What is the PhD application process for Germany and Switzerland? Currently I am in the last semester of my Master studies in computer science in Germany. I am further contemplating about the possibility of applying for PhD position somewhere in Germany, Switzerland, (and maybe Austria). There are other candidate countries as well, but these are the main ones.

In a year or so I should be done with this studies. I wonder what is the PhD application process for Germany and Switzerland. Are there scholarships offered? Is there a need for scholarship at all, or do you get paid as an researched directly from the institution where you get the PhD position?

question added after edit:

Is there a need to search and find for a supervisor (or professor), and explain him the idea for the research that you are planning to work on... or do you get the position and work on the topics which are treated in that research group. my question is both for Swiss and DE?

Can someone with similar experience tell me how these things work?

I can speak for Austria (place where I did my PhD) and Switzerland (current place of employment), but my answer should be applicable for Germany as well.

  I wonder what is the Phd application process for Germany and Switzerland. Are there scholarships offered? Is there a need for scholarship at all, or do you get paid as an researched directly from the institution where you get the Phd postion?

Both models exist, but the far more common one is that you are just employed as a researcher while doing your PhD. This has advantages and disadvantages. Typically these positions are financially rather attractive (at least as far as PhD student salaries go), currently at about 2400 EUR 14 times a year in Austria for full-time employment, a bit more in Germany, significantly more (around 5000 CHF 12 times a year) in Switzerland. All of these salaries allow you to conveniently live (no need for a diet of Ramen noodles) in the respective places. On the other hand, as a researcher you are not "just" working on your thesis. In addition, teaching has to be handled, support in administrative matters will be part of your job, and you will need to work on matters of your research project that you find neither interesting nor advance your thesis work in any way.

The application process is generally as for any other job - find out what jobs are offered, contact the person per mail, send in CV, (usually) do an interview via Skype, wait for an offer. The hardest part is probably finding out what research groups currently have job openings. Positions are generally not announced very widely (if at all). However, just because you cannot find an ad for an open position with a specific professor does not necessarily mean that he does not have a position available. Both places that I worked at had open positions almost at all times for a really qualified student. What really helps here are connections - do you know somebody who is already an "insider" in academic circles, maybe a PhD student or postdoc? If so, ask him to put you in contact with some faculty.

If not, look for universities that you might consider joining, find out from their web page what faculty there handles your topic, and send them a short mail. Keep it crisp - both of my professors so far have been insanely busy, and any mail from an unknown person with more than one short paragraph will never be read carefully. Just tell who you are, what your current university is, and that you would like to talk about the possibility of doing a PhD. Give them a week to answer and then send a quick and friendly reminder (my current prof is the dean of the faculty, and given the size of his inbox mails sometimes do get lost - that does not mean that he is necessarily not interested). Maybe, the professor will put you in contact with one of this postdocs or PhD students to "chat" via Skype or in person (if possible) - consider this the technical interview, because afterwards the prof will ask the person that you talked to whether they think that you have the technical skills that are required for the selected field. What you should not do is send an overly long formal application - most professors get many of those from rather dubios applicants from the far east, hence formal blind applications are generally discarded unread. Don't be one of those.

  is there a need to search and find for a supervisor (or professor), and explain him the idea for the research that you are planning to work on... or do you get the position and work on the topics which are treated in that research group. my question is both for Swiss and DE?

You are generally not expected to "come" with your own topic. Your broad overall theme will be defined by whatever project / position pays your salary, and on top of that you are expected to define your concrete research project together with a postdoc and/or the professor some time into your PhD (say, about a year after starting). What you should know is roughly what interests you research-wise and contact only professors that really do this research. This sounds like a given, but I work in services and software engineering, and I have lost track of many applicants interested in robotics, AI, formal methods, etc. I have already discarded. Don't be one of those, either.


Is it appropriate to ask for more than one recommendation letter from the same person I will be applying for Ph.D programs in mathematics and hence I'll be needing letters of recommendation from my professors. There are two or three professors with whom I have a lot of academic interaction and which are also famous in their research areas. As such, having a recommendation letter from them can significantly increase my chances of selection.

Now my question is: Since I’ll be applying to 5–6 universities, is it appropriate to ask for that many recommendation letters from the same person? If not, then how many recommendation letter is considered to be “normal number” to ask for?

I would be very happy if some of the professors here, who themselves write recommendation letters can tell their experience.

Is there some reason to think that the professors will need to write different letters of recommendation for the different universities?  If not, then the additional incremental effort of sending the same letter to several different places is minimal.  Though I am not a professor, my role is similar, and I, at least, do not mind when somebody wants me to send the same letter to a handful of different locations.  If you were applying to 20 places, that might be a different matter...


What is the "chain search" method for literature search? I am working through a tutorial about literature search, reading, and writing. It says:

  Chain Search:

  A chain search consists of finding suitable literature by letting one text lead you to the next, which leads to the next and so on.

  The strength of the chain search is that it leads from one good reference to another, and you will be able to follow the development of arguments through your literature search.
  Its weakness, however, is that you might lack references that present different understandings or raise objections to the text that started the chain.

I did not understand chain search from this.
The definition says: “letting one text lead you to the next“. What does text mean here? Could you please explain chain search in easy words along with an example?

This sounds like formal name for a way that I frequently end up exploring the literature.

Somebody points me at a relevant paper or I search and find something myself, e.g., "Xu et al., Journal of Obscurology, 2012."
I find the paper interesting and valuable, and notice that its conclusions depend on a couple of other papers, "Friedman et al., Obscurolytica, 2007", "Xu & Gupta, Journal of Obscurology, 2010," and go get those papers to look at.
I also notice that the paper cites as related work the competing approaches "White et al., Soc. Obscure, 2003" and "Garcia et al., Obscurrant, 2011", and go get those papers too.
Then I wonder if the paper has been cited in development of other significant works, and skimming through its citations, I find that "Gupta & Xu, Obscurolytica, 2015" and "Prokoff et al, Applications of Obscurology, 2016" look particularly interesting and go get those papers too.

I keep on repeating this process, chaining through relationships in the literature, until I feel like I've gotten a sufficient sense of the community of work linked to this particular paper.

As noted, however, this will only trace out relationships within a connected community of literature, and as you cannot reasonably search more than a few links per article on average, there is a chance to missing highly important connections. Still, it's a good starting point for non-systematic search of the literature and will generally pick up the main threads of argument within a particular community.


How to prevent plagiarism of my papers? I have recently discovered that several of my papers have been plagiarized in order to create one paper, and that this paper has been published at a conference. I informed the organizers of the conference and the editor, and there is now notice of violation attached to the online version of this paper, so this problem has been solved.

However, I came to know this paper only by accident (someone contacted my co-author, and told him that this paper looked a lot like ours), and potentially, we could have missed it. So my question is: are there some techniques I could use to detect such cases?

I don't think that it's possible to detect all cases in general (because sometimes, it can be hard to distinguish between inspiration and plagiarism, and I would actually be quite glad with being a source of inspiration) but can I at least detect the most blatant ones? (in this particular example, 3/4 of the paper was actually a copy/paste from ours, and they were citing some of our other papers).

Note that as a completely childish and probably useless reaction, I've actually stopped putting my papers on my webpage. I doubt it can solve the problem though, but at least I felt like doing something :)

You've handled the conference plagiarism very well.

But then you say you've stopped putting your papers on your website: and I'm afraid that that is completely counter-productive.

It would be far more helpful for editors, reviewers and publishers to have your papers on your website, indexed by all the usual search bots, and clearly copyrighted and time-stamped. That makes it easier for them to spot duplicate content, early on.

The point of publishing your work is to get it disseminated. Very many journals allow authors to host preprints or similar on their own university web pages: do so. Get your stuff circulated as widely as possible. That gives you the best chance of other plagiarism of your work being spotted early on, in the future.


COVID-19 - Is it okay to send emails this time for post-doc position? I will be submitting my Ph.D. thesis in the comming two months. From last one month I was sending email to professors for post-doc position but from last week I have stopped sending emails requesting for post-doc position due COVID -19. Although the impact of this virus in my country is less. I am in a confusion whether or not to send an email regarding post-doc position at this time?

Yes, by all means keep looking for a position. The future is unknown. Things may settle down or not, but it would be a mistake to wait until they do before you even begin a search. But email responses may be slower than usual and people may need to be more tentative. Expect that.

I suspect things will be hard for a while, but no one expects it to be permanent.

You can't win the game if you don't play.


Should I reply to a non-automated email from the editor acknowledging manuscript submission? Suppose I submit a paper to a journal which does not use an electronic submission system, so I just e-mail it to an editor.

When I receive an e-mail acknowledging the submission (no personalisation beyond [insert my name] and [insert the name of the paper] kind, but it seems not to be automated in any way except perhaps copy-and-paste), should I reply to it (to say thank you), or is it more courteous/established to just not reply?

I don't think there is any particular reason to write back, unless the editor sends a more personalized message or actually asks a question.  However, a quick note back will not be a problem either.


