Bad departmental funding, when do you leave the ship? As a post-doctoral researcher, I am employed directly by a university. Due to the economic crisis, funds are not overabundant right now, and a lot of expenses have been scaled back or even cut out completely in the last few months (library access, public hall lighting, building opening hours, research consumables, etc.). Now, it's already a week late on my monthly pay check (or more precisely, wire transfer), and we received a collective email from the departmental head. Quoting part of it:

  Unfortunately it is not possible for us to pay as usual on today's date, the salaries because of liquidity in our bank account. I apologize for this inconvenience which we are trying to overcome as quickly as possible. Although we cannot precise the exact date when the issue is resolved we are hoping to make payments during the current month.

How do you analyse this email? My initial reaction is very, very negative: the first two duties of an employer, it seems to me, are to ensure workplace safety and pay salaries. So, when I read this email, my first instinct is to run away (I already hear JeffE saying “don't walk, run”).

However, it's a bad time to look for a new job, so: what are my options? Is this a breach of contract? Should I just wait, and how long? What do you read between the lines of this email, that perhaps I haven't?

Step 0: Document all your efforts to find a solution to this situation. Save a copy of that email from your chair. If you need to resort to Step 4: Hire a Lawyer, a paper trail is invaluable. Also, as @JeffE noted in the comments: stop working until you are paid. This is your most powerful negotiating tool. Don't worry about breach of contract; your employer did it first by failing to pay you.

Step 1: Meet with your immediate supervisor. As a postdoctoral researcher, some/most/all of your salary probably comes from grant accounts, and not the department's general payroll. If there is a financial problem in your department you should still get paid.

Unless, in order to pay you, money has to be transferred from the grant account to the payroll account. This is how it works at my institution. If the payroll account is wonky, then you cannot get paid, regardless of where the money comes from.

Step 2: Meet with your department chair, one-on-one. He/she may be more willing to be forthcoming with the details in a personal setting. There could a rational, if scary, explanation for what is going on. It may be outside of the chair's power. It could be that the department was expecting payments from grants that did not happen. It could be that an allocation from the institution or state or whatever has not arrived due to budgetary problems. If meeting with the department chair is not satisfactory, go on to step three.

Step 3: Contact your institution's central payroll or human resources office. Ask about the situation nicely and politely, but make it clear that you want to know what is going on and when you will be paid. As these folks are either 1) removed from the situation if it is department specific, or 2) closer to it if it is institution wide, you will likely get an answer. Indicate that you believe the department/institution to be in breach of your contract and that you are consulting legal counsel (even if you are not yet). Sometimes, that will grease the wheels.

Step 3.5: Sit tight for a little while and see if it does not go away. If your institution/department does not have a history of such shenanigans, this could be a one-time, but very annoying, blip. Also, look for another job. Be honest with your supervisor about why you are doing so - this financial snafu has you worried about the security of your contract.

Step 4: Hire a lawyer. By failing to pay you per an agreed upon schedule, your employer is in breach of your contract. I would only go this way if you are desperate. 1) The litigation route is likely to take away a large portion of your time that you should be spending doing research or looking for another job. 2) Depending on the ratio of legal fees to missed pay, you might lose money overall. 3) The heavy handed approach may alienate your department, robbing you of recommendations.


Why do papers found online often not say their publication date? I have noticed that it can be hard to figure out how old a paper is from the paper itself. It is not that it is impossible: most of the time it can be found by a Google search. But why is there usually no publication data on the first page of a paper?

Here is an example: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~fritz/absps/imagenet.pdf

One thing that may be causing the phenomenon that you are seeing is that in fields like computer science, authors are frequently allowed to put preprints online on their website, but not the final "official" version.  Such preprints often do not carry a date stamp, while the official version available from the publisher's website does.


Is it normal for an Associate Editor to keep the paper for over a month after the reviews are done? I have submitted a paper to IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting on September 12th and after about 4 months the status changed from "Awaiting Reviewer Scores" to "Awaiting AE Decision". However, it's been around 40 days that the status has not changed and I haven't received a decision. I have contacted the AE twice politely through email (one month apart) and asked about the status but no response.

What can be the reason for this? Has anyone had a similar experience?

Unfortunately, turnaround for journals in most areas of computer science can be extremely slow. While I am not familiar with your area or this particular journal, the whole process can take anywhere from months to a couple of years. The typical reasons for the delay include:

Computer scientists care more about conferences than journals, so they focus their efforts on that, whereas journals have no hard deadlines;
Difficulty of finding reviewers (would-be reviewers say they don't have time); and
Reviewers who take months or years to submit their review (it sits on their backlog until the editor pesters them enough to complete it).

In your particular case, note that "awaiting AE decision" does require some work on the editor's part, or maybe even further discussion from the reviewers. So you can't assume that just because the status has changed, the paper is finished reviewing and ready to give back to you.

I would not worry about this. Consider putting your paper up on the arXiv. I have had journal papers take around a year for the whole process, and I have heard of some taking 2-3 years.


Is it ethical/acceptable to take courses for the sole purpose of getting a reference letter? I am interested in going back for my masters.  While I have been accepted by a masters program (quite a while ago) previously, I am looking at another university and require a fresh set of references.  I have lost track of my previous advisors and am unable to get work references.

So I need to prove myself at this point to somebody.  There are some optional courses in the undergrad that I am interested in, but to be honest I could just read the textbook and save some money.

So:
Is it ethical/acceptable to take courses for the sole purpose of getting a reference letter?

and

Should I inform the prof before taking the class of my intent if this is a gray area?

Note:  I know that it is still the prof's choice if I get a letter and this method is nowhere near ideal.  Just the best I could come up with.

Students have lots of reasons for taking courses and I don't think I want to be in the business of telling students that there are right and wrong reasons to take a class. I certainly think it's a good idea for prospective PhD students to think about who might be good letter writers early on in their program and to make sure they work with some of them — not doing so can make the academic job market very difficult. I don't see this as being substantively different. If you take the class, do well, and then ask for a letter, you might get a good one. Or you might not. So I'd say go ahead.

That said, there is something very mercenary about the way you have phrased your question that makes me skeptical. Do you really think that working with faculty wouldn't teach you anything? If it's true that the only reason you want to take a class is because of the letter you might get, something seems off. Maybe your interests are different enough from the professor's that I'm skeptical that this person would be such a great letter writer for what you want to do.

Being able to excel in a Masters program means not resenting the idea that you may have to learn from professors when you could "just read the book." I think it's OK to take a class for a recommendation but you should use this as opportunity to learn something you are passionate about in ways you could not with just the textbook.

Talk to the professor. Let them know you are an advanced and passionate student. Get feedback on your work. Go beyond what is just in the book. If you do that, you will get more than you would otherwise. In the process, you will also earn a much stronger letter. If you can't get over that hump, I suspect that your recommendations — and your experience in grad school — will underwhelm.


How to react once you discover someone plagiarized your call for papers? I am editing a special issue for the reputable Journal A. My special issue is now closed and I am still running the paper reviews. Much to my surprise, I discovered my CFP is plagiarised word-by-word and it is now online in another reputable journal B by different editors. I understand that calls for papers are not original papers but is it acceptable to copy someone else's published CFP word-by-word without proper acknowledgment? Would this create any problem for me when I write a preface for the published papers in my special issue? What would you do if you were instead of me :)

The call for papers is normally written by the guest editors of the special issue, so they are probably the ones at fault here.  If, as you say, that other journal is reputable, then its editor (i.e., the usual editor, not the guest editors of the special issue) probably doesn't want to be seen as complicit in such a disreputable activity as aping another journal's special issue selection and plagiarizing its call for papers.  I'd fire off an e-mail to them describing what has happened and asking politely but firmly for an explanation.  If they shrug you off, then the journal is obviously not as honourable as you had imagined, and you can then decide whether to drop the matter or to escalate it (for example, by getting in touch with the journal's publisher, or by publically naming and shaming them).  If you do choose to escalate, you might want to first discuss this with the editor and/or publisher of your own special issue's journal.


Is it okay to disclose papers under review for feedback on the review? One of the "learning outcomes" of PhD studies is to be able to critically evaluate a piece of work (for correctness and significance). Further, PhD students are expected to learn to conduct a proper peer review.

Under that aspect is it okay to disclose the paper you are asked to review to your group to get feedback on how to improve your peer review? The same goes for professors so that their PhDs can learn how to become better in writing / conducting reviews.

On what scale is this okay and not okay? 1o1 with a student and the supervisor? Within a group? A department (in a journal club style perhaps)? [If none, how do you learn this efficiently?]

As you say, it's part of the process of getting a PhD to learn how to conduct peer reviews, and working off templates and examples is only so useful.

I would however say that maintaining the confidentiality of the review is paramount.

Were it my own paper that was being reviewed, I'd have no problem with it being discussed 1-on-1 with a student and their supervisor, or within a small, lab-group setting. Wider distribution than that would start to make me a little wary - essentially, the wider the circle, the harder keeping the review in confidence becomes.

Another technique is to review already published papers or pre-prints as if you were peer reviewing them. This is commonly a format for journal clubs, and helps you learn the process in a way where confidentiality isn't a concern.


