Why do computer science students working in computational biology domain need to give biological validation for their prediction? I am in my 3rd year of PhD. I am doing my PhD on Computational Biology, with a background of purely Computer Science. Since I am under pressure to publish 4 more journal papers, apart from my review, I am always in a hurry to do the same. What I have noticed for this field is that if I predict something, I need to provide biological validation for my result. Why so? Is biological validation not the work of biologists? How can a computer science student provide biological validation for his/her prediction? Isn't our job just to predict? Why do the journals want biological validation for the results? I did a prediction job, where I predicted some proteins to do a particular function. I communicated it to the Molecular BioSystems Journal. They rejected it saying I have no biological validation. If biologists are the one with the final say, then what point do we have in working in this domain? Whatever we predict would be questioned.

I am always in a hurry to do the same. What I have noticed for this
  field is that if I predict something, I need to provide biological
  validation for my result. Why so?

Because this is how one knows if your results are correct and useful. A prediction is nothing if it hasn't been evaluated. The field is littered with predictions that turn out to be nonsense, only hold up under very narrow circumstances, etc.

  Is biological validation not the work of biologists?

No more than it would be if a biologist said "I just developed this algorithm, proving it's correct is the work of a computer scientist."

Beyond that, there's no reason for them to do so. "I've made an arbitrary prediction, anyone want to validate it?" is going to be met with a resounding "No" - the biologists have their own work to do.

  How can a computer science student provide biological validation for
  his/her prediction? Isn't our job just to predict?

No, it's your job to provide useful results. Validated predictions are useful. Just predictions are not.

As people have noted, there are a number of ways to validate a prediction. Existing data, or even simulated data based on known biological patterns, might be sufficient. If no such data exists, it's time to find a collaborator.

  Why do the journals want biological validation for the results?

Because anything else is just speculation.

  I did a prediction job, where I predicted some proteins to do a
  particular function. I communicated it to the Molecular BioSystems
  Journal. They rejected it saying I have no biological validation. If
  biologists are the one with the final say, then what point do we have
  in working in this domain? Whatever we predict would be questioned.

Do you know that it was rejected by a biologist? There's a number of computer scientists I know who would have rejected such a paper for having no biological validation. Beyond that, your "point" in working in the field is to generate those predictions and evaluate their correctness. The latter part is also an aspect of good computational biology.


Is there an accredited doctorate in gastronomy? Can someone do research and eventually obtain a PhD in a gastronomy-related field (not approached from the side of chemistry, history or culture but rather from the culinary side) from an accredited university?

Aside from the programs/universities mentioned in the link which Zenon gave in a comment, it appears that you may need to tweak a molecular gastronomy program to fit your interests. The Italian University of Gastronomic Sciences looks to have several programs that might fit your desired focus.


What is a good way to tackle difficult technical questions during graduate interview I went into an engineering graduate school interview totally unprepared today and may have totally wrecked it.

The interview began like any other interview. The professor introduced his area of research, then I discussed my area of interest and academic background. I asked him a few questions regarding funding, number of graduate, thesis topic.

Then he said we should discuss some technical questions, which was not unreasonable, although I have never been asked to discuss technical questions with any other interviewers.

To begin he made me cite a number of theorems from linear algebra, I had some difficulty remembering the terminology but was in the ball park. Then he made me recite some theorems using formal proof "there exists...such that..." which really caught me off guard. He gave some other questions, but I had to ask him to clarify some of the terminologies he used in these questions which I don't think he was very eager to give out. Lastly, he made to write the closed form expression of some matrix operation which is a pain because I had to perform a bunch of mental calculations.

To be honest, I think I took too long to answer most of those questions and had trouble distinguish between the questions that should be addressed using intuition or mathematical derivation. The interviewer did not give obvious signals after I had answered a question correctly, this made me beat around the bush several times until he said my original answer was correct. Also, these questions were out of my current focus, despite having studied them at some point.

Can someone give me some tips on how to tackle questions in a graduate interval setting for which you think you will have difficult answering? What does the interviewer want to know in this case? How I can think step by step, how fast I can do this or if I was intuitive or made good use of analogy?

This may also be applicable to thesis deference, software interviews...

Relax it is the most important thing; if you are stressed it will show. Also people ask tough questions not only to see if you get the answer right, but also see how you get to the answer, and to see how you respond to the answer you gave being challenged and questioned.

Also If you don't know something or are unsure but think you could have a stab at it say so. Some people may not appreciate this but other really do. I have left a couple of interviews (I got the role) where people commented on my honesty. The person asking the question generally knows the answer, so don't BS them.

Talk of people knowing the answer, I worked with one guy who used to want to know the answer to esoteric or difficult technical stuff, so asked the same question to at least 2 candidate, and had a set of 5/6 questions. They would design chunks of the system in the interview, and then he'd pick the best guy. He had no idea what the answer should be, but figured if two people gave the same answer it was probably in the ballpark.

As I said at the start relax, one way to get a second to think is take a sip of water before answering. It allows you to get your thoughts in order after the shock of the questions. Also ask for clarification, even if you understand the whole question, again 5 seconds can be enough to pull you head back to the task, and dredge up those critical facts.


Is it unethical to submit an older paper to a conference and then update it after acceptance? I have had a paper accepted for a conference this summer, which presents the preliminary results of my PhD research. However, I'd like to present my final results at another conference in the fall, the deadline for which is in a few weeks, and which requires a full paper submission. My question is: would it be unethical to submit the first paper (in a re-structured form) in the hope that it will get accepted for the later conference, and then subsequently update the results before the final deadline?

"May I submit a paper to another conference that is essentially the same as a paper that is already published or accepted for publication?"

NO *

  "May I substantially change the content of an accepted conference paper after peer review?"

NO *

* Unless it is disclosed to, and permitted by, the PC/editor.


Planning a course: lecture-by-lecture or topic-by-topic? I'm planning my first course, and I'm starting to realize that it's actually broken into a long string of smaller topics, and that each smaller topic is unlikely to fit into a single lecture.  Teaching each sub-topic as a lecture would either make my lectures run short or too long.  I'm considering planning out my lectures in a continuous way: rather than write up a plan for lecture 1, 2, and so on, I'm thinking of just writing out all of what I want to say for each topic, all of the examples and so forth.  Then, I just start at the beginning and keep going, ending each lecture at an appropriate place in the notes.

Is that a bad idea?  Are there any best practices I should follow?

Planning it in a continuous way and not lecture by lecture gives you more flexibility in the classroom as questions or other issues might interfere with your planning and therefore your planning doesn't work out anymore. On the other case, there is a chance that you won't plan enough for a lecture, so a continuous plan enables you to "fill" a hole, in case you'd advance faster than you have planned.

A lecture by lecture plan may be helpful as well, maybe not on a very detailed level. But writing down which topics you'd like to cover within which lectures helps in setting up an underlying structure of the course, showing the coherence of the smaller topics.

Going further, I'd like to add, that if you plan to write down what you are going to say, you might ask yourself the question if it is helpful for your teaching or the students learning if you hand out some form of lecture notes at the beginning of the course. I, as a student, enjoy having to take less notes and being able to focus more on what the teacher is saying. As a teacher, with lecture notes, I know for myself, that my lesson is carefully planned and that I have already done a good amount of work for next year. If you are concerned, that with lecture notes students attention may decline, I suggest that you leave out certain type of content, in mathematics e.g. examples.


What is a learning agreement used for and when it is necessary I am going to be at a university as an exchange student. I will not take any courses and will work with a professor. There is an online application form which asks me to upload a learning agreement and the website of the university provides a suggested template for it. Also, I have searched about what this agreement is through many sources.

It seems that this "learning agreement" is for those people who are going to take courses in a university other than their home university. Am I right?

If my assumption is true, does it mean that I do not have to upload this kind of agreement?

As the comments have mentioned, this is not a standard thing. It's possible the university doesn't even have a standard learning agreement, although it might.

  It seems that this "learning agreement" is for those people who are going to take courses in a university other than their home university. Am I right?

It's not strictly for exchange students. A local student doing something similar would probably have to do one too. Basically, for "independent study" courses where you aren't taking a class, and are working one-on-one with a professor, it outlines the expectations and grading criteria for you, in lieu of a syllabus.

Especially because you are coming from a different county, they don't want you to a) show up and not have a productive experience because your goals aren't well defined; and b) they don't want any fraud occurring, after all, they are sponsoring you for a visa (presumably).

Unfortunately, I find it unlikely you and your sponsor can prepare this in a day or two.


Citation: refer to author or paper? What is the British English way of referring to a source in-text.

Is it plural because there are two authors, like this:

  X and Y (2011) describe ...

Or is it singular because you are referring to a singular source, like this:

  X and Y (2011) describes...

So what I am asking is whether you refer to the source or to the authors?

Supporting @user153812, I'd write

  Marx and Engels (1888) propose sharing property ...

but

  The paper (Marx and Engels, 1888) provides the first definition of communism ...

