Visa requirement query for Indian postdoc applying in UK I have completed a Ph.D. in India, which is my native country, and am applying for post doc positions in the UK.  However, due to strict visa rules, I am not sure if my application would be shortlisted. In these types of situations, my CV and application file have already been approved by the PI.

However, do universities generally sponsor non-EU candidates like me or  is it the responsibility of the PI to make the proper arrangements? How can I ensure that my job is not denied due to non-academic reasons like visa issues?

tl;dr: Read the job description.

Details: The job you're applying to is advertised publicly, and as a part of a job description it is normally explicitly stated whether or not the particular University is willing to sponsor the visa application for the non-EU candidates. If unsure, ask the contact person or/and their HR department.

If the university invites only those having a right to work in the UK to apply, there is nothing you can do about it — find another position to apply.

If the university is willing to sponsor the work visa for a candidate, there is nothing you (and your PI) need to worry about — the process will be handled by their HR department. Just make sure you meet Tier2 visa requirements.

Note that there are certain conditions for the University to apply for a Tier2 visa. Normally, the position should be advertised for at least 1 month. Also, the University should be a Tier2 sponsor (check the list).


Using open source code in solving course exercises Is it normal in computer science courses that one can't use open source code to solve exercises on courses even if the licenses of the code allows to use the code? I was confused as I used some code, gave source where I found the original code but still the lecturer said we have to learn to do the code on my own.

This is a quite generic question, so there is no real answer to it. You need to look at it from the course perspective as well as from the Open Source license perspective.

There are different Open Source licences available, but most of these should allow you to use them for creating derivative work. This might mean Open Sourcing your solution also though (in case of a copyleft license such as GPL).

I however suspect that your course wanted to teach you more basic concepts, therefore expecting you to come up with a solution by yourself. There is no clear answer to your question, however, more complex exercises would nearly always rely on the usage of Open Source software, such as SDKs, programming languages, libraries and frameworks.


What is a graduate research assistantship? What is the actual meaning of being a research assistant? I have only heard of masters in science and PhD.

A graduate research assistant—regardless of field–is someone who is carrying out research, normally as part of studies that will ultimately lead to either a master's or a PhD (or degree of some other kind). In general, a "graduate research assistant" (or other similar terms) are administrative in origin—it's the name for the "job" that graduate students have while they progress toward their degrees.


For publications, what do I do when my first name is abbreviated? I'm Muslim, I use Md. as for Muhammad. So when submiting to journals, should I stick to the 2nd & 3rd names? I'm currently facing problems in submitting to arxiv.org which asks for only first and last names.

This shouldn't really be a problem these days in most places, because the entry fields on most web-based entry forms are smart enough to recognize and accept spaces. Thus, even when the site asks for a first name only, you can put in "Md. [Middle Name]" as your first name.

As Dave suggests in the comment, unless you have a really uncommon last name—one that doesn't show up in ISI or arXiv.org searches at all right now, you're better off having parts of three names show up. It's also helpful to keep your professional name fixed throughout your career. (In other words, if you want to go by Md. [Middle] [Last], use that same form whenever possible.)


May a PhD be more practical than theoretical? I'm thinking about pursue my studies and doing a PhD in information technology.
My problem is that I would like to create something new (== write code), and focus my thesis on how this new technology works (each component and global interactions), what it can do, and how it can evolves / be improved.
I'm not against doing research, reading books and work on theory - but I want to be more practical than theoretical.

I'm starting to think that a PhD is not a valid option if my goal is to develop something new instead of conducting pure research. Am I wrong ?

About my cursus: I will receive my master degree soon (~= 3 months). I come from a highly technical background, with 5 years of programming and project management.

Edit & more information
My university doesn't offers PhD courses, thus my supervisor don't care about   my choices. Another consequence is that I have no other choices than to go to another university.

To be awarded a Phd, you can't just build something: there has to be some sort of novel research component. PhD's are all about asking (and answering!) questions, not just engineering solutions to a problem.

However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with creating something new as a part of your PhD, so long as it helps you answer a research question. For example:

Does this algorithm improve the speed/reliability/accuracy with which this data can be proccessed compared to existing techniques?
Does this new collaborative learning tool improve a student's ability to learn a language compared to working individually?
Does this new system for visualising a data structure affect the way in which users perceive/engage with it?

Note that these are far too broad to be used in practice, but they might give you an idea of the types of questions that can be asked.


PhD in CS after 4 year bachelors in ECE + 1 year CS masters I hold a 4 year Bachelor in Electronics and Communication Engineering and will be enrolling in a 1 year Msc in Computer Science. Will I be eligible for PhD in CS anywhere?

If you’re asking whether there exists a CS graduate program that’s likely to accept you, then probably yes. If you’re asking about top x% program in country Y, it starts to get complicated. I’d say that a lot depends on the quality of your masters work, in particular your publications (if any), your grades, your alma mater’s prestige, and last but not least - your reference letters.

Good luck!


Reviewing experiences effects on applying process Can reviewing experiences for top notch journals in a specific field be considered as a distinguishing and effective factor for the applying process?

I've read somewhere that having a fertile record in sites such as Publons can have a positive effect for applying for, e.g. a PhD position.

It's a very weak positive signal.

Being invited to review in a field's top journal is a sign that somebody thought of your name when seeking people with deep expertise in a specific domain of study.  This is clearly a good thing when applying to a PhD program (but would definitely not be expected from an applicant).  That said, inappropriate reviewer selection happens all the time, so as I said, it's a very weak signal.


How should students react to inaccuracies in professors' teaching without causing resentment I am an undergraduate in the UC system.  I sometimes encounter situations where professors or TA's make errors, or there are inaccuracies in the material.  These situations tend to be quite awkward for both the student and the TA or professor.

It is painful for me not to speak up, but there is a fear, possibly exaggerated, that this could lead to resentment by the TA, or professor, or even future unfair treatment.

The most frequent response by senior students is that the professor is always right, and you should never attempt to argue with the professor. Confronting a professor about a misconception could end up being detrimental to the student in the long run.

What should a student do (and how?) when a teacher makes an error or gives inaccurate information or material?  Is there any reasonable way to anonymously point out mistakes?

I think your fears may be exaggerated.  I can't think of a professor I've ever met who I think would be offended by having a mistake (politely) pointed out, much less retaliate.

Accusing anyone flat-out of being wrong, or worse yet, lying, will certainly make them defensive; and if it turns out they were right, it will be more embarrassing for you.  So I don't suggest thinking of it as "confronting" the professor.  What I would suggest instead is to approach the question as something that you don't understand.  "Hi Professor Smith, in class today you said X.  But I'm confused, because I thought that Y."  Listen to her response.  Be open to the possibility that you are mistaken, or have misunderstood what she said, but if your doubts aren't cleared up, figure out what part still seems wrong to you, and ask about that.  "I still don't understand; what about...?"  Stay calm and polite.  If you find you are getting worked up (or she is), take a break.  "Let me think about that, and if I still have questions I'll come back later."  Hopefully in the end, everyone agrees on where the truth lies, and nobody feels too embarrassed.

If you think she's simply misspoken about something in class, or written something incorrectly on the board, point it out right away: "Is that X supposed to be a Y?"  If there's something deeper, it may be better to discuss it in office hours or by email; I know that when I'm teaching, if I think I may have a serious mistake, I get flustered and it throws off my rhythm.  I'd rather have time to think about it offline, and then correct the error in the next class.

I think the other comments saying "Be sure you are right!!!" are excessive.  It's not a bad idea to try to think carefully about your question; if you can clear it up yourself, you'll learn better.  But don't hesitate to talk to the professor.  Even if it's you that's confused, part of my job as a professor is to clear that up.  And if it turns out I'm wrong, of course I want to know.

Your suggestion of having some sort of middleman to anonymously forward queries strikes me as a bit extreme.  Again, I think you may be more intimidated by your professor than is really warranted.  It may help to try to get to know your professors better: early in the course, make it a habit to drop by their office hours.  Ask some trivial questions if you like.  "Are we going to study Z next week?"  Then later, if you have more substantive questions or concerns, you'll feel more comfortable approaching them.

Anonymity seems unnecessary and perhaps counterproductive.  If you come to me with something you don't understand, and I'm able to clear it up, I won't think less of you; instead, I'll be pleased that you now understand it better.  And if it turns out I was wrong, I won't resent you; I'll be impressed that you understand the issue deeply enough to spot the error, and grateful that you brought it up.  But if you're really timid, you could consider sending an email from an anonymous account. ("I'm sending this anonymously because I'm embarrassed that it may be a silly question."  Either way she'll probably assure you that it isn't.)

One final comment: If you have mentors suggesting that professors are never wrong, find better mentors!  I agree that it is not pleasant to argue with anyone, but that doesn't mean you can't discuss your question and try to sort it out.


