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112128 | Will I be penalized if i give someone who hasn't taken a test my test so he could study for his?
I took this Mathematics class and this student asked me if I could ask the teacher to send my test so I could send to him so he can study for the test. It's not that I don't want to be a good person but thinking about doing it is eating me and I feel if I do it so many things can go wrong for and ruin my future. What should I do?
You’re under no obligation to provide your friend with a copy of the test, particularly if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Just politely decline, and if pressed further, say that you don’t think it’s appropriate to ask the instructor to share the materials that way.
As for the possibility of a penalty, I would not share “active” materials like quizzes or exams that other classmates still have to take, because that could be viewed as an academic code violation. Sharing something that everyone has completed and received grades on may or may not be penalized, based on an instructor’s or program’s explicit rules.
I agree - the actual test is not “normal” revision material available to all...
@SolarMike: That depends a lot on the respective rules. In my place, it is usually considered due diligence for students to revise with previous actual tests (which are never reused in a relevant way, though).
@O.R.Mapper then if that is "normal" the student can ask the teacher themselves directly - taking it through a third person is what is odd...
@SolarMike: Indeed; either, the teacher has nothing to do with the entire process (with the exams being passed down among students, starting with a student who took the respective exam themselves), or any student can ask the teacher directly.
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99220 | Referring to author order on paper when arXiv and published copy are different
A paper that I need to refer to reasonably often has in its arXiv version the authors listed alphabetically by surname (as is the custom in mathematics). The published version lists the authors in a different order, having moved the last author to second place. The last author in the published version is recently told me he doesn't understand why people keep insisting on using the published author order (or to put it bluntly: why they keep listing him last).
What would be the correct way to refer to the joint work, given that the arXiv version is no less prominent than the published version? (Other than in the bibliography, where I would stick to the published order) I'm not sure whether it is more accurate to talk about the work/results of ABCD or of ADBC.
I consider the published version to be more prominent than the arXiv version, because it is clear who reviewed the published version, but unclear whether anyone reviewed the arXiv version.
I would use the order corresponding to which version you cite. Thus, use the arXiv order if the citation is to the arXiv appearance and use the published order if the citation is to the published version.
@user2768 the two versions are identical up to journal branding. And I don't know what you mean by "who reviewed the published version" : refereeing is anonymous.
@Dave I would cite both version simultaneously in the sense of giving both the journal reference and the arXiv number. The arXiv version is the same, and free to read.
I would actually cite both versions, with cross-references between the two. "[1] Alpher, Bethe, Gamow, and Deltoid. Twinkle twinkle little star. Preprint, October 2009. Arxiv:0980.1234 [astro-ph.CO]. Preliminary version of [2]." followed by "[2] Alpher, Gamow, Bethe, and Deltoid. Twinkle twinkle little star. J. Shiny Objects 14(3):123–194, 2010. Archival version of [1]." Ink is cheap.
@DavidRoberts the published version remains more prominent, because it is clear that it has been peer-reviewed. (Even though the arXiv version is identical, it is unknown whether it has been peer-reviewed. To discover that the reader needs to know about the peer-reviewed version and know that both versions contain the same material.) By "who reviewed the published version" I was referring to anonymous reviewers of the journal/conference/...
@JeffE since the OP has stated the two versions are identical, I'd suggest merging the two citations: [2] Alpher, Gamow, Bethe, and Deltoid. Twinkle twinkle little star. J. Shiny Objects 14(3):123–194, 2010. Also available as arxiv:0980.1234. (Ink might well be cheap, but the reader's time is not. The single citation hopefully suggests the versions are identical, whereas multiple citations might indicate distinct content.)
@user2768 But the two versions are not identical; they have different author orders! And it’s impossible to tell which of the author orders is “correct”, so I won’t (and shouldn’t) try. Thank Alpher et al. for wasting the readers time (or the reader for actually reading the bibliography(?!)), not me.
@JeffE the documents aren't completely identical. The orders are different, the formatting is different, and no doubt the content is different too. (Any suggestion that you're wasting people's time was unintended! Your comments/answers are of high-quality.) The author ordering is entirely unimportant for me. Albeit, the ordering used in the main body should correspond to the ordering in the bibliography. This is where the problem arises.
@User2768 the content is identical, up to the journal branding and the author order.
@DavidRoberts, yes, you've said that, but are you sure? Is it possible that a colleague or an editor made a change? Have you verified that? For these reasons, your readers cannot be sure that the two versions are identical and no one has the time to check.
(That said, I'm usually more inclined to trust the technical report version, which hasn't been touched by an editor, because that version is how the authors wanted me to read it, rather than how the editor thinks I should read it.)
Either it's an error in the journal, or I'll be suspicious of the soundness of the paper. Why would two identical papers have different author order unless the authors, who clearly don't speak to each other, send without consulting the others have changed the order of authors on their own mind? (That's why I always try to stick with alphabetic ordering. It shows pettiness otherwise).
I'm not suspicious of the soundness of the paper, @Dilworth, since I understand the results myself, have generalised them in my own work, and know at least three of the authors personally. I don't know why this happened.
Unless it's a mistake, then something is seriously wrong here: either the contribution is distributed evenly between authors or not. Having identical papers with different author orders shows that one of these publications is falsely representing the contribution of authors.
@Dilworth in mathematics the usual practice is to list alphabetically, whatever the various contributions. There is no magic position (first author, last author etc). That is why the situation is odd.
@DavidRoberts, yes. That's precisely what I said: something is deeply odd here.
As Aaron Montgomery's answer states, if you use the full author list in the text, it should match the author list in the bibliography. However, with four authors, you're usually in a position where you can just say
A et al.
in the text rather than
A, B, C, and D
or
A, D, B, C
I find this trick particularly useful when writing A et al. [1,2], where [1] A, B, C, and D ..., and [2] A, D, B, and C ...
This is really unfair to B, C, and D.
Writing "A et al" in a field that (usually!) uses alphabetical order of authors is not a good practice.
Are there a lot of papers in such fields that have lots of authors?
Three- and four-author papers are more common now in mathematics than they used to be.
@PeteL.Clark: At some point, writing out a long list of authors for completeness's sake doesn't seem like a good practice, either. I would try to refer to that paper obliquely.
In this paper alpha.math.uga.edu/~pete/Main_Theorem.pdf I refer to a result of "Alon-Kleitman-Lipton-Meshulam-Rabin-Spencer." It is rare but not unheard of for math papers to have more than six authors. But I have never seen a paper in pure mathematics with so many authors that it would add any significant length to one's paper to list all the names in full.
I agree with @PeteL.Clark here, though I've had publishers change such references to "Alon, et al." in the copy-editing (even with only three authors).
I would defer to the order in the version that shows up in your bibliography, presuming that one of those made it in. If not, or if you're somehow citing both, I personally would use the peer-reviewed ordering, but I doubt anyone would quibble either way.
I doubt anyone would quibble either way one of the authors is, as I noted in my question.... And I would stick the arXiv reference with the published version in my bibliography as a matter of principle, since it is a freely available copy: there's no reason to cite both separately.
I mean, if you're worried about personally offending one of the authors, I suppose you have your answer.
This is probably an error on the part of the journal. This happened to us once on a four author paper, because the journal got confused because they typeset 4-author papers in a 2-by-2 grid and then messed up the bibliographic information when they read it off the grid. We’ve tried to get it fixed, but it’s essentially impossible. Go with the version that the authors have control over.
Didn't think of that. I could ask A, the senior author (coincidence in this case that they are alphabetically first) if that happened.
I have spoken with D, who was placed in second position in the author listing for the published version without their knowledge. They've said they don't mind me referring to the paper placing them last, as in the arXiv version. I'm not going to hack BibTeX to fiddle with author order in the citation keys, but if I use the authors in a sentence I will use "A, B, C and D".
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107855 | What is a customary startup package for a USA Engineering TT position at an R1?
My colleague and I, both postdocs, are going to TT positions at separate R1 public universities. For various reasons, our advisers have little idea what present startup packages look like. I am in Industrial, he is in MechE.
Here are some guesses from our last brainstorming session:
Equipment (thinking 100k or so)
Cash for travel, supplies, etc (Thinking 50k or so)
Grad student support (thinking 1-2 grad students for 3 years)
Postdoc support (might be substituted for a grad student)
Summer salary (for 2-3 years)
Thoughts? Additional things?
are going to TT positions -- Does this mean that you are still at the interview stage or that you have a job offer in hand / have already accepted an offer?
I would guess this varies a lot, even within the same field. Perhaps even within the same department.
Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/85919/startup-package-for-assistant-professor-in-usa-should-i-ask-for-a-an-extra-phd?rq=1
Nothing in your proposed startup packages sounds too unreasonable. The only thing that might be a problem is the number of years of support. You’ll want to know how much it costs to support a grad student, between tuition and stipend. The larger the cost, the fewer the years of support you’ll be able to ask for.
Also, I would expect that the department will not support a post doc, but would instead prefer you to use their funding to support graduate students.
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98762 | How should I respond to a reviewer comment that I didn't make changes when I did?
I received an email from the editor, including a quote from the reviewer saying "I regret to inform you that the authors failed to address the points I raised in my previous review of this manuscript, in this case, any further comments on this manuscript is pointless."
I sent them an email to ask about the point that we failed to address because I made the changes in the manuscript that the reviewer ask for it. The reviewer said that the authors failed to update the reference list. I add 3 more references to support the old one because he said in his review paper that if the authors don't want to omit old references at least can use them together with more recent ones.
This is the reviewer's comments on my original manuscript:
The references list needs to be updated. There are old references (1980s – 1990s) that can be replaced with more recent ones. Please see below a number of suggested recent papers that can replace old references. If the authors are not willing to omit old references at least can use them together with more recent ones.
And this is his comment after I updated my manuscript:
Unfortunately, the authors failed to update the reference list, and failed to respond to these comments. There are no changes on the manuscript. Authors should address any comments given by reviewers, in a point-to-point response; even if they do not want to consider the comments or suggestions from reviewers they must address their reasons for not considering these comments and suggestions. Given that there are no changes on the manuscript, and there is no point-to-point response from the authors, this review is pointless. Thank you for given me the opportunity to review this manuscript, I leave the final decision to you, since there is no response from the authors.
Please advise me if there is anything that I should be doing? The other reviewer recommended that my manuscript be accepted "as is."
Did you double check that you uploaded the correct (i.e. revised) version of the manuscript, and indicated any changes you made during revision?
"There are no changes on the manuscript." It sounds to me as if the editor might have accidentally sent the original version, and not the revised version, to the referee.
What did you respond in your point-to-point reply to this comment (adding recent references), and what did you do?
Might be technical issue here. You and editor should double check whether updated version has been sent to the reviewer.
Yes I uploaded the correct manuscript and highlight it with different color. Thank you all I will check with the editor.
Did you attach a document with the list of changes? A response to reviewers?
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51615 | Unconscious bias toward recommendation letters written by men?
This is an attempt to rescue a strongly down-voted question.
Are there any studies investigating possible unconscious gender bias in evaluating recommendation letters? Specifically, is there any published evidence that recommendation letters with female authors are (or are not) less effective than recommendation letters with male authors? Studies considering letters for graduate admission, faculty hiring, or promotion and tenure are all relevant.
Let me emphasize that I am not asking about intentional sexism, which I assume is sufficiently rare to be insignificant, but rather unconscious bias. I am also not asking for anecdotes, but pointers to actual published literature.
Similar studies have revealed significant gender disparity in several related academic contexts, including recommendation letters for male vs. female applicants. Other examples include:
Applications to lab manager positions
Prospective doctoral students emailing faculty
Judgement of publication quality
Teaching evaluations (See also)
Selection for mathematical tasks (See also)
Are requests in lieu of literature searches really on topic?
@keshlam that is basically what the [tag:reference-request] tag is for, yes.
It's hard to see how a test with recommendation letters from imaginary recommeders (varying the gender of the recommender) could be done. In decreasing order of influence the recommender could be known personally to the reader ("Jack and I coauthored a paper together 12 years ago", or by reputation ("I've read lots of Jane's papers"), or by association ("Prof X. is at MIT, so I'll give this letter some credit even though I've never heard of him.") A recommendation letter with non of these features wouldn't give a realistic test.
Are you asking about studies, for example, that use identical letters and swap the writter's name, or differences in how men and women write letters. While both are issues, they seem different,
@BrianBorchers Depending on the field, you could do the test with imaginary recommenders, but it's hard to see how you could mine the data from existing processes, or how you could run an end-to-end test on the whole admissions process. In a system where people bid on folders they want to review, and some fraction of folders have all unknown recommenders, one could imagine seeing how bids correlate across recommender names. Of course, most letters are PDF files, so not so easy to edit the recommender name.
How did the victims of bias answer this question? (You did ask them, didn't you?)
@AK16 I see what you did there. Given that the actual victims of any such bias aren't privy to discussions of the letters they've written, how would they know? (Yes, I have discussed this issue with female colleagues, and some of them have expressed concern about possible bias; the question here is whether there is evidence that such concern is justified.)
Unclear. Following @StrongBad, is it about how men write recommendations vs how women write recommendations, or about how readers of one gender perceive recommendation letters of the same/opposite gender?
I couldn't find any recent (written after 2000, that is) study that directly addresses the issue of how the recommender's gender influence how the letter is perceived. However, I did find one interesting survey study (doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2009.00453.x) that asked experts in personnel-related professions how they think about LORs. One item asked them to rate on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) the following statement:
I believe that applicant, referent, or reader gender may influence how one interprets the contents of LORs
The average response was 2.86 with an SD of 1.22. About 42% strongly agreed, and 43% strongly disagreed. Clearly there is some level of controversy when it comes to the role gender plays in LORs. The study did not, however, ask any question directly about the referent's gender, which makes it even harder to draw any specific conclusion for our purpose here.
Interesting catch. And RQ 14: I believe that applicant or writer gender may influence how one writes a LOR has interestingly 43.8% agree 39.8% disagree.
^ I would guess the part Zenon mentioned is the primary source of the controversy. As far as I know, it's fairly well established that there are significant gender differences in writing styles. Here's a paper on the topic and here's a website that guesses the author's gender of a given text based on the aforementioned work.
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123132 | Can one earn money from a product developed during research?
I have recently shared a video on LinkedIn about a project I was involved in while working as a part-time Research Assistant. Besides this project, I have a number of other robots that might be commercialized.
Having shared this video, I received several messages asking whether this robot will be soon on the market or whether we have an early adopter program.
This is something we have not even remotely considered. Can a product that has been developed in University be conceptualized or made commercially available by the University or the Research laboratory?
I know some people that started a company and turned their PhD research into a startup. But this is not something I am considering. In this case, the University is the owner of the product that has been developed and we are not allowed to take anything outside the campus.
If I invent something while I am working in the domain of the University, can revenue be created by selling this product?
The answer - at least in the US - is pretty well always "yes", it just depends on who has to sign off on the legal agreements and what they want in exchange for doing so.
The most common path is that institutions will have some equivalent of an intellectual property office, which handles legal agreements, licenses, royalties, etc. Most big institutions now have a requirement that staff must report any potentially valuable IP to them so they can protect and/or sell it and/or disavow it as it pleases them.
In R1 institutions, this isn't a rare thing - it's big business, with many regularly bringing in tens of millions or more in yearly revenue agreements.
However, in general Universities won't directly sell products. Instead, they will license out the tech to whoever wants to do business. It is common even for institutions to offer exclusive licenses to their own students/faculty to develop companies, provide seed funding grants, offer placement in incubators, and provide the licenses in such a way that there are no up-front costs and money is only owed back to the institute once revenue has gone beyond some threshold (often a few hundred thousand USD, but YMMV).
The big complexity is generally in how the project was funded and what the IP agreements everyone almost inevitably signed somehow indicates. Contracts where the government was involved in granting can get a bit more complicated, but generally the whole system has grown to be very accommodating in favor of people finding a way to bring more money into the system. Go figure.
Of course, a University rarely if ever sell the products in any kind of direct relationship. Instead there is a system of licensing and so on that moves that over to private companies, with the institution getting a piece of the action.
Some systems are more generous than others (and others more aggressive in claiming ownership over as much as possible), so you'll need to check with your local intellectual property office if you are interested in knowing more precisely how things work in your neck of the woods.
The first two answers here give generally valid advice, but don't mention patents and patent law. You can monetize any idea unless someone else holds a patent and you don't have a license to use it. So, for things that can be patented (inventions) it is generally a good, if expensive and time consuming, idea to do so.
Many universities have, in their general rules, a claim to be able to patent, in the University name, anything invented there. This may apply to you or not. The rule is a mixed blessing/curse since it is expensive to obtain a patent and lawyers are required. But the university, while holding the patent, may either give you a license for things you invent, or separately license the invention and share proceeds with the inventor. But you need to check to see if you have implicitly agreed to this in your employment contracts.
The same might be true of funding agencies, but the rules will vary and they will/should be explicit in contracts. If you anticipate inventing things it is good to work out the details before you start if that is at all possible.
One can, of course, monetize an idea without a patent (unless someone else holds one). You can, with certain actions, put the invention into the public domain, making it unpatentable. Then anyone can monetize it. Much of the internet is like that, since the invention was generally US government funded and so, for most things, the public owns the result.
But, I'm not a lawyer, and so what I say is tentative, and perhaps a bit conservative, so you don't get into trouble. As BrianH says, see your university research or IP office for help and advice. They normally employ the necessary experts and can assist you. But, don't assume that you "own" and invention just because you invented it. Patent isn't very much like copyright, which is automatic.
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99130 | In computer science, is omission of negative experimental evaluation results research misconduct?
In computer science, a large portion of people develop algorithms, and demonstrate their effectiveness by running experiments to compare with other existing approaches in their research papers. In these experiments, as far as I know, there are two possible ways to purposely hide data:
Ashley has developed algorithm X and decided to experimentally compare it with algorithm Y. She compared them on benchmark set A, B and C. She found that on benchmark C, algorithm Y outperformed X, so she decided to not report on C. In the paper, she also only claims algorithm X outperformed on A and B.
Bill has developed algorithm P. He compared P with other algorithms Q, R and S on some benchmark instances. He found that P outperformed Q and R, but not S on these benchmark instances. He decided to not report the comparison between P and S. In the paper, he also only claims algorithm P outperformed Q and R.
Are Ashley and Bill’s actions considered research misconduct?
"Are Ashley and Bill’s actions considered research misconduct?" Misconduct or detrimental to science? I mean, "misconduct" typically refers to violating some established body of protocols, so while such behavior can be very detrimental to scientific progress, that doesn't necessarily mean that, say, universities or journals object to it. Was this question meant to be more about if such practices are bad for science or if some specific body (e.g. universities or journals) prohibits/discourages it?
To note it, perceptions of this topic vary significantly by field. In higher-stakes contexts, e.g. medical research, not objectively reporting the good-and-bad can result in lives being lost, such that that field's currently receiving more pressure to avoid these tactics. However in lower-stakes contexts, e.g. pure mathematics, there's relatively little call for authors to provide criticism of their own work. CompSci research on algorithms is kinda in-between; people implement algorithms for real-life applications, so it matters, but less directly than medical research.
@Nat Yes, I meant for research misconduct. I'm personally aware of the harmfulness of this practice, but I'm not 100% sure how people in the field accept this.
These are textbook examples of cherry-picking.
tl;dr- In general, suppressing negative results harms objective analysis but can make the research appear more significant. How people feel about this practice depends on their stake in it.
Pure consumers are the most likely to feel that it's misconduct.
Pure investees are the most likely to feel that it's acceptable/appropriate.
Others in the field likely have mixed feelings since they benefit from the practice as investees but are harmed by it as consumers.
Looking forward, there's a growing understanding that these practices pollute the literature and will need to be weeded out. However, we're not quite there yet.
Pure consumers are likely to consider it misconduct
At one extreme, readers who have no affiliation with the research are the most likely to object. Such readers might be trying to select an algorithm for their own research or business application; they want to know the good and the bad equally, so having the bad omitted is purely detrimental to them.
For example:
Ashley has developed algorithm X and decided to experimentally compare it with algorithm Y. She compared them on benchmark set A, B and C. She found that on benchmark C, algorithm Y outperformed X, so she decided to not report on C. In the paper, she also only claims algorithm X outperformed on A and B.
If a reader is trying to select which algorithm to use, then they'd likely want all relevant benchmarks. Doubly so if Benchmark C is more closely related to their application.
Pure investees are most likely to consider it acceptable/appropriate
At the other extreme, those invested in the research effort itself are most likely to want to see it presented in a positive light. Investees include the researcher themself; their supervisor(s); their institution; and any media services that report on their work (e.g., journals).
Pure investees are those who aren't also consumers. For example, a university's promotional news team is a pretty pure investee, as they basically want to make the research shine.
For example:
Ashley has developed algorithm X and decided to experimentally compare it with algorithm Y. She compared them on benchmark set A, B and C. She found that on benchmark C, algorithm Y outperformed X, so she decided to not report on C. In the paper, she also only claims algorithm X outperformed on A and B.
If Ashley's supervisor feels strongly about the result, they may go into full-promotional-mode, including contacting the university's promotional team and others to advertise the work. Ashley's supervisor and related promoters might wench at any criticism or negative analysis that might detract from their efforts, so they're more likely to appreciate the comparison using Benchmark C not being reported.
Fellow practitioners may have mixed feelings
Other computer scientists may have mixed feelings since they're consumers, but likely engaging in the same behaviors.
In practice, I've seen researchers acknowledge that they understand such behaviors to be detrimental, but still argue that not downplaying/omitting criticism would make their work appear unduly weak compared to other researchers'.
Overall, practitioners seem to generally understand that it's sort-of misconduct in the sense that it shouldn't be done, but that it's acceptable in the sense that authors often feel like they must do it to play on a level playing field with others who do.
I strongly disagree with the wording of this answer. Although "consumers" will not like the paper, misconduct is a strong word and should at least lead to a formal investigation, retraction of the paper, and possibly to firing of the author(s) in question. This is more in the realm of p-hacking. Personally, I think such "research" is terrible and unethical, but calling it misconduct goes too far.
@louic Definitely, if you're thinking about "misconduct" in sense of formally recognized misconduct. Still, misconduct's a more general concept that applies outside the limited scope of formal proceedings.
Agreed. But we do not know which interpretation of the word OP intended - I just want to make sure it is clear: misconduct or academic misconduct is often used in the context of very serious misbehavior such as data manipulation or plagiarism. With your interpretation of the word "misconduct" this answer is great.
@louic What I meant for misconduct in the question refers to serious misbehavior, and in this context, data manipulation.
Depends on what you want present in the paper and what the methods are.
First, let me divide these comparisons in two groups:
Curiosity: There are several "ready to use" methods around, that you spend 5 minutes to fix it to run in your data and see what happens. Sometimes these tests are not even really related to your objective, but they are easy to do, so why not? You don't necessarily need to report everything.
Relevant tests: For each problem, in this scenario, there are state of the art solutions (you can't compare your solution if it is the only one). So you need to compare with the state of the art, there is no way around it.
If a paper "skips" on a state of the art mandatory comparison it is not going to get published in a good venue. Any serious reviewer will notice it, raise that question and give it a bad review. Major bad impression...
Personally, I reject papers that only say "we achieve 98% accuracy" without mentioning failing cases and properly explaining why, when, and how the method fails. Which everyone who will consider using the method needs to know... I even have a pre-formatted paragraph saying just that, I use it on almost every review I do... Research is not marketing!
More to the point: IMHO, it is perfectly reasonable to only include the relevant comparisons, regardless of the performance.
You say: "For each problem, in this scenario, there are state of the art solutions." There are? How do you know? This is only going to work for well-studied problems. Suppose the new algorithm deals with a generalization of a problem that has been studied before. Where do you find the papers on the state-of-the-art solution for that new generalized problem? Suppose an algorithm known to be mediocre for the special case does much better for the general case than anything else, and you don't report it. How do you think the referees are going to catch that?
@PeterShor by assumption of the problem/question. I agree with your scenario. But, IMHO, in it we would be closer to "new ground" than the scenario the OP is hinting at, where there are several established methods.
Your comment seems to indicate that there's a clear distinction between new problems and old, well-studied problems. There's not—it's a spectrum, and I would even guess that there are subareas of computer science where most papers fall somewhere in the middle.
If the results are reported correctly , then reasons for the varied performance can be evaluated and more progress may be made.
If only selected results are shown then this can cause others to waste time re-evaluating what they think are “curious” results...
IMHO show all the results, as one particular dataset could have a particular variation ie a higher proportion of “odd” numbers which skews the results...
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123139 | Why would a prospective advisor ask if I'm meeting other advisors?
I am currently in the process of changing my advisor and hence looking for new prospective advisors at my university. I got interviewed by one and she asked If I was in touch with any other advisors. I told her what the truth was but what exactly is the reason for asking this question? What does the potential advisor want to know?
They may assessing how likely you are to be their student to help solidify their research plans.
One reason an advisor might ask this question is to know how time-sensitive the decision process is. If you're not considering other advisors at the same time, there is no competition and the potential advisor can spend some more time making her decision.
Another reason might be to gauge your interest in her research activities based on the other people to whom you're talking. Are you looking only at her field or are you looking more widely? Since you're coming from someone else at the same university, she'd likely be using such choices as a means of determining your level of interest in what she's doing. In other words, she probably wants to know if you're just looking for any advisor, and she happens to be someone you're talking to, or looking at her as a serious option.
This is a question I often ask prospective students when they ask me about being their adviser, whether it's for initial advising or to try to change. There are a few reasons:
It may give me a better understanding of precisely what parts of my work interest them. If a student is attracted to both my work and that of a software engineering professor, they likely have a different set of interests than if their other possible interests are privacy or machine learning.
If I know who else they're talking with, I can better help them find the best fit. That best fit may well be one of the other faculty members they're talking with.
If they aren't talking with anyone else, I can suggest they do so, and perhaps make a few specific suggestions.
It's possible she may want to discuss your academic future with other faculty members. Bouncing ideas of other potential advisors to come up with the best fit for you wouldn't be outside of the realm of possibilities.
If the situation arises again, I wouldn't hesitate to inquire "Why do you ask?"
@einpoklum being direct is essential to effective communication. If you want to know why a person asked you a question, then asking that person will get you an answer that anonymous question/answer sites can only speculate at. After all, the point of advisors is to teach you, and any advisor worthwhile would be happy to share their reasoning with you.
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100537 | Can I submit just two great letters of recommendation if the application calls for three?
I'm getting ready to apply for a graduate program in biophysics at a few different universities. I'd just like to ask a question regarding the quantity and quality of letters of recommendations.
I'll first give some background about my current application. I have a 3.0 cumulative GPA (there is a valid reason for a few low grades early on in my career which I won't get into here, but my GPA has increased dramatically since then), my physics GRE score is a little low and my general is above the 55th percentile in all three fields.
I have two strong letters of recommendation. One from the director of my lab, and one from the head of experimental physics at my university. My question is regarding a third letter. Most applications state that 3 letters are required. I have two options for the third letter at this point; the first being from my advisor, who I've never taken a class with but knows me well, and the other is from a professor who said he'd write me one but it wouldn't be very strong as he can only discuss my character and, to quote him, "general interest in science".
I'm afraid that a third letter would hurt my application, regardless if two of the letters are strong. How damaging would two letters be in applying to a physics graduate program?
Thank you.
What do you mean by "advisor"? Is this a mentor for a research program? Or an appointed academic advisor?
Sorry, I should have been more clear. An appointed academic advisor.
I haven't sat on a grad admissions committee, but for many other applications, the story is that there are tons of applicants, and people look for reasons to not study an application carefully. Not including the required number of letters would be an example of an easy excuse to ignore an application.
When someone says they can only discuss your character and strong interest in science, that sounds like it's not going to be a great letter. If your advisor can write you what he says is a strong letter (and possibly give some context to your GPA), that might be valuable even if he hasn't had you in a class.
I voted to close this as “primarily opinion based” because I misclicked. I meant to close this as “off-topic: seeking personal advice”
If the application calls for three letters of recommendation and you only submit two, your application may be considered incomplete and may not be considered at all.
So if you don't have a third letter, you're going to have a problem. But if the third letter is weak, it will hurt your application, too, which means you're stuck between a rock and a hard place.
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488 | Are there any online tools for student collaborative learning?
There are many disciplines where collaborative learning is the norm; group projects in engineering, working in pairs in bio & chem laboratories, writing papers in a variety of fields, and Team-Based Learning in medical schools (among other areas). Are there any software tools available that are specifically intended to augment collaborative learning? In my head, this would include capabilities such as:
Asking questions of the group
Enabling real-time group discussion
Sharing attachments
@downvoters - The question has been edited, consider changing your vote.
There aren't many popular ones specific to students. Many universities use BlackBoard, but despite having been in many classes where it was used, I've never seen students use it to collaborate. Students use the same tools everyone else uses... Skype, Github, Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.