The rule of the thumb is that a citation in parenthesis should not disturb the flow of the sentence. Every time this not happens, I find myself referring to the authors, hence the plural. The only exception is when there is a sole author.

  Lenin (1907) provides a crucial extension of the initial suggestion of Marx ...

I had to correct myself, having written it initially in past tense, which sits better with my belly felling, but does not provide a good reference to the genus.

(Note that I did not proof-check the dates, it's just the May spirit.)


Free Database to Verify the Accreditation of any College or University in the World? Is there a free, authoritative, trustworthy online database where one can look-up the accreditation of any college or university in the world?

For information about European institutions, the best starting point for such an online search is possibly the ENIC-NARIC network (European Network of National Information Centres on academic recognition and mobility) which lists the national accreditation organisations.

A list of accredited Swiss higher education institutions can be found at the site of the Rectors' Conference of the Swiss Universities CRUS.

A database of accredited study programmes in Germany can be found at the site of the German Accreditation Council.

The Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders NVAO has a similar database of Dutch and Flemish study programmes and institutions.


Letters of recommendation only from employers and managers I am looking to apply for a professional masters program in computer science (M.E. in Computer Science). This program is designed to for the working software engineer and thus not advised for those interested in doing computer science research in academia.  As part of this, I am going to need to submit 3 letters of recommendation. It has been a few years since I graduated with my bachelors and I did not have a significant relationship with any of the professors in my undergraduate program. Thus, I would not be comfortable asking them for a letter of recommendation.

I am now working and I am highly regarded at work. I am confident that I could get very strong letters from various managers that I have worked with at my company. Will 3 strong letters of recommendation from these individuals be enough? How will they be weighed against a less strong letter from an undergrad professor?

I have only been an admission committee member in the biomedical field so I cannot say too much about your field. For us, here are the concerns.

Generally, the pattern we have seen is applicants who returned to school after a long period working in industry face a harder time. A few factors include age difference (harder to find study partners), technology gap (unfamiliar with online learning platform or software), and anxiety related to assessment (examinations, tests, etc.)

While I understand it's a professional degree, a professional degree is still a degree given in an educational organization. There will be assignments, due dates, evaluation, course load management, study skill application, group work, etc. It will not be free of academic features. Admission committee would like to know if the applicants are ready for that.

If you have had a strong relationship with any professor I'd recommend go get his/her letter that would highlight your abilities as a student, but too bad you haven't had one or it may be too long a gap. This is not to say you should give up one strong co-worker's reference letter in favor of a weaker one from a former professor. Instead, a second best approach would be to ask one of your reference persons (preferably the one who trained you or someone who holds an adjunct professor title elsewhere) to highlight your good properties as a learner, and (if he/she also teaches) provide an estimation on your ability to thrive in an academic environment.

Another possible step to take is to ask the admission/recruitment staff. They can perhaps also let you know what the general patterns are and if your combination of reference letters would raise a red flag.

Good luck!


Publication fee for reply to comment? I have recently published an article in a "renowned" open access journal which cost us 2000 USD. I say 'renowned' - not to brag, but to highlight that the journal is not the kind of new age OA journal from which I would expect questionable practices.

Another group of researchers now started the process of submitting a comment to our article, to which we crafted a reply. After review, the journal now wants to charge them, as well as us another 2000 USD each for the publication of the comment/reply pair. This comes as an absolute surprise to me.

In my opinion, this practice is actively discouraging scientific exchange, and it seems simply excessive to ask for another 4000 USD. Furthermore, should the reply not be considered part of the comment, therefore, if anyone, the commenter should pay for the publication cost?

I am wondering if anyone has heard of something like this or has experience with publishing comments/replies in Open Access journals?

I think comments papers are an important (and sadly neglected) part of post-review quality control in academic publication. The fact that someone wants to write a comment paper is suggestive of a problem with the peer review of the paper in question, if only in that it left substantial questions unanswered (or unasked).  As such the journal should not charge either party for the comment paper or the response, if only to show that the journal takes quality control seriously, even if they do make all their money from page fees, I think it is in their long term interest.

Writing comments papers should be incentivized, not discouraged by financial hurdles.


Possible to leave a contract academic position shortly after signing new contract? I am an assistant professor on a year-to-year contract in academic med (I'm a PhD biostatistician). I just signed a new contract in July. I have been 'head hunted' to join a private company, and I am seriously considering it. What do I 'owe' in terms of my contact? I get the feeling the contact is more to protect the faculty member from the university and not the other way around, right? I would not be leaving until the spring, so 4-5 months notice. I dont have any teaching duties. Can I just give notice?

The only real recourse that they would have is to sue you for breaking the contract.  Although that's possible, chances are that they wouldn't be able to prove substantial damages and that even if they prevailed you wouldn't have enough assets to make the suit worth while.  This is why academics who break their contracts are seldom sued for breach of contract.

However, depending on how you do this you might end up losing any chance at a positive reference from your former employer.  This is probably the biggest risk that you face.


Is it acceptable for me (an undergrad) to call professors and other research professionals by their first names? I'm a second-year undergrad, and I've always been on a first-name basis with anyone in academia or in a research setting. I first worked in a laboratory in high school, and since everyone was on a first-name basis with everyone else there, I sort of just applied that logic to other labs and to my college professors.

But when I was talking to a researcher (my "supervisor", if that's relevant) at the lab I'm currently interning at this summer, one of my fellow interns told me afterwards she thought it was "odd" and "unprofessional" to call him by his first name. I understand where she's coming from, but if this were any other type of environment (say a business office), I think it would be awkward to call my boss anything but his first name (Mr. X seems a bit too formal for the boss-employee relationship).

For what it's worth, my boss doesn't seem put off by the way I address him, and I don't think my professors are, either. Maybe my perspective's a bit skewed because of how I was introduced to the scientific/academic culture. Am I out of line here? What did you call your professors/advisors/bosses as an undergrad?

In all the years at the university, I only called the professors and lecturers by their last name and a doctor prefix. I also used to call them Professor + Last Name.

But never by their first names as far as they were older than me, they were professors and more important, it was not a custom in the universities I studied to call professors by their first names only (it was somehow impolite to call a professor by his first name only, even by other professors or colleagues).

It usually goes back to the custom. Sometimes the professors themselves prefer to be called by their first names. See how others call professors and see if it is polite or not. But my prefer is always Doctor + Last Name.


Coordination of a class taught by different professors: how to be fair to the students? A typical freshman course on calculus has about 100 students every semester. If the course is divided into 4 sections, each has 25 students and a different instructor.

Because the instructors are different, a student's grade may strongly depend on who teaches his section. Lazy students could ask other students before registering who is the easiest grader or who makes easy or straightforward exams, etc. This is unfair to the rest of the students.

Has anybody else faced the same problem? And how did you overcome it?

What criteria one should impose to guarantee that a student's grade will only weakly depend on who is teaching him?.

We are thinking about giving all sections the same midterms and finals. But, obviously this is not enough

The more common problem across multiple sections of large courses taught by several different instructors is content drift, not grade drift. At my institution we have three General Chemistry I sections, and the distributions of A's, B's, and C's among the students does not change significantly depending on which of 6 people teach the course. The distribution of D's and F's does vary, however. What is more troublesome to us is that some instructors will cover 8 chapters, some will cover 9, some 10, and so on.

However, if you really want to minimize grade drift, then do the following, which will also eliminate content drift:

Coordinate the class - same textbook, same syllabus, identical assignments, exams, everything.
Agree ahead of time on a common grading policy, including cutoffs, curves, grade disputes, etc., and enforce it uniformly.
Teach from a common outline so that all sections get the same material in the same week.
Meet frequently, including at least one meeting before the class starts.
Grade equitably, which may seem difficult, unless you do the following: Professor A grades all of Assignment 1 across all 4 sections. Professor B grades all of assignment 2, etc. Better yet, hire one person (a grad student maybe) to do all of the grading for all 4 sections.


Difficulty in thinking properly during exams I am a student of science preparing for the JEE (India). When I normally practice problems, I find no difficulty in thinking straight. Solutions occur to me when I look at a problem, because for the most part, my fundamentals in Physics, Chemistry and Math are clear.
But each time I sit down to take a test, I experience some sort of blockage in the mind, as if I'm not paying attention to the question (when actually I am paying attention). I find it harder to work my way around a problem during the exam than I would during practice. Had this difference between practice and exam been little, I probably would have ignored it. But it is so huge that I can feel how drastically it is affecting my score. It just feels like somebody has switched off a valve in my mind, drastically reducing my brainpower. And it's so frustrating to come home from a test and find easy questions that I could have solved, but didn't because their simple solutions didn't occur to me.
Is it because of the pressure that comes with a timer going on or could it be something else?
And how do I deal with it?

I find that doing strenuous exercise, like an hour-long swim, before an exam relaxes me and calms the nerves.