Finding last minute funding for a PhD Currently an undergraduate in computer science, I am pursuing an Ms+PhD program in oceanography at some top US universities.
I recently got feedback from a PI that I had an interview with before applying, who told me that my "application was ranked highly" and "[they] are currently figuring out funding situations", and that "If [I] find out about [my] own funding at a later date, [I should] please be in touch as this changes opportunities".
Unfortunately I only found out about the effect fellowships and scholarships have on admission late into the game, and as such was only able to apply to the NSF GRSP and one other small fellowship.
What can I do, one week before admission results drop, to improve my funding situation last minute?
I am not a women or minority. I would be able to self-fund part of my PhD but was advised against doing so (and the departments won't allow it anyway).

What can I do, one week before admission results drop, to improve my funding situation last minute?

Nothing.  If you do not like the results, try again next year.
Successful application to doctoral programs at US universities requires many months of advance planning.


Following up on a postdoc application at an academic conference in person I will graduate with my PhD in a few months and I have starting applying for postdoc positions at national research labs and universities. Our field is relatively small (a few hundred people) and most of us know each other and the rest we know by name or by face. My question is that, after I apply for a postdoc position, I then meet the hiring scientist at a conference, then how appropriate is it ask them about my application? If it is appropriate, then what is the best way to do so? In person? In email, this week? In email, after we return? Or something else?

This is in the field of hard sciences in the USA. One potential employer is a friend I have known since my beginning graduate school. Another potential employer, I just know her by name and never had any contact of any kind besides my application. Should I ask/say anything? I am obviously curious how's the process going and if I am high on the list. But what would I say? Or is it better to just be friendly but professional and pretend like I didn't apply and not mention anything at all? I can only imagine a useless "we are still looking and evaluating applications". Is any other response even possible if I ask the right questions in the right way?

It has been about a month since I applied. And yes I asked my advisor but he wasn't helpful. Both solicitations were clear that they wanted the postdoc to start as soon as possible (three months) so a month seems like a fair amount of time to follow-up. And after the application acknowledgement I haven't heard anything from either scientist.

You could try to reach out by email and tell them that you've applied for a postdoc position in their lab, and that you are going to be at the conference where you'd love a chance to discuss your research contributions and qualifications as well as the opportunities that they may have. If they have an interest and tell you as much, by the time you two meet you both know why you're talking to each other.


What is considered appropriate women's attire for a PhD interview in Germany? I have an interview for a PhD position (engineering) at a Central German University. I am not sure what to wear (formal wear for woman). Since certain countries are very particular about what you wear to an interview, I want to make sure that I don't look out of place. Any suggestion about formal wear for woman would be appreciated.

I think this is highly field dependent, but in general overdressed is better than underdressed. In fields close to mine (math, computer science) things are quite relaxed, so no one would expect a (skirt) suit (although this would be ok) and nice trousers (usually including jeans) and shirt are most probably ok. Ragged jeans and t-shirt may not always work, though. Avoid wearing something revealing.


Computer Science PhD with Geology BS I am planning to do my PhD in CS (Robotics to be specific). I will be completing my masters with a thesis and a publication in a field that is very closely related to CS. However, my BS is in Geology. So I am mostly concerned whether I will be considered for a PhD at a school since my undergraduate major is not CS. I feel this way because I contacted professors at some schools and they didn't respond back to me.

You should not expect to receive a useful answer if you "cold-call" (or "cold-email") a professor. They have too many time constraints, and if your email looks like a junk email or wild goose chase, the professor will probably treat it as such, even if it isn't!

That said, I suspect that coming from a field so far away from CS will have an impact on the admissions process, because it will be hard for faculty members in CS to adjudicate your performance as a bachelor's student in geology. You can overcome this through the usual methods (strong letter of recommendation, cogent explanations in the statement of purpose, and so on). Your primary challenge will be to coherently show that you are willing and able to undertake graduate level coursework and research in computer science.


Does your institution have a policy regarding policing online student feedback? There has been a lot of recent comment regarding the UK release of the "Rate Your Lecturer" website. This website allows users to comment on and rate their lecturers. Comments are submitted anonymously.

I do not want to enter the debate on whether this sort of anonymous online reviewing of lecturers is good, bad or indifferent.

My question is whether your institution has a policy regarding how to deal with demonstrably untrue, insulting or unfairly negative comments about lecturers posted online, and what that policy is.

No policy that I am aware of at any of the four universities and two high schools I've been associated with.  When the sites first appeared in the U.S. about ten years ago, questions came up about whether anything could be done about it, and the institution I was associated with then decided that there wasn't anything legal that could be done.  I believe that libelous material can be appealed directly through some of the websites, but I've never heard of anyone having success with that.

Personally, I love anonymous feedback, and I've had my share of good and bad reviews.  I've tried to use the bad reviews as a means for informing where I can improve, and I've tried to limit my head from getting too big at the good reviews.  Teaching takes a certain amount of thick skin, and sites like these can be a good way to test if you've grown enough of that calloused layer to ward off any long-term effects.


Thanking supervisor after a year About a year ago, I finished my Master's thesis, which was supervised by one professor from my university, and two people from a different university. One of the two is a professor, but he was not involved much in the daily supervision. When finishing up my thesis and presentation, times were quite hectic, and only now I realised I may have never thanked the professor from the other university as he was not present at my presentation. I did approach him for a reference letter later, and thanked him for that when letting him know I got the job.

Now I feel quite rude, but I am not sure if I should do anything. Mostly, I am afraid of it being awkward if I bring this up after a year. Am I overreacting? What would you recommend?

There are only two possible options here.

Do nothing. Most probably, the professor never realized that you did not thank him for his supervision. He provided what was probably a good reference letter and you already thanked him after getting a job, so I suspect he does not have a bad opinion of you.
Clear up your mind by sending a polite email stating that you just realized you might not have thanked him for his participation in your master project. I do not think this would be awkward. I think any supervisor would be happy to receive such a message.

Both options are good.


How quickly do masters students and/or PhD students move from being TAs to RAs? To support myself while studying, I'd find it ideal to be paid doing work or research that advances my credentials. (TAing is definitely educationally valuable for both a TAer and students, but I feel that, unlike RAing, it loses its value after a while).

If it is common for graduate TAs to eventually become RAs, then how quickly (if at all) does this take place for either masters (2-3 years) or PhD students?

The answer to this question is that there is no general answer.  There is so much variation between and even within fields and programs that any definite answer would likely be misleading.

You should not attempt to answer questions about graduate stipends by polling the audience (nor even by phoning a friend!).  These are questions that you should direct specifically to each and every program you are seriously considering.  Don't be shy: you have a right to know these things, and people will be happy to answer you, although the answers may be a bit complicated.

By the way, you write:

  To support myself while studying, I'd find it ideal to be paid doing work or research that advances my credentials. (TAing is definitely educationally valuable for both a TAer and students, but I feel that, unlike RAing, it loses its value after a while).

If you are not yet in a graduate program, you may not know what kind of support you'd find ideal.  I would also suggest you think about (i) how much money you are getting total and (ii) how many hours of work "for someone else" you have to do for that money.  In many cases, graduate students are paid for much more than the work they do for someone else, and thus they are de facto getting paid to do research that advances their credentials (i.e., their thesis work).  TAing for 10 hours week could leave you more time to get paid to do work that advances your credentials than RAing for 20 hours a week.  Or not: it depends on what you are getting paid to do.  Finally, TAing does not necessarily "lose its value after a while": if you are seeking a career at an academic institution which prioritizes teaching over research (note that well over half of all colleges and universities in the US fit in this category), then having a strong teaching portfolio could turn out to be much more valuable than another routine publication.  Or not: again, it very much depends on your situation...


Is it moral to propose work that's already partly done? Academia involves a lot of proposals and approvals and it can save effort to combine them. A grant including work that's already been started is easier to satisfy. The applications I receive for independent study describe work that students have already started on. My grandfather used to tell me about submitting the same paper in several courses in his student days.

To generalize between these cases, failing to clarify the amount of work already done is a common tactic among researchers. What moral principles guide such actions? Are some specific techniques kosher and others off limits?

Let me make two points. The first is that in order to write a research proposal you have to understand the area well enough to describe it. This implies that you have already explored it and have done some work to get it ready for submission. Even after you submit, you aren't likely to just forget about the problem until you get funding. The alternative would be just saying random things in research proposals. So, there is no alternative, in my view, to making proposals on partially done work.

The second point is at the other extreme. I've heard that some very successful researchers, though the stories may be apocryphal, work like this. Do research problem A. After you are nearly done, write a grant request for problem A and if it is funded, write the report but use the funds to do problem B, that wasn't mentioned in the grant request. If B is successful, write a grant for it (B) so that you have funding for problem C, etc.

You might question the ethics of this, but the realities are that the funders get what they funded, and the researchers get the funds they need to do research that the funders (and society) like. If you think about doing it any other way, what you wind up with is a lower success rate for funded research (hence less funds for students, etc) and lower reputations all around. That is because there is no guarantee that your initial thoughts on a research topic will bear fruit. So you try to solve more problems than you can reach conclusion on. Lower "success" doesn't serve anyone very well and turns research into a sort of jungle - eat or be eaten - situation.

