Is is possible to anonymously encourage one's US university to make content accessible (e.g., as per the ADA)? I'm enrolled in a graduate-level program from a major US university, and these courses are predominately online. Classes are held via web conference, and most content is online. (It's not a public MOOC, but rather it's part of a curriculum with full tuition being paid, and relatively small class sizes -- less than 20 people per section.)

As an older student (but not disabled, nor a senior citizen (yet)), I do have many of the associated age-related challenges (bad eyesight, hard of hearing, hand tremors). As a result, I do make use of various assistive technologies (screen reader, captions, mouse-free keyboard navigation).

I find the program content to be not very accessible. Though, I admit I'm not that familiar with the accessibility requirements of the ADA. (I've listed some of my issues, below.)

I have commented & complained to both the administrators & professors. Not being disabled per se, my complaints don't carry much weight. Also, one prof threatened to fail me if I kept complaining & kept having problems (typical response: "none of the other students have complained / are having problems"), so I really don't want to be the torchbearer for this campaign. However, I'd really like them to stop & think about the choices they are making, even if the changes are only realized after I finish the program. They continue to make new content & new changes that impede accessibility. As far as I can tell, they either have no guidelines for accessibility, or they just don't care (the institution does have a documented history of ignoring accessibility requirements.)

Is there a way one can either raise this issue with the University anonymously (to avoid repercussions), or otherwise report them so that they can start taking this issue seriously?

Examples: zero captions for videos; very tiny content (browser zoom to 1000% (10x) makes it barely legible for me, but makes navigation difficult); many slides are "images" rather than text and therefore can't zoom/copy/paste; classes via live video conf, but A/V quality is often poor (profs not provided high-quality equipment, simply using iphone or such); online content is delivered in a proprietary adobe client (not HTML5) with poor accessiblity features; editing files requires using mouse with browser & can't use external mouse-free editors; not cross-platform, requires windows/mac (linux unsupported).

The appropriate place to raise this would be through the Disabled Student Services at your university. Even though you're taking the course as a MOOC, the DSS office still has authority over the course (unless it's being run through a subsidiary or joint-venture similar to Ed-X) as well as the responsibility to make it accessible. C.F. Harvard and Ed-X accessibility settlement.

If DSS does not respond, then the next place to go would be the ADA Compliance Officer on campus. If the university is receiving federal funds, they should have someone designated as such (and this person might share multiple roles, such as the Title IX Compliance Officer, etc.).

If that fails, then the university ombudsperson.

If all university channels fail, then you contact your State office of civil rights or  the Federal Office for Civil Rights (OCR). It's unknown whether the Federal OCR will be proactive and responsive during the current regime, but technically they are where the buck stops right before you go with a full blown ADA complaint.

Also, you might also pursue hiring private legal counsel, especially if you absolutely want to remain anonymous during the initial complaint phase. Ask your local disability center for independent living for referrals to local attorneys who take on ADA/504 complaints against universities (note this is very different from run of the mill ADA cases against private businesses) or consult with a national firm such as Disability Rights Advocates, CREEC Law, or DREDF, etc.


Using a source and being unable to cite it I am writing my thesis, and during my work, my advisor supplied me with some confidential documents that he still has from his previous work. Part of my work is based on these documents and I am unable to cite them because they are confidential. My advisor says that I can use them without citation because they are not available to public, but I am afraid using them without citation might be considered plagiarism and may come to hunt me me in the future.

What to do in this case ?

What to do in this case is EXTREMELY dependent on the exact nature of the documents involved, and particularly on who declared them confidential and why.  You need to talk about this in detail with your advisor and understand the situation extremely carefully, because otherwise citation may be the least of your concerns.

Let me outline a few of the scenarios that you might be facing here:

Your advisor may have supplied you with classified information, making you complicit in a serious crime and subject to high fines and a possible long prison term.
The information might controlled under other legal regulations, such as privacy legislation, insider trading, international arms control.  These are far-reaching laws that can interact with lots of bits of science you might not think relate.  Once again, potential criminal prosecution unless the information is carefully managed / abstracted / de-identified in a way acceptable to the agencies that enforce these regulations.
The information might be related to patents, trade secrets, or other IP not yet fully disclosed, in which case you might end up on the receiving end of a civil lawsuit unless appropriate permissions are obtained.
The information might be related to something that another group is planning to publish on first, and it has been disclosed to your advisor with the understanding that they get to publish first and not be scooped.  In this case, you need to coordinate publications schedules.

Many other situations might apply as well.  In some of these situations, some form of citation or acknowledgement is appropriate.  In others, the information must be carefully "fuzzed" and citation is inappropriate or even illegal.  The details cannot be guessed without a thorough understanding of the exact nature of the information and how you are using it.

Bottom line: go have a long heart-to-heart with your advisor and work out exactly what is the nature of the confidential information and what is the appropriate way in which traces of it should be handled in your thesis.


How to make programming lectures more effective and stimulating? I've been assigned the position of Teaching Assistant for the programming part of my university courses in Bayesian Inference, at the MS level. I previously taught a course, a few months ago, in Computational statistics. My experience doing this, with no previous teaching experience, has been not so great because of generally poor student's performance, probably due to a lack of familiarity with the programming language used (R).

I am preparing slides lecture by lecture, with embedded code that I run and comment upon on-the-go. Occasionally I propose exercises but execution is often sketchy and I find many people cannot use the basic constructs of the language with enough fluency to create code that runs "on the spot". Given that I have a program to cover and I would not know what else to propose to the students other than exercising more and studying the syntax of the language -- I am, myself, in most regards self-taught about this, meaning that my programming abilities have little to do with the coursework I did during my studies -- do you have any advice on how to make my lectures more effective and stimulating?

Re: The desire for in-class exercises (code "on the spot") -- One thing I've discovered this semester (teaching introductory C++ out of the Gaddis textbook) is the idea of laboratory exercises with mostly filled-in programs, where the students only need to add a few lines involving the new language structures that you just lectured about. Compared to "write a whole program right now" exercises that I'd used in the past, this goes down remarkably well; fits in the right time slot for everyone, gets their hands/eyes to have typed that structure at least once, raises up the salient points/difficulties of exactly that one topic, etc.

The fill-in lab exercises I'm doing come directly from the Gaddis instructor materials, so that eases my workload a lot. Frankly, I wouldn't have expected them to work as well as they do, but every day there's an important teachable moment that emerges organically. Not a silver bullet for everyone, but it's kind of been a revelation this semester.


Is publishing a graduation requirement in many master's programs? I know a student in a linguistics master's program (in East Asia). He told me that in his country, most master's programs require students to publish a certain number of papers in academic journals in order to graduate. I want to study a linguistics-related degree in the US. Is such a requirement common there as well?

In the US, does "thesis-option" generally imply that one "must publish a thesis to graduate" or does it just mean "must write a thesis"?
Are such publishing requirements common enough in graduate programs in the US that it should be a question I ask schools when I apply?

I've never heard of a publication requirement for a masters degree in the USA or UK.  There is not even a novelty requirement for a masters dissertation, that's what makes it different from a PhD.  Obviously publishing is a good idea if you want to continue on to a PhD, it makes your CV look much stronger and shows your promise as a researcher.  But frankly, in the UK at least there is no time to publish before you finish your dissertation (Masters degrees are very compressed one year degrees) and most publications follow the formal completion of the degree.


What is the difference between two universities if students from either can take classes at the other? I was at a college meeting the other day and I learned that Harvard and MIT have agreements that students of both institutions can take classes at the other for credit towards their degrees. Besides the type of students you'll encounter more and things like housing and dining, what would be some more differences between attending Harvard and MIT?

Three key things to keep in mind when considering these types of arrangement are:

Different universities have different requirements, and taking courses from the one university will often not clearly satisfy requirements from the other.
Just because students can take classes at another university doesn't mean they will find it practical to cross town to do so.
Certain courses are restricted even within a university (e.g., Harvard's legal and medical programs).

Thus, for example, my observation of the Harvard/MIT arrangement that you provide as an example is that few students take much advantage of it.  Early undergraduate is dominated by core curriculum requirements that are incompatible between the two schools.  Mid-undergraduate likely focuses on requirements from one's major which are likewise either incompatible or duplicated.  It is only in upper-level electives, where the class is strongly individual to a professor, that there is likely to be a strong benefit for taking courses at the other university.  Even there, however, with two strong institutions there are a lot of good and interesting courses to be had "close to home," and students rarely choose to cross town unless they are strongly motivated towards a particular course.


