To what extent does the prospect of a guaranteed-for-life job (tenure) motivate researchers to stay in academia? Is there any research/study that looked at the extent to which the prospect of a guaranteed-for-life job (tenure) motivate researchers to stay in academia?

I am most interested in the United States and the field of computer science.

I'll respond based on anecdotal evidence, but over 30+ years, worrying about my several PhD students, and partly in a role as director of grad studies in math, giving career advice, etc. My experience is in math, not comp sci, though.

In any case, even 25 years ago, it was clear (both anecdotally and documentably by the AMS at the time, although not so accessibly, due to lack of internet...) that the "golden days" of academic math (at least) were waning, because of growth of PhD production that surpassed growth of academic positions. There had indeed been a boom of branch campuses, but that had roughly stabilized c. 1990. Some very good people (including some of my own students) got tenure at a branch campus in rural areas, but/and decided that the heavy teaching load and isolation was not what they'd signed on for.

By the mid-90s, the job market was consistently tight enough so that new PhDs with partners very often opted for non-academic trajectories, but so they'd not have to commute crazy distances, and so they could have a family with both parents participating. Hard to argue with that. The former "monastic" model of academe, or of infinitely-accommodating spouse, etc., is not acceptable these days. (I've tried long-distance stuff myself, too, and, sad-to-report, it really only works well when one is secretly glad to be apart... uh,...)

In the last several years, some of the most able and motivated grad students have had the sense to realize that, in particular, their chances to make a big-enough contribution to get a permanent job at an R1 place were pretty slim... and they didn't want to stay in academe "at all costs", so shifted their energies to avenues where being smart, motivated, and hard working had a better chance to pay off (these days). (See @DavidZ's comment.)

I've followed up with some of the people who did stay in academe and settled in relatively remote areas at small branch campuses, and, while they're "ok", they have "confessed" that it wasn't at all what they'd hoped for. Some speculation (obviously plausible) that without forced retirement, there's a lot of "waiting around" for better positions to open. (Not unlike situations in Europe, as I gather from friends there, where saturation had occurred much earlier, apart from mandatory retirement issues.)

The palpable corporatization and commodification (or at least the greater visibility of it) of higher education does also seem to have a consistently disenchanting effect on undergrads' choices about what to do after their B.S. in math (e.g., going to work for an insurance company... is (even?) more attractive now than it may have been in the past, and for some people seems vastly more viable than "grad school"...)

Although I suppose one should always be wary that possibly one's own cumulative disenchantment interferes with perceptions of others' opinions, I do have a rough idea of our local "stats" about academic versus non-academic positions for PhD'd people: once upon a time, everybody went into academe, but nowadays perhaps as many as 1/3 of each year's PhD's do not.

Even disregarding the mandatory retirement issue, it's simply not a time of expansion for higher ed... but/and the element of Ponzi-scheme of academe has no mechanism built in to reduce PhD production without finding someone else (adjunct faculty!?!) to exploit... or else (in the case of math) teaching loads would skyrocket, etc.


What should I do if I cannot afford a journal Article Processing Charge? I would like to publish an article open access, but I cannot afford the article processing charge (APC). I am based in the UK, so I do not qualify for some of the available fee reductions or waivers. I also do not have grant funding to coverage the fee. How can I obtain funding to cover the publication fee to make my research open access?

Where are you based? If you're at an institution, I'd get in contact with your library. They usually have funds of some sort to cover APCs these days.

Depending on where you're submitting, it is still possible to get a fee waiver if you can provide financial justification (which it seems like you should be able to do). I don't know how well this works at most journals, but those like PLOS ONE and PeerJ are well known for providing fee waivers for researchers with OA support (apart from a couple of incidents).

Alternatively, you could pursue the 'green' route of OA. Submit your paper, but don't make it OA (via the 'gold' route), and self archive the pre-print, post-print, or whatever the options available for your journal are. You can check policies here: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

Try playing with these options a bit, and then report back if there are further complications or details to add.


What is the backup strategy of online-only journals/repositories on the very long term? Disseminating printed documents in many places on the planet is a very robust "backup" strategy for scientific literature. Printed documents (and other forms of ink-on-paper documents), or fragments of them, are known to last for millennia and with a high redundancy (many copies spread in many geographic locations), the chances of being able to reconstruct the original content is high.

All current electronic data storage require continuous catering (electrical power and servers maintenance) or frequent re-copying (i.e. of laser discs, magnetic hard drives, etc.) to last more than a few decades.

How do online-only journals and articles repositories intend to ensure very long-term archival of their content?

Most publishers use a preservation network such as Portico or LOCKSS. The principle is that numerous electronic copies are saved, and released in case of certain events (e.g. the publisher stops permanently giving access to the works).


Can I include an author URL as part of the affiliation block in an IEEE Conference Paper? I have an OrcId.  When I publish papers, for example to IEEE conferences, I'd like to include my OrcId URL, in addition to my email in the author block in the document (in case my email changes and for collecting search results).  Is is allowed, for example with IEEE "related" events, to include an author URL, in addition to, an author email?

Sure. The IEEE conference template even includes an example of an author who gives a web URL in the affiliation block:

  Michael Shell
  School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  Georgia Institute of Technology
  Atlanta, Georgia 30332–0250
  Email: http://www.michaelshell.org/contact.html

The variety of examples in the template further make it clear that authors can choose whether or not to include details such as email, web URL, address, telephone number, and fax (!) number in the author affiliation block.


Handling unsolicited proofs of famous mathematical problems I have been receiving mails from (most probably amateurs), who claims to have proved famous mathematical problems, like the ABC Conjecture or Goldbach Conjecture. But invariably, they all contained mistakes. I decided not to waste my time on such unsolicited documents. But recently something interesting happened.
About 14 days earlier, I have received a mail from an Indian undergraduate student who claimed to have proved the Sylvester-Gallai Theorem in an elementary way. What is more amusing is that he claimed to have proved it using Mathematical Induction and a basic Euclidean Axiom. I decided to ignore it as usual. But yesterday I got his mail, telling me that-

I suppose you haven't considered my document worthy of your time and so you haven't gone through it at all, or it may be that you are so busy that you haven't found time to check your email account. If that's the case then just ignore this mail. But if it's the first case then I would like to tell you something.
Perhaps you have heard about the Indian Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. He also sent his mathematical works to renowned mathematicians like Baker and Hobson but they didn't reply. Later he sent his manuscript to Hardy and his genius was recognized. But just suppose that Hardy also considered his work to be the work of a crank, without even going through it. Consider this be the case even if he would sent it to other mathematicians. How long could he continue sending his unsolicited formulas and theorems (which were without proof!) to other mathematicians and be rejected? Of course, finitely many times. After that, he perhaps wouldn't write to any mathematician even if he had, suppose for example proved the Riemann Hypothesis. Why would he? He was likely to be rejected.
So I suggest you at least to go through my document thoroughly and tell me precisely about it.
Please don't behave like Baker or Hobson.

What should I do now? Should I remain silent or go through the document? Any suggestion will be welcomed.

Unfortunately, I think there's little or nothing you can realistically do for most amateurs sending unsolicited manuscripts.  What they don't seem to realize is how common this is and what a bad state most of the manuscripts are in:

I average several amateur e-mails per week (and I shudder to think of how many Andrew Wiles or Terry Tao must get).  If I carefully read each paper and sent comments, that alone would occupy a substantial fraction of my professional activities, so I have to prioritize.
I at least flip through the papers, and most of them are obviously crackpot work.  Occasionally I see one that doesn't look ridiculous, and I try to be encouraging when appropriate, but I have yet to receive a publishable paper from an amateur.  The best I can do is generally to offer encouraging advice, and even that's uncommon.
Some people seem beyond hope (for example, the ones who send word salad), but some could presumably become solid researchers given the right education and mentoring.  However, this is not something I have a lot of time to provide.  I've got plenty of in-person students, some of whom would probably like more interaction, and I wouldn't feel comfortable telling them "Sorry, I'm busy trying to explain to some guy on the internet why his fuzzy understanding of quantum mechanics doesn't actually yield a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem."  Even if the amateur seems promising, they aren't likely to be dramatically more promising than my students, and mentoring over the internet is less effective, so it's still an awkward trade-off.
Some amateurs react very poorly to feedback.  If you suggest their results are known (while complimenting them on their rediscovery), they angrily suggest that you must not have understood what they meant or are trying to deny them credit for their work.  If you don't believe their results, they accuse you of incompetence or laziness.  If you encourage them to apply to graduate school, they scoff at what academia would have to teach them.  This is of course only a minority of amateurs, but it's just common enough to discourage giving honest feedback: there's too much of a risk of feeling like you wasted time offering feedback to someone who only wanted validation and responded with insults.
Part of the problem is grandiose visions.  When people spend too much time daydreaming about being the next Ramanujan or finding the proof that didn't fit in Fermat's margin, it's really unsatisfying to learn that their story isn't actually as remarkable as they hoped.  It's much easier psychologically to move to the parallel story of the genius oppressed by academia, rather than starting an academic career from scratch.  (And even people who show no sign of grandiosity in their original e-mail sometimes have it hiding below the surface: I imagine that anyone who sends unsolicited accounts of their discoveries to experts is hoping for some degree of acclaim.)