But, I'll also note that if you apply for a grant for a piece of work and tell the funders that it is nearly done, you won't get funded. That should be pretty obvious, I think. On the other hand, if you ask for funding for a wild idea you just had, you won't get funded (unless you are already a superstar). So there is a tension here. So maybe there is a sort of "sweet spot" in which it all fits. But certainly the work is partly done before funding is contemplated by either the researchers or funders.

Even if the real situation isn't quite as extreme as this, a researcher funded for A and working on A would be foolish to completely ignore problem B if it occurred along the way. S/he would be wise to follow the threads for at least a while to see what potential there might be. People, including researchers, aren't machines that work on only one thing at a time to the (mental) exclusion of all else.

The reality is somewhere in between these extremes, though both extremes exist, I'm pretty sure.


Lack of motivation for self-study during the semesters I'm a third year Physics and Mathematics student, and over the years, I've done lots of self-studies, and what I've realised is that, compared to what I learn & experience in my self-studies, the I barely learn anything from the lectures that I'm attending my departments (at least this is true for %95 of them).

However, the thing is, during the semester, there are lots of midterms, homeworks, and lectures to attend etc.. Hence, for most of the time, even though I've time, I cannot find any motivation to continue to study to the subjects that I'm self-studying. Which is not the case in the summer and in the winter breaks; at those times, I generally do not have any problem about the motivation, and I study with quite normally & happily.

Seeing that professors also do most of their research during the holiday seasons as I do (since during the semester, there are lots of teaching to be done, exams to be grade etc.), is such a lack of motivation general in the academia ?

I think if there was no courses, during a whole semester, I would learn more things & deal with more complicated problems, which would require me to think more; however, right now, the things that I have learn are quite boring things (which honestly if you just attend the lecture and listen, you can do it), but these requirements are kinda of pushing me away from studying, as if I'm doing this just because I have to, and not because I think this is interesting.

I do think that your perception is shared by many students, especially when they are passionate about their field of study. I can think of several undergraduate students (former colleagues or under my supervision) who fit your description, across several countries. I would not be surprised to learn that this perception is much less frequent among graduate students, because curricula and self-interests tend to align with each other over time.
At the undergraduate level, self-motivation is wholesome and certainly improves your chances for academic success. Nevertheless, curricula are designed by professors who do know best.
Even when a class seems dull or irrelevant, the decision to include it in the academic requirements for your degree is the result of a consensus selection made by your professors. They are in a better position than you are to weight-in certain factors, such as the difficulty of the material or its usefulness as a foundation for more advanced and exciting stuff.
TL;DR: Not many people enjoy studying pendulum problems. Thankfully, some trust their instructor at this stage and access broader horizons as a reward.
Not finding the time or peace of mind necessary for self-studying is a sign that the expectations of your curriculum are catching up with your work capacity. Then you are making the right choice of prioritizing the mandatory coursework.


Reapplying for a PhD position at another institute after failing the qualifying exam It's embarassing, I failed my quals (in PhD ECE). The school is going to give me a terminal masters (w.o. thesis). My gpa is also not that stellar (3.4+), from a mediocre school. But I have a strong will to do a PhD (I enjoy doing research).

My supervisor (along with other co-authors) are supportive in the sense that they are willing to write good letters (i.e. I have a quite decent publication record). So, I am planning to apply this year, my specific queries are --

Is it really worth a shot? as I have a "bad record" now (although my transcript will not convey such information, but I am not willing to hide it either)
If no.1 is "yes", then how should I justify this to the adcom ? For example, explaining my financial and family problems that I faced during my last years (probably in the SOP)?
Is it possible to go to a better school/lab compared to my current one ?

Some particulars:

I am an international grad student in the US.
I have a 3.8+ undergrad score from south-east asia (used to be a class topper, if that helps)
My GRE was also decent.

You can't let one setback keep you from pursuing your goals or dreams. Yes, it's bad that you failed your quals, but that doesn't mean you should just give up. Having supportive committee members will help a lot when applying to other schools or programs.


Can oral tradition be used as a reliable source in scholarly papers? If I wanted to write a scholarly paper on, say, Native America wars, would I be able to cite oral traditions as reliable sources of information?

As a made-up example, "the war lasted exactly seventeen days, with 3,000 men on either side. The enemy had initiated the rebellion by capturing one of our women," (Native Tribal Chief). Obviously terrible citation grammar, but the point remains, I suspect.

Can one use oral traditions as legitimate sources in scholarly papers, or is it more supplemental in nature? Or just illustrative of something else?

Can you please cite sources showing this as viable citation? Thank you.

You ask specifically about an "oral tradition", but only speech which has been somehow recorded can be cited. Oral history is a whole subfield with an Oral History Association which has published Principles and Best Practices for using these histories. Most of the best practices pertain to the acquisition of new oral histories, but there is also a section on using existing oral histories:

All those who use oral history interviews after they are made accessible should strive for intellectual honesty and the best application of the skills of their discipline. This includes
a. avoiding stereotypes, misrepresentations, and manipulations of the narrator’s words;
b. striving to retain the integrity of the narrator’s perspective;
c. recognizing the subjectivity of the interview, including, when possible, verification of information presented as factual;
d. interpreting and contextualizing the narrative according to the professional standards of the applicable scholarly disciplines;
e. contextualizing oral history excerpts;
f. providing a citation to the location of the full oral history.


How to ask current grad student in a lab for advice about getting a position in the lab? There is this lab that I want to work for as a graduate research assistant (I'm a masters and hoping for research experience and funding) and before I email the PI, I thought of emailing the grad student who was already working there to get a better understanding of the lab and what kind of skillset that I should develop to make myself more competitive. With that being said, how can I email the grad student without coming off as annoying or ingenuine?

You can email a grad student but you may not get a reply, depending on lots of things, including how much effort it would take to answer.
You can ask about what the work is like. You can ask for the expectations of the PI. You can ask whether the work complements their dissertation work. You can ask about what skills are most useful in the lab, but this might be a hard question to answer.
Don't make it personal. In particular, I'd suggest avoiding questions about the PI's personality, and such. Don't ask for assistance in getting accepted into the lab or the degree program as it isn't their job to assist anyone else in that.


How do I avoid or get past the post-orals slump? I just passed my comprehensive oral exam. I took a week off and have spent the better part of another week trying to build motivation to get back to work.

Now I have about a dozen things I could do for my project: delve into the observational or modeling literature, hunt down a tricky bug in my prototype model (several approaches!), derive the more general governing equations for my dissertation model, learn somebody else's code which I plan on basing my model on, restructure my prototype code (needed, but it'll take hours), and the list goes on.

I acknowledge that this is a broad and opinion-based question, but here goes:

What are some good ways to beat the post-orals slump?

The most urgent thing to do is to take a short vacation and celebrate. Go do something fun, unrelated to your research. If you live near a beach and the weather is nice, sit on the beach with a non-technical book. Go to any local tourist attraction. Eat a nice dinner with friends. Watch a movie.

A few days delay will not cost much, but could bring enormous benefits in your readiness to get on with the next steps.


Is "inadequate referencing" a euphemism for plagiarism? I am aware of a professor, who wrote two published books that had to be corrected. On the publisher's website it states that these two books had been corrected due to  "inadequate referencing". Is inadequate referencing essentially a euphemism for plagiarism? Or is it possible that inadequate referencing can really be a lesser sort of offence?

I think that's a rather unkind interpretation of what happened here. Books aren't the same as research articles - especially for text books, it is par for the course that large swaths (most?) of the book are not actually about the author's own ideas.

Further, extremely detailed referencing can easily reduce the readability of the book, so oftentimes book authors are given a bit more leeway than what would be acceptable in a research article.

What I assumed happened here is that either some references are simply missing (as Solar Mike said), or that it has been later on determined that some parts of the book should really reference more explicitly where the respective content came from (either because the original author complained or because the book author decided that some more references would help a reader find additional information). I would not assume this to mean that the book author blatantly copied material from somewhere (this, presumably, would not lead to a correction but to withdrawing the entire book, because it also sounds like a copyright nightmare for the publisher).


Is it common for students to complain directly to deans, or for deans to review faculty's message to students? I am a tenure track assistant professor in a relatively small university (approx. 6000 students).  Without giving too much identifiable details, I'll just way that a student was unhappy with some aspect of the course (e.g. grading scales) and filed a complaint directly to the department chair and the dean of the college without giving me any opportunity to respond.