I've been using Piazza with some success. It provides a collaborative discussion forum for a course. The best thing I can say about it: my students actually use it. Caveat: it doesn't include the capability for students to upload files.
From the Piazza website:
The (Free) Efficient Way to Manage Class Q&A
How is this better than email, newsgroups, and discussion forums?
Students actually use Piazza, they love it. This difference stems from how we built Piazza. We've personally met with and spoken to thousands of students and instructors. The result is a beautifully intuitive and simple product that students love and use.
Also see why Piazza works.
Are there any software tools available that are specifically intended to augment collaborative learning?
This strongly depends on the setting (i.e., the aim of the learning experience) and consequently expectations the teacher and the students have.
For collaborative knowledge-base management and/or note-taking, e.g., Wikis are an effective tool. There exist a plethora of various flavours of wiki's for various purposes, depending on the exact requirements you might have.
If you are after e.g., collaborative writing, then tools similar to Google Docs might be of some use.
In the case you would be after something more complex, such as collaborative exercise sheets, that would be trickier of course.
It also might be useful to start from Wikipedia's entry on Computer-supported collaborative learning
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63105 | What does being acknowledged in a medical journal imply?
Comments on another question pointed out that many medical journals require "written consent of any cited individual(s) noted in acknowledgments or personal communications".
I find this requirement exceedingly strange. In my own field (theoretical computer science), acknowledgements and citations of personal communications are just another form of citation. Just as ideas/results/techniques/data from another publication require citation, ideas/results/techniques/data from another human being require some form of acknowledgement. Otherwise, in both cases, the author is dishonestly claiming credit for someone else's work. An acknowledgement gives the person being thanked no more responsibility or credit for the work than a citation to one of their papers. A citation to "personal communication" is even more clearly equivalent to a paper citation.
Clearly attitudes toward citation and acknowledgement are different in medicine, and possibly in other fields; I'd like to understand why. Does being acknowledged by a medical paper imply some responsibility toward or endorsement of the content of the paper? Does acknowledging someone famous increase a medical paper's chances of being accepted or cited? Why don't the same issues attach to paper citations?
It not usual in mathematics either. But I remember one of my colleagues published a mathematics paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and for that she had to get such permissions.
I recall once having read that if there is someone that you don't want to review your paper (e.g., because the person is known to dislike the field of research), finding a reason for putting this person into the acknowledgements and doing so is a way to drastically reduce the risk of getting this person as a reviewer. Perhaps part of the reason for the rule in the question is to avoid this style of cheating.
@GEdgar Interesting. The PNAS submission guidelines don't mention this requirement.
@JeffE Might have been spawned by the editor based on the wording of the acknowledgement?
@DCTLib In my experience, both as an editor and as a referee, people who are acknowledged in a paper are more likely to be chosen as referees, especially if the acknowlegement indicates that the person has already read the paper.
From the Lancet:
Acknowledgments — written consent of cited individual
From CMJA:
Authors should specify, in the acknowledgements section, contributions to the paper that should be recognized but do not justify authorship, for example critical review of the study proposal or assistance with statistical analysis. The Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) requires that these people give their written permission for their names to appear in print.
From Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology:
Thank you notes. Persons should not be thanked in the Acknowledgments
section without their knowledge and consent. Authors will be asked
during the submission process to confirm they obtained permission from
all persons thanked by name in the Acknowledgments section.
I suspect some of this is from the very defined notion of what constitutes authorship in medical journals, and the likelihood that someone who had some impact on the reported study would not make the authorship list. For example, the same ICJME that has developed the most widely used authorship standards also has this to say about non-author contributors:
Because acknowledgment may imply endorsement by acknowledged
individuals of a study’s data and conclusions, editors are advised to
require that the corresponding author obtain written permission to be
acknowledged from all acknowledged individuals.
Basically, the assumption is that, by being acknowledged, there is the possibility that you could be seen as endorsing the findings of the study, and that erring on the side of caution, you should have to obtain permission before acknowledging someone.
This is even true for not medically-specific journals. Consider, for example, this entry from PLoS One:
Authors are responsible for ensuring that anyone named in the Acknowledgments agrees to be named.
So if someone dies before giving consent, they'll never be acknowledged...
@MassimoOrtolano In such an edge case, there's no reason not to contact the editor and talk to them about it.
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49241 | Can I be admitted to a master's in the USA after a 3-year European bachelor's program?
I am an Indian citizen and I'm planning to go for my bachelors to Germany. Since schooling in Germany is 13 years in length, I'll study 1 year in India before going there. I wanted to ask that after completing my Bachelor's in Germany, will I be eligible to apply for Masters in USA straightaway right after my BS (I plan to pursue a BS in Computer Science). I had this doubt in my mind as BS in Germany would be 3 years compared to that in USA which is 4 years.
Please note that school nowadays takes 12 years in Germany (although I don't see how that's important), and that most Master programs are two-year programs.
related: PhD in the US compared to Europe and to some extent: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/34457/10643
@Niko - It depends on the state. Some states have 12 years of school, others have 13. Whether it is 13 or 12 is in constant flux, and sometimes a student can even choose.
My friend started PhD in Caltech after 3-year Bachelor's in Poland - so it's certainly possible. But as there is no 1-1 mapping between Continental European and US degrees, it may depend on a university, field, some exceptions being made (or not) etc.
The answer to your question is yes, no, and maybe. It all depends on where in the US you want to go.
As Brian indicated in his answer, these are some universities that don't accept a three-year bachelor:
San Jose State University
University of Idaho
However, there are certainly universities that do accept a three-year bachelor:
Stanford University
University of Minnesota
Columbia University
New York University (Wagner)
Almost all business schools accept a 3-year degree (including Harvard, MIT), source
And then there are who evaluate the three-year bachelor on a case-by-case basis:
University of Michigan (Rackham Graduate School)
UNC Charlotte
Certainly, this list is incomplete. So, do your own search if you like to apply in the US, and if a university does not state anything about the three-year bachelor, ask their Graduate Admissions office.
Some may "accept" the degree, however, you then might need to take additional Bachelors level courses before being admitted to the Master's. This is also common in the US where one changes fields.
Many universities in the US will not admit foreign students as graduate students after a 3 year bachelor's degree. Students in this situation typically complete a master's degree, some kind of post graduate certificate or an "honors degree" in the English system.
You're right to be concerned about this, but there aren't any easy solutions.
Some examples (from a quick google search): San Jose State University, UNCC, and University of Idaho.
So If I pursue MS also from Germany which is of 1 year again , will I then be eligible for admission into the Masters programme in USA because then, wouldn't i have 2 masters degree?
Yes, you could then apply to MS and PhD programs in the US. Some programs might make you start by earning a second MS degree, depending on how strong your application looks. It's not uncommon for students to earn 2 masters degrees on the way to a PhD.
Can you clarify your answer a bit more, what is the reason they won't admit foreign students into Masters after Bachelor? I myself applied for a US Masters after my Dutch 3-year Bachelor. Although I did not get accepted in the US, I went to another country. When I did join a summer project in the US, I met plenty of Masters students from Europe - and at least in the Netherlands all Bachelor degrees are 3 year. So I must admit, I very much doubt the correctness of your answer.
@DoubleYou: note he said "many universities". In the end, it will depend on the university you're applying from, and to. Also note that, despite the same terminology, a bachelor or master in the US simply isn't equivalent to the same degree in Europe, not just in terms of time-investment. In the US, you're expected to enter the industry after a bachelor, whereas in Europe, it is expected that you also do a masters.
@DoubleYou the idea behind such policies is simply that 3 year bachelor's degrees aren't equivalent to four year US bachelor's degrees. That's a debatable point, and I don't want to personally defend such policies- I'm simply stating the fact that such policies exist in many universities.
Of course, I understand that. However, I felt your answer was quite negative and did not provided a complete answer to the OP. Therefore, I posted my own answer. I did link your examples in it too.
There are some schools that try to make up for their lack of goodness by making it harder for prospective students to get in.
But the best schools only care about enrolling people who will succeed.
A friend of mine is a case in point: she got into a prestigious MBA program even though she'd never attended university at all, never mind having a degree. She'd gone into the world of work straight out of secondary school, married, had 2 kids, and only thought about going back to school when her kids were teenagers, she was divorced, and she wanted to go into management rather than remain a Principal Software Engineer at a major company in the computer industry.
The school took one look at her record of accomplishment, brushed aside her lack of tertiary education, and 2 years later awarded her an MBA with honors.
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120468 | Are there good ways to approach a professor for a postdoc?
How do I approach an unknown professor before a PhD interview? My defense (viva) will be held next March and I will be seeking a postdoctoral fellowship after that.
I want to contact a Professor relevant to my research interests to discuss potential future research topics and get short-listed for an interview.
My field is Mathematics (pure maths).
What are the best ways to approach a professor in this field?
Say a bit more. Why do you want to contact the professor. What do you need?
okkss @Buffy wait im editing
If you are nearby, just make an appointment and go for a visit. If you are farther away you can send an email. Talk about your math interests and ask what you can do to prepare for an interview. It isn't hard. Most professors are used to this sort of thing. However, some professors require that you make formal application to the program first. (Of course, if you are Lionel Messi, you can talk about futbol).
Where is the professor located (your institute, city or further away)? Will you be able to visit them or would this be done online? Does this professor engage in collaborations or attend the same conferences as your supervisor(s)? Note, you must be careful to contact anyone who might be examining your thesis as your institution may have rules about knowing who they are or influencing the result.
Most academics are open to meeting prospective postdoctoral candidates or future collaborators (even if they don’t currently have funds to recruit you). Many plan for the long term. The best thing to do is contact them ahead of time by email to schedule a meeting. It’s best to meet in person if you can but videoconferencing is also okay. They’ll be interested in whether you can communicate well and work with their research group in addition to potential research projects. If you are visiting their institution while travelling for a conference in the future or planning to apply for fellowship funding that you are eligible for.
You can also offer to give a seminar when visiting their department. They can offer support to host you be do not expect this. If you plan to visit, contact them long in advance in case they need time to organise your visit.
Please be patient and respectful, they are very busy and may not get back to you straight away. It’s helpful to mention any common connections you have including working on related projects. If you can, you should mention that you know their collaborators or have met them before at a conference. If their collaborator has recommended to contact them, you should include that when you introduce yourself but you can still contact them directly rather than getting someone to do it on your behalf.
The best way to do so is simply to email them. If your research interests align with theirs and your publication record is sufficiently impressive it'll start a conversation at the very least. Don't forget to attach an updated CV. If you're uncomfortable with this (or your publication record is not sufficiently impressive), some avenues to get their attention could be
Have a mutual professional acquaintance facilitate an introduction.
Look through their publications, find one that you're interested in and begin a discussion through it: how would you improve it? If you have amazing ideas that'll get their attention.
Be advised that funding is a major issue when taking on a postdoc. Some pure math fields do not attract research funding, so make sure that the professor has funding to take you (e.g. their website says they're looking, or they are advertising in mathematics mailing lists).
Good luck!
Alternatively, if the professor does not have funding when you write to them, make it clear that what you are looking for is their mentorship on an application for a personal fellowship.
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95860 | Mathematics Stack Exchange as an indicator for academic career
I'm due to start my PhD in Pure Mathematics next month, fully funded by a scholarship, at an average university, I'll be specialising in combinatorial group theory, and I have a strong First in Mathematics from a Russell group university. My goal is to become an academic.
This is my Mathematics Stack Exchange (MSE) profile. I've been an active user since 2013, visiting pretty much daily, but my reputation is currently just 5,760 and I haven't used MathOverflow at all (as the questions there every time I visit, which isn't that often, are beyond me). This seems quite low. Should this worry me?
To what extent is MSE reputation an indication of potential in academia?
The 3 best programmers whom I personally known and worked with in my country, at least in my opinion, don't have a stackoverflow account.
In every case that I tried to impress someone with my SE points I failed badly. Because most people have no idea what the heck SE is, and the few who do, surely won't find it that impressive.
As polfsol says, SE points are not impressive. However, the quality of your answers might impress somebody. I use muy Statistics SE contributions to showcase that I can write about statistics in English, just as I could use a blog for the same purpose. I don't make an answer out of this comment because I can't say for sure if it has impacted my career (but I keep the link at the end of my CV).
Points on the SX measure contributions, not quality. Some people answer 20+ questions daily, but with low quality answers. Nevertheless over the years they can collect a lot of reputation. Furthermore the number of votes a Q/A gets scales more with popularity than with quality IMO. On SO I've written - in my opinion - HQ posts with 1-3 votes, and straightforward answers with 10+ votes.
"To what extent is MSE reputation an indication of potential in academia?" It is an interesting question, but without data it is somewhat pointless to speculate. Also note that "potential" is somewhat nebulous. I take it as being essentially obvious that an undergraduate who can competently answer questions on something like MSE has potential in graduate school.
On another note: I've seen instances of people with technical blogs which interact with their SE accounts (e.g. has blog posts which expand on the answers to interesting questions). If you have a high-quality blog that complements the SE account that could be relevant when and if you get to the stage of applying for positions.
At one point a few of us compared our academic h index with our stack exchange h index. It was probably in chat or meta.
I currently have more Math.SE AND more MathOverflow points than you do and I wasn't smart enough to get into a Math PhD program. I would wager a large quantity of money that you are better at math than I am. I also have several friends from college who are in math PhD programs (and who are definitely smarter/more talented than me) who also have no account or far fewer points. Therefore neither Math.SE nor MathOverflow points are a reliable indicator of "math prowess". (You get more points for answers, but you can also get a large number of points for stupid questions.)
@Lynob vacuous truth?
To what extent is MSE reputation an indication of potential in education?
@Lynob I think OP meant to ask about how MSE activity/reputation is an indicator given that OP had visited daily for around 4 years.
The only thing that a high MSE or MO reputation indicates is that a person spends too much time on the internet (and I say that as someone with a reasonably high reputation on MO). I don't think you should take it seriously as a data point on how successful you are likely to be.
On a related note, it also doesn't play any role in things like hiring decisions. At all the places I've worked, someone would be ridiculed if they brought up MO or MSE reputation at a hiring meeting.
It's just recreation.
The main way that MO affects my opinions of people isn't through their reputation, but through particular questions or answers that got my attention. For example, I once invited someone to a conference because they kept answering my MO questions.
I disagree with your assessment that MSE/MO contributions can play no role in the way people are perceived when they are evaluated for jobs. See here for a related discussion. I do agree with @NoahSnyder, what matters is actual reputation (in the normal English-language sense of the word) rather than reputation points. In any case, all of that is entirely tangential to OP's question, which you addressed well in the first paragraph.
I agree. On a related note, I have seen job advertising which asks applicants to provide their Stack Overflow ID if they have one, but I think it's a poor metric of ability - there are plenty of highly skilled developers/programmers who have low rep (or even no SO account). And then who wants to employ someone who appears to spend a lot of time working on other people's projects?
Stack Overflow rep is a hiring factor for quite some It companies. but I'd say universities don't really pay attention to MO/MSE.
@DanRomik I agree with both Andy and Noah. I read Andy's answer with reputation meaning SE rep in the numerical sense.
Related: https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3938/the-importance-for-getting-an-account/3947#3947
@DanRomik: Notice that I said that MSE/MO reputation does not play any role in hiring. I stand by that and cannot imagine any serious person regarding the numerical reputation score as anything other than a game. That doesn't mean that one's contributions are irrelevant, though they are very much lower order terms (in particular, I don't know anyone whose contributions are interesting enough that I would want to hire them but whose research record is not already impressive enough to turn my head).
@GiorgiMoniava: The hiring practices in the computer programming world and in university mathematics departments are completely different. In particular, we have far more useful sources of information concerning job candidates, namely their published research record and their letters of recommendation. As I said in my answer, anyone who brought up things like a candidate's reputation score on some website in a hiring meeting would be belittled mercilessly.
@GiorgiMoniava "I wonder why it would be different on MO site." MO is and always has been rather different, in its content and attitude, from StackOverflow. Several people here, as long-time MO users and professional mathematicians, might be better placed to comment on how hiring committees in academic mathematics view MO reputation, than people who don't have MO accounts and aren't professional mathematicians.
@GiorgiMoniava: Among the high rep MO users (say, the first 3-4 pages of people ranked by rep), there are some some extraordinary people (including a couple of Fields medalists), but also plenty of people whose research records are pretty mediocre (there are even people in the latter category on the first page). There is no way to say this without coming off like a total snob, but the kinds of people on the hiring committees at the universities I've worked at (good, but not super-elite) are far more distinguished than many high-rep users of MO.
To what extent is MSE reputation an indication of potential in academia?
Very little. You get a lot of reputation for simple answers to simple questions that make it onto the HNQ list, because those are the ones that people can quickly understand and say, "Yeah, that's right." Conversely, you get little reputation for deep, detailed answers to difficult questions, because people (probably rightly) think that reading and digesting them won't be a productive use of their time.
High reputation on a technical Stack Exchange site might indicate that you're a good teacher of that subject, since well-explained, easy-to-understand answers tend to get higher reputation. But, the teaching experience you get as a student and early-career researcher will be a much better indication of that.
+1 Oh, yes. For (a non-technical) instance, my top-voted answers here are the shortest ones (2-3 lines). I'll try to see what happens with a one-liner :-)
To what extent is MSE reputation an indication of potential in education?
Perhaps this is a philosophical nuance, but I think a case could be made that high MSE reputation would correlate strongly with success in academia. This correlation is likely not directly related to MSE reputation itself, but to something that a high MSE reputation may indicate: love of mathematics.
As an applied mathematics PhD holder myself, I've witnessed first-hand that success in both PhD programs and academic careers in general depends largely on having sufficient motivation and perseverance to put in the time necessary to develop new insights. I would argue that a high MSE reputation indicates a willingness and motivation to seek out challenging problems in a wide variety of mathematical subject matter.
Moreover, the fact that MSE reputation is not directly related to someone's job or academic position suggests that person is interacting with MSE in their personal time, which indicates that their motivation to participate in the mathematical community goes deeper than just looking for a way to pay the bills.
Thus, if mathematical academic success is correlated with having proper motivation to learn mathematics, and high MSE reputation is an indicator of sound motivation to learn mathematics, then, by the transitive property, high MSE reputation should be correlated with academic success.
Some of the above is tongue-in-cheek, but while the relationship between MSE reputation and academic success is not causal, I think there is likely a positive correlation resulting from a natural selection bias for significant contributors to this site.
I'll acknowledge the likely correlation, but note there is no likelihood of a reverse correlation: most highly successful math academicians are not on MSE. The population sizes are different.
The other thing is that SE sites provides instant gratification for routine achievements being doable in a few minutes, in a way exactly the opposite of what is usually needed for mathematical research. So I would not give all that much predictive value to it re research. I may give it more regrading being a dedicated teacher.
@Wildcard I wouldn't get lost in correlations, it's simply that "interacting with MSE in their personal time, ... indicates ... their motivation to participate in the mathematical community". Answering and asking questions depicts the involvement and interest in the subject. Reputation points is just a feature of the website and can be seen as a simple measure of the popularity of those interactions... People with successful careers prove their success with interactions with other communities, through papers or books... Comparing those communities with SE sites may be fruitless.
@Armfoot gets at the gist of my point. The question of level of success in academics and how that correlates to level of MSE reputation is a bit different (and likely more complex). However, I think someone who posts here and enjoys answering mathematical questions/contributing to the community has a leg up against those who might go into an advanced degree thinking of academia as more of a 9-5 job that'll pay the bills. I've seen such people fail to succeed, both at the graduate student level and at the professor level, due in large part to improper or insufficient motivation.
Doesn't it actually indicate the opposite? That instead of working on your research ideas, you're passing time on MSE or MO?
The OP states he is starting his PhD program next month. While it's not unheard of for undergraduates to begin research in mathematics, I would venture the majority of math PhD students don't engage in research until after a year or two in a graduate program. It seems a bit pedantic to me to assume the OP is participating in MSE at the expense of doing research at this stage in his career.
Lots of the duties which decide success in academia are not directly related to knowledge in or passion for the field of study but hard work, perseverance, acquiring grants, doing teaching, administration, live presentations, seminars, conferences, becoming a popular teacher, co-worker and contributor.
Math.SE strips those duties down and we only get to see the knowledge and passion side of the subject of study. There is much more to creating a career in academia than knowledge and passion in the subject of study -- for good, or for bad.
You shouldn't worry about MSE "reputation"; one can find MSE members with low reputation but high academic potential and vice versa. Think about it: there are members who reached 100k just by answering elementary calculus and combinatorics questions. "Reputation" is more about effort rather than potential.
However, there is definitively a tendency that those with high academic potential get into top-notch (as opposed to average) PhD programs.
I don't think SE participation is likely to matter one way or the other in your graduate studies, as long as it doesn't eat up a lot of time you ought to be spending elsewhere. Come to ask for help or offer it when appropriate.
Later on in your career that may change. My son Ben Bolker has a substantial presence on stackoverflow, helping people with R and statistics. (He's a tenured full professor so can apportion his time as he pleases.)
I posted this on tex se meta:
I quietly argue in my department and regularly tell colleagues that
significant participation in stackexchange sites should count in
faculty reviews as service to the scholarly community. I'm sure
@egreg's answers here advance science more than does his mathematics,
however deep and interesting that may be.
https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3938/the-importance-for-getting-an-account/3947#3947
Social media is definitely becoming a new component to academia outside of publications, and I suspect it can be influential to your career as a form of networking that may, for instance, get your work cited more often simply by bringing it more to others' attention. Possibly a good MSE could be helpful to that, but I suspect it's a stretch - Twitter, LinkedIn and other proper social media tools are better suited to that purpose. Beyond that I echo the other answers by saying you shouldn't expect it to be taken as a serious CV point for recruitment or hiring in academia.
Being associated with SE is not necessarily a good thing. Not that you are like this, but many of the responders on SE simply do not present a pleasant demeanor and are off-putting in their arrogance.
Search for, "Stack Exchange Hate," and see what you get, then ask yourself, "If this is how people perceive SE, do I want really anyone knowing I'm associated with it?"
If you want to establish a reputation (which is not a function of SE to begin with), establish a real one, in the real world.
Don't you think that Googling for "Stack Exchange Hate" would result in a rather biased sample of opinions?
I find this response to present a less than pleasant demeanor and to be off-putting in its arrogance.
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8509 | Acknowledging a reviewer from a journal from which the paper was rejected
My paper was rejected from a journal. However, remarks of one of the reviewers were useful, and I incorporated them into the next version of the paper.
Is there a general pattern of acknowledging such contribution (in the Acknowledgement section)?
Or should I leave it, not to advertise information that the paper was rejected from a particular journal?
(As a side note, this paper was rejected two times, each time with one positive review, and one of type "OK, but I think it is not of general interest".)
EDIT:
In my case (as in general in my field) reviewers were anonymous. (Otherwise I would just use their names.)
And in my case the helpful comments were in positive reviews (but I doubt whether it changes anything).
Is it the case that you are wanting to mention the specific part of your paper that arose from the earlier reviewer's remarks (rather than a more general acknowledgement as suggested in Peter Jansson's answer)?
@TaraB Mostly small fixes (grammar, typos, small changes), distributed among whole paper.
Ah. I don't think it is really necessary to mention that. It's helpful, but not something that made a major improvement to the paper. Have you considered simply asking the journal editor to pass your thanks on directly to the reviewer?
@TaraB I always try to thank reviewers (and especially when they understood it... or didn't but it is visible that they were trying), so most likely I sent a message to editor.
Right, then I really think that should be sufficient in this case, especially given the difficulty of making it clear you are thanking a reviewer from a different journal while not mentioning any names or the fact the paper was rejected!
@TaraB Thx! So, please write it as an answer. :)
let us continue this discussion in chat
Piotr has asked that I add one of my comments as an answer. Please note that I am a fairly inexperienced academic, so don't take anything I say too seriously!
Firstly, I'll reiterate one of my comments on Peter Jansson's answer:
You really really should not mention journal names or the fact that the paper was previously rejected. The journal you are publishing in would not appreciate it! (It makes it clear they were only your second, or in this case third, choice.)
Since you say that the helpful remarks of the earlier reviewer were about grammar, typos and a few small changes throughout the document rather than something that substantially changed the exposition of your paper, I think that conveying your thanks directly to the reviewer via the journal's editor (which you say you have already done) is probably a more appropriate acknowledgment, especially given the difficulty of making it clear you are thanking a reviewer from a different journal while not mentioning any names or the fact that the paper was rejected.
Conveying thanks through the editor is a fantastic idea, but not as a substitute for acknowledging the reviewer in the paper. It never hurts to say thank you in public, even if you're doing so anonymously.
@JeffE I know that it never hurts (it is why I asked this question!), but I don't know how to attribute the right person - even if anonymous, then not from another journal (misattribution is, IMHO, worse than lack of it).
I think what makes the difference is that the reviewer is anonymous. If you had a name to acknowledge, that is great. But it becomes difficult and there is dubious benefits to acknowledging an anonymous person anyways.
First, I think it is good to acknowledge reviewers as you consider doing. It is the editor who rejects any papers based on the results of reviews so the reviews may still be very constructive and indeed helpful in improving a paper. So I would suggest something like the following
We/I (gratefully) acknowledge the (critical) review by X on an earlier
version of the manuscript.
There are many ways to express it and what words you wish to use is up to you and the way you wish to express your gratitude. I would not add the name of the journal(s) where the reviews were conducted (other than in the letter to the journal editor accompanying your MS submission).
I also would like to take the opportunity to add that the following issue, not that it applies to your case but more to point out some bad practices for the community. The poor behavior concerns when someone acknowledges a famous persons review just to gain leverage in resubmitting it to another journal. I have seen how persons have used reviews stating that the paper should be rejected because it is "crap" as a "most valuable input to help improve the manuscript". Since no-one typically knows what this review did, the gut reaction is to think it must have been valuable since the reviewer is well known. For this reason it is good to provide the review/revisions from the old MS when re-submitting it so that the review-revision work becomes obvious to the editor.
As a final point, I would not add the acknowledgement of any reviewers new or old until the time when your MS has been (hopefully) accepted in the new journal.
EDIT: Based on the good comments by Tara B on anonymous reviewers and how to distinguish reviews from old and new MS I would write something as the following
We/I (gratefully) acknowledge the (critical) review by two anonymous reviewers as well as the (critical) review by another anonymous reviewer on an earlier
version of the manuscript.
Words in parenthesis are optional and can be exchanged for others that better suit your needs.
At least in my subject (maths), the reviews are supposed to be anonymous, so one would not be able to acknowledge the reviewer by name.
Good point, this varies slightly but in teh case of an anonymous reviewer, I would simply say "an anonymous reviewer" instead of the name.
I suppose the difficulty is that unless mentioned otherwise, it will be assumed that the anonymous reviewer was one of the reviewers for the paper the journal eventually appeared in. I don't see a good way to mention otherwise, however.
@PeterJansson In my case there were anonymous. Additionally, how to make it obvious that it is not from reviewers in the current journal?
Additionally, I'm considering leaving it on arXiv, as it is accessible anyway (i.e. it is on arXiv anyway, just I consider submitting it for the 3rd time). The main question is whether to use journal names, or info about rejection, or not.
@PiotrMigdal I think some form of the second example I have given will do. Unless you need to explain your paper has been rejected in the past calling it an "earlier manuscript" should do. You are acknowledgiing the reviewer not the journal that rejected it. The exception would be if the editor of a journal that rejected your paper also provided something you wish to acknowledge. But as a whole I do not see the point of providing details such as earlier journals in the acknowledgement.
You really really should not mention journal names or the fact that the paper was previously rejected. The journal you are publishing in would not appreciate it! (It makes it clear they were only your second, or in this case third, choice.)
While I agree with Peter Jansson, I might use "earlier draft" instead of "earlier version".
+1 the "helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript" is a recipe I have used myself in this sort of situation. I'm sure the reviewer if they read the published paper would recognise and appreciate your thanks, even in this slightly obscure manner!
I have been waiting for a chance to pull a prank like
I would like to thank 15 anonymous referees from 5 journals to which this paper was submitted for their helpful comments.
but, as many people said, few journals will appreciate this sort of remark. It is true that this is what happens with most papers, so if we are to be honest and transparent, we should just state this sort of history. And it happens to the top researchers, too, although some people, judging by their productivity of 10+ papers a year, never get even requests for revisions.
May be a weaker form would be
I would like to thank the three anonymous referees and the associate editor of [THIS JOURNAL], as well as several other anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments.
Sometimes, it happens that the most important revision was actually a couple of journals ago which really improved the paper, but that journal still did not accept the paper, so it cruised through another editorial board or two with just minor language remarks.
