Does previous participation in Google Summer of Code help when applying for a Master's program? Does participation in Google Summer Of Code help when applying for a Master's program ? Irrespective of the fact whether your project is directly related to the area for which you are applying or not.

Applying to Masters Program does not really depend on one single factor but a variety of factors.

The above sentence is very important before we move on to the answer. The decision on your admit depends on your application as a package and will be evaluated in its entirety. If your are a local student and then you attend Google Summer Of Code as part of the general trend of your location, then its obvious that most of the people from your school would have done so as well. In that case, what factors in is your school an its culture.

But say, if your are an international student and from a non-reputed institution, then the grad schools does not really know a lot about your institution, but then what matters is how you have excelled in your institution. Are you an student, who just want to finish of your course work or wanting to do beyond something? Here what you have done matters a lot.

Now the school where you are applying counts in as well. Some programs in a school would need a certain kind of attitude to survive. So it all boils down to how you project your resume, SOP (statement of Purpose) and how can good you have come up with what you have?

So most of grad schools know students dont have the luxury of doing all things needed for a program, but will seek to know how the applicant has fared in his life.

So it does matter a lot unless you did study in school where just most of them would have done something beyond just academics or apply to a program where you expect to see a lot of these performers apply too.

Just highlight them in way that is appealing to the school. Like 'I am 2 of 100 people in my school who participated in Goodle Summer of Code'. Strike it like its still hot.

Source: Personal Experience/Opinion when applying.
I did focus on highlighting things I did and my other folks in college did not..


Outsourcing your research to Kaggle for co-authorship or other non monetary options Some parts of our research fall out of our expertise. We thought about creating a Kaggle challenge just for this part. But we lack fund resources for the reward, so we could not offer any money. We are thinking now about offering co-authorship in a paper, do you think this would work? Otherwise, which other things would you offer as reward in Kaggle apart from money?

It's true that fitting the Kaggle competition framework is a bit of a constraint, but if you understand that framework and see how your problem fits into it, I'd suggest you e-mail quote@kaggle.com with a description of the data & problem (and ideally sample data), even if you don't have funding. We can see what comes of it!

(Disclaimer: I work for Kaggle.)


Evaluating Grad Schools on grounds other than research Assuming that an applicant does his research and applies to a bunch of schools for a PhD. He gets accepted by a few of them with full aid.

Assuming that the research and faculty at all places is more or less of the same quality, what factors come into play when deciding where to go?
(Also assume that the student is an international student)

How important are the following factors:

Location (Urban/Rural) of School
Country of School
Rankings (For instace, U Tennessee Knoxville has awesome Supercomputing Research but a not-so-good overall Ranking)
Size of Department
Diversity
Student Faculty Ratio

I applied to six graduate schools in my field, and was accepted at all of them. The criteria I used to whittle down the choices were:

Did I like the people in the department I was visiting?  (This surprisingly did eliminate one school.)
Did I want to go to live in the city where the school was for five or so years? (One more down, four left.)
Could I find enough people I was interested in working for, so that if I didn't get my top choice, I'd still be happy with the projects I'd be taking?
Can I financially afford to live in the city? (One more down, two left.)

At that point, however, the remaining criteria were all competing with one another: one school offered me a lot more money, the other had a lot better location. Both offered plenty of research, and both had excellent reputations in their field. Ultimately, for me, the location, combined with the slightly higher general profile of the school I attended, swayed the balance for me.

Remember that you're looking for individual groups or faculty members as well as entire departments. Students and faculty will both be considerations for you.


How to present my work experience in a PhD interview? I am going to attend my 2nd round PhD interview. There are two parts. One is about a 20-minute long presentation focusing on my work experience, motivation and anything which can prove I am able to fit this position. Another part is about a 40-minute long group discussion. So I was wondering how to prepare for this presentation. Should I present my past project in detail, like providing the graphs? May I talk about something about my interest, my hobby? Any tips and suggestions? Thanks in advance.

The first part:

If this is going to happen in front of the interview panels only (not with other applicants), then it is better to prepare for a detailed discussion. A detailed discussion includes a powerpoint presentation of your work, what would you do in future, etc. Also, you must expect some direct questions like "Why this is good for our organisation?" type questions. This part seems more like a personal discussion.

The second part:

If this is with other applicants, then there is no point being too specific and detailed about your PhD works. It is good enough to know the general knowledge of this field and some degree of the thesis that you have proposed in your PhD. You should be able to actively communicate and agree/disagree with others, very intellectually.

Good luck!


If a college/ university made false claims on its website, should you still consider studying there? The school I'm taking about here is regionally accredited. The problem is, on its website, it falsely claims to be a member of two different international academic associations. Should I look for a different school just because of this?

PS: I asked these academic associations through email if the school is any way related to or affiliated with them at any time. They gave me a negative reply.

Are you sure this isn't a mistake or misunderstanding from either the university or the association?

I would recommend contacting the department or university. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt with this type of thing but are you sure this is a reputable school? Accreditation is a vague thing and varies wildly in how it is regulated and who accredits it, especially across different countries.

I'm a little surprised that you contacted the association directly. I myself never pay attention to professional associations and don't know anyone who does (at least not enough to investigate the claim).

But again, if this is important to you, I would recommend giving the university a chance to clarify by contacting them. You must remember, the people making the website or handling the accreditations most likely aren't the professors teaching the courses. I would also recommend looking into the reputation of this university more if this is indeed true.

EDIT: Many diploma mills/for-profit schools are "accredited" but that doesn't mean they are reputable, so beware.


Dr. ‹First Name›: a good nickname or a "professional cancer"? Is the informal Dr. ‹first name› something a starting academic should avoid?

As my father was Dr. ‹my last name›, I have, since receiving my PhD, cultivated Dr. ‹my first name›. A senior colleague recently advised me to stop: she called this unprofessional, and suggested that over time it would be a significant drain on my academic career. She went so far as to label this kind of informality a "professional cancer".

Context: I am an engineer and social scientist based in the USA, but I work with colleagues in Europe and Asia regularly.

While I feel that is hyperbole, I have discussed this with several trusted advisers. The responses have been polarized. Concerns raised include sacrificing respect, confusing personal branding (I have a memorable last name), and making more formal colleagues uncomfortable. Is this a real mistake I'm in the process of making? Is this a simple age division issue? Might the informal name actually be a benefit?

Going by "Dr. FirstName" is just confusing. If people aren't familiar with you, they will think it is your last name. If they do know you, it doesn't seem more casual, just odd.

It depends on the context and culture, but in the US it is standard to go by either "Dr. LastName" or just "FirstName." Like Solar Mike mentioned, a shortened form like "Dr. Initial" is sometimes used for students to refer to you.


Choosing between two post-docs where one is with my PhD advisor I am currently a post-doc researcher for two-months at a department (say A). I also graduated with my PhD from the same dept. The post-doc is not funded with any project but with department money and I am expected (pushed) to bring funding from industry partners as soon as possible.

I recently got another post-doc offer where they already have project funding. The place is closer to my home, but I have heard some poor remarks about PI. The project is also well-aligned with my PhD work.

My question/confusion is as follows: my PhD supervisor at department A, who works remotely, insists that I should not leave the current position. She is a great person and I loved working with her. I have also heard that it will not be good on my CV to switch post-doc so quickly (just after 2 months).

Does anyone have experience regarding this? Is it really true that switching positions will look bad on CV?

Many thanks everyone in advance.

Your primary goal during a post-doc is to improve your chances to land a permanent job in academia. You should compare both jobs with that goal in mind. Especially interesting is the recent track record of both PIs: How many top publications did they recently have? How many of their graduates have made it to permanent jobs? You should absolutely watch out for "red flags" that may make your life difficult, like (trustworthy) hints about a poor working environment. Based on your comment, there is a reason to be a bit skeptical, and you are well-advised to seek more information.

Generally, switching to a different place after your PhD is a good idea. You want to communicate the idea that you can do a good job in different environments and with different people. You also don't need to be concerned about switching after two months. It's quite typical that people do a few post-doc months at their PhD institution while looking for a job somewhere else. (If you're still worried, you don't even have to mention in your CV that the last two months were a post-doc; you can just specify the duration of the full employment at your home institution, and that did your PhD there.)


Online "database" for mathematical conferences? I am about to start applying for Ph.D programs (mathematics), and while compiling my CV, comparing it with many examples avaliable across the internet, I noticed that almost everyone attended one or two conferences during his bachelor/master years.
Now, I just didn't do that. I don't know if this could be an issue or anything, anyway, that is not my question.

Since I have at least four months until most programs start, I wanted to look for some conference that could be interesting. At my university there is a hallway where posters of such things are hanged, but I couldn't find anything online (apparently each university publishes its own conferences on its website, and that's it).

I can't believe there isn't an online equivalent of the above mentioned hallway, my question is: is there?