So what to do about this?  In an ideal world, I'd give lots of time and attention to everyone who wrote, but these are scarce resources.  In practice, I handle it this way:

If the paper genuinely engages with my work and shows no signs of craziness (e.g., drawing religious conclusions from mathematics), I give at least a brief reply.  Same thing if I have some other good reason to believe it was sent specifically to me, and not just as one of many recipients.
If the paper looks relatively promising but has nothing specific to do with me, I'll reply if I have time and feel that the reply would be well received.
If the paper is on a topic I particularly know and care about but doesn't involve my work and doesn't seem especially promising, I might reply.
Otherwise, I probably won't reply, and almost certainly not if the paper deals with famous unsolved problems.


Verbal warning based on student complaints without evidence and investigation I am working as a lecturer at a university. My students hate math and stats. Due to that, they hate my class. There is a group of students who are always shouting, yelling, and showing disrespectful behavior. This includes:

Dr., I will not let you give us the lesson, till you show us our marks (yelling).
Who are you to give us these regulations (yelling)?
Waving their hand, showing disrespectful emotional language.
Sending shouting, disrespectful, and bad behavior emails.

I took my evidence and showed them to my boss. No actions were taken against the students (the students still show disrespectful behavior). I spoke to the dean, but she was very biased against me. She said that these students are still young. Also, these students are very rich and used to have home services at their home, so they look at you like this. I was so angry and told that this is not acceptable at all. later, my boss' secretary, send me an email:

Tomorrow you will have a meeting with Dr. X and Dr. Y at "time".

End of the email. I had no idea about that meeting and was not asked if this time was suitable for me or not. Last semester, Dr. X told me, while shouting and pointing her finger at my face, "You are zero and will be zero forever, in my eyes". Also, "You are bad raising women". No action was taken from my dean or head of the college.
I went to the meeting, their emotion was so bad. Sometimes, they used signal emotion with me. Which is disrespectful behavior.
At the meeting, without listening to me, or even showing me anything, the dean said:
"I have a verbal warning for you".
I was so much shocked and asked why. She responded to me that,
"Some students complain about your communication with them".
I said, could you please show me their complaints? Did you ask me, whether this is true or not?
Did you investigate the cases? You present the verbal warning and want me to sign it for no evidence. Then, I said, how about my complaints against these students with my clear evidence?
She said, in response to me, hold on, do not shout. I was not shouting at all. I felt unfair behavior from them. Then, I said if you will keep going with this, then I need to show this to the court as this is not the first time. She then said I will remove this verbal warning at all.
Now, I would like to write a minute for our meeting and send it back to them. My questions are:

Can the dean or the head, show, or process a warning report to any employee without evidence?
How can we describe their behavior against me?
Is it a good idea to write a minute?

Your question does not specify where in the world you are, but the behaviour you are describing from the students and staff sounds extreme.  It also sounds like your boss perceives you to be the cause of the problem and it sounds like they are not treating you well.  In such a case, your future at this institution might not be a good one, and it might be a good idea to consider looking for a position elsewhere.  Before you get to that point, I will make a couple of suggestions for what you might do here.
As a starting point, it might be useful to invite another academic to attend your lectures to observe what is going on.  Choose someone you respect as a good lecturer who has a good relationship with you, and ask them if they wouldn't mind coming along to a few of your lectures to observe.  This would have three purposes: (1) to see if you are doing anything wrong that would provoke such extreme behaviour; (2) in the event that you are not doing anything wrong, to act as a witness of what is occurring from the students; and (3) to give you advice on how you can improve your class (either by improving your own methods, or improving student discipline, or both).  The presence of another lecturer might alter the behaviour being observed, which is unfortunate, but even in that case the observer will be able to give you feedback on what you are doing.
Once you have had another lecturer observe your class you will be in a better position to determine whether you are contributing to the problems from your students, or whether these are just unruly students who are behaving badly without provocation.  You might also be in a better position to engage with your boss in relation to the problem.  (For example, you might now have another lecturer who can come along to meetings and give their observations of your class.)  Depending on what country you are in, there may be some rules for unfair disciplinary action or unfair dismissal.
Your proposal to write a minute and send it back to your boss might be okay, but only if the minute is written in an objective manner.  If the minute is just your characterisation of the way you were treated then it is unlikely that your boss will consider it an accurate statement of the meeting, and it might just further inflame the situation.


When are usually the applications deadlines in United States for a Computer Sciences graduate program? I’m a French student graduating in computer science this year, and I want to do my master in the United States, I want to join the US Army, but that's another story. I have to apply for a program starting Fall, 2016 at the latest in order to still have a chance to join the French Army as a commissioned officer, a second-choice job plan. I know I have to pass a the Toefl and a GRE test.

Yet, I’m absolutely new to the Anglo-Saxon system, and it seemed that most application deadlines were closed by the 8th of December.

Thus, generally speaking, what are the deadlines for applications?
Is there an official date? And last, do I still have a chance to join a United States graduate program for Fall, 2016?

There are official dates, set by each program.  Most of those are in the winter prior to the autumn in which you hope to start.  Of the timelines and deadlines I'm aware of, it's too late to apply for starting fall 2016 at most schools. Especially if you haven't yet taken the TOEFL and GRE, you should be targeting next year's cycle (assuming you still want to apply then).  It takes a while to get those tests scheduled, taken, and graded, and you generally have to have scores in by the application deadline.

A quick survey of Masters' application deadlines for schools in the first page of Google results:

Stanford: Dec-08
Columbia: Feb-15 (but may accept some late)
Chicago: Feb-01 for international students
Brown: Mar-15
Carnegie Mellon: Dec-15
Georgia Tech: Feb-01
UT Austin: Dec-01
Illinois: Dec-15
Michigan: Jan-15

Look for programs that are of interest to you and then check their application deadlines for a specific answer.


Is it true that a full Ph.D. is a disadvantage for technical positions in the private sector? If you do work that requires a technical skillset (ex. programming, data science) and plan to work in the private sector. Is completing the Ph.D. degree a disadvantage in terms of what opportunities are available to you? Or, do the additional publications, work completed, and everything else that goes into a dissertation count as valuable experience? Is the degree viewed as valuable in and of itself? Additionally, is any increase in pay or job stability enough to offset the opportunity cost of making a graduate student stipend for 2-3 years?

I've wound up in a situation where I'll probably be financially unable to take a postdoc position upon graduation, and will likely be forced into the private sector anyway (which functionally closes me off from an academic career-track), so am considering the option of leaving my program after advancing to candidacy.

As someone with a PhD who did a regular postdoc and now works in the private sector, the answer is definitely probably not...maybe. As with all things, it depends on the job and your field.

I have a PhD in Computer Science. I did research for a couple of years as a postdoc. I enjoyed my postdoc, but a great offer came along for a private sector job. In my field (high performance computing), having a PhD is valuable whether you're in research or industry. In fact, we hire fresh PhDs as well as folks with experience.

That being said, if you were to go to a startup in NYC or Silicon Valley with a PhD in CS, I'd imagine that while you would probably have as much chance of getting the job as anyone else, you probably won't be getting what you might call "reimbursed" for your opportunity costs. The big companies will have research arms where they know what to do with PhDs while the small ones won't.

It all depends on what you want to do. If you want to get into research (or get back into it eventually), having a PhD will be a must, even if you take a few years in industry to shore up financially. However, if you don't get your PhD now, the chances of you finishing it later much smaller. There are plenty of people who do it, but if you look around your group right now, you can probably tell me how many you see.

The exception is getting a job where your employer will essentially pay for your PhD (not like an RA position where you make beans). There are some companies or research labs that will allow you to work on your PhD while you work for them, often using a project with your company as a part of your thesis if your interests align with those of your employers. You might be able to find a position like that.


How to build research collaboration? I am an assistant professor of chemistry. My department strongly values international collaborations. I contacted some research groups working on the same topics as mine, but half of them wanted my fund, and the other half thought I want theirs.

My imagination of research collaboration was that two groups do parts of a research idea by their available funds, and then preparing a joint paper by combining the results.

For example, a common suggestion I received is that they can host a PhD student or a postdoc fellow (for a minimum period of one year for the sake of official paperwork and adaptability) if I have a fund. How can I fund someone to work somewhere else on a project different from my funded project? And how is it a collaboration after all?

In my experience, it is very difficult to spend research funds in another country. It is even impractical to send joint proposals (unless there are governmental agreements between two countries). I wonder how do researchers from various countries plan international collaborations (which is apparently very common based on the joint papers)?

Generally, and as many questions here on Academia.SE reflect, collaboration typically does not grow from blind-mailing people that you have never spoken to and which, presumably, have little to no idea who you actually are. The fact that many of them thought you are interested in leeching of their funds is not surprising, because that's what a lot of these blind mails boil down to.

Dawn is on the right track in a comment - before you can have collaborations, you need connections. A common way to establish connections is by going to conferences and chatting with people - initially not even necessarily about common work, although the discussion often tends to go there fairly naturally.

