International differences between "adjunct professor" and "visiting professor"? I am interested in the differences between levels of professorships in the countries:

USA
UK
China
Germany

I read the Wikipedia Article about Professorship in United States but as far as I can tell - in the end - both take up the position of a professor:

for a (short) time - but tend to stay for quite a while, even if that is not the idea (both possibly receiving bad contracts)
which is non-tenure track,
are not involved in administrative tasks,
might come from a different university, but don't have to.

In an international context: What is the difference between an "adjunct professor" and a "visiting professor"?

Additionally: Which one is more prestigious?

In the United States, "Adjunct Professor" is essentially an academic temp worker.  They are typically paid very poorly, have no job security, and often live near or below the poverty line.  They are often not well respected, particularly as many faculty perceive them as either a threat (administrators often use adjuncts to avoid making tenure-track appointments) or as a source of cheap labor.

A "Visiting Professor" on the other hand, typically means somebody who has a position elsewhere and is temporarily associated with the faculty, e.g., while on sabbatical or as a courtesy appointment for a person from industry who is teaching a course.  A visiting professor might or might not draw any salary from the university, depending on the particulars of their appointment.  Their status and degree of respect generally depend on their main position.

Note, however, that this vocabulary is not legally protected, and so some US institutions may change these titles around, particularly if they are seeking to camouflage the nature of an poorly paid post.


Can I ask a Master's paper reader to be a referee for Ph.D.? I am applying for Ph.D. and am looking for a third referee. I was wondering if it is appropriate to ask a reader of my Master's paper? To be more specific, he was a post-doc at the time but since has earned a position at another university as Assistant Professor. He was not only one of the readers of my paper, but has seen me give a few seminars and knows me personally.

Any clarification on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

For sure it may depend on the rules your university has, but if the referee can explain the occasions in which he could assess you (in your case seminars and thesis), and why he thinks you would be a good candidate, I do not see any problems in asking him.
The fact that he is now a professor (even if somewhere else) is only a plus.


What does "reject and resubmit" mean? I sent a paper to a top tier journal in science a few weeks ago. I received the feedback from the editor saying he declined to publish/ accept my paper at the moment but if I corrected/ responded to the comments provided by reviewer, he/ she would consider to publish my paper.

I went to paper tracking website only to discover that my paper is classified as "reject and resubmit". Does that mean if I responded/ did everything suggested by reviewer, there'll be high possibility my paper will be outright rejected?

The comments from reviewer was not that harsh, but I wonder whether I'll be wasting my time if I went back to the lab and did what he said. I only have 2 months to respond.

Also, what is the difference between "reject and resubmit" and "major revision required"? This is my first submission and I'm confused.

Hope anyone can enlighten me.

You are right that your paper may still be rejected, but you shouldn't worry too much.  The fact that the editor proposed a resubmission suggests that he/she sees real value in it.  As an editor, I can say that I would never waste time handling a submission again unless I thought there was a decent chance of acceptance.

Of course a decent chance is not 100%.  Acceptance conditional on minor revisions means the editor is confident the revisions can be completed straightforwardly, while major revisions are always more of a gamble.  They might just not work out in principle, or the authors might not be capable of pulling them off.  However, they are worth a try.

Turning down an offer to resubmit is usually a mistake.  It comes across as a sign of weakness, like you've decided your paper probably can't be fixed and you'd better just submit it somewhere less prestigious/demanding.

  Also, what is the difference between "reject and resubmit" and "major revision required"?

Sometimes there's no difference at all: there are fields in which "reject and resubmit" is just what majors revisions are always called.  Sometimes there's a difference, with reject and resubmit indicating a slightly less optimistic outlook (but still optimistic enough to be worth trying).

There are also borderline dishonest reasons some journals prefer reject and resubmit.  Splitting a single submission into two submissions can make the journal look good in two different ways.  Rejecting the initial submission decreases the journal's acceptance rate, which makes it look more selective.  (A journal that accepts every submission after an R&R can claim it technically has an acceptance rate of 50% rather than 100%.)  Furthermore, splitting the process in two decreases the average time from submission to a decision, which is another statistic authors care about.


Future PhD applications and COVID -19 How do you think next year's PhD applications would be affected by the COVID-19? Will we be seeing less numbers or more? Will they be more competitive?

Edit: mainly asking for applicants to the US and UK.

It is hard to be certain about the future.

There will be more positions because of government stimulus spending.
More students will apply for PhD programs because they cannot find jobs.
As a result of chaos, fewer students will complete the eligibility requirements.

The most likely net effect is more applicants for more positions, but they will be less prepared.


What are successful techniques for convincing Professors in becoming PhD advisor? Having decided to embrace the way for a PhD (based in Europe, DACH region), I now have to go through the crucial step of contacting Professors and convincing them to uphold my research proposal/enrollment candidature.

Can anyone share what are successful ways of doing so?
Email contact? Getting to deeply know their previous research?

Any lead is appreciated.

This might depend quite a lot on the field and on how much the individual professor has to say in your general admission to the program.

But, the best method is a personal visit and directly asking them. You will need to convince them, no matter how you proceed, that you have the correct background and good prospects for success. Your proposal, if you have one, needs to mesh well with their interests. Or you might need to be flexible enough to fit into one of their projects rather than your own.

But face to face is best if you can arrange it. Professors get a lot of email from potential students who are just sending out broadcast appeals without being especially serious in any of them. You want to avoid getting lumped together with those. So, if you must do it by email, be sure that you express knowledge of what it is that they do and can say how you might fit into that in a productive way.


Name change during the course of PhD? I am now working towards my PhD degree. In the very near future, I will have a citizenship change, which also leads to a name change. In detail, I am adding another given name to my current name with the original surname and given name untouched. So it's like going from

FirstName1 LastName

to

FirstName2 FirstName1 LastName

I already have some publications under my current name, FirstName1 LastName, which I do not wish to lose after my name change. At the very start of my PhD, my supervisor has advised me to stay consistent with the name for a better recognition in the field.

Is there a way to minimize my loss of recognition in the academia? Will the publication stats tools, such as Google Scholar, include my publications under my new profile?

I would recommend sticking with what you started using, since there is no real advantage not to. That said, if you really want to change I don't think a change in first name will affect you much. Depending on the citation style, the name change won't even be visible. I don't think this particular change is anywhere near a change of last name in terms of impact on your popularity.

With regards to Google Scholar: you can always add your new publications manually to your profile in the unlikely case that scholar borks, so that's not an issue.


Can I implement and share implementations of papers Can I implement and share implementations of papers on say, GitHub? Can I licence those implementations such that if people are using my implementations they have to cite?

Yes, you can implement them. Technically, you can attach any license you like, as long as it passes legal muster. In practice you'll find it very difficult to enforce a "you must cite this" license, but you can try.


Professors refusing to write recommendation letter due to change of field I am a chemistry undergraduate student applying for master’s programs in electrical and computer engineering or computer science (ECE/CS). All my programming skills are self-taught so my professors have no idea about my program switch.
I’ve already contacted some professors and they are willing to give me the references. But once I said I am not applying for a chemistry degree but ECE/CS, two of my references said they cannot give me the reference for non-chemistry related programs since they know nothing about my programming skills. Those two references are who know me the most (IMO) and I think I performed well in their courses/projects.
What can I do? I cannot put too much workload on each professor if two of whom quit.

Your professors are in essence, trying to help. They think that their letters would not carry enough weight to help you. They may be thinking about if they'd admit a student from a different field whose letter-writers said nothing about their chemistry experience (and apparently deciding they would not). Professor's time is valuable, and they don't want to spend it writing a letter that they think would be useless.

But once I said I am not applying for a chemistry degree but ECE/CS 2 of my references said they cannot give me the reference for non-chemistry related programs since they know nothing about my programming skills.

I do not know whether you need letters that espouse your programming skills, but the solution is to:

Tell the professors that you have already got a letter-writer addressing your programming skills, and ask them to write about something more specific, like your research experience, or go-getting-ness (etc., etc.). You have a letter that explains why you'd be a good ECE/CS student, right?
Explain why that's not a concern, and then ask them to focus on something more specific.

If they still refuse, unfortunately, there is little you can do.


PhD crossroad: dealing with constantly absent supervisor and diverse workload? I am in the first year of my PhD studies. Was involved with the same group since a while as a student, and then I was offered a PhD there.

Project work

The topic of my PhD is completely different from what I had done before, so the first 3-4 months passed while I was trying to get into the new topic. In the meanwhile a project arrived. It was loosely related to my previous experience, but still completely unrelated to the PhD topic.

I was assigned to this project. Soon it started hogging all my time. Project meetings, proposal, presentations, reports and all that. Months were passing by without doing anything on the PhD topic. Also it was hard switching between the topics as the context switch was immense.

I tried different strategies. Switching topics within the day. Switching topics week in week out. And in the end what worked for me was switching between the topics as the deadlines for the project were met.

Lack of supervision

On top of all this the supervisor is busy constantly. All in all I might have had less than 3-4 hours of one-to-one discussion with my supervisor within these 12 months, whereas I hear other professors have monthly meetings with their students. Also, no one from the seniors in the group has expertise related to my PhD topic. Neither there is a fellow student working on the same topic with whom I could discuss.

