Is it a good idea to publish a complete open-access solutions manual to accompany my open-access textbook? It will likely be several years (probably more) before I write a textbook, but it's something I've been finding myself pondering in the back of my mind recently.

I would like to distribute my book à la Lienhard; that is, freely available on a website. Additionally, I would like to distribute complete solutions to the exercises therein through the same medium. However, I wonder if

educators might not adopt the book because the exercise solutions are easily found, and/or
students might not get the most out of the book because the exercise solutions are easily found.

If I distribute the exercises in .tex format, like LeVeque, the first point could be mitigated by allowing instructors to customize them more easily. To the second point, I did about as well in classes where solutions were provided with the problems (and the problems weren't graded) as I did in ones with solutions provided after the due date. But I'm sure that won't be true for everyone, and I know that there are other factors.

So I pose to the educators and students on this site whether it would be a good idea to freely provide complete solutions to my freely provided textbook.

Note: I see this question as related, but it doesn't address the specific case of having a one-stop shop for solutions for entire sets of problems that is updated and cross-referenced correctly (i.e., no web searching required). Perhaps this question is even closer, but it doesn't address open-access resources.

Consider a compromise: Even numbered problems have solutions provided, odd numbered problems do not. Make sure each important point and degree of difficulty is covered by both.

An instructor setting homework would base it on odd numbered problems.

An independent student, or one that wants more practice e.g. before an exam, would use the even numbered problems.


Rejecting a paper after final acceptance notice I had a paper accepted by an Elsevier journal about two weeks ago.  I’ve already gone through the process of submitting the publishing agreement form and manuscript proofs online.

Then, a few days ago I received a rejection notice. No new reviewer comments were included.  I thought this might be in error, so I wrote to the journal and just received a response that it was not an error, but they gave no real explanation for what happened.

I didn't make any content changes during the proofing process and the initial reviewer comments were all favorable.

Do I have any avenues open to me to fight this?

For a respectable journal (which I would assume an Elsevier journal to be), this behavior seems so weird and unacceptable that I am tempted to assume that you are only telling us parts of the story here.

Specifically, the part about "but they gave no real explanation for what happened" is curious - what was the reason they gave? This will very much influence the advise you get here.

If, for instance, they said that the previous accept mailing was sent out in error and the new reject notification is correct based on review results, well ... then it would definitely suck for you, but I see no way to fight this decision. You are then basically in the crowded boat of people that feel like their journal paper was rejected even though the reviews were not that bad. That you received an accept notification first does not fundamentally change this. I also do not share the hope of Ben Voigt that you could potentially sue for compensation - as far as I know, journals typically reserve the right to cancel publishing a manuscript at any point in the process, so legally they should be fine to change their mind even at a very unusually late point.

If they said that they have in the meantime learned that parts of your paper are already under copyright elsewhere, then you can either clear up the misunderstanding (if it is one) or alternatively propose to revise the paper.

If they really give literally no useful explanation (don't answer your mail, or answer with no actual information), then I would fall back  to the answer of Wrzlprmft and contact Elsevier.


Masters Thesis work vs Phd Work I had a doubt regarding research. I want to pursue a masters degree. I have a few topics I want to do research in.  In my case its advanced materials like polymers, macromolecules and also in energy storage applications. For my masters thesis work I am getting to work in the field of polymers and self-assembly. However, I am not sure which field I would like to pursue over long term, but surely it would be in between these topics. Can I shift my topic of research when I apply for a Phd or does my research has to be connected and aligned in order for a professor to accept me for a Phd. If anyone can help then it will help me make an informed decision.

Of course you can!

It is absolutely normal for especially young people that they do not yet know what their best and greatest interests are. Don't be afraid of those that try to spread fear with nonsense like 'straight carrer-lines'. Nowadays, job recruiters more and more value those that have the self-confidence, curiosity and intellect to focus on more than only one topic and demonstrate through this that they can work themselves in difficult topics even if those have nothing or few in common.

And to make a personal advice: It's your life, so do not forget to have fun besides going for a carrer. The decision of a Professor is absolutely individual; there might be some, that want to see some work in the field, maybe, that I heard about a lot of people that started writing about stuff they have never even heard about before they applied, so yes, it is not uncommon to change the topic for PhD work. I believe that they mostly much more want to see your effort and talent, oh, and it's about sympathy, of course, as you will see each other quite often (not in all cases, but at my university that's very common). If you are worried, simply go and ask your Professor of choice what his or her expectations are. If (s)he is fair, he will let you know very clearly what he expects and will give you a chance beside the master thesis you wrote to show your talents. A master work in the same field can of course draw the attention of a specific Professor beforehand if it was really good, but there are enough other ways to put yourself to be short-listed.


Can I rearrange the given names of authors in Pubmed for importing to EndNote? When viewing a Pubmed citation, author names are listed in the format Surname Initial Initial.  This means that when I am inputting a citation into EndNote I have to either type the names in manually or copy and paste then edit the order of the names into the Initial Initial Surname format that EndNote accepts.
E.g. the Pubmed author list:

Frayling TM, Timpson NJ, Weedon MN

Would need to be rearranged to

TM Frayling
NJ Timpson
MN Weedon

by hand in EndNote.
Is there a way that I can do this more efficiently?  Perhaps by

Using a preference on PubMed to have authors displayed in the second way
Modifying a preference in EndNote to have it accept the first way
Using a more efficient way to record new items to the EndNote database

Just import the reference as Pubmed outputs it and then change the output style within Endnote to match your preferred format. If it's a standard format for a well known journal, you should be able to directly select that output style, otherwise, you can make a custom format using the formatting code for the style you want. There are several online guides out there that give details how to do that.  Examples:

http://libguides.usd.edu/content.php?pid=63203&sid=755800

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbq-naXl8r4  (see ~8mins in)


Using an author's citations in a peer reviewed articles I'm reading this peer-review article which I'm certainly going to use as a source for my paper. The article is written by Robert E. Denton.

Now, in this Denton article, Denton quotes an excerpt from another author, Murray Edelman. This excerpt is intriguing, and I would like to add it to my paper as an additional source. Denton provides text information of Edelman's work on his references page.

My questions are these: do scholars ever do this? and by "this" I mean do research, and in there research(in the peer reviewed article he or she is reading) find an excerpt or quote of another work and include that excerpt or quote in their work without reading the entire article or book which that excerpt from?

Is there a specific term for this type of citation? I have a feeling that there isn't.

Is it an unspoken practice?

Now, I would be using a similar interpretation to Edelman's excerpt that Denton's uses because there are only so many interpretations of four lines of text, but i would be relating it to very a different social phenomenon(these are socio-political works), so I can't exactly say that this is plagiarism.

Would it be okay to quote Denton's assertion, and then quote the Edelman excerpt which he uses to support his assertion, and thereore use both quotes successively to support my own argument?

It's a bad idea. Go find the original source. There are stories of misquoted data from citations being propagated through the literature because one early paper didn't go all the way back to the original source.

If E quotes D correctly, you're free to draw on both their arguments with proper citation to both.


How to Ask via email for supervision of professor for Japan Graduate program admission I would like to apply for graduate programs in Japan, and I have sent email to several professors in Japan (e.g., Todai, Tohoku) using this format (I only change the name of the professor and university, since the research topic is always the same):

Dear Prof Name,
I would like to introduce myself, I am Ahmad Zahi Ulul Azmi, Graduate of Engineering Physics from Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) with specialization in robotics, medical instrumentation, and control. My Undergraduate thesis is about assistive exoskeleton robot for upper-limb stroke recovery therapy. Moreover, i have developed several robot such as unmanned ground vehicle controlled by smartphone, autonomous underwater robot (Champion of autonomous underwater robot category in Singapore Robotic Games 2016), remote operated underwater robot, quadcopter, and wall-climbing robot.
I would like to pursue Graduate Program in Toyohashi Univeresity of Technology for Fall Semester next year with MEXT university recommendation scheme scholarship. I am looking for possibilities for conducting research in your laboratory. I will be glad and feel honored if i can be accepted as graduate student in this university and have you as my supervisor. For the fundamental asset, i am familiar with CAD especially SolidWorks, i have done several projects with it. Also, i have a good basic knowledge about mechanics, calculus, control system, signal processing, computer vision, and programming in Python, C, and C++. I think it will be really useful for my research at Toyohashi Univeresity of Technology . Apart of it, i am ready to learn something new and develop more advanced robot.
If my study field is not well suited with your laboratory, i would be truly grateful if i could get a recommendation of another laboratory or professor.
With this email i attach my CV, please contact me if you require any further details or documents. I hope to hear from you in the near future.
Thank you

But I don't get any responses. Is there anything wrong with my email? How can I enhance it?

