Are reviewers required to check for originality? Suppose a person writes a research paper without doing a complete literature survey, and sends it to a peer-reviewed journal. Assume that the results in question have been obtained before by someone else.  Is it mandatory for journal editors to check the novelty? If not and if the editors also don't know about the pre-existence of this research, then who is liable for the aftermath?

As I see it, the reviewers and editors don't have an obligation to redo the literature search.  However, the reviewer should be someone who is sufficiently familiar with the topic that they would be reasonably likely to know about relevant prior work, and should be able to identify serious omissions in the literature search. A reviewer who doesn't have that level of expertise should not be assigned, and if assigned should probably decline to review the paper.

Of course, if the reviewer does know about prior work that duplicates the paper under review, then they should require the authors to cite it, and evaluate the paper based on its novel contributions only, if any (or as an independent simultaneous discovery, if the timing makes that a possibility).

Final responsibility for the content of the paper always rests with the authors alone.  However, if the paper is accepted and later found to be a rediscovery, a common course of action is to print an "acknowledgement of priority", a short note citing the previous paper and acknowledging that it was first.  Typically it wouldn't be retracted.  (Of course this only applies if the editors believe the paper is really an honest independent rediscovery; if it is plagiarism then it should be retracted.)


Is it acceptable to author a paper just because you established collaboration with university that developed a product involved in the paper? I’m a PhD student.
An associate professor in my department has established a collaboration with another university. This other university has people who have developed a product. The professor does not own the product, but is one of the collaborators with the university.

I recently made an article that involves this product, and included authors who helped produce this work. The professor in question is not an author, because he was neither invited to the paper, nor did he contribute. I simply did not need him for this paper. On the day the paper was camera-ready, I received an email from the professor stating his disappointment that he has not been involved with this publication.

This person is not involved in my supervision team whatsoever. It seems to me that he expects any publication that is related to the product to have his name on it.

Is this acceptable?

A first-pass interpretation of the question might be that the professor is either (1) trying to get credit for a collaboration for which he made introductions but to which he did not contribute, or (2) is disappointed that a student at his university would write a paper with his collaborators without consulting him on the topic. I gather from the question/comments that the O.P. seems to believe that situation 1 is the correct interpretation. If that's the case, then there is probably no need to include the professor on the paper, but the matter is probably best referred to your academic advisor or committee chair. As a grad student, it is usually a bad idea to have these kinds of arguments with other professors without your advisor's guidance---partly because keeping your advisor in the loop protects you and gives you ammo, but also because you don't want to risk burning bridges that may affect your advisor as well.

That said, I find scenario (2) plausible---that the professor is upset not about being excluded from this paper specifically, but is more generally disappointed that a student in his own department would do a project on [x] without consulting the department's own resident expert (him) on [x]. The O.P. claims that it is the collaborators who are the experts on the software in question, but it seems fairly unlikely that the professor is not a researcher in the general topic area related to the software considering that he started the collaboration. The professor may not be as much of an expert as the other authors, but it is still unusual and rather cut-throat to publish a paper on a topic that is central to the research agenda of another professor in your department using software that he had some hand in producing and to not even consult that professor about it. Were a student to do this to me using software I had helped write/inspire, I would be rather hurt by the exclusion for personal reasons and might ask to have a conversation with them about that.

Finally, I have to add that some of the wording in the original post makes me uncomfortable. The OP states that the professor "established a collaboration with another university" and "does not own the product, but is one of the collaborators with the university." This seems to deliberately suggest that the professor is broadly connected to the university while avoiding the question of whether the professor is not involved in the project whatsoever. Yet professors do not, in my experience, have collaborations with universities but with labs or researchers. I feel that the question obfuscates the professor's actual role in the software (also note that the OP has not answered a comment asking to clarify it as of weeks before this answer was written). Obviously this all depends on facts I do not currently have, but I find it ethically hazardous (if not outright immoral) to collaborate on a paper with some of the authors of a piece of software while excluding one author who is also in your own department/school. If this is the scenario, then I would suggest that the OP apologize and strongly consider whether the software used was important enough to the project and conclusions to merit a position on the paper's author list.

Consider: academic software is often very difficult to produce, yet simultaneously the rewards of such software often go to those who use the software and not those who write/produce it. Academic journals, for various reasons, don't tend to want to publish software-related articles, even when the software is useful or even critical to academics. Those journals that do publish software articles are rarely considered top-tier. Scientists will often say, "Fred made some really amazing contributions to science (using Wanda's software)!" but rarely "Wanda's software is a really amazing contribution to science!" I have been on both sides of this in my career and can easily name a dozen pieces of software in my field that are absolutely critical for standard operations and experiments but that rarely get cited. I've watched many professors and graduate students leave academia for industry data-science positions after years slaving over critical software only to be forgotten on a colleague's paper that could not have been written without their contribution.

In short: I can't, without more information, say what the ethical path forward is, but I can strongly advise that the OP and anyone who uses academic software carefully consider whether they are being unfairly biased against recognizing those scientists who write the software on which they rely. In my experience, spreading credit around generously rarely has any significant cost in science, and hoarding credit on the grounds that someone was only involved in writing the software you used bears a high moral hazard.


Invitation for campus visit for post doc position - salary negotiatons? I have had a video conference with a university research center in the U.S. The interview lasted for about an hour and the professor told me that they would like me to come to campus to visit their center. I was told about the salary and it is lower than the average post doc salary that is followed by the NIH. However, he mentioned that there is additional 20 thousands dollars (I think he said for conferences but I am not sure).

The big advantage in this position is that it will allow me to focus on research without being bothered with heavy load of teaching. At the same time, I have been on campus interview for a tenure track faculty position and I am waiting to hear from them. The tenure track is for a position that focuses on teaching but provides me the opportunity to do my own research as much as I wish.

If I am inviting for a campus interview for the post doc position, is it acceptable to inquire about the salary again. Can the salary of a post doc be negotiable?

It is certainly fine to ask for clarification of what you were told about the salary and other financial details.  Keep in mind that nothing is certain until you have an offer in writing.

See How to handle salary negotiations while negotiating a postdoc position? regarding negotiation of postdoc salaries.  My guess is that the salary would be negotiable only within a narrow band, if at all.  If you get offered the tenure-track job, you shouldn't expect the postdoc employer to try to match it.

The main reason to choose the postdoc over the tenure-track job is if you think that the additional years of full-time research will help you get a better job afterwards, or improve your research success over the long run, and if you think this will compensate you for a couple years of a lower salary.  It very well might.

Keep in mind that a position that "focuses on teaching" will likely have teaching loads that leave you very little time or energy for research, and may also not give you much funding for that research.  I think people who take teaching-oriented positions very often overestimate the amount of research they will actually be able to get done.


How to assess the impact of an academic paper in the industry Assessing the impact of an academic paper on other academics can be done (with its pros and cons) using the number of citations the paper attracts. For more detailed information on how the paper influenced the citing work, one can read the citing paper, visit the authors' webpages and even email them. All of this is made possible by the fact that most (successful) academic works result in the public, searchable, dissemination of that work.

However, how can I assess the impact a paper has on industry? Industrial work, which results in products rather than papers, will usually not leave an easily identifiable trail connecting it to the previous work on which it builds up. But funding agencies put emphasis on reutilisation of academic results for industrial applications. Recently, we got a consulting job because a semiconductors company came by a paper I wrote a couple of years ago and decided to hire us to advise them on how to build their production process. In my next application for research funding I can use this contract to exemplify how my research is useful for industry. But what about all the other companies that are using our results and we don't know about? Is there a way to estimate this impact?

This answer deals primarily with engineering products, I'm not sure if it applies to say, the software industry. Most research papers will present some results, but not industry-ready solutions. Most industries will not have full fledged research teams to scan scientific literature and work on translating it into products. So there is a gap that an interested industry needs you to bridge. Therefore, when an industry finds something interesting, they will contact you, as has already happened with you. The chances of many companies using your research without your knowledge is slim.

If you are interested in application-oriented research, you can increase the chances of this happening by attending certain conferences which have industry delegates, and proactively interacting with them. This can lead to collaborations, sponsored projects and a general understanding of their requirements. As you said, there is not much of a public paper trail, so human interaction is the only way.

To know what impact other people's research has on industry, you could search for papers sponsored by those particular industries (acknowledgement section for example).


Is there value in posting a video of my paper presentation online? I am a PhD student in computer science and I have a paper accepted in a conference. One of my friends will record me presenting the paper during the conference and I was wondering if there are any benefits of uploading that video recording online for example on YouTube?

You need to be sure that you are allowed to record presentations—as one of the comments indicated, many conferences prohibit such behavior.

If you are allowed to do so, it's usually for personal purposes, and public postings may be limited.

On the other hand, it may be possible for you to create your own version of a "podcast" with the talk using screen capture software. You can talk through your slides in greater detail than is possible in a typical conference presentation.

That said, I don't think there will be a huge demand for such a presentation.


