How to become competitive for PhD in data science? I want to apply for Ph.D at a good Western university (e.g., in the UK or US) in data science. I have a master's degree (no thesis) and only one publication in a local journal. Will I be competitive for such spots? If not, how can I improve my profile?

The PhD committee in top universities looks for a number of things which includes your publication record, the quality of your references, your work experience, etc. If you wish to do a PhD in a top university you should strive to have a publication in top conferences.
Your publication record in a local journal would be of little help if you wish to be selected for top universities. So you have some work to do before getting acceptance-ready.
Firstly, start by implementing papers from top conferences like ICML and reproduce their results. While you do that understand thoroughly the concepts in those papers. This might require you to revisit your foundations in mathematics. Make sure you maintain your code in Github.
Make a list of top research groups you would like to work with and follow their work. As you follow the step above you will gain more confidence and you would be in a position to comment on their work. Start engaging with them on social networks.
As you start engaging with them you would understand the research direction in which these groups are working. Start reading more of their work and try to identify gaps in their work, which they would also mention in their conclusions and future work sections of their papers.
Try to formulate research ideas which address these gaps and try to write proposals. This would be a bit difficult without guidance, especially if you are from the non-English speaking country. You could use paid service to proofread your proposal.
If it is possible to find a good academician in your country, touch base with them and offer to collaborate with them. Look for someone who already has a decent publication record. By collaborating with them not only could you publish more and gain experience in writing, but also get good reference letter.
There are only a handful of 'good' universities in this world and it is not easy to get into them. But if you work hard you sure will succeed. Best of luck!


Can the lack of credit based coursework be compensated by published works for faculty applications? Due to lack of foresight, I did not take any graduate level advanced mathematics or numerical analysis course. Nor do I have good grades on the subjects during my undergraduate studies.

However, I have 3 publications in Q1 interdisciplinary journals (not mathematical or numerical analysis journals) which required the application of the mathematical and numerical analysis concepts. Though, I mostly used commercial software in my research, I self studied, relearned all the required fundamentals from different sources (books, online courses, documentations).

Can the lack of credit based graduate coursework be a huge bottleneck in my future faculty applications? Can it be compensated by published works?

Is there something I can do in the next 1-1.5 years (before I start applying to places), that can put me in a better position?

Can the lack of credit based graduate coursework be a huge bottleneck in my future faculty applications? Can it be compensated by published works?

I am not sure about positions at a SLAC or for a more teaching-oriented position, but for your run-off-the-mill tenure-track at a research university nobody will care in the first place what courses you took, or which grades you got. And if the department indeed thinks that specific knowledge is crucial to your position (e.g., because of teaching needs), I would expect that you can at least make a convincing case during the interviews that your published research demonstrates your mastery in this field.

So I would not say that anything related to graduate coursework can ever be a "huge bottleneck" for the kinds of positions that I am familiar with, and even if a specific position requires knowledge that is not visible from your transcript your published research should be a rather convincing argument.

Also, just to echo mmeent's comment:

  "I've never seen a faculty application ever ask for grades or transcripts."

Me neither, and I have applied to north of 50 positions on 3 continents.


Authors in proceeding are dominated by one university Recently I want to submit my manuscript to a conference. The accepted papers in this conference will be published in IEEE Xplore, so I thought this conference is reputable. But after I checked the last two years published proceeding (2021 is their 10th), more than 60% of the accepted papers authors are from one university (which is the host of the conference)
As I'm new in academia (as junior lecturer), I'm not sure is this normal and acceptable (the 60%), or is it a sign that the conference not reputable?

Conference reputation is essentially the experiences of the people who have attended the conference.  You have established that only a narrow group of people have attended.  So you know that the conference has an exceptionally narrow reputation.
I would not attend such a conference.
Proceedings for conferences during the COVID-19 pandemic should be disregarded as atypical.


Should the website contain information which is discouraged to have in the CV? Here and there in this site, I get that you should have your own website. It is one way to networking, making you standing out of the crowd. It can also be your extended version of CV or SOP, helping others knowing you more.

But what about the information that is discouraged to have in such documents? For example:

Contests. A math contest indicates that you can solve hard problems, but it doesn't say anything about your research ability. A chess contest is worse, it doesn't even relate to your field.
Courses.
Volunteer activities.

The main point is that they show that you are not investing your time properly. But does this contrast to the "a place to show yourself more" point?

And how about putting things like life objection, music I like, drawing my kid draws, etc? These are obviously not suitable for a CV, but they are just hobbies. Everyone knows that investing your time on this isn't a bad thing for your career, but a way to balance your life.

Links:

Is web-presence important for researchers?
Are participations in competitions well recognized for a Ph.D. application?
Can I include the completion of Udacity and Coursera classes I have attended in an academic CV?
Why are contributions to the education of the broader public not valued much within academia?

In moderation, I don't see anything wrong with including content on your website that you would not include on a CV.  In principle it could hurt your career if you post something ridiculous or objectionable, but information about chess, ordinary volunteer activities, children, etc. doesn't seem problematic.  The main issue is making sure it doesn't overshadow the academic content: if you provide more details about your chess activities than about research, then it may give the impression that you are devoting more time and attention to chess than to research.  (Even if that's not the case.  For example, a grad student who is just starting with research but has a lengthy chess history might give the wrong impression, regardless of current priorities.)  If you want to cover non-academic activities in substantial detail, then it may be safer to set up a personal website that is clearly separated from your academic site.


How many supervisors for a post-doc position? I am in the process of contacting potential supervisors for a post-doctoral position. I discussed my initial idea with 2 potential supervisors, but now I refined the idea and I found 2 more supervisors that fit within the scope of the project and that are interested in searching for funding together. The ideas are linked together, so my question is should I apply for funding with 4 supervisors? When is it expected to include someone into a grant proposal? At the moment nothing is written or decided, I was only proposing ideas. I am just feeling naive on these poitics matters. In my head, the best would be to have a first postdoc with 2 supervisors and a second postdoc position with the other 2 that seem interested.

There are oh-so-many things to govern this decision.

First, a post-doc should be about you establishing your own vein of research and experience in handling a grant. With too many "superiors" involved, you may end up doing little more than answering to them, as a graduate student does. This is not a dissertation committee, it should be a working group of peers that launch your career. From your comment it sounds like there is heavy redundancy in your 'team.' If you are doing an ecological experiment with X population for A behavior and B technique -- which thing is your expertise? It sounds like your working group could 'work' entirely without you. That's not good.

There are two ways you can approach this.

Only have supervisors who are more senior experts in your exact area of interest, thus ensuring you get the pedigree of an area expert through this project.
Only have supervisors who are not in your area of interest so that you are the area expert. For example, if you are the behaviorist and are trying to establish yourself in your field as such, don't answer to other behaviorists, only methodologists. Be your own boss.

Choose between strategies 1 and 2 based on your long-term career goals.

There are other, minor considerations: you need to carry at least one person who has a solid track record of competently handling scientific funding to be co-investigator. Also, if you do not have a few publications in the area, you better include someone who does on your grant proposal. It would be ideal if the funded/published is the same person.

Finally, don't burn bridges. You can always publish with someone later.


Fair use: Instructor sharing notes from textbooks I am a new instructor, planning a course; this post comes from good faith. Basically, I am designing a course and am trying to give my students the best learning outcomes without demanding that they spend too much on textbooks.

1) There is one main textbook that I want to assign: Textbook A. From textbook A, I want to make my own detailed notes (certainly not word for word) so that my students can mostly read the notes to learn. From the student's perspective, the textbook is mostly for occasional reference and for the homework exercises. If I list this book on the syllabus and "demand" that students buy it, am I free to write my own notes without dropping a citation every other line? Can I post these on the course web page online?

2) There is another book, Textbook B, that I like a lot. Due to the fact that I don't want my students to pay an absurdly high fee for two textbooks, I do not wish to demand that my students buy it. However, I do want to occasionally reference it for my own purposes. Is it sufficient to list it on the syllabus as a book that I am referencing, but explicitly state that it is not required for purchase? Again, the plan would not be word for word copying or anything -- just for some ideas, possibly even coming up with reworded versions of homework or exam questions, etc.

I am torn on these questions. A part of me feels like I could do something wrong, but I also know the copyright laws seem to be pretty relaxed when it comes to teaching.

The "treat others the way you want to be treated" rule makes me believe that ethically, textbook A is fine, and textbook B is fine as long as I (a) do not use it that much and (b) reference it for any notably clever ideas.

EDIT: To add to questions above: Say Book B has many real world examples (with citations within the questions). One of the main reasons why I like the book is the abundance of real world problems. But I like the flow of text A more for teaching. I would like to give many of the examples from book B, but again, I don't want my students to pay an absurd amount for a book that I am only taking questions from. How do I settle this? I certainly can't reword the problems using the original citations given in book B.

In summary: Like the flow of book A more, but like many of the real world questions in B. What would you recommend in order to reduce textbook costs?

