

Update

If you're having trouble reading to yourself, you may want to try pairing-up with a colleague or co-author, and reading parts of the paper to each other. Granted, this may feel a bit awkward, but just look at it as editing the paper together. Working in pairs is known to improve motivation and productivity, and will basically force you to concentrate on the task at hand.

If you have problems concentrating in general, I can give you a few tips from my own experience:

Break down your editing into short bursts of at most an hour, and focus only on a part of the paper, e.g. the abstract, a figure, or any specific section.
The first few hours in the morning are the most productive for me. Try to find out where your own "best time" is.
Coffee. In certain cases, the caffeine can help you focus.


How can I deal with students who try to steer a course (in the online setting)? I am not a course instructor, but I am a teaching assistant for a large course in STEM in the large US school. I have been soliciting advice from students to improve the course and tutorial for the past some eight months.
However, during this time, I have been dealing with a series of taking students suggestions (or witnessing the instructor taking students suggestions) that "steer" the course, but then regretting it because it made things worse.
For example,

I host tutorials using PowerPoint slides. Students requested en masse that I should post my tutorial slides ahead of time. I followed their suggestion and the tutorial attendance plummeted to around 10 students, down from 80ish and the tutorial interaction disappeared altogether. Now I am basically talking to an empty room.

Students requested that the course problems should be more representative of the course, i.e., they should look like exam questions. The instructor and I decided to put test questions as assignments. Now the students complain that it is too hard and too lengthy. We augmented the questions and made them easier, now the student demand to see the actual exams and solution because now the questions are not the original ones.

This happened in the last semester. Two very vocal students went on week long rants about how hard the course was and how because of COVID-19 and all the stress we need to lower our exam difficulty. We took their advice and made the exams simpler. The course average wind up to be ~95% and those two vocal students were actually the best performing students all along. Even a snail could pass this advanced, highly technical undergraduate level course. The past year average were around 75%.

I have reached the perhaps pessimistic conclusion that

some students don't know what they want

some students just love to complain very loudly, even in anger, knowing that we have to remain placid, professional no matter how bad things get

students don't care about learning, only care about high score on exams. Some students would love it if the entire course was just one guy explaining the solution to all the previous year's exams.

How do we deal with following student suggestions in the online setting? I noticed that due to various online platforms and discussion board we provide them, in addition to semi-anonymity, some students are much more vocal, persistent. The instructors I've worked with are also more likely to give in to this small minority, lower the course standard, and basically getting steered by students into making the course worse.
Obviously I am a TA and my power is limited. But this might be useful for when I become a instructor myself or for other course instructors.

The game is: you listen, but then, you decide. Just because students don't like something, you do not have to do what they ask. Check whether what they say has merit, if so, you can promise to change for next year (or for the current if there is enough flexibility).
Well-designed courses often cannot be massively adapted on the fly. I always explain to students my rationale about unpleasant things, and I do that upfront (very important!). If you have no rationale, it means you have no good reason to do it the way you do and you should strongly consider to change it.
Note that giving in to every whim of your students is the surest way to lose respect. I am considered strict, but make sure I find out what students need, not what they want. And I practically always explain my rationale. I most certainly not always do what they ask, but I take it into account where it makes sense and they always get an insight of my decision process.
Most react well to that. If someone complains, I give them one opportunity, tell them I will decide whether I take it aboard, but then close the discussion. They have had their input, I will contemplate it, and apply either in that round or in the next years' one. Once the decision is made (which needs to be balanced and fair), you thank them for their input, but the discussion is closed.
In your case:

If absence damages the learning, revert to not giving out the slides, and explain why. However, if you are simply piqued by them not attending while the performance is fine, let it go. Ego has no place in the consideration. Alternatively, if they can pick up everything from the slides, maybe the latter are too detailed, or the course is too easy. Which of these is it?

Don't make the homework questions easier. Keep them hard and explain to them why. I mean, they need to have a chance of solving them (it shouldn't be impossible), but it needs to be a challenge. They will initially complain, but as they get better, they will start understanding why this is university and not just a continuation of high school. They should be harder than exam questions, as in an exam you have limited time. However, lengthy homework is not always desirable, there can be short, hard questions. You do not want to waste their time for hours with tediosity, you want them to learn.

Because of Covid, you could easily argue, the exams need to be harder, not easier. As they are carried out at home, they can be given access to material they can not access in class. This makes it possible to crank up the difficulty. Their argument works against them.