I certainly believe I didn't do anything wrong.  At least no other student had a problem with the course.  But that's perhaps not important to my question. (Update: The department chair stated over phone conversations that (s)he does not believe I did anything wrong under the extraordinary situation that we and many other schools are facing. My tone, in email messages, is professional but cold. E.g., using "Mr." rather than first name, using "I can..." rather than "I'll be more than happy to...". The Chair said (s)he would not consider this to be an issue. So while it's less than perfect, the Chair cleared of wrongdoing in private)

Surprisingly, the dean of my college got involved directly.  Sending detailed instruction through the chair telling me what to do.  After several rounds of negotiation, I gave the student exactly what this student demanded.  But still, the dean does not like my tone.  My messages to this student now have to be reviewed to make sure I sounded friendly and helpful.

This whole thing strike as rather strange.  My question is how common are these?  Is it common for students to complain to a dean and get their support?  Is it common for a dean to get directly involved like this?

A bonus question is, as a tenure track person, what should I do?  (Shut up, do what they say, and update my resume, just in case?)

As a tenure-track person who presumably has the goal of making tenure, you must fall in line with what your dean has prescribed as behavior commensurate with one of their department instructors. If you feel the student has violated some part of the institution's enrollment agreement or your syllabus, these violations should be enumerated for your dean. However, if the dean is talking about tone and messaging, then this is likely an issue of your dean feeling like one of their tenure-track folks are not falling in line with what is expected of a tenured professor at your institution.

This question--and any answer, frankly--is very specific to your institution and your dean's management style, unfortunately. At the end of the day, if you want to make tenure, you need to consider that your dean will be a powerful voice during tenure review. Even if you don't intend to speak to your students in the way that you feel runs counter to your personal understanding of best practices, I think anyone else would recommend that a tenure-track person ought to focus on behavior and strategies that would more likely result in a positive tenure review.

That means, unfortunately, that you must start sanding down parts of your puzzle pieces so that they're fit with the existing puzzle.


How to cite different chapters of a book in the same paragraph? Background: I'm writing a master's thesis with APA citations.

In one paragraph, I cite two unrelated pieces of information that happen to come from different chapters of the same textbook. It's obvious from the chapter titles where in the book the second piece of information is located, but it's not obvious where the first piece is located. For the reader's sake, I'd like to be able to write something like:

  Here's what I'm doing. Here's an interesting fact (Trout, chapter 2, 1946) and this is what it implies in the context of my research. I then fit this interesting model, described by e.g. Trout, chapter 8 (1946).

  References:
  Trout, Kilgore. (1946). Ice-9 and its Applications. Ilium, NY: Slaughterhouse Press.

I've never seen this done before and I couldn't find anything like it in the Purdue OWL APA style guide. Another idea would be to cite each chapter separately, as in:

  Here's what I'm doing. Here's an interesting fact (Trout, 1946a) and this is what it implies in the context of my research. I then fit this interesting model, described by e.g. Trout (1946b).

  References:
  Trout, Kilgore. (1946a). Why ice is nice. In Ice-9 and its Applications. Ilium, NY: Slaughterhouse Press.
  Trout, Kilgore. (1946b). Containment methods. In Ice-9 and its Applications. Ilium, NY: Slaughterhouse Press.

How should I cite this? Is there an established convention for this? Am I worrying too much?

If the chapters are part of a unified work (e.g., a textbook or monograph), then it's appropriate to use one citation, and to say the chapter in the text:

  Here's what I'm doing. Chapter 2 of (Trout, 1946) presents an interesting fact. I
  then fit the interesting model, described in Chapter 8 of (Trout, 1946).

  References: Trout, Kilgore. (1946). Ice-9 and its Applications. Ilium,
  NY: Slaughterhouse Press.

I'm not quite sure of where APA puts the parentheses; my point is about handling chapters as prose.

On the other hand, if the chapters are separate pieces of a collection (e.g., contributed texts in a "recent results in..." book), then each should have an independent entry in the bibliography.


Precedent of country (or large institution) that did teaching reform: reducing number of tutors while increasing salaries for the rest I am looking for a Precedent of a country that would have done a teaching reform: From many tutors with minimal (or low) salaries to a fewer teachers with bigger salaries and how did it work out...

I was a bit reluctant inquiring here, so have asked this on meta and it seems this question does not break any rules as long as we are talking about universities.

Your scenario is to a large extent ongoing in Russia now. In May 2012 "newly re-elected" president Putin signed a number of bills for the Government to implement in 2012-2021. In particular, Bill 597 says that ...

by 2012 average salaries of teachers should reach the average level in corresponding regions
by 2018 average salaries of teachers should reach 200% of the average level in corresponding regions

The implementation and the effect of this bill is rather controvertial. It seems that the required government funding for the educational sector was not increased appropriately.  To comply with the request, many schools and HE institutions had to reduce the number of posts significantly to report the required increase in average salaries. In practice, many tutors were pushed on 0.5FTE contracts (or less) with increased FTE salary levels, ending up with the same take-home salaries and sometimes higher teaching load. The overall effect on the sector is hard to see at the moment, since it is obscured by other ongoing reforms and political changes.


Is it proper to propose a thesis collaboration to a professor you don't know? I am a master student at one of the best universities in Europe. As I am studying finance, I would like to have an experience in the US or London.

I will have to start working on my master thesis next year, and I would like to use this opportunity to go abroad to an important institution; my idea would be to write to a professor and ask him if he would be interested in co-supervising my master thesis; I would not be paid of course but would enjoy the experience.

Is this considered proper or is it rude / weird?

Of course I will look at professor that works in an area that interests me, but I probably wouldn't be able to specify a particular topic right now (I will do an internship next semester where I plan to find a particular problem to work on, but I don't know yet).

The start of this thesis would be next year, but I think I should start contacting people now for this kind of proposal.

So in conclusion is this something that happens? Should I really do more research before contacting a professor? How can such an interaction be phrased?

A few students work with professors from another department of the same school, and in a few cases, their advisor has recently moved schools, but mostly most students are advised by professors in their own department.

In my limited experience, professors are interested in supervising thesis projects only when they have a preexisting relationship with the student.When i was a student, I once asked a professor to advise my master's project and was told, "no, you have to take my class first".

It's more than helpful to cultivate relationships that will support your work, but when you cold-call people, avoid asking them to trust you or commit to work with you.


Computer Science: Workshop paper in top conference vs. Paper in mediocre conference? What do you think would be the better choice prestige wise? Prof I'm working with gave me the choice to choose which to submit to. To be clear, the top conference is CVPR and the mediocre conference is a relatively new ACM conference.
I care about prestige because I'm applying to graduate school, and I want to make the best impression.
--Edit--
To clarify further, it's a short paper in the CVPR workshop which wouldn't go into the proceedings and rather would just be a poster.

Both previous answers are misleading in this specific scenario, where the choice is between CVPR (main conference) and an ACM conference.
Both conferences require submission of a full paper! The only difference is that CVPR will decide after the review how your paper is presented, whether as long oral presentation, short oral presentation, or poster. Independent of this, all accepted CVPR papers will be published in the conference proceedings without mention of the presentation type. You cannot submit your paper to both conferences, this would be in breach of CVPR ethical guidelines, and likely ACM as well.
Regarding impact or prestige, nothing will currently (2020) beat an accepted paper at CVPR, no matter the type of presentation, if you are working in computer vision or deep learning related to computer vision. Having a CVPR paper under your belt would be great for graduate admissions.
That being said, on the flipside this also means that getting your work accepted in CVPR is likely to be much more difficult than to get it accepted at a normal conference. If this is your first submission to any conference, and you are doing most of the work yourself, then I'd wager your chances of getting accepted are in the range of 10-15% (If you submit an average paper that is written reasonably well, of course if your work is really outstanding, then disregard this rough estimate).


The role of a good collaborator I'm midway through a PhD in Physics in the United States. In my short time in academia so far, I've had several distinct kinds of collaborations. I've collaborated with peers who are working on understanding a new area together, with folks in other department who are doing applied work, and of course with my advisor.
Each collaboration has had its own unique structure. For example, in some of the applied work, my collaborators were interested in learning more about the details of my area, and in others my collaborators were just interested in getting results from me to plug in to their work. In some of the work with peers, each of us handled a distinct aspect of the work (and we understood little of the each other's aspect); in others, we worked together on the same problems and batted ideas back and forth.
Many of the collaborations have had the same kind of issue for me, though. Sometimes I feel like my collaborators owe me a certain amount of attention. (For simplicity, please consider that the collaborator is at the same level of seniority as me.) For example, once I was on the verge of a "breakthrough" and talking through it with someone would have made a big difference, but my collaborator didn't want to engage. For another example, once I was very confused about a particular question in an applied collaborator's area that was relevant to our project and they brushed me off when I asked for help.
Almost every collaboration I've had would have been improved in my eyes if my collaborators were more generous with each other. However, I know that there must be a line. The famous Hardy-Littlewood rules have an Axiom 2 which states that "There was no obligation to reply, or even to read, any letter one sent to the other". Clearly, other established researchers could feel differently than me.
My question is intended to elicit responses which flesh out the role of a collaborator, with a particular eye towards interactions with others on the team. When a researcher (student or established) agrees to be a collaborator with someone, what responsibilities are implicit in that?