I think you mostly are in the clear from an ethical/plagiarism perspective. Making your own notes off of a course textbook is perfectly acceptable as long as you appropriately reference the textbook. You can write a broad attribution in the beginning: these notes are largely based on the material in chapter X of textbook A. If you’re planning to take questions from a book but not more it’s fine to just reference the book for any specific questions you took from there, and list it as additional material.


Why are some "online first" articles assigned to a journal issue much faster than others While searching online, I discovered that some "online first" articles in a particular journal are assigned to an issue within few weeks. However, others in the same journal take several months or years. What is the reason behind this?

There are several variations in process that I have seen that may be relevant here, any of which may strongly affect the time between an article going online and the time at which it formally appears in an issue:

The "online first" version of an article is often not quite the final version, and proofing and processing can proceed in any where from a day or two to multiple months, depending on the responsiveness and attentiveness of the particular set of involved authors, handling editor, and processing staff.
Some articles may be expedited to try to avoid a scoop or delayed in order to synchronize with a companion article still undergoing review and revision.
Even if an article isn't part of a dedicated special issue, the journal may choose to cluster or distribute topics and themes.
The computation of metrics like impact factor are still typically linked to formal issue rather than online first date, and a journal may play games with lead time on articles it thinks will become well cited in order to manipulate these metrics.
Finally, all of the above may be amplified by the fact that the article is already effectively published and accessible online, leading both editors and authors to be less concerned about when it is later bundled into an issue.


Is there a standard approach for grading sequence-based questions? An assessment I'm looking at contains a few questions along the lines of:

  Arrange the following in the correct sequence:

  __: The third in sequence
  __: The second in sequence
  __: The fourth in sequence
  __: The first in sequence
  __: The fifth in sequence

What is the standard method for grading such a question?

The correct sequence of numbers to be written into the __ spaces would be 3, 2, 4, 1, 5. However, if a student misses, say, the correct starting point, but has the remainder of the sequence correct relative to each other (eg: 2, 1, 3, 5, 4), does one generally consider the entire sequence incorrect, or is partial credit of some sort more appropriate? If the latter, are there any ways to easily automate the evaluation process?

One option that comes to mind is to create a list of possible options and convert the question itself to a multiple-choice question.

Eg:

  A. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
  B. 5, 1, 3, 4, 2
  C. 3, 2, 4, 1, 5
  D. 2, 1, 3, 5, 4

However, (a) I feel that it then becomes a bit more confusing to answer, and (b) I'm not sure if it is really assessing the same skill at that point.

You could give points for the longest subsequence in the correct order.
Alternatively, you could make it an open question: "Describe the process step by step, make sure to include in your answer 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5." Then grade by a few essential insights that need to be in the answer. This eliminates any easy guessing and shows you why the student misorders the process.
Also a possibility is to only let the students place 1 element of the process in the correct spot. For example:

Where in the process does 1 happen?
A. before 2
B. after 2, but before 3
C. after 3, but before 4
D. after 4, but before 5
E. after 5

Another possibility is to focus on the parts of the process that directly follow each other. Suppose the student answered "1,2,3,4,5", you could look at the pairs (1,2), (2,3), (3,4) and (4,5). Then give a point for (1,2) if 1 directly precedes 2 in the correct sequence, give a point for (2,3) if 2 directly precedes 3 in the correct sequence etc.


Mathematica , Colab or LaTeX for exam summarys? I had the idea to write a summary for some subjects this semester. Most of the time I used Onenote for my general notes in the lecture. The question is which editor is best for a summary?
Currently I am considering using the following editors:

Onenote
LaTeX
Mathematica
Google Golab

What would you recommend? As another summary I had also thought about making livestreams or videos about different topics. Is it worth the effort or doesn't it teach you enough?

If you are trying to learn something, preparing summaries is an excellent way to reinforce your learning. Editing your summaries to improve them is even better. Summarizing your summaries...

The vehicle you use is less important than that you do it. I'd suggest using a tool that you already know, so that the you can concentrate on the subject matter and not fight with the tool.

On the other hand, if you want your summaries to be maximally useful, export them in a format that others can use without needing additional software. I don't have Mathematica, for example. In many ways PDF is the most portable format (as the name implies).

Video has its own issues. Some people can't use it effectively. For example, I don't hear well enough to follow the audio track so youtube is closed to me. Video also has the problem that it is harder to find the relevant things you might need to return to, being a stream.

However, note that these summaries are most useful in deepening the knowledge of the creator, rather than the users, who would be better served creating their own summaries. Not useless, of course, but not a panacea. What you think of as important to put in a summary, others might not, and need other things that you feel are so obvious as not to be needed. It is the dilemma of any textbook writer, of course.

In my view, one of the best ways to create summaries is on paper, by hand. This forces your brain to work in a different way than it does interacting with a software tool. There is research to support that, actually. My favorite is just a set of index cards, since they are easy to create, rearrange, index, etc. You can also carry them around for a few moments of reinforcing study. When I was an undergraduate the person who ended up as valedictorian always carried a few cards with him for quick review of his coursework. Also carry a few blank cards so that you can makes notes to incorporate.

I've discussed the idea of the Hipster PDA in other posts here. Note that you need to follow a few links to see detailed info about the concept.


If I publish under a pseudonym, can I still take credit for my work? Is it possible to publish under a nom de plume (pen name, pseudonym)?
... and still take credit for the work?

I may have a chance to publish with the professor I am working with soon and if I am on the list of authors I would like to use a nom de plume, but I would also like to use the publication to apply to graduate schools next time. Is it possible to have my cake and eat it in the case?

EDIT: Sorry for missing this out; The reason for wanting to publish under a nom de plume is that I would merely want my career to be tracked under a different name. Not to hide identity; I am perfectly fine with what EnergyNumbers was suggesting.

Taking it that your asking about a nom de plume (aka "pen name") for reasons of conspicuousness, rather than for reasons of anonymity:

Yes, it is possible to publish under something other than your legal name.  A nom de plume isn't that unusual in academia, particular for folk with common names who would otherwise be unfindable in literature databases.

You need to make sure that your legal identity is sufficiently tied to your nom de plume, so that there's not going to be any arguing about it.

Some people adopt double-barrelled surnames for their noms de plume: others add a distinctive first or second initial. As long as its sufficiently close to your real name, that should be sufficient.

Note that this will entail your nom de plume effectively becoming your name for academic purposes: it's what will be on your email correspondence, your web page, your conference name-badges, and so on. You'll just have to do a bit of tweaking with university administration so that payroll, legal, and travel arrangements are all in your real name, not your pen name.


What to wear for a PhD/ MSc thesis defense? Is it better to wear formal clothes for a PhD or MSc thesis defense or can we wear something as simple as a T-shirt?

Almost anything will be fine, provided you feel comfortable on them. The clothes you are wearing will influence the first impression, but you are going to be talking about your project for at least 20 min, and the confidence and clarity will wipe whatever the first idea was. Make sure they are you feel good on them, and don't use them for the first time this day in case they itch or something (specially important for underwear!).

The right level of formalism is very dependent on the culture and setting, but it is probably not so important. It will also depend on whether the event is public or not: if the audience are going to be the people that have been seeing you in normal clothes all year round, or if the public is going to attend and the University wants to shine.
 Of course, a frock and a top hat or just a swimming suit will look ridiculous, but anywhere in the middle would work.

For reference,
I have been present to two PhD defences in Sweden (where they are quite lax in formalities). In one, the doctorand was wearing plain business-like clothes, slightly more formal than a normal day; in the other, he was wearing a normal shirt, quite less formal than his normal attire. And, for the record, both passed.

Edit:
Jigg is right in pointing that some universities do require a certain dress code. In this case, it will probably be clearly stated by the centre. Being rejected is possible, but extremely unlikely, as it can get the university in all sorts of legal troubles. Also, these regulations can get to absurd levels (the story seems to be a legend, but the third comment may be legit).


Is it Unethical to Work in Two Labs at Once? I am a post-bac who is looking to gain some more experience doing psych research before applying to PhD programs in the fall. I am currently a lab manager at a cognition lab, but am essentially part-time until the fall due to COVID, so I have a bit of free time that I can dedicate to other things. As such, I went out looking for labs that I can volunteer a few hours at. I found one that piqued my interest, and after reaching out, I landed an interview. However, now I'm sort of worried that my other PI might get a bit upset, even though I'm only looking to volunteer until the end of the summer. I know working under two labs is technically not a taboo, but I don't know if doing something like this would be considered rude/unethical (since I am hired at one position and not the other)...

Unless there are real or perceived conflicts of interest there should be no ethical issue here. If the two labs are sufficiently distinct then conflicts are unlikely.
But, to protect yourself, you should let the PIs of both labs know of your work in the other. Don't try to hide it or questions might be raised.