Assuming that my work-flow and the tools I use were faulty, I constantly looked around for approaches to become more and more efficient. To make sure there is nothing extra to be done from my side I started working actively on the weekends and did not take any holidays.

Yet, looking at my PhD topic I still think there is so much to learn there regarding the basics let alone advanced concepts. Much more than one usual candidate who is researching within a topic which s/he might have encountered previously during studies.

What next?

As the time for the contract extension is approaching I am trying to figure out what is the best to do next. Below I will list pros and cons from my POV.

Pros:

I like the PhD topic
I like the group
I like teaching duties
(although it requires significant time investment)

Cons:

I hate the project work
Lack of input from the supervisor
There is no one in the group to discuss with

Bottom line: How should I deal with this situation? Is it a common situation for PhD students?

Options:

Request a helping hand for the project (an extra student that will help me). I am even contemplating of paying from my own sallary.
Start contacting other groups worldwide and switch for a PhD there.
Visit another research group (e.g., my co-supervisor etc.) for half-a-year (or longer), whose main research aligns with my PhD topic
other...?

It's not clear to me whether you did Step 1 (or Step 2) yet.  Forgive me if you already did them.

Step 1. Talk to your advisor and let her know how much time per week (or a percentage or proportion  of your time) is being spent on the project, and ask for help and/or advice about how to balance your time more effectively.

Step 2.  Work in the library, work at home, but limit the amount of time you spend in your office where other project members can grab you or distract you.


When are professors most free during a semester? You would think that profs are living the high life when lectures are over and all they have to do is to hand out the exam (in a couple weeks) and grade them. But when I tried to get a hold of the profs, they seem to be busier than ever. One prof even stopped holding office hours all together and handed those duties to the TAs.

What do profs usually do after all lectures has stopped, and in general, when are profs most free in terms of their faculty duties during a semester?

The end of the semester particularly the period between the end of lectures and when students finally leave campus (which may be well after you've submitted grades) can be the busiest part of the semester because that's when you spend a lot of time dealing individually with students that have questions, complaints, or problems.  The reason that this is so time consuming is that there are typically lots of these students, and each complaining student can easily take an hour out of your day.

Meanwhile you may also be grading a lot of term papers or student projects and you're also busy writing, proctoring, and grading final exams.


Losing focus in an exam, how does it affect my goal - grad school So I'll explain my self briefly, I've just finished my first semester in my undergrad program and my goal is to move on to masters in the US in Stanford or near that area.

So obviously grades are very important and here's the problem, I'm putting the hours in throughout all the semester (easily 10 hours a day, sometimes longer) and I don't have  issues with understanding nor with executing what was learned but come the day of the exam and I do TERRIBLY and I can't explain why, I don't know whether it's because of stress  or something else and I feel lost as everyone I score a B instead of an A I feel like my grad school goal is only getting further away from me.

I'd appreciate any tips or ideas with how to deal with this.
I'm currently retaking all the tests to improve my grades but it's exhausting because the material is not the problem...

In case it matters, I'm talking about computer science.

if the title is inappropriate please let me know how to change it

Thank you

Edit: my topic is different from the one  mwhombat linked to because where I live you don't get to pick your courses I can't focus on project based courses some have then but most don't so I HAVE to get better at test taking

I would try to find some of your class mates, that are performing very well on the tests and ask them for some advice. Regarding what sources they are specifically studying, how they decide what material to prep for the exam and what not to etc.

If you don't know anyone yet that is performing very well, this is a great opportunity to make some new friends. Taking tests is really an art form all of its own, and I'm sure those in your class that score highly will have some insights they could share with you about how to sit and prepare for a test well.

Also ask your faculty if they have old papers, you could practice with, you might also ask a member of the teaching staff to perhaps do a mock invigilation for you, with an old paper, and give you feedback about how you did, and where it fell short. Practice makes perfect.

Also isolate the reason you are not doing well in the tests. Is it because you simply do not know the answers? Or are you running out of time? Or are you not reading the question properly under exam conditions? Once you know this you will be in a better position to develop a strategy to improve in the key areas that are impacting your scores.


Is it rude not to attend courses which have no attendance requirements? I wonder how it is perceived if a student does not attend the course in which attendance is not taken.

I am a PhD student and I skipped most of class in two courses. Now, both of the instructors are mad at me. In one course the professor gave me an F on an oral exam because I could not explain one point in a chapter, after explaining the rest correctly. And the other one ignores me when I try to greet him, as opposed to 3-4 weeks ago. I feel that I have been very strictly judged, and not fairly graded by the first Professor. An F means zero points, and I am afraid the second Professor will grade his oral exam with some biases, based on the previous Professor's behavior

Is it natural for them to behave this way? What can I do to convince people that my intentions were not to offend? I feel that most of them believe me to have a "big head" who just moved in from another country. And think that I'm a know it all. This is completely wrong; I know it is a very, very bad habit to not attend lectures. But I feel I don't need to when I've studied and understood the concepts.

To clear out some points in the comments, let me explain my train of thought. But please note that the examples given below are just some stupid examples. They do not reflect real situations and my thoughts:

1) I think it is very impolite to deliberately refuse a greeting from a colleague, especially when that colleague is on the same floor. I understand that it's a teacher-student relationship, but wouldn't you agree that it is common courtesy to greet back after being greeted? I feel that this teacher has a vendetta of sorts.

2) I'd like to give an example. Suppose that the professor is speaking English, and it's clear that they have a bad accent. When students arrive, they'd like to be able to understand the professor. Sometimes, they get mad at the professor because they can't understand them. But ultimately it's the faculty committee that they should be getting mad at. The faculty committee is the one that hires the professor. I feel that being angry at the professor is pointless. Similarly, if the university doesn't require professors to take attendance, but they want students to attend they shouldn't be angry at the students. Instead they should take it up with University Policy

3) Finally, is attending class considered a matter of respect? I don't think so. At the end of the day, the professors are there for teaching the specific subject. Students, according to university rules and policy, are not obligated to attend these classes. I feel that the professors are not doing students a favor. On one hand it's their duty, and on the other hand people have free will. I feel it's worse to attend class and not even listen.

--

After viewing your detailed answers and comments, I am fully convinced that attending classes is a matter of respect to the professor. I understand now that it is easy to be misunderstood and misjudged by not showing up to class, without any excuses. I see now that it can be easily interpreted as an act of carelessness or self-importance.

Adapting to a new culture is harder than I thought.

I think the question is not "Is it rude?" but "Do lecturers find it ok?" as the answer to the latter is not universal but varies a lot.

Here is what I think about students skipping classes: Personally, I also do not have any attendance requirements (actually, where I am it is currently forbidden to have such requirements) for my classes and there are students who skip some or most classes. Since I do not have such requirement, I am not mad at them, but I note that they miss opportunities to get into a dialogue about the contents which help them learning the material deeper. I do get mad when these students come to office hours asking for clarifications of stuff I treated in the lecture since this basically amounts to unnecessarily teaching the stuff double. When I note that students skip many classes I get thinking "Hmm, let's see how they manage to grasp all the material…". When it comes to exams and I note that the students missed some point which has been stressed in the lectures over and over, I feel like the students really missed a crucial point (even if it is just one) just by skipping the lectures and I do not give any benefit of doubt. It's like "it was obvious that I considered this to be a central point, and you did not get it - sorry for you." However, some bright students that skipped classes managed to impress me during an exam and scored great grades.

As for not greeting students: If you haven't shown up in classes that often, your face may probably not be that familiar to the lecturer… Here in Germany we often have hundreds of students every semester so it is impossible to know the all students who are enrolled but did not show up.

As for the question What can I do to turn it around?: Show that you learned a lot by being great at exams and show that you deeply grasped the material. Do not go to office hours with questions that have likely been answered during the lectures.


In creating a Google Scholar profile, should I use my personal email address or my university email address? I want to create a Google Scholar profile. As far as I can tell, such profiles are not transferable from email address to email address.  Should I use my personal email (Gmail) account, which I will hopefully have for the rest of my life?  Or should I use my university email, which is actually hosted and maintained by Google?  I am a post-doc and will be at my university for the foreseeable future -- probably for a few years, but not forever.

I have a personal Gmail account (e.g., johndoe@gmail.com).
My university's email addresses are hosted by Google. (My university email address is jdoe@myuniversity.edu, but it is hosted and maintained by Google

Your personal account.
You will then have the option to add and verify an institutional e-mail to it, inside Google Scholar. This adds a text "verified e-mail on myuniversity.com" in your profile.
Not everything in our future is foreseeable, even for those with tenure, and universities are particularly eager to deactivate old institutional addresses, for no good reason in my view.


As a postdoc, how to make sure I get credit for helping undergrad and grad students? I am a postdoc, and I understand that my work involves assisting undergrads and grad students with their projects. But sometimes things go beyond mere helping into more like supervising and explaining in detail some important aspects to undertake the work correctly. All I get at the end is a "thank you for your help" (which I really appreciate)! At some stage I even helped another postdoc by doing some calculations and some analysis of her work. I never have my name on any of their resulting publications.

