How does academics form discussion & study environments efficiency and effectively? As a student, I often read & hear academics meeting in workshops to discuss problems in their fields with their colleagues, or with academics in other field etc.. As a Physics & Mathematics student, I know how beneficial and enjoyable is discussing ideas with a fellow student, so I'm aware of the importance of such meetings.

However, whenever I (with other student) tried to form such a discussion groups, meetings, it always failed. Most of the time, we didn't have any specific problem at hand, and there was nothing to discuss. I mean after all we were learning the subject, and try to understand it; not to solve some particular problem. Of course, one can try to solve some "exercises" as a group, but most of the time those are just to verify we understood what we've learned, and their solutions are in web, so to a Physics/Mathematics students, there is almost no motivation, nor any joy, in solving or talking about them.

Similarly, I've seen various "study groups" in my department (within PhD student, PhD student with his/her advisor etc.) studying some topics together. Up to now, I always did self-studies alone, so knowing that doing this with a second or a third person would be much more beneficial, I also tried to implement such a study group, it also did not work, somehow.

Question:

How do academic meetings for discussions & studying managed themselves in a way that it is useful for everyone, much more efficient compare to doing the same thing alone, and enjoyable ?

Let me suggest that there isn't any magic answer. Certainly not for efficiency. But a few things can help.

Many (most?) such groups have some leadership. Often it is a senior professor and the group consists of other professors and some students.  Often the subject of the group is the main research interest of the senior professor and others are looking for their insights to help in their own research, likely in the same or a related area. Here the leadership is fixed and the cohesion of the group is guaranteed by the stature of that professor.

Student groups are a bit different. If you can include a professor as leader, then you have a seminar, and many/most of the ideas come from the prof. That can be both stable and productive.

Some student groups are driven by fear. In some universities, students that don't band together to study will likely be unable to understand everything needed in the course. Some law schools are like this. See the movie Paper Chase for a dramatic example. These are pretty stable and are a way for a group to share out a huge amount of readings and provide summaries for everyone.

But if you want something more informal, what you need is someone to get it started with some ideas to study and also some commitment from a group of people. Of course the commitment needs to be sustained and that depends on the "work" of the group being mutually interesting. One way to manage the leadership issue is to pass it around. One way to do that is to have people contribute ideas for what should be discussed at the next meeting(s) and then vote among members on what should be pursued next. Whoever contributes the idea becomes "leader" for the discussion of the idea. That person probably has some commitment and the voting may add a bit more. But it is especially helpful if the proposer of the idea can give an initial outline and list of tasks before the meeting(s) at which the idea will actually be discussed.

This, of course, isn't the only way to do things, but leadership and commitment are, I think, the two essentials.


Have there ever been any "Lebron James" of academia? For those who aren't familiar, Lebron was so talented and sought-after in high school that he was able to skip playing NCAA basketball and went right on to the NBA at the age of 19. Have there ever been any academic researchers who showed so much promise at one stage (in undergrad or grad school maybe) that they were offered funding to set up their own research institution, or a high-ranking position they'd typically be unqualified for?

This is just a curiosity of mine and not a reflection on my career plans.

Stephen Wolfram self-published a physics book at age 12 and then 3 more by the age of 14 (a lot of people do this, but you can look at the PDFs by clicking on the links here and I think you'll find that these could compete in quality to the works of many adults at the time).

That same link will tell you that he did not finish high school, or undergrad, but received a PhD at age 20 from Caltech. On the recommendation of Richard Feynman and Gerald Freund, he joined Caltech's faculty at age 21.

  Have there ever been any academic researchers who showed so much
  promise at one stage (in undergrad or grad school maybe) that they
  were offered funding to set up their own research institution, or a
  high-ranking position they'd typically be unqualified for?

To qualify into the PhD program at Caltech, one typically needs at least an undergrad degree, and Stephen Wolfram did not have one. As user StrongBad points out, entering a PhD program at Caltech is far more exceptional than entering the NBA straight from high school, when you look at the percentage of people that have done either. Entering the faculty at a university like Caltech at age 21 and only 1 year after finishing the PhD, was also probably less common percentage-wise, than entering the NBA straight from high school.

You ask about "setting up their own research institution", at first I was going to tell you that including this in your question was a bit extreme, but after reading more about Wolfram I found out that he set up the Center for Complex Systems Research (CCSR).

However LeBron James stayed in the NBA for a fairly long career and has continued to be (arguably) the best player in the NBA. Wolfram "academic career" was short relative to most other academics, because he shifted to doing other things such as:
(1) making software for academics
(2) making educational resources and doing outreach
(3) managing businesses that help academics
He did continue to do academic work and published a book with academically original content, but it wasn't received as well as the mid- to late-career achievements of LeBron James. His success in (1), (2), and (3) though can definitely be compared to the mid- to late career achievements of LeBron James.


Fellow graduate student discusses problems but gives no credit afterwards I am currently doing research and I know a fellow graduate student who is very intellectually curious. Let's call him/her C. However, I feel that C has a very consistent habit for not crediting people who have discussed problems with him. We work in the same lab/department, so we cannot avoid each other.

C would (very frequently, may I add) try to get people to discuss his own research problems with him, and after he has been provided tips, references or full-blown solution to his problems, he would simply take credit for them as if it was his own. Present them as if he came up with the idea. Write them and publish them as papers as if he came up with the idea. He would of course laugh about it afterwards, and talk very jovially about his accomplishments, and in the past I would have laughed along with him, because I have adopted the mindset that perhaps it is good to help out my fellow colleague. I shared my ideas generously, and promptly responded to any request.

C's habit came to my attention several month ago when another graduate student told me, that after spending a significant amount of time discussing a problem with C, C provided a solution to that problem, but nearly all the heavy lifting was done through that discussion.

Then it just happened, C talked to me about a problem a year ago, I provided him with what I thought would be a good way of tackle the problem. I just saw his publication, which was uploaded online last week, in which the paper utilizes some material drawn from what we had discussed.

This incident has left a bitter taste in my mouth, because I feel as if I had been used or exploited. Looking back, outside of accelerating C's own research career, I feel that C has no real connection with any of his fellow graduate students. While the other students would talk about everyday life topics, current events, family, etc., C would only ask us questions about his own research.

In doing so, C's behavior in some sense has cheapened my graduate school experience, and left me jaded at the fact that to in order become a top researcher, it seems that you need to exploit other people's time and intellectual energy as much as possible for your own gain. The more you do it, the more successful you will become.

It reminded me of my undergraduate days, when fellow students would try to pick your brains about everything you knew about a subject, but gives nothing in return. You have any study material out, they line up to see what you are reading. "Nosy", as some would describe this type of behavior. It just feels that my patience and kindness has being routinely exploited by people who just don't really care about other people.

  How do senior researchers deal with this type of behavior? Of course,
  research cannot go on without communication, and we all have taken
  credit for things that are not purely our own intellectual
  contribution. However, I think the person's consistent willingness to
  exploit other people's time and intellectual energy has crossed the
  line for me. I wonder if I am over-reacting.

What you describe doesn't sound particularly unreasonable or problematic to me.  Researchers discuss things with each other all the time, and of course the results of such discussions often show up in published research.  That's what you ought to expect when you have a technical discussion with someone.  In fact it's the best case - your contribution was useful and advanced science.

You ought to have been acknowledged in the paper, but the standard thing would be to have a brief section at the end, with something like "The author would like to thank House Ninja for helpful discussions."  If this was omitted, I would guess it's most likely due to C's unfamiliarity with publishing practice - he is a grad student after all.  You could have a brief word with him about this, or ask his supervisor to mention it to him.  But it isn't reasonable to expect that the paper will contain a detailed catalog of which specific idea was due to whom.  People don't keep track of things like that.  And you shouldn't expect this sort of credit to advance your career in any tangible way - it's a mere courtesy.  Such an acknowledgement wouldn't make your interaction any more or less "exploitative".

If you were expecting to become a co-author on the paper, then you should have said so explicitly at the time of the conversation: "This is really interesting to me.  Would you like to work on a paper together?"  Of course, in that case, you should expect to contribute a dramatically greater amount of work than just sharing ideas.

So I think what you gained from the discussion was about the most that you could expect - you made a contribution that helped to advance the state of the art.  You can decide if that feels like a sufficient reward for the time you spent.  If not, then maybe in future you want to spend less of your time having such discussions.

But I wouldn't see this as exploitation.  Researchers talk to each other to get ideas.  That's the point of research.  Maybe someday C will be able to share some interesting ideas with you.

  While the other students would talk about everyday life topics, current events, family, etc., C would only ask us questions about his own research.

So, C happens to be more interested in his work than in mundane topics.  I don't think that's a problem.  You'll meet a lot more such people if you stay in science.  Maybe he wouldn't be an interesting guest at a party, but it doesn't mean he's exploiting you.