A PhD student I know was terminated because of mental illness without any accommodation. What is the possibility of legal action? This question is related to the experience of a close relative. He was a PhD student in the US. During his PhD, a little over a year ago, he was hospitalized with his first episode of mental illness. His advisor immediately terminated his employment telling me that my relative was not fit to do a PhD in his lab. He further told me that he had worked with a mentally ill student in the past and it was a mistake and he cannot repeat the same mistake with my relative. While it hurt to hear that, I didn’t think much about the termination at that time as my first priority was helping with the relative's treatment and getting him back on his feet. He had to leave the country since he could not be on a student visa without employment and he has been staying at home since. The drastic life change and not having an independent source of income have been stressing him out and he recently had his second episode. I know this is a complicated situation but am I crazy in thinking that the professor discriminated against my relative by not considering any reasonable accommodations before letting him go? My relative is not a US citizen and is living outside the US now but is there a legal course we can follow? This has been an excruciating experience for our family and any advice/tips are greatly appreciated.

Note: There were no warning signs of the illness before it manifested and my relative was in great standing with the advisor - his research was going well, he had good grades and was not a cause of concern in any manner.

As others have said, this is probably a question for a lawyer. That said, we don’t have any idea of what kind of information  the advisor/university/HR dept has. Perhaps they had information that made them think they had just cause. It could be that your relative is either ignoring or perhaps just overlooking something you don’t know.

Depending on the environment, mental health issues could be a cause for termination because it would make you unfit or ineligible to continue. If the research involves very dangerous products (infectious organisms, highly lethal compounds) or a strict environment (BSL4, secure environment such as a government facility), the terms were probably spelled out somewhere in a document your relative signed.


What's the point of "CV available on request"? A certain fraction of personal websites of researchers has a hint along the lines of "CV available on request." I always found that a bit odd. Are there any situations where a researcher would

Actively ask another researcher for their CV; and
Would be more inclined to do so because they have such a hint on their website?

Doing this does convey useful information: it signals that the individual has made a conscious decision not to post their CV online. If you come across this statement when looking for someone's CV you know not to waste more time searching. I think this is the real reason people do it, rather than any concern that people might otherwise not think to send an email.


Prob/Stats Teaching talk (tenure-track interview) I have a tenure-track interview in a prob/stats department (my research area is quantitative finance), and part of the process is a 30-minute teaching talk:

"...demonstration of how you typically teach a class of undergraduates, or a discussion of your teaching methods, or more ideally a combination of these two. The topic is up to you, but we suggest something aimed at a first or second year student. You are welcome to demonstrate a variety of innovations in teaching methods..."

I have some teaching experience, but I have not given a teaching talk before. I'm trying to choose a topic and find a way to structure my talk, what to avoid, etc. Any suggestions?

You only have 30 minutes so they can't expect this to be too deep. I would break the demonstration into two parts.

20 minute teaching demo
10 minute discussion of teaching methods

Actions speak louder then words so I would show them how I teach first. If you start with a discussion of your teaching methods, the committee will probably interrupt with a bunch of questions and use up all the time. If time matters this could be a serious problem.

For the demonstration, it's best to stick to a topic that I have complete mastery over and need no notes or textbook to teach anymore. I will already be nervous and don't need the cognitive overload of trying to teach a topic I do not totally own.

The actually teaching method that I would use would be a conservative one because I am trying to show mastery of teaching. I would not try to teach in a new experimental way unless I have already thoroughly mastered such a method. Better to lecture with perfection than to try cooperative learning with utter failure. Below is a sample lesson plan that would work for a statistician.

Explain what the students are going to do today (2min)
Demonstrate the new skill (7min)
Practice the skill together (5min)
Allow the students to practice the skill individually or in small groups (5min)
Correct together (1min)

For the discussion on teaching methods, I think they want to know more than just what methods I used because they just saw that. I think what the may want to know is about my philosophy, which is why do I teach or use the methods that I use. So this provides me with an opportunity to explain what I was trying to do during my demonstration. Why did I explain to the students the purpose of the lesson? Why did I demonstrate instead of lecture? Why did I do practice problems together? etc. Please keep in mind that teaching methods are derive from various philosophical positions about teaching/learning so understanding your philosophy of teaching is providing a deeper explanation of the methods you use.

Again, putting the discussion at the end assures that I have time to demonstrate my teaching and allows the committee to ask questions during the discussion.


TA position in different discipline? I was recently notified of an opportunity for a TA position.
The same email went to the whole department.
The position would be helping/teaching a class in a different
discipline than mine.
I only wanted to ask other people's thoughts about applying
because the message specified the only requirements to apply were to be a
PGR student in the department.
I would ask the faculty in charge of hiring but don't want to look
more stupid than I have to.
I would think that it wouldn't make any sense for me to apply
since my background is in what would appear to be an entirely different
field. But maybe I'm wrong??
Shouldn't they have also specified that it's open only to
PGR students in that field? My common sense says that they would expect
interested applicants to be able to understand that it's implied to be
for applicants studying or researching in that field.
But maybe there's something about TA positions I'm not aware of?

Some departments need a lot of TAs. Math, for example, since there are a lot of people taking elementary courses. If there aren't enough graduate students in the department to cover the need they might need to look elsewhere, but probably within the same institution.

But this would vary a lot between institutions. I don't find it to be odd, but neither do I think it is common. If you are qualified to assist, or even teach, an elementary course then the position might be open to you. Note that it is probably also true that some departments have unmet financial needs for graduate students and this gives them a way to provide support.


How can I get the DOI of a paper from its title? Is there a way to get the DOI (Document Object Identifier) of a research paper when its title is available?

I am preparing a reference database I could not get the URL of all the references. So, I tried to search online but could not  get to anything. I will appreciate if anyone uses such tool/website or has any idea.

EDIT
I am sorry but my problem is little bigger. I need to automatically (not manually) get them from the websites. Of course, I do not want to do it for more than 50 papers if that is legal/allowed.

Reposted from StackOverflow:

  Here are three options

  CSV upload to crossref.org

  CrossRef allows you to upload the linked csv directly, and then
  performs a text query here: http://www.crossref.org/stqUpload/

  However, only 18 of the 250 queries (~7%) returned a doi.

  XML Query

  Based on the answer on SO by Brian
  Diggs, here an attempt
  that does 95% of the work - toward writing the xml-based query, it
  still has a few bugs that require some deletion using sed. But the
  biggest problem that my "session timed out" when the query was
  submitted.

  the xml syntax includes an option to use fuzzy matching.

  the doiquery.xml contains the template text in @Brians answer; the
  citations.csv is linked above. (using R, a sample csv can be found on
  I have posted the first few lines of the table on google
  docs,
  or the csv
  version
  (not all records have a doi))

library(XML)
doiquery.xml <- xmlTreeParse('doiquery.xml')

query <- doiquery.xml$doc$children$query_batch[["body"]]

citations <- read.csv("citations.csv")

new.query <- function(citation, query = query){
  xmlValue(query[["author"]]) <- as.character(citation$author)
  xmlValue(query[["year"]]) <- as.character(citation$year)
  xmlValue(query[["article_title"]][["text"]]) <- citation$title
  xmlValue(query[["journal_title"]]) <- citation$journal
  return(query)
}

for (i in 1:nrow(citations)){
  q <- addChildren(q, add.query(citations[i,]))
}
axml <- addChildren(doiquery.xml$doc$children$query_batch, q )

saveXML(axml, file = 'foo.xml')

  CSV to XML Converter

  Creativyst software provides a web based CSV to
  XML
  converter.

  Steps:

  Enter columnames in ElementID's field,
  "document" in DocID field
  "query" in RowID field
  Copy / paste csv in "Input CSV file".
  Click Convert

  Also, see this related question:
  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9880808/shell-script-to-parse-csv-to-an-xml-query


Is it acceptable to transform an accepted paper (tier-1 conf.) as a patent? Recently I have a paper acceptance from a tier-1 conference in our field of telecommunication. I have also submitted the extended version in IEEE Transactions as well.

Is it ok (and acceptable) for me to write the patent out these papers? (I understand that paper acceptance does not guarantee patent acceptance)

What will be the academic/career benefits for me to write the patent at this stage when I am writing my thesis?

Any information which you disclosed in your publication will count as prior art, and cannot be patented by you or by anyone else. If you wish to write publications about an invention which you also wish to patent, you must file for patents first. Hence, a paper cannot be "transformed" into a patent. If you have an invention which builds upon the information disclosed in the paper, this may be patentable.

Patents cost money to file, and expensive to maintain. There is also considerable skill in writing patents. There is no point in filing for a patent unless you intend to exploit it. As such, the academic/career benefits do not justify filing for a patent per se, and without a good plan to commercialise the invention, it will simply be a waste of money.


Email from editorial assistant from different journal? I sent in a Manuscript to a journal apart of the Taylor and Francis group. The manuscript was rejected, but today I received an email from an editorial assistant from another journal associated with the Taylor and Francis group.

The email includes the manuscript number and includes a bit in the email stating that this email is regarding the transfer of your manuscript, with the journal name of the journal that rejected the manuscript initially as well as the title of my manuscript.

I went to the journal from where the editorial assistant emailed me, and the editorial board listing does not include editorial assistants, but the email extension for the editorial office matched hers.

