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thread-20401 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20401 | Why do PhD students complain so much? | 2014-05-07T06:07:54.287 | # Question
Title: Why do PhD students complain so much?
This question has two parts. First, a comparative question. Second, a broad question about why PhD students get so stressed and complain so much.
**Do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?**
In my limited and biased experience, yes. More generally, there are so many websites about how hard life as a PhD student is. So many memes. These are clearly all composed by current or former PhD students. My cohort's facebook feeds read like journals written in prison. Party conversation demonstrates a general obsession with complaining about life in a PhD program. People often half-joke about how starting the PhD program was a horrible mistake. PhD students have even been roasted on *30 Rock*. And they're often weirdly nervous about trivial stuff. Yes, these are online comedy bits, but they are funny because they capture something *true*.
Many jobs are stressful and I believe that people in other fields handle their stress better *or, at the very least, feel compelled to maintain that appearance*. I started my PhD a bit later than average. Before doing so I worked in a few other fields, some of them more stressful than academia by reasonable standards (higher consequences of mistakes for oneself and/or for others, faster pace work environment, higher likelihood of being insulted/embarrassed by supervisors, what have you).
**Why do PhD students complain so much?**
I see a few reasons why PhD students have such a hard time.
Admittedly, there is a lot of work. But there are lots of jobs where you need to work very hard for long hours.
In many disciplines, there is no clear management structure where someone can tell you *what* to do when and *when* you are done. Of course, this can be stressful.
Because of the nature of theoretical innovation and research, one is never "done" with work. There is only a choice of when one is going to *stop* for the day or *stop* on a particular project (e.g., by submitting for publication).
Many PhD students have spent little time outside of school and academia. Most of their schooling until the PhD program was very structured with short-term goals. In a PhD and now they are responsible for defining their own projects.
PhD programs may attract uniquely stressful, driven people.
Maybe the idea of being a "student" fosters immature attitudes about the work environment, even though PhD students must deal with real adult workloads. People in many other lines of work have no illusions about their obligation to handle their workload.
# Answer
> 40 votes
> Do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?
I very much doubt it. See JeffE's summary. There are dozens of memes about complaining - law students, med students, engineering undergrads, administrative staff, IT people...seriously, just about every profession has its memes about how much their jobs are terrible.
> Why do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?
* They're not being paid very much, and for many of them, their friends - who had similar educational backgrounds - who didn't go to grad school are now making money, and the opportunity cost is pretty vivid.
* The PhD is a problem that requires unbounded effort. Until the day you defend, there's always something you should be doing. At the same time, there's rarely something you *need* to be doing *that day*. Handing someone a years long, unstructured time management problem is going to cause some stress.
* There's not necessarily a way out. For CS, Physics, Math etc. there may be escape hatches into industry, but for many STEM PhDs, and almost all humanities PhDs, there's really no net-benefit for your degree outside of academia. You've got an expensive (in opportunity cost and time), specialized set of knowledge that no one cares about. You can see this reflected in some surveys - Physics PhDs tend to be somewhat more happy than their Biology counterparts.
> How can I handle this socially and professional?
You can try to avoid it, although do realize that "shared suffering" is a social bonding experience, and these people will be your colleagues. You will be missing some of that.
> I certainly hope that this climate does not continue into faculty life
I have some bad news for you.
# Answer
> 56 votes
> Do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?
## No.
To quote Drew Carey:
> Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? You know there's a support group for that. It's called **everybody**. They meet at the bar.
# Answer
> 17 votes
*(one important comment - this all relates to PhD students in Europe, where you usually get an actual salary while doing your PhD. I have no experience about grad student life on a stipend, as in the US)*
> Do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?
No, I don't think so. Sure, PhD students complain about their job. So do all other professionals. I have been in software engineering for two years before my PhD, and people have certainly complained a lot there as well. My non-research friends just as often bitch about their jobs, bosses, work conditions, salary, etc. as my fellow researchers. Just a peek at workplace.SE already gives you a confirmation that being dissatisfied with your work conditions is not a thing specific to PhD students.
> I believe that people in other fields handle their stress better or, at the very least, feel compelled to maintain that appearance.
I do not agree at all. I have seen so many people act unprofessionally inside and outside of academia (due to stress or personal issues), it is not even funny. Your perception is entirely opposite to mine.
My favorite story in relation to that is that of a very senior full professor storming out of a meeting with tears of anger in her eyes, because she felt than another professor in the meeting was not valuing her experience in a topic sufficiently). She has later excused herself and stated that she was going through a personally hard time. Unprofessional behaviour is not inherently a grad student thing.
> My cohort's facebook feeds read like journals written in prison. Party conversation demonstrates a general obsession with complaining about life in a PhD program. People often half-joke about how starting the PhD program was a horrible mistake. PhD students have even been roasted on 30 Rock. And they're often weirdly nervous about trivial stuff.
Yes, the complaining PhD student is a meme by now. That does not mean it has to be true, although such memes tend to have a bit a self-fulfilling nature. The question is, when you look at the prison-like FB posts of your cohort, how many complaints are tongue-in-cheek, and how many are serious "this is all so f\*cked up" statements. I should also add that looking at only your cohort may give you a false impression of generality, as you all attend the same school, maybe are even advised by the same professors. Basically, if something is "off" in your environment, it would explain why your cohort complains, but says very little about other universities (like the ones I have experience with).
# Answer
> 16 votes
Two factors that I think are the most relevant:
* PhD student is one of the lowest salary/education ratio. The best students, with highest grades, doing the highest level coursework get fairly crappy salaries (when any). In Spain, where I am from, getting the best grant the Ministery offers barely allows you to rent a shared flat and eat cheap. Sweden, where I am now, is one of the best countries to be a PhD student regarding salary and conditions. One salary is enough to provide a living and housing for two people. Still, a first job for a STEM graduate usually means three times more salary.
* Uncertainity. A junior in a company is assigned a clear task with a goal, where the manager, seniors, etc. are sure are achievable goals. In research, no one can know this. You don't really know what you are doing is even possible until you get it. Sure, you have advisors, but they can only guess what is going to be. In short: nobody really knows what they are doing.
Also I think there is a sense of unifying community. People that make land surveys and mapping (for example) may be subject to similar conditions, but they will feel no sense of familiarity with the perks of the life and work of a librarian. Grad students, no mater what is their field, have something in common, and thus a sociologist can very well relate to a mathematician as well as an slavic philology expert. So, a map maker can whine as much as a grad student, but they will not see the same echo.
Also, anyone who has gone to university knows a bunch of grad students. That is much more reach than aeronautic engineers, that are mostly related with other engineers. Grad students in a general term are much more common that many other particular professions.
# Answer
> 6 votes
*(As suggested by jabberwocky, I have moved the last part of my answer to https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/20482/13852).*
While I don't think the question is worded constructively, this is a relevant and prominent issue in academic life. First, the question whether PhD students complain more than other professional groups is not really helpful, so I will ignore it (others have given enough counterexamples) and instead focus on the other part, namely "why do they complain?"
As has been noted, doing a PhD is a time of uncertainty and huge external and/or internal pressures, on a scale -- both in time and magnitude -- usually unprecedented for the student. Complaining about it is a coping mechanism (one of a range of possible mechanisms, whose efficacy will vary from person to person). It is also a valuable bonding activity. This is a crucial point, since your research as a PhD student is often so specialized that you can't profitably talk about it to anyone outside a small circle of fellow specialists. On the other hand, the external circumstances of doing a PhD (deadlines, interactions with your advisor or lack thereof, run-ins with the administration) will be instantly familiar to any graduate student, no matter what the field (witness the popularity of PhD Comics, which is not limited to mechanical engineering). Add to that the fact that many graduate students are pursuing their PhD away from home and thus their social circle mostly consists of fellow students, and it's not surprising that most interactions outside possibly a small circle of close personal friends are dominated by this topic. (In fact, complaining around your personal friends as you would among peers is the fastest way of losing them.)
Regarding your comment
> My friends who are in PhD programs complain much more (or at least more publicly) than my friends who aren't in PhD programs.
They probably complain much more *to you* about their professional life, since you're a professional peer of the former but not of the latter.
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Tags: phd, etiquette, academic-life, career-path, social-skills
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thread-20427 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20427 | Talking about other projects in a job talk | 2014-05-07T14:39:04.110 | # Question
Title: Talking about other projects in a job talk
I have seen plenty of job talks, but whenever the speaker talks about a list of topics that they are "not going to talk about today", I often get distracted and even a little bit annoyed. It dilutes the main talk contents, and I hardly ever remember what those items were. I understand that they want to show their breath, but it usually doesn't convey very well. Now that I am in that position, I am wondering if there is a good way to deliver the message.
**What would be a good approach to briefly mentioning other projects that you are excited about?**
Should I talk about them at the beginning or at the end? Is it a good idea to put all of the other projects under a single theme and not talk about the details at all, or should I try to explain each project's objective and approach? Should I talk about only a couple of projects or is 4 a better number?
# Answer
The answer you need depends very much on how closely related your collection of interests are. What I did for my job talks was the following. I chose one of my topics that I knew would provide lots of pointers to my other ones. This way I did not just give a laundry list of "things I do" but rather at a nice point in the talk I could say something like "this raises two questions, the one I am going to talk about today is the first but I am happy to go into the second one privately later." The idea here was the other project came up when it made sense, indicated breadth (at least for my collection of topics), and did not feel overbearing.
You mileage may vary but remember that you can choose which topic to give your job talk on and choosing the one that will give you the most connections to the others is as good a tactic as any.
> 3 votes
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Tags: job-search, presentation, seminars
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thread-20414 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20414 | Copy pasting sentences from abstracts of other papers for describing related work | 2014-05-07T10:38:30.370 | # Question
Title: Copy pasting sentences from abstracts of other papers for describing related work
This topic has already been described to some extent, e.g. here:
Is verbatim copying several paragraphs of text with citation considered plagiarism?
But I do no think that it has been completely discussed, especially in the context of related work and abstracts.
When I am writing the section about related work in my papers, I tend to describe the work of each other related researcher in a few sentences with my own words and referencing their papers. However, in a current paper that I am writing I have realised that the abstracts of more than a few papers that I want to mention are so well written and are so concise that I cannot do any better. Writing my description would be just a waste of time, and result in a less concise text.
So I am thinking about copy-pasting two or three sentences from the abstract of each referenced paper. And possibly adding, removing, or changing a word or two that may not be relevant in the context of the paper that I am writing, so it's not really a plain copy paste.
I have read that it may be a good idea to put quotes, but I find quotes, especially their immoderate use, as bad style.
Can I get in trouble for this? I would not go that far in considering anything of this as plagiarism, as the work is referenced and I am not taking credit for someone else's work.
Personally if one would do the same with my work, I would not be concerned at all, on the contrary, as long as not more than a few sentences are taken and the work is properly referenced, but you might have a different view.
# Answer
> 32 votes
> So I am thinking about copy-pasting two or three sentences from the abstract of each referenced paper.
This seems absolutely appropriate, as long as you quote them correctly. Which brings us to:
> I have read that it may be a good idea to put quotes, but I find quotes, especially their immoderate use, as bad style.
It is not only a *good idea* to do that, it is required. You *need to* make explicit that those are verbatim copies. The semantics of copying text from a paper and summarizing the key points yourself are different for a reader, and you need to make this difference explicit by demarking which parts you have taken in verbatim.
> Can I get in trouble for this?
Yes.
> I would not go that far in considering anything of this as plagiarism, as the work is referenced and I am not taking credit for someone else's work. Personally if one would do the same with my work, I would not be concerned at all, on the contrary, as long as not more than a few sentences are taken and the work is properly referenced, but you may have a different view.
This reminds me a bit of a few high-profile cases of plagiarisms that were going around lately in the german-speaking areas. Often, the excuses presented by the accused authors were similar ("hey, the text I copied wasn't really that important - it was just the introduction after all!", "I cited it anyway, I just did not make clear that the text is actually copied from there", etc.). These excuses never fly. Be rigorous with your handling of sources. Everything else is just playing with fire.
# Answer
> 7 votes
I cannot see that there is any exception to using quotes and providing the full, correct citation. It is honest and correct, anything less just doesn't cut it.
# Answer
> 1 votes
You can quote of course, but if you copy-paste without making clear this is a citation, then not appropriate. The smallest copyright unit is normally a sentence that must be rephrased.
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Tags: citations, plagiarism
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thread-20323 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20323 | If I cannot get sufficient recommendation letters, what can I do? | 2014-05-06T09:25:08.550 | # Question
Title: If I cannot get sufficient recommendation letters, what can I do?
I know you should build a good network with your professors as early as possible, not only it will help your study, but also you can get great recommendation letter from them.
But not all students aim at graduate school when they start their undergraduate, for example, I only became interest in research and decide on going to graduate school after my third year of undergraduate. At that time, I have done a research project with a professor and certainly I can ask him for one. However, most schools require 2-3 recommendation letters.
I know a good recommendation letter should speak about the candidate research potential instead of 'did well in my class', but in my case, only my undergraduate adviser can speak about that. What should I do besides asking recommendation letter from professors I get A grade in their classes?
# Answer
> 9 votes
Of course, the best solution to this problem is not to have it in the first place. Being proactive and thinking about the future is sometimes a rare talent, especially in 18 year olds fresh out of high school, but then again grad school is supposed to select the exceptional individuals.
There is a world of difference between a recommendation from someone you worked with, and from a mere acquaintance. The latter kind rarely benefits your application in a meaningful way, and can sometimes even hurt it. No matter how enthusiastic your instructor is, unless the course is at least a project-centric course (eg. grade is based entirely on your individual term project), they will not be able to make a good, in depth argument for your abilities, and the recommendation will therefore be weak.
The point of the recommendation is that the admissions committee will read it, and decide whether you have potential to be a good researcher. How can they, if the recommendation does not talk about your research at all? And how much better if instead of hinting at your potential indirectly by citing course performance, the recommender can just say "this person has potential to be a great researcher because I have personally seen that they are good at research"?
This is why there is a qualitative difference. This can be a big problem when applying to a very selective program. What if you apply to a program where the committee has a philosophy that "an application is only as strong as its weakest link"? Even if you are quite exceptional otherwise, you can get eliminated early on because there are many other applicants who are also exceptional, but don't have a recommendation problem.
Also, similar to how a lukewarm recommendation can mean "I think this person is a bad candidate, but I am not being negative out of politeness", a recommendation from someone who only taught a course can mean "this person is a slacker who never bothered to do real work, so they can't find any supervisors to recommend them".
The best way to remedy is really to obtain more "good" recommenders. Because you want people who supervised you, the solution is obvious: You haven't been supervised by enough people who will vouch for you; you must undertake more projects and be supervised by other people whose recommendation will carry weight.
If still in school, look for faculty whose lab you can work in. If that is difficult, try approaching a former (or current) instructor with an idea for a theoretical or computational project (this requires less commitment from them, so they may be easier to convince). It doesn't necessarily have to be original research, so long as you can come up with a relatively long term (at least half a year) project where you are the primary contributor. It could also be (more) valuable to spend a summer working in a lab at a different university.
If out of school, delay your application by 1-3 years, and look for work as a lab tech at a university, institute or private company. Make sure not to displease your boss.
A related problem is working for a long time with the same person, for instance an undergrad who spends 3 years in the same lab. This is actually better, because you can accomplish much more in 3 years, and you can have a very impressive project to sell yourself with. The issue is that you will have only one supervisor - but hopefully after 3 years, you will have networked with collaborators and other scientists and will not have a problem there.
# Answer
> 7 votes
I decided I wanted to attend grad-school at the end of my junior year - here is what I did
1) I had done research with one prof, so I had one good reference in the bag.
2) My senior year I was voted president of the ACM, and had a faculty advisory (2nd reference). Knowing I wanted to attend grad-school made the extra time I put into this make sense.
3) Third reference came from a prof I had taken several classes with and who worked with the other 2 references on several research projects.
4) Due to an incompetent class adviser (not academic) incorrectly signing me up for the wrong class, I had to wait an extra year to graduate. This gave me extra time to strengthen my application. Look around for a summer research opportunity.
NOTE: I'm not suggesting delaying graduation for a year to get into grad-school. There were several downsides to having that happen to me. Just start looking at everything more strategically, and if a situation presents itself to allow you to strengthen your application take it - even it it means sacrificing in the short term.
# Answer
> 4 votes
Here are some thoughts. Figure out what classes you took that
1. are most similar to the type of graduate school you're applying for, and
2. you did well in.
Then set up a meeting with your former professor(s) of those classes to tell them a little about yourself, why you're planning on going to graduate school, and the situation you're in. I think any professor, and especially those in your future area of study are going to be very understanding of your situation and happy to help you out. It might help to talk with them a little about your research experiences and/or furnish them with a CV/resume detailing those and other experiences so that they may write a nice letter for you.
I think short of taking off some more time, doing research in a second lab, etc, you don't have much choice in this matter! But never fear, I think the letter from your advisor is going to be the one that carries the most weight.
EDIT. Just wanted to add, in the process of deciding which professors to talk to, take a gander at this post about getting a 'strong' recommendation. Lots of good advice there. One idea that might be particularly applicable to you is asking whichever professor you talk to about where they think you should apply, etc.
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Tags: graduate-admissions, recommendation-letter
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thread-20445 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20445 | Two simultaneous part time master's degrees while working full time | 2014-05-07T19:13:04.597 | # Question
Title: Two simultaneous part time master's degrees while working full time
I hold a BS in Mathematics with a minor in Statistics and I've been out of school for several years. I recently began applying to part time online master's programs in Statistics and Computer Science. I've been accepted to the online MSCS program through Johns Hopkins University and I'm hoping to be accepted to the online MAS (Master of Applied Statistics) through Pennsylvania State University as well. My goal is to earn both degrees, and with expertise in both disciplines become the ultimate statistical programmer!
The catch here is that I don't want to (and can't really afford to) leave my current job to pursue school full time, hence the part time online programs. I could do one degree after the other, but that would be another 8-10 years I'd be in school, all the while working.
It's useful to note that I'm already a statistical programmer. Degrees are helpful, especially if at some point I'd like to transition to being a full-fledged statistician or a more general-purpose programmer. In my mind at least, it offers a level of career flexibility not readily attainable with just a bachelor's or even a single master's.
But my question is this: **Is working 40 hours/week and taking two online master's level courses at a time in two different subjects from two different institutions completely insane?** My family sure thinks so. Does anyone have experience or input they could share?
# Answer
In my first semester as an undergraduate, I tried to take a double load of courses, and was dissuaded by the adviser assigned to me. I tried it anyway and failed one of the courses I had registered. (They let me do a big load in a later semester, with some success.) If I had stayed focused on my registered courses and let the courses I audited slip instead, I would not have that on my record. Also, I might have developed a different attitude toward that university.
Learning when not overachieve, or when not to make the attempt, is a hard lesson for many. Many years later, I am finding that I could have restructured my life, changed certain behaviours, and perhaps led a more efficient or satisfying or productive life. Fortunately, I still have some time to make changes.
In addition to the comment above about the proposed course likely being insane, and to seek help in real life (off the Internet) to pull it off anyway, I recommend a values inventory. The current program (one job, two degree programs) may seem feasible and cool and might nurture some internal aspect of pride; that doesn't mean it is good for you, or in line with how you will want to live your life.
Even if you don't know what you want to be when/if you grow up, checking in with yourself on what is important, and what you value, is a beneficial exercise you should repeat throughout your life. If you can (rationally and not maniacally) convince yourself that this use of time is in line with your current and possible future values, then go for it! It doesn't matter if you are crazy if you are enjoying yourself and not hurting yourself or others, but you may have to explain it to a judge or police officer; be prepared. If you aren't sure, ask for guidance, and avail yourself of the options that work and school might offer.
Either way, good luck to you.
> 3 votes
# Answer
Better to do one or the other. What you don't want to do is to fail out of either program. Pick the better/more prestigious one and do it. Also, I don't see how stacking up masters's degrees really helps you. I can see how one masters would help, but I don't see what value the second would add.
> 4 votes
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Tags: masters, computer-science, career-path, statistics
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thread-20431 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20431 | Pros and cons on working in an industrial research lab without a PhD | 2014-05-07T15:33:56.687 | # Question
Title: Pros and cons on working in an industrial research lab without a PhD
I am from engineering, and I would like to know if I am able to find a job in industrial research lab after finishing my master, will there be any advantage or disadvantage compared with entering the same lab after finishing PhD? Possible advantage may be that I have more industrial experience as I enter the lab earlier, and possible disadvantage may be that without a PhD position I cannot be promoted to certain senior positions or lead a project. Are these true? Are there more advantages or disadvantages for this?
# Answer
For many *research* positions in industry, a PhD is a requirement to apply for the job. With just an M.S., you simply cannot be considered for these positions. Some research jobs I have seen in industrial labs *are* available to candidates with either a PhD or an M.S. with several years of industry experience, but I don't see as many of these.
Industrial research labs often also have non-research positions (e.g., staff programmer) that do not require a PhD. However, these positions tend to not be on the research "track": you cannot easily be promoted from "staff programmer" to "junior member of technical staff" in many companies. If you are interested in doing creative research, staff programmer jobs are not a direct path to research scientist jobs.
Smaller companies tend to be more flexible, so that it may be easier to get a research job without a PhD in a tiny company than a large global one.
Of course, this can vary by industry and geographic region. (My experience is in the field of telecommunications and computer networks, in the United States.) You can find out more about your particular field of interest by going to the "Careers" page of the labs you are considering, and looking up the requirements for the jobs that you would like to do.
However, as a rule, if you are interested in doing creative research (and not just working in a support position in a research lab), you will have more opportunities available to you with a PhD than without one.
> 6 votes
# Answer
These are some experiences I've seen with people with similar dilemmas. In my area, computer science, many people used to go to Yahoo after their Masters or BS, and for a time it was well.
After the Yahoo huge layoff, I met many people who were being denied high level positions because they did not have a PhD, we are not talking entry level position, but people with many years of experience in the industry.
I do not think a PhD is essential to move ahead in the company, but it sure is a huge help if you have one. Also, I'm not sure the research experience you will have in an industrial research lab will be comparable to the research experience you will have as a PhD student. Not that one is better than the other, but Grad school has certain liberties that industry does not.
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, career-path, industry
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thread-20391 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20391 | what do you do if your PhD advisor publishes a solo paper on your topic? | 2014-05-07T00:47:38.857 | # Question
Title: what do you do if your PhD advisor publishes a solo paper on your topic?
I was working with my advisor on a research topic for six months and we had some results. The important idea was his, but the initial idea was mine and we worked on it together. Now my advisor has published the results without my name in the authors. The paper is in an important conference.
What do I do ? Is this normal ? Should I talk to my advisor about how I get my name in a paper ? How do I approach that topic ?
I'm his only PhD student and he has joined the department recently.
Edit : The paper was written by my advisor but we derived the results together, although his contribution was more important. He included my name in acknowledgements. Should I risk upsetting my relationship with my advisor over this ?
# Answer
> 29 votes
You asked,
> Is this normal?
The answer is **no, it's not normal**. If two people work on some research together, the "normal" thing is for them to write the paper on it together, and for both to be authors on the paper.
It's possible that you seriously overestimated your contribution to the work and don't actually deserve authorship. Even in this case, it's clear you were involved in the research and it's **not normal** for your advisor to go ahead and publish it without discussing it with you first.
(When I publish work that involves students whose small contributions do not warrant authorship, I always discuss it with them first. I explain why I don't think they can be an author, give them a chance to state any disagreement, and also tell them what additional work they could do in order to merit authorship.)
However, the latter (your contributions did not merit authorship, and your advisor failed to discuss this with you) is somewhat more forgivable than the former (your contributions did merit authorship and your advisor published without you anyways). (You do say your advisor is new, and probably inexperienced in advising.)
To answer
> What do I do?
You should **talk to your advisor**. This is the only way to really understand which case you are dealing with.
You can bring this up in a non-combative way without upsetting your advisor; for example, you can ask "What do I need to do in order to deserve authorship on future papers?" This gives your advisor an opening to discuss why he thinks you didn't deserve authorship on the conference paper, and for you to respectfully state your perception of the situation.
There may still be a chance for you to get some credit for this work, if you come to agree with his point of view that you didn't do enough to deserve authorship on the conference paper. For example, once you and your advisor have come to an agreement on what it takes to get authorship, you can propose that the two of you work together on an extended version of his conference paper for a journal - on which you will be an author :)
Unfortunately, it's also possible that after this conversation you believe you **did** deserve authorship, and that your advisor published your joint work without you for no valid reason (i.e., committed misconduct). In this case, the best advice I can give you is to start looking for another advisor.
Finally, the lesson for the future is: **talk to your collaborators about authorship early and often.**
# Answer
> 6 votes
A previous answer here (now deleted) states an unfortunate truth of the matter—what your advisor did was wrong, but rectifying the situation could be very complicated.
The primary issue is whether or not the paper has been formally published in the conference proceedings. Once that has happened, it's too late to change the authorship credits. Basically, any such move would lead to retraction—which, as has been established on this site and many others, such as Retraction Watch, is a huge black mark in the career of any academic.
We don't have all the information here, so it's impossible to say for certain if you've done enough work to merit co-author credit, but let us assume for the sake of argument here that you do. The challenge here is that, unlike ff524, I do not believe that there's likely to be any sort of positive resolution here. Not including you as a co-author on a publication (conference paper) is either incompetence or unscrupulous. In either case, the relationship between you and your advisor is probably not going to be a fruitful one in the future. (If your advisor is incompetent, you shouldn't be working for him; the same applies double if your advisor is unscrupulous.)
If it's possible, I would suggest finding yourself a new advisor.
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Tags: publications, graduate-school, ethics, advisor, authorship
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thread-14606 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14606 | Any chances for me in top 10 economics program? | 2013-12-08T04:26:13.893 | # Question
Title: Any chances for me in top 10 economics program?
I am bachelors of commerce from a not known university. I am going to take economics masters from India's top institute. I will take higher math courses as well. What else should I do to get in top 10 economics program ? (Are there any chances for me?)
Also can you please suggest some masters economics program which enrolls commerce undergrad?
# Answer
(If I had more rep then this probably would have been a comment not an answer, sorry). That is a very hard question to answer without you providing much information.
Generally getting into a top 10 economics program is already a semi random process because so many applicants are so well qualified. It requires a high GPA in hard courses, good recommendation letters, etc... That being said, there are a lot of students from India who end up placing very well.
A website where you might get more opinions is http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/ . They have a general format for how to submit your profile, look at a few and check it out. Might help you know where you stand (They also have old archives of student profiles with results).
> 3 votes
# Answer
I will say the highest probability course of action, but nobody has a guaranteed entrance into a top 10 program. 1. Practice the GRE extensively. If you score 800 in math that will help. Verbal score is not a hindrance if everything else is right, but if you score above 95% in verbal that will show. 2. Get in touch with professors in the top 10 programs, especially some that might have connections to you either through your schools, country, or area of interest. Start an intelligent conversation with them. Show them how interested you are in working with them. For this you will have to do thorough research on their work, but it is the best way of showing how badly you want to work with them. 3. Get excellent grades and develop relationships with your current professors to obtain the best letters of reference possible.
In summary, people tend to focus on the quantitative and the impartial, a typical economist bias, but develop personal relationships can pay off in putting you ahead of the curve.
> 1 votes
# Answer
As an international applicant, I would recommend against getting a masters from anywhere except one of the top (1-3) schools in your country. A master's from university in the top 30 in the US or one of the top schools in UK/Canada are also options.
If you are not yet competitive for a top master's program, I would suggest trying to get a job as an economics research assistant, ideally with a well known professor. This has the advantage also of giving you a better look at what economics research looks like first hand, which is closer to what you'd be doing as a PhD student and professor than your classes in a masters program.
Ultimately to be competitive for a top 10 school, you absolutely need a high GPA and GRE, and then on top of that you need letters of recommendation from at least 1 or 2 professors that are respected in the field, ideally who have a track record of placing students at top PhD programs. Even then there seems to be a lot of noise in the system about who gets accepted where.
I posted it in a comment above, but to reiterate, I think this is very good advice. http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/athey/gradadvising.html
> 0 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, economics
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thread-20405 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20405 | How do I write a compelling statement about my interest in diverse domains? | 2014-05-07T07:55:26.790 | # Question
Title: How do I write a compelling statement about my interest in diverse domains?
My primary interest is in Data Mining. Secondary interests are Intrusion Detection and Energy Efficient Buildings.
I have done projects in data mining approaches for intrusion detection. I have also done research in data analysis on energy consumption patterns in smart-buildings.
I will be applying for graduate school (MS) shortly. Now, how do I proceed writing my statement? Should I lay more emphasis on Data Mining? Which professors should I mention I want to work with? Ones doing data mining research, or the ones doing network security/sustainable energy research?
My main concern is finding potential advisers. I believe if I can find some before the application, I can find out their requirements and write a statement accordingly. This in-turn might help me get admission in the desired school as well.
My question here is whether I should look for researchers in data mining (which I have applied in my works) or intrusion detection/sustainable energy (the domain where data mining technique was applied)
I understand that chances of me finding advisers that share interest in both data mining and (intrusion detection/sustainable energy) is very less. So which advisers should I target?
# Answer
I have some insight here.
There are some advantages and pitfalls in the advisers you have described and I have experience with both.
Researcher in Data Mining: Here most of your research will be focused in the way you can modify the algorithm to attack the task you have at hand, your adviser will want to see some insight from you on how things are actually working and why are you getting the results you are getting. He will be potentially interested in the application, but he has had so much experience with many different applications, that he will want you to use a generic dataset so you can compare it with other works and prove your approach works better.
You will have insightful conversations about your algorithm, and what can you do to modify it, but any insight from the data itself will probably have to come from you.
Researcher in Area X where Data Mining is going to be used: He will probably not care much about the algorithm you use, as long as it is useful in the particular problem he is working with. He will most likely have a problem for you to work with, and he will expect results, good results. You will have good conversations about the nature of the data, and will learn a lot about the field, but you might feel a bit isolated in the Data Mining part.
The main question is, what do you want to do afterwards, if you want to do a PhD, in which kind of conferences do you want to be? Data Mining Conferences, or that area conferences?
If you are going to the industry, having much expertise in a particular area can be both good or bad, depending on he job you are applying to.
As an example, I did my PhD on Machine Learning applied to Molecular Biology, and even though I had all the theoretical framework to apply it to Natural Language Processing (NLP), most places would not look at me unless I had some NLP experience.
> 2 votes
# Answer
From my experience, the process of searching for and applying to graduate programs occurs simultaneously with the searching for graduate research labs. Successfully interviewing at one can significantly impact your chances for being accepted to the other.
With that in mind, start your search with a very specific goal in mind, and only after that fails you can branch out. A simple google search shows at least one promising possibility, I'm sure that if you actually spend some time researching positions you'll find a lot more. Once you've run out of leads there then you can start looking at labs specifically focusing on one or the other. In your case specifically, it just so happens that data mining is a very broad and extremely in-demand skill in virtually all fields, so you should have no problem finding positions in almost any field that would benefit from having data mining expertise as well.
For your letter, I would express your interest in data mining (the general skill) first, and then your interest in sustainable energy or whatever (the specific skill); this way, they'll see that you have an informed set of research interests, but are interested in working in other fields as well if your specific subfield interests don't work out.
> 2 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, advisor, statement-of-purpose
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thread-20456 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20456 | MLA in-text citation of documents written by an organization, like UNESCO? | 2014-05-07T21:15:47.490 | # Question
Title: MLA in-text citation of documents written by an organization, like UNESCO?
Please, how should I write an MLA in-text citation of a UNESCO document?
The document in question is the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. I am using the PDF version. The Document has no author. The MLA recommends using a shortened version of the title of references with no authors but I don't know if this applies also to UNESCO documents.
Thanks
# Answer
> 1 votes
The document you refer to is written by an organization or a corporate author (UNESCO). The general rule in such cases is, you treat this as an ordinary source written by an author named UNESCO.
From the Purdue Online Writing Lab, on listing work written by an organization in your works cited list:
> A corporate author may include a commission, a committee, or a group that does not identify individual members on the title page. List the names of corporate authors in the place where an author’s name typically appears at the beginning of the entry.
The same general idea applies to in-text citations of sources written by an organization or corporate author:
> When a source has a corporate author, it is acceptable to use the name of the corporation followed by the page number for the in-text citation. You should also use abbreviations (e.g., nat'l for national) where appropriate, so as to avoid interrupting the flow of reading with overly long parenthetical citations.
Here's an example, courtesy of Red Deer College Library:
> ### Parenthetical Citation
>
> (Natl. Research Council 55)
>
> ### Works Cited
>
> National Research Council. *Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population*. Washington: Natl. Acad., 2000. Print.
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Tags: research-process, citations
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thread-20464 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20464 | Is excluding a co-author from a proposal considered academic misconduct or just an ethical issue? | 2014-05-08T04:29:32.637 | # Question
Title: Is excluding a co-author from a proposal considered academic misconduct or just an ethical issue?
I worked on a proposal together with a coworker. The idea for the proposals came from industry and we all discussed this. There were 2 project and we all have inputs. My project was accepted and his was not. We all contributed ideas back and forth with the 2 projects.
I did put his name on the first draft proposal but left his name off the final version and put myself as sole PI. I did ask him for further corrections but his reply was that there was none. I simply forgot and left his name off without asking his permission. It was an oversight.
Now he saw this proposal and wants to report me for misconduct.
Is he right that he can report me for academic misconduct? Is this an ethical issue and not academic misconduct?
# Answer
> 17 votes
Your question as I understand it is: is it considered *misconduct* to exclude a co-author from a proposal, or is it some other *ethical issue*?
Certainly "research misconduct" can broadly be defined as "ethically problematic behaviors in research" - in which case there is no difference. However, let us assume a narrower definition of "misconduct."
The specific definition of "misconduct" may depend on where you are. In the United States, the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) defines "research misconduct" as follows:
> Research misconduct means fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.
and "plagiarism" is further defined as
> the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.
(Individual institutions may, and often do, extend this definition as a matter of internal policy. However, the ORI policy represents the *least* inclusive definition of misconduct in the United States.)
According to this definition, it seems that using your coworker's ideas, processes, results, or words in your research proposal without giving him credit **is** academic misconduct.
Having said that, the ORI also says this on plagiarism:
> Many allegations of plagiarism involve disputes among former collaborators who participated jointly in the development or conduct of a research project, but who subsequently went their separate ways and made independent use of the jointly developed concepts, methods, descriptive language, or other product of the joint effort. The ownership of the intellectual property in many such situations is seldom clear, and the collaborative history among the scientists often supports a presumption of implied consent to use the products of the collaboration by any of the former collaborators.
>
> For this reason, ORI considers many such disputes to be authorship or credit disputes rather than plagiarism. Such disputes are referred to PHS agencies and extramural institutions for resolution.
From your description, however, it seems that this is **not** the case in your scenario - you and your coworker did not "go separate ways." There is no "implied consent" to use his ideas. He fully expected to be a co-author, and you yourself admit that he should have been a co-author, except that you somehow left him off.
(Even if this *is* considered an "authorship dispute" and not "plagiarism," it's not up to you to make that determination - it's up to the investigative body, who will look into the matter if your coworker chooses to report this.)
Finally, "honest error" is not considered misconduct according to the ORI. However, your coworker is not required to take your word for it that your exclusion of him from the proposal was an honest error. This is a determination that a third-party investigative body will typically make.
**In summary**: Your coworker is well within his rights to report you for misconduct. If he does so, you are free to try and persuade the investigators that this was an honest mistake.
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Tags: ethics, authorship
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thread-20466 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20466 | College in high school and math graduate school admissions | 2014-05-08T05:53:55.000 | # Question
Title: College in high school and math graduate school admissions
I am a senior in high school and will be starting at the University of Washington in the fall. My goal is to become a successful research mathematician (in academia), and, from what I can gather, my chances at this goal are increased if I am admitted into a "top" math graduate school for my PhD studies. Hence I am trying to be as proactive as possible in preparing for graduate school.
Here is the deal: I have had a very different educational experience; namely two years of basically no math in 9th and 10th grade, and then math at community college in 11th, and finally an honors sequence at the University of Washington this year, in 12th grade. The class covers single variable calculus, some multivariate, ODEs, and linear algebra, all with rigor. Going in to college in the fall I will have over 100 quarter credits completed (so I will be at the level of a junior). Moreover, I will be in the senior level algebra sequence and in another honors sequence that covers some real analysis and complex analysis. After my freshman year I will only have a few undergrad classes left to take (namely one year long sequence). Lastly, I am currently self-studying (baby) Rudin.
So considering my background and current level, it seems I will be taking a large number of graduate courses in my college career if I stay for four years. (Indeed, theoretically at least, I could largely complete the coursework for a PhD by taking two sequences per year). I am worried that if I do stay for four years I will be looked upon negatively by graduate schools, since they might think I am being lazy. Moreover, what will they think when they see 6 years of college transcripts? Should I plan to finish my degree two years from now to avoid this situation? Or perhaps in 3 years?