The American Mathematical Society has a calendar of conferences: http://www.ams.org//meetings/calendar/mathcal

As does the Mathematical Association of America: http://www.maa.org/meetings

And the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics: http://www.siam.org/meetings/


Etiquette: asking for postdoc position to seminar speaker A really cool professor is invited to give a seminar in my department, and I would like to ask him/apply for a postdoc position in his lab. I do not know, if he has any openings, but I do have a meeting/lunch scheduled with him, since my project is related to his research interests. I want to know the best way to handle this. Do I send a short email with my CV/cover letter before he arrives on campus or do I ask him in person? Thanks!

Conferences and seminars are not only here to present what you are doing, but also create and expand your network of contact with people from your field.

Any form of contact is good, provided you put the respect it deserves. If the person is too busy, maybe it's best to send an email or try to talk to him in a very short availability period and drop your card.

If you have a meeting, that's even better. You already got his attention, it's the perfect moment to ask him the question directly. If you're interested in his research topic, just ask if he's looking to having a post-doc on the subject. He might not have a position available, but maybe he can ask for one.

There is no official method to contact for a post-doc, unless it's advertised on a website, then the preferred method should already e described.


Group Project Dynamics— how to present advanced ideas without offending others? For my research masters, one graded activity is to undertake a piece of research and present findings.

We collected data and the analysis part was self-assigned to one member and myself. The analysis and results ultimately presented by the team member was very basic, and included nothing more than a sum, count and percentage of responses presented in an excel graph.

The supervisor responded that he was unable to follow findings and suggested advanced analysis.

I then undertook this work, redid the analysis in R, and presented the findings in an advanced/visual form, using regression analysis and correlation matrices and suggested the group explore data/findings and suggest additional hypotheses to test.

The member who originally did the analysis feels let down and asked meaningless, trivial and baseless questions when I presented findings, in an effort to discredit my work. She felt I was trying to better her.

The supervisor is yet to comment on the validity/usefulness of my analysis work.

In my earlier degree, I gained a good understanding of research methods and statistics. However, this person, from what I’ve seen, does not seem familiar with fundamental research concepts or statistical methods.

How do I handle this situation?

How important is it to regress to ideas that everyone is comfortable with to avoid challenges like these?

You don't have to do anything with this situation any more - your colleague is clearly feeling uncomfortable about it and as you said in comments, reaching out to her now might very easily come across as patronising.

For the next time, I'd advise going through the analysis with her before presenting to the group. Ideally, you'd do this a couple of times as your analysis progresses, and take her initial results as a starting point.

In analyses and presentations, you should never shy away from using complex methods if you feel they are necessary. However, you should also be able to explain them in such a way that your whole audience can understand what you are doing and why.


Recruiting participants online without money in social sciences? Simple question. What do you do when you need i.e. 160 participants for your online study?

I've explored this topic throughout here and on other sites (so far most practical tips had this one i.e. http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/How_to_recruit_subjects_online%3F) but I personally think that it is really underestimated topic and one that is very difficult part of conducting research in social sciences (in my case, Psychology). Often I see very vague and general tips (not practical) or tips that are ending up with crowdsourcing platforms where you have to pay money and depending on your sample size you may have tough time (such as mTurk or Prolific). None of this is helpful if you are a MSc, BC student and funding your research in order to pay participants is simply unavailable in most cases (i.e. grant policies in my country do not allow this). So you will start searching how to achieve your estimated sample.

Here are my tips but perhaps there is much more you could do and this is why I am writing this. First to share these tips but also to get more tips from people who struggled with something similar.

a) Sites for these purposes

You are not really sure who is the visitor (skeptic in me tells that other desperate researchers) but why not for the start. Maybe there are more of these.

https://www.callforparticipants.com/

https://www.socialpsychology.org/addstudy.htm

Both seem reliable, actually I was able to get few people through them. The problem is that you question yourself why would you participant go through such a site?

b) Social networks

Sure but how? You can start your own group or page but not one gives a damn about it. Luckily there are people who did it already, so post it there.

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/DSRecruiting/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/156001281150887/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/indian.psych.researchers/

If those links do not work you will get there by searching "Research participants", "Participants", "Participants and researchers" and such. I have also found out you could use Facebook groups where you sort of "Advertise everything", so you can look for this too.

The issue may be similar as above. In addition to that I have contacted personally all my friends to share my study, created a Facebook page and invited other people to join it.

LinkedIn:
Honestly, I just had very bad luck with it or it does not work. I was doing a research once in a name of very serious and top academic institution but no one bothered to respond. So I am clueless about how other people are able to use this site for research.

Twitter:
If you do not have an account, it is too late in my opinion. It is all about number of followers and I think my only luck in this case was that I had a friend with about 400 of them who was happy to share it.

c) Community based sites

Then there are those site such as Craiglist or Reddit (more?). You are looking for your participants online, why not post it there then? I have tried both and saw other people adding their research there. The turnout is questionable in my opinion and it does not work that well.

d) Your local university network.

Contact course coordinators, lecturers or other people maintaining large classes, usually you want people outside your own field. It actually seems that lot of these people are willing to help you out if you write them a good letter to share. I've contacted three major institutions in my country and asked their Erasmus coordinators to mail my study to their students. I think people with a known ac.uk email can actually have more luck with this approach.

e) Corporations, NGO, Governmental organizations

Imagine you could get your hands on one of the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_private_companies_in_the_United_Kingdom. The idea I've found on this page:http://www.statisticsconsultant.com/dissertation-advice/recruiting-study-participants/ (if nothing else, there is nice sample letter you can circulate) suggest contacting national companies to convince them because they control large sample pools. In my opinion you will be denied. My approach was more low level. I've tried government organization and non-government organization. The success rate is low, they are overflowed with similar request but I got some responses there too.

d) Friends

I have already mentioned that in relation to FB. I think lot of people really tried to genuinely help me, especially if you make it easy for them to share it (write the letters, provide links and such.) Problem might be that you probably do not want to ask too much of them.

This is all I got but I would be grateful to hear your thoughts on this. Maybe you've got some out of box tips. Maybe you had a success with particular platform.


Asking for the second/third recommendation letter, should I tell the referee he is writing the third letter? Many have suggested me to include a sentence like this while asking for recommendations:

"Do you feel that you are able to give me a strong reference?"

I am afraid that my third referee, who was only a professor of one my courses, knows me but not well enough to give a "strong reference". So if I asked him this way, he might ignore my request.

I could also tell him that this is the third letter, so he does not have to exhaustively write about my every strengths. But telling him that he is only the "third” might be considered impolite? Because, emotionally, everyone wants to be regarded as an important person.

What shall I do?

This answer basically echoes the comment of Andreas Blass.

I agree that calling it the "third letter" may offend the professor, so I wouldn't use that phrasing.  But the general idea of acknowledging that the scope of the letter will be limited, and that you have other letters as well, seems fine.

  Dear Professor A,

  I am applying to grad schools, and I wondered if you would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation.  I know that the only course I took with you was BASK 301, and so I understand that your letter would only really be able to discuss my work in that course.  But if you feel you would be able to write a strong letter on that basis, I would greatly appreciate it.

  I am also requesting letters from Professors B and C, who will be able to write about my [other coursework / research / internship / relevant skills / etc], so I feel that between the three of you, a committee will be able to get a broad sense of my record.

  If you are willing, the letters would be needed starting on [date].

  Many thanks!

  Sincerely, etc.

If the course involved particular elements that you think would be helpful to discuss in the letter (e.g. a project on which you thought you did noteworthy work), then you can mention those specifically.


Referee did not fully understand accepted paper I just got a paper accepted without revisions in a prestigious journal. This is of course nice. Reading the referee report makes me a bit worried, though. It is clear that the referee has gotten the basic ideas of the paper, and has identified what we also think is the primary contribution. It is, however, also clear that quite a lot of details regarding the implications of the primary result, were not correctly understood by the referee.

What actions should I take from here? I of course want the paper published, but I am worried that people in general will misunderstand the parts about implications. Should I contact the editor and ask for another reviewer? Should I ask permission to re-write that part of the paper? Or should I just shut up and be happy to be accepted without revisions?

As is the custom on this site (or at least it should be) let's assume the premises of the question are correct - that is that it is indeed a prestigious journal.

Do nothing.

In fact no: celebrate acceptance in the way you find most appropriate.

The fact that some people misunderstand what you're trying to say is not a basis to act after acceptance. It might indicate that you presented your results in a not so clear manner — which would speak in favor of refining your writing for future articles — but that would not be an exception in the scientific literature. At any rate, edits (other than very minor ones such as typos) after final acceptance are generally not allowed.

If you see errors in your article that are not trivial and you feel need addressing, the appropriate way to handle this is to publish an erratum. I imagine most journals have a standard procedure for that.


Do the authors need to ask for permission from institutes/companies for including their name in acknowledgement section of their publication? In the acknowledgement section of a thesis or paper, the authors usually thank the funding institution of their research project and people who had significant impact on their publication.