Your sense of things seems to be correct, but you can't control others. It would be "nice" if they shared more, but it may not happen. So, you need to assure that you aren't exploited, but, beyond that, your example might even serve, over time, to change things.
However, as you build a career and build a circle of collaborators, you can, then, have discussions among yourselves about sharing. Being the sponsor/leader of a research group, for example, gives you some "standing" to influence the rules. Those rules should revolve around authorship among other things.
Generosity is a good thing, but not everyone will contribute. This is especially true in high risk high reward situations, which can, unfortunately be the case in academia.
You are responsible for your own behavior. You have some, but limited, influence over that of others. Setting a good example helps as long as you don't get exploited.


Say a published paper has 4 authors. How many directly contributed to writing the paper? As in the question, let's say that a paper has four authors. Clearly, all authors contributed something to the work. However, can I deduce that only the first person wrote the physical paper? Or do authors normally write different sections of a paper? For instance, is it possible that author 1 writes the first part of the paper and author 2 writes the second part of the paper? Or, can it be the case that the first author listed contributed the most to the work stated in the paper but did not write the actual paper?

Main questions:

Given a paper with multiple authors, on average, how many people wrote the physical paper?
Is the first author always the person who wrote the physical paper?

This depends on the field and what is customary there. In mathematics you can assume (generally) that all contributed equally. In lab sciences it may not be the case. It is customary in some that the PI who created the lab is on all publications as a co-author but may not have contributed anything to the writing and possibly very little to the ideas. But the PI makes the work of the lab critters possible, so gets on every paper. In some such fields, it is also customary that some fairly low level technicians get on some papers, though didn't contribute to the writing, but they managed the experiments for the actual authors.

Ideally, papers in which people don't contribute "equally" (whatever that means) have a Contributions section to detail the contributions of each as well, possibly of some who weren't listed as co-authors.

The actual writer of the paper may be listed first or not. Sometimes the PI is listed first and sometimes last.

But be aware that intellectual work is hard to measure. Someone may have only spent a few moments thinking about the problem at hand, but provided the crux of the solution that was then written up by others. Flash of insight.

Someone who writes a lot in the field in question can probably answer questions about what is customary in that field. In CS we tend to list authors alphabetically and don't worry much about such things. But we also tend to list only people who actually contribute something meaningful.


How to encourage seminar attendance? My research lab organizes monthly “internal” seminars, where we give the opportunity to talk to PhD students around the middle of their PhD, as well as newly arrived post-docs (who can talk about what they did before and present their project). However, attendance is a big problem, and it's the same people who never show up, unless the speaker is from their group. I suppose good team leaders encourage their whole team to show up, while a few others have told me point blank that they consider it “wasted time”, because it decreases the time students can work at the lab bench. So, while they cannot forbid them to attend, they just discourage them.

So, I am wondering what we can make to help increase student turnout. What do you use to attract people to seminars? We have tried coffee and sweets, which didn't work very well.

Some specifics, if it can help: research lab is about 25 permanent staff, and between 2 to 3 times that number of students and post-docs. Seminars are held every month, rotating between teams.

So, I am wondering what we can make to help increase student turnout. What do you use to attract people to seminars?

Short answer: Make the seminars useful for the group members.

First, the diagnosis: The group members are probably too narrow-minded and do not understand that getting insights from currently irrelevant topics does in fact become often very useful in the long-run. The group members seem to optimize in a greedy manner for their short-term interests, shooting themselves in foot in the long-run. It seems, they do not understand that seeing connections between dots at some future timepoint is much much easier if you saw the dots and their contexts before. But this does not come by direct explanation, they need to realise it by themselves. It's your task to set the example and at least showing how at least you benefit from the seminars. This is a long-haul task and has to do with your general attitude to world. In the short term, you can perhaps do the following:

push for all group members (including the professor(s)) giving conference rehearsal talks - if you are in an area where going to conferences makes a difference. At the talks encourage giving the speaker not only content-relevant feedback, but more importantly methodological feedback on how to speak.
invite external speakers and actively support networking of the group members with the speaker. Especially in informal interactions (which are often started by interactions during, or right after the talk), people tend to find common interests and receive feedback on their own work. Possibly start even a small collaboration. The idea here is to, over time, show the group members that attending tangentially relevant talks is useful for cross-breeding of ideas.


How to begin a class with humor I am a PhD student from central Europe and I am teaching an introductory class on programming at my university.

I know that in the US, humour or a joke is often used at the beginning of a presentation. My first 2-3 sentences are right to the point, but I would like to include also a small joke or humour at the beginning.

But what would be a good joke in this situation? A friend of mine suggested to start with "welcome to bird watching 101", just some ridiculous wrong title, or starting with a fun fact about myself.

Any suggestions on how to start with humour?

Background info: Last semester my class received a nice award as among the top 5 classes of my rather big university. To some part it was due to the tips I got at stackexchange.com :-) But I would like to constantly improve my teaching.

This question seems long answered but here are two things I've done:

1)  I've given out an impossible syllabus, requiring students to be fluent in at least two languages, adding deliberately indecipherable requirements, etc., etc.  When invariably someone protests "This is not at all what we were expecting!" I say "Well then what were you expecting?"  When they answer I say, "Oh!  Well then I guess I'll just teach that instead!" and then tear up the syllabus with a flourish.

2)  I started teaching at graduate level when I was 28 (can't really get away with it any more) and I would sit in the back of the class on the first day.  Students would come in and do their usual first day things.  I'd wait until I was maybe five or ten minutes late and let some comments drop along the line of "Where IS this teacher?!" rolling my eyes.  Finally I would jump and say "Screw this, I'll teach the class myself!" before launching into the lecture.

In both cases the goal was to let the students know that I'm on their side, one of them, approachable, and not to take things too seriously.  Got pretty good results every time.


Twitter changes behavior after submitting a research paper about it to conference. What to do? Twitter announced it would begin distancing itself from the requirement that all tweets could only contain 140 characters by no longer counting some things – like media attachments or @ replies – towards the character count.

I am doing research in that area of social media analysis, and I have submitted a research paper to a conference in which I have mentioned in the introduction a little about the Twitter character count restriction (limited to 140 characters), which has since been updated to let users write more than that.

What happens now when the reviewer/referee reads my input in the paper and sees that the regulation has been updated?  Will they ask me to update it or simply accept or reject it?

Technology and technology based applications keep changing all the time, and frequently so.

Research methodology requires that you document these changes as they happen and annotate all references with dates. For example, you may add information that can act as a sort of disclaimer: For example:

  N.B: As of March 30, 2017, Twitter discontinued its 140 characters
  limit for replies. At the time of submission of this paper, the 140 Characters limit was still in force.


How do you cite a Github repository? I am working on a honours thesis and have developed a Fortran library that I would like to cite in it.

In some places they suggest to quote the documentation of the project but this is something I plan to do in the future and isn't done yet. The only documentation I have right now is the README file and the code itself.

What would be an acceptable way of directing a reader to my work on Github?

(bonus) Is there a BibTeX way to do it?

I would go with:

  P.W.D. Charles, Project Title, (2013), GitHub repository, https://github.com/charlespwd/project-title

Or a bit different, depending on your citation style. Just is is crucial to include: author, title (if style includes it), year and link.

Of course if you do have a publication related to this piece of code (even if only by fact it is your first publication basing on this code), don't forget to cite is as well! (In the current academic system it is all that counts.)

And respective BibTeX entry:

@misc{Charles2013,
  author = {Charles, P.W.D.},
  title = {Project Title},
  year = {2013},
  publisher = {GitHub},
  journal = {GitHub repository},
  howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/charlespwd/project-title}},
  commit = {4f57d6a0e4c030202a07a60bc1bb1ed1544bf679}
}

Beware, this above are improvisations (especially the BibTeX entry), not standards.

Even for more established and citable things there are not set standards, see e.g.:

How to cite a sequence from The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS)? - MathOverflow

See also:

How to cite sourcecode from an svn repository - TeX.SE
How to cite software in LaTeX - SuperUser.SE

EDIT:

See also how to assign DOI to a particular commit in your repository.


How does academic hiring work in the humanities in Denmark? I have applied for an academic job at a good university in Denmark, but as a non-Dane I've been trying to learn about how the hiring process works. Can someone explain to me the various steps in the process, and tell me about the timeline for the steps? More specific questions in bold below.

Here's my basic understanding so far:

Collecting applications.

They sent an email to the applicants saying that there were 70-ish applications for a very attractive junior position. That seemed like a very small pool of applicants to me, but the tone of the email suggested that the department took it to be an unusually large pool. How many applicants would an Assistant Professor position in the humanities usually get in Denmark?

Candidates vetted by an external panel.

