Online publication system for a journal I'm looking for solutions to help modernizing the publication of a scientific journal on the web. Since 2004 we are using a simple but cumbersome method of publication, by crafting html/css files from templates, with a bit of php/mysql to maintain the authors' database. We now have the opportunity (time and server access) to upgrade the hosting software system.

We (extensively) tried OpenJournalSystems, but it's too comprehensive and cumbersome for us, we have a simpler paper review and publication process. I haven't found any other solution like OJS that's also free and open source (the journal is open access).

As of today, I'm envisaging two types of solutions :

a classic CMS (like wordpress) with a "journal" theme (like Annotum ?)
a handmade PHP/MySQL system using a PHP Framework (CakePHP, CodeIgniter, ...).

Anyone has some experience to share ?

In addition to the OpenJournalSystems (OJS) software, I'm aware of the following free and open source solutions that you might want to consider. They are similar to OJS in terms of functionality, but, perhaps, simpler:

DPubS (Digital Publishing System);
EPrints.

While I would strongly prefer open source software, just for completeness, below I will mention some commercial hosted solutions:

Atypon's Literatum;
bepress' Digital Commons.

Finally, a few words on alternative solutions that you consider. In my opinion, the CMS solution is feasible, but, you will likely to lose some features found in specialized open source solutions, such as DPubS or EPrints, for example, document workflow, flexible user rights management and more. I would be very cautious about and, actually, don't recommend the handmade MySQL/PHP system (or any other handmade solution, for that matter) due to various reasons, including, but not limited to, significant efforts required for creation and maintenance of such system.


What does notification date mean (CS conference)? I have submitted a paper to a CS conference that takes place in the end of May. According to their website, notification date is in the beginning of March.

Does this mean I won't know if my paper has been accepted or rejected till the notification date?
Will I be contacted by reviewers before that date to improve my paper, or will this only occur if my paper has been accepted, after the notification date?
If I am contacted by reviewers before notification date, does this imply my paper has been accepted, or is it possible to go through revisions only to discover my paper has been rejected in the end?

Yes, exactly.
No, as this would reveal the reviewers' identifies. Normally, you will receive the reviews with the notification or shortly afterwards from the program committee chairs.
Most conferences do not actually have proper revision cycles. Either your paper is accepted or not. If it is accepted, then you get the chance to take the reviewer comments into account by submitting a new final version. There is no formal review of the final version of the paper.

There are conferences that have some minor deviations from the plain process:

Some conferences have a rebuttal period in which the authors can see the reviews and respond. This gives the authors the chance to answer to questions or point out errors in reviews. This will be taken into account for the acceptance/rejectance discussions.
Some conferences have a shepharding process, in which promising by not yet good-enough papers get a second chance to be brought into acceptable shape, with the shorter second reviewing round.
Some conferences have a two stage process, where after the first stage, papers are only conditionally accepted, and the authors need to make a second revision, which is also subject to review.


How should I approach a Tokyo University professor to join their lab? What are the guidelines that I should follow when contacting a foreign University professor to ask for joining their lab?
I need to find a professor for my already accepted semester abroad as an exchange student. I will be doing my Final Year Project as an undergraduate student and I am having a hard time getting a response from the professors at the Tokyo University. I have contacted with the current student abroad and he told me that it also took him a while to find a professor.
So now I'm wondering about my methods. Is this letter okay?

Hello _____,
I'm an exchange student from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. I am contacting you to see if you might be interested in accepting me for doing my Final Year Project.
The project I would like to do is an artificial skin capable of registering different pressure points on a soft material layer. It would consist mainly on a foam that has resistivity variable with the pressure and an Arduino circuit to read and process these values. In this way we can read many points of pressure in a precise way.
The main challenge is joining several fields of Engineering, which is also one of the strongest motivations for me. I have broad experience in programming, I am confident of my capabilities in electronics and I have already verified that this material is the right one.
There are mainly two fields where this technology could be very useful:

Medicine: For the people who are missing a limb, this could bring back a part of the sensibility, even if it's in a different format.

Robotics: relying on precise pressure sensors could improve greatly the accuracy of many of their functions.

Would you accept me as a student to develop this project? Seeing your background I think that you might be interested.
Thank you so much for your time,
Francisco Presencia Fandos

The main feedback I've already gotten is that if I write the letter open to suggestions but not proposing a project it would be easier for the professors to accept me. Also, I'm thinking of writing my achievements so far, but I think they could look like bragging.
Is this letter okay? Is this the right method for finding a professor in an university abroad?

For professors in Japan, taking on students is a tremendous responsibility and burden. Unlike in the United States or Europe, professors are responsible for even the extracurricular activities of students (i.e., getting arrested; showing up drunk and groping someone; having an apartment so messy that the landlord complains, etc.). They are also responsible for the student's career after they graduate.

So faculty are noticeably reticent to take anyone on that they do not know or that do not have anyone to vouch for them. It's in this context that letters of introduction from known faculty are extremely important.

This is very hard for outsiders to break into. Your best hope is that one of your professors knows somebody at U-Tokyo, or knows somebody who knows somebody at UTokyo. It's their letter of introduction that will open doors for you.

Cold-calling will not yield many good results.

Without a good letter of introduction, your next best strategy is to enroll in either a study-abroad program / exchange program with U-Tokyo that has open enrollment or to apply to one of their English-speaking graduate programs. Going through their international programs office tends to be much better as the staff are used to international norms for student applications. Unfortunately, most of these programs aren't in engineering, but at least it gets you a  foot in the door.

Edit: From the discussion, it became clear that the OP has already enrolled into an engineering program at U-Tokyo that caters to foreigners. In this case, it's the program's responsibility to find him his advisor, as it is clear from their FAQ:

  "As an applicant for all courses, it is not necessary for you to
  contact a prospective supervisor in advance. Instead, after evaluating
  your application documents, we will allocate you to a field of
  study/faculty member which will be most appropriate for your research
  and research interests. "


Letter of Recommendation from Instructor I am a graduate student pursuing my masters in physics, with the intention of eventually getting my PhD (just not from my current institution). This past summer, I taught a physics course, and several of my students asked me to write letters of recommendation for them, and I offered to write letters for others, too. The students who asked did very well in the course, and I am happy to write letters for them. Most of these letters are for employers or graduate/medical schools. Would it be in their best interest for me to write them, since I am not an established/tenured faculty, and, in fact, have not even received my masters? I don't want to write them letters which will be disregarded by their employers/institutions because I am not a faculty, but was just the instructor of record.

Cheers

This depends a lot on what the student is applying to. Being an instructor means you're qualified to assess the students' ability to do well in your class (and some related things like study skills and desire to learn), but not a lot else. For e.g. Ph.D. admissions, they really want someone to speak to the student's potential to do research, which you probably won't be seen as qualified to do. Thus is for two reasons - first, being somewhat early in your career yourself, you haven't established a ton of credibility by your own research career; second, you only know the student from class, not a research-related activity. Whether fair or not, I think in reality a well-known professor's recommendation will be taken much more seriously than yours, even if you know the student better. If you were a postdoc or other junior/non-permanent faculty the balances would tip a bit, but not having a graduate degree yourself is likely to make the reader be skeptical of your recommendation.

On the other hand, if the student is applying to a summer program or a job that isn't directly related to physics research, writing that they're a strong student who did well in your class and asked good questions and came to office hours or whatever is perfectly good. I have no idea how professional schools (med school etc) work but my guess is you'd be taken more seriously - it seems to me that their admissions process puts more emphasis on grades/class performance, which of course you're qualified to speak to!

I'm a PhD student and have been asked to write recommendations once or twice for students I've been the TA for (at my university, TA's are typically the only people interacting directly with the students in the larger classes). I have warned the students that I'm likely not the best person to ask and asked if they have even a tenuous connection to someone more senior, and helped them out if they can convince me I'm actually the best person for them.


What if I don't join someone for postdoc to whom I previously applied I am a PhD student in applied mathematics. I have submitted my PhD thesis and started applying for postdoc positions. Now suppose I informally email somebody and suppose he says that he has no funding currently and once he has funding he will inform me. Now, suppose at the time he has funding, I have some better option, so I don't join him. Can that create a bad impression of me to him ?

If your situation has genuinely changed—six months or a year go by and you’re working as a postdoctoral or researcher somewhere else, why would you be expected to give up your position? This seems like a very one-sided transaction and unfair to you. Might the professor hold a grudge? It’s possible, but anybody who does hold a grudge in such a scenario is thinking primarily about their own needs rather than your mutual benefit.


Do I need to mention having survived a life-threatening illness when applying for a new academic position? Do I have to (or is it wise or unwise) to mention having survived a life-threatening illness (such as cancer, a (early) heart attack, etc when applying for a new (non-leading) academic position?

Assume that my health condition is now good enough (and the past health troubles are not obvious from my outward appearance) such that from a medical point of view nothing speaks against my further persuing my academic career and interests.