Would it be acceptable to report a professor for poor teaching / attitude in a Masters graduate course? I would like some advice about a specific professor in my program of study. I seriously feel that this professor has a problem teaching graduate students. On more than one instance, class was let out one hour early because the professor did not have enough material to last the entire allotted two hours of classroom time. The professor is an adjunct, part time lecturer and the class only meets once per week. 15 weeks are scheduled on the syllabus. The professor does not actually teach but flies through PowerPoint slides that are not even his own. For our midterm, I was able to find the answers to the questions online even before the actual exam.

I am a graduate student and have paid serious money to take this course. I would like some advice as to whether its advisable to report to the departmental head or dean regarding this matter. One final note, many of my peers come from a culture where group solidarity is prized over individual rights. Thanks for any feedback!

You should discuss this situation with your department graduate chair or a similar authority.  It is important to give your program feedback so that they can improve.  However, keep your feedback constructive.  The word "report" is excessively negative.

I think you should adopt some perspective.  Often, graduate level courses are not treated as seriously as undergraduate courses because graduate students are expected to spend their time on independent research, not course work.  Also, while you may be paying a lot of tuition, it is unlikely that an adjunct professor is receiving very much pay.  Many adjuncts are working many jobs to pay their living expenses.  They often receive no training from employers.  Poor teaching by adjuncts can reflect problems with the structure of the institution rather than with the individual adjunct.


Do professors tailor recommendations to universities? Preferably from a professor's candid viewpoint. When writing graduate recommendations for an undergraduate, do professors write general recommendations describing why #insert name# is a great fit for graduate school or do they tailor each letter to the school. I know this can vary from professor to professor, but what is a common practice.

I ask because I will be applying to graduate schools (quite a few of them on my list currently) and just wondering how much extra work each school is for my professors.

Professors often write just a single general letter about the student and send that everwhere.

Advantage: don't feel shy about applying as many places as you want.


How to leave PhD program without causing problems I am a second year fully-funded PhD student in a stem field at a large American public university. In my department, most students spend the first two years (and sometimes three years) only doing coursework and working on the qualifying exams. This is unusual in other programs, but here it is normal. Consequently, I do not have a research advisor and have done no research since I came here. Since I've passed my qualifying exams, I am now at the point where I am expected to find an advisor.

Here's the problem... I never liked research as an undergraduate. I absolutely hated it, and I even had multiple "prestigious" experiences at different institutions with different research mentors and groups. The only common denominator is me and I don't think I can blame my former research mentors for why I was miserable. I applied to PhD programs after my undergraduate career because it was suggested to me and I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I was also advised to apply to PhD programs and leave with a master's degree if I decided I don't like it (since masters programs are unfunded).

I want to leave with a master's degree and move on with my life. I don't know how to explain this to my department. I fear they will try and force me to leave without a master's degree even though I have met the requirements. I also fear how they will react in general... I'd rather not burn bridges or experience intense pressure to stay. I have never heard of someone quitting after passing the qualifying exams, so I imagine the department will find this to be very bizarre.

Any suggestions on how to navigate this situation are appreciated.

I want to leave with a master's degree and move on with my life.
  I don't know how to explain this to my department.

Directly, as though the department chair were an actual reasonable human being and not a soul-sucking tentacled horror from the nether dimensions.

  I fear they will try and force me to leave without a master's degree even though I have met the requirements.

I would suggest starting by finding out the mechanics of getting the master's degree.  Perhaps if you do nothing, the degree will magically appear in your academic record, but more likely there is some paperwork that you have to fill out.  Find out what that paperwork is.  Fill it out.  Collect the necessary signatures, and submit the completed paperwork to the relevant campus office.

You don't have to tell them why you want the master's degree. In my experience, it's quite common for PhD students to pick up a master's degree along the way to their PhD, either as a backup if the PhD falls through, or as a boost on their resume when they look for summer internships / employment.  Once the master's degree paperwork is done, inform the department that you will not be returning next term.  Finish your classes, look for jobs, and move on.

But at a more fundamental level, you really don't have to defend your decision to leave.  You did not promise to complete the degree program.  You did not sign a contract.  You are not an indentured servant.  You do not "owe" the department.  Your departure will do  the department no permanent damage.  Yes, a few people may be disappointed by your departure, but they'll get over it.

  I have never heard of someone quitting after passing the qualifying exams

For what it's worth, I left my first PhD program with a master's degree after passing my qualifying exams.  (Admittedly the circumstances were different — I left to join a different PhD program — but I was far from the only person in that department to leave after passing quals.)


What's the correct way to cite a paper cited by another paper? The example is when you might be reading a certain paper, and the authors refer to another paper. You can't get that other paper as it's unpublished, or it's in a language that you can't read, or maybe something else.

My guess is:

  Featherstone et al 1900 (in Thomas and Cullen 2002).

And how is it to be handled in the bibliography?

In APA style, you can write, (e.g., see this APA tutorial)

  Featherstone et al 1900 (as cited in Thomas and Cullen 2002)

Of course, in general you should try your best to read the original and cite the original directly.

Someone in the comments asked:

  "In such case do I need to list original paper also in reference section or only the recent one I am referring to?"

The reference to the original article is the more important reference to include, but you should include both in your reference list.


How can a PhD student defend their correct ideas or claims to their supervisor? I am a PhD student who works in theory. Too many times, I have to defend my ideas or claims in front of my supervisor. I have failed to do so in the past and it worries me.
Please note that I am only interested in defending correct ideas, not wrong ones.

Some of the things I have tried are:

Doubt every line which I read.
Try to prove each term clearly in front of him.
Go over the material at least two times.

These kind of things are not working.

My research supervisor has told me that I need to defend my ideas and claims. There have been many times where he asked me to change something about the idea; I did it; and then he asked me why I changed it.

Question: How to defend your correct ideas or claims in front of your supervisor?

Edit : Many times I have tried to defend a wrong idea and there were some times in which I have changed my right idea ( based upon his feedback) and after I changed my idea he told me "your original idea was right, why did you change it?". How to deal with this situation also?

How to defend your correct ideas or claims in front of supervisor?

If your advisor is anything like me, they care much less about right or wrong in these meetings, but they want to hear what your thought process is and which angles you have covered. Suggestions to try something else should not usually be understood as "you did something wrong, do this other thing instead" but more like a probe whether you have also investigated this other angle, and if you have not chosen it, how you justify not doing that.

As such, the central element in "defending" your idea is to, briefly but clearly, outline why you have done what you have done, and not done what you have not done. Proving stuff in front of your advisor should help, as long as you do it correctly and clearly. If it doesn't, you are either not being as clear as you think you are, your advisor isn't competent in your topic, or you have a much deeper problem (e.g., you and your advisor are not on the same page about what problem is to be solved). However, note that even an objectively "correct" approach is not immune to questioning - maybe there are other approaches that are easier, faster, or preferable in some other way? You need to have an argument at the ready for why you have not chosen them.

If looked at in that light, situations where they suggest approach A in the first meeting and then probe you on your usage of A in the second start making more sense - they have not suggested A because of some secret advisor-tech that makes them know the right answer in advance, and telling in the second meeting that they suggested the idea is not a convincing enough reason to go forward with it by itself. Even if they suggested it, you still need to explain why A was better than other approaches.

  Too many times, I have to defend my ideas or claims in front of my supervisor.

Frankly, I can hardly imagine a supervisor who questions your ideas "too much". As long as they are respectful and helpful, questioning your work and suggesting alternatives is pretty much all that good advisors do. It's kind of the job description.


When should I send thank you letter or email to my thesis committee members? When is the proper time to send a thank you email to the committee members? After the defense or after getting the certificate confirmation from the registrar office? To me saying thank you after defense is such a nice gesture. I just had a long conversation and question-answer session and everything is still so fresh in the mind of the members! But I would like to know about your suggestion (and probably would like to go with that too!).

After the defense will be fine since by then the committee members have completed their job. What happens between that and when you have the final paper work done is irrelevant. Pointing at the discussion you have just had and finishing with a few personal comments/reflections will be fine. But, do not overdo it since long and talkative mails can be either too long to read or in the worst case seem constructed. So be yourself and be happy for what you have achieved ( I take it you will or have passed?)


What is "call for nomination" for senior positions in university? Job ads for senior executive positions in university always state Call for Nomination and Application.

Contrary to nomination for awards, the nominator cannot actually nominate the nominee, but just a useless introduction. The nominee should personally apply for the position. By the nomination, just the committee secretary asks the nominee to submit an application. Even without nomination, they normally send the call to many potential candidates to apply if they are interested.

My question is who should nominate who?

Nominator is a friend of nominee. Then, why he does not encourage his friend to apply by direct contacting him instead of the search committee to ask my friend to apply.
Nominator knows nominee from distance. First, why no contacting him directly. Second, why nominating someone qualified when we do not sure if he plans to leave his current job.