I don't know how to approach this issue, it seems odd if I would say 'listen I won't help until you promise that I will be a co-author'.

Any advice?

If you wish to be a coauthor, you should definitely ask if that will happen before you start the work.  Setting clear expectations is the best way to get people to do what you want.  In those cases where you think you cannot become a coauthor, ask the person you are helping to tell your supervisor that you helped them.   Keep a list of things you did and give it to your supervisor when you need letters of recommendation.


Long review time in CS discipline It has been an year since I submitted my research paper to a journal in Concurrency (Computer Science). The status says it is still under review. Is this typical of journals in this discipline?

While six months is not unusual in computer science (where journals have little urgency), a year is too long to go without any response.  Write to the editor, and ask politely when you should expect a response.


Role of small talk in academia Small talk in the title refer to the small questions or words that are culturally used in preserving and maintaining relations among people.
The normal small talk are as follows

How are you?

How is your health?

Happy married life.

I am deeply saddened by the news of your brother passing.... etc.,

Actually, all these are more relevant in case of relatives, extended family and personal relations. But, I observed that lots of people in academia network also does the same.
Is there any purpose in small talk? Is not engaging in small talk an improper etiquette?

Consider the situation in which a lab mate underwent a life event and everyone in the lab is wishing or showing condolence for the same. Is it improper to not care about it as it is an personal level or non-academic achievement?

People who work together find it natural to also interact in small (or large) ways not connected to the work itself. We aren't robots programmed to do a job and the job only.
Over time, a certain level of caring might naturally develop among colleagues, even when their primary communication is about work.
And, I'll guess (and predict) that this level of  human contact actually makes the work easier and more efficient when not taken to extremes (three hour poker or D&D sessions, say). I think many of us have the experience that it is harder to work with someone who refuses to do this and sets up a wall of isolation. Integrating a new person into a work environment often takes a fair amount of this sort of interaction.
Life is life. Work is only a part of that. You don't put your human nature in a box when you go to work, I hope.


Which bibliometrics index to trust more? We've already discussed about which bibliometric indeces are diffused the most, and how they work.

We all know that, along the most common h-index, there are many other parameters deriving from it or similar to it.
From Publish or Perish website, we can list:

g-index: Egghe's g-index
hc-index: the contemporary h-index
individual h-index: its three variations hI-index, hI-norm, and hm-index

Between these (and other) bibliometrics indeces, which one do you trust more?
Which one do you think is the best one to get the scientific excellence of an author?
Why?

Thanks!

The short answer is NONE. A longer answer is "to get the scientific excellence of an author, read their papers and understand their contributions".

The problem here is in expecting a number to characterize the contributions and quality of an individual researcher. Probably the only way in which these measures can be useful (and that's stretching it a LOT) is if they are viewed in aggregate (for a department/university) to get a very crude picture of research productivity (not excellence).

But the signal is so noisy as to be useless.

Really, there's no shortcut for the hard work of reading, researching and asking in order to assess the "scientific excellence" of a researcher.


Is it appropriate to make a pun that references a highly charged topic in current events, in a lecture on an unrelated subject? For example, when discussing red-black trees in lecture, is it appropriate to use the phrase "Black Nodes Matter?"

The proof that red-black trees are balanced relies heavily on the property that each downward path originating from a node contains the same number of black nodes.  Given this, I am wondering if it is appropriate to say #BlackNodesMatter.

This would be very unfortunate. People across the political spectrum have strong feelings about the words Black Lives Matter. Indeed, the subject matter of the movement is literally life and death. It's not something that should be made light of in mixed company, let alone in a classroom.


Difference between ACM's print and online memberships I would like to inquire about the difference between ACM's SIGACT online membership and print membership.

The group's main page showing both of the membership choices
https://www.acm.org/special-interest-groups/sigs/sigact

Background:
I am a sophomore computer science student interested in computing topics with emphasis on mathematical rigor, particularly, computational complexity theory and quantum computing. Subscribing to prestigious ACM gaining latest developments in the field and a chance of connecting to others seems promising.

ACM SIGs (Special Interest Groups) generally publish things like conference proceedings and newsletters. A print subscription implies that they are sent to you in print, usually a few times a year. An online subscription gives you access to the same materials only online with a login. Other than that, the memberships are the same.


How much should reviewers care about other things than an article's content? This is a follow-up question to a previous one asking for the potential impact of the typesetting tool (at the review level) on the chances of acceptance for a given paper.

I'm interested in the general case where reviewers will get a "feeling" of the way the article is presented, be it the writing style, British vs. American English, English from non-native speakers, choice of font, or like in the linked question, typesetting and any other criterion that is not related to the content of the work presented.

To be clear, I'm not asking about the more obvious or well-documented sources of bias, like the sex, name or geographic location of the authors. This can possibly be addressed by double-blind review.

As an example, I'm used to journal submissions in the form of a PDF with the least possible amount of formatting: plain text, typically not justified on both sides, lines numbered, usually double-spaced, figure captions at the end, figures concatenated at the end by the electronic submission system. Where I publish, typesetting is a journal's thing and as an author I'm happy to delegate that hurdle.

I once reviewed conference proceedings where the submission was very informal and couldn't help but having a "feeling" from the looks of the submissions. Authors who used LaTeX, which is unusual in my field, didn't look like they had a lot of experience publishing in this field.

I think that ideally this feeling should be silenced and I tried to do so as much as I could. However, reading comments and answers on this other thread made me wonder if that was a sentiment that others shared. My question then boils down to:

Do reviewers have a duty to try to ignore their biases or is the "gut feeling" an important part of the review?

As a final note, I'm not looking for arguments in favor or against the use of LaTeX in general, or in the specific case I mentioned. I find LaTeX to be very well suited for the applications it's intended for and I simply used that example to illustrate something that is not content but could (and apparently does) induce a bias.

I think the gut feeling is helpful during the evaluation process - one can probably not fight it anyway, so I think one should just accept that it is there. However, the gut feeling must not hinder a review based on the content of the paper.

So, what should not happen is, e.g.:

Stop reading after a few pages because you don't like the look, typesetting, language, variable names… (you may, however, stop reading if the style hinders your understanding, which is something completely different). Even if you hate Times New Roman or Arial, be professional and keep reading.
Keep worrying about issues as above when it comes to write the comments (with the exception of the language, but I am always very careful about comments on language). Comments should mostly address the content of the paper, especially your recommendation should not be influenced by gut feeling. So once you read everything carefully, form an opinion not based on the look of the paper, but on the content (which you have digested at that point and hence, you should be able to evaluate it without taking the look into account).

One exception is figures: If figures are poorly formatted and don't allow to extract the information, this is a serious issue (too small font, pixel graphics with poor resolution, colors that are indistinguishable for common color blindness…). But also here it is more about "can I extract the information" and not about "do I like the look".

Be extra careful with gut feeling if you review something which is borderline for you field. As can be seen in the above comments, the styles of submission vary greatly between fields (extreme example: Some field have all floats, i.e. tables and figures and such, on extra pages at the end of the documents, other field have submission that basically look like a final article, some fields use double spacing, some don't…).


Should I expect to be paid for post-graduation research? I graduated with my Master's degree in Computer Science a couple of years ago. For a graduate requirement, I had to take on a project of significant scope and write a paper about the project. I had continued my project after graduation in order to attempt to publish a paper. This unfortunately did not happen, as I entered the workforce and focused my time on my new employment.

I received an email from my professor a couple of days ago asking if I had a copy of the source code to my project, because he has a new student who he wants to take over the project. He noted that if he was able to publish a paper with the new student, that my name would be added to the paper.

The professor had asked if I wanted to participate in the project, I replied that I would be able to help work on it in hopes of upping the chances that we get the paper published.

Since I am putting in hours post-graduation: should I expect to be compensated for my further work on the project, should I expect that this work is strictly voluntary in order to get my name on a paper, or is compensation up to the professor in charge of the project?

You should ask the professor. However, in my experience, the default assumption is that you will be not paid (if not said otherwise). It is often hard (again, in my experience) for professors to obtain funds for short-term-positions.

Note, however, that you are under no obligation to finish the project without getting paid. So before working on this for free, think about if you have time for it and would profit from it in some way (e.g. if you like thinking about it or if a publication is good for your life/career).

So to make clear the answer to the question: Ask, but do not expect.


Is there a good alternative to the CRAAP test? I want to teach and post posters for the CRAAP test (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose), however, some colleagues, unfamiliar with this, aren't amused by the acronym. Is there a good alternative that is commonly used in academia, that won't make people assume this is some form of immaturity on my part?

Is there a good alternative that is commonly used in academia,

Most of academia does not need a formal test for checking the quality of sources, so no, there is not.

that won't make people assume this is some form of immaturity on my part?

Just leave the acronym out.  Acronyms are rarely useful and even less likely to be necessary.