Optimally, you would have started this process long before you were an Assistant Professor - in fact, arguably one of the key tasks of an academic supervisor lies in introducing their students into their academic network, exactly so that they have an easier time bootstrapping future collaborations of their own.

Even if you have no real network right now, you can probably still fix this, but you should see this as a marathon, not a sprint. You will need to go to a number of conferences, talk to a lot of people, and and generally be present in the community for some time before your name starts to come up naturally when people think about who to collaborate with on a given topic.

However, once you have started to be somewhat known in the community, even as fast as after your first conference, you can still approach the people that you talked to there with concrete ideas for collaboration. Be prepared that especially initially you may need to put in a bit more effort than they do, particularly if you collaborate with somebody more senior than you. This does not mean that you should do all the work and just put them on the paper, but if a collaboration is your idea it is often assumed that you are also driving the project and ask your collaborator(s) for concrete, actionable input.


Inline citation within my inline citation (MLA) I am using a source, which, across the three sentences I am citing, includes two parenthetical citations.

For example:

If this is my sentence, and now I cite: "this is my source sentence one (Other Author 1891). And, he continues with more (A different author 1912)." (My Source Author)

Must I include my sources parenthetical citations within my quotation? My inclination is no.

Thanks for any help.

According to the MLA style detailed here you can use the following for inline citing as per the example you gave.

  Citing indirect sources

  Sometimes you may have to use an indirect source. An indirect source is a source cited in another source. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted. For example:
  Ravitch argues that high schools are pressured to act as "social service centers, and they don't do that well" (qtd. in Weisman 259).

  Note that, in most cases, a responsible researcher will attempt to find the original source, rather than citing an indirect source.

So from the information you gave, your cite would be (qtd. in My Source Author pagenumber)

It may also be of benefit to enquire if your department have a style-sheet that would give guidance on referencing.


graduate admissions - Can I apply again in March for the same intake after being rejected in December? This is a hypothetical question pertaining to the entry of Fall'19. Suppose I apply in December and get rejected. By next semester, I predict my grades would have improved a lot, crossing me over past the 7pt grade line out of 10, which a substantial thing. Additionally, by January I will be involved in a research project which will definitely give me brownie points. Given that I think my application's strength will improve, would it be allowed to apply again? Will my application be considered afresh in March?

Or, should I just wait till March and apply? I hear that intake chances are higher in December, since there are more seats to be filled.

You are trying for an equation containing two incommensurate things. It is an impossible task without a lot of statistical research. You will just need to make a decision. Check the university's rules, however, to see if rejection comes with a prohibition to re-apply without at least a substantial wait. Such rules should be public knowledge and easy to obtain from admissions officials or web-sites.


Classroom manner: is it polite to chat during a lecture in Canada? It's a specific question about academic norms in Canada.

I am not Canadian, but I personally find students chatting while the lecturer is talking is highly impolite, disturbing, and unrespectful to the lecturer. If I am lecturing, it would definitely make me upset if I notice audience is not paying attention to my lecture. I either would take it as my lecture is boring, or something similar.

However, since I am not Canadian, my rule might not apply in this specific cultural background. Would this be considered rude in general in Canada? How's the kids educated here in Canada?

Also, if this is indeed considered rude, how should I, as a part of audience, resolve this nicely and cleanly?

If you think the situations in the States are similar, I would also like to hear about that as well.

Update:

Though I didn't mention, I meant situation in post secondary institutions, mainly universities, and majorly undergraduate lectures.

I think these are just Canadian kids who are just being rude--sometimes younger students will test what they can get away with. I cannot imagine any situation where treating the lecturer like a TV would be acceptable. Tell them you're trying to listen to the lecture and not to them.


What is the difference between a research statement and a research interest? is there any difference between the two?

This would depend on who is asking, of course. But I'd expect, generally, that a research statement would be more detailed with a plan for how you would go about things like obtaining funding and incorporating students, etc. A research interest might be as little as you area of special expertise, though it might be a mistake to make it too narrow. For example, in mathematics, Algebra might be a bit too wide, but not so narrow that only a few people in the world are interested.

But, it can vary. Ask the asker for guidance if you can.


Is it safe to list my publications on the Internet if I am being stalked? I am being stalked by someone who probably poses no physical threat to me, but his actions were concerning enough that we filed a police report, and the dean of students moved me to different housing.

Do you think it is worth taking my academic website off the Internet?  With my publication list, my stalker could find the names of my collaborators, and the name of my PhD advisor (who already knows about the situation).  There is a tiny chance he might contact some of them.

There's a small chance it might help but probably not.

If your page has been on the internet for any length of time then it's already going to be stored in a number of library archives  like archive.org

It's possible to remove pages from the site but it takes time and there are other archives.

Example:

http://web.archive.org/web/20141124181833/http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/12-591-x/2009001/02-step-etape/ex/ex-publication-eng.htm

Also your publications are likely to be searchable through a number of online systems for finding papers such as google scholar.


"Research Statement" vs. "Research Plan" for assistant professor applications I'm putting together applications for assistant professor positions and some ask for a research statement whereas others ask for a research plan (still others, although a rarity, ask for neither).

It appears there is much more advice online for writing research statements for faculty applications than for writing research plans. Is there a difference between a statement and a plan? My understanding was that a research statement is a brief statement of your research interests whereas a research plan is a longer document that is written like a short proposal with background, references and a tentative plan for how you would pursue your research; now I'm not so sure. Please help!

Do ask the administrators in respective universities. A question of 'How long and detailed a document do you expect?' is legit and acceptable. Otherwise, you are prone to misunderstandings.

For a personal example (though it was a graduate admission), I was once asked to bring a synopsis of my research work, only to find that they wanted the actual thesis instead.


Ask for a letter of recommendation after 11-year hiatus? Is it unusual to ask for a letter of recommendation from an advisor who sat on my thesis committee a decade ago?  I received my MA in (human) geography in 2009.  One of my committee advisors was a sociology professor.  At the time he encouraged me to consider a Ph.D. in sociology.  The recession and personal life factors intervened and I ended up working in government.  A few years ago I started on a second bachelor's program (online) in sociology while working, which I have just completed.  Based on this experience, I realize I do indeed want to pursue a doctorate in sociology.

I do of course have professors from my recent sociology program who will provide me with LORs, but I would really like to ask my former thesis advisor.  Yet I am embarrassed that I did not maintain contact with this advisor.  Any advice on how to approach this?  Any thoughts much appreciated.

First of all, congratulations on completing your second bachelors degree online, while working, 11 years after finishing a Masters. In my opinion, this is a bigger accomplishment than might meet the eye, and certainly a bigger accomplishment than you get credit for on paper.

There is nothing wrong with asking for a letter of reference 11 years or 50 years later. However I do very much sympathize with you that it is a little bit embarrassing that you did not maintain contact for 11 years. I have had the same experience, with more than one reference writer from the past. One of them did not even reply to my email saying that I wanted to re-connect with him (I did not even ask him for a letter of reference, just wanted to meet him since I was back in town briefly); another took forever to reply but did remember me and said he was willing to help in anyway; and another one replies to me immediately every time I write to him (once was after 5 years of no contact and once was after 4 years of no contact). In every situation, I am embarrassed that I didn't stay in touch, and it takes me a long time to write to them, and I feel guilty for it afterwards.

However professors often have hundreds of former students, so you can imagine they have a wide spectrum of experiences: from people who they generously provided thousands of hours of time and love and care and resources to, who show no appreciation and never speak to them again, and even might backstab them at some point in the future; to people who stay in touch monthly by email even if they were barely acquainted.

It is not going to be the first time that this professor has been asked for a letter of reference from someone who he doesn't know very well, since we often get asked for reference letters in some of the strangest circumstances, so don't worry about that. It is also not the first time this professor has had someone not stay in touch wtih them, just think about the thousands of students he's had in the past.

The professor will probably be happy to know that you are pursuing an academic career like he recommended 11 years ago, he might be happy to see that you still remember him and considered to ask him rather than someone else, and maybe he will take the opportunity to help you (which often leads to you helping him, later down the road). It has certainly been done before, with gaps much longer than 11 years.

You probably don't want to go in right away asking for a letter of reference though.

Get back in touch with him as soon as you can, with an email reminding him of who you are and which thesis he advised.
Make the email personal (make sure it does not look like a copy-paste job): Tell him some of the ways in which he influenced your life, for example quotes of his that you still live by everyday.
Update him on where you've worked, and that you did the second bachelors degree
Tell him that you now wish to pursue the PhD just as he originally recommended, and why the recession caused you not to do it before.
Keep it short, please !!!

The last point might seem a but surprising, considering everything I recommended for you to do. However you just need 1 or 2 sentences for each of these points. If you go into too much detail, he might feel obliged to do the same in return, and then you'll never get any reply, because it will be a reply that requires a lot of devotion on his end.