How badly will a master's thesis plagiarism report affect my career? This is a question continuation of this post: How to defend plagiarism in master's thesis. I want to thank all the people who helped me in the last post with their answers.
In the academic committee, I admitted that I made a mistake but it was unintentional. I was not given a chance to correct my errors but I presumed it because in private universities, they actually have many restrictions and I was sad because I knew that unknowingly I did a bad mistake. I learnt my lesson. I got my master's degree by clearing exams and without taking credit of the master's thesis.
My university dean informed me that they will keep this in the University record and they will release it if some graduate school and government officials ask about me to the university. I have the chance to appeal against it. Personally, I feel that there is no good that. I got a good PhD opportunity in the USA as I had an MSc from India and I am doing my research there. I want some suggestions:

Do you think that I should appeal?
If I don't appeal, I will get my MA degree from the previous university in the USA anyway. Should I submit my MA degree certificates and result to any other US universities in future in post-doc or for any job?
How drastically will this incident affect my research career in the future?

Any answer will be opinion-based, so here is my opinion.
If you already got into a PhD program, just move on and focus on your current research. The odds are your upcoming contributions will be the key documents defining your career for the years to come. A master thesis, in my opinion, won't be really examined by anyone. Yes, sometimes you find a truly outstanding master thesis, but usually it is just a mildly original compilation made by a fledgling specialist, written with a sole purpose to prove that its author deserves a degree.
In your case the plagiarism you mentioned does not touch the core contribution. Too bad you copied some text verbatim without using quotation marks and endnotes. However, it doesn't invalidate your results, which are the main basis of your degree.
If you feel really scrupulous, I'd advise republishing the "corrected" version of the thesis -- at least, put it on arXiv. Probably, you have other flaws here and there, and if you believe your thesis is worthy, it might deserve a certain minor makeover. Just do it without much delay, and if someone ever questions your thesis, you'd be able to point out that there is a newer version long available, and there is little reason to peruse earlier texts.
A side note: your fault was overlooked both by your supervisor and the referees. It happens.


How do I handle a Program Officer who simply will not execute an awarded contract? I have been awarded a US DoD contract, which is stuck on the desk of the Program Officer. I have spoken to this individual, and indeed had positive conversations. However, for the last 15 (!) months this contract has remained unfunded. This individual's support personnel have joined me in rallying them to get it done. They have also advised me that the funds are available, sitting in an account, ready to be dispersed to my laboratory. This has not happened.

Individuals in my laboratory who were to be involved in this research have moved on, and indeed my lab is moving in new directions. It is a large enough award, however, on a topic that I value enough to continue attempting to find movement forward. Further, the award was reported in my tenure argument, which is due in the near future. I would prefer not to have a caveat in that regard.

How can I better handle the situation?

In your question, I am struck by the lack of information about why funds are not moving, for which there may be many reasons.

In many cases, program officers are not actually able to execute a contract themselves, but need to depend on another set of contracting personnel, sometimes in an entirely different agency.  For example, Agency 1 may award and obligate the funds, but Agency 2 actually manages and disburses the funds (this may sound crazy, but there are actually good reasons it is handled in this way).

In other cases, there may be an internal block of some sort, often having to do with the interaction of external politics with laws.  For example, acting leadership whose appointment has not been officially approved by Congress often has less authority than approved leadership, and our current presidency has resulted in many agencies being without approved leadership.  Funds may also be approved, but then the money might be diverted elsewhere by forces above the ability of a program officer to control.

You may also be running into a problem where they wish to award the funds but there is a regulatory issue or contracting slowdown regarding your own institution that is blocking it, and they assume that you are aware of it when you are not. For example, I know of a case where an award was held up for a long time because it was going to an institution which did not support ROTC in the way the specific awarding agency was required to by a "side clause" in regulation.

You need to get on the phone with the program officer to have a frank conversation about the state of your finances and find out exactly why and where the blockage is. Then you can find out exactly who you need to be interacting with (or asking contracting personnel to interact with) in order to unstick your project.

Finally, while 15 months seems long, it is not at all unusual in the case of certain agencies, so unless you know more, you don't even know whether it's an issue for concern or not.


Using Discord to support online teaching This is a question I plan to self answer, but answers from others are very welcome too.

This term, I am teaching group and Galois theory. This is a heavily IBL course, where almost all the time is spent on group problem solving. You can see the course webpage, with all of our problems, here (and the previous term's webpage here .) Like everyone, we have been told to move our teaching and office hours online.

I asked my students what tools they use to discuss math online, and several of them mentioned discord. I am currently setting up a Discord channel for office hours and course meetings. I am planning to use this to document what I have learned so far, and hope others will help.

I would like to thank the denizens of the "homework help" channel on Discord for their help! We academics criticize online homework help sites a lot, but this could be their moment to shine!

Questions which I plan to write answers to, if others don't:

How do I log onto discord? How do I invite my students?
How do they add themselves to voice and text chats? How can I break them into smaller groups for group discussion, and how can I monitor those groups.
How can I and students type math in discord, if we know LaTeX?
How can I and students embed photographed images or hand drawn sketches in Discord?
What are other useful things to know?

So far, the advice in this post is based on one test run with 6 students. I'll continue to update once our course comes online.

Answer to "How do I log onto discord? How do I invite my students?"

Head to https://discordapp.com/ and follow the quick directions to make an account. You should then see a screen that looks like this:

Discord is broken up into "servers", which are subdivided into "channels". There is a list of servers you are currently logged into on the left bar. Click the plus icon to make a new channel. You'll see a screen like this:

Click "create a server". You'll see the following screen, where you can name your server:

You'll then see this. If you have interacted with people on Discord before, it will suggest you invite them to your class. (I've blacked out the names of the people I've chatted with.) Instead, select the shown link and e-mail it to your students. The channel will remain in existence and be permanently available.

Answer to "How do they add themselves to voice and text channels? How can I break them into smaller groups for group discussion, and how can I monitor those groups."

Each server is subdivided into channels. Voice channels play in your headphones and listen to your microphone; text channels are chat windows. You can only have one of each active at once, but you can easily switch between them; simply click on the name of a channel to switch to it. The list of your channels looks like this; each voice channel displays under it (scribbled out in the image) who is in that channel.

What I've done is made two channels of each type and asked students to split themselves among them. I click back and forth to eavesdrop on and join conversations.

Note that the past history of the text stream is continually available. So, if students have been typing a lot, it is quick for you to scroll back and see what has been said. I would suggest you encourage students to type, the same way you would encourage them to write things down when doing group work in person.

Answer to "How can I and students type math in discord, if we know LaTeX?"

You can add bots to Discord channels. The way I know to do this is, after you have already created the channel, go to the webpage associated to the bot and click on the invite button; invite it to your channel. For example, go to  https://top.gg/bot/510789298321096704 and click on the Invite button as noted here:

MathBot provides a quick text interface to LaTeX, a basic calculator and WolframAlpha. If you type =tex before something, MathBot will render it in LaTeX mathmode. Beware that this means that, if you want to mix text and equations, you'll need to say something like

=tex \textrm{Let}\ k \textrm{be a field and let}\ S \textrm{be the polynomial ring}\ k[x_1, \ldots, x_n]

Preceeding a line with =calc will access a simple built in calculator, for example, =calc 9*43 should produce 387. Using =wolf should pass whatever you type along to WolframAlpha.

TeXit allows people to type LaTeX (demarcated with dollar or double dollar signs) and have it turned in to TeX. This is far more user friendly than the TeX feature in Mathbot: Simply typing Let $k$ be a field and let $S$ be the polynomial ring $k[x_1, \ldots, x_n]$ should work with TeXit running.

For more help regarding TeXit's commands (which also include a calculator and WolframAlpha), type ,help and it will send you a direct message.

Answer to "How can I and students embed photographed images or hand drawn sketches in Discord?"

You can also drag and drop files into a Discord channel. PDFs turn into links; standard image files such as JPG, PNG, GIF are embedded in the stream. See here. This could be useful if your students have tablets, or have paper and cell phone cameras, so they can take pictures of their work and upload it.

I will report, however, that in a recent test run, most students found the "make image, transfer to desktop, drag-and-drop to Discord" workflow to be clunky and awkward. We are considering whether we want to use shared whiteboard software as an alternative. Other suggestions are welcome.

An easier way to share quick sketches is by pasting images directly into discord. You can draw a sketch in MSPaint or some other program, copy it the image itself from within the program (no need to save it as a file), and then paste the image into any text channel. This is also convenient way to share screenshots; Windows can snip portions of the screen with Win+Shift+S, and Mac and Linux have similar features. After taking a screenshot into your clipboard like this, it can be instantly pasted into Discord.

For more complex things, you can share your screen in realtime if you are using the desktop Discord application. Simply click the "Go Live" button in the bottom left:

You can then share either a specific application or your entire screen. Others can watch by clicking your username (it will have a bright red indication that you're live), and then clicking Join Stream.

More information here.