What to do when a prospective PhD supervisor doesn't follow up after an initial positive response? A few days back I emailed a potential supervisor in one of the Top schools in Computer Science. To my surprise I got an instant reply from him mentioning that I should apply and he has funding for research assistants like me. He also mentioned a few questions about research topics so to follow up I sent him the answer and asked his opinion. However I didn't hear from him after that. Here I would like to mention that questions were not to test me but just general research questions which he is interested in, and my reply was also more like a discussion and asking his opinion. Now I am confused what I can get from this, and also should I ask him somehow to have Skype interview? He is really a great professor and has his own funding so may be he can even effect committee decision.

Thanks.

The professor encouraged you to apply --- so that's what he expects you to do next. It is nothing wrong in your attempt to establish a more substantial connection with him and to promote yourself in his eyes, it increases your chances to get selected. However, imagine that at the same time there are probably 100+ other candidates, trying to do exactly the same --- sending him several smart research questions, involving him in some discussion, and expecting to chat over Skype with him in a few days. How would you feel in his shoes?

Of course, professors want to be available for their potential PhD students, TAs and colleagues, and of course, they want to participate in the selection process. But many of them do not want to carry out all the communication themselves --- that's what secretariat, admissions, and HRs are for! I assume there is a formal route to submit your application, and I suggest exactly what your professor suggested --- prepare your application and submit as instructed.

If in a meantime you receive a message from him --- go forth and suggest a Skype meeting. If not --- assume that the professor is busy, and submit your application before the deadline anyway.


Submit a new version of my paper if my supervisor only commented on an old, very different version? As a PhD student, I face the requirement to publish at least one of my papers at one conference from a defined list of conference. In late November, I submitted a "draft version" of my work to my first and second supervisor.

In mid-December, I received feedback from the second supervisor. The feedback I received affected mostly writing style, making it appear more like a concise journal article instead of a book chapter suitable as part of a final PhD thesis, etc.

Since the holidays, I worked on my paper substantially, implementing ideas and criticism from befriended PhD candidates as well, and could send a new, final version to my supervisors Friday. My fist supervisor now explicitly told me that he read the first version of my paper, and now he wants to give me feedback, most of which he believes may have been included in the second supervisor's feedback and hence addressed in my new version.

However, he cannot give me feedback before Wednesday due to time constraints on his part, not even a phone call. Instead, he stressed that the first paper is not ready for submission.

I am now facing the problem that the submission deadline for the journal is on Tuesday. Hence, I must choose between

skipping the deadline and not submit anything,

which would be undesirable. Although there is nothing preventing me from choosing a later conference, the message this would send to my environment (and myself) about my work standards, communication flow and time planning would be demoralizing.

submit the renewed version anyway,

without my first supervisor having approved of it (the second supervisor promised to still give feedback in time). I submitted the draft, with two months left to the deadline, to identify problems with the general direction, and I knew it was not ready for submission. The fact that the differences between the draft and the current, polished version are very large now tells me that the current version may be very well suitable for publication, even in his eyes, if he read it.

Essentially, my possible errors here are:

submitting a paper that, even in the second version, is bad.
not submitting a paper that would have been perfectly fine.

Regarding the first error, how strong is the effect of having been rejected from one journal or conference, as to not being allowed to submit to other conferences work that was already submitted once before? The research field is the intersection between management and corporate finance.

Is there an effect on my, or my supervisor's, or my university's, reputation from submitted a (potentially still by far sub-par) paper--after all, this should be anonymous?

Furthermore, there could be a negative effect of my supervisor feeling undervalued if I meet him Wednesday for feedback on a paper (although not the same paper) that I submitted the previous night. However, my supervisor is quite pragmatic, and I am sole author of this paper, so I am convinced he would understand my reasoning--but also the possible negative effects I mentioned above.

Regarding the second error, I would lose time, the opportunity of valuable feedback, and disappoint my research group, as this conference was defined as my submission target past summer already; all this over underestimating a possibly quite nice paper.

Edit:
I saw this question, and want to stress that I honestly believe that my paper is not incomplete, and could be published (but then again, I am just a PhD student in my second year).

Ask your second supervisor to talk to your first supervisor about it -- they may be able to agree between themselves that the feedback from your second supervisor alone is enough, given the time constraints.


Should I include visiting students in my CV I am currently a Post-Doc in the field of physics. During the last years, a number of students from different universities (from across the world) were visiting me for short (1 week) or long (3 months) periods.

Since they came to specifically work with me, I was supervising them during that time and now I am wondering if I should include them somehow in my CV (e.g. in the section Teaching, listed as visiting students or something similar) ?

Just to make it transparent for future readers that your question got a (preliminary) answer suggestion:
If you directly collaborated with them, I would put them in the cv and mention what you did (together). This helps the visiting student, because his/her name is mentioned in relation to you. It also helps you to keep track of your collaboration project and to show others (in future applications) what you did in the last years. As you said, being in contact and supervising students for a certain time can also be seen as a form of teaching. Perhaps, later you will publish with some of them papers and then, it is interesting to know that your co-author(s) might have been a former visiting student Otherwise, if you just mention their names in the CV, it might not be clear for a reader of your CV what this 'visiting student list' exactly means.


What degrees are higher than a PhD? The answers and comments to this question along with the wikipedia entry suggest that the DTech degree is "higher" than a PhD in the UK.

This is the first time I've heard of an academic certification being considered higher than a PhD.

What makes a degree higher than a PhD? Is it merely a governmental classification, or is there some other property (perhaps having a PhD as a prerequisite?)?

Is there any consistency to which degrees have this property acorss different nation and system? Which ones do?

There's no strict hierarchy. Every degree has a specific purpose or meaning, so sometimes a degree will completely eclipse another, but this is not always the case.

The PhD is a research doctorate. It specifically means that someone has performed some worthy amount of original academic research in their field, and would be qualified to conduct further academic research on their own. This requires a high level of general understanding in the field, and in fact most degree programs will require students to have the equivalent of a master's degree before they propose their dissertation. For these reasons the PhD eclipses earlier degrees like the BA, BS, and MS.

Professional degrees are a good example of degrees that are orthogonal to the PhD. For example, the MD specifically prepares someone to practice clinical medicine. Another, the JD specifically prepares someone to practice law. There are lots of people running around with MD-PhDs and JD-PhDs. Sometimes the PhD is a PhD in Law or a PhD in Medicine, but often it is not- someone with a JD and a PhD in Chemistry or Computer Science could make a very good living at the frontiers of intellectual property law.

Someone with a MD-PhD doesn't have a "higher" degree than a PhD, they have two separate degrees that each describe a single specialization. There are people with PhDs but no MD who do research in medicine, but an MD-PhD brings together the medical training and the research training in one person, and hopefully better understands the medical issues presented than the only-PhD does.

Generally the PhD is a terminal degree in any field in most countries, meaning there is no degree that builds upon the PhD the same way that an MS builds upon a BS.

The UK is notable for having a system of "higher doctorates" and "junior doctorates" though I'm not sure exactly how the system there works in practice (I'm from the USA). Every country does things a little differently based on tradition, but the UK seems to do things a little differently a little more than most.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctorate#Higher_doctorates

Some cursory Wikipedia browsing suggests that the UK's higher doctorates are somewhat honorific in nature, and would be considered equivalent to a PhD in the US system.

There are lots of US universities that offer oddball degrees, like an S.J.D. in law, but most of these are designed to be equivalent to a Ph.D. in practice. My guess is that they keep the old degree titles out of a combination of tradition and uniqueness.

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


Does a few years work in-between study hurt Physics PhD application to a top 20 US school? All things being equal how would a good US graduate physics admissions weigh these paths.

Scenario 1: 4 year Bachelor of Science. And then direct application to graduate school.

Scenario 2: 4 year Bachelor of Science. 2-3 years work at a government department doing mathematics (not research). And then application to graduate school.

Scenario 3: 4 year Bachelor of Science. 2-3 years work at a government department doing mathematics (not research), whilst doing a part-time 1 year Masters spread over 2 years. And then application to graduate school.

Assume scenario 1 & 2 have same number of published papers, and scenario 3 adds one more paper of higher quality.

I'll offer several opinions.

Work experience does not help you get in to physics PhD programs.  It probably does not hurt either, but you should explain in your application why you did it and how it made you a better student.  Use a better explanation than the one you gave in the comments.
I actually view an MS as a black mark.  In the US, if you have an MS in Physics it implies you either
a.  Could not get in to a real PhD program.
b.  Failed out of the PhD program.
c.  Dropped out of the PhD program.
An MS in physics will cost money and essentially duplicate the first part of the physics PhD.  A PhD makes more financial sense than an MS.  This is not true in other countries or disciplines.
Publishing more will definitely help your application.  If you have lots of publications the rest of your background will be ignored.

Though you did not ask, I would like to point out that delaying the start of your PhD will delay the end of it, and the benefits that come from having completed it.  On the whole I recommend you start your PhD now, assuming you really want to get one.


Should I mention the number of followers of my blog in my SOP for grad school? I maintain a technical blog (posts are in direct correspondence with my interested field of study) which has around 150000 followers. I have two questions:

(a) Do I mention the number of followers in my SOP/CV?

(b) Would mentioning the fact that I maintain this technical blog have any impact in admissions? (or do I even mention the blog in my CV/SOP?)