When acknowledging companies/institutions in a publication, should they be informed beforehand? I mean, should authors ask for permissions before acknowledging any names in a publication?

If the agency provides funding, and you are not sure about their policy, you  can always contact the person who administers your grant to find out.

Some private foundations do have specific requests for acknowledgement. For example, I seem to remember that the Templeton Foundation likes authors to include a statement such as "The opinions expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily those of the John Templeton Foundation."

Your grant agent can surely tell you about this. And they will almost certainly be happy to hear you are publishing something with their support.


Can subjects studied in Master and PhD be different? I am in the middle of my master studies in math and need to decide which subject I want to choose for my master thesis, geometry or statistics. I have the following questions:

  Is it possible to start the PhD (say in statistics) in a different subject as the master/master thesis (say in geometry)?

  What actions would you recommand, if I want to change the subject? (e.g. first taking a job in statistical area before starting a PhD in this subject)

  Would it make sense to do another master in statistics?

I thought going from the more theoretical subject geometry to the more applied subject statistics more "natural".
Note that I have in both subjects, geometry and statistics, at least 30 Credits, but my studies (also my Bachelor) is more focused on geometry.

There is a self-evident answer, - yes, it's possible, no any official restrictions, no one care (maybe, except your advisor).

And there are obvious consequences when you're changing the research topic - you're starting something new with less experience. This can be good or not, and this is your, and only your decision.


Does having a masters degree from a Chinese university have negative view for a PhD applicant in the United States? I love travelling and I was thinking of getting my Master’s degree in mathematics abroad (I got my bachelors in the USA). I know that I can get funding if I go to China for my master’s.

Will it be viewed negatively if I try to apply for a PhD in the United States?

I have some experience with Asian Universities, particularly Japanese.

First, take into account that having a Masters might boost a bit your application to PhD a bit, as long as you publish something over there. Also, if the profesor you are going with is unknown, it might not help you at all.

Second, many people think that studying abroad and traveling are similar things, when they are really not. You'll have to deal with the hardships of asian Academic culture, which are very different from the American ones.

You'll also have to deal with the hardships of life, be sure to know the language at least to communicate basic thoughts and deal with the fact that you might not like food there (Protip: Chinese American Food is somewhat different of real Chinese Food)

I would put more, but I would be edging on ranting, which I'm probably already are.


Career effect of embargo on doctoral dissertation I have a question about how my dissertation embargo period would affect my future work, so please help and share your ideas. I will appreciate any thoughts here.

My PhD degree is material science. I finished my PhD degree oral defense last week, and I am about to submit my final dissertation to the university. As for the dissertation embargo period, my university offers 3 options: (1) release immediately; (2) hold 2 or 5 yrs; (3) indefinite hold.

I personally want to embargo my dissertation for 5 years for publication reasons, but my PhD advisor recommended me for choosing indefinite hold first. He said because we are trying to apply for a patent which may take a really long time, and he also mentioned that some chapters are cooperated with industry partners and they don't want them to be released.

Most of my chapters have been published in peer-reviewed journals, which means even if my dissertation is under embargo, people can still know what my Ph.D. research is about.

But I still have a question: If I choose to embargo my dissertation indefinitely, will this affect my future career in a bad way?

I do not see that embargoing your dissertation will have any consequences for your career. Until recently, theses and dissertations only existed in hard copy: at least in the sciences, people expect to read your papers and not your thesis. In all likelihood, nobody will ever notice that you've embargoed it.

In any case, placing an embargo on the thesis just prevents the university library from distributing it. There is nothing to stop you sharing a copy with someone (e.g. a potential postdoc supervisor) if you wish to do so.


Any chance of math grad school? In my freshman year of undergrad I was a chemistry major. However, I hated it and because I hated it I did not do well in my chemistry classes. Because of this, I cheated on a midterm as well as a problem set by over collaborating with another person. I got caught and was called in - but long story short, I ended up confessing and was put on leave for a term. During this term I spent a lot of time thinking about what I did, volunteered at a summer camp, and spent my time productively. I truly regret what I did but I cannot change the past. When I came back, I switched my major to math because I hated chemistry and I wanted to pursue my true passion. However, I now soon will apply to graduate school for math. I am planning on disclosing the academic dishonesty I committed during my freshman year. Nonetheless, I am worried that my application will be dismissed entirely because of my cheating incident. Obviously cheating is a big red flag in any student's application. But will I even have a chance at being accepted at say a mid tier math graduate school? Will it help if I manage to get the undergraduate dean whom I confessed to, to write a letter on my behalf?

If you want the option of going to grad school for math, you should apply regardless. By not applying, you are voting no on your admission. Rather than self-selecting out, let them tell you no.


Citations: What do I do when the article writer's name is the same as mine? What should I do to give credit to an author whose first name is the same as mine and last name is not provided anywhere? I don't want it to look like I wrote the article which I am citing in any way, shape, or form, but I also don't want to make a big deal out of that one citation. I am using MLA formatting.

If it's just the first name, cite the work as being authored by a mononymic person.  Author names in text are virtually always (a) full name, (b) initials + last name, or (c) just last name.

The consistent use of a first name only, along with an entry in the works cited whose author has that name and that name alone, will make it clear that you are a different person (especially if you actually do quote yourself and have a separate entry, in Last, First format with your works).

If you still feel that there is the possibility for confusion, upon first mention of the author, insert a footnote or parenthetical statement to clarify the distinction.


Is it common to have a personal copy of one’s own PhD thesis? I worked very hard on my PhD thesis, and I think it would be cool to have a nicely bound physical copy of it. I’m simply wondering if obtaining one is a common thing to do.

Absolutely! I had 5 copies bound - Me, my supervisor, my parents and two for the library (these last two were a requirement).


Is it ethical to have manditory questions in an online CrowdSourced survey with paid particpants? Our School Research Ethics Committee requires that when designing an online survey that each question is optional for the participants. These rules were devised before the era of CrowdSourceing when researchers had to rely on the goodwill of others to gather the necessary responses.

However as I am paying each participant to complete this survey (using Amazon Mechanical Turk) do you think I have a case to argue that I should be able to make some, or even all, the questions mandatory?

I have not approached the Research Ethics Committee about this yet, I just wanted to see what the norm is in other countries and institutions.

Thanks

Mandatory is a difficult concept. I think it is ethically questionable to not allow a participant to withdraw from a study at any time. There may be edge cases, for example drug studies, where further follow up treatment is required, but even here I think that treatment would not be considered part of the study. When a participant withdraws from a study we still need to provide them with whatever inconvenience allowance was agreed. We are not even allowed to prorate the inconvenience allowance, however, we break our longer studies into hour long segments and pay an hourly inconvenience allowance. It is perfectly reasonable to use a "forced choice" response system where participants are required to give a response in order to continue with the study. Using the Mechanical Turk, I think ethically you should provide an easy means of dropping out that is constantly available that will not penalize the participants. When it is so easy to withdraw, forcing them to answer a question which is not inherently necessary, seems silly. If they do not want to answer it and they have no other option, they will just withdraw.

Consider two experiments that consist of two questions. In the first experiment you either show either a circle or a square that is either red or blue. If for whatever reason the participant does not want to tell you what shape they saw, you can still get meaningful information about the color and therefore it would make no sense to force them to answer the first question. In the second experiment you show them a face and ask if it is a man or a women and based on that response you ask them if it was either Alice or Carol or Bob or Dave. For this experiment they need to answer the first question.


How should I cite a screenshot in APA style for my student paper? When adding a reference to an image that is a screenshot, what is the proper way to cite in APA style?

Also, who is considered the artist in this case? The person who took the screenshot, the website where I've found the image or the creator of the software?

Generic APA format for websites and the like is:

  Author, A. (date). Title of document [Format description]. Retrieved from http://URL

In your case, Author, A. would be (IMHO) the author of the screenshot, Title of document would be something descriptive of the image (probably depends on what you want to highlight / why you're "citing" the image), Format description would be something in the lines of "Image, screen capture".


How can I get the rights to my final year project? I live in the UK, study Computing and I'm about to start my final year. I have been told by friends that the University holds the right to my final year project. Is there a way of getting the rights and intellectual property of my final year project?

The first question is why you want the rights.  For example, if you are working on something with serious commercial applications and hope to start a company or sell the technology, then this is a very serious issue.  The first step is hiring a lawyer, who can advise you on precisely which rights you and the university currently hold, and who can help you negotiate with the university regarding commercialization.

On the other hand, most student projects are of no commercial value.  If you just want to display your work online (to help build a portfolio for job applications and in case this work is useful for someone else), then it's probably easier.  It may depend on the university, but presumably they don't want to limit the dissemination of student projects, so if you ask them I bet they'll grant permission.  You should think about exactly what you want to provide and under what sort of license (for example, if you put code on the web, nobody's allowed to use it unless you license that).  I imagine the university would be happy with some sort of Creative Commons license.