Appropriate topics over lunch with an invited speaker There's a speaker coming to my university to give a lecture that all students and faculty are invited to. My department is especially interested in the speaker because he will be talking about a field that is closely-related to us. Students in my department were invited to join the speaker for lunch (which is before his talk). Given that we're all socially-awkward academics and that we haven't heard his talk yet (but we do have the abstract and his background), what are some appropriate lunch conversations? Do we discuss what he'll be talking about later that day or avoid the topic? While I am interested in his work, I don't know enough about it to start an intelligent conversation about something related to his topic.

There's always plenty of questions to ask. If you knew as much, or more than your speaker, you wouldn't need to ask it!

Questions that do not require a lot of experience in the field to be able to ask or understand and provide a higher volume of response. In addition, a lunch setting is less formal than a lecture, so you can use more open-ended questions not necessarily related to his talking point.

Here are some example questions that would apply to most fields.

What do you think is the most promising research in [the field] you've seen recently?
How did you come up with the idea behind [topic]?
Can you explain the [concept] as it was related to [the paper]?
I am a member of the [department] which is similar to your field. What have you seen in interdisciplinary topics that you find interesting?

With a specific field, you can also ask the speaker his opinion on [new concept XYZ] that you've learned about or read about.

Questions I've seen that are more "awkward" typically involve accidentally eliciting a direct yes/no answer along the way. Avoid "Do you think..." in favor of "Why do you think..."


Does a person enter a PhD from a masters program, or is applying to PhD a separate process? Right now, I work full-time and am applying to EE grad school (part-time) for next Fall.

Does a person apply to Masters Program, earn the Masters, and then they are eligible to work on Phd?

Or is applying to Phd a separate application process? I am in USA.

The answer to your question is highly dependent on the context, in particular, the country and/or the specific institution. A typical way is to apply to a Ph.D. program, having completed (or almost completed - often termed early admission) a master's program. In addition to the early admission, which is focused on students in their later stages in a master's program, some schools have a transfer policy, which, vice versa, is focused on students in their early stage in a master's program (for an example, see this page). Having said that, there are institutions that allow people with bachelor's degree only to apply directly to a Ph.D. program. For more details on this topic and/or some anecdotal examples, see this Quora discussion as well as this question and this question. Finally, it is even possible (though quite rare!) to enroll in a Ph.D. program without having even a bachelor's degree. See this discussion on Academia.SE for details and inspirational examples.


Lab computers: high end now or average system and repurchase in a couple of years? I have been asked to recommend systems for upcoming computer labs. I see 2 options.

Buy high end systems now. They will be expensive but will last longer.
Buy average systems now and buy again in a couple of years when these become obsolete.

Option 1 makes more sense to me with the bonus that the lab systems will actually qualify as high-end for some time. Option 2 may seem cheaper now but current systems will become dinosaurs in a couple of years and new systems will have to be bought. The total cost of both options may actually come out to be the same in the long run. However, Option 2 involves scrapping systems in a couple of years which I see as needless waste.

Can anyone here comment on this?

NOTE: I understand this may not be the right forum for this question. If so, I will be happy to be pointed to one that is.

In general, I would argue in favor of getting the best available system that fits within your budget at the time of the purchase. You might be able to save some money now by buying a less powerful system, but the danger of doing so is that you can't necessarily guarantee that in N years, when you plan to buy the replacements, that you'll have the money in the budget to do so. Long-term funding guarantees really aren't, and what is promised today might not hold up several years from now.

By getting the best available system now, you postpone the "must replace" date a while, which can give you more time to find a replacement (or the funds to replace it, as need be). Also, if your money is time-restricted in its use (you have to use it this year, for instance), there's no real incentive to skimp.


How can I cite interviews for radio and TV on CV? I have many contributions related to interviews in radio, TV, web magazines and print magazines, and would like to know the different ways it might be "cited" in a scientific CV. I was thinking about adding them at the end of my CV is some section called "dissemination of research results" or something like that.

"Media Appearances" sounds better to me. Then I think I'd cite each appearance as if it were a conference talk:

  "How to Solve the Problem of Evil," WFUV Radio, 29 February 1904.

or

  "Why I am So Clever," The Today Show, National Broadcasting Corporation, 9 August 1999.

Maybe insert some descriptive language if the citation is unclear.


Is it alright not to include my previous supervisors as co-authors, when publishing PhD work, now that I graduated? I completed my PhD almost a year ago. I had 3 advisers for my PhD research and I could say that all the three hardly had any idea what I was doing. During my PhD days, I used to write papers and include them as co-authors of the work. It was frustrating indeed. Much part of the work is still not published. I am looking forward to publish the same in reputed journals. I really do not want to include them as the co-authors of the work as they are no way involved in the work. Now that I am done with the PhD studies, will it be alright to send the papers with single author?

Authorship standards vary a lot between disciplines, but generally the hierarchical relationship between you and the other authors should be irrelevant. In other words including them before only because they were your supervisors was wrong* so is excluding them now only because you feel they have no leverage anymore.

You mention the reputation of the journals, this is not a relevant factor. It's true that some more reputable journals describe authorship criteria explicitly, something that lower-tier journals rarely do, but the expectations is always that the listed authors contributed to the presented work according to the customs of the field.

It's impossible for anyone not closely related to your personal situation to tell you if they deserve authorship or not. What can be said is that quite often do graduate students underestimate the scientific contribution of their supervisors.

Your only option is to discuss the matter with them. Do they actively ask to be co-authors? Have you told them that you think their contribution is not significant enough?

*I know that this still happens, in some fields too often. That's why I wrote should be and not is.


My code is published as original work by a different group. What should I do? I've found some code that I've posted online that has a BSD license published in a supplementary material of a different group in a high impact journal. The authors have replaced the name on the license with one of the co-author's names and added a header on my code. They weren't too careful and didn't delete my name and email some lines below that header.  I've contacted the corresponding author that promised me that he'll contact the publisher to correct it and nothing has happened in the past 3 months or so.
What would you do?
EDIT - Update.... It took 6 months from the moment I contacted the authors, and 3 months after I contacted the publisher to issue a Correction\Corrigendum that gave me credit for my code.*

This seems to be a clear case of plagiarism, and potentially a copyright violation.

The BSD license contains a line "Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer". If that was included in your Original code, then it seems that this was breached by the article authors.

But even in the case that this line was not included, then it seems to be still a case of plagiarism, as they are passing your work as theirs.

Contact the editor (or editorial office) of the journal. Provide them with a description of what happened (basically as you described in your question).
Also provide links to your originally online published source code. If you can, add proof of when you published it there (e.g. log files).

It would not hurt to also keep a copy of their present version of the source code they published, just in case it 'vanishes' from the internet and you want to show (e.g. to the editor/publisher) how they plagiarized you.


How should I use a footnote reference inside a figure? I am using a figure in my paper, wherein one of the components of the figure, I need to refer to a method that I have described in a section with an equation.
I want to use a small footnote reference in the figure, in the footnote, I will describe that I have explained the method in section X with the equation Y.
What should be the standard way to do it? Using square brackets (ex. [1]) can be confused with the reference section, so how to place it so it's not confusing.

I suggest that you add your remarks to the figure caption. Its purpuse is to help making the figure understandable. A footnote reference in the figure can easily be overlooked, so I would not recommend it.


Applying to a graduate program in molecular and cell biology I'm a medical school graduate student. However, I wish to apply for a PhD program in molecular and cell biology, I'm interested in understanding the interactions within and between cells at molecular level. However, it seems that at many programs, courses on physics and mathematics are required. I didn't take any mathematical or physical courses. Is it possible to take these courses without having to go through the whole bachelor's curriculum? If this is possible, how could I do this?

In the US it is not uncommon for universities to allow students to take individual courses without seeking a degree. This is especially true of some of the larger introductory type courses that are required for getting into grad school. It is probably worth contacting the schools you are interested in applying and telling them you have not taken all the prerequisite courses and if there is something that can be arranged.


Negotiations after winning a grant I am a fairly new lecturer (within the last year) in the UK.

When I started my position, I did some negotiations and the uni was already happy to give me teaching relief for the probation period of 3 years (not completely, but pretty solid relief).  I was told by colleagues in this negotiation phase that this was the only time I'd be able to negotiate until I won a grant.

Flash forward 9 months. I now have won a fairly large grant (about £200k). I'm excited about it. What kind of negotiation typically happens when such grants are won? I want to make sure I'm doing everything right in this court.

You want to ask some trusted people in your department whether such a grant would qualify as grounds to renegotiate your contract, as standards for this matter differ widely between universities and departments. Further, what exact grant you won matters much more than the sum - it's ultimately more about the reputation than about the money.

That said, my suspicion is that a 200k grant will not be a reasonable token for any serious renegotiation. While a very nice boost for a young lecturer, such grants are ultimately bread-and-butter for the university, not something that would trigger them to radically rethink your position and rank in the university. Usually, the only grants I see people occasionally use to renegotiate immediately are the top-level personal grants (ERC, or the respective national equivalents) - the type of grants that very few individuals in the entire university get, and which make a dean nervous that you might also get wooed by some other universities to leave and take your grant with you.