Basically, I have no idea what to think. I have never heard of this happening personally. I don't know what to do, if I should email back, or even if I have anything to worry about. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.

Journals published by the same publisher generally have a shared editorial system.  They may actually share some or all of their editorial staff.  So the second journal's editorial staff may be aware of what has been submitted to the first journal.

Moreover, different journals have different levels of prestige.  A top-tier journal is not going to be able to publish every correct paper they receive, only the most interesting/important ones.  If the same publisher has lower-tier journals in the same area, it often makes the most sense to resubmit papers that are rejected by the top journal to its less prestigious sibling.  The peer review process can be streamlined, since the publisher typically already has access to at least one round of referee reports.  This head start on the review process can speed things up, which is generally advantageous for all concerned.

So if a paper is rejected by a top journal, not because it has serious problems with the content, but because it is deemed to be not important enough, a less-prestigious sibling journal may contact the authors and suggest submitting it to the second journal instead.  Sometimes, depending on the what the referees have already had to say, the lower-tier journal may offer to publish the paper without any further rounds of reviewing.  (I had this happen to me once; and, in fact, I got the offer to publish the paper without change in the lower journal a few hours before I even got the rejection from the better journal.)

In this case, the editorial staff may have jumped the gun by assuming that you are automatically planning to resubmit your paper to the next journal down on the prestige ladder.  However, their is otherwise nothing untoward going on.  Clearly, the lower-level journal is interested in your paper, and there's a good chance that submitting it there will the best course of action to take.


Is a research article the most comprehensive information available about a research project? I sometimes stumble upon an article about an experiment, e.g a medical experiment done in some medical journal, or an article refering to a physics experiment done, and would like to know more exact details about the experiment and just in general as much information as possible about the subject.
I never wrote an article for a journal nor have I participated in the management of an experiment, but I understand documentation is done beyond what is written in the article, a journal article is a summary of the experiment and only elaborates on the important points.
For example a lab book AFAIK is often kept and used during the course of an experiment.
But this question pertains to theoretical research as well, e.g in mathematics; I may wish to find more information about the process by which the author came to his findings.

Is there usually a more complete documentation available which delineates the whole process of the experiment/research-project?
One thing I found is this Wikipedia article about "Open notebook science", but I understand this is not the norm. Still, I suspect I may be missing something (maybe a iece of documentation not as comprehensive as a lab notebook, but more so then a journal article.
Is there anything more for me to do if I wish to dig deeper and understand the subject more thoroughly?

Is there usually a more complete documentation available which delineates the whole process of the experiment/research-project?

Typically not all of the details of the research can feasibly be published. Different areas have different methods to cope with this. Some journals will allow supplementary material to be submitted that's made available online through the publisher's site. Some authors will add links to homepages for the project where more details are available. Sometimes authors will publish an extended "technical report" (e.g., with full proofs or full methodologies that would not be feasible under a page limit) and publish it on their institute homepage or a site like arXiv. I believe some biomedical journals allow for publishing databases containing micro-data on experiments ...

So it varies widely. The most generic answer, however, is simply to get in contact with the authors and ask them if more details are available! Their contact details should be provided in the paper.


Was forced out of PhD for academic/health reasons, need advice on what to do next I was accepted into a PhD in maths at a fairly highly ranked school in 2017. My supervisor was known for being quite demanding, but I wanted this because I wanted to push myself, and he is quite well known in the field I was interested in, which is algebraic geometry.

During the first year I was doing background work and developed my maths up to the point where I could start actually doing research. This involved going through textbooks and exercises and generally learning maths at a high level. Each week he was unhappy with my work, and would find holes in the proofs and logic, and holes in my understanding. After this happened over months, he began to suggest that maybe maths wasn't for me. Eventually he basically explicitly said this, and said that I wasn't understanding the material and wasn't able to think mathematically. He suggested that I drop out and "do something else with my life".

The other issue here is that I was suffering from depression, and was fairly burned out from my undergrad, and I blame that in large part for not being able to study efficiently and think clearly. I did end up leaving the program late 2018, and I got a medical certificate to document the depression.

The thing is, I am determined to succeed. I know for a fact that a PhD in maths is what I want to do, and I am not willing to give up on that. I am certain I have the ability, and am putting my failure down to the above mentioned issues. I am still doing maths every day to keep my skill level up and increase my understanding. At some point I want to reenter a PhD program. That is where my question comes in.

What is the best way to get back into a PhD? How much will my past dismissal (technically I left voluntarily) affect my chances? Given that my supervisor has said flat out that he doesn't think I am cut out for maths research, how would I go about getting an academic reference for any future application? Any other advice is appreciated.

If you want to continue at the same school I'd start by going to talk to the administrators in your department, hopefully as a PhD student they will be familiar with you and your situation. Ask about your options to continue your studies, and possibly seek out a new supervisor.

I'd also make a list of other schools you'd be interested in attending, and find faculty there with similar research interests, ideally you could try setting up a meeting to discuss your shared interests and ask them if they might be willing to supervise you or if they have any projects that might be a good fit for you as a PhD student.


Where can I find academic CV samples containing minor research projects for PhD applications without publications? Context:

Prof messaged me, interested in my CV
During my master's in mathematical finance, I may have had one "publication" if a quasi-thesis, that wasn't exactly a thesis, counts.
While applying to (more) grad school (pure not applied), I'm currently working in the tutoring industry (I'm not teaching in a university) as I have been since grad school (tutoring industry is very serious in country A compared to country B), and my industry CVs/resumes consist mainly of tutoring jobs (I've never had a finance internship, but I did have a sort of statistics/economics research internship).

I do not believe I have formal pure math research experience, but I have a lot of applied math research experience in our "thesis" (or technical report as Nate Eldredge might suggest) and class projects.

I have so far not found academic CVs for PhD applications that include minor research projects in master's (I don't know the terms. They are "research" projects but are not published or as long as theses. They're simply class requirements that are not exams or "homework"/"problem sets") so please provide references.

Examples:

UTexas - Ella Fitzsimmons

GOOD: has master's, no PhD
BAD: thesis only. no minor research projects in master's here.

UCSF - Rembrandt Van Rijn

GOOD: mentions minor research projects pre-PhD
BAD: has PhD and so mentions minor research projects pre-PhD without further elaboration

Academics - Anna Mustermann

GOOD: has master's no PhD
BAD: For master's: thesis only. no minor research projects in master's here. has publications

Surrey - ROBERT BROADSTONE

BAD: No master's. Has PhD. Has publications

Harvard - Anjan Lo Subramayan, Keisha Thomas

BAD: Has PhD/Is PhD candidate, No master's, Has publications

There is no need to follow a standard or template unless the specific job you apply for explicitly states that you should do so (which is rarely the case).

I am a biophysicist, not a mathematician, but from what I have seen you can put on your CV whatever you want, especially in academia: it is your CV. You should definitely include your minor research projects. You can have a look at templates for some inspiration but it is up to you how you organise your CV and which sections you include or not.

Publications usually only count if they are published in international peer-reviewed journals or books. You can possibly stretch this definition a little by including conference proceedings, abstracts, application notes, and so on, but it may be viewed as strange if you call these a "publication" (mathematicians, please correct me if this is different for you). In any case, this is the topic of your other question and is better discussed there.


How to use MLA for a paper in Spanish? I'm currently working on a Spanish paper in MLA for an undergraduate course and have stumbled on some confusion for my Works Cited for which I can find no definitive answer. MLA says that I should use the header "Works Cited" before my citations, but does this still apply for other languages? Should I put "La bibliografía" or "Las referencias bibliográficas" instead? Thank you!

I have always used/seen for MLA in Spanish, and instruct my students to use Obras citadas.  In truth, Bibliografía is vastly more common in native-Spanish, non-MLA works, but the same could be said of English Bibliography.

Since MLA keeps the references to strictly the works that were, well, cited (as opposed to read during research or useful for further reading), thus making a difference between a bibliography and a list of works cited, it has always seemed logical to me to make the same distinction in Spanish.

And just to give you a specific reference, grabbing a random journal I have here —Hispania, which generally uses MLA— references for articles are found in a section entitled Works Cited (English) or Obras citadas (Spanish/Portuguese).


Is it necessary to have many slides when presenting in conference? Is it necessary to have many slides when presenting in conference, if the speaker can clearly present his or her research with only just a few slides? How to decide when to use or not to use the slide? Science and engineering fields of research are preferred.