When I applied, I was told the names of the three evaluators who would read the applications. The evaluators declared me "qualified" for the position. I'm having trouble now figuring out exactly what that means. Does the external panel rank applicants with two grades (qualified/unqualified) or three (best qualified/qualified/unqualified)? Further, on average, what proportion of applicants are judged "qualified"?

??

I'm not clear what comes next. The email from the university said someone from the Human Resources department would contact me. I'm curious whether there will be additional steps in the process, like a trial lecture or an interview with the faculty of the department I would be joining. Will the human resources department simply choose to hire someone on the basis of the external panel's report, or will the department make the choice? Either way, what criteria will be used to make the choice, since the external panel doesn't appear to rank the candidates in order.

Disclaimer: I work as a postdoc in social sciences in a Danish university. I have seen parts of the process from the inside on a few occassions, once very closely.

In my experience, more than 20 applicants should be considered quite a few, and I suspect this is especially true in the Humanities, unless it is an extremely coveted area.

Applications are graded qualified/unqualified, usually along with a brief statement on the reasoning.

The dean may make a shortlist of favourite candidates as a recommendation, but it will usually be the department head making the decision. At my department, relevant senior researchers/associate profs get a say too, and the process is quite democratic.

I have never heard of anyone being hired without an interview. Test lectures are sometimes used, e.g for tenure-track positions.


Never Heard Back on PhD Application but enrolled in MS program Applied to a private university for admission to an MS program thinking I had no chance being admitted to the PhD program because of my transcript.
Planned on trying to get into the PhD program after the first semester of the masters program. At a welcoming seminar for new grad students a faculty member told me to apply to the PhD program anyway. So I did, back in November for Spring admission. Still have not received a formal decision on the PhD application and it’s the end of the Spring semester. Tried reaching out to faculty multiple times inquiring whether I should reapply etc. have not heard back regarding the PhD application but have on other things like maybe an independent research study over the summer. One of my professors straight up told me sometimes the admission committee purposely does not make a decision on certain applicants because they’re not sure about them yet. Which is fine and understandable in a way. But it’s pretty ridiculous at this point, like I’m enrolled in the MS program, have corresponded with multiple faculty regarding research projects etc. but no decision on my PhD application? What should I do?
I’ve respectfully inquired a couple of times but after sending 1-2 follow up emails I don’t feel comfortable continuing to try because I don’t want to come off as rude but this is very important to my future. The chair even got back to me but only addressed half my email and said nothing of the PhD application. I’m not dumb, I know this could be code for declined, but why not give me a formal response?? If anyone wants to know any other details before giving input just ask. Thanks.

I sympathize with your situation. To help understand your situation better can you indicate whether it is a US university and if you are an international or domestic applicant? Thanks.  Regardless, please see my response below, which is assuming you are an international student applying to a US private university.
There is a fundamental difference between Ph.D. and MS hires. Most international Ph.D. hires are paid (albeit menially) a stipend and their tuition is covered via research / teaching assistantships. In contrast, MS students bear their own tuition costs and in fact are a source of revenue for university departments. Therefore, money is potentially one reason that is causing this delay from their side.
Another delay is simply due to Ph.D. hiring cycles.  Most professors are part of committees they'd rather not be.  Ph.D. hiring is another such committee.  Therefore, many departments have fixed cycles within which they would proceed with the hiring.  Perhaps, you are ahead of the cycle in your department.  You can check this by asking pointed questions.
Additionally, professors in the US have the power to hire Ph.D.s at will if they have money.  Your discussion with a professor is a good way to ensure that your application is given priority.  However, remember that when a professor hires a Ph.D. student, they begin a long journey (5 years on average) during which a strong working relationship will be established between the two of you. Essentially, they are investing in you.  So keep that in mind in your conversations with the professor.  Furthermore, sometimes talking to current Ph.D. students who are already working in that group is a good way to figure out crucial information about the professor such as "do they have money/funds to support another Ph.D.?  What is their nature and their expectation from the incoming student?  How helpful are they with job searching / student placement later? etc. "
You mentioned an individual research project with a professor.  While it is useful to do this as it indicates to you whether you enjoy research, enjoy working with the professor and lab, it can also be a waste of time if you already know you want to get in the Ph.D. program with that professor.  Regardless, if nothin else works, an individual study is a great way to build a relationship and show your talent.
Lastly, I want to talk a little about approach.  Most students, especially those starting out, will likely be shy of asking the direct (and at times tough) questions.  It is important you mindfully not be shy/apprehensive.  However, also try not to come off as rude/impatient.  Communicating via email is an art that is learned overtime.  However, below are some pointers that may help:

Write short emails with pointed questions
Always try to be pleasant, try to not sound irritated, especially on email
If an email cannot be made short enough to be read in 1 min max., request the professor for an appointment. Indicate that a brief meeting of 15 mins will be enough, and get the conversation going
Use departmental resources such as graduate coordinator staff, other Ph.D. students to get a good idea on relevant background matters

I am pretty sure they are not being non-responsive because they think you are not qualified.  If it were that clear, they would have told you that.  I rather think that there is some kind of miscommunication / misalignment going on.  I hope it is sorted out for you soon.
Best luck!


Students not engaged at all - despite the efforts of their instructor My institution moved all courses online this term. I spent a great amount of efforts:

Pre-recording 3 hours of lectures (accompanied by 2% weekly asynchronous quizzes on Moodle)
Holding two 1.5 hours of live Q&A sessions weekly on Zoom

However, the attendance of the Q&A sessions have been embarrassingly low (less than 30 out of 320 students). Although students attempt to follow the weekly lecture videos, the vast majority of them only do so about 1 or 2 days before the weekly quizzes are due.
Nonetheless, students simply just complain about the workload in general (not just because of this course, but for the accumulated required screen time from all other courses).
The end-or-semester course evaluation will start soon. While I am confident that I have done all I could have creating quality learning materials, I am pessimistic about that the majority of students might just put very negative comments just because they are not happy about all courses moved online, not because of my teaching quality.
Is this something I shall expect in this very difficulty time? To me, it is just unfair to receive evaluation from students who mostly do not even engage in the content in the first place.
Let me know how you folks think?

I can't really answer the question, which seems to assume (and presents as the major issue) that you get bad feedback which may not be true (the students still have what the other lecturers do to compare, so I wouldn't assume they use your specific feedback to complain about the general situation).
I wonder if you had to do pre-recorded lectures. We do (and record) lectures in real time with students present online, which has the advantage that students can ask specific questions on issues that may affect their understanding of what follows when they arise. (I do realise that this could be problematic with 320 students, however it may work in your favour that only a small number of them appear to be willing to interact.) Surely it makes things somewhat more lively.
One thing you could do is to have online surveys about their satisfaction, how they perceive the course, what they like, and what can be improved. You don't seem to have a clear idea on how students use and perceive your course, and you could do something to improve your knowledge on this.
To some extent online teaching encourages students to hide and not participate and do things last minute. However I'd think something more can be done to encourage interaction. I also have a written questions and comments forum, which is well used (if mostly of course by a minority of active students, but that's how these things always are and were before the age of Covid) on top of being available for online Q&A.


How much customization of letters of recommendation is necessary? While I know that students are encouraged to "tailor" their applications to the particular school or program they're applying to, does the same hold true for the people writing letters of recommendation on their behalf? In other words, is it possible just to change the "addressee" portion, and use a greeting such as "Dear Members of the Admissions Committee," or is more personalization required?

Just to clarify here, I'm referring to the "pro-forma" parts of the letter, rather than the actual content of the recommendation per se.

I have two levels of customization. Firstly, if the letter is for an internship at a lab, or an application to grad school or a job, I tailor the qualities that I emphasize and link those qualities to the specific job.

A second level of customization is if I have any connection to the institution (for example, when writing letters of recommendation for AT&T Labs - where I used to work - I might mention this explicitly in order to convey that I understand the local culture)

This is above and beyond the usual pro-forma customizations for the addressee etc.


What to do if following website redesign, an online-only journal no longer lists my paper? Because of a website redesign, a peer-reviewed, online-only journal no longer lists or provides access to an article I published with them. I have e-mailed the editorial board about the omission; is there anything else I should do while waiting for a response?

You should address your concerns to the publisher, not to the editorial board.

The editorial board is not in charge of the actual publication of the articles but only of their handling until acceptance. The only thing that members of the editorial board can do, is to forward your concerns to people at the publisher. (However, this may help, since the voice of the editors of the journal may have more weight…)

If the only thing that happened was a website redesign, than, presumably, all copyrights are still in place and you have to check your copyright agreements, if you can make the article available anywhere else. Depending on the copyright agreement, uploading the paper to some repository, a private homepage or a homepage at your university may or may not be allowed.


what do you do if you have test anxieties? What is the best way to resolve test anxieties?

Cognitive behavioral therapy, conducted by a licensed mental health professional, does reduce test anxiety.  This is usually used in severe cases.

Students who are told that it is normal to be anxious will feel less anxious and perform better.  Students who are told that being anxious will help them get a better grade also get a better grade than students who are not told that.