I'd recommend being very clear and straightforward when asking, to avoid raising suspicions that you are trying to trick them into giving up the rights to valuable technology.


In journals submissions, what does "Confirmation of Intent" mean? I am planning to submit a manuscript for a special issue in a journal. The guest editor puts a deadline for Confirmation of Intent. What does this mean? What the editor expects from the authors at this level? are there any samples of such thing?

As @vadim123 said in the comment, this is to estimate the size of the special issue. If it were too small, the journal may decide to:

make a very small special issue;
join special issues from two conferences into one;
cancel the special issue and propose acceptance of the paper through a standard process.

If the special issue is too large, they would typically make it into a supplement.

What should you do? Reply yes or no for your participation in the special issue, and if yes, then the estimated length, like: "We'll provide the full proofs while in the 10-page extended abstract there were obly sketches, it'll be circa 20 pages long." If they wanted more information, they would have asked for it explicitly.


Lie or try to explain reason of my absence during classes? I have a difficult situation about limit of absences during classes in my university.

The teacher of one subject made a rule that 3 absences with disrespectful reason during the course leads to fail grade. I've exceeded this limit because of my part-time job, which I need to perform in order to pay for my education.

One (and almost the only) respectful reason for absence is illness. Illness must be proven using a medical certificate from a doctor. The teacher asked me to show a certificate. Obviously I don't have it.

However, I did all the tasks and presented them.

Now I have a dilemma:

Try to forge the document about illness OR try to explain my situation about work.

Each option is a risk. The risk of forgery is obvious. And the risk of trying to explain my situation is that the teacher can say that he doesn't care about that, and then forgery will be impossible, and so I will automatically fail the course.

What should I do in this situation?

Take initiative about this, and be honest. By doing so, you can help your professor see you as a busy student who made a mistake, rather than a suspicious student who doesn't seem to care about the class (and who maybe gets caught in a lie).

Ask to meet with your professor in private. At that meeting:

Honestly explain that you have missed class three times because of your job. Even though you respect the professor and care about the course, your job has interfered several times, and you are dependent on that money for your living expenses.
Apologize, sincerely. This is for missing class, for conveying disrespect through your actions (it seems like that is part of the professor's insistence on attendance), and for [other effects of your absence on the class or the professor]. What did you lose out on, and how have you tried to make up for that?
Acknowledge that it is reasonable for the professor to fail you under this policy.

You now know that the professor has this class policy, and you understand that work is not a qualifying reason for missing class, and that three absences is an automatic reason for failure.
Because you were absent for the class when this professor explained the absence policy, you did not know right away, but it was your responsibility to find out what you missed during that class and learn about the policy in that way.

Ask if there is any way that you can make up for those absences. You would like to successfully complete this class if possible. If you can sincerely do so, tell the professor what you've already learned from the class, why you're interested in the material, and what you hope to do with your degree.
Calmly let the professor know that this is a big deal for you, but do not literally beg or (try to) emotionally manipulate the professor.
Recognize that the professor can say no. And that "no" is helpful to you: if there is no way for you to successfully complete the class this term, knowing this will allow you to focus on your other classes, research, and work.

Integrity is critical to schooling, whether you're on an academic or professional path. Professors will respect someone who acknowledges breaking the rules and apologizes. That respect might allow you to stay in the class, or it might mean they give you a fair chance when you retake the class. On the other hand, someone who evades responsibility and is willing to lie about one thing may be more willing to take improper shortcuts, cheat, or lie about other things. For your career, you do not want anyone to question your integrity, whether you plan to conduct research or enter a profession.


A paper with copied material We recently submitted a paper to a conference. However, I just noticed that one of the collaborators have copied three paragraphs from another paper of mine, though that part is not our main contribution.

He claimed that he has written that part, and he showed his work, but he has forgotten to apply the changes to the final version. I was wondering if I should withdraw the paper to avoid getting flagged as plagiarism or I should wait until the review results are out and then make changes to the paper?

First, deal with your collaborator, then notify the conference asap. If they figure it out and you then are like "oh, yes, sorry, I know, I will change it." you are in a bad place. Not only did you waste the reviewers time with a version you knew was wrong/has to be corrected, your late excuse might also not seem honest.

If, however, you inform them yourself, apologize for the inconvenience and the mistake and give the corrected version, they might well forgive you.


Is it acceptable to ask an unknown professor outside my dept for help in a related field during his office hours? Would a professor find it strange or be irritated if an unknown student asks him a question during his office hours that is related to his field but either is or isn't related to any class he is teaching?

Sometimes I encounter a math problem in my engineering class where I'd find it helpful if a math professor could explain a concept to me when I don't have any satisfactory answers. Another example is if I am working on an outside of class project and would like to ask a CS professor what an apache log is?

Is this acceptable?

In general, yes. Personally I've been pretty open to answering questions about my field of expertise from "random" students during my office hours. But:

Ask first: "I was working on X and am wondering about Y. Do you think you would have time to answer a few questions?" Be prepared to hear "No, I'm sorry, I don't."
Ask the right person. Don't assume that a CS professor who teaches machine learning will know anything about Apache logs.
Come prepared with a specific question - don't expect me to explain an entire topic to you from beginning to end, or spend an hour walking you through a tutorial on some programming concept you want to learn.
Don't abuse office hours as a substitute for doing basic research on your own (e.g. "I know I could easily find the answer to my question online, but it was quicker to come ask you during office hours.")
Professors may want to give "priority" to students who are actually enrolled in their classes. If the office hours are busy, try not to monopolize the professor's time - or come back at a less busy time, like the week after the midterm exam instead of the week before ;)


Permissions required for using an app for a study What kind of permissions do I need to obtain from the developer of an app if I am planning to use it in a study?
The study primarily aims to look at how different students learn mobile games differently, and what factors determines their score.

Since it is relevant to the study, we would also have to analyse the game itself, quantify how the difficulty evolves over time, and what amount of randomness is involved in each gameplay (to get somehing like a stochastic index).

So, in case this ever goes to publication, would mentioning the app-name be necessary, since its characterisation would already be a part of it?
Do we need to obtain permission before even using it, since it is already a free app in the play store? Doesn't its free status give us permission to use it in a study (at least an unpublished one)?

There are no commercial interests in either of the cases. I am not sure if it is okay to mention the name here too. Sorry if I seem to be over-thinking but I am new to the world of academia! Any guidance is appreciated. (Unsure of the tags too)

Yes, of course you should mention the name of the app. You have to provide details of your methodology. You should also cite the app (I see this commonly done by citing the app store page for it, but maybe your field has a different convention).
I have never heard of a researcher obtaining permission to run a study involving particular software. I have led or collaborated on about ten human-subjects studies involving a variety of free and commercial software.


Automatically updating ORCID, etc, from arXiv? Generally, whenever I write an article, I will always upload it to arXiv first. So, my list of publications on arXiv is essentially the most official version of my publication record.
Is there a way to automatically update my profiles from other websites (ORCID, Google Scholar, ResearcherID) directly from my arXiv record? (I do have an arXiv author identifier). i.e. whenever I upload a new article to arXiv, it will automatically be populated on those other platforms I mentioned.

Google scholar will add anything it finds to your profile automatically. Usually it is more necessary to clean up (e.g. if a name of a preprint does not match the published version exactly) than to add more.
ORCID only lists papers that are published by journals - no preprints. But it also does this automatically (and does a good job - you can help if you use your ORCID during submission).
I don't know about research gate.


NSF personnel funding If I request say 3 months summer salary at the rate I'm being paid by my academic institution, where would that money come from?

(a) Would I be paid directly from NSF?

(b) Would the NSF pay my institution, and then my institution funnels that money to me?

(c) Would my institution pay me directly from its budget?

The money will come as a grant to your institution, from which you can take summer salary.

Note that if you are in a position where “summer salary” is relevant, you are probably subject to the NSF limit that you can only have two months a year on your NSF budgets, and also that for many (most?) programs, you are unlikely to get more than one month a year on any single grant.


Can I have two PhD supervisors from two different UK universities? I have two unconditional offers from two UK universities in law. University A assigned me one supervisor only, but he is the greatest in part of my thesis. University B also assigned me one supervisor, who also has a very unique insight in the second part of my thesis.
Is there any possibility to ask for a joint PhD? Or any way to be collaboratively supervised by these two great supervisors? If any one has a successful similar situation, I will be grateful if you could share it.