Edit: Perhaps lazy wasn't the appropriate word. I get the intuition that if an applicant had taken 6 years to complete his/her degree, whilst taking graduate courses even, the admissions committee would think them strange. What I am wondering is, would my situation be any different?
# Answer
You are getting worried about nothing. You will not be judged negatively for having taken college classes before starting your BA, even a lot of them. Graduate committees want to have students coming into their program who are going to be successful, and they don't care much whether it took 6 years or 2 years to get that preparation. They are going to look at what you did with your time, not how long you took. As long as you're happy and it's not too much of a financial hardship, there's no reason to graduate in 2 or 3 years. Instead, take the time to concentrate on things that will strengthen your application:
* Take the hardest courses available which you can perform well in.
* Build relationships with faculty. Taking graduate courses can help with this, but you can also seek out research opportunities or get involve with things like math club.
Performing well in challenging classes and having stellar letters of recommendation are the basis of a strong application to graduate school. Issues of timing make absolutely no difference in comparison to them. Other considerations:
* You could do a second major, if there's something else you really want to try. I think this has probably taken on a totemic significance with students beyond its real import (math grad schools are mostly concerned with how you've done in math; being well-rounded is something like a tertiary consideration), but it sounds like you have the room in your schedule, and certainly no one will think you're lazy.
* Find good ways to occupy yourself over the summers. REUs are one good possibility. It sounds like you'll have a decent shot of getting into one after your freshman year. Another is if you can find a counselor position at summer program like PROMYS.
* Consider spending a year or semester somewhere else. There are highly regarded study abroad programs specific to mathematics in Budapest and Moscow, and also programs like Penn State's MASS. There's also Part III in Cambridge, which perhaps you could do after graduating in 3 years (or in 4).
> 16 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, mathematics, coursework
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thread-20102 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20102 | How to submit a talk to a conference – Starting with replying to a Call for Presentations | 2014-05-01T16:51:41.083 | # Question
Title: How to submit a talk to a conference – Starting with replying to a Call for Presentations
I have received a Call for Presentations for a conference and I have a topic that could be interesting to present.
The Call for Presentations describe the various forms of presentations that one can submit, and then links to a form asking for a title, presenter name(s) and an abstract. This has a deadline around two months before the conference.
Now, to my questions: As I mentioned, I have a topic in mind, but unless my presentation is accepted, I would prefer not spending a lot of time preparing a good presentation of this (technical) subject. Will the decision about whether to accept the presentation be done solely on the grounds of the submitted abstract or will they be in touch before accepting the presentation?
(This is a computer science conference, in case that's germane.)
# Answer
> 5 votes
Typically you will be asked to submit a short abstract (usually 300 words or less), which will be accepted or rejected. If accepted, make your presentation.
On another note, you should get accustomed to doing time consuming activities that may or may not have any real benefit in grad school...
# Answer
> 5 votes
It depends on how close you research topic/presentation is to the conference topic. I've never had an abstract turned down, but I present in sessions with topics relevant to my research. Most conferences wan't people to come and present, in general. Worst case scenario, it get's turned down. You will have a head start on the next abstract submission.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Usually decisions on accepting a presentation are made solely on the basis of content. This is actually somewhat unfortunate, because there's no way to eliminate researchers who give horrible talks :).
# Answer
> 1 votes
Make sure it is not one of 1000s SPAM mails from not-known-to-anyone or thinking-only-about-how-to-get-your-money societies or fake conference organizers. Vast majority of conference in Computer Science review full papers, not abstracts, and review of presentations is not common at all.
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Tags: conference, presentation, abstract
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thread-1414 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1414 | Advantages and disadvantages of doing PhD research at a non-academic lab | 2012-05-05T04:00:11.597 | # Question
Title: Advantages and disadvantages of doing PhD research at a non-academic lab
What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing your PhD research (in science, math, or engineering) at a non-academic lab (like a government or industrial lab) vs. the traditional academic setting? (Of course, the degree is granted by a university.)
When is one option better than the other if you have the choice between doing your research in an academic or non-academic setting?
A few potential advantages I can think of:
* You're likely to be hired by the lab after graduation. If you don't want to enter academia and are happy with the lab, this could be your career. If you do want to enter academia, often you're in good company because leaving research labs for academia isn't uncommon.
* You can work with more people (your school's students and professors and the lab's researchers). This'll expand your professional network and expose you to different perspectives.
* Your affiliation with the lab could add some credibility to you and your research.
A few potential disadvantages:
* Travel could be problematic if your school and your lab aren't close. This could be mitigated by taking care of the coursework first.
* The research topic is often dictated by someone in the lab if you are funded by them. If you decide this topic is not worth researching or not interesting then you might have a problem. Politics in the lab could change the research topic in the future and that might also be a problem.
# Answer
> 9 votes
Throughout graduate school I worked at and was funded by a university-run laboratory that operated somewhat like a government laboratory and was largely funded for applied research. I now work at a UARC (which is similar to an FFRDC). Given that my graduate school lab was already affiliated with the University, though, my situation is slightly different than yours.
At least in the US, it is relatively hard for non-academic laboratories to find funding for basic research; funding agencies like the NSF have a prejudice toward funding degree-granting institutions. Therefore, in my experience, much of the flavor of the funding at non-academic laboratories is geared toward applied research. This might not be a problem, but it can be a challenge to find a deep, Ph.D.-level problem to solve when your sponsors are interested in seeing more concrete results.
In my case, working at an applied research laboratory to fund my graduate degrees was actually somewhat of a benefit. Due to the reasons I listed above, it was difficult for me to latch onto a deep problem to solve for which there was stable, direct funding. Therefore, I used my position at the laboratory to basically "pay the bills" (it covered my stipend, tuition remission, *&c.*). That gave me the freedom to work on related—but not directly funded—problems that interested me. This of course had the overhead of essentially working two jobs at once, but it had the added benefit of providing visibility to my "side" research to the sponsors who were funding my "pay the bills" research. It also paid for my trips to relevant conferences, at which I was able to present *both* flavors of my research.
Now that I am working at a UARC, I see others here who are also pursuing part-time Ph.D.s. Most of them seem to have found a similar model to mine: They use their position at the non-academic lab to "pay the bills", and then focus their actual research on a related but independent problem. If you are able to fund yourself (*i.e.*, if your Ph.D. advisor doesn't have to worry about finding funding for you), then many advisors will be willing to take you on as a student.
# Answer
> 4 votes
Since a Ph.D is always granted through some kind of Ph.D granting institution (usually a university) I assume your question is about being **funded** by a research laboratory while being formally affiliated with a university ?
As with most things, it depends on the context. First of all, I wouldn't be so sure that a permanent job is guaranteed. Unless you have an explicit letter in writing saying so, nothing is set in stone. Secondly, I'd worry about your potential future marketability in the event that you **do** have to look for a job elsewhere. Again, whether this is an issue depends on the specific context of your arrangement. Finally, your last "pro" about working with students AND researchers may not be true unless the lab and university are relatively close to each other. There's also the risk of your advisor tuning you out, unless there's already a structure of collaboration in place.
# Answer
> 0 votes
I am currently doing basically this in the UK. I can definitely say it is a viable option, although there are definitely some drawbacks.
The biggest disadvantage is that you lack lots of the support the being based at a academic institution has. There is no student union or similar structures to support you. While you will have access to these facilities via your academic institution they are generally much harder to access due to your physical separation.
Similarly the social life at non-academic institutions is very different. Most of your colleges will not be students and probably have a very different outlook on life, e.g. many more older people with families. Similarly there is no union, clubs or other formalised ways to meet people socially. Although this probably depends more your personality and the specific place your at.
You are also correct that travel to/from your academic institution can be very annoying. For meeting with your supervisor I strongly recommend trying to do as much by skype as possible.
Finally non-academic institutions, even government labs/NMIs tend to be less research focused and more focused on providing a service/developing a product, which might involve significant research. This isn't necessarily a problem as long as your project is well defined and your not at risk of doing several small unrelated projects.
On the plus side, you will probably be more exposed to industry and get a wider understanding of what is viewed as important by end users.
Many of the researchers at these labs are world-leading in there own right and some labs are very highly regarded which can't hurt your future prospects.
Also, they are presumably providing funding for the project. Which is always import to have :).
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Tags: phd, research-process, industry, government-institutes
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thread-20487 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20487 | The use of second authorship paper for graduate admission | 2014-05-08T13:48:54.193 | # Question
Title: The use of second authorship paper for graduate admission
During my undergraduate, I have a publication, however I am listed as the second author. I know it is not as ideal as being listed as first author, but for graduate admission, will it still play a role?
# Answer
It will absolutely still play a role. What graduate schools are looking for in terms of publications, undergraduate research conferences, etc. is not that you already have an established body of first author publications (that's the point of grad school) but that you have some experience and aptitude for research.
A second-author publication establishes that.
This is especially true in some fields like medicine, public health, etc. where the results of a large study might have many authors, and no matter how much you contributed as an undergrad, the odds of you meriting first or last authorship is slim. However, regardless of your field, there are some things you should also consider doing:
* As @PeterJansson suggested, make sure you can describe what it is you contributed to the paper. You might not have room for this on your CV, but in application essays and in interviews, this will be important. If it's the only paper on your CV (which is likely), you're *going* to have to talk about it. It won't be held against you if you're the 2nd author, but it likely won't look good if you can't communicate what the paper was about or how you helped.
* Consider seeing if there are ancillary questions in the research (how sensitive our our results to X? What about Y?) that might make good projects you could take the lead on and get a conference presentation or short paper out of.
* Similarly, look out for opportunities to present undergraduate work at your institution, and apply to those. Even if you're not the first author on the publication, it's often possible to present on your part of the work in the context of the larger whole.
> 16 votes
# Answer
No-one would expect an undergraduate to publish papers so the fact that you have been involved in publishable research is a merit. One of the goals of a Phd education is to learn to write good research papers so, again, no-one would expect that from your from the start. I would suggest that you try to describe your contribution to the paper so that your authorship can be valued from the perspective of that contribution. Being able to understand the skills and experience of a student, provided it is good, is of value in a selection process.
> 19 votes
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Tags: graduate-admissions, publications, authorship
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thread-20434 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20434 | Two questions on Marie Curie Actions and current open calls | 2014-05-07T16:08:12.830 | # Question
Title: Two questions on Marie Curie Actions and current open calls
a) There seems to be a fellowship for 'experienced' researchers (link below), which seems different than IIF, IEF or IOF, it's called 'IF' (Individual Fellowship). The recent call link is:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020-msca-if-2014.html
Is the above a postdoctoral fellowship by any chance? Is it different than IIF, IEF or IOF? (it seems to me it is different!)
b) What confuses me is that the Marie Curie action page calls this 'Research and Innovation stuff exchange' (if you go back one page from the above, you get the link: http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/apply-now/open-calls/index\_en.htm), which should be named IRSE, not IF, which the following informative website suggests and informs that it is not something of interest for postdoc applicants, and I believe it (Link to the site: http://www.caroline-angelard.com/marie-curie-fellowship.php#Marie3), but when I click on the link on Marie Curie Webpage, it becomes 'Individual Fellowship'. Am I missing something in here?
# Answer
## FP7
Under FP7, which was the EU funding programme running from 2007 to 2013, the People Programme was offering the Marie Curie Actions. This programme considered two types of researchers:
> * **Early-stage researchers** are defined as those in the first four years (full-time equivalent) of their research careers, starting at the date of obtaining the degree which would formally entitle them to embark on a doctorate, either in the country in which the degree was obtained or in the country in which the research training is provided, irrespective of whether or not a doctorate is envisaged.
> * **Experienced researchers** must, at the time of recruitment (i) be in possession of a doctoral degree, independently of the time taken to acquire it, or (ii) have at least four years of full-time equivalent research experience, including the period of research training, after obtaining the degree which formally allowed them to embark on a doctorate in the country in which the degree/diploma was obtained or in the host country (irrespective of whether or not a doctorate was envisaged).
So **you are correct to say that fellowships for experienced researchers can correspond to postdoctoral fellowships** (although strictly speaking, someone without a doctoral degree might still be able to apply).
In FP7, experienced researchers could apply to four types of fellowships (together with an organisation):
* Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)
* Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowships (IIF)
* Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowships (IOF)
* Marie Curie Career Integration Grants (CIG)
The calls for these fellowships are now over, and as far as I know, these terms should no longer be used (apart to designate existing fellow).
## H2020
We are now under Horizon 2020, and the Excellent Science pillar offers the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.
An experienced researcher can now apply to an Individual Fellowship (IF), which can be either European (replacing IEF) or Global (replacing both IIF and IOF). The next deadline for this call is on the 11/09/2014, September 11 of this year.
The programme is also providing a Research and Innovation Staff Exchange call, which corresponds to the previous IRSES, but it closed on the 24/04/14 (another one should open next year). So **the link you mention with Staff Exchange is a typo, and it should read Individual Fellowship** (and as a matter of fact, if you click on the link, you'll reach the IF page).
If you are interested in applying for an MSCA, I'll recommend the official Guide for Applicants.
> 5 votes
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Tags: job, job-search, postdocs, eu
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thread-20473 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20473 | Sending manuscript to a journal that rejected an earlier paper | 2014-05-08T09:07:25.493 | # Question
Title: Sending manuscript to a journal that rejected an earlier paper
As a beginner researcher, several years ago, I sent some (2-3) papers to a quality journal (with ISI IF). The papers were rejected. Now I am preparing a manuscript, which is in my opinion much more mature. In the meantime I had some papers published in other journals. Now I am considering the same journal again, because of the topic. Is it a good idea ? Or is there going to be some bias because of earlier rejections ? Just to clarify: this is a completely new manuscript.
# Answer
This is perfectly legit. You are not forbidden to submit ever again to a journal that has rejected one of your earlier manuscripts. Indeed, rejections happen for everyone. It is best not to take them too badly.
Now, it would be a different story if you resubmitted the same paper that was previously rejected, or a version with only minor updates. Sending an entirely new manuscript, or a much more mature version, is unproblematic.
> Or is there going to be some bias because of earlier rejections ?
Important journals get **many** submissions, the majority of which they have to reject. I think it is very unlikely that the responsible editor even remembers that you already had a paper rejected a few years back. And even if (s)he does, it is unlikely that (s)he holds it against you. As I said, rejection is something that happens to every researcher, at least now and then.
> 30 votes
# Answer
In addition to xLeitix's answer, which hits on most of the main points, I would add one further suggestion, if the manuscript is a revised version of a previously rejected manuscript.
As part of the cover letter to the editor, you should indicate that this is a resubmission of the previous paper. You should also outline **clearly** what has changed from the previous manuscript to the current one: what have you added or removed, and how the present manuscript is an improvement over the previous version.
> 6 votes
# Answer
Not only is this a good idea, but its relatively common, and a decent publication strategy overall. Given a particular topic is likely to have more than one journal, a way to decide where to submit is to submit it to the "top" journal that you think you have a shot at getting into (you shouldn't submit work that has no chance - its a waste of your time and theirs), and then letting the paper "slide" down the rankings as it gets rejected.
Rejection doesn't even imply that you submitted to the wrong journal, or that the work wasn't worth trying to get in there - the vagaries of editorial discretion, publishing cycles, and reviewers mean something might have had a legitimate shot at getting in but just missed this time. The next paper? Start the process over again.
Unless your submission is egregious enough to be *memorably bad*, the odds of the editors holding rejections against you, or even remembering you specifically, are pretty low.
> 6 votes
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Tags: research-process, publications, journals, peer-review, rejection
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thread-20447 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20447 | What is the best way to publicise an on-line survey for research? | 2014-05-07T19:40:39.357 | # Question
Title: What is the best way to publicise an on-line survey for research?
I am doing my graduation project to become a Software Engineer. The project aims to study the behavior of freelance developers to subsequently design a process that allows more quality and efficiency.
To know the freelancer behavior I have made a survey, but I don't know what is the best way to publish the survey and get responses; after which I'll post an article.
I have published the survey in at least 7 forums, but in most of them my post has been closed for spamming.
Can any one tell me some advice for doing the survey? (on internet)
# Answer
> 6 votes
If you're using forums, don't just make a thread and then write:
> Class project, please fill out this survey. Link: www.xxxxxx984asdfac. Thx!!
Most of the time these annoying threads can trigger shutting down or be simply ignored as spam.
I'd recommend picking a few major forums and actually start a communication with the administrators. In no more than a few hundred words explain who you are, what questions you're trying to answer, and how your results may help both parties. If the outcome is positive, here are a bunch of wishes you can usually ask for:
1. Pin your thread at the top for a fixed amount of time to enhance visibility.
2. Tap into their membership e-mail or online messaging network for an announcement and about 2 waves of weekly reminders.
3. Provide you with important statistics including open rate, click rate, bounce rate, initiation rate, and completion rate. These are all necessary if you are to publish your results in an academic journal.
Try to enhance your credibility by, in the mail to the administrator and the message to the users:
1. Detailing the motive of your survey, what kind of questions respondents should anticipate, and how long would it take.
2. Getting an institutional review board approval, and report so in the announcement.
3. Explicitly mentioning the measures to ensure respondents' confidentiality and/or anonymity.
4. Explaining how the results will be used, and even be fed back to the communities that have helped you filling in the survey.
5. Being real and present by providing your official contact information (names and school e-mail are sufficient). Invite respondents to contact you if they have questions about the study. Check with your supervisor and department for policy of using the school's name.
6. Clearly stating the opening period of the survey.
You can also try contacting companies that hire freelancers, or talk to websites that organize freelance jobs.
I'd also suggest to make duplicates of your survey so that each forum will have their own referral link. You can pool the data later and compare the differences between forum. If you just make one survey you may not be able to figure that out at the end. Putting a "where do you learn about this survey?" question may also help, though probably not as objective.
Now, if you don't care about knowing all those rates, and just want a quick turn around of data, you may use your network to contact some high profile people in the field and see if they are willing to broadcast that for you. Most of the time, a tweet from them would be quite effective.
I also agree with the comments asking you to pay a visit to some social science faculty. At the very least, make sure your questions are examined by some professional for validity. Most researchers also do not mind share with you some templates of the survey introduction.
Some other technical strayed thoughts:
1. Do make a copy of online survey for each major source. Aka forum A will have its own link, and forum B will have its own link, etc. That way later you can stratify them in the analysis.
2. Invest in a good online survey service. Make sure not to enroll in those with limited responses. It'd be very annoying for the 501st respondent to get a "quota full" warning if your free service account only allows 500 responses.
3. Write good questions and include only relevant questions. Again, talking to some researchers will help a lot.
4. The Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES) provides a good list of components you should include in manuscript. Read them before you start data collection and make sure you have thought about all these factors.
Lastly, check if someone has already invented the wheel for you. Secondary data sets may have already covered information you wish to collect. For example National Longitudinal Surveys maintained by the US Department of Labor (I just went ahead and assume that you're interested in the US market) does ask question about freelancing. They even once released a report about this.
# Answer
> 2 votes
To borrow from Willie Sutton:
> Why do I rob banks? Because that's where the money is.
You need to put your surveys where the people are. I've seen a few studies that used Facebook, which lets you specify exactly which demographic should see your survey. SurveyMonkey can also help put your survey in front of the people you'd like to see. I know that I had a lot of success putting up advertisements across campus offering to pay for participation, but that was for a study that involved more than just a single survey.
I would also suggest what was said in the comments... talk to the local economics, psychology, and sociology departments to see if they can give you any assistance with this. Researchers in all those areas will face this problem all the time.
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Tags: survey-research
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thread-20512 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20512 | Is the Journal of Data Science still alive? | 2014-05-08T15:29:03.690 | # Question
Title: Is the Journal of Data Science still alive?
Does anyone one know whether the Journal of Data Science is still working or not? I have noticed that the journal's website (http://jds-online.com/) has not been updated since last year.
# Answer
> 4 votes
It seems unlikely that a definitive answer would be available unless the site happens to host a member of the journal's editorial board.
However, their publication follows a January - April - July - October pattern. It's now May, and their last published edition was in January, which means they have missed at least one issue. However, the January 2014 issue also announces a new editor, so they may simply have a disrupted schedule without being "dead".
So I'd say "Not healthy, but possibly still alive". Another missed issue in July would be a pretty negative sign. Alternately, you could try contacting the journal to find out?
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Tags: journals, data-science
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thread-17513 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17513 | Are there opportunities to support cancer research through volunteer IT or software development? | 2014-02-27T21:50:27.907 | # Question
Title: Are there opportunities to support cancer research through volunteer IT or software development?
Several friends and acquaintances have recently died from cancer. The chemo treatments are crude and destroy quality of life. Furthermore, chemo treatments depend on the efficacy of antibiotics for protection while one's immune system is compromised.
We have to do better.
Who is developing the "personalized medicine" processes? It seems like there should be a way to look at the DNA of a cancer and reprogram it to settle down or go away.
My expertise is in systems engineering and software development - not in the biological sciences. I am just retired, so I don't need reimbursement. How can I contribute to improving this situation?
I suspect the answers depend on more fundamental research, that is why my question is: How can I contribute on a volunteer basis to cancer research?
Update: I plan to upgrade from a 2006 MacBook Pro to something that can run BOINC problems a bit quicker. Rosetta@home seems like a reasonable target.
I have found Rosalind - a site for exploring bioinformatics. The next step for me is to ask friends who might have contacts in academia. Thanks for looking!
# Answer
I greatly admire your interest in contributing to an area of medicine, and I'm sorry to hear that so many of your friends and relatives have succumbed to this disease. You're absolutely right that the treatments are barbaric. The subject of personalized medicine with application to cancer treatment is a hot scientific topic right now, and we're probably on the verge of a revolution in this area.
Two specific groups come to mind as leaders in this though I'm sure there are more. Levi Garraway's lab at Harvard is developing "PHIAL", which stands for "Precision Heuristics for Interpreting the Alteration Landscape" \[in cancer genomes\]. The name alludes to Galadriel's phial, although it remains to be seen whether this sort of computational analysis will live up to being 'a light to in dark places, when all other lights go out.' It is exactly what you imagined in your post, that is, given DNA sequence, predicting candidate causal mutations. There's also Tim Ley's group at Washington University in St. Louis which was one of the first to sequence a patient (one of their own oncologists!), identify the specific mutation and treat his cancer. The story is pretty compelling, but it's worth noting that this was a fortuitous situation where the underlying mechanism just happened to be one treatable by a drug already on the market.
Laboratories are always underfunded -- your services would be a gift. It's just a matter of finding the right one. If you live in a major city, consider contacting some people in cancer to identify someone in computational biology or bioinformatics. If you post what city you're in, I (or others, I'm sure) could help you find a lab doing this sort of work already. Good luck!
> 6 votes
# Answer
You may want to consider keeping an eye on Solvers.io - it's a new site that's trying to link up coders with scientists in need of help for bite-sized software development tasks. I haven't looked to see if there are any cancer-specific calls for help, but it may be a place to find people who would value your time and expertise.
> 5 votes
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Tags: research-process, software, tools
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thread-20486 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20486 | In ABET accreditation criteria, what is the meaning of "one year of X"? | 2014-05-08T13:42:42.110 | # Question
Title: In ABET accreditation criteria, what is the meaning of "one year of X"?
The ABET accreditation criteria document for Computer Science lists some course requirements as
* One year of Science and Mathematics
* At least one half year of Mathematics
* One and one-third years of Computer Science
* At least one year of up-to-date coverage of fundamental and advanced topics
How many courses is one year equivalent to? It may mean 10, going by 5 courses per semester. "One year of X" may mean a year where there is at least one course on X every semester. In either case, "one and one-third years" of courses does not make sense.
# Answer
> 2 votes
A "year" of a subject almost certainly means one course per term for a year's worth of terms. That is, "one year of science" at a semester school would mean two courses in science. (At least, this is how I've seen similar terminology used in discussing mathematics requirements---when people say something requires "2 years of math" they mean taking in total at least four semester long courses, not necessarily consecutively.)
The "one and one-third" years is presumably for schools which use trimesters, where that means 4 courses. (I assume that at a semester school that means three courses---a year and a half---since these are minimal requirements, though I wonder if they really expect schools which use trimesters to include two courses on discrete math.)
# Answer
> 4 votes
ABET formally defines a "year" as
> The lesser of 32 semester-hours (or equivalent) or one-fourth of the credits required for graduation \[1\].
The wiggle room in the definition is almost certainly because of the wide variety of credit systems used by various schools. "One and a third years" would then equate either to 42 semester hours, or four full trimesters or quarters of study for those on alternate study schedules.
\[1\] http://www.abet.org/eac-criteria-2014-2015/
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Tags: accreditation, abet
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thread-20544 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20544 | How to cite musical score in Turabian given the following options? | 2014-05-09T04:55:44.477 | # Question
Title: How to cite musical score in Turabian given the following options?
I am trying to cite a hard copy of a musical score, using Microsoft Word's References feature.
Word gives me several options. I have narrowed it down to a few but none of them explicitly say "Musical score".
* Book
* Book Section
* Journal Article
* Report
* Art
* Sound Recording
* Performance
* Film
There's also a "miscellaneous", but I'm not sure if I should categorize musical score under that.
Any ideas?
# Answer
A musical score is cited like a **book** in this style.
Here's an example from Depauw University Libraries \-
The footnote is in the form
> Composer First Name Last, *Name of Musical Work* (City, State: Publisher, Year).
e.g.,
> Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, *Eine kleine Nachthmusik*, K. 525 (Bryn Mawr, PA: Theodore Presser, 1960).
The bibliography is in the form
> Composer Last Name, First. *Name of Musical Work*. City, State (if city isn't well known): Publisher, Year.
e.g.,
> Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. *Eine kleine Nachtmusik*, K. 525. Bryn Mawr, PA: Theodore Presser, 1960.
(The Depauw site has additional information on various special cases.)
> 2 votes
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Tags: citations
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thread-20531 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20531 | What are the benefits/detriments to graduate students joining unions? | 2014-05-08T16:09:11.207 | # Question
Title: What are the benefits/detriments to graduate students joining unions?
The graduate students at my university (a relatively large state school in the US) are considering joining a union. To help decide whether to sign a union card in support of joining the union, I'm interested in more information about how unions have helped graduate students at other universities. What are some improvements to graduate life gained by graduate students at other universities upon joining a union?
I'm also interested in information about how unions have hurt graduate students at other universities. What are some detriments to graduate life caused by graduate students joining a union?
I'm primarily interested in student-body-wide benefits/detriments, instead of student-specific or faculty/administrator-specific claims (e.g. "my advisor treated me better with the union behind me" or "my students have stopped working since they joined a union" is not what I'm looking for).
# Answer
I went to graduate school in mathematics at a university with a TA union. I think the main effect was to level off graduate student compensation across disciplines -- so, the union was apparently a great boon to those in the humanities, but I heard that compensation for math TA's would likely be higher if not for the union.
Another benefit to the union was that it instilled (for many) a sense of camaraderie and common cause. Union events were fun, and they served beer. It was a good way to get to know your fellow graduate students.
The main disadvantage was that dues had to be paid, around $200 a year (most of which went straight to the AFT). This is not a lot, but on our salary it did mean something. Dues were mandatory, even if you opted out of the union -- although state politicians have since seen to it that this is no longer true.
Another potential disadvantage is that union dues went (in part) to political contributions to union-friendly politicians. I didn't mind, but this tended to alienate graduate students who were more politically conservative than me.
There was occasional heated rhetoric when I was there, and even more after I left, but overall the union didn't seem to do much good or harm. Mostly, I remember the beer.
> 34 votes
# Answer
I don't have first-hand knowledge of specific details, but I am aware that at my university the graduate student union has successfully negotiated items like:
* Basic health care coverage for GAs, RAs and TAs, with full coverage provided to 0.5 FTE assistants.
* Tuition payment deferment so that earned stipends can pay tuition fees not covered by tuition waivers.
* Paycheck deductions in installments for parking permits for graduate assistants.
I have also been told that they negotiate assistantship salaries and minimum and maximum working loads for assistants, and that the union will represent assistants should a grievance arise.
I've never discussed the graduate student union with anyone in my department – professors and other students alike – and am aware of no negative impacts of my membership.
> 25 votes
# Answer
I was a postdoc at an institution with unionized graduate students. One specific consequence was that graduate students weren't allowed to ever lecture in place of a professor.
This is an annoyance to the professor, but more relevantly, it's a mixed deal for graduate students. When I was a graduate student, getting the chance to lecture was an opportunity---at some schools it's one of the few chances to get that experience while still in grad school. On the other hand I have heard stories (in other fields) of professors abusing this and passing a large part of their teaching load off to their grad students. (This, I assume, is why the rule was negotiated in the first place.)
> 25 votes
# Answer
You ask about student-body-wide benefits, I think you need to ask this question across schools.
Unions at some schools have more bargaining power than others, and at some schools the field is already more level than others. But when you look at things like tuition waivers and health benefits, I don't see how they would be as common as they are now without TA unions pushing the fight for the last 40 years.
Non-union schools are under pressure to match the compensation at union schools. Now other battles loom at many schools regarding international student issues and mandatory fees.
I was involved in my TA union as an elected leader for three years, and I heard lots of complaints about how the department wants to give us this, but the union won't let us, the school wants to pay us more, but the union won't let us, etc. I personally investigated every case and the most common explanation is that the school administrators -- starting these rumors -- did not understand labor law or the union contract. In no case did the union prevent a TA from being paid better, etc.
Also, I heard complaints about union dues going to liberal politicians, this is also not true, and is against the law. Unions do help some politicians, this is true -- but it isn't with dues money. The reason unions do help is because unions have painfully found out that what is gained at the bargaining table can be taken away at the state capitals very easily.
> 12 votes
# Answer
This is a huge over simplification, but it is worth noting that Universities, unlike companies, are closed systems that generally do not make a profit. Giving additional benefits from someone means taking them from someone else. For a company it is usually the share holder that loses out. For academic departments added benefits to graduate students hurts professors.
There is no question in my mind that while graduate student unions may provide a short term benefit to graduate students, those students who wish to continue on in academia are effectively shooting themselves in the foot. Those increased benefits come directly from departmental budgets. This means heavier teaching loads and less discretionary money for academic staff. To offset this you need either high grant overheads which will make getting a grant even more competitive or higher tuition. Basically if you support graduate student unions, you lose your right as a faculty member to complain about high teaching loads, not having a grant, and high tuition.
As a graduate student in response to "threats" about unionization my university increased the PhD student stipend. The stipend was above the NIH recommendation. This means that any student funded by an NIH grant needed to find an additional source of non governmental funding. This essentially boils down to PIs using their overhead accounts to supplement the stipend, but PIs did not get a bigger slice of the overhead pie to cover this new cost. At the same time the University got a site license for Matlab. To cover the cost the PI slice of the overhead pie was reduced. Universities take, but rarely give.
> -1 votes
# Answer
A good thing in unions is that you get to interact with others, specially your seniors, who can guide you in your academic life because they are one step ahead of you.
A drawback is that you will have to be a part of parties, meetings, and gatherings etc. which could be disturbing for some people who are not into much socializing.
> -4 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, labor-union
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thread-20541 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20541 | Relational Reference Management Software? | 2014-05-08T21:17:57.147 | # Question
Title: Relational Reference Management Software?
I'm looking for a reference management program to do three things:
**(1) Manage references.** There are plenty of solutions for this.
**(2) Manage quotations.** Similar to **this question**, whose suggestions were surprisingly lacking.
**(3) Map relationships among references.** Somewhat similar to the problem posed by **this question**. When doing research, I often (naturally) find new sources via reference from a current source. It would be extremely useful if my reference manager could look at all sources referenced by all of my current sources to reveal data gold mines like which sources in my library are referenced by other sources in my library, or (even better) what sources are referenced most frequently by all of the sources in my library.
For instance, if my library/collection contains sources A, B, C, D, E, then I want to see that A references B & E, B references D & E, and C references E. This information would also lend itself to useful descriptive statistics like "E is referenced by 3 sources in your library {A,B,C}" and even visual mapping of references.
With the vast array of reference management software available, I am amazed that I haven't found anything even close to this. Does anything like this currently exist?
# Answer
> 2 votes
As far as I know, there is nothing pre-canned for point (3). If you want to do it yourself, you'll need:
1. a way to retrieve automatically the references cited in each paper of your collection -- see here for some solutions. Note that an important part of this is giving each paper a unique identifier, something that is dealt with in literature databases.
2. a graph visualization/analysis tool. See for instance here.
3. Writing code -- sorry, there is no way around this. :(
EDIT: just noticed that this answer suggests a program called Google Scholar Citation Visualisation Tool -- give it a try!
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Tags: reference-managers
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thread-20552 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20552 | Is it rude to ask via email to a professor if there are any internship opportunities? | 2014-05-09T08:31:32.187 | # Question
Title: Is it rude to ask via email to a professor if there are any internship opportunities?
I've worked for an university for one year after my master's degree. Now I'm searching another job. For the moment I've tried to ask to several professors via email if there is any internship opportunities but only a couple of them answered me. I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or this is not the praxis or the formal manner for this type of requests. This is a general template I use:
> Dear Professor `Surname`,
>
> I'm a young chemist for the conservation of Cultural Heritage. In my career I've studied mainly non-invasive techniques for art diagnostics and authentication, such as reflectography and Raman spectroscopy. I've also learned, on my own, to use GIS software for organizing data for Cultural Heritage management. I've seen that one of `name of a Project I'm interested` tasks is the maintenance of cultural heritage. Therefore, I would like to ask you if there are any internship opportunities in which my expertise could be useful to your current research? Thank you for your time.
>
> Best regards,
How can I propose myself for an internship? Which is the most accepted praxis?
# Answer
> 17 votes
I don't think this practice is rude, but if these are not people with whom you have any connection, and who have not advertised a position, then I don't think you should be especially surprised that you aren't getting many responses. In all likelihood, the answer is "no" and they don't feel like anything will be achieved by telling you that.
A few things which might be hurting you:
* The email above really reads like a mass form email. You aren't making any argument about how your expertise is relevant to their specific work, and you're putting the burden on them to think about how your skills might fit with what they're doing rather than thinking about it yourself.
* Maybe this is different in other fields, but it's not clear to me what "internship" is supposed to mean here. A paid position? Unpaid? You may be being deliberately vague, but if you're not responding to an ad for a specific position, you have have some clarity about what you're looking for.
* I think that the slightly awkward English doesn't really help. "Chemist for the conservation of Cultural Heritage" sounds very strange to me. I think "Chemist specializing in/interested in/working on the conservation of Cultural Heritage" is much better.
# Answer
> 10 votes
To add to Ben's answer, professors usually get these emails by the dozens and for various reasons, most of them are auto-tuned to ignore them. The maximum notice such emails may get is a mention in a lunchtime comment to colleagues. Like Ben said, if you are not getting a reply, the answer is probably "no". If there are open positions, they would already be advertised on the prof's or the department's page. Some departments do not take interns as a policy and say so on their webpage.
Your best bet is to contact professors whom you personally know, or have your own professor recommend you to colleagues. Go to places where you can meet more professors, e.g. conferences. Look for professors who have published in your area and start a discussion on some paper of theirs you find interesting. Those emails do get noticed! Bring up your need for an internship in said discussion.
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Tags: etiquette, job-search, email, international-students, internship
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thread-20461 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20461 | Which is more impressive -- finishing a PhD in 2.5 years or getting more research done? | 2014-05-08T01:31:22.390 | # Question
Title: Which is more impressive -- finishing a PhD in 2.5 years or getting more research done?
I am working on a PhD in chemical engineering, and my advisor mentioned to me today that I'm on track to finish in about half a year. I only have one class left to fulfill the course requirements and I have a few papers published, with a couple more almost finished.
Personally, I'm in no hurry. I love grad school and working on research. However, from the perspective of a getting a good job, would a PhD at 23-24 years of age or additional research publications in high quality journals look better? Once I graduate I plan on either doing research in industry or working at a startup. I don't plan on going into academia.
# Answer
In my field (computer science, broadly), my impression is as follows. It is of course an over-generalization.
* If you want to go into academia or industrial research, then what you do during your Ph.D. matters much much more than how long you took, though if you take more than 6 years to finish it starts to look bad.
* On the other hand, if you want to go into non-academic industry, you might impress people with a fast Ph.D. because you'd show yourself to be the sort of person who can finish big things fast.
If you're only 2.5 years in, unless you have an offer from someplace and need to finish ASAP, and especially if you're enjoying your Ph.D., I wouldn't rush to graduate that quickly.
> 49 votes
# Answer
My overall impression is that prodigies and *Wunderkinder* are not all that eagerly sought after in industry—particularly in fields associated with chemical engineering (my discipline). Twenty-three or twenty-four, however, is not *too* young, but it's probably right on the cusp.