What are some other tips?

Note that you can mute your microphone when you are not talking, to cut down on static. If you frequently forget to do this, Discord's "push to talk" feature makes it so your microphone is only on when you hold down a specific key on your keyboard. See here for more.
A protocol which has worked well in large VOIP calls I have been in in the past is that, if someone else is talking and you want to talk next, type the letter "Q" in the chat window. When they finish, all the people with Q's speak before anyone else starts. That wasn't much of a problem for my class today, but I plan to enforce this protocol if it seems like some people are never getting a word in edgewise.
You can adjust the volumes of other people in the chat individually. See here.
You can edit past messages to remove typos. Click on the ellipses in the upper right of the message, then click on the edit option. Other options here are to pin a message, so it is permenantly at the top, or delete it.


What strategy should I follow for lecturing a course in which I have only a basic background? I am currently working in a faculty where among the courses in CS there is one about Computer Graphics. That course was taught last year by a professor who actually has retired, and who was a specialist in the field. The thing is that the Dean has talked to me for putting me in charge of that course in the undergraduate level, mostly because the other lecturers are with no available free time at all; and it will take some time to hire another professor.

The problem that I have is that even I hold a MSc in Computer Science, the knowledge that I have about Computer Graphics is basic. Only what I have followed in my bachelor's a long time ago.

Actually I am little scare of what to do, I have started compiling material for read and prepare my upcoming lectures, but I am afraid that maybe I will not be able to make a good course. In short, what strategy should I follow for lecturing a course in which I have only a basic background? Should I be completely honest in the first session and mention the students that this area is mostly new for me?

I have a few additions on top of the related question.

I don't think you should be too concerned about your abilities. Your domain knowledge will be beyond the vast majority of the undergraduate students, and thus you will acquire knowledge very quickly. It is inevitable that you will miss some of the obscurities and fine details in the first time running the course, regardless of your graphics background.

Specifically about Computer Graphics: I had a lecturer who had no background in computer graphics. She was taking the course for the first time, and it was one of the best courses I've experienced as an undergrad.

Factors contributing to success:

She took material from the previous lecturer (who had experienced success) and adapted it to her needs.
She used many illustrative, well-commented code examples
The assignments were fun, the results were impressive, and there was much opportunity for creativity and your own modifications. (bonus marks awarded for 'extension' tasks such as rain, fire, shadow effects)
Lectures were absolutely full of practical examples. She wrote code on the spot and demonstrated how they affected the graphics. She solved mathematical equations on the spot and connected them up to code examples.
The ideas taught facilitated graphical effects that were impressive and instructive, and with simple code examples. For example, a rain effect is constructed very concisely by randomly generating 2D rectangles, and you can teach billboarding with it. A realistic tree is constructed concisely with a lindenmayer system.

The course website is open to everyone.

I think you should mention that it is your first time teaching it, and ask the students for feedback during the semester (early in the course). They will be more forgiving and more inclined to offer helpful suggestions.


How should one advertise a program if it doesn't lead to jobs? (Asking this since similar themes have come up in a conversation with a friend)

So-and-so physics department has decided to start teaching more astrophysics classes, because they need more students. Astronomy with all its pretty pictures is supposed to attract students - certainly the general education classes that cater to students fulfilling their breadth requirements are very popular. The idea is to add several more astrophysics courses and offer undergraduates who take all of them a "concentration in Astrophysics", so their degrees say "Bachelor of Physics with concentration in Astrophysics".

The problem: in that particular city - or country, even - nobody is looking for astrophysics graduates. In fact after being subscribed to "astronomy" and "astrophysics" job advertisements for more than a year, I've only seen like two jobs with those keywords, and one of them had nothing to do with astronomy or astrophysics. One could still get a job leveraging the fact that astrophysics is "sort of" physics which is a quantitative discipline that teaches its graduates to think logically yada yada blah blah. But at that point, the astrophysics concentration seems pretty pointless.

How do you advertise a program knowing that its graduates will not be able to find jobs in that topic? What is a good response to "what do your graduates do after graduating?"

If the basic degree is still Physics with a bit of astro tacked on I don't see the problem. Even pure Astrophysics degrees usually follow all the core physics classes before specialising.

For example, my Astrophysics degree is probably about 75% identical to my pure Physics counterparts, so as long as students make potential employers aware of this, they should be just as employable as a Physics graduate.

As a side note, perhaps students should be encouraged to study what they actually find interesting, not what will get them a job. They are likely to perform better if they enjoy the material, and with better grades and an enthusiasm for their degree, the jobs will come.


Are there any professors with PhDs in Humanities from Asian Universities working outside of Asia? tl;dr: "Are there any professors in Humanities working in North America or Europe who have recieved their PhDs from a University in Asia (Japan in particular)?" (I'm specifically interested in Asian Studies, but any Humanities would be of interest. Also, any permanent or semi-permanent teaching position would be of interest)

I'm currently a second year masters student from the U.S. in an Asian-studies related field at a University in Japan, and am considering whether I should continue on for a PhD there. Graduate students  and professors from the U.S. have more or less told me that getting a degree from Japan would be more or less "career suicide" (my words not theirs) because degrees from even well known universities in Japan are not considered on the level of well known schools in North America or Europe.

Obviously there's a lot to consider when thinking about going for a PhD, but I am specifically looking to contact people in the humanities, particularly Asian Studies, working in North America or Europe who got their PhD from a University in Asia. I'm specifically interested in Japan, but degrees from S. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, China or even India or other parts of South or Southeast Asia would be welcome. Thank You.

Update

I found at least one. Hikari Hori currently teaches at Department of East Asian languages and Culture of Columbia University. She received her Ph. D. in gender studies and Japanese visual cultural studies from Gakushuin University, Tokyo, in 2004

End of Update

I am no expert in Asian studies. Please take my opinion as a grain of salt. However, being a native Chinese speaker and having read some academic papers about politics and economics in Asian Studies recently, I feel that I want to say something about your question.

  getting a degree from Japan would be more or less "career suicide"

This may have some truth in it if you study one of the STEM fields because many good schools in STEM fields are not in Asia. So, you have fewer choices if you pursue PhD in Asia.

But, you study in an Asian-studies related field and you go to North America or Europe to study it? This does not make sense to me. Let's say your topic is related to social economics in Japan. You don't want to study Japanese and live in Japan to observe its social economics by yourself? You go to US and read papers about Japanese social economics without seeing the recent developments in Japan and then write your own papers?

On the behalf of all Asians, I certainly welcome you to stay in Asia, speak Asian languages and then study Asia. We would all appreciate it! Thank you.


How to contact professors for PhD vacancies? I know many master's students who get an opportunity to talk to their potential PhD advisors well before applying. In most cases this opportunity is available by the professors with whom they worked for their master's. Moreover, there are many others who establish a contact with professors by mailing them and enquiring about PhD vacancies.

My questions are:

How important is knowing an advisor prior to applying for PhD?
Does an email interaction play a vital role when the department makes its admit decisions?
If email contact is important, can a student send out mails to 2-3 professors (working in the same area) in case one of them does not bother to reply?
To sum up, is applying of any use (especially in top universities) when you have no contacts and only your credentials to bank on?

To supplement the other answers, here are some do's and don'ts for email contact.

  The worst thing you can do is make it seem like you're trying to cast
  a wide net and don't have a clear focus. That's a guaranteed delete.

Therefore,

Narrow your search to the people whose work you're really interested in
Read their papers (especially recent ones - I've had people email me about stuff I did 5 year ago - I've moved on :))
Think about their work. Find something intelligent to say (even a question).
Email the professor and focus on those questions.

That's most likely to get my (their) attention.


Has anyone here tried this alternative peer review platform 'Peerage of Science'? I have just learnt about the details of this platform, located below:
https://www.peerageofscience.org

I am interested in trying out but none of my colleagues has experimented this platform. I am worried whether this would delay my publication process or end up limiting my options of journals (my 1st choice journal is not in their list but I could appreciate trying out one of their options). Or even if this is seen with good eyes by my peers.

Please anyone here who has submitted a paper to this website, or followed such a submission, could you please share details of your experience?

Peerage of Science received 102 submissions in 2017. Some submissions get zero reviews, but those that are reviewed have a decent chance of getting publishing offers from participating journals: 60% received at least one publishing offer, some got 4 or 5 offers. The other submissions - probably - got negative reviews and then of course do not attract journals either.

But as an author your options are not limited to participating journals; you can always choose to decline offers, and also "export" the review to any journal of your choice (= create a link that you can give to any editor of any journal, giving them access to this one process reviews in Peerage of Science). It is then of course up to the receiving editor if and how they want to use those reviews, but Peerage of Science makes them available and trustable (it's not a PDF author gives them, but password-protected link to content on peerageofscience.org website that author can not modify).

So give it a try! I can't promise your work will get reviews, and certainly shall not promise you will get positive reviews - Peerage of Science is about doing peer review rigorously and well, not quick and easy. But there's little you can lose, as it is free, you get to stay anonymous as author, and you define the deadlines.