It needs to be much snappier. Consider something like this:

Dear Professor Name,
Do you have any positions available for graduate students in the Fall? I have a lot of experience with CAD, control systems, and signal processing (i.e., my autonomous underwater robot won the 2018 Singapore competition), and have published a few well-received papers [1,2]. This seems well aligned with your past work on similar topics [3,4], so I would be pleased to discuss opportunities working for you (or your colleagues) as a PhD student. Please let me know.
Name
[1] https://arxiv.org:blah.pdf
[2] etc.

where [1] and [2] are references to papers, links, codebases -- anything they can dive into to understand you more, and [3] and [4] are references to their work, so they see that you took the time to research them.
For me personally, I almost never respond to generic e-mails.
Note, I know nothing about the Japanese system; I'm only commenting on how your e-mail could be generally improved. (In particular, I'm wondering if this mail should be written in Japanese -- I know a lot of science is done in English, but if you speak Japanese, and the language of the university is Japanese, it might be better to write in Japanese or at least provide a translation).


Do academics/researchers benefit from permanent access to conference paper abstracts? Generally, abstracts for papers to be presented at conferences are published, prior to and during such conferences, in online and printed program books. However, in many cases, such abstracts are no longer available after the meeting is over. Would academics/researchers benefit from permanent access to conference paper abstracts?

There's a huge range of conference formats.  At one extreme are conferences at which presentations are given with an abstract but without any associated paper.  These presentations might be associated with journal papers published at a later date.  At the other extreme are conferences in which every presentation corresponds to a paper in a published conference proceedings volume and those papers will not appear later as journal papers (or perhaps only extended versions of the papers will be published in journals.)

In cases where there are only abstracts, these abstracts might be published in a printed program of abstracts or (more commonly these days) might just be available on a conference web site.  Some people do cite such abstracts, so it's a generally a good idea to keep them in some permanent form.

As an example, look at the AGU meetings abstract database.  These abstracts describe presentations that were made at AGU meetings, but in many cases the presentation never gets turned into a journal paper.  These abstracts are sometimes cited by other authors.  The AGU has maintained this database over the years.

https://meetings.agu.org/abstract_db/


Is it proper to discuss unrelated subjects during class to increase interactivity? It is common that students may experience monotony if the instructor continuously teaches. And there are many ways to grab attention.
I am particularly interested in knowing whether it is a proper step from the instructor side to moderate short debates (5 mins, 10 mins, etc.,), especially on (probably ongoing) politics, movies, religion.
The question is about the domains that are aliens to either of the three topics.
If no, what is the reason for it?

No. Distracting the students with other subjects than the one being taught is not a solution to the problem but a way around it. Of course it is different if the discussions are on the topic being taught: that is a great way to teach!
The problem of "boring classes" is not the subject or the students. The problem is the teacher, who should learn (often by experience) how to keep the students interested. It is possible to interest students in any and all subjects, as long as the teacher is engaging, explains why the subject is useful, provides interesting real-world examples (if appropriate), explains the subject at a level appropriate for the group, is able to answer questions, etcetera.
Secondly, many students will be annoyed by the constant interruptions and irrelevant off-topic discussions, and they will also notice that the teacher is trying to hide his lack of teaching skills behind "entertainment", alienating them further and possibly even leading to them complaining about ineffectiveness of their classes.
Thirdly, an important part of studying is learning to learn and to concentrate. You would not be doing the students a favour by distracting them. (But do not misunderstand this: a light-hearted remark or funny joke is perfectly fine and even helpful to relieve some tension and stress, but that was not what you were asking about)


Listing Scholar-Athlete Awards in Grad School Application I am a student athlete (Full scholarship) and I have received Scholar Athlete award from NCAA and my conference throughout my career. To receive these awards, your GPA should be 3.5 or more. Now I am applying for MS in Computer Science and they have a section:

  Summary of Honors, Scholarships, Fellowships, and Awards Received
  During Your Academic Studies

Should I include the scholar athlete awards in this section and if it will hurt or better my chances? Can i also write that I received full scholarship for playing sports?

I would include the awards and emphasize how your experience as a student athlete reflects your time-management skills and ability to perform well under stressful circumstances.  You also capitalized on a great opportunity-- funding via a scholarship-- and made the best of it.

By the way, computer science is one of those fields in desperate need of diversity-- as an academically strong athlete, you would be offering a unique perspective.  Don't be shy about what you're good at, and why the program would benefit from your presence.


Can we add co author later? Me and my friends did a project during final semester. It got accepted for publication. Later I came to abroad for studies. My friends didn’t add my name as a co author.I have given my input and it’s my project idea to initiate. Can we add my name as a co author later?

In principle, it is possible to make changes up until the point that final proofs have been submitted. However, at a well-run journal any attempt to add an author after acceptance would require approval from the journal's editor, and they would likely require an explanation for why this change is being sought before agreeing.
The reason for this is to guard against various forms of misconduct, especially:

subversion of the review process, e.g. by concealing conflicts of interest;
offers of authorship as a reward/bribe.

If the editor is satisfied with your explanation, they will allow you to add authors. If they are not, the result is likely to be that the paper's acceptance is rescinded, and it is rejected from the journal. Note that many journals require the corresponding author to certify that they have included all relevant individuals as authors as part of the submission process, and admitting that you lied here does not do much for your credibility.


How does a software application idea become a research project? As a software developer just starting out in research (working for a lab) I have this idea of a software application which is meant to target a specific need: specifically to help users query data using specific and novel methodologies (navigation languages and autocomplete methods).

Anyway, I know that ultimately I want to do science and not engineering. By that I mean that ultimately I don't want to build a tool (although it could help prove my idea) but that I want to investigate (that's really what research is about isn't it?) about how the navigational and autocomplete methodologies are important for querying data (for example)

So I'm a bit troubled wondering how I can transform this application idea into a more scientific research project. Should I look at the novel parts of the application (such as the autocomplete functionalities) and investigate how that might make querying better for users? Is that even research?

I guess overall I'm puzzled on how to make the idea of my software application stand on its own. How do I make my software idea contribute to the current body of human knowledge? Does software even count as knowledge? I guess I'm trying to convert the idea of my software application into a piece of knowledge. Any help/clarification?

Your software idea may be able to become a piece of research if you can come up with a few things:

Research question. Ask a question relating to your software idea - for example, "How can we do X?" "What is a better design for X?" etc. Check the literature to see what has been said about this question (and related questions) by others.
Research result. What is the actual, novel contribution of your work? Is it a new technique that hasn't been done before? A rule of thumb for designing certain kinds of applications? A much better way to do a certain kind of task (for some reasonable definition of "better")?
Validation of research results. What kind of convincing evidence do you have that your result is sound? Depending on the type of result you claim, your evidence may be in the form of performance benchmarks of your technique relative to state of the art, user studies from users of your application, or something else entirely.

The best way to get a better understanding of what constitutes a research question, research result, or evidence, is to read a lot of papers in your field of interest.


How to format a large diagram with many formulas that does not easily fit on an A4 page? I have a large diagram that does not fit into horizontal space of my A4 book manuscript (see below).

What to do to make the diagram easier to read?
Should I replace big formulas with numbers or letters to label the arrows with numbers or letters and describe the corresponding formulas below (or above) the diagram (so called, "legend")?
If yes, what to use as arrow labels: numbers or letters?

First, I do not consider your diagram is too big unless your layout has ridiculously big margins. That does not mean that you cannot improve its layout such that the type is bigger and thus easier to read.

  What to do to make the diagram easier to read?

Your biggest problem is that the individual formulas are all horizontal and very close together, which forces you to make them rather small. Thus, I suggest to replace most of your straight lines by curved ones and rotate your formulas appropriately. Also, use more vertical space (which you should have). Finally, you can make your texts narrower by using more line breaks:

A quick sketch to illustrate this:

Note that I increased the size of all formulas while maintaining the width.

  Should I replace big formulas with numbers or letters to label the arrows with numbers or letters and describe the corresponding formulas below (or above) the diagram (so called, "legend")?

That sounds like a very bad idea to me. This way the reader would have to jump between diagram and legend all the time. The whole point of your diagram (as I understand it) is to have all these relation in one place. If you use a legend, you might as well skip the entire diagram and use text instead.


My professor thinks I deceived her, but it was miscommunication on my part. Should I send an apology email? I will try to keep the situation short, but I am currently not on the best of terms with a graduate school professor.

The term is over now and I have been on good terms with her until today. As part of this course, students must attend an extra set of lectures outside of class and write a very brief report (mainly as proof we had actually attended and analyzed the topic). There was one lecture I was unable to attend due to a conflict with a class and thus informed my professor (in person) on two occasions. She had told me that she would upload the transcript for the presentation online. Yesterday, I had read the transcript and submitted my brief report.

However, she soon contacted me via email and requested I call her. During the phone conversation, she had accused my of deceiving her by pretending I had attended the lecture. I had explained to her that I had read what she posted online as I was unable to attend it. She said that, since I had not explained this in my email, she does not believe me. I do not think our phone conversation ended very well.

This is a very "subjective" course in that her opinion determines our grades. I am wondering if it would be wise to send her an apology email clarifying that it was simply miscommunication on my part?

Whether you can meet with her or not -- and I suggest you try, even if it were via Skype -- I would recommend sending her an email laying out your side. If you do receive a poor grade and you need to seek redress through some formal process, email is evidence that you attempted some explanation. The merit in your explanation is, of course, quite another matter.

Good luck.