However, if your work has reached the point of maturity, and you and your advisor feel that there isn't much for you to gain by remaining in graduate school longer, then it's time to move on and find a job. Of course, in the current economic climate, job searches can last many months, so even if you were ready to defend in six months, you might not have anywhere to go to afterward! (Unless, of course, you start your job search now, which may delay the time it takes you to finish, and so on.)
One final possibility that does cross my mind is the possibility that the funding being used to support your work is running out, and there isn't a follow-up source available—hence the notion of being able to finish soon being introduced.
> 21 votes
# Answer
Another (similar) opinion from the computer science field:
* If you want to continue with research, then it doesn't matter whether you have done your PhD in 2 or in 5 years. If you have still interesting things to do on your topic, why not doing them? However, think about your motivation. Now you have the goal to finish your PhD. After an year you will no longer have a goal and continue researching. Will it still be interesting for you?
* If you want to go in the industry (especially in startup), then you really don't need to do more research. In some cases it is even seen bad when you have done research, as this is quite different from the kind of (simple, imperfect, fast) work that is mostly needed in industry.
I would take my decision depending on my interests and not depending on what looks good. Both alternatives look fine, it is much more important whether continuing research on the topic is interesting enough for you or you want to have it behind you.
> 10 votes
# Answer
Ask yourself what your PhD will mean in your career. For some people, it's simply a "certificate of competence" - it shows they are a good researcher, they can think independently, create original thought, test hypotheses, write coherently...
For others, it is a sign that they have mastered a specific field.
If you fall in the first category, then by all means finish and move on. I work "in industry" and have hired a number of people like this. The first thing I tell them is "your PhD is a license to learn". Once that message sinks in, they realize that our particular field has so much more to learn, and they can become quite effective.
If you fall in the second category, then ask yourself if your current environment is the place to continue honing your specific skills. If it is, and you are enjoying yourself - stick around. Finish your PhD and stay on as a post-doc, maybe. It's not wrong to finish fast; it depends on who you are, and who you want to become.
Either way - you are in the enviable position of having choices. Make sure you realize how lucky you are.
> 5 votes
# Answer
If you don't want to stay in academia and want to further your career as much as possible, get the PhD as fast as possible and start working. No one will care about how many years you spent in grad school and they also won't care very much about your number of publications. They will care about work experience which is what you would be building over the next few years.
If you really enjoy grad school, don't mind missing about on money and want to spend a lot more time learning, then you may want to stay.
> 4 votes
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Tags: phd
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thread-20542 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20542 | Origin of the thesis-degree procedure | 2014-05-09T03:39:25.123 | # Question
Title: Origin of the thesis-degree procedure
It just came to my mind, currently if one wants to obtain an academic degree one must to do a thesis. This is a widely accepted method to prove the knowledge of certain academic level, sort to say. But my questions are, where this method was originated? Which historical or social circumstances originated it? Is there any philosophical background?
# Answer
> 6 votes
(note: I have no references for the below, nor am I qualified in the topic)
First of all, the premise of your question isn't quite accurate: certainly in the UK it's very common for undergraduate degrees to have no thesis requirement. But putting that aside:
I think there are parallels with other mediaeval professions, which required proof of skill in order to become a member of a guild (the professional organisation). To be a 'master' of the guild one had to produce a 'masterpiece' (the origin of that word); this has obvious parallels with the idea of a thesis proving that an individual should be admitted to a degree (remember that historically a degree is more like a rank than an award, honour or qualification).
The MA at Oxford and Cambridge is still awarded automatically to those with a BA seven years after the start of the degree, which I believe matches the time someone in a professional guild would take to become a master.
Note also that the modern doctorate is a much more recent invention than the MA.
# Answer
> 5 votes
A bit if history. The history of thesis is intertwined with the history of universities in the 12th and 13th century.. The early history of universities is not clear but with time systems develop on how information/knowledge is taught and discussed. The end (so far) result is what we have today. The written thesis is based on the fact that ideas need to be made more permanent than oral traditions. the advent of printing made wider distribution of copies possible. The first degrees were the baccaulerate and magister artium which corresponded to doctor in certain disciplines.
The thesis was originally what the word describes a thought or thinking that needed defending, which goes backs to Aristotle and Plato. As soon as writing was possible, the idea was to put the ideas down in writing and hence a written thesis was born. One has to remember that teaching early on did not necessarily occur as lectures, it could be mentioning and learned discussions. At the same time knowledge was not as structured and defined as now.
early on the teacher actually wrote the thesis and t was the students job to defend it. So the focus was less on developing knowledge but to defend a thesis with arguments and logic. During the renaissance the thesis in a form we can recognise was developed. These texts were called dissertatio (lat. development, presentation) where as the defence was named disputatio (lat. c. learned argument). From these relatively common beginnings different "cultures" developed which now are reflected in differences between countries in how a thesis is defined and defended.
Much more details can probably be added to this but the core is covered. There is no necessary connection between a degree and a thesis. Certainly not at a bachelor's leverl and it is also possible at a master's level. Differences also exist between disciplines.
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Tags: thesis, education, academic-history
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thread-20257 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20257 | Does anybody receive printed copies of new journal issues nowadays? | 2014-05-04T20:32:15.880 | # Question
Title: Does anybody receive printed copies of new journal issues nowadays?
Everybody I have met in academia uses recently-published journals entirely through electronic means. They may print out articles for their own use, but they will not receive printed subscriptions.
Does *anybody* receive modern journals in printed form nowadays? If so, who and why?
# Answer
> 22 votes
I do.
I have print subscriptions to three major journals in my field, all through optional add-ons to society memberships.
I do so for three reasons:
* It forces me to read and interact with the literature. Online tables of contents, journal RSS feeds etc. can be ignored because another staff meeting is coming up, I really should submit an abstract, etc. The arrival of a printed journal gives me an excuse once a month/quarter/every two weeks etc. to sit down and engage with my field.
* I read articles I would not otherwise read. General society journals have papers in areas that are not strictly my field. Sometimes, I read these, because I know the authors, liked a particular plot while I was flipping through, or because it pings my curiousity. I *rarely* read PDF papers outside my field.
* Journals are more durable than print-and-staple publications. They live in my bag. I read them at lunch. I read them in the bathroom. I read them at the gym. I do things to them that I wouldn't dare do to either an iPad or other electronic reader or a few flimsy pieces of copier paper.
# Answer
> 8 votes
Very few individuals receive printed copies of journals anymore, but many institutions pay for print copies as well as online access. In part, I suspect this is because many publishers make this part of the sold "package." However, an additional motivation for keeping a print copy is that most publishers do not allow for "archival" downloading—libraries cannot maintain their own copy of the publishers' website. Thus, if anything happens to the website, the institute would temporarily or permanently lose all access to the information if only an online subscription existed.
# Answer
> 8 votes
My library receives print copies of about 300 journals; I do browse new issues almost daily, and it has happened more than once that I found papers that did not reached me through other means (arXiv, bibliographical searches, toc alerts, etc.)
However, in my department (pure maths) we seem to be little more than two people doing this. The other one is retired. I might be a romantic when it comes to scientific journals.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I wish all questions here were yes/no questions.
Answers:
1. Yes.
2. Most of my colleagues.
3. Presumably for the same reason that most people prefer physical books to e-books when they read. It's also much quicker and easier to browse through the volumes of a journal on your bookshelf than to do so online.
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Tags: journals
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thread-20441 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20441 | How do I pick good keywords for literature alerts? | 2014-05-07T17:32:30.860 | # Question
Title: How do I pick good keywords for literature alerts?
F'x has made a very informative post here about staying up to date with current research.
My question concerns the "publication alert" part of it. To be clear: I am asking about setting up an online service, such NCBI PubMed, to send you a notification (for instance, email) whenever a paper matching certain search criteria is published.
The objective is to get a decent number of notifications, but not so many that you are swamped and unable to actually pay attention to them. Also, the notifications that you do get should be prioritized the most important papers.
The biggest problem I am having is coming up with effective keywords. If I try to make myself come up with general keywords (such as those that might be given in the article's own "keywords" section), it seems that I end up with keywords so general that I would get thousands of notifications every week.
Alternatively, I could try to come up with very specific keywords, but how do I select those? What if they are too specific, and an important paper gets published without using my particular obscure keyword?
Surely people are not born with a natural talent for thinking of good keywords. So how can I train this skill?
Furthermore, is there a systematic method to deduce good keywords given a body of "gold standard" relevant literature? (I mean things such as statistical analysis of the text)
I know that it can be worthwhile to focus on certain "big player" authors. But if in a field with thousands of authors (eg. cancer), how does a new researcher map out who is important and who is not? Furthermore, the biggest players are probably PIs of huge labs, who already publish a very large volume of papers, so we are again at odds with the "not too many notifications" problem.
Another possibility is looking at citation metrics to identify the most important papers, as Google Scholar does. But clearly, this is not effective for new papers - who will cite a paper published last week?
# Answer
> 7 votes
One of the biggest problems is that there are, in fact, *waaay* to many relevant papers coming out; that's because there are lots of articles published each month in many different fields.
The approach I found most useful was threefold:
* Set up **author-specific alerts** for the big names in your field. Read both those articles *and the citations*. They know the literature and will cite stuff you should be familiar with.
* Set up alerts to see **when someone cites a seminal paper**. In my research, there were certain seminal papers that everyone participating in my tiny subfield would always quote. Find those and set up alerts when someone cites that.
* Read the **most popular article(s) of the month** (most downloaded/shared/read in your journal of choice) to stay on top of interesting stuff that's going on.
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Tags: literature-search
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thread-20567 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20567 | In citations, how to find out if it's a compound name? | 2014-05-09T14:53:55.380 | # Question
Title: In citations, how to find out if it's a compound name?
I have a paper that I want to cite in my own work, in the form "J. Wayne" (for John Wayne) in the bibliography part of the paper and `Wayne` in the body of the paper.
The full name of the author appears on the paper as `Aaaa Bbbb Cccc`, and is typically a non-western name. Say, consider something like `John Fitzgerald Kennedy`, but let's assume you never heard of them, and they obviously are from a different culture, and you don't know if their last-name is `Kennedy` or `Fitzgerald Kennedy`.
Should I note it in my Bibtex file as `Kennedy, John Fitzgerald` or `Fitzgerald Kennedy, John` ? This will change things when printed with last-name only, it will appear either as `Kennedy` or `Fitzgerald Kennedy`.
So, more generally, is there an academic naming convention for this kind of situation ? **Edit:** To be more precise, what I want to know is if there is a standardized way for an author with such a name to sign his paper, for example `Aaaa Bbbb-Cccc`, so no ambiguity is left for the reader. Or for the reader, if one has a guaranteed way to know this (seems not).
I must add that I have seen the considered author cited as `Bbbb` or as `Cccc`, one of these being obviously incorrect (even both could be).
# Answer
> 6 votes
## No.
(aeismail has already addressed nicely how to deal with this, but what follows is too long for a comment.)
As far as I know, there's no standard way (i.e., the same for every name no matter the culture) of indicating which components of a name are considered to be the last name. In fact, even the concept of last name is different from culture to culture and may even be absent -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Names\_by\_culture. Even in Europe, you can get quite complicated naming systems. So you are really trying to identify the "main professional name", whatever that may map to in a given culture. To identify it from the list of names *as written within that culture*, you have be familiar with the specific naming conventions (maybe the Wikipedia page helps, or if you know someone from that culture, you can ask them).
It's worth keeping in mind that getting it right serves two purposes:
1. Making sure everybody knows the person you refer to, even if they don't know the full name.
2. Showing courtesy towards that person.
While the second point is the only one of importance when addressing the person directly ("Dear Professor/Dr. X"), in your case the first point is actually more important: If (say) a referee wants to check the bibliography whether you cited a relevant author's works, they would expect to find them in a certain form. If everybody uses the same (wrong) way of parsing the name, it would arguably be the right thing to do to follow that choice.
(Finally, you could also chicken out and just list *all* authors in full, native name order; in Bibtex, you can do this by wrapping the full name in curly braces.)
# Answer
> 14 votes
The convention, inasmuch as one exists, is:
> **Write the name the way the individual wants it to be written.**
For example, one of my co-authors has four names:
> (First Name) (Middle Name) (Adopted Married Name) (Given Last Name)
but chooses to use
> (First Initial). (Middle Name) (Adopted Initial). (Last Name)
as his "formal" academic name.
As a more concrete example of this phenomenon, this is a significant issue with a lot of British folks, who eschew the hyphen in a "double-barreled" last name. For instance, you'd cite:
> Vaughan Williams, Ralph. *The Lark Ascending*. London: Oxford University Press (2005).
and not
> Williams, Ralph V. *The Lark Ascending*. London: Oxford University Press (2005).
In such cases, you just need to look up exactly how the author writes his or her name, and follow that trend. Google Scholar can be a good source of such information; Web of Science and other citation-tracking sites are often better.
The most useful method of all would be to find "self-citations": works where the author cites his or her own work. How the name is written under those circumstances should be the most unambiguous statement.
# Answer
> 7 votes
You could google the person and see how they refer to themself in their publications on their group's page. This would probably be the easiest general way to solve this problem.
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Tags: citations, personal-name
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thread-20476 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20476 | Social etiquette for interacting with PhD peers who complain *a lot* | 2014-05-08T10:24:49.343 | # Question
Title: Social etiquette for interacting with PhD peers who complain *a lot*
People in my program complain a lot and usually not in good humor. How can I handle this socially and professionally?
Some of these people are my friends and some are no more than peers. In general I want to be respectful but not allow them to harangue me with complaints. Generally, much of this advice does not help.
For now, I try to avoid social gatherings with a high concentration of people from my program. When they get together, the complaints take over conversation. At the department, I can spot someone (or a group) having a stress crisis from a distance, and I keep my distance.
I certainly hope that this climate does not continue into faculty life.
\[Migrated from other question here. There were some useful pieces of advice, so I hope that respondents will move their points\]
# Answer
*(as suggested by jabberwocky, I have moved the last part of my answer from here to this question)*
Kvetching is a perfectly normal part of mental and social hygiene, but to what extent depends on the person. It is also a self-affirming activity: If complaining leads to positive social experiences (people you talk to relate to your experiences and opinions and share them), you will do this more often. If unchecked, this vicious circle can easily cross your tolerance threshold for complaining (which is different for each person). So, first of all you should keep in mind that "too much complaining" is your subjective view, not an objective truth (absent a concrete case of someone spending the day complaining instead of working and then failing to meet a deadline). Of course, if you'd rather have less complaining around you, it's perfectly legitimate to try to break that circle.
The best strategy (outside of avoiding complaining peers, which you apparently now follow) is often to lead by example: Do not respond to complaining with your own complaints (especially not with ones about their complaining), but try to steer the conversation to happier grounds by
* getting them to relate positive experiences about their PhD;
* mentioning ones you might have had (without showing off -- this one can be tricky);
* taking an interest in their lives outside of academia.
In short, show them that they can have positive social interactions without complaining. If enough people around you feel the same way as you do, this usually works.
To your final remark: This is by no means limited to PhD students (or even academia) -- you get similar "hot spots" among early-career faculty simultaneously applying for permanent positions (in Europe) or trying to get tenure (in the US), or among tenured faculty of any seniority any time a major evaluation (of a grant or institute) or reaccreditation is imminent.
> 25 votes
# Answer
As a PhD student who like to complain (partly as a PhD student, partly as a Slav) and work/live in such environment: it's not much about etiquette (at worst, they will *complain* about your behavior), but about social contacts.
If your goal is to avoid complaints (especially non-productive ones):
* DO steer away from sensitive topics (especially if it is not a new topic, e.g. "We already had a discussion about the odds of getting tenure; if we have nothing more to add, let's talk about X..."); some people have their weak points you don't want to touch,
* DO try to focus on something positive (sometimes non academia-related topics can be the best/safest),
* DON'T try to persuade that they don't have a problem (it's like persuading someone that (s)he is not feeling pain),
* DON'T start complaining by yourself (it is a positive feedback mechanism),
* DON'T start conversations with "how is your thesis?", or in tougher cases, not even "how are you?",
* DON'T talk that other have worse (not many people are happy when hearing about others being unemployed or anything),
* DO focus on their opportunities (in academia, science, non-academic job market, seeing an cool city while on a conference, etc),
* DO try to focus on facts and actions rather than pointless complaints (see below).
Some people complain no matter what and no matter what is the topic - then you can't help.
With respect to complaints, PhD students are often smart and analytical. Saying that complaints never solve anything but one should focus on cold diagnosis and action often helps (or at least - halts some complaints). See (a bit different context, but somewhat related):
> \[...\] People who struggle against the system (in this case, national education, but you can insert here any academic or political institution you don't like), or try to reform the system from the inside, often end up bitter and frustrated. Large institutions evolve at glacial speed, so whatever aspects one might want to reform, instead of fighting the resistance of matter it seems more fruitful to find a niche and expand from there. \[...\] **We’d have got nowhere if we simply complained about the Polish education system and stopped at that.**
from my text An independent camp for high school geeks, emphasis mine
> 14 votes
# Answer
As I said in the other question, you can avoid some of this, but shared suffering is a bonding experience - you and your cohorts will have the experience of having been "in the trenches" together, and this can be a fairly powerful bond with people who will be your colleagues in the future. Especially for those who are "just" your peers, those kinds of links can be important.
I think there's also a reason people complain in social settings in academia - some amount of stress and suffering is universal, but success is largely personal. Everyone can commiserate about quals, or NIH pay lines, or how brutal a particular class was, but at any given moment far fewer people are riding the high of getting a paper accepted, going to a conference they're looking forward to, landing that prestigious postdoc, etc. Focusing on that also highlights those people who *aren't* experiencing that. When I was in graduate school, the complaining was about things that happened to you *because you were a graduate student* not because they were your fault - everyone was stressed, everyone was poor, etc.
Some thoughts of mine on dealing with it:
* Don't dismiss the complaints. A lot of people want to know they're not alone, and just writing off their problems - however trivial or annoying you might find them - isn't going to make the social situation better.
* Refocus the conversation on shared experiences that are funny or odd or some how enjoyable, rather than just complaints. The professor with the oddball anecdotes, the antics of the students you are supervising, etc.
* Know things about your cohort's lives outside of school. It's a lot easier to not complain about school if you have something else to talk about.
* As @PiotrMigdal said, put the brakes on a little harder when things turn to sensitive topics - that doesn't go good places.
> 8 votes
# Answer
*(as suggested by jabberwocky, I have moved the last part of my answer from here to this question)*
> People in my program complain a lot and usually not in good humor. How can I handle this socially and professionally?
I have experienced that "dissatisfaction" can also be very infectious. Dissatisfied people often and strongly complain to their co-workers and co-students, which, over time, gives those people the same sense of dissatisfaction. For instance, in my old lab, we had one office room of people that were constantly dissatisfied about our work environment (all the other students in other rooms felt differently). Any new student that would be seated in this office would, within weeks, also start to complain a lot. As such, I think your goal
> In general I want to be respectful but not allow them to harangue me with complaints.
is very good. Try not to let other people convince you that life is terrible.
I am not sure whether entirely avoiding social outings is the right strategy, though. This will make you an outsider of your cohort, and you will have to spend **a lot** of time with these people in the next years. At parties, a usual strategy to avoid any topic that you do not want to talk about (politics, sports, or whether your life is terrible) is to avoid the groups that are currently talking about the annoying topics and focus your attention to people that are discussing something more interesting.
Sometimes, people will come directly to you to complain one-on-one about their problems. In such cases, one strategy is to acknowledge that they are feeling bad, but provide a more positive light on their case. When you do that regularly, two things may happen. In the best case, the complainer actually takes your words to heart and starts seeing things a bit brighter. If that does not happen, he will at least stop complaining to *you* specifically, because he is actually looking for somebody who echoes his feelings.
> 7 votes
# Answer
> In general I want to be respectful but not allow them to harangue me with complaints
Good answers so far. I would add that I have found that different complainers have different goals for their complaining. Compare and contrast these two conversations:
* Professor Bedfellow is always on my case to get the grading done faster, it's driving me crazy how awful people are here.
* Have you tried talking to the professor about it?
* Yes, but prof just says "I'm busy!" and I should come back later. It's awful!
* Have you tried asking the admin to schedule a short meeting?
* Yes, but the admin hates me. People in this department are awful!
* Surely the admin will do their job even if they dislike you.
* Yes, but by the time I get a meeting it'll be too late! Everything is awful!
* AAARGH YOU ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO DEAL WITH.
vs
* Professor Bedfellow is always on my case to get the grading done faster, it's driving me crazy how awful people are here.
* That's terrible.
* The prof just says "I'm busy!" and I should come back later. It's awful!
* How irritating that must be for you.
* And the admin hates me. People in this department are awful!
* How vexing.
* By the time I get a meeting it'll be too late! Everything is awful!
* Boy, that must be frustrating.
In the first conversation the joy of complaining is secondary to the actual goal of the conversation, which is to infuriate the person trying in vain to solve their friend's problem. This is a Why-don't-you-Yes-but conversation and the first person to get frustrated loses.
The second conversation seems exactly the same, but the friend this time is commiserating rather than playing Why-don't-you-Yes-but.
My point is: if the complainer is looking for people to have a game of why-don't-you-yes-but, and you play that game, they'll keep on coming back to you if you play. If that's what they're looking for and you just nod and say "You're right, everything is awful" over and over again, they'll get bored and look for someone else to frustrate.
Now, if the person is genuinely just looking for someone to say "yes, that's awful", then you deal with that by *not saying that more than once*. Let them get in one complaint and then change the subject until they get the hint.
> 4 votes
# Answer
May not apply, but: There are regional variations in how complaining is used socially. New Yorkers, for example, tend to see it as an opportunity for bonding (sharing complaints about something else implies you don't have complaints about the person you're sharing them with), whereas midwesterners tend to hear that kind of complaint as general annoyance which could be directed against them in the next breath.
Understanding the subtext may help with finding ways to either deal with the complainers or explain to them why they're making you uncomfortable.
(Recommended reading: Deborah Tannen's books analyzing variations in conversational styles, specifically That's Not What I Meant!)
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, etiquette, academic-life, colleagues, social-skills
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thread-20555 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20555 | Is it acceptable to take some exercises directly from the text book when preparing exercise sheets? | 2014-05-09T09:37:45.010 | # Question
Title: Is it acceptable to take some exercises directly from the text book when preparing exercise sheets?
I want to prepare some exercise sheets for a course. I am wondering whether or not it is OK to take some exercises directly from the textbook.
# Answer
> 10 votes
> I want to prepare some exercise sheets for a course. I am wondering whether or not it is OK to take some exercises directly from the textbook.
## Yes.
Regardless of the *legality* or *scholastic integrity* of copying exercises from required textbooks, recommended textbooks, non-required textbooks, other books in your personal or institutional library, course web pages, random pieces of paper found in classrooms, and the like, it is common and accepted practice to do so, typically *without* attribution of any kind.
Unless you're teaching a popular MOOC (which attract lawyers like certain substances attract flies) or writing a popular textbook (likewise), nobody is going to come after you for copyright violation. But if it'll keep you awake at night otherwise, rewrite the problem in your own words before you distribute it to your students.
Of course, you should *also* include your own original problems. (Just don't be surprised to see another instructor use them later.)
# Answer
> 12 votes
From a practical point of view, taking a few exercises for internal classroom use will probably not cause copyright problems, depending on the local laws. Teaching is one of the fair use possibilities in the US, but I am no expert in law, and I don't know how far it goes.
Assuming US law applies, here are a few rules for fair use, and I believe you fulfil them all: non profit, for educational purposes, on content more factual than artistic, extracting small parts, and no net effect on the market. Some other sources also add restricted access to the student as a point in favour. It is always safer and more ethical to add a reference to the original book.
# Answer
> 6 votes
The big concern is copyright. How important it is depends on how complicated the problem statements are. For instance, if the question is something like:
> Using Rolle's Theorem and the Intermediate Value Theorem, prove the Mean Value Theorem.
then there's no worries about "reusing" a question like this, because the formulation of the question is not really "original."
However, if the problem involves a half-page of explanations and formulations, you can't simply copy it in your problem sheet verbatim without reference. You may or may not be able to make a photocopy of the relevant page and distribute it under fair use guidelines; you should probably consult your university librarians about this.
The simplest solution, though, would be to list the source of the problem, and identify the problem from the source:
> Deen, *Analysis of Transport Phenomena*, 1st ed., Problem 1.6.
and then allow the students to look it up. (Of course, you should make sure that a copy of the text is available to them in the library via "reserve" policies, if at all possible.)
# Answer
> 6 votes
Beyond the issue of legality, you have to put in some effort in order to make it appropriate *for students* and TAs (if you have some) -- plain copying can be dangerous.
1. Cross-check definitions and results necessary to solve the exercise. Even small differences between the book and your lecture can render an exercise completely infeasible.
2. Skim the related chapter and prior exercises in the book. Sometimes problem 8 builds on the thought process or solution developed in problem 5, or uses a theorem you don't have in your lecture. If you skip 5 but copy 8, or don't give the theorem as hint, you are posing a harder (infeasible?) problem to your students.
3. Make *sure* the exercise works as you expect, i.e. solve it in detail (!) yourself. Not only are there many flawed exercise problems in books, but the level may also off.
Make your solution accessible to the TAs.
4. If you don't want your students to have an easy out, make sure to take the exercise from a textbook not on the syllabus and/or without solutions and reformulate a bit so they can't google solutions (easily).
These are lessons I've learned from painful experiences which were unanimously caused by me being short on motivation, time or both and just copy-pasting exercises onto sheets.
Regarding work ethics, provided what you do is legal (in your country) I'd say copying exercises is *completely* acceptable. Developing good exercise problems is hard *and* time-consuming. It helps nobody if you do half a job, or overextend yourself on this. It's somewhat similar to using an existing texbook vs writing your own.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Textbook publishers and instructors have an agreement (in my experience, an unwritten one): if the instructor tells students the textbook is "required," then the instructor is allowed to use all the images, test bank questions, and animations as desired in the course. If you or the main instructor has therefore indicated that the book is "required," then I would say you can use examples from the text (with proper attribution) all you want.
If you are using a text that *isn't* required, I would say you are venturing into fair use territory, nicely summarized by Davidmh and commenters. An email to the publishers asking to use X number of questions with attribution over the length of the course would be the most legal way to use the resources.
Of course, saying a text is required does not mean students will purchase it. But that's a separate discussion, and publishers do not expect the instructor to enforce the requirement.
# Answer
> -2 votes
Most of these answers seem to be focused on the legality of using textbook but I would like to argue from a student's viewpoint that it is not acceptable.(And don't have enough reputation to simply leave a comment.)
These questions are from a textbook they should already have. Normally the questions are extremely similar to examples in the text and are most useful in the context of understanding the concepts. It is my opinion those questions should be reserved for students to reference while going through the book, as well as references while working on your slightly different or harder exercises.
What is the point of taking a class when you could have just got the book instead?
Edit: It is your responsibility as the instructor to add value to the course, giving students new (possibly tailored to skill level) problems is a great way to do that in addition to your in class explanation of concepts. Taking exercises from the textbook adds no value since they already have those questions.
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Tags: coursework
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thread-20586 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20586 | How to write a personal statement for a dissertation fellowship? | 2014-05-09T21:32:30.010 | # Question
Title: How to write a personal statement for a dissertation fellowship?
I'm writing an application for a dissertation fellowship, which according to the application is "to a truly outstanding doctoral degree candidate in the last semester of residence".
I need to write a 'personal statement' which is only described as follows:
> a statement of how the fellowship will facilitate the completion of the doctoral degree by May 2015
That's it. No other guidelines are given to describe how to write this personal statement.
My research is theoretical, and does not require the purchase of any special equipment other than pencil and eraser. Thus, my naïve, simplistic answer this question is:
"I need the money so I can pay for tuition long enough and buy enough food to keep my brain cells alive long enough to graduate".
Obviously, I know this is the worst possible way to answer this question. In all honesty, the way this fellowship describes how to write the personal statement is rather limited. Other than writing a more eloquent phrasing of "give me money so I can eat", I can't think of anything else to write in it.
What do personal statements generally contain for fellowships like this? Are they usually as limited as this? What other points can I bring out in this statement other than "I need to buy food and pay for school"?
# Answer
Your answer is over-simplistic. In reality, having money allows you to devote time to research as opposed to getting a job to earn the money so that you can eat and do (less) research. If you already have such support, then I do not see the point of applying. If it turns out that finishing this dissertation quickly and with fewer distractions advances science as well as your personal and professional goals, then applying seems reasonable.
I would write something along the lines of how the time to prepare and establish the results is precious, and that having such a fellowship will grant you that time. Also, while your expenses may be minimal, you may find that using some of the money to attend a conference or to facilitate discussions with colleagues will allow you to add more to your dissertation than you could otherwise.
This is just off the top of my head, and I've been outside the ivory tower for more than a decade. Certainly some of your colleagues off the Internet can also suggest some themes to use for this aspect of your application.
> 1 votes
# Answer
What about those students who don't receive that fellowship? Do they drop out or do they work as Teaching Assistants in the department? If it's the latter, then just point out how you would like to spend your time doing research instead of preparing courses.
> 0 votes
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Tags: thesis, funding
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thread-20591 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20591 | If you disclose an invention, are you still able to file for trade secrecy? | 2014-05-10T00:49:39.600 | # Question
Title: If you disclose an invention, are you still able to file for trade secrecy?
Say I have an invention that I have already disclosed. I am now trying to seek a form of Intellectual Property for it. Am I still able to seek trade secrecy since I've already disclosed about the invention? If I can't file for trade secrecy, am I still able to file for a patent?
# Answer
> 11 votes
No. Trade secrets are not registered. Voluntary disclosure pretty much destroys trade secret status. If you want to have a trade secret, don't tell anyone without a non-disclosure agreement in place. A patent may be available to you depending on your jurisdiction. Consult an attorney in the location where you want to protect your invention.
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Tags: intellectual-property
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thread-15335 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15335 | How to measure entropy of exam results | 2014-01-03T21:27:23.290 | # Question
Title: How to measure entropy of exam results
In this answer to a quora question, the answerer mentions how the 'entropy' of a set of exam results can be used to measure how well the exam differentiates between students.
Should I be computing the entropy of my students' exam results? How do I do it? How should I interpret the entropy information?
Edit: How is entropy related to standard deviation?
# Answer
Entropy measures how much information you learn on average about each student from the exam results. For example, imagine an exam on which everyone gets a perfect score. In that case, you would learn nothing, so the entropy is zero. If half the students get one score and half get another, then you learn one bit of information about each of them. If you want to assign meaningful grades on the usual U.S. scale, you'll need at least several bits of entropy, and the 3.5 or 4 bits mentioned in the quora answer sounds reasonable to me.
The idea behind the answer you link to is perfectly reasonable: if your exam results have low entropy, then that basically means they are clumped together on too few possible scores, and you don't have enough ability to distinguish between students. On the other hand, I don't see much point to actually computing a mathematical measure of entropy (e.g., Shannon entropy), except perhaps for fun if you enjoy that sort of thing. Instead, you can just look at the range of scores and judge how well they distinguish between students. Think about how you might assign grades, and you'll rapidly see whether you run into problems, without any need for mathematical computations.
Furthermore, doing it by entropy is a little subtle anyway. Strictly speaking, Shannon entropy pays no attention to the distance between scores, just to whether they are exactly equal. I.e., you can have high entropy if every student gets a slightly different score, even if the scores are all very near to each other and thus not useful for distinguishing students. The quora answer obliquely refers to that (in the discussion of bins), but still this means you can't just compute a single number without thinking.
So I'd view entropy more as a metaphor than a number most professors should compute.
> 26 votes
# Answer
If 100% of your students mastered the material completely, then you don't want some of them to get very low scores and others very high scores. In this situation, if there is a big spread in scores, it means that your exam is bad, not good.
You really want a whole bunch of simultaneous criteria to be satisfied:
1. Your exam questions have what's known as "face validity." That means that an expert, reading them, agrees that they are written so that they correctly test knowledge of the topic.
2. You want scores on your questions to correlate with one another and/or with external measures of your students' knowledge.
3. You want the test to be reliable, in the sense that for a student with a given level of knowledge, the standard deviation of the test result is small. (E.g., you want a decent number of questions.)
4. If student A and student B have different levels of knowledge, then you want your test to distinguish between them.
If a test has low entropy, it *could* mean that you have a problem with #4.
> 11 votes
# Answer
The practicalities first. Take your list of exam scores and count for each possible value of the score how many of the exams got that score. In Excel the FREQUENCY function is useful for automating this step. To give some names call p\_i the number of exams which have score i. From there you just add up -(p\_i)log(p\_i) over all the scores that actually happened. The base of the logarithm is not particularly important abstractly but what it does is scale your final "entropy" values so be consistent and only compare different classes when you are using the same base.
So far this is just a computation to perform so what does it tell you? It tells you how much information the scores encode. A test that really differentiates between the levels of knowledge that students have will have values that are take more information to predict. That information might be that your students really know/do not know the material. Or it could be 15 of the questions are easy and 5 very hard so scores in the low-80's are going to be more common than they otherwise might be.
What entropy will tell you is a quantified notion for how much more information is in your exam results than just randomly assigning numbers between 0 and 100. Like any attempt to summarize an entire packet of exams and the attached students with a single number, be careful to not push your data too far. The person in your link that was "surprised how few professors compute and report entropy (or even know what it is)" is a person who is in electrical engineering and computer sciences. Both of those fields use the notion of entropy regularly so his surprise maybe not be that surprising.
> 6 votes
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Tags: exams, grades
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thread-20598 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20598 | Do I publish a paper independently or ask a professor to mentor me? | 2014-05-10T03:14:54.510 | # Question
Title: Do I publish a paper independently or ask a professor to mentor me?
I am an undergraduate studentcurrently in my 3rd year. I have worked on a project for the last year. I was thinking of writing a review paper about the topic. It was a graded project in my curriculum and I had a mentor to guide me(for one semester, after that I have worked on it independently), except that my mentor was not interested at all in my work. (I got similar opinions about the said mentor from my classmates who were working with her) Should I go to her and ask for guidance related to writing the paper or should I go ahead and try to publish it independently?
# Answer
First, you should assure yourself, and then again, that the work is correct by the standards of your field. It is this point that requires insight into your topic. You know best by yourself whether you need a mentor or not.
Second, you need to 'sell' your work. This point does not require expertise in your particular niche, but it can benefit from knowledge of people in your discipline. This includes aspects such as Academic English, Writing an Abstract, Writing an Introduction, and so on. Maybe there are some trustworthy (!) persons in your discipline that could proofread it for you?
> 6 votes
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Tags: publications, undergraduate, research-undergraduate, independent-researcher, review-articles
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thread-20603 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20603 | Is an instructor position a possibility to pursue research (semi-)seriously? | 2014-05-10T08:10:31.047 | # Question
Title: Is an instructor position a possibility to pursue research (semi-)seriously?
I have been offered two positions, in two different countries, and I am trying to determine which one is a better fit.
**POSITION 1:** The first position is as *Instructor* \- a teaching only position - which is offered in one year contracts for the first three years, then in three year contracts, until certain conditions of excellence have been satisfied in which case I may qualify for the status of "senior instructor." This position comes with the summer's free to pursue research or any other opportunity.
**POSITION 2:** The second is an *Assistant Professor* (equivalent) position in my home country, where the pay is less than half, and this position comes with the same teaching load, but also the expectation of research. This type of position is known to be strenuous and I have rarely met individuals holding this position that seemed happy (it comes with the usual tiresome academic hassles). The only silver-lining - and at this point I am not sure I consider it a silver-lining - is that this position comes with lifelong job security.
Both positions are in top 10 universities in their respective countries.
I guess I have two questions.
* First: I am being told by the recruiting committee of position 1, that people recruited in this position have found it easy to continue working on research part time. Yet this could be to convince me to take the job. And it could also be a case of the "Most say that they would do research, but instead discover that teaching fulfills all their needs" (which might be the case, or rather might be that most people are susceptible to inertia). I do not have the perspective to judge how likely this is.
* Second: I cannot either determine if this type of position - by contract - is meant to be long term or not. Even though it is something favorable to me, I am intellectually opposed to tenure, even if I understand how it is important for research where month to month (or yearly) productivity is not guaranteed - but it seems less pertinent for a position evaluated on the basis of teaching alone.
Yet if this position is only going to last me a year or two, it seems suicidal to turn down another more permanent position - however weak it is.
Any opinion on this would be truly appreciated.
(*Finally, for full disclosure, I should mention, to be fair, that position 2 is in a city that has a significant richer cultural life.*)
# Answer
> 14 votes
I will not be able to provide a full answer, but here are some assorted thoughts:
> First: I am being told by the recruiting committee of position 1, that people recruited in this position have found it easy to continue working on research part time. Yet this could be to convince me to take the job.