Full disclosure: I am the founder of Peerage of Science.


Where to advertise PhD positions without paying a fee? We have several opening in our group working in the field of computer science and electrical engineering (more specifically digital system design). We put an advertisement in our webpage and also another in the university portal. But we don't have applicants yet. I was looking for some websites to advertise the positions. I found that most of these websites (e.g. researchgate) ask for money. Do you know any website for advertising phd positions for free?

Euraxess may be an option. Its openings are quite heterogeneous (sciences and humanities). Despite the name, it is not restricted to European countries.

There are other free scholarship aggregators like scholarship-positions.com. If you search academia.stackexchange you may be able to find others.

Also, you may be able to find reddit channels associated to your area. At least in computer science it is not uncommon to see such openings posted there.

Another option is trying to locate a google group where other labs in your field post their openings.


What do PhD researchers generally do when someone else solves their problem? Suppose, someone is at the 3rd year of his PhD program. I.e. he has passed more than half of his time in his degree program.

Then suddenly, he comes to know that someone else already solved this problem and published a research paper in a journal last week.

What do researchers generally do in such cases?

If you work in a "hot" area in some field this sort of thing is fairly likely to occur. A lot of other people are also looking to make advances simultaneously. This is what makes it "hot".

What happens for the degree depends on the local situation. In some fields and with some advisors it is a true setback and the student needs to either start over or continue on looking for "fresher" results. In other situations, the judgement might be that there is no problem and you just finish. But that assumes that your research is essentially done (not in the middle) and all you need to do is write it up. In those situations the degree might still be awarded.

I know of a case in which two people did the same work at the same time, independently of one another and submitted it to the same CS conference. It took faculties a year to determine that it really was independent work and both received degrees. Both students went on to become fairly prominent - and friends, I think. This was an example of a question being asked that was fairly "hot" and many people wanted to see it answered. So the independent searches was easily understandable.

But for a student in the middle of research, with few results so far, it is a setback. The first thing to do is to talk to your advisor about the options. It may be that a slight redirection will serve. It might be that an extension of the published paper will serve. The student presumably knows a lot about the (sub) field and so should be in a decent position to recover, though it may add time to the quest. But starting over on a new problem should be only the last resort considered.

But it doesn't mean failure in any sense. The student was on the right track, at least. If you are really doing research, there is no schedule for when the results appear. It is a reach into the unknown.

With the consent of the advisor it might even be worth forming a collaboration with the other authors. That might work better in some fields than in others.


Why do graduate engineering schools ask for academic reference letters? I'm applying to study a master of engineering in Canada from Australia. As part of my application I'm required to provide two reference letters.

Now universities in Australia are very commercialized. Even in my third year courses, there are at least 300+ students in a course. I don't see the professors outside of lectures and consultations and as a result I am not 'close' with any professors. I was volunteering and working a lot during my undergrad degree and have thus provided my work and volunteering supervisors as referees. The enrollment team have responded by rejecting my referees and asking me to provide academic referees instead.

I am really frustrated by this as I fail to comprehend the purpose for academic referees in engineering degrees. If it's my academic performance you want to see, you have my transcript for that. If it's my character and capabilities, my supervisors knows it better than any professor ever could.

The only explanation that I can come up with is that this is an outdated system from a time when there were few students at universities and professors back then had closer relationships with students than they do now.

I know this feels like a rant but I am genuinely interested to hear the story from an enrollments perspective. why would graduate engineering schools ask for reference letters specifically from academics?

I agree that references do not have to be from academics. That seems like an arbitrary restriction, though I can see how it makes sense to have at least one of your letter writers have a background in academia -- after all, you're applying to a university.

Why do admissions committees require letters to begin with? Because graduate school is different from undergraduate. It requires you to show creativity, initiative, independence. Only having good grades in undergraduate is not enough, so the transcript by itself only provides one piece of the picture. In addition, more students have good grades than can be admitted to graduate school -- so admissions committees have to have additional criteria to select from all candidates.


How to report plagiarism in a publication A friend showed me a paper that literally copied two pages of another paper, without any reference. This clearly is a fraud. He tried to inform the authors of the original paper. Is there any other way to deal with this situation?

Contact the editor of the journal in which the fraudulent paper was published, present your claims, and be prepared to submit evidence.  If there's no response, contact the editor of the original journal - they may be able to use legal means to force the retraction of the fraudulent paper.


Should papers under review be listed in CV? First, I know this question has been asked already here but was never answered.
I am applying for an assistant professorship position (in CS) and due to overloaded teaching duties over the last years, I did not produce many papers. Currently, I am trying to compensate for this by submitting a lot of papers, which are under review. In my CV, I want to show the selection committee that I am actively working on research and actively submitting papers by listing these papers but I am not sure how they will be considered.
If you were a member of the committee, how would you receive this?

Obviously, we cannot predict how any individual committee member will react to this. However, I think it is quite common to list 'in review' papers on a CV. Two caveats:

If the number of 'in review' papers seems unusually high (compared to your past output, and submission/review rates typical for your field) people may start to wonder whether these are serious submissions, or if you've just fired off a load of half-baked stuff in order to pad your CV.
If it's on your CV, you should be prepared to talk about it during interview. Having to tell the interview panel that no, none of those papers have come out yet, in fact they've all been rejected, is not going to come across well. Personally, I would only include stuff that I'm reasonably confident will progress smoothly through the review process.


Can I host my published software at Dropbox? I am about to publish a software in Bioinformatics Journal. May I keep the files for online availability at Dropbox as public link.

If that's not a good idea what are the options?

May I keep the files for online availability at Dropbox as public link.

Unless you agreed to some restrictive copyright agreement regarding that software or your employer imposes some restrictions (both of which I would consider odd, but then I do not know the customs of your field), it is your software and you can do with it whatever you want.

  If that's not a good idea what are the options.

If you did not already do so, you can see whether the journal allows you to publish software as a supplemental material or similar for your publication. Even if they do not state so on their site, they may still do it on request.
In addition, I would suggest that you publish your software on Github, Sourceforge or some other repository designed for publishing software. This way, you can easily update the software, others can contribute to your software and so on. If you do this, I recommend to add a link to the repository in your paper (or the source code attached to your paper), so people can obtain the latest version.

I am no expert on Dropbox, but it does not seem as long-lasting to me as most dedicated software repositories and probably has no special features for hosting software.


Do British universities expect the research PhD applicant to know research methods before they write application proposal? Do British universities expect the research PhD applicant to know research methods before they write application proposal?

I studied research methods in the masters but it has been sometime now. Do I have to revisit research methods or can I present the proposal as if I have not studied research methods before?

British universities have recently begun to adopt the MRes (Master's of/by Research) as the preferred pathway for new PhD candidates who may not have a full set of research skills.

This typically involves some taught causes, as well as hand-holding through some preliminary research which may then form the basis of your PhD.

It offers you a couple of advantages: it adds a qualification that you'll have earnt after one year, so  you'll get early rewards. And you can decide after a year whether academic research is for you; and whether or not you can work with that department. If so, you've made progress in your research already. If not, then you can leave amicably with a Master's degree and a new network of academic contacts.

It offers the university an advantage too: it gives an additional point at which the candidate's abilities can be assessed.


GPA rounding 2.498 to 2.5. How ethical is this? I finished this year with a cumulative GPA of 2.498 (pretty low, not gonna lie). The main concern that I have is that when rounding to 2 digits, it will be pushed to a 2.5, and I'm worried that in interviews when I say that I have a 2.5, and if the interviewer checks my transcript, he/she may think that I am bumping up to meet requirements, even through it's very close to the line.

I am already aware of past questions regarding gpa rounding, but those seem to deal with round from 2 digits to 1 digit, which doesn't fit my situtation. Am I wrong in thinking I shouldn't do this? I don't want to want anyone to think down on me.

There's no way to know how someone will react to a given situation but I would suggest to at least have a reason if you are challenged.

For instance, it might be reasonable to supply the same number of digits that they are asking for. If they ask for a 2.5 minimum GPA, then you report a 2.5, if they ask for a 2.50 then report a 2.50, but if they ask for a 2.500 then report a 2.498. If there is no reference number then I would assume the precision is up to you and report a 2.5.

That being said, I doubt anyone would think anything unethical happened over a .002 rounding that follows all the normal rounding rules.


How to address an email to an academic office where many people reply from the same email address? I have been sending emails (in English) to the "visitor's program" of an institute in Germany. Initially, only one person used to reply to these emails, and I addressed this person.
Recently, two more people started replying from the same account (and they seem to reply in some random order). I started addressing the person who last replied, but since then, it has happened twice that I addressed an email to "Mr. A", but "Ms. B" or "Mr. C" replied to that email.
Also, some of them write Dr. in their signature, while some do not write. And they are not professors (So Dear Prof. A, Prof. B, Prof. C won't work). Since some of them don't write Dr., I feel it may not be a good idea to write "Dear Mr. A, Ms. B, and Dr. C".
Can I write "To whom it may concern"? Is that somehow considered rude?
Although this institute is in Germany, feel free to add information about other countries.
I don't think this is a duplicate of this because I am concerned about addressing more than one people simultaneously, while that question seems to be more concerned about gender of the recipient.