He will either not reply at all, in which case you can tell me and I can try to help you with a follow-up email. Or he will most likely reply saying that it's good to hear you are pursuing a PhD (maybe even with some advice, but don't expect too much). At that point, you may thank him for his kind words, and say that you are happy to know that he supports you, and would find it helpful if he could convey that in a short letter of reference. Make sure your emails are pristine and very polite and respectful.

There's still a good chance he will not reply or will not be helpful, but there's an even better chance that you do get some positive support/encouragement, so it is most certainly worth a try.


Should I ask for a Letter of Rec from a Newer or Older Colleague? I want to apply for a program where I will be doing research in a particular area for roughly 6 months.  This is an area of research I'm very deeply interested in, but I don't have any experience yet.  The program asks for a letter of recommendation and I'm a little torn who to ask to write this letter for me.  I'm currently a visiting assistant professor at a college and I have a colleague in my department who knows about my interest, but he's honestly someone who isn't super familiar with my work.  He's offered to write a letter with the caveat that this would be a relatively weak (albeit positive) letter.  On the other hand, I'm considering asking my thesis adviser to write a letter for me.  My concern however is that this would like like I'm relying too much on my grad school experience to get me into this program (it's been almost 2 years since I finished my PhD).  Unfortunately neither one will be able to speak that much to my experience in the intended area of research (since I have none).  Are there merits to relying on a newer colleague at this juncture, or is it safer to rely on someone more familiar with my work?

You want letters from the people who know your work best. At this point that is probably your thesis advisor, with whom you have actually done research, even though in a different area. Be sure to explain your new interest when you ask your advisor for that letter.
Recommendation letter from CS faculty for math grad school (and vice versa)


How should I talk to an unwelcoming future research group colleague so no interpersonal issues raise? This year, I am going to join a research group in which one of my past classmates who used to study in the same university during my the bachelors degree years is also working. The professor who is going to supervise the position is completely supporting my attendance and likes my resume. However, that friend of mine reacts not so friendly. He does not answer my emails or even quick phone calls which I wanted to check the correct paper work or document submission process. Even the content of his conversations is not so friendly and warm.

That friend has nothing to do in my attendance (before I know he is working there, I had contacted the professor to talk about the position) and our research topics will also be different.

I am worried on how I should possibly deal with such person in a research group who seems not to be welcoming to me. I mean, how should I continue my connection with him, so that no interpersonal issues raise here which may affect my performance in that group and position.

Should I completely ignore such person or try to behave constructively; for instance, for easing the connections and trying to make warmer friendship, should I try to call him and discussing topics, try to talk about my attendance there, etc? I am worried, since it seems he is not happy with me attending that group and he is a senior person (he works there for about three years), he does not allow me to have my best performance, connections and cooperation, etc.

Although, I have a sense that I am overthinking this issue and the condition may not be that problematic since the professor likes my resume; I need to know how to successfully behave to that person so that such possible misunderstanding be solved and we have good days in our office in future.

From your description, I'd say it's not time to worry yet:

Meanings convey poorly via words. See e.g. this "joke" that turned out to grievously hurt someone. You can't be sure your former classmate doesn't welcome you ... yet.
It's possible you're asking your former classmate the wrong things. For example you're asking about paperwork. Why should he know the paperwork better than, say, the professor or the department receptionists (or you for that matter, I'd expect the paperwork needed to be on the website)? He could be annoyed you're asking him questions you should ask someone else, which should resolve itself if you stop doing that.
He might simply be going through a bad period. For example if he just broke up with his wife and is fighting over the divorce agreement, you can't expect him to be very enthusiastic about anything.

If you're keen to join the group, I'd say join it first and only start worrying if it really doesn't work out.


How to calculate the rate to pay a recruiting agency for new students? When a university allows agencies in other countries (perhaps in the same country?) to recruit students for them, as I understand it, the university will pay the agency some fee for each student admitted. How is the compensation calculated?

Are there universal standards? Perhaps by country? If no standards exist, how would one even start the negotiations with the agencies?

Related to this question is how the agencies protect themselves while the university also protects itself. What if a student comes to the university and forgets to say "ABC Ltd sent me" but later ABC finds out that their student did start and now ABC wants paid.

I'm specifically curious about UK universities and undergraduate students entering universities focusing on business/economics but any information about other geographical areas / subjects could also be helpful.

This is the only reference to their compensation I could find. In the UK case, average compensation/student in 2013 was about £4,300, which is about 50% of maximum annual tuition UK universities can charge to EU students (a limit that apparently does not apply to internationals) - all data as presented in the linked article. As other comments mentioned, and they seem ubiquitous, I'd request a sample of their standard contracts to get a better idea. This site seems to have decent traffic. Like all related links I could find, it rings all kind of alarm bells, but maybe you find it of use. For the U.S. case, someone put together some legal advice which you can download (as all this strikes me as fishy, I didn't dare to, so unsure if it's useful). I would definitely talk to your own school's legal counsel before taking any steps.


How to use lemmas and proofs from another paper? Suppose that paper A has a lemma called Lemma A, along with its proof.

I want to use this lemma in another paper B.  However, in the scope of my paper, I have to change it slightly, but without losing the general idea.

For instance, the original lemma might read as follows:

  Lemma A: The intersection of two straight lines in the plane is either empty, a single point, or a straight line.

Suppose I need the following variant in paper B:

  Lemma B: The intersection of two planes in 3-space is either empty, a single line, or a plane.

Also, the proofs for both lemmas are very similar.
Therefore, I have two questions:

Can I use the same methodology and same terminology with similar words to prove my own lemmas?
If I can, is citing paper A in my lemma confusing? If I cannot, can I just specify the lemma in paper A and say that this lemma and proof can also be used etc.?

You should certainly cite paper A in any case.

One way this is commonly handled: state your Lemma B.1 and give the complete proof.  At the beginning of the proof, write something like "This closely follows the proof of Lemma A.1 from [A]."  Now your paper is self-contained and you have given appropriate credit.  It is fine if your proof is similar in structure to theirs; in some ways this is better, because a reader who looks at both will more easily be able to see the similarities and differences.  But do not simply copy and paste their proof and change the necessary words.  Your proof should be your words, even if it is from their ideas.

Or, state your Lemma B.1, but instead of giving a complete proof, say "The proof is very similar to that of Lemma A.1 from [A]".  This saves space but will be more annoying to the reader, who in order to check your result will have to find the paper [A] and read through the proof, adapting it to prove B.1 instead of A.1.  (The referee may be similarly annoyed.)

Some people would omit the statement of Lemma B.1 altogether, and when they need to use it, would say "By a slight modification of the proof of Lemma A.1 from [A], we have blah blah blah...".  This is even more annoying.

Worst of all is to just say "By Lemma A.1 from [A], we have blah blah blah" where Lemma A.1 claims something different from (and not obviously implying) the statement you want.


Is there a convention for referring to a scholar's academic status? I'm currently preparing an online tool for scholars, and part of that work involves creating a database with different categories for students at different stages of their college/university education (i.e. freshmen, second-semester juniors, first-year graduate students, etc). I'm struggling to find a standard classification system to use that would allow distinction between all of the stages in an undergraduate and graduate education. I could just use "first-semester senior" and the like, but if there's an existing standard - particularly one that even allows for students that don't use semester classifications - I don't want to complicate things with my own classification scheme.

Is there a convention, especially an international convention, that distinguishes between all or most of these stages in educational progress?

There is no international standard. You will at best find national standards. The problem is that an undergraduate degree can range from 3 years (there may even be shorter ones but I have not heard any examples) to 4 or 5. In some countries a masters degree is a graduate degree in some it is an undergraduate degree. moving to graduate school, Phds range from fixed three years through fixed four years to "individual length. A masters is not necessary to do to move from an true undergraduate studies to PhD, which means it will be an optional step in an education for some.

This means you will have problems defining a solid difference between undergraduate and graduate with the masters belonging to both. You can of course call students by the year they are at at each level but it would probably be beneficial to then know if it is m'th year out of n years to be possible to evaluate. The terminology for undergraduate students at different levels common in, for example the US, which you mentioned in your question is certainly not used internationally.

Based on this "mess" you should probably try to find a system that is as simple as possible and, for example, in the case of the masters simply define it for the site as undergraduate or graduate. Referencing to the year into an education will probably be understood by everyone. There are attempts, for example, within the European Union to synch levels and educational systems but so far there is much left to do to reach such goals if it ever will happen.


Should I quit my Ph.D. program in scientific computing to become a software developer? I’m three years into a Ph.D. program in scientific computing and I’ve just received my M.S. I’m thinking about leaving school to go to a programming bootcamp and become a software developer. I’ve done pretty well with my coursework, I enjoy learning (at my own pace), and I’m good at teaching, but I have doubts about my ability to do solid research. I’m working in an interdisciplinary area and I don’t really have a deep understanding of any of the fields involved, so I am pretty dependent on my advisor for direction and ideas. I’ve put in a lot of (mostly coding) work on a project, but haven’t published yet. I always tell myself that if I stay, I will dig into papers and textbooks and learn as much as I can, but it feels like a pretty big mountain to climb at this point. I’m already in my thirties, having been a teacher for many years, and the lack of money is starting to get to me. I also have a serious hobby I’d like to pursue, but I’m not sure how realistic that is.