Should I be a visiting student rather than a non-degree seeking graduate student? Princeton has two nice options called "visiting student" and "qualifying student". UCB and MIT also have the same options, but their policies and names are slightly different. The former is for undergrads from other college who want to take courses in Princeton, and the latter is for those who graduated from their colleges who are not qualified for Princeton but would like to take courses in Princeton as a non-degree seeking graduate student. The cost is roughly the same (no stipend) as my current college, and both are a year only, but the only difference is whether the student is undergrad or grad. As a junior undergrad, I have exhausted courses on mathematical physics and relevant pure math courses offered in my university, so I would like to take courses, attend seminars and do research under professors of Princeton. Although my school's math PhD program is great, it's not comparable to Princeton, since they have Y. Sinai and professors in IAS for mathematical physics.

I can graduate this year (as a junior) and become a "qualifying student", or become a "visiting student" and I can graduate a year later. Which option is better? Or are both options bad? This is for the case that I will not get into PhD program of my choice this year, so please assume that situation. According to the following question, being a non-degree seeking grad student is waste of money. Does it apply to my case, too?

How will study as a non-degree student affect my graduate admissions chances later?

Enrolling as a non-degree-seeking graduate student in a U.S. mathematics graduate program is almost never a good idea, and this is in no way a mainstream option.  (I'm talking about not seeking a degree anywhere.  For comparison, it's not uncommon to be officially seeking a degree at University X but visiting University Y while your advisor visits there.)

It's easy to get the wrong impression from course catalogs, since they give short descriptions of options that may not reflect how they are used in practice.  For example, I doubt the Princeton math department ever admits anyone as a qualifying student; if it happens at all, it is exceptionally rare.  I can imagine it might happen for a clearly brilliant student from a deprived background, but not for the vast majority of applicants.  There's just too much competition for admission.

If you are accepted as a non-degree-seeking graduate student:

You won't be treated in any way like an ordinary graduate student.  To the extent anyone in the department is aware of you, you'll be in a special category of "person who wasn't admitted to the graduate program but is paying a lot of money to take courses anyway", which is not a flattering description.  In particular, you should not expect faculty to supervise your research or interact with you any more or differently than they treat the undergraduates in these classes.  (It could happen, but I'd guess it probably won't.)
It won't help with admission, compared with doing equally well in similar courses elsewhere.  Specifically, any admissions committee will have members who want to make sure this isn't used as an easier back door to admission, and they will be sure to enforce strict standards.

  I can graduate this year (as a junior) and become a "qualifying student", or become a "visiting student" and I can graduate a year later.

Are you sure you're interpreting these programs right?  In this listing of the categories, visiting students are enrolled in graduate programs elsewhere, while qualifying students are non-degree-seeking students who are trying to make up for weak backgrounds in the hope of future admission.  I'm not aware of any option for undergraduates to spend a year at Princeton, except for some international exchange programs.  However, I might well be missing some possibility.


Academic Job Interviews for Asst Prof Positions in Ireland I have an upcoming interview for an asst prof position in a university in Ireland. I am wondering what questions are asked in such interviews. I am used to the hiring process in the US. It will be my first time being interviewed for a university in Ireland. Thanks!

I am a USA academic who interviewed unsuccessfully in Ireland (but successfully in Scotland). I was partially unsuccessful as I realized a few hours in that I did not want to work there but as they had flown me over I did not want to be unpolite and leave the interview.
Biggest Three Differences

I got to meet all the other applicants. We were in the same room and
called one-by-one to do our presentations. I ended up really wanting
another candidate to get the job.
Only one person on the panel was a faculty member (chair) in the department.
No dinner with faculty, not a tour of the town, no real contact with the department
at all aside from the odd quick hello as we passed their offices.


Trouble with getting PhD recommendations - almost 60% turnover in faculty I just want to find out if this is normal, and see if anyone has any advice.

I recently decided to apply for a PhD program, and have been trying to get letters of recommendation. I first went with the professors I thought could give me the best recommendations because they knew me best, but when a week went by with no answer to my emails I did some research and found both were on leave (one with no estimated date of return). I decided to go through all the courses I'd taken, and organize the contact information for each professor. I found that, out of 12 different professors, only five are still active at the university. And wouldn't you know it, but none of the professors who gave me A's are active! (I know that grades aren't the most important thing in a letter of recommendation, I just thought it was an extra weird bit that all my B and B+ professors were still teaching).

I worked full-time while getting my MA, and so I didn't go to office hours or schmooze with the professors before or after class (because I was coming straight from work with no time to spare, and after class I was either going right back to work or tired because it was late). I participated in classes, but I don't think any professor would say they know me well. Am I screwed as far as getting into a PhD program, even if I get recommendations about my excellent academic potential or whatever, if the letters aren't personal?

The most common and most valuable letters come from the professor(s) that were your academic advisor(s), or that otherwise directed or participated in your thesis work.

Not to be acerbic, but you made the mistake of treating your master's program as a place where you went to sit and look at powerpoint slides, and made use of your professors as if they were just there to read from powerpoint slides.  A typical response to a recommendation query from such a professor is likely to be "I don't think I'm a good person to write you a recommendation, because I will not be able to speak to your strengths and abilities."

They say this to you because there is a well-established unwritten and unspoken protocol in PhD admissions, that of the "damning with faint praise" letter.  The committee reads that letter as "this professor either had nothing to say about the candidate, or chose not to say bad things about the candidate.  In either case, the professor had nothing GOOD to say about the candidate."

Beyond that...It is quite acceptable to ask an inactive professor (retired, on leave, etc.) to pen a recommendation.  It's entirely their prerogative whether to accommodate you though. Only your direct thesis advisor feels a burden of responsibility to write anything at all.


What are the uses of an iPad for an academic staff? As a new academic staff, I received an iPad from my department. I have never owned nor used an iPad before, so it is still in the box for the past week or so. I am a bit reluctant to open it, as I am not sure if it would be useful, and I have actually been thinking of returning it to the department. But to be sure I won't regret it, is there anything particularly good about an iPad that it would be nice for an academic staff to have it?

I don't think that an iPad does anything magically different for academic personell than for anybody else. Some of my colleagues review papers on them, some use them as a very small laptop while travelling, and (I presume) most just use it to read the news, play games, or slack off otherwise while in the train or plane.

In summary - if you have no idea what you would use it for then you probably don't need it.


How is the production of a Festschrift usually initiated? For the first time I have been asked to contribute to a Festschrift. I was surprised to read in the invitation that it is being prepared "in consultation with XY's institution and himself". I had always expected that the book would be a surprise for the honouree. I also don't quite understand what role the institution has to play in this. So how is a Festschrift usually initiated?

There is no standard, but most frequently, the 'birthday child' themselves initiate the Festschrift. This may be disillusioning, but it is the reality. I can say that as someone who has been involved with a few Festschriften (including once as an editor).

Only in exceptional cases can I imagine a Festschrift being initiated without the jubilarian's knowledge. In such cases, the jubilarian should have an extremely high reputation; otherwise it is improbable that people would voluntarily use so much resources to initiate and edit such a huge (and not-so-rewarding) project.

But as stated above, usually, it is the jubilarian who expresses a wish to have a Festschrift. They then need to convince friends to take the time to serve as editors. The jubilarian and their friend-editors coordinate the whole Festschrift together so as to ensure that the jubilarian's wishes and preferences are satisfied. (There are quite some sensitivities and vanity involved, e.g. who should contribute, who must not contribute, who and how many hundreds or thousands of people should be listed in the Tabula Gratulatoria etc.)

As regards the involvement of the institution in your case, I can imagine that the institution may have provided a part of the budget (or perhaps administrative work or materials). A Festschrift consumes a lot of money, time and work. The help of an institution can be immensely valuable.


Peer shared with me "too much information" for a homework problem In the summer, I took a math course where one of the homeworks involved a question where answers were expected to include several diagrams alongside an explanation. At the time, I thought it was a difficult question and I had been complaining about how confusing it was to a friend who was also taking the course. Eventually, I did complete the question independently with some suggestions the instructor of the course gave me during a meeting.
Before the submission deadline, my friend offered to explain to me some of his ideas about the problem over social media, I believe I had asked for this a few days before because I was struggling. At this point, even though I had already finished the question, I agreed to the proposal. I thought there would be no harm because the course permitted collaboration to the extent where students can discuss their ideas about the problems in the homework. My friend proceeded to send me some diagrams alongside a very brief explanation outlining his steps, at first I went along with this because I did not sense anything wrong. But after it seemed like they were sharing too much, my friend stopped after I requested that they not continue their explanation (I was afraid that if I did not stop them, I would have essentially seen their solution to the question).
When I submitted my problem set, I did not modify the answer I gave to that specific question prior to the conversation, and so what my friend showed me had no effect on what I actually submitted. Thus, I did not copy anything or 'cheat' in any obvious way. Still, I felt very guilty and anxious because I thought I had seen "too much" of my friend's work. I tried to forget about all of this and assured myself that the correspondence was harmless because it did not influence the work I submitted. Nevertheless, a few weeks later, after something reminded me about what had happened and I decided to e-mail the professor with a description of what happened on two separate occasions. This was after I discussed how guilty I felt with the friend I mentioned earlier, who respected my decision to send the e-mail.
I think my instructor missed both of these e-mails. After this, I had once again decided that I should just try to move on, because once again, I convinced myself that what happened was harmless (as I said before, I did not change my answer to the question even after seeing what my friend showed me). All of this happened a few months ago. Once again, I had resolved to just forget that all of this happened.
A few hours ago, something had reminded me about that conversation. I decided, for some stupid reason, to review the conversation again, and I once again felt a wave of anxiety after reading it. I regret that I did not send a 3rd e-mail earlier so that my instructor could provide their input on this situation and give me some peace of mind. Furthermore, the final marks for the course have already been released and finalized, and I feel like sending an e-mail to my instructor about this issue at this point would either seriously annoy them, or put them in a very bizarre position. I do not know what I should do in this situation, or if I am just overthinking things.