What incentives does an advisor have to help PhD students graduate in a timely manner? I've heard it suggested several times on this site that advisors (especially in experimental fields where the PI may benefit from a cheap, highly skilled workforce) have an incentive to prevent their PhD students from graduating in a timely manner, or at least that they have no incentive to actively promote graduation when the student is "ready." (Whatever "ready" means for that particular student.)

For example, user47148 says

  You are the only one who cares if you finish. To your advisor you are cheap labor.

bfoste01 says

  I often wonder if keeping highly-skilled cheap labor around to do something with the data that a PI is collecting from a high-profile grant is often an implicit factor that impacts students' trajectories. In which case it is not uncommon to see students in their 6th or 7th year of the program receive funding.

and grandmah77 refers to

  keeping your advisor from keeping you there forever as cheap labor.

I am interested in learning more about the opposite: what incentives do advisors have to help their students graduate as soon as they're ready?

This question discusses incentives for advisors to increase their PhD completion rate. Presumably this is part of the answer, because a student who isn't allowed to graduate in a timely manner might just drop out instead.

But besides for that, what incentives (if any) does an advisor have to help students graduate when they are ready, rather than dragging out the length of their degree?

(In some programs, there are policies that limit the duration of PhD funding. I'm asking about programs where PhD students can potentially hang on for several years past the mean time-to-degree.)

P.S. answers supported by references to actual data would be amazing.

This is very simple. I care about my students, and want the best for them. Languishing in graduate school is rarely optimal for anyone. And then there is the issue of funding. For the same reason -- concern for my students' wellbeing -- it is very important to me to provide them with RA funding as close to year-around as possible. If funding starts to get tight, it doesn't help to have someone taking a luxury sixth year when he or she could have graduated earlier. I'd rather have everyone funded on RAships than have so-called "cheap labor" from senior students while junior students are forced to TA.

If the question is referring to why even a sociopathic advisor would want his or her students to graduate on time, there is some prestige in having students graduate quickly and move on to good positions, and some shame in having students in their sixth, seventh, and later years.


How to properly cite (and write a paragraph) that a paper is based upon another paper but proposes different contribution? I have a paper A which is already published. Now I want to write paper B which will use data from the same expirement conducted in A but with results which were not mentioned in paper A.
Basically, paper A focused on "which interaction technique is better" and paper B will focus on the effects those techniques had on the user.
While A was a long journal paper, B is planned to be a short poster.
My question is: How can I properly tell the reviewers that this paper uses data from an expirement conducted during another paper? The submission has to be anonymous.
I would write "This work provides additional insights to the interaction techniques in [citation removed due to anonomity]" but I have a feeling that this sounds lame and reviewers will feel like "meh..this doesnt sound very sophisticated..."
Also I plan to reuse some images I used in paper A, is this allowed?

I think using the data isn't an issue and you can just simply cite the paper. As far as anonymity goes, just citing and using that data doesn't disclose the anonymity. Unless there is a rule where an experiment in paper A can not be carry forwarded in another paper, you should be good to go.
To write it properly, refer to some other paper in your domain which does the same. In CS, there are multiple papers churning out solutions for the same data.
Re-using images is something I would suggest not to do, newer examples of potential edge cases in the previous paper would hold better. It generally is allowed unless mentioned explicitly.


What are "General Quality Indicators" for scientific research? I am currently filling in a CV in the Spanish CVN online system (https://cvn.fecyt.es/).

In the section "Scientific and technological activities" it asks to specify "General Quality Indicators" in up to 3500 words.

I am a mathematician and I have never heard of such indicators, what are relevant things to put here? I.e., seminars organised, papers published?

A side question, at some point it refers to the h-index (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index), have you ever seen this been used in mathematics?

TIA

Seminars and papers are activities. They are asking to elaborate on the quality of such activities, preferably with some objective indicator. For instance, a seminar can be taught by invitation at an institution that occupies a relevant place in the Shanghai ranking of Universities. Or a paper can be published in a journal placed in the first quartile of its category sorted by impact factor.

The h-index is used pervasively in Spain and Mathematics is not an exception.

Good luck.

EDIT: What is your final goal when filling in the CV? You should find additional information on the specific call you apply to. For instance, if you are thinking about applying to accreditation (i.e. to pursue an assistant or tenure position) then you should have a look at the accreditation agency web site: www.aneca.es


Technical editor changed author order of the paper Recently, I attended a conference as a corresponding author of a paper with five authors. After the paper was published in the conference proceedings, I realized that the technical editor changed the authors order by grouping them according to their affiliations. Is this acceptable?

I feel a bit responsible to my coauthors (being the corresponding author) even though this publication style also affected other papers in the proceedings. But what should I do?

Is this a field where author order is assumed to matter (e.g., applied CS)? If yes, this is completely unacceptable. If no, it is still very strange, but maybe not a big deal in the end. I can only imagine that your paper was handled by a very inexperienced technical editor who is simply not aware that the order of authors is not just a stylistic question, but actually has CV implications (in some cases, at least).

One way or another, you should get in touch with the organizers of the conference (e.g., the publication chair if they have one, the general chair if not) and let them know. Maybe it is still possible to fix this, but at least the responsible people should be aware of this issue.


Can a potential Supervisor leave a hint on you in the scholarships and influence somehow the selection? I wonder if a full time professor could somehow influence the scholarship committee. I know that my potential supervisor is currently recruiting PhD students, he told me when I first approached him. He has accepted to be my supervisor and we are in touch. How is he sure that he is gonna recruit the potential PhD students he has accepted to supervise? They may have 5 potential PhD students and none of them will get the scholarship.

I would expect that absent firm rules that professors lobby pretty hard for the students they most want. It isn't a question of leaving some subtle hint.

There might be rules against it, of course, and that might dampen it down a bit, but ....

There might even be "horse trading" among senior professors.

But it is just another form of competition. Having a professor strongly advocate for you doesn't guarantee much if other professors are lobbying for others and the money is limited.


Decision between time or high-rank try Suppose you have a well-written paper that, in your supervisor's opinion,deserves a bit more of a Tier 2 journal, but it is difficult to get published in a Tier 1 journal. Would you suggest, in general, trying the higher rank journal first, getting a rejection (likely), but also possible improvements and eventually try a second-tier, or would you aim to the second straightforward to save time?

I think you (or the hypothetical person here) are gaming the system to your own disadvantage. I'm reading the first sentence as "...more than a Tier 2 journal...".
You don't know you will be rejected. The suggestions of the reviewers might, when incorporated, result in acceptance.
And there is no guarantee about the time to publication for any journal. It is highly unpredictable for most journals, depending on the work load of reviewers, etc.
Moreover the break between "tiers" is pretty fuzzy.
Send it to the "most appropriate" journal for the work itself.


Visualization tool for paper citations Does anyone know if there is a tool that takes a paper (pdf) and is able to produce a directed graph of the citations, and if possible take the papers that are cited and use the citations of those papers and include it in the graph. So it is easy to see what is an important paper, and what I've missed and so on.

An example I hardcoded:

I'm also on a saga to look for this tool, hopefully the answers in this thread can end all the search. Here is what I know.
There used to be a software called RefViz that does what you exactly want. It was released by Thomson at a price of about US$295. Unfortunately, the response wasn't too good and it seems the product has been discontinued for more than five years. I used to use this software quite often to generate some themes from the literature pool. Since it was discontinued I have moved away from this type of relational analysis.
Instem has another product OmniViz, which remains in the market. OmniViz is like RefViz on steroids, and is much more capable. The price is also higher, reaching about US$1000 for an educational copy. Apart from literature relation, it can also be applied to genomics and that perhaps explains the high price. Instem has also produced a text-specific version of Omniviz, Txtviz that is designed specifically to support people wading through large volumes of textual documents to find specific themes and areas of interest.
If you're tight on budget, try Google "citation map software" and you should be able to find other cheaper alternatives, like SciMAT, which is free.
Thomson has also hosted an online citation map, which does not hook up to your literature library, but if you click on any indexed article on Web of Science, you can get a network consisted of the cited and citing articles. If you'd like to see how much impact a certain article has, it's a good tool as well.
A more rudimentary way is to make the network yourself using mind mapping software. I have been using the brainstorming function in Qiqqa and it's not too shabby as a thought generator.
Last but not least, I'd also like to advocate for a large piece of A3 size paper, a good black or sepia felt tip pen, a box of color pencil, and some fun attitude to draw your own. I got the most out of this method, to be honest. When using the online tool or software I feel I am just producing a thing, but when I use my hands to make a network of articles that I feel important, I am also thinking. I guess person-to-person it's different.
Just remember whatever software we use, the relevance is based on algorithm. It's just like data mining, there will be false positives and negatives. Be mindful when analyzing the so-called literature gaps that the software found, sometimes it could be a gap, sometimes it could just be a void and does not deserve attention. Strong discretion along the process is necessary.


Typical assistant vs. associate professor startup packages In the United States, are the startup packages offered for tenure-track positions at research universities typically significantly different for the assistant and associate professor levels?

Background: I am a researcher in computer science considering moving from an industrial position to a university tenure track position. I have recently received an offer for a tenure-track position at the associate professor level (expected, given my career position).

