Should I send a "cease-and-desist" letter to ResearchGate? ResearchGate is pretty well placed on Google. But it does not have a lot of contents or active users, despite their constant invitation spam.
So they spidered a lot of publications, and provide some metadata on publications and authors on their web page, even when you do not join.

Given the amount of spam I receive from them, I'm considering to file a cease-and-desist letter, disallowing them to use my name or work for advertising their service and for encouraging users to join their site, and instead display a clear statement that I am not a member and disable search indexing for these pages.

Currently, ResearchGate has a pretty bad reputation, see e.g.
ResearchGate: an asset or a waste of time?
as well as the Wikipedia article.

I'm really annoyed by them:

They have a fake profile page with my name, affiliation, co-authors, publications, and a big "sign up" button; that does not state that I am not a member, as if they could contact me this way.
They publish incomplete numbers of citations and impact, which one may consider to give me a bad reputation on their site. (I don't care, but this may be a legal point to make?)
They have information pages of many of my articles, with a big "request full-text" button, which will not work, as I am not a member and do not get contact information.
They use a proxy redirector to have their website show up first in Google search results, even when the actual contents are only available on a different website,

Do you think that it is detrimental for my career to have such contents removed (by sending a C&D letter to them), or do you think they will ultimately manage to become a useful platform, and then it would be better to not have my data removed? Even with a C&D, I could probably retract it at some point and join. After all, the real contents are available on my homepage and Google Scholar; and these are the locations I want to show up first (fortunately, most of the time, they do).

I am a law professor, and I am equally pissed with research gate.

It would be unwise and inappropriate to give you specific advice about your own situation: this would likely constitute the unauthorized practice of law; for actual legal advice about the claims and defenses and legal strategies that apply to your situation, consult a competent lawyer admitted to the bar in your jurisdiction.  I will recount my own experiences below by way of generally informing the world what one person's approach is to one specific situation (i.e., mine).

That being said, here's how I've dealt with Research Gate.  They committed four serious affronts against me:

Fraudulently inducing me to sign up for the site by sending invitations claiming to be from my coauthors,
Forging my name on e-mails to other people claiming that I invited them to sign up to the site
Posting a draft of a paper of mine without permission, and
Maintaining a profile of me on the site without permission. (This one, as others have noted, may not be illegal---I am not sure---though it is certainly offensive in context, and to the extent it involved misleading attributions of endorsement may be illegal.)

In response, after learning about 1, 2, and 4, I sent their customer service people a nastygram over e-mail demanding the forged emails stop and be unsubscribed. They sent me some useless response claiming I could unsubscribe.  I thought nothing more of it, but continued to hear of forged emails.

I then discovered 3 via a google scholar alert and really blew my stack.  So I contacted their general counsel, also listed as their contact for DMCA takedown notices and send them a DMCA takedown combined with an incredibly nasty cease and desist letter.

Their general counsel promptly replied and informed me that he'd taken down the paper referenced in #3 above.  I haven't verified that this is true, or checked on any of the other ongoing acts of wrongdoing (the serial email forgery etc).  I have some hopes that this will work, however, I am prepared to file suit against them on my own behalf should it not.

What can others learn from my experience?  It's not clear yet.  I am of the opinion that this company operates by massive fraud and needs to be put down, but if my attempt to menace them into acting a little more law-abiding at least with respect to me succeeds, it may only be because I'm a law professor and they know that it would not be hard for me to drag them to account.

Of the various wrongs they inflict on the world, the posting of unauthorized copies of papers is the easiest to stop---the DMCA is a blunt instrument, and, moreover, the publishers also have an incentive to put a stop to this.  The next time I see a paper of mine on their site, I may not even going to bother with doing my own DMCA, instead just turning it over to the publisher.

The rest?  As I said, for myself personally, if the forged emails don't stop I may go looking for a class action plaintiff's lawyer, or just file seeking an injunction myself.

But otherwise, the best choice may be prevention.  Don't sign up for their site.  Tell your friends not to sign up for their site.  Let people know if emails inviting them to do things on that site show up under their name.  Publicize their practices so that others stay away from them.  Starve the beast.


Relation between a recommender and a PhD applicant Online PhD application systems usually ask for relation between the recommender and the applicant.

The applicant was in a PhD program and the recommender was a professor in the department. The applicant approached him for some research opportunities at first, and later did some research in one of the recommender's projects, directly mentored by an assistant research professor. There was no formal title of "research adviser" for the recommender to the applicant, or for the research assistant professor to the applicant, as the student was still in the process of finalizing research direction and adviser. The student then didn't finish the PhD, and later applied to PhD programs in other universities.

Can the relation between the recommender and the applicant be "research adviser" in PhD application? What is best to describe that relation?
By the way, the recommender was also an instructor to the applicant in some courses. But a relation besides "instructor" was preferred, if possible.

You may consider two roles for the students in previous institute; one as a PhD student looking for topic and the other is a short-term research collaborator. As the recommender was not engaged in your PhD job, he cannot be PhD advisor.

However, since the recommender was primary investigator (or head) of the project student worked in, the relationship is research collaborator or more focused, primary investigator in a collaborative research. Your output of the collaborative research with him as technical report, conference paper, or journal article would prove the relationship.

But I think student needs to convince the new graduate school that why did he fail/dismiss previous PhD.


Uploading supplementary material to figshare. How to refer to it before making it visible to the public? My problem is the following: We want to upload supplementary material for bookchapters I'm editing. We have decided to use figshare.com for this. One advantage is that they supply all material with a DOI. But (as far as I understand) they do only so when material is made available for the public, not for private data.

Now, it would be a little strange to make supplementary material available a long time before publication (possibly more than a year).

How may I obtain a permanent reference (doi, link, etc) to the supplementary material which I can add to the respective bookchapter already without making said supplements visible to the public?

And if this is not possible, what would be a workaround? Make it public just shortly before handing in the edited volume to our publisher (this would still be months before the publication date)? Just refer to the account (not a single file) on figshare the material will be hosted on? Include a placeholder DOI within the chapter and include it after we received page proofs from the publisher? Just publish the supplementary material already because nobody cares?

At the bottom of the Edit Item screen is an option to create a private link. There's more info about private links on their blog.

For peer review, the private link feature has the added advantage that it hides the author information.


How to ask dumb questions I am having trouble asking questions in seminars, conferences, and public talks.

As a graduate math student I often fail to keep up with speaker and more mature members of the audience at events like seminars and conferences. It is very frustrating to lose track of the talk simply because I am not familiar with one key theorem/definition referenced by the speaker.

On the one hand, many people encourage me to raise my hand whenever something is unclear, motivating it by "no such thing as a stupid question" quote.
On the other, very often I observe people being annoyed by a student asking an "obvious/elementary" question and wasting everyone else's time.

I have seen several related posts on this website, most of which are asked on behalf of the speaker.
However, my question comes for the opposite side of the barricades.
I want to know how to find balance between not annoying the speaker and the audience too much on the one hand, and catching up with the talk on the other hand.

More formally, my questions are:

Are there any (semi-, non-) official recommendations on professional etiquette for mathematicians?
I understand that every situation is unique and highly subjective. However, I would be glad if someone gave me advice on when to ask, how to ask, and what to ask at research talks.
How can I tell if my question is "dumb" (i.e. the answer is well-known or searchable), or if it addresses legitimate ambiguity?

In particular, how can I quickly determine whether a definition/theorem/lemma mentioned by speaker is a part of common knowledge?

All relevant links or examples are appreciated.

Keep asking the dumb questions! It is better to look like a fool, than to be one.

You worry that many speakers are annoyed at the `elementary' questions. Some speakers do it because they are stressed about public talking, and any question upsets them. For some, communication of mathematics is not the aim of the talk; they give it because it is a condition of travelling to the venue, or simply because everyone else gives the talks. Instead of feeling joy at an opportunity to clear the confusion, they might get annoyed at having to do the extra work of explaining some of the background. The annoyance has no long-term effect --- nobody holds grudges for asking dumb questions. To give up actually understanding math for such a petty reason is just not worth it.

There is only one situation in which you should refrain from asking a question. That is when you are representative neither of the actual audience nor of the intended audience. So, if you are graduate student at your department's colloquium, it is OK to ask anything. If you are a graduate student at a seminar in your field, it is OK to ask anything. If you are at a seminar in another field, and there are several other students in your field in the room, again it is OK to ask anything. Only if you a lone outsider at a seminar or a conference that is not in your field, there is a reason not to ask questions.


Do peer reviewers generally care about alphabetical order of variables in a paper? I am wondering if some peer reviewers may nitpick about the choice of variables in a math-heavy paper, namely whether they follow alphabetical order throughout the succession of the presentation of concepts. For example, variable N may be defined, variable K may be subsequently defined in a way that depends on N, and finally variable A may represent a final result based on an operation. Could a very particular peer reviewer suggest a revision or rejection simply based on the naming of variables in this way? has anyone ever experienced this or similar?