Reflecting on why education is important helps students overcome their anxiety.

These strategies are based on experimental evidence.


How do I keep the high efficiency in non exam week? My efficiency is very high during exam week. How do I keep this high efficiency at other times?

You probably can't.

Exam periods are high intensity last minute sprints, exhausting and taking a toll on the other aspects of your life. Personally, I barely spent time cooking or meeting friends. My time was spent on life support activities (eat and sleep), studying, and regretting not having managed my time better. I also remember being exhausted and not being able to do much intellectual work right after the exams were over.

You can pull this off for a short period of time, but you cannot keep this for long without being burned out. Plan ahead, spread your workload, and make sure you get enough rest and leisure to keep your brain rested and at peak efficiency.


I have turned myself into an incompetent researcher. I have screwed up my career, now I would like some advice how I can recover? I hope I am not at the end of the road. I had flunked advanced engineering mathematics and applied mechanics during my undergrad second year. Though I scored decently in the reexamination during the subsequent semester, I never recovered from the blow to the self-esteem from flunking first and last time in my education.
I liked applied mathematics and mechanics, though I was never good at it. I was very good at experimental mechanics but I hated the manual process of sample preparation, lack of theoretical studies. When it came to choose a research field during master's degree, I chose computational mechanics. I figured, though I might not be good at this, I can always learn and not repeat my undergrad debacle.
My error was, not taking enough courses. My grad school courses were not mathematically rigorous enough and were quite superficial. I did not take the harder courses as I feared failure and repeat of my undergrad flunking.
My PhD advisor, committee did not force me to take the rigorous and advanced courses as I had a PhD topic that did not involve much rigorous mathematical framework development. I did not ask help and guidance from professors due to my social ineptitude, worrying about what they would think about me.
I should have taken the 3 graduate level courses when I had the opportunity. I believe, I would have had more confidence, had done better PhD research.
Now, I am doing postdoc in same topic as my PhD. I am searching for postdoc positions and industry Jobs, I find requirement for candidates with rigorous research experience and graduate level coursework. I have none. I have published papers in non-rigorous journals. I am still afraid of mathematics and numerical methods.
I have screwed up my career, now I would like some advice how I can recover? I should have done things differently 5 years ago. I am old now, and inept at my field of study. I have been trying to self study for the past few years, I still suck big time. I should have stayed in experimental mechanics research. I was natural in it. Computational mechanics is not my cup of tea. I bit off more than I can chew.

It is likely that only someone familiar with your field and your portfolio can really help you assess your options. But since you asked for advice, I will offer some observations:

You spent about half your post looking backwards (all the way to undergrad). This is not productive. Instead, look forwards. Where do you want to go? What is the next step?
When considering "where do you want to go," I recommend you consider all your options. Many people who have never left the university tend to make only superficial inquiries into career options outside of the university.
For a research career, the biggest concrete problem is your poor track record in research. Note, I am assuming that your research record is truly poor as you say, though self-assessment can be very difficult. The academic job market is brutal even for well-qualified candidates, so a poor research record may close some doors, at least temporarily.
I'm not sure what you mean by "I find requirements for...graduate-level coursework. I have none." I'm very skeptical. In my experience (granted, I'm in the US), it is very unusual for anyone to care about your coursework once you have a PhD. Second, you do have a graduate-level coursework, though you don't think the courses were sufficiently rigorous.
A PhD certifies that you can do research without supervision -- this includes learning new skills. So, your self-studying seems like a good option. Another good option would be to redirect your focus onto areas which are a better match for your interests and skills. Which brings us back to the bolded questions.


How to manage the web presence of a research group Given the importance of web presence how does one manage the web presence of a research group? The simplest approach seems to be to use links to the personal webpages of the group members to supply content. Is it worth creating content specifically for the group and if so should it reflect the interests of the current group membership or the interests of the PI, which will need updating less frequently?

There are many things that could be useful for the web presence of a research group, namely:

A brief presentation of the aims of this research group
The members of this working group (past and currents) with a link to their homepage
a list of publications by this research group
if there are working groups organized by this research group (for instance a presentation every two weeks by one of the member of the work done)
Other results such as software ...
Maybe a link to the people funding this research group, a little advertisement never hurts.


What to do when you discover computational errors and mistakes in your accepted paper at the proof stage? My paper is accepted with minor revisions and now is in proof stage. Unfortunately, I have found computational errors in my calculations which have led to some wrong results.

What should I do?

Sometimes mistakes happen. Yes, it's a pain to have to deal with this mistake now after the paper was accepted for publication, but it's a good thing that you caught your mistake before the paper was published.

Note: If you have coauthors, before doing anything, contact your coauthors and explain to them the changes you need to make. Do this before doing anything else.

  What should I do? Should I send the errata to editor or copy editor?

As you mentioned that you are dealing with an IEEE journal, my response here is specific to the IEEE:

Talk to the senior editor that you are working with currently. Tell them specifically the changes you want to make and that "the logic of the concluding remarks is still correct and the discrepancies only impact the affected numerical results and the specific conclusions drawn from them," and that "the other numerical results are correct."

The senior editor will take it from there. Based on my past experience, you do not need to contact the editor-in-chief about this directly.

  Will it affect my paper's value?

No, but I don't really follow why you think correcting a mistake will affect your paper's value. Correcting a mistake prior to publication is a good thing.

  Will it need to go through another review cycle?

This will depend on the steps taken by the senior editor.


Professor stopped responding to emails suddenly. What should I do? I am an MS student in France. It is commonplace here to seek out professors from other universities or scientists at research centres to do the MS thesis under them, which is usually during the final semester. So, I reached out to a professor at a US university to carry out my thesis under him. I attached a motivation letter, CV and transcript with the initial email. I also mentioned that I have a scholarship and will not require funding. I heard back on the same day from him and he thanked me for my interest in his research. He said he would like to know a bit more about what I am proposing and went on to ask me about the duration of my thesis, the thesis requirements from my university and what I planned to do following graduation. He ended the email saying he was looking forward to our discussion. I responded to the email within two hours but he never replied. I waited a week to send him another email but he did not respond to that as well. It has been one week since. I do not know what to make of the situation. Is it appropriate to send him another email after a week? I don't understand why he would lose interest all of a sudden when he already had a chance to not respond after looking at my CV?

You have options.

You could wait and hope. The person is probably pretty busy right now.

You could try again, but I'd recommend against flooding the person with too many mails or too much information at a given time.

You could cast a wider net and try a few other professors at other places.

You could give up.

You could use some combination of the above. But casting a wider net is likely your best option, even in combination with others.


How to approach being accepted into PhD lab group verbally while explaining grades I was recently offered a verbal offer to join a PhD lab group with a professor that I had taken classes with during my Master of Science program. I did well in the said professor's classes, and I was asked if I would be willing to do a PhD. I was also verbally offered that the professor would be willing to admit me to the lab group.
I sent my transcripts and other information as requested, and explained my grades which are not good during undergrad. However, the professor has also taught my classes during the Master's and I did fairly well in those classes, and demonstrated my research experience during those classes as well.
However, since the professor wants people with exceptional GPAs, I am not sure if my verbal offer (via email) would be rescinded. I have not heard back anything since my email explaining that I did mess up in undergrad, but I have improved and I am committed to tackling the PhD in the lab group.
I am very interested in joining the PhD, but I also don't want to get my hopes up (since a willingness to admit me which the professor mentioned via email is not a written, official offer for admission to the PhD lab group). However, I am not sure what to do, as I don't want to keep prodding on the subject matter and forcing the professor to give me a response when the professor may be busy/thinking about about me to the lab group.
What is a way I can approach this, in order to demonstrate a) I am very interested in joining the group to pursue my PhD and b) I am confident that I will have the capability and willingness to learn and improve?

(I see you are from New York) In the US, in most fields, it isn't typically possible for a professor to "admit" a student to a doctoral program and you must go through a process of application and evaluation. It is unlikely that such a process can be entirely bypassed, though having a sponsor can be helpful. You can ask them what your next steps should be.
Unless your field is an exception, you need to write a good application, including letters of recommendation that assure any evaluator of your potential for success.
Don't spend a lot of time apologizing for poor grades, but emphasize the positive. What is it that makes you a good candidate? Make sure you have letters that attest to that. Depending on possible regulations, this professor might be a letter writer.


Cyclic trend through generations of excellence, Top researchers -> Their PhD students -> Top researchers -> I was reading about one of the prominent researcher in my field of study. Out of curiosity I read his PhD theses. It was supervised by yet another prominent scientist. I further went on to see his supervisor's PhD thesis and yes, it was a trend, it was supervised by yet another groundbreaking researcher. I stopped in a while, otherwise I think, I would have surely reached the pioneer of the field.

I went on for like 5-6 people down. I would like to know if this happens in your field of researchers also?

What can be the reason for this, are there any secrets passed on :P ?