Hah! I've thought about Thanks to the anonymous referees for appearing to not read my paper and generically taking my word for it. Or, even better, Thanks for taking the time to point out those 2 spelling errors, and suggesting I cite one of your papers.. Perhaps we should just be thinking the other way, if I provide a helpful review (anonymous or not) I'm not going to hold it against the person if they don't give an explicit mention of thanks. If you actually listened to what I had to say I'm happy.
@Andy, apparently, you have not seen this: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~eli/misc/review-process.html (not the original author from either side, I believe; this has been circulating with different journal titles and different university letterheads in it).
I use the phrase "I thank an anonymous colleague for [providing an important idea]."
This implies that the idea came from someone else, but it doesn't explicitly mention that the paper was previously rejected or reviewed.
To me 'colleague' makes it sound like it might be someone you know who prefers to remain anonymous. But I still think this is quite a good idea.
Why are you using "I" within a paper?
I understand and even use the author's "we" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosism) in the main body of a paper, but I tend to be more informal in the acknowledgments. Of course, "I" applies only if I am the sole author, but you can also use "The author" if you desire.
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2448 | Flying with a poster tube as a hand luggage
I am flying to a conference, in which I am presenting a poster.
In principle there might be a problem, as the poster tube:
is a second piece of hand luggage,
it is longer than the limit allows.
However, it seems that it works (once I tried with no problem, my colleagues usually have no problem).
Does it happen that one is not allowed to take a poster tube in the hand luggage?
If so, how to avoid this problem? (Advice, tips and tricks are welcome.)
If the question is place-specific, I'm interested mostly in EU.
Within Europe it usually works to take the train, I've done that several times from northern Sweden to Austria or southern France. Takes a little while (not necessarily more expensive if planned appropriately) but it's quite fun and there won't be any luggage problems :)
Neither me nor my students had any problems carrying a poster tube as second hand luggage (>50 flights, mostly EU, US, baut Asia as well). It usually even fits in the overhead compartment.
There are a couple solutions to the "transporting a poster tube on a plane" problem:
Most flights allow a second piece of hand-luggage, so that bit is fine. And while it is larger in the length dimension than is usually allowed, I've never had this be a problem. In not-very-full flights, it can be stored on top or behind other bags. On fuller flights, I usually just ask a flight attendant for help. So far the tubes have ended up behind the seats in the last row against the bulk head, and in the coat closet usually reserved for first class. Generally, I find they give you "credit" for trying not to be a problem.
As has been mentioned, you can get your poster printed or shipped to the conference location.
Cloth posters. These are becoming more easily accessible. While more expensive than paper posters, if carrying a poster on forces you to check a bag, and your airline charges fees for those, the cost difference vanishes swiftly. These can be folded and stored flat in a shipping envelop or bag. Just make sure to take them out and iron them on a very low setting to get the creases out before you hang them.
Creative rolling of your cloth poster can prevent creases and wrinkles.
From my current observations: even if the allow "one piece of hand luggage only", poster tubes for some reason does not count to the limit (however, I've never asked, just in case not to ask for troubles). There were no problems neither for me nor my colleagues; besides sometimes from RyanAir (once a friend needed to fold his poster); other cheap airlines where perfectly fine.
+1 for cloth posters, a friend used it once and definitely worth that extra little money.
+1 for cloth posters. I didn't even know they existed but they sound like a nice (and a little more expensive) alternative.
+1 for cloth posters. I have used them on a regular basis and they are fantastic. Just fold them, put them in my suitcase or even backpack. Sometimes just have them ship directly to the conference hotel so that it is waiting for me when I arrive. Most of the time you don't even need to iron them but an iron has always been available if needed. Then there is the novelty value. Lots of people stopped by my posters because they notice the fabric. I gave them some time to be fascinated and awed, and then delivered my pitch. My research got a lot more exposure this way too.
Sometimes flight attendant staff will be willing to hold a poster for you, since generally they can't safely go as checked luggage, and may not fit in the overhead compartment. You should inquire as to what will be allowed.
One useful alternative I've taken advantage of is to use a printing service in the city where you will be presenting your poster, and picking up the poster there. Nowadays, many will accept things sent by email, file transfer service, or web site. This makes the transfer process easier than before, and avoids the problem of last-minute delays (provided you send it ahead of time!).
Actually, the last time I printed my poster at the conference venue (on a cheep paper, so it wasn't that wasteful). However, usually I would like to re-use the poster.
Your alternative is only a half solution if you still need to somehow bring the poster back to your work location after the conference.
I only encountered problems once (with Ryanair - I think they wanted to make me pay for late checked luggage). Fortunately it was going back home. I had to make the poster roll small (it then fit into their hand luggage frame) and I loosely folded the poster. As soon as I was in the cabin I unfolded it again and put it into the roll. Someone frome the cabin staff even asked why the poster was folded and said that this was crazy. Fortunately the creases were not that bad.
I'd always take the poster with the hand luggage: I once attended a conference where at the first 2 days about 1/3 of the posters had an A4 sheet saying: The poster can currently be found at Alitalia's lost luggage department...
You could print the poster at the place of the conference. I once presented a poster that was printed by the poster printing service of the conference hosting university (who actually allowed orders from the outside).
Printing the poster at the place of the conference just solves the issue of bringing the poster to the conference, not that of bringing the poster back.
@O.R.Mapper: true, but then in my field we tend to have one-time-only posters so their main purpose is the conference. The walls are already rather crowded, so if every once in a while one poster doesn't make it home it is not that bad.
I'm returning to this old question because I now know the best solution! It's actually Fomite's third solution: fabric posters.
How to do it:
AstroBetter has an excellent blog post on this (http://www.astrobetter.com/blog/2015/03/25/fabric-conference-posters-ftw/) which in turn takes you to the how-to from the company Spoonflower (https://support.spoonflower.com/hc/en-us/articles/204266984-How-to-Create-a-Fabric-Poster-from-a-PowerPoint-or-PDF).
This is an even better option than it was a few years ago when Fomite mentioned it, because I've found the fabric printing to be slightly cheaper than traditional poster printing (this may depend on your campus printer) and on the fabric recommended by Emily Rice on AstroBetter, no ironing is needed. It is incredibly fun to be able to stow the poster in the corner of a suitcase and bring it out to show to friends or relatives I'm staying with on the way home from the conference.
Historical note: I came across this post several years ago and followed the advice, when creating my first printed conference poster! It ended up being awkward: I asked the flight attendant politely about putting it in a closet or overhead, and she said to put the tube on the floor at my feet (and the feet of the two passengers next to me). As it turned out, I was sitting next to (and inconveniencing) a professor headed to my conference (though he was nice about it). For the return trip, I decided to fold it up and mail it home and avoid having to deal with a poster tube ever again.
I favour fabric posters, but they do not look as good as well-printed posters on good stock.
It depends on the airline's policies, but I have never had any problems on any of AA/AF/AZ/BA/DL/JL/KL/EK/QR/US, and I travelled extensively on all of them as a student, often with posters. The hand luggage restrictions are principally about overhead bin space: but a rolled up poster is small and can probably be squeezed in somewhere on the plane or in the coat cupboard if needs be. Therefore the fact that the tube exceeds one of the dimensions is not really of great interest to most airlines.
If you are travelling on a low cost carrier like RyanAir or EasyJet, that may be a different matter. I know that EasyJet is trying to be "business friendly" now so they probably will not be so interested in a small item like a poster tube. The one time I travelled on Ryanair with a poster I voluntarily checked it in at a very large fee rather than have an argument about it.
Now the warning I do have is: if you do check your poster tube, expect it to go missing. I lost three poster tubes (one permanently) by checking them. Somehow the baggage systems in many airports are not designed to transport tubes (especially if they have straps on them) and so they tend to get jammed somewhere and torn to pieces.
I recently flew with a poster to a conference. The dimensions for hand-luggage usually are Height+width+length <= 42" (inches) (maybe 45", don't quite remember accurately). If the 'tube' sums up to less than this you should be good.
As is mentioned in another answer, most airlines allow two pieces of hand-luggage e.g. A laptop bag and maybe your tube, if you don't have anything else.
You are free to carry it with you in the hand unless the tube is arbitrarily long i.e. it exceeds 42 inches in length. If you are below that by length, I doubt the other 2 dimensions would be all that big.
At times they may take it from you right at the boarding gate and ask you to check it in there and then. That's fine. It'll be safe and given to you the instant you exit the aircraft rather than at the carousel.
Some aircrafts are small and may have a separate luggage are for hand bags towards the tail. You can put it there.
If it's a small flight and the tube is not too big (diameter and length wise) just prop it by your leg if you are in a window seat or put it below your seat.
As long as you are within the dimensions and allowable limits of hand luggage (count = 2 weight <= 7kgs) you should be fine
Almost every airline allows "a personal item" in addition to your carry-on luggage; otherwise people with purses wouldn't get any carry-on. Your poster tube is probably not "a personal item", but your carry-on could be if it's small enough to fit under your seat. (That's the real reason: there's not enough overhead bin space, but there's plenty of under-seat space. Many people hate having stuff at their feet, though, so the airline can't count on that space being used; saying that you can take a personal item that fits under the seat works for you.) In any case, the way this all works out in practice is that if you're lugging a huge amount of stuff that doesn't look like it'll fit, you'll be asked to check some at the door. Otherwise, it's all okay as long as it will either fit overhead or fit under your seat without sticking out inordinately. I've never seen problems even with backpack (personal item) + carry-on (overhead, fitting strictly within size limits and without requiring lots of shoving to get it to pretend to fit) + poster tube, except on really small regional airplanes with desperately tiny overhead bin space.
Also, if the poster tube doesn't fit in the overhead luggage--it nearly always does--they'll be able to check it at the door to the airplane, just like they do with other overly large and slightly fragile items like strollers.
And, finally, almost everywhere you will present has its own poster printing facilities within a few miles. Any institution of respectable size will have their own, and any city of respectable size--and you're rarely far from one in the EU--will have a copy store of some sort at which you can print at poster size.
So just take the item with you as carry on, and in the extraordinarily unlikely event that something goes wrong and the poster is destroyed, get it printed at your destination. (If you are extra-paranoid, you can get a somewhat tougher plastic poster tube instead of the cardboard ones--bearing in mind that I have yet to see a cardboard one get so crushed that the poster was significantly damaged.)
If the flight attendants are nice, sometimes they will put the poster roll in the jacket closet that the first class fliers use, and then the flight attendant will give it back to you at the end of the flight.
Format your poster so it can be printed as three strips, either vertical or horizontal. Roll them up in a small poster tube that is short enought to fit in your luggage.
I have thought about this a couple of times, but have never tried it. I have never seen a poster at a conference that is made up of multiple strips.
+1, I have done this successfully. The cuts were scarcely noticeable once the poster was re-assembled. It does help that my posters tend to follow rather an unimaginative, column-based layout :).
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203876 | Is downloading articles from SciHub legal in some jurisdictions?
I read this comment:
The statement at the very beginning ("Downloading articles from SciHub is illegal.") seems problematic. This likely depends on where you are. Nick 2 days ago
This makes me wonder: is downloading articles from SciHub legal in some jurisdictions?
Assume that we are referring to paywalled articles that are not in the public domain or under some permissive license.
This might make more sense at Law.SE, together with some information for non-academics about what SciHub is. Then again, I don't know whether "is X legal in some jusrisdictions" is well received there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention lists the countries that are not signatories.
"Sin is geographical." (Bertrand Russel)
@Michael_1812 I disagree, putting scientific research behind paywalled is a sin any location.
@FranckDernoncourt Touché :)
I can't read the original language to confirm, but it's possible that the bill discussed here also legalizes downloading scientific articles in Belarus.
The bill, passed in January 2023, is named "On the limitation of exclusive rights to objects of intellectual property"; allegedly it makes it legal to commit piracy against IP held by actors in foreign "unfriendly nations".
It seems to be legal in Switzerland, for instance. I asked the same question in the past, after a similar thread.
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203778 | Has any researcher been sued for using Sci-Hub data in their research?
I read on Consequences of publishing work using text from millions of Sci-Hub articles:
make no mistake: if you plan on doing something this blatantly illegal, and publishing a paper about it, then litigation is coming your way. There have been high profile cases about people breaking copyright in similar ways, and publishers have enough legal experts to drag you through courts for years. Stephan Kolassa
Has any researcher been sued for using Sci-Hub data in their research? Assume we are talking about paywalled articles that the Sci-Hub dataset makes available for free.
By using Sci-Hub data in their research I mean using a significant numbers (let's say millions) of articles for research purpose such as text mining or training word embeddings, not just downloading a few articles (the latter is addressed in this question).
Is it even possible to download millions of articles from Sci-Hub? I assume the website will be rate-limited. They pay for bandwidth, too.
@FedericoPoloni The OP of the linked question mentions having found a torrent option to download the articles, which wouldn't be subject to (traditional) rate limiting, only the availability of peers seeding the data. Related OpenData thread.
Perhaps related ... I see that a group of authors is suing some AI companies for using the authors' copyrighted texts to train an AI.
The sci-hub project has long used multiple mirror website as had the sci-hub affiliate project, LibraryGenesis. Both projects also make their database indexes and database contents available for torrent access. When I last looked at the Library Genesis metadata, it seemed that the entire library (including multiple duplicates) exceeded 100 terabytes. The list of unique Sci-Hub DOIs exceeds 2 gigabytes.
Your question is surprisingly difficult to answer. Why? Because of what it means, in different jurisdictions, to "sue" someone. If, for example, a researcher were to download articles from Sci Hub and were later to receive a threat of legal action from a publisher, it is likely that the matter would be settled, not only "out-of-court", but without a writ ever being issued (or, in the United States, a complaint being filed and a summons issued) . Even were a writ to be issued, there are many jurisdictions in which such writs are difficult to find or search. Taken together, these possibilities probably put a lot of potentially relevant information beyond reach.
Despite those limitations, I took the step of looking at the website of the World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) and searched for both scihub and sci-hub (hyphenated) and found no instances of any case in which a researcher was being sued. Likewise I searched each of the affiliated websites listed at the end of the WorldLII website (including AustLII, CanLII, etc) and found no relevant case. I did not search for cases in the world's most litigious country because I could find no free-access database. On the other hand, I was amused to find a New Zealand tribunal case involving a chiropractor in which a a direct link is given to an article on Sci Hub.
There don't appear to be any instances in which researchers have been sued for using Sci-Hub data in such a manner. I suspect this is not because publishers are uninterested in suing researchers who do this, but because most researchers are going to avoid admitting to using Sci-Hub data in that manner, especially when they can pre-train on one of the general text corpora and then fine-tune on all articles from PubMed for domain specificity - legally.
I believe it is very difficult (or perhaps impossible?) to track individuals and determine whether they are using Sci-Hub. I think even your institution may not interfere with your data traffic unless public authorities request it. I am unsure if, for a researcher outside the U.S., any court could make such a decision.
Sometimes, when you download an article, it provides some data about the server that Sci-Hub uses for the download. If a researcher publicly uses a downloaded article, and if it's possible to prove that this article was obtained through Sci-Hub using the provided information, that person might face consequences. In the end, I think collecting evidence on this would be quite challenging, and it could turn out to be costly for those looking to take legal action against researchers using Sci-Hub.
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200546 | When organizing a conference on Underline.io, what determines if the videos will be later accessible for free to anyone?
https://underline.io/ is a video platform giving access to lectures from conferences. This is not a spam, I have no affiliations with them.
Some academic conferences such as AAAI 2023 and ACL 2023 use Underline.io to host their videos. I see that some videos are accessible for free to anyone, and some videos are not accessible for free to anyone (one needs to pay to access them).
When organizing a conference on Underline.io, what determines if the videos will be later accessible for free to anyone?
Example of a video accessible for free to anyone: https://underline.io/lecture/77209-crosssum-beyond-english-centric-cross-lingual-summarization-for-1-500-language-pairs
Examples of a video that is not accessible for free to anyone (one needs to pay to access it): https://underline.io/lecture/69312-robustloc-robust-camera-pose-regression-in-challenging-driving-environments
https://underline.io/lecture/41697-demystifying-open-access:
I am still interested in this question.
Any idea is welcome.
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1695 | How to indicate shifting research interests on a CV or a website?
My research interests are shifting, due to papers I read and talks or conferences I attend (and also due to change of tastes).
However, I don't know how to communicate it on my CV or my website.
One the one hand, I am eager to move into new fields, and I am eager to learn more (and they are my first preference, when it comes to the further research).
On the other, neither I offer "expertise" in them nor I have a collection of relevant publications (at best 1-2 somehow related papers).
So, should the new interests be listed in "Research interests" as:
the first ones,
the last ones,
other (don't list them, or do sth else)?
Of course in longer research statements it is easier to explicitly state what one is doing and where the interest are going.
If it is relevant, I am a PhD student.
Why the need to advertise the new interests to the world? You can always be interested in new fields without listing them.
@DaveClarke First, when applying for schools or workshop. Second, to say "hey, you can talk to me about X".
You can/should tailor your CV for each specific application. If you are applying for something in, say, quantum optics, it might give the impression that you are not focussed if you are equally interested in, say, mathematical modelling in psychology. That said, I used to put loads of diverse things on my CV when I was a boy.
@DaveClarke When sending, I do tailor them. And dropping the new/extra interest is simple. However, applying to a new field is the difficult part. If I drop interests to which 80% of my previous work (and, say 60% of my current work) is related, it may both sound strange and do not show my skills and knowledge.
Certainly don't drop things that you have a strong track record in. I guess you need to explain when you get to the interview stage or in a cover letter that you were working in one area, but have switched to another.
As suggested in the comments above, the answer will depend on whom you are targeting.
If you are a professor targeting graduate students in a new field, I would just list the new field as an interest on your webpage, with links to your few papers. It should be enough to indicate to potential graduate students that if they have an interest in this field you would be more than happy to work with them.
If you are a professor targeting grant agencies, then just write grants targeted at whatever field you're interested in. Note that, if you have a poor publication record in the field of interest, it may be a good idea to find a strong collaborator or co-PI (if applicable in your field) to boost the likelihood of acceptance.
If you are a post-doc looking for new positions, I think it's pretty widely accepted that your interests will and should be changing. I would indicate it explicitly on your CV in your objective statement (assuming you have one) that you're interested in branching out, and again in the cover letter. Regarding your previous research, just list it under "experience"; the reader will understand based on your resume, cover letter, and the fact you're applying to jobs in different fields that this was intentional. As you stated, there is a not-insignificant chance that your lack of publications in the new field will negatively impact your application.
If you're a student, then you barely have research interests; you just have the research you've worked on for 2+ years, which you did so you could earn a PhD. Your colleagues will recognize that you're still familiarizing yourself with the field. Unless the shift is so substantial that none of your previous expertise would be useful, I wouldn't even bother to mention shifting interests; it's healthy and expected.
CVs usually have a line for research interests, and you can put whatever you want there. Similarly for a website. But if you're in a position to be evaluated based on your CV, be careful - you could be asked about these interests and you should have something to say.
Ultimately, if you're really interested in an area you'll start publishing in it and that will then be reflected in your publication list.
Surely, I can say a lot of stuff when it comes to each interests. When it comes to the actual publishing (or even before - the actual research), for me it's the egg and the chicken problem (little stuff done -> few opportunities / contacts -> ...).
I guess my point is that we eventually realize that a person is much more than their CV (in terms of what they know). So there's no harm placing a few signifiers. But more than that seems difficult to justify without evidence.
I find that few of my research opportunities come from what I put on my CV or website. I think much more they come through my personal network. If I'm invited to speak in a conference session, it's usually because the organizers know me, know my work, or (occasionally) know my PhD adviser (even though I finished more than 5 years ago). When I'm asked to referee a paper, it's often because my work is cited in the paper. One time I decided to go to a workshop in an area where I had not worked much. Not long after I committed to the workshop, one of the organizers asked me to referee a paper on that topic.
All of that is to say, that I don't think what I list on my CV among my "research interests" contributes much to my research opportunities. So, if you want to generate more opportunities, what should you do? Go to conferences. If you have work to talk about, great. If not, go to sessions on the areas you want to move into. Ask good questions. Talk with the people you meet there about possible research and workshops, or what's the next big thing in the area.
I think most people just use my website to get copies of my papers (or possibly my slides). Some of my students also use it to find links to the course webpage.
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103147 | How do I request that previously taken classes be counted toward my current program?
I'm in need of some advice. I am a nontraditional student coming back to school for a degree in nursing. Before I initially left school I only had 2 prerequisites that I still needed to fill. Now I'm being told that I have 4 because I have to retake A&P 1 and 2 with cadavers.
I previously obtained B's in both sections. Is there a proper way to approach the chair or coordinator to a program and respectfully ask for the two classes I've already taken to be reconsidered as fulfillment for the A&P they want me to take now? The material is basically the same and quite frankly I would like to avoid repeating something I've already done well in so that I can move on faster and spend my money taking classes I have not had yet. This feels like a step back.
Were you given a reason why these are not counted now?
You've answered your own question with the [tag:advisor] tag - talk to your academic advisor. They can tell you how the department typically handles such cases, explain the reasoning, look at the rest of your record, and will typically be the one to approve an exception if they believe it is warranted. They can also tell you how to petition for an exception if you disagree.
Thank you. I did sit down with an academic advisor before registering for my classes. She wouldn't elaborate on the reasoning accept to say that the material was different. Looking through the material they are using to teach now it all looks the same as what I previously took.
Sounds like the "advisor" you spoke to just has a standard list of excuses to read from : "the material is different"... It may be worthwhile speaking to one of the lecturers who teaches the subject for their input - I had to do this as the "advisor" I spoke to said I had to do a 4-week course at the end of my first semester (welding etc) and I said I knew how to weld... Spoke to the lecturer and within 5 minutes I was exempt... And., yes, I was a "non-traditional" . ie mature student...
No reason was given beyond time limit. The material hasn't changed.
Now I'm being told that I have 4 because I have to retake A&P 1 and 2 with cadavers.
While I find blanket condemnations of the passive voice to be misguided, this is a case where such an objection is well-founded. Who told you you have to retake them?
There are two main options. One is to go the professor in charge of the course. Go to office hours, and tell them about the courses you previously took. If you took the courses. Ask them what sort of discretion they have as far as granting course credit. For instance, Sometimes a professor can grant credit based on a course challenge exam. If they don't have discretion, ask them who does.
The other option is to talk with the chair of the department. Seeing them in person would probably be be best, but if they don't have office hours or other opportunities to see them, you can email them. As far as how to "respectfully" ask: really, the main thing is just to present it as inquiry rather than a request, and definitely try to avoid giving the impression that you feel entitled to an affirmative response. Showing a willingness for a compromise, such as taking the final exam for the course in lieu of taking the whole course, rather than expecting to have the requirement completely waived, also helps.
Okay so I did go and speak to the head of the nursing program. She told me that I could drop the A&P I'm currently in and take the exam that would allow me to bypass retaking A&P parts 1 and 2. Hopefully I do well enough. I appreciate the advice I was given here.
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104277 | Books/resources for new faculty
I recently accepted a TT asst prof position in computer science at an elite SLAC in the US.
During my job search I perused Karen Kelsky's book "The Professor is In", and I found it very valuable, especially to reflect about different aspects of the job search process that I hadn't considered.
I'm now looking for a similar resource for new faculty members.
Here's what I found (but haven't bought yet):
Robert Boice, Advice for New Faculty Members, 2000
Russell James, Tenure hacks: The 12 secrets of making tenure, 2014
Does anyone have any comment/review about these books, or advice about any other written resource?
Thank you.
Have you looked at https://github.com/jeanqasaur/against-junior-faculty-stress -- **Against Junior Faculty Stress Culture
A reading list.**? (Oh, and congrats!)
I got curious and looked up James's book on Amazon. The front cover describes the book as "A brutally Machiavellian guidebook", and one of the chapters is titled "Suck at teaching". Especially at a SLAC, let me recommend that you not follow his advice.
@Anonymous: The book is also written from a humanities viewpoint. It really doesn't apply well to academics in STEM fields.
@Clément: make it an answer and I'll accept it. Thanks.
This useful guide, called Against Junior Faculty Stress Culture recommends the following resources:
The Art of Saying "No", Kerry Ann Rocquemore, National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity, date unknown.
The Awesomest 7-Year Postdoc or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-Track Faculty Life, Radhika Nagpal (Harvard Computer Science), Scientific American, July 2013.
On Avoiding Stress Culture, Jean Yang (Carnegie Mellon Computer Science), personal blog, September 2016.
Shriram Krishnamurthi's Personal Manifesto, Shriram Krishnamurthi (Brown Computer Science), Google+, September 2016.
The Best Way to Not Get Tenure, Geoffrey Challen (University at Buffalo), personal blog, October 2016
Why I Don’t Tell Trainees How Many Hours I Work as a Tenure-Track Faculty Member and Advice on How to Be an Effective PhD Researcher, Sherri Rose, personal blog, June 2016 and August 2015
You Do Not Need to Work 80 Hours a Week to Succeed in Academia, Megan Duffy, personal blog, February 2014
How to Live in Paradise: A Guide for New and Disgruntled Professors, David Evans (University of Virginia Computer Science), personal blog, 2015.
How I (sometimes) achieve academic work life balance, Andy J. Ko (University of Washington iSchool), Medium, 2017.
It is on github, so don't hesitate to expand it by making pull requests!
On the teaching side, I wish that I'd read at the start of my career:
Ambrose, et. al., How Learning Works
Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do
And specifically for math instructors:
Krantz, How to Teach Mathematics
Thanks, I'll definitively look at these as well.
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101796 | What should I do if my advisor doesn't know my research field?
I have just started my PhD with the same advisor of my Master Degree. We are working in Cosmology, a new topic for my advisor who has worked for years in QFT. I owe him a lot and I learnt a lot of things from him, but now I am facing a really big problem: he is not an expert in Cosmology. He pushed me to work on ideas which I realized to be meaningless. Furthermore, I feel like we are working to publish, not to learn something. I suggested to work with a Professor of another university, a friend of my supervisor, who is a really famous master of the subject, but he didn't agree.
I don't know what to do. I really feel bad, because I don't want to waste my PhD but I don't want to argue with my advisor. What can I do?
To put it bluntly, your first job is to publish. Learning comes second. That is how the sea flows in the ocean of academia.
It is not possible to publish without learning. It is like a chain, your final goal is to have a PhD, which cannot happen without publishing good papers, which are in return the fruits of your learning.
As you are a PhD candidate, you do not need a supervisor who is an expert in the domain. You can have your own contacts with other researchers, with whom you may publish a joint work without having problems with your supervisor.
You need a different advisor...
An advisor who is an expert on research, but not on cosmology, would not be a problem if the advisor were leaving the OP to make their own collaboration network and decisions about direction. "pushed me to work on ideas..." and not agreeing to working with a subject expert are both bad signs.
To add to paul garrett's comment: I tried to write a thesis with an advisor whose interests and expertise turned out to be different than my interests (Initially neither of us appreciated this, but it slowly became clear). That advisor has been successful with other students, but in my case my interests wandered away from the context in which that advisor could act effectively. The solution then (and I think there was no other) was to change advisors. Fortunately in my case everyone involved worked to help me and handled the situation professionally and no egos were involved.
I would like to thank you for your advice. I will use it to take a decision.
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101798 | How much of a share should I have in a startup based on my PhD research?
I am about to conclude my Ph.D. work. The research has led to a possible commercial product which I always pushed. So now, after four years of work, we've filed four patents with three already granted. A year and a half ago, the PI moved to another position, so now I communicate my progess once a month).
I developed the scientific product along with software, electronic hardware, web apps, and so on, not to mention journal papers on the way. The technology is promising and we have businesses interested and willing to invest.
Along the way we got a part-time master's business student, who supports us when we have to write proposals and do interview calls and meeting possible business leads. I always join those meetings and often take decision on what should be the way and what is achievable.
Now we are on the verge of legally founding the company and possibly soon begin sales.
My dilemma is finding out what share of the company is fair for me.
The partners in the business would be me, the business student, and my PI. (I think the PI should get a fair share; after all, it was research done in her lab, however I have seen opinions saying this should be no more than 10 percent.)
Of course, on the way, there were master's student with whom I worked and taught them the lab work and tricks and all that I could to have them their work done in timely manner, also I offered them opportunity to be part of startup but they were not interested.
I don't want it to be a quarrel but also don't want to feel exploited.
If I leave there is no one on the team who understands how the technology works, or how we can produce with alternative methods (I might be overestimating, but this stuff I did for my PhD and mostly it would be another PhD who could do it. It is countless hours of labwork.) I am a co-inventor along with PI on all the patents filed/granted.
Please help me out in figuring what share of the company I should expect.
The advice about see a lawyer or attorney is priceless in this situation - verbal contracts between friends can be fine until it goes wrong...