Let a be the number of math-heavy papers I have read that use an alphabetical order to introduce all their variables.  Let b be the total number of math-heavy papers I have read.  Let c = b - a be the number of math-heavy papers I have read that did not use said ordering.  Then c = b.


Will I be regarded as academic dishonest if I submit one paper to a conference as well as a journal? I finished and submitted one paper (journal version) several months ago. My mentor suggested to me to submit a shortened version of the original paper to a conference. The conference version is almost the same as the journal version, except that some detailed mathematical proofs are omitted. But we cross-cited these two papers and told the reviewers of the conference paper that the journal version was under review.

Now both the journal and the conference have accepted my paper. I wonder whether there will be any problem if I choose to publish these two papers in a journal and a conference at the same time.

Furthermore, now I am applying for a PhD degree. If I list these two papers on my resume, will I be regarded as academic dishonest and be rejected?

The issue of duplicate publication concerning conference and journal versions of similar papers is a difficult one. What is acceptable to do and what not depends highly on the field and maybe even individual venues. Of course it also depends on the degree of overlap between the two papers.

Whenever you plan to reuse some content in another publication, be sure to make the duplicate publication transparent by stating the other paper in the cover letter, and citing it from within the paper. In general, it will be required that the later paper goes beyond the results of the first paper, and it is important to point out how it does that both in the cover letter and the paper itself.

In your case, from the conference's side it's probably fine since you informed the reviewers about the duplicate publication and they obviously had no objections. However, since the journal paper was not yet accepted, you should have at least checked their guidelines on duplicate publication, or better verify with your handling editor that it is fine to submit a shortened conference version. Maybe you can still do that now, and offer the journal editor to withdraw your conference paper if the duplicate publication in that case is against their guidelines.


Can I study textbooks with exclusive rights and teach in India? Assume a textbook T having a high cost. And T is not available anywhere for free.

Suppose I personally brought T and read and understood completely.

Am I allowed to teach using it in India? Teaching here refers to either classroom teaching, being a faculty or commercial teaching, acknowledging source.

I can't speak to what would be allowed or not in India, but consider this: is it good for the students if the textbook is really expensive?

Are the students supposed to read the textbook themselves? If it's really expensive then you can get the following problems:

They don't use the book because they can't afford it.
They use a pirated version of the book.
They spend a lot of money on a book and get into financial difficulty.
Only rich students can take your class.
They complain about the lecturer who insists on using an expensive textbook.
They use a different textbook that they can afford, and you have to deal with the differences that will surely arise.


Being incorrectly assigned as a thesis reviewer? I am 3rd year PhD student now. Today I was approached by a master student from my lab asking me to be his external reviewer. There are several things that bother me in that situation:

To my great surprise, education department did not object when he filled my name into 'external reviewer' field in his form about a month ago. My personal suggestion is that they did not check that I'm from the same lab.
I was acknowledged of that situation just now, not when he filled the form.
His defense is within a week, so I'm not sure if he will be able to defend without external review.
I actually helped him with advises being unaware of my role as external reviewer.

Q1: Would it be considered as an academical dishonesty if I write my review for his work as external reviewer?

Q2: How should I approach that ugly situation?

P.S.
I am not inclined at all to ruin his last two years of study, but even if I make a review of his work, it will definitely not be good.

Edit:
The formulation of who can be an external reviewer from education department is extremely vague:

  The External Reviewer can be appointed from among Faculty or Researchers of /university name/ outside of the Students’ Educational Program.
  The Reviewers can also be expert representatives of other higher education organizations or employees of other organizations from the professional sphere corresponding to the topic of the Thesis.

You have a conflict of interest which is NOT your fault: declare it officially

You have been nominated for a duty in respect of which there is a conflict of interest of which the persons responsible for ratifying your nomination for said duty may be unaware. Given that you did not consent to the nomination, this is not your fault, but you have an ethical obligation to declare the conflict of interest officially and in writing. Once the conflict of interest has been declared and recorded officially, responsibility for adjudicating the appropriateness of your nomination rests with the persons responsible for ratifying your nomination.

Whether the conflict of interest is acceptable depends on local regulations and custom, but what you describe strikes me as problematic enough to disqualify you from being an external reviewer. But, based on how you describe things, the situation is not your fault. The professional response is to raise the issues with the person responsible for organising the review/examination/defence. I will address your four numbered points individually.

Re §1: being "from the same lab" strikes me as failing to meet the criterion of being "outside of the Students’ Educational Program" (but maybe the institution has a different interpretation? To be honest, I find their definition already very lax, since I would consider "external" to mean "not working at the same institution").
Re §2: in many places, the custom is for the external examiner/reviewer to be approached prior to being nominated, but this is not universal; at the same time, unless there is something in your contract about taking-up examining duties of this sort whenever requested, you should feel free to refuse.
Re §3: the short notice is not your problem, so you should feel free to refuse on that basis alone.
Re §4: this is the most serious issue, but it is not your fault, so you should be completely open about it.

Your questions

Q1: I would consider it dishonest if a reviewer/examiner failed to declare a conflict of interest, which is to what the problems you describe amount.

Q2: Contact the relevant office/convenor/official, and disclose the conflict of interest in writing. Explain that you did not agree to be nominated for the role of external assessor duty. Then:

option A (ask either to be excused or for confirmation to proceed)

Ask the office/convenor/official either

to excuse you from the assessment duty (this is the professional course of action if a conflict of interest is deemed unacceptable) or
confirm in writing that you can undertake the assessment duty despite your conflict of interest (if this happens, keep the relevant letter/message, and bring it to the defence -- that way, if you are challenged about acting as external assessor, you can show the letter/message and thus not be blamed for the situation).

option B (say you are excusing yourself on the grounds of conflict of interest)

If you feel strongly that the conflict of interest is unacceptable, you can, alternatively, simply notify the office/convenor/official that you refuse to act as external reviewer due to the conflict of interest. It is perfectly reasonable and professional to say this, unless you have misunderstood the nature of the role.

option C (say you cannot do it in the timeframe)

If you feel the institution does not take conflicts of interest seriously, you may wish to refuse due to the short notice of the examining engagement.

Finally

Do not keep quiet about the conflict of interest out of some desire to protect the Master's student. He/she may have acted inappropriately by nominating you; if so. it would be far better for him/her if this mistake is rectified before the defence, not after.

If you keep quiet and somebody else discovers this conflict of interest, it could have serious ramifications for the Master's student and you may be regarded as having behaved unprofessionally or even unethically. If, on the other hand, you declare the conflict of interest officially, then any blowback would be to the person/official who permitted you to serve as external assessor despite being told about the conflict of interest (because, when questioned about it, you would say, "yes, of course I was aware of the conflict of interest, and declared it accordingly to the dean and the rest of the panel; as you can see from this message dated ___, the dean confirmed that I can still act as external assessor; I was a bit uneasy about it, but I was not about to argue with the dean").


How important are GRE analytical writing scores for graduate admission in STEM fields? What is the importance of scores in Analytical Writing section of GRE for graduated admission in STEM fields?

Does a score below 3 means that the applicant will be rejected by all good schools?

Poor GRE scores are a warning sign, not a stop sign, in most graduate admissions. Essentially, the GRE is only a weak predictor of ability to do graduate-level research, and therefore doesn't get all that much weight, at least in the STEM fields.
Now, that said, you don't want to have a 1 out of 6, either. But there are often mitigating factors with respect to the writing section. Given that you have questions like this one:

Some people believe that government funding of the arts is necessary to ensure that the arts can flourish and be available to all people. Others believe that government funding of the arts threatens the integrity of the arts.
Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.

I would argue that the writing section is a test that reveals more about the capabilities of students in the humanities than it does students in STEM fields. So do the best that you can, and don't worry too much about this writing sample.
It's much more important to worry about the research statement you send to graduate schools!


Finding an advisor without enrolling into a university I want to break into academia by becoming a PhD student of computer science. However, I need publications and letters of recommendation in order to strengthen my application. The ordinary way of doing this, as I understand it, is to become a masters student and publish in the course of earning that degree.
That seems wasteful to me. I've taken graduate level courses. I can write a proof. I know my way around the pumping lemmas. I have read higher level papers and texts on my own.
Having an advisor or mentor would help, though. I don't know what's a reasonable problem to study, and publication has some arcane processes that an advisor might help me to understand.
How do I go about contacting a potential advisor? Is this even a reasonable course of action?

First of all, I wouldn't seek an advisor. Under your circumstances, you shouldn't expect a professor to assume any sort of responsibility for you. That said, you might be able to find someone who is willing to help you. Here are two ideas:

Find a graduate course that you are interested in, and ask the professor if you can sit in on it. The professor might well say no, but they might say yes. If they say yes, then work hard, do all the homework and do it well, and ask good questions. When I was applying to graduate school, I was very fortunate to have a professor who was willing to do this for me.

Attend a scientific conference. Go to talks, and talk to people afterwards. Ask questions. If you have an idea for how to make progress on a question of interest to one of the speakers, you may be able to strike up a collaboration.