Is it a good idea to continue a PhD with an advisor who doesn't really know your field? Some background:

I started my PhD in Machine Learning in April this year.
My PhD is fully funded for 3 years, I earn around 2000€/month after tax, working only on research and not doing any teaching.
I'm paid by the grant that my advisor got for his project. This grant his paid by the state.
My current advisor is a world expert in Machine Learning
I already submitted 2 papers with him and most likely submit a third one in a couple of months.

The problem: My advisor just got an offer from one of the biggest company you can think of, to do a machine learning project with lots of different world experts newly hired by the said company. It means that he is going to leave his current position at my university in 4 months.

I can't blame him to take this position because I would have done the same. It's an offer that nobody can refuse.

So in 4 months, I'll have to make a choice.

leave my position and look for a position elsewhere but I doubt I'll find something as interesting and well paid. (My advisor can write recommendation letter for me.)
to stay at the university and choose a new advisor -> the problem is that my current research is highly technical and nobody except my current advisor (and I) have knowledge about it (he was a new junior professor and the university wanted to expand the CS department). The rest of my group is working on a totally different subject and I know nobody will be able to help me for the rest of my PhD.

My advisor told me that the university will find me a new advisor if I choose to stay but warned me that my topic will most likely shift to adapt to the domain knowledge of this new advisor. It means that I'll have to give up my current topic and to tell you the truth, I prefer to quit my PhD than to continue on something that I don't like.

For info, I read this post how-to-cope-when-phd-advisor-quits-midway but I think my problem is slightly different.

tldr: Is it possible to do a PhD with an advisor that can't help you? Or is it better to just go somewhere else?

judging nobody knows the area except you and your advisor seems
a strong statement to me specially if you just started doing research
(this April ).

I am quite sure there are other folks working on the same topic or
something really close to it. Those are your potential advisors.

Taking into account that you just started and he's a world class
expert, I believe the best thing is to approach your advisor asking
for help. Ask him to suggest some names to you.  He certainly
knows other academics and can even approach them asking for a PhD
position for you (have you looked to his co-authors list in DBLP for
example? ). I have heard several cases where advisors help their
students secure PhD positions in other institutions.
Take a breadth view over other's research. Attend their seminars. You
might see their work interesting as well.
DO NOT LOSE YOUR ADVISOR. keep in touch with him and try to be his student even outside academia!


How can I join/volunteer a research group for short term? I am a working professional and I wish to try working on some research projects after 9-5 job. My average skills doesn't allow me to be a part of big research groups, however, I would still like to volunteer (little or no pay expected) and work with a research group for some time and experience what's it like, gain some exposure on how they are done and finally figure out if it's for me or not?

Goal is to gain some exposure by doing, just like people have summer internship during graduation or "On-job-training" during employment in provisional period.

Are there any open, public or community-driven research groups where I can get a feel for how research is done? How can I search groups like these?

I am looking for something in fields like IT, data, computer security etc.

If you want to do it as a hobby you should look for "citizen science groups" near you or in your area of interest. See the Wiki article to get an idea.

  Citizen science (also known as community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, volunteer monitoring or networked science) is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur (or nonprofessional) scientists.

If you want to participate in research at universities and research institutes I would just try to contact the group(s) there that work on the topics of you are interest in.
I guess plenty of groups would be happy to have someone to do some research assistant work and for you it would be a possibility to get to know them and their work.


Developing a framework publication - if I have developed a new method for data extraction, can this be published in a peer-reviewed journal? I'm new to publications, so I could use some advice.
I study in the area of agricultural remote sensing, and for a graduate degree, I have developed a method of extracting data from research plots and processing it, with the ultimate goal of looking for statistical differences between breeding plots. This was done in order to create a process for people to follow who are looking to use remote sensing to enhance crop breeding.
As this would be considered a multiple-step 'framework' for data extraction that others could follow, can this be published in a peer-reviewed journal? Using this framework, I have extracted data and have found significant relationships with ground-measured data, indicating that remotely-sensed data can potentially be used to identify certain plant traits. My concern is that since this isn't a traditional "method-based" publication, it might not get published. However, I do have many statistics that were generated as a result of using my newly-developed framework, so there is a lot of statistical analysis that can be included.
Bottom line: Can such a manuscript be published?

Such kinds of paper are quite common in the field of GIS, usually branded as a "feasibility" study (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5075756/). If there is a question to be solved, and you have a proposed method to solve it, yielding useful analyzable data, there should be a home for it.
I'd first check with a research librarian in your network. They can provide you with a list of possible candidate journals (e.g. do you want agricultural journals or GIS journals? Etc.). Then, comb through the list by visiting their website and browsing some sample articles, make a decision on a few as your targets.
You can also consider non-academic (may not be peer reviewed but can reach a wider audience) channels like those GIS software user conferences.


Graduate school needs my masters grade but I have no grades yet! I've started my graduate school applications for the next year. When I try to provide my university information I fill in a form with my grades. Since I am doing an Msc course this year I have not yet received any grades. I can't follow through the application without them though. Should I just insert 0 and explain that later?

The best way to do this would be to insert "n/a" into the field for your grades, or simply write "not available yet" as CaptainEmacs suggested. In the event that you cannot write a non-numerical answer (as was the case when I applied to grad school), a "0" should suffice that it is not your actual grade. Your application will likely require preliminary transcripts (and eventually official transcripts), so I would not worry about not being able to report your official grade, especially since this is a common problem.

I would avoid writing this issue into your statement of purpose, since your SoP should be relatively short and to the point, focusing on your research and other accomplishments. While I would definitely include your MSc course in your statement, I would not mention anything relating to the application itself. Often universities have a graduate coordinator for any given department, so I suggest reaching out to them if you have questions about your application.


What is the proper method to give credits in lecture material To prepare the lecture material. I use the book, my own slides, but I also take a few slides from MIT or other top universities open courses.
What is the best way to give credit?
I must provide source information on each slide?
Or Is it better to enlist all the resources/citations in the first/final slide?

Do you include the slides verbatim (e.g., by copying a pdf or image into your slides), or do you just base your slides on those other slides in the same way in which you might base them on a textbook?

In the first case, I think that a note on that slide (on the first slide, if you copy several slides in a row) is mandatory – probably not only a reference, but a copyright notice.

In the second case, I'd include the reference in a bibliography section, like for other journal papers or textbooks that you base your slides on. If I can avoid it, I prefer not to clutter every slide with details that are irrelevant for understanding the content.


Retyping some material to obscure source of a textbook with a solution manual? This is my first time teaching mathematics. I've been giving lessons based on a certain textbook which contains excellent exercises (not just the exercises, but the order in which they appear leads one to discover mathematics for yourself). However, the textbook has a solutions manual, and I am certain that if the source was revealed, then students would purchase the manual and defeat the purpose of the course. I am wondering if it is ethically acceptable to retype myself some of the exercises and exposition from parts of the book in order to obscure the source (and perhaps reveal it at the end of the course)?

My intentions are solely to create a joyful mathematical experience for the students. There is no intention of plagiarism.  My only worry is that the exposition is so good that I don't see how much I can deviate.

Clarification: The course is not intended to have students master a technical subject and then solve problems under a time pressure.  This is not a mathematics course for engineers or scientists.  Rather, problem sheets are given each week, with the requirement that at the end of the week the student turns in 10 solutions to their favorite problems.  The focus is on quality of writing and clarity of though.  In fact this entire issue is now resolved as I have communicated with the author.

I can think of the following potential ethical issues, some more easily mitigated than others:

Misleading others into believing that you have created the exercises yourself - You can easily avoid this by explicitly noting that the material is adapted from another source (without specifying the source). In most cases, there is no expectation of originality in teaching materials anyway - see Is it considered plagiarism for a professor to use uncited sources in teaching materials?
"Stealing" professional credit or similar benefits that would otherwise be due to the original authors - If you are redistributing the materials to colleagues for use in their courses, or otherwise using the materials in a way that would earn professional "credit" or goodwill (not just assigning the exercises to students), then you should definitely cite the source. Otherwise, I don't see a problem here.
Withholding a potentially useful resource from the students - If the book is genuinely helpful, I don't like the idea of preventing students from finding out about it. (Surely there is some more content and other exercises in the book that you aren't rewriting and giving to your students, that they might benefit from?) If you judge that the educational benefit of preventing some students from finding the solutions is really much greater than the benefit of some students buying the book and using it to learn more effectively, fine; but think that through very carefully.
Suppressing sales of the textbook - Presumably if you did not obfuscate the source, some of your students would buy the book (because it is such a helpful learning resource), and the authors of the book want people to buy it (or download it, if they have made it available in that way). I suppose you could mitigate this by getting permission from the authors.

Personally, I would prefer to tell students about the textbook, but remind them that if they don't actually do the exercises themselves, they will probably do poorly on the exams. If that was not an option, my second choice would be to modify the exercises so that students who had the original text and the solution manual would only be able to solve them if they understood them.


The professor for one of my classes has no direction I'm in my final semester of a Computer Science degree at University and we have general education requirements.