So why would I stay? Partly a desire to finish the project I’ve started. Partly a conviction that this research is at least tangentially related to some very important problems (climate change). Partly a fear that my domain-specific (mostly mathematical) knowledge will go to waste. Partly a bias for academic over business pursuits (my parents and my sister are all scientists). And partly a longstanding habituation to an unstructured schedule, with freedom to study what I want when I want. Are any of these good enough reasons?

Only a partial answer but a fair warning, if you have not been keeping up with the news with respect to coding bootcamps: avoid it at all costs, seriously.  Learn to code by yourself through books - you have the "smarts" for this judging by your PhD in Sci Comp candidacy - or take CS courses at your school to pick up enough depth and breadth, which is what bootcamps severely lack (but make grandiose claims about).  I urge you to Google search some articles about this disastrous outcome that many bootcamp candidates are facing, e.g. stigma that they are unqualified coders.  E.g. Google, I think, now automatically desk-rejects applicants with bootcamps on their resumes, after hiring one too many failures.  Good luck.


contacting advisor before admission can be helpful? I am an Mphil student from India. My field of interest is complex analysis. I plan to go abroad for my PhD. I know the process of GRE exams and all. But I want to ask, is talking to any professor, with whom you wish to work for PhD, from your desired university, helpful in getting admission?
Can it be helpful somehow?

You could certainly talk with them and discuss your ideas and options and if you find the connection is a good one you could ask for a letter of recommendation from them, but short of a letter I don't think a professor has a whole lot of flex/power when it comes to admissions.

Certainly if they vouch for you that is a positive thing, but unlike a "job" I feel the role at the University is based more on your academic experience and aptitude than who you know.


is it ethical to publish the same paper in a conference proceedings and a journal? The papers for a conference are limited to 3 pages. On the website, however, it says Transactions of the IEEE offers a special feature edition (whatever it means?), so I think it would be good to submit the full manuscript to this special issue.
But that means I'm submitting two papers with the same title to a journal and a conference proceedings.
Is that ethical? How should I deal with this?

The extended abstract is accepted. Meanwhile the special issued journal is open for submission. I contacted the editor of the journal and she said you can present your longer version in the transaction journal.

But basically I think I will use the same text and figures. Maybe 2 more pages than the conference one. Is it considered as self-plagiarism ?

In computer science, the typical rule of thumb is that a conference paper may be 'upgraded' into a journal paper with at least 30% new material.  Certain subfields and other related fields covered by the IEEE may have different standards, however, and ultimately, the standard for this particular conference/special-issue pair is whatever the organizers have decided it is.  Since a 3 page paper is a very short form, though, the full manuscript will almost certainly be reasonable to submit to a journal.

It may not, however, be appropriate to submit to this special issue. Special issues associated with conferences are sometimes open submission (in which case, you can probably submit immediately), sometimes open to extended versions of any accepted papers (in which case, you need to wait to see if your paper is accepted), and sometimes only for a select set of invited papers (in which case, you need to wait to see if you are invited).  The organizers should have posted this information on their site: if they have not, you can email them to ask.


Cheated in Undergrad setting While in undergrad in my final semester, I cheated on an exam and got caught. The teacher gave me a zero on the exam, I got a C- in the class, and I got a warning from the Dean's Office, which is on my academic record, but not on my transcripts.

Fast forward 2 years after graduation, I want to apply to a masters/PhD program. However, I am afraid that nothing I have done since will make up for the fact that I cheated.

I know I did something terrible, and I was in a very low mental health status back then. I have since attended rehab, and worked a full time job,to give myself time to figure out my life.

Are my chances for higher education zero? I feel like there is no point in even applying because of my terrible mistake.

There is no harm in applying. There are a couple points to keep in mind:

Unless the place you are applying explicitly asks about it, you don't need to mention it on your own. I do not know if you were on probation, or anything like that - you would have to look at the formal wording of the letter you received from the dean. Students at my school who are punished for cheating are not "on probation" in any formal sense.  You don't want to lie, but you also don't need to bring up anything that you aren't asked about.
If an institution does ask a question which requires you to acknowledge the incident, then answer honestly, and be sure to also address the issue in your statement of purpose. In this case, it might also be good to arrange with a professor to mention the issue and its resolution it in a letter of recommendation.

The explanation you gave in the question would be fine for a statement of purpose: you went through a difficult period, sought help, and took time to work through the issue. Many people find themselves in that kind of situation, so you are not unique or even unusual.  Some programs may decide not to admit you, but I suspect there are programs that will give you a second chance. It may depend, to some extent, on your field - fields where honesty is particularly important may be less willing.


Suitability of top UK graduate programs, compared to US ones As I check forums to compare top UK schools (specifically: Oxbridge and Imperial College) v.s. top US schools (MIT, Stanford, Caltech, etc.), most of people have mentioned the subjects, just like stuffs below, to consider higher priority for electing US schools:

The UK academic system is archaic, as the yearly system of examination has a very important role in the students' studies.
Students must choose their major, at first, and continue to the end.
...

But, all of these cases are about the undergraduate studies.

In the case of graduate studies, one often consider all top ten schools in the same level, roughly, where the most important factor could be the coherency between the graduate student and her supervisor.

If we confirm above argument, there is no real difference for an international student, in view of the academic system. Actually, the remained factors would be the whether, funding and stuffs like that?

Is there any important factor (except supervisor) for an international graduate student, to opt between potential offers the top universities in US and GB?

I'm not sure about master's degrees, but there are a few important differences between US and UK doctorates.

Duration. UK doctorates can be (and most often are) as short as 3 years. There are now 4-year degrees (the so-called 1+3 degrees), which combine master's degree and doctorates much like the US programmes, but normal 3-year doctorates are still the norm. US doctorates take at least 5 years to complete, and you can often exit with a master's degree. One of the downsides of the shorter doctorates in the UK is that the number of papers you publish during your doctorate will be typically less than the number of publications of someone who had 5 to 8 years to complete their doctorate.

Funding: Unlike undergraduate and master's degrees, which have been turned into a business, where universities are all too happy to accept international applicants who pay exorbitant amounts of money (at least 2 times the fees of UK/EU students), the situation in the UK with doctorates is quite different. Since doctoral candidates are getting paid, the funding is typically reserved for UK/EU students because the funding body is British/European. There are, of course, funding opportunities for international students, but they are much rarer and competitive. This answer may be of interest to you. I think the US funding bodies are more generous with their funding.

Application: The application process is also very different. In the US, as far as I know, you apply to a department and you don't have to decide on a topic or supervisor for some time. And even then, it's easier to switch topics/supervisors. However, in the UK, when applying for doctorates, you need to write a research proposal and preferably to have already identified a supervisor who can supervise you. Some places even require you to have a supervisor who has agreed to supervise you to support your application. And if your funding is tied up to a supervisor, good luck trying to switch supervisors.

Content: UK doctorates are very focused. There is no coursework, no TAing if you are properly funded (unless you want to), or any of that. Just full-time research on a topic you've already chosen.


Can applying for different but consecutive jobs at the same insitution be perceived as wrong? I am applying for different postdocs at the same institution. They hire during the year in different subfields of my main field.
I already read some questions related to my problem (here, here, here), but I think that my situation is little bit different, because I just keep applying to one institution.

My situtation, consecutively:

I applied for a fellowship to one professor for a specific project. It was not successfull.
In the same time, a similar position in a different group popped out. I'v asked the professor what he thinks, and he advised me to apply for it. No success.
Several weeks later, the professor told me that he discussed my CV with a different group. They want to invite me for an interview.
Now, a new postdoc is available. I am thinking of waiting for the result of option 3 and than apply for option 4. Or should I apply for both at once?

What if they will not hire me now, but a new job will pop out in a few months?
I would like to know whether they can perceive me as someone who want to be hired to a particular institution and a particular country rather than someone who want to be hired for doing research.

Disclosure: I applied for two positions at the same time in the same department and it worked out fine for me.

Clearly, I think doing this is fine. And I wouldn't be particularly worried about being perceived as trying to work in a particular country/institution if you're appropriate for both positions. Make sure to write your cover letters appropriately - both of them should speak to your interest and qualifications for that particular job.

You might, however, consider informing the people involved that you have applied for both positions. This lets them discuss you in the context of which position might be best for you, etc. For example, if Option 3 is super-interested in you, then Option 4 can take that into consideration. Or if strategically one is having a harder time filling their position, etc.


What should be the right format for dates in CV? I saw that most of the formats for month & year is like "September 2017"; however it is kind of cluttered. I'm wondering if the following formats are OK:

Sept. 2017
09/2017
9/2017

There's no right or wrong choice here because there are no formal standards at most universities for what a CV should look like. Just pick one you like and use it throughout the CV.


Is it advisable to continue with a research project if I'm not learning much from it? I’m an undergrad involved in a research project with a professor that has potential to lead to a publication in a good journal. The field concerned is a relatively new field of biology and this project is completely voluntary. My work till now has been brunt work- monotonous, painstaking work. There’s more in the future just like that. My concern is that I don’t seem to be learning much. I don’t understand everything that’s going on. My advisor doesn’t seem too concerned to acquaint me completely. His attitude is this: This stuff is something beyond the scope of my understanding right now, so I shouldn’t be very worried.