How to list an academic award received multiple times on CV I was distinguished as 'Best Freshman' when I started university as a freshman. If, as I did, I managed to display an exceptional academic performance, I was re-awarded this distinction (which actually doubled as a scholarship). I am now preparing my CV to apply for Master's degrees. How should I list this award in my CV? I feel saying,

  Awarded 'Best Freshman' distinction in 2016, 2017 and 2018

for example, might convey the wrong idea, as I was only a freshman that first year.

Any suggestions? Thank you!

The name of this award is directly misleading. That's on the university. I would simply state "Recipient of full-ride academic scholarship 2015, 2016, 2017. Awarded for maintaining at least a 3.85 GPA over the previous two semesters of each school year."

This is the most likely way to convey the meaning you want. It is clearer to just state what the award actually entailed. This will always translate across regions and schools.

I remember seeing an application of one student that stated she was the "Donald M. Knudsun Honor recipient." This turned out to be a $100 gift certificate to Knudsun's, a local steak house. (I knew Don Knudsun owned a steak house, so it sounded like a weird award to begin with, hence my inquiring into the details). It had essentially nothing to do with her academics. You won the award for answering trivia while eating bratwurst.


Going back to academia after quitting my Ph.D. and taking a year off? I am a Ph.D. dropout with a one year of career gap. I want to return to academia, but now  I have realized that it was perhaps the biggest mistake to take a gap after quitting my Ph.D. The purpose of taking a gap was to work on my communication skills and get a  new perspective on my work and my career in science. This could have been done within a period of 2-3 months but it became one year long because of my own recklessness. I allowed myself to distract from my goal and I started working on my hobby i.e. Painting. I lost myself there and completely lost track of my time. I was really enjoying everything about this new venture. I took it as a challenge to become better at my skills in painting. Eventually, I became the best in my group and got lots of appreciation. But then, I lost my interest while realizing that there was no further challenge and all there was left is to work and work while crafting your art which was never going to be perfect. It made me realize that what I actually love is to take the new challenges and work on myself. To be an artist was never a career option for me, all I wanted was to learn the skills. That's it!

While counting my achievement in science, I  realized that it was an irresponsible thing to take a gap in doing something that has nothing to do with science. Earlier I had a scholarship and a very competitive mind that has led me to get a Ph.D. position in one of the best labs in the country. Now I don't have the scholarship. I want to go back to my world of research where I was accelerating exponentially. I want to tackle the challenges of science with a new perspective and better skills. I want to be productive more than earlier and ready to take all the tough challenges.
But I feel embarrassed about my past mistake. Because of this, I come across as someone who is not sincere about her career. But I can't help it because the truth is that I did behave insincerely by losing track of my time.  I should have been conscious enough to realize the consequences. Now, what do I do? The past has gone and the vision of the present is crying for a better future. How do I make things better like before?

This could have been done within a period of 2-3 months but it became
  one year long because of my own recklessness.

I did not notice any "recklessness" in your post -- instead, it sounds like you have been very proactive in exploring for yourself what you want to do in life. Taking a year off may have been the best decision a year ago. Now you know more than you did then; don't fault yourself for what you did not know.

  I started working on my hobby i.e. Painting.
  I lost myself there and completely lost track of my time. I was really
  enjoying everything about this new venture.

Your enjoyment is important, too; not just your career. It sounds amazing to take a year off and work on a hobby. In fact, many career academics wish they could have done this when they were younger, because it is much harder to find time for such things the more work and research you get involved in. Remember that you did enjoy this, and enjoyment can be rare and valuable.

  But then, I lost my
  interest...It made me realize that what I actually
  love is to take the new challenges and work on myself. To be an artist
  was never a career option for me, all I wanted was to learn the
  skills.

Try to think of it as a positive realization, not a negative one. Many people spend a lot of time (decades even) before they realize they want to do something different. Learning about what you want to do helps you see the future more clearly.

  While counting my achievement in science, I realized that it was an irresponsible thing to take a gap in doing something that has nothing to do with science.

Why is it irresponsible? You may have given up your scholarship, but you learned a lot about yourself in the process. I am not sure you could have done this any other way.

  I want to go back to my world of
  research where I was accelerating exponentially.

You can do this. Don't give up on yourself and what you really want.

  But I feel embarrassed about my past mistake.

Why are you embarrassed? Was it truly a mistake if you learned a lot both about your hobby and about yourself?

  I come across as someone who is not sincere about her career.

You do not come across that way to me, at least. However, you do seem to be very upset and beat up on yourself.

  Now, what do I do? The past has gone and the vision of the present is crying for a better future. How do I make things better like before?

The first step is to understand that you have a lot to be proud of. You may not have the scholarship now, but you earned it before, and you are still the same person. You are highly capable and have spent a year progressing in a different hobby, which you are also capable in.

The second step is to get advice from academics who know you better about what is the best past forward to get back into good positions. It may be that you can simply apply again; I don't think taking a year off is necessarily a problem. Or it may be that it would be better to get some more experience first, such as applying for some industry experience, or getting a masters' degree.


I plagiarized in my Bachelor's thesis, and after a year,went back and redid it unofficially. Should I push for some official action? My supervisor does not want to push this further and take official action since this was a lone incident and I had health issues at that point. However, since I am not getting closure, I do not feel like I have a go-ahead to re-apply to universities. I feel that future advisers/people I write to for grad school should be aware of this but do not know how to bring it up, since there's no official record of this. By plagiarized, I do mean that there's no question/argument about it, there's some straight up copy-paste. I have reworked it now, but feel like I have put an end to further education for myself. I also turned down some grad school admits (this + monetary issues). Any advice/clarity would be appreciated.

No, don't push, and don't tell it to future advisors etc.

You shouldn't feel this obligation to offer up the truth, especially about bad things, to people who don't even want or need to hear it.

Lying and openly telling all of your problems are totally different (especially when not even asked about them, by people who don't even want to hear about them, who have the power to make decisions that will be harmful to you).

Your supervisor thinks you are a good person, and they don't want to make unnecessary problems for you. You've even shown your character by going back and re-doing it. If your supervisor thought you were lying or that you would keep doing it in the future or that other people would be harmed by you elsewhere, they would want to make official problems for you.

So what I mean about lying/deception vs openly telling everyone all of your problems: there are people who are always only thinking about getting to the next step, and will lie to their classmates/coworkers, or steal from them etc. If some interviewer asks you "did you ever plagiarize anything?" then you can tell them (but if you believe they shouldn't even ask that question, or that the answer is irrelevant, then feel free to lie). But if you apply for a PHD or something and they ask about it, then you should probably tell them, and tell them the whole story.

And I don't mean you have to let them ask exactly the right question. If they ask something that seems like it's related, and that they would want to know this, feel free to tell it. I just mean, if they ask some general question about your history, you shouldn't tell them every bad little thing. Would you tell some random people at the bus stop too? "Hey man do you go here?" "Yeah I go here, but I plagiarized this thing like 2 years ago, I thought you should know". You know what I mean?

Just forget about it. Even the people in charge of dealing with it don't want to keep going with it. Their job is to make official problems for people who are doing it as part of a pattern and who don't want to correct their actions, to prevent future harm to other people.


Unequal pay between grad students, enforcing a more egalitarian policy In my department, students can be paid quite differently, and accumulate multiple fellowships and assistantships. Departmental fellowships are provided upon acceptance to some top applicants. Students can also be hired as RAs by interested faculty members. RA stipends are also not fixed by the department, and vary quite widely depending on the advisor and on the funding body. On top of departmental fellowships and RA, some students also accumulate external fellowships that they earned independently.

One direct consequence of this approach is that some students are paid market-competitive salaries, whereas many other students end up not being funded at all (especially Master students).

On one hand, faculty who can afford to pay large stipends usually bring a lot of money to the department, can attract a large pool of very qualified students, and are very productive.

Most departments, on the other hand, have much more restrictive policies (some universities even set institute-wide stipend rates), and seem to be doing well.

I was recently on a committee that is trying to rethink these policies, disallowing the possibility of a combining an assistantship/external fellowships and a departmental fellowship, which will enable us to fund more students. However, one of our main concerns is that future top students may be more inclined to attend elsewhere (we lose a lot of excellent students to top schools abroad). Faculty who can pay better rates are also not satisfied with a possible change in policy. (My group is one of those that can pay competitive rates, but is willing to discuss.)

My question is: what are some issues to consider when transitioning from our more liberal student funding policy, to a more "egalitarian" policy? Anecdotal evidence is also welcome.

The more competitive and prestigious the school, the easier it is to be egalitarian, because you can always get students to enroll there. When you have trouble attracting students, incentives that may lead to an unequal playing field may be needed to get better students.

For instance, when I was applying, there was about a 50% spread between my lowest and highest offers. However, some of this was handled not by awarding an RA on top of an external fellowship but a “merit prize” of several thousand dollars as a reward for bringing in the fellowship. That might be a way to offer something substantial for people who have their own money without making things too far out of balance.


Longer PhD with a deeper result vs a shorter PhD with a sufficient result Some people try to complete their PhD asap, others try to make major breakthroughs. I think these aims are mutually incompatible, one is going against the other.