Slides serve the following purposes:

If the title of your paper is too long, you don't have to write the title on the board, losing time.
They keep the audience up-to-date. Gives an idea on what you are doing now, what you are going to do some time after.
Contains hard-to-draw figures. Therefore, you are able to talk to-the-point without losing time on drawing figures.
Contains experimental results. These, if extensive, literally cannot be drawn accurately onto board in about 10 minutes. Maybe they can be, but then there is no time to talk.
May serve you as reminder cards, therefore you don't forget what to talk about 2 minutes later.
In the Q&A session, if someone asks you about a table, a figure or a graph, you don't have to draw them again. Rather, you can just go back and answer the question.
If you are a junior researcher, you are able to write your name and affiliation on the slides, and avoid the awkwardness of writing your name on the board as if you're an instructor and if audience consists of students.
You can always support slides by using the board, and explain your points better.

These being stated, I think slides are crucial for a presentation where the time limit is considerably low (10-20 minutes including Q&A).


How to tell to my advisor that I want a co-advisor? I am a 3rd year phd student.
I have a good human relation with my advisor, who generally leaves me a lot of freedom in deciding my work and my next steps.

However he recently started a personal business that is capturing all his time and interest. The consequences are:

He started skipping the scheduled meeting, being available more or less once each three weeks.
He rarely reads what I send him, and if he does, he does it in the minutes just before we meet.

In general I feel that he has lost any interest in my supervision, to which he dedicates just the time of our meetings.
This in generally reduces the quality of what I produce and of the directions that my research can take.

At this point, I am considering the possibility of propose him to add a co-advisor to my PhD. In fact we are having a good collaboration with another professor from a different department (biology, I am in Cs) who seems very interested to my research; but I have no idea if he might be interested in co-advising me.

Might this be a good solution? And how to propose this to him without even hurt the good relation that we have?

A legitimate way of supervising PhD students is to start fairly intensive, but as they progress gradually reduce the amount of supervision/help. The purpose of a PhD thesis is to show that you can do independent research, so the advisor needs to enable that by not being too closely involved. This is obviously a tricky balance act, but that could be an alternative explanation to the behavior you see. The obvious way to find this out, especially if your relationship is good with your advisor, is to just ask her/him. If the problem is that (s)he is easing you to independence, then you know and you may talk on how to fine tune that process. If the problem is that (s)he is too busy with other things, (s)he would not mind the help of a co-advisor.


Does it matter from whom we receive a letter of recommendation? I am wondering is it important who is writing our letter of recommendation? I mean, does it matter whether the faculty is assistant professor or distinguished professor?

If all of your choices wrote the same letter, then of course the letter from the distinguished professor would carry more weight than that of f the assistant professor.

However, often the letters from assistant professors are much more detailed and insightful than the letters from distinguished professors, because they have usually worked with the applicant much more closely. They can therefore offer more detailed insights than can more senior staff. This is not always true, but it is at least mostly the case in my experience.


Asked to Apply to another Program I recently received a rejection letter from one of my top colleges for graduate studies. In addition to the standard rejection letter(for Program 1), I got another note from the chair of another program(Program 2) at the same university, suggesting that I opt for that program.

The difference between the two programs is that Program 1(which I was rejected from) usually gives out funding while Program 2(while being identical in all other ways) strictly says no funding. Is this usual in US colleges? I always thought that if you're going to get an admit without funding, you will at-least get an admit letter or is there any other reasoning behind this?

There is no golden rule that I've heard of that since you're not funded that you would be automatically accepted. There are not-for-profit and for-profit institutions, and each may receive public and/or private funding to do x, y, and z.

Sounds to me you were going for a program where you'd receive a stipend, and are being coerced to apply to the program that you would have to pay out-of-pocket (not really clear from the way you wrote it above). In any case, there are some things to consider:

How competitive is the program?
What about your transcripts or personal profile can you improve?
How about applying to more than one school?
If you received an offer, should you take it and see if you can receive a stipend in the near future?

You haven't provided much information, yet it will be hard to tell you what to do because there's an absence of the representation of what it is you want to do, and how much you want it. If it's something you've already spent your entire adult life to work on and have the acceptance letter, maybe it's worth considering taking the opportunity. Conversely, if you're right out of school and would benefit from some work experience and improvements to your transcript then it may be worthwhile to take a step back and try again soon.


How to collaborate with an experienced researcher as a first year master student? I am currently investigating some generalized properties in my mathematical research with my professor. We are basically now working together to produce new paper to publish.
My professor is very well experienced and he seems to know what he is doing very fast compared to me. I feel like I do not do anything worth the contribution for this project.

Is it normal for a first year master student to feel this way when he or she tries to write a paper together with a professor? How come can a person generate possible ideas to solve so fast? Is it because I am still inexperienced or am I doing something wrong?

I usually read some papers trying to get some ideas which might be useful but I still dont get anything really 'valuable' for the progress of my current project.

I am hoping for some advises coming from well experienced mathematicians / researchers. Thank you very much!

It seems to me that you are looking more for reassurance than advice. There's absolutely nothing wrong in seeking that on an online forum, but you must first speak to your professor and senior students working in the group. The internet is comfortable in anonymity, but you must not develop an aversion to asking people for help in person. That may be far more harmful than being stuck on a research project.

Now, remember you are at the very beginning of a research career. Your professor has spent years and years.  Isn't it unreasonable to expect yourself to generate ideas at the same pace? To answer your question, there is certainly an inexperience component. Whether you are doing something wrong can only be ascertained by your professor. Most likely, you are worrying needlessly. There is, however, always a chance that this line may not be ideal for you- you will have a better idea of that by time your program ends. Your professor will be invaluable here too, but you need to take the first step and open up to him.


To what extent should I follow "style rules" in academic writing? Some journals request that authors follow a specific style manual (e.g., APA or Chicago manuals of style).

One style rule is to avoid starting a sentence with an abbreviation (with some exceptions).

However, I found it unnecessary to spell out abbreviations like ANOVA (analysis of variance) or FMM (finite mixture models) every time I start sentences with them.

Should I strictly follow such rules in academic writing?

Edit: My field is biohealth sciences.

Your writing should strive for maximal clarity in conveying your intended meaning to the reader -- that is the ultimate goal that overrides all other considerations. Style manuals are simply sets of rules that people came up with that aid writers to achieve that ultimate goal. To the extent that I would perceive a particular style rule on a particular occasion to be in conflict with the goal of conveying meaning effectively and concisely, I would see myself as free to ignore the rule.

The upshot is that as long as it doesn't happen too frequently, ignoring style rules is fine if you do it not out of laziness but out of a sincere desire to make the writing as clear as possible. If you do find yourself wanting to break the rules very frequently, you may want to consider the possibility that your intuition about what makes for clear writing is not yet sufficiently well-developed for you to make the best judgment calls on such things. In that case I would try to stick with the rules until you gain more experience.


Everybody cheats, administration does not care, what to do? Context: A friend of mine is ending their first year in a community college (in France, called IUT, 2-year diploma) near my school, and apparently the school administration is quite lenient about cheating during exams ; I asked a few other friends of mine that are currently in second year there, and they have confirmed that nearly everybody cheats during exams, mostly because the questions don't change from one year to the other, allowing students to get the exams in advance and preparing for the questions. An important part of the exams are Moodle quizzes, which show the correct answers after submitting, and don't get modified from year to year either.

Problem: My friend does not want to cheat, for obvious reasons. The problem is that the way this kind of college works (in France) puts students in competition with each other ; your ranking among the other students is very important and is a determinant factor in your chances of being accepted in engineering schools after your second year (which is what most people in that community college do).

Multiple people have already tried reporting the cheating to professors and the college's administration, to no avail. Most professors don't seem to care, and the few that say they do care about cheating never act upon it. This results in mediocre (excuse the harsh term) students having an unfair advantage over good students trying to keep their integrity. This whole situation, combined with the Sars-Cov-2 lockdown has had quite a toll on her mental health.

My stance is to never cheat, but I'm having more and more trouble telling her to stay strong and do the same. It's gotten to the point that not cheating can have a significant negative impact on her future, and I couldn't help but feel responsible if she were to fail her year because of other people's dishonesty.

What is the best behavior to adopt here?

Unfortunately, in this kind of situation, it might be best for your friend to look around for a different educational institution.  It is all very well to say "just stay strong and don't cheat", and of course she definitely should not cheat, but it is still demoralising to work in an environment that systematically incentivises bad behaviour and punishes good behaviour.  Particularly given that her relative standing and future opportunities are being harmed by being compared to a substantial number of students who cheat, it would be good to look around for other places she can go.
Now, if there is no escape from this school (i.e., if your friend has no opportunity to go somewhere else) then I would suggest she try to set herself apart from the other students by doing some kind of extra-curricular project that cannot be faked.  If she can use her coursework knowledge to create some valuable project that she can exhibit to show her skills (e.g., writing a good paper on a topic, building a working go-cart, creating a diorama of how a smelting plant works, etc.) then she will have something to show recruiters for later schools so that she can demonstrate her knowledge and ability.


Publication sponsorship for research conducted elsewhere Do universities sponsor a student's conference travel and publication costs if the research on the paper has been done elsewhere? For example, a student may have published a paper during a master's at university 1 and may currently be pursuing PhD at university 2. Similarly will the second university bear the cost of the journal publication? Are there any caveats involved (eg., indication of university's name in the paper, related department, etc)?