The startup package being offered seems rather weak to me, however, particularly comparing it against a startup package that I know was offered to another person who recently entered this department in a similar position but at the assistant professor level.

Is it typical for a new associate professor to be offered a much smaller startup package than a new assistant professor (perhaps on the theory that they are already established in their career), or is the university giving me a weak offer?

Your explicit question

Your question is about the statistics of startup offers to Associate versus Assistant Professors. I don't know if there's a resource that's able to answer that in detail, in general, across universities. The only Associate Professor startup package that I know of was indeed lower than most Assistant Professor packages, but I'm not in computer science, this Associate was bringing their own grant money, and N=1!

Your implicit question

However, it sounds like you're trying to use this data to make inferences about whether or not the university is giving you a "weak offer", and to use that information to set your negotiating strategy.

Don't.

This is a bad idea, for a couple of reasons.

A "weak offer" is not interpretable.

Let's say the university is making you a weak offer. Normally they'd offer $X, but for you, they're offering $2/3X. Uh oh! What does this mean?

They're not really all that excited about you. Sure, they'll hire you, but you were the best of a bad bunch. Not worth throwing money at.
These are hard financial times. The new budget is much tighter than previous years, and there are hard limits on what they can afford.
They don't understand your needs. Of course their previous hire, the robotics specialist, needed a lot of startup. But you, you work on computability theory, all you need is a pencil and a notebook, no problem!
It is a lowball offer, but it's flexible if you negotiate hard. The other hires were given similar offers, but negotiated hard and raised it fine.
Any combination of the above.

So, even if you did have an answer to your initial question, then you are left with even more questions.

Your startup needs are independent

Your startup needs are not dictated by what other people have been offered. Whether or not you need item X or software Y to succeed in this position cannot be determined by comparing your number to other people's numbers. This is a common problem in startup considerations, where the thinking is backwards.

Start with what you will need (and be generous, it's always good to have a little wiggle room). Come up with a budget to calculate what you would need to succeed, obtain grants, and really flourish. Share that itemized budget with your university contact. If the number is way off the number they are offering you, reflect on what is needed and what is flexible, and reflect on what is your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. That is, are you able to say "no" to them and walk away? Do you have other options? Can you maybe get away with using some cheaper equipment? Can you be creative with the startup, for example having it spread over several years (that way the capital outlay for the university is lower)? There are lots of options. Remember, the university has made you an offer because they want you. It is in their interests for you to succeed at your job and to flourish, so it is in their interests to ensure that you receive an adequate startup package.

Good luck!


How to cancel an article submission? My article submission is in first 'Under Review' status since more than 6 months. The journal editor did not answer on my request for submission. Can I cancel my submission of the journal or must I wait in any case, even if it will take years? I am under deadline pressure.

Websites of journals haven't the information to cancelation of submissions. This is an elsevier journal.

Many greetings!

Yes, you can withdraw a journal submission at any point before it is accepted.  Some journals with online submission systems have an option where you can withdraw the paper, but -- curiously? -- not all.  Within the last two years I had to withdraw a submitted paper -- there was a mistake! -- and I believe I ended up leaving an "I withdraw this paper" note in the journal's submission system.  It took them about a week to get back to me and corroborate that the paper had been withdrawn.  (In case anyone cares: our mistake was to use a false result in the literature; we fixed it, resubmitted to the same journal, and the paper was published there, all within six months!) In fact though it doesn't really matter if they respond to your withdrawal in a timely manner or not: if they never respond to you again about the paper then that is exactly the same as if it is withdrawn, and if they do later you can show them your earlier correspondence that you withdrew the paper.

I do want to mention that it is best to be a bit patient and more than a bit persistent when trying to publish one's work.  For instance, I believe I currently have two papers that have been under review for over six months.  I wish they went faster, but I honestly don't (yet) feel that anything is seriously amiss.  Of course this depends a lot on your academic field -- in mine (mathematics), it really does take a long time to referee papers, especially if you include the traditional "1-5 months on the referee's shelf".  It is really not acceptable for a reputable publisher to totally ignore your messages.  So if I were you I would proceed under the assumption that they don't mean to do that and the wires are somehow crossed.  I would send multiple emails to editors in charge, spaced out a week or two apart, to several email addresses.  You don't want to jettison a process with a solid chance of reaching the desirable conclusion for one more spin of the big wheel of journal submission.


Advisor forcing to publish paper in high profile journal One of my graduate students, doing their PhD in another university, is doing quite well. Recently, he told me that he is having a tussle with his supervisor on communication of his work to a specific journal. His supervisor insists he submit his research to a very high profile journal, but my student does not believe that his research work would be accepted by this journal. Side note: His supervisor does not have any publications in this high profile journal.

Now my question is that, how to deal with such situation?

Everyone should be so lucky to have an advisor who pushes them to excel and to aspire to the highest standards of achievement. Really, I don't see why your friend is complaining -- he should just go ahead and submit the paper to the high-profile journal.

Moreover, your friend's advisor, whether he published in the journal before or not, is considerably more qualified than your friend to judge the chances of the paper to be accepted to the journal. If the advisor thinks that's where the paper should be submitted, your friend would in all likelihood be foolish to disagree, especially since the worst that can happen is the paper will get rejected, probably sooner rather than later.

The only exception to this advice is in the bizarre situation in which the advisor is clearly delusional. In that case, your friend has much bigger problems and should probably look for a different advisor, not because of the small and self-correcting problem with the journal but because having an advisor who is so delusional and has such poor judgment does not bode well for your friend's eventual success in his research.


Is it common to work as a visiting scholar at a company while employed as a postdoc in a university? I am currently employed as a postdoc at a US university. I was wondering if it is possible/common for postdocs to work as visiting researchers in industry while employed as a postdoc?

I know that many PhDs do internships while completing their studies but I was curious what the case is for postdocs. Do companies fund postdocs to visit their research labs?

My PhD is in machine learning if that makes any difference.

Thanks!

I doubt that it is common. It may even be impossible in many cases. If the postdoc is considered full-time employment then there may be contractual restrictions on other employment.

It might be somewhat common for companies to fund a short visit and pick up expenses for the visit, however.

It is probably also somewhat common that a postdoc will work in a joint arrangement between a university and a company, perhaps because the company provides full or partial funding for the position. But it would still be "one job" and not two. Perhaps that is what you meant by the question, of course.

Doctoral students, in the US, at least, are different than post docs since they are not considered full time employees. They may hold part time (TA, RA) positions, of course.

And, depending on the nature of the position, it might be possible to accept short term employment when the normally expected activities are suspended, such as between terms for example.


Shall I contact multiple faculty members in one department? In the process of a PhD application, if contacting the faculty members are encouraged, shall I contact more than one faculty members saying that I am interested in his/her research?

Not all professor list their on-going project so a match in interests cannot usually be determinated before talking.

If I am contacting multiple members shall I disclose that I am contacting a lot of them? Is it impolite?

If you are interested in the research topics of several members of a department, you can contact all of them. Everyone knows that people apply to several topics and several universities. You should always make sure that each message is "personalized" and explains why you are interested in that particular topic. Generic emails are more likely to be ignored.

If the recipients are likely to talk to each other (as is the case when they are in the same department), I would mention in the emails that you have contacted some other members of the department. They will probably find it out anyway, and it looks more honest if you say it in advance.


infinite/sustainable hosting of a web-interface to a research database I am a postdoc in the humanities and I am drafting a funding application for a project envisaging the development of a research database. The project will last no more than 2-3 years and as a postdoc I am not supposed to stay at the host institution for longer.
The question is how to preserve the results of this work for posterity.
Luckily these days there are institutional and independent repositories, which allow me to store my complete dataset as a set of CSV files and in RDF/XML format with a well-documented ontology. This sounds sustainable.
But I also would like to offer a web-interface to the researchers so that the database could be consulted online. (The structure of my data is quite unique, which does not allow me to simply submit all my data to the online database of any large project working in my field.) I see it as a standard MySQL/PHP application, which I am planning to develop.
The question is what is the most sustainable strategy for hosting it. I have seen a number online research databases in my field, some costing a great deal of money to the funding authorities, which went offline after some years and are no-longer available. This includes both commercially hosted database (the worst option in my view, for someone has to pay eternally for hosting and domain name) and university-hosted databases. I understand that after I leave the host university (and I am just a postdoc), no one can guarantee that they will host the project website forever.
Besides the technologies for web development are changing fast and the web interface designed with current tools will become obsolete after some years.
What are the best practices for securing a lasting time-span for a small online research database, which does not have a strong lasting project behind it?

I have the impression that quite a few university libraries are very interested in preserving and making available other things than just books. So talking to your university librarian would be my first stop. Even if your university library does not have expertice in this field, they may know of such a project somewhere else that you can apply for.

As to someone else maintaining the web-interface for you, I would not count on that happening. That will cost someone time and money, and unless you are rich enough (and willing) to set up a fund to preserve your project, you cannot count on someone else doing it for you. Instead I would keep the interface as minimal as possible. It may not look pretty, but it is more likely to keep working.


