Why does the UK produce so many research papers? I was taking a look at Scimago Journal & Country Rank.

Is there any specific reason why UK produces way more research paper than that of Germany and Japan?

Note. kindly, don't bring up futile arguments like population doesn't really matter in case of research paper publication (e.g. India), etc.

It is very common for academics to not live and work in the country of their birth, and I would assume that this becomes the more common the more research active they are. Many of the publications from British universities will not have been written by British (born) scientists.

Instead, we see stable loops of the following type:

University X has a good reputation
-> Productive researchers move to X
  -> a lot research gets done and published at X
    -> the reputation of X is good

The UK is home to many very prestigious universities, is not subject to language barriers and has mostly avoided historical disruptions to its research activity.


Maintaining a conference advertisement list For managing submissions and reviewing for scientific conferences, EasyChair is a great solution, free and well-tuned for the needs of volunteer organizers.

Is there any similar sort of site that supports mailing lists for conference advertisements (e.g., calls for papers, calls for participation)?

I ask because this is a problem that a number of interdisciplinary groups that I participate in have been struggling with, for which a number of the obvious solutions do not seem to be workable:

Institutional mailing lists don't transfer well when you have a shifting group of organizers.
Google Groups is problematic for China, won't let you add people without emailing them immediately, and isn't a stable platform since they keep changing how it works.
Most other commercial mailing list services I've found seems to be either spammy, pricey, and/or otherwise tuned for businesses rather than academic conferences.
Setting up a collectively owned and managed server seems pretty heavy-weight.

This feels to me like a good niche for someone to have filled with an EasyChair-like service, but I do not know if such a thing currently exists.

Most hosting providers offer mailing list management facilities as part of the hosting.  For example, Dreamhost, which I use for hosting my personal domain (mekki.ca), provides announcement & discussion lists that can be configured with granular permissions such that multiple people can administer them.  They will be associated with the domain in question.

As such, it's usually attached to the conference website (most hosting providers provide something similar, so contact the hosting provider of your conference's website for details).  Since you are already paying for the domain name and hosting of the conference website, there are usually no additional fees for the list management, and anyone who could access the conference website should be able to receive the list emails as well (i.e., China, etc.).

(Full disclosure: The first Dreamhost link is a referral link.  If you sign up for services, I get a small credit.)


Why can't motivations in a paper's introduction be copied? I'm always baffled that the preamble in introductions in scientific papers is pretty much always the same for papers dealing with the same topic. And yet, no two papers have the same introduction, since doing so would be plagiarism. Even worse, one cannot even copy this preamble from papers one has already written, as paper reviews are anonymous, so reviewers cannot know whether the author is plagiarizing or copying his/her own work.

At the same time, this feels like a huge waste of time, akin to writing essays in high school, where you have to paraphrase and write X number of words just to fill in the page.

Talking with other academics, this is pretty much a pain point for everyone, which not only annoys the writers, but also the readers, who must skip useless text every time they begin a new paper.

I guess a simple reference to a specific introduction is not enough, as a paper needs to stand to its own (if it even makes sense in this context), but why is it so ingrained that such text must be written and rewritten, ad infinitum, in a Sisyphean effort?

EDIT: Please note that I'm talking about just the preamble of the introduction. It makes sense that overall the introduction needs to be tailored on your specific contribution. But often papers start with a brief description of the field/topic it contributes to, the field's practical applicability, and possibly some related work that makes the field look good. The preamble is just the hook needed to place one's own contribution in an overall context (also to explain the topic to somebody who may have stumbled upon the paper), but at the same time there is no real requirement that it be rewritten new every time. So why?

As an example, consider, as posted in a comment, this preamble:

Hedgehog hunting is an important problem in ecology. While the typical procedure consists of a) tracking, b) sniffing, c) aiming, d) shooting, e) desugaring, f) acquisition, the role of the spikes in sniffing did not come into the spotlight before the seminal work of Whippet et al. (2007). In this work we propose a radically different approach to hedgehog spike treatment by invoking desugaring before sniffling.

But if I wanted to write about using metal spikes, you see that the first sentence wouldn't really need to change. And such preambles can usually take a whole paragraph or two, which makes the rewriting annoyance pretty big.

At a fundamental level, every new paper is (or should be) presenting something new, whether it be new results, methods, experiments or even summaries or reviews. The paper would be redundant if it didn't present something new.

The 'introduction' or 'motivation' section follows the title and abstract as the next link in the chain to motivate people to read your paper in its entirety. Since it's your paper that you want to motivate people to read, it doesn't make sense to copy the words intended to motivate people to read some other paper.

There may be parts that overlap with prior work (and other answers on the site suggest methods to deal with that), but if you want your motivation section to relate to the novel elements of your paper, it needs to be recast for each new paper.

Your question (especially per your update) is why this boilerplate text can't be either copied or left out altogether.

When I'm presented with a paper, I am not always motivated to read it at first, so it doesn't help for the author to jump straight to the equations or experimental results, etc. What does help is to start with common ground. This is the job of the preamble. You can't leave it out altogether for the same reason libraries include the first part of each book's Dewey Decimal Number on every book - it's needed when the work is separated from the collection.

As for copying, it's a matter of skill in the craft to keep it concise, yet useful:

  No one prevents you from copying a few sentences from your previous papers. Except that perhaps page/word limits will encourage you to jump as quickly as possible to your actual contribution. – Alexey B


Categorizing relationships between research articles When a research article X cites another article Y, it could be because of any of the following:

X develops the ideas of Y
the ideas presented in X bear a degree of resemblance to those of Y
X compares its results to those of Y
etc.

When I study the literature in my research area, I would like to categorize the relationships between papers in a way similar to the above example. However, I would prefer to use an existing categorization that people have thought through instead of inventing a wheel. I performed a few searches, but have not discovered any such categorization. Do such categorizations exist? I would appreciate some pointers.

CiTO is a "Citation Typing Ontology" which enables RDF-type assertions differentiating (just to name the Ps):

  parodies, plagiarizes, provides assertion for, provides conclusions for, provides data for, provides excerpt for, provides method for, provides quotation for


Is there an English Proficiency Test with lifetime validity? IELTS and TOEFL are valid for a period of 2 years only.

Is there any English language proficiency test with a lifetime (or
more than 2 years) validity?
Which is the scope of the test, in terms of recognition for academic and visa purposes?

If you obtain a degree from a country where English is the official language, then nobody will ask you for English proficiency tests in later applications. This is especially the case if you are applying for a postgraduate degree in North America or Europe.


Postdoc with a professor retiring soon I am starting a new postdoc position with a professor who's retiring soon (<5 yrs, judging from the grad intake).

I am interested in pursuing an academic job and it worries me that I would not be able to count on him during my career, for support after he retires.
Am I overly worried and exaggerating the benefit of having a senior scientist interested in your work in the early stage of your academic career?

Right now, I am thinking of doing as much work as I can and using his connections to do a second postdoc with younger and active PI.

Any advice would be appreciated!

You are overthinking it and maybe trying to plan too far in advance. Your current prof, after retirement, will most likely still be able to help you. He will still have his contacts and may still give you some, if less, feedback on your ideas.

You are right to maximize what you have now. But as time passes you will have the opportunity to fine-tune your future. You will know more in a year or so. You can explore with your current prof what he intends after retirement. It may be retirement in name only, perhaps. You can also get connected to his network as you work along, so that his direct presence is less important.

Far worse if someone leaves suddenly for any reason. That can leave you stranded. This situation seems well controlled with a lot of planning time.


Why do we not reinvent the journal system? I am very surprised that I could not find any similar question here.

It seems to me that researchers from all universities are willing to write papers about their research for free and hand them into a journal to gain reputation. On the other hand, some other researcher do voluntary check the paper in order to examine if the paper is acceptable for the journal. Therefore, the main work is done by researches.

The remaining work for the journal is to offer a platform where researchers can communicate and making sure that the reviewer is selected anonymous and to bundle many articles to a journal.

Now everyone has to pay a huge amounts for the papers, they are not accessible for free to the general public, even though that most researchers are financed by taxes and only the journal is making profit.

Now I wonder, should it not be possible to create a network page for researchers which contains methods to imitate the review process of a paper? So that all papers can be downloaded at the website for free. I guess most researchers would be very happy if everyone could read their work. Also the money that is spend on journals by universities could be spend to this huge network page instead in order to keep it running.

Please meet the Open Access movement.
In the last twenty years, many scholars and librarians did try to address the problem you pose.
It is, in fact, a huge issue, and things like this don't change overnight.