Nevertheless, due the specific medicaments I have to take for the rest of my life and some remnants of the past health issues, there might be times my productivity might slightly be lessened. Also, even though the probability is not very high, it can in principle not be 100% excluded that the illness will come back at some point.

Of course I would not mention this in a written application, but should I talk about my health condition in the context of an interview or before things are getting serious and it comes to signing the contract?

BTW I currently live in Germany

If you think it helps explain a work or productivity gap in your career, I would mention it and I would do so in writing rather than let your prospective employers speculate. Because overcoming a major medical challenge can help you align your priorities and strengthen you in other ways, doing so can definitely be done in a way that leads one to conclude that it is a strength, not a weakness, of your candidacy.

If your previous condition is not relevant in these ways, I don't think you have any obligation to bring it up. Sure, your illness might return but nobody is 100% immune from serious illness impacting their ability to work or be productive. For that matter, severe chronic illnesses that unambiguously affect productivity (e.g., cramps, migraines, etc.) are simply not the kind of thing that people bring up while interviewing and candidates have no responsibility to do so.

Reminding prospective employers of this can open to the door to (illegal) discrimination based on your medical history and I don't think you are helping either yourself or your prospective employers by bringing it up. When you take an offer, it might be good to let your future department know about your history as background but you might even let this just be raised socially.


Adjunct professor capacities Can I mention an adjunct professor as my proposed supervisor for graduate studies, or adjunct  professors are not allowed to be supervisor?

Are there anythings that I should be aware of before mentioning his/her name in my application?

The easiest way to resolve this question is to e-mail the person and ask whether they anticipate taking new graduate students in the near future.  This is worth asking even for non-adjunct faculty (since they may have all the students they can handle already, they may be retiring soon or moving to another university or an administrative position, etc.), so nobody will be surprised or take offense at the question.

As for what sort of answer to expect, it depends on what sort of adjunct professor it is.  Sometimes researchers from other institutions (government or industrial research labs, museums, etc.) hold adjunct positions at universities.  They may or may not be allowed to supervise graduate students, depending on the terms of their appointment, but it's common to allow this; often it's part of the point of the position.  On the other hand, there's another sort of position sometimes called adjunct faculty, namely low-paid temporary workers hired to teach introductory courses, and these jobs are not likely to involve graduate supervision.  You should be able to tell pretty easily which case applies to any particular person by looking on the web, and in any case e-mailing them (as described above) will give a definitive answer.


What is an "un-reproducible result"? In order to publish a research paper in a journal, one of the requirement may be the reproducibility of results.
I'm wondering, in academia, how does an un-reproducible result even exist?
Is there any classical example for it, in any branch of academia research?

It's important to define what reproducibility actually means and in what context it is used. Science deals with things that can be reproduced in principle: If you managed to re-create the exact same situation, you would be able to get the same result.
But in practice, that doesn't always mean that you can re-create the situation: You might have measured the seismic waves of a very large earthquake in Indonesia. Or you might have seen photons of a nearby supernova. Neither of these conditions can be created by humans, and so the experiment can not be repeated in practice, though in principle it could be. A related situation happens if it is impractical to do so: If the original experiment was done with a ten-billion $ machine (say, a particle accelerator, a nuclear fusion reaction), then yes you could repeat the experiment, but you probably find yourself in financial trouble if you tried. There are also valid research results that should not be reproduced, even if they could: Say, whatever we may have learned from the Tuskeegee syphilis study or the Stanford prison experiment might be scientifically correct, even repeatable, but one can only hope that nobody will ever try to repeat these studies.
Finally, there are often practical constraints: If you take a picture of turbulence in a pipe, you will not be able to recreate the same picture because turbulence is a chaotic process; similarly, if you try to do experiments on a single cell and count the number of molecules of a specific kind, you're likely going to find that it depends sensitively on temperature, time of day, etc. That doesn't mean that the science is wrong: In both cases, statistical assessments of the results may still be valid, even if you can't recreate the specific numbers.
Of course, there are also experiments that really can't be reproduced: Someone published the results of an experiment that seemed reasonable to them and to the reviewers, but the measuring device had a mechanical defect and consequently every number in the publication is just wrong and the measured effect does not actually exist. This of course shouldn't happen, but it does happen in practice. There are also common statistical problems in studies that involve a small number of human subjects where the random, involuntary, or voluntary choice of subjects suggested an effect that, if repeated on a larger and more random cohort does not actually exist.


Should departments have a policy regarding updating online resources? My department has gone paperless and uses Moodle to provide all information to students in an electronic format. With a paper based syllabus the expectations were cast in stone (okay ink on paper). Now that we are on Moodle, we can change the syllabus whenever we want. Today, we had a staff member change the word count on an essay, that is due in two days, from a 1500 word maximum with a 10% allowance, whatever that means, to a strict 1500 word maximum. The students are confused and screaming about it. What type of departmental policy should be in place to prevent changes.

Fundamentally, I don't think this problem has to do with the shift to a paperless format. Even with a syllabus on paper, my experience has been that a professor may well change it, often for good reason (e.g., shifting to make room for an excellent guest speaker, extending a deadline on a lab that many people are having problems with).

I think that the real problem here is that the faculty member has made a last-minute change that makes life harder for the students.  Student who thought they were done with the assignment have just discovered that they have more work to do, it may be interfering with their other plans, class or non-class, and it just plain doesn't feel fair.  Perhaps a good policy for that would be that no assignment can be made more restrictive once it has "started"?

There is also a place where the electronic aspect can enflame or mitigate the issue, and that may also address your original question.  Online documents offer the potential for making a "sneaky" change that is not announced directly to the students.  That seems to me to be something that should definitely be prohibited, and might be handled automatically by having the system send an announcement to all of the students whenever a course document changes.  I don't know Moodle, so I don't know how hard or easy it would be to set up automatic notification; even without automation, however, you could certainly regulate that all non-trivial changes must have a notification sent to students.


Should I thank thesis committee before defense? I want to email a copy of my thesis to the thesis committee, should I thank them that they are serving on my thesis/dissertation committee? and how should I thank them?
(it is before my defense))

You should thank them by acknowledging them at the end of your defense (i.e. the acknowledgment slide of your PowerPoint presentation). Keep it professional though. Once your defense is over and you are cleared for graduation, then you can shake their hands and get a beer.


How can I gain professional experience for PhD application all by myself? I love astrophysics and wish to pursue a PhD in a good institute outside my home country India. I did a master in physics (2014) and got a summer project in astrophysics. After my master, I took up teaching. I regularly applied to PhD vacancies but haven’t got any positive reply yet. This may be due to low grades in few subjects (I got an E in quantum physics). I am aware that work experience speaks volumes; so I mailed many professors for non-stipendiary internships but it didn’t work.

I want to know if anything is there that I could do all by myself and which can be counted as a “relevant professional experience”. What other measures I could take up?

First option is going to be finding an actual job connected to astrophysics. A quick Google search brought me this job postings in Indian Institute of Astrophysics, located in Bangalore. While I cannot tell you if this institute is thriving (living in India, you possibly know that better than me), you could give it a try. Doing actual work as an engineer surely qualifies as a relevant professional experience when you apply for your PhD next time. Explore the job markets while you are still in your home country.
While you can be applying for a job in India, go on and send several more PhD applications to other institutions outside India. It never hurts to try, and you will possibly become more aware of your strengths and weaknesses in the process.
Next, there are online courses (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) that you might take to reinforce your knowledge of the subject. People argue if online courses should go to your CV, but they are definitely worth taking for the sake of knowledge. Moreover, if you have had some bad grades in quantum physics in the past, a better grade in an online quantum physics course will be beneficial for your CV.
Inspired by these Quora answers: if you are thinking of a PhD studies outside India, pass the required examinations beforehand. For USA, this will likely be a Physics GRE test, and you should have that ready almost a year before your PhD program starts.
From the same Quora answer: taking part in a volunteer computation project (see a list of BOINC projects) may help you learn more about astronomy, how the actual research can be done, and (why not?) get to know some researchers outside of your country.


Authorship determination for a paper in IEEE journal I finished my bachelor project and my supervisor suggested to work with me on publishing a paper about my work which is an encryption algorithm, Now my supervisor helped me with some remarks along my bachelor project and helped me with the paper (like grammar mistakes and such) but I am the one who made encryption algorithm and I am the one who wrote the paper:

Now should I include my supervisor as a 2nd author as he wants? (I can refuse, and then publish the paper on my own) He is a senior IEEE member and has published papers (where he was also 2nd author taking credit for others' work). Should I mention him just for the sake to get my paper accepted or protect it from getting stolen?

From my point of view, what he deserves is to be mentioned in acknowledgments but not as a second author.

And will the ownership of the paper will be 50% to me, while 50% to him ?

You have many questions as about authorship, and I am afraid some of your questions/comments indicate a certain level of confusion about authorship. You could browse the authorship questions on this site, and it may Enlighten you to some extent.