On one hand that seems reasonable- I’m only an undergrad who obviously cannot understand everything that’s going on simply because I don’t have the background for it. But I’m not too eager to quit either because I know that a good publication in the undergrad level will have a huge impact on my chances of getting into grad school. On the other hand, if I don’t understand everything going on, what does a publication mean? It will be pointless I think to continue with this project just because it will boost my chances of getting into grad school (but I don’t know yet how easy or difficult it is to land a project and if I can just throw this away so easily).So the question is whether I should be continuing the project (since this is voluntary, I can quit anytime if I feel the need to).

You don't need to understand everything that's going on.

But if you don't know enough to interpret what you're doing and why it's important, then you're right: there's no point in doing it.

Having said that, this doesn't necessarily mean you should quit right now. Ask your advisor to suggest some papers, textbooks, or other resources that can help you understand the background necessary for your experiment. There is no such thing as a topic that undergrads are not capable of understanding. There may be topics that would require a great deal of work for an undergrad to understand, but if you're willing to put in the work your advisor should be willing to point you in the right direction.

However, if your advisor is not willing to help you learn (or at least suggest ways for you to learn independently), then you're better off volunteering your efforts to someone you can learn from; it's time to leave.

(If your work does not represent a meaningful intellectual contribution to the research (as per your description), then your advisor will not be able to write a compelling letter of recommendation that speaks of your research ability for admissions to graduate school.)


Value of a degree from an unknown univeristy Possible Duplicate:
  University rank/stature - How much does it affect one’s career post-Ph.D?

I graduated with a Bacholars from a top university and did quite well, however, I was recommended to a professor in an unknown (read as not highly ranked) university for a PhD program. I had certainly not heard of the university before, and I don't believe that it has much of a reputation. It is not a new university by any means (established 1800s).

Is a degree from such an University likely to add value to me? Also, how do I know whether this is a step in the right direction (before I take it)?

Edit: I am considering it because the research that is performed by the professor there interests me.

Your publication record at the end is what will count most.


Point of weakness for tenure track postions What is the greatest weakness point Question? I want to be honest when answering this question. Actually, I have a problem which speaking so fast in English (which is not my first language). So, I would like to answer this question as" Some times I became so enthusiastic and speak so fast in English" and to handle this issue" I always ask student feedback to keep my self speaking slowly.

Is this answers hurts me?

I know there are "ideal" answers on the internet such as pointed here 1

I believe that your actual answer doesn't matter that much.

These "open" questions are often asked, in my experience, to get you to talk. Unless the content of your answer raises a big red flag, the relevant part will be how you react to it, how you pose your answer, etc. It's a "starter", depending on your answer you might get interesting follow-ups that lead to somewhere interesting, or maybe just move on with the conversation.

Don't try to force it back to your pre-defined talking points, and never push shop talk during social events, like during the meals with the committee. If they steer the conversation that way, sure, but be yourself, with more interests than research/teaching, etc...

Beyond all else, don't overthink it. Nobody solid is going to get discarded over this (again, except red flags), and nobody "unprepared" will get picked because of this. Use your energy to be very sharp on your teaching statement, research ideas, etc. That's what actually makes a difference.


Should live sessions be recorded for students when teaching a math course online? I am a course instructor. In my courses, which are now online due to the pandemic, I have optional live sessions. In those live sessions, I give examples of how to solve problems (it's a math-based course), and answer student questions in a group setting.
This design comes as close as possible to pre-pandemic settings: students were never required to attend my lectures, but were always encouraged to do so.
Lectures have never been recorded.
I think that if I were to provide recordings of these live sessions, more students would not bother to attend. I strongly believe that attendance at these sessions is pivotal for understanding, and that watching posted videos of these sessions will not have the same effect. However, some students have indicated that they strongly prefer recorded videos, so that they can watch them in their own time. I specifically do not want to allow this, as I think it discourages proper time management and may lead to problems down the road.
There are already additional posted videos to help students who may be struggling with the content.
Other instructors: do you record your live sessions? If so, why, and if not, why not? Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts, and why?
EDIT (clarification as asked for in a comment):
The institution I teach for has emphasized the importance of teaching time management skills to first year students. These are first year courses, and so I am expected to teach time management in addition to math.
Additional notes of clarification requested in other comments:
All of the content I discuss in the live sessions has also been provided in multiple other formats: text, linked videos, etc. I think the value of the live session is the fact that it is live. When I was in undergrad, if I didn't attend a lecture, I didn't understand the content. Some lectures were recorded, but since I couldn't ask questions in real time, I couldn't benefit in the same way. There are already videos of this content - why would recording my live sessions add value if this is the case?
Adding another point to the discussion
Does anyone have any concerns regarding intellectual property? At my institution, all course materials created (including any assessments, posted lecture notes, lecture videos, etc.) are the property of the institution as far as I know. How should intellectual property rights factor into this discussion, if at all?
And another point
My understanding of the goal of putting instructional materials online was to preserve the "in person" experience as much as possible during the pandemic. If there is no live component that is unrecorded, that doesn't hold true to the pre-pandemic experience.

I do provide recordings. At my former university it was a policy to do that, but I had started it already before when I didn't have to. Where I am now I can decide whether I want to do it, and I do.
A major reason why I'm doing it is because students love it - at both universities, as long as it wasn't obligatory, students in the feedback always asked for recordings where they were not provided, and seemed always to be happy when they were provided, and I mean fairly big numbers of students and a striking majority of those who wrote anything about it (I think I have only ever seen a single student writing anything critical about it, and I have seen lots of student feedback).
Now I accept that we shouldn't do things just to make the students happy, but on the other hand I think it is somewhat partronising to not do something they ask for that I could easily do and wouldn't affect my overall didactical concept much.  I have the attitude to give the students responsibility for their own learning (I do tell them what I think is reasonable but if they want to do things in a different way it's up to them), and I want them to show up in my class not because they have to (due to withholding of resources that I could easily give) but because they decide to do so and they want to be there. My experience  is that providing recordings makes students' presence go down a little bit, but really not a lot (let's say 90% attendance with recordings relative to without, but I haven't systematically counted so this is a guess), and I am under no illusion about whether students who'd be there otherwise would properly concentrate on the lecture all the time - in fact in the old pre-Covid days there were student groups that annoyed me quite a bit by obvious lack of concentration and listening in presence. My impression is that the handful of students who don't come because there is a recording largely belong to the bunch that didn't get much out of being there either.
I have occasionally revisited recordings of presentations I attended, so I see where the benefit is. As others have already written in the comments, a student can go through an argument slower and more than once, or may remind themselves of something they missed in real time (we should not think that students listen all the time during live sessions - I once learnt that it is extremely hard if not impossible to keep attention up for more than 15-20 minutes). There is definitely some use in having recordings, so not only do I listen to what the students want, I also see a good reason why they want it.
A potential disadvantage is that some students may not ask questions or contribute to the class if they know there are recordings out of fear to come over as stupid. I never heard any student admitting to this for themselves, but I have heard and can imagine that this is an issue for some. My impression is that student participation hasn't gone down significantly because of recordings, but these "data" are very noisy and I'm actually not totally sure.


Can one have two different sources for postdoc fundings together in Europe? Let's consider the hypothetical situation of a postdoctoral candidate C, who get funded simultaneously as follows, starting at the same or different times, with overlap:

Funding agencies F_1, F_2 (for example, Marie Curie, FWO, Danish Research Council...), where for each F_i, he wrote a proposal with a research team or host H_i, who did not have any funding on their own, but agreed to supervise C.
Department D (for example, University of Pennsylvania), who offered candidate C a postdoc from their own funding directly.

Can C earn from both the fundings in case of 1. and 2.? or; it depends on the funding agencies rules?

I went though the rules of some Marie Curie postdoc fellowships, I don't think I noticed any rules that states anything against having two fundings together?

The main issue I can think of would be time allotment. Most grants require you to specify how what percentage of your time you will spend on the grant. As you cannot overcommit yourself (i.e., total time allotment cannot exceed 100%), you'll have to specify that in the proposal. Many professors have funding from multiple grants at any given time, so this situation is not too unusual.

Do note, though, that it is highly likely that once "Department D" catches on that you have an external source of funding, they may decide to withdraw their offer and provide the funding to someone who has none. Not sure how that would work.


Weight of undergraduate grades when applying for a Ph.D I am an undergraduate student in Computer Engineering and I would like to do a Ph.D. at a well reputed university. I am facing a problem because I took some borderline pass grades in a few courses (3 of them) and I might want to retake them. This courses though are not that much relevant to the area that I currently work in (for example they might be some user interface design classes whereas my focus is on parallel computing).

I would like to ask how much do these grades matter for my applications for a Ph.D. in a reputed university (like Carnegie Mellon Univeristy (CMU) in Computer Science, but not restricted to that). And how much does these grades matter if I get into an M.Sc. course in a highly reputable university.