In either case, you could ask for a rec letter later.
Finally, at least in the US, it's common to apply to PhD programs with only an undergraduate degree in the same field, and to get letters of recommendation from your undergrad professors. So, if you recently completed an undergrad program in CS, and you made a strong impression on your professors, then you might try simply applying to PhD programs now.


How to deal with working papers when quoting? I am a doctoral student and therefore have only little experience in publishing.
Now I ask myself how I should deal with working papers of other researchers in my articles.
I have read some interesting working papers and would like to quote them in my article. However, I am not sure if I should do so. Since these working papers have never been published and reviewed in a journal, I do not know if citing them is useful or even allowed.
On the other hand there are interesting results in these articles, which I would like to mention.
So I would like to ask how I can best deal with working papers when citing.
Can I easily include and quote them in my text?
Or should I better not do so, because I would like to submit my own article later in a respected journal?

You can cite any manuscript, public or private, be it a work-in-progress, technical report, or  peer-reviewed publication. Relevant results should be cited and, when building upon them, they must be.


I feel like I got screwed over by my PI? No name on publication I am an undergraduate student working under a PI in a research laboratory. My PI pushed out a paper very recently, and I was not mentioned as an author. My PI did not even notify me that he was going to publish this paper. I can comfortably say, without inflating, that I did roughly 1/6 - 1/5 of the work. 3 out of the 8 figures (quantitative figures, not just bar charts slapped in Excel) in the paper were created by me for past posters at conferences, including code I have written to do some analysis that was used as a tertiary argument/talking point in the discussions section. My PI is not very quantitative, and being a qualitative field of study, I felt like a gem asset as someone who is heavy into maths and code.

When I approached my PI, he said he felt like my work was minimal (!!!) and he would put me on the next paper, seemingly brushing me off in the process....

I understand as an undergraduate I should be appreciative of this opportunity to be in a lab in the first place, but I think it's more than fair to get credit for substance that went directly into a paper.

What can I do?

I will be applying to graduate school soon and I don't want to jump labs as looking inconsistent. This is a topic I'm interested in. I feel like I'm stuck, though.

I'll follow up on my comment, as none of the answers go in this direction, and I don't think you're getting the greatest advice.

  While I have no way of knowing whether this applies to you or not,
  making figures and such might not reach the intellectual contribution
  necessary to be counted as an author. This is why Acknowledgement
  sections exist. Before deciding on how to respond, think about what
  your scientific contribution was.

You may or may not have made a contribution that merits inclusion as an author.  Some labs/PI's are very generous about this, and some are not, but if your work was purely "technical", my own inclination would be to offer Acknowledgement and not authorship.

Generating figures:  scientific illustrators do this every day as a living (less so these days, but they're still around) and don't get authorship.  Photographers too.

Writing code:  this is a little less clear, and probably depends on direct contribution to algorithms.  If you are, for example, writing code that takes the mean and standard deviation and spits them out in a readable format, that's technical.  If you HAD TO UNDERSTAND THE SCIENCE in the paper to write the code, that would push me toward authorship.  If I could hire a contractor who knew nothing of the research to do it, I'd lean toward acknowledgement.

There's a disconnect here between the your perception of the contribution you're making and your PI's perception.  Just because he feels that your scientific contribution was "minimal", that does not mean he doesn't believe your work is valuable.

You might sit down with him and ask if there's any way you can make deeper contributions to his body of work, or if there's a small project you can really make your own.  Another option would be to use the experience you've gained there to apply for summer research opportunities (depending on what year you're in).

Of course, there are curmudgeons who just won't believe that an undergrad can make author-level contributions regardless of the contribution made, and that's unacceptable.  As I said before, from your description I have no way of telling whether you're dealing with someone in this category, or whether your contributions were of a basic technical level that arguably don't merit authorship.

I can say that many moons ago, as an undergrad, I was doing single-unit neural recordings in spinal cords (running electrodes up and down, listening for neural activity), and building electronic lab apparatus that helped with the experiments, and doing histology.  Some of the rasters I generated were used directly in publications.  I didn't consider that authorship level work then, and I still don't, as any technician could have done it, but it was certainly a valuable experience that helped launch my career.  Now, almost 30 years later, I'm still in touch with the PI of the lab (I was working for his postdoc), and he's been a wonderful advocate of mine throughout my career.

Your PI's recommendation, at this point, should be treated as a valuable commodity, and if you negotiate this disconnect with maturity, that letter will be even better.  Also, the experience you gain now will give you something real to talk about during interviews, which is also incredibly valuable.

Directly relevent: What are the minimum contributions required for co-authorship

http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html


How do I cite an equation that has a typo in the source? I want to cite an equation in my thesis that has a minor typo in the cited source (the wrong letter is used for an index). How should I do that? Can I simply correct the typo in my paper without commenting on it, or should I indicate somehow that the equation has been altered? I’m supposed to use APA style.

You should indicate what the typo was and that you corrected it. This will prevent your readers getting confused if/when they look up the reference, and related annoyances (e.g., the referee accusing you of making an error, your professor giving you a bad grade, or people generally just thinking you are sloppy). Noting the correction will also create a historical record of the typo, which could be useful for other researchers working on the same topic in the future.
Related discussion for a non-mathematical correction: Quoting a typo: Do I really have to do "sic", or can I just fix the sentence?


How often do Master's programs accept applicants with online Bachelor's degrees? I'm looking to embark on an online Bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics in the coming year with the intent of doing a Master's degree in either the US or UK afterward.

However, after doing some research, I'm a bit skeptical about the odds of getting accepted into a Master's program with an online Bachelor's degree.  Most of the figures I saw while researching is 5% US schools.

Questions:

Is it true that Master's programs in the US/UK accept only about 5% of applicants with an online Bachelor's degree?
Are there any authoritative sources that can confirm the acceptance rate figures?

Regarding question 2, the United States government does not track graduate admissions rates, but test preparation companies and academic communities may conduct surveys that give you a good sense. See the answer for Where to find grad school acceptance rates?  Some programs offering online undergraduate degrees might poll their students to learn the graduate admissions rates, but it might be hard to verify those numbers.

I would suggest that "students who have online degrees" is not the most helpful classification to use in determining your chances, because it is a large and varied group. The (U.S.) National Center for Education Statistics presents some data on how many students are taking online classes in American institutions. The takeaways are that online enrollment numbers are growing, that most students do not pursue 100% online programs, that different kinds of schools offer this (public, private non-profit, and private for-profit), and that the students who take online classes are more likely to be "non-traditional" (based on age and employment). Not all online programs are equal.

Instead, I would suggest you look carefully at the school offering the online degree. What is its reputation, is it accredited, how is it ranked in U.S. News & World Report (or international counterparts), what job/grad admissions resources does the college offer to its current students, and what does the school website say about where its students end up? Also find out whether the people teaching classes have advanced degrees, and take a skeptical look at how much contact you will have with professors during your online study. (Talking with classmates, instructors, and professors helps you learn, and it gives professors the chance to understand your goals and provide advice and potentially later a recommendation.)

Good luck with your studies and decisions!


First author doesn't want a co-author to read the whole paper First author is a PhD student, as am I. All of the other co-authors are our supervisors. The first author doesn't want me to read the paper, because we are both PhD students and I might plagiarize (?!) her work. Can I report this person for unprofessional conduct to the University committee? Or how should I behave?

More details/Update: My supervisors are having huge issues with this student also because now she doesn't want them as co-authors of other chapters of her PhD. As for me, the supervisors sent me a copy of the manuscript so that I could read it, but she discovered it and overreacted. She submitted that paper to a good journal but didn't keep me in the loop so I had no idea about the reviews until our supervisors told me (again against her will). Now, she doesn't want to acknowledge my contribution for another paper. Because of this latter my supervisors and I decided to collect evidence of her unprofessional conduct in the present and in the past.

There is a golden standard (codified in the Vancouver Recommendations on authorship) that every author individually vouches for the correctness of the entire paper. In other words, you can't ask a co-author to only read and write part of the paper, because they need the whole paper to vouch for its correctness. They wouldn't satisfy the criteria to be allowed to be authors. It also suggests a broken collaboration culture if there isn't even enough trust among co-authors to let each other read everything that's happening in a collaboration.

But beyond that, the idea to not let the co-authors read parts of the paper just doesn't make any sense: A paper is intended to be published, at which point it becomes available to everyone, not just the co-authors.


Online vs hard copy, which texts are students more likely to read? I am wondering if anyone knows of any studies that indicate whether students read online texts more or less than hard copy texts.

I am in the midst of trying to "reboot" the intro stats class I teach and a big question in my mind is how effective the text is. Active learning (like the flipped classroom) requires the students read the material beforehand, and I'm not convinced (from the results I saw this year using a Pearson Learning Management System (LMS)) that the students are reading the online text very much.

I have a suspicion that students read the online texts less (and I plan to give my students a survey to check) but I'd like to know if there is any research supporting my limited observations.