What are pros/cons of each for somebody whose intended career is research in academia?

The answers should be general, but I myself am interested in pure mathematics.

There are several considerations regarding whether to graduate now.
I'll go through them from most to least important (in my opinion).

Thesis readiness:
You can't graduate unless
your advisor and your committee feel your thesis is good-enough.
For some departments, you need to have 2 or 3 separate projects
which are in advanced enough state or even published.
Research readiness: As @seteropere noted,
if you feel that you are able to do research independently,
and your advisor agrees, then you are ready to graduate.
Future job situation:

If you can get a tenure-track job or post-doc in September 2015,
then go ahead and graduate in June 2015.
If you can't get any academic jobs in September 2015,
then maybe you should stay one more year.

Job prospects this year vs next year:
For some fields, getting a good job requires a student
to have papers in advanced stages of the publishing pipeline,
i.e. submitted is good, under second or third round of review is better,
and accepted is best.
If you have a great paper but it is not yet ready,
waiting until the next year before you apply for jobs
may allow you to have that great paper
in a more advanced stage of the publishing pipeline
which can't hurt your job prospects.
Funding from advisor:
Is your advisor willing/able to support you for an additional year?
Some advisors limit their support to 4 or 5 years,
and students who wish or need to stay longer may have to carry heavy teaching loads.
Research environment: Are you learning from your advisor,
and doing good work with the other students/professors in your current institution?
If so, leaving for another position becomes more risky
because the situation may be worse than your current situation.
Financial situation:
Usually, a PhD salary is less than a post-doc salary,
which is less than a tenure-track job salary.
For some students who may be supporting a family,
earning more money as soon as possible is an important consideration.


Is there a risk of sharing my idea with other researchers via e-mail? I sometimes need to take the opinion of other researchers who published studies close to mine, so I send my research question and what I will do to answer it through e-mail. Assuming that this is a good behavior, Is there a risk of that on my idea? if there, how to protect it?

There is always risk. You may have come up with the greatest idea your field has ever seen, that would tempt even the most honest of researchers.

The more salient question is "Is there a major risk?"

And for that, I'd suggest that the risk is fairly minimal. If you have a senior mentor, you can minimize it further by asking if they have recommendations for who you might get in touch with. But if it is genuinely just a question - to be frank, it's likely not worth stealing. Ideas are, in and of themselves, a dime a dozen. There are things these researchers are working on, interested in, have funding for, etc. And there are likely more of these than they have time for. For example, my planning board has a massive pile of projects I'd like to do that vastly outnumbers the projects I'm actually working on. I'm not going to add another because a random person contacted me and I decided to steal their idea.

There's also a risk in not sending it - that your idea remains undefined, and you lose the potential for the input of experts in the field. I'd consider that a much greater risk.


Can I look for a new post-doc without informing my current PI? I'm thinking about leaving my current lab, since it's moving to a field that I'm not really interested in.
I am thinking of contacting other PIs that work on topics that are a closer match to my research interests, to see if they are interested in starting a project together.

I am concerned that if I talk to my current PI before taking any steps, she could bad mouth me to prolong my staying in the lab, and to prevent leakage of the lab's knowledge. So from this point of view it would be my best interest to inform her as a fait accompli when I find a new lab (while still giving proper notice).

I still have some reservations about doing things behind her back though. I would like to leave on good terms, and since academia is such a small community doing this could affect my reputation.

In my experience, people who have been in a field a long time all know each other, even if only peripherally. If you do apply to another position, there is a real possibility that the the new PI will simply call up your current PI and ask about your qualifications etc.

To me, it seems completely reasonable to tell your PI exactly what you say in your first sentence. You could even ask for her help -- if you are this uninterested in your current position I doubt she will go out of her way to try to retain you. (Also, if you are indeed looking to move to a lab that does not compete with the current one, can she legitimately be concerned about intellectual property "leakage"?)


In a formal paper, should I censor "brainf**k", the name of a programming language? I'm working on a formal paper about programming languages. I am going to talk about two intentionally difficult languages, brainfuck and JSFuck. Should I leave the names as they are, or censor the names? (e.g. brainf**k, JSF**k)

These are the Registered names of sanctioned programs in your industry.  Their developers chose those names not for their prurient value but for their impact value.  "Brainfuck" sends an INSTANT message that something like "Cerebral Challenge"  could never pull off.  You show your professionalism when you structure the "Brainfuck" section of your paper with the same care you show in other sections, mentioning the singularity of its name only if it's relevant to the paper. Let 'them' come to you, if they feel they must (and I doubt it).  Your responsibility is to the quality--which includes the Integrity-- of your paper.


Rejecting Postdoc Extension for Other Grant Management Opportunities I helped my PhD supervisor to secure a funding for an 18-month project in 2019. My supervisor got the grant in April 2020 and she asked me to consider doing a postdoc under the project. I was not very keen to continue doing lab research activity, yet I still agreed to take up the postdoc because of the uncertain job market during the pandemic. Since then I started to work on the postdoc project planning and budgetary control while preparing for my viva.
I successfully submitted my final thesis in September 2020 and the postdoc contract officially started in November 2020. The offer letter stated the contract is valid for 6 months, renewable until the end of project. This condition is regulated by the university.
As my 6-month postdoc contract is nearing its end, my supervisor asked me to liaise with the HR on extension. I hesitated to extend my postdoc because I lost the interest in doing lab research any longer. I also stumbled on a few job openings for research grant management elsewhere, which I am interested in applying.
The foundations of most of my postdoc research activities has been laid out/completed by now because I started the project before I passed my viva, e.g. communications between the project stakeholders, organizing workshops, pilot reactor design & procurement. The tasks left are mainly the reactor operation and data collection.
Should I let my supervisor know that I would like to move on to a different career path, since the 6-month contract is nearing its expiry? Or am I obliged to extend the contract so that the project does not get stuck in the middle? I feel the guilt because I had the experience of having to take over other postgraduate student's work because they left.
I would appreciate advise from postdoc/project PI who experienced similar issue. Thank you in advance!

Or am I obliged to extend the contract so that the project does not get stuck in the middle?

Let's start with the easy question -- you are not obliged to extend the contract. A post-doc is inherently a time-limited position; both your funding agency and your university are (or should be) well aware that you could leave at any time. Your case is even more clear cut, in that the university deliberately structured your contract in such a way that they could cut you loose at any time. This flexibility cuts both ways.

I feel the guilt because I had the experience of having to take over other postgraduate student's work because they left.

This shouldn't induce guilt; rather, you have created a new project that can be used to give a new opportunity to someone else. Sure, this might not happen and the work might be instead forced onto an already-overworked student, but that is not your concern.

Should I let my supervisor know that I would like to move on to a different career path

Well, there are competing norms here. One (mostly in business) is that you should never express any thoughts about leaving until you have accepted another job. Another (mostly in universities) is that you should give as much notice as possible so that your advisor can make plans. Which of these you opt for will depend on your supervisor's personality. You should also check your contract to see what the provisions for leaving are -- renewing your contract for six months might not mean that you have to stay for the full six months.

I also stumbled on a few job openings for research grant management elsewhere, which I am interested in applying.

The way you have written this makes it sound like you have only the vaguest idea about what this career path entails. If this is the case, I would caution you against becoming unemployed too soon; your job search may take some time. I'm not sure which position you are referring to, but "contract administrator" positions are usually bookkeeping positions that are not a natural fit for an academic, while "program manager" positions are generally rather competitive and might not be something you would be certain to easily get hired for directly after a post-doc.


How much seen material/questions should an exam paper contain? At University,say the lecturers hand out past papers with solutions for the students to revise from for an upcoming exam.

Is it common practise for the exam to contain a couple of the exact same questions
which are in the previous past exams?

Is it common for the exam to contain questions which the lecturer has put in the assessed worksheets throughout the semester but has already handed out the solutions to?

If you hadn't included the "graduate school" tag, I would say this is both common and appropriate. My exams for undergrads are about half familiar material, that I've specifically indicated to them could appear on the exam. That way, most everyone who studies can at least pass.

But ideally, grad school should be more challenging than that.


How to acknowledge funding This question expands a bit on my previous one Acknowledging funding.

I am unsure how to write proper acknowledgments at the end of a research paper. The wording that I read most often is Author XY is [partially] supported by..., which does not correctly describe my situation unless one stretches the meaning of these words.

More in detail, here are the two sources with which I have trouble:

a foundation that used to give me a postdoc grant. I did part of the work of this paper while living off this grant, which expired six months ago, and part of it under my new employer. How should I write this? If I write is supported by, I give the impression that I am currently being paid in full by the foundation; if I write partially supported I give the impression that I just got a smaller grant.
a research institute that paid my travel expenses for a conference. While this funding is not directly related to the paper, I met my co-author there and had a chance to discuss its state. And, besides that, it is basically my only occasion to acknowledge this grant. How should I write this? Is partially supported the correct wording, or is there a better expression?