This is commonly known and observed.  See the discussion of academic "family trees".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_genealogy

But I do think what you did is a little more interesting to actually pull the thesis of each person and skim it.  Not just note the big name. Very cool.  Kudos.

I think the trend occurs because more famous individuals tend to have lots of graduate students (perhaps also being pulled to fancier institutions and having access to stronger grad students).

FYI, if you trace back almost all current "name" inorganic chemists in the US, you will find that they are "progeny" of Linus Pauling (multiple generations).  Similar trends in physical chemistry or organic chemistry or nuclear physics.

I would imagine there would be some (but less) of the same effect in mathematics or literature or the like.  This is because big names will still have a bit more funding and just attract the stronger individuals.  But those are fields where there is less need for expensive equipment, large groups of students, etc.  (IOW, more random individual geniuses.)


(Indirectly) looking for a PhD before I have published a paper I am currently in the final (second) year of my masters degree (in bioinformatics) and am beginning to look around for a PhD. Admittedly, my resume so far is not very impressive: I did pretty well in courses but I do not have any published papers nor any conferences to speak of.

A few days ago I had a conversation with a Cambridge professor who has visited my institution and has collaborations with many key researchers working on a topic I'm interested in pursuing (he himself does not work directly on this topic, to my understanding).

The professor said that if I send him my CV he may be able to forward it to his collaborators.

When I talked to my thesis advisers (I have two) about this, both of them told me that I would be far better off if I had a published paper, or at least a submitted one, before I apply for a PhD. Our intention is to try to publish the project I'm currently working on, but it is likely to be a few months until we will a manuscript that we can submit.

On the one hand, I agree with my advisers that a paper would improve my odds with respect to admission to a PhD program (in terms of finding advisers, scholarships, etc.) . On the other hand, I think that I am presented here with an opportunity that I might not have again as the Cambridge professor will probably soon forget me if I don't write him soon.

So, I basically have two questions:

Is it a good idea to try to submit my CV at this stage? Could this have any negative effects or do I have nothing to lose?
If I do write to the Cambridge professor, what exactly should I include? If I write directly to a potential advisor I would of course enclose a cover letter and letters of reference, or at least list referees in my CV, but in this case I don't know if this is appropriate and I'm not wild about the idea of pestering my advisers by requesting letters of reference for this after they already told me that they don't think it is a good idea.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Note: this question is somewhat related to:
Apply for PhD before finishing my Master's degree

Applying for a PhD before or after finishing master's

but I thought that having a contact makes my situation sufficiently different in order to ask a new question.

It sounds like the visiting professor was speaking in rather vague terms, just being a nice guy offering to help you make a connection with people in your target researc area.  This is nice, and under normal circumstances you would follow up by sending a short email and with a short CV attached, since that's what he suggested; however, there is in principle nothing to prevent you from writing directly to the people the visitor had in mind.
But I think your question is more about how to apply for a PhD program, so let's look at that.
I suppose PhD applications are different in Europe than in the U.S.  In the U.S., I would say:

Today is February 19.  If you have just started your last semester of your master's program, and have no plans for next fall, then you'll have to get cracking with your PhD applications.  Meaning, drop everything and get them out the door ASAP, hoping to either barely make the submission deadline, or hoping your application will be considered after the deadline.
If you can continue on in your current department for another semester or year, then write down the application deadlines for the programs you're interested in, work backwards from that, and sit down and talk with your advisors about your timeline.  You may be able to find some programs that allow a January start date, but watch out, teaching assistantships are typically given to August start students.

I am sorry I don't know about procedures, timelines and customs for PhD admissions in Europe.  All I can suggest is that you start by carefully reading the admissions information published on the target university's website.
You could take a look at Academia SE questions related to the PhD admissions process in Europe, and ask a question targeted at that specifically.
Additional notes: in general it is best not to go against one's advisor's wishes; your question did make me wonder if your advisors are trying to keep you in your current department.


How do American universities handle cases of discrimination? Many non-American students come to America in the hope of good education and support from their academic advisors.
How should anyone handle discrimination based on national origin by American professors if such a situation arises in the future?
How do universities take care of these situations, and do they treat non-American students and the American professors equally under the law?

If you're talking about classes, you can appeal in the usual ways.
It doesn't sound like you're talking about classes though, which makes it tough. If it's a bias / microaggression type situation your best bet is avoidance - find a new advisor. Quietly tell people who could be in the same situation (especially if you have an international student organization) that the professor is a problem. Be polite and professional and if anyone you don't completely trust asks about it, explain it was a personality conflict.
If it's a more serious issue, you should document it to the best of your ability and then bring it to a tenured professor in the department that you trust and ask for advice. However, in the absence of corroborating complaints from other students the likelihood of any real action being taken is minimal.
Escalating to HR is not advisable - HR minimizes legal risk to the university, but the minimum legal risk is usually telling you to take a semester leave of absence and then refusing to sign your I20.
The international student & visa situation in the US is very prone to abuse and you have very, very little leverage to fight back. It isn't impossible, but it isn't easy and even if successful you're likely to help future students but end up hurting yourself.


I did not earn my Master's degree. Do I mention it in my Ph.D. program and onwards and on my CV? I started my terminal Master’s degree program in Fall 2017. My plan was to graduate Spring 2019, and if successful, enter a Ph.D. program  Fall 2019. My Master’s program is a more general program and not one that is necessary to obtain in order to proceed to my specific Ph.D. program, however, some like myself, use it as a stepping stone especially if we come from other fields (I hold a B.S. in biology which is not my current field).

In short, I did not obtain my Master’s. Due to the fact that I was immersed in a highly toxic, dysfunctional (no one has integrity and conducts unethical research) and borderline abusive department, and that both my thesis chairs left in the process, my graduation date was delayed. There were also 3 others in my cohort who didn’t graduate, and many others dropped out along the way—all for similar reasons as I. I was accepted to my top choice Ph.D. program in a different state, and thus decided to not stay behind and try to complete my Master’s (which was my back up plan). My new school does not expect me to complete my Master’s; in fact, I’d almost say that they don’t care, as they did not ask 1 single question about my program nor seemed remotely interested about it during my interview. Not needing my Master’s was confirmed by both the Admissions Department and the Records Office at my new school, and after this, I formally withdrew from my former school. My experience was so negative that I have zero plans to return to complete the Master’s at a different time. Also, at my new school, you earn a Master’s (which is in my specific field and credit based) along the way, which is nice.

My question is, is it necessary to mention my Master’s program on my CV? I’m assuming the answer is ‘yes,’ but I am unsure of how I would go about mentioning it on my CV. I was 3 credits away from getting my Master’s, and while I’m not ashamed of it, I am unsure of how I should handle it when it comes up in convos, esp. when applying to internships, etc. Do I say “degree not conferred” or is there a better way to convey this?

I’d appreciate any tips and advice. Thank you!

You don't need to emphasize or even mention such things unless asked to account for the time you spent. In general, it is a poor choice to mention things you think are failures. In any application you want to emphasize your suitability for the position and the high likelihood that you will be a success at it. Stress the positive.

But be prepared to give an honest and sensible answer if asked what you were doing for a period of time longer than a few months. It is probably fine to say that you pursued a dead end and changed course, which sounds accurate. It is also fine to say that you escaped a dysfunctional environment after being caught up in it for a while. But that isn't something for your CV or your SOP.

You will probably be asked to supply transcripts of all academic programs in some applications. You need to do that, of course. But you don't need to characterize the situation as a failure unless the institution considered it so.


Applying for undergraduate research - include transcript with bad 1st year GPA? I'm a 2nd year student writing a request to volunteer as a research assistant to a professor. From what I've read, attaching a transcript to the introductory email is a good idea. [1][2]

I'm considering not including it as my 1st year marks were pretty terrible. My 2nd year went well, but I suspect my 1st year might give a bad impression and disqualify me for many professors.

In such a case, which (if any) are a good idea:

Include the transcript, don't mention anything in the email
Include the transcript, explain reason for bad marks in the email.
Don't include the transcript. Mention good GPA received this semester.
Don't mention the transcript.

There are two reasons I want to see a transcript when I take on research assistants:

I want to know what relevant classes they have taken, and how they did in those classes. This (hopefully) tells me something about what kind of basic knowledge I can expect them to have in my subject area, which in turn helps me evaluate whether I have a project that is well-suited for them.
I don't want to hire a student that is struggling with their coursework, because a research position is very demanding in terms of time and attention. A student who is currently barely passing classes should be focusing on that, not taking on a new major responsibilities. (My university has a minimum GPA requirement for student research assistants for this reason.)

Definitely include your transcript with your email. Don't explain the reason for the bad grades straight off - why draw attention to the negative? But ideally, you should be able to say something like "I took 'Highly Relevant Course' this spring and it made me really interested in pursuing research in this area", where 'Highly Relevant Course' is something you've done well in, that is directly related to the professor's research. The idea is to show that you have basic knowledge in the relevant area, and you're also not currently struggling to pass your courses.