Regarding your specific questions:

Should I include my supervisor as a 2nd author as he wants?

First, you should check the policy on authorship directly from the publisher. IEEE Publication Policies states that:

  Authorship and co-authorship should be based on a substantial intellectual contribution. It is assumed that all authors have had a significant role in the creation of a manuscript that bears their names.

  Therefore, the list of authors on an article serves multiple purposes; it indicates who is responsible for the work and to whom questions regarding the work should be addressed. Moreover, the credit implied by authorship is often used as a measure of the contributors’ productivity when they are evaluated for employment, promotions, grants, and prizes.

  The IEEE affirms that authorship credit must be reserved for individuals who have met each of the following conditions:
  a. Made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, system or experimental design, prototype development, and/or the analysis and interpretation of data associated with the work contained in the article;
  b. Contributed to drafting the article or reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content; and
  c. Approved the final version of the article as accepted for publication, including references.

Unless you performed research entirely without any input from your advisor, it seems unlikely that he did not make a “significant intellectual contribution”. Possible types of contribution include proposal of research subject/project, any guidance in the choice of method to pursue the project or on intermediate results, guidance on how best to interpret results and present them, etc.
Will the ownership of the paper will be 50% to me, while 50% to him?

No, co-authorship does not necessarily mean equal contribution (and is not understood as such by the readers). To go even further, some journals offer the option of writing an explicit statement quantifying (to some extent) the respective contributions of the coauthors.
Won't people think he contributed in making the cipher?

Not necessarily, as above. They will think he contributed to some extent to the research project, but will understand that he may not have been the one who came up with the idea.

I'll end by adding that you should be really wary not to dismiss your advisor's role too much. Even if you had the breakthrough idea and implemented it yourself, surely the guidance offered by your teachers and supervisors are to be credited, maybe more than you realize right now. Also, that he gave you the opportunity to pursue a worthwhile research project, and then helped you transform that into a publishable (quality) paper, are important contributions.


How to acknowledge a deceased advisor’s contributions to a paper? One of my advisors suddenly passed away while I was in graduate school.  We had some discussions and ideas about future publications, but he passed away before any of the work was completed.  When the work was finally completed and published, I and my co-authors were therefore presented with an ethical dilemma about how best to acknowledge his contributions to the ideas behind the paper.  Should we list him as a co-author?  Put him in the acknowledgements?  Listing him as an author would give credit for the original idea, however, we would have no way of knowing if he actually approved of—and would want his name attached to—our methods and writing.

In the end my co-authors and I decided to list him as a co-author with a footnote stating that he passed away before publication.

I’m interested to hear from others who have been in similar situations and/or suggestions on what constitutes “co-authorship” when one of one’s collaborators passes away before the publication or work is complete.

I had a similar situation. In this case, we did exactly what you did: we indicated that the participant (not a team leader, but a team member in this case) was a co-author, but that he was deceased. I think this is the only fair way to recognize substantial contributions.

Of course, the difficult comes if there is a challenge to the work of the deceased. In our case, however, we had a very substantial paper trail which was audited and reviewed, so the individual work could have been sorted out and dealt with appropriately.

So, I think the best defense is generally to keep good working notes and use version control.


I submitted an LOR online for a student to a US school. Student claims they want a physical copy. How should I respond? The student claims that the department contacted him asking for all letters in printed form with full contact details and signature.

Is this a common request?  How do I know it's authentic?  How should I respond?

It's completely possible a school might ask for an original letter on paper sent direct to them.

It's been identified as a US school but not which one.  There are perhaps 600 graduate institutions in the US.  Multiply that times the number of programs.  There simply has to be some variance in admissions policies.  At any particular school, it's completely possible they have an admissions policy of auditing LORs by asking for paper copies of all or some subsets of those submitted electronically.  There's no national standard on this kind of thing.

(I was surprised when University of Washington wanted paper originals of my own LORs for my first faculty appointment a few years ago.  So I figure there have to be schools that might want paper originals for student LORs.)

If you're unsure of the authenticity of the request, you might ask to see the communications the student received.  But once satisfied, I'd try to comply.  (I keep copies of the LORs I write so I can resend them with a new inside address when a student applies elsewhere; I assume you do, too.)

I would, of course, only accept a request for an original sent direct to the school. A request that the original be given to the student for delivery to the school would ring bells as bogus and likely end the need for any new LORs for that individual.


A terrible PhD situation in Germany. Please help I am an international student in a interdisciplinary PhD in the social sciences.

My supervisor has about 60 students and does not do any advising beyond a few personal favorites.

My second supervisor considers me a student of the first, resents the fact that he is the expert on the subject, and as a result won't read my thesis either. This has gone on for seven years and now I must submit. I speak four European languages and my thesis is in an area which is very relevant. Right now I can t see any future for myself as there are no jobs back home.

1.What do I do about my supervisors as the PhD is graded here?
2.Can I apply for post docs/tenure track (community college is more than fine) in North America with a PhD from Germany, or do they prefer N.American PhDs? How do I go about it? I have publications.
I'd be grateful for any advice/career suggestions etc. I don't mind leaving academia but I cannot return home as there are no jobs there.

It is not uncommon that a German professor does not give advise to their PhD students. Neither is it uncommon that the 2nd referee does not want to read your thesis. In Germany, whether your dissertation is good enough or not is mainly decided by the first advisor. If they say it's ok, then it's ok. Your advisor theirself is the chairman of the exam committee, the other members would not say "no" to him.

That is, there is no need to worry about your situation.

If I were you, I would just write up my dissertation, give it to my advisor, and ask them for advice. Then, from what I know, the advisor would find some time to read it, and tell you something to improve (they have to pretend as if they understood your thesis). Then you could do the improvements, mail the thesis to the 2nd referee. Again this guy would also tell you something to improve, you do it, and that's it.


Can a professor tell you that you can’t use your phone before or after their class? So, I have this one professor who refuses to let anyone use their phone. I understand this during class hours but now he’s saying he will give a demerit to anyone using their phone even if it’s before or after class.

I personally am at the school from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and his class is my last one for the day and I have a 2 1/2 hour wait until it starts. Most days I get into his class room anywhere from 30 mins to almost an hour before class starts. The teacher is in the room as students aren’t allowed in otherwise. In that time I’m generally on my phone as in my opinion it’s my free time and I’d like something to do or have people I’m talking to over text.

Everyone is of course adults as we are in college so it’s extremely irritating that another adult would tell me and other students to put a phone away when there is literally no one else in the classroom and no work is being done. Even after class he threatens to write me up for having my phone out whether it’s just to check the time or look something up. (I’m usually the last to leave as I don’t feel the need to rush out of the room and generally try to clean up pretty well before I go)

Maybe I’m just being unreasonable but I do believe some boundaries of respect are being crossed. I don’t talk back or stand up for myself when he tells me to put it away either as I grew up being taught to respect anyone in authority or older than you. Though, he’s the first to make this difficult as the respect doesn’t feel as though it’s being reciprocated.

I think your description of what’s going on is misleading. The professor is not “telling you you can’t use your phone before class”. He’s telling you you can’t use your phone before class in the classroom when he’s also in the classroom.

Is that reasonable? I honestly don’t have a strong opinion. I can certainly see why it’s annoying to you on the one hand, but can also see things from the professor’s perspective - if he wants to use those thirty minutes before class to review the material he’ll be discussing, and is easily distracted by phones (yes, professors are prone to distraction just like other people), he may well think his need to have a distraction-free working environment so that he can deliver good instruction for his class overrides your personal need to use your phone during that time and makes it okay for him to decide what is and isn’t allowed in the classroom, even though the official lecture time hasn’t yet arrived.

It’s possible you can win this on a technicality by turning this into some kind of principled fight over individual rights. But I don’t see a point, it wouldn’t be a real “win” for you or anyone else in any meaningful sense. Your professor may be a slightly unreasonable person with a slightly rigid personality, but in my opinion the mature thing to do in this situation would be to respect his wishes and find some other place to use your phone before class.


Should the editor's name be included in a rebuttal letter? To make things simple, I am asking whether the rebuttal letter is starting with

  Dear Editor and Reviewers

or

  Dear Reviewers

One thing to do is to write two documents:

a short letter to the Editor, summarizing your rebuttal in a few sentences;
a detailed Answer to Reviewers, including line-by-line response to all comments and suggestions of the Referees.

Note that the Editor not necessarily has enough time to read through all the detailed response him/her-self, but the presence of this document re-assures that the discussion between Authors and Referees is going in the right direction. If you experience problems addressing Referees' questions, or disagree with them significantly, you should mention this in the letter to the Editor.