I would reply to whoever wrote the latest email... it is a reply after all. When other people take over and respond, I interpret that as if the group that monitors the email is always in bbc, and is free to join in the conversation/take over when it becomes useful. When I reply, it's to the last person to have "spoken," unless I need to address something specific a different person said, in which case I might write back to both (ETA: as in, "Dear Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones, " or "Hi Sarah and Michael, " matching their tone).
There was some talk in the comments of this question about etiquette in various countries. I'm from the US but have worked in Europe for four years, and I still would go with this strategy. I know German addresses combined with honorifics are notoriously more formal than other languages, but usually when the conversation is in English and among an international crowd, the international English standards take over. I've never lived or worked in Germany, but get communications from German academics and haven't noticed any deviations from that norm.


How much of the statement of purpose should be focused on each of my academic background and my work experience? I am currently writing up my SOP for a PhD in Economics. I studied math and economics in college and I have been working for 4.5 years in financial services since graduation.

I have two main question:

How much should reiterate my educational courses in college? It's on my transcript and I have already mentioned a synopsis of the coursework I took. Am I being redundant by mentioning the tough courses I took. I wrote a senior thesis, I'll obviously mention that.
Since the career jobs I took after graduation are heavily economic modelling/quantitative finance oriented and add a lot of value in terms of modelling skills and programming skills. How much of the SOP should be focused on my academic how much on my work experience? I feel like the skills I received from my work experience do a better a job at expressing how qualified I am for the program. I had a high GPA in difficult math and econ courses but the same can be said about most applicants, so I was wondering that if the work experience is extremely relevant, maybe I should concentrate on that to distinguish myself.

The SoP should focus on what you can add to the programme that no one else can. In your case, it sounds like the work experience is really what sets you apart. The students who apply for PhDs will generally all have taken difficult classes and gotten good grades in them, so that's not something you should spend time on in your SoP. The only exception is if any class contained a project or small dissertation or research component where you did really well: this should be mentioned. Anything else will show up in the transcript.

So yes, focus on the experience you got from working, and how that will make you an asset in an economics lab.


How to write/cite a description of a software product in a master's thesis? I am writing a master's thesis in the area of computer sciences. A lot of developer tools and software technologies/languages are involved. Each of these tools and software technologies has its own website and few sentences, that describe the "product" and provide a short overview. I could not write it better. It is concise and precise.

just a short example

Dart is an open-source, scalable programming language,
with robust libraries and runtimes, for building web, server, and mobile apps.
Dart is class based and object oriented, without being dogmatic.

How do I use that kind of text/description in my master's thesis? It is obvious that I want to avoid plagiarism but it seems to me such a waste of time if I want to have the same information/facts in the paragraph, but I would have to restructure the sentence or paragraph.

Do I quote it? Do I say something like: According to the website of XY, XY is...

If you wish to quote the text verbatim, then you could write -- as you suggest -- "According to the developer's website, 'Dart is an open-source...' [citation]"

Bear in mind however, that you are writing a research thesis. You should be demonstrating your ability to discriminate, evaluate and criticise. In your short example, there are some statements which are open to debate. Are the libraries indeed robust? Is the development paradigm indeed non-dogmatic? Do you, as a learned academic user of the software, fully agree with these statements or can you offer some additional insight?


Meeting like-minded people for forming collaborative research relationships I'm quite new at doing full-time research as a career. It seems that everyone in my department whom I talk with is focused not only on "their" research but also on various side projects with other researchers — Including people who are newer than I am. What am I not doing which they are? — I don't want to simply go to everyone I meet and ask "what exactly are you doing, and do you need help with it?" (it sounds rather artificial/forced/desperate/etc.).

This is related to an already-existing question about approaching researchers about (potential) collaboration, but if I don't even know whom to approach, then the answers to that question are not very useful.

In reality collaborations come easier to some than to others. Here are the factors I found help most:

Be a member of the community. Go to conferences, give talks (or present posters, or demos, or whatever else is common in your community), organize events and workshops. Talk to people about your work. A first step towards collaboration is that others need to be aware that you exist, and what you are working on. Once people are aware of your work, chances are somebody is working on a related problem and would like to know your opinion on it.
Be a nice person, and make sure that you are pleasant to work with. When you collaborate with somebody on anything, make sure to be constructive and deliver what you promise on time. News travels fast about collaborators who have a tendency to be overcommitted or who use collaborations mainly as cheap paper producing machines.
Have ideas. You say you don't want to go around asking whether people "need help" - well, no, you should not - collaboration is not a consulting service. You should listen to their current work, and propose directions that combine their problems or expertise with yours.
Have uncommon (but helpful) technical or methodological skills, and be sure that people know about them. If all you can do others can do similarly well, why would people want to collaborate with you?
Have access to data that others don't have access to. This may be a proprietary data set, but it can also be that you just understand a public data set very well and have good tooling to effectively work with it.


Are there examples of more efficient funding systems than grant applications? Applying for research grants costs a lot of time and energy. Which would still be acceptable, if the success rates wouldn't be so depressingly low. Currently, it appears to be an incredible waste of time and energy of some of the most gifted people in our society.

So are there examples of systems, either currently in use, or in the past, that are more efficient (any country)? And how do/did they work?

Related question, but not the same:
How economically efficient is the grant system?

Of course. Remember that in many countries, institutions get a lot of money based on solely being. As an example, in the Czech Republic, the Czech Academy of Sciences receives a lot of budget money for its operation, and some of the money is of course used "for research". Just as an example, until recently, almost all employment expenses (salaries, offices, building maintainance, etc.) was covered exclusively by budget money. Similar model exists in other countries, for instance in France with CNRS, but the difference is that most CNRS people are associated to particular universities, just without teaching duties.

It works well because you moreorless know what you get. Financial stability helps in establishing long-lasting projects etc. Of couse, some level of control is necessary so that good people get the money. In the Czech system, this is based on (AFAIK 5-year) audits which evaluate each person separately, and then whole departments, working groups and institutions.


How to evaluate potential advisers on grounds other than their research/publications? While accepting an offer to grad school, one is basically entering into a lasting relationship with one's adviser - most likely, someone whom the applicant has never met before, and the only exposure has been through the potential adviser's website/publications. It is in the interest of both parties to ensure (to the greatest possible extent) that there are no personal/professional traits of either that hamper the formation of a pleasant working relationship - no-one would want to go through the ordeal of having to change advisers midway!

While the faculty has a chance to have a good look at the applicant's profile as well as his motivations (through his grades and SOP), the applicant doesn't have a similar opportunity. So, I'm interested to know what parameters can be used to gauge a potential fit. I've thought of the following:

Past students:

Did anyone ever drop out/change advisers midway, and if so, for what reasons? These would be a bit hard to find though, as I don't expect the faculty concerned would list them on their website. It would be great if anyone could let me know how to find out the list of incoming students to a department for any year.
Publication rate, taking into account the venues where they were accepted.
Time taken to graduate - though I accept this is more dependent on the student, a median figure should be telling ...
What they did post Ph.D. - did anyone get tenure if they went into academia, or is almost everyone unable to break out of being a post-doc?

Tenure status: I'm a bit unsure about this, so wanted the community's opinions about it. Just so that I'm clear, I'm only trying to calibrate the applicant's expectations about the working style of his potential adviser - and hence need to know to what extent are the following "typical" assumptions valid.

Tenured professor

A full professor is more likely to get grant funding, hence less time spent on TAship - but could also mean less time/effort spent on interactions with students (either being busy with other projects/talks, or due to more commitments to family at that age).

Tenure-track faculty (Assistant profs)

More likely to be young and energetic, and could translate to more time spent on one-to-one discussions with grad students - but funding may prove to be an issue, and may have to be on TA for a longer period.

What other factors would be relevant in this matter, and to what extent am I correct/incorrect in either the factors considered, or for undertaking this exercise at all?

There are a few things I would generally look at in a potential advisor beyond just their research/publications:

Who were the co-authors on their papers? Are they actively collaborating with people in your field - people who could be potentially useful for post-doc posts, etc.? Do their students often show up as primary authors on publications, or are they invariably buried in the middle of a long list of authors?
Personality. This goes beyond just do you like the person. Do they prefer frequent updates, meetings and the like, or is the occasional check-in enough? Are they a morning person and you prefer working nights, or the other way around? If you send a long email, would it get answered, or do they not often fail to answer emails? I've had some professors who I'm very fond of nevertheless would make poor advisors because of wildly disparate working styles.
How are their students funded? Your funding stream can have serious impact on your completion time and productivity. If every semester, its a desperate Pick-N-Mix of funded side projects, TAships, etc. you're going to have a lot on your plate that, while potentially an interesting experience, will slow down your progress.
Where do their students end up? Do they have decent career trajectories? Are they supportive of alternative paths like industry or government?
Rank and age. A young professor might be more aggressive and eager, on the other hand they're less established, don't necessarily have the same level of institutional support, and if they're not yet tenured, its possible they'll disappear. An older professor may be more established and stable, but might not use "cutting edge" techniques, or feel less of an internal drive to publish.