People react to what works. If you give in into any request made, not only they know they can play you, but they perceive you as inconsistent, and the situation will become increasingly worse. When you make clear how inputs are treated and how you will work with them, usually people respond well. Make clear that ranting, and emotional complaints or pressure will not cause you to change your opinion, but only rational arguments have a chance to do so. Make sure you yourself know that, that will reflect back implicitly to your students.
You set the ground rules early, and stick to them. It may be difficult for people who strive to be liked, but if a teacher blows like a leaf in the wind, few will like them, and none will respect them. On the other hand, some people are just randomly strict without rationale ("because I said so"); make sure you do not fall into that trap, either, by always considering an argument and understanding why you dismiss it.


Advice about job applications in the US (mathematics) I did my Phd in mathematics in Europe and am at the end of my second year of postdoc in Europe too. I plan to apply for jobs in the US in the fall (ideally tenure track, but I wouldn't mind too much doing a second postdoc, as I finished my phd early). I think it's the best place for me, as most of the researchers in my field are in the US. But I'm not familiar with the american system at all, so I would be happy if you could help me answer a few questions:

I know most applications go through mathjobs.org and that there are hundreds of applications for a every position. What is the best technique for an application not to be overlooked? Is it common in the US to email a professor at the university which offers the job and let them know that you applied/tell them that you would like to work with them? If yes, is it even ok to email a professor that I don't know personnaly but who I think knows my work or would be interested in it? In Europe it is very common and even necessary, at least in the countries I know, but I wouldn't want to do something that is weird or unethical in the US.
Someone told me that US universities tend to favor people who are already working in the US, especially for tenure-track positions (something about not wanting to pay a flight from overseas for the interviews). Is that true? Is it the same for postdocs?
Is it weird to apply for both a tenure-track position and a postdoc position at the same university? If I did so, would they automatically think that they'd rather give me the postdoc as I'm ok with both, and give the tenure-track to someone who applied only to tenure-track?
Are the chances of getting hired in an university where no one works on the same things as I do very low? Of course I would prefer to be in an university with nice collaboration opportunities, but just in case I was thinking of applying to others too.

Thank you very much in advance for your replies!

Answers to your questions (the numbering is the order you asked them):

You should definitely email people at the university who might be interested in and familiar with your work.  But for tenure track positions it is weird to say you want to work with them.  Instead, I would just send a low-key email just letting them know that you applied to their position and would be very interested in coming there.  The goal is to be informative but not pushy.
It is true that it is both more expensive and more difficult logistically to interview someone who is coming from overseas, but it certainly does happen.  They just have to want you enough.  For postdocs, there generally isn't an interview, so it isn't an issue.  However, some kinds of postdocs are funded by sources like the NSF that only want to support US citizens or permanent residents, so foreign applicants won't be considered for them.
It's not weird at all.  Doing so will not affect your chances at getting a tenure-track position.  Everyone knows that the job market is tight.
There has to be someone at the university who advocates for hiring you, which means at least they appreciate the kinds of math you do.  But certainly there does not have to be someone who works in precisely the same part of mathematics (and in fact often the "needs of the department" involve hiring in fields that are not well-represented there).

My background: I've served on a large number of search committees in pure mathematics at a couple of different private research universities.


ArXiv submission and LaTeX compilation ArXiv expects (La)TeX sources to be submitted rather than a PDF. But - if you build a document on a different system - different TeX distribution with different updates - you are not guaranteed to get exactly the same result. Worse than that - some packages/functionality which you're using may be missing.

How, then, should I approach making sure my (hopefully upcoming) ArXiv upload actually build and produce as little divergence from the version I build at home?

Upload the libraries that you use, along with your LaTeX source. This will ensure that your system and arXiv are compiling your source using the same libraries (rather than different versions of the libraries), which should ensure similar results (any remaining differences are due to the compilation process).

This solution bloats the upload to arXiv. Bloat can be partly avoided by only uploading troublesome libraries. Alternatively, you could try specifying versions of packages.


Switching tenses from past to present within a paragraph in a research paper I am confused about which tense to use in presenting my results in a paper.

"In this study, we created a mathematical model of the herding behavior using the A-algorithm. The goal of this mathematical model is to allow the ..."

Am I correct in using the past tense "created" in the first sentence?
Notice that in the second sentence I shifted to "is" instead of "was".

When do we use past or present tense in the results portion of the paper? Your insights will be of great help.

In a paper, actions taken are typically in the past, while goals, interpretations, and conclusions are still valid in the present.

Thus, the juxtaposition of tenses in your example is entirely reasonable: the creation took place in the past, while the goal remains the same in the present.  You could also, if you wished, place the goal in past by tying it to the creation, e.g.

  Our goal in creating this model was to allow the ...