Lack of letter of recommendation due to long-term research experience I only have 2 research experiences, one of which lasted more than a year and is starting to look very promising for high impact factor publication (I'll be the second author though, and it's not likely to be published by the time of application). The other is with an highly esteemed professor from the U.S. who's quite happy with my 2-month research internship in his lab. Both are willing to put in some good words for me, but that's all I got, so I need a "did well in class" letter of recommendation which will probably be worth nothing. Will this hurt a lot to my graduate application? (I'm an international student)

If you have two strong letters of recommendation for research work, that's already quite good.  I would think that "this person is a strong student" letter filling out the set will be just fine---after all, somebody has to testify that you're good outside of the lab as well!


How should I write or abbreviate my Indian name in academic papers? I am Sulthan from India. In India, we use the first letter of our father's first name as our initial. So in my school records my name is "A.Sulthan". On official documents, such as PAN, licence, voter ID, and Aadhar Card, I use my name alone as "Sulthan" and my father's name is written as "Ayyup Kan". For my passport, my father's name is used as my last name. So my name is written as "Sulthan Ayyup Kan".

Now I am a researcher and author. I write papers with the name "A.Sulthan" when submitting it for publication and peer review. I am confused about how I should write my first name and last name. For example, for my last name, should I use the initial "A." or ".A"? Also, I would appreciate some suggestions on using names in publication.

Ultimately, consistency between papers is more important than whether it matches any of your other documents. Just pick a way you like to write it and make sure you always keep it the same in future papers.

Points to keep in mind for picking your "researcher name":

For better or for worse, anglo-saxon norms are dominant in English research publications. The closer your name looks to "Firstname [I.] Lastname", the less confusion (and hence people citing differently/wrongly) will happen. ".A", in particular, is very unusual and will likely be mistaken for a typo and "corrected" into "A." frequently.
A unique name makes your papers more easy to find. If there are already 5 people publishing under the name "Sulthan Kan", maybe pick "Sulthan Ayyup Kan" instead.


Which one of these is more appropriate for academic email I have a membership from an organization e.g. ieee.org and I have some options for my email ID which I want to use in academy and professional work. I'm not a native English and I'm not familiar with the culture involved. I have these three options:

(consider my name as Serim Doe, which Serim is my first name and pretty rare, I didn't want make example of John Doe which is very common name).

Serim@ieee.org

Doe@ieee.org

S.Doe@ieee.org

I personally prefer Serim@ieee.org since it is more concise and shorter, but I want to know if making ID of only the first name is appropriate or not.

In the US, everthing said in the comments applies (in short: everything goes, it's up to you).

In Europe (and especially in German speaking countries), it is very unsusual to call other people by ther first name, therefore serim@ would be considered inappropriate and people might be confused and think of it as your last name.

Therefore, if you think international, I'd propose s.doe@... or, serim.doe@... . Most companies and universities in Germany use the last version since it helps in avoiding name collisions (of course it's no guarantee).


What does 'open position for bachelor project' actually mean? I am third-year bachelor student currently seeking a research internship in Germany and I encounter many group websites that say something like: “We have positions for bachelor projects.” I am wondering whether this means that these projects are only intended for a thesis and suitable for final-year students about to graduate, or do they also welcome not-final-year undergrad students? (BTW, my discipline is physics, and I am not looking for position in my home institution).

I guess it’s gonna look stupid if I send an inquiry to the professor without figuring out this problem.

In most cases professors will not be offended if an eager, and knowledgeable, undergraduate approaches them about working on a project. This doesn't mean they will have a position for you, but it does mean it is always worth asking. Reading their website and seeing what they are interested in is a great start.


Is it acceptable to give out information about an unpublished paper in an application? I worked on a research project earlier this year. It has recently been submitted for publication and is currently under review. I am working on my resume and cover letter at the moment as well as applying to graduate schools. This is one of the biggest projects I have worked on in my undergrad and thus I will definitely be including it in my applications.

We were told not to circulate this paper, but I was allowed to present a very small part of the data at a conference. There are many diseases/conditions being studied in the project and I presented two of them at a conference.

Although I know that it is definitely not acceptable to circulate an unpublished paper, I am wondering if it would be okay to state a brief synopsis of what the project was about? For example:

  This project was a meta-analysis that looked to see if there was a relationship between X and Y.

In addition, would it be acceptable to mention the journal that it was submitted to?

Whoever told you not to circulate the paper is the person to ask. If you were specifically asked not to do so, the author could consider it a breach of trust to  mention the ideas/results without clarifying the extent to which you can make claims about the project. Maybe they do not mind a general overview, only the paper, but this is something you need to find out from them.

"I will definitely be including it in my applications" is a problematic sentence under these auspices. It is not a good idea to mention the journal, either. Say, it's a top-tier journal. Anyone can submit a paper, but at this stage it is not accepted yet.

In addition, you probably should get more detailed advice from a trusted mentor on how to develop your application.


Rescinding or deferring admission over a break up I have a full ride for a grad program at a good school
I've recently gone through an awful breakup with a girlfriend of 7 years
I now want to take an extra year before going to school, for many reasons. I could explain them to you all here, but that seems beside the point; assume they are compelling enough.
In my head, my justification sounded very legitimate and serious (the tale involves depression and hospitalization, an abrupt change of living situation, etc., all just before enrollment)
Now, typing out an email to the department, I feel totally immature. I try to word it more professionally, which only makes it look like I'm trying to be vague about my immaturity, which perhaps sounds even more immature.

How can I talk about personal relationship issues to people who it matters to, but for professional reasons, and not feel like I've tainted my name at the school?

You don't need to give them all the details. Say "Some personal issues have come up, and I'd like to know how viable an option it would be to defer beginning my program". If they want more details, they'll ask for them.


Should I give my affiliation as "independent" to protest my institution's funding policies? In the following situation: I made research about some topic X in the field of Computer Engineering, submitted a paper and it got accepted. Actually it was an independent research that I have done while working as an information technology lecturer. Now the institution in which I am working does not want to give any financial support for the publishing of this research, what it would be the most ethical thing to do?

Put into my academic affiliation the place that I am working as a lecturer? that will count as a publication for their Faculty, but I believe that is not fair that they do not even try to pay for any expenses.
Put in my academic affiliation that I am an independent researcher, would that be advisable? maybe some academics would believe that I am not serious enough.

I believe that once I read some cases of people submitting papers as independent researchers, there were not so many, but those cases were real. For me I believe there is not so much difference, because what it matters is what is inside the article.

Any advice?

Thanks

I'm not sure that I see an ethical issue here.  Ethically, I think you are free to omit your affiliation if you so choose.

But I don't see any benefit to you by doing so.  It may be a symbolic jab at your institution for not funding you, but it's not going to directly hurt them in any way: nobody is going to notice except you and them. On the other hand, it certainly can directly hurt you and your relationship with your institution.  As just one example, they might decline to consider that publication as part of your research record when they evaluate you (e.g. for tenure).  Or, more seriously, they might decide that if you don't want to be associated with them, they don't want to be associated with you; and therefore stop employing you (if your contract permits it).

Clearly you have some issues with your employer, and I hope you are able to improve matters somehow.  But what you suggest seems at best ineffective and at worst self-destructive.


Is it necessary for a letter of recommendation to include the full name of the candidate? I'm applying for Colleges for my MSc. But all of my letters of recommendation address me by my first name. is it okay, or should the complete name of the candidate be included?

Letters of recommendation are proper documents, and as such they must include candidate's full name at least once. It is often included in the first sentence, e.g.

  It is my pleasure to write this letter of reference in support of Mr Ice Dune's application to the College of Crafts and Wizardry.

The following text can refer to the Candidate by the first name.


PhD outside of Germany after a Master's from a German Fachhochschule Can I go for Phd in USA, Canada, Australia or any other European country with my master's degree from a German Fachhochschule? I am planning to work for two years as a lecturer and researcher in my home country (Pakistan) and look for PhD fundings/admissions from there. I believe the experience gained during these two years will make my application stronger.

Secondly, is there something I should do before leaving Germany (extra courses for more CPs, degree recognition or any such thing)? I'm enrolled in 120 CP Master's degree with following division:

Course work = 60 CP
Mandatory internship = 30 CP
Master Thesis = 30 CP

Do universities from these regions require more CPs? I've heard this is the case for German technical universities.

This question is related but it is about PhD in Germany only.

In principle, there's no formal obstacle to applying to a US program, since almost all of them require only a bachelor's degree for admission. I similarly don't see a major problem with admissions to Canadian or other European universities, since you would have a master's degree and therefore have an "equivalent" degree, so long as you're staying in the same discipline (electrical engineering to electrical engineering); rules may be different if you're moving between fields (e.g., computer science to materials science).

Where you may run into a problem in admissions is that as a Fachhochschule, your school may not have as strong an international profile as from Hochschule and other schools of equivalent rank in Europe. Consequently, the school you're applying to may not have ever had applicants from your Fachhochschule. Consequently, regardless of how good your profile and application are, you still represent an "unknown" quantity, and therefore there is a greater risk to the department by admitting you instead of someone from a school that is better familiar to the department to which you're applying.