Why are there no DOIs for NeurIPS papers? It is nowadays pretty standard to have a DOI with every item-to-be-cited (papers, algorithms, data, etc.), and they are really useful for all kinds of purposes. Considering this, I am quite surprised to be unable to find DOIs for NeurIPS papers, especially considering that it is one of the major CS conferences... Is there a reason for this?
Related question: Why do some papers not have a DOI? The highest voted answer there relates to the time/cost required to obtain a DOI, both of which I would assume not to be an issue for NeurIPS...

I work at Crossref (there are other DOI agencies too) and it looks like the proceedings used to be published by MIT Press and registered with Crossref as book chapters - see search results. But there isn't anything with us since 2007 so not sure whether the conference moved to a new publisher that isn't a Crossref member or something like that? I searched the ISBN database too but that doesn't help much. Probably best to ask the conference/organisation directly? Let me know if you find out!


Referencing figures or tables in discussion section? I got a reviewer's comment on my manuscript that suggests that the most common convention is that tables and figures are not referenced from the Discussion section of a paper. This is something that sounds new to me and I wonder if it's true in some fields (such as biology)?

Every field has a large number of different types of publishing venues with different requirements and expectations for the structure of manuscripts.  If the reviewer is making a legitimate complaint, it is likely to have to do with the particular journal that you are submitting to.  Some do have very particular requirements about structure and what exactly goes where, so perhaps that is what the comment is about.

Absent particular structural constraints, however, I think that it's fine to reference figures or tables from a discussion section, as one is discussing them (in fact, it would be strange not to do so).


Asking for help regarding Statement of Purpose I am a Masters' student applying from India to US graduate schools for a Ph.D. in Mathematics(some of them are top departments like Stanford, MIT, UCLA, Berkeley, Illinois Urbana-Champaign). I wish to work at the interface of Analysis and Differential Geometry. Hence, I wanted to explore Geometric Analysis and took extensive differential geometry courses, a winter course on Geometric Measure Theory and did self-study on Geometric Analysis. However, as we did not have anyone in our department working in these areas, I did my Masters' thesis (ongoing) on noncommutative geometry. For this, I studied operator algebras, followed by compact quantum groups and am currently working with quantum isometries of noncommutative manifolds.

I am a little confused about what I should include or exclude from my Statement of Purpose(SOP). I have written that I am interested in both Analysis and Geometry and have mentioned: (1) Geometric Analysis, and (2) Operator Algebras and Noncommutative Geometry, as the fields that interest me. Then I explain my background in both. Is this a valid approach? Or will it give the impression that I don't have a well formed research interest and work against my selection at the graduate school?

While I was towards the end of my school life, I had a publication modelling a small physical problem. I am currently developing it into pedagogic material with a retired professor in the USA. Also, during my undergraduate studies I had two more publications in applied mathematics (control theory). I am including the first one in my SOP to illustrate my motivation in research from younger days. But should I include the other publications? I am afraid that I might run the risk of giving the committee the false impression that I am too inclined in applied mathematics.

even someone who does have their PhD may have relatively prominent publications in fields tangential to their core interests. make your statement of purpose concise - a single statement about your transition between fields can prevent a misunderstanding - and cite all the best work you've done.


Asking for a change in rules to get a MS rather than end the program with no degree I am in a weird spot. I have been a PhD student for 1.5 years and in May 2018 it will be 2 full years. I already have an MS in the same subject from another school. I was told recently that I will be asked to leave the program at the end of this semester due to lack of research funding. I asked if I can be given a MS instead since I fulfilled all the requirements for that but that cannot be done as I already have a MS from in the same subject from a different place. I will try really hard to see if I can plead some leniency but I just wanted to ask if you people know of cases where students were able to plead successfully. I am really scared because if I am terminated from this program, I will be forced to leave USA because I won't have any status and I will have nothing to show for these 2 years.

In addition to the suggestion given in Nicole Hamilton's answer, and provided that you are making good progress in your degree, you still have several options:

You could see if someone else in the department has funding to support another student.
You could see if colleagues in other departments at your institution doing work related to your thesis area.
You could ask if the department will help you in transferring to another program.

The big question here is why you're being let go. If it's really that funds are low, and it's through no fault of your own, then the department owes you the right to continue in the program, or help you to continue your studies. On the other hand, if they're saying "we don't want to spend more money on you," then it'll be a lot harder to get help.

As far as awarding a duplicate degree, that's probably not decided at the department level, but instead probably requires a higher-level signoff.


What should the purpose of a draft of a research paper be? When writing a research paper draft, what should be the purpose? Is the goal to write the draft with the aim of producing a finished product but expecting that it may need changes? Or is the draft more of a glorified outline that shows the path in which the author is going to take?

I'm referring to the objective/intent of the draft writing. For example, writing the draft with the goal of creating a near completed product (assuming there will be edits) versus writing the draft as a mere outline of the "plan" you want to take.

The draft itself is only the term for something that is surely not finished. The purpose depends on what you intend to do with it.

Drafts are often shared with collaborators to have a common ground for further discussion, fixing some notations and in general keeping them up-to-date with the progress.
Drafts can be just for personal use to keep track of ideas and what has already been done.
Draft is also the version of the paper that is 5 pages over the limit and you know you will need to make changes to fit in.

Draft writing is normally not the goal itself, instead it makes sense to think about what the draft will be used for and then write a document that is useful for this.


Should students be shown the grading rubric? I teach a practical class which is assessed by a lab report. I grade the lab reports based on a rubric. The rubric has 6 sections (abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusions) with a number of items that I generally expect to see in each section. Historically, about 95% of the lab reports can be accurately graded based on the rubric while the remaining 5% of the lab reports go in unique, often very good, directions and therefore do not tick many of the boxes on the rubric. I am considering showing the students the grading rubric in advance of writing the reports this year with the hope that this will key them into what is important so that they can better demonstrate their understanding of the key issues. Is there any research that looks at the benefits and consequences of showing students a grading rubric in advance?

Sharing a good rubric with your students can be a helpful way to let them understand what is expected of them.  There is a down side in that the rubric then provides a basis for students to complain that you've graded a paper unfairly.  Don't release the rubric unless you're really willing to give credit according to the rubric even if a paper has obvious flaws in areas not covered by the rubric.


Will a master student publishing several short papers come across in a bad way? I am a master student in a relatively small research field in humanities. I am a relatively good student: at the moment I’m preparing my bachelor’s thesis for publication in an A journal, and an abstract I submitted for a conference next year got accepted.

Many of my courses are tested with a paper (of varying lengths, anything between four and twenty pages is common). I spend more time on those papers than my peers and in them interact with very recent research papers. I am then tempted to think I could submit a revised version of such a paper (shortening it to 4–8 pages or so, perhaps with a title like “Some notes on...”) to a journal in which the papers I interact with were published. I do not have the illusion a journal would give me the full twenty pages, nor that all of my course papers are valuable enough to be submitted, even in shortened form.

I would like to get published because the review cycle is rather long and starting to submit now could give me some publications to show when applying for a PhD position later. Also, I truly believe that my results are worthwhile.
On the other hand, I’m afraid it may come across as arrogant. All these course projects are relatively narrow-scoped, so perhaps it would be better to keep the results in mind and work them out later, in the master’s thesis for instance, and submit them to a journal then.

Yes, I can ask the teachers in these courses what they think, but don’t want to come across as overly self-confident. I understand you cannot judge my work without seeing it – but perhaps you can give some advice based on the general impression you would get from a master student publishing several relatively short papers.

Try it. It can't hurt.

Having published before starting a PhD program will be seen as an advantage by the people who evaluate your application. It certainly won't count against you, unless you publish in junk outlets and neglect your exams over it, which should be your priority.

This last sentence is important though. It's much more likely to produce publishable results in a BA project than in a term paper. So make sure not to make the perfect the enemy of the good. In the humanities, having one high-ranking publication before grad school is already very good.

In any case, aiming high but realistic will be seen as determined and ambitious, not as arrogant by admissions or your teachers, whom you should also approach for advice and feedback. How you will be perceived of course also depends on how you present yourself.


Ageism in Tenure-track applications I am applying tenure-track positions now, however I am about 10 years older than the average applicant (I worked many years in industry before PhD).

I talked to 2 experienced people whom I trust. Both said  ageism is an unfortunate reality of recruitment (especially in my technical field). One of them even told me it is OK to prepare a CV that doesn't reveal age. Although I don't know how that is possible since CV contains my B.Sc. degree date.