To be more concrete, will these grades matter if I want to continue my studies towards a Ph.D. at CMU. And how much more or less do they matter if I will be on an M.Sc. at ETH Zurich (or a similar university, where I can do really good research) when I will apply to CMU. (This is just a random example)

There can't be any sort of general answer, as the criteria used by individual schools vary quite a bit. In the end, the decisions are taken by admission committees, who do look at numbers (i.e., GPA, grades in detail, ranking of undergraduate program, ...) but should (and will!) also look at more soft measures, be it grades in "selected" courses, strength of recommendation letters, ranking of high school of origin, evidence of not just academic interest (i.e., was part of the debate club, ...). But it is probably the case that a first filter is on "hard" data (specially if the school gets many more applications than places available).

This is a question only the current members of said committees at the schools that interest you could possibly answer, and probably will never do, not even in private.


What is the relationship between graduate coursework and research? I feel like after graduate students pass their qualifying exams, they still have a lot of learning to do before they're knowledgeable enough in a specific area to understand and work on the open questions in that area. But how do they get there? Do they just take advanced courses in the area of interest, or are they expected to read up on their research area outside of coursework? If the second, should they be doing this while they're still taking classes, or do they start doing this after they're done with their coursework?

It depends. My PhD supervisor got me involved from Day 1 in research projects in his lab. He was down on programs where things were much more serial (do the required classes, pass the qual, do a proposal, do the research, defend). His students all had some research tasks from the beginning. If the student was unprepared for the task, there were papers to read or book suggestions, etc. This worked really well for me, though it may have resulted in me being somewhat under-prepared for the quals the first time I took them! I eventually passed and graduated.

Some advisors and programs take a different approach. They really want the student to concentrate on nothing but getting through courses and the quals until they pass the quals. Then it's the proposal (if they require one). How one gets the knowledge to get from proposal to defense is up to the student and the advisor to work out. I didn't complete my coursework requirement until late in my program, so I used courses to close knowledge gaps where a relevant course was available. Where it wasn't, I worked through books and papers that I could find that helped.


How to obtain a degree equivalency certificate in UK? I have a degree in Social Education (done in Portugal). I am wondering whether anybody can help me in finding organizations that can provide an equivalency certificate (report) for this degree. I have searched and a degree in Social Pedagogy is very similar to mine. However, I don't know how to obtain an equivalency certificate (report) for that degree either.

In the UK, NARIC is the government designated agency for comparing foreign qualifications to their UK equivalents.


How to deal with a colleague who won't accept they're wrong Sometimes an argument will arise between collaborators where two (or more) contrasted views or (mis)interpretations of a scientific issue exist. Sometimes both views are partially correct, sometimes they're both incorrect, and sometimes one is correct and the other is not.

Some people don't handle being wrong in a very "gracious" manner, even after realizing they are wrong, and will not admit their mistake. I have a previous experience with a more senior colleague who would not admit they were wrong even after confronted with a lot of evidence. I should also add that I was intimately familiar with the research problem at hand and they had just some very superficial knowledge of it, which probably led to their mistake. I suspect that at some point they realized they were wrong but were trying to hold the upper ground ("I'm right because I'm the more senior person") and "win" the argument. Also their ego got in the way of reason (not the first time that happened). The situation was very frustrating for me and things went sour with this person, not only because of this incident but also because of previous history.

I am facing the same problem again (with a different colleague who is also my senior) and would like to handle the situation in a less destructive manner. However, I cannot write a statement on a paper that I know to be wrong just to avoid hurting somebody's ego.

What is a good way to resolve the issue with a colleague who you know to be wrong, anticipating they may have a hard time admitting it?

Just to clarify (based on what I can read in the comments): my question is not about situations such as pointing out a mistake by the speaker at the end of a presentation, sometimes even with the malicious intention to embarrass a "competitor" (things you witness at conferences!). In such situations influencing factors are, e.g., present audience and lack of time to think things through. It's about stubbornly persisting on one's mistake even when confronted with evidence and given the time to think about it.

Use impersonal language
Hopefully this is obvious, but make sure that your language focuses on the ideas rather than the people. Rather than

I don't think you're grasping the subtleties of the situation

try

I think that there are some extra complications that need consideration in this case

Ask questions
Rather than taking a confrontational approach, try to adopt the role of the inquisitive student. Rather than

There is evidence in publications X and Y that directly contradicts what you are saying

try

What are your reasons for disagreeing with publications X and Y?

or

I'm having trouble understanding why the conclusions from publications X and Y do not apply here. Can you elaborate?

This will hopefully give your colleague a graceful way out without having to turn it into a matter of "you're wrong and I'm right". As a bonus, it also gives you a way out if it turns out you were wrong after all (however unlikely that is) or that you misunderstood your colleague's point. But as @R.M. and @CaptainEmacs have pointed out in the comments, take care not to overdo it, or you could come across as either clueless, or patronising.
Make someone else the scapegoat
Rather than voicing your concerns directly, put them in the mouth of a hypothetical reviewer. Rather than

I think there are these reasons for rejecting that argument

try

I think that a reviewer could object to that argument for [reasons]. I think we need to anticipate this using [different argument].


How are green OA publications cited? Suppose one of my papers is published by journal A and I upload it in addition to my university repository B. When people cite this paper, would some cite the paper in A and some the one in B? Or is it ensured somehow that people will only cite the one in the journal?

If it's a direct copy of the published version (same PDF, with formatting, headers etc.) I'd be very surprised if anyone would fail to cite the journal version. I mean, what's next? Providing the address to their university library instead of using a standard citation format for a printed publication?

If it isn't a direct copy, but the copy in university repository B lists the journal reference, readers will generally cite the journal version. This also tends to happen with papers on preprint repositories such as arXiv, except when people find the preprint version before it's published, and don't remember to check their bibliography for updates before they submit/publish their own work. If no journal reference is listed, you can't really blame the readers for not noticing the version in A, so make it easy for them to get it right.

Now, this isn't really enforced. The closest thing I've encountered is that many journals will ask authors to double check references that don't look like peer reviewed and published versions during the copy-edit phase. As you say, this could be considered a disadvantage to green OA, but it's likely outweighed by the visibility advantage of having a non-paywalled version.


How to explain my methods and results? I currently am writing a paper which uses regressions (from statistics) heavily. The objective is to show (as far as possible) that A causes B.

The main analysis of my paper uses regressions to show that A is correlated with B.

After showing this correlation, I wish to show that A occurs before B occurs so as to give further evidence of a causal relationship. This requires another set of regressions. (The set of explanatory variables changes significantly, so I need to specify the new regression equation.)

Furthermore, I need to show that factors C, D, E mediate the relationship between A and B. (Again, I am much better off specifying the new regression equation. Even if you doubt this, just believe me on this)

How should I go about this?

Option 1: Explain all methods (correlation, temporal precedence, mediation) in the Methods section. Then give all results in the Results section.

Option 2: Explain the methodology for detecting correlation, then give the results. Then explain the methodology for temporal precedence, give the results. Then explain the methodology for mediation, and give the results.

The problem is, no matter which way I do this, I get criticism that the structure is confusing, along with suggestions that I should do the alternative approach. For example, if I try option 1, people say that temporal precedence and mediation only make sense if I detect a correlation, so these analyses should be shifted to the back. On the other hand, if I try option 2, people say that my methodology should all be neatly encompassed in a single Methods section.

I'm curious as to what most people do when they are in a similar situation?

In my area the standard is always to have a single methods section; journals would not accept an alternative format. That might not always be the ideal arrangement for every paper, but it's simply the norm.

So what to do when the methodology is somewhat convoluted, or very key to particular elements of the results? Add some "reminder" description of the methods in the results. Keep the fine details only in the methods, but address what you are up to to keep a good story in the results. Minor repetition isn't a problem and helps your paper flow.


Can a bad job as referee influence submissions to the same journal? Having done a bad/inaccurate/sloppy referee report or being a bad referee for a high-ranking journal can influence the acceptance of a paper submitted to the same journal?

In other words, when submitting a paper, do editors take into account the past reviews of the paper's authors to decide whether the paper is publishable or not?

In principle, an editor probably should not take one's prior performance into account, either as a reviewer or in any other capacity, and should judge solely on the current work.  The workflow of most journals I have dealt with supports this notion, in that there is no way even to readily examine other actions by an author.

In practice, however, a) editors are human, and b) poor performance in one area is often an indicator of poor performance in another related area.

There are, however, two mitigating factors:  first, there are often many editors, and second, for most editors you'd have to be mightily annoying to be memorable as a bad reviewer.

Bottom line: yes, if might affect your papers, but you probably shouldn't be particularly paranoid about it.  Don't use this as an excuse for doing bad reviews, however: it's far better to withdraw honorably from a review you cannot do well.


Have to give a talk soon but I no longer believe in my research Basically, my supervisor wanted to measure variable X. X is very important to him due to some other projects we are working on. So he wanted me to give a talk on measuring X at an upcoming conference.