Home university with full research funding or prestigious university with teaching / research assistantship? I have been accepted to a PhD at a top 10 university. I have also been offered a position at my home university, which is ranked about 50th-60th for the subject. At the top university, I currently do not have a scholarship, though I would be able to fund myself through research and teaching assistantships. At my home university, I would get a scholarship for the first year of classes and then a good salary for four years of pure research. At the top university, my supervisor is one of the top researchers in his field, but I would not be part of a research group. At my home university, the research group I would be in is dynamic and large, and has some very good professors. At the top university, I would be working in the field I have been focusing on so far. At my home university, it would be in a related but different field. Which seems like the best bet? There are aspects of both options I like, but I feel too inexperienced to make the right choice. Thanks for your advice.

In general, to be perceived as a hanger-on, a marginal person, at a high-status place is definitely limiting... while being a star and highly appreciated at a lower-status place (while admittedly not as good as being "star at high-status place") is generally perceived as a good thing, with upper bounds as yet unclear. (Here I speak from a U.S. perspective, where things are not as centrally organized/controlled as, e.g., in France or China...)

That is, in the U.S., it is generally understood that, though of course a trajectory that leads directly to high-status situations is the simplest, there are many "second chances". Perhaps this is less so in more overtly and officially hierarchical settings. And, indeed, as things get more crowded in academe, the second chances in the U.S. are fewer and fewer, but they do still exist.

... not to mention the psychological impact of being told daily that you're marginal. Oof. Not helpful. Better to be told daily that you're doing great. Or is that a matter of taste? :)


Changing my information in a published paper How can I change my position/title that was mistakenly written in a published paper?

If the paper has already been published, you can't. It's too late. Even if the print versions have not been printed, the electronic version will have been distributed, and it's not possible to issue a recall.
If the issue is severe enough you could publish a corrigendum/erratum, for which you'd have to ask the journal.


Getting in between another teacher and his student One subject I teach is also taught by another teacher at my university. Usually we do not both teach this subject during the same semester but sometimes we do. Students do not get to choose their teacher, the are assigned into one class or the other.

This has introduced a strange dynamic in that some of the other teacher's students have come to me asking for information about the subject, since they know I also teach it. So far, I've been quite hesitant to answer any such questions because I am worried about getting in between the other teacher and his students. I can imagine that I might have an answer that is different than the other teacher (perhaps my answer is wrong, perhaps my answer is right, and perhaps both of us are right but we have different ways of looking at a problem). The issue is compounded by the fact that I am from the West but the other teacher is Asian so there are cultural issues at play here (and I'm in Asia so it's not my culture).

I imagine this would be less of an issue in subjects like math where there is a specific formula but in management subjects the perspective of the teacher can change things significantly, especially if one teacher might be less strong in the subject than the other.

So, what should a teacher in this situation do? Refer the student to their teacher? If they feel they cannot get an acceptable answer then refer them to a search engine? Should I jump in if they feel they are lost and their teacher is not helping them understand (this seems like it could cause serious problems, even if handled well)?

My first question is, why are you (the faculty) both teaching the same class at the same university without talking to each other?  I can understand the cultural differences, but this is even more of a reason to talk to your colleague about the class!

I would suggest (as posdef does in his comment) to talk to the other instructor about the class, offer to have him sit in on your class, and ask about collaboration.  You could also ask to sit in on his class if you'd like, but you need to be careful to phrase your request so it is clear that you're there to gain insight into his class and not to provide criticism.  I can't tell from your comment, "...if one teacher might be less strong in the subject than the other" if you believe he is the weak one or if you are, but regardless, you can both learn from each other.

Finally, it is in the best interest of both classes of students that you collaborate with the other instructor -- if both courses are listed as the same in the course catalog, the students should be able to expect that the class will cover roughly the same material.


How do I reply to a professor's email who wants to chat with you? I contacted a potential advisor for a PhD program. He replied to me that he was not in a position to accept any PhD students at this time. But he also wrote to me:

  "I'd also be happy to chat about the program and my work generally if helpful, but would realistically have to be in mid-January. Let me know if of interest."

I am not sure what and how should I reply to him. I am interested in having a talk with him, but what should I ask?

He wants to know more about your background preparation and your research interests. He likely also wants to get a sense of how you would fit into his research program.

However, he may also just be interested in grad students generally and wants to think about whether some other prof would be good to work with you if he can't.

I expect that the chat will be entirely informal and give you a chance to look around the department and maybe meet a few people. I once asked a prof if he would be my advisor and he declined, but suggested another, who turned out to be a much better match. I don't think he actually introduced us (long time ago - poor memory) but think he just suggested I approach the other (more senior) prof.


Where can I find samples of position papers? I have been invited to contribute a position paper to an upcoming conference on higher education. However, I am unfamiliar with them beyond a general description.

I'm concerned about what the norms are for these kinds of papers (since I have never written, nor read, one). Some questions I have include:

How much evidence for the position is normally provided?
What kinds of questions are reasonable to leave unanswered?
How long are they?
What level of counter-argument should be included?

I believe after reading a few I could answer these, which is why I'm asking this question.

As I look for samples, 90% of what I find relate to Model UN. Is there a good source to find samples of position papers for academic conferences?

How much evidence for the position is normally provided?

As much as possible, actually. In a position paper, you might want to develop an hypothesis that matches previously made findings. Or you might argue that past empirical research has got its results wrong in some way because of an unaccounted for measurement or protocol error. Or you might want to make a theoretical argument, or take multiple findings from existing papers and try to explain a connection between them. If you have an hypothesis which sounds plausible (as in consistent with correctly-made empirical observations and with at least one family of theories) and you find that you need some additional research before you can confirm or reject it, a position paper is a great way to expose it.

What kinds of questions are reasonable to leave unanswered?

The ones that need a costly / difficult proof. You want to expose an opinion or idea so you get feedback on it or potential collaborators.

How long are they?

It depends on your field. In computer science, they're usually short papers in conferences or full papers in workshops.

What level of counter-argument should be included?

I'm not sure I get this question. If you know about evidence that contradicts your hypothesis, include it, and explain why you think the evidence can be neglected.

Where to look for position papers?

Go to your favourite academic search engine and make a search on papers that contain "position paper" in their title. Also, look up all recent workshops in your specific field (those you'd submit your position paper to).


What is the English term for a Belgian non-university higher education institution? I graduated from what is known as a "Hogeschool" in Belgium. When trying to explain this term on English websites, I've always used the term "University College" or "College", However, I'm not sure what terminology to use. Wikipedia doesn't have a Dutch article that's linked from "College", and "Hogeschool" is referred to "HochSchule" or something like that. Google on the other hand just translates "College" as "College" and "Hogeschool" as "University".

However, Hogeschool and University are not the same: University is a step above Hogeschool, and I want to avoid ambiguity with people thinking I graduated from a more prestigious kind of higher education than I actually am.

What is the proper English term for a "Hogeschool"?

Apparently this is the same kind of institution as the German "Fachhochschule", which is usually translated as "university of applied sciences". The Wikipedia article about "Hogeschool van Amsterdam" seems to confirm this: "The Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of Applied Sciences (HvA), or Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences ..." See also their English website: http://www.amsterdamuas.com/

However, you might still need to explain this in more detail to those not familiar with the Dutch, Belgian or German education system.


Cannot present paper at conference. Instructor wants to move me to second author Due to unforeseen circumstances, I am not able to present my paper at a Computer Science conference. Without the presentation the paper will not be published. My instructor has said that she will present the paper instead, but wants to move me from the primary author to the second author. I did all the work as a graduate student while she reviewed and gave general feedback. What is the proper etiquette here? Is it okay to move her to primary because I cannot present?

UPDATE

In the interest of fairness to the professor, I want to provide some more background. This started off as a end-of-semester project. Each student needed to come up with an idea, then propose, implement, present and write a paper on it. I initially proposed a vague concept of using PSO to train neural nets. My instructor said her lab is working on something similar and if I wanted, I could tackle an extension to their algorithm, which depending on the outcome could lead to a published paper. During the course of the semester, my instructor offered little to no help for the project, presumably because that would give me an unfair advantage. All the work, code, paper, the specifics of the algorithm extension are all mine, and all I had was the published paper of the previous algorithm to work on.

After the semester was over, I decided to see if I could get it published. I noticed a lot of mistakes I made with my implementation during the tight semester time-frame and spent several months iterating and refining my process and results. I was put in touch with the previous researchers who offered little help with the exception of getting a portion of their source code, which was also of little help to me. I would venture to say that my professor's role in this was mostly advisory, although at the end of it, I would send my paper to her to proofread it.

Fast-forward to now, my instructor is claiming that because I am not presenting, I am not taking ownership of my work. She is also claiming that the work was her idea and based on her lab's previous work. She gave me a choice of swapping authors or withdrawing the paper. Note that a camera-ready version of the paper has already been submitted. I offered to withdraw from the conference. She then tells me that she has already registered the paper so I shouldn't withdraw, but she wants the source files for my work (I assume latex files?).

She has now invoked university policy and copyright law, saying that since both our names are on the paper, I cannot withdraw without her consent, which she has not given. Since she shares ownership of the paper, she claims she is also entitled to the source materials of the paper. She has offered not to change the author order.