In general, I am curious if this nomination system has any effect on the recruitment process? If I think someone that I know is suitable for a position, I will inform him about the vacancy and encourage him to apply. Why should I ask the search committee to ask him to apply.

One may say that people are more interested to apply when they are invited, but we know that this is not a real invitation, as they invite anyone to apply, since the applications are reviewed together. Note that these jobs are not based on "nomination only".

EXAMPLES

In most cases, the job advertisement has a title of call for nominations and application, but in any case, there is an instruction for nomination along with application. Normally, nominations are accepted via email, while applications should be submitted online.

Dean, University of Virginia
Chancellor, University of Missouri System
President, Oakland University
President, University of Illinois
President, Southern Illinois University

The potential candidates for this kind of high-level positions typically are people that already have a very busy job, and they do not actively search for jobs. It may be that the hiring process is more of the head hunting type rather than the advertisers passively waiting to get many applications and then filtering them. Of course, direct applications are allowed for the sake of openness and for not limiting unnecessarily the pool of candidates, but it may be the case that the ideal candidates would not apply uninvited. The search committee may not be aware of all the qualified people that might be interested of or suitable for the advertised position, so nominations are useful for them in order to bring new potential candidates to their attention. Once they spot a candidate, they may make them an attractive offer that is customized to the candidate. In the case that the nominator knows nominee from a distance, a direct hint by the nominator may not even attract the interest of the nominee to apply, while if the search committee finds the nominee interesting they may actively try to convince the nominee to apply through more elaborate methods than, e.g., a simple email that may not attract the attention of a very busy person.


Use the keyword 'Internet' or 'internet' in our publications? So far all research papers I read and wrote I used the word 'Internet' instead of 'internet'. I did see an online article about the fact that people are using 'internet' more often nowadays, so should we still keep using it as before?

My Take: the word 'Internet' is a name, that represents a technical infrastructure of many layers (networks, computers, programs, etc.) and its many users as a whole. So I think, the keyword 'Internet' should always be written with capital I. Am I wrong here?

People don't agree on this please see this wikipedia article on the capitalization of the word "internet".


Research on relationship between how an instructor is addressed and students' evaluations of that instructor? We've had several questions on this site along the lines of "What should students call me" or "What should I call my professor" (e.g How to sign your email to students, so to avoid their immature behavior? and several others). It's not only here; for example, I recently read a comment on another website which asserts

  at least in the sciences, it’s probably important that women use the “Prof” title, since there is a tendency for students to view their female professors as people who are “more approachable” and “more friendly” than the male professors– which can cause trouble when evaluation time comes, as students are less forgiving of the “mom figure” than the white male imposing arrogant professor figure. (I was surprised to find out about this effect when told about it several years ago by a couple of female professors, but I’ve heard about it enough now that my impression is that it’s a pretty general effect.)

I've heard this kind of thing in comments on other sites, too (e.g. here). I know many people have opinions, educated guesses, or relevant personal experiences, but I'm specifically asking for research on this subject. (I looked, but couldn't find anything relevant.)

Has there been any formal study on whether there is a relationship (causal or not) between how an instructor prefers to be addressed, and students' evaluations of that instructor?

I'm looking for a research study that answers questions like:

Do instructors that use a formal title like "Professor" or "Doctor" receive measurably different reviews than instructors that use their first name?
What effect (if any) does gender, race, age, academic discipline, or department culture, have on the above relationship?
Is there any evidence of a causal relationship here? Possible intermediate factors?
Does using a formal title have any mitigating effect with respect to the negative effect on student evaluations of being an instructor that is young, gender minority, racial minority, etc.?

Multiple lines of relevant research suggest, as you said,

recognition of job titles specifically correlates strongly to
compliance, and
knowledge of an authority's gender significantly shapes the
likelihood of compliance in subjects relying on that authority.

The closest fit (to the inquiries you propose in your question) in a single publication was Eagly, Alice H. Gender and social influence: A social psychological analysis. American Psychologist 38.9 (1983): 971. There is too much here to cite. Alice Eagly enters into a rigorous investigation of compliance's relationship to gender in vein of Professor Stanley Milgram's exemplary methods on the psychology of obedience to authority (Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to authority 1978). The report finds (from p. 2 of PDF):

  Other subjects in this experiment were given information about the job
  titles as well as the gender of the communicator and recipient. Both
  high-status (e.g., bank vice-president) and low-status (e.g., bank
  teller) job titles were utilized. In these experimental conditions,
  subjects were expected to base their judgments about social influence
  on the job title information rather than gender because gender would
  not be used to infer hierarchical status in the presence of the highly
  informative job title cues. (2)  As expected (see Table 1), these
  subjects considered the communicator's recommendation more likely to
  induce compliance when the communicator had a high-status rather than
  low-status job title and when the recipient had a low-status rather
  than high-status job title. These subjects did not utilize the gender
  cues to predict compliance

  The effects of gender and status cues on perceived influence were
  expected to depend on whether the recipient's response to influence
  was public or private. Because the power of persons who have higher
  status in organizations stems primarily from their control over
  sanctions and access to resources, status differences favoring the
  communicator should increase subordinates' public compliance, and
  private, internalized opinion change should be relatively unaffected
  (Kelman, 1961). Indeed, those few effects that were obtained on
  subjects' beliefs about private opinion change were weak and
  reversed effects obtained on perceived compliance (see Eagly, A. H., &
  Wood, W. Inferred sex differences in status as a determinant of gender
  stereotypes about social influence. Journal of Personality and Social
  Psychology, 1982, 43. 915-928.).

Eagly, Alice H., Mona G. Makhijani, and Bruce G. Klonsky. Gender and the evaluation of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin 111.1 (1992): 3. finds further:

  […] on the evaluation of women and men that occupy leadership roles. While
  holding the characteristics, except for sex, constant and varying the
  sex of the leader, these experiments investigated whether people are
  biased against female leaders and managers. Although this research
  showed only a small overall tendency for Ss to evaluate female leaders
  less favorably than male ones, this tendency was more pronounced under
  certain circumstances. Specifically, women in leadership positions
  were devalued relative to their male counterparts when leadership was
  carried out in stereotypically masculine styles, especially when this
  style was autocratic or directive. Also, the devaluation of women was
  greater when leaders occupied male-dominated roles and when the
  evaluators were men. Findings are interpreted from a perspective that
  emphasizes the influence of gender roles within organizational
  settings.

Eagly, Alice H., and Wendy Wood. Inferred sex differences in status as a determinant of gender stereotypes about social influence. Journal of personality and social psychology 43.5 (1982): 915. is also highly relevant, but it is subsumed in the primary study cited.

Student-disciplinary investigation also corroborates this gendered relationship in students' regard for teachers. Mabeba, M. Z., and E. Prinsloo. Perceptions of discipline and ensuing discipline problems in secondary education. South African Journal of Education 20.1 (2000): 34-41. reports:

  The lack of discipline in secondary schools throughout the country has
  long been a matter of great concern for educators in South Africa.
  Numerous attempts have been made to solve the problem and to
  re-establish a culture of effective learning and teaching in the
  schools. Discipline in education, however, is a complex phenomenon
  that may evade the accuracy of one single definition. Discipline in a
  positive sense refers to learning, regulated scholarship, guidance and
  orderliness. Discipline problems, refers to disruptive behaviour that
  affects the fundamental rights to feel safe, to be treated with
  respect and to learn. Rejection of reasoning, noise, physical
  violence, threat, theft, graffiti and vandalism, verbal abuse, lack of
  consideration, boisterousness, and disrespect for authority are some
  of the manifestations of disruptive behaviour that teachers and
  parents have to deal with presently. Reasons for this negative
  attitude lie inter alia in pupils feelings of anger, frustration and
  worthlessness because educators seemingly neglect their interests and
  level of development and often base disciplinary policies on
  autocratic principles and self-interest. The purpose of this
  investigation was to determine the perceptions held of discipline by
  all the stakeholders in the education process and to verify the
  reasons for the defiance of discipline by pupils and students. The
  ultimate aim of such research would be to initiate preventative
  strategies that can solve the problem and support pupils and teachers
  towards a new culture of successful learning and teaching.


Is it a good idea to put the logo of the university in my motivational letter? I'm applying for a master's program, and one of the required documents is a motivational letter, in which I should briefly expose the reasoning behind my choice of program.

I'm using a LaTeX template which has a nice place to put a logo, and I'm thinking about putting the university logo there. Is this allowed? Is it common? Is it a good idea?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

No, you should not put the university logo in the letter. You are not representing your university in an official capacity in a statement of purpose, and therefore using the university's logo would be inappropriate, as you would be suggesting an official imprimatur for your work.


How do I deal with a candidate mentioning God twelve times in their application? My group (engineering) is highly multicultural and diverse. Some of my students come from adversarial ethnic/religious groups, so I made it “set in stone” that politics and religion do not belong in the lab. We respect each other and sometimes discuss cultural differences and habits politely.
I recently received some applications for a new PhD position. One candidate started their C.V. with a huge “in the name of God” and continued throughout their application discussing how God will guide or guided them or God will make sure they get good results and finish their PhD. Overall, I counted the word God in their application twelve times. This left a bad taste to me.
In the particular case, the said candidate was classified much lower that the chosen candidate merit-wise (scores, research experience, etc.).