This recent literature review goes over some of the research on print versus screen reading.

It looks like in real-world situations there are no significant differences in grades between e-textbooks and print textbooks even though some laboratory studies show that content reading works better from print and that some students tend to prefer print.

In contrast, course reserve books are more likely to be accessed if they're e-books rather than print books.

Practically, it may be worthwhile to give students a "tour" of the ebook to make sure they know how to use it, and/or to design quizzes or activities that require students to know/use the textbook material.


Can a paper be rejected because another paper (by someone else) based on its arXiv preprint extends the result? Suppose that I put a paper to Arxiv and submit to a journal at the same time. Someone extends my result and clearly cites my paper. This is totally fine. They submit it to a journal. For whatever reason in the review process, their paper is published before mine is accepted. Do I now have to worry that the referee will reject my paper on the grounds that a better result exists, even though they acknowledge that they get the idea from my result?

On the one hand, referees can reject your paper for all sorts of foolish reasons. I would not if I were refereeing, but that means nothing for some random person with an axe to grind.
I wouldn't worry about this scenario too much though, because it would require some relatively extreme timing to happen.

On the other hand, even if it did happen, if people are citing you and you are having an impact, is it really that much of a problem if the paper is "just" in arXiv? Only the most blind and foolish Impact Factor junkies would hold the lack of brand name against you. Also, you will write many papers in your career, and I would be startled if such a situation happened more than once.


Why do some admissions applications ask where I've been living and what I've been doing for the last few years? What are the intention of the question ?

US state universities frequently charge lower tuition to in-state residents. The form states that if you do not fill in all the information requested, you will be classified as a non-resident and be charged the higher rate. Check the U of Utah's tuition system here.


Advice for teaching older "non-traditional" undergraduate students I will be teaching a class in my university's evening degree program. The students are undergraduates but are what I've heard referred to as "non-traditional" students. Basically, the students are all older than the 18-22 year range common in undergraduate programs and most of them have full time jobs. I have taught older students before, but only in the context of masters programs targeted mostly at students with professional experience (e.g., a part-time executive MBA program).

I'm looking for advice, or links to resources with advice that you have found useful, on teaching older working students. In particular, I am interested in techniques, approaches, or things to keep in mind that are different from teaching (a) traditional undergraduate students (i.e., ~18-22 year-old) students and (b) working professional master students.

In my experience, you will find four things happen to various degrees. One is, non-traditional students are less distracted by issues that we know overwhelm the minds of 18-22 year olds. This means, they can bring more focus to their studies. The second thing is, non-traditional students are less inclined to believe they are entitled to something easy from you with no responsibility from them. This means, they can bring a stronger sense of mutual respect to the class room. The third thing is, non-traditional students have some lag or lack of knowledge in pre-requisite information for the course. This means, you may have to spend time to help them remember the missing background information. Finally, non-traditional students are more involved in higher-level and higher-intensity demands in their lives. This means, they can have less time to study during your course as though that responsibility is supposed to be ingrained in their full-time career path for the coming semester.

You might plan in general how to balance these changes during your course presentation and curriculum development. Then, consider how, because you know these changes are coming, you will make specific changes in such things as the pace of your lecture presentations, the number of or time scales of your assignments, and the options you will offer for off-line tutoring.

Overall, teaching non-traditional students is a different experience that can end up being a far more rewarding one than teaching traditional students.

Best regards, and have fun!


Is it normal for an instructor to charge students to complete copyrighted homework? I have a class in a US university that is using a 3rd-party site to charge students a fee to access some of the homework essential to the course. One of the instructors (not mine) holds the copyright to these required Excel spreadsheets, and so every student is being assessed a small fee in order to complete their homework.

With online classes using an ebook publisher's website, paying to be able to do homework is common practice. But that fee is usually assessed and disclosed as part of the textbook/ebook access fee. For this course, we are already paying such a fee for the ebook publisher's website.

Is it normal (or generally acceptable) for an instructor to create a privately-owned website in order to collect "copyright fees" from students because that instructor created original homework files? Is it normal for instructors to require students to pay to use intangible, intellectual property? Or, failing being a regular occurrence, does it at least happen with a high enough frequency to be a noticed, if not often used, practice?

We are explicitly being told the charge is for the use of the copyrighted materials and is a copyright fee, rather than a licensing or maintenance fee. I've never come across this or even heard of it being done before, so I call on the experience of those more grounded in academic norms.

This isn't a matter of purchasing supplies or textbook fees, as those are already assessed by the University or comply with University policy. The nature of the assignment and materials is also not so complex or technically difficult that assignments, or reasonable alternatives, could not be provided using existing University resources.

While I greatly appreciate the input of the SE community, I know that I also have ways to investigate this at my specific institution and am not using SE as a substitute for doing my own due diligence.

I think that, at best, there is a conflict of interest for an instructor to force students to use a web service that charges money of which s/he gets a cut.

That said, are you sure that that's how it is? For textbooks -- where the same conflict of interest exists -- it is common practice at many universities that if a professor uses her own textbook for a class, that that part of the royalties that the professor receives through his own students' purchases actually goes into a university fund outside the professor's control. The same may in fact be the case at your university -- the professor may simply never have talked about the details in class.


How can I tailor my faculty application to maximize my chances at a liberal arts college? I graduated in 2007 with a mathematics degree and have since had multiple postdocs at R1 universities. While I have definitely enjoyed my experiences as a researcher, I am very interested in pursuing a career teaching at a small liberal arts institution.

So, my question is how to present my research-heavy resume in a way that is palatable to a college which may be wary of my credentials? Is it advisable to drop "invited talks/conferences" from my CV? Do I select only my favorite publications to include?

Also, I understand that it is inappropriate to give an overly detailed research statement. However, as a representation theorist, I think it is to my advantage that my research draws on a lot of different fields. Is it better to explain the broader relevance of my research, or do I ignore that in favor of what I can teach undergraduates to program on a computer? Does it make sense to write separate statements?

I wouldn't drop anything from your CV.  I might shift things around so that the "List of Courses Taught" (or that you could teach) is on page 1 or 2. Teachings awards and anything similar also up front.

The cover letter is key. Your research accomplishments should be one paragraph while discussion of your love of math, the fantastic students you interacted with at one of your postdocs, the courses you would like to teach at X, and your teaching style should be at least 2-3 paragraphs.  One thing that I did when I was applying to SLACs was to have a list of my courses in my cover letter followed by a very small print (all course syllabi listed here are available on my website: www.example.com).

And of course you should also include a separate teaching statement if they require one -- or even hint of wanting one.


Are papers presented special sessions regarded inferior? I am doing my PHD in computer-engineering (1st year), and am publishing at computer science and hardware conferences.
My department receives requests all the time, on confernces with high probability of acceptance. (Usually there are too few submissions, so they request for more) These conferences are prestigious, however the sessions, I participate are very specific to a certain project or topic.

There is a lot of progress on my research, but since I am publishing a lot, it is dilluted into more publications.
Can this later hurt my reputation, if I publish extensively on these sessions?

Is this a co-located conference/workshop? Based on what I've been told by my adviser/post-docs (I'm also first-year CPE PhD), these types of places aren't where you want the bulk of your research going. You're better off aiming for a higher quality paper at the main conference - it looks better on a CV, and it's far more prestigious.


Is unpublished paper necessarily bad? I am implementing a method from a research paper that was not published in any famous journal and authors didnt state them on their online research profiles. During my assessment, i gained opinion that the method itself is very promising and results section shows good results. I am interested in some opinions on the papers like these. Why is it not published in any famous journals, and was not cited by any other paper?

Unpublished papers are not necessarily bad ones.

How can it happen that good papers remain unpublished? Good papers (or papers with good ideas/methods…) get rejected quite frequently. Reasons may be that the authors targeted the wrong audience or journal, or failed to get their main points across. Sometimes this also happens after a first improvement and second submission and then the "papers-get-old" effect kicks in: Some journals don't want to publish papers for which a two year old preprint exists (have read this from an editor).

Even if the paper is rejected only once, it may happen that the main author has left academia and can't/won't work on a revision and resubmission (and remaining coauthors lack some expertise or time). Even simpler: The authors do not care that much about publication of this specific paper anymore as other research projects got more interesting meanwhile.


Is it a good idea to spend one year on a pre-PhD diploma to learn advance research methods? I am recently graduated with a degree of MS in Physics. I am very interested in condensed matter physics, that is why I chose a topic from this field for my MS thesis. But it was very hard for me to complete this thesis because I have not taken any advance course about condensed matter physics. I had to learn many theories by myself.

I am aiming to find a PhD position in Europe, and as you know in Europe, there is no course work in PhD program. So, before going for a PhD level research project, I want to attend a pre-PhD diploma in which research level courses of condensed matter physics will be taught.

My question is: is it a good idea to spend one year just to learn advance theories? (I am not in any rush to get a PhD degree).

Also

How should I write a motivation letter for this pre-PhD diploma? I mean everyone applying there would obviously write "I want to learn advance theories". How can my application be different than others?