The OA movement focused on two main strategies:

Publishing in peer reviewed open journals (gold open access): the idea is to create a brand new journal (or to change the model of an old one) which will provide articles free for the readers, without the current subscription model in which libraries (meaning, taxpayers) pay. The crucial factor of Gold OA is the presence of peer review: organize real journals costs a lot of money, and at the moment the major business model is APG (author processing charges), meaning that the author (often, the faculty behind it) pays for being published and cover the journal costs.
We're still in transition, and there are a lot of drawbacks: there are predatory publishers who try to scam authors, and big publishers offer the "open access option" charging huge fees (this is also called double dipping, because a hybrid (both Open and Closed) journal will receive the money from subscriptions and the money from the authors. It is important to remark, also, that big publishers make a lot of money with subscriptions and they are actively challenging the open access model.
PLoS, for example, is one of the new Gold OA publishers.
Self-archiving in repositories (green open access): it is the model of arXiv, Repec, and thousands of other repositories. They can be "institutional" or "disciplinary", and they accept mostly pre-prints, but also post-print articles.

Of course, there are some experiments in the field:

PeerJ has a very interesting business and pricing model.
Epijournals (from my understanding) are journals created selecting papers from arXiv and other repositories.

References

Open Access, by Peter Suber, MIT Press, 2012.
Wikipedia "Open Access" article. Accessed 4 Jan 2015.

Full disclosure:
I've worked as a digital librarian in managing OA journals from University of Bologna. I'm biased towards OA and open knowledge in general. Please keep it mind that my answers reflect these bias.


Citation error in conference abstract I recently submitted my first ever conference abstract, and then discovered after submission deadline that in one of my citations I forgot to add "et al." even though the cited paper has multiple authors. So now only the primary author is cited in the text, even though all authors are, of course, included in the reference list. Stupid mistake, I know, and I'm really kicking myself about it. Especially because the mistake was simply a brain fart - I do know how to cite properly.

My question is - if the abstract is otherwise consistent and of high quality, may the abstract still be accepted despite the citation mistake? All other citations in the abstract are correct. There is just this one slip-up which I'm now afraid may cause my abstract to be rejected even though I am convinced the actual research is of sufficient quality for acceptance.

It's not an uncommon mistake, and if we were to reject all papers and abstracts that have citation mistakes, the publication rate would probably drop to nearly zero.

  may the abstract still be accepted despite the citation mistake?

Yes, sure.

To avoid this kind of error in the future, you can try to write your papers with LaTeX, using its bibliographical tools.


Include unofficial publication in CV Problem

I am now applying for a Ph.D. in electrical engineering.

I have read Mor Harchol-Balter's very helpful guide in applying for computer science Ph.D., where she said

  ...Note that prior research experience does not mean that you need to have published paper...Create a website that has links to all of your papers in English. Explain in your application that all of your papers can be found on your website... (Page 12-14)

Even though I am not applying for computer science, but I guess the this piece of advice also applies in my case, where I have a undergrad thesis and several preprints I am proud of.

The question is how do I list these works in my CV, there seems to be two options.

Upload these papers to arXiv and then generate citation in my CV. The concern is that these early works may make me look bad if I get my Ph.D. (hopefully) and go onto the job market (maybe I am worrying too much).
Include some links in my CV. I do have a personal website to demonstrate my academic history. However, the issue is that I am not sure the committee members will actually type the long link in their browsers and read these works (someone told me a CV is at most skimmed 30 seconds), especially knowing that many other applicants have already published in some big famous conferences.

I would suggest a slight variation to how you can present such work: Research Projects section in your CV. Give a short (1-sentence like) info about each research project and your contribution right inside the CV and include a link to your website, where these unpublished papers/reports are available.

Reasons:

you want to show the research experience that you had
this research is not published formally through a peer-reviewed process and you are unsure if that publication record (even if it is mere arXiV one) will serve you any good after being admitted to a Ph.D. program
you want to provide an opportunity for a potential advisor to take a closer look at the details of your previous research


Is it a violation of copyright if I draw and publish a figure very similar to another person's published figure? I am pursuing a PhD (computer science) from one of the reputed Indian universities. I have prepared some white papers for publication in coming journals. I prepared these papers by myself. I referred various links and study guides, books etc.

After getting these papers published, I received one notice from the editorial staff of publication that I have violated the contents/copyright law. They provided me some contents and images (they said violated areas).
I am surprised because I prepared all the things by myself. I have already mentioned the referred links, books etc. in the publication.

How can I avoid content violation in my own written material?

Copyright protects not only the original content itself but also anything which is clearly derived from the original content.  That is why plagiarism doesn’t depend on whether you copied, retyped, or minorly reworded.

If you created a figure using a figure that somebody else drew as a template, then it does not matter if there are minor differences between your figure and their figure. Because your creation is closely deirved from their creation, then it is still their copyright, from both a moral and legal perspective (personally, as a scientist I find the moral perspective more compelling than the legal).

If you had simply created a figure from scratch, then it is highly unlikely that it would appear closely similar to another person’s figure – there are simply too many possible personal choices in how to diagram the same ideas, even for fairly simple ideas.

At this point, there are two ways to proceed (assuming that the rest of your content is intellectually honest):

Create your own diagrams from scratch with significantly different content, reflecting the different ways in which you think about the area.
Obtain rights permissions from the original publisher, and include “(figure adapted from […])” in your paper. Many publishers have an automated online method for obtaining fragment reuse rights, which can then be sent to the publisher handling your paper.  If the original figure was posted in a free-reuse medium (e.g., a US or UK government report), then you may not have to do formal obtaining of rights.


Report written alone, but graded identicaly to those who wrote it in groups of 2 Our biology professor asked us to write a report. We had one week to hand it in. Groups were formed. Being in a class with an odd number of students, I was the only one left, and so wrote the report alone. I was however graded identically to those who wrote it in groups of 2.

When the professor gave me back my report, he simply said that (this report)" does not fulfil the criteria. One cannot grasp the meaning of what you wrote."

I have two question:

Is that fair ?
What should I do ?

Thanks for your help.

Sorry, but yes, it is fair. It is the work that is graded, not the person. The comments are devastating, actually. I doubt that there is much you can do now, other than assure you don't get into the same situation in the future.

You can, of course, ask the professor for a second chance. I can't guess what the response will be, but I think you have the right to ask. Under the circumstances, it might be granted. It would mean more work for you, of course, but that might also aid in your overall learning.

If you didn't understand the assignment and needed help then you should have been seeking it along the way. Prior to turning it in, you had some leverage in getting help from the prof since you were working alone.

I don't know why the prof set it up this way. A single group of three might have been a better solution. Asking for a volunteer to work alone might have been a better solution.

But, for your own educational purposes, try to understand where and why you didn't meet the standard.


How does one keep herself updated with new research without forgetting older results? The title is fairly generic in nature, so I'm trying to elaborate in the body. I'm interested in answers pertaining to Theoretical Computer Science (TCS), but I'm certain the question would be equally relevant in fields which have been around for more than a couple of decades, and hence I hope to get responses from researchers in other disciplines as well!

What I'm trying to understand is how researchers (who have been working for quite sometime) in any specialized field (like TCS) keep track of results that have already been published - not just seminal results, but also results which have a lesser (but not insignificant) impact on the field but were published years or decades before. At the same time, one has to keep track of results being published in (at least) the notable conferences in the current year as well, in order to absorb the new ideas presented there and incorporate/extend them in one's own work.

I find it kind of incredible to believe that all of the above is possible without any kind of disciplined approach to reading and subsequent assimilation of the ideas on a regular basis - which is why I'm asking members of academia about their experiences/practices on this. In particular:

How frequently (if at all) do you revisit "classic" results?
Do you keep written/electronic notes on a regular basis to keep track of continuing progress in a field (say, for instance, inapproximability results for geometric problems) - or do you prefer to keep it all in your mind?
To keep track of current state of art, do you only attend/read Tier-I conferences, or do you get useful ideas from results published in Tier-II/III conferences as well?
What kind of time/resources would you typically set aside for reading, as opposed to working on a problem?

In short, I'm trying to find what kind of things would you expect a top researcher to "know" off the top of his head, and at what level of depth - and how would you go trying to maintain that level of perception over the years?

(I understand that the question IS subjective, but I'm hoping that it satisfies the guidelines for a "good subjective" question!)

Here are a few additions to Suresh's list (converted from a comment at TCSgrad's suggestion):

Don't even try to remember details. Just remember that somebody published something related, and use Google (or Mendeley or Papers) to find the paper again when you need it.
Chase references. Interesting papers tend to cite other interesting papers.  When you read any paper, also look at the papers in its bibliography.
Chase citations.  Interesting papers tend to be cited by other interesting papers.  When you read the paper, find other papers that cite it (via Google Scholar, for example) and look at them, too.
Follow whims.  If you see a paper with an interesting word in the title, or an interesting figure on the first page, at least read the abstract.
Don't try to read everything. That's impossible. Just try to read a little more.
Stop reading.  Eventually you have to do your own research.  Don't worry about reinventing the wheel; sometimes the best (and even fastest) way to understand what someone else did is to ignore them, figure it out yourself, and then read their paper.


Undergrad research with friends; one of them does nothing About halfway through last semester, my professor asked me to do research under her with a group of people I had been friends with since freshman year. Dream come true! These are all people I already like working with, it's research in a field we are all interested in, we already spend a lot of time together, etc. The best part is, we all benefit professionally from this! Perfect!