That is the majority of the story. The actual email conversation was not as civil. I have graduated and moved on... we never actually met face to face since this was an online class. So... given the above story, have I done anything wrong? Is the instructor entitled to the source material for the paper? This is for the IEEE WCCI conference this summer. We are the only two authors on this paper. This is my first paper, this is not her first paper.

Who presents a work should not affect its authorship.

Authorship is determined by the contribution to the publication.  That work is complete at the time when the publication is accepted and the camera-ready is submitted.  Now, it is entirely reasonable (and in fact common) for a paper to be presented by somebody other than the first author, and it's quite normal for the presenter to highlight their name in the presentation.  In no way, however, should that change the authorship of the paper.


Should the PhD supervisor's name be first in a scientific journal? I am a self funded PhD student and have been told by my supervisor that her name should be first on any future journal I will be publishing during my studies under her supervision as "this is the only thing she gets from her PhD students".

I am just wondering if the ordering of author names matter? She is going to help me only by proof writing my article. All research will be done by myself.

Is she legally allowed to say it? Should I accept it?

I am just wondering if the ordering of author names matter?

In a small number of academic fields -- like mathematics -- the overwhelmingly majority of jointly authored papers list the authors' names in alphabetical order.  In these fields, a non-alphabetical ordering of the authors stands out like a sore thumb: the average mathematician knows it is meant to look bad for the latter-listed author but is not sure exactly what it means.  In a field like this, if you hear a potential advisor say this, you should say "Thank you, I'll look for someone else" and walk out the door.

In most other academic fields, the ordering of the authors conveys important meaning in a manner which can be subtle and vary from field to field.  There are some academic fields where being the last named author carries a lot of prestige, but in my understanding this is the kind of prestige awarded a very senior person.  I don't know of any academic field in which putting the junior author at the end looks good for them.

But anyway, here is another kind of answer to your question: the ordering of names must matter to your potential advisor or she wouldn't have brought it up!  Therefore if you yourself are not sure what rights you are signing away in such an agreement, you should be especially skeptical.  I think the first thing that you should do is look around to see how common this practice is among other faculty and students in your department.  (If you are in an academic context far from the American one, it would be more prudent to do this even if you are in a field like mathematics than to immediately walk out of the office like I suggested above.  I don't know what the standard arrangement is at every math department in the world...obviously.)  This will be easy to check just by looking at the publications of the faculty members.  Also asking the other students can help.

  She is going to help me only by proof writing my article. All research will be done by myself.

Proofreading is not the same as advising.  An agreement where your advisor guarantees in advance not to advise you in most meaningful ways and that she will insist on first coauthorship sounds like an especially bad one.  It also sounds unethical to me by the general standards of academic ethics, although subfield ethics may have a role to play.

  Is she legally allowed to say it?

Not every form of bad behavior is illegal (thank goodness).  I can't speak to the law over the entire surface of the earth, but in the US there are certainly no laws pertaining to this kind of thing.

  Should I accept it?

I think that what potential advisor is really trying to say is that she does not want to be your potential advisor.  Sometimes people have trouble saying "no" outright; this happens in academia (where the tenure process takes a good shot at making "yes-men" and "yes-women" out of academics) but also in life generally.  A lot of times I have seen academics offer to do things for students only under quite unreasonable conditions that they clearly (to me) expect the students to turn down...only to have the student not know so clearly that the conditions are unreasonable and accept them.  Of course both parties end up unhappy.

In your case I feel reasonably confident that your advisor is trying to tell you to go away.  What I am unsure of is whether she's telling it to you specifically or to all students generally: the rather oafish "this is the only thing she gets from her PhD students" seems to indicate that this professor is simply not onboard with the practice of having PhD students at all.  But either way, I advise you to look around: probably you can do better.


No response from professor for letter of recommendation I am applying to MS/MA programs and my first due date is tomorrow. All my matierals were submitted 2 weeks in advance,however, my final letter writer hasn’t submitted his LOR. My other two have both been submitted but I am worry they will not carry as much weight as they are coming from directors at my company (I have been out of school 3 years). My professor agreed to write me a letter late November and I i then sent him my resume/transcripts/statement of intent. I also sent him a thank you card over the holidays to express my gratitude. I have not heard back from him since early December, after he agreed to write my letters. I have sent him 1 reminder email on earlier this week as my first application is due tomorrow. He has not responded. I am wondering if it’s proper etiquette to call him? With the rest of my applications being due March 1st I am a little apprehensive that I may run into this issue every time.

If you are able to, you might consider attending office hours if your professor has them openly available before the deadline. In the event that your professor misses this first deadline, I would try to get them to submit the letter to the other schools as soon as possible. It is likely that all of the letters will be basically similar (meaning that all letters should be already written), so an early submission to the other schools should not be an issue.


What is the best career choice for a social psychology graduate? I have a background in Psychology and Fine Arts. My passion lies with doing scientific research and making art. So ideally I would be able to do both, or use one to support the other. However, I've found that finding a job in the social sciences is pretty difficult, if not impossible without work experience (pretty much a vicious cycle).

But since finding a steady income with a degree in fine arts is even more difficult, I would very much like to provide a steady income for myself by working in the social sciences. I've had countless bad jobs to support myself through both of my degrees, and I don't see myself becoming very happy doing that my whole life.

At this point, I have several options, and I would like some advice on what you think would be the best way of proceeding (the points are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and if you have a better idea, please, do suggest it):

I could further specialize myself: do a masters (or even a PhD) in a field which aligns with my academic and research background. However, this could risk another worthless degree with no job and waste of time and money
I could move to another geographic location, where a degree in my field is in higher demand, get a job and support my other passions.
I could freelance to build experience but this is usually as taxing as a normal job minus job security and pay.

In general I would counsel against further study. I have seen many people finish an undergraduate degree, look for a job they like/a job, and when they have no luck go back to study. This has almost always ended badly. In most cases they have no understanding of how a further degree will allow them to get the jobs they are interested in, and are merely spending a lot of money to prolong (or make worse) the problem.

If you are incredibly passionate in an area go for it. However the fact that you are posting this/reading this suggests that you are not.


Is there any mechanism to prevent an author from cross-sending a manuscript? Is there any mechanism to prevent authors from sending a manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously ?  Is there any internal private mechanism between journals? Is it totally an ethical obligation?

The only mechanism is that being found out is typically both rather embarrassing and, in case of pre-tenure researchers, can also be very detrimental to career development of the researchers in question.

Further, note that being found out is in many fields not as unlikely as you might think. For many more narrow topics, there are only so many researchers out there that are "natural candidates" for reviewing a given paper. Despite not being very senior yet, it has already happened to me that I received basically the same paper twice for review from different (in that case) conferences.


Can we detect plagiarism from/in a podcast? Is there a way to match content

of an article from a podcast source,
of a podcast from an article source or
of a podcast from another podcast source?

I haven't heard of any tool that can check plagiarism from/in an audio source. If such a tool does exist, how efficient and reliable is it?
EDIT: There is no specific purpose for asking this question. It is just out of curiosity, since I am listening to a lot of podcasts nowadays.

I doubt that anything currently exists. I don't, however, think the problem is infeasible. But it is very hard.
First, plagiarism is about ideas, not words. One can plagiarize without using any of the original words. Second, plagiarism is about the creation of the ideas and claiming them as your own. Both of these are difficult problems.
First, one would probably need both things to be in a common format, probably written language. This part currently has solutions that mostly work, but it is the easiest part. Second, the actual meaning of the words would need to be extracted and probably also structured in some way.
Finally, the system would need to watch out that the ideas weren't just being expressed but were being claimed. I can certainly speak and write about relativity without plagiarizing Einstein.
I think it would be an interesting research problem, but I also think that it would be pretty far in the future before such a system could eliminate most of the false positives and false negatives.
A data driven AI system might be the way to attack it, but these are still subject to many false decisions.
But it needs to be an intelligent agent to make the call. A person can use transcripts and understand the meaning and the intent. A sufficiently sophisticated AI might also be able to do it, but it is still a bit beyond where were are, especially if you require a low fault rate.

Copyright is easier, since it is about words (pictures, sounds, etc).
Likewise, students copying things to cheat is generally easier since they will most likely be copying words rather than extracting the ideas/semantics from the words and there is an implicit assumption that the intent is that the ideas are their own.


Seeking advice: Failed PhD due to academic + psychological reasons. Should I apply two years later? Failed my PhD in Physics after 3 years in graduate school. I spent the whole first and a half year on foundation (courses and some learning projects) since I jumped in from a completely different field without any prerequisites. Then I spent another one and a half year on serious projects. I suffered in the second year due to the pressure from research and meanwhile, some personal issues which made me very very depressed. I failed a course (just could not work on anything at that period) and make unsatisfactory progress in research. And one can guess, failed qualifying exam. I left at the end of 3rd year without a terminal master, which is a large dent. If I apply immediately after quitting I will get rejected from all programs without problem. So, here is what I am thinking:

I still love research and would like to devote to R&D as my career.
I fully understand I am responsible for my failure and would like to deal with my issue.
I am fully recovered and actually learned a lot from this about managing emotion and deal with pressure.
I am planning to work in industry in related areas for a year or two or three, and during the time, keep looking for PhD openings. Taking exams, looking for research intern opportunities in my spare time. If lucky, I will go ahead and work towards a doctorate degree.