I am sure this depends, but I would certainly not take the committee's word on that. Instead, I would talk to *other* instructors informally. To be honest, if the summer is the *only* time where you could do research (as in, during the term you have no time at all), I would assume that you will be out of the research game entirely before long. Further, if you are not evaluated by your research outcomes, it may be hard to keep up the motivation to do any research and not focus solely on teaching.
> Second: I cannot either determine if this type of position - by contract - is meant to be long term or not.
It sounds like it's supposed to be long-term by default, but keeping the window open to get rid of you should you (a) underperform or (b) your expertise not be needed anymore short-term.
> this position \[the assistant professorship\] comes with the same teaching load but also the expectation of research.
Something seems off here. If the first post allows for research only during the summer, and the second post requires research *and* teaching, with teaching load being as high as in the other post, when would you do the research?
My experience is that it is *very* hard to estimate in advance what teaching load one really will have at a new place. *Number of courses*, *number of students*, etc. are all relative coarse-grained instruments, as it is entirely unclear how much work teaching *X* courses per year will actually be. I tend to look at what the committee expects you to do *in addition* to teaching, as this will be based on what other people in your post manage to do. If they expect you to do teaching *and* research in the second post, I would assume that the actual teaching load will be measurably less than in the first post, where they seem to assume that you have time to research "during summer".
> This type of position is known to be strenuous and I have rarely met individuals holding this position that seemed happy (it comes with the usual tiresome academic hassles).
Yes, assistant professorships tend to be hasslesome, because you have to juggle a lot of balls. However, if you plan to take the instructor position and do serious research on the side, you will have the same problem (maybe worse).
> The only silver-lining - and at this point I am not sure I consider it a silver-lining - is that this position comes with lifelong job security.
It *is* a silver lining. Lifelong job security does not mean you are chained there and can never leave. Even if it is not your dream job (which it clearly isn't), you can stay there until you are able to secure a better position, and then move on. Having an unbounded contract can almost by definition not be a bad thing.
> the pay is less than half
This is clearly an important argument, but do take costs of living into account. Typically, the places that pay very well are also very costly to live in (I work in Switzerland, I know what I am talking about here - I would not have deemed possible *how much* more expensive living here is than in my home country).
> Both positions are in top 10 universities in their respective countries.
But how are they in relation? Being Top 10 in Austria says next to nothing (we have less than 10 actual research universities in total). Being Top 10 in the US is pretty cool...
> Finally, for full disclosure, I should mention, to be fair, that position 2 is in a city that has a significant richer cultural life.
I consider this a *very* important factor, but judging whether the same is true for you is an entirely personal thing, which we cannot help you with.
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Tags: research-process, teaching, career-path, non-tenure
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thread-20595 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20595 | What are the impacts on learning of allowing students to eat in class? | 2014-05-10T02:07:24.207 | # Question
Title: What are the impacts on learning of allowing students to eat in class?
My school has a recommendation, but not a requirement, not to let students eat during class. I am wondering if I should make this a rule or not for the classes I teach. I am concerned about my undergraduate students.
On one hand, the noise from rustling bags and crunching chips and bottles falling on the floor can be distracting. On the other hand, hungry students are distracted by hunger. This is a particular problem for my classes which start before 8 AM as students often skip breakfast and want to eat it during class (because they do not want to wake up early enough to eat before coming to school).
Since my main concern is on the learning, I would like to know how the issue of allowing eating during class actually impacts student learning.
# Answer
Most of the answers here suggest limiting or prohibiting eating in the classroom, but I have to disagree.
First, students generally do not control their own schedules. Personally, I often had five or six hours of class back-to-back as an undergrad, and I was not unusual in that regard. Yes, there are breaks between classes, but students need that time to get to the next classroom. In addition, many professors let their class go overtime, reducing the length of the break. If you prohibit eating, hungry students will simply choose to arrive late after getting a snack, which defeats the idea of minimizing disruptions by prohibiting eating.
Second, you don't know what medical issues a particular student has: they may be diabetic or need to eat at regular intervals for other reasons. While a student can tell you about this at the start of the term, I don't like the idea of forcing students to discuss their medical issues with every professor, every term. After all, students who get special classroon accommodations due to a disability are not obliged to tell their professors what the specific disability is.
For these reasons, if the university does not have a specific policy, I would tend to be lenient at first. Most students are reasonable people who won't show up to class with a five course dinner. If a specific concern arises during the term, such as very noisy food or garbage being left behind, you can address it either with the individual student or the class as a whole, as appropriate.
> 29 votes
# Answer
**EDITED:** As you mention, there are two competing issues here: Running low on carbohydrates and especially hydration leads to decreased cognitive ability; but eating is a distraction from attending the lectures. I have found mostly opinions and little hard data on this, for example
The consensus seems to be that water (in sealable bottles) should definitely be allowed, and that students should not go longer than three hours without a chance to snack. This would suggest treating the classroom like a study place in a library: Water (or anything that doesn't leave a mess when spilled) yes, snacks only during breaks.
One thing to keep in mind that diabetic students will have more strict requirements on when (and what) to snack, which should be accommodated, see http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/6/2/180.full.pdf. Not allowing other students the same opportunity to refuel might be seen as unfair.
> 18 votes
# Answer
I don't have any data on this, just an idea.
You could mention the rule (and justification), ask students to please come fed, and say that if you're really hungry you would still prefer that they attend class and be discreet: sit near the back, don't make undue noise, etc.. That would hopefully minimize the disruption to student learning without making you seem unreasonable.
(If I were the university administration, I would probably do away with 8 am classes; younger people (especially teenagers) have circadian rhythms that run a bit later than older or younger folk. I do not think it speaks that ill of students that they don't want to wake up early enough; it's probably quite difficult for quite a lot of them. High schools are beginning to adjust.)
> 1 votes
# Answer
I am not sure if there is any hard data on this but reflecting back on the undergrad years I think we can all provide some perspective on the effects of food consumption in class.
If there is a clear cut school policy (not your case, as you indicated) then there is little you can, and should, do. Otherwise as the teacher you should make the rules of the game clear for the students from the first day. If you intend to allow eating, then ask first for any allergies that might be relevant. At our university, we had some students who had severe allergies to peanuts. Thus there was a campus-wide ban on peanuts.
If the classes are longer than 45 mins it might be tricky with the morning lectures. As the OP mentions, many students skip breakfast on occasion, willingly or otherwise. I believe you can get away with banning eating, would probably be better off actually... Food that speaks to one or more of the senses besides visual (smell, sounds etc..) might be distracting to others.
But be vary of drinking; both coffee (in the morning) and water (all day) might be vital for students to be able to keep focus, and extend their attention span.
> 0 votes
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Tags: teaching, undergraduate
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thread-20616 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20616 | How to move from experimental to computational research | 2014-05-10T15:28:58.577 | # Question
Title: How to move from experimental to computational research
I have been doing wet lab chemistry since my undergraduate and master, and my master is going to be finished soon. As time goes by, I find myself more interested in computational research. I have no prior simulation or modelling experience. I can write simple programs in Python but not fluently.
I would like to ask, based on this situation, is that sufficient to convince people to give me a computational research project (PhD, or maybe as a research assistant first)? If it is not sufficient, what should I do to move from experimental to computational research?
# Answer
> 5 votes
I did a very similar transition, moving from wet lab biology late in my undergraduate career to computational biology, which is what I work in now. It's certainly doable - I made the switch with no programming experience whatsoever.
I don't necessarily know that the desire and knowing some Python is out and out enough to make someone confident of letting you dive head first into their project, but it certainly is enough that I'd ask around. You should be aware that a switch like this will probably cost you some time, but if you're okay with that, see if its possible to do a rotation in someone's computational lab - a semester or two for you to get the feel for what it's *really* like, pick up some skills, and hopefully either they'll pick you up, or "I did a rotation in Dr. So-and-So's lab..." being enough to make someone take a chance on you.
There are some other things you can do as well - follow your interest in computational work by replicating some classic papers in the field. Doing some side projects - computational representations of your current work, or implementing a commonly used algorithm on your own (say, the Gillespie Direct Method and it's many approximate methods). Things that will build your skills and suggest that you're worth taking a stab at. The other suggestion, if you can't effect a full transition, is to potentially propose one Chapter/Specific Aim/etc. of your dissertation as a computational project, and put someone appropriate on your committee.
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Tags: research-process, career-path
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thread-20585 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20585 | How do you keep track of papers during a brainstorming literature review? | 2014-05-09T21:22:59.673 | # Question
Title: How do you keep track of papers during a brainstorming literature review?
I am often in charge of researching new sub-topics in my discipline for short papers. I find my default technique is:
1. Search Google Scholar for best-guess keywords
2. Open relevant-looking resulting paper, skim
3. Find new references in that paper, open new tabs for those papers while reading first paper
4. Look at new papers, find new references and key words. Open new tab for new Scholar searches
5. Decide those key words aren't useful after all
6. Make valiant attempt to figure out which of the 20 open tabs are still worth keeping open, which papers are worth adding to Zotero, which papers are worth downloading.
Clearly, I am not of a methodical mindset. I'm beginning to wonder if I took 5 sec to add each paper author-year-keyword to a small notepad app on the side of the screen before I opened the article, that might help me keep track of the mess. Or something. Does anyone have a simple workflow for this "brainstorming" phase that would work well for the non-methodically minded? I'm a Chrome/Google type rather than an Apple type, if that matters.
# Answer
My workflow/suggestion would be to keep this all in Zotero. I'm a big believer in keeping the number of tools one uses relatively small and becoming very proficient at using ones favorite tools. I use a collection ("Inbox") dedicated to items I may or may not keep and don't have time to read right away. I will then go through those items periodically and either throw them out (remember you need to "Move to trash" or `shift+delete` \- just pressing delete will just delete them from the collection.) or file them in the right collection and delete them from "Inbox". To quickly remind you of why you saved the items, you could either attach Zotero notes or you could use tags, including colored tags if you can make do with only a couple of short keywords. Finally, since you will always save items into Zotero right away, you can sort the collection by "date added," which should give you a good idea of the context in which you saved an item. Since you're using Zotero Standalone, you'll want to use `alt+tab` to quickly move back and forth between Zotero and your browser.
> 4 votes
# Answer
I use Papers for this, because not only does it let you organize your citations, but it lets you search and import documents directly from the program, rather than having to bring them into a manager.
Basically, I create a new folder for this particular brainstorming session, everything I find that's worth skimming gets imported, and then the ones that don't pan out get deleted.
> 1 votes
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Tags: tools, literature-search
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thread-20609 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20609 | How do I convince my department that not all research needs to be profit-oriented? | 2014-05-10T11:38:56.873 | # Question
Title: How do I convince my department that not all research needs to be profit-oriented?
I have gotten a job in a sort of university of Applied Sciences; this work place wants to start a small research group, but one issue that I started to notice is the orientation they want to give it. I mean, they want that all research to give a profit. For that reason, I was wondering how to convince the persons in charge of the Faculty, that not all research will give immediate profitable results.
The faculty is information technology oriented, which has a big influence on Computer Science topics. For what I saw in other institutions, not all research is profit-oriented, but oriented to expand the knowledge about some fields.
Any advice?
# Answer
> I have gotten a job in a sort of university of Applied Sciences; this work place wants to start a small research group, but one issue that I started to notice is the orientation they want to give it. I mean, they want that all research to give a profit.
Well, that's a direction that *many* research centres around the world go. Fundamentally, IBM does not maintain IBM Research to contribute to human knowledge, but so that IBM Proper can get an innovation advantage (and patents - lots and lots of patents).
A University of Applied Sciences is usually not a research university in the traditional sense. They are not funded to do research, and, by and large, it is not their job. It seems perfectly reasonable that they expect their upcoming research group to fund itself or even be a cash cow. There is no obligation that a research centre needs to also do unprofitable things.
To make this perfectly clear: building up a for-profit research centre is a perfectly valid strategy. Clearly, it is not the kind of research you want to be doing (which is perfectly fine, even very understandable for me), but you cannot expect them to change their global strategy to fit your idea of research, especially if you just joined them.
> should all research be profit oriented?
No, of course not.
> 15 votes
# Answer
The statement "If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be Science" provides some insights. New knowledge builds on earlier knowledge but the groundbreaking new insights come from unplanned events, even mistakes. It is of course possible to research new products in a planned way, where a focus is to arrive at a sellable product. Where the difference between research and engineering goes in this case is not clear. But, it is not so likely a goal oriented approach will lead to revolutionary developments, particularly if experiments are deemed from a commercial point of view. This is because risk is involved and if commercial products is a goal it will be the organization's willingness to "waste" money on risky but potentially lucrative ideas, or, just stay within the safer zone of incremental development.
So trying to figure out what strategies they see driving the research will also allow you to assess the picture. It may also allow you to influence the direction of the institute depending on how the process is working in forming the organisation.
> 2 votes
# Answer
There is a difference between
1. Doing things that will immediately generate a profit (product development; low risk, mostly applying known technologies, possibly combining them for the first time)
2. Doing things that you *expect* may lead to profit (sometimes called "line of sight" - you have some unknowns, but if the risks pan out you expect to move into category 1 and will be able to make a profit).
3. Doing things that are *interesting* but you're not quite sure how they will be used (there was a time when nanotechnology fell into that category. "I bet something interesting will happen - I just don't know what"; and now it is everywhere)
4. Doing things that you can confidently predict will not affect "profitability" for your employer over your career (think - searching for exoplanets in solar systems that are 30 light years away).
In principle there is nothing wrong with any of these approaches - and a healthy research department will have a blend of the first three, with maybe a smattering of 4 thrown in for the odd chance at a Nobel prize etc. The mix (proportion of each type) that an institution can afford depends on their source of funding - not only for the current year, but going forward. A department that keeps says "just fund me one more year - NEXT year will be the breakthrough" eventually loses credibility. By spinning off a few short term hits you earn the right to work on longer scope / higher risk higher reward stuff.
There are other things than money that can and should motivate research - but unfortunately, unless you make sure that there is bread on the table, your high ideals will only carry you so far.
**Final thought** Having a diverse, motivated, and highly skilled workforce should be at the top of the list for any research organization. This is an excellent argument for keeping a mix of projects with different time scales going in parallel.
> 2 votes
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Tags: research-process
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thread-20627 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20627 | Ethics of conducting research on a class | 2014-05-10T20:47:35.203 | # Question
Title: Ethics of conducting research on a class
I'm a repeat Teaching Assistant in a fairly large (100-200 students/semester) core, required CS course at a large, private US research university. I'm very interested in researching what factors influence success in the course, possibly with an eye toward SIGCSE.
I'm concerned about how to ethically conduct research on students.
Yes, I know a little about IRB, and I assume at some point I'd need to get IRB approval. However I'm so unsure about this, I'm not even sure what to ask the IRB yet. I'm hoping y'all can provide me some guidance and advice as I begin to plan for next year.
I assume I have to ask for explicit, opt-in consent? Obviously, participation or non-participation couldn't affect their grade. However, if only a very biased subset bother to opt in, the research might not be worth conducting. Can I compel students to choose to opt in, or opt out?
Additionally, the course is very similar year to year, so the extent that it would be very useful to be able to include previous semesters. I imagine this is even trickier.
I have the full encouragement and cooperation of the faculty member, but working with human subjects, much less students, if totally outside their expertise.
This is similar to this question, but slightly different and, I think, more difficult.
# Answer
> 24 votes
I conduct biology education research at my large, state research university, so I have experience with this process.
An IRB is necessary if you plan to make the results public. Educational research is considered "exempt" research under IRB regulations, but this really just means you have fewer flaming hoops, not NO flaming hoops. You will likely be able to convince your IRB that students do **not** need to sign consent forms, since you will post a study information sheet and they have the opportunity to opt out to someone else without it affecting their grade. You *may* also be able to get student data from previous years with a retroactive IRB.
An additional hurdle is that you will probably need the approval of your FERPA specialist in addition to IRB approval, as FERPA is very concerned with the sharing of private student information. Our FERPA guy is in our registrar's office.
As you can see, I'm being a bit vague. Every institution interprets the human subjects regulations a bit differently, and sometimes schools are relaxed... and sometimes they are not.
So, it's doable, but not at all trivial. If you still want to move ahead, I recommend you call your institution's IRB office and say you are considering education research and would like to meet with an analyst. And the first question to ask the analyst is, "who else on this campus has ever done education research?" and get the real skinny from *that* research group.
Then, the basic steps will be:
1. Design the experiment, do a lit review, write up the IRB proposal and study information sheet
2. Send the proposal and SIS to the IRB analyst, and they will help you make changes
3. Send the proposal and SIS to the FERPA specialist and they will send an approval letter to IRB (in a month?)
4. Wait for the IRB subcommittee to approve the proposal (another month?)
5. Post the study information sheet on the class website, and get another grad student or postdoc to be the "safe" researcher that students can contact to opt out. This researcher will make a short announcement on the first day of class.
6. Teach using your fabulous new technique
7. Ask the registrar for grades for previous years (if you've worked this out)
8. Do analysis, write it up, present it. Fair warning - most of the time we find that the first try is the beta test, and the SECOND try generates better results.
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Tags: research-process, teaching
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thread-20626 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20626 | MOOC's certificates on graduate admissions | 2014-05-10T20:34:16.263 | # Question
Title: MOOC's certificates on graduate admissions
Do departments look at MOOC's certificates favorably during the graduate admissions process? Will it give me any advantage over students who don't have them if I am trying to enter a PhD program?
# Answer
> 3 votes
You're free to mention the certificate in your application. How much weight to give to it is presumably up to individual committee members. I think unless the certificate pertains to a specific skill that's in demand for the program, you shouldn't expect to get much of a boost from having one. At the moment, people don't have much experience with such certificates, and will be more inclined to look at indicators they know better, like grades and GREs. It's possible this will change a bit in the future, but it will likely move pretty slowly.
# Answer
> 1 votes
What sort of advantage do you have in mind? MOOCs could help a little in addressing weaknesses in your application: if there's a standard course you were unable to take, then it could be helpful to be able to say you learned the material by other means, and a MOOC certificate might carry a little more weight than completely independent reading. However, on a scale from saying you read a book to getting a strong letter of recommendation, a MOOC certificate is much closer to saying you read a book.
Beyond that, it can't hurt to list MOOC certificates on your CV, but I doubt they'll make any difference. If you're going to graduate school, you should have spent time on many different sorts of learning: lots of formal classes, extensive discussions with peers, independent reading, and ideally working with a faculty member on something (a senior thesis, undergraduate research, etc.). Adding a few online classes is just not a big deal, especially if people are unsure of what the standards are. Compared with things like letters of recommendation or research experience, MOOCs disappear in the noise.
# Answer
> 0 votes
If the MOOC certificate is in a closely related field, it will help. If it is in something like "Underwater Basket Weaving", it may not give you an advantage over anyone else, unless of course you are entering a program in Underwater Basket Weaving. Or something similar, such as Underwater Knitting.
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Tags: graduate-admissions, mooc
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thread-20643 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20643 | Is it ethical for the postdoc to be listed as a co-author and the corresponding author on all group publications? | 2014-05-11T11:58:58.370 | # Question
Title: Is it ethical for the postdoc to be listed as a co-author and the corresponding author on all group publications?
Is it the usual practice in your discipline for the postdoc in the group to be placed as co-author as well as a corresponding author on all publications that are written by the PhD students in the group?
For some publications, the postdoc provides input and advice, and for others none whatsoever. The reasoning behind this practice is that the postdoc needs publications for his academic career. However, the PhD students that do 95% of the work in some cases, are the only ones *able* to answer scientific questions. As a consequence, emails are prepared for the postdoc by the PhD students, and sent out under the name of the postdoc.
Is this a standard practice in your field of research?
# Answer
> 28 votes
I come from a field that is rather (let's call it) *pragmatic* about co-authorship, and I have never heard of a postdoc automatically being a co-author of papers. Sure, sometimes the input of the postdoc is not extremely large, but having a postdoc as a default co-author of each paper irrespective of contribution seems very uncommon to me.
> The reasoning behind this practice is that the postdoc needs publications for his academic career.
Who cares? The same is true for you. If he cannot write papers himself or actually advise students that write good papers (not the same as just being on a paper without contribution), he *should not* be able to progress his career.
> As a consequence, emails are prepared for the postdoc by the PhD students, and sent out under the name of the postdoc.
That's ridiculous. Don't do that (either for a postdoc or a professor). If they are not able to answer questions about a paper, they need to at least be honest enough to defer to the person that *can*. Pretending like the postdoc is the real brain behind a paper is certainly not ethical.
> Is this a standard practice in your field of research?
Nope. Never heard of that, and Applied CS is certainly not a field that is well-known for its die-hard adherence to ethical guidelines re: co-authorship.
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Tags: ethics, authorship
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thread-20599 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20599 | Choosing title for a section in the curriculum vitae | 2014-05-10T05:25:40.377 | # Question
Title: Choosing title for a section in the curriculum vitae
I am now applying for lecturer jobs after my masters. And so have made a decent CV. Now I have a confusion on giving the research interests in my CV. I wanted to make 2 sections in CV indicating my basic subject areas and future research interests. What are the suitable titles for these sections in the CV?
# Answer
> 4 votes
A possible heading for your subject areas could be Areas of Specialization or Areas of Expertise. You could use Research Interests for the other part. However, the two are usually combined under one heading. Unless you have the necessary expertise to carry out research in the areas listed under your Research interests, there is no point of listing those.
Normally you would use a separate document called Research Statement to outline your proposal for your upcoming research.
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thread-20646 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20646 | What is the significance of the corresponding author? | 2014-05-11T13:05:57.167 | # Question
Title: What is the significance of the corresponding author?
In your field of research, what is the significance of the corresponding author?
Does the title "corresponding" imply that the person is the expert out of the list of all authors, or that the person is responsible for communicating with the journal / reviewers?
When should the PhD student, if she/he is set as the first author, also be the corresponding author?
# Answer
> 3 votes
As Faheem pointed out there are other questions that deal with what a corresponding author is. You second question is not covered by those questions though.
The corresponding author should be an author that will be easy to find again after a few years. Ph.D students are not great choices since they are almost by definition not going to have the same contact information by the time most people read the article. In mathematics this is a serious concern because the backlog in articles can be multiple years and the student can already have graduated and moved across the world by the time the article is officially published.
As the other questions point out in some fields corresponding author is used to indicate contribution to some degree. But the old fashioned use of "the author you can find an address for" is still a worthwhile thing.
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Tags: publications, ethics, authorship
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thread-20640 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20640 | What should I do if I cannot reproduce experimental published results | 2014-05-11T10:09:09.607 | # Question
Title: What should I do if I cannot reproduce experimental published results
I found a useful advice if I cannot reproduce computational published results in (What should you do if you cannot reproduce published results?). However I would like to ask the same situation with experimental results.
I am from chemistry, and it often involves synthesis of compounds. I know every lab in the world cannot be identical even if all equipment are the same, because many external factors such as climate, humidity, lab temperature, etc. may possibly interfere with the experiment.
If I have followed all the steps described in the literature, from the source and purity of chemicals to every single step described, but still I cannot reproduce the results (evidence from some characterization techniques), what can I do? Should I contact the author to give me all 'hidden' steps like the size of beaker, etc.? Or the journal reviewers think that the authors have already disclosed enough information for others to reproduce it, so the remaining job to investigate how to reproduce the results is on me? However sometimes the description is really vague, like 'drying in a vacuum oven at 50oC for 10 minutes', but what is the degree of vacuum?
(Sometimes the size of beaker may play a role, as evaporation way affects its crystal size, also the position of drying compounds in oven, etc.)
# Answer
> 20 votes
@posdef's comment is already very good.
I would definitely suggest contacting the authors and trying to get *exact* agreement also on the details that they didn't describe in the original paper. The original authors should be quite interested in an independent replication, so they should have an incentive to collaborate. Depending on how much they contribute, they could also hope for co-authorship on your paper.
Conversely, if they are *not* cooperative, that is another piece of information that should be included tactfully (!) in the paper you are putting together.
If you are lucky in your analyses, you may be able to identify the exact circumstance or unreported detail that makes the difference between reproducibility and non-reproducibility, and there you have the nucleus of an original paper all by itself.
On the other hand, if you cannot reproduce the results even with help from the original authors, this should be worth at least a correspondence. Reproductions are *important*, and there are far too few of them!
I part ways with @posdef's comment in that I would definitely not send a letter to the editor voicing concerns about reports and reproductions not matching. This already points towards a suspicion of scientific wrongdoing on the part of the original authors. And unless you have a lot more to go by, a simple inability to reproduce a finding should not be taken as the result of foul play. There are so many potential reasons for non-reproducibility, from the ones you mention to simple random error (aka, uncontrolled conditions), that there is really no need to even imply dishonesty. Such an implication can mess up either the original authors' or your own reputation in the field for decades, so it should not be made lightly.
# Answer
> 11 votes
There is nothing wrong or rude about contacting the author and asking for some help in this matter.
You should identify not only who you are, but what your institutional affiliation is (and as I guess you are a student or postdoc who you are working with/for).
You should explain what you are up to (simple replication, or are you trying to use this work as a step in a larger process), an outline of what you have tried, what choices you made on any steps that were not completely specified, and how your outcome has been unsatisfactory (it is possible that the author needed multiple tries to get this to work and has seen the same failure mode before).
# Answer
> -2 votes
Easiest solution is to invite them over and let them do the experiment. You will find what they are doing different and then you can decide together how to proceed with publishing the results.
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Tags: publications, reproducible-research
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thread-20655 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20655 | Better chances for math grad school: graduate in three years or four? | 2014-05-11T18:57:29.687 | # Question
Title: Better chances for math grad school: graduate in three years or four?
I finished freshman year of college and I am transferring from a liberal arts college to a university to study a more rigorous math curriculum. I got accepted at UC berkeley (but as a junior transfer, so I can only be in college for 2 more years). I'm going to hear back from stanford, cornell, and colubmia next week. I would choose stanford over berkeley if I got in, but I'm not sure about the other schools since berkeley is a top ranked math school.
-My question is, if I get into columbia or cornell, should I go and be in college for 3 years, or go to berkeley for only 2 years? Is it better to stay in college for 3 years to be more competitive?
Background: I took real analysis, topology, complex analysis, algebra 2, linear programming, cryptography. I'm self studying algebraic topology and homological algebra, but recently I'm studying probabilistic methods and graph theory to prepare for an REU this summer. I'm interested in anything algebra related.
Why I am worried: I looked over mathematicsgre.com, a forum where grad school applicants post their stats and results. People who get into top math schools usually have taken 10+ grad level classes and did research, REUs, and (probably) have great letters of rec. If I go to berkeley, I only have 2 years, actually less since I would apply to grad school as a senior so I only have full 1 year and a few months.
# Answer
What jumps out at me in your question is the assumption that because of your advanced standing you can only stay at Berkeley for two years and thus only spend three years in college altogether. Though I do not have any direct experience with this (i.e., financial aid at state universities in California), I find that quite surprising. Berkeley is an elite institution, and presumably they don't let just anyone transfer in. The fact that you have two years' worth of university credit after one year in college is to your credit and probably factored into their decision to accept you. So they turn around and penalize you by only offering you two years of financial aid? That doesn't make much sense.
I would at least make a phone call and, if necessary, schedule an in-person appointment with a financial aid officer. My first guess, honestly, is that you may not be understanding the situation correctly. If you are, you need to explain why the junior standing could stop you from making best use of the amazing resources that UC Berkeley has to offer and could make you less competitive in your later academic plans. I would expect them to be sympathetic to that.
On the other hand, I find your discussion of what it takes to get into a top mathematics program (here and in the other question you asked) a bit reductive. It is not simply a matter of taking the most graduate courses, doing multiple REUs (in my opinion as someone who was involved in graduate admissions in my math department, one REU has the same effect as multiple REUs unless you do some truly notable research in one of the REUs, which is unusual; also, doing multiple REUs makes it natural for you to get more than one recommendation letter from an REU director, and this is a mistake: most REU letters sound the same no matter who is writing them or is being written about), and so forth: the goal that you rather want to pursue is to show mastery of mathematics and show the potential and the interest in doing mathematical research. You can show this by taking 5 graduate courses rather than 10. (Ten courses sounds almost ridiculously high, by the way: I took 9 trimester graduate courses -- so the equivalent of 6 semester courses -- over the last two years of my undergraduate program. I got into all the top mathematics departments. If I had taken a few courses fewer I don't think the outcome would have changed.)
In fact, the list of math courses that you've already taken compares well with what very strong undergraduates take up through the end of their second year in top mathematics programs in the US. If you did really well with them, then I think you would be ready to take graduate courses (what other undergraduate courses would you take?) in your next year and thus as far as I can see you could graduate in three years and still be competitive for a top program. But do you really have to? If you are serious about studying mathematics, then you have the entire rest of your life to do that. I would recommend a more balanced undergraduate experience that is not 100% calculated to optimize the graduate program you can get into and which lasts for the traditional four years: there are other interesting courses to take as an undergraduate which you will never take again, and there are other things to do with one's undergraduate life aside from coursework. Don't get shortchanged on your undergraduate experience.
> 10 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, undergraduate
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thread-20669 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20669 | Why do university campuses have glass blowing services? | 2014-05-12T04:50:41.517 | # Question
Title: Why do university campuses have glass blowing services?
I noticed that my university has a glass blowing service in the same building as the chemistry precinct, supposedly to make the glassware for the chemistry labs. At first I thought this was kind of quirky and I chortled to myself, "man, the chemistry students must break a lot of beakers."
Later I toured a campus overseas and noticed that they too had a glass blower. A quick Google search showed that *many* institutions have similar facilities. Most of them sell their services too. It seems to be more academically-focused than I first thought; it would be incorrect to equate it with the janitorial service or the on-campus bakery, presumably.
Why glass blowing and not another craft? I'm curious as to what separates glass blowing from other crafts and manual arts that warrants it a dedicated department in an academic facility.
# Answer
If you make enough use of them, it's cheaper and more efficient to use in-house services. That's why most universities will also have a mechanical workshop, to make one-off items mostly for the physics and engineering departments.
* Everything is streamlined: the glassblower is an employee, not a business owner. He can spend more of his time on his products, thus his services are cheaper. The University will also make some profit from selling their services.
* It makes things easier for the academic staff, and there's less bother with accounts or purchase orders. For routine jobs (if these things aren't outsourced), just visit the workshop and ask for another 1L boiling flask.
* The academic staff know that he will always do a good job: a low turn-over rate means the glassblower(s) develop a strong rapport with their frequent customers, and have a good understanding of their needs. If more jobs are outsourced, this personal touch can be easily lost.
Of course, it seems these days that ordinary items are usually outsourced -- a big factory is more cost effective. It's for the one-off custom items that it still makes a lot of sense to keep things in-house.
> 34 votes
# Answer
As a chemist, I'll expand on Moriarty's answer, and confirm that he's in the right. Buying beakers is definitely cheaper through a commercial supplier, but for research in synthetic chemistry, every now and then you'll need glassware that doesn't fit standard specifications. For these one-off pieces, if the university is large enough it's better to have an in-house scientific glassblower. In particular, what my colleagues appreciate most with having access to in-house glassblowing services, is that it makes communication very easy and helps improve the products (*“you sure you want the top part to be so thin? I looks to me as it won't help condensation and might be a failure point later”*).
PS: the design and production of the most complex glass instruments is an art as much as a craft. In France, there even is a yearly competition of scientific glassblowers: , .
> 32 votes
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Tags: university, facilities-services
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thread-20130 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20130 | How to decide between sending paper to a specialized journal or to a journal with broader audience? | 2014-05-01T22:08:13.337 | # Question
Title: How to decide between sending paper to a specialized journal or to a journal with broader audience?
I work in mathematical physics. Typically, papers in my field are either published either in general math journals (Annals of Math, Transactions of AMS, Proceedings of AMS) or in specialized math physics journals (Communications in Math Physics, Reviews in Mathematical Physics, Annales Henri Poincaré, etc.) Personally, I have had papers published in both types of journals. Yet I don't have a good sense whether a particular preprint should go to a general journal or a specialized journal, so I usually just pick at random.
What are the factors one thinks about when making a decision between submitting to a specialized journal and a general journal of similar quality?
# Answer
I tend to think that in most cases, the specialized/broad dichotomy is not very relevant. The most important point is to send it to an interested editor; if the most relevant editor for a paper happens to be at a general journal, you will often be better of sending your paper there.
I would consider two exceptions to this principle. First, top specialized journals are usually less reputed than top generalist journals, so if you get a truly impressive result, you may want to get the best of it by sending it to a top generalized journal. Second, some generalist journals will turn back papers that seems much more specialized than the average math paper (e.g. when the basic objects you study are unheard of by most mathematicians).
> 5 votes
# Answer
I would pick the journal with the largest audience that you feel is likely to actually read your work. That is probably the generalist journal, but not necessarily. If you have a specialist journal that all of the people in your field read, your work might get more attention that way. But generally, more general journals have larger audiences, therefore, more people who might be interested in your work, and hence also a higher selectivity rate.
> 2 votes
# Answer
I don't care how important the journal is or who the editors are. The question is do I read it, or do the papers of relevance turn up in it, or do the most relevant/sympathetic authors publish in it, which means there will be relevant/sympathetic reviewers. Publish in the journals where you see the most similar papers to what you are proposing, in approach, scope, length, depth, etc. It is appropriate to publish short papers on new results quickly in the more specialised transactions, and longer papers that draw together work and provide introductions to a broader audience in the more general journals. If the work is interdisciplinary it is appropriate to present it for different audiences by retargeting to a new journal. The more ground breaking the research the more important it is rather to see what journals publish novel research as opposed to bandwagon research. If none of the reviewers understand it, a reputable venue will not publish it (although often they won't admit the problem is theirs).
But in general the story goes like this...
research --\> journals that publish that research --\> most appropriate journal for your research --\> target that specific journal
In other words I think you have it backwards - you choose the venue and then target the paper to it. I develop repositories of knowledge for my own use (somewhere between a collection of notes and thesis-like treatise). Sometimes I publish these as a Tech.Report. but the idea is not to publish on the growing body of work, but to draw on it as it grows to target papers to particular venues (workshops, conferences, transactions and journals).
I regard general journals as the least useful kind of publication, and workshops as the most useful kind of publication, with a funnel type progression to a proper journal paper (which I my field are typically 50-100 page papers whereas the other three typically have 6-12 page papers). In the internet age, the most important thing is to publish in places that provide or allow open access, and most readers will come from a search process rather than by subscription to the journal. Subscription journals are dead - they just don't know it yet, although the publishers are scrambling to get you, your employer or oterh sponsors to continue to pay them in a paid open access model.
> 1 votes
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Tags: publications, journals, paper-submission
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thread-20665 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20665 | Should I give my affiliation as "independent" to protest my institution's funding policies? | 2014-05-12T03:36:34.200 | # Question
Title: Should I give my affiliation as "independent" to protest my institution's funding policies?
In the following situation: I made research about some topic X in the field of Computer Engineering, submitted a paper and it got accepted. Actually it was an independent research that I have done while working as an information technology lecturer. Now the institution in which I am working does not want to give any financial support for the publishing of this research, what it would be the most ethical thing to do?
* Put into my academic affiliation the place that I am working as a lecturer? that will count as a publication for their Faculty, but I believe that is not fair that they do not even try to pay for any expenses.
* Put in my academic affiliation that I am an independent researcher, would that be advisable? maybe some academics would believe that I am not serious enough.
I believe that once I read some cases of people submitting papers as independent researchers, there were not so many, but those cases were real. For me I believe there is not so much difference, because what it matters is what is inside the article.
Any advice?
Thanks
# Answer
> 15 votes
I'm not sure that I see an *ethical* issue here. Ethically, I think you are free to omit your affiliation if you so choose.
But I don't see any benefit to you by doing so. It may be a symbolic jab at your institution for not funding you, but it's not going to directly hurt them in any way: nobody is going to notice except you and them. On the other hand, it certainly can directly hurt *you* and your relationship with your institution. As just one example, they might decline to consider that publication as part of your research record when they evaluate you (e.g. for tenure). Or, more seriously, they might decide that if you don't want to be associated with them, they don't want to be associated with you; and therefore stop employing you (if your contract permits it).
Clearly you have some issues with your employer, and I hope you are able to improve matters somehow. But what you suggest seems at best ineffective and at worst self-destructive.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Ethically you should put ALL the affiliations that contributed to the work. This included contributing to ANY of your expenses, living costs, research costs, travel costs, laboratory infrastructure, computer equipment, etc. used for the research.