My only concern now is that one of my friends just doesn't do anything for the project except show up to the meetings. It causes me a lot of heartache because I am close friends with this person, and I want to see him succeed. I've talked to him about it before, he hasn't given me any reason. I've told him ways he could contribute, he just never does.

On another level, it makes me upset because this is an opportunity I imagine many people would love to have. It's not fair to other people interested in research that this person may end up piggy-backing his way to a publication! If I weren't on this project, I know I would be upset.

Any suggestions for how to handle this unfortunate situation?

(Also, if there's any way to make this anonymous, that would be nice, too... I'm not interested in one of my colleagues seeing this)

It sounds like this question is about undergraduate research.

If an undergraduate student does not want to participate in research, that's fine.  They're welcome to have other priorities.  Other students have no responsibility to deal with a student who is not participating.

If a student is trying to get credit for participating in research but does not actually do anything, that is a matter for your professor to deal with.  They're responsible for setting standards.

If the students are not getting paid, there is no reason for the professor to push out a student who is not doing anything.


My advisor demands second authorship, but my collaborator contributed much more than him. I don't want to be unethical, what should I do? My PhD supervisor has contributed 0% to my research and he even does not know the basics of my research. On the other hand, I have a collaborator from another university who has contributed significantly to my work. Now that the manuscript is ready to submit, my supervisor demands to be the second author, after me as the first author and before my collaborator. My colleagues recommended that I do whatever he asks because he can easily screw up my life for few years by delaying my graduation. The reason he claims for the second position is that my university pays my scholarship, not my collaborator's university.

I am confused and worried. I do not want to be unethical .... Any idea?

Just and update :
According to my university authorship guidelines
"Acquisition of funding, the collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, DO NOT JUSTIFY authorship. "

But if I remind him the ethical issues, it's like a declaration of war!

Your supervisor sounds most unreasonable.  "The reason he claims for the second position is that my university pays my scholarship not my colloborators's school." Perhaps you should add the president of your university as the second author.  (Of course, don't actually do that: it would expose your supervisor's immature behavior in a very passive-aggressive way.)

My feeling is that given the callowness of your supervisor, you should consider yourself fortunate that you are first author. Isn't that what really matters?  That's not a rhetorical question, because in my field ordering of authors is strictly alphabetical, but I don't know of a field in which being second author means much.  So it may well be that your supervisor is just being petty without really harming any of your collaborators.  Anyway, it seems to me that you have already discharged your ethical responsibilities by suggesting what you think is a good ordering of the coauthors.  If the coauthors other than you disagree with the ordering among non-first-authors, isn't it really up to them?  If your other coauthors are among the ones who are advising you to put Professor Immature as second author: under the circumstances, I would go with that.  If on the other hand they object: well, of course they have that right, and they should hash it out with your supervisor.


Want to get back in touch with professor so he won't forget me but don't know what to say I want to get back in touch with professor so he won't forget me but don't know what to say! I took a class with him, but that's about it. I would like to keep in touch, so that he will remember me in the future but it's already been a few months, I just have no idea what to say, as I do not have anything to say really (Haven't been able to catch up with any research or so due to work). Any advice?

I enjoy it when former students let me know what they are working on and how what they learned in my course is assisting them in their career.

I would suggest an email sharing this information and thanking the professor for teaching such a useful course.


Is it unethical to take ideas from a pre-print to write your own research paper (though the author of the pre-print is acknowledged)? One of my friends is in a very curious position. He has been researching on a number theoretic problem for months but couldn’t solve it until recently after he has seen a pre-print in arXiv which attempts to prove the problem. But though he has taken ideas from the pre-print, his own article differs considerably from that of the pre-print. According to him, following are the chief points of difference,

My friend actually proved a stronger version of the problem.
He gave an outline to the proof of a conjecture that the author of the pre-print stated in the concluding section of his/her paper.

My friend has decided to mention precisely how much he had been benefited from the paper in the Acknowledgements section. Will there be any problem if he sends his article to a journal for publication?

He should just cite what he used or learned from the ArXiv paper and send it in. There's no real need to add an acknowledgement.


Is it ethical to ask the postdoc employer to cover my trips for visa purposes as well as my main travel fees? I will soon start doing a postdoc in country A, and the employer says there will be a generous relocation package. My home is in country B and I did my PhD in country C.

The question is: in order to apply for the entry visa for country A, I had to first return to my home country B and apply from there, instead of applying in C, as my PhD visa for country C ran out. So the relocation involves two travels, from C to B, and then from B to A.

Would it be ethical to ask the employer to cover my flight from C to B as well? Yes, the primary reason for coming back to country B is visa application, but this can also be considered visiting family and therefore not related to work. Any suggestions?

In the cases the I have known in the U.S., the relocation allowance is a fixed amount of money, and the university is fine with it being spent on anything reasonably related to relocation.  If this is the case with your university as well, then they'll probably be fine with it being spent on your combination of expenses---but if they combination of flights is expensive, you are likely to hit the cap and have some of the costs become your own responsibility.

The exact rules and regulations, however, can vary highly from place to place, so you really need to ask your university.


Collection and return of homework and exams I am about to teach a class with about 100 students.  The class has weekly take-home exams, and multiple in-class exams.  I have TA's, but still the task of collecting and returning the students' write-up is non-trivial, and if not done well can take significant time away from the class (including because of people not always coming to class, reportedly missing write-ups, etc).

What system (electronic or not) is better for collection, grading, and return of take-home homework and in-class exams?

Specific starter points: I heard some people use Blackboard for electronic submission, grading, and return of homework.  Is it good?  I also heard of Watson.  Is anyone using these?

What about in-class exams?  Is there anyone who scans them and returns them electronically?

What about paper-based systems?  Do you have a submission box?  Do you leave write-ups for the students to pick at each class?

To my mind, the biggest problem, after actually grading so much work, is the possibility of a student claiming that work was turned in but later lost by you or the TA.  You allude to this in your question.

You don't say where you are, but it is likely your university has a "learning management system," such as Blackboard, Brightspace, or Moodle,that can be used to collect take-home work.  For multiple-choice assessments, the learning management system can probably grade them, too.  The huge advantage of this is that there's no possibility of "lost" work; either the student submits the work or not.

For in-class exams, have a letter tray similar to the "inbox" one might have on a desk.  Require each student to deposit his own exam into the letter tray and, at the end of class, put a binder clip on the stack.  (For 100 students, you'll probably need four stacks of 25.)  Grade the exams on a completely clear desk and there's no possibility of lost work there, either.  If a Scantron machine is available and multiple-choice exams will work for you, use that for grading.  I have smaller classes, and I take each paper directly from the student's hand and mark the student's name on the class list.  Students observe me to do this, and I don't get complaints that I "lost" their work.

Work graded through the learning management system is returned electronically.  If you use Scantron forms for in-class testing, it may be possible to get the results electronically and return them via the LMS.  Your testing center can probably tell whether that's possible.  I have returned in-class paper tests through the LMS by scanning and uploading them.  We have a copier that can serve as a scanner, and that work can be performed by a TA or student assistant.  If you must return paper exams in class, have them sorted alphabetically and return them at the end of class so that students may leave when they've picked up their graded work.


How to prepare lessons as a visiting professor? Preliminaries

I got an invitation by a university to be a visiting professor in the summer term this year. I will do this non-profit, since it will be overseas, not in a western country, and the university would not be able to pay me. I am taking unpaid leave from my industry job to do this. Also, I do not have a PhD, but I am kind of an expert in my field (mostly because my field is very young and there aren't that many in my field). It's a block semester so I will give 2 hours lectures each day for 4 weeks. It will be in Computer Science.

My question(s)

Since I work full time in industry before I leave to teach, I am rather limited in preparing my lectures. So I have to be very efficient during preparation.

What recommendations to you have to quickly prepare good lecture material (slides) for the lecture?
What can be pitfalls I should avoid in preparation?
I was told (though I am not sure whether this is going to be true) that the students will have computers at their disposal. Would you prepare exercises? Is it more efficient to prepare exercises in terms of the ratio me preparing / they being occupied and engaged or does it take a lot of time to prepare exercises?

I do have experience in giving presentations in front of all kinds of audiences and I have been teaching - but never in this particular setting and for so many consecutive hours.

To clarify: Of course I want to do a good job teaching. Obviously I will spend my free time prior in the evening for preparation. But it still will be little time I have, and it is better I have not-so-ideal material, then no material at all.

This is ultimately a very broad question, but I will give you some starting points.

  Since I work full time in industry before I leave to teach, I am rather limited in preparing my lectures. So I have to be very efficient during preparation.

You are doing this pro bono, so I am assuming that you also want to do a good job teaching. Unfortunately, there is an obvious tradeoff between "being efficient" and teaching well - the material that you can prepare quickly is not necessarily the one that will work best didactically, especially if you start factoring in the "ratio of them being occupied versus you preparing" (a pretty bad metric to go by when it comes to prepare a good course, especially since it may lead to you assigning some sort of "busy work" to students to make the lecture time go by). Hence, my first suggestion is that you try to shift your focus away from trying to be efficient about your preparation, and more towards how to teach your subject in the most effective way. This may also mean that you need to prepare a bit in the evenings prior to leaving (or in the evenings while you are there).