What is fair is 100% minus whatever you agree in writing with the other parties. As what they expect is outside of your direct control, that requires negotiation and at least one lawyer to draw up an agreement you all accept. If there is a dispute the other parties need their own lawyers. An experienced lawyer is a requirement, not an option. But what you consider fair does not mean you will get that - don't lock yourself mentally into the mindset that you can decide what is fair and everyone else should be OK with it - that way lies trouble.
Many institutions have an office dedicated to helping members with the legalese of founding a spin-off company. You should check with them. They can also advise on IP issues. Many universities have IP rules to prevent such conflicts.
What location is this? Sweden has a teacher's exemption that says that universities do not own the IPR of the academics they employ, but in many other locales the university will ask for a share (apparently up to 20% or 30%). Note that "the professor" and "the university" are different entities.
Without stating the contributions made by the other student and the PI (not supervision is a contribution), this question is impossible to answer. Note that it is possible that the university owns the IP from your PhD project. Who paid the costs of the patent applications?
@DikranMarsupial student took course and i was tutor. we offered him membership and sought help in writing proposal. I did pitch and got state funding, since then its only me working full time, as student is studying and went abroad for 4 months, the businesses who want our product approached and i offered tech solution. now applying again for funding i came to know of his desires, it worries me as i believe giving less than 5 hours a week for last 18 months does not entitle him for equal share as mine when i put 60+ hr/week and developed the technology + pitch and business meetings.
What about your supervisors contribution?
@DikranMarsupial supervisor expects around 10-15% which i am ok with given her input for technology, Its rather more trouble about the business student, He expects that for writing business part of proposals, calling people for possible business and arranging meetings entitles him for equal share. However i think its not fair. Not just for now but any member who joins later will put this criteria for demanding shares. What would you advice on this situation.
TL,DR: You deserve a large majority. I consider 90% for you and 10% for your professor fair.
I finished my Ph.D. and co-founded a company based on dissertation work. I continue to work as a funded tech entrepreneur. I offer the following insights:
From your situation, it sounds like no one else is remotely close to your level of contribution. If you leave, there is no business.
Equity should be determined based on real contribution to the enterprise. You aren't being cruel or disrespectful by placing a value on what people bring to the table. At this point of the business, value equals cash or know-how. Do not award equity to someone who's really eager and ready to "work like a dog" (chances are they will fade in six months) without tying their effort to a vesting period -- they don't receive their equity until after a period of satisfactory work, quantified and agreed-to in writing.
As co-author of the patents, your professor is entitled to proceeds from the use of the intellectual property, but not equity. In this case, you are choosing to give equity in exchange for permission to use the patent. Your business operating agreement should state that.
You need to check the university guidelines regarding use of the patent. Most likely, the patent is controlled by the university and you'll have to work out a licensing agreement.
When all is said and done, you need to have enough cushion to absorb dilution (if you bring on investors or high-level staff), yet retain control or a profitable equity position. I think a 90%-10% split between you and your professor is about right at this point. If you bring on the business student (they may be a nice person, but aren't providing a lot of value), I propose a 85%-10%-5% split with a vesting period for the student. Consider awarding more equity to the student later if they work hard.
Good luck and remember: you have the know-how if people decide to make things difficult. Walk away if needed.
If the university (co-)owns patents, it is difficult to walk away and start your own business. Also, I think the share depends on how much effort would be needed to replace you. If you spent years setting something up, but that today it would take only a few hours to read, understand and implement your published articles, then maybe you won't be able to defend 90%. Well, anyway I think it is hard to get an exact value without knowing the exact situation. An attorney might be worth consulting, even if it is expensive, given the impact early choices can have later.
That's not realistic in most places. The university will most likely ask for a share in the 20% range, and whether the prof. will be happy with 10% share depends largely on how large their contribution actually was.
The business student who i mentioned, in process of writing a proposal mentioned his and mine share as equal which i felt incorrect. I got a feeling that he has imagined his shares around 40% or so, this i don't believe is correct given i work full time for it, and he works as part of his business course + gets credit for work. As he initiates the business contacts i have feeling he puts his share at high value. The product is still not such that you can read a manual and make it in few hours. Prof is not the problem but instead the business student, what should i do.
@xLeitix Cute. In an institute I used to work at the number was closer to 40%.
@xLeitix Why would the university expect a share in business, instead of patent royalties? I would only consider this if the university offers funding, or an equivalent like rent-free lab/office access.
@DmitryGrigoryev the university takes only patent royalties, and are open to sell the patent to us ( if we secure investor we may buy it). However the problem still lies with giving share to business student. I would like advice on shares division between him and me. If i disagree then we will not submit proposal now and i will most likely look for another business partner this time probably a more stronger who can actually bring full time + fund and can develop business. at the moment i invest time in these activites + he can not take decisions when technology comes into picture.
@Phillip I agree with Jesuisme on that you should avoid giving any considerable amount of equity to the business student. This will not be a pleasant conversation, especially if the student has expectations, but I don't see how he can force you into it. Rewarding him somehow for the work he has done for you would be nice though.
@DmitryGrigoryev This relieved me a lot, I would like to give fair distribution as much as possible. I wanted to know if i did all what i mentioned and the student did also all i mentioned was i right in assuming that my share and his share can't be same. I would discuss it now with him and let him know my opinion. I hope it goes smoothly.
@anderstood I agree walking away from the patents isn't an easy thing. My point is that Philip isn't automatically stuck licensing the IP from the university. If he's clever enough to figure something out the first time, there may be other ways to do it. He could also pursue IP "around" the patent controlled by the university. But that means extra time to creating a minimum viable product, so the license may ultimately cost less. I also agree that innovation has a shelf life so get moving Phillip! Finally, attorneys are very expensive and aren't needed to determine initial equity splits.
@xLeitix When we negotiated our license, the university wanted payments, not equity.
@Jesuisme Maybe it is not possible to find workaround as we tried to cover all holes and prevented any seeable workarounds. However its not bad thing as in my domain ( biomed ) strong patent is desired. The rule of university is such that as long as inventor is interested to form startup they are obliged to give 5 years of time to inventor to try. so i have automatic priority.
Could you advice on share split between me and business student as in discussion he refuses to take any less share than me! and all he did until now is write proposal with my inputs called potential business partners.
@Phillip Simple - no negotiation. He takes what you give him. He is free to go start his own company without your IP and know-how. First, examine if he's worth the effort. Apply the Shopping Center Test from Guy Kawasaki. If he doesn't pass the test, move on. If he passes the test, have a meeting and calmly point out his level of contribution and time put in relative to you and your professor. You can hire someone to provide the same effort. Equity is Monopoly money in the beginning but extremely valuable later.
Anything less than giving yourself 100% comes with risks, risks you are probably completely unaware of and with huge complications. What if someone wants to buy the company but only the entire company, but the minority shareholders don't agree to the sale? What if one of the minority shareholders dies, gets divorced, gets sued, etc. and now you have to deal with a shareholder of substantial percentage you may or may not get along with? Are you sure you won't be sued for minority shareholder abuse if you make unpopular decisions?
If you value the success of the endeavor, do not give away shares in it for work that was done for fair wages at the time.
Only give shares out when there is an event that merits another change in ownership such as when someone does offer you funding or at the time of a sale.
Talk to an attorney who is an expert in this specific subject before offering anyone anything.
+1 regarding the risks. They should be detailed explicitly in the operating agreement and other addenda like a Buy-Sell Agreement.
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143603 | Choosing my name for my first publication
I'm publishing my first ever paper in my career. Given my name is Aaron John Sabu, how should it be broken into the first name and last name?
Also, what should I write when asked for the [Initial][Surname] format?
NB: Aaron is my name, Sabu is the name of my father and John his father.
Also, I do not have a proper surname since it is not part of our custom.
Might be relevant to mention here the name by which you are registered at the university, and any other legal name.
Congratulations on your first publication and a successful Stack Exchange post (which some people consider even a bigger accomplishment)! You might want to add your country or region as a tag, if it's available.
I looked at your profile and saw that you're at IIT. Impressive! I added the tag "India", although I realize it's a large country with many different naming conventions.
@EllenSpertus, thanks!!! And, as Basil Bourque mentioned, my official name is Aaron John Sabu
What is on your passport? The MRZ tells you what the government is using as your "surname" and "forename"
Note if you had only one name, it would go in the "surname" field of your passport. Since you have three, it's likely they've been divided between the two fields.
Regarthles of what you do, get an ORC-ID account. That way, you can link it to yourself, regarthless how different publishers may want to use your name
@AnderBiguri yeah that's done :)
Aaron is my name, Sabu is the name of my father and John his father. Also, I do not have a proper surname since it is not part of our custom.
I suggest adopting Sabu as your surname, Aaron as your given name, and John as your middle name, or some variant of that. I think this is advisable, because you'll regularly be asked for your surname and given name, and sometimes your middle name or it's initial. Such an adoption will simplify administration. That said, I appreciate that you might want to follow your customs, rather than those of others.
In terms of publishing,
Pick a name you'll use forever.
Your name is your brand. It's how you'll be identified.
Pick a name that is unique (or at least rare, especially to Google).
A unique name is easier to find.
You might decide upon Aaron Sabu, Aaron J. Sabu, or Aaron John Sabu, for instance. Google each and see if it is unique or rare.
From comments:
As pointed out...there is no obvious choice that will send the message that you want to be called Aaron and cited as Aaron et al. That choice just doesn't fit well in the conventions of the Western naming culture, unfortunately
I disagree, S. J. Aaron or J. S. Aaron could be used (an initial could also be dropped). Citations will appear as Aaron et al. and there seems only to be an option of calling the OP Aaron.
Another possibility is Aaron John-Sabu, with a hyphen. That would suggest that Aaron is the name and John-Sabu the 'surname'. People will cite you as John-Sabu et al. rather than Sabu et al. with all other options.
(As pointed out in user2173836's comment, there is no obvious choice that will send the message that you want to be called Aaron and cited as Aaron et al.. That choice just doesn't fit well in the conventions of the Western naming culture, unfortunately).
@FedericoPoloni +1 for each comments, with a response to the second above
Good point on J.S. Aaron, that seems a great option.
@FedericoPoloni thanks to your suggestion, I'm thinking of Aaron John-Sabu, which can be abbreviated as J-S., Aaron or Aaron J-S.
Am I in the right direction?
@AaronJohnSabu unfortunately I would expect people to cite that as "A. John-Sabu", unless you've specifically told them otherwise. It's very unlikely anybody (who doesn't know you and isn't familiar with your cultural background) would understand that "Aaron" is the part you wish to have displayed in full, rather than seeing it as a first name and "John-Sabu" as a family name (i.e. the typical format of names in English-speaking countries) - especially as Aaron and John are both common names in English-speaking countries.
(and specifically telling everybody who might cite you is unfortunately not a viable option)
@ChrisH Oh. That's completely fine. My bad. That's apparently what I meant
@AaronJohnSabu ah, ok - in that case, yes: if you're fine being cited that way, then Aaron John-Sabu is certainly a suitable way to write your name.
Taking @ChrisH into account .. I suggest you do similar to Japanese - their convention for surname given-name when introducing themselves and calling each other so you might reverse the names given to you, when you want westerners call you correctly ( Japanese turn their names around when introducing to Gaijin [foreigners] that mostly expect given-name surname convention
@Buffy's and @user2768's answers raise good points to consider when choosing.
I'd like to recommend in addition: Get yourself an ORCID and use it. An ORCID is a unique identifier that you can keep, however you may later on decide to change your name again.
ORCID allows several names, they say the only one really required is the first names (which can also be multiple first names) in order to also work for cultures like yours. So you could leave surname blank and actually keep your name as it is.
You can also specify how you'd like to be cited (I'm not sure how many look this up, though. But literature data bases should hopefully get that right), and you can even give also-known-as names.
As a side note: while it's good to think a bit which name you like to use, it's not that you cannot change it if it turns out not to work as well as you thought. If you use an identifier like ORCID, this won't even lead to confusion whether it is still you.
(And people in western culture do change their surnames as well, e.g. when getting married or divorced.)
It's not that western cultures don't know patronyms (usually with some change, e.g. prefix or suffix meaning son/daughter, diminutive or genitive). In many western countries they meanwhile became family names but AFAIK in Iceland it is usual (and Denmark possible) to give children a proper patronymic or matronymic name. They put the patronym/matronym as surname - so if you don't know the name of the parent, you don't notice the difference between a proper patonymic/matronymic or one that meanwhile became family name.
And Wales. The form "Dafydd ap Iolo" ("David, son of Iolo) is the type of full name some people use. There is no family name in such a usage. If Dafydd ap Iolo wrote a paper then he would use that full name, and certainly would not tolerate being indexed as "Iolo, A. D.".
@cbeleitessupportsMonica did that now with pleasure! Thanks!!!
@JeremyC: wouldn't the abbreviation/indexing be "ap Iolo, D."? And AFAIK, that's what Icelandic or Danish people with patronymic/matronymic do: the patronymic is their surname (but not family name). What I don't know is whether this is just because it would be too tedious for Anders Andersen to tell everyone to list them as Anders rather than Andersen because it is the proper patronymic - while Jens Jensen next door is Jensen because its the family name...
@cbeleites In Iceland, patronyms are the default, with a comparatively smaller number of people having family names, and in Icelandic listings, people are listed by their first names; so Þór Birgisson is listed as such. In Denmark, your surname is your surname, regardless of whether it’s a family name or a patronym; so Anders Hansen is listed as “Hansen, Anders”. The main difference is that patronyms have been very rare in Denmark for over a century; family names are ubiquitous. I don’t think I’ve ever met a single Danish person with a patronymic surname.
@JanusBahsJacquet: many thanks
Actually, you have a lot of freedom to do it as best pleases you. You could even create an alter ego (as I have here) under which to publish.
But there are two constraints.
The first is that you probably want to choose a name that you will be happy with over your career, so that people won't get confused by seeing different names from the same author.
The second is that you want people to be able to find and connect with you. Mostly that will be via email, I suspect, but if someone calls up your university and asks for you by your public persona name it should be easy to reach you personally.
If you just use the name you have used here, few people outside your own culture would even notice and just assume that your "family" name is Sabu. Some names in Western European culture arose in just that way. Others arose from peoples occupation (Taylor and Smith, for example). But people might also want to refer to you as Professor Sabu, rather than Professor Aaron, which you might prefer.
But, don't worry that there are conventions that restrict your choices here. Assume that you have control over your own name.
people will also cite the paper as Sabu et al. which might not be what OP wants. However, since Aaron and John are reasonable common first names, i can see how choosing the surname to be Aaron, it will just get miscited as sabu anyway
You may wish to consider which variations are more unique than others. A. John may be more easily confused with others in your field than A. Sabu...you might want to survey prolific publishers in your field to create a more distinct combination.
Stage name (Wikipedia)
A surname is used to identify family. From your tradition, you get your fathers name and his father's name to identify family - as far as I can understand.
I suggest that you merge your two last names with a hyphen: Aaron John-Sabu. In that way you pay respect to both your father and grandfather, and you will have a unique name. I am sure you can live with this forever. Which, as User2768 pointed out, is a nice perk for a chosen name.
Thanks. That's my final conclusion as suggested by others as well such as @FedericoPoloni
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80545 | What is the difference between project and thesis?
How project and thesis differs in terms of creativity ?
which one is original ? project or thesis ?
any formal definition for project and thesis ?
You have probably two accounts (maybe three?): you can merge them in a single one. See the I accidentally created two accounts; how do I merge them?.
It differs by school. Technically, a thesis is a claim that can be proven or disproven, but, in practice, the term "thesis" is often used for a project (for undergraduate or Master's degrees). On the other hand, a PhD thesis is not just a project; it should advance the state of knowledge in a field in a way that can only be done by someone knowledgeable in the field.
My department is considering renaming our Master's thesis requirement to Master's project, to acknowledge that it need not be a research contribution.
Of course, even a project can entail publishable work or advance the state of the art, but it need not.
thanks, is there any difference in terms of novelty ?
i know that a phd thesis or masters thesis needs to be original
but does the project needs to be original ?
@RashidaHasanRupa Technically, all projects are original, since nobody has solved exactly the same problem.
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10548 | Penalties for disclosing student grades without consent
Is it illegal to share students' grades with somebody else (e.g their parents) without their consent in the US? What are the most common penalties for such a violation of privacy? Is jail time possible as a punishment?
This may depend upon what country you are in, and the rules of your academic institution – that's where you should start asking questions.
@DaveClarke: I am talking about the US. For example, what is the policy at your institution?
Can you change your question to reflect that? Can you also put the title question within the body and make the title somewhat shorter, yet covering the contents of the whole question?
It's not clear what you're getting at. Is this a theoretical question about what could happen (but won't), or a practical question? For example, in the U.S. it is illegal to share university grades with anyone else (the law is called "FERPA"). I have no idea whether the theoretical penalties could include jail, but it's inconceivable that anyone would actually be jailed for sharing grades with a student's parents.
-1 as this can't be answered with so few information. It should also not make a difference if the 3rd person is a parent, a classmate, or someone in a role somehow differently connected to the inidividual in question.
I've tried to edit this into a more answerable question.
Does this question need to exist in the first place? In the US, it is illegal so why would you feel the need to share grades to non students.
Do note that your (U.S.) institution will have a standard "FERPA waiver form." If parents want to know about student progress, just tell them that the student must first present you with a signed FERPA waiver. If the parents don't like it, that's between them and the student, and you are in the clear.
While this is an old post, FERPA was brought up on another post - thought its worth commenting here also. According to https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/parents.html : FERPA also permits a school to disclose personally identifiable information from education records of an "eligible student" (a student age 18 or older or enrolled in a postsecondary institution at any age) to his or her parents if the student is a "dependent student" as that term is defined in Section 152 of the Internal Revenue Code. .../...
.../... Generally, if either parent has claimed the student as a dependent on the parent's most recent income tax statement, the school may non-consensually disclose the student's education records to both parents.
So, contrary to the popular belief held, schools are indeed allowed to disclose information to parents IF the student happens to be the parent's(s') dependent per IRS purposes.
In addition to US laws like FERPA, I think the GDPR would also apply to any university with European students.
In the US the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects the privacy of students. This "act" is not a law (on further reading it is a law), but rather a stipulation by the Department of Education that universities must obey in order to receive funding. As such, I do not believe that violations are classed as a criminal offense and hence cannot lead to jail time. Universities which violate the FERPA can lose their funding and likely have grounds to dismiss employees who violate the act. The university might even be able to seek damages against those individuals, but again, not jail time.
I would suggest that you not violate FERPA. If you intend to, or have done so (accidentally or otherwise), I suggest that you seek legal advice.
+1 for seek legal advice. In addition to the institution seeking damages, the the student(s) can seek civil damages from the institution and the individual who disclosed the information.
This is not legal advice... If only people giving mathematical or dietary advice without credentials could be sued for failing to make a similar disclaimer! :)
There are two parts to this issue. First, is it ok to tell people students' grades? In the U.S., almost entirely "no", if the student is 18 or older. FERPA. It doesn't matter whether or not the student's parents are paying the tuition, the student's grades are privileged personal information.
It is acceptable use to disclose student grades for (e.g.) intra-math-departmental function, such as advising, admission committee work, and other "privileged" use.
A traditional practice that is no longer ok is posting grades on instructors' doors, for example.
For "old" people, the idea that one is not in fact legally entitled to know the grades of the student whose tuition you're paying will seem strange. Indeed, decades ago, the grades were sent to the parents directly, in paper mail.
But, now, 18-or-over people are essentially legal adults in the U.S., and their school records (and medical records) are not automatically open to their parents.
Thus, despite intuition to the contrary, simply do not give grades to parents, ... without seeking legal advice about extenuating circumstances, such as emergencies.
Edit: but, then, "jail time"? Who knows? But maybe monetary damages if someone sues you for violation of their privacy rights. Apart from the risk of this, if we think it through, maybe kids' grades (if they're "adults") should not be divulged to anyone... So don't do it?
Parents can sign a contract with their children that the children must furnish their grades in exchange for disclosing their grades; but that is between parent and child, the child must provide the grade sheet to the parent themselves and not involve the school. This is also often a condition of many fellowships.
@RoboKaren: Maybe I am trying to evangelize this message: According to https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/parents.html : " FERPA also permits a school to disclose personally identifiable information from education records [...] to his or her parents if the student is a "dependent student" as that term is defined in Section 152 of the Internal Revenue Code. Generally, if either parent has claimed the student as a dependent on the parent's most recent income tax statement, the school may non-consensually disclose the student's education records to both parents."
@Just_to_Answer .. that information is superseded by: " When a student reaches 18 years of age or attends a postsecondary institution, he or she becomes an "eligible student," and all rights under FERPA transfer from the parent to the student. "
@RoboKaren: The full statement of the first part does deal with "eligle student" also. Here it is: [Quote] FERPA also permits a school to disclose personally identifiable information from education records of an "eligible student" (a student age 18 or older or enrolled in a postsecondary institution at any age) to his or her parents if the student is a "dependent student" as that term is defined in Section 152 of the Internal Revenue Code. [end Quote]
A number of people have mentioned FERPA. Looking at the text of FERPA and at this University web page suggests what some others have said: violations of FERPA can result, ultimately, in withholding funding from the university but the law does not list criminal sanctions for either individuals or institutions for violation. That is also my understanding.
That said, there other privacy laws or other kinds of laws that might be violated by disclosure of educational records. There are a variety of other state, local, and federal laws — plus plenty of common law tort law, that could take effect. And besides, people sue for all kinds of things including things that aren't even in violation of a law.
To be clear: I am not a lawyer nor a legal expert and this is not legal advice. But, as a non-lawyer that likes to believe that world has certain common-sense limits, it seems insane to suggest that telling a parent a grade could result in jail time. If you're worried and need a "real" answer, you should find a lawyer and ask.
It also seems even more insane that a university would risk their funding by allowing the faculty to violate FERPA.
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90673 | Is it ethical to invite a student to apply for a job through my spouse?
In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.
Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.
My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?
Update
I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.
I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference).
(Disclosure: I'm not a professor.)
I don't personally see any ethical concerns SO LONG AS you indicate clearly (as you said you would do) that the recommendation letter will be equally strong regardless of whether or not the student applies through your spouse. Under those circumstances, I'd call this "networking," not "bribery" or "coercion".
The idea you proposed of writing the letter first and then informing the student seems like a nice way of ensuring that the student knows you've written a strong letter. There is the possibility that the student will still feel pressured, of course -- "if I don't say yes, then my professor will send a second contradictory letter" -- but assuming you have a positive relationship with the student, that seems unlikely.
I don’t see any conflict (or need to donate the bonus). Simply inform the student that as an applicant, that they are more likely to be accepted if they are referred by an existing employee and that at this company employees receive bonuses when they successfully refer a applicant. Ask if they have such a referral, and if not offer to have your spouse submit one on their behalf.
This is a classic win-win situation, where all parties benefit from cooperation. The only potential conflict is if the student already has such a referral, it might seem that you are pressuring them to use your spouse instead, which is why you ask if they have one before volunteering your spouse.
The only possible conflict is if you embellished the LoR in order to increase the students chance of gaining the job in order get the bonus, which is more than balanced by the resulting damage to you and your spouses reputations. An appropriately luke-warm recommendation and referral is going to better for both of you in the long run.
I often found jobs for my cs students at the company I consulted with. I arranged to have the referral bonus given directly to my department.
I made sure everyone knew about this arrangement up front.
Your job includes writing letters of recommendation when students have earned them. Finding students a referral opportunity from a company employee is doing better than what you need to do.
Your spouse's job includes earning referral bonuses.
Both of you are doing your jobs. There is no conflict. Your spouse could reasonably keep the bonus.
Don't require the student to use the referral, apply for the job, or accept the job.
Warn students not to apply for companies you know are abusive.
Don't recommend students who will do a bad job.
Disclaimer: this is not legal advice. This is just a personal opinion. I might be somewhat though in comparison with most.
This is a borderline case. In general however I would stay away from this unless you are very sure the alumni would like this job. Although I am utterly convinced of your good intention, even if you say there will be no consequences the alumni might not believe you. That sounds like it is not your problem but you have an authority position and so you don't have a relationship of equals. This means that you must be much more careful. And in this case the doubt might, completely independent of you, be somewhat justified, because you might not intentionally write a worse recommendation letter. But unintentionally you might. At least I could see that as a legitimate worry.
First writing the letter might be a good guarantee like @tonysdg pointed out. However I still think this is not optimal since then you might write an overly positive recommendation letter because you want the student to be hired for your personal gain (reputation within the college can also be gain) or it might at least be perceived that way.
This might be immoral to the company or towards other students (since they get comparatively less positive recommendation letters).
I can see this working in a morally acceptable way but I think there is alot to be carfull about. In general I would be at the very least cautious when having a monetary/reputational (outside your reputation as teacher) incentive in dealing with students outside of the money adn reputation you get from the university.
I disagree with this answer. To the extent that reputational gain is a gain, all professors everywhere writing letters of recommendation for their students stand to gain from their students' success and are therefore in a conflict of interest similar to OP's. To infer that writing an LOR due to such a conflict is "borderline" unethical is therefore pretty ridiculous IMO, since the same logic would imply that all LOR-writing situations are also borderline. In short, I think your standards are way too exacting. Does OP need to be careful? Sure, she does and is clearly being careful already. ...
... But is there anything remotely unethical about OP's plan? Not at all. Moreover, note that ethics questions are often about trade-offs. What of the benefit that would come to OP's college from a donation of several thousand dollars? Indeed, one could argue quite reasonably that foregoing the opportunity to bring this money to her college because of some hypothetical concern that bears almost no relation to how people actually behave in real life is the unethical choice. So again, I think the level of self-doubt you are advocating here is pretty unreasonable.
Deleted a previous comment of my own for a being worded too strong
@DanRomik On most of this I agree with you which is why included sentences like "I might be somewhat though in comparison with most." and that I think it is possible to do this within ethical borders. However I would not equate all LOR situations to this one. How often does your household get a monetary reward where a LOR is involved ? Yes OP says she will be donating it to the college, but OP's household still gets it personally, I might be somewhat naive, but I do think get this is quite an extraordinary situation
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200906 | How much money do government agencies spend yearly on diamond open access?
I read on blog.orvium.io:
Diamond Open Access is an open-access publishing model where scholarly articles are made freely available to readers without cost or barrier. In the Diamond Open Access model, the entire publishing process, from peer review to publication, is funded by non-profit organizations, research institutions, or government agencies rather than by charging fees to authors or readers.
This made me wonder: how much money do government agencies spend yearly on diamond open access? If too broad, I'm mostly interested in the USA.
It is difficult to quantify. It is not yet a structured thing. Maybe you can look after McGill Uni (Canada) budget, since they are very open to host the infrastructure to have diamond open access journals (see press-release https://reporter.mcgill.ca/tectonic-shifts-in-academic-publishing/ )
I don't have a satisfying number answer. I think you would have to search for an compile this info yourself. You might consider looking at DOAJ or cOAlition S. There was a report written up on this a while ago but it doesn't include hard funding numbers.
As far as I know there isn't any public, centralized database with funding info (like NIH RePORT) for journals. In any case, many diamond open access journals are not funded by grants in the same way that research might be. Funding comes from all sorts of places and is not uniform from journal to journal. So it would be tough to figure out specifics across the entire country.
The truth is that the cost of starting a journal these days is negligible. A budget conscious group could start a journal for next to nothing. There are free systems, for instance PKP's Open Journal System, that are open source and easy to implement. Web hosting is very inexpensive, Gmail business emails are too, and most journals rely on volunteer work from editors and reviewers.
The low cost (potentially) of running a diamond open access journal, combined with the fact that they are not as prevalent in the United States as elsewhere in the world means that the amount of government money spent directly on diamond open access is probably relatively low.
An example of a low cost open access journal (OA diamond level) with public figures is The Journal of Open Source Software. In US dollars of 2019: Annual Crossref membership: $275, Annual Portico membership: $250, JOSS paper DOIs: $1 / accepted paper and JOSS website hosting (Heroku): $19 / month (source). By their 2019 blog post, the $4.75 APC/publication (assuming 200 publications/year) only is possible thanks to volunteers.
I found some numbers on https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-11-21/scientists-paid-large-publishers-over-1-billion-in-four-years-to-have-their-studies-published-with-open-access.html. It's not specific to diamond access, but still interesting.
Scientists paid large publishers over $1 billion in four years to have their studies published with open access
[...]
Stefanie Haustein’s team from the University of Ottawa (Canada) has spent “years” collecting data from the period 2015-2018. According to their calculations, Springer Nature took the lion’s share, with $589.7 million, followed by Elsevier ($221.4 million), Wiley ($114.3 million), Taylor & Francis ($76.8 million), and Sage ($31.6 million). The fees required for a study to be made available with open access are officially called “article processing charges,” and on average, authors or their institutions have to pay more than $2,500 per study. French sociologist Pierre Bataille refers to the publishers’ charges as “research vampirization.”