Thanks !

(a) There is not harm in mentioning it. Of course, how they interpret it is up to the department. In my cohort (social sciences), there was one student with a blog that he runs that generates quite some views. I am sure he included that (views) in his application.

(b) I would imagine it can only have a positive effect on your application.


From Chemical Engineering undergrad to chemistry graduate school Right now I'm studying Chemical Engineering My CGPA is 3.4 and I'm a junior.
I'm thinking about joining a chemistry graduate program after a graduate.

So my question is if I applied will they look at my chemical engineering core GPA or only science subjects GPA?

and as an international student if my CGPA was around 3.5 where can i apply in USA, CANADA , UK ?

THANKS

I am a Canadian graduate student in Applied Science with an undergraduate in Engineering so my answer comes from some personal experience.

What I've always been told is that your grades from relevant courses in the most recent two years of university are the most important when considering you for acceptance into a program. So if you apply for a BSc in Chemistry, your Chemical engineering courses should be considered relevant, but any non-technical electives would not.

In most Canadian graduate schools you are expected to maintain an average above B+ (3.3 out of 4.3 maximum). Depending on the scale used to determine your CGPA you might be just above that threshold, which makes your GPA respectable but not stellar.

You can apply to any university you like, they won't turn away your application. Make sure to check out the U15 Universities if you plan on applying in Canada. They are generally considered the most respected universities in the country.

If you have any co-op work terms/summer terms remaining before you graduate, and if you are a student at a Canadian university, you should consider applying for an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award. This will get you some research experience in your undergrad that will help you stand out on a grad school application regardless of your GPA.


Accepting funding from a climate change denier Abstract: A professor in my department, who seems to be a climate change denier, is offering me funding for a project that is NOT related to climate change. Should I take it?

For my stipend at the my department, I have to teach a lot. This implies 12-15 hours of work per week for the next one year. It is a lot of time I could put into research/writing papers instead.

I have been offered funding to conduct research under a professor. The research question sounds interesting, is unrelated to climate science, and is probably going to lead to publications along with relieving me of teaching duties. However, the professor offering this funding says that sea levels are not rising at an accelerated rate.

Perhaps one extreme way of looking at this would be that he is a climate change denier. However, he did claim that he does not know about other indicators of climate change- he only pointed out that sea levels are not rising at an accelerated rate, which is a claim made by climate change proponents.

He said that NOAA data suggests this. However, on doing a simple google search, I found this article on the NOAA website- https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html

To quote from the article, "Yes, sea level is indeed rising at an increasing rate. Global sea level has been rising over the past century, and the rate has increased over recent decades."
Hence, his source of information also seems to be spurious. Should I accept funding from him? It seems to look good for my life and career in general. But should I compromise on my beliefs and take funding from him?-

It is ultimately up to you. However, if you refuse to collaborate with people who have different political, religious, moral, etc. standards or opinions than you, you'll pretty soon find that you are missing too many exciting opportunities. The disagreement over a climate change is a relatively mild one as far as such things are concerned. You do not need to change your position and you can even try to convince your professor that you are right when you have some chat over a cup of coffee, but I wouldn't take the issue too far. After all, from his perspective, he offers a collaboration to a proponent of some crazy politicized hype and does it first. So I would meet an open hand with an open hand in this case, but, as I said, nobody but you can make the choice.


Early career drought and correlation with future performance I've heard from not a few people that the first postdoc can be quite tough.  You've been kicked out of the nest and have to figure out for yourself what's worth working on, what's likely to turn into a real project, etc.  Many new postdocs struggle to publish or even submit anything in their first year.  Considering the high stakes of academic careers, it makes me wonder if that in and of itself is a sign to pause and figure out a different career path.  To put it as a question,

  Is your paper output the first year of your first postdoc a good metric for future performance?

I imagine it is actually possible to answer this question rigorously with data, but I would be content with anecdotal responses from senior academics.

If you're not productive early, it's doubtful you will be competitive for higher end jobs in academia.  It's a tournament system and the odds are against you, just numerically.  Doesn't mean you are a bad person or a dummy.  But yes, maybe getting out of academia and into the general economy or government is wise.

It's important for young researchers to pick projects that are high likelihood of success.  Or "areas" with potential for several papers. I once told a grad student in my group "how will you publish that when it doesn't work", who was being pushed to do a dumb set of experiments by my advisor.  And I meant it.  (Some things can/can't publish negative results.)  Probably shouldn't do dumb experiments...but at least if you can publish some "data point" paper(s) afterwards it's not a total loss.

Don't just be a non-thinking "subordinate".  Have your own opinions.  There are always more possible things to do than time to do them.  Give your time to what deserves it. If you are incapable of having good opinions about what projects are worthwhile...you are NOT a budding PI.

Yes, you should be a paper-cranking machine as a postdoc.  If you can't do it now, how will you do it when you are tenure track at an R1 school?  This isn't grad school and you should hit the deckplates running.  And avoid multi-year laser building projects like the plague.  Let some other sap do those.

Look at these two questions of yours:  Should I quit a project where I can't see how to contribute? and How to tactfully "decommit" from projects?  I would think the answer to these early questions would be obvious now, in the context of this later one.  You need to focus and churn out first author papers.

P.s. I'm sure the "reassurance crowd" will down vote this.  But you need to hear the cynical view.


When do you ask a professor if a visitor can sit in on class? There's a prospective graduate student visiting my adviser and I was asked if the student could come with me to an undergraduate class I'm taking at another college within the university. Is it acceptable for me to just show up to this class with the prospective student or should I email the professor and ask if the visitor can sit in? The class is lecture-based and doesn't require student discussion, relatively large (~40 students at both the undergrad and graduate level), but the professor will likely notice that the visitor isn't in the class.

Edit: I'm in the US and the prospective student and I are both from here, but the professor is from the Netherlands.

Update: I ended up emailing the professor three days in advance to make sure it was fine.

E-mail a few days in advance.

Just showing up puts everyone on the spot, and could end poorly. It could also turn your visitor off.


I'll take a year to apply. Should I search for new logic projects or round up what I have? I'm graduating in two months (Pure Mathematics), and I'm planning to take 2019 to prepare for applying to PhD programs in the US (in Mathematics or Computer Science, depending on the program). I'm not applying this year because of time constraints. My interests lay within the broad area of logic. I particularly like (generally speaking) to design effective procedures that have a strong theoretical background.

My issue is the following: during the last few years, I have been exploring different research areas (ordered from oldest to newest: a little of BigData, cybersecurity, three full years in a software engineering research lab, and a research internship in Coding Theory. My MSc thesis was in ordinal notations and proof theory, a somewhat abstract logic subject - which I loved).

It's a complex story, but I can explain why I did it: I was exploring! I don't regret any of it, as it was really fun and I, as a human being, have many interests. Now I know I want to focus in logic. My questions are the following:

1) Does it have a negative impact that I tried so many different things?

I'm expecting the answer to be "it depends on how you tell the story". I like being passionate about more than one subject, but can it be a bad thing?

2) Should I focus 2019 on getting more research experience in logic?

I have no intentions in using my time just to apply to the US. I know the obvious answer to this question might seem to be "yes", but what I'm not sure about is whether I should put all my effort in more concrete experience in logic, or if I should round up the things I have already been doing - for example, I can continue the research I did in the Coding Theory internship, which was really interesting for me. Also, though I don't support hunting, 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'. Anyway, of course it's not a binary decision.

Thank you very much for your time.

Guillermo.

Given that a doctorate is about depth in a small area, your option 2 sounds better to me as long as you have sufficient breadth of knowledge in your field already.

Note that many (most?) US students move to a doctoral program directly from their undergraduate program, so the "breadth" required is only about that required in a baccalaureate. So, I think, that except for the time factor you mention, you are likely well prepared now. But getting a bit of research going certainly won't hurt you, even if you have only minor results. You probably won't be working with a guide, after all. The area in which you do the research, however, might matter. It is better if it is closer to the sub-field that you actually want to work in.


How to ask for code from authors who have proposed algorithms in computer science? I am developing an algorithm, and I want to compare its performance with various existing state-of-the art methods. I would like to contact the authors of these methods and ask if they can send me the code for their methods.

What should I tell them? Should I say that I am developing a method that is in some way an alternative to their method? Or is enough to ask to say that I want to do generic comparisons?

Tell them what you told us. You are working on a different algorithm and implementation for the same problem and you'd like to compare to the state of the art. You've read their papers (cite them), and you'd like to see if their code is available for cross-comparison.

If they don't make theirs available, you may have to reimplement their algorithm in your code as well. This latter case is pretty common. There's a chance you might not do this as well as them, so there's some incentive for them to give you their code to get a proper comparison done.


Advertising one's publication After posting a preprint on arXiv, or after an accepted paper appears online, how to bring other's attention to it?

(Unless one is already a big name in one's field, or one proves a long-standing and well-known open problem, I doubt that just waiting for things to happen is going to suffice.)

For sure one can give talks or present posters on relevant conferences. But are there any other methods of bringing it to the attention of others who might be interested and for whom it may be beneficial?

The question is both about "classical" methods and any relevant Internet tools.