  What recommendations to you have to quickly prepare good lecture material (slides) for the lecture?

I feel the best way to do this, both in terms of efficiency and quality, is to find a good set of teaching materials (this can include book(s), slide sets, papers, or even online material in form of blog posts or video tutorials - there will be something useful out there for pretty much any topic) and reuse it. Many lecturers, myself included, have a fatal tendency to always want to do everything anew from scratch, because clearly no prebaked material will cover exactly what you want to teach in exactly the way you would teach it. I consider this a fallacy, especially if preparation time is of the essence. Do not be afraid to use all resources that are at your disposal, and enrich them with your industrial experience. You get no teaching brownie points for creating all your material from scratch. That being said, consider that collecting, screening, compiling, and annotating this material will take considerable time as well, so start early.

  What can be pitfalls I should avoid in preparation?

Depending on your background and personality, there are many potential pitfalls. Teaching is after all an activity that you get better in with experience. Generally speaking, and based on the pieces of info you provide, you should at least watch out for the following.

Your material needs to be suitable to the audience. Find out early the level of prior knowledge of your students, and adjust your material accordingly.
Make sure that the amount of material you prepare is in line with the length of the course. Don't try to shove 10 years of industrial experience into a two-week course.
Make sure that your course is not just a string of related industry talks that you have given previously. Especially if you have given talks before and time for preparation is short, there is a temptation to just re-give talks that you had prepared for other occasions. This will almost certainly not result in a compelling lecture.

  I was told (though I am not sure whether this is going to be true) that the students will have computers at their disposal. Would you prepare exercises?

This depends on your topic, but for most topics I would say you should definitely prepare exercises. Not because exercises are more efficient in terms of preparation time (although they may be), but because, for many subjects, a good mix of lectures and exercises work much better in terms of retention than just lectures alone.

However, the fact that you don't even know whether there will be computers or not suggests to me that you will need to find out a bit more reliable information about the university where you will teach, its students, and the environment. It is hard to prepare a good course when you don't even have this basic information at the ready.


How do I turn the acceptance offer down gently? I am from a developing country and finished my BA in February 2011. I was a very good student and my university is one of the best in my country (It is in TimesHE top 200 global list so its prestige is somewhat acknowledged)
Last year I decided to go back to school after 4 years of fulltime employment (sector and position irrelevant to my research areas) and applied to 9 different M.S. programs in US. I was very uncertain about the strength and quality of international credentials, and gave myself no credit but to my surprise, only a month after my applications were in I have recevied 2 acceptances. By now I have 4 acceptances, 2 of which were my top choices. I am over the moon. I do not even want to hear from other 5, because I'm in for my top choices.

My question is this: I have been accepted to very good 2 M.S. programs for my research focus, and for both, program directors contacted me in person to congratulate and to state their interest to take me on as their student. Furthermore, both of them also offered me a TA position, one of them partial tuition waiver and the other one full waiver, while both give me a generous stipend and health insurance. However I cannot decide which one to go for.

One of them is sufficiently prestigious, my research interests are 50% in line with those of program director's, but their financial reward is great. I kinda negotiated the offer from her by sendind a follow up email and she finally sent me the offer. The school is also located at a nice city to live in, and I'd love to live there.
The other school, on the other hand, has the coolest program director a student would ever want, she is very friendly with me and I can tell she is genuinly interested in me. She'll be taking me on as one of her research students. Her research topic is 100% in line with mine. But this school waives only half of my tuition, so I'll be covering the other half myself. It is also located in a not-so-interesting city.

Which one should I go for? Cool mentor-bad city-half tuition rates or OK mentor-cool city-fully funded? I'd like to turn the other down very gently and keep the bridges "unburned". How do I do that without getting anyone offended?

I plan to stay longer in US so to eventually get a PhD.

Before you turn it down, you should tell the school that offered you only half tuition that you have an offer from the another school (its OK to name it) that offers you full tuition. Mention that you prefer the offer from them (i.e., the half-tuition school) but that it will be financially hard for you to make it work.

There's a chance that the school that offered you a smaller package will be able to match the other in order to get you. If not, they'll understand why you eventually turn down their offer and they won't hold it against you.


Forward-citation chasing: Is there a formal study for what I'm doing? I'm currently writing a Master's dissertation in health economics which is looking at economic evaluations of certain interventions.

I've got a database of about 400 papers, and would like to spend some time analysing how these papers have actually been utilised and if it relates to certain characteristics of the evaluations. I was thinking of doing a forward-citation search and tracking where these studies have been referenced (many studies will be utilised by reports from health care systems e.g. NHS).

I wanted to ask if this has a formal name to it (e.g. forward citation analysis, flow of information analysis). I would much prefer to it systematically if there was information previously available.

There is no name for it that I'm aware of.  It's how one uses the literature correctly.  You search backwards until you find the seminal papers, and then you search forwards, and then repeat until you retire.

It's much easier now than it used to be.  As recently as the '80s, the only way to do this was to find a library with a complete multi-year set of the Scientific Citation Index and grind it through.  Now, even google scholar just lets you click a button and find all the papers that cited the paper of interest.


Career Professional now working as a Professor and being pressured to publish - Where does one start? I'm a career professional in the data science field and spent my career focused on information systems and data visualization.

I recently wound up with an adjunct professor role at a local institution. At first things were fine, but now there is a strong pressure for me to publish 'academic works' in scholarly publications and I'm not even really sure what that involves.

I don't necessarily do a lot of dedicated "new" research of anything novel, I just have a deep understanding of the industry and how to apply the practice to fields that others often over look. But, I don't think a really good tutorial on how to do something is a scholarly article.

So for someone who has never written or even read a scholarly publication in their life, and has no idea how to get involved in this, where do I start?

What types of articles merit publication?

Can I do critiques of industry practices? Or case studies? Or do I have to start running double-blind experiments with different businesses to keep my job?

This is either an abuse of an adjunct (I doubt they are paying you enough for this!) or they're grooming you to bring you properly on board.

If it's the latter, or if your interest is coincidentally piqued, I suggest you start with two things:

Find a mentor.  This person doesn't have to be in your department, and doesn't have to be an expert in the same area as you.  If you don't find one quickly by yourself, have whoever is pressuring you suggest someone.
Go to Google Scholar and type in some key words from your area.  Just start reading.  Don't read anything you don't find interesting.  After some reading, find out a bit more about the features of Google Scholar (for example, once you find an article you're really excited about, click where it says "Cited by").

It all starts with "I wonder...."

Have fun!


Failing out of graduate school So, I applied for a graduate program (non-thesis) which is an advanced standing program and the only way to get a masters at the university for my program. During the summer session I completed my elective classes with an A and a B. However, fall semester rolled around and I did piss poor unintentionally because I became overwhelmed due to my own mental health issues, a physical assault and a financial burden of fixing my car ($2,000) which I need in order to attend field placement which is 250 hours a semester. So working full time to ensure I had a car for my program and attending classes and placement full time just screwed me. I ended with a fail out of a pass/fail course, two additional F grades and a C, which for my program is also not passing. My program hasn't kicked me out, however, there is no way for me to graduate as the GPA requirement for the graduate school is a 3.0, and my program is only 30 hours of credits. I cannot get licensed without my degree and the director of the program appears to be sympathetic to my situation but I don't think I have anywhere to go from here. I have never made below a B before in undergraduate or graduate work. I am in their MSW program but I am afraid I cannot continue in the program with hopes of getting a degree here, and my graduate level GPA will have only the one piss poor semester and an okay 2 classes over the summer. I want to continue but I am not sure if I can reapply or if my GPA will haunt me and ruin my chances of getting any Masters level degree. (I also did not withdraw or drop out of the program because I am a child who aged out of the foster care system and have no biological or legal guardians who could financially support me and I have been surviving off of working and budgeting financial aid.) Any advice would be appreciated, I am currently just really lost and stressed as I do not know what I can do from here.

You say the director of the program is sympathetic to you.  Why not talk to them?

This may be a case where the devil is truly in the details.  You might be able to take additional classes to bring up your GPA.  You may be allowed to retake classes.  These are the kind of high level alternative options that a program director will know.  Especially with the health issues and assault, the director may have a case to file some kind of waiver.  (Probably to allow you to retake one or more classes.)

You also have to be honest with the director (and yourself) about your workload & course load balancing.  Is it realistic to expect that you will be able to get straight A's from here on out while working full time to pay for expenses?  It sounds like that will be difficult.  Check with the director about other options (a semester off, becoming part time, grants, loans).

Being proactive and starting the conversation with the director is probably the best way to move forward.

Lastly, even if you find that walking away from this program is the right, best, "least worst", or only option for now, it does not mean that this is your one and only shot at a Master's degree.  My Undergraduate gpa was not stellar.  I was able to show that I had matured from that time (only four years before I applied) by taking graduate level courses and succeeding in them, which led to me getting two graduate degrees (not at the same time).  In my experience, grades alone are not the only thing that grad schools look at when you apply.