I'm in a Public Speaking course with an interesting professor, lets call him professor Johnson. Johnson doesn't seem to be actually teaching any material or guiding us on any topics that are related to the book or curriculum we're assigned. He was obviously given all of the online course material, including our online quizzes and study guides. Most of the quiz grades are handed to students, whether we completed them or not. Some are not even available.

He was a one year contract with the university, and was hired a mere two weeks prior to the semester beginning. He doesn't know how to use the learning management system and seems to have no interest in learning it. I inquired about an online quiz, and he had no idea what I was talking about or how to get to it. Considering I'm the only senior, I offered to stay after and show him around the site, suggesting that he attach due dates to quizzes so the students will actually do them on time with the reading and he can decide not to accept late assignments if he so chooses. He nodded and hasn't made any changes since.

We spend our days in class talking about no particular topics, nothing about the book, and no PowerPoints in sight. He rants about our news habits, how much water we like to drink, and we spend 25 minutes each period doing breathing exercises. The only related material is a monthly speech that we must give, with basically no guidance.

My question is whether I should speak to the department chair about his behavior. We're halfway through the course and the LMS hasn't seen a single bit of attention, he doesn't respond to emails of any topic, and asks the class what we want to discuss for the day. It's obviously very freestyle and he's not following any course material. I'm finding it harder and harder to attend class, and increasingly frustrating that I have spent money on this course. He seems very financially worried about his contract being renewed, as he has literally brought this up in class.

Should I leave an honest course review and leave it at that, let his own fate decide whether his contract is renewed, or speak with the department chair about my concerns?

Yes, you should raise this with the department, either with the Undergraduate Director or the Chair. The problem is not Prof. Johnson's unfamiliarity with the LMS--as a new faculty member, that is understandable. But you should restate what you said here about not teaching the assigned material.

You mention online quizzes that were given to him. Are they being offered and graded? If so, is the grading fair? If not, what assignments will your course grade be based on?

If the lessons are not being taught, students cannot complete the assignments successfully. That is the kind of issue the department's administrator will be concerned about, because they do want you to get a serious education in every class. And they know that the grading scheme in the syllabus, as well as the learning objectives, are contractual issues that have to be fulfilled.

In talking to the administrator, stay focused on teaching performance issues only and avoid anything personal. You are supposed to be learning something critical about the history and practice of public speaking, and you should have an opportunity to demonstrate that learning fairly, through tests or papers. If that is not happening, the department's administrators need to know. The sooner the better.


Publishing a monograph in two languages I have published an academic monograph in Spanish based on my dissertation with a university press in Spain. I have reworked the book since then and translated it into English, would it be dishonest to try to get it published in English (I would of course mention that the book originally appeared in Spanish)?

Many books are published with something like "translated from the original Spanish (French, German, Italian) by A. N. Author" so go ahead.


When to publish a journal article versus a scholarly book? In some fields, original research is reported almost exclusively in journal articles, but in others scholarly books are more common.

In the latter fields, how does one decide whether to publish a journal article or wait and introduce the research in a longer book?

My observation is that in those disciplines one decides before hand to do research to write a book. So it is not a matter you have results and wait with publishing it, but as long as the book is not done, the research is not considered to be done.


Developing meta-cognitive and emotional skills during PhD? I am convinced that I possess sufficient "cognitive skills" to succeed doing my PhD. Reflection on myself, however, confronts me with the fact that my "meta-cognitive" (time management, mental discipline, focus) and "emotional" skills (motivation, patience, work-life balance, monitoring own health) are underdeveloped.

I feel that I am always making the same mistakes. I am often working hard for days. Stress and coffee distort my sleep pattern, making my mind empty for days. I recognize clear patterns. I also have trouble maintaining a healthy life-style. Instead of taking a little bit more time to eat healthy or sport, I am captivated in "the illusion that there is always more work to do." As a consequence, I am (on average) physically sick two days in the week -- eventually, losing more time. Finally, though I was happy living my introvert life before, the long days of no social interaction and just staring at my computer screen are becoming more dreadful.
My meta-cognitive skills also seem to be weak. I have trouble focusing on one subject for a very long time. I often get bored after some weeks, wanting to jump immediately to something else. As a result, it appears that the first phase of my research (almost 9 months) is very fragmented. I don't see any linear progress. I often doubt that the time I am investing in some subject will be useful later. I feel that I am not really spending my time the best I can. I keep track of my work hours in Excel files to be sure that I accomplish my weekly goal of 45 hours. In order to accomplish this goal I mostly have to push many hours to the weekend. I am aware that this bad time-organization will affect the quality of my relationships in the long term; and damages my work-life balance in general. I feel that I am working 24/7 at half capacity, whereas I would prefer to work 5 or 6 days in the week at full capacity.

I am starting to have less and less satisfaction from my work. The butterfly feeling of wonder and passion for science are disappearing. I am feeling more like an input-output machine which needs to be managed. The work I am doing also seems to be driven and conditioned by external factors (deadlines, presentations, publications, expectations promoter) instead of internal factors (pleasure, interest).

More concrete questions:

(1) Is it possible to improve one's meta-cognitive and emotional skills? How would one do this in practice? Can a person really change?

(2) How can one restore those feelings of wonder and true passion, and step out of the "routine" where one feels like an input-output machine which needs to be managed?

I empathize, as this is something that I (and many others here, I am sure) have also struggled with.

My first piece of advice is simple but difficult: you need to start valuing yourself. Eat well. Sleep well (or at least defend an eight hour block of time where you lie in bed and rest). Get outside and move around. Your mind lives inside your body, and you cannot build on a broken foundation.

My second piece of advice is to help yourself do this by getting help from a therapist. I particularly recommend looking into cognitive behavioral therapy, given your description of self-regulation: it is very good at helping people get out of dead ends that are more intellectual than organic.


What to do with students coming to office hours asking to check their homework? As a teaching assistant (TA), how to handle the situation where a student comes to office hours asking to check their homework? I.e. the student hands in their solution to the homework and ask the TA to check for any mistake. Assume homeworks are worth somewhere between 20% and 50% of the grade.

If country-specific, I am interested in the United States. If field specific, I am interested in computer science, linguistics, neuroscience and maths.

Answering from the point of view of a physical scientist, and in keeping with my personal take on what kinds of help are appropriate or inappropriate.

(I haven't been a TA for a long time, but I teach at an all-undergrad department so I have to be my own TA.)

These are great teachable moments if you have the time (and it can take a lot of time).

You don't check their homework, you ask them to explain their solutions to you.

But there is a catch: you don't let them get away with "I used this formula, and I solved for [variable]"; instead, make them explain their logic and the conceptual basis of their work step by step. When they are stuck or are proceeding incorrectly, you probe their understanding of the problem in a Socratic style.

The kind of questions you might ask include:

Conceptual basis

What physical principles apply to this problem?
Are their any hidden assumptions here? If so, what are they?
What statements in the problem or facts about the world brought you to select that particular approach? And why did you use that expression of the principle in mathematical form?
How well do the explicit assumptions in the problem match the real world (i.e. is this a PhysicsLand (tm) cartoon or a somewhat realistic treatment)?
Are these results reasonable for the real world? If so, why? If not how do you expect the world to differ and what neglected effects would make the answer more realistic?

Math basis (where they'll want to spend all their time at first)

Why is is that the right value for that variable?
Why is that substitution allowed in this case?
What does it mean that there are two solution to that equation? Which one do you use and why? Is the other one meaningful as well?
Does this situation actually meet the preconditions used in deriving the result you want to use?
Can this problem be stated as a special case of one we're already done? Why or why not?

Problem solving basis

What is the goal here? (You'd be surprised how often they lose sight of that.)
What can you learn from what we've been given? (If you don't know how to proceed just try shotgunning it; forward version.)
What list of thing would get you in position to find the answer? (If you don't know how to proceed just try shotgunning it; backward version.)
Do we already know the correct solution to a simpler version of the problem? Does that hint at a way to proceed here?

Most students will find those questions very difficult at first, but as they become more adept at handling the questions they should see their homework and exam scores improve markedly.

If they have the patience they will solve the problem for themselves right there in your office.

Though this is very time consuming most students will not be regulars. Some will simply become frustrated at what they see as your unwillingness to "help" and look elsewhere; and others will get better at the discipline: as the term progresses they'll bring you fewer problems and ask more perceptive questions about them.

In addition to wanting to talk about formulas first, they are going to want to talk about values ("and then I plugged in the 18 from the problem..."). Don't let them do that either. Make they say what quantity it was ("and then inserted the given initial velocity ...").

Beginners are all about numbers and formulas, but learning the discipline is about principles first, problem solving process second, and particular results last.

Philosophical note: As I see it the purpose of homework is to facilitate learning. I wouldn't even grade it except that there is no other way to insure that they will do it. That's why it doesn't bother me that they are getting a lot of support doing the homework for my class: when they come to me I get to make it a learning experience for them.
(The first time they come in they may think they are going to get one for free, but they're in for some skull sweat.)