As the old saying goes, if you don't ask, you don't get. In my experience it's quite common to have an external supervisor on the team, either from another university or from an industrial partner. So you can certainly ask.
How you approach the topic may depend on how well you already know the potential supervisors. If you have already built up a relationship with one of them, you can easily broach the question in an email. Chances are that the two potential supervisors will already know each other, if they work in a similar field. (Of course there's a chance this could work to your disadvantage, if they know each other and don't get on.)
If you don't already have a rapport with one or other of them, I would ask for a video call to discuss the offer they have made you. Prepare a few different, relevant questions, both about the research ideas and the logistical aspects of the position. Then you can bring up the other supervisor, while clearly emphasising that ideally you would like to be split 50/50 between them, and benefit from both their inputs.
If they agree, great! Your university likely has some official mechanism to add external people to your supervisory team. If they don't agree, that's not so good for you, but you could still consider collaborating informally with one of them later on.
Finally, remember that research is very changeable, and what you think your thesis will be about now might be very different from what you actually end up finding and writing about. So don't worry too much if you find yourself going in direction C, D or E rather than A and B.


IEEE vs ACM membership I'm a 3rd year PhD student of Computer Science in the UK and I was considering joining the IEEE-CIS and/or ACM as a student member. As much as the annual memberships in both are very reasonably priced, I was wondering if there was any point subscribing to both and whether if anybody who signed up for both would recommend one over the other and suggest me some key factors to consider before becoming a member in these (or in general, other such societies).

I was a full member of both IEEE and ACM in the past year (2014). I tend to like ACM. The CACM seems to have better quality articles and they are more CS-ish compared to IEEE which I felt are more CompEng-ish. I also prefer ACM because they send more meaningful mails and less spam compared to IEEE. For instance, ACM will send you a customized list of articles based on your interests.


Is it reasonable to collaborate with a professor when you are employed by a different professor? How wise is it to collaborate with another professor while working as a staff under one professor? Is there a ethical conflict in doing so even if the other professor is from a slightly different area?

Also, how should one develop his/her own expertise while working as a postdoc under one professor? Is it wise to also work with other professor with slightly different research interest?

In contrast to F'x's opinion, I think collaboration with people outside your group is not just wise, but actually necessary, at least if you are working toward an academic career.  You must develop both a wide professional network and broad independent research experience.  As long as everything is out in the open, with everyone's knowledge and agreement, there is absolutely no ethical conflict.

This does not mean that you should shirk your paid job; any outside projects must be on your own time and must not interfere with your official duties.  Similarly, you can't use your supervisor's resources without their explicit advance permission.  And your supervisor may be happier if there's some chance of involving them in your outside projects.  But ultimately, how you use your own time is your own business.  (Any supervisor who tells you otherwise, or insists that you don't have "your own time", is simply abusing you.  Run.)


As a PhD-Advisor: How do I discourage a student from continuing? I know it is slightly controversial, but I am supervising a student who started with the right attitude, but is now less and less engaged with the research. We are at a point where there's no end in sight, and the student still wants to finish within unmanageable time limits.

The context is peculiar (but I would like to keep it detached from the generality of the question): he's a part-time student, he's paying his own fees (as opposed to a PhD funded by a project), and he's after the PhD "title" more than the research that he has to put in for the title itself.

All these factors make it more difficult to dissuade him from his PhD choice: the endless excuses of putting more work when there will be time (he's a part time student); and the fact that I am proactively chasing him to arrange meetings are all things that are taking their toll.

My (general) question is therefore: how do I dissuade a PhD student from wasting his time and money, when it's clear that she is not PhD-material?

Do you want to dissuade the student from continuing because

You think the student is not capable because of a lack of ability,
You think the student might be capable, but just isn't engaging in the work,
You don't see the student is worth investing your time in,
You think the student is wasting his/her money?

If (1), then a frank discussion might be the best way. I have seen other PhD supervisors directly let their PhD students know that they think a research career is not for them.

If (2), you ought to move from dissuasion to a frank discussion in which you try and figure out the reason for the downturn in engagement. Is all well at home? Is it just the usual mid (?) thesis malaise? Has the student lost the big picture and therefore the drive to do the research? Why did the student start the research in the first place? Has the situation changed - e.g. has the life goals been redefined/changed?

If (3) and/or (4), if the student is  paying for themselves, then it's their money they are potentially wasting so I wouldn't concern yourself on how other people spend their money. However, the money is presumably paying your salary in part so your obligations to the student remain in that regard. In return however, you can set reasonable expectations on your student. If you make it clear that you expect your student to achieve reasonable goal A by reasonable deadline Z, and the student doesn't, then that opens up another opportunity for a frank discussion along the lines of the need for effective prioritisation of research work and for-money work.

EDIT: To bring this answer into line with the edited question, I would set out an agreed plan of work - and behaviour (esp. showing up to meetings) -  with deadlines for the next 2/6/12 months. You might want to work with your Head of Department/School on this to ensure that your requirements are reasonable. It appears that you have already said to the student that in your opinion the student isn't PhD material. In setting out your agreed workplan, you are giving - formally - the opportunity for the student to show that he or she is capable of working to an agreed standard. If, as you say, the student isn't capable, then the student will fail and you can reasonably excuse yourself as his PhD supervisor.

I am suggesting this cautious approach, as I am sure your Faculty will want to know why things went this way, and that you offered the best opportunity for your student (or fee-paying client) to succeed, before you ceased to be his supervisor.


Is there any real demonstrated benefit to the Dutch break out of the academic year? Dutch universities have an arguably peculiar academic calendar: each semester breaks down in two blocks (actually 3, but only 2 are teaching blocks) so 4 blocks in total. Each full course is block-long (around 32-36 hours per block, usually 7 teaching weeks with 4-6 hours per week) which might seems short and "rushed". Each such course is 4-6 ECTS.

When I am talking with some other Dutch colleagues, they are not exactly able to justify this but they claim that "is about quality, not quantity". Sure, but how can you teach, for example, Calculus in 34 hours total including tutorials etc.? (I am using the example of calculus because they try to fit in such a course single and multi-variate calculus, series, differential equations etc.).

Anyway, I am wondering if there exists any particular study or report that argues that is more beneficial to have more blocks with fewer hours per block/course than the traditional break-out of the academic calendar.

I am not sure if other countries have similar systems, Netherlands is the only one I know so it might be country-specific.

I doubt that there is a demonstrated benefit, but I also doubt that it is a problem or an issue. The length of a term is basically arbitrary. The number of credits assigned to a "term length course" is just a number. What matters is that (a) there is a fair amount of consistence within a system and (b) that a translation to other systems is possible and rational.

Some national systems are historical and based on the country's past. In the US, terms were heavily influenced by the agricultural past. In some countries, say UK, terms are somewhat determined by religious holidays and conventions. But, if a student has some sense that the system behaves in a stable and predictable manner, then it isn't an issue.

Universities are good about knowing how to do the translations when students move from one system to another. Again, no real issue.

But, I'll guess that over, say a year, a student from The Netherlands and one from UK or US who applies him/herself equally to the study, will learn about the same.

Breaking up a total curriculum into more or fewer longer or shorter "chunks" with more or fewer credit numbers is not especially relevant as long as the student knows what to expect.

Trying to do it 36 contact course what other do in 45, would possibly be an issue, but even that can be "about the same" depending on what students are expected to do overall and what is expected of them when not face to face with a professor.

Local consistency and predictability is enough.


Funded PhD at low ranked school(s) vs one year funded TA at a top 5 school I'm in a peculiar situation.

My interest area is human augmentation, biosensing, assistive robotics and human robot interaction. I have offers from 3 different schools in US -

PhD in the School of biology at a top 5 school (R1) - This comes with a one year fixed TA. After that, I will 'hopefully find a lab which can fund me'.
PhD in Bioengineering at a low ranked commuter R1 school - This comes with full funding. The professor is a leader in his field, and most of his students work in academia/research jobs for the government.
PhD with Robotics focus at a low ranked private university (its ranking in Robotics is top 20, but it's still R2, the students end up as postdocs at top 5 schools and work in a cluster of Robotics companies surrounding the school) - This comes with full funding. The assistant professor is new, but very energetic and has secured prestigious grants and industry collaborations.

I am confused af.

While I do want the perks of being in a top 5, I don't want to deal with fears about funding running out in my late 20s (dealt with it during my masters). I am an international student from India, coming from a humble background, currently working on my OPT - and really want to do a PhD because I've realized that I thrive in a research environment. My master's was from a top 5 (actually from the first school that I stated). I'm open to both academia and research based industry jobs after the completion of my PhD program.

I have a very good feeling about the third option, since the professor is new, understands the plight of being a PhD candidate, will work with me on securing internships and basically help me build my career. Since he's an assistant professor, I'll be involved with a lot of projects, patents and publications.

The professor at the mid-level R-1 is a stud. He has a well established lab, and is happy with his internal and external collaborators. I'm not sure if he'll work very actively on career development.

The professor/department at the top university recently had a big grant pulled from them. Even during the interviews, the professors said that they'd love to hire me, but funding is a major issue.

There are so many confounding factors in these sorts of decisions, that it really has to come down to you to decide.

That said, my opinion is you always go with the funding.