For non-European questions, the number of credit points aren't that important. For European admissions, there may be an issue regarding this, but that's really decided on a university-by-university basis, so you'll need to consult the individual schools you're interested in for guidance. However, taking additional credits beyond what is required for admission won't help you nearly as much as demonstrating research potential.


Submitting a rejected paper to the same editor in a different journal Submitting a rejected paper to the same editor in a different journal.

One of my papers was rejected from a top journal in mathematics. ( I submitted it to an editor, say A)
Two reviews basically were saying that the paper is solid but not good enough for the journal.
The reviews did not contain much details about the paper. I think that the reviewers (say, B, C) didn't read it thoroughly.(It was somewhat a quick rejection)
I am thinking about submitting it to another journal (not a top, but still very good).
The same person A is the only editor in the field of the paper in that journal.
So it is very likely that the editor A will handle the paper again and send it to the reviewers B, C.

What is pros and cons of submitting the paper to that journal?

Do I need to avoid submitting the paper to that journal?

There is no problem in resubmitting the paper to the same editor, but to a different journal. I've seen and done this more than once.

My advice is the following. Take the first set of reviews and address them as best you can. Then prepare a response to reviewers as you normally would, addressing all the points and stating the changes you made. Then append this to the cover letter of the journal you are submitting. The fact that the editor is the same may work in your favor since they have already seen the material, and will see that you are following on their advice.


Can I publish an algorithm without time complexity? There's a problem 'A' and there are already algorithms to solve it but I came up with a totally new algorithm. My doubts are:

Should I find time complexity?
Where can I publish my algorithm without time complexity?
Should I publish an algorithm in a math or computer science engineering journal?

An algorithm that solves a problem in a new way is interesting, regardless of whether you beat the state-of-the-art, because that new way might start a new line of research that beats the state-of-the-art. But, as it stands, you seem unaware of where your algorithm ranks and establishing that is highly desirable (perhaps even necessary) prior to publication. Thus, although it might be possible to publish now, it seems better to delay publication to establish your algorithm's ranking.


Online recommendation for an applicant who is not the recommender's student My recommender and I know each other through scientific discussions and collaborations. I have never been his student.

He told me that in the online recommendation form they asked him some questions like "Which courses has he/she taken with you?" or "How do you rank the applicant among all your students?" and he does not know what to say.

How should he answer these questions? Should he leave them blank and just write the recommendation letter? Would this not be perceived negatively?

He told me that in the online recommendation form they asked him some questions like "Which courses has he/she taken with you?" or "How do you rank the applicant among all your students?" and he does not know what to say.

Well, he should say "kasramsh has never been my student". What else could he truthfully say?

  Should he leave them blank and just write the recommendation letter?

He shouldn't leave them blank but answer them truthfully. "I know kasramsh from [...]. He has never been my student.". Somewhere in the letter, the relationship betweem recommender and student should be explained anyway.

  Would this not be perceived negatively?

Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, it is the way it is, and there is no way how you can spin it that the target institution would not figure out that you are not your recommender's student.


Dropped out of Grad school after withdrawal period It's basically the end of the semester. I was going through the motions the whole time. Withdrawal period has clearly gone. I sent an email that I'm withdrawing from the whole program.. what exactly happens now? Are my grades all F's? Do I even have a transcript? I paid all of my fall semester tuition. I'm not expecting my money back. Knowing it's too late.. just want to know about the transcript or is it not even on record?

At least in the US, the usual rules are that after the withdrawal period dropping out simply results in Fs unless some special agreement is made. It's possible you could ask the school to grant an administrative withdrawal (or some equivalent) as you are dropping out entirely and do not want any grades or credit, which they could conceivably grant (but aren't required to). School policy on refunds might be that you aren't entitled to any after the withdraw date, or that you could actually be owed some percentage (though if you are withdrawing in the very last week or so then probably not).

I've known people who did this with undergrad and had to deal with the result to their GPA years later when their situations had changed, so I would strongly advise you - if it is remotely possible at all - to deal with the added difficulty and meet with a proper administrator and follow procedure to withdraw from the program entirely.

Anyone in a similar situation - including you - might also consider, if they are at the very end of the semester, if they could just finish going through the motions and end the semester if early withdrawal is not possible. In short: leave yourself in the best position not to burn bridges, because life can change drastically over a few years. The few minutes you saved in not following through can result in some incredibly annoying results later on.

Take a deep breath, tidy up the lose ends (holding your nose where necessary), and then go on to the next chapter of your life with as much closure and minimized baggage as you can.


Translating British faculty titles into American equivalents A recent job posting at a British university has specified available openings at multiple levels: lecturer, senior lecturer, reader, and professor. However, it's not clear how to map these titles to American equivalents. For instance, where would someone who has finished up several years of an assistant professorship and is interested in moving into such a position be classified? Would it be as a senior lecturer or reader?

Usually, lecturer is the lowest open-ended position (although there are exceptions), and professor is the highest one, everything in between can be quite specific. For instance, Swansea University is considering four different grades from 2013:

Lecturer (replacing Lecturer Grade 8 and Tutor)
Senior Lecturer (replacing Lecturer Grade 9, Senior Professional Tutor and Research Fellow)
Associate Professor (replacing Senior Lecturer and Reader)
Professor (that one at least is unchanged!).

Each title comes with a set of expected criteria. In addition, a concept I've seen several times in the UK is the notion of academic pathway, which can characterise further the criteria for the positions. For instance, at Newcastle University, where I'm currently working, we have three main academic pathways, with the corresponding positions. In order to illustrate the different expectations based on the pathways, I included the expectations w.r.t. the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF). I also include the grade (positions above G are usually open-ended, although there are exceptions).

Teaching & Scholarship Pathway (the "standard" pathway):

Grade E: Teaching Assistant (encouraged to become recognised at UKPSF Descriptor 1)
Grade F: Teaching Fellow (be recognised at or be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 2)
Grade G: Lecturer (likely to be working commensurate with the achievement of Descriptor 3 and are encouraged to work towards it)
Grade H: Senior Lecturer (expected to be recognised at or be working towards UK PSF Descriptor 3)
Grade H: Reader (be recognised at or be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3 or 4)
Grade I: Professor (be recognised at or be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3 or 4)

Teaching & Research Pathway:

Grade F: Lecturer (should be recognised at UKPSF Descriptor 1 and be working towards Descriptor 2)
Grade G: Lecturer (should be recognised at UKPSF Descriptor 1 and be working towards Descriptor 2)
Grade H: Senior Lecturer (should be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 2 or 3)
Grade H: Reader (should be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3)
Grade I: Professor (should be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3)

Research & Innovation Pathway (since there is no teaching expected, UKPSF is not relevant):

Grade E: Research Assistant
Grade F: Research Associate
Grade G: Senior Research Associate
Grade H: Principal Research Associate & Reader
Grade I: Professor.

In other words, you should not try to translate the title, but instead understand where do you fit within the academic pathways of the university offering the positions. When it comes to teaching, it can be particularly useful to understand where one fits within the UKPSF, in order to match the corresponding title with the scheme used at the university. For instance, showing that you are working towards obtaining Descriptor 4 could be helpful to get a Reader position instead of a Senior Lecturer.


What can a grad student do when their assistantship requires more hours than specified in their contract? I'm currently finishing my second year as a STEM PhD student at a fairly large research university. As a grad student, I am expected to fulfill 20 hours of extra duties each week. Typically this involves working as a TA for two classes and then completing a few hours a week in the tutoring center or helping out in large lecture classes. This has gone fine for me during that last three semesters. However, this semester I was only scheduled for one TA section. So this left about 10 hours in the tutoring center for my leftover duty.

Over the course of the semester the department has been giving me fairly large grading assignments for upper-division classes. The first was given about three weeks in and required some shuffling of my schedule to accommodate (I'm getting ready to take my quals and am taking multiple core classes this semester). This replaced 7 hours of my tutoring center time.  Now toward the middle of the semester they've given me another fairly large grading assignment, but are only counting it for 3 hours so as not to go over my 20 hour limit.

Is this typical behavior for a department? I feel like having my schedule disrupted like this is very unprofessional. Also, I know there are other grad students in my department who could more readily take on this assignment. This new assignment is for a class outside of my field, and I have zero experience with the material. It just seems like there's no consistency to these work expectations as many other students have duties that count for their full time, but are much easier and require fewer hours in practice.

Is this something that I should bring up with my department? All of these duties are starting to take a toll on my work. I appreciate any advice.

It is fairly common for graduate students to have TA assignments that are expected to take up about half of their time, as you have stated is the case for you. In this case, you should not really think of yourself as a full-time student, but as a half-time student, half-time employee of the department, since your teaching work is what you are being paid to do. Moreover, a healthy department will typically have its expectations of students adjusted accordingly.

There is, of course, a huge amount of variance in the actual time required for a given class, based on the particular students, professor, assignments, etc.
It sounds like this is what's being the problem for you: since you only got assigned one class, you were expecting to have a light load, but the department is trying to "get its money's worth" from you, and is doing so in a manner that you find difficult to plan for.