I have many concerns and therefore, need advices about this plan

does this sound doable in general? I've seen people doing phd in their 30s or even 40s, but I know these are not the normal cases.
What kind of job you would recommend if I want to go back to graduate school in near future? Or, what would be my best strategy?
How should I explain this part of my life to adcom when applying?
I enjoy doing research and would like to pursue a R&D career in industry. But, just trying to see the whole picture, is age a problem? If I choose to do this and succeed, I will be in my early 30s to start phd and ideally, mid 30s to start my career.

All advices are welcomed and many thanks!
P.S.
I do thought about my passion and whether it is physics after all these happened. tbh it was not a very wise decision I made 3 yrs ago. It turns out I am not very passionate about the research in this group either it was too difficult and I am not prepared, or I simply don't like it. But I do like some parts such the math tools, programming tools and HPC and I appreciate the experience I had in this group. I am considering about research in data science and healthcare/pharmaceutical domain, which would have more practical applications in industry and then more job opportunities than physics at least

Does this sound doable in general?

This sounds doable to me in general (which is rare, because most of the time when failed students ask questions like this I am pretty skeptical of their plans), but probably not at the same institution.  The main thing I note from your post is that your previous candidature gave you a full suite of foundation courses in the field and over a year of practice in research.  Yes, you failed, but you were coming in with a low base of existing knowledge/skills, whereas now have an additional three years of work under your belt before entry.
Now, if you were to apply immediately to the same institution then it will almost certainly be a no --- they have terminated your candidature so they are saying you are not good enough for the program for now.  In any case, I note from your question that you feel you are not a good fit in that research group anyway.  Consequently, you are probably best off applying at another institution.  Your plan to work in industry for a few years while looking out for program opportunities sounds like a good idea.  It will put some temporal distance to your previous program removal and also give you some new professional skills in the field, which is more likely to make you an attractive candidate.  You should also note that time in industry may allow you to develop research ideas that are useful in the field, which might open up opportunities for a good PhD candidature working on a problem that comes from industry.

What kind of job you would recommend if I want to go back to graduate school in near future?  Or, what would be my best strategy?

Obviously, a job in physics.  If you can work an industry job as a physicist, or at least working on physics problems or related problems, this will give you additional experience and skills that will assist you with entry to a PhD program in physics.
As a secondary matter, you want a job that pays you a lot of money, to allow you to save up for your later time as a student.  If you have any serious desire to go back to being a PhD student later then you will need to make sure you do not get used to having a high disposable income.  Be frugal and save a portion of your money, so that when you go back to being a PhD student it is not too big a drop in lifestyle.

How should I explain this part of my life to [the admissions committee] when applying?

Pretty much the same way you just explained it to us ---i.e., you previously tried a PhD program, but you went in with a low skill base and it was too much for you.  You now have three additional years of work, including covering all the foundational courses in the field and getting some exposure to research work.  None of that sounds too bad to me, so I can't see an admissions committee having a major problem with it.
What the admissions committee is going to want to see is that you are mature and capable, and you are able to self-reflect on past failures and diagnose the problem sensibly.  They will also be impressed that you take responsibility for that failure and do not attempt to pass if off onto someone else.  Your story sounds like one where a student tries a PhD program before they have the skills to be ready, and it is too much for them.  The gain of this experience, plus a couple of years in industry, is likely to put you in a much stronger position.


Where did I lose control of my studies? I am a 5th MSc semester mathematics student at a local German university. Since fall, I have been working on my thesis, which is the only remaining task for finishing my studies.

I had not had particular difficulties during my studies, apart from the usual struggling and doubts I suppose every student undergoes: before my masters studies, I had spent 7 semesters at another university on two BScs in physics and mathematics. I am paid by a public scholarship. I had decided to change the university for my master's half for personal reasons and half in order to have a greater choice in courses held. My average score is 1.5 at the moment, which also had been my final score for the two BScs.

Now that I have started my thesis, nearly everything has changed: I am working with a professor whose courses I took several of, all with good grades, so she did not object to supervising my thesis. Although I have not had severe problems with my studies before, I am getting nowhere with my work now:

For understanding a single paper I am supposed to work on I sometimes need weeks, let alone the questions posed to me to think on, which I sometimes spend weeks without any serious results I could present. I have the impression that I am lacking creativity, intuition and a sufficient knowledge which I think I should have acquainted during my courses.

My problems have driven me into particular personal problems: I have lost contact with most of my former colleagues I used to spend every weekend with, partially because they seem to have lost interest in spending time with me, and partially because my mind is governed by thinking of my inferior scientific performance and the conviction no one wants to have to do with such a poor student. I cannot enjoy leisure time since I permanently have to think of the open problems that haven't worked out over a long time. I cannot claim to have chosen a university where I am competing with the best.

For 1½ months I have been taking antidepressives and having psychotherapy, which barely helps to soften the biggest peaks of auto-aggression and contemplating self-harm, but have not yet helped me to find another view on what I'm doing.

TL;DR

Although my university performance seemed sufficient for me not to worry much about it, starting working on my master's thesis has revealed a vast lack of mathematical knowledge and poor mathematical working capabilities. The longer I work on it, the more I lose any self-esteem.

Question: Where should I have foreseen my problems? Which signs did I ignore? Where did I miss to put things on the right track? And: how shall I find value in myself, now that I have found myself incapable of pursuing research, and have lost everything else?

Nothing you've described sounds like a serious academic problem.  Taking weeks to understand a paper, and working on a problem for weeks without results, are entirely normal in research mathematics.  And there is always a large gap between what you learn in coursework and what you need for research.

Trying to get better by just working harder or longer can be counterproductive.  It is important to spend time on other things, even when you feel like you're way behind.

Clearly you have some problems with mental health right now.  I'm not qualified to advise you on that, but it's good that you're getting professional help, and it's only been 1.5 months - such issues don't usually get "cured" as quickly as that.  Even if it takes time to get better and delays your academic progress, that's not a major problem.  Academia works on very long timescales and several months of low productivity is nothing in the big picture.

At the end of the day, maybe you'll decide you just don't like doing mathematics research.  That's okay too, there are lots of other things you can do with your life.  Math is particularly difficult in this regard, in that math coursework has a very different flavor from doing research (exercises with short elegant solutions, versus long messy problems with awkward solutions that only accomplish half of what you really want).  Liking coursework is not necessarily a good indication of the same for research, so a lot of people do leave the field at this stage.  Again, there is nothing wrong with that.

Professional mathematicians tend to be people who really do enjoy doing mathematics research, and they tend to describe the work in terms that make it sound like it is inherently enjoyable and anyone that doesn't like it must be broken somehow.  But that's not true.  If you get better and discover that you enjoy it, great.  If not, that's great too.


Is undergrad research experience related to the undergrad field preferred, or can I do research on the area I plan to study in grad school instead? Is undergrad research experience related to the undergrad field preferred, or can I do research on the area I plan to study in grad school instead?

Is undergrad research experience related to the undergrad field preferred, or can I do research on the area I plan to study in grad school instead?

It's actually just the opposite: research in the area you plan to study in grad school is preferred, because it sheds more light on your talent and preparation in this field and it demonstrates that you understand what's involved in this work.  If your undergraduate research is not in the field you plan to study, then there's a risk that you won't do as well in that field or won't enjoy it.


How do I respond to an email from a potential PhD supervisor who was positive but short? I recently contacted a potential PhD supervisor expressing my interest in working with him. I attached all application materials (personal statement, CV, etc), as he requested on his website. I received a prompt reply that he is accepting graduate students for the upcoming semester and to let him know if I have any questions. How should I follow up with him, and what sort of questions are appropriate to ask at this stage? I submitted my formal application to the program soon after receiving his reply.

Ask for a phone/skype call to discuss research interests, and to see if the two of you would be a good fit.

  Hi Prof X., Would you be available for a phone/skype call next week to discuss research projects and to see if I would be a good fit to be your advisee? Thank you!


What is the correct APA citation style with two places and two publishers Is this the correct APA form of citation with two publishers in different locations?

Cazes, S., & Verick, S. (2013). The labour markets of emerging economies: Has growth translated into more and better jobs? Geneva. UK: ILO-Palgrave Macmillan.

From this APA library guide it says;

  If more than one publisher is given, use the first one or the one that
  represents the home office, if given.

This answer at writer stackexchange supports this as well

So for your example the following should be fine for APA

  Cazes, S., & Verick, S. (2013). The labour markets of emerging
  economies: Has growth translated into more and better jobs? Geneva:
  ILO.