Not only for the obvious benefits of having money.  The main benefit as I see it is the school's signal of interest in you, and desire to have you in their program.  Irrespective of what you think is the best fit, these schools see a lot of students, and also have their own opinion on what students are good for their program.  Your two offers with full funding looked at you and said "we want this person," and then put money on the table.

By that metric, the first school has a much more luke warm response.  Presumably they fully funded some other students, but decided against extending full funding to you.  The "why" of it is immaterial at this point.

That leaves just your 2nd and 3rd options.  It sounds like number 3 is an excellent fit that you're excited about, from what you've written.  Regardless of what you pick, congratulations on having multiple offers to pick from though!  This is a good problem to be struggling with.


Should I include a professor's name in my paper to get it published? I am a master's student and want to publish a paper in a specific subfield in mathematics. I have written the paper all by myself.

The problem is my advisor won't check my draft. He says he is busy and so he could not find time.

My question is:

When papers are submitted to reviewers and editors, do they see what are the names of the authors in the paper submitted?
If my professor co-authors a paper will it be easier to get published?
Should I include my professor's name with my name to get the paper published easier?

I really want to publish it with my name only. But I really don't know how this publication process works.

The much bigger issue here seems to be that you are in dire need of proper advising and mentorship, and your official adviser isn’t providing you with those things. You say “I really don't know how this publication process works.” Well, I don’t think anyone here can give you the sort of advice that you need - a few suggestions and rough ideas, maybe, but without getting very specific advice and feedback from someone who has actually reviewed your work and knows what it’s about, I fear your path to successful publication of your paper will be a very hard one indeed. So, I think you should set it as your goal to fix the situation of the neglectful advisor, whether by talking to other professors who are interested in what you’re working on and are willing to mentor you, complaining to the department chair, or by having an awkward but necessary conversation with your current advisor. It is a difficult problem and I don’t have an easy fix, but at the very least I think it’s important to recognize that this goes much deeper than just the question of who should be the author of the paper.

Coming back to your “official” question: no, you should absolutely not add your advisor’s name as a coauthor to your paper just to increase the paper’s chances of acceptance. There may or may not be some good reasons to have your advisor as a coauthor (for example, he may have proposed the research question, and that might be seen as a sufficient intellectual contribution to make someone a coauthor), but this particular one is most certainly not a good reason - in fact it is a blatantly unethical reason to make someone a coauthor.

Good luck!


What should I list as my academic affiliation in scientific publishing? Imaging that I am a student from College A and cross-registered in Institute B. I  am a college kid so I receive very little care from the professors from my own school, and I do not have an official supervisor. Most of the works are done
in the library and computer lab of B, and I discussed my ideas very often with professors in B. However, I do not have department affiliation with B. My formal status in B is something like "exch. stud." I guess it means exchange student.

What should I list as my academic affiliations in scientific publishing?

I would expect you to list both affiliations. This is very common at all levels of research.


Am I able to change my GPA once I submit a graduate school application? I am wondering if I apply to graduate school in US in fall and lets say the due date to submit the application is December 1 and fall quarter grades are posted two weeks after that. Now I am wondering am I be able to update my GPA after positing the fall quarter grades,which is after submitting the application?

I think it really depends on the school you are applying to:

You can call their administration that you would like to hand in recent new transcript, or just send it to them and hope they accept (it should certainly not be a bad thing to do it).


Correct name for experiment aimed at confirming an alternative Hypothesis? I am running a series of surveys with single variant A/B tests aimed at gathering information about how different groups of users perceive a series of website designs with different distortions applied. Each participant will be able to rate the various design/distortion combinations using a single metric using a slider rating system (-100 to +100). The aim being to identify which elements/features of a design, when removed or distorted, have a greater or lesser effect on the different groups of users and what is the comparable level of effect on them.

The Null Hypothesis is that there is no perceived difference. The alternative is therefore that there is a perceived difference.

The second stage of my research will involve creating different designs based on this information which I will test using the same apparatus. The aim being to see if I can evoke a specific response among particular user groups to particular designs based on the information gleaned from the first series of experiments. My problem is that I don't know the correct terminology to describe this second stage.

What is the correct name for this type of 'confirmation' experiment?

I have been using variances of "alternative Hypothesis confirmation experiment" but that really does not seem right.

Any help is much appreciated.

If you are doing a bunch of hypothesis tests in the first phase, you are likely to detect false positives unless you correct for multiple comparisons.

In the second phase, you commit to a particular intervention so multiple comparisons is not an issue.

You could call the first phase exploratory and the second phase confirmatory. But, there is nothing special about the experiment. You are simply applying a intervention and comparing its affects vs a control group. Your motivations or hopes don't make any difference.

But maybe I've misunderstood your experimental design. You aren't very clear in your description. Specifically, I don't see how the second phase is "rigged".

Further, if you are being scientifically honest, the goal of the second experiment shouldn't be to confirm the alternative hypothesis, but rather to see whether the null hypothesis can be rejected. The experiment would be successful no matter what you learn.


Should I explain my poor performance during undergrad, due to mental illness, when applying for PhD? I was mentally ill for the first three years of my undergraduate studies (altogether, I had the diagnoses of severe depression and anxiety disorder for about five years). The diseases delayed my progress considerably. However, I recovered, and have done extremely well after that.

Two programs, both top-ten globally, are interested in hiring me. I have not listed my grades on my CV to avoid giving a bad first impression; I have instead highlighted my achievements: publications, prizes, research experience, etc.

How / when should I mention this? My BSc is average and MSc very good. I hope they do not care about the undergrad grades. If there is an "other information" box in the applications, should I state something along the lines

  My performance during my undergraduate studies was not good due to severe illness. However, I have fully recovered, and done very well since

I know there is a previous question about getting a bad transcript past admission committees. However, I think my qualifications are really good without the bad beginning. Also, I would like not to mention I was mentally ill. What to do here?

You do not need to disclose the nature of your illness if you do not wish to.  It was your illness, and you get to decide how you handle it.

The short explanation you propose is fine.  You might want to specify that it was the first three years:

  My performance during the first three years of my undergraduate studies was not representative of my abilities, and was due to illness. However, I am glad to say that I have fully recovered, and as my transcripts show, I was able to overcome those early difficulties.


Are there universities that consider it academic misconduct for students to publish material created by faculty? Please read the bold text before answering.

A colleague has shown me that one of his students has posted exam questions with answers , and prior assignments with answers to a commercial web site intended to communicate such material to other students.  Sadly, I am the chair of the university's Honor Council and the question of whether these actions rise to the level of academic misconduct has landed in my lap.

Also sadly, I am ill-equipped to have an opinion.  Almost every assignment I've given in the last ten years is available on the public web and I return assignments with critiques.  I give pen-and-paper tests and return them to the students, then go over the questions and give the correct answers in class.  There are thousands of copies of my old exams around, many of them with answers that were either correct to begin with or corrected post facto.  I am sure there are fat binders in fraternity and sorority houses with that material.

I can get all legalistic and ask, "Well... did you tell him not to do that?"  In fact, I am in the process of finding that out.  I am pretty sure that widespread commercial distribution of questions with answers is bad.  My concern is whether contributing this information to such a web site rises to the level of academic misconduct.

So, here is a question that has an answer rather than leading to discussion: Are there universities that prohibit students from contributing material created by the faculty, such as exams or assignments, to commercial web sites the purpose of which is supplying that material to other students?  If so, how is that prohibition worded and how is it enforced?

September 10: This has been edited by several people, and several people have added tags.  I've just edited it myself to remove the word "cheaters" from the description of the commercial web sites involved in this case, and which are in general the subject of the question.  I've also deleted most of the tags, leaving only "ethics" and "policy."

November 15: Thanks for the responses.  After a certain amount of back and forth, my institution has adopted the following (voluntary) syllabus language: "Some lecture slides, notes, or exercises used in this course may be the property of the textbook publisher or other third parties. All other course material, including but not limited to slides developed by the instructor(s), the syllabus, assignments, course notes, course recordings (whether audio or video) and examinations or quizzes are the property of the University or of the individual instructor who developed them. Students are free to use this material for study and learning, and for discussion with others, including those who may not be in this class, unless the instructor imposes more stringent requirements. Republishing or redistributing this material, including uploading it to web sites or linking to it through services like iTunes, violates the rights of the copyright holder and is prohibited. There are civil and criminal penalties for copyright violation. Publishing or redistributing this material in a way that might give others an unfair advantage in this or future courses may subject you to penalties for academic misconduct." [emphasis in the original]

December 8, 2017: I just received a request from someone at another institution to use the language above.  Although it was adopted by my institution, I wrote it, and I now contribute it to the public domain.  Use it as-is or modified, with no need to attribute it or otherwise give credit.