I was skeptical -- I thought that maybe X wasn't a real variable, but just a mathematical effect that would cancel out if we did our measurements right. My supervisor gave me some compelling arguments and convinced me that X was real and we should measure it, so I submitted an abstract to the conference and got accepted.

Now, having done the work and taken the data, I am once more convinced of my old idea that X isn't a real physical thing. The talk is coming up soon and despite the enthusiasm that appears in my abstract the best I can honestly say is that we took some measurements and got no results. I know my supervisor would be upset if I give a talk to the effect of "X doesn't matter" because that reflects negatively on his other projects. Should I cancel the talk, change the content so it's drastically different than the abstract, or something else?

Do a practice talk with your advisor before going to the conference. Do it early. It will be a good time to discuss how the talk should be organized in order to  highlight the context of your measurement in the whole project and its relative importance.

It is common for a student working on a small piece of problem (and not necessarily looking at its entire context), to go back and forth between feeling A) the piece is obvious or unimportant; to B) the piece is pretty cool after all; then back to A again.

At worst - if it seems as if your piece really is not so relevant, then I expect he will help you organize the talk so that it still engages the audience. (Not a bad skill to practice. And, if you don't pull it off - at least in my field, if the topic of the talk seems unimportant to the audience, the bad smell lingers longer on the professor/advisor than on the student).

(Of course, also in my subfield, giving a talk at a conference or workshop usually means that we are giving a talk about work-in-progress still unpublished. So strategies may be different if there is a required paper involved for every talk).

But more likely, with working on the practice talk and the discussion with the advisor - you will develop more of an appreciation of how that small piece of work fits and may even develop an appreciation of its other subtleties that interest the professor. In a situation as you describe, I place my bets on the professor instinct on the topic.


Dropped out of PhD - should I seek acknowledgement of disability discrimination? Summary: was targetted as a 'troublemaker' for missing time in PhD due to illness, PhD went badly, I dropped out halfway through. Should I seek formal acknowledgement of discrimination, to clear my name and limit damage to my career?

I did 2 years of a 4 year course at a university in the UK. I am disabled and for medical reasons was not always able to attend. I had medical evidence provided by my doctor, and a disability needs assessment written up by the university's disability support service, which (among other things) specifically mentioned that I would not always be able to attend.

The head of my department noticed my absence at some events and asked me about it - I told her I was absent for medical reasons.

From then on I came under repeated close scrutiny from her and she tried to get me out of the department - mostly by discreet means such as telling my supervisor he should refuse to supervise me as I would cause trouble, and claiming that my work showed I lacked the basic skills to be a student in her department (after which a meeting was held between her, my supervisor, and the head of my programme, at which the head of programme decided she was wrong and not to persue it further).

During these processes, numerous emails were sent around (most of which I don't have copies of, but was shown by my supervisor) to various people, some saying I was a problematic student and others disclosing confidential details of my disability without my permission, including to people who definitely didn't need to be told them (such as admins booking meeting rooms). I discussed this with the disability service, who got in touch with the department to remind them of my needs assessment.

Eventually my attendance dwindled more- when I was well enough to attend, I felt very uncomfortable in the department, where anyone I walked past might have been CCd into an email from the department head calling me a troublemaker or with private details. My work, which had started off well, degraded and my supervisor became unhappy.

I decided to suspend for 3 months to focus on health and get some distance from the departmental politics. My supervisor refused to sign my suspension form, as he was unconvinced that my work would improve after returning. I left anyway and effectively acted as if I were suspended for 3 months, after which I decided to withdraw as I had been offered a job which was more appealing than my unhappy PhD life.

I might want to try again at doing a PhD at another uni in a couple of years time. I am worried that dropping out of the last one will reflect poorly on me - but I feel that it was partly as a result of harassment due to my disability. Should I seek any formal recognition - either legally or through some university process - of discrimination, to help clear my name of the slander given against me and to clear an embarrassment from my CV?

First of all, if you're able to get legal advice, you should do that. Find someone who specializes in higher ed law, which might be a project by itself.

I'm not a lawyer and I'm not well-acquainted with UK disability law, but it does sound to me that what your department did was illegal discrimination and harassment. From the details you've provided, it also sounds like it would be impossible to prove and no lawyer will touch it on a contingency basis because there's no clear financial loss. It's also extremely unlikely that the university itself is likely to find in your favor if you go through a university grievance process. So the bad news is that there's probably nothing you can do to clear this from your record.

It's probably not much consolation, but I've heard dozens of stories about graduate programs engaging in exactly this kind of "soft" discrimination, especially against students with more amorphous disabilities such as chronic illnesses. The mentality seems to be that a student with this kind of disability is unfit and a waste of resources. This reasoning is explicitly illegal, but graduate programs are granted so much latitude in evaluating students that they get away with it.


How to manage publications on a local computer I would like to find a better way of naming publications which I store on my local computer as PDFs. So far I have been doing something like this:

Albano R., Sole A., Adamowski J., Mancusi L. (2014) - A GIS-based model to estimate flood consequences and the degree of accessibility and operability of strategic emergency response structures in urban areas.pdf

This presents a couple of disadvantages:

Titles can be extremely long. This causes problems in certain operating systems or software such as OneDrive. You can only have so many characters in a filename...
Not all publications can follow this format. The above is OK for journal papers and theses, but not so much for books or other kinds of publications.

I would like to have a consistent way to manage such a database. I thought of keeping the publication metadata such as authors, date of publication, type of publication and type in a separate text or excel file and naming the PDF files by ID, like 1.pdf, 2.pdf, etc. This could work, but it would require referring to and managing a spreadsheet which would contain all the meta data.

Is there a simple method or perhaps lightweight software that I can use which can help me with this sort of task?

EDIT

I didn't really like the way @Jonas Stein's script is set up, though I do owe him the inspiration and indication to use JabRef. Here's my alternative script:

import bibtexparser
import os
from shutil import copyfile

filename = 'db.bib'
out_folder = 'out'

with open(filename) as bibtex_file:
    db = bibtexparser.load(bibtex_file)

for entry in db.entries:
    print(entry['file'])
    id = entry['ID']
    file = entry['file'].split(':')[1]

    copyfile(file, os.path.join(out_folder, id)+'.pdf')

print('done')

It's much more compact and does the job.

For the filename, I use a system that I plagiarised from my PhD supervisor:

aaaadd_xxxx_jjj.pdf

where:

aaaa: name of the first author (variable length)
dd: 2-digit year of publication (fixed length)
xxxx: first word of title, minus articles and other small words (variable length)
jjj: abbreviation of journal of publication (variable length, but short)

I then use the same without the .pdf as my bibtex key (with an added :).

For example:

T. Penguin et al, a Survey of Antarctic Leasure Activities, Journal of Improbable Results, 2025

would be

penguin25_survey_jir.pdf

with the bibtex key penguin25:_survey_jir.

I like this system because:

I'm used to it
Filenames remain compact and UNIX shell friendly
The encoded information is usually enough for me to identify the paper

It doesn't cover tagging or categorising.

This applies well to journal articles.  For conference proceedings articles or books, the journal acronym is replaced by an acronym of the conference or the publisher, or perhaps the full name of the publisher; I'm not fully consistent there.  But I don't usually have entire books as PDFs anyway.


How to inform the editor that they sent me the wrong PDF attachment? I received an email before three weeks which informs me that my paper is accepted for publication but some changes must be made.
(The changes are some spacing issues, or  "put more references" etc.)

In editorial management system they uploaded a PDF attachment in which I was supposed to find all the details.

The problem is, the PDF contains corrections concerning an article which is not mine!

At the beginning, I uploaded a revised version of the paper with comments referring to the problem, but the editors's response was:

  "Your most recent revision failed to address some of the comments on
  the marked up version of the document I sent you.  These minor items
  should be fixed..."

  "For example, some of the things that appeared in the previous
  revision and were not changed include :page 1;line 7; ..."

  "I don't want to repeat the work that I did previously.  You still
  have access to the file.  Upon submission of a revised manuscript,
  please include the LaTeX source..."

Which means that the editor did not even see my comments.
The next day I sent another mail  explaining the problem but I did not receive an answer.
After 5 days I sent another mail to the editor's personal account.
(But, no response again)
My revision is due by 2016.08.12.
What should I do?

You may have to email an administrative contact in or outside the system. Keep trying. DO NOT include a revised version of your paper since that seems to have confused them. Let them know that you received a revision request for a different paper entitled "Whatever the other paper is called" by X and Y and Z, and that you'd like to see if you can get the required revisions request for your paper entitled "Whatever your paper is called" by A and B and C so that you can make the corrections. Even if you already have done them, try not to be confusing by resending the corrections to your paper.

I had an editor send me a PDF of required revisions once with the file named X.pdf. When I contacted him, he was very embarrassed because he had broken the blinding by admitting that X had submitted a paper that was under revision at the journal. Keep trying. Eventually they'll understand.


Comparison of grading systems What is a good source which compares grading systems in different countries? Which also gives the equivalent of a grade in a country X to that of a country Y?

If your sole purpose of comparing the grades is for International school admission, then I suggest you to look into WES evaluation. Visit the link for WES: http://www.wes.org/students/igpacalc.asp