I'm going to suggest that spending a year would not be a good use of your time. The end-all and be-all of doctoral education isn't the methodology, but using the methodology to do something interesting in your field.

I would answer differently if you thought your background is weak and that you would only be accepted by spending this year, but with an MS that isn't likely true. If it were a matter of a summer spent on methodology then, again, it might be worth it. But a year feels like spinning wheels.

On the other hand, the course you suggest is in your field. If it can also get you closer to the research frontier in that field then it would have value for that, rather than methodology. At some point you need to cross that frontier so you need to approach it somehow.

Of course, this isn't my field, and I don't know how difficult the methodology is, but I suspect that you can muddle through and pick it up - especially knowing that you have a need. It would probably delay your completion less than spending a dedicated year that might not even give you a benefit in your application.


Can I ask for first authorship on future publications that may come out of my design? I am working on a 2-phase design. The first phase is where ideas are proved and verified. The second phase is an implementation of the first stage (Basically, like having a schematic of a building and actually building it). I have done lots of work on the first phase. My supervisor is asking me to give the final work to another person, who we don't yet know who he is, for implementation and work on something else. While my advisor has some contribution, I did almost everything.

Can I ask for first authorship for any papers and publications that come out of this now?

Generally speaking, you cannot "reserve" first authorship on possible papers that may come out of some work that you've done. Depending on the scope of the submission (when it's completed) and who writes/edits the actual text of the paper, you may or may not actually deserve first authorship on it. It would be inappropriate to promise you first authorship on all future papers coming out of the design at this stage.

What you can do is tell your advisor,

  I'd like to start working now on a draft of a paper about my design.

Discuss the planned scope of your submission with your advisor: in particular, whether your paper should include a description of the implementation which has yet to be done, or whether a paper on the design alone is sufficiently publishable. Either way, start working on a draft right away.

Also discuss authorship of the paper you're going to start writing, given the scope the two of you have agreed on for this particular paper, including:

whether you will be first author
whether your advisor will be a co-author
what position the other yet-to-be-named implementer will have (if you decide to include the implementation in the paper)
and what additional contributions are expected from each author in order to merit authorship according to this agreement (both technical, and with respect to writing and editing).

If you discuss this with your advisor, start working on a draft now, write a lot of the text in the submission, and you generally "drive" the project and the paper submission forward, you will (assuming your work meets the standards for first authorship in your field) have a very strong case for first authorship on this paper.

Note that unless you do more work to merit authorship on other, future papers related to your design, they'll only be expected to cite and/or acknowledge your work.


Am I deceiving my former advisor? I did a successfull research project for my studies. My team created a software prototype and a promising evaluation therefore. It has potential for further research and eventually for an industry product.

The idea of the overall prototype is mine, but one core component originally comes from my advisor at that time. However, I reprogrammed it in another programming language and did several improvements on it, but the core algorithm is unchanged.

I eventually have the chance to do more about it, e.g. deliver it as a product to a company or get research fundings or a PhD grant. Therefore, I want to replace all code lines (~150) that I copied from my former advisor with own ones and leave him uninformed about what I am doing. Why?

As I said, the idea for the overall prototype was mine.
During the work with our advisor, I and my colleagues found him to be a difficult person. He has a tense and controlling attitude, which I think is distrustfull.
At the end of our project our team wanted to make our code Open Source. He refused.
He wanted to be informed about everything that I would do about the prototype. Especially, he wanted to have a veto about if regarding further scientific publications can be submitted.

So, things will get complicated if I inform him about my procedure or use his unchanged code.

Do you think this would be correct from an ethical and juristical perspective? What is your personal opinion about my thoughts and behaviour?

Furthermore, do you think my behaviour could have negative consequences for my potential academic career, since my former advisor works at a different chair on the same university? Is it possible, that my former advisor's boss will be notably pissed off by me?

Thanks in advance!

First of all you should inquire with your institution regarding intellectual property. Usually, there are some strict regulations in place. In my institution, for example, whatever is produced by the university's funding or using the university's equipment is at least to some point eligible to be the intellectual property of the university. Honestly, I've never heard of anyone who got into trouble with these regulations, but they're there, and should a feud arise, the institution will have the legal upper hand.

As you see, even if your code contained nothing of someone else's code (or other contributions - source code is not the only thing that makes a project), you could still expect some difficulties.

Further, is the algorithm published, i.e. could I find a paper describing it and reimplement it to make a similar component as your adviser? If so, that puts you in a bit better position to use it without his consent, but I still wouldn't.

However, you still can't sell this product for your own benefit, without getting the consent and including all the parties that made a significant contribution. (Well, you could, of course, but that would be highly unethical and probably illegal) I do not see any obstacles in continuing research on your project, if you find a suitable department and new adviser whose interests happen to coincide with it. You could even find a way to improve you adviser's algorithm.

Finally, I would strongly advise against antagonizing you adviser (whether you are right or not). Remember, that you will need recommendation letters for your PhD studies. You should always try to maintain good relations with ex-collaborators (including your adviser), it's a lot easier to advance you career, if there are people who worked with you and have nice things to say about it, especially at the beginning of your career.

My advice is not to go behind anyone's back in your group. Your ideas are your own and nobody can prevent you from working on them in the future, so you have nothing to lose there. But, you shouldn't rely on those border cases, e.g. "if I took that and modified it slightly, would they still be able to sue me?. Talk to people, if you can't work things out, it is not the end of the world, you'll have to work on it more and come up with your own methods. As a byproduct you also get additional research material which is never a bad thing for a PhD candidate.


Contacted by head of school regarding an issue - should I be worried? I am a PhD student at a UK university. A small part of my time is taken up by (voluntarily) organizing a monthly seminar series. The seminar is open to all PhD students in my school, and is regularly attended by 30 or so students. I took over this duty in January 2018, before which time there were other student organizers.

Whilst I am an organizer (along with two others) of this seminar, all decisions that we take are checked with a particular senior member of staff - who I will refer to as Prof X. It could be said that Prof X is our organizational "supervisor". They check our posters advertising each seminar, our emails, etc. Very little happens without Prof X's knowledge, if not expressed permission.

As part of the seminar, due to the time of day and its duration, we order a certain amount of pizza to have in a break between talks. The money for this comes out of a particular part of the school's budget. We have always done this, as did the previous organizers. We have never discussed our budget for this pizza, or how much we "can" order. We have always presumed we are within budget, and had no reason to think otherwise. We consider that the amount that we order is entirely reasonable for the number of participants.

I received a surprising email today from my head of school - who I will refer to as Prof Y. This email requested a meeting with all three of us organizers, and explicitly stated that this meeting is due to the fact that our seminar is effectively running over budget, and moreover that this was not approved with them, the budget holder.

This email alarmed me for a few reasons:

Prof Y has, in the past, regularly corresponded with Prof X about matters regarding the seminar, which have then been relayed to us organizers. It is very out of the ordinary for Prof Y to email us directly. Prof Y has in fact never contacted us at all before this email.
Prof X was not CC'd in or BCC'd in to this email. Upon my contacting Prof X about the email, they expressed a great deal of surprise and some concern about the fact that Prof Y contacted us in this way. Prof X did then advise that I should attend the requested meeting.
Whilst we organizers are the ones who request the pizza order, we have no (and have never had any) knowledge of or control over our specific budget. I think it is reasonable to assume that Prof Y knows this, and it is therefore unclear to me what the nature of the discussion at this meeting could be.
Prof Y is head of department. Perhaps they have disciplinary action in mind, or something of the sort. I have no knowledge of procedures or regulations in this regard, and whether we organizers are liable to face any disciplinary action or on what level.

A further complication is that, outside of the organization of this seminar, Prof X is in fact my own PhD project supervisor - I consider them an excellent supervisor and am on very good terms. I am concerned that developments in this situation could effect this.

My questions are:

Could I be accused of misconduct?
Should I be alarmed about the email from Prof Y? Is it likely/possible that disciplinary action is on the agenda?
During this meeting, how careful should I be? Could I be in danger of serious repercussions here?

I think you should be worried that you and your colleagues might have to go without pizza the rest of the semester if you've already (unknowingly) burned through the budget, and not much else.

You could also worry that in the future you'll have to go through a more formal approval process, which will probably loosen once whoever is involved in the approval gets tired of approving it every week and eventually delegates responsibility again.

To me it sounds like everything you've done is completely reasonable. It's somewhat normal for these sorts of things to fall through the cracks.

If there are any serious consequences that come about from this, then there is some deeper dysfunction in your department that is completely unrelated to anything you've done. There are plenty of things for a PhD student to be anxious about, I'd suggest trying your best to not make this one of them. Just show up to the meeting on time and be apologetic if necessary, and also be understanding.


How can I sell independently created software to my university? I am in a situation that I think is not uncommon nowadays.

I wrote software on my own time, by my own decision, and with my own resources during my undergrad career at a university in the US, and now I want to be monetarily compensated for it because my software is used on a regular basis by a department in the university. I have heard of a couple cases where a student wrote a program that he/she thought would be helpful to the university in some way, after which they purchased it because they also thought it was valuable.