Since you asked for norms at other schools, here is one data point: UC Berkeley has an explicit policy on this subject.  At UC Berkeley, instructors own the copyright on their course materials and are allowed to specify the policy on dissemination.  In additional, dissemination for a commercial purpose is prohibited without express consent of the instructor.  If instructors specify a policy, students who violate this policy can be punished for academic misconduct -- and this is stated explicitly in the UC Berkeley policies.

In more detail, UC Berkeley's policy on Course Note-Taking and Materials states:

  Individual instructors retain copyrights to [...] class materials they create.  Instructors may permit, limit, or prohibit the [..] further distribution of class materials created by an instructor (class notes, recordings, exams, and class materials, collectively referred to as “Class
  Materials”).  Instructors are encouraged to clearly communicate their preferences on recording and sharing Class Materials in their syllabi. [...]

  Unauthorized use of Class Materials may subject an individual to legal proceedings brought by the instructor as well as disciplinary and legal proceedings by the University. [...]

Thus, if an instructor states in the syllabus that dissemination of exams is not allowed, then a student who violates that restriction may be disciplined by the University for academic misconduct.  On the other hand, if the instructor does not state any policy, and the students shares the exam with others (for non-commercial purposes), there is no violation of University academic misconduct rules, though there might well be a violation of copyright law.

Also, UC Berkeley's Code of Student Conduct has a section that deals specifically with this subject.  It states:

  102.23 Course Materials

  Selling, preparing, or distributing for any commercial purpose course lecture notes or video or audio recordings of any course unless authorized by the University in advance and explicitly permitted by the course instructor in writing. The unauthorized sale or commercial distribution of course notes or
  recordings by a student is a violation of these Policies whether or not it was the student or someone else who prepared the notes or recordings.

  Copying for any commercial purpose handouts, readers or other course materials provided by an instructor as part of a University of California course unless authorized by the University in advance and explicitly permitted by the course instructor or the copyright holder in writing (if the instructor is not the copyright holder).

Exams count as course materials and thus are covered by this policy.

Personal opinion: I think sites like CourseHero are scummy, sleazy sites: the worst of the worst.  They require students to submit additional course materials to view the ones that are on record there, and they make no attempt to validate that students have permission to share those course materials; indeed, they have every incentive not to validate whether the student has authorization, and every incentive to encourage unauthorized uploading.  Thus, their business model is based upon encouraging students to share stuff they might not have permission to -- and they profit off of this.  I find this business practice reprehensible and worth of condemnation.

However... it is a separate question whether student use of those sites constitutes academic misconduct.  Personally, I would say that students have a due process right to be informed of their responsibilities, and to only be published for actions that are a clear violation of published policies.  Therefore, I believe it is the instructors' responsibility to establish clear policies -- either on a course-by-course basis, on course syllabi, or else by adopting clear policies at the campus level.  In the absence of such policies, I would be very hesitant to punish students who shared exams with others.  That does not feel fair to me.


How are PhD students assigned to supervisors/professors? In my experience, there are two types of PhD students

(1) A professor offers a PhD studentship. Then, students apply directly and know their supervisor from the first day.

In this case, how a professor secure the funding for a PhD studentship?

(2) A department offers PhD studentships. After admission, students can choose their supervisors or the department will assign them to available professors.

In this case, how the capacity of each faculty member is determined to accept PhD students from available students of the department?

I know that the system varies from university to university, but I am curious to know the most common systems for each cases in North America and Eastern Europe.

(2) A department offers PhD studentships. After admission, students
  can choose their supervisors or the department will assign them to
  available professors.

  In this case, how the capacity of each faculty member is determined to
  accept PhD students from available students of the department?

This is generally the norm in US universities. How the capacity is set depends on various funding-related factors:

Does the department support all incoming Ph.D students via fellowships ? Then there's a budget associated with this.
Does the department support all incoming students via fellowship or teaching assistant positions ? Then based on estimated enrollment of students in courses there's a rough formula estimating number of TAs needed each year, and this factors in how many students are leaving.
Does faculty funding support students (either from Day 1 or eventually) ? Then the department will solicit information from faculty on how many students they expect to support that year, and make calculations accordingly.

All of these are estimates, and can go wrong. So departments usually need some kind of cushion  when doing calculations to adjust for that.

While departments might "assign" students to faculty when they enter, this is probably for administrative purposes so students don't slip through the cracks and have someone they can approach early on. Typically students and advisors choose each other once the students arrive.


How to deal with a professor who delayed my contract signature until I received better postdoc offers? I just got my PhD 2 weeks ago. Last April I discussed with a professor about an offer to join her team. However, this offer was pending a certain project acceptance (I was supposed to work mainly on that project).

The project got accepted on July and I accepted to start working beginning of December. Since September I sent 3 emails asking when can we start with the official procedures of preparing and signing the contract. I always received the same answer 'whenever you want', I would reply that I need to start it early so I can settle and finish the boring paperwork, then I receive nothing back.

Until 2 days before my PhD defense when she suggested to start the procedures of preparing a contract (these procedures would take at least 3 weeks). Meanwhile this professor asked me to do minor tasks for the project, I did it. But when she kept delaying the official procedures, I felt worried. I thought maybe she is not sure yet about hiring me, so I made other interviews and already received two much better offers and I'm comparing between the three offers now.

My question is, how rude, professional-wise, my situation is? I already talked to her by phone and described that I'm deciding between various offers and that I will finally decide in two days but she wasn't ok with that at all. She said you are already committed with me (even without a contract). I really don't want to burn bridges.

In my opinion neither party has behaved very well.  You received an offer and accepted it.  Then you asked for a contract and it was not provided in a timely manner.  However, from your descriptions it doesn't sound like you conveyed how important it was to you to sign the contract at a certain time.

  I would reply that I need to start it early so I can settle and finish the boring paperwork

This is not very clear: early and late are entirely subjective terms.  It is plausible that the professor thought she was acting early.  You should have said "I need to sign the contract by Date X, or I will have to consider other offers."  Yes, this is a somewhat strongly worded statement, but step back and took a look at the situation: is being firm about getting a contract on a job that has been offered and accepted going to place the job in any jeopardy?  Almost certainly not, and if it does then perhaps you're dodging a bullet by not taking this job.  Also, interviewing for other jobs after you've accepted a job offer is a significantly more precipitous action.  It is understandable but only ethically watertight if you made best efforts to nail down the job you've accepted, and it's not clear that you did.  Moreover, having the professor find out that you interviewed elsewhere -- which is extremely likely in most academic communities, by the way -- risks annoying her much more than a "Please stop dragging your feet" email.

Moreover, doing work for a job before you've signed a contract is a very bad idea.  How do you signal more interest in a job than actually starting the job?  If you pull out after doing work then the professor is almost certainly going to be surprised and a bit miffed (unless she has been playing games with you all along).  On the other hand, if you end up never signing the contract and not taking the job, the work that you've done goes down the drain.  Good luck getting paid for it, and good luck maintaining an academic collaboration with the professor.  But for the record, I blame the employer more: a wizard professor should know better.  She is not behaving professionally.

In my opinion this is not the start of a beautiful friendship.  If you have another job offer that you think is significantly better, in my opinion yes, you can take it.  You haven't signed anything, and you made inquiries about signing which were not handled in a timely manner.  You should expect that if you pull out of this, the professor will be displeased with you.  But that happens sometimes, and it should not stop you from acting in your own professional best interests.  Still, you should be thinking about how not to get into this same situation in the future.


My adviser will be out of the town during the semester when I'm planning to defend Originally I was planning to defend my thesis during spring semester, however my adviser suggested me to delay my defense to the summer semester. He motivated this by the fact that my thesis writing need more work, even though my research results are good and ready.

After I declined Spring graduation, he told me that during the Summer semester he won't be at the University, which I didn't like, because, first of all, he didn't warn me about this in advance (even, as I know, he knew that he is going to another state during summer before delaying my thesis defense), and also this means that my professor doesn't care much about me and my defense, and that I have to delay my defense again to the Winter Semester, which I don't like either, since I think I'm ready to defend in Summer.

Because my adviser is a thesis committee chair, I can't defend without him, even if other committee members will be able to attend my defense. At the same time I don't think that changing my adviser is a good idea, because we were working together for the past two years, he knows me and my research very well, and also there is no other professors at the department that have similar research interests.

So, I see another delaying of my graduation as the only option, which is very frustrating for me. I would appreciate any advice on this situation, and in particular, how to speed up my defense.

1)  agree with others that this is the 21st century.  committee members (chair or not) should be able to skype in to a defense.  this is common practice at all 3 universities i've been associated with.

2)  there should be a graduate advisor type person in your department or college with whom you can consult.  this person is likely someone who helps with recruitment, ensuring students are properly registered for courses and comprehensive/qualifying exams, helping students navigate the "rules" of defending, etc.  talk to this person and explain the situation.  they will likely be able to help you with #1.


Wife: advantage or drawback when asking for visiting student position? My wife and I are both PhD candidate in major-but-not-elite French universities. We study in completely different fields.