I don't see how this answers the question. The paper referred to in that news article is, as far as I can tell, focused entirely on article processing charges (APCs) paid to the five largest publishers for articles published in gold and hybrid open access (OA) journals. The paper appears to count diamond OA as a subset of gold OA with unknown APCs. Therefore, all you can infer about how much governments spend on diamond OA is that there is a trivial lower bound of zero. In other words, the costs quoted are specific to non-diamond OA.
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189979 | Conference rejects submissions with undeclared Conflicts of Interest (COI) automatically found on DBLP instead of using them to choose reviewers. Why?
I read some email about some paper submission:
Here are potential COIs [Conflicts of Interest] found by our automated tool, which uses DBLP to detect recent coauthorships: [Alice, Bob]. Per [conference name] submission guidelines, it is the full responsibility of all authors of a paper to identify and declare all COIs, and we reserve the right to desk-reject submissions with undeclared conflicts or spurious conflicts.
Why would a conference desk-reject submissions with undeclared conflicts based on COIs automatically found on DBLP instead of using these COIs to choose proper reviewers (e.g., as CVPR 2024 does)?
(The dblp.org website is a database of authorship information for computer science publications.)
If the author intentionally fails to disclose the COI (as opposite to a simple oversight), that's because they hope to get that person as a reviewer....Do you think that in this situation it would be a good idea to use those COIs to choose proper reviewers?
Please don't use abbreviations in your question title.
@FranckDernoncourt Your question is still missing a lot of information for someone that doesn't know exactly how this conference is being run. Are Alice and Bob part of some public list of reviewers?
You/They did not follow the rules and got sanctioned for it.
Thanks. Why would a conference desk-reject submissions with undeclared COIs automatically found on DBLP instead of using these COIs to choose proper reviewers?
Failure to disclose a conflict is an ethical matter. A form of malfeasance. Conferences don't have time for multiple review/revision cycles, so you get rejected.
@Buffy why would that cause multiple review/revision cycles?
Journals have multiple cycles. Conferences don't because of time constraints. But the reason is that COI need to be disclosed in the paper and if you don't do it initially, they need to be added, requiring a rewrite and a new review.
@Buffy why not automatically assign reviewers based on the COIs that are found automatically?
@FranckDernoncourt What if there are mistakes in the COIs found automatically? How would you know/validate that they are correct? You are trying to answer a negative when there is no clear advantage of it.
Dr. Snoopy: I am sharing your concern. Automatic person extraction from bibliographic information has its pitfalls. I presume that missing COI are relatively rare and can be handled by the program committee chair.
While the answer by Thomas Schwarz is correct, I guess a deeper question is why the conference would even ask the authors about COIs if it has a way to automatically extract them.
The reason, quite simply, is that not all COIs are visible from DBLP. DBLP does not index all papers, and there are other types of COIs that are not directly observable from co-authored papers. In practice, it's almost impossible to get around authors self-declaring COIs, and it's crucial to get them to do so carefully and truthfully. I suspect the conference's somewhat draconian response is a reaction to that - authors failing to declare obvious COIs is not a light matter, as it calls into question which other COIs they failed to declare (which are not visible from DBLP).
"authors failing to declare obvious COIs is not a light matter, as it calls into question which other COIs they failed to declare" -> I guess you're right. My thought was that in most cases, COIs = coauthorship, so maybe the conference could focus on asking COIs that didn't lead to coauthorship, so that authors don't have to spend hours compiling the list unless they have a script for it.
@FranckDernoncourt I'm interpreting your comment as, "I'm busier than the conference staff so they should do the extra work." Wouldn't you need a list of COIs for grant submissions, coauthors, etc. anyway?
Hmmm. Why shouldn't authors "spend hours" compiling a list? It is part of the job, actually. Don't expect others to do your job.
@mkennedy no, it's more about collectively saving human time.
@Buffy if someone has a convenient to generate a co-author list, why not help others?
@FranckDernoncourt: That sounds like a good suggestion to make to the DBLP website owners -- since they already have the data, they could generate for any author a list of previous coauthors in a format suitable for placement in a potential COI entry (naturally that wouldn't be the entire entry, but as you say it would save a bunch of time).
@FranckDernoncourt I don't know, I am not involved with any conference that does this sort of checking. But if I had to speculate it's because it is clearer and easier to simply ask for COIs than to ask for COIs except the ones of a specific type (co-authorship visible in DBLP). I do agree with you that manually maintaining COI lists is a pain, but I also agree with some of the commenters that it's not really on the conference to automate this.
A conference needs to proceed in a timely manner. The conflict of interest are needed to select reviewers. If a reviewer is asked to review (at a top conference they might have already agreed to review N papers at this time) and finds a conflict of interest, the reviewer will inform the chair of the program committee and the paper needs to be reassigned to another reviewer. What is easy for a small conference with less than one hundred submissions becomes an administrative nightmare with more than a thousand submissions.
Even with a small conference, there is no time to go out and start recruiting reviewers after submissions. That is why there are program committees, which might or not might give discretion to assigned reviewers to assign to sub-reviewers (in their research group) or recruit other sub-reviewers outside. Usually, shortly after the submission deadline, reviewers are invited to bid on papers (in which they declare their confidence in being able to do a good job at reviewing for a particular paper). Papers with a conflict of interest are usually already excluded for a particular reviewer from bidding. During this phase, reviewers can also state conflicts of interest. After the bidding phase (usually a few days), a typically automatic assignment of papers to reviewers is made, giving reviewers a relatively short time window to prepare the reviews. For conferences with a very large number of submissions, this process needs to be modified. Instead of bidding on papers, the conference might choose a different mechanism, such as assigning papers and reviewers to sub-topics.
Not declaring conflicts of interests interferes with this process. It is not the task of the conference organizers to do the conflict of interest declaration. Automatic tools are actually dangerous. People publish under different names, change affiliations, and there are even people with the same or similar names in the same field. The current process has enough informal safe-guards to deal with difficulties arising from the difficulties of identifying conflicts of interests.
There is also a concern in the community about various forms of manipulations. There have been cases of groups of scientists helping each other to get published by manipulating the peer review process. Openly declaring conflicts of interests is our duty as submitters in a peer-reviewed conference.
Maybe it would be better to edit your (very short) original answer rather than adding a second answer with more detail?
To me, this sounds like the conference doesn't trust their own reviewers to indicate conflicts of interest.
The automated system is going to be terrible at detecting legitimate conflicts of interests because conflicts based on relationships or shared non-publishing interests will not appear. This will be particularly problematic for conflicts based on rivalries or disputes, because professional enemies are unlikely to publish together.
If the field is one in which multi-author papers are common, the authors are also likely to resent the burden placed on them. I feel annoyed enough when I have to put hundreds of co-author names on an NSF conflict on interest forms and would certainly not want to do so for a conference.
The only potentially good thing that I see is that "we reserve the right to reject" is not the same as "we will reject", so it is possible that the conference is using it as a detector for egregious cases rather than an obnoxious demand for perfection.
Bottom line: the conference appears to distrust its reviewers honesty.
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213541 | Are Indian research institutions more lenient about research misconduct than in other countries?
I read on theprint.in (mirror):
In any other country plagiarism and getting banned from publishing in an international journal would be treated as a research crime. The scientist would be suspended and an inquiry would be called,” a senior scientist at Presidency University said. “It’s only here that tainted scientists get promotions and rewards.”
[...]
Such allegations are serious, but most of these Indian scientists continue to thrive in their academic careers without facing consequences—a grim reflection of the state of India’s research ecosystem.
Are Indian research institutions more lenient about research misconduct than in other countries? If so, what would be the reason(s)?
The same article mentions:
Many of these scientists run in close quarters with their institutes’ administration, so it becomes convenient to turn a blind eye to such wrongdoings.
But that's true in most, if not all, countries.
Actually, it’s just not true. On Retraction Watch you can find multiple stories per day of this happening, in every country around the world, with no punishment. Everybody thinks their problems are unique.
@knzhou I think you have an answer. Write it up! :)
@knzhou I second Richard's comment, you're very welcome to write an answer.
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209642 | How can I list the ORCIDs of all my coauthors?
How can I list the ORCIDs of all the co-authors on all the publications I co-authored? Assume that I don't want to do the list myself manually.
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51865 | What percentage of links posted in published articles are dead?
Is there any research/study that looked at the impact of the percentage of links posted in published articles are dead? I am trying to know to what extent dead links are an issue. E.g. on Stack Overflow, it looks like 10% of the links posted here are dead.
(originally posted on http://openscience.stackexchange.com/q/124/3)
(which is a dead link now…)
Reposting my answer from the original thread
There have been multiple studies about this over the years and in different fields, indicating a link rot on the order of a few percent per year. Here are some, in chronological order:
Randy J. Carnevale, Dominik Aronsky, The life and death of URLs in five biomedical informatics journals, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Volume 76, Issue 4, April 2007, Pages 269-273, doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2005.12.001.
states
Of the 19,108 references extracted from 606 printed and 86 in-press articles, 1112 (5.8%) references contained a URL. Of the 1049 unique URLs, 726 (69.2%) were alive, 230 (21.9%) were dead, and 93 (8.9%) were comatose. URLs from in-press articles included 212 URLs, of which 169 (79.7%) were alive, 21 (9.9%) were dead, and 22 (10.4%) were comatose. The average annual decay, or link rot, rate was 5.4%.
Edmund Russell, Jennifer Kane (2008). The Missing Link: Assessing the Reliability of Internet Citations in History Journals. Technology and Culture, Volume 49, Number 2, pp. 420-429. doi:10.1353/tech.0.0028
states
We examined the reliability of worldwide web citations in two leading history journals (Journal of American History and American Historical Review) over seven years and found that 18 percent of web links cited over that period were inactive. The problem increased over time. In articles published seven years earlier, 38 percent of web citations were dead.
Jason Hennessey and Steven Xijin Ge (2013): A cross disciplinary study of link decay and the effectiveness of mitigation techniques. BMC Bioinformatics 14(Suppl 14):S5. doi:10.1186/1471-2105-14-S14-S5
states
we downloaded 18,231 Web of Science (WOS) abstracts containing "http" in the title or abstract from the years under study (1996-2010), out of which 17,110 URLs (14,489 unique) were extracted and used. We developed Python scripts to access these URLs over a 30-day period. For the period studied, 69% of the published URLs (67% of the unique) were available on the live Internet, the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine had archived 62% (59% unique) of the total and WebCite had 21% (16% unique). Overall, 65% of all URLs (62% unique) were available from one of the two surveyed archival engines.
Klein M, Van de Sompel H, Sanderson R, Shankar H, Balakireva L, Zhou K, et al. (2014) Scholarly Context Not Found: One in Five Articles Suffers from Reference Rot. PLoS ONE 9(12): e115253. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115253.
looked at link rot in article corpora from arXiv, Elsevier, and PMC:
All three corpora show a moderate, yet alarming, link rot ratio for references made in recent articles, published in 2012: 13% for arXiv, 22% for Elsevier, and 14% for PMC. Not surprisingly when considering the dynamic nature of the web, for older articles the link rot ratio increases in all corpora. For publication year 2005, the link rot ratio stands at 18%, 41%, 36% for arXiv, Elsevier, and PMC, respectively. Going back to the earliest publication year in our corpora, 1997, the ratios become 34%, 66%, and 80%, respectively.
Zittrain, J, Albert, K and Lessig, L . (2014). Perma: scoping and addressing the problem of link and reference rot in legal citations. Harvard Law Review 127: 176–196.
surveyed law journals and court decisions, with the following observations
We documented a serious problem of reference rot: more than 70% of the URLs within the above mentioned journals, and 50% of the URLs within U.S. Supreme Court opinions suffer reference rot — meaning, again, that they do not produce the information originally cited.
I also think I had seen a study somewhere that indicated that even "early online" articles start out at about 5-10% link rot, i.e. they start rotting well before official publication. Could not find that right now, though.
Dellavalle RP, Hester EJ, Heilig LF, Drake AL, Kuntzman JW, Graber M, et al. Information science. Going, going, gone: lost Internet references. Science 2003 Oct 31;302(5646):787-788. DOI:10.1126/science.1088234; http://science.sciencemag.org/content/302/5646/787 ; https://web.archive.org/web/20170813145731/http://science.sciencemag.org/content/302/5646/787
The use of Internet references in academic literature is common, and Internet references are frequently inaccessible. The extent of Internet referencing and Internet reference activity in medical or scientific publications was systematically examined in more than 1000 articles published between 2000 and 2003 in the New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and Science. Internet references accounted for 2.6% of all references (672/25548) and in articles 27 months old, 13% of Internet references were inactive. Publishers, librarians, and readers need to reassess policies, archiving systems, and other resources for addressing Internet reference attrition to prevent further information loss.
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278 | How to format for a useful journal club?
I've been attending my lab's journal club for a while, and I'm wondering whether there are better ways out there of conducting a journal club. To make the question more generic, our club seems to have two purposes:
Ensure that the students in the lab are reading papers in the field
Discuss the latest research findings in the field
Regarding goal (1), that's kinda what I'm spending all my time doing; I'm doing research, and much of that involves little more than reading a ridiculous number of papers. Insofar as accomplishing goal (2), I'm not sure we do it the best way possible. The journal club I'm currently attending is run by a professor. In general, one person prepares a presentation, and the professor grills that person on the paper. Other people chime in if they're interested, but more often than not it's an hour of watching the prof duel with the student. If the student is well prepared, I'll learn a lot, but when the kid has clearly not read the paper well, it's just a waste of everyone's time. What successful journal club formats have you encountered?
Your question is confusing: do you want to talk about lab meeting formats, or journal club formats? The two are not identical at all.
Yeah, good point. My lab meeting was run as a journal club most of the time, which was probably part of the problem :) I'll reformulate the wording to focus on journal clubs, and ask about lab meetings in a separate question.
This is based on my experience being in some highly unsuccessful journals clubs, and some very successful ones - at least in my mind.
You must have faculty involvement. I've seen more than one journal club that either didn't have faculty members, or had a faculty member or two who just kind of sat back and didn't say anything. That's bad. Faculty members who can contribute, answer questions, and generally provide some context for papers are excellent. They're good for pointed questions we might have missed - I've had faculty members ask a question about a figure that got into an interesting discussion of research ethics, one that led insight into some politics ("The reason that commentary appeared in this journal is Y"), etc.
I prefer to have them separate from lab meetings, and drawing from a wider audience than my specific research group. I find the breadth of experience, diversity of papers, and keeping up with things taking place beyond my narrow little laser-like focus to be both refreshing and more useful than going over a paper half of us already read.
Giving the journal club a greater context. Yes, keeping track of the literature is important. But its importance seems to slide if you know your analysis should be done soon, or something needs to come out of the water bath, or midterms need to be graded. One semester we framed ours as qualifying exam preparation, and another as professional development - the people presenting wrote their critiques like responses to requests for peer review.
Overall, I've found journal clubs to be most useful for mid-level graduate students - they need enough experience to have thoughts, insights and feelings about the paper, but if a JC succeeds, eventually they should need it less and less.
I disagree with point #1. The best journal club I've been part of was one in graduate school that was organized by graduate students and postdocs, with the explicit rule that faculty weren't involved. The idea was to have more "free" discussions, and to avoid the scenario sketched by the OP in which the conversation is simply a grilling of a student by a professor, which sounds terrible. Of course, doing this without faculty or a mandatory structure requires a lot of motivation on the part of the students / postdocs. Thankfully, we had this, and it was stellar.
Fomite's answer is great. Along the lines of "greater context" - you could form a journal club around a topic, rather than around your laboratory. When I was in grad school for plant biology, a friend of mine in Ag Chemistry formed a photosynthesis journal club. He was able to get his supervisor (photosynth bacteria) and another PI (plant focused) on board as regular attendees, while the student himself proctored the meetings. I participated not because I was studying photosynthesis myself, but because I wanted to learn more about biophysics.
Attendees (including the professors) took turns selecting papers and leading discussions. It ended up being good study for my qualifying exam - and a good way to get face time with others in the department that I wouldn't normally interact with.
This is one way to get around the "students take turns getting grilled by one professor." Take the initiative or find another student who wants to run a club, and find professors who want to participate but not lead. The environment will be different.
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588 | Who pays travel & per diem costs for invited lecturers?
When an academic is invited to give a talk at another university, are their food and travel expenses usually fully reimbursed by the university that invited the professor?
In my experience (as a visiting guest lecturer while a grad student elsewhere) the travel expense and accommodation were covered not by the university that hosted me, but by grant money from the professor that invited me. That being said, these visits were for a few days and included both the guest lecture, and some research/discussion on ongoing projects.
I did not claim a per diem for food, but I am sure that if I had it would have been covered, too.
The short answer is that it depends (no surprise there). If it's to give a talk in a department colloquium or seminar, travel cost are usually covered (at least, that's been my experience in mathematics), though that can vary a bit, especially since smaller departments may have very limited budgets for that kind of thing.
Food expenses vary even more wildly, and they depend heavily on the source of funding. I've been at places that had a standard per diem for visitors, places that did nothing, and places where the faculty would take the speaker to dinner and split the cost among them.
When you are an invited guest of a university department, in most cases you will have your travel costs paid by the department, or in the case of an individual institute or professor extending the invitation, by the specific people involved. In the case of a short visit (less than a day, for instance), when a per diem becomes impractical, the cost of the meal after the conference might be split among the attendees.
However, I have been an invited lecturer at conferences that were organized at various schools. In those cases, the conferences were operating on a very limited budget, and the "compensation" was essentially a free registration to the conference.
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592 | Do professors benefit from undergraduate research?
And does it depend on the type of field? Undergrads in biology can do the menial work, but what about undergrads in the computational sciences?
Are they more or less likely to benefit from undergraduate research in schools/fields where the undergrads tend to be especially self-motivated? (I don't know much about the ratio of self-motivated undergrads to non-self-motivated undergrads, but the professors I talked to at Brown and UChicago said that working with the undergrads at those schools was incredibly rewarding since they tended to be very self-motivated).
As you suggest in your question, this likely will vary from both field to field, and from lab to lab. In the two research labs I've worked in, one engineering and one neuroscience, undergraduates did a tremendous amount of useful work. In engineering, they would help with circuit design and fabrication, as well as doing background research and presenting their findings to the group as a whole. In the neuroscience lab, they would do cellular recordings and prepare cell cultures, as well as participate in paper writing.
In both cases, the undergraduates benefitted tremendously from the experience in a number of ways; they experienced the life of a researcher, they got to perform actual research work, they published articles and conference papers, and they received excellent letters of recommendation. The lab also benefitted, in that they had a (most of the time) highly motivated student who was interested in doing work performing research, the grad students/professors had more time either prepare other experiments or write papers, and all the benefits of simply having someone else around to bounce ideas off of. All in all, if the lab is organized enough to handle the logistics of providing the students with regular (non-busywork) tasks to perform, it's a win-win situation for everyone.
One other (minor) benefit that eykanal and EpiGrad didn't mention is internal brownie points. Faculty in my department are encouraged to collaborate with undergrads, in part because graduate admissions is highly correlated with undergraduate research experience, and in part so that the department can attract a larger pool of potential majors. Working with undergrads makes my chair/dean happy.
That's not a major reason for me, though. As your Brown and UC profs suggest, the enthusiasm that motivated undergrads bring to research can be very refreshing. And (in my experience, in theoretical CS) there's comparatively little pressure for the research to lead to publication, compared to work with graduate students (where unsuccessful research means they don't graduate).
this lack of pressure on undergrads to publish in TCS has surprised me. I am suppose to help supervise an undergrad this summer, and I was talking to the prof about the project. The idea seems to be "give the student something they can make progress on and something that is worth learning about for both us and the student". Instead I would have expected something like "give the student something they can push to a publication or at least ArXiv".
@ArtemKaznatcheev In my experience, the lack of pressure to publish is three-fold: 1. The undergrad doesn't need to publish. If they do, its a bonus. 2. Undergraduate projects have, IME, a much higher rate of failure/stalling. 3. There are often very low-pressure venues for the student to present work that may not even meet the standards of a MPU but still gets them what they need - departmental talks, undergrad research days, etc.
At the beginning, the product of research is not as important as the process. In particular, it's important for budding researchers to quickly become comfortable with feeling utterly stupid, and to make that feeling inspire them instead of inhibiting them. Yes, of course, the ideal goal is a publication, but very few students meet that goal on their first attempt and that's fine.
There are two major benefits I've encountered for professors sponsoring/hosting undergraduate researchers.
Grunt work.Yes it extends outside laboratory sciences - everyone has work that, while it needs to be handled with attention, doesn't necessarily need doctoral-level expertise. Parameter searches. Literature pulling. Programming implementation. All of these are valuable experiences for undergrads, give them exposure not only to the field they're interested in but the "act" of research itself, and save time for grad students, post-docs and faculty who could do these things, but instead are able to focus on the tasks undergraduates can't do.
Recruitment. Promising undergraduate researchers make for decent graduate student recruits. If they're not terribly interested in pursuing graduate education, but have a knack for research tasks and mesh well with a lab, they're also prime material for lab techs, programmers, and other technical support staff.
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105502 | What should I do if funding announcements aren't made until after the acceptance deadline?
I was admitted to a US PhD Math program but funding letter was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, they send out funding letter separately.
When I inquired about funding they told me that funding offers go out anytime until July, but our class starts in August so I found that a little bit weird.
I get a feeling that they do not fund all PhD students. What should I do? It would be nice to know asap if they are even going to fund me but I don't think they are in a hurry either. This is my preferred college but I don't want to go if they aren't going to fund me.
Edit: Here are many examples of accepted but not funded yet. I just don't know what my outcome will be.
Did they say that no funding offers go out till July? (BTW I imagine ASU means Arizona State in the US, correct? There are probably other universities with such abbreviations elsewhere.)
I've adjusted the title and tags of your question because it's not a function of your individual department, but a fairly general question that could in principle apply to any grad school.
@paulgarett still waiting from somewhere else.
@kimball yes ASU = Arizona State University. No they said offers go out until July.
@paulgarrett I am reading the OP's (a bit strange) phrasing as saying ASU may be making financial offers between now and July. So presumably their top choices get immediate funding offers but other people won't find out till later. I've heard of some schools doing this, though I agree it is not so typical in math in the US.
It's not unusual at all for programs to send out second and third rounds of offers to fill spots that were unfilled when other students didn't accept the offers. Because of the April 15 convention, the scheduling of this is typically that the first round of offers goes out a few weeks before April 15 with an April 15 deadline, then the second round of offers go out after April 15 with a deadline in May, ... It would be interesting to see an exact quote from the letter the OP received.
As a practical matter, foreign students wouldn't have time to get a visa if they only received an offer of financial aid in July.
@brianborchers reading gradcafe it looks like 1st round of offer has already gone out. the "you've been approved letter" from asu does not mention funding...that's just the way they do things. they send out TA offer letter separately.
@paulgarrett Can you please convert your comment into an answer?
For others reading this thread, it can also be the case that any funding will be tied to a specific departmental training grant and the grant cycle ticks after acceptances are sent out. This is how my funding worked — the number of slots available for each year is finalized after admissions due to the grant giving organization’s schedule.
[I did move my two comments to an answer...]
(Converting my comment to an answer, as suggested by @jakebeal.) Making admission offers without funding is a surprising, and not good, practice on their part, if it is as you describe, since people should make decisions based substantially on funding, not just admission.
If you have other plausible choices with funding, I'd take one of them. Don't go to math grad school without funding (and tuition remission).
(Unlike possible funding ambiguities, in mathematics, the funding is generally almost entirely by Teach Assitantships, and it should be possible to make (approximate) decisions about how many to fund well before the April 15 U.S. nation-wide decision date. That is, except for some (hopefully anomalous) budget crises, math depts themselves would not be "waiting" to find out funding for grad students.)
That is, this sort of "admission" is possibly a very low bar. Funding is the serious issue. In particular, don't get your hopes up, I'm afraid.
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96094 | Who funded research before 1800?
The Von Humboldt model of a university came about in the early 1800's. Von Humboldt's thought that the fundamental purpose of the university was to promote scientific inquiry and to unify teaching and research. This idea implies, of course, that the purpose of a university is to create new knowledge
However, a previous SE question touches upon the idea that the initial goal of a university was not to discover new knowledge (as was Humboldt's view) but to transmit older knowledge.
With these ideas as context, where exactly were scientific advancements pursued prior to the Von Humboldt model?
Strange. I thought the Academia of Plato and (less) the Semicircle or Pythagoras were among the first places to promote scientific teachings and inquiry.
Maybe to be more fair, as you can see other discussing in the previous SE post, its not true that pursuing new knowledge wasn't a part of the function of a university, but it certainly wasn't the central theme.
I quote from wiki: In at least Plato's time, the school did not have any particular doctrine to teach; rather, Plato (and probably other associates of his) posed problems to be studied and solved by the others.
That's fair. So is it your assertion that academia has always be the center for scientific advancement?
I simply provide info that already since 5th century B.C. there were places in Greece where the advancement of scientific knowledge was the main goal. I am not sure that we can say that this was always the case though.
And I used the word strange because I thought that this idea of Humboldt you describe is at least 2500 years old.
The question in the title subtly deviates from the question in the main text. Which one do you want answered?
I'm really in search for context regarding the evolution of scientific research funding, and unpinning of the relationship between industry and academia. My implication is that research funding and scientific advancements are inseparably linked, so I'm unsure of the deviation youre referring to. But, I'd prefer direct context for Humboldts thinking.
The Lucasian Chair of Mathematics was founded in 1663. Even its earliest holders seem to have valued generating new knowledge, not just communicating old knowledge. Consider endowed chairs as a source of research funding.
To me "where" refers to an institution at which one is employed, "who funded" refers to a person or institution that paid for the research. A not uncommon model where the two differed was a man that married a rich women who funded her husbands research.
In general, there was no central source of funding for research until recently.
If you were engaged in scientific research before modern times, you usually fell into one of a few categories:
You had an official position, such as Royal Astronomer in the UK and other countries, that provided you with a salary in exchange for doing research.
You had your own independent source of wealth that allowed you to survive.
You worked another job, and "dabbled" in research in your "spare time."
You were part of the church (e.g., Gregor Mendel) and did your studies and experiments in your free time.
Industry played at most a small role in funding research, directly or indirectly.
When you say, "official position," you mean government funded, or what entity? Did industry have no role in research, or was all research conducted in industry?
Governments did not "fund research": you were appointed by the ruler, and your position was paid for directly by the state. Industry did not pay for research, as there really weren't "industries" back then.
There were royal/government funded think tanks such as the Library of Alexandria and the Baghdad House of Wisdom.
I disagree that industry didn't fund research. Just to put a couple of examples, by 1800 industry had developed the steam engine and the automatic machine loom. Those innovations are due mostly to craftsmen and engineers who researched solutions to the practical problems they faced.
@Pere: While there were isolated developments, industry basically did not do "research." Thomas Savery was a military officer, and James Watt made his living as an instrument maker. The applications were industrial, but they were not "funded by industry."
@aeismail Maybe we don't understand the same by "research" and "industry". It's true that industry found "isolated developments", but the amount of isolated developments before and during the industrial revolution is impressive, and I would qualify it as research. However, if we understand "research" as organised research as we see today in academy, industry and scientifical societies, I must agree that that didn't exist in industry by 1800.
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123302 | Would I be disadvantaged in PhD admission if I took only few courses each semester during my Bachelors and Master’s?
I recently applied to a PhD program, and right now I am waiting for their decision.
My GPA from my undergrad and my Master’s program were 4.0/4.0, however during my undergrad I only took 3 courses per semester and during my Master’s, I took one or two courses per semester. Would this put me at a disadvantage when compared with other applicants?
Thank you,
That is pretty much impossible to answer in general. It depends on what you studied and on the particular people who evaluate your application. It might be an issue. It might not be an issue. But you have no option to change the past. Your record is what it is.
My field is Statistics, thank you for your comments
Actually, I mean the individual courses, and how they will be seen to support your candidacy.
What were you doing with the rest of your time?
During my undergrad I took 3 courses because: 1. I was working part time 2. My doctor recommended me to take a reduced course load. For my master’s program, I was working full time for my parents’ business. I didn’t mention this in my PhD application, which i think I should have. But it is too late now, the deadline has already passed
During my undergrad I took 3 courses because: 1. I was working part time 2. My doctor recommended me to take a reduced course load. For my master’s program, I was working full time for my parents’ business. I didn’t mention this in my PhD application, which i think I should have. But it is too late now, the deadline has already passed.
Those sound like perfectly good reasons for a reduced study load to me, and yes, you probably should have at least mentioned your concurrent employment. Since you were working concurrently with your studies, you might also consider adding that as a standard part of your CV (i.e., in the employment section), which would mean you would not need to make special mention of it in future applications.