Is it acceptable to disclose and declare vividly religious preferences in academic applications?
Is this a sign that this person will also be as vocal in the group, thus creating issues?
Should I simply ignore this information, even if the candidate decided for some reason to vocally disclose it? What should I do with it?

Clarifications:

I am in the EU.
There is nothing religious about my university.
The candidate in question is from the Middle East.

Regardless of my own faith, referring to god a dozen times in an application is highly unusual and rather unprofessional. Prospective PhD students, however, should have some understanding of the professional customs of the field. (After all, you don't go on at length about any other personal and non-work-related beliefs and preferences in applications, proposals, presentations etc..) If the rest of the application is very good, I might look past this. But it is certainly a glaring minus.


How to address strange author order of a collaborative paper within "equal distribution" section? I am PhD student in mathematics and am writing a joint paper with a computer science PhD student. As we will submit the paper to a computer science journal we discussed the author ordering and agreed to equal distributions for us PhD students and our respective supervisors.

The computer science student has now ordered the author names in an non-alphabetical order for us PhD students, which makes him the first author, and an alphabetical order for the supervisors, which makes his professor the last author.

Is this common practice in computer sciences? I can understand that it is their community, but this confuses me. I think it should be at least in the same order for both categories.

My supervisor told me to talk to the other PhD student. How can I address this issue without offending anyone?

How does equal distribution authorship in computer science work, anyway?

Edit: I just don't want to be fooled. I understand that being first author is important in computer science, this is why we decided to have both PhD students as co-first authors. Our supervisors are co-last authors. Having a non-alphabetical order for the PhD students and an alphabetical order for the supervisors seems to abolish this equal distributions again to me. I just have no idea how this equal distribution thing works and how to address this issue without messing up everything.
I am not sure if we PhD students will work together again, but I could imagine that our supervisors do.

Go with your supervisor's advice, talk to the Computer Science student and ask him/her, in a very gentle manner, why the authors were ordered the way they were rather than alphabetic in both sections.  This is the norm for equal distributions.  Can't imagine what reason the other student would have to go a difference way.  If he/she does not have a very good reason, ask them to reorder the names in alphabetical order.  If they do not comply, you can always ask them, again, in an email copied to the supervisors.  At all times, exercise grace and patience - being firm but gentle gets results much more often and burns bridges much less often.
PS: be very careful if you ask that student in an email.  Written communication on what could be a negative issue, will by default come across as confrontational.  Even if you are not trying to, they will usually see it as you confronting them on something they did that was non-kosher.  So if you do email him/her, make extra efforts to explicitly communicate a non-confrontational tone.  Maybe start by thanking them for their work in the paper and telling them how much you appreciated the opportunity to work on it as well.  Make your question about author order very light, do not point out his/her name came first, just that it was not in alphabetical order and you are wondering why that is, especially since you note the advisors are ordered alphabetically.


What university affiliation should a retired member of staff use? University retired researchers often get privileges to use Libraries etc. When a retired member uses the university library for research are they obliged to mention the university affiliation in subsequent publications?

One can be affiliated as an independent researcher and acknowledge the usage of university library. One is a retiree of that university.


Effective way to deal with misuse of mobile devices in class I'm at a North American, state-run university (not an elite institution), which is relatively modern in terms of supporting mobile devices. The school is proud of its WiFi coverage in every classroom, and recently rooms were updated to have electrical outlets at every student's seat (even in auditoriums), so they can charge their devices. All courses are three-hour periods, once a week.

This mobile-friendly environment is great when integrating mobile technologies in class. I make use of Mentimeter (real-time quizzes), the students can follow the PDF lecture notes and/or electronic copies of texts, take notes on their laptops, look things up on the web when I ask questions or when they do exercises, etc.

However, it makes for a challenge during courses when students use these devices in distracting ways. Definitions of "misuse" are situational, but for this question, I'll call it any use that detracts from a healthy learning environment. Concrete examples include watching a video or playing a game on a laptop (distracting neighboring students), texting, using Facebook rather than working an exercise in group, etc.

Laptops and smart phones in class are not new; in the past I was able to deal with their "misuse" relatively easily. A student would be easily embarrassed and close his laptop if you called him out when you saw that 5 students around him were all looking at his screen and smiling. I ask a lot of questions during my classes, so I could "pick on" students who caused disruptions with their mobile device (or otherwise). Drawing attention to one student in large groups is an effective way to change behavior, usually.

However, last semester was more difficult than ever, with 40+ students in an newly-electrified auditorium. During one class interruptions occurred 3 times, and I had to talk to offending students during the break about it. During the mid-term, I had one student argue with me at the start because he wanted to keep charging his iPhone at his desk in front of him. He insisted he wasn't going to use it during the exam to cheat, but I cited the policy barring mobile devices during exams and mentioned he'd have to explain that to a discipline committee - he complied. Needless to say, those "correctional" situations don't win points for the professor in the course evaluation. On the other hand, I learned that if I don't intervene (early in my career I would ignore these behaviors), students who feel distracted will complain during evaluations (most are too shy to say something during the semester).

The solution it seems is to add yet another item in my already lengthy syllabus and explain the desired behavior during the first lecture. My school has no official policy as far as I know regarding mobile device use, apart from an IT security policy that doesn't address the distraction issues. I did some searching on the web and found that some schools have policies, e.g. McGill. What is not clear is how effective the policies are in large classrooms, how easy they are to enforce without becoming the "text police", how well they work in non-elite universities, etc.

I contrast all this with the fact that my students almost never misuse the "phone" part of their devices (they don't ring during lectures and they don't talk on them except at the breaks). None of that is in my course plan and I never have to explain it at the start of the semester or take action.

So, how to reduce misuse of mobile devices in large classes while maintaining a friendly atmosphere?

EDIT see this article for the students' perspective of the problem, and why it's not like other classic forms of distraction. In the conclusion, they state it could be useful for institutions to define policies about proper behavior in the classroom regarding mobile devices.

There is nothing new in what you describe. As a student who oft got bored during lectures, I have done some distracting things during them, even though I didn't have access to any electronic device at the time (I'm young enough that they existed, but it wasn't accepted practice to bring them to class). We did crossword puzzles (collaboratively), we played cadavre exquis, we read newspapers and discussed them, we flirted, we worked on other stuff, … What makes you think the situation you are experiencing is specific to mobile devices? The cause of the distractions is different from other situations, but I think the issue is the same and the solutions are, too.

So, what I would suggest is: warn your students that while what they do is their business, you expect that their behavior does not interfere with other's study or the general class atmosphere. Tell them that mobile devices are useful, but that they should be careful not to abuse them. Handle non-compliance as you would a typical incident: talk to them, give fair warning, but clearly set the limits and enforce them if it comes to that.


Prizes on Academic CVs I rarely see academic prizes mentioned on academic CVs. I suppose many students who are completeting a PhD also have a few of such prizes. I am thinking, amongst others, about

best MSc dissertation,
top of year,
top mark in a certain module,

but also about

scholarships,
reduction of tuition fees, etc.

Often, these prizes (or medals/certificates) have some fancy names and are awarded in combination with some money. Yet CVs of academics rarely mention such prizes.

Is simply no one interested, do just too many people in academia have such prizes? Are they regarded as meaningless (compared to papers/reference letters/attended summer schools/teaching experience)?

As for all CVs, they get less important in time. If you're applying for graduate study straight after undergraduate, they're good to list. Your acheivements at this point are likely to be from academic performance, rather than from independent work. When you've completed the graduate programme, no one will care that you came top in Module X in your second year of undergraduate. If the scholarships and fee reductions were based on academic merit, then list them, bearing the same in mind.


Same person as supervisor/co-promotor and professor/promotor I've just started a PhD. Currently I only have one person who is supervising me (the professor). So he is now both my supervisor and my promotor.

Now other (ex) PhD students are telling me that these roles should be filled by different people, to prevent mix of interests. But I don't have sufficient insight on what they are referring to.

Should I be worried? Should I talk to my department head to change the situation?

edit, let me clarify:

With "promotor" I mean the main project supervisor, being a professor. He has the final responsibility.
With "supervisor" I mean the daily supervisor, sometimes also called co-promotor. To my understanding this is often somebody else, for instance an associate professor or assistant professor.

Considering German institution/university where I am doing my Ph.D. now, you are the person who is responsible for finding a second supervisor to your thesis.

Regulations for Doctoral Degree Studies in Germany says (computer science field):

§ 3 and § 4 § 3 II (Primary Supervisors):
“Professors and lecturers who have completed their post-doctoral qualifications, are members of the faculty, or were included in the acceptance of the dissertation, can be primary supervisors.”