I want to go through the same thing, but the head of the department seems to refuse to pay (or at least say they are unable to pay for it). They claim it was a "senior project" even though that is not true, but somehow that means they can't pay for it. I think the intellectual property and my work that went into the software is worth money, so I feel I should be compensated.

Since that department is already using it and finds it valuable, shouldn't they pay for the product? If they completely refuse, is it smart to take the software away?

EDIT for clarification:
Nothing has been signed. There have been no agreements written on paper that determine who has ownership. We have only spoken about this.

As a "trial period" I gave them the software's source so they could use it while I was away (because I graduated and moved away) and so I could make updates to the code. This was not a senior project. My work on this project had nothing to do with the university while I was writing it. The only relevance was that I intended to have it be used by the people at the university once it was finished.

I would suggest a different tactic altogether:
Give them a license to use the software as well as any and all updates for free. Support should not be free but done by others under your instruction. In return ask them to sign over any previously perceived ownership of intellectual property. Next ask that they help you by providing suggestions for improvements to your software. Sell it to every other university in the world.


Can "Feel free to contact me if you are interested in a copy of any of my publications." cause legal issues? I know that some journals allow public archiving of publications (making them available for download) on a researcher's personal website. Some of these journals (at least in my field), however, constrict this right by saying that it is only allowed to public archive after one year following publication. EDIT: My question is concerned with the time frame of this first year or with the situation where journals do not allow public archiving.

To make a publication available to an interested reader, who is unable to obtain the article from the publisher due to institutional subscription policies, does one risk any legal problems on putting the following sentence on his/her website:

  Feel free to contact me if you are interested in a copy of any of my publications.

This will likely vary from journal to journal, but the information should be available in the "authors" section on a journal's webpage. For example, Science provides the document "License to Publish—Information for Authors" document, which clearly states:

  Once the Work has been published in Science and provided the Work's first appearance in Science is properly cited, authors may:

  ...

  Distribute photocopies of the Work to colleagues for non-commercial purposes only (providing that recipients are informed that they may not further distribute or copy the Work). Authors may distribute photocopies or download and email the Science PDF to their colleagues for their colleagues' personal use provided the recipients understand that the copy may not be further distributed or reproduced without the approval of AAAS.

This license would allow what you described, as it's non-commercial.


How important is the write-up of a PhD thesis for an academic career? How important is your written PhD thesis for an academic job search, assuming the results are already written in papers? Do search committees ever read your thesis in addition to your papers? My PhD advisor said that the written thesis is not important and I can write whatever I want as long as it's not about Star Wars.

Your thesis and what is written about it your letters of recommendation will have a big effect on your career initially.  To get a good postdoctoral position, you'd better have a good thesis.  Later in your career, your thesis won't matter much any more, because people will be more interested in your recent achievements.


Can a professor ask for money directly from students to print out handouts for class? I'm currently taking a class that doesn't have a required textbook, which is why I took it. My professor is now saying that due to her scanning and printing out handouts for use we are each required to give her $15. I'm confused by this because isn't the money supposed to go through my university, as a fee for the class, rather than through her? I just want to know if she's allowed to do this

A professor should not be asking directly for money from the students. If the professor is scanning and printing things out for the students at her own expense, then something is wrong. Either the assignments and handouts should have been compiled into a course book, or the department should be helping to defray the professor's expenses.

Regardless of the request, I would be very uncomfortable giving money directly to the faculty member.  It could be paid to the department, which would then reimburse the faculty member. But I would never hand cash or a check over to the faculty. This sets a very bad precedent.


How to immediately show group answers onscreen? I teach at a university, and during lectures I would like to pose a question to all the students in which each student types their answer into their laptop, submits to me, and I can show all the answers on my screen at the front of the room. I will be able to see the names on my computer, but on the shared screen the students will not be able to. Is there any technology that does this?

We have the Moodle online teaching tool, another is Blackboard.

On moodle one of the possible activities is "feedback" where you set the questions and make it anonymous as you wish... This may meet what you are looking for.

This does mean that all the students must get a moodle account etc.

I have seen other sites that do this interactive survey type activity but can't think of their names off-hand, but they still need the students to log-in...

A quick google search gave this article : https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2018/09/some-of-best-tools-for-creating-surveys.html

The first 4 of their list (as links can fail) Google-forms, Plickers, Kahoot and Socrative...

I use the quiz activity on moodle a lot!


A proper response to an interview question for PhD admission What is a proper reply to questions like "Describe your operational knowledge about (some course, i.e. quantum physics)?"

I have taken few courses about quantum physics but it's not a big deal for an M.Sc. physics graduate. Everybody knows that it's essential to take quantum physics courses during B.Sc. and M.Sc. physics.

Should the answer be about the stuff that I learned in that course?

Not a big deal? Along with general relativity, quantum mechanics is one of the main pillars of modern physics!

You are right that everyone who has done a BSc in physics will have learnt a bit of QM-- the problem is, not everyone will have done the same amount, or to the same level. They probably ask you this question so they can gauge exactly how much you have learnt and so where you stand in relation to your potential classmates.

A good way to answer the question would be to describe the QM you have learnt, and reference what textbooks you used, especially if they are the standard, well-known literature.


Equal contribution for second and third authors We are six co-authors in an applied CS paper (AI). This paper has a "strong" first author who worked on this project for years. Two student authors (let's call them Alice and Bob) contributed to the paper, and the other co-authors are seniors.

Since Alice and Bob have roughly the same contribution, we use a lexicographic tiebreaker, and placed Alice before Bob. While Alice is (unsurprisingly) happy with this solution, it bothers Bob.

I thought of several solutions:

We stay with the lexicographic tiebreaker between Alice and Bob.
Flip a coin to determine the order.
Put an asterisk suggesting equal contribution to the second and third authors.
Other creative solutions?

My question is about option 3. I've yet to encounter an "equal contribution" remark that is not about the first author. Since there is a sole first author, is it reasonable to remark that the second and third have equal contribution? Any other thoughts?

To answer your question nr. 4 ("Other creative solutions?"):
Making explicit each contributor's role based on CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) may solve some issues.
Many publishers already support the integration of such formalized contributor statements.


What are my choices? I graduated with a Mathematics degree from a top-20 program in Mathematics. I have a good math background (I took many honors and some graduate level courses in my university with good grades with a 3.8+ mathematics GPA, and some researches and reading courses as well).

I applied for the PhD program in math at several universities (none of them is top-10). However, I got a terrible math GRE score (I took it once and only got 30% tile). Even though I believe that test is not a reflection of my math skills and knowledge, I think that test will bar me from going to any PhD program I applied to.

What are some options with my pure mathematics degree? I know some of you would suggest for me to go to some Master's program, but I cannot afford to pay anymore since I am an international student, and I know that I should not go to graduate school if I have to pay myself anyway.

At this point I am pretty much hopeless about my applications, and I think it would be wise to find a new path for my career.

I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that you'll be rejected.  Many programs use a GRE cutoff, but not all.  Wait and see.

If you don't get into any program that you like, I would suggest that you find something else to do for a year, perhaps back in your home country. Retake the GRE (study more this time), and apply to PhD programs again next year.  It sounds like you'll be a very strong candidate if you can get past the GRE cutoff.  I see no reason to give up.

(Also, are your undergrad professors aware of your situation?  They may have contacts at the graduate programs where you applied, and could suggest to them that they not overlook your application.)


should your CV include unfunded grant applications? It seems that more and more schools are encouraging their faculty to apply for (and secure) external funding.  I have not yet been awarded any research grants.  If I'm applying for jobs at research schools, should I include on my CV my unfunded grant applications?  The obvious argument against this is that these applications were unfunded, and will be viewed as failures.  The obvious argument for this is that many administrations are eager to have their faculty applying for grants and reward them (very modestly) even for unsuccessful applications.  Which view carries more weight?

No.

Definitely list pending grant proposals.  But rejected grant proposals should fall into the memory hole.

Also, do not list your rejected journal submissions, the awards you applied for but did not win, or the graduate schools that did not admit you.


Checking the uniqueness of a new journal's name I am part of a group that wants to publish a new journal in the field of economic sciences. I am coming up with the journal name and will then register a domain in that name. But I have to be sure about distinctiveness of the name.
How can I check that the journal name has not been used by others earlier? Is there another method except googling?

Consult scholar databases such as Scopus, Web of Science / Journal Citation Report, Scimago...

(This in addition to googling, of course, not instead of it.)

If it's neither on Google nor on these databases, it's effectively like it has never existed.

Another thing that you may want to check is that there is no journal with the exact same name but in another language. For instance, you don't want to end up with a journal called "Annals of Mathematics" and another one called "Mathematische Annalen"; that's just unnecessarily confusing for German speakers, right?


Coauthoring with a reviewer possible? I recently submitted an article to a math journal and got a response
from a reviewer, with an attachment. In it, I have found some good
advice that could improve my article tremendously.