Admissions for PhD programs are generally made based on assessments of the quality of applications by academics, and they have wide discretion over what they consider to be relevant. Opinions on the relevance or non-relevance of a reduced study load will differ among different people, but I suspect that most academics will be interested in your mastery of the undergraduate material ---as reflected in your GPA and other relevant outputs--- than in how long it took you to attain this mastery. There is no definitive answer as to whether this will affect your application, because it will be assessed by people, and people do all sorts of different things.
Achieving a 4.0 GPA while working concurrently in various jobs (and full-time during your Masters) is a crazy-good record, so you should definitely have mentioned your employment. Even without that your academic record sounds very strong. Nevertheless, if you are worried that you have an unexplained gap in your application, it might be worth sending an email to the admissions office giving them a short supplementary paragraph explaining that you undertook your studies at a reduced load because you were concurrently working at such-and-such hours. (I would suggest you not mention your medical issues, since this would raise more questions than it answers, and your full-time work is already an adequate reason for a reduced study load.) Ask them if they could please pass this supplementary information on the assessors of your application. Even though the applications deadline has closed, you might find that they are willing to pass on a short supplementary paragraph; but keep it really short.
Thank you for your answer; it turned out that although the application deadline was Jan 15th, I can still update my CV and my personal statement until the Jan 20th. I just have updated my info accordingly :)
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109950 | I have two PhD offers. Can I accept one while waiting for the grades for my preferred option without the latter finding out?
Basically I was offered a PhD after my bachelor's degree based only on my performance in the BSc but I enrolled on an MSc and kept this offer as backup. I have been offered another PhD but it is based on the MSc results rather than the BSc results. The second offer are asking if I could accept the offer sooner rather than later, but obviously I don't want to refuse the first offer just yet as I know that it is guaranteed. If I email the second offer and say that I want to accept, would the supervisor who made me the first offer somehow know that I had accepted the other offer and withdraw his offer? I do not want to turn down the first one if I have not received my MSc grades. I assume that different universities would not correspond over this type of thing, but I don't know for sure, and I did tell the people who gave me the second offer that I had already received an offer elsewhere and which university made that offer: is this all confidential or could they inform the people who made the first offer?
Obviously, if I don't meet the conditions for the second offer, I could then fall back on the first offer whose criteria I have already met.
The answer does depend a lot on the country. Are we talking about the US/UK, or somewhere else?
UK, do you have any experience of this matter for the UK?
I do not personally have experience with the UK process, but there are users here who do, and knowing it's the UK gives us a better sense of what processes and regulations might apply. (For instance, in the US, accepting an offer of financial support at this date would be considered binding. The UK may be different.)
Ok, it's a joke, but .... get 2 PhD's :)
You should contact both programs and openly describe the situation.
Each individual academic field is fairly small, and academics do regularly talk to each other. Reneging on an offer will tarnish your reputation. Even if you successfully pull off this stunt, you will earn some enemies, which can bite you later (e.g. seeking jobs, applying for grants, etc).
You are toying around with the first offer. It is perfectly reasonable to ask them to wait for a response from another offer; but accepting an offer as a Plan B from the outset, since you have the reasonable expectation that someone else will make you a better one and you will dump the original offer is really not a pleasurable position to put them in. Whether they will know is unclear, but you can be assured that sometimes news travels fast and over improbable routes.
What's more, science is a small world, and while not for the PhD, you may reencounter the original people for reference requests, postdoc applications, as journal and proposal reviewers. While in theory the process should not be affected by being dumped by a prospective PhD, it's anyone's guess when you may need, if not their favours, then their goodwill, unless the offers are in significantly different fields - and even then.
That being said, some people don't care and yet succeed. While it's not really ethical, IANAL, but legally, in the UK you probably can do it before you signed anything.
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210972 | Are US-based research publishers not allowed to publish research papers from some institutions/firms?
Are US-based research publishers not allowed by US law/regulation to publish research papers whose authors are affiliated with some institutions/firms? Assume that no money or other form of financial incentive is being exchanged, and that publications are only made available on the publisher's website.
You mean in case of sanctions? See Elsevier actions following US sanctions on Iran and Are academic associations obliged to comply with the US government?
@Anyon thanks, any kind of law/regulation.
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210740 | What are the differences, if any, between area chairs and senior area chairs for a conference?
What are the differences, if any, between area chairs and senior area chairs for a conference?
I am mostly interested in the conferences in the field of machine learning and natural language processing.
May well depend on the particular conference. I’m not familiar with the terms in my field.
@JonCuster thank you, I am mostly interested in the conferences in the field of machine learning and natural language processing.
https://qipeng.me/blog/what-does-an-area-chair-do/ Seems to cover it
Perhaps the area chair is the one who will do all the work, and the senior area chair is the one with the big name who will no little or no work (except possibly make more unnecessary work for the area chair).
Most of high ranked conferences that expect to receive a high volume of submission, the job of reviewing and quality assurance is done by employing area chairs (voluntary services) and senior area chairs (senior researchers). As explained in detail here and here, area chairs are lower in tier than their senior counterparts, and the senior ACs could accept or reject the recommendations made by the ACs.
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69495 | Why do some documents have more than one DOI?
I was looking for the DOI of a paper (namely Evaluation of Antibacterial Activity of Asparagus racemosus Willd. Root) on http://search.crossref.org/, and found two DOIs associated to it:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-1573(200003)14:2<118::aid-ptr493>3.3.co;2-g
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-1573(200003)14:2<118::aid-ptr493>3.0.co;2-p
Both DOIs point to the same document (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1573(200003)14:2%3C118::AID-PTR493%3E3.0.CO;2-P/abstract).
How comes?
For the specific articles you gave as an example, the first DOI has an error in the article title in its metadata. The second has the correct title.
The DOI 10.1002/(sici)1099-1573(200003)14:2<118::aid-ptr493>3.0.co;2-p was issued first. In the metadata for that DOI, the title is given as Evaluation of antibacterial activity ofAsparagus racemosus Willd. root (missing a space between "of" and "Asparagus").
The DOI 10.1002/(sici)1099-1573(200003)14:2<118::aid-ptr493>3.3.co;2-g was issued a few days later, and in the metadata, the title is corrected to Evaluation of antibacterial activity of Asparagus racemosus Willd. root.
@FranckDernoncourt It should be possible to change metadata, because at the very least publishers are supposed to keep the URL associated with a DOI up to date (that's kind of the point of the system...) But I can imagine it might be enough of a hassle that it would be worthwhile to get a new DOI instead. Or possibly the employee of the publisher who did this just didn't know what to do in that situation.
FYI http://www.crossref.org/02publishers/20pub_fees.html charges a 2 USD fine if 2 DOIs are assigned to the same document (including the case where there is a very minor difference, either in the document or in the metadata). "A conflict exists when two or more DOIs have been assigned to the same logical work as represented by identical metadata or when subtle metadata differences may exist (e.g. a slight variation in the publication title or style differences in the item title)."
That begs the question: how does crossref know 2 DOIs belong to the same object. A human comparing metadata? What if the object has multiple publishers that all want to maintain their own DOI?
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200327 | How can I stop getting emails about unwanted registrations to some review websites and asking me to review for random journals?
I often get automated emails about unwanted registrations to some review websites and asking me to review for random, typically paywalled journals. Is there any to stop or reduce that kind of spam?
Example of such emails with the paywalled Displays journal published by Elsevier:
I live in the US and I did follow the process to stop receiving the junk mails via ftc.gov.
Is this somewhat related to your work, could you be a reviewer? Most journals I know just contact people they deem suitable or that are suggested by authors, rather than contacting "registered" reviewers.
@Mark typically, such spams are far away from my field. E.g., I work on natural language processing, and this spam is about display technologies: nothing to do with my work.
For example, Gmail allows us to tag certain emails regarding certain expressions and move them to trash.
Displays appears to be a reputable journal run by a reputable publisher. (Elsevier may be problematic in many ways but they still fit that category, in my opinion.) So I would not call this "spam". I would assume this is a good-faith review invitation from an editor who is simply mistaken about your suitability as a reviewer. Perhaps they are confused about your field of study, or have mixed you up with another researcher with a similar name.
I would simply write back and decline the invitation, explaining that it is outside your area of expertise. You could add that you are not interested in reviewing for this journal in the future. You could also ask them how they came up with your name as a potential reviewer; maybe there is a source of misinformation somewhere that you could correct. If you don't find the response acceptable, you can escalate and contact the editor-in-chief or the publisher.
The registration emails are an artifact of many editorial management systems which require a potential reviewer to be registered in the system before they are invited. I agree they are annoying but I don't think there's much to be done about them. Just ignore and delete if you are declining the invitation.
You could attempt to filter such emails with general spam filtering tools (which are outside the scope of this site). It would not be hard to filter future emails from this particular journal. However, it may be hard to filter review invitations more broadly without also filtering out ones that actually interest you.
The information at the FTC site does not appear to be relevant to journal review invitations. In fact, the US anti-spam laws apply only to messages whose primary purposes is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service, which in my opinion would not cover a review invitation. Anyway, in general, reporting spam to government agencies such as the FTC is almost always ineffective, and in this case I think it's actually inappropriate, since the evidence suggests that the email was sent in good faith. In the (admittedly unlikely) event that the FTC decides to do anything about it, it could cause problems for the journal.
Got it, thanks for the ideas!
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108133 | Filed for a patent, then wrote a research paper about it: should the paper cite the patent?
I filed for a patent, then wrote a research paper about the same idea. Should the paper cite the patent?
Related question: Why patents are not cited in papers as that of journal papers?
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114522 | How can one know if a paper award decision was made with the award committee not having access to the author names?
How can one know if a paper award decision was made with the award committee not having access to the author names?
I am mostly interested in machine learning / natural language processing paper awards.
Ask a committee member over a beer?
@JonCuster Thanks, it doesn't seem to scale well (I am interested to know for many different awards, and often I'm not at the conference where awards were given).
That depends on how much you like beer!
This question is only about a single-blinded review, as it's only asking if the reviewers know the submitters. The other blind can be easier to determine - if you know who's on the award committee, it's not double-blinded (but could be single-blinded).
@NuclearWang Thanks, good point, question edited.
At least two of the conferences that I attend decide on the paper awards right before the conference starts, so all the accepted papers (and authors) are known.
@St.Inkbug awards given to scientific papers.
In some cases the award committee or sponsoring organization may describe its procedures on its official website. Otherwise, you can write to the award committee chair and ask.
I don't think there's any more general way to know. In particular, I doubt that there is any central place where you can find this information for many different awards. (It would be a pain for someone to collect it and keep it up to date.)
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43623 | How to specify Phi Beta Kappa membership?
I am writing a letter of recommendation for a student whose record includes membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. How do I express this?
Jane was named to Phi Beta Kappa.
Jane was awarded Phi Beta Kappa.
Jane earned Phi Beta Kappa.
Jane was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.
Or something else?
Moderators: Feel free to migrate to English Language Usage if that is more appropriate. I wasn't sure.
"Inducted" is the term normally associated with the process of joining an honor society, whether it is a group such as Phi Beta Kappa or Tau Beta Pi, or a professional society such as the National Academy of Science, or even something cultural, like a sports hall of fame.
As a usage note, though, the term "inducted" is normally accompanied by a temporal reference.
Why not simply: Jane was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. Feel free to add relevant information, e.g. how long was she member, any outstanding exploits, perhaps even a statement how "elite" that particular society is, i.e. how hard it is to get in and her related accomplishments.
I think I'd like to stress that membership is not simply purchased but is an honor, without going into the details. Since the letter is for a U.S. scholarship, I can assume the reader will be familiar with it. (I realize my second sentence somewhat contradicts the first one.)
I'm aware that it is an honor, I'm sorry, but I don't see where I suggested it can be purchased. Can you be more specific what lacks clarity? I'll be happy to edit my answer. However, I still feel that the most efficient approach is the simple one. Even more so, if, as you say it, the reader is familiar with the society.
You didn't, but to me the term member has been tainted by the triviality of becoming a member of most organizations. I meant no offense.
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45925 | How to teach from a tutorial-style book?
I will be teaching introductory computer science and am considering using a book [sample chapter] that is so well-written and self-contained that, at least for the first few chapters, it's not clear that the students need lectures. Should I just spend a few minutes at the beginning of the class giving an overview, then set them to work lab-style, enlisting TAs to roam the room with me? (I teach in a classroom with a computer for each student.) That seems lazy, but I'm not sure what value I can add (until the material gets more challenging around Chapter 4). FWIW, I'm a tenured professor, so I don't have to worry about being judged by anyone (except myself).
UPDATE: It occurs to me that something else I can do during classtime is meet one-on-one with students to find out what they hope to get from the course and how it is going for them.
It sounds like what you are suggesting is similar to a "flipped classroom", with a well-written tutorial in the place of the usual online lecture.
@Corvus I thought of that, but (at this point) I wouldn't be asking them to watch videos or anything else outside of class.
@espertus to make sure you are adding value to the book, you can track the progress, identify difficulties, and host lectures on the topics that students find more challenging, explaining in a different way.
This kind of question would fit nicely at https://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/92460/computer-science-educators (it's still in private beta, so you have to click "visit" from that page)
I'm concerned by your statement "That seems lazy" because it implies that you are focusing on yourself when really you should be focused on the student, specifically what the students are learning.
It is very easy for us to think from our own perspective but we must consider the perspective of student learning to be of primary importance.
If you believe the text is a good text (which you seem to) then it would seem the right path to take is to have students spending their class time working through the book (as a workshop) with you there to guide them if they get stuck or if they want some more advanced information.
In general, it's easy - that's good. Remember the old saying "Those who do, learn." So, you want the "students to do" rather than "you to do."
You're right, it shouldn't be about me. OTOH, it's legitimate for me to apply extra scrutiny to a teaching strategy that drastically reduces the amount of prep I have to do, to make sure I'm doing it for the right reasons.
@espertus I agree completely.
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115175 | Why do some US universities ban first-year graduate student from working outside TA/RA?
I read an email from UCSD (CSE department) stating:
M.S. Graduate students are not permitted to work at all during their first year (CPT or any employment) due to CSE polices instated by the faculty committee for our graduate students. Graduate students are eligible to apply for UCSD campus graduate student TAships or research positions.
Why do some US universities / departments ban first-year graduate students from working outside TA/RA?
It seems obvious that they want students to focus on their studies for the first year.
I don't know why they feel this way, but as a state funded education that is putting public resources into a student's education, they don't want those resources "wasted" or used ineffectively.
If a student proves him/herself the prohibition ends. I would hope that the last part is reinforcing this. TA fine. Research fine. Because we can have some control over how much effort is spent there.
I would object to such policies if they excluded financially needy students. I don't know how they manage that issue.
But even institutions that run graduate schools but are not publicly funded still subsidize student education to some extent. As high as tuition can be at some places it is often matched by other sources. I'm assuming the institutions are non-profit. Not all are, and that has its own problems, but those are very unlikely to have such rules.
Note: F-1 visas holders are restricted from working off-campus during the first year, and need to get permission after that.
@mkennedy (source: https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/complete-correct-form-i-9/complete-section-1-employee-information-and-attestation/foreign-academic-students)
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128498 | Do industry-sponsored papers contain more incorrect results than papers that aren't industry-sponsored?
Are there any research/study/survey that tried to analyze whether industry-sponsored papers contain more incorrect results than papers that aren't industry-sponsored, and if so, to what extent?
For example, if a drug company publishes a paper about the efficiency of one of their drugs, some readers might suspect results are more likely to be positively biased than if the paper was published by an academic lab with no funding from the drug company. I wonder if these kinds of suspicion are actually grounded.
While the fact seems likely, this study would heavily rely on subjective and anecdotal evidences, and no new conclusion could be drawn from it. A thoroughly unscientific study. (And I know the world is full of studies consisting of such useless statistical surveys.) If you are suspicious about any paper, investigate the specific case.
Define an industry-sponsored paper? Do you suspect that the huge corpus of work from AT&T Bell Labs is more flawed than from some university? How do you determine that with enough statistics to really tell? (I would note that examples such as you gave are the reason for conflict of interest statements, so agree that it has happened in some fields.)
This reminds me of the Bayer and Amgen (companies) studies where they claim that they could not replicate approximately 90% of the published biomed papers they tested - but they did not publish what papers they attempted. Reference that notes this: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/rigorous-replication-effort-succeeds-just-two-five-cancer-papers I think the real problem would be identifying what papers are actually industry sponsored, as often this is unknown and only would mean directly sponsored - indirectly sponsored projects are hard to identify.
@JonCuster -- back in the day I read some really good AT&T Bell Labs research papers (mostly in acoustics, signal processing, and DSP). They were awesome!
I think your hypothesis is implausible that industry-sponsored research is more incorrect or less reproducible than non-industry-sponsored. Or can you give some reasons for this assumption?
On the contrary looking at many of the meta-surveys (partly conducted by industry, because non-industry-sponsored research maybe is less reproducible to their experience) that investigated the reproducibility of academic research in the recent years, rather the opposite is maybe the case and known within industry.
Additionally, I don't see how it makes a difference if money financing a PhD student comes from industry or not? Wouldn't the rationale rather be, if money is spent by industry, then rather PhD scientists/Professors are hired for a project than cheap and still learning PhD students pressured by publish or perish? And to my knowledge more of the spotted scientific misconduct has been caused by untenured researchers. Again, publish or perish
And when industry research can't reproduce 70–90% of academic laboratory findings, then a better question is probably if most of the research projects are funded by industry or not and what kind of researchers are on average hired for industry-sponsored projects (PhD students, PhD's, tenured)
What maybe sounds plausible, that researchers carrying out industry-sponsored projects tend even more to make up results or buzzy headlines ("new battery technology allows charging up within 10% of normal time" which I read every month or so), is rather implausible to me, because important and valuable results in industry-sponsored research projects are often rather published as a patent than a paper.
More importantly, there is a clear correlation that research in branches being strongly entangled with industry (engineering, physics,...) is much better reproducible than weakly linked branches (social sciences, psychology, biomedical,...). Most of the meta-surveys are in such fields.
To take up your case of drug development, such only become legalized after 10 years of clinical trial, so I think the incentive for some PhD student is not significantly higher and often the PhD students have no clue if the money financing them comes from industry or public. And professors being biased by the funding source mostly don't conduct and evaluate the experiments and would have to alter the results (which also happened, but rarely)
Summa summarum I think there is no such study (my googling didn't find one but many meta-survey on reproducibility partly published by industry companies), as your hypothesis looks very implausible to me. There is probably a good virtual database with so much meta-surveys and the necesssity to name funding sources in a paper, still to me the important question would be, which kind of researcher (students, tenured,...) are typically hired for non-/industry sponsored projects? Because, the conclusion from the published meta-surveys in social sciences, psychology, biomedicine and the low reproducibility to be drawn is not that researchers in such fields tend to be more biased, tricking, cheating and therefore more incorrect results are published, but rather that industry is not much interested in such results and the level of scientific rigor is much lower than in hard sciences like quantitative physics or engineering, for which I didn't find a single meta-survey.
I don't know that the OP was specifically pushing the assumption. It is certainly something we see a lot nowadays with climate research for example. Data would be interesting. Though good point about the difference of fields. Industry probably is far less likely to waste their time and money with nonsense such as low power studies to analyze whether rich people are bigger jerks. So it would be hard to make a fair comparison of researchers.
What is a "result"?
Many industry papers I've seen do not contain any hard results anyway, but just report some andectodal evidence how they improved some software they used. I doubt there can be anything "wrong" there.
It's not as if they contained plenty of wrong proofs.
I think the question gives one example of results. If some papers don't have any results, then we can ignore them.
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140110 | Where does the budget surplus of a conference go?
When a conference gathers more money (e.g., from sponsorships, registration fees, or public subsidies) than what was spent for organizing the conference, where does the conference budget surplus go?
In a regional chapter of a well known technical society, any surplus goes to our scholarship fund and is used for that purpose.
Depending on who runs the conference, it could go into lining the organisers' pockets...
Here are some models I am aware of; combinations of these also exist:
There is a sponsor (e.g. government, local university or some academic organization) that covers part of the expenses but their rules for sponsoring are such that you cannot make surplus. You will need to return some of the sponsor money back to them so that the bottom line is non-positive.
There is a contingency fund for the conference series. Surplus from one year is used to cover deficit in another year, or to support other conference-related activities in the future years (say, sponsoring student travel).
There is a scientific organization (e.g. ACM) that runs the conference series and takes any surplus (and promises to help if something goes wrong).
The local university that organizes the event will keep any surplus (and they will also be responsible for helping if something goes wrong).
The local organizers will figure out some way to avoid surplus. More free coffee, additional student travel grants, last-minute conference fee discounts, additional awards, free city tour, honorariums for keynote speakers.
Some part of the income can be flexible. For example, the registration fee for local participants may be fixed only after the conference, once all other income and expenses are known, so that the bottom line will be close to zero if possible.
Indeed, distributing additional student (/young colleague) travel reimbursements is, in my experience, a very common use of small surplusses.
I can confirm the tours, or actually a a few places on a boat excursion with short demonstrations of sponsor's instruments.
A variant on the contingency fund: sometimes the surplus is simply given to the organizers of the next year.
In many (most?) fields, conferences have sponsors. In my field (CS) a typical sponsor might be the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) or one of its parts. Any surplus would go back to the sponsor.
But the sponsor is also responsible for any shortfalls that occur.
I've never been a conference chair (only lower level positions) and never the Finance Chair, but I suspect that most conferences are expected to at least break even and maybe return a bit to the sponsoring organization. I don't have examples of "cash cow" academic conferences, but suspect that they exist. There have been some monster conferences, though they are more like expositions.
My recollection of ACM conferences is that the conference committee always has a member who represents the organization directly, looking out for lots of things and giving advice to the chair(s) if they aren't already experienced.
I'll also note that the committee is (ACM, again) composed of volunteers, though some support clerical staff might be paid. In any case, it isn't the committee that benefits financially.
In my experience, when they "sponsor" a conference, the ACM insists on a budget with a large planned surplus, supposedly to reduce the risk of a deficit, but really because taking money from conferences in exchange for the ACM logo is part of their business model.
@MarcGlisse Displaying a logo that symbolizes paywalls doesn't make sense to me. Paying for it seems even more absurd.
@MarcGlisse, you seem to be suggesting that ACM is, in some way, predatory.
In order to finance their more charitable activities, they need money. Some ways to get money are charging for publications, taking a "tax" on conferences, and membership fees (which they increase by forcing conferences to be way more expensive for non-members, so most participants become members). The money does not go to shareholders, but it isn't surprising if their behavior may look kind of predatory in some contexts. (the main conference in my community left the ACM a few years ago)
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147482 | When bidding for papers on softconf.com as a reviewer, does it make any difference between answering no or not bidding for a paper?
When bidding for papers on softconf.com as a reviewer, does it make any difference between answering no or not answering for a paper?
I.e., is there difference between:
and
?
Answering some comments:
http://softconf.com a.k.a. START:
START V2 is an integrated web-based solution for managing peer-reviewed conferences and workshops. START helps streamline all steps of the editorial process, including paper/abstract submission, committee formation, paper reviews, on-line technical committee meetings, report compilations, author notification, preliminary conference program creation - and a lot more.
Also, what is “paper bidding”?.
I have crossposted the question at:
Quora
Could you explain for context what this site is and does?
And have you asked them?
https://softconf.com/: "START V2 is an integrated web-based solution for managing peer-reviewed conferences and workshops. START helps streamline all steps of the editorial process, including paper/abstract submission, committee formation, paper reviews, on-line technical committee meetings, report compilations, author notification, preliminary conference program creation - and a lot more."
So what does "bid on a paper" mean?
@user111388 What is “paper bidding”?
I would venture a guess: No means that you do not want to have this paper. As chair, I would really avoid giving you this paper. No bid means, you have not seen it, not paid attention, don't care etc. So, you would not be under priority to get it, but if I do not find a reviewer who said yes or maybe, I would allocate it to you after all. Just my guess as how I would use such a system, that's why it's not an answer.
What @CaptainEmacs wrote matches my experience with EasyChair, which seems very similar to softconf as you describe it. But a particular program chair might have a different interpretation of the bids, which you could only find out by asking him/her.
I can't answer specifically for this service, but in general it can make a small difference if some papers fail to get bids. For some CS conferences, if you answer no for a paper you are unlikely to be asked again if a second round of bids is needed. If you don't answer at all, then not answering will be likely treated as more like "maybe" than "no".
But, while not especially rare, it only happens at the margins.
But it is even possible that a desperate program chair will come back and beg even "no" voters for reviews in a future "ask". Even less likely though.
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151825 | Given a DOI, how can I programmatically obtain all the author affiliations?
Given a DOI, how can I programmatically obtain all the author affiliations? The coding part isn't the issue, but finding a proper database/API is.
E.g. for DOI 10.1186/s12920-019-0598-0, the author affiliations are:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, S7N 5A9 Canada
Division of Biomedical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, S7N 5A9 Canada
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Hainan Normal University, Haikou, 571158 China
If you are asking how to write a computer program for this, you are at the wrong place.
@Buffy I'm looking for an API or dataset. I'll add the database tag.
Maybe the Crossref REST API can be used for this. Do note that some affiliation data may be missing though.
First of all, the main sources of citation data are:
Proprietary data sources:
Google Scholar
Scopus
Web of Science (WoS)
Open access data:
Crossref
MEDLINE (focusing on medical papers)
Some papers compare the comprehensiveness between these different sources, e.g. see {1,2}.
To extract the author affiliations given a DOI, a few options (search for "affiliations" on the links below) :
https://support.datacite.org/docs/api-get-doi
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/licensee/elements_descriptions.html (MEDLINE database https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/medline.html)
https://github.com/CrossRef/rest-api-doc suggested by Anyon.
For option 3 (CrossRef API), one can use the https://github.com/CrossRef/rest-api-doc API via the Python library https://gitlab.com/crossref/crossref_commons_py:
# If testing in Docker
docker run --interactive --tty ubuntu:18.04 bash
apt update; apt install -y git nano wget htop python3 python3-pip unzip
# Requirements
pip3 install crossref-commons
# Python code
import crossref_commons.retrieval
crossref_commons.retrieval.get_publication_as_json('10.5621/sciefictstud.40.2.0382') # affiliations are empty
crossref_commons.retrieval.get_publication_as_json('10.1148/radiol.2018180887') # affiliations are present
though it seems that quite often authors have no affiliations on CrossRef.
My guess is that MEDLINE (option 2) has more thorough metainformation (I based my guess given the information I see on the PubMed website, which relies on MEDLINE database, e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6936069/ has author affiliations, but not crossref_commons.retrieval.get_publication_as_json('10.1186/s12920-019-0598-0'), even though 10.1186/s12920-019-0598-0 = PMC6936069. Anyon's comment also questions CrossRef's comprehensiveness for the author affiliations field). The MEDLINE database can either be downloaded or accessed via API (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/home/develop/api/). See https://stackoverflow.com/a/62974197/395857 on how to access the MEDLINE database in Python.
If one cannot find the affiliation in the metainformation and if the PDF can be obtained from the DOI, one could use PDF-to-text extraction programs for scientific papers, such as:
https://github.com/kermitt2/grobid (has the ability to parse affiliation and address blocks)
https://github.com/allenai/science-parse
https://github.com/allenai/spv2
To test pybliometrics that BND refers to in their answer:
# If testing in Docker
docker run --interactive --tty ubuntu:18.04 bash
apt update; apt install -y git nano wget htop python3 python3-pip unzip
# Install and configure pybliometrics
pip3 install pybliometrics
from pybliometrics.scopus.utils import config
config['Authentication']['APIKey'] = '' # Enter Elsevier API key obtained on http//dev.elsevier.com/myapikey.html
# Retrieve author affiliations
from pybliometrics.scopus import AbstractRetrieval
ab = AbstractRetrieval("10.1016/j.softx.2019.100263")
from pybliometrics.scopus import AuthorRetrieval
au1 = AuthorRetrieval(ab.authors[0].auid)
print(au1.affiliation_current)
Unfortunately pybliometrics relies on Elsevier Scopus's API, which isn't free: some institutions have subscribed to it, but fewer and fewer are willing to feed the Elsevier sharks.
References:
{1} Harzing, Anne-Wil, and Satu Alakangas. "Google Scholar, Scopus and the Web of Science: a longitudinal and cross-disciplinary comparison." Scientometrics 106, no. 2 (2016): 787-804. https://web.archive.org/web/20170922223941/http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/18511/1/gsscowos.pdf
{2} Van Eck, Nees Jan, Ludo Waltman, Vincent Larivière, and Cassidy Sugimoto. "Crossref as a new source of citation data: A comparison with Web of Science and Scopus." A blog post in the website of the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University, URL: https://www.cwts.nl/blog (2018). https://www.cwts.nl/blog?article=n-r2s234 (mirror)
FWIW I think some journals give free personal subscriptions to Scopus as a reward for reviewing?