If I write is supported by, I give the impression that I am currently being paid

"Work by this author was partially supported by the Hitchcock Institute and by the Norman and Norma Bates Foundation."

  if I write partially supported I give the impression that I just got a smaller grant

Nonsense.  Unless the institute was your sole source of income and equipment during the entire research and writing process, "partially supported" is correct.  Also, it's standard idiomatic language; nobody will think twice about it.


How should I cite or reference books when I'm trying to compile a book (from other sources) for a specific course at my college? So, I'm trying to compile a text for my fluid mechanics course, since my course does not follow one text, its difficult for reference. Most of the content will be taken word to word from established texts. So I want to know how to cite or reference those. If I do it for every section or paragraph, or just at the end as sort of a bibliography. Note that I might take content for a certain topic from different texts too.
Is there a certain set of rules to follow?

This isn't exactly an answer, but should help you find the answer. In the US, we have the concept of Fair Use of copyrighted works. It contains the idea that some educational uses are valid in spite of copyrights but there are limitations. India doesn't subscribe to that doctrine, but has, instead the concept of Fair Dealing which seems to be more precise in what it allows and it differs from country to country.

I point to both of these ideas, since some of what you wish to use might be covered by US law, but I'm not a lawyer and can't say. But both doctrines (I believe) are a matter of civil law, which implies potential lawsuits, not criminal law. But beyond legal doctrine, there is also the issue of your professional reputation.

Unless your college is very small they probably have an office that has access to lawyers skilled in intellectual property law. You should try to contact that office and ask them about the requirements and what are your proper actions.

It may be that you need to seek permission from at least some of the publishers holding copyrights. If that is the case, then they will tell you how the work you copy should be cited. It will probably include a copyright notice as well as the citation. For those you can use under Fair Dealing, it would be advisable to note the copyrights.

I assume that some copyright holders will give you permission for things you can't do freely but will charge something per copy. This can be passed to students or absorbed by the college, I assume.

I'll note that your proposal has the effect of reducing the demand for the works you copy. That is a major consideration under Fair Use, and may or may not be under Fair Dealing. And selling a composed book to students might be another consideration in the law, rather than making it available without cost.

There is, however, another possibility that may fit your need or not. Some large publishers will publish several books on a general subject and some of them are willing to create a custom textbook containing chapters from several different books. These can be sold to students, though I doubt they are cheap.


How can I ask a professor for time-sensitive information when they are out for a family emergency? I'm an undergraduate student, and at the start of the semester I was trying to organize something like undergraduate research (but more basic) with one of my professors. I have to fill out a form due at the end of the third week of the semester describing what the work would be, so I went to this professor during the first week of classes to discuss potential options.

About a week later, near the end of the second week of classes, I sent an email with additional research I had done on potential topics that looked promising based on what I found on their CV. They responded and told me that they would get back to me later with what they felt would work best.

The form is due at the end of this week, but the professor just sent an email out to the class that their office hours were cancelled and they would not be in class due to a family emergency. I obviously don't want them to feel any pressure, but at the same time, this is a time sensitive process for me.

What's the best way to ask for basic information about the project so I can begin working on the form?

I'm an academic who has had to cancel class and office hours due to emergencies myself. We are all pretty tied to email these days wherever we happen to be, and regardless of what is going on in our personal lives, our professional responsibilities to continue to limp along. Depending on the specific nature of the emergency and the demands on their time, the professor may actually be able to help you nevertheless, but i) may well need reminding, and ii) may have higher priorities at this time.

I would send an email like the following (and if I received it, would respond as positively as I am able if the tone does not rub me the wrong way.)

  Dear Professor X:

  I understand you have had a family emergency. Sorry to bother you at
  such a time, and I fully understand if you are therefore unable to
  respond to this email. However, in case you happen to be working
  remotely, I would much appreciate your comments on the below, since I
  need to ... by .....  Or is there someone else you would recommend I
  contact instead given the timeline?

  Thanks and apologies, ...


How do academic position job search committees evaluate potential for intellectual leadership? From what JeffE says over at Priority of application materials for admission decision

  The list is not that different for postdoc hiring (not "admission"),
  at least in my field (computer science). The big differences are (1)
  grades do not matter at all and (2) the focus changes from "potential
  for research" to potential for intellectual leadership backed by
  actual published research.

So I'm curious - how do committees assess potential for intellectual leadership? And how do graduate students demonstrate it?

As a postdoc applicant, you should be starting to develop a distinctive, compelling research agenda and vision.  As a grad student, it's usually enough to work on problems someone gives you, and you can go to your advisor for help as needed.  If you never move beyond this, it's not a great outcome, but you'll eventually get your Ph.D.; you just won't be on track for further research success.  To be a successful postdoc, you need to develop the ability to work more independently.  However, intellectual leadership is more than just independence.  It's not enough just to write papers.  Instead, these papers should fit together and be aimed towards larger goals, in a way you can articulate coherently.  If someone asks you what sort of research you do, you should be able to explain what you are aiming for, how your work differs from other people's, and why your approach is worthwhile and even important.

This takes time and comes only with experience - more will be expected of tenure-track job applicants, or people being considered for tenure or a full professorship.  But a postdoc applicant needs to demonstrate a start, by writing a research statement that sounds exciting, and ideally by publishing several papers that build on each other to accomplish something larger than any one of them.  It's even better if other researchers have already started to take up your ideas and apply or extend them, although that's more common in fast-moving fields with short publication cycles.

What you don't want is to come across just like your advisor, but with less experience and perhaps less talent.  You can succeed that way if you do fantastic work, but it's not a wise approach for most students: it's just not good advertising to say "I'm basically a less good version of my advisor."  Even while you are still in graduate school, you should be aiming to differentiate yourself a little from your advisor (with your advisor's help - after all, they shouldn't be trying to produce a clone).  Find some important aspect of the subject that interests you more than your advisor, learn some useful background they don't know well, or find a collaborator who doesn't work with them.

As for how committees judge this, you've got to make a convincing case in your application.  Your research statement should sound like a future leader, not a student (don't be arrogant, but you shouldn't sound like you are implementing someone else's vision - you need to demonstrate clearly that you understand how everything fits together and are adding your own ideas).  You need to back your research statement up with publications worthy of it, as well as some concrete ideas for future work.  Your letters of recommendation should convey the impact you are already having on the field.

Of course this is the best case scenario, and not every application will achieve this, but if you want to get a prestigious postdoc position and go on to a tenure-track job at a research university, then this is what you should be aiming for.  You may feel like a fraud even trying to do this, since you know perfectly well that you still have much more to learn, but you should ignore these feelings.  Everyone recognizes that postdoc applicants are still developing their research abilities, but it's important to be ambitious and show what you are capable of.  (In fact, no matter how far you progress in your career, you'll never reach the point of being able to say "OK, I've reached my full potential and know everything I need to," but you can't let that stop you.)


Is it advisable to underline some key points in a statement of purpose? I am an undergraduate student applying to grad schools this year.

I was recently told by my friend (who is already in a PhD program now) that I should consider underlining some key sentences in my SoP, and put them in bold font, since the admission committee most likely won't have the time to read every whole statement, and this would be a good way to catch their eyes on the key points I want to express. It can also expedite the reviewing process so in this sense it is also helpful to the admission committee.

I think this makes sense, but I am still a bit hesitant since I'm not sure if this would be viewed as a poor writing style. Would this be welcomed from the viewpoint of an admission committee?

No.  Never underline anything.  Underlining is left over from typewriters.  It instructs the typesetter to put things in italics.  Nowadays, you should put things in italics yourself.


Mental calmness during timed test taking I am preparing for a timed post-graduate test (for example, GRE, GMAT etc.). I get hung-up on questions where I don't immediately find a path, and then beat myself over not doing it fast enough while I am still on the question. This further increases my time on the question by taking focus away from the problem at hand.

Additionally, the above gets compounded with thoughts of inadequacy- "I am dumb" etc. etc. This adds to the time guilt and takes away from thinking clearly about problem solving.

If you've had a similar experience, what did you do during test taking to overcome it?

I would suggest getting used to self-proctoring practice exams within a certain time limit. Keep at it until you figure out how to determine when it is fruitful to skip a question. Come back to it later when you have an ah-ha moment or finish the exam. As for worrying about spending too much time or self-depreciating yourself, try to minimize it. Remember your successes. Take time to build up your confidence both inside and outside academia and strive to do the best you can do.

Think of every difficulty as a chance to be humbled, and use that outlook to find wisdom in the experience. In grad school, I'm sure you'll encounter this same feeling just by speaking with people whom are your senior.


What are the chances of an article to get published if it got minor revision comments, and a single optional major revision comment? Our paper have been reviewed two days ago. The comments of the the two reviewers are few and of minor type (spelling and format issues) and can be addressed easily, except of one comment in which one of the two reviewers "optionally" asked if we can use data from other locations. However, we cannot do this now. Getting the data will take long time before being used in the study, the deadline of the journal revision is so tight, and the study is already intense and long. The status on the journal online system is "Major Revison" despite the fact that all other comments are minor, and the only major comment is optional.
How do we respond to the reviewer to take the other option: not adding new data?
What are the chances of accepting the paper in this case?