You are overthinking this. You have not cheated, and there is no need to do anything further.
The goal of assignments generally is to make students learn how to independently solve the problems, and assess them on it. This is why directly copying others' work is disallowed while discussion of ideas (to a limited extent) is allowed: discussing ideas helps your learning, while blind copying does not. You still need to understand the ideas, and apply it correctly, and write a coherent answer by yourself. This is also why your instructor provided helpful suggestions, as you mention, to point you in the right direction, while still letting you come up with the solution yourself.
In your case, you did not even use your friend's ideas. From your account, you were careful to stay within the limits of what was permitted for collaboration, so there's no issue. Even if what they shared was too much, you did not cheat as you did not use it in your own submission. It's perfectly fine (in most cases) to discuss solutions after submission; in fact, a good idea since feedback is quite valuable.
The absence of any response to your emails suggests that the instructor either did not read the message or did not see any issue with your behavior. The fact that the final marks have been declared without you hearing about this reinforces this. Sending repeated mails in this situation is a bad idea and quite unnecessary.


Applying to graduate programs unrelated to undergraduate degree Is it possible to enroll in a graduate program completely unrelated to one's undergraduate degree? Additionally, in my case, my undergraduate degree (computer science) is from outside the USA, and I'm applying to graduate programs (in English Literature) within the USA. Will this be a problem?

You should definitely apply. I have seen many cases where individuals with degrees in tangentially related fields not only are accepted to, but excel in, graduate programs in different fields.

Do note, though, that if you're applying to be a PhD, it's expected that you'll be doing research in the new field, and you'll have to demonstrate to the application committee that you're up to the task. You may have to be creative about this, given that your background is very different from what they're used to seeing; consider emphasizing any possible applications of computer science to literature (ngrams, maybe?) or anything else which may strengthen your application.


Should I publish my first paper in a conference? I am a Masters student. I wrote my first paper and sent it to a conference in Spain. To my surprise, they accepted my paper. Now I am hesitating, because I am afraid that my first work is not good enough. It will affect my future plan to study for a PhD. Should I publish it, or just cancel the conference submission and complete the paper to publish later in a journal?

Personally, I don't think that it is considered "bad" to publish a conference paper. Even less so, if it is your first paper. Nobody can expect you to release in a top journal of your subject all the time and especially not with your first article.

Where I am from you do not need to publish anything before your PhD, so I am not sure how important this is in your case. From my point of view, though, anything published is better than nothing (in this case at least).


Differences between research in private labs and university (computer science) I will talk about computer science.

Which is the difference between doing a research job in an industrial research lab (as Google, Facebook or microsoft Research) and in a university?

Looking at my field (artificial intelligence) I can see many big shots moving from university to private R&D labs, so I am wondering which are the main differences, say under the point of view:

Salary
Freedom of investigating what you actually like
Competition (is more difficult to get a job in a university or in a R&D lab?)
Stability of the job

Salary: Private labs will 90% of the time pay more (with slight variances when comparing small companies and large university labs).

Freedom: Unfortunately freedom isn't vary high no matter where you UNTIL you become well-established. At Universities, you have to research where you can get grants and people won't give grants unless they like what you propose. Companies obviously need you to be doing research that is their best profit interest. When you get well-established some universities and companies will want you so much that they will give you the liberty to do what you want because of how successful you have proven to be. This doesn't happen very often.

Competition: They are about the same actually. A renown university like Carnegie Mellon is just as competitive as places like Apple and Google.

Stability: Typically, companies are more known to give out longer contract agreements, so even if your project fails, you are guaranteed to be moved around to other research areas. Sometimes at Universities, if the project you are working on tanks, there goes your grant and sometimes there is no where else to transfer to.


When is the best time to get permission for putting others figures in the paper? (Conference vs. Journal) My basic question is, should I get copyright permission for a figure before submitting a paper?

However I realize there may be two different situations, and I'm not sure if they are different.

Should I get permission from original authors/journals before sending a paper for review or;
should I wait to get accepted and then ask for permission.

It seems to me that I should not waste peoples time for permission without being accepted first, but maybe the paper is stronger with figures.  For example, an image of a machine that the paper points out aesthetic features.

On the other hand, it seems to me bad to submit a manuscript or paper and after submission finding out there is no permission to use the figure or image, and taking it out of the paper after being accepted.

It is good to ask permission from the publisher before submitting, even if the figure is from your own paper that was published in the past.


Is there any guidance on how to properly cite when using the alphabetic style from BiBLaTeX? I am looking for some specifications on how to use the alphabetic style for citing properly. I know that there are different solutions and that this is highly related to personal preference or specific requirements. But maybe there is some common way to do it. Consider the following three examples:

  [...] was already shown in 1998 by Johnson et al. [JHS98] to demonstrate the specific deployment.
  [...] was already shown in 1998 by Johnson et al. to demonstrate the specific deployment [JHS98].
  [...] was already shown in 1998 by [JHS98] to demonstrate the specific deployment.

Which one would you consider the most standard or most used way?

Numbers 1. and 2. sound perfectly fine to me and are a matter of your personal style. 3. sounds a little unpolished to me and an editor or copy editor might smooth it to one of 1. or 2.


Is it a good idea to send a reference letter upon contacting a potential PhD supervisor for the first time? I'm about to contact a potential PhD supervisor which has been suggested by my current masters supervisor. They should know each other very well since they've worked on multiple joint papers before. Currently, I have a recommendation letter from my masters supervisor but I don't know if I should provide it in the first Email. I don't know if recommendation letters are something the PhD supervisor would explicitly ask for later in the process or not.

So, is it a good idea to just blindly provide a reference letter on the first contact, hoping it would impress them more?

No!

As a PhD student, I received tons of "potential phd candidates" offers on my mail, merely because I had an institutional mail. For professors, this is way, way worse. Cold e-mailing with attachments is a bad idea.  It would end up on the spam/ignored folder.

Matter of fact, do not contact him yourself, ask your MS supervisor for an introduction e-mail, because coming from a known sender, it will have more chance of being read. Introductions are always better than cold calling...


Difficulty finding research mentor I am a currently an undergrad sophomore and am aiming to go to grad school for a PhD. I would like to do research with a professor at my school during the semester for (among many other things) graduate admissions. However, I have been able to secure a mentor or arrange for this research over the past ~year. I have contacted many professors by email (and sent polite follow up emails after a few weeks) but only a couple responded, and they said they were too busy to work with undergrads. After that strategy yielded no success, I tried to go to professors office hours and talk to them face-to-face; however, the majority said they were too busy, were already at capacity with undergrads, or did not have a lab/research area that was well-suited to undergraduate research.

The professors' reasons are of course completely valid, but I am very worried about finding a research opportunity and the attendant impact on grad school admissions. I have spoken with more than half of my school's faculty in my major (and many of the remaining faculty do not have significant lab groups and only work with one or two graduate students at a time). I believe that part of the problem is my school—it is very highly ranked in this field in the US, and the undergraduate population is very competitive. I am a slightly above-average student in the department, but I can't compete with the very top group for research positions. Would it be advantageous to transfer to another university with a lower-ranked department in order to increase my chance of finding a research position? Or  should I just contact the professors again next year? I have also considered expanding my search to other departments, but I am less interested in those areas and unlikely to pursue them later.

This suggestion is totally "off the wall" and "outside the box", but the underlying idea is that you broaden your perspective. I'm assuming a few things. First, you are at a top institution. Next, you are a top student - you are obviously dedicated. Next, you aren't alone and there are at least a few of you in the same circumstance.

Consider forming your own "research group". Become its leader. Find a faculty member who will give you a problem to work on and maybe give you occasional ideas on your progress. The commitment of the faculty member can be minimal and your research discussions are mostly among group members. Find someone, maybe even a postdoc, who can give you some ideas about research process in your field.

But if four of you approach a professor it is a different sort of thing than going alone. A junior professor might be an especially good "target".

Try to have your group meet a couple of times a week to share ideas and what insights anyone has.