On the other hand, will the first university sponsor one of its alumni for the travel? (This looks unlikely to me.)

At least in the cases I'm familiar with (math departments at US research universities), funding for travel is more likely to come from an individual department than from a university-wide source, so this would be a matter of department policy.  That's a little less true for publication costs, because some universities have started funds to pay for gold open access, but everyone is setting it up a little differently so I don't think one can announce a general rule.

At the department level, this really varies.  One department I used to be at provided a certain amount of travel funding to each student, to be used however they wanted (as long as it was for academic purposes, of course).  I think that's a little unusual, and many departments don't make a decision until the student applies for funds.

If you are in a field in which these costs are an important part of publication (not pure mathematics, for example), then this is probably the wrong question.  In such fields, the funding usually comes from the advisor's grants, rather than the university.


Modify the page layout of application materials (i.e. A4 vs. Letter) when applying for jobs in multiple countries? Most countries use A4 paper. The US and Canada use letter paper. When applying for jobs across several countries should application materials always be designed to meet the page layout norms for the particular job location? Will materials even be printed?

Question 1: When applying for jobs across several countries should application materials always be designed to meet the page layout norms for the particular job location?

I had never even considered doing this and I would not bother trying to change the paper format. If you do not change it, software will shrink the text to fit when it is printed. It might not look ideal but it is the content that matters. I can't imagine that anybody is going to hold the fact that you come from an A4 using country against you. If you do change it, probably nobody will notice.

  Question 2: Will materials even be printed?

I was just on a search committee. Every single member of the committee brought a laptop or tablet to the meeting. No printouts. When the shortlisted candidates were forwarded to the full department, I noticed that some people on the full faculty had printed out application materials. So, maybe?


What is the timeline for using arXiv in computer science? In mathematics, the timeline is typically as follows.

Upload a completed draft of the paper to arXiv.
Wait a week or so to see if anyone suggests changes, then submit to a journal.
Once the paper is accepted or major revisions are made, update arXiv. The final arXiv version is the journal version but minus any journal-specific formatting.
When the paper is actually published, add the "Journal ref" to the arXiv entry (this updates some data without creating a new version).

How is this done in CS when there is both a conference version and a journal version of the same paper, which nonetheless may be rather different? I know that the journal version is submitted after the conference version, but what is the timeline, and are the papers different versions of the same arXiv entry?

In theoretical computer science, a fairly common way to do it is roughly this:

Prepare a nice, complete, readable version of the paper and upload it to arXiv. This is usually known as the "full version".

Prepare a version suitable for conference submission (e.g. move some proofs to the appendix, save space here and there to meet the page limits, change layout if needed).

Revise both versions based on the reviews & comments if needed, and repeat.

Eventually the paper is accepted to a conference. Edit the accepted manuscript it so that it has the right length, the right layout, etc. Often there are page limits, and hence some details will be omitted. Refer to the "full version" in arXiv for the missing details. The publisher may or may not do additional edits before the paper appears in the conference. This is now known as the "conference version", and it is typically fairly different from the full version in arXiv.

For many papers the timeline ends here. However, some papers will also eventually appear in a journal, in which case we continue:

Using both the full version and the latest conference version as a starting point, prepare a paper for journal submission. If there are relevant changes, update the arXiv version.

Revise both versions based on the reviews & comments if needed, and repeat.

Eventually the paper is accepted to a journal. The final published version may be very close to the arXiv version, or there may be changes in the journal version e.g. due to the reviewer's comments that are not incorporated in the arXiv version.

In brief, there is just one arXiv submission (with potentially many revisions), and it is usually much closer to the journal version (if one ever appears) than to the conference version (which tends to omit some details due to lack of space).
Publishers may also have restrictions on how much of their "added value" (e.g. changes made based on reviewers' feedback) can be included in the arXiv version, and because of this the arXiv version may also be an early draft.
Conferences play a big role, they have strict deadlines, and people organize their work based on the deadlines, so it is common to see papers first appearing in arXiv roughly at the same time as when they are first submitted to a conference (± a few days).


Writing "thank you" note to professor who will write more LOR's? I have been working with a professor for research for over a year and will continue to for at least another year.

The professor has written several letters of recommendation for me in the past, and has agreed to submit more in the coming years.

Should I write a "thank you" note for the past letters, even though I still work with this professor regularly and will likely ask for more letters in the future?

If you are worried that sending such a letter would be something of a bribe for the future letters, you can rest easy. No one is likely to think that. But there may be a lot of reasons to thank professors, including what they contribute to your education.

But in the case that someone writes you a letter and you get an award or offer partly as a result, then you should definitely thank them.


Emailing professor about PhD application I am applying to a European university for Ph.D. Candidates are encouraged to contact their potential advisor before submitting the application. I did that and had a discussion too. I have submitted my application now.
Now I am confused if I should email the professor that I have submitted my application? Can that somehow be seen as negative? Too eager/aggressive?

I would follow up with the supervisor - files can get lost in the shuffle, and it's always nice to know that a candidate has followed through on their promise of an application by actually applying. I would make it a short e-mail.
(For what it's worth, if a supervisor is going to get angry about a short, polite administrative update such as this, they are probably not going to be a good supervisor)


Including Award Values on Academic CV When Applying For Graduate School I am going to be applying to schools for a PhD in the not so distant future and I received a couple of scholarships in my masters degree that are worth over $10 000.00. I am not sure if it would be a wise idea to include the values next to the awards or just the actual award names themselves. Here are a couple of thoughts I have as to why I should and shouldn't:

Should

Including the award values could be a good signal for graduate committees that I am somebody who is proactive in seeking self funding.
Including the award values might suggest that I have potential to attract more money of the same magnitude

Should Not

It could be considered unprofessional to add award values - I have no idea
It could be potentially viewed as arrogant, boisterous, and off putting
Graduate committees don't actually care how much they're worth and can look the awards up if they're interested.

Question: Should a prospective PhD student include award/scholarship values on the academic CV? Why or why not?

I doubt that if I were reading the CV that I'd care one way or the other. If the award has a name or title, you should list that: Award/grant from IBM to support research in "glub-bending at the cusp". But adding the amount is also fine. My response to seeing the amount would be "interesting", but not "yay" or "nay".

But the important thing, to me would be the fact of the award, not its amount. Not a big deal, though. Others might have different opinions, of course.


Evaluating and negotiating a start-up package I've been offered an academic position, and am now in the fortunate, but unfamiliar position of negotiating the offer.  I've seen a few blogs/comments/posts on this process.  However, I have no real idea how to evaluate the offer that's been made.  Coming from the position of a postdoc, the package seems impressive (given that, as a postdoc, my "package" consists of a very modest salary and health benefits).  However, I also realize the importance of maximizing (within reason) my initial offer, as this sets the baseline for, at least, the first few years of my faculty career and could provide support that would prove very important in the initial year or so while I'm trying to obtain grant funding.

In particular, I'm looking for two types of information.  First, what types of startup packages are standard for tenure-track assistant professors of Computer Science at a public RU/VH (i.e. Research) university?  This is just to give me some point of comparison.  Second, what types of changes are reasonable to negotiate?  Can I ask for more summer salary support while still conveying to them my desire to obtain grant funding as quickly as possible?  The offer already includes a reduced teaching load for the first few years --- is it also reasonable to ask for an extra semester off prior to a tenure review?

I understand these are fairly broad questions, but any input or suggestions would be very helpful.  I'm definitely interested in the job; I really liked the department and think it's a great opportunity.  I don't want to alienate anyone by pushing too hard, but at the same time, I want to make sure that I make every reasonable effort to maximize my chances for academic success, which includes maximizing my available resources by negotiating the best startup package I can.

Every department is different.  Everything I'll write is specific to my (top 5 CS, public, RU/VH) department.  And while I know quite a bit about the process of hiring new faculty, I do not know the precise details of any recent startup packages (except for salaries, which are public).  My department head manages all startup negotiations directly.

Our formal startup package is a bag of cash (formally: "unrestricted funds").  New assistant professors can spend that money to pay their own summer salary, support students, but equipment, pay for travel, and so on, in the hopefully brief period before they have active research grants.  Precisely how and when they spend the money is up to them.  Moreover, this money does not "expire"; I still have a bit of money in my 15-year-old startup account.  Again, I don't have an exact figure, but I'd guess somewhere in the low six figures.

Our teaching loads are already low — 1 course per semester — but there are courses, and there are courses.  The de facto standard is for our assistant profs to teach mostly smaller graduate courses (in part to attract students), with at least one semester without teaching in the first two years (to work on research and grant proposals).  However, it is important for assistant profs to teach a few required undergrad classes before tenure.  We usually pair new instructors with more experienced faculty the first time they teach such a class.  I don't know how much of this is formally described in our offer letters.