I am a bit suspicious of its accuracy since it could resolve
what I have been working with for some months in a few
sentences.

But anyway, it was enough for me to ask the reviewer for
coauthoring with me.

My question would be, does it often happen that
an author asks a referee for coauthoring during
the review process? Or could it even be possible?

I was given a month to revise my article, but
the chance that I could revise successfully
by myself seems to be fat.

I would be looking forward to any advice.

Thanks in advance.

Yes, it is possible.

If you want to invite the reviewer to be a coauthor, send a request through the editor.  If the editor agrees, they will forward your invitation to the reviewer.  If the reviewer accepts, they will reply to the editor, who will introduce the reviewer to you, and off you go.


How to write a Cover Letter for applying to a PhD program in the USA I have completed my BS and MS in physics and I want to apply at different US universities for graduate program. What I have heard from my seniors that, I should mail the program coordinator to confirm if my profile is good enough to get admitted. For that I need to write a cover letter.

Am I in the right direction?
Who should I contact, my potential adviser or the graduate
coordinator, to know if my profile is strong enough for getting
admitted?

Cover letter is an integral part of your application. You may look at this and this.
You could find numerous articles by simple Google search explaining Do's and Don'ts when writing a cover letter such as the above links.

  Who should I contact to know if my profile is strong?

If you are an eligible candidate according to the eligibility criteria put forward by the graduate school (usually published in the respective website), then you may contact NO ONE.
I am in Physics, now doing a PhD in France and a successful candidate in terms of International PhD admissions. I am strongly opposed to the idea of asking if your profile is good or not to a second person. It gets worse if you are going to ask this to your potential supervisor. In my opinion, it's something that you should feel withing yourself. Why do you care about Mr. X's opinions about the strength of your profile? Furthermore, if you are really motivated to work with Mr. Y then even if Mr. X tells you your profile is not strong enough, why don't you give it a try? Y will then decide if you are fit or not. I think this is a better approach than asking Y if you are strong enough to work with him.


Question of under review -situation I  would be happy to have a short comment by somebody on following simple situation: I submitted my paper in beginning of January. In the end or January the status changed from the administration (Editor) to "under review". After that, this has not changed, it is still "under review". Is this normal. My field is history.

The journal doesn't indicate the review-times in the pages, but from the same publishing house's pages I have seen other journals of the same field and noted that the time may vary from 3-4 months up to one year.

I have decided that I will patiently wait, but I am starting to feel insecure about if they have forgotten to push the status-button. So, it would be nice just to know, does this sounds normal? Another article a couple of years ago in another journal didn't take that long.

The time frame you mention is within what can be encountered. The time frames also differ wide between disciplines but also from journal to journal so one way to check how reasonable it is will be to check the journal for how long it has taken other papers to go through to acceptance. Many journals state this for each article and hopefully your journal does so as well. If no such information is stated you can try and ask a senior colleague who may have a perspective on the journals and their turn-over times.


Presenting Review article at an International Conference Can I present my already published review article at an international conference?

I do not fully agree with the answer by @All.

The question is pretty "unclear". The answer is highly dependent on the factors like research field, the type of conference, theme of the conference, the type of your published article, and suchlike. Here one more question is there:

Is it your own review article that has been published?

IF

the answer to the above question is NO, THEN you CAN NOT. (I am not sure about any existing rarity in which this didn't hold.)

ELSE

I would answer based on my own research field with positive assumption that it holds for your case as well -- That is what computer science guys do a lot of times.

You can actually publish review article as a poster (if at all the conference is okay with poster presentation). Note that a published article can not be re-published in a different venue with identical content. It would be like a small talk on the review, rather than more research oriented discussion. The Computer Science conferences are true publication venues that publishes full research articles that are citable.

AGAIN,

IF you are not from an engineering discipline like CS/Mech/Electrical, rather from a pure science stream like Physics, Biology, Chemistry, then you can actually talk (poster or PPT) about it in the conference. Try speaking with the conference chair/organiser.

Hope this helps.


How do you leverage a good transcript in PhD admissions? A lot of the posts here are about getting a bad transcript through PhD applications - my question is the converse.

I'm applying to engineering PhD programs and I have quite a good GPA (3.92/4.00), was part of some design projects (team-oriented in nature, more buildy than researchy), and researched at a lab that is outside of my field (no publications, just a few posters presented at university symposia).

I learned from my research experience (though limited) and from my internships in industry that I'd like to pursue a career in academia.

Not having proper research experience in my field is clearly a problem, so how can I undermine this shortcoming by leveraging my grades, industry experience, and design projects to showcase a person who tried industry but wants a career in academia, instead?

Also relevant: will I run into funding problems and/or be looked down upon because I'm someone not bred into research from undergraduate studies, but instead am trying to come in as an outsider?

As you stated, the lack of research experience is a problem.  When your application is being reviewed, above all, the committee will be looking for evidence that you will be able to perform impactful, independant research.

The specifics of your industry experience and design projects will vary how much you can 'leverage' them.  Your good grades, while helpful in demonstrating your engineering knowledge and dedication, do not provide much beyond that.  If, in your industry or design projects, you had to investigate or solve a problem, I would try to emphasize them in your statement of purpose/personal statement. A specific example where you experimentally solved something could do you a lot of good.

I would not discount your research at a lab even if it was outside your field. It is direct evidence that you can perform such after all. Depending upon when you performed this research, it could even form a logical flow of why you are choosing to pursue a PhD (had the first structured experience of research at (x) but field wasn't a good fit because of (x), had several chances to do applied engineering work which was great because of (x) but was constrained and lacked (research), combined = PhD in engineering).

As the next typical round of applications will be this fall, it looks like you may have a summer to fill in some of this gap. It is critical that, if at all possible, you find a research position in engineering or a related field for these couple months.  It would be difficult to justify how interested you are in research and a PhD if you used your time to take another typical industry internship.

As for your last statement, you are obviously a weaker candidate because you have less evidence of your ability to do research. I certainly wouldn't call you an outsider, however, and industry experience, especially for an engineering student, is not uncommon. Funding will be highly dependant upon the university and your eventual advisor. Some provide departmental funding for the first year, giving you a chance to find an advisor after admittance and for one or both of you to secure a fellowship/grant. Some are fully funded. Some are much more dependant on pre-admittance contact and an interested potential advisor with an existing grant. I don't see how your work history would affect the issue of funding any differently than it would your admission process.


Admission into masters degree without partial or full transcript I'm in a last year of my bachelor degree of science in wildlife management that will be completed in July this year, 2016 at Sokoine university of Agriculture (SUA) in Tanzania. I would like to continue with masters degree especially outside the country but I would like to know if it is possible to apply abroad and scholarships without having either full or partial transcripts because for the time being they will not be already released and if it will it is only partial transcript that can be available on around May this year.

It should be fine; we're aware of the disparity between our application deadlines and your graduation dates. When you graduate you'll likely have your grad-school acceptance (here's hoping!) and you'll have to send an official transcript to that school to confirm your degree.


Publish more in less cited journals, or publish less in more cited journals? Grad student just getting started here, this question popped in my head this morning when stumbling across a former colleague that has already published a lot but in journals with low h-indexes.

Generally, is it better to publish more articles in journals that are cited less often/have a smaller reputation, or publish less in higher impact journals?

Bonus question : does the answer changes if considering early-career scientists vs later stages?

Actually, high impact journals get that way from the quality of the papers in them, not the other way around. So, I'd suggest that you look at it a bit differently.

Write as much as you can based on your research. Make the papers as high quality as you are able, with new and interesting results.

Publish them in the "best" journals that will accept them, but "best" means the most appropriate for the subject matter as much as anything.

If you get rejected somewhere, revise and send the paper out again, perhaps to a less prestigious journal.

Over time you will have a "mixed" portfolio. But you will have a good portfolio if you keep at it.

Keep a lot of irons in the fire. You will probably spend the bulk of your effort at one project at a time, but keep notes on other ideas that arise along the way and outline new potential publications as you have the time. If you get stuck on your main project, pick up one of the others.

No, the answer doesn't change. In fact it is the way to get, successfully, to the later stage.


Does it look bad to get recommendation letters all from the outside of undergrad school? I'm applying for Mathematics MS degree and I have an issue with getting an recommendation letter from undergrad professors. I didn't plan to apply for grad school unitil recently and I was never a type of student who visits professors during office hour or get friendly with them. Fortunately, I know two professors that I've worked with during an internship and they are willing to write me the letters. But as most schools require three letters, I still have an issue.

I do have classes (semester-long) that I got good grade, but again, I've never talked to any of those professors. For now, it seems I have two scenarios.

Get letter from someone from non-academic field that knows me personally
Get letter from undergrad professor who doesn't know me personally

I know it sounds ridiculous, but what would be the better choice?

Thank you.