Produce a group report at the end of some period of time, even if it only discusses directions, not successes. You can even discuss failures, since it was learning that was important and it is just as good to know what doesn't work as what does in many cases. Offer the report to some faculty member and ask for comment.

This will have two benefits. One is that it should enable you to learn something about research process even if it comes with small progress. Knowing how to go about research is an important skill in many fields and it is good to get some practice at it. But having formed such a group is, itself, a big plus when it comes to talking about grad school application.


How does someone with C's and F's in graduate-level courses and A's and B's in undergraduate courses get admitted to a PhD program? I am currently the BA undergraduate math major (4th year), and I got ~3.3 cumulative GPA.  I'm the average student who likes math a lot, so I took more than 10 graduate courses and higher division undergraduate courses in mathematics.  For two courses, I received two C grades in those graduate courses by the same professor (hard exams and finals).  I attempted to get better grade in one of those courses, but received the F (because of super hard final and midterm, and because of the same professor).  For the undergraduate courses, I got mostly A's and one B+.

Though I still have time to maximize my chance to get into math PhD program by (probably) research experience and great letters of recommendation, I believe that I am more likely not to get into the program (because low grades greatly affect my application).  However, I have one question to ask: is it REALLY over for me to get into PhD math program if I receive bad grades in these courses or not?  I don't have lots of time to retake such courses, and if I do I will have to waste all money and time on doing so.

I don't aim to get into top-notch universities with excellent PhD programs, like Harvard University.  All I expect is a good PhD program for me.

In the graduate level courses, was the grading scale the same for undergraduate and graduate students? This varies from school to school, department to department, even course to course. Were you taking these classes without all of the prerequisites? You should consider all extenuating circumstances and tell your letter writers so they can help better explain away your grades and focus on how amazing your research is. Give your letter writers bullet points (suggested for them to edit/ignore as they see fit) to include in their recommendation letters. Faculty don't enjoy nor want to spend that much time on letter writing so make it easy. In your email to a faculty member you might write something like this

Hi Professor X,

Here is a reminder of things you might want to address in my letter of recommendation for __  (of course only if you agree with them)

Evidence of enthusiasm and ambition

-I took many graduate courses out of genuine interest for the subject despite not having taken many of the prerequisite courses. Even though I received the poor/mediocre grades in some of these courses, I was able to successfully translate some of the advanced knowledge and skills learned when I ... during my research project ...

-Some other way you can spin these poor grades into something positive

Thanks for agreeing to write this letter, I hope the above bullets make things easier for you; I know you are busy and have to write many of these letters.

Thanks again,

-Student

The point is you want your letter writers to spin the poor grades into something positive that fits with a cohesive story about you. You personally addressing the grades may sound a bit like excuses. A professor addressing the grades won't. It should be noted that some schools do have strict unspoken GPA cutoffs, but many really good schools do not.


After starting a PhD in Mathematics, I realized I am more interested in Statistics - can I transfer to a Statistics PhD? I'm a first-year mathematics PhD student at an American university.

When I applied to graduate school I thought I would be doing math like I did for the past few years in college. However, after the whole senior year doing a priori estimation for 2-d NS equation(basically frequency analysis stuff in harmonic analysis), I got nothing but fully exhausted and want to try something else where I found the machine learning course on Coursera was really interesting and decided to explore more about that in graduate school.

I passed all qualifying exams before the first year started. I took a graduate statistics course and a computer science course in the first quarter to get a better understanding for machine learning, and found I was thrilled at high-dimensional statistics. Unfortunately there's no one in the department working in that field, so I started working with professors in the statistics department on several different projects which I really, for the first time in my life, found more interesting than I thought mathematics was in college. Now I don't feel like I will ever wish to work in any primary mathematics field, and I'm kind of alienated in the department which makes me feel sick and sometimes lonely (and often enough pure mathematicians tend to degrade statistics or applied math).

I know very clearly from the past year-long research experience with Statisticians that I am now much much more enthusiastic about high-dimensional statistics.

Should I be open to the idea of moving to a Statistics program? The only problem is that I may not be able to get a Master's degree due to departmental coursework requirement. Is it possible to transfer to another graduate program (either within University X or other university) without a master's degree from my current university? (I am pretty sure I can get quite good reference from my research professors, as well as several decent publications.)

Talk to your tutor or professor, they are there to help you and I always found mine very supportive. It sounds like you have thought about this. Find out what your options are they won't bite your head off for changing your mind. I changed direction twice before even getting to my Ph.D. then left that after 9 months when I realised it was not right for me.

Don't spend years of your life doing something you don't care for, you will be far happier and productive doing something you truly love. There is a good chance your profs and tutors will have zig-zagged through their careers as well.


How to cite Andy Warhol's Marilyn In one of the images I made to illustrate my PhD thesis, I included a "Marilyn" by Andy Warhol (image below), and I cannot find the museum/collection where the painting is exhibited. How should I cite it? Should I change the painting?

The original of this piece (the Marilyn Diptych) is held in the Tate Gallery in London.

Your question is rather serendipitous as in two days you can buy your own Warhol original print from the screen at auction. The sale prints were recently exhibited at the Rockefeller Centre.

I would cite the art work in the following manner:

  Warhol, Andy (1962), Marilyn Diptych, Silkscreen on Canvas, Tate Gallery, London.

References:

(1) Wikipedia (2016), Marilyn Diptych, [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Diptych, [Accessed 1 May 2016]

(2) Tate Gallery Illustrated Companion (2016), Marilyn Diptych 1962, [online] http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-marilyn-diptych-t03093/text-illustrated-companion [Accessed 1 May 2016]


external grant on application for SLAC/PUI I am looking for tenure track faculty position in a hard science field at 4 year colleges.

Recently a grant application, which I worked on as a postdoc, was successfully accepted. I am not a PI but by supervisor is willing subaward part of it to me when I get a new position.

My question is how do I refer to this in my cover letters?  Will this set me above other candidates or is it not that important? Would making a big deal out of this look like I'm not as interested in teaching as in research?

What are external grants typically used for as these type of institutions where you don't have grad students or post-docs? Besides travel/conferences would it be to funding undergrad research and summer salary?

Four-year colleges are extremely diverse as to their educational philosophies, attitudes toward faculty research, and financial stability. Do you want to
begin your career at a place that would react unfavorably to this potential
opportunity of yours? @AlexanderWoo's suggestion to 'outsource' the bragging
to your supervisor's letter of recommendation seems sound. But you should
be able to mention this research connection in your cover letter in an
unobjectionable way.

One hopes that cover letters will result in interviews. A common question
in interviews has to do with your ideas how to balance teaching and
research. Your continuing research connection provides a fine opportunity
for you to think how you will deal with that question when it is asked.

Professional travel and participation in conferences can be crucial to
your continuing professional development at a four-year college. You can
hope that the subaward can help with that. On an assistant professor's
salary, you may be very happy for the prospects for some additional
summer salary.

I wonder whether it's possible to know in advance if or how
you can use these funds for undergraduate research. Obviously, that
depends heavily on the nature of your research and on the quality and
interests of individual students. Not so obviously, it may depend even more
on whether the financial officer handling the subaward at the
four-year college is knowledgeable and flexible enough to handle
paying appropriate students out of subaward funds.


Studying recreational math professionally? Are there professors who specialize in recreational types of math problems, or is my best bet to be a high school teacher and do recreational math in my free time?

There are a lot of folks who do this, I think. I also think that a lot of them are members of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). That isn't their main focus, of course, but it would be a good source of contacts and information.

The Wikipedia Article points to some other resources and maybe ways to contact people.

Whether you can make a career out of it depends on some things. At an R1 university, probably not, but maybe at a liberal arts college in the US. But it can be fun as a break from more serious(???) pursuits. And some aspects of it are certainly valid research topics. Game Theory, for example.


Whom do I have to thank in the Acknowledgements section of a Bachelor thesis I will soon finish writing my Bachlor thesis in physics and I don't know whom I "have to" put in the acknowledgements.

There are two professors who will grade the thesis, one the head of the work group I'm writing the thesis at and the other one from another work group. I didn't have much personal contact with any of the two other than getting their signatures for some paperwork and talking about half an hour about the subject. They appear on the thesis as advisors.

The actual advisor is a PhD student from the work group; a practice fairly common, at least at the physics department. He has been really involved and helped me a lot.

So I was thinking to thank the head of the work group for the possibiliy to write the thesis there and one or two sentences for the actual advisor.

But most of my fellow students seem to mention a lot more people like the second  advisor (Professor), friends, boy-, girlfriend, family...

My problem with that is that the second advisor is not involved at all in the process (he works in a related field, but the workgroups don't really collaborate), but I am concerned that it might be seen as an insult. I can see why one thanks close friends and family in a PhD thesis where one works on for years but I think it is a little melodramatic in a Bachelor thesis (which takes four months, not full time). But I'm afraid this might come off as ungrateful or heartless.