I would think it is entirely reasonable to ask for notification farther in advance, so that you can plan better.  It's also entirely possible that you will not get it, since the person making the assignments is likely an overloaded professor who is dealing with requests that are being given to them at the last minute as well.

Ultimately, my recommendation would be discussion with your advisor so that you can:

make them aware of the impact last-minute requests are having on you,
enlist them to help in either improving the situation or alleviating its impact on you, and
prevent it from happening to you again in the future.


Is there a Plain English dictionary/glossary for education terminology I am looking for a plain English dictionary (or glossary) for terms in education.

My friend has stated a Math Education degree and is having trouble reading the material (e.g. the lecture slides), It is full of education jargon (e.g. constructivism, ) but these are defined in terms of more jargon so it is very difficult for her to make sense of the definitions. Furthermore, English is a second language for her.  Even for me for whom English is my primary language, I have difficulty reading the slides and other material and making sense of them.

Does anyone know of a plain English dictionary or glossary of education terms that I could recommend to her. This would help her to learn the jargon.

thanks,  Glenn

In relation to Educational Terms, Kathlyn Griffith and Helen Kowalski have published a Dictionary of education terms.

While not the most ideal source Wikipedia have a Glossary of education related terms that may be of some help as well.

You can also view a copy of the Oxford Mathematics Dictionary at the link. While it's the concise edition (coming in at just under 900 pages!), it covers a lot of terms that you friend would encounter and has biographical information on famous Mathematicians as well.
It appears that many of its explanations give short examples as well. The English is clear and as plain as can be expected from such a publication.

This Glossary link also has Maths terms searchable in alphabetical order.


Do LOR writers need to be someone who's taught you a class? Background: (Undergrad applying For PhD in the US)
I need to submit 3 LOR's. I have one in mind from my personal university and 2 from other universities (with whom I have done extensive research with).
The one prof I plan to ask for an LOR from my personal university has not taught me in any class but I have done good amount of research with them (6-8 months). (This person has a professor grade with a doctorate and an extensive research portfolio and leads their own lab.)
I have another prof who has taught me several classes and I have done some research with them but have recently come in bad terms and I fear they might give me negative reviews. So I am quite skeptical of asking them now. (This person has a assistant-professor grade and no doctorate.)
Another reason why I ask this is because I am not a department topper and my courses at my university are quite mediocre, no stress upon lab components and no major project for any course. I even have mediocre attendance.
Question:
Is it okay if all 3 of my Letter writers did not teach me any class during my university tenure? Will it hamper my chances in any way?

Whether they taught you a class or not is irrelevant. What you need is people who can confidently and honestly predict your future success. This implies that having worked with someone in a research environment is probably more valuable than having them as an instructor.
In fact, given that many places now have very large classes and student interacting mostly with TAs, instructors may not be nearly as valuable as they once were.
So, no, it won't hamper you provided that your letter writers can make that prediction honestly and enthusiastically.


Leave Industry for Ph.D. without Burning Bridges I have been working for one of the big tech companies for the last year, but I plan on leaving in August to start a Ph.D. The company I work for has a reputation for not always treating all of its employees well under all circumstances (e.g. making people they don't like miserable until they quit), so I am very wary about letting anyone know of my plans to leave until two weeks beforehand. On the other hand, I have a manager and mentor that have done a lot to help me in my current job, and I have good relationships with them that I would like to keep. Leaving with only two weeks notice will certainly have a negative impact on both of them, and I would like to avoid that if possible.

other relevant details:

I don't think any of the coworkers in question would support my decision to do a Ph.D., as the way to get higher up in this company is to stay in it, not to leave to get a Ph.D.
I don't ever plan on returning to industry, but it still seems like a bad idea to burn bridges

Can I ensure no negative impact on my coworkers while also ensuring no negative impact on myself?

Be sure to consult your employment contract.

The professional thing to do is to give two weeks notice.  It is your manager's job to be prepared for the departure of employees.  You are not responsible for that job beyond giving the two weeks notice.

If the company treats you poorly during the two week notice period, all you can do is offer to leave immediately.  In that case you may loose two weeks pay.

Thank your manager for mentoring.


If I don't know whether a staff member has a PhD, should I address her as Dr. in my emails? There have been a few circumstances where I've had to email an authority at my school and didn't know whether they had a PhD (e.g. An instructor of mine who I knew had been a PhD candidate a few years earlier, but perhaps graduated since then). In these cases, should I address the person as Dr.?

I always use Dr. ______  whenever I am e-mailing someone at a university and do not know if they have a doctorate.

If they do have a doctorate, I haven't insulted them.
If they don't, they chuckle and are pleased.


No suggested reviewers capability in the peer-review journal What is the implication of the peer-reviewed journal to state "you cannot recommend the reviewers"? (one can inform the "oppose reviewers" only).

What good does the journal get out of such a practice? Just curious.

I completely agree with ff524’s answer about avoiding fake peer review, but there’s more to it than that.

Asking an editor not to use a certain reviewer is reasonable, because there may be a conflict of interest or rivalry that the editor is not aware of but that could compromise the peer-review process.  However, what’s the purpose of suggesting reviewers? That seems really biased, since presumably most authors aren’t going to suggest anyone they don’t think will like the paper.

As an editor, I’m not interested in getting reports from reviewers chosen by the authors to have a positive opinion.  Instead, I’d prefer to use my own choices, and given that I’m not going to make any effort to follow the authors’ suggestions, I’d rather not see them at all.


What are the pros and cons of having two supervisors for my Ph.D. thesis? I am going to be taking a Ph.D. program in statistics, and I kind of want to have two people for my supervisor (for my Ph.D. research), but I don't know if this would be a good or bad idea. I have two questions:

What are the pros and cons of having two supervisors for my PhD research?
In case of having two supervisors, would I be expected to choose the one of the two professors who will act as my "main supervisor" (can both supervisors be my "main supervisor")?

I have never taken a Ph.D. program before, so any answers would be appreciated.

I was co-supervised during my own Ph.D., and have since been a co-supervisor several times, and I find that if your circumstances are such that co-supervision makes sense, it can be an excellent thing.

Co-supervision makes most sense when either:

You are doing cross-disciplinary work, and each supervisor provides expertise for their own discipline, or
the two supervisors already work together so closely that working for one means you are de facto being supervised by the other already, and you might as well acknowledge it.

This can help in providing two perspectives (especially valuable for cross-disciplinary work) and in allowing you to get help from one when the other is busy or unavailable.  The down side is that you may also find yourself being pulled in two different directions, and that it can be difficult to coordinate things that require approval from both two supervisors, especially if both are busy.

Most programs, however, will require precisely one person to be the primary supervisor, while the other is either listed as a co-supervisor or merely an unusually active member of your committee.


How to explain why I am applying to a different PhD program without sounding rude? I am currently in a PhD program wherein I like my advisers, but unfortunately due to the following issues I have found that I might be happier applying to another university:

The university charges a $1200 fee during the fall and spring semesters which does not come out of our paychecks, and that they charge monthly interest on. There is also 2 months of the 9 month period of our stipend that we receive half our monthly pay. Thus we are effectively expected to make 6.5 months worth of pay work for 9. I have needed to find additional ways to make ends meet which cuts into the time I could be studying and doing research.

The university does not have a method of testing out of classes without needing to take them. As a result I am forced to take classes which I am already proficient in when I could be taking classes more relevant to research.

The workload for being a GTA this semester was far more than what is reasonable, and cut into my time to do research. I have been informed that this is somewhat common here.

I am applying to other PhD programs at the moment and I am currently wondering what is a way I can both explain my situation in a manner so that people understand why I am applying out without sounding like I am badmouthing my current university? (A professor I know mentioned that the above explanation might be too specific and perceived as badmouthing them). I don't want to be too vague so that it seems like I am just making excuses to apply somewhere else because without 1-3 above I would be happy here.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Concision is your friend here. You do not need to explain all your reasons in detail, and giving multiple reasons will indeed sound negative. Instead, choose the most significant, straightforward reason, and explain it as concisely as possible. In your case, this would be "funding" (#1 and #3 in your list). The issue with coursework, while annoying, does not seem like sufficient reason to transfer (especially when you have presumably already finished many of the duplicate classes).
The challenge with "I want to transfer for better funding" is that grad students are never paid much, and it's a little difficult to believe that the small pay difference between programs is enough to justify starting over, moving, etc., especially when you are otherwise happy with your current program. So, you should provide enough detail to overcome this objection. Note, there is no need to explain the intricacies of your school's internal accounting, just the bottom line (annual salary vs. hours worked). For example:

I am currently paid $15K per year, which barely covers rent in [your expensive city]. So, I have had to work in a grocery story 15 hrs/week just to make ends meet. Further,  my colleagues and I are averaging 35 hrs/week in teaching responsibilities. This arrangement leaves little time for research.


Which address to state as my own at top of publication? i am a MSc Computer Science student writing on a Work-in-Progress publication for ACM SIGCHI.

This format including PDF drafts is defined here:
(http://chi2015.acm.org/authors/works-in-progress/)!