If two applications are about same then being 10 years young might be a plus. I am OK with that, but is that all? How strong is ageism in tenure-track recruitment process ? especially in technical fields such as physics, engineering, math, statistics etc...
Should I hide my B.Sc. degree date ? Doesn't it look weird ?

I wonder what people with TT committee experiences think about it.
thanks.

The aspect of ageism and whether it plays a positive or negative role differs from one institution to another.

  I  worked many years in industry before PhD

The effect this would have on your application largely depends on what type of work are you associated with in the industry -- how well it attributes your tenure track position.

  Should I hide my B.Sc. degree date?

Frankly, I don't think this is a good idea. It is not professional and is not recommended for a CV. In fact, it might have the opposite effect of drawing attention to the information you wish to conceal.


How to get recognition of research as an independent autodidact? I have done my own research independently from any academic institution.  The theses are mainly biochemical, and aquaculture.  I would like to have the work peer reviewed.

I tried to use researchgate.net but they have created a barrier to entry for autodidacts, and non-institutional researchers.  The question answer format for stackexchage is also unsuitable.

Are there other web-portals specifically for independent, non-institutional, autodidact researchers?

You need not have any institutional affiliation to submit your work to the usual peer-reviewed journals. The only downside to lack of affiliation is that people might wonder "who you are". But there's no rule against anyone in the world submitting...

The "gotcha" is that if your writing style, formatting, referencing, and so on do not approximately conform to the standards of the milieu, people will almost surely reject your submission out of hand. That is, it is critical that you not communicate any sort of "crackpottery", which is often signalled simply by extreme, random non-conformity to simple professional standards.

So you might want to try to get advice from a seasoned professional, who knows the "parlance/standards/prejudices" of the profession. This may not be easy, especially if you approach them with a snarky or combative attitude, but I'd wager that you really do need this help.

That is, to get any kind of hearing, you "need" to demonstrate that you can comply, to some extent, with the implicit conformity demands of the milieu. Otherwise people won't pay attention to you at all. No, of course, this is not any official statement, but it is obviously the mechanism in almost every human activity.


How to develop your own argument in a literature review? In a literature review, we look at recent publications and put what other researchers have said in this context. However, how can I develop my own argument? Should I write it with my own words or should the argument be based in what others have said?

Damien Igoe's answer is very accurate, however, I would add that I think it is possible to interpret what someone wrote in a different way than others have previously interpreted. However, your arguments should not be confused with the other authors' arguments.

Originality in analysis is often welcomed. However, originality in structure should be done very carefully. Common structures exist for a reason. In my field, it is common to switch between the reviewed author's points and your own:

  Jones (1991) claimed that the primary motivator for workers was public
  recognition while Smith (2004) believed that workers were more
  concerned with monetary compensation. I will show that both were
  correct by showing that workers really care most about their
  compensation being publicly higher than the average for their
  position.


How to behave when dating a fellow PhD student in same department? I am currently dating a PhD student in the same department as me (I am also a PhD student). Not the same research group, but closely related topics anyway. We're both happy with it, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but I am worried about possible negative consequences on the job.

So, what rules (written and unwritten) should be followed when dating someone like that? that is we do not work together everyday but we are still working closely, both geographically and scientifically.

One possible thing to watch out for: in some departments, graduate students may work as teaching assistants for graduate courses.  You should ask not to be assigned to TA courses which your significant other is taking (and he or she should do likewise), as this would represent a possible conflict of interest.  Even if you can grade your SO's work objectively, there might be a perception of unfairness among other students.  Likewise, if any other situation should arise where one of you might be in a position of authority over the other, you'd need to disclose the conflict of interest and be prepared to resolve it.

Otherwise, as Peter Jansson said, relationships between graduate students are very common and aren't likely to cause academic concern.  Just stay professional about it (e.g. don't make out in the hallways).


Within the UK, how are roles corresponding to academic grades defined? Within the United Kingdom (or perhaps just England and maybe Wales?), academic pay scales are divided over different pay grades.  Annual salaries outside London range from £16,131 in the bottom of grade 1 to £65,454 at the top of grade 10.  For example, see Oxford Iniversity, University College London, University of Reading, University of Leicester, etc.

It appears the pay scales are uniform (albeit with a London bonus), but is there any uniformity of the definition of the roles corresponding to each grade?  In one example I am familiar with, grades 6 and 7 are effectively postdocs (where grade 7 can be PI but grade 6 cannot), but this is one example for one role at one university.  It does appear grades 6 and above are usually/always considered different from grades 5 and below, perhaps due to requiring a PhD.  I wonder if any rules apply nationally.

How are the roles corresponding to academic grades defined within the United Kingdom?  In case there are differences between constituent countries, I welcome answers for all countries.

This similar question and its answers make no mention of academic grades, and therefore this does not answer my question.

As @StrongBad notes, here and in the other answer, there is a national salary spine for academics and academic support staff.

Typically (ie, universally in my limited experience), these are grouped into overlapping ‘grades’ or an equivalent term.  Thus here, grade 6 is spine-points 25–29, with three discretionary spine-points above that.  This is, I think, primarily for administrative convenience and will tend to correlate with a (loose) job description, or with the amount of ‘leadership’ and grant-getting expected; for example, you might have to be on a particular grade before you'll be allowed to be a PI.  Thus a post-doc will usually be grade 7, a lecturer or ‘senior’ post-doc grade 7 or 8, a reader grade 9 and, as noted above, professors are on a notional grade 10 which isn't on the spine.  People will tend to automatically rise one spine-point per year, until they reach the top of the grade.

So the answer to your question is that although the details will doubtless vary between universities, the grades and their consequences/expectations are probably pretty common in UK academia, without there being any specific agreement or constraint.

If I look at some job adverts, I see only salary ranges mentioned, but if I look at detailed job descriptions, they're articulated in terms of grades, and I see phrases like ‘The salary will be on the Research and Teaching Grade, level 7/8/9, £33,574 - £37,768 / £41,255 - £47,801 / £49,230 - £55,389 per annum’


What should go in a CV for first teaching position at a community college? I am looking to apply for a teaching position near my town at a local community college. It's a part time position teaching mathematics (and from my research its up to highschool/first year calculus).

I am currently a PhD student and have never applied for an academic position like this. The job posting only requires a resume/cover letter and nothing about a teaching philosophy statement.

The question is regarding my CV or resume. I think at this point in my life, my CV is my resume. Here are the relevant sections (in this order) I have in my CV right now:

Education
Teaching experience (minimal, just TA duties, no formal experience)
Professional experience (my two full time jobs I worked after bachelors)
Workshops/Certificates (workshops I've attended, certificates from coursera/edx)
Relevant coursework (a summarized listing of my courses, for example writing "Real Analysis" instead of "Real analysis 1, real analysis 2" and similarly "singe, multivariable, and vector calculus" instead of "math 100, math 120, math 220")
A list of my programming languages. (in categories such as "general: C++/java..", "mathematical: matlab, maple, R" ... )
Activities and interests (my memberships and associations with clubs such as the AMS (American mathematical society).
supervisor (my two supervisors and their emails)

This ends up being a nice clean two pages. My cover letter (which I have yet to write) will be at most one page.

So the question is.. is my CV properly formatted? What do I do about my lack of teaching experience and how do I address that?

I taught at a community college when I was a graduate student.  In my case, I expect I was the only applicant because the pay was very low.  I have a few points of advice.  Most likely, you have to have at least a master's degree to get the job.  So be sure to let them know that you have one.

Do not list totally irrelevant qualifications to the material you are teaching.  For example, programming languages are not relevant.  Do mention any informal teaching experience you have (Most likely you have at least explained things to other people before.).  Do explain what you achieved when you were a TA.  Do mention experience with course management systems.  Also, let them know why you want to teach at the community college.

It probably would not hurt to send a teaching philosophy, if you can write one, though it was not requested.

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/tips-faculty-job-seekers-community-colleges


How much do I have to know about a group's research before I email the PI about openings? My field of study is purely theoretical, meaning that there are a ton of equations and a bunch of numerical simulations. I am targeting groups that align with my field and I am trying to read their research. I know this question has probably been asked before, but how much of the group's research am I expected to know before I email the PI about lab openings? Three levels of abstraction are given below:

Just the title of the projects and the material given on the webpages.
Go through the abstract and conclusions of their latest papers.
Take a single paper and go through it line by line, understanding all the equations and simulations.

For me, it really depends on the stage of interaction with our group.

For the first contact, I would expect that you have at least visited our website and know what we work on, in general. Browsing the website and some paper titles should be fine for this. If none of the paper titles make sense or sound interesting to you, then why are you applying to work with us in the first place?
If we end up chatting more detailedly (e.g., if you have a phone interview with members of my lab) I would expect that you looked at all the recent papers involving the people interviewing you, and have read at least a subset of those. I don't care whether you understand the work line-by-line, and I am fully aware that some of our work can be technical and academic. However, if you can't be bothered to at least skim some of our papers and try to grasp the core ideas, it does not reflect very well on your commitment to our line of research.