Is it expected or recommended to put second advisor, friends and family in the acknowledgements?

The absolutely crucial thing is that you clearly acknowledge and delineate any work, original ideas, results, images, figures, tables, charts, quotations, prose, etc., that were contributed by someone other than the primary author (i.e., you).  Failure to do so could taint your academic reputation, and in extreme cases, might be construed as plagiarism (or some other form of academic misconduct).

Beyond that somber admonition, the remainder of your acknowledgements are a pleasantry which can be doled out entirely as you like.  I agree that extensive acknowledgements in a bachelor's thesis are a bit misplaced.  On the other hand, it's a good opportunity to think about the people who actually made it possible to complete your BS research—e.g., lab techs who helped run and maintain equipment, or administrators in the department who made sure all the paperwork went smoothly.  These people are extremely important and are often overlooked (even in PhD theses).

As for secondary members of your thesis committe, it's up to you.  You can easily say something simple and honest like, "Thanks to Professors X and Y for agreeing to be on my committee."  But I doubt they'll be insulted if you don't acknowledge them for a deep and lasting impact on your research career.  They've signed off on BS theses before.  They know it's no big deal (for them).


Question about leaving supervisor My supervisor is going to leave to work at another university before I finish my thesis. I'm not sure how this process works. Will this cause problems with me graduating?

This is a fairly common situation, but there are lots of ways in which it can be handled.  A lot depends on the specifics of your situation and how well your advisor and your current department are getting along.

One important issue is the source of your funding.  If you're currently funded by your advsior's research grant, and that grant is moving with your advisor to the new institution, then it is may not be possible for you to continue being funded through that grant as a research assistant at your current university but it might be possible to continue with that funding at your advisor's new institution.

On the other hand, if you're currently funded by institutional or departmental sources such as a departmental teaching assistantship, you might be able to keep that funding where you are but it would not be possible to take it to your advisor's new institution.  However, it might be possible for you to obtain some kind of institutional or departmental funding at your advisor's new institution.

There are three common ways in which this handled:

The student continues at the advisor's old institution and the old institution allows the advisor to continue to supervise the student as an adjunct faculty member of the old institution.  The student ultimately completes the degree at the old institution.  This works best if the student is close to completion and has funding that is independent of the advisor's grants.
The student transfers to the advisor's new university and completes the degree at the new university.  This typically works well if the student is supported by the advisor's research grant and if the student is not very far along in the graduate program.  The new university would have to agree to accept the student into their graduate program.  The new university may have different course requirements and the student might have to repeat prelim exams or a candidacy exam.  Foreign students would have to get a new student visa.
The student remains where they are and switches to a new advisor.  This works best for students who have departmental or institutional funding and aren't very far along in the graduate program.

You should talk to your advisor about how he or she wants to handle this, and you should also talk to your department chair or the head of the graduate program to get the department's position. You'll also have to think about what you want- what's best for you may not be what your advisor or department wants.


Should I write a "proof" to a professor I don't know? TL;DR

I solved two integrals left unsolved in a paper I'm reading. Should I notify the author?

I am studying in a finance master and we have been assigned a project for one of our class. This project consisted in some literature review and then a small implementation.

Reading one of the papers, in which the author propose a new density p  to model a random variable, there is written that

They can't find analytically the constant c that makes p a density (basically could not compute the integral of p)
They write that numerical simulations show that E[X]= theta but an analytical proof was still missing

I have calculated in closed form both integrals, and numerical simulations suggest that my results are correct; I will probably add this to the project I'm writing.

Now the question is: should I send an email to the author about this? If so, how to phrase such an interaction? I guess that I'm looking for something along the lines of "thank you, well done" with maybe a short mention if they get around to modify the original paper.

On the other hand, the paper is old (2007) so I don't even know if the author is still interested in that.

Also, the proof was nothing too complicated. I mean I spent a lot of time on it (mainly because of my inexperience) but it certainly doesn't feel like anything too difficult. Probably I just "saw" the right path to do it and once you see that, it's pretty easy.

Is this something common to do? Are professors pleased to receive such an email or just annoyed?

The significance of your additional work is unclear. Have you talked about this with the professor that teaches your class? (s)he – or another prof in the department – should be involved if you want to take this further.

If the additional work is significant enough, you'll be perfectly within your rights to write and publish your own paper that presents the results. Trivial results usually aren't publishable on their own, but if it's a novel approach then it's certainly doable. The original work is old enough that you need not worry about "scooping" the original authors' results. Just make sure to check that a solution to the problem hasn't already been published elsewhere.

In any other case, there shouldn't be any harm in sending an email to the authors (whether or not they will respond is another matter). Don't send the solution in your first email! Just inform the authors that you think that you've solved the problem, and only send them your solution if they agree to let you co-author any publications that incorporate your results. Intellectual property rights are a tricky business, and you should always ask for the help of a professor when doing things like this. The paper's authors will also be much more likely to take notice if the first email is from a well known professor, rather than an unknown grad student.


What can students do if a professor penalizes an entire class because one student cheated on an exam? Today, I was taking a test in my intro to sociology course. It is a difficult enough class when the minimum requirement for an A is 96%. It is also difficult when the professor gets off-topic and does not cover important enough material. I'm taking the class pass/fail, so I'm not terribly worried right now. I have kept up a B+ so far.

We have an online textbook, which allows the reader to use the audio version, which reads the page out loud.

Today, during the test, someone near the back decided to play the audio on one of the chapters on which we were being tested. It played loudly for about two minutes, and the professor (who is not exactly relaxed) stood up and said the obvious about cheating policies. She said that if the cheater did not come forward before she left the classroom, she would penalize everyone's tests. She did not specify how, but just that she would do that.

She held behind everyone in the area from which she heard the audiobook, and let the others go. I was allowed to go, because I was not too close to the back, and also probably because I'm always on time and never on my phone in class.

I don't think she is allowed to penalize the entire class for the reason stated, but if she does, I'm reporting it to the dean of the university. However, our dean is known to not be the most responsive person. My question is: What should I do if the dean does not take the appropriate steps to help us? I may not be really affected by my grade in the class (again, pass/fail is how I'm taking it), but others are. Failing everyone for one person's actions is unacceptable. Please help!

The described event does taint the exams given by everybody in the room. Even if they didn't mean to cheat. Sorry.

What to do in such a case is a hard question. It ranges from doing nothing this time, but e.g. collecting cellphones and such next exam; just punishing the careless cheater (if caught); grade the affected question(s) for less maximal grade (or even not grade them at all, leaving them for a separate evaluation); or even repeat the exam.


Professor withholding course grade until submission of conference paper I have recently been told by the professor of a particular course of mine, that our final grades will be withheld (given as an "Incomplete" which is later replaced by the final grade) until we individually submit our semester papers in the course to a conference.

This has a few issues to go with it:

I defended my MSc and passed, however without this credit I will not receive my degree this semester.
I do not want a low-quality publication on my record, especially since it appears past students in the course published in pay-to-publish conferences.
I am far, far from an expert in this field. I took the course to learn about the subject and have only been spending the last few weeks on this research paper. To give more context, I don't even have a publication in my PhD work yet and I am 2 years in.

The situation prompts two questions from me:

Is it ethical for the professor to require a student to submit a paper to a conference for a course? (This requirement is not mentioned in the syllabus.)
Is it allowed for a professor to require this? Are there any rules or regulations in the US (state school) to prevent it?

I am a professor at a state school in the US, and American professors are currently the targets of a lot of undeserved grief (e.g. it is currently fashionable to believe that we are "lazy" and work much less than a full "business week"; that is not only a mistake but likely a dishonest, politically motivated mistake).  So keep that preamble in mind when I say:

  This is one of the most unambiguously unacceptable behaviors from a course instructor that I have heard.

Let me try to count the ways (but there are so many that I may get tired before I finish):

1) One of the most basic understandings between the student, the instructor and the university is the duration of the course.  By a certain extremely public, agreed upon, well-publicized deadline, all of the coursework must be complete, and by a slightly later date that your instructor has been carefully informed of, the course grades are due.  Planning to defer submission of the course grade after this date is just not the way the American academic system works.

2) Giving a grade of "incomplete" is not withholding a grade: it is assigning a certain kind of unsatisfactory grade.  [Once in college a rather elderly professor literally did not submit any of the grades for the course I was taking.  It was a little strange -- in these days we actually received transcripts in the mail over the break so the inquiry was less immediate than it would now be -- but he apologized and submitted the grades very soon after the start of the next quarter.  That's withholding a grade.]  In order to assign an incomplete, the student must not have completed the official coursework.

3) The instructor is not suitably respectful of the obvious problem which can occur if you assign students' grades too late: you may prevent them from graduating.  Many American universities have policies to expedite final coursework and grading for (would-be) graduating students.  Moreover, in the universities I've been involved with, beyond the written rules there is an unwritten culture that as an instructor you should think twice about any course practice that interferes with a student's timely graduation.  (Sometimes it turns out the student fails your course and therefore does not graduate on time.  That's "okay", but most of instructors would indeed think more carefully about assigning a failing grade under these circumstances and feel honorbound to convey the failing grade to the student sooner rather than later.  What if their parents show up in town only to learn that the student did not actually graduate?)  This practice is not hard to understand: one of very few commonalities among American academics is that we were all students at one time, so we should have some sympathies for the student perspective.