Admittedly, I get to decide that for my own class and when you are a TA, you may have to abide by the professor's opinion about how much and how directly you should help with assignments.


Use logo of university in a presentation of work done elsewhere As a part of a PhD application process I have to give a talk about a project that I did a couple of years ago for an institution I no longer colaborate with.

I was thinking of putting the logo of my current institution in the first of my slides as a support when introducing myself and explaining my background to the people who are going to listen to my talk.

Is this considered a good practice? I have doubts because the work I am going to talk about has no relation whatsoever with my current university.

Remember that the application process is about pitching YOU to the selection committee / other powers-that-be. Part of that pitch is introducing yourself -- and hence using your current uni logo would be appropriate. You should also explain that the work you're discussing was done elsewhere. That is, make sure anyone listening would not walk away with the wrong impression.


When looking for students to work on a research project: contact good students directly or contact all class then select the good ones? When teaching an undergraduate or graduate course and knowing about some good students, what would be the best approach in inviting them to join a research project? Contacting them directly, or send an email to all students and then select the "good students" that are also interested?

At my institution the selection was two-fold. The professor usually has an open invitation for all students to apply for their lab, but chosen students were known to be approached to raise their interest. This was always done carefully as to don't imply any precedence between students, but not secretly, and almost always orally (not by email or similar). For example, at the project oral defense, the instructor would suggest to the best students to consider applying for their lab.

At least all of my instructors were careful not to "flatter" the students, but only to raise their interest. There is little sense to have a, no matter how brilliant, student working on a project, if they are not interested in the subject.


PhD student I am working with as an undergrad may pursue something similar to what my senior thesis is on, is this a conflict of interest? I began researching for my thesis on subject X several months ago, and the thesis program is starting in a few weeks.
I did not tell the grad student at the old uni about this yet - because originally we were working on different things, his idea seemed cool, and naturally, I want my name on as many papers as possible. However, my adviser told me that my research idea may be enough to be considered a significant contribution in the field. A lot of people in research are interested in how X can be applied to different areas right now, but my idea on how to apply it is completely my own and unique.
I feel I should either only work on my thesis at my new uni, or email the grad student at my old one, let him know I am researching X right now, and that if he involves X in his research, that might not look good for me.
How should I go about this? I feel bad because the grad student invested time into teaching me for the last 4 weeks and getting me caught up, but I also want to do what's best for me - which is 100% pursuing my research idea.
The fact that my adviser thinks it is publishable and may make an impact in the field is rare enough in undergrad, while the grad student I am working with is not sure what exactly he's researching yet - and I fear that he will look into using X now, which might cross with my research.

No.  One of the criteria for a problematic conflict of interest is that the conflicted person has power.  The PhD student does not have any power in this situation.
In general, collaboration is good.


What is the best way to explain the change of my research interest in my Statement of Purpose for a PhD application? I've been an research assistant in a lab of my department for a while. I've gained some research experience and skills but I've developed some new research interests during my internship and I found them more interesting to pursue in my graduate study. However, I have no related research experience. How do I address that in my SOP for the Ph.D application?

How about explaining just along the same lines within your statement of purpose, as you do in your question, in a more developed way?

If you have a strong line of argument to underpin your change of research interests, and you can demonstrate you are committed to go further with this line of enquiry, and how your previous research can help with what is to come, and/or demonstrate how the knowledge and skills you've acquired and developed so far will support your future research efforts, that would be a good way to address this change in your application.


What is a suitable gift for an Italian PhD advisor based in the UK? This question is already asked here. But I found the answers unhelpful, so I would like to ask again, and narrow to the case the advisor is Italian (but has lived in the UK for 20 years).

I would like to buy a gift, so suggestions such as in the accepted answer "be someone who is easy to advise" is not helpful. I already finish my PhD anyway.

I am thinking of possible options:

Chocolate (sound informal)
Shirt (I don't know his size)
My PhD thesis with beautiful hard-bound cover (I doubt that he will ever read it again)
...

Please give me some suggestions. I'm an Asian, and do not know much about European traditions. At first, I intended to invite him (and all people in the group) for a drink on my viva date, but it turned out he insisted to pay for all :(

Instead of something related to Italy, how about something related to your own home?  I (in the US) had a student from China; she gave me a tapestry depicting the Great Wall.  I still have it hanging here many years later.

  Important note: you have finished the Ph.D.  Giving gifts before that may be seen as an attempt to bribe him.  It seems to be the custom in China and Korea to give gifts to the professor, but not in the US (probably also not in the UK).  Wait until after you are finished, so it won't be seen as an attempt to unfairly influence the professor.


How many professors should I mail in a single university? This is a funny dilemma that's been bugging me for quite sometime now. I plan to pursue a PhD in Synthetic Biology and when I visit the faculty directory in a university, I see many profs working on it. Now my question is how many profs should I apply to for a position. They all seem equally good. However, I fear that if I apply to all of them, they might meet over a coffee and come to know that I have been mailing to a lot of them and that would put a bad impression on me (Is it not?). I would want my chances of getting into a program to be maximized. I know there are rotation systems in labs and the program would send my application to potential supervisors(I don't know which ones), that's why I am planning to ping every lab possible which are of my interest. Kindly enlighten me on this.Thanks.

This isn't an answer to your question, but the remark that professors might meet over coffee and find out that you emailed a lot of them seemed funny to me. We do meet over coffee and chat. But you have to recognize that (i) we're people too, with families, kids, etc, and when we have coffee, we often have better things to talk about than students emailing us their applications (we might also be talking about actual science, gasp!), (ii) we get a lot of emails from students applying, and the likelihood that we would notice that one of them has emailed a lot of us is very small.


How to handle relevant, but disruptive, questions I've seen on this site several posts about how to handle silly or "trolling" questions, but I recently faced the opposite situation. Several students in a class I'm teaching continuously bring up questions that are relevant to the lecture and/or interesting; however, they ask so many questions that it tends to disrupt the lecture by throwing off the pace and flow of the presentation (e.g., I lose my train of thought or I have to speed up to finish the lecture on time). I don't want to discourage questions, but at the same time, I don't think it is fair to entertain so many questions if it results in a lowering of the lecture's quality.

A solution that I tried is telling the students that they can come to office hours or make an appointment with me to talk. However, most of them don't take me up on those offers, and those who do take advantage of my offer sometimes come with so many questions that I cannot answer them all within the time I've set aside for office hours/teaching appointments.

Since this is limited to a small (but vocal) subset of my students, I don't think the issue is with the quality of my teaching. Otherwise I would expect (and hope) that more people would be asking questions or giving some other indication that I'm not being clear.

Is there any way to handle this sort of situation without coming across as uninterested in student questions or discouraging questions from being posed? I truly am interested in making sure everyone is understanding the material, but at the same time, I cannot be devoting large amounts of time above and beyond what I'm already devoting to teaching.

As a student, I find that waiting to ask all questions in office hours or the end of class is not a great solution. I don't mind delaying non-urgent questions, but sometimes if I don't understand something presented in the first ten minutes of the class, I might then miss out on the rest of the lecture if I don't have a chance to ask a question. So I appreciate when instructors give students some chance to ask questions during the lecture.

A good way to allow this and also control when and how many questions are asked is to invite questions in each class at times of your choosing (and let students know you'll be doing this).

At the beginning of the lecture, say, "I'll pause and ask for questions at regular intervals, so you'll have a chance to ask your questions then."

Decide ahead of time where you will pause and ask for questions (at convenient places to break the lecture, or places where you know students often have questions).

During the lecture, pause at the predetermined places and say something like:

  "I'll pause for questions now. We have time for three or four questions."

(and you can decide how many questions to take depending on how the lecture is going, time-wise.)

Students with too many questions in office hours are an entirely different issue. You should ask these students to schedule a separate appointment, and determine whether the questions are a sign of a problem (i.e. they may need tutoring or similar services) or a good thing (i.e. they are looking for enrichment and need some pointers on how to find it).


Buy a server or cloud computing for a new lab? We are starting a new computer lab and expect to have data that is 50-100 TB of text, images, and maybe videos to process. We will need to run tasks occasionally (10-30% utilization per month), so mostly it will be used for storage. Should we go for a server or cloud computing? Some points to consider (I am not expert in hardware):

Server pros:

Last for years
Cheaper

Server cons:

Maintenance, upgrade problems, and other issues are common given that our expert is always busy

Cloud pros:

Easier to use (no hassle)

Cloud cons:

Might be expensive to host large data
Need to pay for it after 1-2 years (some funds needs to be spent within 1-2 years).

Local servers are likely to be substantially cheaper and also faster to access the data over LAN rather than the internet for data on that scale (just for a quick count from AWS you're looking at $2400 per month if you ignore the deep-storage options that are not appropriate for data in-use; for the same price you could pay for local servers in a couple months with the same capacity).

Given similar choices, the labs I've worked in have always opted for local storage, but we also utilize cloud options for sharing data both for personal use (i.e., having access at work and home) and between other labs. However, this is only a subset of the data, for example data extracted or summarized from raw data.