At the beginning of the paper the address for each author is defined separately. Both my mentor (PhD student) and his Professor have their institute address standing under their names, both the same address (institute at our Uni for electrical engineering). Me and my fellow student are studying at the institute for computer science, i.e. another faculty with significant another address and we are not working nor having an office/address there.

What address should be stated under our names?

I think we need an address, under which letters arrive us, which I think is not the case for the electrical engineering faculty nor the computer science faculty of our Uni. Do you think so, too?

Consequently, I think our personal home addresses have to be stated. But then it appears strange or unprofessional, because it looks like we are not affiliated with anyone.

What would you think?

Thanks in advance!

Many templates include a place for authors to put street addresses, but they aren't necessarily strictly required.

In your case, if you look at last year's CHI proceedings you can see that plenty of papers omit it.

For your submission, communication related to your submission will be via email, not snail mail. You can either omit the address entirely, or put the address of your computer science department, it doesn't really matter much. (In the general case, I think it's likely that if a publisher does want to communicate by snail mail, they will ask for the preferred mailing address in the paper submission process, not read it off the submission.)


How do I pay for classes as a non-degree student? I've already earned my degree (B.S. in Neuroscience, Psychology and Music), but need to take some pre-requisite classes before applying to a Masters in Physician Assistant Studies program. These courses are going to end up costing about $10,000 total. I imagine I'll need to take out another loan, but who should I talk to first? The school? The bank?

I know very little about financing this kind of thing and am trying to avoid getting taken advantage of.

I'm be applying to school in the north eastern U.S.

You might try enrolling in a university as a non-degree seeker. Such programs allow people who already have a Bachelor's degree to take additional courses for official credit but not towards any specific degree. These programs are common and a good way to add to a transcript in order to meet minimum admissions requirements for future programs to which you might apply.


Does your university name matter? If you are seeking an engineering job, do employers care about which university you attended? Do they look at your grades, or bias their decision based on the college's reputation? There are stories of Ivy League graduates struggling to find employment, while another person at a small, virtually unheard-of college grabbing that opportunity. So if you are attending a prestigious school, and your grades are lower than someone who is attending a small, high-school-like school, how will that affect your employment opportunities?

If you are seeking an engineering job, do employers care about which university you attended? Do they look at your grades, or bias their decision based on the college's reputation?

If you have a solid foundation in the skills that matter for your engineering discipline/sub-field, and can convey that to recruiters in a phone/on-site/on-campus interview, then I would say that to a first-order where you did your degree does not matter so long as you can get the recruiter's attention.

Getting the recruiter's attention is the trickier part for those coming from lesser-known schools. For example, at the engineering schools I'm familiar with, new grads can find a lot of good fresh-out career opportunities by attending on-campus engineering career fairs and the like. The downside of attending a lesser-known engineering school is that they may not have a decent attendance of engineering companies that come to the campus for recruiting purposes in the first place. This puts the burden on the student in getting a recruiter's attention.

Engineering students (and students in other fields, I'm sure) from any institution can greatly benefit from networking with peers at other institutions and those already in industry. For those from lesser-known institutions, networking can be an invaluable tool for opening doors to career opportunities. Also, while obtaining an internship may be equally as difficult as obtaining a full-time position for those from lesser-known schools, participating in several internships along the way to obtaining your degree if at all possible (and performing the duties of the position well) would really go a long way to improving your chances of success.


Monitoring PhD positions in CS Are there any ways of getting to know about new PhD positions in CS other then just looking trough university/research groups web sites? Maybe people from different branches can name some specialized mailing-lists where PhD positions announcements are quite usual. I am particularly looking out for computer systems, mainly dealing with cache problems, scheduling problems, multicore architectures, etc.
Here are a couple of websites that I found:

EuroSys — European Job Openings in Systems,
PhDportal.com (formerly www.phdportal.eu),
Research Grants | International Scholarships,
Scholarship Positions,
http://youngbrigades.com/ (site has new, unrelated owner; verified on 26.12.2020).

I would appreciate any help. Thanks!

If you know the field you want to study and have read some good papers, contact the authors and ask them what mailing lists are good for their field.

You might also state your motivation: they are generally good at knowing who has funding and may even be looking!


What to talk about with academic recruiters? Recently I was in a large research conference mostly targeted at undergraduates, so there were people from many universities recruiting for summer programs, grad schools and academic societies.

It seemed like an excellent opportunity to make myself known, but I didn't have much success when interacting with them.

Most of the time I could have easily found on the internet all the information they gave me.  When I tried to dig a little deeper (i.e. how much research experience do students accepted to your school have?) I got some very generic responses (i.e. We look at the whole package so it varies).  I also attempted to talk a bit about my research interests in general to schools that seemed a good match, but that also went nowhere.

However, universities wouldn't spend so many resources if they didn't expect to gain something at these events, so I imagine I'm going about this the wrong way.

What should I speak about with university recruiters?

Go for all the administrative details.
Things you don't want to ask a potential supervisor, (e.g. asking about money)
and things not research related (which a potential supervisor might not know).

What is the official duration of a PhD?

what is the current average duration of a PhD?

What kind of living allowance/stipend is available?

How does that availability change if you go over time?

What is there exact process for applying?

Does this process change if you have already found a supervisor at the university who wants to take you on board?

How many PhD Students are at the university?

How many apply?
How many students in total? (i.e. what is the ratio)

What facilities do PhD student normally get?

is there separate reading areas in the library?
do you have a office? Shared office? Expected to use library?

How many supervisors are you required to have?

Some it is 1, others 2
Some it may be minimum 2 but normally 3

Who is the best person at the university to contact if I have more questions?

Is this the same person I would contact if I were currently enrolled as a student?

Can I have one of those cool free pens/USB sticks/mugs you are giving out?

thanks.

And if they can't answer, move on, you have better things to do.
You can almost certainly get an answer to these via email later.


Can I publish my Master's thesis while my supervisor is marking it My supervisor has not finished marking my master's thesis.
Am I allowed to publish it in a journal before he finishes marking it? I asked him the question  twice, but he never replied to me.

I suppose your advisor will be coauthor in whatever paper you write that is based on your thesis. In such case, you need their approval of the manuscript before submitting it for publication.

If you are considering submitting for publication and you are not considering putting your advisor as a coauthor, I would strongly encourage against it if the norm in your field is to include your advisor. If your advisor has already signaled that they do not feel comfortable being an author, you should strongly reevaluate whether your work is worthy of publication before submitting it for publication.


Supervisor choosing PhD topic for student When a student is undertaking a PhD in pure mathematics, is it the case that the supervisor typically chooses the topic for the student?

In short, if the advisor chooses the topic for his student in any field without taking student's opinion into consideration or a proper discussion with him about his interests – that is a very unhealthy dynamics in student-advisor relationships.

The good supervisor definitely should:

determine the student's interests
take into account the student's strongest/weakest skills and his goals of getting the PhD in the first place
offer him several directions that are interesting to the advisor and might be interesting/are promising for the student
be prepared for a reasonable flexibility within the general direction

However, it is unreasonable to expect an advisor who specializes, say, in PDE to be open for research in mathematical logic. Particularly in pure math, the initial choice of the advisor might already dictate very strongly what general direction of research you are going to work on. However, even within the general direction, there are many possible topics and approaches; thus, the list above applies anyway, in my opinion.


How necessary is buying a domain when I'm just a graduated student? I'm a graduated student and about to make a poster for my institution's conference. I would like to have a website so that I can have more space to present in the poster while still have a data to show if necessary. If I choose to have a free domain, I will have an URL contain the host name, e.g. myname.wordpress.com. If I buy a domain and use free host like Wordpress, I can quickly build my website up but the price is not cheap. If I buy a domain and a host, the price may cheaper but I have to build it by myself. I want my website to look professional (and impressive) on the poster so that using a free domain may not a good choice, but I also consider in the economic prospect. In my country, $10 is not a big deal, but also not a thing that people is willing to spent easily.

If your department/school won't give you support...

The domain should cost you between $0.50 to $0.99 USD for the first year. Hosting costs range a lot, but many offer deals for the first year that cost about $12 USD.

After you have your own server and domain, it is trivial to setup WordPress on your own server.

Thus you get the best of both worlds, extremely affordable and easy! Besides, I recommend most people have their own personal website for their portfolio and such anyway.


“Volume” vs. “issue” for a new journal Our school is publishing an academic journal soon. It will be printed annually.  How do we label it – should we use the term volume or issue?  What is the difference?

Normally journals come in volumes, which may then be divided into issues, so volume 12 might cover all papers for a calendar year but actually be published quarterly as four separate issues: 12(1), 12(2), 12(3), 12(4). Some journals just publish volumes without subdividing, and if you're only printing annually I think it makes sense to do that.