When do you stop reading books cover to cover? During my undergrad, we had a reading assignment (for most courses) which would nearly cover up the entire textbook including introductions, summaries, "did you know" and other such fluff material.

In graduate school as pointed out in most answers here on SE, one does not read the whole book cover to cover but just read the parts you need and backtrack if doubts. But is this also true if I'm starting out in a new field?

I had my BS in Engineering and I'm pursuing my grad studies in Math, certain topics like Topology are completely new to me. I don't need the whole of Topology but just certain bits and pieces.

Should I attain some familiarity with the topic by reading a good introductory book cover to cover or just dive in (into a completely alien field) and understand only the parts I need?

You stop reading books cover to cover when you don't need all the information between the covers of the books.

If you take a textbook on topology and flip to the middle, it will probably be largely uninterpretable because you don't know the terminology, previously proved theorems, and so on.  You can still glance through the chapter on the material that you really need to know to get an idea of what you're completely missing.  If you can select a subset of earlier chapters that let you understand the later one, great!  If not, read the whole thing.  If that's still not enough, get another textbook or talk to someone who knows the subject well.

You'll have to make the call regarding when it's better to proceed in this way and when it's more efficient to simply start at the beginning and go through it all.  If you need to know something well, this is often the approach to take not because the other wouldn't work as well in principle, but because in practice the temptation to be less thorough than one really needs to be is often too great.


PhD Advisor is Inexperienced Junior Faculty, Possible Bully, Who do I Tell? I was accepted into a PhD program 3.5 years ago. They hired a new faculty member 2 years ago and I was reassigned to this 'new' person since she didn't have any students of her own. She is interpersonally aggressive and hard to 'read.'

Over the last two years she has produced 1 publishable paper, which was rejected by the journal. I've published 2 in that same time. She was assigned 3 classes to teach by the department, and assigned me to TA for all 3, essentially leaving me in charge of all 150 students. The more work I do for her, the angrier she seems to be. The problem, however, started when she gave me inaccurate information about my requirements for graduation. She told me I had to prepare my dissertation prospectus before doing the department's 3rd core exam, which turned out to be incorrect. I wasted months writing, was then told by another faculty I had to rush my (mandatory) exam, which I failed (6 weeks ago). This is the first thing I've ever failed here.

My advisor told me all students fail the 3rd exam in order to build 'character' in them. However university rules state I am now on probation and another failure would mean I am terminated from the department. She also shared that she was a grader on my 3rd exam and had chosen to vote 'fail' rather than 'conditional pass' because "she wanted to see me do it again." There was no constructive feedback, it just seems like bullying. There was zero information on how to re-do the exam or improve. This is high-stakes.

If the department does fail all students as ritual hazing, I believe the department is doing something unethical. If that statement was false, I consider my advisor to be doing something unethical.

I would like to voice my concerns to the university. What person should I approach? Department Chair? Dean of Students? Dean of College? Office of Graduate Studies? A lawyer? I fear retaliation.

I believe properly answering your question depends on providing more specific detail, e.g. which is the country. Institutional structure and the corporate culture can be very different between, say, Mexico and China.

I believe you have a broken relationship with your current advisor. I will not attempt to judge a reason for why she did what you describe, or whether your account is precise and complete.

This means you should primarily focus on getting away from this person while trying to find yourself another PhD advisor. Accomplishing this will do most of the "official communication" for you. The department will know there is a problem, and you both will be moving towards a healthier relationship.

So my answer to you is: the person you should talk to is whoever is responsible for shifting advisors in your institution. If you cannot change advisors for whatever reason, then it is the person responsible for smoothly terminating your contract locally so you can get better training elsewhere. The conflict itself becomes self-evident as you move to a better stand.

Good luck!


How to explain a missing grade card in unofficial transcript for online graduate application? I'm an international pre-final year undergraduate student. My undergraduate degree consists of 8 semesters and I'm currently in the 6th semester. I'm hoping to apply to US mathematics graduate schools this Nov-Dec, for Fall 2021. I missed a final exam in the 4th semester due to medical reasons and was supposed to re-appear for it in May 2020. However, now that re-test will probably be scheduled in December due to COVID and I won't get the results before the US application deadlines this year.  Moreover, I was not issued any grade card for that 4th semester.

Now several US math graduate programs say that they only require unofficial transcripts in the online application and that hard copy official transcripts can be submitted later. So would it make sense to apply anyway with only my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th semester grade cards, and with the 4th semester grade card missing? Would I have to explain that one missing grade card in the online application? If yes, how? Say, would a letter from my head of department, explaining the situation be helpful? I will hopefully get my 4th semester results by March 2021 though, so I think I will later be able to send the official hard copy transcripts in time, in case I get an admit.

If you don't apply, you don't get in. Simple. If you do, then there may be some difficulties, but many of them can probably be overcome in the eyes of most institutions. Given the current pandemic, people are going to have to be flexible.

I'd suggest that you have someone, maybe the department head, provide an unofficial listing of your courses and grades for that semester. Perhaps they are allowed access to grades, but they can also contact your professors to verify the grades if necessary. Explaining the grading process at your university would also be useful in such a note.

A note from you explaining the situation might be helpful, since the reason was medical and the delay is well explained.

I can't guarantee that anyone would necessarily accept this, but suspect that most will, especially since they only need official transcripts later.

But, again, you have little (almost nothing) to lose by making a good faith attempt and putting together the best record you can for admission. People will be looking for evidence that you will succeed. Provide that.


Open Source Software and Reproducibility in Computer Science As a PhD researcher in computer science, my scientific results often take the form of algorithms, which in turn come with implementations. I am convinced that releasing these implementations under an open-source model has various benefits especially for scientific codes, one of which is reproducibility of results. I also believe that "Release Often, Release Early" applies to science, as it opens up the possibility of feedback that ultimately leads to better software and better research.

However, my advisor is concerned with the danger of plagiarism in case the code is released before the respective paper is published, and therefore disagrees with that philosophy. To me it seems like a very theoretical threat since I have never heard of a comparable case of plagiarism. However, we just got a paper rejected in which one major criticism of the reviewer was that it was impossible to reproduce results since the code was not available. My advisor thinks that this is unfair criticism because the conference has not explicitly asked for a release of the source code.

What do you think? Is it sensible to keep implementations secret until the paper is through, or is open-source actually a requirement for reproducible computer science?

Computer science is a particularly friendly environment for releasing material in advance of publication.  In fact, there are a number of methods for doing so that provide a clear archival time-stamp on your work, including university technical reports, arXiv, and big repository sites like github and bitbucket.  Moreover, unlike many other disciplines, such pre-release almost never impairs your ability to build conference and journal publications on top of your released material.  In fact, you can typically release not just your code, but also your draft paper through the same mechanisms.

If you do such pre-release, you are essentially immune to plagiarism, because anybody who pirates your results will look like a fool with date-stamps marking their guilt for all to see.  It may not stop bottom-feeders from trying, but it will mean that nobody you care about (including reviewers) should take such an attempt seriously.

The only likely problem that you can run into is double-blind reviewing, as discussed in this question.  If that's not a major concern for you, or if you can use one of the mechanisms suggested in that question, then I see no likely downside in computer science publication.

On a side note, however: just because the code is available doesn't mean it's reproducible, as anybody who's spent significant time having a dependency-fight with poorly-document open source projects can attest.


What careers not requiring an academic degree might be open to a self-learner who wants to do research on pure mathematics? I hesitated to ask this question since it may not relevant to this website, but I saw a question of same category here but still couldn't find an answer ...

Since childhood, I've had a sharp enthusiasm for Maths, studying books from an elementary level to ones suited for the level of a Masters of Science student at Melbourne University. I am currently 15, but the formal classroom setting feels like a waste of my time. Because of my passion for Maths, going through the formal procedure of education is making me severely depressed...

Here is my question:

What careers which do not require an academic degree (all research positions require a PhD) might be open (in Australia) to a self-learner who wants to do research on Pure Mathematics?

Salaries for a postdoc position are ~80k in Australia, but I am looking for a research career even of a ~15k salary because that would be enough money to survive while doing research. I have yet to published any paper to impress some institution to believe in me, if it helps at all.

EDIT - Thank you all very much for your very informative answers. To be more precise, I would like to write my main reasons of the 'horror' of university:

Solving exercises or studying the texts in self-study themselves can (although difficult) be stopped for the duration of university affairs (classes, ...) but I believe that research can't be frequently stopped by other irrelevant things even with university affairs [university classes will be Math, but not be the research that I want to engross in, at least for first few years], since being creative requires to be much more engrossed (to put it simpler: 1 2-day is more efficient than 2 1-day for research).
Even with prestigious universities it involves a lot of bureaucracy, which they may find necessary to obtain a degree but are irrelevant to Mathematics.
Being very deep concentrated and having manic passion causes a lot sensitivity, that's why we have some recluse people (in Arts and Science) and most of them are suffering from Bipolar Disorder caused by their manic-enthusiasm. While there are many people with great achievements living in society with high-degrees UNFORTUNATELY I don't think it's impossible for me.