Eykanal is basically right, but there's a fine line between networking and being annoying.  There are plenty of circumstances where sending email to more famous/senior colleagues is perfectly fine.

If you already have a professional relationship with someone, it's perfectly fine to write a quick email saying something like "Thanks for the great lunch conversation we had at [conference] last month.  You might be interested in this paper I just wrote."  Yes, a recent lunch conversation counts as a professional relationship.

If you don't already have a professional relationship, then you should probably limit emails to a few key people who have a direct connection to your paper -- either you build on one of their results (which your paper cites), or improve one of their results (which your paper cites), or they've written papers on closely related topics (which your paper cites) .  But within those constraints, emailing your paper is perfectly fine; everyone likes to hear that their work is useful and interesting.

If you do send your paper out, be sure to welcome comments, but don't expect a response from anyone.  That silence from Famous Person On The Internet doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't reading your paper; they're probably just really busy.


A journal keeps requesting reviews after I have declined any more I recently received an invitation to review two papers from a journal(!) through EDAS, which I have an account with, only because many years ago and while I was studying my Bachelor degree, I submitted two papers through their portal. I had some free time and reviewed the papers right away.
After submitting my reviews, I received other review invitations from the journal's editor. I wrote back to him and explained why I cannot review any more papers, also posted a short response on EDAS portal. However, he kept sending papers! Not only that, he is sending multiple emails reminding me that the review deadlines are approaching fast!
This does not bother me! What bothers me is that one of the papers I reviewed was a very poor paper and its authors withdrew it. After their withdrawal, EDAS sent me and other reviewers an automated message. The surprising thing was that the paper had 9 reviewers!! In other words, the editor had spammed all of us in a way, and EDAS had no mechanism of stopping him from doing this!
Is there anyone else with similar experiences? Should I do something about it or just let it pass?

If you are in the EU or the service provider operates from the EU, send them another email in which you remind them very kindly of their legal obligations. Sending you spam after you opted out of their mailing lists is illegal under the GDPR. Even not providing easy ways to opt out is an offense.
You can get in touch with the journals Data Protection Officer (DPO), if the editor fails to respond, or directly file a complaint at your national Data Protection Authority (DPA).
You can take also take legal steps, they are outlined here: What should I do if I think that my personal data protection rights haven’t been respected? (European Commission)
An email to the DPO with "GDPR violation" in the title will most likely prompt immediate response and apologies though. Fines are substantial if the company doesn't comply.


A colleague's CV is taking credit for service that I did, and now we're both on the shortlist for a job. Is there anything that I can do? A few years ago I undertook the position of co-editor as a journal and organized a redesign of the entire journal: new layout, new cover, new typesetting, new printers, everything. I'm very proud of all of this work, and I make sure to bring it up in cover letters and interviews.

I learned about a year ago that my fellow co-editor lists on their CV that they redesigned the journal. (Note: they didn't even claim that they organized it, which would also be false, but that they did the redesigning, so it's plagiarism of the designers and typesetters, too.) But this is unequivocally false; they had precisely zero contact with our new designer, our new typesetters, or our new printers. I'm not even sure this individual knows what articles we published in the volumes for which they were co-editor.

Despite my frustrations with what I felt was outright plagiarism of my career, I ignored it. But I've recently learned that this person and myself are on the shortlist for the same job.

In my eyes, I'm in a lose/lose situation:

When two CVs say that a person was responsible for something, obviously at least one person is fudging the truth. I worry that my colleague's CV calls my own honesty and integrity into question.
But I can't really go speak to anyone about this, can I? It seems like I would just come across as trying to tattle or get a leg up in the job search.

Is there anyone I can contact, or any way to approach this in a safe way?

I would just ignore it.  I doubt that anyone will even notice unless they look at the two CVs side-by-side, and even then, they will probably just assume that the two of you worked on the redesign together.  They wouldn't doubt your honesty (nor the other editor's).  So I don't think this really disadvantages you.

It might be a slight unfair advantage for the other editor, but I think it's minuscule.  In hiring decisions, things like professional service get a very low weight.  The fact that you were an editor is perhaps somewhat helpful, if the journal is recognized as publishing good research, but what you actually did as editor is too minor a point.  The fact that you can redesign a journal may speak to your graphic design skills, but academic jobs don't care about that - they care about your research and teaching (in some combination).  In fact, I'm not sure it is wise to emphasize it in application materials or interviews - people might think that tinkering with your journal could be a distraction from actually doing research.

If the topic of the redesign comes up at the interview, just describe honestly what you did.  You don't need to get into what your co-editor did or didn't do.

I doubt that you will be asked specifically about the fact that both of you are claiming credit (for one thing, it would reveal that the other editor is also a candidate for the job, which would normally not be shared with other candidates).  But if so, I would say something like "As co-editors, we share the responsibility for what happens to the journal on our watch.  But on this particular project, I took the lead."


How will returning to your PhD advisor as a post-doc affect future career options in academia? I am currently in a joint teaching/research post-doctoral position at a university that is different than where I obtained my PhD.  There may be an opportunity in the future for me to return to my old PhD advisor and be hired on as a post-doc once my tenure is up here.  I don't really NEED the job as I have decent job security teaching where I currently am.  It will, however, keep the door open for sustaining good research, publishing, and gaining grant-writing skills... the latter being something that my current post-doc advisor has never offered me...  And yes, personally I would like to go back and work for them again (for a variety of professional related reasons).

I understand this will be a lateral move at best but I am trying to gain sufficient understanding on how this will affect future career options in academia.  I've been told that this type of situation can cause people to simply overlook you when applying for faculty positions at higher-ranked schools.  I'm not really interested in joining some "Top 50" research university either but I'm not willing to join a pure undergraduate research program just yet either.

Please advise.

It really depends on what country you are working, and what are your final goals. Most European academic institutions do tend to hire for tenure people who got their PhD in the same institution. I personally believe it is indeed an insular, unwritten policy, that is detrimental for professional development, and impoverishes the institutions research. Contrarily, most USA institutions take for granted your willingness to explore beyond your comfort zone.
As far as it concerns you personally, you see where I am heading by the language I am using :)


Adademia Masters Admission Conundrum I have applied for masters in a few programs and am suffering from a row of rejections.

I am waitlisted in a few programs too.

I was going through https://www.scs.cmu.edu/sites/default/files/SCS_Masters_Programs_in_Brief_2016.pdf this document:

If you scroll down a few pages you can see 2016 stats.

CS : 90 accepted 36 enrolled. How can that be?

Does 90 accepted also include waitlisted people? If I am on the waitlist does it mean that if my waitlist rank is < 54 I will be accepted?

How many people are there in a waitlist usually for these programs?

This whole admission cycle is taking its toll mentally. I am too distraught after rejections from my dream colleges.

Disclaimer: I do not work in admissions. My answer is simply based on my observation as a computer science student in the US.
When schools send admissions, they already have a yield rate (the percentage of accepted students taking the offer) in mind. If they have 30 spots for a program, they will most definitely send more than 30 offers. If the past yield rate has been around 1/3, they will send about 90 offers and expecting about 30 people to enroll. In general in the case of waitlist, they will only accept people if they have lower yield rate than past years.


What is the etiquette about the length of a visit when giving departmental seminars? If you are invited to give a departmental seminar and the department offers to put you up for up to two nights, how long should your visit be? I find it a little rude when our speakers arrive an hour before and leave an hour after the seminar. Do you have to spend a full day at the host department?

Think of this as an opportunity, rather than an obligation.

Find people in the department who are doing interesting work and try to organise a short meeting with them. Volunteer to hang around after your presentation to talk to PhD students (and ensure that your presentation has some appeal to keep people around). Ideally, try to have a fairly full schedule to maximise the benefits gained from the opportunity, though avoid having every minute planned so that you can have spontaneous extended discussions with people, should the opportunity arise.

Planning ahead is probably key, as not everyone will be able to accept an unannounced visitor for a lengthy discussion.


How can I manage the time of my research project under uncertainty? I don't know if this is the right place (or the right tags) to ask this question or not so please tell me.

I am doing a research project related to computer science in my university. This is my first research project and it's really hard.
How can I manage my big research project? I have a lot of ideas and in each one there are a lot of issues.
The problem that I am facing is the uncertainty, I don't know the specific required time to finish something (because I don't really know it)

for example : I can't say "I will finish A thing in 3/12/2018 and then I will finish B thing in 17/12/2018" because I don't know those things(I have to learn them)
How can I put a time plan for such things for my research? and How can I manage it?

Unfortunately, this sort of uncertainty is just part and parcel of the life of a researcher. I've been doing research for 15 years now, I run my own research group and this is still a problem for me.

With this in mind, my first piece of advice is not to feel alone in this. The uncertainty is not because of your inexperience. We never know how long research will take because, by definition, we don't know the answer yet, thats what makes it research.
Keep a notebook (real or computational) for each project/idea category and write your thoughts in them.
Celebrate any concrete progress however small.


How to design a computer-based multiple-choice quiz? I am currently the course leader of an introductory course for undergraduates.
Each semester, more than 500 students take the course.
One of the course assessment tasks
is a multiple-choice quiz which is held twice a semester.