How to remove citations from Google Scholar profile? As the number of citations to some of my articles recently increased, I took a look to see who cites me among the articles listed on Google Scholar. To my surprise I found that I was cited in a document describing talks in a conference and in a curriculum vitae. These two citations are not "real" so I would like to remove them.

Do you know how can we remove some of the citations from the Google Scholar profile?

You can't.

Google Scholar, like everything Google, does not curate the data. It only indexes them and makes them easy to search through. If the citing document is online it'll be counted as a citation.

Google Scholar citations count, h-index and i-10 index are not accurate if you have quality criteria for what constitute a citation (an most reasonable academics do) and should be interpreted with caution.

There are commercial products that give more meaningful citations count per article or researcher. They are generally available via your institution's library.


can a poster paper and poster presentation have different title? I have submitted a poster paper for publication. Now its time to present the poster presentation at the conference.
I am presenting my key idea and results after my work rather than the actual results of what paper intended to explain. I thought this will be fruitful to me.
To present an idea, the paper title which is used in poster paper is not the best.

  Can I use another title which fits for my presentation?

For example :
Paper title  - Node simulator: Analytics platform for p2p system.
Best fit  title for poster presentation - Behavior measurement for p2p system

The best person to answer is perhaps the meeting organizer.

From someone in biomedical field, I'd recommend against it. If some people read the conference abstracts and decided to see your poster, they would just end up confused. In worse cases they may feel bait and switch, or sloppiness.

Could you use a two-tier title like this?

  Node simulator: Analytics platform for p2p system

  Application on behavior measurement


What to do about a problem referee? We've spent many months and have come to the end of our tether with a referee. He doesn't seem to care about the science in our paper at all, but just about the minutiae of the data analysis method, even though we've shown they work ok and are standard procedures. He seems to be on a single-person crusade to push his ideas on the community. In addition his reports are extremely long, poorly structured and written in a stream-of-consciousness style. We've made our best arguments, but he just won't accept them. Unfortunately the editor hasn't stepped in, so we're going to ask for a new referee.

He's named himself in his report. He's not exactly a big name. I've asked colleagues and have discovered that they had similar problems with him as a referee!

Is there an appropriate action to minimize his destructive behaviour on the community? I plan to always ask for him not to be a refeee when submitting a paper and never suggesting him as a referee.

It is the responsibility of the editor to not select him, and they are negligent in that respect. You are perfectly entitled to go ahead with requesting a more fair and even-minded referee (which is your right), as you "do not see how this referee's requests possibly can be satisfied, no matter how much work you invest".

Asking for him not to referee you and not selecting him as a referee is, of course, perfectly in your right.

Beyond that, there's not much more you can do from your side, and it is not your job to ostracise that person, even if you think they should be. Unless they threaten to take over a community (e.g. by being elected in a position of responsibility or similar), or you are responsible for hiring them into your department, my view is that you should let them be. Others may find reasons to appreciate their service, as hard as it may be to believe.


when a PhD position is re-posted after I had an interview I had a PhD interview and they said this decision will be made by the end of this week.
I haven't received any email from them yet.

However, I saw a new advertisement about the same position as I applied a few days ago.

Does this mean I am rejected?
Should I send an email to an administers to ask if I had failed?

It could have a lot of reason why a position is reposted. Computer mistake, additional position, confusion with another position, people not talking properly to each other, fraud, rejection, ...
Don't do anything at least until the end of this week (which is near)! Do not look at their homepages if this makes you nervous.

In the meantime, live your life as if you did not get this position. Apply for other jobs etc.
If you really want to get a definite answer from them and they do not call you, I would give it two more weeks (could vary by locale) until you call them. Do ask for feedback and do not call your rejection a "failure". In most interviews, people do not fail (except there is a special test) but it comes out that they don't fit the position well enough because of other interests.


Writing a short paper pointing to a mistake in a 2012 journal paper that got significant citations, while discussion with the author not successful I've very convinced that an author made a serious error in the main theorem in one of her 2012 papers in Statistics and Computing, which is a reputed journal in machine learning. I contacted the author, and we did have a respectful conversation, in which she neither agreed nor disagreed with me, but didn't seem to know a mathematically fundamental step mistakenly used in the proof of the theorem. Now, since I'm convinced that this is indeed a serious error, what should be my next step?
Along this line, I followed this question, and ideally I wanted to collaborate with the author, who did very kindly give me half an hour to discuss in real time, but I understand that there's no hope for writing a corrected version of the paper with her, since she neither agreed not disagreed with me.
Now since I'm in the beginning phase of my research career, I'm thinking of leveraging my discovery into writing a paper that'd be along the line of "Notes on the paper X", which'll mostly focus on discussing why the theorem  and the proof is wrong. I do of course want to acknowledge the discussion with the author. How can I make this possible?
See the thing is: since the main theorem of the paper is wrong, it makes the subsequent experiments wrong as well, so I can't really do much to improve the results into something to make a brand new paper. However, I do want my contribution to the community (that catching the mistakes and explaining them why it's wrong with potential counterexamples) noted. This is the reason I want to publish my finding. Also I'm wondering even if I write to the editor, they acknowledge that it's a mistake, will they necessarily publish my notes in the same journal? Intuitive it seems no because it's just a correction (albeit to the main theorem), but yes, as this should be the appropriate choice, as this is the very journal the paper was published in. How should I go about it? Thank you!

If you are sure of your work, there is little reason not to write the paper and submit it. Cite the other work properly, of course, and make your case clear. If the editor of a journal doesn't reject it out of hand it will be passed to a couple of referees who will give their judgement on the work.
But you don't jeopardize your career by doing this. Your paper isn't public until it is published. But asking the editor first is probably a  mistake, since you can't develop your argument without writing the paper.
And, it isn't impossible that in writing it up formally you will find an error in your own work. Make the case. Submit it for publication if it is strong enough.


Why does this US DOI manuscript on archaeological sites have blacked-out text? While searching for information for a course I'm teaching, I ran into this article from the US Department of the Interior describing some archaeological sites in the Southwest. It has tons of blacked out text. It doesn't seem to serve the purpose of correcting mistakes, as lots of details from the article are hidden. Is this a form of censorship of the information? If so, why would the US DOI have a reason for censoring this information?

The gps coordinates or other similar information is withheld for some sensitive archeological sites to try to minimize vandalism and other issues such as unauthorized "collectors". For example, there is a prehistoric rock quarry not too far from me in New York State, whose exact location is not published.
This seems to be the situation in the paper you cite. Some sites are culturally sensitive. Some are scientifically important. In the age of four wheel off-road vehicles it is too easy to find, contaminate, and even destroy such sites.


Assessing the citation rank of a conference How can I determine how much is a specific conference (in ICT field) cited ?
There are conferences that are quite influential with respect to that, and others which are less. How can I find that information about a specific conference ?
BR
Ilja

Google scholar has a search engine for venues. You cannot see how many citations a venue has, but they show you the h-index and the h5-index (i.e., h-index considering the papers published in the last 5 years only).

Here is the link:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_venues&vq=human+computer+interaction&btnG=


Is it possible to become a neuroscientist without first studying clinical medicine? I am currently in highschool and thinking about what career path I should choose to follow. I am fascinated by the brain, and I would really love to study how it works, or how to model it with computers and mathematics.

After doing Google searches, I have found that some neuroscience degrees are obtained by studying medicine first and then doing some graduate work on the brain, other websites have told me that neuroscience is a degree in its own right that does not require medicine first. I am concerned about this because I cannot stand the sight of large amounts of blood.

I am just fine with the sight of brains and the way they feel and smell, so I would be capable of doing research directly on them, but without studying medicine. Is there a degree that focuses on the brain and nerve system that does not require treating patients or managing large amounts of blood?

Neuroscience is interdisciplinary! To give you an idea, the neuroscience faculty at my institution (University of S. FL., RU/VH university) generally have Ph.D. in:

Pharmacology

Molecular Biology

Biophysics

Biochemistry

None of them are an M.D. so you have to ask where would medicine come in useful? Ph.D.'s do not generally interact with patients, perform medical procedures or do anything an MD is qualified to do (with respect to humans). Being said, you can have a dual MD/PhD where for example your MD is specialized health science and technology, and your PhD is specialized neuroscience. I think that for neuroscience research involving humans such as drug trials, behavioral neuroscience, etc. this is a preferred route. Some neuroscientists are then experts in computational studies as opposed to wet lab, where a data science background is helpful.

Some related publications by our faculty:

Hevers W, Hadley SH, Lüddens H and Amin J. Ketamine but not PCP selectively modulates cerebellar GABAA receptors containing a6 and d subunits J. Neuroscience. 28(20) : 5383-5393, 2008.

Segers LS, Nuding SC, Ott MM, Dean JB, Bolser DC, O'Connor R, Morris KF, Lindsey BG. Peripheral chemoreceptors tune inspiratory drive via tonic expiratory neuron hubs in the medullary ventral respiratory column network. Journal of Neurophysiology. 113: 352-368, 2015. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25343784

At least with respect to reference one, the methods state results were obtained from rats/mice, from reference two they collected data from adult cats.