3a. An example of negativity in university education is the focus on institutional ranking. Combined with job-seaerching being the main purpose of study for some, it could impact someone who just seeks the beauty of Mathematics faith in seeking a degree.
University costs a lot for a Bachelors of Science, much more than it would to be a mathematician in solitude.

EDIT 2 - In my question, I have asked that from where I can get financial support for basic life expenditure, however many answers include enrollment in universities which costs A LOT for just BSc (supposing that I can survive with my mentioned conditions in first EDIT).

Thank you, everyone. I highly appreciate the brilliant advise in many of your answers, however my main question remains how would I pursue research in Mathematics without a degree? I know the path that is recommended for pursuing a research career, but the cost of university and not having peace of mind are too great of an expense for me.

Be very wary of doing mathematical research on your own. Even if you read all the books there are, you will most likely go off on a tangent and reinvent a theory that has been known in math for decades or centuries - simply because you never heard about it and did not know the commonly accepted names of the structures you have been working with. Or, as others point out, you might work on something that may be true but is of zero interest to anyone else.

If all you are looking for is the joy of doing mathematics, that may well be fine (although even then I'd say using up-to-date tools and theory would probably be more satisfying, just as I'd prefer to code on a modern machine and not an antique, even if it does run a compiler). However, if you want to make a difference in the mathematical world, possibly publish your findings, then you will need to interact with other mathematicians.

And this is where a formal education will help. A math degree will show other mathematicians that you at least have learned the fundamentals. When you contact a mathematician, you will need to differentiate yourself from a random crank. There are far too many home-educated random cranks in mathematics, and you are lucky if they self-identify by claiming that they can solve the general quintic equation by radicals. Having a degree in math will make it easier for you to get other mathematicians to talk to you. In addition, your advisor will have decades more experience than you and will be able to steer you in fruitful directions.


Consequence of declining an accepted offer after the universal deadline 15th April This is my cousin's problem.  In the first week of March he was offered a PhD offer (Upper Middle ranked School in USA) in Physics and he  received his I-20 to get the visa.The admit was fully funded. He accepted the offer because he didn't have any offer at that time.  But few days ago, a top ranked school admin said to him that, he might be admitted as a lot of students haven't accepted their offer (it is not guaranteed though plus admission is completed ).

He was always expecting to get admitted in that school. The deadline of the offer letter from first school  is 15th April (He accepted the offer already).

Will it be possible to decline the first offer later/admission  if he gets the offer after around two weeks from the top ranked school? I want to know the consequences of this situation.

EDIT:

I have received another suggestion from academia. He suggested to defer the admission (if he gets from the second university) from the Top ranked school. After a semester completed in the first admitted University, If my cousin feels that he should change the department, he will be able to do it. How reasonable is this?

Assuming both schools are members of the Council of Graduate Schools, they have an agreement about cases like this. If you don't change your mind and reject the offer from the first school by April 15, you have to get a letter from the first school releasing you from your obligation to attend before accepting the second school. Otherwise, the second school will be unable to take you.

In the one case I know about, there wasn't any problem in obtaining this letter. However, I can't promise that all graduate schools will be as reasonable.

If your cousin gets an offer from the second school before April 15, he should contact the admissions officers at the first school by April 15 (today!) and tell them he is rescinding his acceptance and why.

If he gets an offer after April 15, he needs to make sure the first school is okay with him not coming and get a letter from them before he accepts the second school.


If I write a really bad, but controversial, paper, can I increase my h-index? Imagine that I write a paper about a controversial topic like global warming denial, the link between vaccines and autism, why different races have different IQ. After publication, the paper gets the attention of mass media, and as a counter measure, serious experts start explaining why the paper is completely wrong.

Would that count as citations towards a higher h-index?

Yes, you can!

But that it is possible is by no means to say that it is ethical, practical, wise, or otherwise commendatory. I would be especially concerned about becoming known as the 'person with a kooky idea' rather than as a serious academic researcher.

The question becomes, "It is possible to write on a very controversial topic, create a media firestorm, attract a lot of attention, increase your h-index, and still keep your credibility intact?" The answer will be highly variable dependent on the validity of your research, your previous reputation, and the sheer capriciousness of luck.

First, assuming that your work is valid,  even if you have proven the viability of a very controversial position, your work is likely to attract some negative attention as well as attempts to disprove your research (or you-- ad hominem attacks are unfortunately common). However, if your work can and does stand up to scrutiny, all the brouhaha may actually work in your favor-- you have proven a controversial theory to be true, your h-index will increase and your credibility is not only intact but also bolstered by your success.

On the other hand, if your work does not stand up to scrutiny (which seems to be the scenario you are picturing), you will have made a public fool out of yourself and the slight increase in your h-index will be more than offset by the decrease in your credibility. Neither the counter-moves of serious researchers nor the attacks of fanatics are likely to help your academic career, especially if your work cannot stand up under scrutiny.

So, write a really bad, but controversial, paper only if you are willing to sacrifice your credibility for the slight increase in your h-index.


Electronic Assessment / Submission for questions where each student should have a different correct answer I am looking for software that will automatically assess the output of student assignments, or at least the numerical parts of them. This is for a large class of >100 students and multiple assignments. As part of a scheme to avoid plagiarism each student obtains different correct numerical answers to their problems. Thus if student A should get 2.56342 for question 1, student B should get 3.42975 and no two students should obtain answers that are identical. The method of calculation is the same in each case, but students have different input parameters that change the solution. (I should add at this point that the numbers cannot be obtained with simple or complex formulae from the input parameters: a significant amount of work is required to generate each answer; I have written a piece of software that generates these answers.)

I am wondering if it would be possible to use an existing software package that could handle the submission of student answers/assignments and also mark/grade the results for at least the numerical parts of the assignments. So far I have looked at Moodle, Hot Potatoes and Question Mark, but none of them seem suitable because I cannot see a way of the same question having different answers for different students. It maybe that I need to try to develop a custom built system for this, but before putting that effort in I would be very grateful to hear of any suggestions of existing systems that might be able to handle this task.

I have tried to check if this question has been asked before and looked at this question on use of automated assessment of programming assignments, for example, but I could not find a previous question that covers the question I pose here.

There is WebAssign, started at North Carolina State many years ago and now an independent company )http://webassign.com/corporate/about-us/), which provided
versions of problems from standard textbooks in physics and other fields with random inputs so that each student would have individual numerical inputs
(I had some experience with these in the early days -- the inputs were generated from Perl scripts with input constrained to be physically reasonable).

I have not been involved with courses that used these for ten years or so, but one issue that arose then was the appearance of spreadsheets that had the algorithms for solving the problems coded into the spreadsheet, so that students could simply plug their numbers into the spreadsheet and come up with the answers.

Your question suggests that you are using more complicated problems than those in elementary science courses, but perhaps you could use scripts (using Python, Perl or whatever) to generate unique inputs for each student.


My paper has not been published because I did not show up for the conference presentation My paper has not been published because none of the authors presented the paper.  My supervisor (my co-author) was at the conference, but he did not show up to present. I can only assume he was tired that day (he is an old man), although he did manage to present two other papers. He also failed to inform the conference committee of his inability to present.

This is an IEEE conference. The paper was not published in IEEE Xplore, but even worse, it is not even mentioned in the proceedings.

What is really annoying is that they still want me to have their permission to submit it to another conference. This is what is written in their email:

  Your previously-submitted IEEE Copyright form transferred ownership of this paper to IEEE. However, if you would like to resubmit this paper to another conference, please request permission to do so by sending an email message to pubs-permissions@ieee.org.

They also did not reimburse us for the hefty registration fees.

How should someone in my position proceed?
Shouldn't the conference at least mention the title of the paper in the proceedings?

A conference has a number of limited slots for presentations. When your paper is accepted for a conference, someone else's paper got rejected, because it was slightly worse than yours and slots were limited. In this sense, if you are not going to present your accepted paper, this a huge disservice to the conference (and the related community). As I already said in my comment that annoyed you, if everyone did the same thing (did not show up in the conference to present his paper) there would simply be no conference and this will be a huge waste of everyone's time (reviewers, PC comittees etc..). So, the first step is to understand that such a thing would normally never happen.

On the other hand we are still human and life emergencies happen. You may become sick before travelling to a conference and therefore not beeing able to present there. In this case, this is what emails are for. You should have notified the PC chairs that you were not going to make it and ask for leniency. On the other hand, what you describe is even more far-stretched. Your co-author did go to the conference, was probably paid his expenses from his institution and did not bother to show up at the time to present the paper. Imagine the similar example of some PHD student of going to a conference, partying the night before the presentation and not bothering waking up the next time to present. Have you considered the embarassment of the PC member responsible for your session, when they call out your name and noone shows up to present? And nobody even later this day or even two days later, bothers to send an email to apologize for this? Instead you think the conference organizers are in the wrong, because they are actually doing what they told you they would do (contrary to you). Not publish your paper if you do not show up.