One of the problems is that the quiz is currently paper-based,
which makes the quiz logistically challenging.
For example,
we have to reserve multiple large lecture rooms,
we have to print question papers,
we have to collect multiple-choice answer sheets and scan them.
In addition, it is not environmentally friendly
to print and destroy such a large number of pieces of papers
(our quiz consumes a few thousand sheets of paper!).

I am thinking of moving to a computer-based multiple-choice quiz,
which will be held in a computer lab in the university.
Unfortunately, the maximum capacity of a computer lab is about 80 people,
and due to the limited number of computer labs available,
we would not be able to give the quiz to all of the students at the same time.
In order to avoid the students who take the quiz earlier
leaking the questions to the students who take the quiz later,
I would have to design a test bank,
so that the computer system would randomly draw questions from the test bank
to assign them to students.

Questions:

Would such a system be "fair",
given that each student is taking a "different" test?
Do I need to design a very large test bank to protect against
students who take the test early sharing the questions
with students who take the test late?

I would especially appreciate it if teachers
who had successfully administered computer-based quizzes
could share their best practices.

What you describe is pretty much exactly what we do with final exams in our large-section math courses at my institution. For a quantitative-heavy subject like ours, the following is feasible: effectively ask everyone the same questions but with different numerical values involved.

Our elementary algebra course uses the Maple T.A. platform, where question formats can be coded and somewhat different numerical values presented to each student.

Our remedial arithmetic course uses the Blackboard testing system, which does not support randomizing values for fraction or radical-form answers (but could for decimal-form answers: see questions of type Calculated Formula), so the faculty have manually drafted about a half-dozen separate, parallel tests of equivalent difficulty.

The Maple product is definitely a better system for this kind of setup, but it may cost money, whereas Blackboard is potentially already on site. In each case, the order of questions, and the order of responses, can be randomized for each student.

The overall process works tolerably well. Downsides: To my mind, the questions are rather obviously functionally "the same" for every student -- but the students (at least at this level) don't seem to perceive them this way. Also, because the overall scope of the questions is fixed, in some sections it leads to rather degenerate teaching-to-the-test, and students in the next course in the sequence don't really have any understanding or depth with the skills in question. (For example: Some instructors only teach checking multiple-choice solutions to equations, not actually solving them, etc.) In any case, quite a bit of work is involved setting up your tests.


If I am willing to relocate, is it true that Pure Functional Analyst very hard to land a tenure-track faculty position? Background: Currently I am a first year PhD student in Mathematics in Singapore, doing functional analysis (doing theoretical stuff, not on PDE).

My hope is to get a tenure-track assistant professorship somewhere and I am willing to relocate.
However, a lot of my friends told me that even though I do not have any geographic concern, it is still very hard for Pure Maths to land a tenure-track position as competition is very stiff, so I might have a better life if I venture into industry.

With this in mind, I browse through mathjobs to get a sense of current market on post-doc and tenure-track position.
I notice that there are 300+ tenured-tenure track faculty positions and 100+ post-doc positions (of course, not all positions are for analysis).

Above figures makes me wonder whether what my friends told me is true.
Particularly,

  Question: Given that I am willing to relocate, is it true that Pure Functional Analyst very hard to land a tenure-track faculty position?

Tenure-track positions are hard to get in any area of mathematics. I don't think that functional analysis is any different in this regard. The question you should ask yourself (and your adviser) therefore is more whether (i) you are good enough to compete for them, and whether (ii) you are doing what is necessary to make sure you get a chance to compete. The latter, for example, involves writing papers, going to conferences, talking to colleagues, etc.


Reviewing test answers with students using a Course Management System When I give an online test using a Course Management System (aka Learning Management System, LMS), I like to use the "review answers" capability to go over the test with the class and highlight questions that many of them got incorrect. This can reveal common misunderstandings, poorly worded questions, things I didn't teach adequately, etc.

But given that the recommendation is to scramble the order of the questions and even the answers, how on earth can that work? This is why I DON'T scramble questions and answers.

Does anyone have a way of dealing with this? I have spent hours searching the web and found no reference to this issue. But anyone using a LMS must have encountered it? Thank you!

I'm assuming the following:

Students are taking an online test, with questions entered into the LMS
The LMS produces some sort of visual output
You meet with students face-to-face

I've used our in-house LMS, Moodle and Coursera. In all cases the software offers the students randomized versions of the questions, but produces a view for the instructor that shows student responses that are aggregated (sample given at end of post).
If my assumptions are true, you can pick perhaps the three most often missed questions from the test, make a screenshot, and present this to the class.
Or better yet, offer an often-missed question on a slide and have students work in groups to provide a higher-quality group answer.

We might be able to help you more if you correct my assumptions and provide which LMS you are using.

Sample screen shot:


Some weirdo is harassing me via e-mail and knows my physical address at uni; What do I do? A particular individual whom I've only had contact with via e-mail is angry that they didn't get to participate in an experiment I ran (yes, just that fact makes me glad I didn't choose them). I tried telling them that the experiment is over and not to contact me again but that simply made them even more aggressive; Taking a cue from stalker victims, I have since then been ignoring their e-mails, but they continue to become even more aggressive.

In my original e-mail contact with them, my signature had my physical address in it, and based on their previous behavior, I'm concerned that they may attempt to come to the department and cause mischief or possibly (in the worst case) even commit criminal acts†. Unfortunately, I do not even have the person's name because they never wrote it in their e-mails, so I don't have much to go by even if I try to contact the police.

I have informed my supervisor of the issue, and he has not told me what to do: He merely explained the two possibilities (responding or ignoring) and the possible outcomes of each. I do not want to be responsible for any craziness which happens; What do I do?

† I am particularly concerned because there is hardly any concept of security at the department at all. In fact, It's already the case that things get stolen from the department every once and a while.

How about:

  I have told you not to contact me on this matter. If I receive any more threatening emails I will go to the police.

The best case scenario is they stop after receiving some form of the above.
Depending on exactly how alarming the emails are, you could also go to the police now, as well as taking it up with someone else in the University -- check your university's grievance procedure and support services. While your supervisor was unhelpful, there should always be some way to escalate or someone else to ask. You can talk to your fellow students and researchers, people you trust, to find someone who is supportive and helpful. Try to get a restraining order against this person.


Should I copyright my notes? I generate detailed notes throughout the school year to help out the students. Most of these notes are in the range of 30 - 50 pages.

I wonder if I should attempt to copyright my notes to ensure that it is not copied without attributing me as the creator.

If so, how can I go about doing this to the maximum effectiveness? As for now, all I am thinking is to place a copyright icon somewhere in the notes.

Two misconceptions here:

I need to "copyright" my intellectual property to protect it. - No. Unless you explicitly indicate otherwise, you already automatically get exclusive copyright to your notes. There is no "copyrighting" process like applying for a patent. The common "Copyright 2018" notice serves as a reminder of this, as well as suggesting a relevant entity to contact about getting permission and to pre-empt any arguments in court that "well it didn't say it was copyrighted". The last point is superfluous, since court would not require the copyright notice either way.
Holding exclusive copyright physically prevents people from copying my intellectual property. - No. While unauthorized copying is illegal, the copyright is not a magic incantation. You still have to find unauthorized copiers, ask them to stop, then sue if they refuse.

So your copyright is only as good as the steps you're willing to take to enforce it. Will you spend your free time trying to track down people who copy your notes? Will you pay a lawyer to send letters to everyone who copies the notes without permission? Will you shell out hundreds or thousands in legal fees to sue when they refuse?

I'm guessing you're just hoping a scary sounding warning will discourage people. In this day and age, I doubt many would be discouraged. At best you could contact their institution (if they have one) and put pressure on them that way. But ultimately, what are you trying to protect here? A few students passing around copied notes? So what?

If you're thinking somebody will take the notes and use them to write a textbook and sell it for money, forget it. If they're planning to do that they can easily change your notes slightly and even if you had a case, you would have to waste horrendous amounts of time and money in court. If your notes are so great that they have non-trivial financial value on their own, just publish them yourself. Otherwise, stop worrying and move on with your life.


When money is discussed in a book, what currency should be used for a book translation covering many countries? For book translations, what currency does one reference when translating for one language that covers a bunch of countries?

What I am alluding to is this: suppose someone is referring to something as costing four rupees. In the English version of the book, there is an editor's note explaining that it is the equivalent of U.S. .06, in order to give U.S. reader's an idea of how little that amount is. If you are translating the book into a different language that covers a lot of geographical territory, say, Portuguese, what currency would you use for the editor's note for areas and countries that are not pegged to the dollar, and use a different currency in every country where Portuguese is spoken? (i.e. Brazilian Reais, Euros (Portugal), Mozambique Metical, Angolan Kwanza, West African CFA franc (Guinea-Bissau), U.S. Dollar (East Timor), Central African CFA franc (Equatorial Guinea), Cape Verde Excudo, São Tomé and Príncipe Dobra.) The book could be available and read in any of them, so there isn't just one country to consider; however, different versions will not be available for each country (there won't be a "Portugal version," am "Equatorial Guinea" version, etc.)--there will simply be a Portuguese version for anyone who speaks Portuguese.