§ 4 II (Secondary Supervisors):
“Secondary supervisors assume a supervisory and consultative function. Professors and university lecturers with post-doctoral qualifications can serve as secondary supervisors. The Doctoral Committee can authorize additional scholars and scientists to serve as secondary dissertation supervisors upon case-by-case assessment and the issuance of a resolution to that effect. They need not belong to the faculty.”


Contributions of indirect research toward getting a post-doc I am an engineering student, however, my graduate research is more inter-disciplinary (computational science).  Which is good for me in some ways, because one of my better skills is programming, since I've been doing it avidly as a hobby for a very long time.  Because of this, it would be much easier for me to create a widely used computational science software tool rather than a highly-cited journal article.

With the specific aim of getting a post-doc at a top-ranked university, how does creating a useful piece of software (like an original, optimized quantum monte carlo implementation for example) compare to a widely-cited journal article?  In other words, if done well, both would be highly-cited, but do frequent citations of software carry the same weight as top-tier research articles?

There's a thresholding effect for software. If you create a piece of software that has a huge number of downloads and has visible impact, that will count for something. However, with papers, you wouldn't need to have the same level of impact to have the same effect on interviewers.

The problem really is that academics don't know how to evaluate the impact of software development, and would need help doing so. I imagine that if your potential post-doc advisor has used your software, you won't need to do much explaining. But if not, and your research credentials are otherwise weaker, it might be difficult to justify.


Could a teacher or the university be legally liable in this situation? In which countries? Could a teacher or the university be legally liable in this situation? In which countries? Could the teacher be reprimanded by the university?
The situation is the following: A teacher wants to show students that what's legal is not always ethically right. As an example, the teacher tells the students that to free slaves was illegal. Therefore, the teacher says, sometimes to break the law would be the right thing to do. So the teacher is literally and directly telling the students that sometimes the right thing to do might be to break the law.

The questions seems purely hypothetical and a bit recursive. If a country has repressive laws, as some do, then it could well be that discussions of breaking the laws, even unjust ones, could lead to legal jeopardy.
A strange story recently came out of Thailand, where a person was threatened with jail for leaving bad reviews online about a resort. Saying bad things about Royalty there is very dangerous and so, I would guess, would be discussions of breaking such laws. Not to single out a single country, though. And, while the story is "strange" to me, as a US person, it might seem totally normal to someone else.
When laws are unjust, who can say where it ends. You can't depend on free-speech guarantees unless there is at least a strong societal norm protecting them. And even then, some people are willing to break norms, as I'm sure you can notice all around you.
Was it once true in the US that discussions of ending slavery were forbidden in some jurisdictions? I seem to recall that it was.
In any case, if a jurisdiction has unjust laws, making discussion of breaking them illegal might well be an additional unjust law. Unjust laws all the way down.


Masters in Math degrees without requiring bachelor's in math I did a Bachelor's in Economics, having taken several modules in statistics and econometrics and 1 in math. Now I'm very keen to do a masters in math or applied math, with the possibility to further studies in research, but am not sure which universities would admit me into their program given that most of their websites state they require a Bachelor's in math.
I am currently contacting various program administrators in different universities in the US, Europe and Singapore, but would very much appreciate help that anyone can give to help me in my search.
Does anybody know of any programs that are willing to admit students without math bachelor's, with the possibility of taking some bridging courses during/prior to the Master's program?

This is, typically, very difficult without taking courses in real analysis, numerical analysis, differential equations, and other applied mathematics topics that you won’t get in a traditional economics program.
Your chances would be, frankly, very low without proper preparation from mathematics undergraduate courses. I did an economic major with a math minor, and I am still upgrading a few courses here and there to go into an applied math PhD, but this would be similar to a masters degree because of the pre-requisites.
Take a year or two, get the background, and then you would be much more competitive. Perhaps you can illuminate what math courses, particularly, you’ve taken.


Publication ownership for students I have few questions related to the owner and independent of PhD students research. In my case for instance my committee members including my advisor are too busy to read deeply or know the details of my work. One of them however showed some interest in one portion of it 20% or less. I drafted a manuscript and send it to them and non of them responded. I spoke with my supervisor in person to remind him and send it again and the same no response.

As this might be a narrative story, below are some general questions:

Do advisory committee given a different treatment when it comes to the contribution? Are students expected to list them as authors?
How are contribution and authorship communicated, what is the norm and when draft is sent or circulated through email (between members) should the student add their names as authors, leave it blank, so whoever want to contribute will add his own name?
Should the PI providing the data or equipment be listed on the students work even if he doesn't light or contribute to the drafting them a script?

Generally asking multiple questions in a single question are discouraged on Stack Exchange sites, since asking questions in bulk reduces their exposure as individual questions.

@jakebeal is correct, authorship and the ordering thereof, is extremely field-dependent. A tag search on Academia.SE should give you an idea about how different things are in different fields.

Here are some general answers that might hopefully be of some use:

  Do advisory committee given a different treatment when it comes to the contribution? Are students expected to list them as authors?

Co-authors are people who have contributed to the work at hand. How that's defined is quite up to the field and sometimes even specific groups. I know for instance that in maths and physics, even having a lengthy conversation over a cup of coffee or two might be rewarded with a co-authorship. It is somewhat more strict closer you get to biology and medicine. But there is no written rule as far as I know..

  How are contribution and authorship communicated, what is the norm and when draft is sent or circulated through email (between members)
  should the student add their names as authors, leave it blank, so
  whoever want to contribute will add his own name?

In my experience, it's usually (and hopefully) decided in advance and revised prior to submission or after reviews, in case any extra work is required. I have never heard of "sign up if you wanna be a part of this article" approach before.

  Should the PI providing the data or equipment be listed on the students work even if he doesn't light or contribute to the drafting
  them a script?

There's a long, and I mean long path between drafting a manuscript and getting it published. The PI will most likely be involved in those steps in between, if not in the beginning.

You also need to see that the role a PI assumes might vary from person to person, some are hands-on and some adopt a more sink-or-swim approach. Some will micromanage details, and some will leave it up to you to figure things out along the way. My point is, if your PI hasn't been contributing much so far, there might be more than one plausible explanation for it, don't be quick to judge.

And finally to answer the question, I cannot imagine a world where you can exclude the PI who's providing your salary, and the resource you've used from a publication that you have produced, unless the person specifically tells you to do so.


Include Poster Paper in Academic CV I want to know how much does it matter to include poster paper list in an academic CV. I see some researchers and professors put poster list in their CV, however, it is not widely used. Note that, I am talking about the poster papers that are often accepted as a separate track e.g., Demo/Poster Track in top-tier computer science, electronics and communication engineering-based conferences.

(I am aware that some flagship conferences put some paper as poster presentation instead of oral presentation due to the huge number of accepted papers, however, all of them are included in the conference proceedings irrespective of oral or poster presentation.)

Here is some relevant discussion:

How do you include a poster in an academic resume?

Poster author added me as coauthor after abstract was submitted. Can I include it on CV?

If it is included in the conference proceedings then sure, include it. It is important to make it clear that it is not a full paper so people have a separate section for listing things like posters or workshop papers.

But how much does it matter? For impressing a hiring committee, not much. It usually isn't very prestigious to present a poster and the acceptance rate is often very high

It is still your work though and was published, so I would list it mostly for completeness.

If it isn't included in the proceedings, then I probably wouldn't include it. The advice I have been told is that it will reduce the signal-to-noise ratio of my CV. Although, I have seen some of my friends in the humanities include such things so it might depend on your field.


Is overlapping of two dissertations in TCS acceptable? Me and my friend in initial stages of our PhD worked on same research problems in theoretical computer science (TCS) under the same supervisor. Is it ethically acceptable in TCS community to have almost identical (50%) dissertations containing identical chapters?

Note: This question was originally asked here.

The correct answer is always to check you local (faculty) rules for theses.

I'm not from TCS, but here are my 2 ct:
If the same chapters are actually papers in a staple (cumulative) thesis, that is acceptable over here (the papers will appear as their print version in cumulative theses). We have rules that establish a point system depending on who is first and who is second author.

Here's an example: student T focuses more on theory and student A on an application (or maybe for TCS, on simulation?). Then 2 papers (not LPUs) are written, one focusing on theory with short application example with T 1st author and A 2nd author; the other paper discussing the application in detail and just briefly the theory. Here authorship is the other way round. Both students can take both papers into their theses, and each gains 1.5 publication points.  If, say, the application example isn't worth a full paper, then only 1 paper is written and T gains 1 point, while S gains only 0.5 points (not being the first author). Both put the complete paper into their thesis.

In any case, the non-stapled parts of the theses need to be different in order to establish who did what part of the work, because the degree is given for the own work of each student. So if all work was done as team work, there will probably be trouble because the committee cannot know how to assign grades to whom.