I have had this on a couple of papers. When I first had this, my advisor at the time told me that this is not usually something to be overly worried about and that it presented an opportunity. Specifically:

It is optional, as @FuzzyLeapfrog said in her comment:

  Thank the reviewer, let him know that you are aware of the benefits of using data from other locations, add a paragraph on this in the outlook part of your paper as "future work to do" and mention this in your response to the editor/reviewer.

It is also important to state in your 'response to review' document that the time taken to obtain the additional data will be prohibitive.

Additionally, take this optional revision as possibly the impetus for you to do another paper based on the suggestion.

In regards to the editor's decision of 'Major Revision', reread the message to check to see if this optional revision is in fact the reason. If in doubt, be sure to make contact with the editorial team to clarify.


How is the corresponding author on a (math) paper typically chosen? I am preparing a joint paper with my mentor. I am a math postdoc. How is the corresponding author generally chosen? What are the benefits of being the corresponding author? Is it better for a post-doc's career if they are the corresponding author?

My experience as a pure mathematician in the US is that there are essentially no benefits to being the corresponding author. When I was a postdoc and in grad school I was often the corresponding author, but I get the feeling it was mostly because I was often the most junior of the authors and the others didn't want to waste time navigating editorial websites, receiving emails from the journal, mailing people tex files, etc. I would say that if someone is a pure mathematician in the US, the number of times they've been a corresponding author for a paper will have absolutely no impact on their career.

(I should add that I believe that in other countries the situation may be markedly different.)


Do Conferences provide the facility of pre-submission inquiries? This is my first post here, so kindly pardon any Beginner errors.

I noticed that it is common practice among authors to write pre-submission inquiries to different journals when it comes to journal publications.

I wanted to know if Conferences provide the same provision as well ?

My reason for this question is that i am working on a paper that i intend to submit to a conference whose deadline is due in just over a month's time.

I am apprehensive about submitting my paper straight away and instead would like some semblance of assurance from the conference reviewers/judges

Any help & guidance in this regard would be highly appreciated !

For some conferences the Program Chair might respond to an email enquiry. In others, perhaps not.

But there is no reason that you can't just submit your paper. If it is inappropriate in any way, you will be told as part of the review process. Don't waste people's time with something obviously off-topic, but otherwise just do it.

If a PC does respond to an enquiry it would likely be something like the above paragraph. Note that deadlines are pretty firm because of the limited time prior to the conference itself, though some conferences also extend deadlines when they don't get sufficient papers.


about referencing of exercises? I am using different programming books for extracting problems to be applied to a group of students for practices and exams. I would like to know if its necessary to put from where I took the exercises. I always reference the material in my lectures, but in exams is this necessary?

Thanks

To your specific question: I would not worry about referencing questions on an exam.  Although exams could end up on the Internet if a students posts them, I find it hard to believe that "fair use" does not cover using the questions for internal educational purposes, and referencing the questions is almost certainly not necessary.  That said, I am not a lawyer.

The bigger question might be

  How does one come up with good test questions?

It used to be (and may still be) that fraternities kept a filing cabinet full of course exams used in a class from year to year, purportedly simply for study purposes, but also in the hope that professors would re-use questions from year to year and this would provide a huge advantage to those studying from the prior exams.  These days, it would be trivial to have a web page dedicated to scanned copies of old exams.  Therefore, I would advise against re-using too many questions on an exam, or at the very least modify old questions to make it difficult to simply re-apply the exact same methodology to solve.

Crafting good questions is always challenging, but some would argue that it is fun developing questions that test the students ability to problem-solve in a format that works on a timed exam.  Questions that have a single answer are easier to grade, but could limit the ability for a student to think outside the box, or to solve using alternate methods.  Depending on the subject, this isn't always possible, either.

I am of the opinion that the best tests have many different types of questions, so students can show their own strengths in different ways.  For programming tests, there might be a few questions asking students to describe what blocks of code do, others that ask the student to find syntax errors, others that ask for algorithm deficiencies, still others that ask the students to draft short snippets of code, and finally some questions that demonstrate that the student knows when to use certain constructs (e.g., when is a "do while" loop appropriate, and when is a "for" loop appropriate?  How could you turn the following "do while" loop into a "for" loop?).

As a bottom line answer to your question: I would not worry about referencing the questions on the exams, but if you are worried about students cheating by looking up the references for future exams, it is probably worth trying to obfuscate the questions themselves, or to at least change them enough that studying the questions directly from the references will not give an unfair advantage to the students that do find them.


What are typical examples of 'Reference Misuse' when defined as 'using references to support predetermined arguments rather than illuminate debate'? A research ethics article recently appeared that described the results of a survey in which academics were asked whether they had participated in various forms of research misconduct. The responses were organized into specific research misconduct memes, such as 'Fabrication', 'Falsification', 'Authorship Abuse', and others. These all had a short generalized description that seemed typical.

However, there was one category whose description baffled me, meaning that I wasn't sure what they were implying (i.e., what is a typical example in general and would there be typical example in my field (physics).

The category was 'Reference misuse'. While I could think of some practices sleazy in physics that might be called reference misuse, I was otherwise feeling ignorant.

So, what standard example(s) should it conjure up in my mind when 'Reference Misuse' is defined  as 'using references to support predetermined arguments rather than illuminate debate'?

(The article that was being summarized the discussed in the blogs is  ”Academic Integrity: Exploring Tensions Between Perception and Practice in the Contemporary University” by Joanna Williams and Dave Roberts. It is published by the Society for Research into Higher Education on 30 June 2016). The authors and others report on it in Times Higher education which is where I was reading about it.

The definition provided seems a little opaque to me, but I can think of a couple of situations to which it might apply.

Reference misdirection: I write a paper in which I include some assertion, perhaps only tangential to my main argument.  Maybe it's something that I remember hearing from someone at some point, but I can't quite remember who.  The referee or a co-author calls me out on it and says that I need to provide a reference.  I type a couple of keywords into Google Scholar and find a plausible-sounding reference.  It looks related to my assertion, but it doesn't actually prove it.  I cite it anyway knowing that the reviewer will probably not follow up on it.

Overstating the impact of a reference:  I write a paper that depends crucially on some Theory X.  There is a paper that provided some evidence in support of Theory X, but I cite the paper as claiming that it found "strong evidence in favor of Theory X".  Or perhaps the paper did indeed find strong evidence in favor of Theory X, but I state that it "proved" the validity of Theory X.  Moreover, perhaps the paper provided a number of qualifications to their claims (which maybe invalidate its application entirely to my case!), but I ignore these qualifications entirely.

Presenting a one-sided history: I write a paper in favor of Theory X (or maybe my paper depends on the validity of Theory X).  In my introduction, I provide an extensive survey of the field and cite dozens of papers that have found evidence in favor of Theory X.  However, there are just as many papers which have found strong evidence against Theory X, but I do not cite any of these.  Although there is clearly a lively scholarly debate surrounding Theory X, I present Theory X as though it is a settled fact.  While this won't fool anyone who does serious research on Theory X, it will be a source of confusion for those who work in other fields and are not aware of the controversy.

This last one is particularly common and isn't as egregious as the others since the reference is not fraudulent, just superfluous.

Scratching someone's back:  I've written a paper in a related field to a colleague.  I know that they would appreciate a citation to one or more of their papers.  Or perhaps I would like to cite them to help bring my work to their attention.  Their work is not directly related to mine, but I figure out a way to add a few sentences to the introduction that vaguely connect my paper to their work so that I can work a citation to them into the paper.

Since researchers are all human (and hence biased and involved in academic politics), it's impossible to be entirely immune from all of these.  If you do a lot of research on Theory X and believe it to be true in your heart of hearts, you will be more aware of the limitations of studies purporting to disprove Theory X and will be more easily able to justify omitting references to them in your work.  But the goal of research is to discover the truth and present it as clearly as possible, and part of that process is being as aware of one's own biases as one can.


Is it common for a postdoc to develop the whole commercial systems on his own for his supervisor's industrial customer If a postdoc has strong coding technique, can he be assigned to develop commercial systems from the scratch on his own, including user requirement developing, model design, algorithm design, GUI and database design, system realization and testing, and deployment? You know, a postdoc is usually paid less than industrial employees, it results in relatively lower costs of the system than software companies.

At the same time, is it possible to publish?

As vonbrand mentions, whether the postdoc legally can be assigned to a customer project really depends on the funding source. For instance, we have recently explicitly hired a postdoc to lead a transfer project (essentially a "development project" that will hopefully end in a real product). The funding we use allows and supports this so I see no issues at all. Of course, if we used money that was given to us for some other cause (e.g., to conduct some fundamental research) it would be a different story.

However, I have the impression that the issue here is something else entirely. Notably, I suspect that the OP got hired under the pretense of a regular postdoc (i.e., on a position that is usually considered a stepping stone for a professorship) and is now pushed into what is essentially an industry development job due to her/his specific skills. Such situations are not uncommon in industry - people get reassigned to different roles based on changing company needs all the time. However, in academia, this (while maybe legal) is a rather shady move. Given how competitive academia is, there are strong career implications in working for a substantiated time in a specific role that does not progress the metrics that are typically required for the next career step (publications and acquired funding, typically).