As an undergrad applying for PhD positions, can I add to my CV that I will be mentioned in an as yet unwritten paper? I have recently completed a summer research project. In this project I completed sample preparation and preliminary analysis which will be used as a basis for further analysis. I have been told by my day to day supervisor that when this further analysis is done and published, I will be mentioned in the paper.
Can I add a line to my CV (for applying to graduate programmes), under a description of my summer project along the lines of:
"I will be mentioned in the paper that utilises this work when it is written."
Is this acceptable, and of interest to application reviewers, or a waste of my CV space and their time? Note as an undergraduate about to start third year I don't yet have any publications to add to my CV.
Thank you!

It is certainly appropriate to put in a line on your CV about your participation in the project, naming it, and maybe the PI. You can also state that the work is "yet to be published". Don't overstate the case, of course, but if the paper is not yet written, nor the authorship determined, you can't say, now, any more than that.
But participation in a project is itself valuable for a CV intended for graduate admissions.


How to publish a simple machine-learning approach that cannot compete with the state of the art? I am proposing an approach which is simpler than current approaches, but does not come close to the state of the art on benchmark metrics. But, I think my approach is still cool and much simpler in implementation. I want to avoid comparing my approach to the state of the art in the research paper I am writing. How do I go about this situation?

If you try to avoid the benchmark metrics comparison, it is going to be the 900 pound gorilla in the back of the mind of everyone reading your paper.

The alternative is to deal with it from the start. You obviously think there are reasons why your technique is interesting despite its benchmark metrics. You need to communicate those reasons. They should be first mentioned in the abstract. That way, readers are more likely to suspend thinking about the benchmark metrics issue in favor of thinking about what makes the technique interesting.

At some point in the paper you will need to present some metrics, in order to support a claim that the simplicity of your technique outweighs the metrics for some situations.


Talking about works under submission without breaching anonymity I work in a medium/small-sized field within Computer Science. In this field, there are three major conferences. I'm currently submitting my resume/statement to one of these conferences as part of an application. I want to talk about my current works which are under submission to other conferences because they are very relevant to the application. I also want to include where they are being submitted because it adds a lot of value to the quality of work. However, I'm afraid that if I mention what I'm working on + where the works are submitted, that it would be really easy to link me and my group as the authors. This I think could potentially breach the anonymity of our submissions (double blind peer review).

Is this a reasonable concern? Or is this still done?

The point of blinding authors is to prevent implicit biases from influencing the reviewers' judgements. It's practically impossible to blind properly; reviewers are probably able to deduce your identity if they want to. However, a good reviewer shouldn't want to: they should judge your work by its own merits. Thus, in my opinion you should be able to simply mention the other conferences.

(Also: the value of your work is in the work itself - where it is submitted doesn't add anything to that, it merely signals the value you think it has. Not really relevant to this question, but it might help to sharpen your thinking.)


How to cope with unfavorable GPA algorithm I am going to apply for graduate school a year later. My institution is adapting an GPA algorithm which take all course grades record in to GPA calculation. But there is a consequence I think is unfavorable to students.
For example, I got a 1.0/4.0 for my calculus course in freshman which is a 6 credit course in freshman year.I retake it and get a 4.0 a year later to prove that in fact I am well versed in this area. But the net effect for GPA calculation is that the two grades are all included which means (1.0+4.0)/2=2.5 GPA for 12 credits which is still of negative effect. I have a number of  courses badly screwed up and I find it difficult to pull my GPA up in this circumstance.
So, is this algorithm used widely among universities? If it is, how to overcome the downsides or the only way is to face it directly? How would admission offices in, e.g. US graduate schools, view this?

My university has the same (default) GPA policy.

There is a reasonable argument that the effect you describe is actually desirable. Especially for graduate school, what people are looking for in your grades is not mastery of calculus but rather success in mastering new material.  By that standard, a student who gets an A in calculus on their first attempt has a stronger record than a student who gets a D the first time and an A the second time.

I don't really agree with this argument, in part because I don't think GPA is either so important or so fragile that a single bad grade is actually dangerous.  Grad schools won't care about one D in a freshman calculus class, and your improved grade on a second attempt is good evidence of your ability to recover from setbacks.


Sex worker student offering her (lawful) services One of my students is an escort/stripper and she has offered me (and other faculty in my department) her "services". I am pretty sure my initial reaction of "thanks for letting me know, now can you answer the question about how to calculate the standard deviation", may not have been the best reaction. The offers have continued. My head of school is aware of the issue, and has asked if I want him to do anything.

Is the student doing anything wrong by offering her services to me? For what it is worth, prostitution is legal in the UK. Is this any different then a student telling me she works in a restaurant?

What is the correct response in a situation like this?

First, “thanks for letting me know” is not an unambiguous no. I suppose most people would actually get it, but she already appears to have boundary issues, so you should make it much clearer. The best thing to do would be to make it clear to her that you consider her propositions to be out of line. You can add, that while you don't think badly of her because of it, such offers have no place in the classroom (or in a student/teacher relationship).

In fact, you would probably do the same if she insisted on asking you to come have dinner at a restaurant she worked at: you'd be annoyed by it, because it is detrimental to her (and others) attention. I regularly have students who ask out-of-line questions, and I try to be firm: while I'd be happy to discuss if we were friends, we are not and my class/practicals/whatever is not the right place for that.

However, there is a distinction between talking about sex and dining: the law makes a distinction in many countries, including UK. From UCL's HR webpages (as an example):

  Sexual harassment can take the form of ridicule, sexually provocative remarks or jokes, offensive comments about dress or appearance, the display or distribution of sexually explicit material, unwelcome sexual advances or physical contact, demands for sexual favours or assault.

which clearly covers your case, whether the sexual advances are of a paid or an unpaid nature.

Finally, regarding your head of school: the student clearly has boundary issues, probably for making the offer in the first place and definitely for renewing it multiple times after you declined. So, yeah, I would suggest your head of school or a counselor having a talk with her about it.


I have chemistry as my majors but I recently failed my phd qualifying exam I have always been an academically well performing student with good grades but i recently failed my phd qualifying exam and going to get terminal masters with thesis. I have no high paying job prospects like people from engineering background do have after masters. Please advise. Due to the surplus of PhD students from chemistry, industries tend to prefer them for jobs over masters students. I want to reapply to a phd program but do not know what prospects i hold. kindly help

First, this is a good time to review all of your options. Try to find a few that you haven't yet considered and figure out the pros and cons.

But if you really still want to pursue a doctorate, I don't think the door is closed. There are quite a few people in the same position as yourself, though I don't know about how it is in your field.

But, the way to figure out your prospects, really, is to put together all of your qualifications, even including non-obvious ones, and apply to a few programs.

There are a lot of reasons for failing comprehensives/qualifiers. Many of them are incidental to your actual suitability for a degree. But it would be good if you figure out why you failed yours and see if there is some remediation that needs to be done.

One reason is over-confidence. Another, at the other end of the scale, is lack of faith in yourself. There are also technical reasons, of course. Figure it out.

Personal note. I've been in the same situation. The faith of one professor in my ability helped me move to a much better situation with a much better advisor. Then: success.


Is it acceptable to use MS Equation 3.0 for a journal paper? The title sums it up pretty well. I'm using MS Word to write a paper I intend to publish in a SCI journal. It will contain ~15 equations (non-trivial ones: integrals, sums, fractions, special characters, etc.). I'm fairly efficient in Word, but have absolutely no experience using LaTeX.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that once a paper is accepted, it is edited to conform with the journals publishing style, as opposed to some conferences, I attended, which provide a pre-formatted Word document in which I have to place my work before applying to the conference. As the journal provides no such template (but accepts .doc format), I was wondering if there could emerge any issues regarding the equations.

PS: the field is computer science

If they accept .doc probably they also accept MS Equation. However, the best you can do is ask them directly.

Anecdote: A couple of years ago I prepared the proceedings for a major CS conference. We had about 120 accepted papers and only one of those was written in MS Word.


Should supervisors read acknowledgments before the printed version of the thesis? I'm finishing my M.Sc. thesis and I sent it to my supervisors so that they can read it.

In the final version, I would like to insert an acknowledgements page where I thank them. Should I include it in the last draft that I will send them, so they can read it? Or should it be included in only the final version, without their knowledge?

There is no need to remove the acknowledgement in the final version. I know students have done so and for very different reasons, they want to "surprise" someone, they are not on friendly terms with an advisor and does not want the advisor to see it before it is printed. etc. The "surprise" aspect is, I would argue, greatly overrated. To not provide it because of a conflict is not likely to help the conflict. So, even if the reason is non-controversial, not including it might raise an eyebrow of a sensitive advisor. In the end, this is something that should not matter but some people are overly sensitive so ask yourself, are you confident that you will reach your intended effect by doing what you suggest, then go ahead, but if you do not feel so, avoid it. You will sometimes be surprised how much is read into a benign text such as an acknowledgement.