The other department that offered me a job n years ago had much more restricted startup package.  They asked me to give them an itemized budget listing specific equipment (which they would buy for me), a specific number of student semesters, specific dollars for travel, and so on.  At the time, I found this approach unreasonably inflexible, but it's much more understandable now because...

At least at my university, startup packages in each department are funded by indirect cost recovery from grants originating in that department — a small fraction of every grant I obtain goes to CS startup packages.  Thus, departments with more grant activity can offer larger and more flexible startup packages.  This is orthogonal to faculty salaries, which (at least at my university) are paid entirely out of state money, making them much less flexible.

  Second, what types of changes are reasonable to negotiate? Can I ask for more summer salary support while still conveying to them my desire to obtain grant funding as quickly as possible? The offer already includes a reduced teaching load for the first few years --- is it also reasonable to ask for an extra semester off prior to a tenure review?

It's perfectly reasonable to ask for anything, as long as you understand that the answer may be no.  Do not be afraid to ask stupid questions.  Everybody knows that you're new and don't understand the department's budgeting constraints and standards.  That assumption of naïveté gives you the freedom to ask for things you think are "obviously" unreasonable.  They probably are unreasonable, but they might not be.

Also, remember that if you're already negotiating startup packages, the department has already decided that they want to hire you.  That decision requires developing consensus among the faculty, getting approval from upper administration (not just for hiring you but possibly for hiring anyone), and filling out a metric buttload of HR forms.  (Warning: Some universities still use imperial buttloads.)  There is almost nothing you can ask that will change their minds about the basic offer.

Don't worry about giving the impression that you're not interested in applying for grants.  Any such impression will vanish the moment you actually start applying for grants!  (Which is soon, right?)

Finally, the best way to find out what's reasonable is to ask the other assistant professors in your target department about their startup packages.  Just straight-up ask them.  They won't all answer, but some will.


The Priority Criteria for Selecting The Principal Advisor Long story short, I have left behind a toxic PI and now I am considering applying for another labs at different demographic locations, however, I found it little bit harder to make a thorough decision. One of the challenges that hinders me to make a selection is different feedback from many students from different labs, I have asked them and there is their response as follows.

A star professor at a high ranking university:  One of his student told me he doesn't have time to manage the lab by himself and as a sequence, he hired postdocs to be intermediate between him and his students. In retrospect, the student informed that he had tried to leave the lab at the beginning, however, they continue and mentioning that he benefit from his PI's reputation. Adding that, he and other colleagues suffered from anxiety and chronic stress due to the demand of having highly quality research papers.
Intermediate professor not very well: His student told me he is not qualified to work with students, but the student told me that she doesn't feel so much pressure on her research.
Junior PI: I think it could be risky as I don't have any background about their supervision history. However, what makes interested to contact them as they did good research and we have the same passion for this research line which triggers me to contact them.

My previous experience with ex-PI, he was not junior and not star, but he did research for more than 14 years, however, he didn't help me in my research or even writing papers besides being abusive and very destructive person.

The question is : If am going to select the new PI which very critical decision, how I should consider these scenarios, for sure, I avoid PI in  the influence circle of the ex-PI as I have been advised before, but what are other key corners I should bear in my mind.

I know we cannot make sweeping generalization, however, I would like to hear from the academia community if your have any prior experience or recommendation I should consider to make a reasonable decision regarding the PI selection.

There are multiple facets to this.

Quality of research
Reputation "rubbing off"
Quality of mentoring
Amount of work and stress
Personal ties
I've surely forgot something.

The major problem is that some parts of this might be more important for you than for me and vice versa. So, the basic thing is to decide what do you actually want from this position:

Get a PhD and leave
Qualify you for further academic life
"Parking lot" until you have found a better position in the industry
Have fun
Whatever.

This impacts a lot on the "weights" on the above qualities. Further, in my experience it's never a broad choice, but rather a sequence of binary choices. Say, the junior PI approached you first, you declined, the gossip in the staff room got to the star PI, he did not suggest you a position. It's an extreme example, but it's not "should I go with PI A, B or C", it's "should I take an offer from PI X or not".


Is it common to feel CS lectures useless as a CS major student? I'm a computer science student who doesn't find lectures useful. I think self-studying is more useful and I should quit my degree in favour of a distant-learning degree. I've tried to convince my parents that lectures are useless for me and that I'd be better served on a distant-learning degree, but they disagree. They think all students feel the same way as me. Do all computer science students really feel this way?

I'm a computer science student as well, and I find lectures to be useful for getting a general understanding / "overall feel" of a concept. The prof often poses some question that makes you spend some time thinking about the problem at hand. I also feel that lectures are a good way to introduce a new topic to students, because learning some completely new topic from a textbook can be difficult.

However, in order to learn specific syntax and understand the deeper details, I don't find lectures to be that useful (since you need time to slowly learn complicated material). Rather, notes and code samples that my profs post online are much more useful, as I can methodically read them over and then practice writing code myself.

You should remember that a degree isn't all about just learning how to do something... rather, it also involves getting a higher understanding of a topic. To this end, attending lectures and trying to learn from the prof's experience can be rewarding. Besides, a degree from a more established institution will probably give better job prospects than a degree from an online university.


What Types of Content Should Be Included in A Poster Presentation of Unfinished Work? I am preparing my first research poster for a conference at my school that allows for participants to present on unfinished work. I would be interested to know from more experienced researchers what they would want to see in terms of content if they were to view a poster that does not have any results yet. I have also included below a couple of headings that I feel could be included in the design of the poster with a brief description of what I think they ought to contain. The ones that are surrounded by ?? indicate subject headings I am not confident should be worth including, but the first three seem somewhat standard.

To offer some context, I have a model but just have not been able to get preliminary results because we were waiting on data for a long time through a data sharing agreement.

Summary --- One or two bullets that can justify the project and is easily digestable
Introduction --- Offers some background and motivation to the research and ends in the research question trying to be answered
Data and Methods --- Points to the data used in the research project and methods used to answer the research question
?Expected Results? --- Because I don't have any actual results, I am thinking that I could supplement those with what answers I might expect to find.
?Implications? --- Because I don't have any results, I can't really draw any conclusions. However, I think that answering my research question will have broader implications

Rather than 4, you should say something about your hypotheses. You don't have "expected" results. You only have hypotheses and results. The results may support your hypotheses or not.

And rather than 5 you should say something about the potential significance of the study. Why is it worth asking the question and posing the hypotheses?

These two items should be #1 and #2, actually. Your #4 and #5 can only be discussed properly after you know more.

In a poster session for incomplete work, the attitude should be "What do we hope to learn (not show), and how do we go about testing it?"


International Math conference rejected paper without any comments! We had submitted a research paper (graph theory related), which included a set of theorems, lemma, and proofs, to an international Mathematics conference around 2 months back.

The decision on our manuscript has come just a couple of days back. The decision is 'rejected'. However, we do not understand why there were no comments associated with the decision.

We are not worried about the rejection, rather, we are worried about what are the possible comments for the decision so that we can probably improve our work to fit in next venue (journal or conference).

We have emailed a few times to the conference chair about the comments; however, not heard anything great.

Does anyone here with this type of experiences? Is it really possible that they rejected the manuscript without peer-review?

Remember that for any journal or conference, it is ultimately the editors (or organizers, program committee, etc) who decide whether to accept a paper.  The editors assign reviewers to help them make that decision.  But if the editor is already convinced that the paper will not be acceptable for publication, then they may reject it without sending it to a reviewer.  This is called a "desk reject".  In such a case, it can happen that no further comments are given, or only vague comments such as "not of sufficient interest".

This is certainly frustrating because you get no indication as to how to improve your paper.  But keep in mind, ultimately it is your job to write a good paper, and it is not the job of editors or reviewers to help you do that.

About all you can do is to reread the paper afresh, address any shortcomings that you find (or already knew about), and submit it somewhere else.


Should I Postpone Graduate School? I have a goal: It is to be a mathematical physicist. I dream to work in field related to the Amplituhedron.

This goal is non-negotiable.

From what I've read, it is difficult for a theorist to get a job, and this field is apparently very competitive. As it stands now, my student paper-trail is bad. My physics GRE score is bad but my GPA is solid. I think I would be able to get good recommendation letters, including a very strong one from the professor under whom I currently work.

I do not doubt that, if I tried, I would be able to get into some graduate school, but I have been toying with another option. Here are the two primary possibilities:

Get letters of recommendation and apply to grad. school. Then, go to whichever grad. school will accept me. In order for this to be viable, I'd have to go to a school which would, at least, allow research in something heavily mathematical. In order to get to the position I'd like to be later in life, I'd have to excel. This is not a problem, but is unfortunately more difficult at a less reputable school.
Graduate and work for a couple of years—mostly to pay off my exorbitant student debts, get a [much, much] better GRE score, and study (I am not as good at things as I'd like to be, and this studying would serve to drastically improve my ability). With a somewhat improved paper-trail, dampened by my taking a couple of years off, I would apply to graduate schools. I think my chances of getting into a better school are higher, but getting into a good school is not necessarily my goal.