A war with them would only hurt you and not them. Apologize sincerely, ask for permission to publish somewhere else and try to be as nice as possible. Do not upload to arxiv before settling things out. And in the next case, understand that in Academia your word is your currency. Make sure you do not break it for whatever reason and if you do (due to some inevitable emergency) make sure you apologize promptly.


Does an engineering paper have to improve on the state of the art quantitatively in order to be publishable? In most engineering papers, I see that the authors justify their research by displaying how well it performs against the state-of-the-art methods or algorithms, in a quantitative sense. To put it loosely, this is usually stated along the lines of "Our method is faster/better/cheaper than existing methods, and here are the charts and graphs to prove it".

However, what about papers that are putting forward a more visionary approach that would take time to justify using quantitative means? For example, it is conceivable that there is an idea that performs moderately well, but needs work by the entire community in order to reach its potential. It is also conceivable that this idea is a more fruitful one than existing lines of research.

Does a piece of research have to beat others in a measurable way in order to be publishable, or is there also a qualitative, holistic way that papers are evaluated?

In order to be publishable, a scientific work needs to provide evidence that it advances the state of human knowledge.

Direct quantitative comparison to the state of the art is a relatively straightforward way of doing this, but there are many other alternatives.  For example, one might also provide mathematical proof of a difference in expected scaling or demonstrate a qualitative property that is not present in current systems.

The key in every case, however, is that there should be clear evidence provided of some sort of value that other investigators are likely to find to be of interest.


Good practices for organizing notes As a PhD student I generate a lot of pages with calculations, ideas and lecture notes.

Most of them are useful only for a short amount of time, but some may be important for much longer (when writing a paper, or when having new ideas to continue a once abandoned project). Typically I work on a few project simultaneously.

The question is, what is a good practice of taking and keeping notes? (With or without computer apps.)

Writing on single sheets (even if adding date and title) makes it easy to organize by topic, but also easy to loose. Keeping in one notepad makes it harder to collect useful things of one topic in one place.

You should keep a research notebook, regardless of whatever other system you have for notes. The format of the notebook is up to you; it can even be public (see Carl Boettiger's as an example of an electronic lab notebook). it can be created in programs such as an iPython or Jupyter notebook, or even a more specialized program such as Findings.

If you choose the pen-and-paper route for your research notes, and want to have the added flexibility/security of taking your notes with you (and also because it's good practice to do so), you should consider getting a scanner and making regular backups. You can then import these into a product like Evernote, Onenote, or MacJournal,
If you are using LaTeX, your options are somewhat limited, as most of the major tools for notebooking really don't support "live" LaTeX. Then you'd be better off using something like Aquamacs as a holder for your "notebooks" (LaTeX documents), and then using one of the above packages (or something like Papers or Paperless to organize the resulting PDFs.


Increasing chances of getting a research internship with no experience? I am starting an MSc in Computer Science in the autumn and I am concerned that I don't have any research experience. My interest is in Theoretical Computer Science and I am finding it hard to find any internships, as there is very little funding for undergraduates available at my university and no advertised positions in this area. I have seen an industrial position that matched my interests, but it was only advertised for Msc/PhD students.

I asked around last year and was unsuccessful but it was suggested that I self study a topic, so I don't know if I should do this again, or try to pursue an actual internship.

I think the reason I was unsuccessful was that I was too general and not specific enough about my interests. However, as an undergrad I am finding it hard to identify something that is achievable at my level and to narrow down to one area.

Therefore, would it be better to find a paper and a topic and directly approach an academic, or would I be better off using the summer to study more broadly and find a specific topic to pursue? Is there anything else I should do to increase my chances of getting an internship?

I am starting an MSc in Computer Science in the autumn and I am concerned that I don't have any research experience.

Not having research experience when starting an MSc is not a problem! One of the goals of MSc is to acquire research experience.

  However, as an undergrad I am finding it hard to identify something that is achievable at my level and to narrow down to one area

It is perfectly normal that at this stage you do not already have well defined interests.

A potentially more successful approach would be to ask your current teachers. Even if they do not have any funding in their lab, they may be able to suggest some of their colleagues and to recommend you.


How to feel confident with knowledge if I have not taken relevant classes during my postgraduate degree? Taking relevant courses builds up confidence, exposure and depth. I managed to get my master's degree and PhD degree in computational chemistry without taking any graduate level mathematics and modeling courses.
On top of this, the only maths I had was till my 3rd year undergrad and I struggled with it. I scored a C grade in every exams and I was/and still am not comfortable with it.
I am decent with linear algebra and multivariable calculus and work with tensor analysis in my research. Each of these I had taken only in my undergrad.
I should have taken relevant courses during my master's and PhD. Though I can perform well in my research (currently a postdoc), I feel unconfident and uncomfortable with my level of knowledge as I have never explored the depth of the subjects as is done in graduate courses. I only self-studied what was needed in my research.
How to feel confident with knowledge if I have not taken relevant classes during my postgraduate degree?

The classes from undergrad and what you took from them enabled you to self-study all the relevant maths on your own. That is a much more valuable thing than the knowledge on its own and should give you the confidence.
If you absolutely need the "external validation" to build the confidence: As a postdoc you are still in a University setting? Then why not take some time out of your schedule and take the classes now? Or take some online courses that include tests and a certificate.


How to reply to reviewer's positive comment more naturally? I want to reply to the reviewer's comment (see below) on my paper,

  My concerns have been addressed satisfactorily and the paper is acceptable.

My own reply would be like:

  Your recognition of our work is much appreciated.

or

  Your encouraging comment is greatly appreciated.

However, it seems unnatural to read, How to give an more appropriate reply?

For this sort of reply, I personally like to keep it short and sweet:

  Thank you!


How do admissions committees handle a missing “extra” letter of recommendation? If a student has sent 4 letters, one more than required, and the 4th letter is missing, what will happen?

Will the committee contact the applicant if his application is strong enough?
Will they ignore the letter and decide based on the other 3? Will they delay the review till they have the 4th letter?

I know this varies between schools but how it's usually handled?

If the required number of letters have been received, then most likely the candidate’s application will be reviewed normally, with no penalty attached for not having the fourth letter. If a required letter was missing, then things get a little dicier, depending on whether there are too many applications and if it’s a rolling or fixed admissions cycle.


Is there any disadvantage to having PhD from a non-main campus? What if one pursues a PhD from a university campus which is not the main campus, rather in a different city hundred miles away. The certificate is given by the main campus authority. Is there any discrimination towards the graduates?

As an example, say the campus is ADFA which is a sub campus of UNSW, Which is also known as UNSW Canberra (details). more on this is here.

The quality of the department has much more influence on the degree than the "famousness" of the campus—whether it is a "main" campus or a "branch" campus.

For instance, in my field, Chemical Engineering, the University of California has two departments that are widely acknowledged to be top ten: Berkeley and Santa Barbara. A degree from either of these schools would be recognized as essentially equal; degrees from campuses like Davis or Los Angeles would be slightly less well received, but still be considered good.

So, to some extent, it's more the issue of the resources available at a given department, and its reputation within the community as a whole, that makes the difference. The campus as a whole is a distant second. (As a similar example, the University of Minnesota is recognized as a top-five program in my field; nobody would rank UMN as top five nationwide overall.)


Page numbering of introduction in a thesis In English literature, it is common to use roman page numbering for the preface and then the Arabic for the actual content of a given book. Then, should the introduction belong to the preface or not? My impression is that, in case of books, the introduction is usually paginated roman, while in theses, it has usually already the Arabic numbers. I am aware this may not be so important. Although, I suppose this rule has some reason; therefore I am wondering, what exactly is this reason?

(I am finishing my thesis now. That's why I ask. Our university does not have any rules regarding this.)

It depends what you mean by introduction.

If your introduction is similar to introductions found in research manuscripts, then the introduction is part of the main body and should use Arabic numbering. On the other hand, if your introduction is metadata, then the introduction is part of the front matter. (Metadata introductions are common in textbooks.)

That said, first and foremost, you should follow your institutes required style.


Advice and etiquette for building up collaborations I'm going to start a tenure-track position in fall. I'm planning to start some collaborations with some researchers that are a lot more senior than myself, who I met at some conferences and with whom I have joint interests.

When contacting them regarding a visit, should I straightaway offer to take care of the travel/accommodation costs or should I postpone that question for now?

You sound very optimistic that having met a senior colleague at a conference and having a desire to work with them, will automatically lead to a collaboration. You should consider that they may have other constraints on their time, and may not be able or interested to engage in more collaborations.

Before jumping into the details such as travel arrangements, you should first find out whether they are interested in a collaboration and, if the answer is yes, how they would like to go about it.


How can I judge whether an alternative "impact factor" is from an accepted and genuine source? So I was wondering whether the SJIF (Scientific Journal Impact Factor) calculation was authentic and accepted.