As such, the OP should definitely discuss her/his career plan with whoever wants her/him to work on this customer project, and decide whether these career goals are consistent with the management goals of the lab. In the worst case, a move to a different lab may be a better option than working on a project that ends up a negative factor in the career progression.

  You know, a postdoc is usually paid less than industrial employees, it results in relatively lower costs of the system than software companies.

I am not sure whether this is correct (I certainly make more than many entry-level professionals), but anyway it does not seem to be the important issue here.

  At the same time, is it possible to publish?

Maybe? This is impossible for us to tell from the outside. But anyway, the question should not be "can I publish anything at all?", but rather "how much less am I publishing, and how much weaker are my scientific contributions, because I work on this product rather than on my science? Essentially, what are the opportunity costs in terms of scientific productivity for working in a developer role?


Is it okay if a professor friends a student on social media sites? If a professor is teaching a student currently, is it okay if he/she friends the student on social media sites such as Facebook or Google Plus?

It depends a little on the circumstances, but generally not.  If the student is your Ph.D. student, then it's probably OK to accept a friend request, but you shouldn't initiate it (and some people might not even approve of accepting it, depending on the sort of advising relationship you have).  If it's an undergraduate in one of your classes, then I don't think you should even accept a friend request, and sending one would be very improper.

There are three basic principles:

You shouldn't put your students in situations where they might feel awkward or uncomfortable.  For example, would turning down a friend request from one's professor come across as rude?
It's not healthy for class dynamics if there's a perception that you have a closer, friendlier relationship with some of the students than with others.
You need to be very careful not to do anything that could be misinterpreted (or, worse yet, correctly interpreted) as showing romantic interest.  Some people will interpret things that way if it's even vaguely plausible, and fair or not you've got to keep this in mind.


Applying for Physics PhD program with strong application but weak test scores I am a fourth-year physics B.S. student at the University of Virginia graduating this year. I'm planning to pursue a PhD program. I would like to get into the US top 50 schools. I don't really like to get into Harvard, for example, but Berkeley, MIT, Hopkins, etc.

I need to take the General and Physics GRE. English is not my first language, and so I'm pretty terrible when it comes to English-oriented standardized tests. As a result, I'm sure I'll do very poorly on the general GRE. As for the physics GRE, I will probably not do so well either---this one is because I am terrible under super stressful/timed situations. I cannot think right and I make stupid mistakes. I have taken a practice test and I did 50%. This part of my application is dark. On the bright side, I have a 4.0 GPA within my physics major, along with 3 years of research experience and 1 published conference paper. I also believe my professors will write me very strong letters. Because of the GRE portion, I have lost my confidence in being competitive and think I will not get into good schools. Is my fear justified? Is my application weak due to the GRE? In simple terms, am I hopeless when it comes to schools like Hopkins, MIT, and Berkeley?

First of all, congratulations on publishing and achieving that GPA! Together with strong letters that should make for a strong application, even with weaker GRE scores - maybe excepting places that use some kind of subject GRE score cutoff (if your score is too low). However, there's no such thing as guaranteed admissions for open applications like this. It'll depend on other applicants, your field, which research groups are looking for new students, etc.

The upshot here is that the GRE scores are easier to change than any other part of your application. Do all the practice tests, figure out tricks that work - dimensional analysis will take you far on the physics GRE, for example. You can also sit for the actual tests more than once, which might help with the stress levels.


A systematic review already exists in the literature. When is a newer one required? Suppose that a systematic review on a topic X was published some (3-8) years ago by someone else, and it is currently still a useful source for what has been made before it was published. However, more recent works were also published later.

Generally, how can I decide whether it is a good idea to work on a newer systematic review for publication, taking into account that the newer review could be (somewhat) similar in methodology and would be based on extended and more recent literature (including that already reviewed in the published one)?

When?

Whenever there is a set of papers that has significantly extended or changed the topic of interest.
If you have to do it as part of your thesis.
If you are contributing with a new approach/method in a publication (the literature review would typically be part of the Introduction).

My advice: do not spend too much time on writing and trying to publish a literature review if the problem has not evolved significantly during this time. Most of this kind of works get lost in an ocean of surveys.


An undergraduate said they may hire a freelancer to do their work for them. What should I do? I, a graduate student, have started tutoring undergraduates in computer science at my university to help make ends meet. One student who inquired about my services turned me down upon hearing my rates and remarked (in writing) that they might as well just buy solutions to their projects on a particular freelancing website for that price, as their friends do.

Should I tell the professor about this student, in case he wants to review their submissions more closely? I don't have any proof that they have already cheated, but to me their exact words (which to protect my anonymity, I have chosen not to publish) and phrasing suggest strongly that they are likely to. In this question, the OP appears to have evidence to suggest that cheating has taken place already, which seems more clear-cut.

[The student] remarked (in writing) that they might as well just buy solutions to their projects on a particular freelancing website for that price, as their friends do.

That does not sound to me like "admitting" that they "would" cheat. If I said to a prospective financial advisor, "your rates are so high I may as well just declare bankruptcy now", that does not mean that I am going to declare bankruptcy, it is merely a way to express that the advisor's services do not seem cost-effective.

Given this, I would do nothing -- you offered legitimate tutoring services and the student declined your offer. You have no compelling reason to suspect that the student will actually cheat.


Can I use a publication's accompanying source code in a commercial software? Said source code has no explicit license.
I know I could reimplement the method described in the paper, but it would be more convenient to just use the code directly.
What is the convention in these situations? Since methods aren't copyrightable, but source code is usually copyrighted by default.
P.S.: There's no patent on the method.

Said source code has no explicit license.

Let's see what licence means:

  a grant by the holder of a copyright or patent to another of any of the rights embodied in the copyright or patent short of an assignment of all rights

If there is no licence, then you are not allowed by the copyright holder to use the code. It's as simple as that. There is nothing that requires anyone to grant a licence to anyone else to use their code, and if they don't then no-one besides the copyright holder can legally use the code. It doesn't matter if the code is public.

Maybe this analogy will help: imagine I paint something and decide to hang the painting in a public space. Can anyone come along and start copying my painting because "there is no explicit licence"? Absolutely not! I hold the copyright to the painting, and you cannot copy, reuse... my painting without my permission. Well, as you say the code is copyrighted too, and there is no "default licence" that allows anyone to come along and copy the code unless stated otherwise; quite the opposite, actually.

Of course, you can always ask the copyright holder for permission, but check who the copyright holder actually is (it may not be the publication's authors anymore).


Important skills for medical researcher For some background, I'm a second year medical student, and I have recently been considering making medical research a significant part of my future career. I wasn't a science major in undergrad, so I don't have any research background. I have spoken to one of my professors, and I will be doing a bit of lab work in the coming months (I'll be running ELISAs and will have my name on the publication).

EDIT: I'm hoping to have a research elective in my last year in medical school. That's why I'm trying to see if there is anything I should learn between now and then to make me a better candidate for application to the elective.

Now to the heart of my question. I believe I have sufficiently detailed knowledge of the medical content to work in the field (EDIT: to get my feet wet, there is always a lot to learn:). Though I am doing some more in depth research in the field I'm looking to work in (Immunology/Rheumatology). However I know that there are some skill sets that I am currently lacking in that would be necessary for medical research. Here are some of the things I've considered:

Familiarity with data analysis software packages like R or Stata
Familiarity with lab techniques like blots and culturing cells
Academic science writing (of course I've read journal articles, but I've never written one)
Grant writing (probably a skill needed in later career, but I assume some familiarity would be helpful)

I'm wondering, from those currently working in medical research, if there are any glaring omissions from this list. I'm reading up on data analysis packages and taking a more analytic eye when reading articles. But if there are any specific resources that I should be looking into: that information would be very useful.

Thanks in advance for any help.

We need more researchers in rheumatology.

EDIT: In the comments, you asked what skills you'd need to attract the attention of a potential supervisor when applying for a research elective in your upper years (prior to graduation).

Research electives for medical students are offered to those meeting a specific grade criterion. You must be able to meet that to even qualify. No amount of "passion" will give you this chance. Once you're in that pool of candidates, then it's largely a turkey shoot. In my university, the electives coordinator hands out a list of topics available in labs and units and students choose three projects in descending order of preference. Then, a matching process handles the details. The student receives an assignment and off they go. In some cases, students approach a potential supervisor about six months prior and expresses a desire to take the elective under his or her supervision. Then, a small bespoke project is crafted. This takes time, but often results in a more meaningful experience (not to mention a more lasting relationship between the student and the supervisor).

I generally assume that medical students undertaking research electives in my unit are devoid of research skills and we train them from the ground up. If you came to us stating, say, that you had skills in the measurement of nuchal translucency on ultrasound, we would still ask you to train under us, but expect that your pick-up of those skills would be faster than usual. There is no shame in stating that you don't know how or what to do. That's the point of the elective.