Toxic former PI trying to block me from presenting work after I quit my PhD I was a PhD student and forced to quit as my PI doubted the new work I did and this PI did not mention any constructive feedback or comments. I signed a resignation letter. Then, I submitted my work to a conference and it was accepted to be published, despite the fact that this the supervisor did not help me at all in any step of this proposed methodology that I proved.

The PI found out that I am going to present my work and threatened that (s)he is going to block me from the research field unless I put their name on my work, even though I resigned and they doubt the work. It is clear that (s)he is very appreciated in the field and no lab could accept me if (s)he blocks me. (S)he suggested that I will it does not help me to present my work alone.

Another question is from where does one get the money to attend a conference without the support of a supervisor. I am really shattered and see this as clear bullying and retaliation. By the way, this PI has forced another student who also did great work and published in top tier conferences and journals to leave after four years of hard work.

I don't know what to do. This is work that I did on my own, and he has not the right to be co-author.

Don't be panic.

If everything you said is true, your PI does not deserve to be a co-author, and I would suggest you not to put his/her name in your poster.

  It is clear that (s)he is very appreciated in the field and no lab
  could accept me if (s)he blocks me.

This is not true.

As you already resigned, the worst they can do to you is not writing a letter of reference. Nothing else.

Just think about it, would they ask/email other research groups "Hey, I just want to check if you-never-heard-of Monica is applying to your group, (s)he is very bad blah blah"? If that really happens, it is them to be questioned.

Note that they do not gain anything by badmouthing you. People can question their ability to select students. And if this behaviour is consistent with different students, they will make a bad reputation for themselves.

Updated:

From @CaptainEmacs:

  Sorry, but this is not realising how blacklisting works. If the PI is
  indeed that powerful, they can do a lot of damage. While OP tries to
  continue in the field, the PI can basically make a side dismissive
  comment or explain how difficult a person OP was or - outright false -
  statements about what OP did, including making underhanded claims
  about sabotage or thefts, out of knowledge of OP. The best chance for
  OP is to switch fields where PI doesn't have a reach or name or go to
  some other big shot who is not influenced by PI and try to convince
  them about their qualities, but this is hard.

I've never heard of such things. Do you have a source for it? or is this a rumor that you hear?

"Powerful" in academia just means that somebody does a lot of good research, and has a lot of collaborations. It doesn't mean they can affect the decision of anybody outside their department.

And if somebody is trying to tell me about their bad former student, the first questions come to mind will be: why this guy needs to spend so much effort going after a random student? why does he think I will care? why can't he just move on?


What do admission committees look for in a diversity essay? I'm sitting here with my friend, who is in the process of applying to graduate school. She's come across a prompt that looks like this:

  If you are a member of a community that has historically been underrepresented in higher education and would like to tell us how this particular perspective adds to the value you will contribute to the diverse learning community we strive to create, please do so here.

My friend is a female, Latin American, previously financially-burdened immigrant, so there is certainly some diversity to speak of, but she's having trouble coming up with how this can answer the prompt. To her, she's never really considered it a struggle, but more of a challenge. She's never let it get her down, so she sees no reason to complain about it in an essay. She believes you should be judged based on your past and present performance, not your national origin, ethnicity, financial status, etc.

How do you even respond to a prompt like that? Also, why do universities ask you to speak about your diversity in the first place? What are they looking for?

It seems to me that it would be prudent to start from the assumption that the words in the question have been chosen carefully, after some deliberation; and so she should answer the question put, as it is asked.

The quote you've given does not ask for complaints. It doesn't speak of judging her by national origin, ethnicity or financial status. It doesn't ask her to talk of struggle. So those things would only go in the answer if they give a particular perspective that adds to the value she would contribute to the diverse learning community they strive to create.

They want to know how her status as a member of a historically-under-represented community adds to the value she would contribute. In your answer, you've already given three aspects of that. I'll paraphrase slightly - I hope I haven't distorted your friend's intended meaning - and for each I'll frame it within the question as asked on the application form:

she's seen her being from a historically under-represented community as a challenge rather than a struggle; as a member of the department her very presence could provide a positive role model for others both internal and external to the deparment
she's maintained optimism and not let the status quo get her down; as a member of the department, she would bring a realistic optimism and determination.
she's sought to work towards a system that rewards merit for its own sake regardless of national origin, ethnicity, financial status, and so on; as a member of the department, she would contribute to the department's culture of meritocracy: academia of all places should strive to overcome conscious and unconscious biases, and work strive towards meritocracy.

That would seem to me to cover the question on the form as it has been asked.


Why do companies sponsor academic conferences? In computer science, I often see companies sponsoring academic conferences. What do companies hope to gain from doing so, and is there any evidence that these hopes are fulfilled?

Advertisement.

  is there any evidence that these hopes are fulfilled

Yes: if it didn't work, companies would slowly stop sponsoring.


Updating my resume for industry. I switched labs in grad school - what to put on my resume for this time period? I went to graduate school in the United States for biological sciences. The first year was coursework + graduate rotations. I then spent 2.5 years in a lab and left (on good terms) but did not complete any research requirements with this adviser. I started over completely in a new lab and new field (neuroscience and bioinformatics) in the same school/program and finished with a PhD. Up to this point, I have always been in the biological sciences so I would simply list the biology-related work I performed prior to the lab switch on my resume.

However, I am now leaving my postdoc in computational neuroscience to pursue a career in industry as a data scientist. I am restructuring my resume to include relevant information. Everything I did prior to my lab switch is irrelevant to this industry and takes up a lot of space. I'd like to remove it but I am not sure what to put here so it doesn't look like I have a gap in my work experience.

One option is to have separate sections for "Relevant Work Experience" and "Work History" but this is redundant and takes up too much space.

What is the best option in this situation?

(The tag says C.V. but I am aiming for something more like a 1-2 page resume rather than the typical, much longer academic C.V.)

Just list it in brief. A single sentence will do it. You say 1-2 pages, so unless you’ve filled 2 pages, you should have room for one sentence (one line) to account for that time period.

What you see as irrelevant might give interviewers some insight and a good opening for questions. It might also give you a competitive advantage over other candidates and is unlikely to put you at a disadvantage.

This kind of C.V. doesn’t have to be rigorous and exhaustive. Responsibilities/work experience is sometimes (usually) listed chronologically from most recent to oldest. The most recent is often the most relevant but it all paints a picture. As an interviewer, I would definitely ask for clarification on any gaps. Gaps can be seen as deceptive and might cause a C.V. rejection.


Ordering publication list in thesis When including a list of own publications in thesis, which order would you follow?

Descending chronological order
Ascending author position
Relevance to thesis chapters
(Any other ways)

Look for published papers in your field and do it like they do. Different fields have different conventions, try to follow what is common in your area. Your advisor should also be able to tell you what is usually done in your field.


Does adding professors' names in the acknowledgement section influence acceptance of a paper? I'm working on a research paper and two well-known professors have reviewed and commented on the paper. They have also accepted that their names be mentioned in acknowledgments section.

My question is whether including the names of prominent researches would influence the acceptance of a paper by a journal?

For reputable journals, including the names of prominent researchers should not influence the acceptance of a paper, and in the top tier journals I expect this would certainly be the case.

It would be easy (but not ethical) to include the names of prominent or famous researchers in acknowledgements or as co-authors in the hope of influencing a decision for acceptance but reputable journals will not publish something that does not meet their publication standard.

If prominent researchers have provided feedback or otherwise helped with the writing (but not to the extent that they would be co-authors) then it is appropriate to include them in the acknowledgements.

Also, some journals only forward the text (without authors or acknowledgements) to reviewers in the interests of having impartial reviews, so that the reviewers will not see names and then not be influenced to recommend acceptance for a paper they might otherwise reject.

For not-so-reputable journals, they will publish regardless of the names (and if a paper includes the names of prominent researchers, the journal will sit securely behind the declaration that the submitting author has signed).


A course-based letter from a named professor or a research letter from a young no-name researcher? I can get a letter from a course instructor that I got a highest possible grade. He is a very well known professor at a top 5 institute. Of course, he can say little about my research.

I can also get a letter from my research collaborator who just got his PhD from a not-so-famous school. We worked on three papers so he can definitely comment my research in details. He is an assistant professor in a research-focused school rank at 100.

Which one is better for a research (PhD) program?

The program I am applying to requires two letters. The first letter is from a big name who I've done research with.

Assuming you cannot submit both, I would go for the second one. You are applying to a research program and have research experience: the committee are going to be interested in that. If the committee is interested in your grades, they can already see them in your transcript.


Pre-print servers: Authors using wrong parametrisation to avoid reproducibility before publishing? I am physicist and my research is on Physical/Computational Biology. As most of my colleagues, I am used to visit ArXiv daily to check new articles on my field. Some weeks a go I found a really interesting article with a new method that I would like to implement together with a model I am working with.