How to ask a postdoc professor for experimental work when my PhD experience is computational? My PhD was in computational modeling 3D printing process using Abaqus finite element analysis. It took me 5.5 years to get the PhD and I published 4 first author papers from it. The issue is, I had put forward my desire to do experimental work during my PhD. But that did not materialize. Looking back, I do regret not choosing an experential topic. The true fact is I was not getting any good PhD positions. I liked this topic and started it. I do have an experimental background in my masters and undergrad research. But that's like 6 years ago.
After 3 years of starting, I had realized that I might get into issues securing job after PhD. But I did not want to leave my PhD halfway.
Now, I am trying to get a experimental+simulations postdoc position but I am unable to get one (thanks to both my CV and covid). I know that I have screwed up chances for an experimental+simulations position.
But, do you have any suggestions on how I can approach a professor for a postdoc position with such a proposition in mind?
Another negative point on my resume. I am 31 years old.

Your age isn't material. You have skills. Tell a potential advisor that you are looking to expand your skill set into experimental work. Perhaps your computational work can complement the experimental, looking at problems from two aspects.
Even if you are still doing mostly computational stuff in a new post-doc you will get connected with the experimentalist's outlook and start to absorb those skills. Joint papers would be a good way to get recognized.
But just ask for what you want and say why. It is perfectly reasonable. A post-doc should be a learning experience, not just a repetition of you doctoral studies.


Publishing my research after 4 years I finished my PhD in 2012. In 2013 in presented my work at a research conference (conference paper). Since then I have worked on and off to write up the paper to submit to a journal. My paper in on Researchgate where it is still getting a lot of reads - over 2000 reads. I was wondering, if it is still possible for me to get the editing done and submit to a journal, of course with updated references showing recent work. Or its too late after 4 years. The work is in Project Management and there are have been no new studies in this area since my work because of the geography I work in.

Any novel work can be published regardless of what time it was first produced provided the following conditions are met.

The method/concept/matter itself was not published before by anyone.
Inclusion of a survey of recent literature addressing the present significance of your work.

The second point also includes a third: your work should be still of scope and interest at the present time.

If the above factors are considered, it is (technically) never too late to publish. There are papers that are published that span decades of research.

It also depends on the field/domain. For instance, when it comes to computer science, the sooner the better. This is because in fields where the current trend is volatile, you can never tell when your work will become obsolete or already published.


Is it worth publishing a paper rephrasing what past papers did with a different mathematical framework? I work industry (I'm an engineer with a decent background in math) and for work I often read through papers and I attend conferences to keep up with the state of the art.
I've noticed there're few papers (not very recent but not very old either) whose methods can be derived in a more elegant way using other mathematical frameworks.
I was wondering if it make any sense to re-work all the math these papers did and publish them somewhere. It wouldn't be potentially having new results from these papers but just reformulating them, maybe a new reformulation might highlight new properties worth experimenting.
My question is:

Is this kind of work worth some paper submission somewhere?
If no new experiments are produced that would yield different results I wouldn't really say they are worth engineering wise (I might be wrong though), so for sake of mathematical interest is there some Journal of applied mathematics of some kind that could fit for this purpose?
I struggle to find similar work somewhere but I'm not really good with looking up math papers / applied math papers do you have any suggestion of something I can look up?

Here is my opinion and suggestion (I claim no authority).

Elegant derivations are of indisputable value, even if they are mathematically equivalent to existing results. Think of postgraduate students reading your paper and having an "aha" moment, for example. By contributing elegant results, you are promoting your sub-field, which could be appreciated by other researchers.
I won't be able to suggest a journal, unless we work in the same area. I doubt it is possible at all without knowing the details. There probably exists an applied mathematics / engineering journal dedicated to your topic, which leans towards mathematical aspects and has many non-experimental papers. If you want to submit a concise paper, perhaps, look for the word "communications".
If searching by keywords in Google Scholar or similar doesn't yield what I want, I try the following. Crawling citations from the most relevant papers or books / volumes / series / conferences. Checking publication lists of the most relevant researchers / labs. Reading theoretical chapters of doctoral theses, which can be a good source of carefully chosen references.


What it takes for a Math department to develop a minor program in Statistics? What it minimally takes for a Math department to develop a minor program in Statistics? Do the department require to have a major in area X to have a X minor?

Edit: How many courses at minimum does the department need to have a minor in Stats.  I see many departments requires students to take 5-6 Stats class to have a minor in Stats, so I thought if a department offers 5-6 Stats classes, can they develop a minor in Stats in general?  Are there any common rules one needs to follow to create a Stats minor, or any minor in general?

Other than my "context" comment above, this standard simply will not be the same at all schools.  Your best bet is to ask your department dean/chair who will either know the answer or where to find the answer.


To act against rearranging authorship irresponsibly If the first author changes the authorship arrangement of a journal paper without discussing or informing the other co-author who is being unfairly affected with this, what we can do about it?

Is there a way to stop this sort of stealing other one's work? What would you recommend to do?

To play with the author order is not fair and perhaps unethical if it unfairly changes the picture of the intellectual contribution to the paper. Unfortunately, the ordering is largely an internal problem within the group since only that group can assess the appropriate ordering. So, discussing the problem within the author group would be the first choice of action. When doing so you need to have a good argument for why the division of authorship should look the way you see it and have good arguments for that. The core problem therefore seems to be a lack of communication.

It is a good idea (necessary) to discuss a system for ordering of authorship. There are guidelines for authorship and contributorship based on the Vancouver Protocol. You can also look at the post Paper contributions and first authorship. Requirements for authorship are quite strict and each author group needs to work out how authorship should be divided along a clear set of rules. An example of how such a discussion is given on, for example, the site AuthorOrder.

There are cases when authorship changes can be unethical, but those mostly concern the first authorship so I do not sense this is the main problem in your case. Nevertheless, for some input on disputes, I recommend looking at COPE's How to handle authorship disputes:a guide for new researchers.

If you do not think you can discuss the changes with the first order, then you have to learn from the experience and insist on discussing the grounds for authorship and ordering in future collaborations.


Updated title of arxiv not recognised by Google Scholar? I submitted a paper to a journal and one of the referees suggested to slightly change the title of the paper. The paper was already posted on arxiv. I have updated the paper on arxiv after the revision, but this update is not recognised by Google Scholar. The main problem with this is that Google Scholar is not detecting the new citations to the arxiv paper since the new citations use the new title.

Any suggestions on how to solve this issue?

Update: I updated the arxiv version 2 months ago but Google Scholar does not detect it. It detects new papers that cite my manuscript, but not the updated arxiv.

Disclaimer. I am aware of the following questions, but they are related to different issues.

Submitted to arXiv with a different title. How to make Google understand this is the same paper?

Do all versions of an arXiv paper appear in Google Scholar?

Google Scholar should (relatively soon) detect both versions, at which point it will likely list them separately.  Once both versions are showing up in your profile, you can merge them together.  Select the check-boxes next to both publications, and a "Merge" button should appear amongst the buttons up at the top of the list.  During the merge process, you can tell it which version is the "best" version, and it will use the information for that version as the source for its title, authorship, etc.


How can I fill in the missing background I need to be a good computer scientist? I'm doing my PhD in computer science and I'm almost finished (maybe one more year).

In fact, my background was engineering, but in my MS study I got interested in CS and took courses about "pattern recognition", and "distributed AI" and "robotics" so I tried to continue that line in my PhD which is about machine learning and data analysis.

I tried to become an expert (in a PhD level) in my topic of PhD as I read a lot of papers and got focused on one topic, but here and there I see my colleagues (same discipline) are talking about methods and principles that I'm not familiar with.

The fact is that I want to continue in this field as a post-doc and even more, but I feel a gap in my background, and I'm wondering how I can fill it? For example, should I take online courses related to commonly taught materials in a bachelor/master CS program?

Let me give you a bit of perspective, as well as assurance. In mathematics it is no longer possible for a person to be knowledgeable in every aspect of the art. That possibility ended early in the 20th century. Henry Poincaré is often given as the last person who was conversant in everything mathematical. Math has evolved a huge amount in the interim. So, even Poincaré didn't know all that we now know about math.

In any field there is a tendency toward specialization. Research normally requires this. Over time, being a good researcher requires less and less of the whole both because of expansion of the field and the much narrower needs of a specific sub-topic.

While it is good to know a lot and your goal of expanding your horizon is a good one, don't be discouraged if others, especially other researchers have different ideas, use different tools, and especially utilize different thought patterns than you do.

Probably the most effective means, given that you like your research area and that it rewards you properly, is to branch out from there, studying similar things that you don't explicitly need, but which might come in handy. But rather than focus on the details of the related topics, pay special attention to whether the thought patterns you hear discussed are somewhat different from your own. Think Different was a slogan (Apple Inc.), but it has a deeper meaning.

Another way to expand your horizon from a given base is to study something very different from what you know, but to which your current knowledge might be applied.

I don't know of CS has reached the stage yet where you can't know everything, but I suspect we are pretty close to the boundary. You can have a broad education, and you should. You can also go deep into one or a few areas, as you also should. But there is (likely) too much there to do it all.

Modern Academia tends to reward specialists, as I'm sure you are already aware.


Can open science project be performed/published by non-scientists? In other words, can anybody publish an open science project, or does the author need to have some specific title or at least study the subject in order to receive some positive feedback from the community?

Or is it simply evaluated based on the quality of the published data and its positive feedback/output?