What base skills do we expect? (1) Good communication skills, both oral and written. I don't want to correct your grammar on the poster or teach you how to speak clearly before an audience. (2) Good literature search skills, as you'll be reading up on a lot of previous work. (3) Solid understanding of the foundational aspects of the research topic. If you're working on the management of asbestosis, I expect that you know the anatomy and physiology of the respiratory system as well as basic pathology of inflammation, etc. (4) Being able to work in teams. You'll likely be the most junior member of the team and I don't want you disrupting some of the more complex research projects under way.

Over the long therm, I've found these skills relevant to my own career:

Learn how to be a good clinician. Then, maintain a clinical load. Continuing to care for patients allows you to stay grounded not in what you do but WHY you do it. You can get lost in a Western blot and miss the adverse impact that achy joints have on a grandmother of five. I work in public health, but still see breast cancer patients. It's one thing to understand the effect that a drug has on millions of women. It's quite another to explain to a woman that her 13-year-old daughter does not need a mammogram just because Angelina Jolie was concerned about breast cancer.
Learn how to be a good teacher. Then, maintain a teaching load. You need to help train the new generation, much like the older generation trained you.
Learn how to network and collaborate. Good clinical research is rigorous. Great clinical research is collaborative.
Every so often, spend some time away from the lab and immerse yourself in a refugee camp or a medical mission. The lab is good for the brain; the immersion is good for the soul.

Good luck to you.

PS.

  I believe I have sufficiently detailed knowledge of the medical content to work in the field.

Spoken like a true second year medical student.


Can we quantify the difference made by or popularity of online learning? How much of a change is online learning through open courseware (OCW), etc., actually making? Are there any peer reviewed studies regarding the same?

One way is to assess the performance by a single test of two groups of students, one in the regular classroom atmosphere and the other group using solely online tools. The topic may be chosen at random, with varying levels of difficulty. It would also provide information about effectiveness of using online tools in teaching difficult concepts. This study by Anna Ya Ni  is in that direction.


Can I pursue a Master's in the USA in software engineering after a Bachelor's in IT in Nepal? Can I do a Master's in software engineering in the USA, because I've done a Bachelor's in information technology in Nepal?
Software engineering and information technology are different majors, so will it cause any problem to do a Master's in software engineering? So, please help me out here.

You can apply for the master degree in computer engineering with a bachelor in IT. However number of things here:

You will pay a lot of money for a master degree in the US. So what is the game plan here?
If you get into a true to the core engineering course, you will have a hard time, as they will focus on the practical aspects of computer science and it might be very hard for you to complete your degree on time. For example, you might see a typical student can create a simple compiler in a 5 hours sitting, while it might take you three months to get to that point.
If you want to continue to the Ph.D. program after your Msc, you will still have some problems, because your marks might not be good based on the second point.
If you want to start a company after Msc, I would suggest to think about it very carefully as Msc, with huge tuition fee, might not be a good choice.


Should I talk to my advisor regarding undergrad advising workload? Recently one of my profs (other than my advisor) told me that I am not doing well in his subject. Should I tell this to my advisor? Actually the reason of me not doing well is  doing other jobs assigned by my advisor to me like advising undergraduates. Undergraduates don't let me do my work. And whenever I am busy doing my own research and due to this when I politely refuse them, they say that they will go and complain about me to my advisor. Please help I am really stuck as to how to deal with the situation?

Yes.  Talk to your advisor.

It is really important you learn to, in a good way, think of yourself. Right now, the undergraduates are happy (they get help) but your work is suffering. I can imagine that helping undergraduates is part of your job description, but not to the point you cannot work anymore yourself. You need to sit down with your professor and your supervisor and discuss that your undergraduate workload is too much. Best is to have a proposal ready yourself, e.g. that you want to spend a day a week helping undergraduates and that that is the limit. Once you get both your professor and your supervisor to agree, no undergraduate can manipulate you into helping him/her. In addition, everyone is clear on their expectations, this is the professional way of dealing with this in my opinion.

If you do not set boundaries, you will be the only one suffering. The professor and supervisor will feel somewhat bad, but the undergraduates will find a new person to stalk, while you are left without a PhD.


Practical Tips: Mathematical research and discoveries How to behave when you have the feeling of working on something innovative? What to do if there is a chance (even the 1%) that your
  work is leading you to something original?

For example what if I don't know mathematicians I trust to ask? Is a good idea to talk about your results (even if are not real results) to someone?

  Question:

  What do you do if you have this feeling?

  I'm looking for a list (or links to related SE questions/guides/books or others)
  of practical tips to use while studying a certain subject you
  have the feeling of having found an innovative approach that can
  provide a new solution.

I am interested too in books about the mathematicians' way to research. (I think is related)

  I already asked this question on Math.SE but was closed two times. Here the link to MathematicsSE

0. To give original contribution to the understanding of mathematical objects is what mathematician do, and talk about all the time. There is a priori no need to fear for ideas being stolen; if you want to play secure, you can publish a preprint to ensure priority.

Given the wording of your question, I assume that you are an amateur mathematician, and that you feel that you may have found something about an important, well-known question. Sorry if this is not the case.

As most mathematicians, I receive demand for advice of this kind from time to time, so here is my usual answer.

Be prepared to have made a mistake,
be prepared to have found something known for a long time,
be prepared to have found something that will not attract interest.

This may sound very negative, but these are the worries that are much more likely to be relevant than seeing your contribution stolen. I have seen recently an amateur publishing on viXra after seeking advice from me, that was afraid of having her ideas stolen. It turned out that her contribution was a few hundred years behind current knowledge.

Researchers in mathematics only succeed in advancing knowledge because they spend much time learning their specialty and keeping up with what is being proven, and we do sometimes reinvent the wheel (I got scooped by 130 years once, realizing that Camille Jordan already solved a cute problem I was interested in), or make mistake, or do things that do not interest our colleagues. It is tremendously difficult to avoid this pitfalls when you don't have access to the literature, don't have colleagues to speak with about your research, don't have a regular seminar to listen to, don't have had a PhD advisor to guide you through your first problems.

So, for a positive piece of advice:

4. learn the field you are interested in (e.g. read books, from the point you are in your knowledge to the field you are interested in). Be prepared for this step to take much time.


What happens to equipment purchased using a startup package after an academic leaves the university? I am on the faculty of a large American university, and I have bought a lot of equipment (laptops, tablets, batteries, etc.) for research purposes using a startup package.  I will be leaving for a new university in September, and I am wondering what, in practice, will happen to this equipment.  Obviously, it is the property of the university and I'm going to leave it all there, but is someone going to come through with a clipboard and make sure it's all there?  Do these kinds of things usually just get sent off to surplus sales?  How about the students of mine who will still be at the old university?

What happens to your stuff depends on how your university classifies it. Inventoried material—more expensive items that a university keeps track of—will almost certainly need to be accounted for. So that probably includes laptops and tablets, unless they're so old they've been removed from inventory (as not having any significant value anymore). Major laboratory equipment and furniture also fall into this category. Such materials will probably be held as "surplus," and made available to other groups or departments.

In contrast, small-ticket items—such as stationery and miscellaneous office supplies—are not normally tracked. You won't be asked to reimburse the university for a missing stapler.


When is a good time (during graduate studies) to start thinking about writing the thesis? A significant number of colleagues had their thesis defense in the past year and talking to them got me thinking about my own dissertation to come in about 2 years (I am approximately half-way through my graduate studies).

Based on my experience, the norm appears to be so that the focus of a PhD student shifts from initial getting-used-to-things, to getting-papers-out, do your coursework/teaching (if applicable), getting-papers-out (repeat)... until you are a couple of months away from the dissertation date, and you panic your way into writing your thesis. The panic then leads to stress and errors, which I witness with many colleagues.

Seeing as my projects are particularly detached from one-another, it would perhaps be good to start thinking about some structure, and perhaps even start jotting down some text; not long paragraphs but at least some bullet points on the points I want to mention, statements I want to make in my thesis.

Seeing that I am only half-way in, is this a reasonable approach? ... or am I stressing way too early? Does one need to leave the thesis writing to the end when the stress is maxed-out, or are there smarter ways to handle the writing? I imagine one drawback of starting now, is that I do not yet have the "bigger picture" but yet again, since the projects are not built up on one another, I don't know if it's a real issue in my case.

Any perspective on the matter is welcome, of course.

I think it is a good idea to start writing down parts of your thesis early on. You need to consider possible structures for the thesis as well so that you know what you might need to write.

Starting early will, however, not remove the need for significant efforts at the end because the thesis evolves and it is only when you have your last papers/experiments/equivalent done when you really know how the text will have to look. This means you should write down text early on with the clear understanding that this text will likely undergo lots of revisions. While this may seem like a waste of time, I have found it useful to have the thoughts down on paper, it also provides a sense of fulfillment, "that you are on your way". In some cases I have had to scrap the texts altogether and start over but I see this as part of the iterative process of scientific work.

By going through the iterations your text will improve and the last efforts will be ever closer to a final product than were you to start from scratch at the end. I went through this myself and I have seen countless students do the same. Being prepared and realising that much awaits ahead is just a realisation that must be clear. Going blindly into the final stages without having a grasp of what is needed is what causes extra and unnecessary stress.