How can someone identify whether an alternative impact factor is generally accepted and from a reputable source? What kind of things should one look for in evaluating an impact factor metric?

One way to judge a journal metric is to look at a few of the journals that are ranked highly by the metric, and judge for yourself whether they seem like important, reputable journals.  (See How do you judge the quality of a journal.)

According to the SJIF metric, this is the publisher of the US-based journal with the highest impact factor. Visit their website (if you dare - it may give you a headache). I think it's pretty clear that this journal is not an important or reputable journal. The other journals ranked by this metric are similarly unprofessional.

Also: here's Jeffrey Beall's list of criteria that he uses for identifying a "fake" impact factor, and a list of metrics that he believes meet those criteria.


About short author name In my ID card, my complete name has the following form : FirstName MiddleName1 MiddleName2 LastName. I will give an example (created name): Ahmed El Mustafa Ali. As you can see there is a space between El and Mustafa. Also, El is not in reality a middle name since it does not make sense if we take it alone (but Mustafa or ElMustafa are meaningful). In this example, I would like to shorten it A.E. Ali instead of A.E.M. Ali
Could I use only the initial letters of my FirstName, MiddleName1 and LastName in my short author name and skip that of MiddleName2 whereas in my complete name I do it correctly as the ID card?

If your chosen abbreviation make sense in your own culture you should feel free to use it.
But I make one recommendation, in case you are new at this. Choose a "public persona name" that you will feel comfortable using throughout your professional life. This will make it easier for people to find your work as your career progresses.
There is one additional consideration, however. You want your chosen name to be relatively unique in your field. In Egypt, for example, I think that the E in El has almost no distinguishing element. (I studied once with someone named ... El Masri: The Egyptian). If you can be confused with others, it won't help in your career.
This is more of an issue for women in some cultures where they may change their names for marriage and such.
But establish a persona, even if you want it to be a pseudonym, and stick with it. I doubt that editors or others will object.


Professor Isn't Teaching the Course we Signed up for Okay, so it is kind of a weird situation and we don't know what to do. The situation is this:

I am currently doing a math major and some of courses have two different (but equivalent) options -- application based, or a proof based option.

I am working on a pure math degree and so I opted in for the proof based version of the course, since I think it will better prepare me for later math courses.

However, the professor assigned to teach the course this term has never taught the proof based section before and straight up said in the first lecture that he was going to teach us the application based version of the course despite our choice.

A few of us went to complain to the chair of the dept. but to no avail, he simply addressed the class and said "If you don't like my lectures, don't come." Is there anything that can be done about this situation?

In the absence of really bad things, department chairs are going to defer to the course teacher, just as you saw. The department chair may reprimand the teacher, but this will be in private and you will never know it happened. Bringing the issue to the Dean will not result in any changes as they will also simply defer to the department chair, unless of course it is something really bad. The Dean may reprimand the Chair, but you will never know.

In terms of is there anything you can do, there is nothing you can do to change the course. The Chair, however, should hopefully work with you (and possibly the department administrator or undergraduate/graduate chair) to withdraw without it showing up on your transcript, getting a tuition refund (if appropriate), helping you add a different class, and helping you get into the version you want next semester.


Is it common to claim co-authorship by helping writing a paper without doing any research In my research group, there is a researcher who usually approaches other PhD students who are about to write papers in order to offer his help. Normally, he does not actually do any research related to the paper. Instead, he reads our papers, makes comments about the writing style and sometime re-writes some sections in order to make them more readable. At the end, he will claim the co-authorship of the paper. I can see it is very helpful for new PhD students who don't have much experience in writing papers or articles. However, it is sometime uncomfortable for me to see someone who doesn't do actual research but still manages to get an authorship.

So, I want to ask if it is a common practice for someone to help writing a paper without doing any actual research relating to it, and claim the co-authorship. If it is not, how should I react if someone wants to do the same to me?

people who help write papers may help fulfill one of the pillars of scientific discovery... communication of the science.

There is an appropriate place to credit people who read your paper and offer useful comments on it: the acknowledgement section. It is very common to see acknowledgements "for providing valuable feedback", "for suggesting a cleaner presentation", "for pointing out important related work" and so on. Even "for providing a simpler proof of Lemma X.y".

None of this rises to the level of co-authorship.

What's worse in this case is that

  At the end, he will claim the co-authorship of the paper.

While I'd find the idea of co-authorship for such contributions odd, I would not think too much about it if it were negotiated in advance (as is the theme of many of the answers on this site). But to offer what appears to be unconditional help first and then (when the student really has no choice in the matter)  to demand co-authorship is plain wrong.

To answer your last question on what to do, the answer, as is always the answer, is to negotiate things up front. It's a little awkward, but a little pre-collaboration awkwardness is MUCH better than a lot of post-collaboration recrimination and hostility.


Why should students be asked to register for a co-supervisor? The university where I'm doing my PhD is asking me to register a co-supervisor.
However, I don't really know the role of co-supervisor. What exactly is it for? Does it mean that for every publications we do, we should also add him in the authorship?!

There are several reasons that the university wants you to do this.

The most serious is as a safeguard against possible problems that might arise if your relationship with your (actual) advisor deteriorates. For example, if your advisor asks you to do something that you think is unethical, or is making what you think are unreasonable demands on you, the idea is that you should be able to go to this second advisor to talk about these things. Whether or not this is actually realistic is another question.

This has nothing to do with authorship of publications, unless the second advisor is actually an author.


"Brain doping": Can drugs compensate a lack of concentration while learning? I am almost at the end of my bachelor degree but I am afraid that I never will be able to finish this mere rest. Not only because the rest of my degree (around 20 credit points) is downright uninteresting but I feel that I am not mentally capable anymore of saving knowledge related to any exam.

I have read about students compensating such issues with drugs like Methylphenidate (you may know it under its trade label "Ritalin"). I really regard this as an option for one semester just to finish the rest of my degree once and for all. I am currently trying to learn for an rather easy exam but I am not able to save the knowledge, like an emotional self-defense I am mentally distracted all the time.

Can drugs like Ritalin be the solution? I am only remotely aware of the side effects however I feel also despaired enough to pay a high price.

The available evidence certainly supports the view that Methylphenidate/Ritalin boosts cognitive abilities while being somewhat safer than amphetamines. Note that if you are caught in possession of this drug without a prescription you will suffer considerably more than the consequences of the drug itself in most countries.

Personally, I doubt that the boost given by Methylphenidate/Ritalin can be significant enough to make a difference in your grades. Note that it will do absolutely nothing to cure your lack of interest in the topic. If you aren't studying enough hours, you won't make it no matter how hopped up you are.

This probably doesn't help much, but my own strategy as an undergraduate student was to simply neglect studying those topics I was not interested in, and simply take the hit to my grade.


Is TA-ing worth the opportunity cost (of having more time for research)? If you already have funding, is TA-ing (i.e. being a teaching assistant) worth the opportunity cost of doing more research?
What are the relevant considerations?

I've always heard that focusing on research is a better use of time for boosting one's CV for applying for competitive and research-focused faculty positions, and that they really don't care very much about teaching experience. But recently, I've heard a lot of people saying the opposite.

I'm sure it depends on the field somewhat.
I'm in machine learning, some characteristics of the field which seem relevant are:

It is fast-paced and highly collaborative.
Professors often act more as project managers and don't do as much research.
Successful grad students often publish several papers a year.

In particular, I'm curious about how it looks on a CV, not about other benefits (e.g. learning useful skills)

Most people who TA don't have an option as it is what pays the bills and allows them to study. It is less valuable if you can pay your own way.

But it isn't entirely without value. I once held a full fellowship for study (multi year), but it still required that I spend one of those years doing the equivalent of a TA. The feeling was that it is valuable experience for any academic, even at an R1 university. And, FWIW, I actually made more progress after the fellowship ended and I was a "lowly" TA.

But not everyone winds up at an R1 and elsewhere, teaching is more highly valued. And a variety of skills on a CV is, IMO, an advantage, though others may disagree.

Additionally, having something to do other than your research is a useful way to let your mind rest and integrate ideas, which is a key part of learning. And a variety of experiences can be valuable in keeping yourself flexible for the future. And "more" research doesn't necessarily equate to "better" research.

Most doctoral students get along quite well having some duties, such as a TA position, in addition to their research.

But whether it is worth the opportunity cost or not is a completely personal thing. Maybe yes, maybe no. Think about your own needs and resources.


My university's policy is to consider only the most recent grade for a failed course that has been retaken, how should I declare my GPA? Suppose that I am submitting my application form for admission to a PhD program in USA/Canada. When I am asked to declare my GPA, should I declare it the same original way that my university has calculated it in my transcript?

Here's the thing: I have a failed course in my transcript that was retook the next semester and I have passed it with a good grade. According to my university's policy, when a student retakes a failed course, only the most recent grade is considered in their GPA. So, the GPA that my university calculates is a little bit higher than just averaging all my grades. Should I declare the GPA that my university has calculated as my GPA? Or should I write down the average of all my grades and calculate it on my own?