At first glance I noted that the parameters used in the article were something strange, but I thought it could be due to the different spatial discretisation employed. However, I changed all my parameters to fit with their method and concluded that they are completely non-sense. Even the most simple case proposed in the article is impossible to achieve using their parametrisation (I was able to reproduce using another set of parameters).

My question is: Have you faced something similar with papers in pre-print servers? Is this something people are used to do in order to avoid other researchers to reproduce their work and advance before the article is published in a journal?

I would not assume that this was intentionally done to mislead other researchers. If they wanted to keep their paper confidential, they would not upload it to ArXiv with incorrect parameters. As you have already shown, people are able to find a valid set of parameters by theirselves.

Please consider also the following possible reasons:

The wrong parameters were accidentally put into the paper. One may have forgotten to update the parameters in the paper and left in some placeholders.
You overlooked some important fact, e.g., scaling of parameters. So the error might also be on your side or the corresponding section of the paper is difficult to understand.
The parameters might only work under certain conditions, thus, the authors might be at error.

However, I would recommend to contact the authors using a short and friendly email. You should not assume an error on their side from the beginning as this might come across as rude. You may rather formulate this as a question, e.g., whether they have an idea why you are not able to reproduce the results.
You might either be able to see your own error or help the authors with improving their paper.


If I drop out of a PhD program, do I have to pay back the university? I recently accepted a PhD program offer of roughly $21,000 for a year (2 semesters) of TA work.  I will be attending a university in the USA, and I am studying computer science, if that affects the answer.  If I drop out before going through the whole program, do I have to pay anything back?  My girlfriend was concerned about this.

I already looked for a duplicate answer on Academia Stack Exchange but didn't find any.

It would be almost unheard of in the US for you to be asked to pay back money in such an arrangement. But note that you are probably paid monthly, and if you quit in the middle of a year, the monthly payments will stop then, and you won't see the entire amount.

You aren't promised the total, but only an amount that will come to that total if you see it through.


How to format multiple authors name, affiliation and email in a paper? I am writing a paper with my teacher and his teacher. I don't know the standard of writing authors name, affiliation and email in the paper. I am using IEEEtran template for an IEEE conference. If the authors are in different department or university there is no problem we can use column author name like this:

     Author one                  Author two                 Author three
   Department one              Department two             Department three
   University one              University two             University three
author.one@uni-one.edu     author.two@uni-two.edu     author.three@uni-three.edu

but what if two of them be in a same department and just two of them has a .edu email address? In this situations we can use another style like this:

        Author one*!, Author two*! and Author three^#
              *Department One, University One
              ^Department two, University two
          !{Author.one, Author.two}@univ-one.edu
                #Author.three@univ-one.edu

or it should be like this?

        Author one*, Author two* and Author three^
             *Department One, University One
          {Author.one, Author.two}@univ-one.edu
             ^Department two, University two
                Author.three@univ-one.edu

My question is this: What is the right format in this case when different authors with different affiliation, department and email should be on a paper?

In my specific, we all are from the same Univ. and Department but they both have .edu email and I don't have one.

Thanks in advance.

We had a similar complicated case in our paper. I'd suggest this as a good way to do it.

For your own case, add a comma after the braces, followed by your email.

Here's how it would look like:

{Author.one, Author.two}@univ-one.edu, Author.three@univ-ten.edu

I am assuming your username tells the reader that it is yours (has your lastname, initials or so). Additionally, do your best to sort the emails such that they follow the same order of authors.


Is it widely followed that only some parts of academic books are taught to undergraduates? I'm an undergraduate student studying psychology using English language in a non-English speaking country. I'm graduating soon, and I'm applying for master programs. We mostly use McGraw Hill publications for our undergraduate curriculum.

My concern is this: Our instructors teach us through slides, and books are secondary learning sources—that is if they are used at all. These abbreviated slides use the same chapters of the book, yet not all chapters are covered, in fact some courses cover as little as half of the relevant book's chapters.
Is this normal across the world?
A friend of mine told me that academic books are made to accompany both bachelor-level topics, and master-level topics, and this is why some parts were excluded for undergraduate programs. Is this correct?

I'm asking this because I don't want to get shocked when doing my masters and discover that I'm under-prepared or under-trained.

Not covering the entirety of a textbook is true in absolutely ever course I've ever taken, and is true of every institution I'm familiar with. However, I would not say that it is true that any given subset of sections of any given book are the ones that every professor covers; in fact, at least in the US, each professor has a wide latitude in choosing what parts of the book they want to cover, and to what extent their lectures and/or tests cover the same material as the book at all. Some professors, in some classes, prefer only to cover whats more-or-less written in the book, and some intentionally lecture on topics that are not in the book and rely on reading the book to cover other topics. Some professors even have a book only as optional reading and you don't need to read any of it.

All of the above is true at the undergraduate level, and even more true - in my experience - at the graduate level, as professors deviate even further from any available textbook.

As to some books being designed for both undergraduate and graduate levels, this varies by book. Some books are almost never used at the graduate level, and some are almost never used at the undergraduate level, and some are used in both but to different extents.

But to answer your core question: yes, it is very common not to cover the whole book, and no you shouldn't worry about it. Its always good to lightly skim through the material that isn't required, so you get an idea of what you are skipping, but generally most professors make it a point to select out the material they believe is most important and relevant and skip what they don't deem necessary. Few professors ever follow the order of the book, either, and prefer to select their own ordering - and rarely do two professors agree on what that order would best be.

And don't worry - if you end up doing anything challenging, you will always feel tremendously under-prepared and under-trained, no matter how many textbooks you've read. That just comes with the territory :)


Is there a journal or 'place' to publish poems written by and for other researcher in the same field? I've seen poems squeezed in-between chapters in books, but I don't want to write a book for each poem :-) . Hence my question:

Is there a journal or 'place' to publish poems written by and for other researcher in the same field?

What I have in mind is for example a poem written for physicists.

In mathematics, the Mathematical Association of America has several journals aimed at undergraduate students (which many researchers also read): the American Mathematical Monthly, College Mathematics Journal, and Mathematics Magazine.  All of them regularly publish short poems related to math. (Often they appear in the otherwise empty space on the last page of a regular article).


Is differentiated instruction permitted by universities? In primary and secondary school in the US, some teachers will adjust homework so that it is a better match for students. For example, a teacher might give a strong math student more advanced math problems, while a weaker student might be given more remedial work.

I am currently teaching some 100-level undergraduate courses. While my assignments seem appropriate for the majority of students, I discovered a few that are really not ready, as they came from rural high schools that did not offer the necessary background. It is unlikely that these students can develop their skills to the same level expected of other students within the span of one year, unless I make significant adjustments to their work. As my assignments are too difficult for them, they have given up hope.

The students are too few to warrant a recommended creation of more remedial courses. I'd like to apply some of the differentiated instruction methods that are common in primary and secondary education. At the very least, I would like to: (1) offer these students alternative homework better suited to their level and (2) offer them exams more appropriate for the level that they can realistically achieve during the first semester of the two part course.

Do universities permit teachers to differentiate their instruction, or must every student be given exactly the same assignments and assessments?
If this is not permitted, is there some other approach or way of framing the homework and assessments as to make this seem fair for everyone?

It would be very unusual, in my experience in the U.S., for one group of students in a class to be given an "easier" exam than other students in the same class.  When the students who took the "harder" exam found out about it, they would have a valid grievance that the faculty member would be unlikely to win.  If a colleague asked me about this, I would strongly discourage giving different exams.

At the same time, it is perfectly reasonable to give individualized instruction before the exam. This is more feasible with small classes than large ones.  At smaller schools, it is common for faculty to meet one-on-one with students, explain background material, and suggest additional problems to help those students self-remediate.

Whether this is possible for you on how much time you have available to do it, and also on whether you can convince the struggling students to put in the extra work that will be necessary for them to succeed. Unfortunately, some students are unable to do that, or choose not to.

I also want to give some more personal remarks, because I empathize with the spirit of the question: not wanting to leave students behind when they arrive underprepared for a class. I also teach at a school where some students have clear potential but were underserved by their high school and don't have the background that is expected when entering college.

The question mentioned being "fair to everyone". This has many meanings. You want to be fair to each student - which means both recognizing where they are currently at, and not sending them forward without the background to succeed in their next class.  You want to be fair to the other students by making the class similar for everyone. And you also want to be fair to future professors, by sending them students who have the appropriate background.

Sometimes, you will be in a position where you can't do all these things. Perhaps a student has real potential but simply can't get to the necessary level by the end of the course. Perhaps the student could get there, but has personal or family obligations that occupy their time. Perhaps a student is just not quite mature enough to put in the work needed.

This can be one of the more difficult situations for a professor. But it is also very common, particularly at institutions that are not extremely selective. If you talk about it with your more experienced colleagues, they will have their own experiences with it, and they will be able to give you advice and support.


What is the current industry standard for online course exam proctoring I am curious what is the current industry standard for delivery of online course materials. I have in mind coursework which traditionally has been graded on the basis of in-class residential tests which are closed-book and timed. For example, Physics, Chemistry, Calculus, Economics, Biology at the university level. When we offer these same courses online then:

  Is there an expectation of proctoring of exams.