Technical documents to publish or not What can we do with the technical documentation we develop during our career?
Is it worth to publish? If so, where?

I am considering those lines of code that we took time to write and that we usually only use in the first steps of our own publications, that we never actually added to the publication .. but saves all our colleagues (everyone one asks you to adjust your code to their needs...).

Is this a good way to guarantee that our colleagues give credit to the work previously developed by us?

It depends on whether the software is private or not. If it is public, you can either:

add your name to the AUTHORS file (you have one, right?).
ship the manual with the code.
slap a technical report number onto it, so that people will find it easier to cite.
write up a detailed description of what the software does, and publish it in a journal that publishes algorithms --- there are many of them.

If the code is a well-kept secret of your research group, not available even for sale, I am afraid there is very little you can do. People won't be interested in documentation of some code they cannot run themselves. You can still do 1--3, but don't expect people to read and cite it.

Your only hope in that situation is that your co-authors are fair and acknowledge you appropriately whenever they use your code and documentation.


What is - if any - the difference between PhD and doctor? In a Simpsons episode of season 25 the dialoge

Monsarno Rep: Say hello to our chief scientist.
Everyone: Augh! Sideshow Bob!
Sideshow Bob: Dr. Sideshow Bob.
Homer: Real doctor or PhD?
Sideshow Bob: PhD.

takes place. In my country there is only a doctor and I thought a PhD would be exactly that in Anglo-Saxon countries. I would like to know is there a difference in the USA between a PhD and a doctor?  Especially: What did they mean in the dialogue?

Edit: In hindsight this may be a duplicate, but originally it wasn't because I did not know that the "doctor" of the dialogue was about a medical doctor.

It's not the difference between "doctor" and "PhD". It's the difference between "real doctor" and "PhD".

"Real doctor"=someone who performs surgery, prescribes medication, etc.

"PhD"=Doctor of Philosophy

The joke is PhD's aren't "real" doctors. When someone says "I need a doctor", they aren't talking about needing an expert in the jackets of 1860s Chicago or Teichmueller spaces. They need someone to help with their medical ailment.


Indentation of the first paragraph in a section Several papers that I have read only indent paragraphs that are not the first paragraph of a section:

1.1 Introduction

This is the first paragraph.

    This is the second paragraph.

    This is the third paragraph.

Is this a common convention? Are there rules for when to indent like this?

Copied from this answer on writers.SE:

  [...] in Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style, he states that
  "opening paragraphs" should be "flush left" because "[t]he function of
  a paragraph indent is to mark a pause, setting the paragraph apart
  from what precedes it. If a paragraph is preceded by a title or
  subhead, the indent is superfluous and can therefore be omitted".


Is copyediting good for an academic career? I have recently been involved in managing a special issue in a scientific journal. The chief-editor was somehow appreciative of my work and now wants me to join the journal's board as a copyeditor. I am puzzled by this request since I have no example of an academic being involved in such a task. Usually, being an editor (see Why become a journal editor?) involves more content evaluation.

Would my academic career take advantage of such a duty?

The only benefit you'll get as a copyeditor is clear: money (assuming he offered to pay you).

The downsides are numerous: it takes a lot of time, it will not be considered a plus to your CV (it's a technical job, not a scientific one)… none of the benefits from being a journal editor apply to a copyeditor.

Also, I don't know exactly what you did when you say “I have recently been involved in managing a special issue”, but if you were guest editor, offering you a copyeditor job is clearly not showing appreciation for your job as a scientist.


Should a PhD student use his academic affiliation for his publications which are not related to his thesis? If a PhD student is working on a research project which is neither related to his thesis topic, nor supported by the university in which he is studying or a faculty member; Does he have the right to use his academic affiliation and contact email?

There are two points here,

If the student is using the university facilities, he may acknowledge that support in the Acknowledgement section of his paper not by using the university affiliation.
The university in which the student is studying in doesn't necessarily want to be associated with whatever research he does in his free hours.

P.S.: Does this consideration apply to the researchers who work in a research institute or company?

Yes.

The affiliation serves two purposes: acknowledgement and identification.

Even if it is not part of your thesis research, if you are receiving resources of any kind from your institution, you should list them as your affiliation.  These resources include money (whether directly related to your research or not), computing equipment, internet access, printer access, electricity, phones, faculty and student colleagues (whether coauthors or not), library access (either physical or electronic), whiteboards, local coffee shops/bars, and the general intellectual atmosphere that encourages you to do research in the first place. You can afford to be generous.

Also, the affiliation helps identify you as an author, especially if you have a common name, or you publish other papers with the same affiliation.


Creating a book based on an article (copyright issues) I've asked this question at math.stackexchange.com, but a comment proposed me to ask this question at  academia.stackexchange.com instead.

Here is my question:

Elsevier explicitly permits me to make a book based on my article published with Elsevier.

What's about other publishers? May these forbid me to make a book based on my earlier article?

If you need to publish the book and you have found one publisher that allows it.

Why do you seek more?

Elaborate what is wrong about Elsevier that makes you not to pursue it with them?


Paper from my already published PhD thesis -- How do I cite it? Two years ago I finished my thesis, at the time I wasn't interested in writing papers but I have since changed my mind.
The thesis has been made available online by the department. It has been cited by someone else since that time.

I would like to take a chapter of my thesis and publish it as a journal paper. And based on this question here, it seems that could work:

Can I publish parts of the Ph.D thesis as a paper in a journal?

However, I have a follow-on question. Should I be citing my own thesis if I write a paper from one of the chapters?
Notes:

I would not be adding any extra analysis
I will be using the same figures

Extra for experts: Should I be paraphrasing all or most of the text? At the moment I have paraphrased most but perhaps one or two sentences remain unchanged because I considered them to be in the most clear and succinct form I could manage for an explanation.

Yes, you can publish a chapter of your thesis as a journal paper. The two-year time lag is slightly unusual, but it's not a show-stopper. However, since the thesis has been cited already, it is possible that someone else may publish a work that extends the results of the chapter you intend to publish, which might lead to rejection. You should be prepared for that.

I would also cite the thesis, in the introduction or perhaps in an acknowledgment section (depending on the intended journal; have a look through the archives to see common practices). "Some/The majority/Most of the materials contained in this paper were previously published (in modified form) in my thesis ...".


Opening of applications for PhD in computer science at UCL,King's College London I am a Master's student studying computer science in India. I will be applying for a PhD in computer science in the UK beginning in October 2020. UCL and King's college have not updated any details for the academic year 2020/21 yet, they still have the details of last year. Can someone provide some information as to when they open? Some sources say that PhD applications are processed on a rolling basis, i.e. as and when they come, they are passed on to the respective supervisor, and there are no deadlines per se.

Any information on scholarship deadlines would be immensely helpful. I'm referring to the UCL's GRS and ORS, and King's international PGR scholarships (the webpage seems to be down). It is recommended that one applies as soon as possible for the scholarships, but is it possible to apply some time later and still avail them? If say they start applications in December 2019, can i submit an application in February 2020 and still have a reasonable chance to avail those scholarships? I'm an overseas student, and as such a very few fully funded scholarships are available. If there is a lot of competition for those slots, then I think it would be better to apply as soon as they open, otherwise I'll wait for some time, so that I can improve my profile and have a better shot by applying a couple of months later.

Generally speaking you should see applications for the upcoming year open in mid to late October in the UK. This allows the admissions offices and administration offices to deal with the students who have made a September or October start before the floodgates open again.

Regarding University-specific scholarships, you will gave to talk directly to the universities in question.


Possible causes of confusion and mistakes in technical terminology in bilingual settings Disclaimer: This question is probably on the brink of off-topicness; maybe, it is also opinion-based and I don't exclude it is way too broad. Nonetheless, I'm asking this out of curiosity: so, if you close this question, I won't complain; but if you answer, I'll appreciate.

To try to stay on track, let me state clearly the rules of the game.

First, I'm interested in the following bilingual settings or situations:

Courses which are taught in a language which is not the local language (e.g. a course taught in English at a German university).
Courses which are taught in the local language that adopt textbooks written in a different language.
Students, researchers and professors who collaborate with people speaking different native languages.

Second, here is the question:

Have you got any example of technical terminology or symbology (from whatever field) which has been, in your experience, cause of confusion, misunderstandings or mistakes in the above given situations?

Let me give you a few examples I've come across:

In English, the term voltage denotes a common electrical quantity. The Italian term for voltage is tensione. Many Italian students who have been exposed to English classes, however, instead of using the correct term when speaking in Italian, use the mistranslated term voltaggio, which looks similar to the English term, but is incorrect.
In German and in several East European countries, the symbol used to denote voltages is U instead of the more common V. But this wouldn't cause much trouble were it not for the fact that the symbology employed to indicate the polarity of a voltage is opposite to that employed in US or in many other European countries. It took me a while to realize this, but now, if I have a technical discussion with someone from those countries, it's the first thing I point out to avoid many headaches to everybody.
A Czech researcher told me that the common low-pass or high-pass filters are actually called high-reject and low-reject filters in the Czech technical literature, and this was a major source of confusion when he started reading the English technical literature.