How to contact the Department Chair or Graduate Program Director? I'm planning to apply to grad school for a Computer Science M.S. However I graduated with a 2.4 GPA, and I realize that I face an uphill climb to even get my application read (although my GPA was a 3.67 for the last 60 credit hours and I got a 169V / 170Q / 5.0 on the GRE). I figure that if I can make a good impression speaking face-to-face with the department chair and graduate program director it might help my chances.

Is it considered appropriate for a prospective applicant to request an appointment like that, especially with the department chair? If so, what would be the best way to contact them? Would sending a simple email asking to make an appointment suffice, or should I give a summary of my background or any other information?

If I do meet with them, what should I talk about or ask them?

First of all, the graduate program director is definitely the person to talk to.  There isn't much point in talking to the department chair; they don't necessarily have any direct involvement with the graduate program or admissions, beyond some nominal level of oversight.  (Note that in some departments, the MS and PhD programs may have different directors, so make sure you get the right person.)

I think it's fine to ask to talk to the graduate program director.  Graduate recruitment is typically part of their duties.

I would not necessarily expect that this conversation will directly improve your chances of admission.  Graduate admission decisions are usually made by a committee of the department's professors, and at best the graduate director is only one of the votes on that committee.  So no matter how good an impression you make on the director, the effect is limited.
Furthermore, the director will want to keep their decision based primarily on the objective information in your application file; it would be unfair if applicants who were able to visit the campus to meet them in person got a significant advantage over those who were unable to do so.

But it could be a subtle benefit.  They might also have suggestions about things to emphasize in your application.  And at a minimum, you can get more information about whether the program is likely to be right for you.

Email is usually the best way to get in touch.

  Dear Professor Wu,

  My name is Toby Ps.  I am a student at the University of Wossamotta, and I am interested in applying to enter your department's MS program.  I will be in your town between Octember 8-11, and I was wondering if I could meet with you or one of your colleagues to learn more about the program.

  One question I have is about admission requirements.  My overall GPA is X.XX, but I think this understates my preparation for graduate work because [reasons].  Can you tell me anything about how this affects my eligibility for admission to your program?

The second paragraph gives the director the opportunity to say "Sorry, we have a minimum GPA requirement of Y.YY, and we don't make any exceptions."  If that's the case, it will save either of you wasting any more time.

Assuming that you are at least eligible to apply to the program, you can proceed to arrange the visit.  If the graduate director is not available during those times, he/she may try to set up a meeting with another professor in the department who is knowledgeable about the program.  You may also be offered the opportunity to tour the campus, sit in on classes, meet with current graduate students, etc; do as much of this as you can.

During your meeting, you can discuss the likely strength of your application.  The program director (or other professor) won't be able to make any commitment about whether or not you would be accepted (admission decisions are usually made by a committee), but they may be able to tell you something about the qualifications that their successful applicants usually have, and that may give you a sense of your chances.  They may also be able to give you their personal assessment of how strong your application would be; you can ask for this, but if they don't feel comfortable giving it, don't press them.


Proportion of journal submissions by developing countries Is there any source that details the ratio of journal submissions that come from developing countries to those that come from developed countries?

I see extremely low acceptance rates in my field and wonder about the contribution of developing country submissions to this high rejection rate.

EDIT: Feel free to answer the slightly different question of the ratio that comes from extremely low ranked institutions (e.g. below 1000th in the world).

This is a question straight out of the domain of scientometrics - a field I have had some limited experience in. There is no one source which gives you your answer; rather this is a contextual, complicated and rather nuanced question which you have asked. The true answer is it depends on the field. For instance in the field of ICTD (Information and Communication Technologies for Development), the proportion of articles is very high (which makes intuitive sense) but this may not be true for other fields. Remember also that the term developing countries has a very shifting definition and is therefore temporally bound.

With this exposition, here are some studies which I can point you towards which have looked at  answering some, sub-section of your question. I also include studies on conferences (because certain fields are more conference centric) and also broadly scientific productivity and impact among scientists and researchers in developing countries. This is because these are all highly related and in total, might help you.

This study tells us that only 7.9% of articles in the top 21 Library and Information Science journals are from developing countries or eastern european countries.

This study tells us that articles from developing countries tend to cite other articles form other developing countries and thus, creates a vicious cycle of citations.

This study attempted to define a special collaboration metric for articles from developing countries. It recommended usage of this metric to measure productivity and impact from developing countries instead of the usual suspects (h-index etc.)

This study, specific to Chile attempts to find out root causes of low scientific productivity (i.e. publications) from Chilean authors in Chilean universities. (eg. low priority of funding, lack of interest in research, corruption etc.)

This study is a meta-level article into looking at the scientific productivity in developing countries across the world. It presents a socio-historical approach and also attempt to quantify certain key characteristics of developing countries' scientific productivity and reasons behind the low numbers of article.

This study points out that the present measures of bibliometric/scientometric analysis is skewed towards developed countries and as such is not a good indicator of research productivity in developing nations. The authors point out that alternative sources of databases, specifically presented as a case study of Cuba might provide better insights.

I would also request you to take such quantitative studies with a pinch of salt because they do not often paint an accurate or holistic picture of what's actually going on behind the scenes.


Testing out of Undergraduate Major Requirements Background

I am a pending transfer student (incoming undergraduate sophomore) at various universities. I plan on pursuing a double major in math and physics.

Now, I believe that I am proficient in many of the math/physics topics required for a double major at these universities. However, I taught myself much of this material, so I do not have official coursework in these fields from my previous university.

I would like to get credit for these major requirements so I can focus on taking classes in new (hopefully graduate) topics.

Question

Is it in the norm to request an exam to place out of a major requirement?

If so, is there any protocol for making such a request?

If not, are there other methods of getting out of major requirements?

Thanks in advance.

Some universities will permit this and have regular procedures. For others it might be an exceptional case. One place to start is to go to the department office and enquire. Another is a (possible) enrollment counseling office that has responsibility for placing transfers.

You might wind up with a few oral exams, however, so be prepared for that. The oral "exam" might just be an interview with a faculty member who explores what you have done and asks a few questions.

The only other way I can think of is to have transcripts of very similar courses, but you likely don't have that.

You probably don't get traditional "credit" for the courses, but a notation that you didn't need to take them. Grades are not likely, but there may be exceptions.

But each institution will have different procedures (in the US, at least).


No response from journal after submission I submitted a paper to a journal just before Christmas time last year. The journal didn't send any note whether they have received the paper or not. Mid of January this year, I sent again an email asking whether they have received my submission or not, but still, didn't receive any reply.
Just last week, I sent an email to the main publisher regarding the matter, and they told me they just emailed the main editor, who will contact me soon. But until now, I have yet to receive any reply from the editor.

I am thinking of emailing to let the editor know that I will wait for another week before I will retract my submission to be sent to other journal. I understand editors are busy people, but I think they should notify the author that they have received their submission. What do you think?

Also, from SJR Scimago, this journal is from the UK. Nothing against people from UK, just want to ask whether it is vacation season now for the academics, which in that case I should wait a little longer?

Thanks!

It's February, so the holiday season is long over, and no reasonable journal ought to have lost its entire staff to vacation for so long.  Moreover, most journals have an automated system that will acknowledge your paper and tell you about its current status.  If this journal hasn't got the infrastructure to even acknowledge your submission in over a month, then I would it a rather dubious prospect for publication.

Note, however, that there is another possibility that you should rule out before withdrawing, and that is whether either your emails to the journal or their emails to you are getting lost in a spam filter.  This is particularly likely if you are from the developing world, to which blacklists are often applied quite carelessly.


Research activity conflicts with advisor I've been in distress for the last several months because of this. My PhD advisor somehow decided to start her own field research in the same region where I have been working on for a few years now. Then when I was doing my fieldwork last time, she was there too and she used the same resources I have - contacts, measurement equipment and lab, etc. It became awkward for not only us but also for other researchers involved. Even worse, once I told her that I wouldn't be able to help 'her' project (I'm busy with mine!), she started cutting me off from my resources, withholding information, etc. She's still my advisor and I am wondering where I should go from here - too late to change advisor but this is getting too toxic. When I consulted other professor, he said it was pretty normal that multiple researchers do similar researches at the same time in the same region. But is it common between advisor and her student as well? Any advice will be appreciated.

PS: I have my research fund. Although my advisor wrote recommendation letters for me to get the funding, I've never been her research assistant.

My PhD advisor somehow decided to start her own field research in the same region where I have been working on for a few years now.

Which could have been a win-win situation for both of you, but it seems that you and her have a communication problem.

  Even worse, once I told her that I wouldn't be able to help 'her' project (I'm busy with mine!), she started cutting me off from my resources, withholding information, etc.

So you did not have the idea to ask her how the two project can be aligned in a constructive way?

  When I consulted other professor, he said it was pretty normal that multiple researchers do similar researches at the same time in the same region. But is it common between advisor and her student as well?

Yes it is common. And in the best case groups the supervisor and the PhD student will align the research and will co-author papers on the subject in question.


How to highlight the text changes to the supervisor? How to highlight the changes I made to a text (report, thesis etc) to the supervisor? Red colour/adding bubble comments, you name it. I use Word.