She got a visiting student position in the US for 1 semester as of January 2017. I would also like to go to the US as visiting student, at the same time,  for both personal (i.e. not being one ocean away from her during 6 months) and professional reasons (i.e. experiencing the anglo-saxon scientific research paradigm, international experience, etc.).

Question: When contacting Professors of local universities, should I mention that my wife will be in the US at the same time, or not? In other words, would P.I.s be more prone to accept me as visiting student (I'm financially autonomous, so I'm not asking for a funding) if they know my wife will be there (because of empathy or whatever), or would they tend to consider that I apply because of my wife, and not because of the research -- so that I'm not motivated enough?

Edit: As given answers made me figure out, a motive of my question is that there is no research team in the US that study my particular sub-field. So the question "why are you asking for a position in our lab, since this other lab in the UK is closer of your research topic?" might be raised.

Be honest. Present it as a happy coincidence. That's what it is, after all. For example,

  I've always been interested in different research communities and paradigms, given how this knowledge can help me to work more effectively with others and to introspect my own methodology. My wife has been offered a place in [state] also, so this is a ideal opportunity in my academic career to gain the experience I've sought.


A student offered me money to take one of his exams in his place. What should I do? Briefly, I am currently offering my services as a math tutor on a dedicated website.
Recently, a university student contacted me and offered me money to help him cheat an incoming exam. The arrangement would be easy since the exam will take place online, due to COVID-19 (the student would send me the exam text and I would send it back to him, once completed).
I have refused due to ethical reasons. Now, I have identified the precise university and course, and I am wondering if I should warn the course professor that at least one anonymous student has attempted such an arrangement.
I have thought some arguments pro and against:
Against:

such kind of cheating is obvious and warning the professor would
serve no purpose. I would just annoy the professor.
It could happen that the professor will ask me to identify the student. I don't know the student's name, but I have some information
about him that could identify him. Now, in this case, I would refuse
to attempt to identify the student because 1) no actual cheating has
happened yet and 2) it is a can of worms I don't want to open 3) I
don't want to see anybody reprehended, I just would like to prevent
the cheating from happening

Pro:

there are ways to prevent the cheating from happening (browser lock +
full webcam view of the student would make this kind of cheating
quite difficult). Thus the warning is not meaningless.
Even if the professor has already considered the possibility of such
an arrangement, it is still the right thing to do, and the professor
won't be annoyed in either case.
Realistically, the professor won't ask me to identify the student.

These are my thoughts about the matter. I am open to advise. Especially, I would like to know the opinion of actual university professors, if possible.

My advice would be to inform the professor that "students" have contacted you with improper requests such as ...
You were correct to refuse the student, but you may have an obligation to keep them anonymous, as you suggest. That would be true if you have a client relationship with them already, I think.
But the university needs to become aware, if they aren't already, that they need better procedures in place to assure academic integrity. At this time, many are trying (and failing) to get it right and your mail might be a goad to try harder.
You can refuse to help identify the student, but you can certainly make suggestions about improving security.
If your website or other contact methods don't already say it, you might put up a notice of some kind listing what you do when asked to help with cheating.


What does the request to "benchmark your manuscript against recent articles" mean? My manuscript was favourably received, with a recommendation to publish after a minor revision.  However, after submitting the revised version, the Associate Editor (or Editor-in-Chief) responded:

  Please benchmark your manuscript against recent articles in [other journal] to increase the relevance of your manuscript to the journal's readership.

What does this mean?

Does this mean the Associate Editor (or Editor-in-Chief) doesn't like my manuscript?

First, are you sure this is a reputable journal?  Avoid publishing with disreputable journals.

The editor is requesting that you compare your results to recent results published in the same journal.  It is normal to expect that you compare your results with previous work, however, it is a bit odd that the editor specifically requests that you compare with work from the same journal.  Perhaps the editor is attempting to inflate the journal's citation statistics.  It is also possible that the editor knows the journal has published multiple relevant papers you should have mentioned in your submission, but did not.

If you can identify similar papers from the journal with which you can compare your results, do so.  If you cannot find any similar papers, you may have selected an inappropriate journal for your work.


Other authors are notified except me, good or bad sign? Recently I submitted a paper to an IEEE conference. A week after the notification deadline, I haven't heard anything from the committee yet, so I decided to email the Technical Program Chair directly. They told me that 80% of authors have been notified, the rest have to wait a bit more.

I'm not sure how is that possible, sice the quota for accepted paper is limited and the committee should make all decisions at once? For the 20% authors haven't received notifications, is the acceptance rate for them higher?

Regarding the chances for your paper, this is neither a good or bad sign. The program committee is probably still busy with making the decisions on some remaining papers, which means that both rejection and acceptance are absolutely possible - there is no indication as to which outcome is more likely.

But, exceeding the notification date by one week is unprofessional and, therefore, a poor sign for the quality of the conference. Some authors might have plans to submit the paper somewhere else, which they cannot do without the notification. Please note that being an "IEEE conference" is not a quality indicator these days, but a way for IEEE to make money.


How to approach bad communication with my department I am a mathematics student at a top 10 math department in the US.  Something I have been struggling to handle is an on-going situation I have been facing with with the administration.

When I was accepted to this university I was instructed to submit the syllabi of the graduate courses I had taken at the institution I came from.  My initial email to them was in the beginning of this year.  After 1 month without hearing from them I sent another email following up.  The third email was done in the beginning of April with again no response.

I have tried to reach out to different people within the department, but I have gotten no response.  As emails are easier to ignore, I tried going to the administrative office in person.  The receptionist said that they were not accepting walk-in appointments and I should try emailing them.  I explained to them the situation, however the receptionist would not budge on their stance.

As this situation progresses I am getting increasingly frustrated and paranoid about my treatment.  These issues I did not experience at any of my previous universities.  As such, I am kindly requesting if someone has any suggestions or experiences on this matter.

If your department is like any other US math department I’m familiar with, it will have a graduate program coordinator (or similar title), a graduate program chair/graduate vice chair, and a department chair. The first two on this list will usually have office hours you can visit to talk to them about any issues you need help with. The department chair ought to be available to talk to you, either as a walk-in or by scheduling an appointment, if you have failed in your efforts to get one of the first two to listen. Through some combination of email, phone, showing up in person and knocking on doors, and gentle assertiveness, it is difficult for me to imagine that you will fail in getting someone to hear your concerns and work out a solution.

Good luck!


Referencing images found in public domain How should I reference images found in public domain in my thesis?

I mean, if it would be copyrighted, I would add a comment a la "reproduced with permission from X". If it would be under Creative Commons license, I would add a comment "licensed under XY license".

What about public domain? Should I add some sort of comment to make clear it is public domain? E.g. if I would like to use something from NREL website (http://www.nrel.gov/).

The images may still be under copyright. I think you have to contact NREL. Here's their copyright policy which states:

  Copyright Status

  NREL-authored documents are sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy
  under Contract DE-AC36-08GO28308. Accordingly, with respect to such
  documents, the U.S. Government and others acting on its behalf retain
  a paid-up nonexclusive, irrevocable world-wide license to reproduce,
  prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and perform
  publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the Government. Use
  of documents available from or referenced by this server may be
  subject to U.S. and foreign Copyright Laws.

So you need to identify the source and copyright status of the document that contains the image.


Does being unemployed after a PhD reflect poorly on my advisor? I successfully defended this spring, and made it clear about a year prior that I would not be continuing in academia, with the goal of switching fields and entering the workforce. As part of this, I explicitly said I was not looking for postdocs, and I think I also said I was not willing to do one at all, for a multitude of reasons. It's been just over 3 months since defending, but I have nothing lined up. I've heard that waiting months and months for a first industry position is common, so it doesn't bother me, but I think it's bothering my advisor.

Because a lot of post-graduation roles aren't necessary for my advisor anymore, I'll occasionally receive an email or text message asking me how I'm doing, which includes how my job search is going. These messages have also pointed to potential academic-type positions and the names of postdoc advisors. I thought I was clear, so I wonder where this is coming from. The simple answer is that he is looking out for my best interests, but I'm his first PhD student and he is up for tenure this fall.

Does my unemployment negatively affect his tenure application, or am I over-thinking this?

I'd say yes, you are overthinking it. Any problems you have are not due to him. He seems to be doing what he can, though his connections are, perhaps, not the ones you need now. Your unemployment might be due to any of several other factors, from the economy to how you present yourself. I would continue to thank him for his advice and care, whether effective or not. He might wind up in the future being an effective advocate.

Your lack of employment shouldn't have any effect on his tenure. Not if anyone in the system is reasonable. As I said, any difficulties you have are not due to his inaction or inattention. His tenure is (should be) determined only by his own actions and things he can control.

On the other hand, tenure decisions are often not especially rational. Sometimes they are just determined by personalities. Other times by the perceived need of the institution at that moment.