Yes, of course anyone can publish an open science project. As many of us in the scientific community wish would happen, the project should be judged on merit, not who initiated it, where they studied, or what their background or education is.

These principles are enshrined in the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which have been widely circulated and many (unfortunately not a majority, yet) organisations quick to sign up to.


(How) should I describe the company within my bachelor's thesis? I'm writing my computer science bachelor's thesis in a company. The thesis is about optimizing one of their software products. Obviously I will need to describe the software in the thesis, but what about the company itself?

Is it sufficient to name the company and give a short description of what they're about, or should I go into more detail like e.g. the history of the company?

(I'm new here, so if this question isn't a good fit, feel free to let me know :) )

or should I go into more detail like e.g. the history of the company?

No, in general, there's no need for that: your thesis is not a company's brochure. Provide enough information to present the context of your thesis, but don't add too much unnecessary details.

Anyway, I suggest you to discuss this also with your university supervisor: they surely know what is the policy or the tradition about this in the university, and they can act as buffer between possible company's requests and university requirements.


Deciding on which equations to number I’m writing a master’s thesis in theoretical and mathematical physics, specifically in general relativity.
To better organize the thesis, I’m using the well-known division in works in mathematics to organize important results in lemmas, propositions, theorems and corollaries.
Outside those blocks there are also equations relating to the overall discussion connecting the results.

I’m quite unsure about the equation numbering. I see several options:

I number all equations.
I number only the important ones which I’ll need later.
I number just the equations on the discussions and not those inside the proofs of the lemmas, propositions, theorems, corollaries, etc.

What are the pros and cons of these approaches?

(Maths/Engineering Copy Editor speaking.) Well, first, I advocate against these two solutions (see below for some reasoning):

Number all displayed equations.
Number only referenced equations.

So, the solution lies somewhere in between. The basic idea is that you do number:

All referenced equations (obviously).
All important equations. To measure this, I would say that an equation is important if the reason why you made it a displayed equation is to emphasize it.
Unreferenced equations "parallel" to a referenced ones. Imagine you have two similar equations in similar contexts in your work; then you should either number both or none.
Equations you "feel" (whatever it means) someone else might want to reference.

What you in general do not number:

Equations put on display for that they are too large.
Intermediate steps of computations.
Equations in abstracts.
You number a multiline equation only with one number.

Hope this helps. Almost-final words: Use your common sense. Final words: Be self-consistent.

Why I don't like all displays numbered:

It clutters the page if there are many equations. You also might number things that are basically one equation (think LaTeX's \intertext).
The numbering ceases to function as an emphasis.
If the equations are long or the columns narrow, it can eat up precious space.

Why I don't like only referenced equations numbered:

You don't allow anything else referenced than what you yourself decided to reference.


Would taking an Editor-in-chief position at a mid-tier journal be good strategy for a tenure track professor? I'm in the sciences in the USA, and a very relevant to my field, well respected journal just advertised. I have been encouraged to apply. The workload is advertised as not egregious. I already sit on several editorial boards.
I worry that this kind of service may be better left for post tenure. My personal advisors are split: I likely have a good shot at it, some think it will be a good move, others hesitate.
I'd be very interested both in answers outright, and things to consider that I an my mentors might have missed.

Being an editor-in-chief is a rewarding position that most departments value on someone's CV.
So much for that. But I cannot stress enough how bad an idea it would be to take on such a role while being an assistant professor without tenure. As the EiC, your workload consists of 50% assigning papers to associate editors, and 50% dealing with the difficult papers where some bigshot's poorly written paper has been rejected and they complain/some associate editor not actually doing their work/other cases that are not of technical nature but involve people. You have to make judgment calls about these papers, decisions, people, and that's hard if you don't have the stature and independence that tenure gives you. That's because to get tenure (and, to a lesser degree, for promotion to full professor) you rely on the well-known people in your community that are exactly the ones who you might have to make decisions about. In other words, without the independence that tenure gives you, you will perpetually find yourself caught in conflicts of interest, and that's a really awkward position in which you can only choose between lose-lose options.
In other words, don't do it if you don't already have tenure or anticipate getting tenure shortly after taking on the role.


How to proceed after being threatened and treated poorly by university faculty after reporting physical assault? I’m an Indian PhD student at a mathematics department in the US. A few months back, I was deliberately shoulder-bumped for a few seconds by another PhD student. This student had previously chased me across the department (literally), invaded my personal space, and stared me down. I asked to change offices, which is usually a routine affair, but a faculty member stepped in to prevent this. I had to remain in close proximity with this guy, who continued to act in passive-aggressive ways.
After the shoulder bumping, I threatened to go to campus police. The aforementioned faculty member responded (in writing) saying: “There is no proof of this ever happening; I can’t prevent you from going to the campus police, but be warned that both of you can get expelled."
Also prior to this, I had reported several racist incidents from another student. A few example quotes are:

"you fucking Indians" in a very threatening tone,
"don’t tell me you fucking Indians count so fast,"
"You Indians and Chinese are taking over,"
or in a mocking tone: "It’s funny there is racism in your country."

When I showed this faculty member documentation of these events, he wrote to me in an email: "I don’t agree with your assessment that there is anything racist in these incidents." He also said the racist PhD student was "special" (though there is no written evidence of him saying this).
Another teaching faculty member had been similarly racist. He said things like:

"I was scared to come here initially because I thought I would have to learn Hebrew",
"I'm so white I'll never be mistaken for an Italian who gets mistaken for a terrorist when doing Math on a plane"
Telling a room full of Chinese students and a couple of Indian students: "If you speak in Mandarin or Hindi in the corridors you will get into serious trouble, like some Chinese students and postdocs from the past who were speaking Chinese in the corridors and it created a lot of mistrust and there were very serious complaints" (no-one else has ever heard of these incidents).

Further, he physically intimidated me and barged into my office at one point. The faculty member said he had not done anything inappropriate (again no written evidence of this specifically). In fact he said, it is commendable and shows the teaching faculty member is very socially aware and aware of his white privilege.
I would not have necessarily made an issue out of this again, but I recently received a threatening letter from the dean and this faculty member. This letter warned that I could be "withdrawn" and stated that I wouldn't be allowed to defend a thesis right away. I replied saying "Are you sure you want to take such a tone after the murder of George Floyd?" Their reply was: "If you keep speaking like this, we will 'withdraw' you."
How should I proceed after these incidents? I'm particularly interested in legal recourse (though the incidents mentioned may be hard to prove in a court of law, although I have these written emails from our faculty member).

There's a lot to parse here, particularly in the lengthy comments section.  The way I see it is you've got two options:

Go outside of the department for help
Avoid these conflicts and finish

It seems apparent that the department is not going to help you through this, since you mention both the Dean and the department chair being involved negatively.  If you opt for number one, you should look for school-wide resources, similar to Title IX coordinators for gender issues.  I'm not aware of this being standardized, so you should look through your university's resources.
I think whether you go with option 1 probably depends on how close you are to finishing.  If you're close, and you've been able to work successfully with your advisor, is it possible to minimize, or even cut, all contact with the rest of the department, and just get your degree?  It's hard to swallow injustice, but from a utilitarian point of view, there may not be much to gain by fighting with the people in charge of the department you're in.  Letting bullying by fellow PhD students go unanswered by simply avoiding them galls me, even, and I'm the one giving the advice!  But you should at least weigh the option when considering what's best for you; fighting racism in your department, or escaping with your PhD.
Of course if you're not close to finishing, option two becomes far less viable.  I'm sorry you're in such a toxic environment, and I hope you can finish your degree successfully despite it.  Perhaps some combination of 1 and 2 is possible - it seems sensible to immediately begin avoiding the sources of conflict in your department, even if you do opt to challenge their behavior at a higher level.


External collaboration without doctoral supervisor - is it a fair request to pursue this? I am about two-thirds of the way through my doctoral programme, and am intending to start applying for post-doctoral fellowships within the next few months.

I am fortunate to have already published a first-author publication with my supervisor, and have another under review. I have also brought projects to my supervisor that we are currently undertaking, but will not form part of my thesis.

I wanted to ask for your advice/thoughts on an issue. I have been approached directly by an academic that I greatly respect and have not previously worked with to undertake an analysis on the understanding that I would be first author on a write-up and they would take the last author. While I have a great relationship with my current supervisor, I am keen to try and publish an article without any of my existing/previous collaborators. My reasoning for this is that such a collaboration would enable me to clearly demonstrate my independence as a researcher and my ability to collaborate in any future fellowship applications (or other postdoctoral applications, for that matter).

I wanted to ask you all whether you feel that it is a fair request of my current supervisor that I pursue this external collaboration without them?

Many thanks for any advice you can provide.

Your advisor doesn't own you, so yes, in general you can pursue other research collaborations.

However, there are situations in which the answer would be otherwise. If you are in a lab science (or similar) in which you are depended on and this would interfere with the work of others, then you have to cover your obligations.

Since you mention funding as a tag, it may be that you have a grant that requires full time attention to the work of that grant. That might make it more complicated.

The personality of the advisor might make it inadvisable to do this prior to finishing your degree. It wouldn't be right to forbid you to do this, but it could happen.