In Word, you can use the 'track changes' function.

It depends a bit on the amount of changes you're making though. Track changes will mark every cut and paste, every comma and deletion of every double space. This can make it too difficult to read. Personally, I've resorted to just underlining the most important changes so that my supervisor can see them easily, and adding the occasional comment bubble.


How to prepare for the job market during a (pure math) PhD First of all, I apologise if a similar question has been asked before, I did some research but couldn't find a satisfying answer.

I'm a second-year pure math PhD-student (in EU, if that matters) in a field with relatively few real-world applications (low-dimensional topology). I am already determined that I won't pursue an academic career after the PhD, so I will have to transition into the job market at some point. However, this frightens me because my field has no real-world applications, and I think that it might be a good idea to start expanding my knowledge to a different field (say, computer science or economy). This brings up the following question: How do you do this during a PhD?

To be more precise, let's say I am interested in financial markets and would like to steer towards a job in quantitative finance. What is the best way to prepare for this during my PhD studies? The following options come to my mind:

Reading books and self-study. However, do employers value knowledge purely gained from self-studying (without any degree behind it)?
Participating in relevant courses at my university. However, does that make sense if I'm not a registered student and therefore won't get grades?
Participating in online courses (such as Coursera, for example). However, do employers value the participation in such courses?
Not doing anything, focus on my PhD and start looking for internships afterwards (to get knowledge).

I am aware that in almost any case mentioned above, I will still lack any sort of actual work experience (which is probably going to be the biggest problem in finding a job). However, I believe that I still might be in a better position if I already have some theoretical knowledge about a job's broader field rather than no knowledge. Of course, if there are any other options that I didn't mention above please let me know.

I would highly appreciate any advice, guidance or personal experience on this topic. Thanks!

Here are a few things that might benefit both your PhD and your preparation for the job search:

Communicate with your advisor. Setting goals and making plans with your advisor will help align how you measure the success of your graduate experience. You can also report to your advisor about your progress towards these goals; accountability goes a long way. Finally, your advisor can help you prepare for and find a job in industry, but only if they know that's what you want to do!
Code and compute. If you don't know how to code, take some courses and learn how. If you do know how to code, keep improving your abilities. Computing is a valuable skill for research, since examples will help you make sense of new ideas and constructions. In industry, computing will be invaluable. As a mathematician, employers will want to hire you for your analytical skills. These skills will be much more useful to them if you are comfortable gathering, producing, analyzing, and communicating data that they care about.
Connect. If you have the opportunity, do an internship in industry. You may find things that you like or dislike about working outside academia, and you may gain new insights into your academic work. You should also try networking. For better or worse, who you know makes a big difference in finding jobs. Your advisor might have some contacts in industry, or your university might have an employment center that can help you with this.

As an aside, even low-dimensional topology might not be as far removed from applications as you might think. Differential geometry and algebraic topology both have applications to data analytics and machine learning. Depending on your exact specialty, topological data analysis could be an opportunity for you to apply ideas from your PhD to finance or whatever industry you decide to join.


How to handle students not returning borrowed equipment? I frequently bring my own equipment to the classroom for student use. Some students forget my announcements to bring certain items. Some items are infrequently used or kept ready on standby when time permits or need to be carefully prepared beforehand. For these reasons, I provide my own equipment, rather than requiring students to bring them.

The problem is, the students are walking out the door with my stuff. By the end of the year, I must go out and buy everything again. Most items individually are cheap (~$1 each), so I do not think any administrator or security officer will pay attention when I complain, however, the quantities add up over time.

I am surprised to find such behavior among college freshmen. How should I deal with these thefts?

I add an assignment in the grading system with a single point: "returned all borrowed equipment."

I don't actually use it in the calculations, but seeing it in the gradebook (which students can access) encourages compliance.


Does showcasing pet projects on my personal blog compensate for not having references? If you have been working on projects independently and not under a professor, does compiling your work on a personal website/blog also serve as a good reference for an admission committee looking to select a graduate student for a Master of Science program? Or should a professor always vouch for the work you do? Thank you.

No, realistically a list of external projects will not make up for not having letters.

Letters are typically not, or not primarily, used as a description of projects you have done, but as a subjective evaluation of your potential as a PhD graduate student. Letters may include a discussion of undergraduate research, but will also include a discussion of your personality, especially your strengths and weaknesses as a researcher. It is evident that this cannot be learned from a description of projects alone, especially given that this list is curated by yourself.

Incidentally, this is also the reason why senior professors are considered the "best" references - admission committees assume that the best judge of prospective grad students are those you have seen many grad students succeed and fail, i.e., senior professors.

Edit: as jvb correctly notes, the question is about master rather than PhD applications, but at least for a master by research, this does not change the spirit of my answer. For masters by coursework, I think most universities don't really employ a competitive selection procedure anyway (at least the ones I know don't).


Is it OK to use abbreviations of the same university I am applying to? Most of the universities in the US use abbreviations on their websites. Can it be considered a good practice to use abbreviation of the same university I am applying to?

The major issue with abbreviations is ambiguity. For example, OU could refer to Ohio University, University of Oklahoma, the Open University, and others. Other abbreviations like MIT are less ambiguous despite there being MITs in other countries. Similarly, longer abbreviations like UPenn are less ambiguous. Some universities, go by multiple names. For example University of Nottingham is often called Nottingham University, despite there being a Nottingham Trent University in the same city that goes by Trent.

When applying to a university, or for internal purposes, ambiguity is not an issue. If you are at, or applying to the Open University, in general everyone will assume OU means Open University and not Ohio University. In the rare cases where you are applying to the Open University from Ohio University, there could be ambiguity. Understanding the nuances of the name and abbreviation uses can be difficult. In general, you should probably steer away from abbreviations and just use the full name.


Can the tutor test for plagiarism under these circumstances? I have been trying to get into college, but there has been a lot to catch up on. I told the tutor that my friend, who is already doing the course, would be able to help me with my work if I was stuck.

  I am often at Anon's house or he is at mine, so we could always work together and I could catch up at home.

However, he replied with this:

  I also have grave concerns that you believe you could get information
  from another current student, this is clearly an issue of plagiarism.
  Anon's work will now be fully scrutinised due to your noted comments

I have trust in my friend and know he will not ever plagiarise.

I am in the UK, and I am not in the college (I am in a Level 3 apprenticeship for Software Development, he is doing Engineering). Is the tutor still allowed to scrutinise my friends work under these circumstances? And what is there I could do to prevent this?

I accept full responsibility for my actions, but I want to set things right and I just don't know if I can.

Update:
This has now been solved with thanks to Maarten Buis.

If a tutor decides that (s)he will look extra carefully at the work of a specific student because (s)he believes that that student might plagiarise, then there is nothing you can do to prevent it. However, as long as your friend does not plagiarise, there is no problem (other than the time wasted by the tutor).


How to apply for Post-doc I am a last year Ph.D student and intend to apply for a postdoc call starting in September. As I have not submitted my thesis yet, is it possible to apply  earlier? And how can I ask my adviser to send recommendation letter while still I have not defended my thesis? ( I mean how can I explain my adviser this demand?)

Applying for a postdoc before defending your PhD is a very common situation which your adviser should be familiar with. Just say to your adviser that you are applying for a postdoc and that you would like him to write a letter of recommendation; there shouldn't be any more to it than that.


Finding a suitable research topic from outside academia I'd like to find a suitable research topic (specifically, in mathematics) to work on, where 'suitable' means that it's publishable and amenable to being completed in, say, 6-12 months. While there are plenty of topics I'm interested in and plenty of questions I'd like to answer, I'm not sure how to gauge the difficulty of a topic. I suppose this is normally part of learning to become a researcher in grad school; but while I have a (useless) PhD, my advisor handed me explicit problems to solve and summarily refused to allow me to change them when I'd asked. I'm also in industry now rather than academia (and not even in a real industry-research job), which means that I have little time--- certainly far less than a real researcher--- for useful work. Nevertheless, I'd still like to do whatever I can given my situation, and I can attend a few conferences, retain access to journals, etc.; I just don't have the time or resources that someone in academia would. So, how I can find a specific research topic?

"I'd like to find a suitable research topic (specifically, in mathematics) to work on, where 'suitable' means that it's publishable and amenable to being completed in, say, 6-12 months."

Sorry to disappoint you, but that is not how mathematics works. If you are a professional, the possibility to produce a steady flow of results comes not from your ability to estimate the time needed for each particular project but from the general approach which is a combination of some pieces of folk wisdom like "cut the tree that matches your strength" and "don't put all your eggs into one basket". If you are an amateur, it comes from the sheer enthusiasm and the fresh point of view on things (also available to and important for a professional, BTW, but playing secondary role to a methodical approach there).