My problem is that I don't know which one would maximize my chances of being a mathematical physicist. I do not know the dynamics of graduate research, or how large the differences are in excelling at a good school and excelling at a mediocre school. I'm, basically, totally ignorant in regards to what would be the better decision—and I'm hoping someone with more knowledge could help me make a decision.

Which career plan is best for me to enroll in a cooperative mathematical physicist PhD program?

Some opinions that may be helpful.  I assume this is in the US because as far as I know other countries do not use the Physics GRE.

The Physics GRE is a stupid test.
You seem to have what you need except for a good Physics GRE score.  (Assuming you attend a reputable school.)
Not all good programs require a GRE score.  Maybe you should apply to the the ones that do not.
There is no point in getting your PhD in a mediocre department.  Do what it takes to get into a good program.
Don't postpone a physics PhD for financial reasons.  Assuming you go to a good department, you will be reasonably paid while you are a student, and you will make a lot more money after you finish.  Loans may be deferred whine you are in school.
It should only take a few months to improve your Physics GRE score a lot.

On the whole, I suggest a one year postponement.


Reproducible research and corporate identity My university is on a drive to unify its corporate identity (it makes me sick just typing that). This drive includes branding our lecture slides, research talks, and research posters. The branding templates are not released under an open license and utilize a copyrighted logo and proprietary fonts. I think this prevents me from releasing my talks and posters under a free and open license (e.g., CC BY) which is one of the tenets of Reproducible Research.

Apart from creating two versions of everything, is there any way to reconcile this apparent incompatibility?

Is my understanding of licenses like CC BY wrong? Can I release something (e.g., a research talk or poster) with a copyrighted logo that I don't hold the copyright on under a free and open license?

My university has had enforced its "corporate identity" since the 1990s. It is described in details on a web site and available in a series of templates. Although I get a sense of tiredness when I read the material surrounding the "identity" I can also see benefits, to recognize the university "products" (sorry) among other materials at a congress etc. But, the question was about reproducing material.

As I see it I would want to have the logo on material such as posters or presentations so that people can identify my affiliation. I am free to post presentations and posters or other materials on my university site with the logos on them. If I want to put some material out that is mine I simply would not use a unversity logo. An example: I have written several hopefully useful booklets on scientific writing to be used by students. This material is my initiative and is not the result of the university asking for it. These booklets are distributed for free using our web-page and I would gladly distribute them more widely if there was demand. So from this perspective I can see two different "products" where one benefits from the logo and one where I do not want it.

Now the rules of my university says the logo is copyrighted which means others cannot use it. this still means I can post material with the logo in public places. The problem arises if someone takes my, say, presentation and uses it as their own. Then they break the copyright and make themselves guilty of a kind of fraud by associating themselves with an organisation to which they do not belong. I still have done nothing wrong, posting material is fine and even encouraged. The copyright also prevents people from the taking the university logo and adding it to their own "product" fo rexample showing it on their web-page or using it for commercial uses.

So now, the content. You seem to indicate that you will be prevented from displaying your work without the branding. I do not think this is correct. The laws on copyright and particulary intellectual ownership in my country is very clear. If you have created something it is yours. In a commercial company you may end up sign off this right by becoming employed so that the things your develop within that company belongs to them, not you. That is how research in pharmaceutical companies work, for example. My university system has made attempts to gain rights to lectures etc. but this has so far failed miserably due to the strong laws. You need to check these laws that apply to you since I do not know how they may vary internationally; I would expect them to look fairly similar.

You mention "proprietary fonts". This means the university has selected fonts and bought them from a font foundry so that you can use and copy them for free within the university system. This does not mean other cannot use them, they must simply buy them first so providing copies to persons outside of your university would be illegal. Since fonts are not included in Office templates or in pedfs resulting from your templates there is nothing illegal about distributing such documents. If you were to take the fonts and produce a product that you were to sell for your won personal gain, you will, however, break the law.

The bottom line, then, is that you can put your  material in the creative commons as long as you avoid the logo (ater all who would want to use a figure with somebody elses logo in it?). I cannot see the university preventing you from doing this unless they explicitly ask you to waive your rights. Material with logo has its place when you want to make sure your afficilaition is clear. If you do not want that, then I believe you are free to post things in another style.

Finally awareness of the laws and regulations concerning intellectual rights are important and I strongly believe it is good to carefully look at whatever applies in each of our cases so that we can react if someone tries to infringe on such rights.


How likely is it for a student to be expelled from university for online posts they wrote as a minor? There have been stories recently of students who were expelled from university for derogatory things they said online. It got me wondering if a student would be expelled for saying something derogatory online, except when they were a minor. In this scenario the student wouldn't have been 17 (right before they entered college) but more around the age of 13-15 when they made the comments (many years before enrolling).

I know this probably depends on each university's own code of conduct, but I have no specific institution in mind. Answers based off your own university are fine, and I'm more interested in Canadian universities (although members of universities in the US, Europe, etc are also welcomed to share any info).

To me it doesn't make much sense for a student to be punished for something they said years ago as a young teenager, but I digress.

I'd say it's unlikely for a student to be expelled from university for on-line posts they made years prior. It may impact the student's reputation and may sway acceptance decisions in case of multiple potential candidates for a course or curriculum with limited capacity for students, but being expelled for such a thing would actually not reflect well on the university in question and may actually have repercussions for the institution.

Of course, it strongly depends on many factors; the nature of the posts, the association with certain groups or not, individual student acceptance rules and conduct rules of the university and what is considered "enough time passed" to reduce the weight of those posts.


How difficult is it to get an academic position in applied mathematics when your PhD is in electrical engineering? How difficult is it to get an assistant professor position in a department (e.g., applied math) while you have a PhD degree from another area (e.g., electrical engineering)? Particularly, when you target only relatively good departments (top 20~30).

If it makes any difference, I am particularly thinking of becoming professor of applied math with an EE degree.

update: I don't know exactly what constitutes mathematical research in the eyes of mathematicians, but I can say there are some really theoretical subjects needed in my research. For example random matrix theory and empirical processes are prevalent in my research area. However, in spite of my great interest, I haven't been able to (or prohibited from doing) work on purely theoretical part of the problems. So I mostly have applied the existing theoretical results. Developing optimization algorithms with provable convergence guarantees, perhaps in statistical sense of it, are also important in the area I worked in. However, I don't think optimization is considered an interesting area for mathematicians.

How difficult it is to get a position in another field depends enormously on your specific interests and background.  Moving from electrical engineering to applied mathematics may be pretty reasonable, since there are some research areas that are widely considered part of both fields, such as control theory.  If you already work in the intersection, then you'll have some flexibility in your job search.  You'll have a much tougher time if you're proposing to change your research interests, or if you work on a topic that is not commonly studied in applied math departments, even if it could be.

A first test is whether you can find anyone with your background and interests in an applied math department.  If you can't find anyone, then it may be difficult to become the first.  (It could still be worth a try, but you shouldn't get your heart set on doing something unprecedented.)  If you can find such people, then you have role models.  At that point, you can start looking at the web pages and CVs of people who have made the transition.  Where do they publish?  How do they present themselves and their work?  Can you see any differences from people working in electrical engineering?  Of course you don't need to imitate these people too closely, but at least you'll have examples of what has been well received by applied math departments.  Some things can be adjusted on short notice, while others take time.  If you're a little further from fitting in, doing a postdoc in applied math may help bridge the gap.


I want to do a masters in Biology, but I hate lab work I have one year left of my Biology degree in the UK, and I want to do a masters. I love biology and I enjoy learning, specifically in cellular and cancer biology. However, I do not enjoy labs, I find it very mundane and boring, and also not rewarding. Most of the research I have done shows that all masters courses are project-based, and thus require labs. I do not want to a bioinformatics masters. I was wondering if anyone had any information or experience that could help, or could point me in the right direction?

You want to do cancer/cell biology but you dont want to do lab work or simulation work (bioinformatics). You have really hemmed yourself in.

What it sounds like may be of interest to you is the field of science communication. There is a real need for individuals who have training/knowledge in a field and are strong communicators to the general public.

For example, I feel very comfortable communicating to an academic audience but I have found that I struggle to communicate to the lay audience. I had an instance recently where I assumed my audience knew a piece of what I thought was trivial information. This was a very poor assumption on my part and made the communication of my research impossible as I had used that "trivial information" for my analogy explaining my research.

I listened to a talk from one of the editors of Nature talking about science communication this past semester and how critical it was (and how it was an underdeveloped skill in academia). There really do need to be more people who understand the science and can communicate it to the lay person.