If you are not paid by ANYONE to do (teaching and) research in the area of your paper, did not make use of ANY facilities or equipment not owned by you, did not do ANY work or thinking on an employer's time (think intellectual property) then you can say it is independent research, otherwise the affiliation of the supporter must be acknowledged. The primary source of support should be the primary affiliation. Depending on the publication venue you can provide additional affiliations or acknowledge other support in footnotes or acknowledgements. Funding for publication (from you or an organisation) can be mentioned in the acknowledgements like any other funding, and all funding really should be acknowledge unless the funder wishes otherwise. If you are affiliated with the funder (e.g. for self-funding through your consultancy) then this can go as an additional affiliation. This sharing of affiliation also makes clear that your university did not pay for everything needed.
I have never put "independent researcher" but have always put a relevant business/company name in some cases where support was officially declined for the project and/or I was between jobs or consulting. Putting "independent researcher" conveys the impression that this work is so unimportant that nobody would pay for it. As a consultant or employee, anything not actually covered by your contract and payment can be regarded as your intellectual property and independent research.
If you are an "independent researcher" then you have obtain your funding yourself, you support yourself, and are not receiving a salary to undertake research in the area of the paper, and you should thus regard yourself as a business and set things up as a business. You can register a business name or a partnership (e.g. with your wife) or incorporate a company, and use this name. Depending on where you are (legal residence/place of business) partnerships relating to your actual names may not need to be formally registered.
I am frequently in a position where I am a visiting professor somewhere and put both my substantive position and my visiting affiliation in an order that relates to where the bulk of the research and/or writing was done. But you really need to be able to justify this.
To make a closely related point based on the same ethical principals (often enshrined in a code of ethics by university, funding bodies, professional associations and/or journals): If you did any work on the paper or the underlying research at a university, you need to list the affiliation. If anyone else contributed in any way to the intellectual content or written form, this needs to be acknowledged, and if they contributed to both then they need to be an author, unless they specifically request otherwise.
Incidentally just providing funding (cash) or services (reviewing, technical assistance) doesn't require an affiliation or authorship byline, but should be included in the acknowledgements. On the other hand, provision of technical services or reviewing assistance that went beyond the call of duty and actually changed the direction of the project or lead to new conclusions (i.e. provided intellectual input and created intellectual property) does require the authorship and affiliation byline rather than just acknowledgement.
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Tags: research-process, independent-researcher
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thread-20703 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20703 | What does [ctb] stand for? | 2014-05-12T10:50:09.430 | # Question
Title: What does [ctb] stand for?
This R package f.x. states:
"Kurt Hornik \[ctb\]"
I assume this abbreviation is coming from academic publishing - hence why I ask it here.
# Answer
> 6 votes
ctb = Contributor.
It's not so much about academic publishing, but (academic/open source) software. One has authors and contributors. Contributors added a bit of code, but presumably did not contribute to the overall design efforts.
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Tags: publications, terminology
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thread-9611 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9611 | Applying for research funding as an independent researcher? | 2013-04-24T11:08:38.397 | # Question
Title: Applying for research funding as an independent researcher?
I am a Masters degree holder in Computer Science. Where I live, the most popular way of receiving research grants is from the government. There are two problems with that.
First, You have to be enrolled in a Masters or doctorate degree program at the time of applying for funding.
Secondly, the researcher only gets a small amount of pay from the grant(Like about 2 or 3 percent). About 10 to 15 percent is for research supervisor. And remaining is equipment and other costs.
So is there any way of applying for research funding as an independent researcher? I am currently enrolled in a Masters program and am very close to getting a grant for my research. But I would like to continue work as a researcher after completing my Masters and would like to apply for funding independently.
# Answer
Having only a MSc (and not doing a PhD) it might be hard to get an official research funding (although, there are many different programs and maybe there is one for someone with your status; especially if in some way you are still affiliated with an university of institute).
Sadly, (as Paul Hiemstra pointed out) there no such thing as a scientific freelancer. Science market is very far from an unregulated, free market (and the supply is higher than demands, so it is not a place for freelancer jobs).
However, there are two options which may make sense to you:
* doing a part-time PhD, or some PhD where you are not expected to be at the univ. all the time; effectively, it may work for you (though, then it will need to be rather at a low-rank univ.; most likely the most important thing is to find a univ. with no to low teaching load + an advisor who does not care (sic!) or one who understands your situation *and* is willing to participate in such relationship),
* considering crowdfunding - i.e. describing you project on a website and gathering from all interested people (like on Kickstarter); here is a list of sites for crowdfunding in science (then it is not from government).
> 14 votes
# Answer
The biggest obstacle is that you haven't been through a Ph.D. program. Not (just) because of formal qualifications, but also because a Ph.D. program is where one learns how to manage an independent research program. The reason Ph.D. programs are a de facto requirement for research positions is that very few people learn how to do this in a bachelor's or master's program. It's not impossible, but it's certainly rare. (It's already difficult for recent Ph.D.s to get research grants in competition against much more experienced researchers.)
Aside from appropriate research experience, what you need is a formal affiliation with a university. In the U.S., it's called a "soft-money position." This is a position paid for entirely by research grants, without salary or funding from the university. (Soft money is money that depends on outside grants, while hard money is budgeted from the university itself.) If you can get the grants in the first place, it's much easier to get a soft-money position than a regular job, since there's no risk for the university: as long as your grants continue, they can collect overhead to pay for office space, computer and library access, etc., but if your grants end then so does your job. Of course nobody will give you a soft-money position unless they are impressed with your work and think you would be valuable to have around (and would not hurt the department's reputation), but this is a much lower bar than convincing them to spend their own money on you.
A soft-money position is the closest thing I'm aware of to applying for funding as an independent researcher. (It's not completely independent, but about as close as you are likely to come to independence.) However, in the U.S. it would be nearly impossible to get such a position with just a master's degree.
Whether this path is feasible at all depends on your research area, and of course your funding agency's policies. In the U.S. it's pretty common in medical research, but almost unheard of in mathematics (where there is much less funding available). In computer science it's somewhere in between, depending on the specific subfield.
> 10 votes
# Answer
It can be very difficult to get government financing depending on where you reside. For instance, here in Germany, only qualified workers affiliated with a "recognized" institution, such as a university or a government research organization, can apply for grants. Moreover, only PhD-level staff can act as a principal investigator.
So, the basic upshot is that you need to see what the official rules are in the country where you are working. In general, you cannot work around the qualification rules for such programs!
> 6 votes
# Answer
If you are in the US, what you are requesting is highly unlikely. There is no peer-review that is institutionalized enough to keep control of research quality and avoid people taking advantage.
> 0 votes
# Answer
There are two obstacles:
1. The funding body - sometimes their rules specifies you must work for a university or research organisation or worse a registered research organisation (if it doesn't say registered, then invent a business name or found a consultancy/company; if it does say registered, then try to get your research organisation registered). Sometimes the rules will also specify a proportion of the "marks" for rating the researcher/team and the institution/infrastructure. If you register a commercial entity, you however now have access to commercialisation funds and programs which often have more money that is easier to obtain (government funding programs, angels and VCs). About half my funds comes from non-traditional funding sources, often with matching private and public funding.
2. The referees - the referees will in general know nothing about your work, will know a little about the general area but will have specialist expertise in some other area, they will not understand every point of the grant application, they will have some part of their rating based on who you are which will be judged from CV-type information, including your publications, grants and affiliations. They will take into account your lack of a research record one way or another, often negatively when there is no evidence to support you can do the work, often positively when you have done well with the little you have for the stage in your career.
Some funding programs (or referees/committees) will explicitly make allowance for early career researchers, or even actively encourage and support them, which mitigates against the disadvantage. The idea is that the success rate of ECRs should be commensurate with the overall success rate (where other things being equal it could be less due to the lack of runs on the board). Many grant processes (and referees/committees) specifically operate on the basis that assessment of the research team should be on the basis of "opportunity" - and so no special ECR category is needed.
> 0 votes
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Tags: research-process, funding, independent-researcher
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thread-11937 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11937 | The nightmare of being an independent researcher | 2013-08-17T16:00:29.167 | # Question
Title: The nightmare of being an independent researcher
My current situation is that I am stuck teaching in a couple of universities that do not support the research at all in my country of origin. I am 38 years old and I have finished a MSc degree in Europe (one year ago), but I find it pretty hard to get a funded PhD position until now.
Sometimes I really feel discouraged and depressed because I really like to do research, but is pretty hard to do it without economical support; and more difficult to share ideas if my current place of work has that null approach to research.
My question is, how I can get feedback from other professors around the world and expose my ideas? Maybe with the hope that they will like to guide me in their field of specialty or maybe doing a paper together. I know that a lot of good professors in their own field are pretty busy, so I think it would be not polite to approach to them, by email, tell them about my ideas and ask for academical support (not monetary, but about guiding and feedback).
The field that I like to do research is Computer Science. I have only 5 publications in different areas, but I would really like to do more.
Any suggestion?
# Answer
Firstly, 5 papers on completion of your Masters is pretty good (for comparison, I had 1 rejected paper at that stage). Even though they are in different areas, they demonstrate your researching skills.
Secondly, in regards to the PhD and in particular, funding - I have a few suggestions:
* Research not only what the academics' specialities are, but also the scholarship/funding opportunities that the universities have on offer.
* Contact the academics, asking about *their* research, this way you'll express your interest without giving away all of your ideas. Once you build a rapport with the academics, then enquire about co-authoring a paper.
* Perhaps look into working at a university (library, research assistant etc), so, look at the job opportunities.
* most of all, don't give up!
This is, by no means an exhaustive list and I am sure, other members here will provide more in depth answers, but it something to think about.
> 30 votes
# Answer
1. Set up a webpage where you put your CV, papers, projects, *everything* about yourself as a professional. The people should be able to access this information at a click of a button, not through long search or e-mail exchange.
2. Go to conferences and other events where you can meet people and get acquainted with them. Try to give a talk there or, at least, to present a poster. Hang on the CS Stack exchange and other professional sites. About 10% of my knowledge of who is who comes from MO interactions and I suspect that many people there would never hear of me otherwise either.
3. Use the grapevine. Tell your friends about the situation, they'll let their friends know, etc.
4. Direct E-mail is also possible but you'll have to put something on the table at the opening move. Ideally, it should start with "Dear Prof. ... You asked on/in .... whether .... is true. The answer is .... (see my attached paper)." Then you may confidently end with "By the way, I am currently looking for ... " (just do not request too much) and nobody will be able to resist. You can put a few lower cards on the table as well but starting with "I have this wonderful idea, I just don't know where to apply it" will, most likely, earn your mail a guaranteed permanent position in the trash box with possible honorable mention in the spam filter blacklist.
5. Get into the habit of spending some time every day looking at what's going on in the field you are interested in and reading.
6. Read the job advertisements regularly. With math. all you need is to go to mathjobs.org I don't know if there is a CS analog of it but you can find that out. You never know what and when may come your way, so be always ready to move quickly when an opportunity presents itself.
In short, get noticed and get your past achievements exposed plus look for every opportunity to engage into a communication and joint ventures with everyone whose work looks decent to you. Remember, however, that, at least in your position, you will need to think of what other people like and are doing, not try to seduce them to think of your own ideas and projects! (By the way, I find this modus operandi very beneficial regardless of one's status). People will go out of their way for you only if you demonstrate that you can go out of your way for them first.
I would advise against applying for grants, etc. until you get known at least a little bit. Rejections won't help you in any way and the free money is so scarce nowadays that even people with established reputation don't always get their awards.
> 22 votes
# Answer
I think the situation described applies increasingly in most countries. My university doesn't fund me for research (in fact some years back our government said - you do 30% research do you? and took 30% from the university budgets and made it grant funding). My standard working week goes quite easily on teaching, supervision and administration. You have to make time for research, you have to do research in your own time as well, and often the writing (papers and grant applications) will mostly be done in your own time.
The short answer is, just do it. Read in the areas of your interest. When you see a problem or an opportunity, jump on it. There are many areas of research where you can work totally on paper/computer (it seems you have access to both paper and a computer). Start with what you can manage yourself, then propose projects that students can work on, then leverage these to get small grants (or just buy small bits of equipment yourself - I do). Then publish, starting at workshops and conferences (where you can meet people and get feedback) and working up to transactions (short papers) and major journals (long paper). These runs on the board will allow you to get increasingly better publications, increasingly bigger grants, better support fro your university, and more chance of getting a job elsewhere.
> 4 votes
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Tags: phd, independent-researcher
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thread-20659 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20659 | Longer PhD with a deeper result vs a shorter PhD with a sufficient result | 2014-05-11T21:29:24.403 | # Question
Title: Longer PhD with a deeper result vs a shorter PhD with a sufficient result
Some people try to complete their PhD asap, others try to make major breakthroughs. I think these aims are mutually incompatible, one is going against the other.
What are pros/cons of each for somebody whose intended career is research in academia?
The answers should be general, but I myself am interested in pure mathematics.
# Answer
If you are aiming for a career in mathematics at a research university, then trying to complete your Ph.D. as quickly as possible is a bad idea. In the U.S., you should plan on spending four or five years in graduate school. You should not graduate in three or fewer years unless you write an absolutely extraordinary thesis (or personal concerns force you to leave graduate school). Graduating in four years is reasonable, but most people are better off taking five. Even if you've reached a natural break point in your work, it can be valuable to stick around and work on something else for a year.
This may seem counterintuitive, but it's based on three principles that describe how junior candidates are evaluated in mathematics:
1. The job market is brutally competitive, and you need the strongest application you can put together.
2. No extra credit is given for graduating quickly. People who graduate in three or four years compete on the same footing as those who spend five. \[However, there can be a penalty for taking six or more.\]
3. Once you graduate, the clock starts ticking. If you take longer than average to find a tenure-track job, it will be held against you.
The net result is irrational: the job market judges it better to spend five years in grad school and then do a three-year postdoc than to spend three years in grad school and then five years as a postdoc. The former looks normal, while the latter looks like you graduated too quickly and then were unable to find a tenure-track job after your first postdoc (so what might be considered a compensating plus/minus pair turns into two negatives).
Five years in graduate school is something of a cut-off, for two reasons. Most grad schools discourage staying longer, because of limitations on space and funding, and spending six or more years starts to look like you were unable to complete your dissertation. However, up to five years, longer is usually better.
One way of thinking about this is to consider the question title:
> Longer PhD with a deeper result vs a shorter PhD with a sufficient result
What constitutes a "sufficient result"? Sufficient to graduate is a weak condition, since getting a good postdoc is much more difficult than merely completing a dissertation. However, a good postdoc won't get your career off to nearly as strong a start as a great postdoc would. If another year in graduate school could make the difference between a good and a great postdoc, it may well be worth it. But what if your work is so wonderful that you're obviously going to get a great postdoc? At that point you should raise your ambitions and aim to get a Clay research fellowship.
There's an enormously high ceiling, and you never reach the point of being able to say "OK, I've done enough." Graduate school is not a matter of doing enough and seeing how long it takes you. Instead, it's a matter of taking the standard amount of time and seeing how much you can do.
> 16 votes
# Answer
There are several considerations regarding whether to graduate now. I'll go through them from most to least important (in my opinion).
1. **Thesis readiness:** You can't graduate unless your advisor and your committee feel your thesis is good-enough. For some departments, you need to have 2 or 3 separate projects which are in advanced enough state or even published.
2. **Research readiness:** As @seteropere noted, if you feel that you are able to do research independently, and your advisor agrees, then you are ready to graduate.
3. **Future job situation:**
* If you can get a tenure-track job or post-doc in September 2015, then go ahead and graduate in June 2015.
* If you can't get any academic jobs in September 2015, then maybe you should stay one more year.
4. **Job prospects this year vs next year:** For some fields, getting a good job requires a student to have papers in advanced stages of the publishing pipeline, i.e. submitted is good, under second or third round of review is better, and accepted is best. If you have a great paper but it is not yet ready, waiting until the next year before you apply for jobs may allow you to have that great paper in a more advanced stage of the publishing pipeline which can't hurt your job prospects.
5. **Funding from advisor:** Is your advisor willing/able to support you for an additional year? Some advisors limit their support to 4 or 5 years, and students who wish or need to stay longer may have to carry heavy teaching loads.
6. **Research environment:** Are you learning from your advisor, and doing good work with the other students/professors in your current institution? If so, leaving for another position becomes more risky because the situation may be worse than your current situation.
7. **Financial situation:** Usually, a PhD salary is less than a post-doc salary, which is less than a tenure-track job salary. For some students who may be supporting a family, earning more money as soon as possible is an important consideration.
> 18 votes
# Answer
> somebody whose intended career is research in academia?
I believe any PhD student who can
* Identify interesting research problems
* develop solutions to them
* publish in good conferences/journals
*should* graduate and enjoy the freedom of research. PhD is not a lifetime career. It is just the beginning. Longer or shorter PhD does not matter; what does matter is that you are an independent researcher when you defend.
> 8 votes
# Answer
> others try to make major breakthroughs
This can be a trap because not everybody is able to make major breakthroughs. Besides not being smart enough, a major factor is the group of people you are surrounded by. It could easily take years for your cohort to catch up with the leaders in the field. If your project involves a major leap, consider the alternatives.
Evaluating what is do-able and the time involved is understanding your field, and an important part of a PhD. In fact, big companies have 'domain specialist' positions where your job is to review the value and effort involved in a project.
There is a category of people with a fast PhD who are successful because they understand what is relevant to pursue.
> 6 votes
# Answer
My supervisor used to tell me regularly that there is no such thing as a "PhD with bar" (that is some extra merit/credit/marker to say it was really good - it is just yes/no).
On the other hand several of my students have one university or professional association prizes for their theses, and there are opportunities for publishing a good thesis. A good thesis is something you will want to cite for the rest of your life. You don't want something that you will be ashamed of in a decade - whether or not you "pass".
I get students to decide on three innovations that if they succeed with any one of them would be sufficient for the PhD. Some may be dead ends, but most students do manage to hit two or three bulls eyes. But one is enough.
The questions really are: will your thesis get up? are you employable? could you get a research job? The way to be confident of this is to have multiple publications (my students tend to have 5 from their PhD, mostly conference, with a couple of journals - those who did a Masters will have some from them as well).
The other thing is that if you have a scholarship or a TA contract or other support, make the most of it, use all of it - don't submit early. It is far easier to publish during your PhD than once you are in a full time academic position preparing teaching notes for half a dozen different courses. So aim for publications first, building up your thesis as you go (either a resource from which you pull out publications, or a compilation made by putting together your papers). The papers related to a chapter should be identified in the opening and/or closing pages (e.g. with footnotes), and in some universities you can do a thesis by publication or include verbatim papers with a bit of glue text. But examiners don't really like this (they tend to read the same intro material over and over again), and I encourage a coherent readable monograph approach (which is then publishable which a collection of already published papers isn't). But one way or another if referees from a stack of reputable conference and journals think your work is publishable, how can they turn down the thesis that spawned them.
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, career-path
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thread-20632 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20632 | Why is it so difficult to find a topic for my thesis research? | 2014-05-11T00:50:33.347 | # Question
Title: Why is it so difficult to find a topic for my thesis research?
I've majored in computer science (BSc: close to MIS, MSc: advanced software engineering), I've worked on dissertations on totally different topics in every stage at college, now I'm planning to do a PhD and I've been looking at different topics from various sub-fields but I frankly can't pin one to use as a starting point. I would say that I like X topic or Y and when I look closer at the papers being published in the field they seem too obscure to me and I can barely comprehend their abstracts. For example, I was searching for starting point in solving concurrency problems in software or even advance such technique since I felt it's what I want to do and what I know that would keep me motivated but I frankly couldn't find anything, I've looked at publications that reference famous papers/book (things I've researched very briefly) like **communicating sequential processes** and **cooperating sequential processes** but there was nothing that could give me a good start.
My questions here, am I looking in the wrong sub-field? I know I'm highly motivated by the previously mentioned area but do I understand enough to enter such area? I've seen people jump from psychology to computer science at PhD level and I wonder how someone could do such thing. Also am I even a PhD material if I can't pass this stage?
**Note:** the topics of my past dissertations were on AI and online social communities
# Answer
> 1 votes
1. You have to ask yourself, what do you want? This is the question you should answer by yourself and which is crucial in all the following steps. So you want to do a Ph.D. Where do you want to do your Ph.D? What country? You want applied research or theoretical? After a few questions I assume the filed of research would become narrower and narrower.
2. If you have a vague imagination about what you want, just do a simple search about the areas. If you don't know what is this sub-field about, don't start reading scientific articles but rather start from the scratch, basic information. Don't get depressed if you don't understand the article stuff. It is a very narrow research and you have to work diligently in that narrow filed to start understanding it. Read the recent scientific news. For instance, I always read MIT news. Quite interesting researches.
3. If you already know the country and the subject (not exact), you start searching the university groups which are engages in a similar research. You check the articles and pay attention to the impact factors and number of articles. You check that your future supervisor has good recent articles. It means that he is working actively now.
4. You may contact the group supervisors to arrange a meeting or just to have a correspondence. It is always better to go and meet the team members and then they will provide some rudimentary information about all the studies they carry out.
5. When you narrowed down the number of choices to let's say to 5 groups, then start reading their articles. Always try to stay in touch with the groups. Ask questions, show your interest, because although you have funding, you still have to be accepted.
6. Of course, if you have some background in the field, it is always a bonus, but, if you don't, it is not detrimental. Everything depends on your diligence and intentions. If you are motivated, if you don't give up, after a few months of your Ph.D you would feel much progress.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Your supervisor or potential supervisors should be able to help - and I don't necessarily mean by talking to them. First of all identify potential supervisors whose (recent) work you like and (mostly) understand. In the first instance look at their recent papers, and particularly concentrate on any points they raise in discussion or future work. In particular do a SWOT analysis and note what are the best and worst features of the approaches, and whether you can see opportunities for different, even interdisciplinary, work to be brought to bear.
To the extent you don't understand anything, don't keep reading and rereading and struggling with it, go back to the earlier work and the citations. Try go be back to the originators of the concepts you are lacking or find difficult, and the commentators who clarify the insights behind the formalisms. Look for conference and workshop papers for these early developmental versions of work, rather than the erudite and impenetrable journal versions.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Any time you have difficulty understanding something written, you must consider that it is you or that it is the writer who cannot communicate clearly.
I skimmed the second paper you listed and it is certainly understandable (and I teach business but have a background in software development). However, I'm a native English speaker so my vocabulary is quite large.
The writer seems to be Dutch and from my experience, the Dutch have an excellent command of English. The English this author is using is a bit advanced so if your English is not as strong, you might not understand simply due to less vocabulary. Those who write with simpler English will be much easier for you to understand.
The first article you listed is written in simpler English.
I would say if you feel you cannot clearly understand the first article then you might want to consider another field of study or you should spend more time to develop your English reading skills (from your question, your English writing skills seem fine).
If you are considering a PhD, you might want to see if you could meet with an adviser for a few minutes and discuss this issue with them. They could more easily evaluate what would be reasonable for you.
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Tags: phd, research-process
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thread-20532 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20532 | How should academics handle communication with the media? | 2014-05-08T16:25:28.357 | # Question
Title: How should academics handle communication with the media?
I'm not famous enough of a scientist to be frequently solicited by the media\* (plus my field has little political/social controversy around it), but I had a few encounters with local newspapers and one with a public national television. The results were not entirely bad, but the general sentiment given was significantly different than what I would have wanted it to be.
It seems like I'm not alone, I just got back from a conference in my field where more senior scientists discussed their relationship with the general media. It came out that more often than they would like, the relationship was bad.
Problems stated, among others†:
1. Misquotation, or words taken out of their context significantly changing their meaning (this is the most frequent).
2. A general difficulty for the media to understand, and convey, uncertainty ('we think, it might be so..' or 'we are rather confident that ...' becomes 'it is so')
3. Difficulty to apprehend results, applications, consequences that may or may not appear 10-20 years down the line.
4. Exaggeration of the conclusions
etc.
These are not without consequences, at the personal level, as it can give the impression that you don't know what you are talking about.
My first thought was to ignore the media attention and advocate that scientists should do the communication themselves to bypass the regular media (having a blog, entertaining a profile on social media, etc.), but it is extremely time consuming and would distract from the actual research work. I think there must be something to do, on our side, to help with that.
I understand that it is due to how media works, and I don't believe it will change by a lot. But the question is then: **are there any strategies that would help reducing this effect**, at least to protect oneself against the consequences?
\*newspapers, television, magazines, etc. i.e. not scientific journals.
†anyone who has items to add to this list is welcome to do so.
# Answer
I've had one paper I wrote garner significant media attention, so while I'm not a practiced hand at it, some things I learned along the way:
* Be able to convey the idea behind your paper simply. A brief, non-technically "What happened", and why this matters. Don't oversell, but if you provide good information, you have some more control over how it gets conveyed, instead of forcing a non-expert journalist to translate your work into words.
* Keep it short. It's harder to misquote or provide out-of-context soundbites if you keep things short and to the point. Don't pontificate.
* Make the caveats of your work clear, but don't over-hedge.
* If it's clear they're trying to get you to say something in particular, decide if you're okay with saying it. If you are, just do it. If you aren't *don't go anywhere near it*. Don't dance around, or try to add qualifiers - just don't approach.
* Be prepared for rage-inducing discussion of your work online after it hits the air. Learn to have a thick skin, or purposefully ignore it.
* Remember that, in the grand scheme of things, even a fair amount of media attention is a flash in the pan, and the odd story that makes you wince is just that - a single story.
While I think you can *help* mitigate some of the problems around media coverage of your work with an active social media presence and a blog, it's only by engaging the audience. It's not going to let you "stand aside" from the media - no website or news paper is going to go "Oh, Dr. X has a blog. On second thought, lets not bother with the story..." If anything, an active social media presence will probably raise your profile among science communication types, and increase the odds of getting a bit of media attention.
> 25 votes
# Answer
*(At the request of the OP, I'm expanding my brief comment into an answer.)*
The advice I've heard most often is
1. **Prepare your own sound bites** (i.e., minimal media-style statements). If you don't boil it down, they will, and they are certain to get it wrong. If they already made cuts you don't agree with, don't hesitate to send them a counter-proposal: something similarly short but more correct. (Reputable journalists usually are more concerned with meeting word-count restrictions than with increasing sensationalism.)
2. **Be rigorous in demanding the last word on any change and in exercising that right.** If they don't grant you that, do not agree to speak to them (it's a sign they are not up to professional standards). This especially applies to the uncertainties or caveats you mention; make it clear that they get either a quote with qualifications or no quote at all. Getting wrong exposure is worse than getting no exposure.
3. Repeating Fomite's excellent point: If you are worried they will distort something, **do not mention it at all** -- *especially* if they seem to insist on it.
4. For appearance on radio or television, **rehearse** (a lot). (Even for interviews in connection with a written piece, it pays off to spend some time beforehand to formulate and polish the key statements you want to make.)
5. If live appearances happen often enough, **get professional coaching** (universities usually offer such things, since it's in their own interest that you look good). They are probably also happy to look at any written communication you want to send to the media and to point out possible pitfalls or help boiling it down to make it media-ready.
> 6 votes
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Tags: communication
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thread-20765 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20765 | Is it acceptable to write reports in the IEEE standard paper format? | 2014-05-12T14:07:51.590 | # Question
Title: Is it acceptable to write reports in the IEEE standard paper format?
I am an undergrad engineering student working on some project with my colleagues , and we are asked to submit a report by the end of it. So is it a good thing to write the report in the IEEE standard paper format. http://www.ieee.org/documents/MSW\_A4\_format.doc
If not, what are some other standards forms that we may use?
This might not be the most suitable place for this question but I figured out that there could be a lot of professors and instructors here.
# Answer
> 2 votes
As an EE student, I used to submit reports in IEEE format (if none was specified by the instructor). So yes, it's perfectly acceptable in my experience.
However, some professors prefer more whitespace so they can write comments while grading student reports. I therefore switched to the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science format, which has much larger margins.
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Tags: publications, engineering
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thread-20760 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20760 | Can non-reviewers influence the decision about a paper in a program committee? | 2014-05-12T13:38:24.320 | # Question
Title: Can non-reviewers influence the decision about a paper in a program committee?
In a Program Committee (PC), can PC members non assigned to a paper still have a look at it and make comments influencing the decision, assuming that the reviewing system allow them to access the papers and the reviews?
If they only make a comment, should this comment be sent to the authors (EasyChair, for instance, does not forward the comments to authors)? For instance, consider the case where a PC member thinks that an important reference is missing, regardless of the overall quality of the paper, what should she/he do? Add a comment? Ask to be assigned as a reviewer?
# Answer
> 7 votes
In theoretical computer science conferences (which often use EasyChair), I have seen the following practices:
* Once all reviews are in, PC chairs often *encourage* all PC members to comment on all papers on which they have something useful to say.
* Sometimes the comments are just discussion that may influence the final decision in borderline cases.
* Sometimes the assigned reviewers modify their reviews based on the comments (e.g., they realised that they overlooked some important point).
* Sometimes the PC chairs ask some of the assigned reviewers to incorporate the comments in their reviews.
* Sometimes the PC chairs ask non-reviewers to convert their comments to (short) reviews.
# Answer
> -1 votes
Reviewer A asks colleague B who's not a reviewer to give his opinion on a paragraph because B has more knowledge about the specifics of that paragraph, then incorporates that feedback in his review.
Just one example of how it could happen.
Or Reviewer A knowing full well that his boss, manager B, won't like a review being critical of the work of prominent person C, so he decides to recommend strongly such criticism be deleted in order to keep his boss happy and his job secure.
Could happen too.
Are both going to show up on a review of the review process? Highly unlikely. Are both plausible scenarios based on human nature, even if not part of the review process? Highly likely.
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Tags: conference, peer-review, etiquette
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thread-20775 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20775 | How to react to an angry email / argument as a third party | 2014-05-12T14:25:30.757 | # Question
Title: How to react to an angry email / argument as a third party
I'm finding myself in an uncomfortable position these past couple of days. Our IT/lab manager has been working on a new website to store data that is to be shared with about 11 other institutions, all part of the same project. Our lab is heading the data management and modeling. My adviser is not happy with his progress and has sent him a **very** "tone-y" email, but has included me and other colleagues in the email as well. At first I thought the conversation was limited to our lab. Now I see the project director and a couple other people are included as well. I came close to replying with something along the lines "Please do not include me in these types of emails" (It's a work in progress!!). The emails have gotten to down right bickering, even childish, and have gone back and forth several times. I'm very surprised at the tone and childish nature of the emails.
What is a lowly PhD student such as myself to do in this sort of situation? Should I just ignore the messages? Or should I request to be excluded from the conversation?
P.S. These emails are of some significance to me because of the data. But I don't believe I should be in this conversation.
# Answer
> 56 votes
I would suggest that the proper etiquette here is similar as to how you should behave if you were to witness two people arguing in public. You may listen—the argument is, after all, public—but you probably shouldn't interject unless you are directly addressed. As stated in the comments, this is a very common tactic for raising the stakes in any discussion. This currently isn't your fight... don't get involved unless you want it to become your fight (pro tip: you don't).
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Tags: etiquette, email
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thread-19845 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19845 | Using IEEE Citation style, how should I Cite a Figure, that was based on one in a text? | 2014-04-26T03:42:13.430 | # Question
Title: Using IEEE Citation style, how should I Cite a Figure, that was based on one in a text?
In a lecture I watched, I found a very good diagram that explains a concept I am trying to explain. I couldn't get hold of the original image, so I recreated it in Tikz -- with a few changes to make it perfect for what I am doing.
This lecture is not a primary source for the concept explained in the diagram -- it uses ideas from other papers I am citing. Though I do cite it a few times, where the ideas it explained were clearer than the base texts (as well as citing the base texts).
In the caption should I put:
> ... , then generating all the layers below. Right: A DNN initialized using the DBN \[1\].
Or
> ... then generating all the layers below. Right: A DNN initialized using the DBN. This diagram based on one found in \[1\].
Or even -- since the caption is also drawing heavily on the lecture
> ... then generating all the layers below. Right: A DNN initialized using the DBN\[1\]. This diagram based on one found in \[1\].
Where \[1\] is the index in my bibliography for the lecture.
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**Related:** Creating a schematic figure based on an existing one
# Answer
The most common way folks in my neck of the woods handle this would be to say "... A DNN initialized using the DBN (adapted from \[1\])."
> 1 votes
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Tags: citations, graphics
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thread-20781 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20781 | How will my second PhD application be perceived, after abandoning the first? | 2014-05-12T15:19:50.623 | # Question
Title: How will my second PhD application be perceived, after abandoning the first?
I'm a second year industrial PhD student in Europe with a PhD contract of 3yrs.
Due to certain reasons, our strategic partners have left the project. As a consequence, we are not able to smoothly continue with the current prototype tests and validation.
I have been discussing this with my supervisor and her suggestion is to build a new prototype. That would be OK if I was offered a contract extension (just to compensate for the fact that the partners have abandoned us). To make the new prototype will take approx 1 year. Basically, I'm not able to perform any research before such prototype is in place. For this reason I'm thinking of abandoning the program and applying to another PhD position. It is hard to give 100% if thing look gray and mentor is not flexible.
I'm not afraid to start from scratch. However, I'm wonder if new prospective groups will understand my situation and give me a new chance or will my application be rejected? What kind of perception might I expect?
# Answer
Although such a decision depends usually on personal factors, here are some points on the subject:
I think it depends of what you want to do afterwards. PhD inside companies are usually intended for people who have an interest in finding a job in the R&D department of that company or a competing one. (It's also a great way for companies to hire highly educated people for a fraction of the usual salary, but that is out of the topic).
If this is the case, I would recommend trying to salvage the project, maybe by negotiating a contract extension, adding another aspect (analysis of the data, modeling?) while you wait for the new prototype, etc. As a PhD student it is normally *not your job* to secure funding, your advisor should be the one concerned about that now.
If your goal is to work in academic research I would recommend switching to another PhD program (preferably in a university). It wouldn't necessary mean starting from scratch, it might be that the work you already did can be used for another application.
> new prospective groups will understand my situation and give me new chance or my application is going to be rejected
I think that your previous experience will be an advantage when applying to a new position, especially as it is clear that its interruption had nothing to do with your performance. I think the perception is going to be fine, experience is always appreciated.
> 1 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions
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thread-20618 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20618 | Methods for Assessing The Performance of an Exam | 2014-05-10T16:20:01.523 | # Question
Title: Methods for Assessing The Performance of an Exam
What are some common methods for assessing how well a exam works, once you have the results back? This is something of a generalization of How to measure entropy of exam results.
I've seen professors regress scores against some potentially interesting covariates (majors vs. non-majors, gender, etc.) and look at which questions were predictive of your overall grade, but I'd be interested to see if there's a particular battery of tests one should look at to see if an exam is "well written".
# Answer
The most common analyses I've seen are generated automatically by scantron grading software, and are thus only used for multiple choice questions. But a motivated person could perform the analyses themselves.
I've read a few articles on test analysis over the years, and this summary of a particular scantron software's results seems like a good overview of test analysis in general. A quick summary to improve searchability:
Item statistics:
**Item difficulty** \- percentage of students answering correctly. Desirable = above chance.
**Item discrimination** \- how much item correlates with test as a whole (students who did well on the exam get this right more than low-level students). Uses stat like Pearson Product Moment correlation. A "good" question has a score over 0.2.
Test statistics:
**Reliability coefficient** \- A general measure of test length, breadth and its intercorrelations. Scores above 0.8 are considered excellent for a classroom test.
Some other interesting measurements are used more in standardized testing, rather than classroom testing. These definitions are taken from this overview.
**Construct validity** \- does the exam actually measure the subject, or some other variable like reading skill. Generally uses a panel of "experts" or feedback by students.
**Split-half reliability** \- measures whether different test items that purport to test the same concept produce similar results within a single exam.
**Criterion-related validity** \- measures how well the new test correlates with a known exam, like an ETS field test or GRE subject test.
If you don't get a basic output from scantron software, is there a department on your campus that will analyze your exam for you?
> 5 votes
# Answer
For multiple-choice exams, split-halves reliability is (for better or worse) a common measure of internal consistency. The basic idea is to divide the questions into halves (e.g., odd vs. even) and look correlate students' scores on the two halves.
Another common measure is the discrimination index. These indices giveyou information about how well an exam item "discriminates" between high performing and low performing students. This I find most useful when I've mis-coded the key. Students who otherwise do well, do particularly poorly on a question.
Both of these methods are most easily applied to exams with lots of questions (e.g., multiple choice), but they could probably be adapted for essay or short answer exams as well.
> 3 votes
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Tags: exams
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thread-20675 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20675 | What journals that may consider "new proof of old results"? | 2014-05-12T07:11:26.410 | # Question
Title: What journals that may consider "new proof of old results"?
Are there journals that may consider articles of the type "new proof of old results" but the paper is exceedingly short(1-3 pages)?