Proctoring generally meaning that either the student goes to a testing center where they are monitored by a service with no conflicting interest. Or, perhaps a webcam service where video is recorded to check if the student is:

1.) who they claim to be,

2.) actually doing the work on the test without using cheat sites.

Thanks in advance for your insights. I am particularly interested in scholarly articles, but anecdotal evidence is also useful.

One possible solution is a timed online quiz or exam with new questions, not available in any book or course notes, designed to make students think about and apply the material or process to be assessed.

Some students always say this is « too hard » others say it is fine... So can’t win...


What is the percentage of Latino/Hispanic females with a Ph.D. degree? I am curious to know the percentage of Female Latino/Hispanic with Ph.D. degrees in the USA.
Does anyone know? What is the percentage of male/female out of the approx. 6% of Latino/Hispanic population with a Ph. D. (out of the of the 1.6% of all Americans with Ph. D. degrees)?

Thank you

The NSF releases analysis on such data regularly: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf19304/

You can find a digest, as well as the source data, in case your particular question isn't answered by the digest.


Where do I place citations I'm writing a math paper using TexShop that is almost entirely original but I got help with a trig proof; I found a formula in a book that I improved upon, and then got help finding a number series that completed my improvement. I would like to cite the help I got and at least one book but I don't know the proper place to put citations, inline or at the end of the paper. Do I do

1) statement....

citation

more statements

or

2)Topic

statements....statements

topic

statements

last statement of paper

all citations

While the details are dependent on the venue where you are publishing, most mathematical papers will put the full citations at the end but reference them in the midst of the text (e.g., via a citation number).

You can format these automatically if you use LaTeX, and the AMS provides widely used packages for formatting.


How can a book's copyright year be in the future? I recently noticed that in the book "Investing for Dummies" by Eric Tyson, the copyright is listed for 2021, even if at the time of making this post the year is still 2020. How is this possible? How can a copyright year be in the future?
Copyright and Publishing information for the book

As I understand it, anything published after a certain date, possibly in September, gets the following year's date. It is merely a convention. I don't know if it started with publishing textbooks or not, but that would make a bit of sense. The academic year starts in September in many places.
The convention may only apply to certain kinds of books and only in certain places, but the practice is long standing.
Copyright is very long now, but back when it was shorter an extra year meant something. And publishing late in the year would, in essence, be giving up a year of protection.


Proposing current postdoc supervisor as a Marie Curie mentor The Marie Curie Global Fellowship involves 2 years in a university outside Europe and 1 year in a university in Europe. I'm applying together with my current postdoc supervisor, who is a fantastic scientist in a world-leading lab. This means that they would be the mentor for the European phase (which would, naturally, be back at the university where I am currently postdoc'ing). Is this an unwise decision that may count against the application? Are the grant reviewers likely to interpret it as not moving to new pastures and so not gaining new experience, and mark down the application?

This should not be a problem. I know of (at least) one MSC global fellow that did just that. Just make sure to explain why this would be the best place in Europe to complete your research proposal (which you should do regardless of which lab you chose).

The only way I could see this speaking against you of this person was also your PhD advisor.


How can an Error in Google Scholar be corrected? The bibliographic data of an article of mine is confused with that of a book with the same title. Not so long ago the book was confused with another article of the same year, thereby cancelling the citations. How to correct and restore?

First of all, make sure that the place where Google Scholar is getting the data from has it listed correctly. They scrape from other sources and there's a mistake in the source, then there will be a mistake in Google Scholar as well.

Then you should try to contact them and let them know of the mistake. Even though the chance to get it corrected might be low (Google Scholar isn't as highly prioritized for Google as some of their other services), it is still worth a try. Here is the link to their contact form, hope it works out:

https://support.google.com/scholar/contact/general


Choosing a degree program with 'low academic standards' I am not sure if this is the right StackExchange to post this kind of question. If not, I apologize.

I currently have a problem in choosing a undergraduate program to study. I am mainly interested in software engineering, life sciences and mathematics. As a result of this, I have bought multiple undergraduate text books for these subjects to teach myself all basics of these fields. This includes things like programming, theoretical computer science, data structures, algorithms, ... , set theory, linear algebra, real analysis in one and several variables, complex analysis, abstract algebra, ... , zoology, chemistry for biologists, genetics and so on.

Now, when I look at those many different degrees available, I am kinda stumbled. Because all degrees have kind of 'nothing to offer', as I see it. By this I mean that I feel like I already know 66% of the course's content, especially in mathematics. Of course, such programs can offer more things like help from tutors (which kinda became irrelevant due to the internet), field works, expensive laboratory experiments and so on. But I don't think that programs like for mathematics or software engineering have much of such things. And I am not sure if I really want to pay 9000£ a year for such a degree then. So a degree in biology would be the best.

But then again, I am just afraid of taking a biology degree, because I fear people (both in industry and academia) will deny me because this particular degree I have pursued did not include a programming course or fundamental mathematics, even though I did teach such things myself.

Now I have no experience in how people might react when I write in a CV things like 'I might have a degree in biology and not your desired degree in computer science or mathematics, but I do think that I fit your job as statistician very well, because I taught myself modern mathematics, methods of statistics and programming. (even though I do not have a certificate proving any of the listed skills, just believe me.)'

Edit 1 'To the Dunning-Kruger effect':

Well, you can often view course structures and syllabus' for the courses included in your degree online. Let's take for instance the Bsc Mathematics (G100) program from the Imperial College. Under 'Structure' you can read what you'll learn in during this degree and you can even see all the syllabus' for all individual courses, such as for 'Mathematical Methods I'. When you now have different books covering the topics listed plus other sources from the internet (like videos, papers, articles), I do think that you can teach yourself a lot of the degree. You even have people on StackExchange you could ask for help. Despite all of that there is even a list 'Appropriate books' in which the Imperial College recommends you books to read for that course!

Since the sentiments already appear in your question, let me make this extremely clear:

Modern university degree programs serve at least two distinct purposes: education and certification

I entirely agree with you that a if you already know the material, for the education purpose of the degree it seems redundant to take a course on a subject you have already mastered. But as you have already indicated in your question, employers, graduate schools, and other agencies may choose to use your university transcript as evidence of said mastery. (Though, in some fields, the professional society provides their own certification function. For example, the society of actuaries have their own pathway toward membership. Those fields may be more "friendly" to someone without a formal degree.)

But I do wonder how you came to the assessment that you already know most of the material in offer for the degree programs. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a well-documented phenomenon in which practitioners of low expertise tend to overestimate their competency. While I am not saying that this necessarily apply to you, frequently in a classroom scenario one of the most difficult things is to first break down the students' existing misconceptions before actually teaching the material.

That said:

From your post I gather you are based in Britain. One option for you is to pursue a degree outside the United Kingdom. The liberal arts type education in the United States, for example, give greater flexibility in the choice of coursework toward a degree program, and frequently you can make special placement arrangements to participate in higher/graduate level coursework in lieu of the introductory courses. Additionally, given you interest, maybe you should investigate degree programs in mathematical biology. Modern math bio tend to combine theoretical and computational mathematics (which involve a good deal of programming and simulations) with life sciences.


My adviser wants to use my code for a spin-off, but I want to use it for my own company I am a PhD Student in computer science.
During my my first 2 years I developed an algorithm that seems to work fine in a certain field of applications.

My adviser recently told me that he is starting a spin-off with a colleague of a different department and that he plans, in a couple of years to use my algorithm in it.

Now, considering that:

I am not interested in joining my adviser spin off as an employee
My advisor can understand the outcomes but not the 100% of the logic of the algorithm
In the future I want to make my own company based on that algorithm

I am quite worried.

How fair (and common) is that an advisor plans to use the code of one of his to students to make money (none of which will finish in my pockets)?

The fact that he will use my algorithms, will limit in any way me to use them in the future for the same scope (in a different field)?

May talk to him be a good way to solve this problem?

I don't know how to deal with this fact.

Actually, I do not really understand your general strategy: If the code is published under MIT license and the details of the algorithm are published, then pretty much anybody can use this code or algorithm for his/her own company (as far as I understand the license, I am not a lawyer). So it is perfectly fine for your supervisor to use this code. It is also perfectly fine for you to use this code in any company you found (again, as far as I understand the license details).

Probably, a scientific algorithm will only be a tiny part of software that you want to sell or for which you want to consult. So I would not worry too much.


Am I not meant to be a software developer? The first time I remember wanting to be a software developer was when I was in 8th grade doing a future career project. My first exposure to programming was in high school when I took AP computer science. I did horrible and failed the AP test, but I still wanted to pursue it in college. So I did. I am currently a junior in college with a 2.4 gpa and have done poorly in almost all my CS courses. It takes me much longer to complete programming assignments compared to my peers and I am always last to finish during programming labs. I wouldn't say that I enjoy programming, but I can tolerate it. I think about switching majors at least once a day since freshman year of college, but I could never bring myself to do it. There is nothing else I'm more interested in and there is just something in me that wants to be a successful programmer, but I constantly idealize how much easier it would be if I was doing something else. I am a believer in the notion that you have to be good at something by practicing it over and over before you can enjoy it, not the other way around. However, I am terrified that I will never improve as a programmer. Is the fact that I've done so poorly so far a sign that I should look into studying something else? Any thoughts will be appreciated.