@BenBolker I don't review for paywalls or parasites ;-)
https://github.com/pybliometrics-dev/pybliometrics
The example on the github page is quite close to what you want to do.
Thanks, this looks great! Unfortunately pybliometrics relies on Elsevier Scopus's API, which isn't free. (and my institution hasn't subscribed to the Elsevier sharks).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:48.689184 | 2020-07-16T20:27:03 | {
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109983 | How to protect my research rights when my proposal was stolen by my chair?
I am an assistant professor; submitted an internal grant proposal. It had been rejected. Meanwhile I realized that my Dept. chair submitted my proposal to an external grant (listed herself as PI and me as CO-PI); she has been recently awarded.
My chair was really brutal to protect herself in this matter: forced me to say that I asked her to do & she got a new IRB for the same proposal to put herself as PI. Definitely I needed to argue with her regarding her misbehavior.
Then today she informed that my appointment would not be renewed; so I am in the situation to leave right after developing the survey and collecting data (in the middle of the grant).
What should I do? Is there any way I can protect my research rights?
Any advice will be truly appreciated!
What should I do? -- I'd think that a good first step would be to stop working on all grant related matters, immediately.
The chair is trying to hire someone who can complete the study without me - the candidate did on-campus visit already.
The granting agency the grant is from should have an office that investigates grant misconduct. I suggest you contact them. (For the NSF in the US, this is the Office of the Inspector General.)
Aside from your research question, if this is the US you should probably get a lawyer that specializes in employment issues. Within the university the chair probably has all the advantage (not just via the rules but via the ability to bend them and call on allies).
Can you protect your data? If no one else has it yet... may not be legal but in this situation, protect first if you can...
If you have been informed that your contract isn't being renewed, then the question is how badly you want to burn any bridges. However, I suspect that your chair is going to be of no use to you in any event.
The first thing you need to do is collect all of your records related to the grant. Any email, correspondence, etc.—anything that shows you were the real originator of the grant, and that she basically stole the work. I would also include the correspondence showing that your contract will not be renewed, as well as the visit of your future replacement. All of this shows dishonest intent on the part of your chair. This evidence should then be sent simultaneously to:
the dean of your college;
whoever is responsible for research across the university;
the chief administrative officer of the university;
the agent in charge of the section at the agency who awarded the grant; and
the office at the grant agency responsible for investigations into the grant.
The way you have been treated is reprehensible and the chair under no circumstances should be allowed to "skate free."
It also goes without saying that you should not do any further work related to this grant. You should also find a good lawyer.
This answer assumes you are working in a country where people are generally honest, and the presumption that your chair is a lone corrupt actor is likely correct. If you are in a country where everyone is likely to be corrupt (and some elements of the original story suggest this may be the case), you may wish to tread more carefully.
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110023 | How do you pick a major when you're interested in pursuing advanced study in an interdisciplinary field?
I have a keen interest in some interdisciplinary fields such as neurophilosophy, neuroethics, and neuroaesthethics. In the end, I have chosen to study biology, but I am not entirely sure if it is the best possible choice, and maybe philosophy would have been a better choice.
What advice would you give to people in general who desire to be involved in interdisciplinary research? Do multiple bachelor's or master's degrees? Maybe even different PhD in the fields of interest?
If you're planning on doing advanced study in a truly interdisciplinary field such as the ones that you've listed, I'd recommend to look for what programs exist at the graduate level, and what their "home" departments are. If they're consistently in one department, I would then plan to do a major in the "home" area, and at least a minor in the other discipline (presuming there are only two fields overlapping). If you're planning to stop with master's degrees, you might consider two master's, but only if they were both funded. If you plan to do a PhD, there's probably no need for two separate PhD's—instead, try to look for a program where you can take coursework in both areas and do a project that combines them.
For a Bachelor's you can double-major and often go further with a dual degree (depending on how much of the required coursework you take in the second area).
The question about what to do with the Master's will be completely overshadowed by whether or not you want to do a PhD. You may not need to do one at all or it may be a stepping-stone within your PhD program.
For the PhD, interdisciplinary research is extremely common. You may find programs and certainly advisers that are specifically focused on your interest. If not you can get co-advisors from different departments. This makes your home department more comfortable that someone outside their expertise is there to evaluate and help you. As doctorates are research degrees, not specific skill training like a Master's, you can go pretty far and wide with you thesis topic. But it does need to bring significant novelty as far as your home department is concerned. Just applying methods and ideas from field A to new area B (perhaps no one has done this before) would potentially make a fine thesis in department B, but less so in A.
Note also that multiple doctorates are often not allowed without special permission. Being a "Renaissance person" goes over well as an undergrad, but risks looking unfocused later. Hence it's probably much better to do one interdisciplinary program, versus combine multiple degrees and have to explain how they are complementary, and you aren't just a degree collector or professional student.
Personally, I'd pick the department with the best career prospects to fall back on.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:48.689792 | 2018-05-20T20:44:06 | {
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110064 | Why is having multiple PhDs frowned upon?
I've often read that having more than one PhD is badly seen. Is there a good reason for this? Good obviously means with some kind of evidence to back it up beyond plain and simple "personal experience" and opinion.
I've seen many comments about this matter, but often rely on a kind of judgment that sounds highly personal and by no means endowed with the academic objectity that I would expect.
I'm not sure I believe the premise of this question. There are several answers on this site suggesting it's not generally a good idea to pursue multiple PhDs, but that's different from suggesting that already having multiple PhDs is viewed badly. In any case, I think that among those earlier posts, this answer may come closest to addressing your question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17232/is-doing-two-phds-a-good-path/17245#17245
It's certainly not frowned upon in Hollywood! (sarcasm intended) Many times I've seen (in a movie, in a TV series show, etc.) a certain character's super-dooper scientific credentials established by mentioning the several Ph.D.'s he or she has.
Have you done any research on the topic?
"I've often read that having more than one PhD is badly seen" How many people with at least two PhDs have you seen? Such examples are really rare in my opinion. I personally only know two guys with two PhDs and they are quite successful in their careers after the second PhD. And they my personal heros.
I think your assertion really is an overgeneralization, but there are some negative points to pursuing more than one PhD.
It's the same concern as it would be for pouring an inordinate amount of resources into the wrong pursuit. It might indicate something about the recipients decision-making abilities, or "perpetual student syndrome".
That said, if that's what one needs to do to pursue the career one wants, that's what one needs to do.
Let's look at two distinct situations. A college junior starts thinking about her career path, and thinks"
I want a very specific, highly specialized pursuit. I believe that I
will need two PhD's to establish my credibility and skill set for this
path. I am setting out to get two PhD's, and have a good plan for
doing so. I've already considered whether I can acquire the skills
and knowledge by doing one PhD, and then endeavoring to cover the
shortfall by some other means, and I don't think I can. I'm well
aware that some of the skills I learn during one PhD will be redundant
with what I learn in the second, but there's absolutely no way around
it.
Contrast this with a senior, who doesn't manage to get a job, so enters graduate school -- gets one PhD, doesn't see the career prospects, then gets another PhD to fix things.
Clearly, the first situation is better (though, I'd argue, exceedingly rare, and often unnecessary). The second situation is much more problematic, likely more common than the first, and arguably, what some people tend to think the path was when told someone has two PhDs.
I'm having a really hard time identifying a career path that requires two formal PhD's, unless one discipline is in the humanities and the other is in a STEM field, and one decided to start with the non-STEM field.
@aeismail -- yes, "exceedingly rare"
@aeismail Some people in philosophy of science do it that way. Massimo Pigliucci got first a PhD in biology, then philosophy (in his 40s or so).
I do not know of anybody in the first cohort, and have very hard times figuring the scenario. We seem to agree and have experience of the second instance. I do praise that kind of second PhD. That tells me of extreme passion for academic, of interdisciplinarità, of resilience and dedication in face of low pay and hard work. I know of one physicist retrained as economist and now professor.
Addition: in some academic fields the competition is much stronger than in others. Once forced to retrain, better retrain in something you are passionate about. And if you are passionate, you may also be ready to endure one more PhD.
@aeismail: I don't know about requiring multiple PhDs, but there are many fields that seemingly try to emulate having multiple PhDs. For example, bioinformatics borrows fairly heavily from Computer Science, Biology and Statistics. It's my impression that a PhD in such a field would like to have almost the equivalent of a PhD in each field, but that's a tall order.
@aeismail Maybe not exactly two PhDs, but MD + PhD is extremely common and JD + PhD is quite common too.
@ElizabethHenning: Yes, given that most medical schools run dual MD/PhD programs, that combination is obviously quite common. The need for double PhD's is not.
@CliffAB there are a number of biomedical engineering departments with a strong presence in bioinformatics, and a PhD from those departments would do the job.
@aeismail why do you find the humanities first, sciences second more likely than the other way around?
@aeismail human and dental medicine for Mundkiefergesichtschirurgen (face, jaw, mouth surgeon) in germany normally have 2 dr. which is roughly equivalent to ph.d. afaik. My prof. in biomedicalengineering had one in engineering and one in human medicine, etc.
First of all, it’s not clear what you mean by “badly seen” and whether (or to what extent) your premise is correct. But to the extent that it is badly seen, I would argue that it has to do with efficient use of resources. If you think of your intellect as a resource, the general recipe for making the best use of this resource is:
Spend a few years developing your intellect by getting an education. This doesn’t produce an immediate “output” but is an investment (quite a costly one in fact) in the future.
Spend the remaining 30-40 years of your career working. What you produce during that time is the productive output that benefits you and the rest of society.
Most people who get a bachelor’s degree spend 3-4 years on stage 1. People who get a PhD invest another 4-5 years, and this is seen as justified (mostly!) thanks to the very specialized skills a PhD helps them acquire. However, when someone gets a second PhD they extend the unproductive period of stage 1 to a total of something like 12-15 years, taking away valuable productive time from stage 2. The added benefit in terms of specialized interdisciplinary knowledge that they acquire would in most cases not be enough to justify such a large investment. 99.99% of people simply do not need two PhDs to fulfill their potential in life. Even from the purely intellectual point of view of a person who is very curious and passionate about learning two subjects in depth, the first PhD already teaches them to be an independent researcher, which would enable them to get the knowledge they would pick up in the second PhD in a fraction of the time and effort that a formal PhD program typically requires.
Getting two PhDs might make practical sense for someone who decided on a drastic career change after their first PhD and want to go into a different profession where a PhD is a requirement.
True, but compare: a neurosurgeon spends up to 12 years (med school plus training) to be qualified, and nobody whines about the "nonproductive years spent." I think part of the problem is that PhDs nowadays require less work and a less rigorous thesis than a MA/MS did 50 years ago.
@CarlWitthoft it’s not clear to me what can be learned from this comparison. I don’t know anything about neurosurgery but I would think that during much of the 12 year period you are describing, neurosurgeon trainees are already highly qualified doctors and are engaged in productive activities (working at a hospital and treating patients). Perhaps that explains why “nobody whines” about them.
@CarlWitthoft I take it to be a problem that many universities don't require a masters degree to enter a phd program. This has lowered the standards greatly.
I don't see what you mean by unproductive. Lots of PhD students publish their scientific research in journals. These PhD students make discoveries and some of them teach undergraduates. How is any of that unproductive?
I spent 11 total years getting an AA (Community College), BEE, MS EE, PhD (EE with signal processing emphasis). That's a big percentage of one's life.
I think you misunderstand the purpose of a PhD.
A PhD does not establish you as an expert in a field. Rather, it is the minimum entry criteria for a career in research. The main focus of a PhD is actually preparing you for a career in research. The secondary focus is deepening your knowledge in a particular subject area.
While there are obvious exceptions to this, your research as a doctoral student is unlikely to have any lasting impact or even to be strongly related to the areas where you focus on after receiving your PhD.
In this context, there is very little to gain and much to lose from spending several years pursuing a second PhD. What you may gain is a deeper understanding of a second field. However, this will come at the expense of reverting to being a student and missing out on opportunities to build your career. You will also have to repeat a significant amount of effort that again is unlikely to be related to actual work once you move beyond being a student.
"it is the minimum entry criteria for a career in research"
Then multiple PhD should be required to perform interdisciplinary research, since the person who has a PhD in a field, doesn't satisfy the minimum entry criteria for research in different topic.
@M.S It's not the minimum entry criteria to do research in a specific field, just the minimum entry criteria to do research in general. Think of a PhD more like a high school diploma for those wishing to do research. You need one to check a box on application forms, but having more than one wouldn't help you.
@M.S To clarify further, it's not that having a PhD in say biology immediately qualifies you to do research in astronomy, but you'll get there faster with better longer term results by following the traditional approach rather than starting over pursuing a second PhD in astronomy. That is, identify areas for joint research with your secondary field, do joint research with collaborators in that field and work gradually towards doing the multi-disciplinary research or doing research directly in your secondary field.
Getting a (second) doctorate is a practicable way to become an actual expert in a(nother) field. Who would give you the necessary time while they have to pay you like a professional scientist?
@Karl Unless you're getting a different kind of doctorate (MD, JD, PhD), there's no need to get a second doctoral degree to be an expert in another field. Generally, the person who gives you the time to do that is yourself: you spend your own time building up expertise by studying books and papers from the field, by doing interdisciplinary research, trying to publish papers in the new field, and so on.
A PhD is not really "the minimum entry criteria for a career in research" though. I say this as a person with only a Bachelor's degree who nonetheless has a career in research. I think it's more accurate to say that it's the minimum credential required to get grant funding agencies to take you seriously as a solo applicant. You can have a career in research without a PhD as long as you have PhD collaborator(s) to secure the necessary grant funding.
I don't see the general problem with a second doctorate.
If you want to make a streamlined career into management or faculty, don't do it.
If you need (or want) to be settled in a permanent position by the age of 32 for financial reasons (family etc.), don't do it.
But if you have the means and guts, if you really still want the second one after you've defended the first, why not? You might lose points with a few brainless HR people who think the apt treatment for kinks in a CV is the same as for wrinkles in a shirt, ironing them out. But who cares? Such company is for the dogs anyway.
"f you want to make a streamlined carreer into management or faculty, don't do it.
If you need (or want) to be settled in a permanent position by the age of 32 for financial reasons (family etc), don't do it."
Why would any of those occur?
@M.S Very reasonable goals imho. No?
There are a few possible reasons what HR/Hiring mangagers would not like to see this.
If you follow a Phd and then a second Phd (before you obtain a permanent position, job or retire), it sounds a lot like you really want to go into research but something went wrong with your first Phd.
At the same time when you finish your second Phd, other applicants already have a few years of Job experience, while a second Phd more often than not doesn't add a big environment change
It may appear to some people that you lack focus.
Your hiring manager may lack self-esteem
You are supposed to be "too academic"
People may think you look down on other people
I will shortly complete a second PhD in a related, but distinct, field.
In essence, the second study has been more akin to post doctoral work (but with an added degree) - I have had to undergo no training, my tutorials are virtually non-existent, and the resultant second thesis has already been accepted as a book. As with the first, I expect to complete with, at most, minor corrections. Both PhDs have been 100,000 words and both completed within 5 years (part-time) - thus 2.5FTE. Before the cynics comment - both have been/are being attained at universities ranked within the world top 100. I agree that there is a problem with people being non-productive for 10+ years - the answer is to work harder in the evenings and to ensure that PhDs are completed on time.
Though hardwork, it does enable me to now more readily apply for inter-disciplinary work and the fields of employment have doubled.
I think it is frowned on as excessive investment and limited return. There is a ratio that Stephen Covey talks about (horrors a business book writer!) with the amount of effort spent in learning versus production. In a way, a Ph.D. is already a bit of an indulgence. Doing two of them sounds like you just like being in school all the time, versus being a PI.
In most fields, about 75% of the Ph.D. is research, not learning. So if you just wanted to LEARN many fields, you should pick up multiple masters or even multiple bachelors. Of course, you ought to be independently wealthy to allow that.
Doing multiple Ph.D.s feels a bit as if you are just collecting tickets without thinking of the meaning of them. I mean once I had DONE a Ph.D., I really felt like I didn't need the sheepskin to contribute. Or at least part way through, it "clicked" and I got it and was an independent researcher. I was a little older so it was easier for me (to draw on practical experience). But even the "straight out of bachelors" clicked by the end of the Ph.D. They could write their own papers, determine their own experiments, negotiate with vendors to buy apparatus, etc. etc. Doing two would make no sense, since you've already got the "I can figure it out" gene turned on in your codex.
P.s. I agree with the comment that says you don't indicate having read the responses already on this site to this issue. This is not a good trait...
I don't think it is frowned upon to have multiple PhDs.
However, it is definitely rare to meet a person who has multiple PhDs.
Anecdotally, I would estimate that fewer than 1% of people with a PhD
will have a second PhD.
I know of only one person from my social circle who has a second PhD:
Dr. Ye Lu received a PhD in operations research from MIT in 2009, a PhD in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame in 2006 and a Bachelor of Science degree in applied math from Tsinghua University in 2002.
In my opinion, it made sense for him to get a second PhD
because it allowed him to get a tenure-track academic job in Operations Research,
whereas it is much more difficult to get a tenure-track academic job in Mathematics.
In conclusion, it can make sense for you to get a second PhD,
but it depends very much on the particulars of your own circumstances.
I'm guessing Dr Lu is chasing a 'brand name' on his/her CV.
@Prof.SantaClaus I disagree. Notice that his second PhD was in a related but different field of study. I think that the main benefit was that he could get an academic job in a field where getting an academic job was relatively easier.
I agree with the comment @MarkMeckes -- the premise is not necessarily correct. For example, people can get a PhD in philosophy, and if they are a pastor or just interested in religion, get one in Theology. Such people may also get PhD's in original languages like Hebrew and Greek. None-the-less, there are certainly reasons not to get more than one PhD: Life is short, and a lot of dedication goes into getting even one Ph.D. For what it's worth: I have recurring dreams (maybe nightmares?) that I am trying to get my second PhD in EE. In the dream, what the motivation for obtaining the second PhD is itself unclear. I am revisiting campus, but my colleagues think it is a sign failure (in the dream). And I am always grateful when I wake up from that dream.
This answer/example would be stronger if it explained why a pastor would benefit from having multiple PhDs. I can certainly see why they would spend time studying/practicing theology and learning Hebrew/Greek to a very high level, but this does not require a PhD. If their religious position involved publishing academic research (as is sometimes the case), then one PhD might be required, but a PhD in religion or philosophy should be all they need to publish in any of the four subjects you listed.
In any case, I think you may have misinterpreted Mark's comment. I think the comment is pointing out that if Bob is a qualified candidate for a math professorship, they would not be at a disadvantage because they have a second PhD in art history.
A PhD is about learning how to do research correct? In a field that you are confident right(you have completed BSc and MSc)? But if during your first PhD you are seeing that your topic is interdisciplinary ( for instance clinical Psychology and cognitive Neuroscience) you want to learn how conduct research in a cognitive neuroscience for instance - you have no experience; why not? You would spend 4 years not only going deeper on your topic; you would lean how do research and acquire brand new set of skills.
You can have masters and BSc sure; it depends on the main purpose. You could collaborate with other in adjacent field. If you want to independently learn how to you it yourself and you have time, funding and possibly why not?
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:48.690131 | 2018-05-21T13:40:38 | {
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110018 | How to efficiently find citations for quotations after writing?
I wrote a long document about mathematics with a lot of quotations.
I must provide a citation for every quotation, but did not do this so far.
Now I’m stuck because I can’t efficiently find the origins of these quotations, given the plethora of available references.
What kind of workflow can I use to handle this task efficiently?
I tried to edit your question to make it more focussed and understandable. Please check whether everything is still according to your intentions.
Presumably you have an idea of which references you made the most use of, and can skim through them again. If you really have no idea, the most efficient way to find the source I can think of is Google (or your search engine of preference). Simply copy and paste (a text part of) a quotation, put quotation marks around it, and search for it. Then correlate the findings with your set of sources. Alternatively, if you have say PDFs of all/most of your sources, you can use advanced search features to search for a quotation in multiple files at the same time. Sometimes PDFs are scanned and non-searchable, so googling can be more capable.
Now, since you mention mathematics, let me also say that these techniques obviously don't work as well for equations. For those you can try searching for related terms/names, but it can be difficult to find the exact source that way. It's probably more efficient to skim through your sources for this, which works well except for in-text equations. The latter tend to require careful reading.
Overall though, consider this a lesson to cite as you write. Do this even for notes only you will see - if it's a useful source, you'll want to remember it later!
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114433 | Can I resubmit a paper published in a low-ranked journal?
I submitted my manuscript to a journal (Q4), according to SCIMAGO ranking and unfortunately it got published. I say "Unfortunately" because I think it should be submitted to a better journal. Now, is there any way to withdraw this publication? According to my googling, papers published in Q4 journals do not have any weight in CVs for academic positions such as postdocs.
The googling to find out that the level of the journal would not benefit your c.v. Should have been done Before you submitted - in fact you should decide which journal before you really start the paper - ie “hey, these are good results -where can we submit a paper”...
No, you cannot withdraw a paper after it's been published to submit it elsewhere. In fact almost all journals will have a "submitting a paper here indicates that it has not been published elsewhere" policy. For example in Springer's author ethics page,
The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’)).
Further, since the journal you submitted to has committed time and resources to peer review + publishing it, withdrawing it now is very unfair to them.
That's not to say you can't pretend that you've discovered a critical error and need to withdraw the article, and submit it elsewhere afterwards. But if you are discovered, you can expect the new journal to retract your article, and to be blacklisted by both publishers.
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110518 | Ph.D. candidate vs Ph.D
I have already submitted my Ph.D. thesis to my committee and plan to defend my thesis. I want to prepare an updated CV.
In my situation, what should I write in the CV:
Ph.D. candidate
or just
Ph.D
If I remember correctly, Ph.D. Candidate is used after passing the oral comprehensive exam and while waiting for the college or university to complete paperwork on finalizing your Ph.D. work.
@drsnark I think that is not accurate. Ph.D. candidate is the status after concluding all course work (if there is any) and passing a qualification exam, where you deliver and defend your project of thesis.
@The Doctor I think you are right. I was not remembering the correct order.
Related https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10972/phd-candidate-vs-phd-student and https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9925/when-can-you-call-yourself-doctor
What is the updated CV for?
@StrongBad For applying for postdoc position
Typically, one writes Ph.D., 2018 (expected).
If you have a short description (e.g., bullet points) after this heading, you can also put the expected graduation/defense month or something to the effect of "thesis submitted 25 May 2018" in this area.
If you haven't defended yet, I would list (expected).
If you have defended and committee passed and thesis turned in and ruler lady passed and all done, done but are just waiting for the 6 month wheels to churn and send you a sheepskin, I would keep it simple and just list the Ph.D. as done. If you stop using months on your CV and move to years, this helps you.
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164172 | How can a prospective PhD student assess whether a potential PhD advisor is hands-on or hands-off?
Different ways I thought of:
Looking at the size of the potential PhD advisor's lab: e.g., if many (>10) PhD students or post-doc, then likely to be quite hands-off.
Asking current or former members of the potential PhD advisor's lab. (but sometimes it is difficult to establish contact with them and obtain a frank answer, plus that's a bit tedious to do for each potential PhD advisor's lab).
Directly asking the potential PhD advisor but I am unsure whether this is a wise approach as for example if the prospective PhD student is asking the potential PhD advisor whether they are hands-on or hands-off, this could be construed as being too much dependent or independent from the PhD advisor (e.g., a hands-off PhD advisor would typically prefer independent PhD students), which might reduce the chance of being accepted in the PhD program in case of mismatch between the PhD advisor and prospective PhD student.
What could be other techniques for a prospective PhD student assess whether a potential PhD advisor is hands-on or hands-off, preferably without impacting that chance is to be accepted in the PhD program?
"which might reduce the chance of being accepted in the PhD program in case of mismatch between the PhD advisor and prospective PhD student." One might argue that this is actually an advantage of the third approach.
@JochenGlueck true, that depends on whether the PhD program has another PhD advisor that the student could be interested in
Thanks for your response! Ah yes, you're right, of course. I wasn't reading your words "accepted into the PhD program" carefully enough, and rather thought of "accepted by the advisor" (where I live, PhD programs are quite uncommon and PhD students are typically chosen directly by their advisors - which makes it quite desirable not to be accepted if there's a mismatch between the prospective PhD student and the prospective advisor).
Just ask their graduate students. There’s no reason people won’t be frank about this question, hands-off advisors don’t think being hands-off is a bad thing and vice-versa.
I would suggest looking at the PhD thesis of former students of the advisor, especially at the thank you/ acknowledgement part. All of them will thank their advisor (no information there) and most of them will thank their parents (also not useful for you) but usually there will be a whole paragraph or two about the advsior where the students explain why their advisor is awesome. This will contain a lot phrases that let you judge what kind of advisor they are.
Great idea, thanks!
Such statements are written with the assumption that only the advisor (or nobody) will read them.
I agree with your methods. I know other techniques:
Check the publication list of the advisor. More than 20 publications per year as last author means that the advisor prioritizes quantity over quality and has no time to be hands-on.
Check the website Labvisor to see if there are any reviews from your potential lab.
Take a look at the advisor's office. If it's a mess it means the advisor has no time to organize it nor to be hands-on.
Ask the potential advisor how is the process to write/author papers. If the advisor just does the final review, that indicates a hands-off approach.
Is the advisor on the board of the Faculty or any other research institute? If so, the advisor has no time to be hands-on.
Check the websites PubPeer and Retraction Watch and see if there are comments on the advisor's papers. Draw your own conclusions.
Is the advisor wearing a lab coat? Then they are hands-on. If they wear a business dress, they might be too busy in meetings. Ask if there is a dress code in the office.
Ask something related to travelling. Is it normal to travel to research partners locations OFTEN as a PhD? To where in the World? Are there many potential conferences to travel to after the pandemic? A lot of travelling means hands-off.
Ask if you should collaborate with their current PhD students or just with the advisor. In the former case, they may be hands-off.
Is your potential advisor a PI? Being PI involve a lot of responsibilities that give no time to be hands-on.
Edit: These might be heuristic "techniques", like indirect questions in a job interview, that can give you a sense of how the potential advisor works. Of course one can not draw 100% certain conclusions from them. But some of these insights might be confirmed by some PhD candidates' experiences. What do you think?
I I think this is a great list thanks very much! Regarding the 10th point, I'd assume most professors to be principal investigators for at least some grants in the United States. Which country do you have in mind for your 10th point?
In some European countries there are professors as main advisors of PhD students that are not PIs of the research group. As you say, some may be PIs for at least some grants. In Germany the PI is totally hands-off, in practice your advisor is someone else.
Admittedly, I'm not too convinced about many points in this list. In particular, do not think that points 3. and 8. are reasonable indicators for the question at hand. But most importantly, I want to strongly object point 9. In fact, if an advisor wants their PhD students not to collaborate with each other, I would interpret this not only as a red flag, but rather as a burning red sail.
Most of these suggestions are irrelevant to the question. Publications/year is primarily related to funding levels, not advising quality or strategy.
4 is the only one on this list that is good advice.
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170425 | Where can I find the number of citations the top x % of researchers of a given research field have received?
I wonder where I can find the number of citations the top x % of researchers of a given research field have received. I'm still specifically interested in the following two research fields: natural language processing and computer vision.
(No self-infatuation intended: I received some third-party request, but I'm fully aware of the numerous bibliometric pitfalls.)
This will be sensitive to how you decide to count the total # of researchers in a field. I don't believe there is a clear place to draw the line between who counts and who doesn't.
This will also be sensitive to how citations are counted. Every platform yields a different number, in part because every platform indexes different subsets of publications. (I just checked seven different platforms for my own citation record. I got seven different numbers, the largest of which was more than three times larger than the smallest.)
@DavidKetcheson true but the method to draw the line is likely field-independent, so at least it'll keep its comparative usefulness. One way is simply to count as researcher anyone with at least one publication.
@JeffE good point, ideally let's use all publications to count citations
@FranckDernoncourt Right, but what counts as a "publication"? Review/survey article? Conference proceedings paper? Unrefereed workshop abstract? PhD thesis? Master's thesis? Research monograph? Textbook? arXiv preprint? PDF on ResearchGate? Patent? Github repository? Popular press book? Graphic novel? Blog post? YouTube video? Wikipedia article?
@JeffE let's say a peer-reviewed paper.
That's a imperfect but reasonable restriction. But what exactly counts as a "peer-reviewed paper"? I have peer-reviewed review articles, textbooks, and chapters of research monographs; do those count? Most computer science conferences are peer-reviewed, but are you sure you can tell which are not? What about papers published in Chinese in Chinese-only journals? What about papers in predatory journals? (And who decides if they're predatory?) Journals with editorial scandals? Journals that have only published their first issue? Et cetera. There are tons of tiny decisions and no ground truth.