# Answer
> 12 votes
The answer is certainly "yes", but to identify the best fit for your paper you'll have to decide how different your proof is from previous proofs. It often happens that two proofs look completely different when viewed line-by-line, but still the main intermediate steps in the proofs are essentially the same -- in other words, proofs can use the same strategy but different tactics. If your main contribution is in finding an efficient or elegant way to present some of the same ideas that were used in previous proofs, then you might consider *Expositiones Mathematicae* or the *American Mathematical Monthly*. On the other hand, if your proofs use entirely new ideas, then you have done original research and you should submit your paper to a standard journal. In between these two extremes is *L'Enseignement Mathématique*, which often publishes papers which combine new research with improved exposition of known results.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Depends on the field and the nature of your derivation. If it gives new insights and uses completely new techniques that might in themselves be of interest, then you might pursue a regular journal. If the derivation is a clever application of an established concept, then you might consider something like the American Journal of Physics, or others with a similar, pedagogic, agenda.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Most of the time, I would go to any journal that fits the subject (i.e., with an editor that should be interested, and know who to sent the paper to). For example I have had recent success with a 2 to 4 pages (depending on formatting) paper in Israel Journal of Math, which is not especially inclined toward short papers.
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Tags: publications
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thread-20827 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20827 | What is the rationale for having references before the article text? | 2014-05-12T19:39:02.470 | # Question
Title: What is the rationale for having references before the article text?
Certain journals (for example, Optics Express) place the references of papers in between the abstract and the article text:
How common is this practice? Is there some specific design reason for this? As a casual reader, I find it disconcerting and annoying, and tend to see it as another barrier between googling the paper and actually getting at the text. However, I understand there may be other workflows for which this is useful. Can anyone point out possible justifications for this practice?
# Answer
Usually the article consists of three or four parts. Introduction, main text which is your original research and conclusion. There may also be an appendix. So, usually most of the citations are from the introduction because you mainly talk about the prevosly done researches there. So, when I read the introduction I have to constantly go back and forth to check the citations, but if the citations are located nearby the introduction, it is more convenient.
I read sceintific articles a lot and I can say that this is not a common practice in physics. I can't talk about the articles in other fields.
> 3 votes
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Tags: citations, formatting
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thread-20839 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20839 | How to motivate myself to do more than the bare minimum that is required of me? | 2014-05-13T01:17:42.810 | # Question
Title: How to motivate myself to do more than the bare minimum that is required of me?
First, I should assure you this is a question about life in academia.
I am currently studying for a Master's degree in mathematics at a top university. I also have a Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence from another top university.
I get a lot of pleasure when I study and understand new ideas. I won't say studying mathematics is easy but in general I do not encounter significant difficulties to understand theorems and proofs when I sit down and go through them. I have also done a fair amount of research. I am preparing for publication my previous Master's dissertation and my current supervisor wants to take me on for a PhD.
I know I can handle research and I know I can understand thoroughly a subject. However, I feel extremely superficial. I almost always do the bare minimum. For example, the way I study for an exam involves reading all of the lecture notes to get a feel for the general ideas. Then I understand how these ideas fit together. I go through some of the details and I ensure that in principle I could understand them.
At this point I get in a conflicting state. I feel complacent because I have determined that in principle it is just a matter of time to work out the details and this just feels tedious. When I do try to work out the details I feel extreme repugnance. Forcing myself to do it leads to breakdowns but I've learned to manage that. This struggle continues with the result that I usually get an A or a B or the bare minimum to satisfy my supervisor if I'm working on a research project.
I cannot overcome this dreadful feeling and this issue often stands in the way when I try to develop my own ideas. The first glimpse of understanding the principles of a concept leads to inability to invest any more effort in developing my ideas. Then, I find myself reading some easily digestible article on the internet.
I want to continue doing research and stay in academia. But I often feel helpless. I have tried a lot of schemes to motivate myself, including trying to talk myself into persisting, reading self-help books, and devising an axiomatic system to explain to myself what it means to be interested in something.
There is of course incremental improvement but far from efficiency. I cannot imagine myself doing anything else but research. However, I feel that once I get into pure research and there is no more explicit structure I would get completely lost.
How can I motivate myself to persist in such a situation? How can I overcome such complacency?
# Answer
Wow.
While I was reading your question, I was thinking "did I just wrote that myself and erased it from my memory"? I just started my PhD in Mathematics, having obtained my Master's Degree last semester..
You pointed several problems we face as students of Mathematics who are trying to become researchers. One of them, which has drawn most of my attention, is this 'repugnance' from the details of something you already been through. I usually deal with this situation as follows: some of those details (in a proof, in a exercise, etc) are either too boring or too hard. If they're too boring, I usually make sure myself that I can remember them should I need them (in a exam, for example). If they're too hard, I usually try to convince myself that it won't be in the exam of the subject I'm studying for (this does not mean that I study only for exams!).
Whenever I am done with some subject, I choose another one to keep studying. As a PhD student I usually feel that there are a lot os subjects I should have mastered and a lot other which I should have some knowledge of. I usually use those 'confliting states' to switch to another subject which I have chosen by myself (not related to the lectures I'm attending). For example, I'm now having Several Variables Holomorphic Functions and Riemannian Geometry courses, but also reading a textbook of Theory of Foliations since I'm sure I'll need it next semester. It's not my priority though.
Now, keep in mind that you're not striving for the minimum at all times. Reaching a PhD course after obtaining your Master's degree is a really big deal. Are you really sure that A's and B's are the minimum that keeps your advisor satisfied? My advisor complimented me on my grades from Master's Degree Courses once, and it was full of B's, two A's and one ugly C!
> 2 votes
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Tags: career-path, motivation, academic-life
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thread-20837 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20837 | How to cite the original source of an algorithm and a secondary source that provides a clearer description of the algorithm? | 2014-05-13T01:08:43.597 | # Question
Title: How to cite the original source of an algorithm and a secondary source that provides a clearer description of the algorithm?
I had a situation where for a particular algorithm, it first shows up in a paper \[1\]. This makes \[1\] a primary source. I found \[1\] a bit hard reading when it came to describing the implementation and fine details of the algorithm. But it was good at describing why the algorithm was needed.
I found another work, which was a masters thesis \[2\]. It included a step by step mathematical working from what was in \[1\] (and \[2\] cited \[1\] appropriately). It helped me a lot. I could have done the mathematical working myself, but didn't.
So I am writing a brief summery of the Algorithm:
> The *{{Foo}}* algorithm allows the *{{Bar}}* problem to be solved \[1\]. It is based on the fact that *{{Equation}}* holds under *{{Conditions}}* \[2\]. *{{My own explanation of {{Foo}} here}}*
Is this correct?
# Answer
> 1 votes
This is correct only if the source of the first sentence is exclusively \[1\] and the source of your second sentence is exclusively \[2\].
That is, if you learn "The {{Foo}} algorithm allows the {{Bar}} problem to be solved" from \[1\] without having read \[2\], and "It is based on the fact that {{Equation}} holds under {{Conditions}}" is an original contribution of \[2\] that is not in \[1\], then your citation is correct.
Otherwise, you may have to cite \[1,2\] for the first and/or second sentence as appropriate.
# Answer
> 23 votes
Something like this should be OK:
> The *Bar* problem can be solved using the *Foo* algorithm \[1\], which is based on the fact that *Equation* holds under *Conditions*. A useful and detailed exposition of the *Foo* algorithm and how to implement it in practice can be found in \[2\].
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Tags: citations
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thread-13566 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13566 | Reapplying for a PhD position at another institute after failing the qualifying exam | 2013-10-21T06:57:20.407 | # Question
Title: Reapplying for a PhD position at another institute after failing the qualifying exam
It's embarassing, I failed my quals (in PhD ECE). The school is going to give me a terminal masters (w.o. thesis). My gpa is also not that stellar (3.4+), from a mediocre school. But I have a strong will to do a PhD (I enjoy doing research).
My supervisor (along with other co-authors) are supportive in the sense that they are willing to write good letters (i.e. I have a quite decent publication record). So, I am planning to apply this year, my specific queries are --
1. Is it really worth a shot? as I have a "bad record" now (although my transcript will not convey such information, but I am not willing to hide it either)
2. If no.1 is "yes", then how should I justify this to the adcom ? For example, explaining my financial and family problems that I faced during my last years (probably in the SOP)?
3. Is it possible to go to a better school/lab compared to my current one ?
Some particulars:
* I am an international grad student in the US.
* I have a 3.8+ undergrad score from south-east asia (used to be a class topper, if that helps)
* My GRE was also decent.
# Answer
You can't let one setback keep you from pursuing your goals or dreams. Yes, it's bad that you failed your quals, but that doesn't mean you should just give up. Having supportive committee members will help a lot when applying to other schools or programs.
> 5 votes
# Answer
Do whatever is up to you to achieve your goals. Don't focus on the previous events but rather try to get some lessons from them not to repeat them in the future. Try to focus on your advantages. It seems that you are not in a bad situation. You have a supportive supervisor, not bad scores. Besides, if there is a procedure of reapplying, it means that they also know that someone may need a second chance. So, answering your questions.
1. Certainly. At the end you may say, at least I tried everything. Just keep moving and you will see the directions. If you are staying in the same place, you will never know whether your path is right or not. Give it a try.
2. You don't have to justify anything. If they ask, then slightly explain the situation. They are not monsters.
3. You can apply to a few places simultaneously. Of course it is worth trying. If you have time to manage that.
As it was mentioned, you can also try to apply to another programs in your or other universities (if you want)/ Good luck.
> 4 votes
# Answer
Consider applying to a different school or switching majors in the same university. Yes it is certainly worth a short. And no do not mention financial or family problems in the SOP.
Also consider joining the workforce. It is good to have options in hand. A PhD is not very useful unless you want to stick in academia which means low pay, being stuck in small city in the middle of nowhere, dealing with procrastinating students, begging NSF for funding etc.
ECE Masters are paid well in the industry and most PhDs I know work on "stuff" that a Masters can easily do. There are always exceptions to everything.
> 1 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, coursework
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thread-20888 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20888 | Personal advantages of being a referee once you quit science? | 2014-05-13T15:03:04.593 | # Question
Title: Personal advantages of being a referee once you quit science?
*I previously asked this question in the physics forum (tag soft-question), but was convinced that it better suits in the academia forum. So I deleted it and posted it here.*
I was recently asked to review a paper for a well-established physical journal, but as I have a lot to do in the moment, I'm tempted to refuse it. This is even more the case since I quit my scientific carreer roughly a year ago.
Thus my question: **particularly outside physics, what are the benefits of being a referee?** \[beside the idealistic attitude of "bringing on physics" -- this is a valuable point in principle, but in reality, I've been long enough in the business to know that this is hardly the case for most papers. In contrast, most papers originate due to the need to continuously publish, a thing which I consider to be wrong\].
For people in science, I see a clear opportunity in being a referee.
* First, it gives you a connection to the journal editors and contributes to your authority.
* Second, by concentrating on the paper, you are forced to learn something on your topic which might help you later. Further, you might be able to add citations to your own work and thus increase your influence.
* Third, from a global point of view, you have to do it since you also expect your own papers to be reviewed (although this point is somewhat of a social dilemma, since \[neglecting the previous points\] it would be better to review as few as possible and concentrate on your own research).
However, do you see any personal advantages once you have quit physics? Are there maybe some if one plans to return some day?
# Answer
To me, refereeing papers in subject X is a non-negligible part of being a professional academic in subject X. So the premise that you want to referee a physics paper having "quit science" seems moderately self-contradictory: using your expert level qualifications to evaluate a scientific work is being a scientist, isn't it? I'm almost sure it is. :)
So I guess you haven't "quit science" completely, or -- and this may come to the same thing -- the physics community is not fully aware of this fact. One thing I might do if I were you is to make sure that the editor who asked you to review the paper knows that you are no longer employed as a physicist. If I were an editor, that would be useful information, and unless I knew you rather well and knew that you retained a special expertise in this particular area, I would probably select someone else.
I think it's clear that you no longer have any kind of ethical obligation or professional expectation of reviewing papers. I also suspect that once the community understands that you really are doing something else now your referee requests will come rarely or cease altogether. So this is probably a decision that you need to make more for any particular paper than as a general life decision. I would say: if you feel just as qualified to referee the paper as before and if you want to referee the paper, then do it. For instance, if you see something valuable in the paper that you think that some other qualified person might miss, then it might be a nice parting gift "to science" to speak out for the worth of this research. On the other hand, if it's just business as usual (or worse, motivated by "the need to continuously publish"): well, you don't have to clean the bathrooms in the apartment that you're not renting anymore, do you?
If you have thoughts of breaking back into science later on, then I think you need to think seriously about how to keep your connections and your intellectual life, um, alive. There are many aspects to this, and making sure that you continue to referee papers is not, so far as I can see, especially close to the top of the list. If I'm looking at the CV of someone who left academia for a while and is trying to come back (and it does happen), I will look to the work they have done recently and their plans for work in the near future. I don't really care whether they've refereed some papers in the meantime.
> 6 votes
# Answer
> However, do you see any personal advantages once you have quit physics? Are there maybe some if one plans to return some day?
If you have quit the scientific community altogether and are working as say, a fisherman, then there will obviously be no professional gain from continuing to review papers.
If you plan to (maybe) return to the scientific community at some stage, having reviewed some papers might help you make the case in an interview that you've been keeping up to date with the literature, but it's still not a strong advantage.
So there's not much to be had in terms of professional benefit in this scenario. The question then is whether or not you feel there's a personal benefit for you: maybe you find the paper(s) interesting to read and learn about, maybe the editor is a friend of yours and you'd like to keep their favour, maybe you like that warm feeling you get when you help progress science a little ... answering these questions are entirely up to you.
(All I know is that if I wasn't in an academic career, there's not a snowball's chance in hell I would be reviewing the papers in my area for the "fun of it".)
> 4 votes
# Answer
I don't know how universal is this but in my country there is a proverbial saying "learn a craft and leave it, and when you're hungry squeeze it". Since here the "craft" is personal networks, and personal networks do not let you "squeeze" them easily once you have "left" them, then reviewing papers every now and then should not be too heavy an investment in an *uncertain* prospect -which could be returning back in science, but also it could be something else you cannot imagine right now. Ask any freelancer.
Do the editors *know* that you have left your scientific career? If yes, their invitation may say something about their opinion of you. But if they don't know it, I would suggest to make it clear right now: if they are happy to keep their invitation standing, then everybody knows you are doing them a favor. If they want to recall their invitation in light of this information, you will avoid possible later embarrassments.
> 3 votes
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Tags: journals, peer-review, physics
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thread-20892 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20892 | May I modify the code/program for my undergraduate thesis project? | 2014-05-13T16:08:29.020 | # Question
Title: May I modify the code/program for my undergraduate thesis project?
I have a project for undergraduate thesis. Then, I found this Chapter VBI-6. Hand and Finger Detection. In the Downloads section, there's code that we can download and launched. I want to use it and have to modify or tweak it to suit my project. The problem is that, I don't know whether it's allowed or not to make a modification to the code presented. Inside, I found this sentences:
> If you use this code, please mention my name, and include a link to the website.
By "use", may I tweak the code as long as I refer to the coder? I'm confused because I found nothing about its license inside the code, like, GNU-GPL or MIT...
I'm so sorry if my question is wrong. If so, please tell why and maybe where I can ask it.
# Answer
> 5 votes
That is an ambiguous enough statement from the author about licensing, that I would simply send them an email and ask what they would allow. You can make your decision on whether to use it after you know whether you can.
I would also ask your advisor if this kind of work is acceptable for your project. If the project requires more self-work, you need to know that before you use too much of this code.
Finally, if you do use it, don't forget to cite it.
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Tags: research-undergraduate, online-resource, code
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thread-20846 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20846 | Will taking a post-doc position harm my future chances in industry? | 2014-05-13T06:45:25.873 | # Question
Title: Will taking a post-doc position harm my future chances in industry?
I am 29 years old and am about to finish my PhD thesis in the field of remote sensing (i.e. somewhere between computer sciences and geosciences in a broad sense or applied signal and image processing in a more narrow sense) at a university in central Europe.
Due to the fact that there are only few tenure positions available in science and I would rather stay in my (economically strong) home region, I want to find a position in industry in the long term. However, I have received an interesting offer for a post-doc / scientist position in a new-to-be-founded research group with great funding and cutting edge research in the applied signal processing field.
My question now is: Will some additional years in academia harm my chances concerning a job in industry?
Some additional points to consider:
* in the post-doc position, I would be the deputy of the group leader (who is soon to receive a full professor/tenure position)
* I'd be responsible for staff management and some budget issues (about 20% of time)
* I'd have the chance to travel to international conferences
* the application the signal processing research is carried out for is not directly industry-relevant
* I have received an invitation to an interview for an R&D job at an automotive company, but it is scheduled only in 3 weeks, while I have to decide for the post-doc offer sooner rather than later
# Answer
I can not talk directly about remote sensing, but in computer science, a postdoc does not *harm* your chances to go into industry directly ...
... but unfortunately it will also likely not *help* you much when applying for an industry job. That is, I would expect that your CV for an industrial job is about as strong after the postdoc than before. Given that there are opportunity costs for working in a postdoc for (presumably) multiple years (lower salary, lost opportunity to build up experience that is more directly helpful in industry jobs, etc.), you *will* certainly pay for doing this postdoc if you look at the grander picture (lifetime earnings, etc.).
> I would be the deputy of the group leader (who is soon to receive a full professor / tenure position) - I'd be responsible for staff management and some budget issues (about 20% of time)
This sounds like you will have actual management experience after your postdoc. If you find the right company, these are certainly points that will help your case afterwards. However, some of my colleagues have made the experience that there are a surprisingly large number of companies in central europe that summarily dismiss everything you do at a university as "not really management" (mostly due to a lack of understanding that university labs also have to deal with budgets, hiring, people issues, etc.). Not sure how representative these word-of-mouth tales are, but it is something to keep in mind.
> 26 votes
# Answer
At least in the life sciences areas related to medicinal chemistry and drug discovery, it's possible to gain a benefit from doing a postdoc with a PI who him/herself has great industry contacts. Off the top of my head, I think some factors to consider are:
1. If you are looking to get into a subspeciality within your field where the PI has a strong reputation in the industry, and you are looking to strengthen your credentials within that subspecialty with your publication record and networking, I think a postdoc is a good idea.
2. You want to focus on a more basic research area in your future career, then a strong postdoc where you guide much of your own research is a good idea. If you're not interested in self-directed basic research, maybe not.
3. If your postdoc efforts will be diluted substantially by administrative tasks as you imply, I'd be a little concerned and try to get this clarified. You would be taking this job to improve your academic and research credentials, and few people will give you much credit for doing even a superior job in the administrative role of your job. If this will restrict your ability to effectively do your "real" work, I'd be inclined to reject this offer.
4. You say that this is a new group, implying that it's with a new young PI. This could go either way, but you should definitely be selfish and trying to honestly estimate the productivity that you would achieve in a new group with a new PI in this field. If you don't see yourself with a good likelihood of excelling in the field, I would consider declining. An "average" postdoc will not distinguish you in any way in your future job search, but an excellent postdoc might.
Some postdoc positions are created basically as a way to pay less while also not really offering the upside of outstanding research and publication opportunities that you'd really seek out in a good postdoc fit. Your administrative requirements sound like a red flag to me that this position really isn't suited for a postdoc, but that of course is for you to decide. If you're considering a postdoc, you should consider how you could distinguish yourself to future employers who might be interested in your outstanding research ideas and implementation, and they'll see that through high profile publications and conference presentations that you make. If you're unlikely able to do this, then I'd argue that you're not likely to benefit from a postdoc.
> 6 votes
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Tags: career-path, postdocs, industry
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thread-20899 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20899 | My advisor wants me to include a name of someone who has no contribution to the paper | 2014-05-13T17:23:37.787 | # Question
Title: My advisor wants me to include a name of someone who has no contribution to the paper
My first advisor wants me to include my second advisor's name in a paper that I worked on before she (2nd advisor) came along.
Should I include her name even though she didn't do anything in that paper? I don't think she even read it.
# Answer
The behaviour of adding non-contributing authors is not considered good practise; quite the opposite. The Vancouver protocol specifies what is needed to be included as (co-)author. See descriptions at ICMJE and BMJ.
The basic points are as follows:
> Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
AND
> Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
AND
> Final approval of the version to be published;
AND
> Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Note the "AND".
There are also several posts on the tag here on Academia that can be of use.
For someone to stand up against one's advisers is of course difficult and it is easy to state that one must do so. It is necessary to assess the situation and read up on the recommendations provided by learned societies such as BMJ and use that as part of your case. I strongly recommend this paper for students from APA Science Student Council.
> 38 votes
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Tags: publications, advisor, authorship
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thread-20879 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20879 | How much can one download from databases before it is too much? | 2014-05-13T13:02:30.863 | # Question
Title: How much can one download from databases before it is too much?
According to this article, a student was arrested for downloading ~4 million articles from an on-line database.
I want to review all existing articles in my interest area before writing my paper, so I need to download and skim through several thousand articles. I read the terms of service of my school's database, but it just says I should avoid trying to make a "collection".
At what point does the downloading become enough that the databases start to complain? 1,000? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? Do they send out warnings?
# Answer
> According to this article, a student was arrested for downloading ~4 million articles from an on-line database.
That was an extreme case. He had history of downloading and releasing large amount of information. In this JSTOR case, I don't think he had actually released the articles, although the indication was strong. He was charged with "unlawfully breaking in a protected computer," which I guess he probably downloaded the paper with unusual means, perhaps using codes or hacks. Overall, the whole case was very politically charged and I will not use that as a benchmark in your case.
> I want to review all existing articles in my interest area before writing my paper, so I need to download and skim through several thousand articles. I read the terms of service of my school's database, but it just says I should avoid trying to make a "collection".
When there are several thousands of articles that are pertinent to your research interest in ONE paper, I would suggest you to refine your research interest. And no, you don't need to review *all existing articles*, just pick the important seminal works, and then trace the major works along a very well define research interest. You can also use a few prominent modern works as seeds and use their reference list to snow ball your library.
> At what point does the downloading become enough that the databases start to complain? 1,000? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? Do they send out warnings?
You should be able to download as much as you want as long as you follow the instructions and rules. For large download volume, I'd check with the librarian to clarify:
1. What the institutional limit is. There may be a download limit and if you'd get a warning letter it's likely from your school because your thousands of download could have cost them a lot more than usual. Some school libraries may ban accounts associated with a large download volume as well; it's better to give the librarian a heads up.
2. Your student account payment scheme. Some schools may have limit and beyond which the students may have to pay. I know that this is certainly possible for inter-library loan (which you may have to do if a few thousands paper is your goal.) A peer of mine got billed for more than US$500 because she ordered about a hundred papers through inter-library loan.
> 14 votes
# Answer
I would suggest to contact the database team, tell them about the project, explain that are you doing, so they would have chance to say is it ok for them or not. You are much less likely to face restrictions if the project is known and approved by your scientific supervisor.
The database website should contain the terms of use page where these acceptable limits should be listed. If nothing is listed, usually a good rule is to wait three times the duration it took a server to serve the previous query but no less than one second, and stop immediately if the server returned the unexpected error message.
It may be much more important not to violate other terms of use.
> 1 votes
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Tags: databases
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thread-20901 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20901 | Compiling ethical standards for coauthorship across academic fields and regions | 2014-05-13T17:49:18.820 | # Question
Title: Compiling ethical standards for coauthorship across academic fields and regions
One of the hot-button issues on this site is standards for coauthorship, especially variants of the question "Must I *automatically* include my thesis advisor as a coauthor on all my papers?"
Since these questions (sensibly) come up again and again, I thought it would be useful to have a collection of links to various ethical standards for coauthorship. To the best of my knowledge, these standards will apply only to one particular academic field and/or to one geographic region. For instance, most of my colleagues would point to this statement by the American Mathematical Society. It applies (explicitly) to mathematics and (implicitly, I think) to mathematics done in the US and by Americans.
I was thinking of a community-wiki question where each answer posts a link to ethical standards in some academic field(s) and geographic region(s). To make the answers better, I would ask that respondents:
* Quote in their answer the passages most relevant to coauthorship.
* Please avoid "alphabet soup". Above I wrote "American Mathematical Society" rather than "AMS": mathematicians will know what AMS means, but most other academics presumably won't. Some other answers here refer to things like "BMJ": I certainly didn't know what that was.
* (Ideally) Give commentary as to whether/how the standards in their answer differ from those posted in other answers.
The more comprehensive the list we can compile, the more authoritatively we can point future questioners to this list and tell them what is or is not an ethical practice.
# Answer
> 6 votes
This is excerpted from the Ethical Guidelines of the American Mathematical Society:
> I. MATHEMATICAL RESEARCH AND ITS PRESENTATION
>
> The public reputation for honesty and integrity of the mathematical community and of the Society is its collective treasure and its publication record is its legacy.
>
> The knowing presentation of another person's mathematical discovery as one's own constitutes plagiarism and is a serious violation of professional ethics. Plagiarism may occur for any type of work, whether written or oral and whether published or not.
>
> The correct attribution of mathematical results is essential, both because it encourages creativity, by benefiting the creator whose career may depend on the recognition of the work and because it informs the community of when, where, and sometimes how original ideas entered into the chain of mathematical thought. To that end, mathematicians have certain responsibilities, which include the following:
>
> To endeavor to be knowledgeable in their field, especially about work related to their research;
>
> To give appropriate credit, even to unpublished materials and announced results (because the knowledge that something is true or false is valuable, however it is obtained); To publish full details of results that are announced without unreasonable delay, because claiming a result in advance of its having been achieved with reasonable certainty injures the community by restraining those working toward the same goal;
>
> To use no language that suppresses or improperly detracts from the work of others;
>
> To correct in a timely way or to withdraw work that is erroneous.
>
> A claim of independence may not be based on ignorance of widely disseminated results. On appropriate occasions, it may be desirable to offer or accept joint authorship when independent researchers find that they have produced identical results. **All the authors listed for a paper, however, must have made a significant contribution to its content, and all who have made such a contribution must be offered the opportunity to be listed as an author.** Because the free exchange of ideas necessary to promote research is possible only when every individual's contribution is properly recognized, the Society will not knowingly publish anything that violates this principle, and it will seek to expose egregious violations anywhere in the mathematical community.
\[Emphasis added.\]
# Answer
> 5 votes
Excerpt from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, which governs most medical journal submissions, as well as those in most allied health fields, like public health. The full text is here: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html
> The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:
>
> * Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
> * Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
> * Final approval of the version to be published; AND
> * Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
>
> In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.
>
> All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged—see Section II.A.3 below. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criterion #s 2 or 3. Therefore, all individuals who meet the first criterion should have the opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript.
# Answer
> 2 votes
A big publisher has a brief (and somewhat vague) rule for all its journals, although to the best of my knowledge it doesn't do anything to enforce it. Note the 'or' as opposed to the 'and' given in another answer.
> Authorship of the paper
>
> Authorship should be limited to those who have made **a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study**. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.
Source here.
which is very similar to the guidelines of the American Physical Society:
> Authorship should be limited to those who have made **a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution or interpretation of the research study**. All those who have made significant contributions should be offered the opportunity to be listed as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged, but not identified as authors.
Source here
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Tags: ethics, authorship
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thread-20902 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20902 | Etiquette on sending a thank you e-mail to respondents who gave me helpful information | 2014-05-13T17:51:16.210 | # Question
Title: Etiquette on sending a thank you e-mail to respondents who gave me helpful information
Sometimes there are cases in a e-mail correspondence with academia staff (professors and bureaucrats) in which I don't know which is the best practice. I wonder if there is any best practice for the following cases:
**Reply to a reply:** when I ask for information via e-mail, and the reply gives me all the information I want, should I send an email just to thank them, or is this considered a bad, time-consuming practice?
How does a professor react to this kind of reply? And what about a bureaucrat (who maybe receives more e-mail)?
If I asked for an internship and he gave me a negative response, is not replying to him considered rude or normal?
# Answer
> 90 votes
To send a short mail saying thanks for a service provided is never wrong; in fact, it is good etiquette. Sending such a mail also serves as a receipt acknowledging you received the information. I recommend a very short mail; do not overdo it, the show of gratitude is enough.
# Answer
> 41 votes
I always write a short thank email as an act of acknowledgement. If I spend my time answering someone's questions and don't get any response I would be very unhappy (luckily, it never happened). Don't worry about spamming the professors. They all know how to deal with mass amount of emails.
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Tags: etiquette, email
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thread-20435 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20435 | How to conduct an effective regular group meeting? | 2014-05-07T16:18:11.633 | # Question
Title: How to conduct an effective regular group meeting?
My research group has regular group meeting but I usually think it is not effective. In particular the research area of the group is very diverse, every time I just listen on something I cannot understand and have totally no interest on it, and I believe other members think the same way as I do when I am presenting. While it is a good way to expose to something new, and know other group members what they are doing, **this is not effective for my own research**. I know group meeting has its point (What is the purpose of the weekly research meetings that advisers often have with their research group?), but how can it be conducted in a more effective way?
As a supervisor:
1. How frequent should a regular group meeting be? It depends on the field, and I hear something like daily to three months.
2. When should a regular group meeting be? I know some groups insist on Monday morning, some groups choose Friday evening which is terrible.
3. How long should a group meeting be?
4. What level of detail should a supervisor comment to one's work? From every experimental concepts, to a vague conceptual suggestion?
As a student:
1. What should a student prepare before a group meeting to have an effective meeting? To present every problem he/she faces, or just some significant results (if there is)?
2. Should a student question other's member work? Sometimes it may be constructive, but it can also be an interruption.
If you are a faculty, how do you conduct your group meeting? As a research student, what can you suggest for an effective group meeting? An effective group meeting can greatly help on one's research work, otherwise it is just a drain of energy, time and motivation.
# Answer
> 29 votes
You have a lot of questions interspersed within your question, but it sounds like the main issue is
> the research area of the group is very diverse, every time I just listen on something I cannot understand and have totally no interest on it, and I believe other members think the same way as I do when I am presenting.
I have had the same problem in the past. I'm a professor who works in a variety of related subfields, some very theoretical and some fairly applied. Most of my students and postdocs have been focused exclusively on either something theoretical or something applied, and their backgrounds range from computer science to mathematics to electrical engineering, so there is often a disconnect when they try to communicate what they are doing. Here is my advice.
## For students:
1. **Try to broaden your focus and interests.** It is natural that you have a very narrow research focus as a grad student, but if you want to get and keep a job afterward you'll almost certainly need to broaden your focus. I find that in general the best researchers almost always have broad interests (though they are able to focus their energy narrowly when needed). Group meetings are an opportunity to become acquainted with topics that are on the horizon of your current knowledge.
2. **Use group meetings as an opportunity to improve your communication skills.** Teaching non-experts about your work is a critical skill in any research career. Other students in the group do not know nearly as much as you about your research topic, but that doesn't mean that you cannot make it interesting and accessible to them. Often this means leaving out the "details" and explaining just the essence of a problem. Trust me, some day soon you will need to make your work interesting and intelligible to people who are much further removed from your specialty.
## For advisors:
1. **Help students to present their work in a way that the others can understand.** Often this means prompting the student, especially at the beginning of a presentation, to add important assumptions, motivation, or background. The student has started to take these things for granted, but without them any non-expert is quickly lost.
2. **Don't let the conversation drift too far into a very specialized discussion.** If you and the student are the only ones who have any idea of what is being discussed, it's probably time to say "let's discuss this further after the meeting".
3. **Use meetings for skills development**. This was already mentioned in this related answer. Instead of focusing exclusively on research, group meetings can also include discussions of things like:
* How to write papers
* How to read papers
* How to search the literature
* How to manage a bibliography
* How to give good presentations
* How to write a proposal
* How to keep a lab notebook
* How to keep up with newly published research
* How to stay organized and be productive
* How to referee a paper
* Software tools for all of the above, and for research
These topics are useful and interesting to anyone involved in research.
## Answers to other parts of the question
* I hold group meetings once a week, and they last 1-2 hours
* Students are strongly encouraged to question and comment on each other's work
* We meet at lunch time, and there is food. That doesn't sound important, but I think it is.
* I try to save very detailed comments for my one-on-one meetings with students. Otherwise, the group meeting can devolve into a conversation between the advisor and just one student.
# Answer
> 10 votes
Group meetings are very important, and I think it is worthwhile to organise them very well, to make sure they are focussed, to-the-point, time-effective, and that everybody participates. I remember my time as a graduate student as having very efficient group meetings, and most of my points below are based on my experiences back then.
> How frequent should a regular group meeting be? It depends on the field, and I hear something like daily to three months.
I think weekly is good. If people want to discuss significant results, one should not wait too long. However, too often takes away too much of peoples time.
> When should a regular group meeting be? I know some groups insist on Monday morning, some groups choose Friday evening which is terrible.
I've experienced groups with group meetings on either Monday afternoon or Tuesday afternoon, and I think both are good. However, I don't think it is the most important aspect. Personally, I don't like to have meetings during lunch. Although I understand the motivation, I believe it is important to have a break from work at some point.
> How long should a group meeting be?
When I was a graduate student, we had group meetings of *at most one hour*. We would typically have between 5 and 10 people attending the meeting (normally everybody in the group who was not away travelling). Each week, one person would be the moderator, and one person would be taking notes. Those roles would be alternating, providing everybody with useful experience in managing meetings or taking notes. We'd start with general announcements, and then everybody had the opportunity to present some plots. Some weeks, few if any people had anything to present any new results or bring up anything for discussion, and we might be done in 20 minutes. Other weeks, the role of the moderator was essential to keep the meeting to one hour.
> What level of detail should a supervisor comment to one's work? From every experimental concepts, to a vague conceptual suggestion?
What I think is great about group meetings, is that *it is not only the supervisor commenting*. Naturally, it can happen that discussions lead into details. Although beneficial for the people directly involved in the discussion, it may be a waste of time for others. When this happens, the moderator (see above) would intervene (also in the interest of time) and suggest for a discussion to be proceeded "offline".
This hits two birds with one stone: the meeting is limited in duration, and the meeting focusses on overall discussions of broader interest.
> As a student:
>
> What should a student prepare before a group meeting to have an effective meeting? To present every problem he/she faces, or just some significant results (if there is)?
I think it is not useful to present every problem he/she faces in front of the entire group. Some problems are best discussed one-to-one with the most expert colleague (scientist, engineer, technician). But if you have any significant results — like a first version of a plot that may end up in a paper, or anything warranting scientific discussion — that can be good to show.
> Should a student question other's member work? Sometimes it may be constructive, but it can also be an interruption.
Depends what you mean by *questioning*. I think a student should certainly comment on other members work if this is helpful. In the worst case, the comment is not relevant and the student learns something. Communication is essential to science, and communication with all members in the group has more benefits than communication exclusively between supervisor and student.
# Answer
> 3 votes
1. As a participant, and this applies to all kinds of meetings inside and outside of academia, it depends on whether it is a structured or unstructured meeting. It also depends on whether it is instructor led or student led. In both cases, having an agenda for the meeting will make it more effective; more on this below.
2. If the purpose of the group meetings is to brain storm in a collaborative environment, examine each others work, offer insights from unbiased but informed perspectives, and generate discussion, then an unstructured format is generally preferred. This gives participants the freedom for expressing ideas that may have a limited time value and impact. But this is also only valuable if there is a moderator to step in and control the discussion, allocate time to the points to be discussed, and everyone is a participant. If no one is, then there is little value to holding the meetings. The most effective way to create the agenda for this, as well as determine the length of the meeting, is for the moderator to poll the participants on what points they wish to discuss. This can be during the last meeting, prior to the meeting through a communications medium, or at the beginning of the meeting. In all cases there should be common agreement that the agenda, once decided, is fixed and that all other discussion points will carry over to the next meeting if they are important enough. Time wise, it should be reasonable; only an hour or two at most. More than that and you start to suffer attention span attrition. Frequency is based on need; if there is no need, then there should be less frequent meetings. But I will not say that there should be no meetings; because that would signify that all of you have no interest in socializing with your peers, and do not consider peer and instructor review valuable. Which would not be beneficial from a professional standpoint.
3. If the purpose of the meeting is for everyone to present current findings and receive pointed guidance, then a structured meeting is preferred. The agenda is based on who has something to present; which all of you should, even if it is only current actions undertaken in your research. The danger of structured meetings where everyone is a participant, regardless of inclination or material, is that they can be extremely long if there are a lot of presenters; and also tedious if there really isn't anything to report and they are filling white-space. The easiest way to create the agenda is to have a roster of the group and to have them brief their findings in the order that they are on that roster. They each have a set time to give out their information. The instructor then gives his guidance and possibly polls the group for opinions. Then the groups moves on to the next presenter. Structured meetings with definite presentations require some legwork in the background. The most efficient way to get through multiple presenters is to have all of the presentations consolidated to one computer, either merged into one slide deck, or organized by briefer in the same folder. Who does that is something I'm sure the instructor will notify all of you about. Time should be based on how many are in the group.