Is it unethical to take a photograph of my question sheets from a sit-down exam I've just finished if I am not allowed to take them home? Last semester I've retaken a course and went through the exam. It was a sit-down exam and all students were present. All students are required put their possessions (phones, cameras, etc.) in their bags and put their bags in front of the room.

The students were not allowed to take the question sheets home.

As I was retaking the course, I feel the need to take a documentation to review my answers and to understand the problems better. So AFTER the exam was finished, I take my bag, grab my camera, and then I asked the supervisor (as the lecturer was not present at the site) whether I was allowed to take a photograph or not while gesturing to show my camera (which I had just taken out of my bag). It was denied and I complied without complaining.

Then I told my friend about that incident. He was quite surprised that I complied with that. He told me that he would take the photograph anyway for his advancement in learning, which he said it would be for the greater good but I can't actually spread / redistribute them as it would break the concept of exam itself.

The usual practice in my campus is that if the question sheets are allowed to be taken home, some students would scan and put them into a compilation and share them to the younger students to study and ponder upon as they will get different sets of questions.

Other than that, students that absent at the exam can take it at a different appointed time with a different set of questions.

So I'm stumped whether I should have taken the photograph or not. I thought it was unethical to take it if taking the sheet home is prohibited, but then my friends thought made me reconsider. If I took the photograph I would not create an unfair advantage for those who took the exam at a different date (if there are any) anyway.

PS: I'm sorry if I attracted heated discussions. And I think there is a misconception here. I don't intend to question the rule itself or trying to deceive myself. I only want to know how ethics and etiquette work as I was quite an anti-social from my childhood and I want to start learning about social life. I also didn't intend to redistribute the photograph at that moment.

PS2: My campus was located in Indonesia. I hope this will help to consider the problem at hand

PS3:
The rule was actually enforced by the Department. It would also be enforced to graduate students (and to postgraduate students IF they have any sit-down exams) . My friend which I mentioned above was in fact a graduate student.

The guidelines mentioned not to ask "Undergraduate-specific issues that could not apply to graduate or post-graduate academicians". As this question is also applicable to (at least) graduate students, I think this question is quite appropriate for Academia SE. But if it's still deemed as an inappropriate question by many and was closed because of it, then I'll just accept the closure.

Taking a photo is effectively equivalent to taking the question sheet home.

For either of these: it’s not inherently a bad thing, and (as your friend said) it can be good for personal study, and so on.  However, it can be used for unethical purposes (passing the questions on to students who haven’t taken the exam yet), so the school have prohibited it.  Given this, it is unethical, since it’s breaking a rule (and, moreover, a reasonably justified rule).

If the rules happen to be written in such a way that they just prohibit “taking the sheets home” and didn’t mention photos, then taking a photo may be allowed by the rule as written, but it is clearly still violating the intention of the rule.

So yes, the supervisor’s ruling was reasonable, and you were right to comply with it.

Edit.  There is, however, no problem with politely emailing the instructor afterwards and asking if you can get a copy of the exam (or parts of it).  No need to mention ethics or taking photos in the email; just say that you’d be grateful to have a copy for your own studying, if the instructor is willing to share it.  Maybe the instructor will say yes; maybe no; maybe “yes, but not until next week”.  But provided you are polite, and ready to accept a possible refusal, then I don’t think there can be any harm in asking.


What is citation index? What is citation index?
How are such indices calculated?
How can any journal become part of an index?
These are my questions about various indexes that are used at academic environments.

There is actually an entire field dedicated to answering the question about how to measure scholarly impact.

Two indices that you could probably compute by hand in a little bit of time are the h-index and the g-index.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-index

Also, if you are an author thinking about submitting a draft, and looking for a good journal in your field, one place to look is on Google Scholar. Go to scholar.google.com, then click on `metrics'. Google has auto calculated the h-index and g-index for the last five years of a lot of different journals in different fields. Generally speaking journals with higher h or g numbers are going to be better places to publish. (Not an ironclad rule, so check with a trusted advisor before sending something out, but a good rule of thumb)

If you are an editor of a journal and you want your journal indexed, then just write to the editor of Journal Citation Reports and ask about the process to be included. Be prepared for a lengthy wait though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_Citation_Reports


Is it ethical to have a relationship with a student after my supervision of him is complete? I am supervising a bachelor thesis and find the respective student attractive. Would it be ethical/acceptable to get into a relationship with the student after the thesis is completed?

The ethical, and safe, thing to do -- now, actually -- would be to look for another faculty member to pass this thesis supervision responsibility to, because your objectivity has been, or could be seen to be, compromised by your feelings.

I was given some very good advice once by a senior professor: when contemplating a particular action, imagine what it would look like if described in a newspaper headline.

  "Emcor Involved in Romantic Relationship with Student S/He Was Providing Direct Thesis Supervision to"

Doesn't look so good.  Compare:

  "Emcor Hands Off Thesis Supervision to Colleague before Embarking on Romantic Relationship with Student"

Better, no?

This doesn't mean you can't read a draft of the thesis, or that you can't be a sounding board for the work.  It just means that you shouldn't be the thesis supervisor.

That's how I see it.  However, if you are in any doubt, do check with a department administrator.


How should I list presentations given at workshops on my CV? I'm in a humanities field, and I'm wondering if presentations given at small workshops should be listed in a separate section of my CV, for instance between "Invited Talks" and "Conferences".

Small workshops differ in several ways from conferences in my field: they are normally more competitive, participation for speakers is often fully funded, and they are usually attended by a broader audience (whereas at conferences you're speaking to other conference participants). I would consider acceptance at this type of workshop more prestigious than a conference presentation but less prestigious than an invited talk.

Thoughts on giving these workshops their own section? If not their own section, should I give them a sub-header under "Conferences"?

Any position that builds your career or profession has a rightful place on your CV. It sounds like your workshop leading experience has done that, so I would vote to put it on. To be clear, I'm assuming that by "presentations in workshops" you mean that you led a workshop where participants worked through something (since "workshops" are typically not lectures my field--I could be mistaken about your field), which I'll refer to as "workshops facilitated"

The question of where to categorize it is more complex I think, and it depends on the nature of the workshops. I think there are three main options:

1. "Workshops facilitated" sub-heading under a "Conferences" or "Presentations" Category

If you think the skills you developed and displayed in facilitating the workshops is similar to the skills developed and displayed in participating in conferences, and your workshops were about research of a caliber you would present at a conference.

2. "Workshops facilitated" sub-heading under a "Teaching Experience" category

If the workshops you facilitated were more focused on general topics than your own independent research.

3. "Workshops facilitated" as its own category

If the workshops you've facilitated do not fall neatly into one of the two categories above. If the workshops you've facilitated are very distinct from either of these options, or if you've facilitated a mixture of workshops, I think it's reasonable to put them in their own category. You could even have sub-headings of "Research-focused workshops", "Introductory workshops" or "pedagogical workshops", etc.


Do American Christian Universities and Colleges offer as high quality education as other countries? I'm asking specifically about Science courses.

The Kurt Wise case does not reflect on Harvard though it's a Christian University, I understand that. He rejected it because he was convinced geology was biblical, not actual.

It's just that since high school (a few years after 9th grade, translated), the factor in common in discourse has been that proponents making claims incompatible with what I've learned all have Christian Universities as their Alma Mater.

I'm from Sweden and can study in the United States, anywhere in EU, and Switzerland but not Norway.

I would like to finish my studies in the United States. Am I being overly cautious? Are there differences as to what I will be taught, depending on which University?

My application would be for geology with archaeology as minor.

Christian universities in the United States are tremendously diverse.  The fact that a particular university is "Christian" tells you only that it is not a government owned university.  Almost no other conclusions can be drawn from a Christian identity.

Each university makes its own curriculum.  A science department at one university may exclusively teach science based on religious beliefs.  A science department at another "christian" university might not employ anyone who knows anything about christianity.


Acceptance rate of an IEEE conference Does any one know how i can check the acceptance rate of an IEEE conference.I am intending to submit a paper to the conference but would like to know the acceptance rate.

If googling "acceptance rate " does not yield a response, it's a good bet that the data is not online. If you are desperate about this information, you can still try to reach out to previously accepted authors, as sometimes the acceptance rate is communicated as part of the acceptance / rejection letter.

That being said, I really wonder why this info would be so essential to you that you go through great lengths to unearth it.


How likely is it for an international student to be supported financially during their internship in Austria? I am a Master's student from Iran. I sent an email to a professor in Austria and asked for a PhD position. He said that he did not have any open position, but if I like, I can go there for an internship.
I want to know whether I will be supported financially or not
and how I can ask about it in such a way that does not cause any negative impact.

When it comes to funded research-related stays in Austria, the go-to-place is the officially curated database https://grants.at (of the OeAD, or the Austrian Exchange Agency).
It even offers granular search options. Here is an example of a search form (perhaps the option "Practical trainings" may be the right one for your case):