Can an independent institution run experiments without IRB approval? Lets say a rich person has the funds to create a US-based research institution that does not receive any form of public or private funding with the exception of said persons bank account. Will this institution be able to run experiments on human subjects without IRB approval? Nothing extreme like giving people new medicine or trying out novel surgery techniques but rather something mundane like collecting surveys or conducting psychology experiments.
At which point does it become illegal to run an experiment with no oversight within US jurisdiction?

I'll address the academic, rather than legal aspects of the question.  All legitimate scientific journals require ethics review for published human subjects research.  Any human subjects research which is has not passed ethics review must not be published.  In my opinion, any such research is not part of main-stream science.  So the answer is no.
It is generally accepted that these are not research, and therefore not human subjects research:

Testing a commercial product to see if customers like it.
Experiments whose results will be kept secret.

However, all activities need to be ethical, even if they are not subject to IRB requirements.


Software to extract citations and abstracts for meta-analysis I am conducting a meta-analysis and searching pertinent articles in PubMed. The typical scenario is to apply a dedicated search string, and then retrieve between 50 and 5000 citations including the abstract.

Citations, abstracts and ancillary details (eg PMID) can be extracted from PubMed but only as text. Some softwares can support data extraction, such as Zotero or Reference Manager, but they are apparently inefficient or costly.

Is there any more suitable alternative, still free?

Covidence is free for students. Other software includes DistillerSR. All of these will aid with citation management a step up from what can be done with EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero, etc.

Also, I hope you've searched databases beyond PubMed. Great tool, but alone not sufficient for an SR.


Can you file a complaint about editors selling your contact information? If you are in academia, you might have noticed that your contact information is being sold, sometimes you collaborate with a person with a very specific research line and background and get an invitation to review, submit to this journal you never heard of despite not working on these topics - I got one on veterans medicine - luckily they responded to my requests to not receive reviewer invitations anymore after a couple of times. But more disturbingly, when you submit to some journal, you are bombarded with "submit to us" emails citing the title of your work around the EXACT time of a revision or refusal. So this is clearly organized by an insider to the journal, and can be quite taxing and borderline manipulative, different to than say, when a predatory journal finds your arXiv preprint and starts randomly bombarding you.
Can I make a complaint about this to the publishers? I don't think this is ethical, and it is outright manipulative to get those aggressive emails just around the time of reviews and decisions.

If you are in Europe there may be a breach of GDPR, but

proving it would be next to impossible.
You likely signed a waiver buried in the small print of something that you ticked when you submitted.


Can I ask an author to send me his ebook? I'm working on my research paper. My subject is quite original and I even had difficulties to find a supervisor. In short, I found a fairly recent book on the Internet (2017), which is exactly what I am looking for, but it is not available in the libraries of my country. Could I ask the author to send it to me by email or even to send me some chapters?

Certainly you can ask. There is nothing wrong with that. If you explain a bit about your use and the restrictions you face it might make it more likely that the author might try to help you.

But the author might not be able to comply with your request due to contractual arrangements with the publisher (if any). So, you might get a reply that starts out "Sorry, but..."

On the other hand, I'm surprised that libraries don't have access. I would guess that if you take your request to the librarian him/herself, you might learn that copies of nearly everything can be borrowed. Librarians have a vast, legal, network of sources for academic/scientific works. Even my town library, which has no formal relationships, can find just about anything I need, though the sources are usually all in this country.

But there are no ethical issues about asking. Etiquette only requires politeness and being honest about your needs.


How do you make sure you don't plagiarize unintentionally? Forgive my complete newbieness, but I truly don't to know the answer to this question.
If you decide to write a scientific paper for possible publication in a conference/journal (in engineering, for instance), you'd obviously need to choose a subject that adds something new to the status quo, but then, in doing so, you very certainly will have to tap into the existing research too. And as I understand, most publishing organization have access to special search engines that helps them identify plagiarism.
So where does the line between plagiarism and authentic work lie exactly? Stated otherwise, how do you avoid "unintentional plagiarism" so that the paper you submit doesn't look like you essentially copied existing work? What is considered new and authentic work? Because I have seen many many articles published by IEEE, for example, (especially conference papers) where the original/new contribution was very slight (like a 'new' model/technique that modifies ever so slightly a previous one), isn't this considered plagiarism?

Use citations for relatively recent work that is not your own (an exception to this is the idea of "common knowledge". For example, you don't need to reference Newton or Leibniz when you employ calculus).
You are not plagiarizing when you develop layers of references and then build on that body of knowledge to add a contribution to it (and hence, becoming part of the body).
When you state a fact, result, argument, assertion, etc, that is not your own but that of someone and do not use a citation, then you are plagiarizing because your readership will interpret that part of the paper as an original thought of your own.
Using citations properly is a skill you will develop over time, so do your best to cite everything that you think requires a citation early on and then you can always edit down things later. As time goes on, you'll understand what does and does not require citation.


Citing a Work that Cites a Personal Communication I'm interested in knowing if/how to properly cite a personal communication within a reference and if credit should be given to the primary source (the personal communication), the secondary source (the reference that cites the personal communication), or both.

Hypothetical example:  There is a textbook which has tabular data that I would like to reference.  The textbook cites the tabular data as being from a personal communication with another author.  I see this as a quandary since:

(1)  If I reference the textbook without the personal communication, I am not giving proper credit to the original author (even though they never published the data separately in its own right)

(2)  If I reference the personal communication, this would be incorrect and perhaps fraudulent as it was not between myself and the author, I am only a third party, and I would not be giving proper credit to the textbook authors, which is how the data was published.

(3) If I reference both, that is somewhat awkward as that would imply that I found the data from both sources independently, even though I only found it in one.

What is the proper way to reference this?

This is a very odd situation, and you may want to consider carefully whether to use the source, per Nate Eldredge's comment above.  If you do want to use it, however, I would recommend citing the textbook, but mentioning their original source in prose:

  blah blah context context, per the table in [citation of Textbook], as attributed to [their source].

This way you give the citation and appropriate credit, but do not assert you have personal communication of your own.


What is baseline funding? What is baseline funding in academia? What does it mean for professors to have individual baselines and where does the money come from?

Edit:
My professor says he is paying for my travelling expenses from his baseline. I am doing undergraduate research under his supervision. This is in the Middle East.

While the details and availability vary radically from institution to institution, some professors are given a certain budget to spend on whatever they deem appropriate (within limits).

In the United States, this is most commonly associated with more senior positions (e.g., endowed chairs). It is typically not a very large amount, but often enough to support some travel or undergraduate researchers.

In other countries, it may be structured differently.  In particular, I have heard that some universities in the Middle East have been giving extremely attractive funding packages to professors as part of their program to attract foreign talent.  My guess is that this may be the case with your professor, though it is impossible to know for certain without more information.


Is it wise to develop skills that do not immediately benefit short-term research productivity? I have a master in physics and philosophy and have a keen interest in mathematics. Currently I am doing a PhD in philosophy. On a personal level, however, I cherish the interdisciplinary ideal of combining mathematics, physics and philosophy. I am well aware that realizing this ideal requires an enormous amount of work and talent – and that very likely I cannot 'completely' realize it.

On a structural level, I suppose this is an unfortunate side-effect of the level of specialization in academia today. On a subjective level, however, I feel the need to “revolt” against such over-specialization. It a shame that some "philosophers of science" in my branch haven't solved one differential equation in their life; yet they intend to reflect on what physicists do. I am convinced that combining different disciplines is a worthy thing to do. I suspect many people would agree with me, but the competitive reality of academia makes it very hard to realize.

The time one invests in a secondary area of interest (i.e. mathematics, physics) takes away time to do research in one's main area (i.e. philosophy). The reduced time would (on the short-term) make me less productive and successful. However, in the long-term, it might allow me to produce work of more value and depth.

(1) Is it wise for a PhD student, somewhere below on the academic ladder, to gamble already on long-term investments, or should one give in to the short-term safety and (over)specialize in one area?
(2) Is there some middle-way between the two extremes?
(3) Is it more useful in later stages of one's career to have a broad skill-set or have more publications in one (limited) area?

I think this is a good question, but I have only a brief, partial answer: you may have to accept that, in pursuing the interdisciplinary topics that interest you, the time and energy you spend will not be repaid with any kind of academic currency, but only in less tangible forms.  In other words, you may never get a better job, get an extra paper published, or even get an extra pat on the back from a colleague; but you may nonetheless, in a subtle and unsung way, advance the anti-specialization principles you espouse simply by doggedly producing quality work that embodies them.  This may sound cynical, but I mean it seriously.  Of course, you need enough tangible reward to keep your career going, but it sounds like you're asking about how or whether to invest the energy to go the extra mile above and beyond that.  It's possible to derive internal comfort from believing that you're doing your best to produce the kind of work you think needs to be produced, even if doing so doesn't earn you any praise or advance your career in any concrete way.  In the end, whether you continue to do this work will depend on whether you can be happy and sane doing it, and drawing strength from your inner conviction, rather than from external validation, can help with that.