Lots of people (including me) get conflicted about what they want to do with their lives while in college.  So, the first thing I'd like to say is that your uncertainty is quite normal.  But, if you're getting anxious about it, you need to fix that.

I'd like to suggest that you consider going to an academic counselor at your school.  Find one that you trust to say all of the things that you have said here.  This is just the sort of thing that they are trained for.

I, personally, got my music degree a long time ago.  I didn't do very well at first.  I thought I wanted to be a famous concert pianist, but I really didn't.  I did poorly in school at first, but eventually I decided that I didn't care about being famous, I just wanted to play the piano well and get my degree.  I improved and managed to make it through as a solid 2.5 student. I got to be a good pianist and musician, but not good enough to be a pro. So, a week after I got out of college, I took a job at a ComputerLand store (a big chain back in the old DOS/IBM PC/Apple II days).  I have spent the last 30 years in the IT business, doing one thing or another.  I still practice piano regularly and take students from time to time.

So, a few observations.  If you decide to move to something else, you're not a failure.  If you think that you are interested in nothing but computer programming, you're letting your anxiety get the better of you.  If you "want to be a successful computer programmer" it sounds like maybe being successful is more important to you than being good.  If so, then you need to rethink your priorities.  You won't be happy in any field (or in life, for that matter) if  what others think of you is what defines what you think of yourself.  You need to care about doing a job well, and seek to feel that satisfaction that you get when you do.

I'll suggest again that you get with an academic counselor.  Helping you get in touch with what you really feel like you want to do, and then helping you do it, is their full time job.  Plenty of them are very good at it.  If you decide to switch majors, then you'll get plenty of help.

Above all, don't just sit and do nothing and let your anxiety marinate.  You don't need stomach trouble!  Go do something.  Start examining your desires, abilities and skills, and be tough with yourself about what your feelings and motivations are.  There's nothing wrong with tearing it all down and starting over; you never really do start over because you bring all the life lessons that you learn along with you.  Get to it, and persevere.  :)


Ethics approval for an independent project akin to a survey The self-funded project being planned involves participants doing a variant of a Random Number Generation task, involving just typing "randomly" for a couple minutes on a computer program to study/cluster the bias in what was thought to be "random". Since currently the authors are not affiliated to any university, how would they (if needed) get an ethics approval for such a project?

The project involves no intervention, no risks to the participants, the informed consent form includes a fully disclosed data handling policy and the materials are "open", i.e. open source program, open source analysis scripts (after the completion) and the like.

Would an ethics approval still be necessary for such a project? If so, how would independent researchers go about getting one?

I am also curious behind the logic of an ethical approval in such scenarios; all the "best-practices" guidelines available from many good sources are already being followed, and would an ethical approval add any extra layer of surety of adherence to these guidelines?

Let an IRB or equivalent make the call on this, not random strangers on the internet. I suspect, but haven't seen the research design, that you would get permission. But if you don't ask them, you don't have permission.

But, if you do it without permission, and are asked by a journal for your documentation on ethics approval but don't have it, you are a bit stuck as retroactive permission is (many places) not permitted.

It isn't you (or us) that gets to judge this. It is whatever ethics board is appropriate and whichever journals you might want to submit the research to.

For the record, there are some exceptions under the law (some places) to the requirement of getting permission, but most things require it whenever human subjects are involved.


How to answer a reviewer asking for the methodology code of the paper? Recently I have submitted my paper to IEEE Access Journal which has a binary peer review process, and I got rejected. Still, they allow me to answer the reviewers' concerns and resubmit again.
One of the reviewers asked: "For the consideration of reproducibility, the code of the proposed method is suggested to be provided.
I want to know how I should respond to that concern politely as the author? I plan to provide all datasets and some part of the program, which is related to an example that I described in my paper. This simple example shows how my algorithm works and will help reproducibility (It shows the final result of applying the proposed method by considering one of the algorithms that I have used in my paper on a smaller dataset).
I want to know how to answer the reviewer politely and convincingly while explaining that I am providing some part of my programs, not all of it.
Thanks.

You cannot answer “convincingly”, because your assumption that it is okay not to provide the code is incorrect, and the reviewer is correct to ask for it. And the fact that it’s time-consuming to prepare the code for release is neither here nor there: it’s also time-consuming to write a good paper and polish it over and over to make it into something people can read and understand; but that’s what good researchers do, because they understand it’s important and that this is the way to do good science.
For a related discussion, see here.


When a professor commits scientific fraud, are the journal reviewers and editors of the paper also discredited? If a researcher publishes a paper found to be fraudulent, are the reviewers and editors of the paper also discredited for having approved the fraudulent paper?

A note about the nature of academic fraud: Merely being wrong is not fraud.

In the case where something is indeed fraud, it will depend very much on the paper in question - it would only discredit the reviewers and authors if there is the reasonable expectation that they could catch it.

Consider some examples:

Fraud by Omission: You run a study twenty times, and report the one version that gave you a significant outcome. That study is well-conducted and correctly analyzed - it just also happens to be cherry picked. How could a reviewer know that?

Fraud by Modification: You alter your data in some way to give you a desired answer, and then re-analyze it. This analysis is done correctly, you provide the reviewers with this "raw" data and they reach the same conclusions, etc. There are some mistakes you might make that could alarm a very alert reviewer, but it's also possible, being aware of these mistakes, that you wouldn't make them.

Similarly, if you edit some figures, reviewers might catch egregious versions, but some people are caught out by things like particular artifacts in the image files, which is not something to necessarily expect the reviewers to catch, or even necessarily to have seen (as sometimes we don't get the raw figures, but versions processed by the editorial software).

Fraud by Just Outright Lying, Absurdly Unethical Studies, etc. Most of the vaccine denial literature falls in this category. Deliberately misleading statistics, results not supported by the data, etc. These I do expect reviewers to catch, and do think less of the journals that let them go into print.


Is a combined BS/MS in math a good idea for pursuit of PhD? If I want to continue mathematics into a PhD program, would doing a bachelor's and master's combined program be a good idea? Would I be required to retake some graduate courses in the PhD program? This would add only one year to my degree from my current uni as opposed to the two from doing a BS and MS separately.

A bit of background information: I am a dual enrollment US student who has completed two years worth of college courses, and so I'll be entering as a freshman with junior standing taking upper division undergrad math courses. Thus, a standalone BS would take me only two years, leaving me to graduate at age 20. Is this too young to start applying to grad school?

Also, I plan to do an undergrad thesis; is one year of familiarizing myself with the faculty too little to choose an adviser? I'm not even sure which math I would want to write about. Will three semesters of intro analysis and intro algebra grad courses be enough to decide on the thesis for my fourth semester?

I finished my undergraduate degree at 20, and I know a number of others who have finished undergraduate considerably younger than I did. So, no, 20/21 is definitely not too young to apply for and begin a graduate degree program.

Since you list yourself as a US college student, here are a few questions to ask yourself before embarking on a dual-degree program:

Who is going to pay for the MS part of the program? You may not want to have to pay out of pocket the extra costs of the master's, when it would normally be covered if you picked it up "on the way" in the PhD program.
Are you happy with your choices for a research advisor for your master's thesis? (No point in being miserable by working for the wrong advisor—even if it is a semester or two, a miserable time is not what you want.
Where do graduates of your school's master's program end up for PhD programs? Are these schools you'd want to go to? (You can ask the same question of the bachelor's program, of course.)
Who will write your letters of recommendation? Do you have people who know your work beyond the classroom well enough to recommend you for external graduate programs? If not, this may vote in favor of staying for the master's program.
Do you have to make a decision about which program to do before you apply for external programs? No point in making a tough choice if you can keep it as a "fallback" option.

As for topics and coursework, I will leave those answers to the mathematicians.


Can I write "equal author contribution" in acknowledgment? One of my papers is now in the proofreading stage. In the revision stage, I didn't add the "equal author contribution" as a foot-note. Is it possible to add that now? Can I put it in the acknowledgment section?
Note: I am not allowed to add any sign beside the authors' names.
Edit:
I was finally able to do that. During the proofreading, I mentioned this issue and they added a footnote. They were very helpful.

To add to the previous answer, I would consider that listing equal contribution in the acknowledgement section generally does not carry the weight as listing it as part of the front page. However, if it is clear that journal policy does not allow any mentioning of equal contributions on the title page, the acknowledgements may be your best options.
However, I think that you should have a clear discussion about this right away between the senior authors, the co-authors, and the editor. Co-authorship can have significant impact on the career of individuals, so you want to be certain that everybody is clear in what is going to happen and is in agreement with the path chosen.