Note: I'm not interested in common words that can sound awkward or rude or offensive in another language, just technical terminology which can cause confusion.

Actually, I think one of the biggest issues that we have to deal with as scientists is the use of writing conventions. For instance:

The "decimal point" in Europe is normally written as a comma. So a German would see that "a mile is 1,760 yards" might not know if a mile should be 5280 feet or 5.28 feet! (This can cause confusion when translating back and forth.)
Similarly, I have to be very careful with my handwriting, lest my audience think my "7" is a "1."

A lot of what you're talking about, though, I think falls either under the header of "false cognates" (or faux amis, as they're known in French), or of words with multiple definitions. As examples of the latter, for instance, Benzin in German can mean both "benzene" as well as "gasoline," while Neigung can mean both "slope" and "gradient."


For graduate admissions, focus on bachelor thesis or other research publication Given a student coming to the end of their undergraduate career working on both a thesis for their bachelor degree as well as a separate research project in a research lab, which would hold more weight towards graduate admissions in US schools.

The main questions started with; in admissions, do people read the bachelor thesis.

I never have, but can't be sure of a standard.  If the student is working on a research topic that is set to be submitted for publication, should they focus on that paper and not worry about the bachelor thesis, vice versa, assuming time is constant and the bachelor grade remains the same.

My first thoughts were, a bachelor thesis is not peer reviewed, so any peer reviewed article would be much more likely to be read or at least glanced over beyond the title.  No one expects much out of a bachelor thesis, so it will be hard to convince someone to read it, maybe without some two page overview summary linked to the application.

Assuming both are closely related to your subject for graduate studies, either could be more important.  Even if you have a published paper, graduate admissions committees are not likely to truly read it, though many people may take a quick look at it, to get some sense of what level it is at.  (Though if this is a joint paper, just from looking at the paper, a committee will not know how much is due to you.)

Here committees will form an opinion largely based on your letters of recommendation, so if you impress someone in the research lab or your thesis advisor, you should definitely ask for a letter of recommendation.  If your thesis advisor is well known, a strong letter from that person can make a bigger impact that one from your research lab.  On the other hand, if you don't do a good job on your thesis, you may want to think twice about asking that advisor for a letter.

So, ideally, you should try to do a good job on both, and get letters from both.  Presumably you have some tacit agreement with both the lab and your thesis advisor for how much work they expect from you, and you should try to meet both of those.  If you can't, this means you are overcommitted, and you need to have a conversation with one or both of these parties.  (The same goes if you are unclear on how much work is expected of you and you are having trouble balancing these projects.)


My assignment answers show similarities to my friends', though they differ in content. Can I be accused of plagiarism? So for an assignment one question has been causing me great worry. After we all submitted, some of us sent each other our work so we can compare, and some of my friends' answers have some similarities to mine. Here is one:
There are very minor and sometimes subtle similarities in our word choice with some similar phrases. Our actual answers themselves were completely different though, different logic, flow and different points. We did chat about the questions which was allowed so maybe I might have subconsciously remembered them saying something like that. There are a few more kind of like that, mainly only single words though, nothing in terms of our actual content.
In another question our points are similar, but we made them in a different order and different wording, and my friend has more to say after the question is answered. We did also discuss this one as well.
So should I be worried of a case or am I blowing this out of proportion?

Well, it isn't a problem until it's a problem, so don't panic.
But, there might be explanations that account for it. They are your friends, so you may have developed similar speech patterns that make the same phrasing natural for all of you. You are in the same class so you might have picked up the phrasing from the professor and used it in the same context. Or from a textbook.
But the key is that the answers are different. I doubt that it will become a problem. If you are called on it and didn't cheat/coordinate, then saying that you can't account for it is accurate. It is doubtful that if you did cheat/coordinate that this would be how your coordinated. Relax.


Why they do not send my work to referees while they are unable to conclude that the work provides the sort of firm advance? Thank you for submitting your
  manuscript "Article title" which we are regretfully unable to offer to publish.

  It is YYY' policy to return a
  substantial proportion
  of manuscripts without sending them to referees. Decisions of this kind are made by the editors of
  YYYs according to the demanding editorial criteria of the journal.

  In the present case, while your findings may well prove
  stimulating to others' thinking about such questions, we regret that we are unable to conclude that the work provides the sort of
  firm advance in general
  understanding that would warrant publication in YYY.

  We are sorry that we cannot
  respond more positively on this occasion.

Why they do not send my work to referees while they  are unable to conclude that the work provides the sort of firm advance?

They do not send your manuscript to reviewers because they consider that the chance of it being accepted (with revisions) is very small, so that it's not worth reviewers' time.

Their phrasing is just a polite way of saying that the manuscript you have submitted is either clearly out of scope, or clearly not good enough. Maybe you are aiming for a too prestigious journal, or maybe your work is not novel enough. It is also possible that your actual work is very good, but that your description of your work is poor, so that the editors concluded erroneously that it doesn't show much advancement. It is not possible to conclude in general what the true reason is.

If you have no experience in submitting manuscripts to scientific journals, and you have no cooperation with somebody who does, getting a manuscript published is quite difficult. If you don't already, I would suggest you strike up a cooperation with someone who has experience in publishing scientific articles. They could advise where to publish and how to formulate conclusions.

Edit: Also read Benoït Kloeckners excellent remark below: indeed it is your advantage if you know quickly that your paper won't be published, rather than only after a time-consuming peer-review.


Have a job, but might not finish Ph.D. on time. I have a few irons in the fire as far as jobs go. I have one offer so far and am waiting to hear on a few others. I am working hard to finish up my PhD, but might not have it completely finished by the time the Fall semester starts. That being said, I am optimistic about finishing and have heard encouraging things to that extent from my adviser and other faculty members. How should I broach this subject with schools after I get the job offer? I want to be honest and up front that there is a non-zero chance that I will not finish before the position starts, but I don't want people to second-guess me when I might finish on time. And all of these positions are adjunct/lecturer positions if that matters. I also didn't get a masters on the way to my (eventual) PhD. So when and how should I bring up this subject at least for the school I got the offer for?

If this were a full-time tenure-track position, the answer would likely be different, because in many fields (particularly STEM fields) you'd probably be able to request a "gap year" that you could use to finish up your work and do a short postdoc stint somewhere before beginning your full-time position.

However, as a lecturer or instructor, you don't have nearly enough leverage. You may ask if it's possible to start the position if, for instance, the thesis has been submitted but not defended by your planned start date. But I would get in touch with them as quickly as possible and ask what would be the latest you could get your degree before starting. Then, if you feel you can't make that deadline, try to negotiate (but be aware that it might not work!).


the status "required reviews completed" I submitted my paper in one of the Energy journal in Elsevier. After 2nd revision of my article, I got no update. So, I gently sent an email. Then after 2 days the status said " Required Reviews completed". But this status did not change for almost 2 months. Should I send another email to the editor? Is there any possibility to reject my article?

As the status message suggests, the Reviewers have completed their reports and submitted them online via the Elsevier manuscript system. Your paper is now with the Editor. Since the status did not change for the last 2 months, we can assume one of the following:
 - the Editor did not have time to deal with your manuscript yet;
 - the Reviewers Reports are contradictory, and your paper requires more attention and more time of the Editor than usual.
In my experience, the first explanation covers most of the real-life cases.

It is completely OK to write a polite message to the Editor asking them about the status of your paper. However, be prepared to receive no answer, or not-really-an-answer.

Yes, there is always a possibility that your paper can be rejected as a result of the review process. However, the Editor's decision should normally be made based on the results and the writing of the manuscript. If your communication with the Editor is polite and justified, there is no risk that it can reduce the chance of your paper to be accepted.


Commissioning artist to make a figure I have the idea to commission a local artist to make an artistic version of a couple of figures I often use for presentations, and that I would probably use for my thesis cover. The figures does not present any numbers, but rather conveys the general idea behind the work (subject area is theoretical chemistry). The artist does not have an online portfolio, but a lot of his work is probably best described as "kind of abstract, bad for people who suffers from trypophobia".

I already know that most of the conservative seniors at my department would think it is a bad idea. Normally we go with quite bland figures and monochrome covers (there is nothing in regulations stating that we can't spice it up though). But I am interested in hearing what you would think, if you saw such a thing, a bit out of the ordinary.

I would, by the way, probably pay him out of my own pocket, as I don't think my grant includes art money. And I am perfectly fine with that.

It's your thesis, and so long as the work --- including the cover ---conforms to the requirements set down by your institution, then I see no problem with it. Yes, you might upset some of the more conservative of your colleagues, but if you continue in research no doubt you will in future perturb the status quo again.

The only concern I have is whether such an unconventional decoration would influence a grader. However, I suspect you are considering the final version of the thesis, after any corrections set down by your examiners, so this isn't an issue.

Naturally, you should give credit to your artist.