You can see that an MD or medical degree isn't necessarily required for a career in neuroscience. Some career postings I can see give preference to those who know some surgical procedures (not just for humans), but at the entry level I'm seeing 3yrs postdoc experience on top of the related PhD, to which you don't have to be embroiled in clinical decision-making and large amounts of blood (maybe on mice, etc.), publication record, etc.

For your intended program, you'll largely want to refer to your university of choice, mind you curriculum and requirements can largely vary by institution!


Why is it acceptable to cite unpublished works? If an article, theorem, etc. is unpublished, presumably the work is only available to people who track down the author and get a draft copy. Today we have arXiv and can find many preprints on the Internet, but people have been citing unpublished works longer than arXiv has been around. It seems like an unscrupulous author could claim anything he wants, cite an unpublished work that doesn't support his claim (or even one that doesn't exist), and get away with it unless the bad claim is caught in the review process.

I suppose the reviewers could ask for a copy of the cited work, but I recently saw a citation that was just "private communication 1981" for a paper published in 1985, and that could easily have been a phone call where no record could be provided to a reviewer.

I've never published anything myself, so maybe I'm unaware of a part of the review process that is meant to catch this, but what prevents authors from making bad citations of unpublished works?

You seem to be interpreting citations as a way of proving something by appeal to authority.  That is not what citations are.  A citation is a way of giving appropriate credit to the originator of an idea and pointing the reader to the explanation of that idea.  Not giving credit to the person who gave you an important original idea is unethical, whether that idea has been published or not.

Citing a "personal communication" related to a mathematical fact (for instance) does not eliminate the need to prove that fact.  Appropriate usage would be to write something like "the following was communicated to me by X. Y. [personal communication]", followed by (for instance) a theorem statement and its proof.

Note that if something is in a technical report or on arXiv, it is not unpublished.  People publish blog posts, novels, and Youtube videos.  Published and peer-reviewed are completely different things and it's wrong to conflate them.


Listing rank of prizes on CV If I won 3rd place or an honorable mention for Award X. Is it reasonable to simply state the name of the award without stating what place I got?

I do not think it is reasonable. If you are mentioning you won at a competition, you must also mention what was your place or in what capacity you won an award. There are good reasons for this in my opinion. First, it is possible the reader is aware of the competition and finds it misleading of you. Second, if you clearly mention the details of the award, it is possible you might rise in the eyes of reader for your integrity and honesty.


What usually happens during the conference peer-review process (technical field)? Suppose you are submitting a paper to a conference, your draft paper has been submitted, and it will take approximately four month in order for the reviews to come back, the acceptance/rejection will be given and if accepted you will be told to submit the final draft.

  Can an insider shed some lights into what exactly happens in between
  these four months for a typical conference in technical fields such as
  computer science or engineering?

For instance, how many people are usually on the peer-review committee? Are these usually professors or PhD students? How do reviewers inform each other about their opinions and comments? How long does it actually take (during the span of the review period) to evaluate a single paper? Finally, how are decisions made by the reviewers evaluated at the end? What if there is the same number of people in favor of rejecting a paper versus accepting one?

This is my experience in software engineering, a subfield of computer science.

  For instance, how many people are usually on the peer-review committee?

This committee is typically called program committee (PC), and the number of involved members differs significantly between conferences - I've seen numbers between 25 and more than one hundred. The PC is usually listed on the website of the conference.

The number of reviewers for any single given paper is usually 3 or 4, and each PC member may be assigned to review a larger number of papers, often between 10 to 25. To manage this workload, PC members may delegate their reviews to colleagues or PhD students. Consequently, the actual number of reviewers involved in the conference can be much greater than the PC size indicates.

In addition, especially at larger conference, there can be second tier of reviewers, called "Expert Review Panel" or something similar, whose members typically review a smaller number of papers. For example, they can be assigned to papers if they are at the borderline between acceptance and rejection after the initial review.

  Are these usually professors or PhD students?

Mostly professors, some post-docs, and, in some rare cases, late PhD students. However, again it's worth pointing out that professors may delegate some of their reviews to their PhD students.

  How do reviewers inform each other about their opinions and comments?

To organize the reviewing process, conferences typically use a dedicated software called conference management system, such as EasyChair.

If you have submitted your paper using some website, it was probably a conference management system - apart from the author perspective, there's also a dedicated perspective for PC members.

  How long does it actually take (during the span of the review period) to evaluate a single paper?

Reviewers are typically given between one and two months. Some conference have a rebuttal system, where there are actually two  rounds of reviews, with an author response period in between. This would then be specified in the call for papers.

  Finally, how are decisions made by the reviewers evaluated at the end?

There are different options: There can be a physical PC meeting where all PC members discuss the papers in the same room, a virtual PC meeting using some online platform, or even no PC meeting at all, but just a discussion period in the conference management system.

In any case, there is a discussion about each paper, and the discussion needs to end with an unanimous agreement between the PC members. Since the discussion is open to all PC members, it can also happen that people contribute to the discussion of a paper that were not originally assigned as reviewers.

  What if there is the same number of people in favor of rejecting a paper versus accepting one?

It all depends on the discussion. It happens that the numerical decision on a paper is actually reversed based on the discussion.


Well-regarded institutions offering distance education (PG) in applied Math Which are the well-regarded institutions in Europe (apart from the Open University in the UK) and America offering distance learning postgraduate degrees? I'm especially interested in Applied Mathematics.

There are a number of schools that have distance-learning programs, including for applied mathematics. For instance, the University of Washington offers an online master's of science program in Applied Mathematics.


Are contributions to a open source project helpful for graduate admissions? I have about 400 ~ 500 lines of what I would call average open source code contribution. Does open source code contribution matter for graduate admissions? I am interested in applying to a MS in computer science and am interested in machine learning. I have a great plan for an awesome feature for Libsvm (and open-source implementation of the popular support vector machine technique for machine learning). Will implementing it help my application ?

Does open source code contribution matter for graduate admissions?

Yes.

Admission to graduate school is based primarily on your potential for research.  Independent, creative, intellectual work of any kind strongly correlates with potential for research, especially if that work is directly related to the interests described in your research statement.  Contributing to open-source software projects is independent, creative, intellectual work.

Of course, your contribution would matter more if it were merged into the main branch of the project, but something is better than nothing.


Are academic associations obliged to comply with the US government? I'm shocked by the news that IEEE is forced to ban Huawei employees to be editors and reviewers.  It makes me wonder if, hypothetically, the US government determine to "ban" a certain group of people, which happens to include some academics, then under US law, are organizations such as AMS, APS, ACS obliged to comply and ban these people from academic services?

This question is different from Elsevier actions following US sanctions on Iran in that Elsevier is a publisher for profit.  IEEE might also count as a publisher for profit.  But the organizations that I'm asking here, namely AMS, APS and ACS, are purely professional associations.  If they are legally in the same status as Elsevier, it was not previously known to me, and possibly not obvious to others.

The organizations you mention, while not controlled by the US government, still need to obey all applicable laws and regulations; employment laws, for example.

But the government, sometimes by presidential decree, has wide latitude to set regulations related to national security. In many cases the claims don't actually need to be proven. That is the nature of "national security". The fear is that it may be too late if you have to wait for congress to act or for solid proof.

Whether this is good or not is a long standing debate as the power can be abused.


Checking/Ticking all the fields on a recommendation letter as "Exceptional" My student has given me a recommendation letter form for the studies he is applying for, and the form has a part where I should simply "tick" the options. For example: Maturity, Motivation, etc. I can check these fields with "Exceptional", "Excellent", "Very Good", "Good", and so on...

When I think of it, I really want to tick all these fields as "Exceptional", because this student is my best student, he has been the top student in his class for all the courses I have taught and he is one of the best students I have known throughout the, at least, past 10 years. Do you believe that checking ALL the fields as "Exceptional" would look very bad to the admissions committee? I do not want to ruin his chances by my recommendation letter.

There is nothing wrong with checking "exceptional" for every question.  Working on graduate admissions, this is not uncommon.  Of course, be sure that the student really is exceptional in every area.  While he may be brilliant, is he really exceptional at writing skills, oral expression, self-confidence, etc.?  I actually have a more positive response if a trait has a slightly lower rating, so I know that thought has gone into the ratings, although I don't recommend doing this if the candidate truly is exceptional in every way.

If the recommendation form truly does not allow you to attach a letter, use the space to say (as you do above) that the student is one of the # best you have worked with in the past 10 years.  If you have more space, comparisons to other students are helpful, for example, "X is one of the top 3 students I have encountered in the past ten years. The other two went on to top PhD programs, where they have both flourished.  The one who has graduated is doing a post-doc at Y, and the other is making good progress to her degree."

You can also send a letter even if one is not requested.  I don't see how it could hurt (unless you had something negative to say).