4) This course requirement is unusual and potentially problematic, and it is not listed on the course syllabus.  I think that the whole point of the course syllabus is so that instructors cannot totally change their course requirements / grading schemes in the middle of the course, and that seems to be what is happening here.

5) Teaching a university course is not like playing a game of Truth-or-Dare: it does not give you authority to compel the student outside of the classroom and the dorm room / study carrel.  Submitting a paper to a conference is a real-world action with real-world ramifications (the OP is rightly aware and concerned about this).  It is creating work -- possibly rather pointless and frivolous work -- for other busy academics and/or professionals.  It is setting a student up for harsh critique even up to the point of ridicule.  It is also bullying a student into publishing something they didn't actually want to publish.

Okay, I got tired.  What should a student do in this situation?

  Talk to the faculty member in question.

This is an in-person conversation.  You should think carefully both about want you want to say and how to behave in such a conversation.  Your goal is to convey the specific problems and hardships this course policy will impose on you.  (You don't want to frame it as an ethical or hypothetical discussion.)  Be calm but very specific.  Bring in a copy of the course syllabus and refer to it at some point during the discussion.  Bring in a copy of an academic document that says you need to have your grades by a certain date in order to graduate.  Say specifically: "I'm concerned that this course policy will jeopardize my graduation.  Can we address this?"  If your instructor says "Don't worry about it right now" then explain why you are worried about it right now.  Talk about your family's travel plans, talk about the financial implications of having to enroll for another semester....

(The point of the above strategy is this: I imagine that your instructor likes this course idea from his perspective.  Clearly he has not taken the time to think about it from your perspective.  If you make him see the negative consequences, he is much more likely to repent.)

You should not be brushed off in your meeting: this is a serious matter.  If in the course of the meeting you don't see things working out to your satisfaction, you should let him know that you intend to talk to (e.g.) the department chair about it.

By the way, apparently this took place almost a year ago.  What happened??


How to compile "Comprehensive summary of teaching evaluations," given long teaching record A job posting for an assistant professor job at a liberal arts college in the United States requires that I include a "Comprehensive summary of teaching evaluations" with my application.

What exactly is this (or does this mean)?

Do I include summaries from each of my previous 15 semesters of teaching individually? Do I split evaluations up by course? Do I just include the most recent year(s)?

Do I create a new summary combining all evaluations I have ever received?

Some previous courses are just 25 copies of individual responses (sometimes short answer sometimes scale-ratings) and other times they include a summary of that given semester's course. Do I just use the school-generated summaries or do I compile my own?

Do I include just evaluations for courses relevant to the job posting or any course evaluations?

Is this a general type of request, or something that only this school will "define"?

This question is more specific than one that I asked previously here, which hasn't gotten significant response anyway.

Your summary needs to present a full picture of your teaching in a relatively understandable format. The exact format will depend on the type of evaluation information you have and the number of students in the class (which will influence the number of open-ended responses you can reasonably provide).

In my case, I created a summary sheet which included a table of courses taught, semester, and numeric averages. Then, for each course, I included an additional sheet with all of the students' open-ended responses and individual scores. Each student provided 3 numeric scores and one open-ended comment/evaluation, and there were 20 students per class. So this information typically fit on 1-2 pages.

If your standard evaluations are easy to understand quickly, then you might just include them as originally produced. But that usually isn't the case. For me, I reformatted everything and also included a hyperlink to the originals (which I hosted on my academic website). You can also include a statement that originals are available upon request.

In your case, because you have old/irrelevant courses, you might elect not to include full versions of those IF the file is getting unmanagable. But be prepared to explain your exclusion criteria.

If you plan on applying to many jobs where teaching is important, it is worth spending a bit of time to get this in order, as this is a request that many schools of this type will make.


How much effort should weekly homework be worth? Background: Just completed my PhD, have to teach one part of a graduate course in EE. Remaining course is taught by another senior prof. Course has two classes, totalling 3 hours per week, and one assignment every week which involves one or more of simulation (SPICE), some programming (MATLAB) and some hand-calculation / circuit design. The assignments are worth 40% of the course eval, the remaining being in-class exams.

How long should each assignment be? For instance, I can design the assignment such that it takes the average student (who has attended the lectures) X hours of effort. How do I choose X?

I use a rule of thumb that out-of-class work, including assigned reading, should be about twice the in-class hours.  So, a class with 2-1/2 hours of classroom work per week should have about five hours of outside work per week.

For a 15-hour load with 2-1/2 contact hours per three credit course, that works out to 37-1/2 hours a week, a fair approximation of full time.

For any class, some students will find the work to be easy and it'll take less time than you estimate.  Others will find it difficult and it will take much more time.  You're looking for the median and a fairly low standard deviation.

Early in my teaching career, I asked some classes to keep a journal in which they recorded the time spent out of class.  The responses seemed highly suspect, so now I just talk to some of the better students from time to time and ask about how long they spend.


Can my age play as an obstacle in my Ph.D. application, and while getting student visa? I'm 42, got my master degree in Feb 2017. I´ve 17 years of work experience in the industrial field and I'm still doing academic research with my former supervisor and publishing papers.

I am going to pursue my higher education in Australia or New Zealand.
I also need to apply for a student visa once I get my admission.

Can my age play as an obstacle in my Ph.D. application?
Would my age cause trouble when I issue a student visa too?

No, your age won't be a problem for being admitted as a PhD student and being granted a student visa, but you may find it difficult to avoid tuition fees.and to win a scholarship to cover your living expenses. Even if you meet the eligibility criteria for such a scholarship, the committee may simply prefer younger candidates, and you won't be able to prove you were discriminated against. However, a professor may be able to fund your scholarship from his grants, but, again, professors generally prefer younger students.

Also, it will be hard for you to pursue an academic career in Australia after you complete your PhD. In order to get a permanent position in an Australian university, you will need to win external grants (e.g., ARC grants), and, again, the committees will prefer younger applicants. If you do not win external grants, you will be an eternal postdoc on short-term contracts (1-2 years), and you will be hired only as long as your PI wins external funding to hire you. Once he fails to do so, you will have to look for another professor who has funds to hire you, and it is not easy at all. It is a miserable and stressful career path.

I lived and worked in Australia and know the Australian academic system. An old Australian postdoc told me that he had wanted to write an ARC grant application and that his boss had said that he (the postdoc) had no chance of succeeding because of the age, even despite that the age is not mentioned in the eligibility requirements. I would advise against trying to start pursuing an academic career in Australia at such an age.


Credit, recognition, or compensation for reviewing an accepted article as a native english speaker? I have been asked to review a paper that has been accepted for publication in english because I am a native english speaker. This request is coming from the director of a center. I am still a student. I don't technically work under this person or this center but I do have an affiliation. The review is going to take a couple hours of work. Is there any appropriate recognition or compensation for doing this review?

I would expect no direct compensation.  However:

This is a good networking opportunity which will improve your reputation if you do a good job.
Tell your supervisor about it.  They may later mention it in a letter of recommendation.
When applying for jobs, you will be asked to give evidence you have great communication skills.  "I edit papers for senior professors who are English language learners" is one way to do that.  It also works as evidence you can collaborate with diverse people, which is another common hiring criterion.  Do not name the person you helped in a job application, as that could be viewed as criticism.


For a first year math PhD student, should the student read their graduate level math textbooks page by page, sentence by sentence? Question is: For a first year math PhD student, should the student read their graduate level math textbooks page by page, sentence by sentence?

I often hear professors say that that's a bad idea, and that it's better to look at problems first, and then go back to read as necessary.

From undergrad training though, I like reading math books and working through them methodically, namely, going cover to cover (e.g. for calculus, linear algebra, introductory analysis, probability, etc.)

While it may be good for something, it isn't really the best way to learn anything. To learn, you need to get practice (reinforcement) and feedback. The exercises in the book will do two things for you if the book is a good one. First, they will exercise the more important ideas, giving you the practice, but also giving you an outline of the chapters. Second, the problems will point you, indirectly, to the examples, theorems, and proofs that are the most important to study.

The big idea here is that not every word in a math book has equal weight.

Trying to "memorize" the textbook is also a terrible way to prepare for exams. Find more exercises and solve them.

Your brain isn't like a thumb drive that you can pour information in to an then expect that you have "learned" it. Think of a novel that you read a year ago. How much of it do you really remember? If you read a lot, then it is unlikely that you will have retained very much about that old book. A few people can do that, but they are very rare. Chances are slim that you are one of them.