In both cases, the first question you asked is just meaningless (for that simple reason that no random person on the web can even approximately estimate your strength or tell which topics will carry you away and which won't, if you do not want to invoke higher level considerations). Either learn to live in the ever-shifting treacherous alternative reality based on the crazy concoction of high and low speeds, short euphoric moments and long depressive periods, persistent pressure and all-out spurts, rational calculations and pure luck, or consider another career path taking some "safe" job where the result is directly proportional to the product of the time and the effort spent.

As to your second question: "How to find a topic to research?", you don't find the topic; rather it finds you. Just go around and read papers you can understand and talk to mathematicians you know about what they are doing. Everybody is stuck with some "little thing" that does not require too much time to explain and if you can help someone to get unstuck in their project, you may easily get three things at once: a reputation, a joint paper, and a friend.


Correct latex format for standard IEEE Computer Society Press proceedings style guide I'm planning to submit a paper to an IEEE conference. On their website they mention that the paper should be "formatted according to the standard IEEE Computer Society Press proceedings style guide". Which latex header should be used in this case?

\documentclass[conference,compsoc]{IEEEtran}

or

\documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}

You should use \documentclass[conference,compsoc]{IEEEtran} as stated in the How To (here). You may find it helpful to follow the bare_
conf_compsoc.tex that is inside the zip file with the templates (here).

Extra information

Take special attention if you should send it in draft mode or not. And also if it should be blind.
Once accepted you have to include the DOI and copyright information.
You will also have to submit the final PDF to a signing website (instructions will be sent)
Finally, the submission process will provide a pre IEEExplore publication copy of your text you MUST download it because this is the version that you are authorized to publish on your own website or ResearchGate.


How to study for the exams which are mathematical in approach but subjective in nature? Predominantly whenever we are to face objective questions we generally tend to practice more and more objective question papers and sort of "remember the mistakes that we make while solving them".  However when it comes to subjective papers this approach doesn't seem to work for me anymore.  The more subjective questions I study the more I tend to deviate from whatever I need to retain for the approach.  Any suggestion about this will be highly appreciated.  I am particularly speaking with regard to semester examination of an Undergrad/Postgraduate course in Material Science & Engineering.

Learning math, science and engineering is to a certain extent about learning a collection of computational techniques that one can improve at by rote practice - integrating, differentiating, solving equations etc. But to a much larger extent it is about acquiring a conceptual understanding of the key ideas and concepts of the science you are being taught. This is a higher lever skill, and one that is ultimately much more important.

What you call “subjective” questions are precisely those questions that are designed to test your understanding. They are the questions that, ever since I started teaching, I have been hearing students (even well-intentioned, hard-working, eager to learn students) describe as “trick questions”, “unfair”, “not in the book”, “impossible to study for”, and so on. They are the questions that students dread and loathe and complain about and seek to find ways to avoid and bluff their way through. They are the questions that really test whether you have learned the main thing we wanted you to learn.

To be fair, subjective questions are indeed hard, and I completely sympathize with your frustration about them. They are characterized by the fact that there is no mechanical practice procedure, like “solve X problems from section Y in the book”, that is guaranteed to prepare you for them. Learning how to study for them is probably the single most valuable skill a student can hope to learn in their time at university. If you have learned how to study for subjective questions, it means you have learned how to learn, and that’s a wonderful thing to know.

So how do you study for them? In some sense that’s something each person has to discover for themselves. But in another sense the answer is blindingly obvious: you study the material, and you think about it. That’s it! But what I mean is really really study the material, and really think about it: that is, you think critically about each and every sentence of each and every section in the book/lecture notes and each and every thing the instructor said, trying to identify what conceptual meaning it is trying to tell you. You try to probe into every nook and cranny of the theory by criticizing it, and asking “what if” questions and “does this make sense?”, and reading Wikipedia and textbooks and watching online videos. You solve problems, and solve more problems, then go back to the theoretical part of the textbook and read it again and think about it in the context of the problems you solved. And watch more videos and read more books and forums and talk to your friends about the material. Etc etc. - note that this process has no natural end because no one understands everything, not even your professors. But at some point you’ll probably feel like you understand things at a reasonably good level for the exam you are about to take.

And then you move on to the next subject and start all over again. :-)


Why would new teachers' grade distribution consist of more As and Fs than more experienced teachers'? Three students  came to my office hours and told me that they are straight As but for some reason are failing my class. I have 14 students who got A- and A. 11 are in 80s range, 9 got 70-77, and 9 in 50-60% range (three of those didn't turn in assignments). Is this a normal grade distribution or are some failing because I am doing something wrong? I was told that the problem could be my mid-term exam (it wasn't well-designed!!!) or that I am a difficult grader.

I was also told that this grade distribution (lots of Fs!) are common for new teachers. In other words, new teachers have lots of As and lots of Fs. Honestly, I don't understand the logic behind that. How is that possible? Or why?

tl;dr: seems like perfectly acceptable distribution.  Students will try anything to get a better grade, don't mind them too much.

To begin with, with N=43, especially if this is your first time teaching the class, you don't have a lot to go on.  As you teach it a few more times, you'll get a feel for your overall grade distribution.

I personally average somewhere around 20-25% A, 40-50% B, 20-25% C, and 5-15% D/F/W across all my classes.  But I've had some individual sections that were virtually all As and Bs, and I've had one where the D/F/W was a clear majority (!).  No one in the administration complained or questioned my grading/instructional skills in that last one because they were due to extreme absences and not handing in heavily-weighted assignments, and also because I had taught it before with more "normal" (= commonly occurring, not statistically normal) distributions.

As to new teachers having lots of As and Fs, if it fits an inverted bell curve, it's a sign that your class is probably a bit too easy, the As are people that get it, and the F are those that don't, but without more difficult questions, you have no way of discriminating any other levels.  But frankly, your distribution seems fine and unremarkable to me.

As the user autistic notes in the comments to your question, if you're concerned about too many As/Fs and not enough B/C/Ds, you may need to have questions or assignments that include both more difficult (to pull more Bs out of the As) and easier (to pull more C/Ds out of the Fs).

Your ultimate recourse (and resource) is if the course is something that has been taught before at your university by someone who is still there, ask them to look over how you're grading.  If it seems fine to them, then you just got a class that happens to have that grade distribution.  If not, then you may want to make some minor adjustments based on their recommendation.

What I wouldn't do is judge your grading with their other instructors.  Besides the fact that they could just be very lazy students in your class alone, each department within a university will have its own culture of expectations, workloads, and grade assigning.  Those students may have As, but in a department that doesn't demand much.  You may also have students that are surprised at getting an A, if they come from one that is far more demanding.


What is facultyawards.org? I recently received an unsolicited email from https://facultyawards.org. I tried Google to get a better sense of just what this group intends, but I couldn't find much insight. My question is simply this:

  What is the origin of this group and do their awards carry any merit towards a typical promotion for faculty tenure, etc?

What is the origin of this group

Nobody knows.

  and do their awards carry any merit towards a typical promotion for faculty tenure or promotion?

No.

At least, I certainly hope not.  Nobody in their right mind would trust an award of completely unknown provenance.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if everyone who signs up is selected for an award and then immediately offered a high-quality leather-bound archival book listing your achievements and those of other winners, all for the absurdly low price of $500, but only if you reply in the next fifteen seconds with your credit card information.  See also "Who's Who".


What is the proper way to ask for an unpublished paper? I want to get access to a paper which hasn't been published by the scholar and I decide to write an email to him. What is a proper way to ask ?

My intention is to help myself formulate the scope of my next paper in the same  field.

Just ask politely, and with the expectation that you may be reasonably refused.

Researchers vary greatly in their relationship to unpublished manuscripts. The spectrum ranges broadly, from some who are very happy to share anything they consider "not embarrassing," to others are extremely protective. Then there are many who will be just plain unresponsive for any number of reasons.

I would thus suggest that in your email, you say something along the lines of the following:

Where you heard about the unpublished work, and why you think it will be useful to know specifically about this unpublished work and not other recently published material.
That you would be very grateful if they are willing to share, but understand that they may not wish do to so.
That you would also be happy to receive pointers to published work that can provide approximately the same benefits.

Importantly, remember that no researcher has a moral obligation to share work that is not ready for publication.  The scientific community generally holds that work should be shared in a timely fashion only once it is reasonably ready for publication.  You can argue about how to draw that line, but if a researcher really thinks their work isn't yet solid enough to disseminate or submit, then they're usually right.  In that case, you probably wouldn't really want to build off of it yet anyway, since it is likely to change in the near future.


Keywords in a paper: to include or not to include? Are there some reasons to include them besides a historical tradion? Let's assume that it's not a requirement by the publisher.

There are some answers (such as this) which claim that keywords basically do not matter. However, I wonder if there are some empirical results or conflicting opinions on this. Perhaps they help with search engines?

My field is computer science, publishing mostly in IEEE conferences. Feel free to share experiences from other fields.

Here's one reason to include them:

In some fields, like biology, naming convention are lacking. You might use a specific word for a process, while other groups use another. By stating this other word in your keywords, researchers using that word will find your article/conference.