4. There are pros and cons to both approaches. The effectiveness of either depends on the participants and the instructor. If your meetings are not effective for any of the participants, then maybe you need to suggest to the group (off-line, during, or private session with the instructor I leave to your discretion) that the point of discussion for one of those meetings should be the effectiveness of those meetings. And then determine what each of you individually needs to take away from it, as well as what ways you are all collectively going to improve the quality of those meetings.
# Answer
> 2 votes
1. Frequency: depends on the size of the group. When someone has some new result that they are going to present (in a conference or any other venue) this may be useful to practice, etc. Therefore the frequency depends on how often people are producing results. This is also an opportunity for everybody starting something new to ask whether there is someone with some related expertise that could be useful (I prefer mailing lists for this specific thing).
2. Time:people have commitments. Chose some time that fits everybody. I'd suggest before lunch to have the chance to continue the meeting *while* (not instead of) having lunch.
3. How long should it be?: As long as needed, as short as possible.
4. General comments: useful for everybody. E.g. in the style of the presentation. What is specific for each person or group should be commented directly to them (thus without boring anyone else).
5. Student preparation/presentation: Whatever s/he has to present according to point 1.
6. Questions: Yes, everybody should participate. *All* questions and interruptions should be at the end of the presentation.
# Answer
> 0 votes
At my group we use some Agile methods from software development industry. Among others, we have short stand-up meetings and longer sprint sessions.
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Tags: advisor, colleagues, group-dynamics, lab-meeting
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thread-20849 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20849 | Workshop(s) for application to Marie Curie postdoctoral Fellowships (formerly IIF, IEF and IOF, now just IF) | 2014-05-13T08:00:54.517 | # Question
Title: Workshop(s) for application to Marie Curie postdoctoral Fellowships (formerly IIF, IEF and IOF, now just IF)
I believe there are workshops offered to people who want to prepare application to Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowships (now part of the Individual Fellowships offered by them). I am trying to find out when the next workshop is or the general schedule of such workshops over the year.
I tried to find online information on them, without much success, I noticed some heavily charged workshops that happened before. My questions are:
1. Where can I find information and schedule of such workshops?
2. Are they always held by the authority/organization offering Marie Curie fellowships? Or, there could be other universities wanting to get Marie Curie postdocs and hence could offer a workshop?
3. Is there a "local" workshop for a region, for example, people from Spain might not want to travel to Germany etc.
4. Are there free ones, or is a fee always required?
# Answer
Typically, universities organise these workshops (training events) for their own faculty, possibly in collaboration with commercial companies that provide this kind of training. This is the case not only for Marie Curie fellowships, but for all kinds of EU Horizon 2020 funding opportunities.
Contact the research support people from your own university and ask if they are planning to organise such workshops. Most likely, it would be free for you. Your university would cover the expenses.
> 2 votes
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Tags: job, postdocs, workshop, eu
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thread-20920 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20920 | Appropriate ways to propose moving from a single to a joint appointment | 2014-05-14T00:36:22.970 | # Question
Title: Appropriate ways to propose moving from a single to a joint appointment
Consider an assistant professor who does fairly interdisciplinary work, regularly publishing in journals for more than one field, or where you can make a case that, depending on how you spin it, they could clearly be an X or a Y.
Currently, they have a single academic appointment in X, but are potentially interested in a joint appointment, perhaps to advise students, or to combat the perception that they're "really not a Y" within the field, or another reason.
What's the best way to raise this desire? What practical objections might be raised?
# Answer
> 9 votes
As Nate Eldredge points out in the comments, there are two types of joint appointments:
1. With a courtesy appointment, you get the public recognition of having both titles (Professor of X and Professor of Y) and you can advise and teach in both departments. However, administratively you have a primary department that pays your salary and sets your teaching/service duties. The main drawback is that if you want to split your teaching between the departments, it may take some arranging. \[In my experience this can often be done, but it's not guaranteed by a courtesy appointment.\]
2. With a fully joint appointment, the two departments split your salary and duties in some set fraction (usually, but not necessarily, 50-50). This makes it easy to do substantial amounts of teaching in both departments, but it can mean a slightly higher service load, since a 50% appointment often doesn't really cut the number of meetings in half. The biggest drawback of a joint appointment is having to keep both departments happy, especially if they disagree on how you should be spending your time. \[This is a real danger for tenure cases.\]
If you'd like a courtesy appointment in another field, you need someone in that department to serve as a champion for your case. You can sound out friends or mentors privately to try to convince someone to advocate for offering you such a position. Once someone brings it up at a department meeting, you then need a good enough reputation that the department is happy to have you associated with it. Ideally, you should be someone they would have loved to hire if you hadn't already joined another department; in practice, you can sometimes get away with a slightly weaker case than that, but you still need to look strong enough that there's no fear you'll hurt the department's reputation. Once the department is behind you, there may also be some administrative hurdles (perhaps including letters of recommendation).
Switching to a genuine joint appointment is much trickier, since you need to convince the other department to start paying for you. Why should they do that when they could offer you a courtesy appointment for free? There are various possible answers, such as:
1. You're so famous that they'll cheerfully do whatever you want.
2. They really value you, and offering you this appointment will keep you from leaving.
3. You'll fill a role in the new department that they would have had to hire someone else for anyway (e.g., teaching certain classes).
4. There are deals being made behind the scenes. If department Y takes over half your position, what might department X offer them in return?
If you want to bring this about, you'll need to spend some time crafting a compelling argument. There are many directions you could go in, but ultimately it will depend on the department's needs.
As I mentioned above, tenure cases can be really tricky for joint appointments. Both departments end up with a de facto veto, since if one turns you down the other isn't likely to be enthusiastic about coming up with the extra money to save your job (taking the other department's reject doesn't feel good). Before tenure, I'd consider a courtesy appointment to be a much better idea. Once you get tenure, you can then reevaluate and see what your options are.
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Tags: administration, joint-appointment
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thread-20941 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20941 | Should I withdraw my paper if I find another paper published with the same idea? | 2014-05-14T14:20:35.313 | # Question
Title: Should I withdraw my paper if I find another paper published with the same idea?
I submitted a paper and it is currently under review (submitted on 10th March and conference is on 15th October, I'll be notified on 15th July). However, now, in May, I see a paper has just published dealing with the same problem as mine. They indicate that their solution is better than mine. If my paper is accepted, do I have to withdraw it, as it seems to be out of date?
# Answer
> 40 votes
It's a slightly grey area but assuming the journal paper in question was not publicly available before the submission date of your conference, I think you are fully entitled to publish the paper if accepted. It's a parallel result, which means there was (verifiably) no wrong-doing on your part. If accepted, in the "camera-ready" submission, you can add reference to the journal paper with a note that their results were developed in parallel (with mentions of the dates involved in a footnote, for example). You get your publication, the authors of the work get their citation, and the conference themselves know that there was no wrong-doing involved.
So again, you don't *have to* withdraw, but you can if you want (e.g., if you don't want to be associated with a weaker form of the result, or if you are a really nice person and feel that the slot at the conference might be better used elsewhere).
# Answer
> 12 votes
If you did not know about the other paper and it was not available at the time you were doing the research for your paper, your paper is considered as an independent research. Moreover, if your approach to the problem is different, it will partially justify the importance of your work.
However, it is important to send an email to the editor and explain the situation to him/her. It may cause the rejection of your paper, but it is your obligation to let the editor and the referee of the paper know about the parallel recent works.
A similar situation has happened for one of my papers recently. After explaining the situation to the editor, he considered the paper to be an original research work.
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Tags: publications, withdraw
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thread-20926 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20926 | What are the advantages/disadvantages of a PhD advisor who is experienced vs. one at the beginning of his career? | 2014-05-14T06:10:00.347 | # Question
Title: What are the advantages/disadvantages of a PhD advisor who is experienced vs. one at the beginning of his career?
I know in most of the cases, PhD seekers do not have many options and we must stick to what is offered. However, it happened that I initiated connection with two advisors from different institutes which almost have the same reputation. However, one of them is a lecturer (equivalent to assistant professor in north America) and the other is full professor. Nothing is guaranteed yet, so I won't give up on any of them. Yet, before I delve deeper, I would like to know is it better to work with advisor who is still at the beginning of his academic career but with less experience and maybe more demanding. Or it is better to work with full professor who has long experience but might be too busy for you or not really pushing you to work.
The answer that I am looking for is from two parts, during PhD study and the future career:
**PhD period:** I know PhD student is independent researcher and should not rely much on his advisor in many aspects. However, I have this fear due to what I faced during my Master, whereby my supervisor was just looking for the quantity of papers not the quality. I assumed from my conversations with him that the number of publications was main criterion to become full professor in that institute. One the other hand, other colleagues complained about their advisors (full professors) that they really do not allocate enough time for them and even do not encourage them to publish saying that you are master student and this number of publications is enough.
**Future career:** I assume recommendation letter from full professor outweigh the one from assistant professor. Do you agree? why?
# Answer
It is sometimes assumed that less experienced / competent supervisor will try harder instead, spending more working time and will be somewhat a friend to you, not just a teacher. However this depends. A younger supervisor may also choose to give you only the minimum required amount of time.
For a good PhD student, it may be most important to get a good project and ideas that, as a rule, work. This does not require lots of time but does require a lot of competence. I would normally select the more experienced supervisor even if one may have less time for me. Only if the studies require some complex, difficult to learn methods, a younger supervisor who still uses these methods directly and personally at work may teach them more efficiently.
> 3 votes
# Answer
I think you stated it pretty well, the young one having less influence, but more eager to collaborate vs. the more experienced one, with more influence, but who doesn't really need to prove himself any longer and probably regards you as just another daily task.
I would consider how cooperative and ambitious the younger one is. If you can see that you can benefit from (i.e. be interested in that particular area of research) and collaborate on something that would further both your careers, in my opinion, you should opt for him. In addition, you could gain a long-term collaborator, even after your PhD, being one of his first PhD students. Also, more demanding + relatively common goals, would drill you to become a better scientist, than you would become if you were in a more "lecture-like" and comfortable environment.
In fact, I would choose the more experienced professor only if is influence and respect in the academic community is extremely high or in the case I would want to "just get over" my PhD.
> 1 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, advisor, career-path
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thread-20942 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20942 | What to do when co-authors want to submit manuscript for publication and you think it still has problems? | 2014-05-14T14:33:46.620 | # Question
Title: What to do when co-authors want to submit manuscript for publication and you think it still has problems?
I am a junior member on a research project. We have written a paper. I feel the work is not ready for publication and have issues. We have discussed the issues, and other members of the group including the lead author agree with me that there are issues. But the lead author who is more senior is too eager to get the results published to the extent that he is ready to mislead the reviewers/readers by exaggerating and misrepresenting the partial inconclusive results to get the paper accepted. I don't think I can convince him to allow more time for the project to reach a more satisfactory stage before publication. I am rather junior and have limited say on the project. I am new to the field of the project, and the senior author is established in the field and publishes several papers in top venues each year. Other members of the project are his students.
We don't have conclusive evidence for one of the central claims in the paper. It might turn out to be false under more experiments. The lead author, however, believes it is correct even though he agrees the evidence we have is not sufficient. He wants to publish the results and the idea as soon as possible, but accurately stating what we have and what we don't have will make the acceptance unlikely at this point. He is fine with getting the flawed results published and then continuing to work to fix the issues for the later publications. I am not comfortable with my name appearing on the paper.
One option is to ask for the removal of my name as an author and to be mentioned in the acknowledgments. However, I have worked on the project for a considerable time and would like to get credit for my contributions, and I don't feel just being mentioned in the acknowledgments is good enough.
What would you do if you were in this situation?
How do you deal with major disagreements in writing a joint paper?
Would it be helpful if I post a different edited draft copy of the paper online where the claims are more accurate in my view?
# Answer
> 30 votes
I wanted to add a fourth possibility to @artalexan's nice answer that might be more diplomatic:
* Make the paper technically correct with the results you have (even if preliminary) and submit to the current venue.
*The major problem with submitting the paper is that it is dishonest, not that it is preliminary.*
If the paper can be made technically correct and honest -- even if the results are preliminary -- it would be fine to at least submit it and let the reviewers judge if it is mature enough.
If you are a co-author, you should have the power to edit the misleading text. If the main author is stopping your efforts to do that, then ask to be removed from the paper.
Of course if the results themselves are incorrect (rather than preliminary) there may be no saving the paper.
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On a side note, the attitude of the senior researcher in question towards publishing may be productive in the short term (getting some initial papers published quickly by misleading reviewers), but it is **utterly counter-productive** in the long run. Having a reputation for sloppy results/writing will seriously harm the trust that reviews/readers have in your paper ... and reputation is *so* important in research! I don't know your situation, but if the researcher shows no inclination to change their attitude, try to put distance between yourself and them.
# Answer
> 13 votes
I see a few possible options for this.
1. You are talking with other co-authors of the paper then you all together talk to this lead author that what he does is going to affect not only his, but also your future in a very bad way.
2. You are making a rough estimation how quick you (and other authors) can fill all those gaps in this project. If it is let's say 15 days, you meet and make your exact suggestion. This concreteness will make the main author think twice.
3. Although you have done a lot of research, you should remove your name from this suspicious study (if you strongly believe that this study has serious drawbacks), because sooner or later it will become worthless.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I've seen some misleading papers written by popular names during my MSc studies. Yet, their popularity did not vanish in an observable amount of time. In research, we have many issues like this; and I believe it is not necessarily a bad thing. Sound articles would be cited by many, and they would definitely be helpful for new researchers and young students alike.
However, I have the following questions for you. Please consider them objectively.
1. Did you witness cherry-picking? Or any alteration/manipulation to the research results?
2. How inconclusive do you find the results? Please forget about the lead author, and give a number from 1 to 10 on your best knowledge.
3. Can you convince the lead to add a future studies section or a paragraph/sentence to your paper, to mention the issues you come up with about the experiment?
4. Can't you ask the leads approval to do more experiment? So that you will have a fighting chance to make things right. If you are proven right, you may give the accurate results in the earliest revision.
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Tags: ethics, authorship, collaboration
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thread-20897 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20897 | Is it okay for a supervisor to require students to seek permission before publishing? | 2014-05-13T17:07:47.637 | # Question
Title: Is it okay for a supervisor to require students to seek permission before publishing?
If I were a PhD student, should I be concerned if my supervisor always requires their permission before I can publish a paper?
Under what conditions should I find it acceptable or unacceptable?
# Answer
> 20 votes
If you are including your supervisors name, or anyone else's name, you should notify them first and allow them to review the paper before sending it to the publisher because the PI and CO-PIs are generally considered to have ownership and responsibility for the data and any resulting publications.
If you are just wanting to publish under your name alone, it depends. Are you publishing findings from data that belongs to your advisor (or anyone else's data)? Typically any data collected by you that was paid for by your funding agency belongs to the principal investigator, which is usually your advisor. You should ask for their permission before you publish findings from his or her data.
This applies to abstract submissions as well.
# Answer
> 8 votes
The current answers are good, but for my field they seem to miss the single most important factor that makes prior permission *de facto* necessary before submitting a paper: **funding for conference trips or page charges**.
Basically, most papers in my field are conference papers. Conferences require physical presence of the student, and are *expensive*. A single conference trip (to the US or Asia for us europeans) can cost 2000 EUR, in rare cases even more. Often, these costs can be covered from the project a PhD student is also paid from, but some funding agencies do not pay for travel. In such cases, the professor needs to find other funds to finance the trip.
**It is obvious and in no way unethical that one needs to consult the manager of these funds before deciding whether to spend the money.**
So, essentially, an advisor may not be ethically allowed to forbid a student to submit a paper, but he sure can reject paying for it from his funds (which ends up as the same thing for practical purposes).
# Answer
> 6 votes
Of course it's unethical to submit a jointly authored paper without the consent of every coauthor, or to use unpublished data or ideas without permission from their source. However, these principles apply equally to everyone, regardless of rank or status, and they have nothing to do with the student/advisor relationship.
To avoid these issues, let's posit a paper that's entirely the student's work, with no ideas or data generated or owned by anyone else, and let's assume that no funding is required for conference travel or publication fees. Then could the advisor forbid the student to publish? I would consider this unethical: if the student is determined to submit this paper for publication, then it would be wrong for the advisor to try to block the submission or to threaten or impose punishment.
This doesn't mean the advisor can't put some pressure on the student. It's reasonable to try to slow down an inexperienced, headstrong student for their own good. For example, to discuss ethics (avoiding plagiarism, making sure all contributors are credited appropriately, etc.) or to check for major mistakes. I think it would be reasonable for an advisor to have a policy that students should discuss all submissions in advance. (This policy might well be waived for senior students.)
However, if a student refuses to discuss a submission or disagrees with the advisor's recommendation regarding publication, then I see no ethical grounds for intervening.
# Answer
> 1 votes
The basic freedom of speech would dictate that anyone can publish whatever they want. So as a base line, I would go with that. The question then becomes what could be argued against that? Well, if the advisor has funding for a project and the information the student wants to publish draws on that funding it would be appropriate to discuss the publication before sending it off. The publication might damage the project and hurt everyone involved in the long run. This is not realy an infringement on the basic freedom but limitations under which we live and should abide. Hence, conflicts about publications are often originating in poor or absent communication or total lack of openness or trust or all the above and more.
It is important in any collaboration (which how I see a PhD project) to be clear of expectations in both directions. Under most circumstances problems can be sorted out quite easily but as with anything human, odd personality treats will throw spanners in the works. This is why it is usually difficult to resolve issues that lead to conflicts and the "Run don't walk" away can be suggested. More sensibly, anyone in a conflict should try to understand where the problems lie and act to resolve the problem but typically one party is usually oblivious to personal shortcomings in which case there is usually not much that can be done.
I do not see a simple answer to this but having an understanding of conflicts and conflict solutions or perhaps seeking such advice is necessary if the reasons for supervisory control is not based on reasonable scientific or administrative grounds.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Just to summarise some of the points (and add some more) as to why a supervisor might make it a requirement for students to seek permission before publishing:
* Check assignment of funds for travel (e.g., for conferences) or for publishing (per xLeitix's answer)
* Check use of data or resources belonging to the project (per SoilSciGuy's answer)
* Check proper attribution of people involved in the work
* Check that the proper affiliation and funding acknowledgements are in place
* Check that there are no IP issues (particularly in the context of industry collaborations or industry-funded projects, but also with respect to university IP guidelines)
* Check that the venue is not of low quality or, e.g., a predatory journal ... check that the results are not undersold
* Check that the paper is not of low quality, besmirching the good name of the affiliation
These are the reasons I can see why a supervisor may require permission before publishing. Once you understand some of these motives, I guess it's up to you to decide if that's a problem or not.
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Of course, in some fields, supervisors (almost) require *co-authorship* by default of anything you publish; in this case, requiring their permission is a corollary. Likewise, relative to that, requiring only permission (maybe) doesn't seem all so bad.
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Tags: phd, publications, advisor
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thread-20423 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20423 | Is it the number or quality of internships that is more important for Graduate School admission into Computer Science? | 2014-05-07T14:03:57.467 | # Question
Title: Is it the number or quality of internships that is more important for Graduate School admission into Computer Science?
I'm an undergraduate in Computer Science who's has just completed his 2nd year. However I could not get an internship for the summer leaving me extremely tense about the future since there would be only one summer left (i.e., the summer of 2015 since I graduate in 2016).
I intend to apply to graduate schools in North America and Europe after my UG. However since I will have only one internship under my belt (assuming I bag one in summer 2015) will it put a damper on my prospects? Or is it the place of and quality of work done in my internship (coupled with good recommendation letters—which I doubt I will get) that would be far better than the number of internships under my belt?
I'm in the process of building a portfolio of real-life projects to demonstrate my skills and capabilities. I am also contributing code to open-source organisations in the next two months à la Google Summer of Code (however without the formal recognition) on a totally voluntary basis. Will that help in overcoming lack of an internship between my second and third year? What else can I do that can help me build a better application for graduate school?
# Answer
> 5 votes
The short answer is a lack of internships is not a problem.
The long answer has two cases:
1. MSCS programs in the United States are profit makers for universities. It is much easier to get into an MSCS program at a top university than the PhD program at the same university. Research experience is a plus, but I don't think industry experience matters. Grades and recommendations from professors are most important.
2. CS PhD programs in the United States almost exclusively admit students that they are willing to fund, so they are much harder to get into. In addition to strong grades and letters of recommendation, schools want to see that you are capable of working independently at research. The best way to do this, as Leon palafox answered, is to have research experience, including a thesis and/or publications. Next best is to have completed projects not required for any class. That shows you are capable of doing a project without its being broken down into lots of steps with intermediate deadlines. I'd say Summer of Code-like experience is at least as valuable as an industry internship. It shows passion and the ability to work independently. Incorporate that into your essay, and get a letter of recommendation from someone on the project (or from a professor at your institute if one is nominally supervising your work for internship or independent study credit).
I am not knowledgeable about admission into programs outside of the United States.
# Answer
> 4 votes
If you are applying to a PhD, that portfolio of real life projects might not matter much.
In Graduate programs, they are very interested in proof that the student is capable of pursuing research, which is usually proven via a BS Thesis or a couple of Publications. Here in the US, many take a year off to work in some lab to get both a letter of recommendation and at least a publication in some conference.
I'm evaluating having a Grad student right now, and I would certainly would be more interested in him/her having proof that they know what grad school is all about rather than showing that they are good programmers.
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Tags: graduate-admissions, graduate-school, internship
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thread-18580 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18580 | What would I need to show to change fields and get into a physics PhD program? | 2014-03-27T03:27:44.217 | # Question
Title: What would I need to show to change fields and get into a physics PhD program?
I've been working as a software engineer for a few years now, and have a bachelor's in computer science and math. My interest and knowledge in physics has been growing since I graduated, but I never took any formal courses after high school.
Obviously, entering into a physics PhD would require a huge amount background knowledge comparable to a bachelor's in physics. My question is **what would I need to do to prove that I had that knowledge, and actually get accepted into a program?**
Would it be enough to score high on the GRE, and have some strong letters of recommendation? Could I do it with enough statements of accomplishment on coursera? Or am I looking at a few more years of undergrad to get a second Bachelor's? Or could I get into a master's program, and use that as a stepping stone?
Thanks.
# Answer
Seeing as nobody else has answered and this is judged not to be a duplicate of this question, I'll quote my answer from there (except with "math" changed to "physics"), which also applies here:
> If you're asking about graduate school in the US, probably the single most significant thing you can do is to take the GRE subject test for physics and score well on it. This test covers a broad spectrum of material that is taught in a typical undergraduate physics curriculum, and so if you get a good score, it strongly supports your claim that you have the level of physics knowledge required to enter grad school. Without that key piece of evidence (i.e. a good GRE subject score), graduate admissions committees are likely to look at your statement that you have the knowledge to take graduate courses, contrast it with your lack of an undergraduate degree, and conclude that you're full of hot air, so to speak.
>
> Now, of course there is more that has to be done to actually get yourself admitted. You can't get into grad school based on even a 990 (the top score) on the GRE *alone*; you'll probably have to present some other sort of evidence of accomplishment that could be viewed as equivalent to an undergraduate transcript. You'll also need recommendation letters and various sorts of essays and forms. But a lot of that can vary from school to school, and is more likely to be negotiable if you talk to someone in the department. The GRE subject score is the one thing you really need to get your foot in the door, so to speak.
Beyond the GRE, probably the best thing you can do to increase your chances of getting into physics grad school is to have some physics research experience, with a good recommendation letter from your supervisor(s), although strictly speaking this is not *necessary*. However this might be somewhat difficult to get given that you're not currently an undergraduate.
I don't think there's much to be gained by using a masters program as a stepping stone, at least not among US graduate schools; in fact, there are not really many masters programs in physics at all. People who go to grad school in physics typically go straight from their undergraduate career into a PhD program, without a separate masters program in the middle.
> 5 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, physics, changing-fields
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thread-20971 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20971 | Attaching reprints of published but copyrighted papers with job application | 2014-05-14T23:39:55.913 | # Question
Title: Attaching reprints of published but copyrighted papers with job application
How wise and legal is it to attach my published but copyrighted papers with my job application or even put up on the personal (academic) website? I see a lot of people posting their papers that I guess are copyrighted. Also many academic job applications ask for reprints of the papers.
May be I am not fully clear with the rules. I would like to be educated on this.
This and this say something regarding posting the manuscript on the website. I may not post my manuscript pdf but assign a link to the publisher's webpage for the paper. What if my new job application is asking for my papers to be attached?
# Answer
Like almost all such questions, the ultimate answer is "look at the copyright agreement you signed."
However, in almost all cases, it is fine to distribute copies of your papers privately to individual people, so I can't imagine there would be a problem with you sending your papers along with your application. In the past, publishers would give authors a certain number of paper "offprints" for exactly this purpose. Nowadays, you more often get an official PDF (with the journal's logo) that you can send to your friends and colleagues, and that would be just the thing to send with your application as it also proves that the paper was in fact published.
Posting on your web site is likely to be specifically addressed by the copyright agreement. Some publishers allow it, some do not, some allow the posting of only certain versions (e.g. before revisions based on peer review). So read what you signed. (And next time you publish a paper, read the agreement *before* you sign it!)
> 18 votes
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Tags: publications, ethics, copyright, faculty-application
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thread-20648 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20648 | How to handle someone propositioning me to collude/cheat with them on an assignment? | 2014-05-11T14:14:55.200 | # Question
Title: How to handle someone propositioning me to collude/cheat with them on an assignment?
I am in my final year of undergraduate. Another student, call him John, sent me a message on Facebook saying basically:
> Can you send me the solutions to the assignment from unit X, that you took last year. In exchange, I will tell you what the future minitest questions are for unit Y that we are both doing this year.
Attempted Collusion is not explicitly mentioned in the Universities Academic misconduct guide. But, the mini-tests say at the top of each page:
> IT IS NOT PERMITTED TO TAKE THIS PAPER AWAY FROM THE TUTORIAL SESSION OR TO DIVULGE ITS CONTENT
since students in the later tutorials could learn the questions from the students in the earlier tutorials (exactly as John proposed).
A complicating factor is that I really dislike John. He doesn't seem to have realised this. I find him personally annoying, and consider him a poor student. I don't understand how he has managed to pass enough units to have not been suspended for poor performance. It may be he is very good at exams, or it may be that he has been cheating all along.
I have a number of options, and could do one or more of them:
* Ignore it, and block him on Facebook. I'm worried this could reflect poorly on me if the message ever became public.
* Tell him no, and refer him to the universities plagiarism/cheating policy
* Speak to the Professor of Unit Y about it (that we are both studying).
* Speak to the Professor of Unit X about it.
* Speak to the Head of School (sub-department), who is above both units
* Speak to the University Dean. Who is in charge of enforcing the Academic Misconduct policy. (Will probably mean going though channels)
If I speak to a professor about this, he may be suspended. I worry that I am a bit too willing for that possibility as I don't like him. On the other hand it isn't my job to decide the consequences of his actions. Which is the best option?
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**Update:** I spoke to the coordinators of units X and Y. Both said they would look into it and get back to me. I also responded to John, saying no, and referring him to the Academic Misconduct policy.
# Answer
Putting such a request in a written, verifiable manner as this student has done is incredibly *dumb*, and frankly merits whatever punishment is associated with this.
Although in principle you could simply ignore the request, I think this is one of those cases where you're better off reporting it. Otherwise, there's still the possibility that "John" could bring you down with him (he wrote you a note, after all!). So I would write to him declining the offer, and then report it.
> 40 votes
# Answer
I generally agree with aeismail - the profound stupidity of putting a request like this in a way that provides evidence is *staggering*.
Whether or not you *should* report them for cheating may not be a decision you have to make - I would strongly suggest you check your institution's student handbook or honor code. I've been in more than one university where if you suspect or have evidence of someone cheating, you're obligated to report it.
> 19 votes
# Answer
As a student, I would like to answer this, apparently everyone has a different perspective here, but mainly 2 sides. Students vs Professors :)
He asked you for last year's answers. What is wrong with this? I sometimes ask my friends for previous years' answers as well. This does not mean I am going to copy them. I can go through their work, understand the concepts better and do my homework. The reason is, not every question type is covered in classes or books and guidance might be required to solve them. First you learn how to solve something, then you apply your knowledge to questions. And questions with solutions are the perfect way to master the knowledge. When I use my friends' past homeworks, it really helps me learn the material and all the time I spot their mistakes and prepare my own homework with no mistakes.
Of course, his intentions might be directly copying your homework. In such a case, a proper department should keep old homework solutions and it is the TA's responsiblity to detect them.
So, if someone who you think has intentions to learn from your homework is asking for it, it is very normal to give. But if you think his intention is to directly copy, then you can simply decline his request. You can say you don't have them anymore or you do not wish to share them. No person is guilty unless they commit the wrong and again, you shouldn't worry about them. The university pays graduate students for these matters, it is their job.
> 18 votes
# Answer
Sorry, I'm old school. You don't lie, cheat or steal. Additionally you don't tolerate anyone who lies, cheats or steals, particularly in an academic environment. I believe all students have a duty, an obligation, to report someone breaking those rules, period. That's part of being a responsible adult. Accepting that poor behavior among your peers erodes the quality of your education. Yes, when the peer group doesn't always support it, it does take a lot of character, strength and personal courage to do the right thing. Oh.. and just imagine for a moment.. what if this person was your best friend? That decision takes lots of courage and is very difficult. Good luck with your dilemma.
Oh, and whom to speak to first? I would start with either of the two teachers involved. I'd hope you'd get the same response from either of them. They have been trained for this situation, and will direct you as to possible next steps. Note: is there a university policy on this with a specific process to follow? If so follow it. If not talk to either teacher.. probably the one who knows your integrity and credibility better.
> 14 votes
# Answer
Here is my evaluation of the options that you mentioned.
> Ignore it, and block him on facebook.
This option is fine, but in my opinion is a bit lazy.
> Tell him no, and refer him to the universities plagiarism/cheating policy
This couldn't hurt, but probably he will just ignore it.
> Speak to the Professor of Unit Y about it (that we are both studying).
A good option. Another related option that I don't think anyone has mentioned yet is telling the professor about the request but not mentioning John's name. Most professors would (or should) appreciate hearing in general terms about ways that students are cheating in their classes.
> Speak to the Professor of Unit X about it.
It is probably better to speak to the professor in charge of you and John at the moment.
> Speak to the Head of School (sub-department), who is above both units
>
> Speak to the University Dean who is in charge of enforcing the Academic Misconduct policy. (Will probably mean going though channels)
I don't think it is a good idea to go over the professor's head unless you think that he or she is not taking the matter seriously.
> 10 votes
# Answer
Let me defend the middle ground here.
First of all, we're hearing only one side of the story here. Although, the case may seem straightforward, I do find the proposition of John strange. If he had simply asked for the solutions from last year's course without offering anything in return, this wouldn't have been an issue at all. It's like asking a girl out but also offering her money to improve your chances.
Also, everyone seems to be taking for granted that his suggestion of cheating necessarily means that he has cheated before or even that he will cheat again. In fact, this person, who is a student, and whose case is relayed to us by someone who admits to disliking him, has already been labeled a serial cheater and is even considered to be very likely to use cheating as his primary means in obtaining a job!
Anyone who has given a little thought to the problem would realize that there is a limit to cheating. Cheaters do not pass all exams with 100%. You can't cheat your way through answering interview questions unless you actually understand what you're being asked.
One of the suggestions given here, which I think is the most appropriate, was to ask the instructors in general terms about the exact form of cheating and its consequences. Then you will be better positioned to decide whether or not to report someone directly.
> 7 votes
# Answer
I finished a good university which helped me find a wonderful job. Cheating in the university is not the best thing to be done, but sometimes people have to do it in order to win - if you don't understand me I doubt you understand life - watch Arnold Schwarzenegger six rules of success. And I would like to tell you that reporting your colleague is very stupid in my opinion - why you need to do such a bad thing to him? Did he do something bad to you - no... Maybe it's best that you ignore it, but for sure you don't need to report him - you will make him unhappy, and if you ignore it nobody'll be unhappy, right? If you obey all the rules (I'm talking about the rules, not the law) you won't go far in your life... If you don't believe me check the most successful guys in the planet - what do you think, they obeyed all the rules and never cheated on anything??? Think out of the box. I know intelligent guys with great academic experience and at the same time guys who only graduated school and are 100 more successful than the first. Be cool, don't take things so seriously - it's not a robbery or a rape, as I said - take action when somebody's been made unhappy, this is not the case. And now you're about to make someone unhappy, why?
> -13 votes
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Tags: plagiarism, coursework, cheating
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thread-20975 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20975 | What does it mean "a dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction"? | 2014-05-15T02:04:04.020 | # Question
Title: What does it mean "a dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction"?
It appears in thesis, e.g. "A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics".
Does it mean the thesis is OK for a Ph.D, just some reviewers have comments? or does it mean that it's not good enough for Ph.D, and although the one summits it will not continue to work on the thesis, but still decide to submit it for, i don't know, archiving?
# Answer
> 19 votes
This is a standard bit of text that means that the dissertation is submitted towards **one** of the requirements for the PhD degree. There are other requirements (e.g. coursework, oral defense), so the dissertation alone is not enough to earn the degree.
It says nothing about the quality of the dissertation.
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Tags: phd, thesis
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thread-20880 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20880 | How to define author order of a collaborative paper where all authors have contributed equally? | 2014-05-13T13:04:27.390 | # Question
Title: How to define author order of a collaborative paper where all authors have contributed equally?
I am finishing writing a manuscript in collaboration with a dozen of colleagues. The paper is mainly theoretical, does not involved experimentation of any kind and is born from numerous discussions between all the collaborators (it is actually hard to tell when the project started). No one really took the lead in the project, at least not during the whole time (for meeting setup and so someone had to take the lead, but only temporary). In addition, the ten collaborators are coming from 6-7 different research groups and universities.
In such case, when everyone as more or less the exact same contribution, what is the best way to determine the author order on the paper, without making any diplomacy misstep?
PS: in my field , alphabetical order is really not common.
PS2: we do not have time for a 25 games croquet tournament...
# Answer
> 15 votes
Since your field does not normally do standard alphabetical ordering, then its use here might signify that something unusual is going on. So you could in principle list everybody in alphabetical order, identify the corresponding author, and then insert a note in the acknowledgments that everyone contributed more or less equally to the paper.
Alternatively, in some fields, papers can be authored by "teams" instead of individuals—although all the individuals participating in the team are cited somewhere. This is more typical when the collaborations run to the hundreds of authors rather than a few to a dozen. If the journal you submit to allows this, it would probably be the fairest option of all.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Recently I have seen a paper draft that had a footnote at the author list (which contained more than the two persons named below) stating that
> A. Uthor and C. Ollaborator contributed to the present work in equal parts and share first authorship.
Maybe this would be an option in your case as well? By this you have made clear which persons did the main part of the work and give the first position in the name list to the one who managed all the submission process.
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Tags: authorship, collaboration
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thread-20979 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20979 | Job prospects after completing graduate studies in Geology | 2014-05-15T08:23:24.903 | # Question
Title: Job prospects after completing graduate studies in Geology
# Background
I am in my mid-30s' and have recently found myself in a dilemma. Around 4 years ago I completed a MSc. (Geology) and two professional courses (in other fields) in Northern America as an international student. After concluding them I had to leave Northern America for personal reasons (I came back to Europe).
# Problem
I applied for 1000s and 1000s of job worldwide (related and unrelated to my background) and consulted several career counselors to introduce myself to the industry at best, asking for help or suggestions to all the people within and outside my network. Unfortunately, I didn't find any job. I had even a lot of complications due to VISA issues.
# Possible solution?
Now there seems to be the opportunity to take a PhD in my field. The fact is that I never really wanted to take a doctoral program, as I have always felt uncomfortable in academia and I am not very interested in research itself.
# Question(s):
1. Is it too late to do a PhD at my age?
2. How do you know PhD is a good fit for yourself?
3. What job prospects are there for a PhD in Geology (in this challenging economy)?
4. Are my job prospects better or worse with a PhD?
# Answer
Your question has several parts and may be considered too wide for this forum. From what I can see you have a question about your own motivation, which only you can answer. Doing a PhD is a hard job and you need to be motivated to do it successfully. Motivation does not have to be to love your task but also to do it for a goal further on. A PhD is furthermore not just an academic path-breaker. In a PhD are a number of useful skills that are sought after, which include critical thinking, writing, presentation, analysis, synthesis etc.