I would recommend getting a letter from someone in the field even if they do not know you personally, but this is based off of my experience from getting letters and may vary slightly from what you are doing. The guidelines I was given were to obtain letters from 1) someone who is able to speak to my academic talent and 2) someone who knows about the program you are applying to. In this instance, it would be helpful to get a letter from a professor where you did well in their class. If you need letters for other purposes (like a character reference), then it may be helpful to consider getting a letter from someone who knows you personally. If you get a letter from someone who has never gone to grad school, it may be difficult for them to explain why you would be a good candidate for the program you are applying to.

Even though you did not spend a lot of time getting to know your professors, you would be surprised at how many may remember you. I faced a similar dilemma when obtaining my letters, but it turned out really well. I recommend 1) emailing your professors with your name, semester you took them, and your GPA in that class and scheduling an in-person appointment and 2) bringing any application materials (like a statement of purpose) that may help the professor in writing you a strong letter. The worst thing that can happen is the professor declining to write a letter, and in that case, you would have the backup of asking someone who knows you better and is more likely to say yes to writing a letter.


What's the convention for describing the location of a quote on a page, without line numbers? Assume that: 1. the original text lacks line numbers

and  counting the line numbers (for each citation) is too inefficient, for both you and the reader.

Is it conventional to write the beneath?

  This quotation is from p. 10 ( [one of:] Top, Middle, Bottom).

It is not common practice to mention the exact location of a cited item within an article. Citing the item itself would enough most of the times, and citing the page number should suffice.

If you are still concerned about citing the specific page, in the case where the content in the book is dense and heterogeneous, then you may cite them in the way @ff524 or @DanPeterson has suggested.

  p. n, mth paragraph
  p. n, kth line

where n is the page number, m is the paragraph number, k is the line number.


Is an institution or a supervisor necessary to make a submission? I am a motivated student and I had a well running project with a nice exposé presentation at a conference. I could do some more work on this and publish further papers, but eventually I would like to do this on my own after my studies as side project in my free time. Is it generally possible to make submissions to scientific conferences without a scientific supervisor or/and without a scientific institution?

If you know please tell if it depends on the conference or the research area.

Thoughts about if doing this makes sense to you can be placed here, too.

The research field is related to computer science, human computer interaction and music.

Thanks in advance!

In my area (CS), submitting a paper with no scientific affiliation is possible and happens quite regularly.
Many conferences nowadays use double-blind review, were names and affiliation of the authors are not known to the reviewers, so it should matter even less if you do not have the "right" affiliation.


How to grade assignments efficiently? What are common techniques to grade/mark assignments efficiently? Is it better to focus on one question and go through the pile or do them assignment after assignment? Or are there other techniques and tips people have?

When marking 150 plus exams, I go page by page so the information I have to consider is small and focused instead of doing a 10 or 12 page paper all in one...

I find that so much faster and as I finish each page I enter that page total into my excel sheet so I can see, when finished, how the questions “behaved” as well as the final students grades.


Accurately Documenting Dates of Attendance at Previous Institutions for Ph.D. Applications I am in the process of applying to Ph.D. programs and I am asked to list my previous institutions along with dates attended. It should be a straightforward question but in my situation: I attended institution X from 2013-2015, got an A.A., then went to institution Y from 2015-2017 for my B.S., but in between I took classes at institution X over the Summer of 2016. Institution X is in my hometown and I was there over the Summer of 2016, so it was convenient to knock out some credits while back home.

Because of this, it is also a bit confusing as to whether I should list my GPA from institution X at the degree confer date, or to list my cumulative GPA (which factors in the classes I took over the 2016 Summer), as both show up on my transcript. It seems like a minor issue but I want to make sure it doesn't appear as if I'm misleading the admissions committee in any way. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Edit: The format on most applications is: "Date Attended: From-- to--" without the option of listing several date ranges.

The format on most applications is: "Date Attended: From-- to--" without the option of listing several date ranges.

Just put your earliest attended date to your latest, unless it specifically asks for dates related to your AA. Don't overthink it!

  Because of this, it is also a bit confusing as to whether I should list my GPA from institution X at the degree confer date, or to list my cumulative GPA

Again, unless it specifically asks for your AA GPA, I would list your cumulative (I assume it's not much different in any case).

Details of your associate's degree are not going to be a deciding factor in your PhD admissions. Plus, it's likely your transcript lists your AA and cumulative GPA separately anyway (mine from my four-year undergraduate university does), if they truly care.


Change formatting vs. looking wrong I'm writing an article for a conference that has very strict style guidelines and I'm therefore very careful not to mess with the style. However, when using the style for the placement of author names, the 4 names (arranged in a 2x2 matrix) end up unaligned. It is not completely clear to me why - all of the names are of reasonable length. Should I try to edit the LaTeX style or how should I proceed?

These kinds of issues are normally fixed later in the publishing process.  If your paper is accepted you'll be asked to submit a final version of your paper in LaTeX.  A professional type setter will process the paper through LaTeX and should fix it up minor issues like these.  You should then be given a chance to review page proofs before final publication.  If the problem is still present in the page proof then you should mark up the page proof to request that this be fixed.


What types of industry positions favor PhD over a masters? I'm coming from a biomedical engineering background, and I'm noticing that almost all job postings ask for either an MS or a PhD, and from speaking with my friends with masters it seems that masters are often favored, because they demand less pay. In fact, the only positions that specifically seek out PhDs seem to be research positions in industry.

Based on that, I'm curious to see if this exists beyond just engineering. Are there any non-research industry positions that actively seek to hire PhDs over masters students?

I am currently employed in the biotech industry. Hopefully this is helpful but it may all just be obvious:

Concerning research industry positions, jobs are generally classified as PhD (scientist) or non-PhD (research assistant/associate). For scientists positions, sometimes someone without a PhD will be considered if they have significant experience - e.g. Masters plus 5-8 years, Bachelors plus 10+ years. However, PhDs are generally favored over non-PhDs for outside hires. For research asst/assoc positions, non-PhDs are favored over PhD holders, and many companies have policies that prohibit hiring PhDs.

Concerning non-research industry positions, holding a PhD will give you an edge over BS/MS holders, but you have to compete with other specialized degrees. For business developement and upper management positions, you'd have to compete with MBA holders (along with internal hires from research/scientific management). For legal positions, you'd compete with JDs and certified patent agents. For project management, there are certifications as well.

If you were to hold MBA/JD/additional certification AND a PhD, you would be extremely marketable for these types of positions. It's a lot of work to add something like that on after finishing a PhD program, but companies often love to have PhDs on staff in those types of positions - but generally you need to have the other qualifications as well.

Edit: Also, the best people to talk to are professors from your current/old department who are on any company's board of directors. They will know exactly what kind of people a company wants to hire, and will be able to tell you how to target your job search, or what kind of experience/credentials matter most.


Admin/teaching workload in a UK university, compared to other research universities I'm a junior faculty in a reasonably good UK university. It seems to me that the non-research workload is quite high, and more than I would wish/expected for.

I have two courses per year. Which is okay. And then there's some admin work.

Question 1: Is this a fair amount of workload? How would you characterize a standard amount of non-research oriented workload?

Further comments: I feel also that the admin concerning everything in the UK is very high in comparison to other higher education systems in the world.

For example, two courses and some admin seems fair, but the amount of bureaucracy and effort made in each of these tasks is overwhelming, in comparison to other places I've seen.

Question 2: Is my impression that UK has a high non-research related
workload correct? Or do most standard faculty members have quite
high non-research related workload? How would you compare it country
wise?

Many universities, including those in the UK and US, talk about the split between research, teaching and admin. A split of time of 40% research, 40% teaching, and 20% service is not atypical at an R1 university (e.g., UK Russel Group). Some schools might go as low 20% on teaching and others might go as high as 80%. Some schools allow you to "buy out" of teaching with grant income and give teaching releases to new faculty.

In the UK, the work year consists of about 1800 hours (37.5 hours per week times 48 weeks a year). With a 40% teaching load, you should be doing 720 hours of "teaching". Teaching obviously consists of more than just standing in front of students lecturing. My UK university developed a work load model to capture our teaching. We were credited with time for supervising undergraduate final year project students, our mandated office hours, marking, tutorials, and lecturing. For every hour of tutorial and lecture, we are given either 4 or 8 hours of prep time depending on if it is new teaching or not.

For my school, a standard load includes providing 15 hours of "teaching and prep" for each of 6 project students, 10 hours of first year tutorials, and 10 hours of second year tutorials, and 40 hours for office hours for a total of 230 hours. Over the course of the year we typically have to mark 400 essays and 100 lab reports at 0.25 and 0.5 hours each. This brings our "teaching" outside of regular classes to 380 hours. This means we need to provide about 68 classroom hours a year or 3.4 hours of teaching time every week of term time. Depending on what you mean by two course a year, in the UK that could very well equal 3.4 hours every week.

Our workload model tries to capture admin work in a very superficial way. We get credit for attending faculty meetings, away days, and department seminars, but do not get any "prep" time. Committees are banded based on expected number of hours spent. Some drastically underestimate the load and others are about right.