This doesn't just apply to Portuguese; this will be problematic in many other languages too.

It's a nonfiction book, if that matters.

I've had similar issues with translating currency in the past.

I believe that as a general rule of thumb, if the text has a worldwide audience, using US Dollars is the best choice. Many countries will have a general grasp on the value of USD and those who don't can simply use conversion tools to guide them. If the book applies to a more narrow geographical area, you can use the currency for that area (e.g. Euros for a European Audience)

No currency is accepted and understood worldwide. However, US Dollar is probably more global than the rest.


From which activities am I (not) excluded by not registering for a conference/symposium? I'm a student about to start my master studies and I'm starting to have opportunities to take part in a symposium and a conference.

I have an accepted article at the conference and was therefore allowed to register for the conference. This involved paying (not on me) the registration fee etc.

I don't have an article for the symposium but the symposium interests me a lot. The chairs offered student support i.e. (partially) waive the registration fee for some students even if the student doesn't have an accepted article (although preference is given to those that do).

It turns out I wasn't granted this support. However, I'm still allowed to attend the talks without registering.

So, if I don't need to be registered to attend talks: what does it exactly mean to be registered for a symposium and/or conference? From which activities am I excluded by not registering and for which ones am I not excluded?

The symposium is abroad but I will be there around that time by coincidence. Is it worth staying there for a couple of extra days considering the activities I'm eligible for?

The terms "conference", "workshop", "symposium" might have specific meanings in some specific contexts, but in generall, they are rather interchangeable terms.

Registration fees are typically intended to cover the cost of the conference, and maybe to make some profit for the organization running it. In any case, part of the fee will cover the costs directly attributed to the person attending, and other parts go towards general costs.

Even if one is not causing any specific costs, it is often frowned upon to attend any part of a conference without being registered, unless this has been cleared with the organizers.

In your case, this happened, and the question is what exactly you might attend. The rule of thumb is that if there is a cost-component per delegate, stay away from it: Coffee breaks, lunch, conference dinner, conference excursion would be typical examples. Also, do not take a conference bag.

For most conferences, the rest will be talks (in various incarnations), and maybe poster sessions. If you find something else on the schedule, you should ask the conference organizers directly.


Is it possible to edit the names of Bibtex entries on Google Scholar? Question as in the title. If I have got a Bibtex entry such as
smith2019apples

can I change it to, say,
smith2019pie

?

It is unlikely that this is specifically documented anywhere, but the answer is almost certainly no.
Article entries in Google Scholar, which contain the BibTeX link, are based on information crawled by Google on the web. This itself cannot be changed by you, even if you are the author. This is also mentioned in their help page:

The description of my article is wrong and I am appropriately
irritated. How do I correct it?
We apologize, and we assure you the error was unintentional. Automated
extraction of information from articles in diverse fields can be
tricky, so an error sometimes sneaks through.
Please write to the owner of the website where the erroneous search
result is coming from, and encourage them to provide correct
bibliographic data to us, as described in the technical guidelines.
Once the data is corrected on their website, it usually takes 6-9
months to a year or longer for it to be updated in Google Scholar. We
appreciate your help and your patience.

The articles on your profile, for which you can edit some fields, are connected to these existing Scholar entries.
It appears that Google Scholar uses the format <last-name-of-first-author><year-of-publication><first-word-in-title> for its BibTeX entry names. Since you cannot change the title in the original crawled Scholar entry (which would not make much sense in any case), it is unlikely that you can change the BibTeX entry name either.


Can postdocs in the United States apply for funding to support undergrad/MS/PhD students? As a postdoc in the US, is it possible to apply for funding for a project, which can be used to support one or two undergrad/MS/PhD students?

The answer depends on the funding agency. Some agencies only require a PhD for the PI, in which case it's certainly possible, although it can be difficult to secure funding with only a postdoc as PI. (Many such proposals might have a more senior scientist as co-investigator.)

Other programs have specific requirements that the PI hold a more senior position, such as a tenure-track position, in which case a postdoc could not apply as the primary or sole or investigator.


Best way to apply for position as a teaching assistant Soon, I'll start my last year of undergraduate studies in physics.
At my university it is possible (but not too common for undergraduates) to be employed as a teaching assistant for a first year's course. In order to get some work experience and do what I really enjoy, namely explaining physics-stuff to other students, I would be ecstatic if I got such a position. However, on the university website, there is no information given about how to apply, or whether they aleady have enough teaching assistants for the next semester.
Therefore, I plan to directly "apply" to the lecturer of the course I would enjoy getting involved in the most, and ask her if she would employ me as a teaching assistant. I'm planning to include the following things in the application e-mail I'm sending her:

A cv (created using LaTeX, to show I'm capable of using LaTeX)
My grades (that aren't too bad, especially the ones of when I took this course myself)
A well-designed guide I created in LaTeX, which describes how she could use the video communication software Zoom's "breakout rooms" as a system to host the otherwise in-person question time each week, in the likely case the university doesn't allow attendance classes

Now, my question is about if the above listed attachments will be effective in making a good impression and persuading her to consider me for the position.
I'm especially unsure whether including this "guide for doing the question time in Zoom" is any good, as I might leave an impression of being overly controlling, or she might feel obliged to use this guide if he employs me, and, thus, won't do it in the first place. On the other hand, including it would show her that I am highly motivated and have a lot of initiative.
I highly appreciate your answers and advice. Getting this position would mean a whole lot to me.

I would omit all the materials in your initial email, and just ask the lecturer a simple concise question:

I would be interested in working as a teaching assistant for your course.  Are there any openings, and if so, what is the procedure to apply?
If not, do you know who I would contact about working as a teaching assistant for another course?

There is no point in attaching your materials until you know that they are wanted and that you are sending them to the right person.


Quitting PhD program during a probationary period and applying for other programs After finishing my master's degree, I contacted a principal investigator at another university, who seemed to publish interesting high-quality research. I met with the person, and the interview went well. We agreed a 3-month probationary period, during which I should apply for funding and see what it is like to work with him.

Now, having started, everything seems quite awful. The supervisor came to the office during the first day after I had been there for approximately 5 hours, and did not bother to chat for longer than 10 minutes. Now it seems I am actively discouraged to use the skills I just spent five years learning, and revert to using approaches I know will not perform so well. We have talked for perhaps 30 minutes during the first whole month. I have tried to comply with the group's practices as well as possible, and be as open-minded as possible.

After reading all the group's and their competitors recent publications, and suggested some ideas for  further work, I have only got comments indicating that they are worth nothing (but they are, since the ideas come partially from suggestions in published work).

It seems the position is not a good match. I was very sad for the first three weeks but thought to see whether it just the emotions related to stress of changing the university, working style, topic, etc.

I would like to know what to do about the situation. Would it be a bad idea to apply to other programs without stating where I currently am (I have been here only 5 weeks now). I don't think I should ask recommendations from here, since the people at my previous university have known me for years and the people at the new lab for just some weeks.

I kind of fear that my supervisor will know if I apply to other programs, since they would be at the same or neighboring universities. I lost a good deal of money when relocating for this one, so I would like to continue until I find another place. I guess the best thing is to remain working as hard as before. I have to give a 14 day notice before leaving, which further complicates things.

How should I approach this situation? What should I do? I think time is critical here, since if I get stuck for too long then what I do here starts to carry more weight, and complicates leaving the program. I am in a country located in the western Europe if it matters.

If you are in the middle of a "probationary period," then you should feel no qualms about having to apply elsewhere. You tried to make the current position work, but you feel it is not a good fit for you. That's the whole point of the period—it's a tryout for everyone!

Obviously, working somewhere for two months is not enough for someone to form a strong opinion of your true capabilities, so I would not ask your present advisor for the recommendations you need to look elsewhere.

As far as your supervisor goes, I wouldn't worry about it too much; after all, your advisor may also feel that this isn't the best situation, and may think ti better to go your separate ways than to continue. Again, you're in the probationary period, not halfway through a PhD, so the overall commitment of time and resources is not enough to really justify (much) anger or resentment on the part of the PI.


Asking potential PhD supervisors about research Is it considered acceptable to ask potential PhD supervisors to recommend some of their recent publications for reading to get some idea what they are doing? Or is it considered the applicant's job to familiarize themselves with the supervisor's research? I could imagine that a busy professor might not want to spend much time writing about his/her research to a person who might not apply after all.

You could do that. However, do keep in mind that asking for something that you could very well do on your own isn't likely to win you any brownie points in their eyes.

A better option is to find and read several of his/her recent publications. Begin with a Google search, check out their webpage if they have one, search academic databases, etc. Don't email them for papers until you've found and read whatever is easily available. If you find one that is particularly interesting but you can't find the full text anywhere, then is the time to email asking if they'd be willing to share an author copy.

Familiarize yourself with what they have done. Know what aspects of the past research interests you most. THEN, you will be ready to ask what they are working on now, to have an idea whether you might fit in with their current/ongoing project(s). In this way, you are showing independence, initiative, and responsibilty, all good attributes for a PhD candidate to have.