A second part of your question deals with the job market. To my knowledge geology PhDs do not seem to have problems finding jobs. There is demand for PhD level candidates within both exploration and environmental sectors of industry and government. Being from Sweden, it seems a very high percentage of our students do very well. I do not have any statistics for geology but have numbers for Physical Geography and in that field about 7% had "unknown" jobs whereas the rest had employment in academia, public sector, private sector, NGO, and a small proportion in other fields but all relevant to their education (y-scale is in number of PhDs, QG = Quaternary Geology; PG = Physical Geography):
Statistics from the University of Minnesota Geology department shows similar numbers (now, two data points is not much but I think this provides an indication of the value of a PhD in the field of Earth Sciences):
Adding to my second point is a point of social skills. With a higher ranking job, come skills beyond the factual content of an education. I already touched upon the skills but if I look at graduates who really have succeeded, in the sense they left academia and got high-paying and interesting, challenging jobs, most have been able to present themselves very well and this part is not to be understated.
In the end, the possibility of success in job searching after doing a PhD is definitely there but it will without doubt also depend on your own interest in pushing and present yourself and the quality of your work/skills and work ethics.
> 2 votes
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Tags: phd, europe, science
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thread-20984 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20984 | What is a reasonable time to resubmit revised papers after they have been peer reviewed? | 2014-05-15T10:16:57.503 | # Question
Title: What is a reasonable time to resubmit revised papers after they have been peer reviewed?
I'm pondering on how much time I should plan to finalize a paper that has received a 'revise and resubmit' letter from the journal editor.
I know that I should return it as soon as possible. However, given that I have other work to do I would like to know if there's an unwritten rule on how long should I take to resubmit.
# Answer
Many editors report the deadline in their decision letter. However, I have seen some decision letters without a deadline.
Please note that most submission systems provide a Due On date. See this screenshot from Manuscript Central:
If there is no indication regarding a deadline either in the letter, or in the submission system (or the journal website), the best for you would be to *contact the handling editor*.
> 13 votes
# Answer
Times vary. In my field three weeks for minor and six weeks for major revisions seems common. If the journal does not provide any general guidelines on this one would hope that the editor would do so. From your question, I take it neither has occurred. You can then approach the problem by trying to assess how much time you need (given other chores etc.) and then contact the editor asking if your estimated time plus a week or some smaller buffer would be acceptable. That way you gain a deadline against which to work and remove possibly annoying reminders.
So I will not attempt to provide a fixed time for your specific case since what is customary varies both between disciplines and between journals but trying to get a reasonable time frame to which you can commit should be a good step to take.
> 8 votes
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Tags: peer-review, paper-submission, time-management
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thread-20982 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20982 | Do researchers reuse benchmark results for existing algorithm when comparing with their algorithm? | 2014-05-15T09:09:16.327 | # Question
Title: Do researchers reuse benchmark results for existing algorithm when comparing with their algorithm?
Unfortunately I do not have any prior research experience, therefore I had a few questions while I was studying papers on cluster analysis.
Can a researcher legally and with permission use the benchmark values of the pre-existing algorithm to compare with theirs? This question came to me after I noticed identical results reported in multiple papers for some population based cluster analysis algorithms. The different papers propose a new algorithm and then compare the performance of it with some other algorithms over some common dataset. I have noticed that, for some algorithms the values reported are an exact match. The nature of these algorithm is stochastic, and also the different authors claim to have run the algorithms different number of iterations and then use the mean. Therefore no two sets of run will result with the same mean, min, max and standard deviation.
My suspicion is either it is permissible to reuse the benchmark results with permission. Or a common benchmarking framework exists (still, how can two papers reporting using different number of iterations land into the same identical result?)
I have reproduced the work of the papers using Octave and benchmark is similar to what is reported in the papers, but is definitely not identical.
Also, how generally these are done? If a researcher has to implement 5 algorithms to compare, then do they implement their own and then verify and compare or request the version the author has used and then benchmark with respect to that specific piece of code to maintain unbiased experimentation?
\[EDIT\]
Quoting the results from another paper (with citation) is all right, but using it in the benchmark comparison table is something which is practiced in research?
# Answer
> Quoting the results from another paper (with citation) is all right, but using it in the benchmark comparison table is something which is practiced in research?
I would wager it is *not done enough*. It is certainly ok, even required, to compare your results to earlier work, and the more fair and unbiased you can do this, the better. It is perfectly acceptable to say "on the right-hand side of Table XY, we report the results for this problem previously achieved in \[1\]" (and then list them exactly as reported).
The one thing to make sure, though, is that when you want to say that you are better than a previous work, the comparison is actually fair. For instance, one sometimes sees papers where the authors use a long-running deterministic algorithm (which you need a map/reduce cluster to execute on) and claim that their work is better than an earlier heuristic approach, which was built for speed and on-line execution. Don't do that.
> 5 votes
# Answer
You are definitely allowed to quote the results from another paper, with citation. You can also email the author and ask for the code (or grab it from their webpage). In this case, citation is also the right thing.
Depending on the benchmarks in question, the results may yield the same results to the accuracy presented on the paper (if I get a value of 0.98547856842, I will probably round it to 0.985). If you repeat the same benchmark on the same dataset enough times, you can converge to the same numbers to the accuracy printed. It is even easier if the dataset is small.
Another way to enforce replicability is to use the same random seed.
This said, I would be suspicious if they both report the exact same results. If you have the mean, standard deviation, and population size, you can do a statistical test to check the probability of them being reported equal.
If they just copied the results from the other paper without citing it, it would be a bad practice, but it does not invalidate the research.
> 1 votes
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Tags: research-process, experiment-design
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thread-20989 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20989 | Does a tutorial type conference submission differ significantly from a regular submission? | 2014-05-15T10:54:02.597 | # Question
Title: Does a tutorial type conference submission differ significantly from a regular submission?
I work mainly with *in silico* method development and data analysis within biomedical research. For an upcoming conference I intend to go with a tutorial-type of submission instead of a "regular" conference submission, which in our field would be a teaser of upcoming papers or application of something that is already published.
Based on what I read here on Academia.SE, in other fields (e.g. CS) conference papers are more prestigious (and thus more desirable) than conventional journal papers, but in our field it's the other way around, people prefer getting a "real" publication rather than a "conference paper" and thus typically don't want to give away much at a conference. This is simply because *a)* the same set of results would not be novel if submitted later to a journal, and *b)* if the results are still preliminary there is always the risk of being scooped.
At any rate, given the background, I consider preparing a tutorial type contribution where I present the practical \_do\_s and \_dont\_s of this one particular type of data analysis. I have noticed that many scientists in the field are not very comfortable with this type of analysis and it would also be a nice way to promote my methods. I am mostly considering this as a poster presentation, but of course an oral presentation would work as well.
So my question is: *Does a tutorial type submission differ significantly than a regular submission (for instance with respect to how the abstract should look like)? Is there anything in particular I should be careful about?*
# Answer
> 3 votes
Tutorials at conferences in my field (supercomputing/HPC) are half-day or full-day sessions where you and your co-authors get up and teach lectures on your proposed and (maybe) have hands-on sessions where the students can try what they learn. These sessions are usually on a special day either right before or right after the regular paper talks and cost extra for attendees. There are often honoraria for the presenters due to the level of work required to organize the sessions. The submissions tend to be much shorter than the papers, but they also include CVs for the teachers and sample lecture slides from related or prior tutorials or lectures. A tutorial would never be given as a poster.
Given that, perhaps you mean to present a paper or poster that would be more of a "How To" guide. Which is to say that you don't intend to give a half-day or full-day lecture on your topic. Perhaps you don't intend to give any new results, but simply show how certain methods are applied to you field. This might be acceptable to your conference's program committee depending on what is asked for in the call for papers/participation, but I suspect some sort of novel result will be required.
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Tags: publications, conference, paper-submission, abstract
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thread-19545 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19545 | Is it OK for an MSc Student to Review a Scientific Paper? | 2014-04-19T19:34:53.343 | # Question
Title: Is it OK for an MSc Student to Review a Scientific Paper?
I am an MSc Student of Computer Science at a department that is considered to be in the top ten CS departments in the world (QS Rankings here). I am telling this, just to let you know, that I have some good enough (I guess) general background in Computer Science. However, I am just an MSc student, not somebody who is a specialist, knows a lot of things including the current research conducted in a specific field.
I was asked today, from an editor of a journal, to review a paper. I would loved to do that, but I will probably respond negatively, as I can understand the danger of saying yes to a paper that does not actually show a good amount of research just because I am unaware of the current research and/or expertise on that field.
However, I can *understand* most of the papers in Computer Science and I found mistakes some times that were reported to their authors, who admitted that their papers had some mistakes. Therefore, I may be able to find some errors, but I am afraid that I may be unable to say whether a paper fully justifies and in a correct way what the authors want to show.
My question is: What should I respond to the editor provided the above?
# Answer
This is a good question: at what point in one's academic career should one begin refereeing papers?
I think the first order of business is to make sure that the editor knows you are an MSc student. In fact, inquiring into why you were chosen to referee the paper seems reasonable to me: the answer may help you determine whether you are qualified. Perhaps for instance your thesis advisor got the request and passed it along to you. That's a good situation for you: you can read the paper for correctness (in my experience, assuming the requisite base level of competence and understanding, the younger the referee, the more likely she is to conscientiously read and check a paper for correctness) and then solicit your advisor's help in determining the appropriateness for the journal.
In fact, no matter what this is a good opportunity to talk to your advisor: she will be the best person (aside from you) to help you determine whether or not you are "ready" to competently referee the paper. If she says no, you should probably turn down the request. If she says yes, see if you can get her help on the higher level issues that you are rightly concerned about.
Let me also say that you have to start refereeing papers sometime (or you become someone who never referees papers even into the later stages of their career: I know such people, and although so far as I know they landed in that situation through no fault of their own, it is clearly an undesirable state of affairs for the community at large), and no matter what age or rank you start, you will still have to wrestle with the issues of knowing what standards to impose. (For that matter, sometimes I get a referee request from a journal that I have never read or even heard of before. I try to ask the editor for more information but have sometimes just been told things which amount to "Use your best judgment." So I did.) There is a lot of subjectivity in the refereeing process, and though you may feel less confident about your opinion as a very junior academic, in reality it is far from clear that what you do will be worse than what some more experienced person would do!
**Shorter Version**: You need to get a sense of whether this is a job that you can handle competently in a reasonable amount of time. Don't be afraid to ask for guidance in determining the answer to this. Being a master's student does not disqualify you in any obvious way. If you can do it -- without interfering too much with your other responsibilities, of course -- then you probably should. It will be a valuable learning experience.
> 33 votes
# Answer
I don't think it directly matters what point you are in your education or what university you are studying at. It is more important that you have written and published some papers yourself in the field. You need to have had the experience of having your own papers reviewed before you can review someone else's, just so that you know first hand what is expected of you. It is not common for someone at MSc level to have that experience but if you have then that's fine.
> 7 votes
# Answer
(Just to add a point that’s not yet been mentioned.)
One thing you can do is to explicitly mention you your own level of knowledge in the review. I recently began one review something like "This work is correct and interesting, and as far as I know it's new, but I don't know the literature on the topic thoroughly enough to be certain of that."
Indeed, in my field, most reviews come with a field on the score-sheet to give your own level of confidence, usually on a scale of 0 (null) to 4 (expert). I would be uncomfortable reviewing anything where I’d rate myself 0 or 1, and for a 2, I would want to check with the editor before accepting the review, and see if they would prefer to ask another reviewer. But from an editor's point of view, a well-thought out review from someone inexperienced but conscientious — especially when that inexperience is known, and can be allowed for — may well be better than a hurried review from an expert, and is certainly better than no review at all.
> 3 votes
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Tags: publications, peer-review, paper-submission
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thread-16575 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16575 | How to evaluate the quality of a conference that has a high ERA ranking, but whose organizer has a lot of negative reviews online? | 2014-02-05T03:02:18.063 | # Question
Title: How to evaluate the quality of a conference that has a high ERA ranking, but whose organizer has a lot of negative reviews online?
In Australia we follow something known as the ERA ranking, when submitting papers to journals and conferences. My lab stresses publication in venues which are graded as only A or A(star), as per this system ( ERA-A increases possibilities of funding). In the area of biomedical engineering there is a specific conference which I found is ranked as ERA-A. Not a lot of international biomedical conferences are ERA A-ranked.
The problem is I found a lot of negative reviews about the conference organizers online and therefore am skeptical about sending my paper there. Yet, I also know that an ERA-A rank publication very early in my doctoral program can make a good impact on the committee, when my doctoral assessment review comes up later this year. Moreover, this will release some pressure/tension in terms of the doctoral review and I could go on to work on larger targets without worrying about the doctoral assessment ( since it would be considered good progress if I can show an ERA-A paper in the first year of my program).
However much I try, I have failed to understand how this conference gets a top australian rank, when there are so many negative things said online about these conference organizers. One possibility, is that this particular conference is the only one which may be famous. The other is a lot australian academics might have been ranking it as ERA-A. But if so, why only Australia? What does the rest of the world say? The third possibility is that the online reviews are dubious claims made to malign the organisation.
How to evaluate the quality of a conference like this?
# Answer
You shouldn't take the ERA rankings too seriously. Ranking ten of thousands of journals was an enormous job, and they did amazingly well given the size of the task. However, in the process they made a few questionable judgment calls and every once in a while an outright mistake.
For example, in my field of mathematics, the list of A-rated journals looks rather good overall, but there are a few surprises and at least one journal I am convinced doesn't remotely deserve an A (Fuzzy Sets and Systems).
I'd recommend asking your advisor or other faculty members for their opinion about the IASTED biomedical engineering conference (rather than relying on opinions from random people on the internet). If they are familiar with it, then they should have an opinion about whether the ERA A rating is well deserved. If they aren't familiar with it, then that is itself a bad sign. Not being familiar with a C journal in your specialty is understandable, but not being familiar with a genuine A journal would be more surprising.
You can also investigate it yourself. Have they published any papers you've read or seen cited? Can you find any papers in their proceedings that impress or excite you? If so, then at least your paper would be in good company. If not, then that's another bad sign.
> 4 votes
# Answer
After taking a look at some of the feedback online, I would say your third possibility is correct. The websites speaking against IASTED sound as if they were all created by the same person/people, and they appear to be using keyword spamming to defame IASTED conferences. Actually, the malicious websites I saw were attacking not only IASTED, but the IEEE, WORLDCOMP, and several other major conferences.
The BioMed series is in its eleventh year, and is technically cosponsored by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. In fact, the IEEE EMB has been involved in many of the past iterations as well. Just a quick look at the information from last year’s conference (http://www.iasted.org/conferences/pastinfo-791.html) shows established speakers from credible universities, including the chair, Prof. Aldo Boccaccini. I have colleagues who have worked on IASTED conferences, and they will attest to the double-blind peer review and plagiarism checks in place.
I would trust the ERA rating; agencies like this are very careful as to which conferences they will endorse. Hope that helps!
> 3 votes
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Tags: publications, conference, ranking
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thread-14390 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14390 | Convincing professors to help with the founding of new university | 2013-11-26T15:14:45.483 | # Question
Title: Convincing professors to help with the founding of new university
### Background
I'm doing some work for a new online-only university that is being founded, based in the US and offering degrees up to doctorate in courses like history, philosophy and literature. It's heavily research-based and doesn't allow credit transfer.
One of the great things about this university is that it will offer scholarships to people in developing countries allowing them to complete a degree at a US university for as little as $100. The university is not designed to make money, but only to keep itself going. (This does not mean it is non-profit; in fact most non-profits are designed to make as much money as possible, they just don't have shareholders.)
We need academics/professors to volunteer to advise and help us get started, especially during the current period where the application for a new university is being considered. We expect them to help by:
* associating with the university for the sake of the application, even if only in name;
* marking theses, when students reach that stage (though no teaching will be required).
### The questions
I've tried emailing professors asking for their help, but it seems no one is interested. I get the impression that online universities don't have much respect from these people and that no one wants to risk their reputation by being involved with something new and different.
**What is the best approach to convince established professors to contribute to this project?** Would they expect to be paid in return? (A stipend is possible, as well as a title, but no salary.)
# Answer
There are a number of issues here:
1. The new university probably isn't accredited (yet?) and is for-profit (at least that's how I interpret "this does not mean it is non-profit"). In principle a for-profit, unaccredited university could be innovative and wonderful, but it will face a lot of prejudice because most such universities are not.
2. Joining a new venture like this involves putting a lot of trust in the people who are running it. If they turn out to be crazy or dishonest, then everyone involved will look bad. It's difficult to reach this level of trust, and almost impossible starting with e-mail from a stranger.
3. Advising research students takes time and effort. It's not just a matter of proposing a topic and waiting for the thesis to come in; instead, there's a lot of advising and mentoring. This is a major commitment, and I wouldn't want to have my name associated with something like this unless I was doing everything necessary to help the students succeed. Some of your comments (such as "virtually no need of professors until it comes to marking theses" or "we need academics associated with the university for the sake of the application, even if its only in name") sound like I would be setting students up for failure or misleading them as to my level of involvement.
4. Time is a major limiting factor. If I had all the time in the world, then I would cheerfully volunteer to help with all sorts of things. As it is, though, there are a lot of students at my own institution who seek supervision, and working with them in person is more satisfying and productive than supervising someone over the internet. If I maintain my current level of engagement with students in person, and add internet activities, then what am I going to cut? It's not enough to make a case that participating in this new university is valuable. Instead, you have to make the case that it is more valuable than whatever I might be doing instead, such as research or family time.
5. What you describe comes across as saying professors aren't really necessary except for validating research output and ought to be willing to do that for relatively little money. This philosophy won't be popular with many professors, who would like to believe they engage in plenty of crucial activities. If this isn't the impression you would like to convey, then you need to modify your sales pitch.
> 27 votes
# Answer
Different requests warrant different communication styles. By simply sending an email and leaving it at that, your request is in the same boat as any other piece of spam they receive; unsolicited mail asking for their resources (time, money, whatever).
If you truly wish to have them partner with you in a new business venture, you should engage in standard courtship behavior expected for this sort of relationship; phone conversations, in-person conversations, take them out for coffee, lots of follow-up. Additionally, they'll need to be convinced that you're not a fly-by-night nobody and that it's worth their while to work with you. This takes time and effort, and is guaranteed not to happen if your main communication channel is email. You are acting in a Sales position here; treat it as such.
Do note that you will likely be received with significant skepticism, and you should have ready answers for all the questions you're sure to receive.
> 13 votes
# Answer
This my vary by school, but at least at my institution, this is close to the line where approval from higher-ups is required for a professor to participate. While professors have a great deal of latitude with how they use their time, the university does actually claim possession of our teaching (it is, after all, what they're paying us for).
There are written-in exceptions (for example, giving tutorials on research subjects is a standard thing, and allowed), and it's possible to request permission for other cases. It's not clear to me from your question whether what you're asking for would require permission, but it's close enough that I probably wouldn't be comfortable without permission. That's a big enough deal that it might discourage participants who were otherwise inclined.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Unfortunately I seem to agree with JeffE. It does sound like a scam. The open universities I know: a) They have permanent administrative personnel organizing the university tasks b) Despite the fact they are online they have buildings (not necessarily a campus) but at least offices where the administrative people work. c) They have deans, professors and lecturers. Some of them are part-time but certainly not all of them. All faculty is paid accordingly d) Before hiring professors they have courses, syllabus etc. Based on that they hire their faculty. g) For hiring faculty they make public announcements. Public announcements are put in scientific societies (i.e., ACM), on the university site, on press etc. As a result they cost money. Emailing professors sound a poor-guy's scam working from his basement.
If you have all those prerequisites, you will be taken seriously. If not, you should probably look to well-established open universities for inspiration.
> 6 votes
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Tags: professorship, university, online-degree
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thread-20833 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20833 | How much of my ongoing unpublished research should I disclose to others? | 2014-05-12T21:06:56.330 | # Question
Title: How much of my ongoing unpublished research should I disclose to others?
As part of my PhD, I have already published a paper and am working to expand it further. Recently, a PhD student (who I didn't know) from another university contacted me regarding my paper. He showed interest in the paper and the direction that I'm working on, wanted me to explain it further and, if possible, share the framework that I developed and used for experiment so that he could use it for his own research.
Although I like to help him as it will be nice if we can come up with some collaboration, I'm afraid that it might turn into an competition instead if he decides to pursue the same direction as mine alone. Since I'm still working on it without any concrete result, it is possible for him to solve it first and publish papers. I'm not saying that he might steal my ideas/tools since he can put my name in an acknowledgement.
So, my question is to what extent I should share or disclose my current research which is in progress.
# Answer
Great question! I found myself in similar situations as a student and likewise as a mentor for other students when talking with people working on similar topics.
A favourite quote of mine is from George Bernard Shaw:
> “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”
I believe this is an ideal philosophy for research in a sense that ideally, everyone should gain from the free exchange of ideas.
However, as you gain experience, you realize that it can be just an ideal.
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My first experience concerning the cost of openly sharing results was when I was a PhD student. Early on, I had the basics of what seemed like an important result for the community and had some initial results. My supervisor urged me to try and publish but the paper was borderline rejected from the conference with comments like "nice idea but still too early". I thus published it as a poster in the informal proceedings. In the meanwhile, my supervisor and I had been in conversation about how to progress further, get more results and mature the work. He presented the poster, spoke with various people and told me that he had had lots of interesting conversations: lengthy conversations with two senior researchers in particular.
I continued working on the problem. My supervisor and I had some difference of opinion on the direction the work should go in (theoretical vs. applied CS basically). We got bogged down in some theoretical questions where I felt the impact could be on simplifying the problem and working on the applied side. I missed the next deadline for the conference in our area but lo and behold, two papers were published that pretty much had developed the applied side of the idea. I read the two papers and realized that both had, in parallel, at the same venue, developed the ideas I had been working on ... with one or two interesting side observations. Both works were from groups of the two senior researchers my supervisor had talked to. One cited my informal/preliminary results as an inspiration, the other didn't cite it at all.
Four years later, the first paper now has 175 citations in Google Scholar, the second paper has 100, my paper has 41. I published a later paper on the topic that's doing a little better, but for sure, the early birds had taken the worm.
In part I'm happy that the idea was developed and they did add new ideas, and I've worked on various things since, but I honestly still regret not having formally marked the idea further before my supervisor exposed it. I also regret not being more urgent in getting the full work published.
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This is not to suggest that you should stay tight-lipped at conferences or turn down all collaborations, but if you're worried about someone entering into competition with you, you might want to listen to that concern. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to not share every idea you have when you attend a conference. There are plenty of anecdotes of tight-lipped researchers: for example, nobody knew what Andrew Wiles was working on for several years while he was working towards a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
If you think the person is someone you can trust and someone who could help in a collaboration, listen to your gut. Test the water and see how knowledgeable they are or how they could contribute. Be careful if you have co-authors, not to talk about their ideas. If you want to collaborate, perhaps publish a technical report or a pre-print to mark your ideas first.
If in doubt, you don't have to tell them about your ideas straight away. Maybe stay quiet for the conference and email them later if you think you want to work together or to tell them about your ideas.
> 48 votes
# Answer
You certainly have no *obligation* to share your work before you've published it. So you can feel completely free to say "Sorry, this work is still in 'stealth' mode, I'll let you know when I can share more."
It's helpful to collaborate with someone you know and trust, if you know the collaborative direction will not conflict with your independent work. (For example, I sometimes collaborate with members of my same research group, and share with them ongoing findings on related work that I wouldn't share with outsiders.)
But otherwise, you can keep your findings to yourself until you are ready to publish, or until you feel confident that you have enough of a head start that you won't risk getting scooped.
> 29 votes
# Answer
Let me offer another perspective.
> ... to what extent I should share or disclose my current research which is in progress.
To the extent you would like our society to improve, or the body of human knowledge to grow.
Having other people interested in our ideas means that our ideas are confirmed by others to be promising. Among these people, there could be those who are more capable, more intellectually gifted, more persistent, more enthusiastic than we are.
I would expect that the more people are involved in attacking a particular problem or working on a solution, the higher the chance or the faster it would take to solve that problem.
So if we think of the big picture, I believe we should share as much as possible our ideas. True, other people would probably get greater recognition than we do, but that is all right. Others' gain might be our loss, but in the end, the society benefits. And that is exactly why academic community exists---to serve our society.
> 7 votes
# Answer
As others have noted, the free sharing of ideas is the epitome of what the academic community is all about. However, as was also noted, we soon learn that this is only an ideal; reality often isn't quite like that, for many reasons.
Without getting into the many reasons--mostly involving fear of getting scooped-- for not sharing much (if at all) about your ongoing research, there are several ways to manage this situation.
First, if you truly don't want to share your ideas and/or pursue possible collaboration, figure out how to (preferably nicely!) turn someone down. Try something along these lines:
"Sorry, that's still classified information. Would you like me to let you know when I can tell you more?"
However, in those cases in which you do want to exchange ideas, perhaps with the goal of assessing the potential for future collaboration, you obviously need a slightly different approach. One approach is to share one interesting 'nugget' of what you have found/are working on, and then turn the conversation to their work.
"How do you think that might fit in with what you are doing? Do you see any other ways in which x might apply to y?"
Ask for their input on a small piece of the current puzzle;
"What could you tell me about z, in the light of what I've told you about x?"
Your milage may vary, of course, but this approach can get you many fruitful ideas (Be sure to attribute them to the proper source!), interesting responses, and even valuable collaborations. You can often get a gut feeling for whether or not you are or should be comfortable with responding frankly or whether you want to be more circumspect. In general, the value of sharing with others outweighs the potential risk, though again, YMMV!
> 4 votes
# Answer
Did he offer you something interesting about his research? Just wait until you have finished and published. Then you can send him a copy.
> -1 votes
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Tags: research-process, collaboration
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thread-21031 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21031 | GRE Score Advice: Should I retake? | 2014-05-16T03:02:14.550 | # Question
Title: GRE Score Advice: Should I retake?
I took the GRE in April and recently received my score. I placed in the 88th percentile, which is respectable but far from impressive. I am hoping to get into a top 25 math grad school for a PhD in pure math. I don't think my score is representative of my mastery of the undergraduate curriculum as I barely prepared for the exam.
I didn't prepare as much as I should have and now am worried about whether I should study over the summer and take it again next year. I have an REU this summer which will eat up eight weeks and would like to get a start on my senior thesis afterwards. As such, my question is:
**As far as graduate school admissions are concerned, is it worth it to take the time out of more interesting pursuits to prepare for retaking the GRE next year?**
# Answer
Different admissions committees may handle things somewhat differently, as might different members of the same committee. However, I wouldn't worry about an 88th percentile score. As you say, it's respectable but not impressive, but that's OK. At top five universities, no score is high enough to be genuinely impressive by itself, and I don't think anyone gets that worked up about modest differences. (It's understood that some people are quick enough to score in the 99th percentile without breaking a sweat, while someone else might only reach the 90th percentile, and this difference is at best mild evidence for who has greater research potential.) At lower-ranked universities, there might be a little more scope for standing out via a high score, but it's certainly not necessary. I'm not aware of any university that would rule someone out for being in the 88th percentile (although of course I'm not familiar with every university's policies). By contrast, there are universities at which a 50th percentile score would cause consternation.
Of course, you'll have to have an impressive application in other ways, particularly letters of recommendation. However, you'd need that anyway: the extra margin of safety you would get in your application from having a higher GRE score would be small.
If you feel worried, it couldn't hurt to try taking the exam again. However, doing well in your REU and writing a great senior thesis are far more crucial than improving your GRE score, so you should definitely not compromise on those.
> 9 votes
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Tags: gre
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thread-21025 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21025 | Which topics to include in a teaching presentation? | 2014-05-15T22:48:49.727 | # Question
Title: Which topics to include in a teaching presentation?
I have been shortlisted for a lectureship position. The committee has asked me to present a 10 minutes (!) lecture on teaching game development topics to undergrads. My teaching experience amounts to TA roles during my post-doc and PhD. I am familiar with the topic however at this career stage I have not yet had the opportunity to manage a university course on my onw.
Given the time constraints, what would you (search committee) want to see in one such presentation? The overall course structure? Assessment/project ideas?
# Answer
> 5 votes
My content area is biology, and our major biology education research journal recently published a nice overview on this (open-source reference at end). Hopefully the results are relevant for your field as well.
* Make sure content is correct
* Follow instructions (keep to time limit and topic)
* Make the topic relevant (bring in a hot topic from research or news)
* Involve the audience (have an activity or "clicker question")
* Have teaching slides or use the board
I'd recommend trying to **find a course** (at the interviewing school or at a similar institution) that has an online syllabus so you can see how much is normally covered in a lecture. Then your first slide can be one that shows how you would cover the day's content, but places your 10 min talk in context. This is helpful if the "fun" part you want to do is in the middle of the imaginary lecture.
Then, pick something from the course that you think you can **create an activity** about. Can the audience develop something? Vote on an aspect of the code? Work in groups to find three common errors in a short piece of code? (I'm flailing around here, as game design is a mystery).
Build your lecture around that activity. Have the activity near the beginning. **Plan on everything taking at least twice as long** as you think.
Be **enthusiastic**.
Congratulations on the invite, and good luck!
Smith, M. K., Wenderoth, M. P., & Tyler, M. (2013). The Teaching Demonstration: What Faculty Expect and How to Prepare for This Aspect of the Job Interview. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 12(1), 12-18.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I think Adrienne's answer is quite good but I will add a few comments after recently being on the interviewing panel watching about 20 such sample lectures.
**The goal is for them to see how well you can teach.** Domain knowledge is important but if you cannot deliver it well then you will be a bad teacher...so they want to see how is your delivery.
I think it is unlikely they care about assessment at this stage (though that question could come up after your sample lecture). I believe it is really about seeing how well you can teach.
Adrienne's idea about activities supports the idea of active learning which general results in improved learning than the "stand and deliver" method. So, definitely do that.
The one breaking point I've seen in the past which can push you over the edge (in the good or bad way) is the panel asking themselves "Will our students understand this teacher?" It would help if you knew the level of the undergrads who would take this (first year? fourth year? overall quality of this school's students?) so you can target that level.
Watching other teachers is great but make sure you are watching the teacher which are actually getting the students to learn.
I've seen many colleagues (on the panels) make deciding comments like:
* I think she teaches at too high a level, not a good fit
* He used examples which were very easy to understand, our students would get that
* She adapted very well when the projector failed and could jump to the board and continue the lesson
Understand that those observing you might or might not have a background in the topic. Assuming you will be teaching first year students, pick a concept which would normally be taught, ideally one which is not so easy for all students to understand, and **show that you can make it very easy to understand**. Activities are a great way to test for understanding.
Good luck!
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Tags: teaching, presentation, faculty-application
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thread-21005 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21005 | Topical tag cloud generator for researchers/academics | 2014-05-15T17:29:14.917 | # Question
Title: Topical tag cloud generator for researchers/academics
I've seen a few academic homepages with tag clouds indicating their topics near the top of the page. I quite like the idea... it gives a nice simple/quick overview of the topics the person is interested in.
Thus I was looking for a tool to (help) generate a tag cloud of my own topics. I'm not looking for a generic tag cloud generator. Rather the tool should take a list of PDFs of papers, extract the topical keywords and then generate the tag cloud. Ideally the tool should be clever enough to rule out noise or common stop-words like "related work", "funded by", and so on.
Alternatively, multiple tools could be used: e.g., one to do the extraction of weighted topics from the papers and another one to generate the image.
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Just to pull a nice looking example from some random topic searches on Google images ("`tag cloud logic programming`" in this case):
Source.
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**EDIT:** Why can I not use a generic tag cloud generator like Wordle?
If I use Wordle or generic tag cloud generators, I get "et", "al", "logic", "programming", "figure", "table". I can filter stop-words manually but I still get single words with no n-gram detection ("logic" and "programming" do not convey "logic programming").
On the other hand, there are tools for topic extraction that will intelligently extract n-gram topics from PDFs (using k-means, gazateers, tf-idf, that sort of stuff ... I'm not an expert). However, these are typically not weighted for sizing in tag clouds. Hence it seems you need a tool that connects/does both.
# Answer
> 9 votes
As I understand the main issues are:
* how to extract text from publications,
* how to extract disciplines/subjects from the text.
In the first case, following @ff524's comment, see Creating a word cloud from PDF documents. In general, you can try to search for `pdf to text conversion` (as PDF is a graphical format, sometimes it is tricky to get all content in the exact order, but for this application it should work fine).
When it comes to topic extraction, and elimination of common words, you need to compare your n-grams (i.e. sequences of n words) to some other dataset (for the one by Google). But maybe you need to compare it to n-grams created from scientific words (to eliminate `see Fig`, `et al.`, `previous works`).
However, even carefully looking at frequencies is not enough to eliminate all "common words". For example, if you paper discipline-specific words or expressions, it may be hard to distinguish them from discipline names. And, depending on your taste, you may or may not want to include them.
To extract disciplines you need to have some list of it, so you can compare with it. Some time ago I was collecting one (see this gist). One trick to make one is to look at Wikipedia for articles related to your branch.
If you are more in natural language processing, you can look at:
or search for similar publications.
For tag cloud visualization you can use http://www.wordle.net/ or something similar. But beware, some people are highly opinionated against tag clouds.
SIDE REMARK:
Personally, I think that graphs are a better tool to convey information, as similar concepts are clustered together (in opposition to having a soup of concepts). See things in line of e.g. TagOverflow or maps of SE (disclaimer: these are my projects). Once you get tags and some quantity relating them, it is easy to make a nice graph with Gephi.
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Tags: graphics, bibliometrics
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thread-20996 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20996 | PhD sanity check on project description and advisor | 2014-05-15T13:05:05.427 | # Question
Title: PhD sanity check on project description and advisor
I'm an industrial PhD student (Europe) and recently I'm finding myself reflecting over some events.
As industrial student I'm working for a Company. It is important to note that the Company (superiors/supervisors) have decided what subject (and its scope) I'll be working on. Basically, it was their idea for a new product.
It is worth noting that my boss is also my main supervisor (she is doing 20% at university and 80% at the Company).
Having this in mind, I'm finding some things odd:
1. I had to write PhD project description (milestones, etc. ) on my own.
2. A year after PhD commenced, my supervisor commented that "she still does not have vision about the project".
I just want to make sanity check and establish how often this happens and is it normal thing or not.
# Answer
> 12 votes
> I had to write PhD project description (milestones, etc. ) on my own.
This doesn't sound unusual to me. Writing project plans and drafting milestones is a part of graduate studies, but your supervisor should definitely be involved.
> A year after PhD commenced, my supervisor commented that "she still does not have vision about the project".
This is clearly unsettling for you, but sadly not that uncommon\*. The unusual part is the supervisor actually saying it. Nevertheless, I think it's a serious issue and your supervisor is apparently not taking his/her responsibilities seriously.
**Having a too loose mentoring/supervision during a PhD is a very good way of finding oneself in hell after 3-4 years of wandering.** Your concerns are by all means valid and you shouldn't let this slip. I would suggest to politely tell your advisor that you need a more precise direction to follow, otherwise you risk loosing precious time (and money) for you, him/her and, off course, the company.
I've heard frequent bad reports of peoples pursuing a PhD with a commercial company. But as stated by @nivag in the comments, people in industry tend not to have much experience supervising students. Try to be proactive: if you feel you need more support say so, very clearly.
\*I'm assuming that, being in Europe, you have a Master's degree and the PhD project is intended to last 3-4 years.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Having thought about this a bit more I feel I should probably expand my comments on Jigg's answer into a full answer.
On point 1. I agree with Jigg that this is fairly normal. In fact these requirements normally come from the university. My university requires me to write a project description and plan of work to be updated each year. You should definitely discuss what goes in this with your supervisor.
My personal opinion is that these documents tend to be bureaucratic pieces of rubbish that no one reads and only vaguely stick to. However, I suspect that is beside the point. The process of thinking about it is what is important as this should help you get an idea of 'the vision of the project' as you put it.
On 2. while the statement itself is obviously concerning I would be slightly reassured that your supervisor has told you this. I suspect there are some supervisors who wouldn't.
How you respond partly depends on whether you agree with the statement or not. If you agree that you don't have vision that should be your priority, it is hard to do research if you don't know what you're doing. Discuss with your supervisor what your plans for the project are and how you should go forward.
If you disagree with your supervisor there are several possible explanations. They may not know what you are thinking, especially if you do not talk to them that frequently. They may have a different idea of where the project should go than you. They may think your plan for the project is insufficient either to achieve what they want from the project or to get you a PhD. In any case you should meet your supervisor and discuss what your vision is for the project and what issues they have with it.
As a good starting point to understand the vision of your project I would look to answer these questions:
What is your project going to do/show/make?
How are you going to do/show/make it?
Why is it important to do/show/make it? (Why does anyone give a f\***?)
A final point is to not get too downhearted. One of the biggest drawbacks of doing a PhD in industry is that you have much less contact with other students. I think many PhD students go through a stage where they have serious issues with their research or supervisors or things. But as you probably don't deal with many other students on a daily basis you end up feeling that it is just you that has problems.
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Tags: phd
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