You should declare the GPA that is written on your transcript and provide the transcript. You should not compute the GPA yourself. This would only introduce confusion. If someone asks, you can simply give the explanation you just gave us. You can even preemptively include an explanation somewhere in your application, with the simple explanation you wrote.


Assistant professor: is it bad if I attend a class in a discipline close to mine but not exactly mine? I just got a position as assistant professor in the USA. The university I am working at is one of the top 50, according to the U.S. News & World Report. I will be teaching and carrying out high-level research.

However I would love to attend a class in a discipline close to mine, to expand my knowledge. Surely I could read the book, but if I have a class to attend I will actually do it, while I will probably never be able to find the time to read the book. Would it be considered bad? Should I do it without mentioning it to anybody since it is in another department?

There's nothing bad about this; it's pretty common, especially for advanced graduate courses.  You don't have to be secretive about it.  But here are a few things to consider.

First, time.  As a new assistant professor you are going to be busier than you ever imagined.  Are you sure this is the best use of three hours a week?  Keep in mind that taking this class isn't something that "counts" towards tenure, so the only career benefit for you would be if it helps improve your research productivity.  Of course, if it's just something generally interesting to you that will make your life happier, that's a consideration too - but think about whether you can afford it.

Most people do this by "sitting in on" a class - you'd plan to attend the lectures, but normally you wouldn't turn in homework or take exams like a real student would, since that would create extra work for the instructor.

In all cases you should ask the course instructor for permission, by email or in person.  "Hi, I'm Lupocci, I'm a new assistant professor in department X.  I was wondering if it would be all right if I were to sit in on your course ABC 321.  I have been meaning to learn more about this topic and this seems like a great opportunity to do it."  Make sure there is available space and that you won't displace actual students.

You should ask the instructor how they would like you to participate in the class.  Should you ask questions, participate in class discussions or activities, etc?  Sit in the front or the back?  There's a possibility for your presence to be distracting to the students, so you want to minimize that.

Some institutions might require you to formally register for the course as an auditing student, so check your regulations.  Tuition would usually be waived, but you still might have to pay lab fees or something.  At other places this sort of thing is done "off the books" as a professional courtesy between faculty.  At still others, rules require you to register, but everyone ignores the rules and just does it off the books.  So you might also ask your department chair or a senior colleague what the norms are.

Finally, as you take the class, be mindful that you don't interfere with the learning of the students.  It might be tempting to ask lots of questions in class, bring up connections to things you are interested in, etc, but this may tend to derail the class, especially if the questions are too advanced to be useful to the students.  This might also have the effect of intimidating students who worry that their questions are not as smart as yours.  So you may have to stifle yourself in class.  You could discuss things with the instructor outside of class, but try not to take up too much of their time either (see second paragraph).


What exactly is an "unpublished paper"? In applying to the NSF postdoctoral fellowship for mathematics, the instructions include the following paragraph for the biographical sketch:

  A list of: (i) up to five products most closely related to the proposed project; and (ii) up to five other significant
  products, whether or not related to the proposed project. Acceptable products must be citable and accessible
  including but not limited to publications, data sets, software, patents, and copyrights. Unacceptable products are
  unpublished documents not yet submitted for publication, invited lectures, and additional lists of products. Only
  the list of 10 will be used in the review of the proposal.

My question is what exactly does "unpublished" mean? Is a paper uploaded to the arXiv but not yet submitted for publication in a journal considered "unpublished"?

I would interpret "published" to mean exactly what the text says — citable and accessible.

ArXiv papers are both citable and accessible, and therefore do count as acceptable research products.


What typically incentivizes a professor to change jobs to a lower ranking university? In my field of computer science it is not uncommon to see professors who, after many years at a highly ranked university, choose to take on a position at a lower ranked (though generally still good) university. I see this happen even if the professor does not get a promotion or endowed chair. What might incentivize a professor to do this?

The most important reasons I can think of are private reasons. People do not live to work, but work to live.

What good does a job at a highly ranked university do, if your family/your friends can not live there or are unhappy to live there?
What good does a job at a highly ranked university do, if it is in a place you find boring or don’t like?

I would suggest you to change your mindset from highly ranked university to high quality of life (which is subjective and also includes a little bit the rank of the university, if you value this).


How to withdraw my submitted paper before it has passed screen? I submitted my paper to a reputed journal two days ago. I got a mail from the editor saying that I need to complete other forms (copyright etc) after he finishes screening. However,I hadn't received my supervisor's approval when I submitted the paper. Now my supervisor has got back to me saying that I should withdraw my paper. Currently the status is "Not Assigned." Do I need to send a withdrawal letter? Or I can wait for the screening result? If I don't pass screen, do I still need to send a withdrawal letter?

Yes, you need to withdraw the paper from formal consideration. This is the only way to stop the process once it's begun. This also actually helps you with later submissions. If the paper is submitted and rejected, then you may have to specify this to other journals that ask about the previous history of the manuscript.


Motivation letter for PhD application There is a PhD project advertised by a professor and I want to avail that position. But that project is not clearly connected with my work in my MS research. (Advertised project is about quantum liquids while my MS work is about topological insulators). However, I know basics of quantum liquids and I find myself very much interested in this field.

Is it a good idea to mention that my work is not connected with this project but my very strong interest in this field is what motivating me to apply for this position in the motivation letter?

You do not need to state in your motivation letter that your MS research is not connected to the topic of your desired PhD project: your application contains your CV that already says what your MS research was about, so the information will be redundant. It most likely would be read as a sign of humbleness - that can be OK, but it's better to show humility putting an effort in learning, then in moaning about your ignorance.

In many countries students had no exposure to doing ANY kind of research at any level before starting their PhDs. So if anything, the fact that you have done some sort of research in any field gives you an advantage.

There is absolutely no reason why you should already be familiar with the PhD project: the reason why you choose a PhD is not because you already are an expert in that matter, but because you want to become such an expert. On this part of your question, please see this other Academia answer


Publishing referee reports I have written - Yes or No and How? I remember reading somewhere about someone who started publishing referee reports they had written online, along with sending them to the journal (or after). Unfortunately I do not remember where I saw this and can't seem to find it now.

I see strong arguments for this practice.

A lot of time and effort is spent on report writing, so why not list them.
Transparency for its own sake.
Transparency for the sake of increasing quality.

Obviously there are issues:

Copy right or other legal issues with journals prohibiting the publication of reports [has to be taken up with the editor]
If the paper itself is not published, publishing the report might be harmful to the authors [one could wait until the final version of the paper is published]

My question: Is this already common practice somewhere and do repositories exist where one can upload reports? Are there other strong counterarguments I am missing?

Take care with this. Since you write them, the words are yours unless the journal has required that you yield all rights to them or otherwise restricts your actions.

However, you should consider whether it is ethical to break the blind or double blind nature of review. There are reasons for that, though some are a bit esoteric.

If you need to say negative things about someone's paper and they take it personally, then you could find yourself in the middle of an academic war and those other people with an interest in an author's work might join the fray.

You also need to be sure that whatever you need to quote in a review is properly cited as in any other work. This makes publishing a double-blind review impossible, of course.

Some things might need to be confidential for various reasons, including patentable work. Some things need to be reserved until the paper is published, I think.

However, maybe the biggest issue is as follows. Often enough, by the time a paper is edited and re-edited, it no longer bears a lot of similarity to the version that you reviewed. In some fields this is a bigger problem than others, of course, but don't discount it. This will, potentially, reflect badly on yourself if you say things about a paper that aren't true about the published version.


How to set salaries in ERC proposals? I am preparing a proposal for an ERC call. I am a little bit unsure about the amount of salaries.

Since I solely work on this project, 100% of my time is devoted, and I should set a full salary for myself. Is there a standard salary scale for this purpose? How much I am flexible in setting the value? Is it dependent on the country of host institution?
My collaborators already have full-time job, and they are paid full salary from their universities, which includes their research duties. If Professor X is contributing 20% of his time as a collaborator to my project, should I include 20% of his salary in the proposal? Again what is the salary scale I should follow?

You can't simply compute the salaries yourself, but you'll have to ask the administrative staff at the university you're applying with to calculate the costs for you. This is because the actual numbers can be quite complicated to derive, with pensions, social security and the like being deducted. Plus, there are other rules for the budget that have to be followed, like the proportion of overheads, audit costs and all sorts of stuff you'd rather let someone else deal with, so you can focus on the science in your proposal.

Moreover, your host institution commits to the numbers in the proposal upon submission, they'll want to make sure that they are correct.

Paying salaries to scientists at other institution makes the administrative process a lot more complicated. You'll have to sort out their salaries with their host institutions.

Every decent institution nowadays has support staff specialised for grant programmes like ERC. Usually it is absolutely mandatory that you coordinate your proposal with those people. Normally these people can also support you in the grant writing process, e.g. with a stack of successful proposals for you to take inspiration from, or other helpful information. You should talk your idea through with them as soon as possible.