Finally, if you can't solve an exercise you know what you need to ask the professor about. Hopefully the prof will give you feedback on your work - the other essential to learning. That way you are less likely to develop misunderstandings that need to be corrected later.


Should I withdraw a paper from arXiv if it does not contain any new research? I had submitted a copy of a reading-cum-review project to arXiv in my undergrad sophomore year without really thinking of the consequences. The paper was announced and eventually moved to the General Physics section.

The issue with the paper is that it does not contain any new research and the review is far from being exhaustive. Besides, it was typed in a very unprofessional manner with too few references for a review paper.

Now that I am a grad student and need to associate a real journal paper to my arXiv account, I was wondering if having such a paper on arXiv hurts reputation in the long run. Is it usual to have casual reports uploaded on arXiv, or is it advisable to withdraw it and start afresh?

You're actually asking several sub-questions:

Can I withdraw the paper?
Should a paper containing no research be un-published/withdrawn (regardless of venue)?
What should I do with this specific paper?

1. Papers can't quite be removed from ArXiv
You cannot completely remove a paper from ArXiv once it's been published there. The ArXiv withdrawal policy says:

Articles that have been announced and made public cannot be completely removed. However, you may submit a withdrawal notification for your article.

You can definitely submit such a notice if you decide you want to withdraw; here's an example of a withdrawn paper - where you see the withdrawal notification. But, again, the paper is still accessible, forever.
The example is taken from this answer by @ff524
2. "No new research" does not make a paper unworthy of publication
Many papers offer a different view of existing research findings; or consolidate, compare, contrast or compile other pre-existing results, hopefully making them more accessible to the reader.
Your other reasons for withdrawal seem more pertinent.
3. What should you do?
For the paper you described, you could write up a withdrawal notice; however - don't be too harsh on yourself in phrasing it. Mention that this was an undergraduate research project and that, in hindsight, it isn't sufficiently exhaustive.
But rather than a complete withdrawal, you could just change the description on the paper's web page on ArXiv, indicating the same thing, as a sort of a caveat.


How to automatically import APA references into reference manager? Related to this question on cross-checking APA citations and references, I often have an existing list of APA formatted references. This might come from a document from a collaborator or it might just be a published article.

I often want to take this list of APA references (e.g., one reference per line) and import them into my bibliographic software in such a way that the reference manager is able to discern what aspects of the reference correspond to author, year, title, journal, issue, pages, etc.
I'm often working with Endnote to do this, but I imagine that once you get the data into any reference manager (e.g., Mendeley, Zotero, etc.), it would be relatively easy to export and import into a preferred reference manager.

I'd also be happy with a system that was pretty good but not perfect. In psychology at least, most references are journal articles, book chapters, and books. So a system that imported these and flagged the rest would still be useful.

Question

How can an existing list of APA references be automatically imported into a reference manager?

There is a list of tools that attempt to convert formatted bibliographies to bibliography software formats here. I haven't used any of them for a while so I can not recommend any of the tools in particular.


Do "research team" and "research group" mean the same thing? I see some papers use "research team" while others use "research group". Do they mean the same thing, a few of researchers that form a team dedicated to a research?

I would use “research group” to describe the set of people that is the students that I advise and any researchers I employ (plus myself).

“Research team” to me would be primarily the set of PIs with who I am collaborating on a given grant or other project, and may also encompass the students and researchers who are directly involved in that project.

“PI” here would be anyone in a principle investigator role for the project. This would certainly include professors and researchers at government labs/museums/zoos with whom I set up the project and secured funding, and could also include people who joined the project later under their own resources at our invitation, rather than being hired by one of the existing PIs out of the original funds. A postdoc coming in with their own funding, but with the funding contingent on their having a supervisor, would be in a grey area between the “PI-level” sense of “research team” and the broader sense of “PIs plus their students and staff”.


What's the difference between textbooks and other non-fiction books? Say, why is the book How The Immunse System Works (by Lauren Sompayrac) regarded as a "textbook" but, say, The Better Angels of Our Nature is not? There are thousands of non-fiction books, some of higher quality than others, some more technical or more difficult than others, some much bigger than the average (like Russell's History of Western Philosophy), but only a small fraction of them are called "textbooks". What's the difference? On what basis is a book judged as a "textbook"? Size? Academic rigor? Amount of detail? Level of technicality?

Technically, if there is a course in which it can be useful, then it is a textbook. So To Kill A Mockingbird fits the bill and it isn't even non-fiction. But I guess that isn't the answer you are after.
I think a big part of it is just a marketing decision by a publisher. If there are enough courses to which a book might apply it may be sold to a captive audience (students) as a textbook rather than to a wider audience but with less compulsion to buy.
Textbooks, however, tend to have student exercises in them to reinforce the work. The idea is that "learning is required". Non fiction usually doesn't have exercises and learning is optional. If a publisher decides to publish a work as a textbook there will be pressure on the author(s) to provide exercises and other instructional materials. There will also be pressure to provide, say, new editions every other year.
Textbooks also tend to be directed to a certain level of student attainment. Some books are written specifically for beginners. But at advanced levels, there is probably less distinction, as students then have the background needed without the pedagogical aids of lower level texts (we hope).
Often, but not always, textbooks are published to very high manufacturing standards with non-acid paper, sewn signatures, and such, imagining that a student will want to keep such books for several years. This is normally less of a concern in the popular press. I've had a number of books for over fifty years. (This attention to quality may be less true than it once was, I suppose.)
I think you can find a wide range of quality in either category, as well as a fairly wide range of difficulty. Nor is size an indicator. Most elementary Calculus books are fairly thick, and intended for two or three terms of study.
Cost is another factor. Text books are expensive since the intended audience is often quite small and balkanized into several different books. Non fiction, if well written, appeals to a wider audience and so can be sold for less, making the profit from volume.
I don't see a lot of distinction based on your other suggested criteria. Either can be detailed or not, more or less technical (based on "level"), etc. But textbooks are designed to be learned from whereas general non-fiction, like fiction, is designed to be enjoyed. There are a few truly beautiful textbooks, of course.

For "fun" I read a fair number of archaeology and anthropology books. None of them are intended as textbooks, but most would serve as such, since they have extensive bibliographies aiding a student in research. They are probably less useful, but not useless, for beginning students, but provide a good place to start a literature search for somewhat older reference materials. In an active research area they are less useful as things get old quickly. This may imply a crossover category, I suppose.


Why would a school prevent reapplying after declining an offer of admission? I am currently applying for a mid-range private school that teaches the career I want primarily (software engineering) and a prestigious public school for computer science (it doesn't have software engineering). So if I make it into the public university, I would evaluate between the specific career of the private one and the economic help of the public one, and choose the most appropriate one.

However, reading their entrance rules, I saw that if I decline the offer of admission in the public one, I could not apply to it again for the next two admission cycles (at two per year, that means a year and a half). What is the philosophy behind this? Applying to several schools benefits  students, giving them more schools to choose from. And it also raises the funding because of the payment that is done to give the entrance exam (which is not one of the things public schools in my country can brag about). And it doesn't harm anyone, because the next one in the list would enter. The only collateral damage I can think of is extra administrative effort, but a year and a half vetted from applying to the university because of that seems too much for me. So, why? Is there some extra side effect that they are accounting for?

The information @Pete L. Clark requested: I am living in Peru, and here the admission process in public universities is pretty simple: You just present your legal and education papers, pay for the entrace exam, take it, and see if you are admitted or not. So, everything boils down to that 3-days exam. But once it is finished, you are in.

I believe the issue here is that if a student has already been offered admission and turned it down, then the school has already given that student due consideration in reviewing the application. Reapplying in the following year means that the candidate was apparently unsatisfied with any of the offers of admission received, which included the school in question. So what would have changed in such a short period of time that meant the offer wasn't good enough then, but is good enough now?


Using an abbreviation of another language in the abstract I'm writing the abstract of my bachelor’s thesis and need to refer to a German research project. The abbreviation of it refers to a German spelling – so I can’t write it out. The English translation wouldn’t explain the acronym and is super long.
Is it possible to use a footnote for this? Even though it is very uncommon? Or are there other possibilities?
I don't have strict rules to follow but generally APA as guidelines.

The exact abbreviation I refer to is STEER which stands for Erhöhung der STEuerungskompetenz zur ERreichung der Ziele eines integrierten Wassermanagements.
In English: Increasing Good Governance for Achieving the Objectives of Integrated Water Resources Management.

You could refer to the German research project by acronym without referring to the full name or you could omit the acronym entirely. The former is perhaps better when the acronym is well known; the latter when it isn't. Since you'll surely be providing the full name, acronym, and translation later, either should be fine.

I suggest that a footnote be avoided, because abstracts get decoupled and such a footnote will be lost.

Given that

  STEER: Erhöhung der STEuerungskompetenz zur ERreichung der Ziele eines integrierten Wassermanagements (Increasing Good Governance for Achieving the Objectives of Integrated Water Resources Management)

isn't particularly long, you could just include, assuming your abstract isn't limited by a word count.