@JeffE Good points. we'll have to live with some approximations and whatever is available :)
Use Web of Science (paywalled).
Search by the topic ("natural language processing"). You'll reach a page with, as of time of writing, 30,348 results. You can now sort the papers by authors (in the left-hand panel), and select the top x% researchers that way. Then you pick the author at the bottom of that x%, find only the papers by him/her, and generate a citation report.
As of time of writing, there are 62,594 authors. I'm not going to download all the data, but Web of Science makes it possible to display the top 500 of them. The 500th-ranked author is JIMENEZ-LOPEZ MD, which a quick Google search finds is this professor. Web of Science gives her h-index as 4, number of times cited as 59, and the number of citing articles as 44.
If you need help with operating Web of Science, feel free to ask your librarian.
Thanks, great to know!
Monsteriah suggested
to search by keyword on Google Scholar: this indeed allows us to get some decent estimate of the number of citations the top x researchers in a given research field (defined by a Google Scholar keyword such as "computer vision" or "natural language processing").
Examples:
The #2000 researcher in computer vision (mirror 1, mirror 2) has received 3620 citations.
The #2000 researcher in natural language processing (mirror 1, mirror 2) has received 1005 citations.
Note: while it is very tempting to manually change the "astart" parameter
in the URL https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&hl=en&mauthors=label:natural_language_processing&before_author=ecWn_88nAAAJ&astart=190, this doesn't work and the result is misleading: the pagination will change but the display authors won't. One has to also change the parameter "after_author".
Limitations:
I don't know whether there is a way to retrieve the number of researchers with a given keyword on Google Scholar so this may not allow us to find the number of citations the top x % of researchers of a given research field have received.
It is very tedious to look at top 2000 researchers or more because once has to scroll down and click for each 10 researchers due to the current Google Scholar user interface.
It requires the authors to have a Google Scholar provide. Most do, at least in the computer science researchers who are alive, but not all. I believe it also requires that the authors have indicated keywords.
Screenshot of the keywords in a Google Scholar profile:
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36794 | Have researchers any incentive to publish negative or confirmatory results?
Negative results are sometimes seen as failures, and confirmatory results as lack of creativity, even though both kinds can be useful. Have researchers any incentive to publish negative or confirmatory results (put aside the cases when they are forced to, e.g. certain registered clinical trials)?
related:Why don't people publish failures?
There is certainly incentive to publish negative results: a good negative result that clearly establishes, "X is not possible" or "X is not true" can be extremely valuable. I've published some negative results myself, and am proud of the work.
Negative results, however, typically must hew to a much higher standard of evidence than positive results, in order to distinguish between "X is not possible" and "I can't figure out how to do X." For positive results, showing "I can do X" automatically implies "X is possible," but the syllogism does not hold in reverse. I think this is one of the main reasons why publishing negative results is so difficult. Also, it's easier for reviewers to argue with negative results, and harder to argue with positive: with negative, it matters strongly why they are negative, while with positive the "why" can be relegated to discussion and hypotheses for future investigation.
Confirmatory results, however, are much harder to justify in absence of an explicit mechanism requiring them, as for medical studies. Typically, we get confirmatory results not directly, but indirectly through the development of new results building on the prior results: the prior results get confirmed through their use in the controls in the new study.
There are journals dedicated to negative results. If you have spent time and money trying to replicate a result but were not able to do so, you can either throw the data away or publish in one of these venues.
In addition, John Ioannidis' classic "meta-negative" paper achieved a minor sort of fame.
There are also journals that "encourage replication" (whatever that means in the context of high rejection rates), e.g. the IJF.
(Of course, negative results have value from a purely scientific point of view.)
So, overall you can certainly get citations by replicating results and/or publishing negative results.
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36984 | Can a University put a Creative Commons document containing a NonCommercial element (NC) behind a wall?
Can a University force web visitors to connect with their University ID to access a document licensed under Creative Commons containing a NonCommercial element (NC)?
Enrolling into at University a student often costs money, and the ability to access the document could be viewed as a perk for employees (i.e. indirect compensation): as a result, I wonder whether putting the document behind the University wall is considered as a commercial use of the document.
For example, I see that Stanford University forces web visitors to log in with their university account to access this CC BY-NC document:
You pay your ISP to access NC material on the web, because you pay them to access all material on the web: is that an issue? No, of course it isn't. And the university doesn't ask for a payment for each access to an NC paper, does it?
If you take 5 NC articles, append them and sell them as a book, you might run into trouble. If you take 1000 NC articles, put them on a FTP, and sell the access, I don't know what happens. Etc. I wonder from what point NC starts.
As a separate matter, as I understand it, in the US only the copyright holder can enforce a license, so you'd have to get the author to challenge them putting it behind a Stanford wall (and if the author, as part of some paperwork, signed something letting Stanford post it behind a Stanford wall, CC-NC doesn't apply because they aren't using it under that license).
Creative Commons "NonCommercial" prohibits uses that are "primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary compensation." Under U.S. law, where exactly the boundary lies can only ultimately be determined by development of precedent in case law, since the U.S. has a common-law legal system.
It is pretty clear, though, that this type of use would be non-infringing, for the following reasons:
Virtually no person pays to become a university student for the primary reason of access to online documents. Likewise, it is an exceedingly minor perk for employees and could not be considered to give the university a significant commercial advantage (rare historical documents might be a different matter).
The actual barrier is a University ID, which can typically also be acquired in many ways that do not involve compensation passing in either direction (e.g. research affiliates).
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29312 | Pedagogical reasons for closed-book exams in graduate-level courses?
Is there any research/study/survey that looked at the pedagogical benefits of assessing students with closed-book exams for graduate-level courses (vs. open-book exams)?
I'm mostly interested in computer science and math education in the USA, if the answer is field- or country-dependent.
When I took grad classes in CS, we were given the option of closed book vs open book. Closed book would be "easier" and focus on conceptual core questions, while "open book" would involve writing code rather than core questions. Arguably speaking, mastery comes more out of a closed book test. In fact, lots of places I interviewed for a job had me write code on a white board or a piece of paper with no help after school. That being said, we stopped having exams after the intro and theory courses in favor of software as homework.
Related: Are open-book exams generally a superior way to test understanding on practical courses?
Related: Is it good practice to let students consult their text materials during exams?
I think it also depends on what you count as a "closed book" exam. For my Masters, all of my exams were what I would consider "closed book" (i.e. no material whatsoever allowed to be brought in to the exam) but all included a list of common equations as part of the exam packet; some would consider that list of equations to constitute an "open book" exam.
You need to provide a context or narrow down the scope. In the current form, one can ask the same question for open-book exams. Without a context, it seems more like asking for opinions rather than an answer to a query.
@Parrhesiastes Thanks for the feedback, I edited the question to avoid excessively opinion-biased answers. Please let me know if that's okay now.
It depends on what you're trying to teach, and what you're trying to assess.
If your goal is to convey concepts, or to teach the things that everyone needs to be able to do without consulting references in order to be productive, closed book may be entirely appropriate.
If your goal is to test their ability to combine and apply the concepts, open book may be more appropriate.
(And yes, I too remember tests with "official" cheat sheets as a balance between these. Then again, I also remember one test whose official cheat sheet was essentially a set of mathematical jokes, because the test itself didn't require any of the rote-memorization material. Then again again, I also remember closed book tests where one of the tools I used was a set of mnemonics that would let me quickly scribble out my own cheat sheet for the formulas/simplifications I most needed -- I can still recite "quasineutrality, uniformity, equilibrium, low-level injection, steady state" but I'd have to hit the books to again remember how those assumptions were used.)
A Google search for "research on open book testing" gives many results. For example, there is a paper "Examining the testing effect with open- and closed-book tests" by Agarwal, Karpicke, Kang, Roediger and McDermott (http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.1391) with abstract as follows:
Two experiments examined the testing effect with open-book tests, in
which students view notes and textbooks while taking the test, and
closed-book tests, in which students take the test without viewing
notes or textbooks. Subjects studied prose passages and then restudied
or took an open- or closed-book test. Taking either kind of test, with
feedback, enhanced long-term retention relative to conditions in which
subjects restudied material or took a test without feedback. Open-book
testing led to better initial performance than closed-book testing,
but this benefit did not persist and both types of testing produced
equivalent retention on a delayed test. Subjects predicted they would
recall more after repeated studying, even though testing enhanced
long-term retention more than restudying. These experiments
demonstrate that the testing effect occurs with both open- and
closed-book tests, and that subjects fail to predict the effectiveness
of testing relative to studying in enhancing later recall.
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1519 | Citing (or not) a flawed or incomprehensible paper or preprint
Is there a good practice of citing (or not) a paper or preprint that you consider flawed (or at best - totally incomprehensible)?
Once I had a problem of that sort. I wrote a paper on a topic, which was not very popular. Even if I was not using other's results directly, I wanted to cite a few papers solving very similar issues.
Then I had a dilemma if to cite a preprint tackling the same problem, using methods I don't understand (with a feeling that it is incomplete, flawed or just extremely badly written).
Ii that case it is better to:
simply drop it,
cite but make it explicit that you are just mentioning it, not using their results,
or cite making it explicit that you have serious doubts on its content?
EDIT:
By a preprint I understand sth which is archived on arXiv or sth similar.
in what follows, I'm assuming you're correct in your assessment of the flaw.
The first step is to communicate with the authors. If you mutually resolve the flaw (they accept the mistake, and/or redo the proof), then you either cite the corrected version or mention when citing the paper that it has a flaw and cite your discussion with them as a personal communication.
If the conversation with the authors stall (they're nonresponsive or shift the goalposts), then you can cite the paper and briefly outline the flaw in an appendix (or if you're space constrained, post a brief link to a document available elsewhere). I'm not entirely happy with this last idea, but I can't think of anything better in a space-constrained scenario.
I don't think that incomprehensibility is a good reason for not citing, or citing negatively. You'd have to narrow down the incomprehensibility to something in particular that the authors are not clear on (a definition, a set of cases, or something like that). Again, this should be a last resort if the authors are not responsive to contact - ideally, matters of lack of understanding should be resolved between the authors without it making it into the paper.
post-caveat: my answer deals mostly with theoretical papers. In more applied works, it might be trickier to determine whether something is "known to be incorrect" or "not known to be correct".
To reiterate some other points: to my mind, citation (or not) is not about approval or endorsement, but simply acknowledgement of prior art. (I am in mathematics... in the the U.S., ...)
It is unfortunately true that most "peer-reviewed journal articles" are not at all scrupulous about acknowledging competitors' work. Nevertheless, if the question is about what one should do, one should acknowledge competitors, even if they've failed to reciprocate, and probably never will.
(Sadly-amazingly, a very good mathematician once told me that he scrupulously avoided looking at the papers of his competitors, so that he could in good conscience never cite them. One might think that he was joking, but, based on the citations in his papers, he was not.)
The issue of "non-canon" papers, e.g., arXiv and so on (for math, in the U.S., this is still slightly non-canon) I think is really the same, at least in the future. Sure, having editors approve and a referee or two approve is something positive... but, srsly, folks, if something serious of my own depends on it, I will want to have checked it through myself. For that matter, in recent years the requests for refereeing I get mostly say that it is not the referee's responsibility to certify correctness (!!!???!!!)... Whoa. Or, even if they do, that's only one other person... who very possibly has nothing on-the-line if the paper turns out to have a problem, in contrast to oneself, needing to depend on it.
That is, even before the internet and on-line archives, it was not truly feasible (or safe) to rely upon "refereed" journal articles. The main distinction between them and "preprints", in those days, was that people at universities did have access to the "published" (both literally and figuratively), but probably not to preprints, unless one had personal connections. This was why it was important in those days to go to conferences.
In particular, the alleged distinction between refereed and unrefereed (please, let's recover from burdening "published" with a special meaning so contrary to current reality) has become tenuous. Anything that is quasi-stably publicly available is "published", literally. If at a reputable site, by reputable authors, it is ordinarily taken seriously. Even if it is deeply flawed, it should be taken seriously, and acknowledged.
The subtler question is about language in one's own document to refer to other documents... that one may perceive as flawed, as pernicious, etc.
I understand that this may depend on the field.
I would personally avoid citing that paper if I am not very confident and there are plenty of other better references in the subject. I'd rather avoid introducing noise to the review process...
I once had a similar situation and didn't have many other references available. I wasn't being able to reproduce the results of one paper, and the other was really badly written. The first thing I tried was to contact the authors to clarify my concerns. Since neither responded, I decided not to cite them.
In my opinion, it's the authors' responsibility to ensure the results are reproducible and it's clearly reported if they expect to be cited.
I would never cite a pre-print except possibly as "personal communication". In fact, that is how authors have asked me to cite their pre-prints. If it is not published, it is not a part of the cannon. That's what publishing is about.
Maybe we don't agree about what "preprint" means. If it means a paper that is publicly circulated before publication, then anyone who makes use of it is ethically required to cite it, with full details (i.e., not just as a personal communication). If the paper is not being circulated, but is just a working draft being kept private by the authors, then the situation is different, but I wouldn't consider that a preprint, just a draft.
I cite with as many details as I have (authors, title etc.) in the personal communication reference, but I still believe that pre-prints are definitionally drafts.
@JoannaBryson I couldn't disagree more. First, in my main field (quantum-ph) citing (arXiv) preprints is a widely accepted practice. Second, it may be true that on average papers are of better quality than preprints; however, I don't think it is a good practice to rely on the authority of the referees, instead of judging by oneself. Third, discrediting preprints means both a substantial delay in the scientific communications and backing up the closed access science.
Sorry, I thought you meant leaving out this information. It sounds like our citations are very similar: you would write something like ", , personal communcation, " while I would write ", , preprint, ". I'd suggest using the former for cases where the draft is not being widely circulated and the latter where it is, but either way it's got all the essential information.
Piotr, I am absolutely backing up all archival science, whether it is funded by readers "closed access" or by writers "open access". I agree you should cite anyone whose work you use, whether they are friends, newspaper articles, web pages or wikipedia articles. But having multiple academic reviewers and an editor confirm your opinion on quality increases the probability you are citing something that belongs in front of others.
Anonymous, I think for drafts (whatever you call them) you need the full date, not just the year. These can change by the hour.
@JoannaBryson I added comment on preprints (I mean sth e.g. arXiv not an e-mailed pdf or even a working paper in a place where it can change or disappear without notice, otherwise, as you say, they are more "a personal communication"). I know the value of peer-review system both in terms of filtering and refining papers. So if your answer depends on the type (e.g. "peer-reviewed - cite, preprint - cite only if you are very sure in its quality") it may make a good point.
I don't see peer review as playing any role in deciding whether to cite something. If you are just citing it as related work, then readers can decide for themselves what they make of it (possibly based on its preprint status), and there's no need to make an explicit assertion in your paper as to whether it's correct if you aren't sure. On the other hand, if your work really depends on someone else's preprint, then hopefully you have carefully checked everything you are relying on. In that case, you don't need to trust in peer review, since you've verified it yourself, which is even better.
Of course your verification could be wrong, but then again peer review can go astray as well. Ultimately, nothing should be considered firmly established until lots of people have independently checked it, but it's useful to have a first approximation to that, and either checking it yourself or counting on peer review can be that first approximation.
@AnonymousMathematician: Don't you mean " , preprint, , "?
@JoannaBryson: Preprints are not necessarily unrefereed; they're just not yet printed.
@JeffE: Good point - occasionally someone circulates a preprint without putting it on the web, but of course one should always cite the most stable and accessible location to find a copy (e.g., the arXiv is better than the author's home page).
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32138 | Is there a way to save my students money on a textbook?
I'm considering requiring a textbook that sells for US$140 on Amazon. Used copies cost $95 and up. I expect about 60 students to take the course. Our students are not wealthy. Some will skip buying the book, and their academic performance will suffer, if they feel they cannot afford it. I'd like to find ways of saving my students money.
One idea I have is to see if it's possible to get a bulk discount and pass the savings on to students. Another idea is to set up an Amazon affiliate link and refund the kickbacks to students, although I'd probably be liable for income tax. (Of course, I'd request approval from the Provost's office before trying something that could appear to be profiting off of students.)
I live in the United States. The publisher is Pearson, and there does not seem to be an international edition of the book. There is only one edition of the textbook. (For other classes, I've saved the students money by letting them use an earlier edition.) I have been unable to find a textbook of comparable quality that is significantly cheaper.
Has anyone tried any of the above ideas or others?
Responses to comments
Why require a book? I do not always require a book, but I think it is necessary for this course in order for students to learn the material.
Why not write my own book or lecture notes? I have co-authored a book on a topic on which I am an expert and made the book available for free online. I could not do as good a job as the expensive textbook's authors in this subject matter, especially because I expect to only teach this course once.
Why not use a free online textbook? I was unable to find a free book that did a good job covering the required material.
Why not encourage the students to find an illegal copy online? I consider copyright legitimate and would not encourage my students to do something illegal or unethical.
Update
After I assigned the Pearson textbook, a student discovered that it was available for free online through the local public library. I immediately informed the other students of this option and let them know how to get a public library card. I will always know to check this option in the future. It had not occurred to me that a publisher would allow a popular textbook to be made available for free in this way (with no limit on the number of simultaneous viewers).
Related: Is there any way to pressure textbook publishers to reduce price?
How about NOT requiring the book?
Check if a pdf version of the book exists (e.g. by using "name of book" pdf as search query in google. If such a pdf exists, just hint them that such a resource exists).
Why do you need a book? I have studied my long 5 years of engineering without any teacher requiring a book for any of the lectures. IT can be done, and it saves students LOTS of money.
@Sumurai8 even if there is no pdf version, someone can make it (used copy of the book + scanner)
@LeonidSemyonov Making a pdf is technically copyright infringement I think. Putting it up at a publically viewable place is a risk. If it is already available then there is less harm in linking to it.
@Sumurai8 they can use it only among themselves
Related: Should I inform students that there are cheaper alternatives to the on-campus book store?
I have been unable to find a textbook of comparable quality that is significantly cheaper. — So write one!
@JeffE you automatically assume that the OP can write a book of a comparable quality. But this could take years to do, if at all possible (I don't know the level of OP's expertise).
@Ruslan: With respect to the content quality, I am not sure I can imagine how someone can teach about a topic in a lecture while being unable to write down that same information. It doesn't need to be a book book, but a lecture notes book should be feasible by any lecturer. I second previous commenters in that I never bought a single book throughout my whole studies, because all of my professors did just that - they provided written lecture notes as a written complement of their lectures.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3621#comic
Is there any kind of digital option available through your library? Could you potentially digitise chapters from various textbooks through the formal library copyright etc services and these are stored online available via download through an online reading list (that requires authentication?) This is what we do at my university which is handled at the library (we send them a list, they do all the work), mind you we have a 10% cut off for digitised content for any one book, but I haven't used a textbook or a course reader since 2012.
The approach taking in my department was not to require textbooks at all. Each course had some suggested books (which were available in the library) for those students who wanted to read more on the subject and/or wanted a different perspective from the lecturer but all the critical material was in the lecture handouts.
For more than 20 years, I've been making "course notes" for all courses I've taught, exactly because of the ridiculous pricing of textbooks. I'd encourage everyone to expend some effort in that direction.
It had not occurred to me that a publisher would allow a popular textbook to be made available for free in this way (with no limit on the number of simultaneous viewers). Chances are the publisher didn't make the book available for free; it's part of a deal with the library where the library pays the publisher money and gets to make the book available for free.
@Allure, yes, our tax dollars at work. University libraries can probably do the same.
An easy thing to do that can be very helpful to your students is to put a copy of the textbook (or two or three copies) on reserve in the university library. Students can then photocopy critical sections of the book (e.g. the homework exercises.) This is particularly helpful at the start of the semester when students are waiting for copies of the book that they've ordered online to arrive.
If you have control over the choice of the textbook, you should consider moving to a cheaper book or even an open educational resource (OER) that is completely free to students.
"If you have control over the choice of the textbook, you should consider moving to a cheaper book or even an open educational resource (OER) that is completely free to students." -- but don't compromise the quality! Academic books cost more, in general, and fair or not, not all are created equal!
+1. In addition, this way students can check out the book before buying it.
As mentioned in the OP: "I have been unable to find a textbook of comparable quality that is significantly cheaper."
This may be the best solution. I may also check if I can legally copy the homework problems onto assignment sheets.
I've come to the conclusion that it's no longer practical to use homework assignments from books for graded homework assignments. Solutions (either official solution manuals or just informally collected student solutions) are so widely available online that cheating by copying the solution is trivial. Rather, I make up my own problems or take problems from a bunch of other sources. Finding solutions to such an assignment would take more work than actually doing the problems...
@BrianBorchers When teaching the first time from a book, I tend to use their exercises, then make my own modifications after seeing how those work out. (Believe it or not, cheating is not a big problem at my school.) I would not create my own assignments the first time teaching a course, if at all possible, since mine are more likely to be flawed than the published ones.
@espertus "Believe it or not, cheating is not a big problem at my school" How would you know? Only terrible cheaters get caught. Unfortunately, cheaters who put effort into cheating are very difficult to catch (at least for HW cheating, in class exams are different).
@WetLabStudent 1. The classes are small enough that I have a good idea of each student's ability, and their test performance is consistent with that. 2. There are a lot of wrong answers on tests, even though it would be easy to cheat to get the correct answers. (The same is true of many homework problems, which I see students spend hours working on.) 3. Pairs of students who work together on homework assignments often have very different answers on tests. 4. When I ask students if other students cheat, they say no. 5. Rare in-class quiz scores are consistent with take-home tests.
I have found, by direct experience, that publishers are sometimes willing to offer steep discounts. At any rate I pulled this off once, and arranged for my students to be able to buy their book at an approximately 40% discount to what was available on Amazon or anywhere else.
This involved the students buying their books directly by mail from a private page on the publisher's website, and this led to an ugly argument when the bookstore's manager found out about this. I ended up having to read my faculty manual closely so that I could call the manager's bluff. In the end, I (and more importantly my students) won.
This could well work for others, and without the argument. :) But the bottom line is that publishers will negotiate. "I'm considering requiring a textbook..." are precisely the magic words. Just look up the contact information for the publisher's regional sales rep on the Internet, and call or e-mail them.
+1, and I'll add that the publisher is likely to agree to a bulk discount for the same reason most other vendors of virtually any product will agree to a bulk discount. It's especially good for the publisher if the instructor of a course decides to use one of their textbooks - the publisher can look forward to some recurring revenue every semester.
If your textbook happens to have multiple editions, you can tell the students that previous editions will work for the course. Many online sites sell older editions of a textbook at a steep discount.
I have one course where we use the 4th edition of the book, but I have a table in the syllabus that maps the chapters of the 3rd edition to the chapters in the 4th edition. That way, if the reading assignment for the week is Chapter 7, students who are using the older edition know that they should be reading, say, Chapter 5.
Quite often there is enough overlap of material in the older addition that a student can get by just fine.
Great point! I have often done that in other classes. Unfortunately, it was not an option this one.
Another option is to contact the authors and explain the situation. It is possible that they have a PDF version that can be used without legal issues (for example of an earlier edition or a pre-final version).
Has this worked? Some authors post their textbook pdfs online for free, but I can only imagine other authors being amenable to this in special circumstances (e.g., a course in an especially poor country).
@Kimball I can think of cases where this would work. It could help if the author knows you or you're in a poor country, but in the end it really depends on the authors - some are not in it for the money and and would be understanding.
@Bitwise The OP writes he lives in the US; I guess it does not qualify as a poor country.
@Kimball, sometimes there are "special country editions". I have seen some for India circulated around here (I presume illegally, as they seem to have been for restricted distribution).
@vonbrand If "here" is the United States, The Supremes have ruled that the first-sale doctrine applies to textbooks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtsaeng_v.John_Wiley%26_Sons,_Inc.
You should talk to your 1- University Book Store and 2- a college librarian about what all your options are. There are often rental options, even for new books, and the librarian can tell you whether the university can acquire your textbook in an online format that can be available to enough students.
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86662 | Aren't YouTube captions good enough not to violate the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990?
I read on Berkeley will begin removing more than 20,000 video and audio lectures from public view as a result of a Justice Department accessibility order (mirror) (published on 2017-03-06)
The Justice Department, following an investigation, in August determined that the university was violating the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. The department reached that conclusion after receiving complaints from two employees of Gallaudet University, saying Berkeley’s free online educational content was inaccessible to blind and deaf people because of a lack of captions, screen reader compatibility and other issues.
If a University uploads a video of a course to YouTube, aren't YouTube captions good enough not to violate the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990?
Related: How much does it cost to make a MOOC universally accessible, as defined by the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990?
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
No, auto generated captions are gibberish. Try watching a complicated lecture on a scientific topic but turn down the volume and only look at the automatically generated captions. Not only is there a high error rate but there is no punctuation.
Note: the DOJ findings letter is online (mirror) and you can see the legal rationale behind the findings of law.
It should be noted that other universities followed the law when they implemented their MOOC programs and captioned their videos from their videos from the start. UC Berkeley was warned by its own academic accommodations committee in 2012 that the way they were implementing their MOOC was not only a violation of their own policies but would probably result in a violation of the ADA, especially given their status as a public university.
Furthermore, contrary to media reports Berkeley was not "forced" to take down the videos. The complainants from the very beginning (circa 2014) wanted to engage in an interactive process that would ensure access, even if over time. Berkeley declined to engage which resulted in the complaint being escalated to the DOJ. However, even the DOJ letter did not request a takedown. This was entirely the decision of UC Berkeley's senior administration
Worse still if someone bss a string foreign accent — or even native (the Micalense accent in Portuguese is regularly so identified as French). Worse still if the languages change, as it's not smart enough to detect a Spanish word or phrase embedded in an English phrase.
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61817 | Trends on time spent studying over the the past few decades, for students outside the US
Is there any research/study/survey/dataset that looked at the trends on the time students spent on studying, over the the past few decades in different countries in the world (aside from the USA)?
I am mostly interested in the field of computer science, if field-specific, and college level, if level-specific.
In case anyone else tries the same thing I did: the OP is the same as on the earlier question about why study time in the US has declined, and so the linked sources in there probably aren't satisfactory.
What are you trying to ask about the US that is not already answered by the data set in the other question?
@chipbuster yes my question contains a link to this question.
@jakebeal ok I'll exclude USA from the question. I am indeed looking for something similar for other countries.
For Germany the data is there in the form of the "Studierenden survey", which exists since 1982. However, I don't know if it is analysed. The datasets are available, so I added a list of links to the datasets for the different years in case you want to do the analysis yourself.
2012/13: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.5126
2009/10: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.11059
2006/07: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.4263
2003/04: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.4344
2000/01: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.4208
1997/98: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.3511
1994/95: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.3131
1992/93: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.3130
1989/90: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.2417
1986/87: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.2416
1984/85: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.1885
1982/83: http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.1884
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68008 | Importance of Math Subject GRE
I will be applying for a PhD program for mathematics this year. When graduate schools are considering applications, how much weight does a GRE score carry compared to research experience and grades acquired in undergraduate coursework? I have all A's in my math and physics course, with the exception of one A-, and two papers. Mind you, these are not papers based upon solutions to trivial undergraduate problems, but are problems of interest to professional mathematicians, especially those working in operator algebras.
My question is, if I were to get a less than fantastic score on the GRE, would I still be considered because of my grades, research experience, and two publishable papers?
None of these components (GRE, research experience, undergraduate grades) matter as much as your letters of recommendation. It's worrying that you don't know this; you should look at other questions on this site to determine what makes a strong letter and who you should ask to write for you.
@TomChurch do you have any specific questions in mind? Could you post some links?
I think the simple answer here is that (a) it depends and (b) the entire application "package" is considered when admission decisions are made.
What I mean when I say that it "depends" is that it depends on where you are applying. If you are applying to a top math program then there will be many many individuals applying for admission. Of these, a subset will also likely have publications and will also likely have high GRE scores. I say "likely" because it's impossible to know the strength of the applicants in any given admissions cycle.
What I mean when I say "entire application package" is that, in some respects, you can make up for one lacking area by excelling in another; take this with a grain of salt however. You are applying for admission into a PhD program. The important question the admissions committee is trying to ask for each applicant is "Is this individual likely to succeed in doing research in this department?". Past publications speak to this much more directly than do GRE scores. Classroom performance is no longer the emphasizing factor -- it's all about the research!
As others pointed out, if you have a faculty letter of recommendation that supports your contribution to the publications you have that will be huge! If not, the admissions committee may certainly wonder what your role in these were, particularly if you are not the first author.
Additionally, top PhD programs may use GRE scores to "weed out" some initial applications. Nobody has time to go over the complete admissions package of 500+ applicants.
My advise: if you have time, spend another month or two doing some extra GRE prep and retake the test. It sounds like you have a strong application other than the one score. Spend your time only studying for the math portion. Some programs will let you "pick and choose" which scores of which test to submit (i.e., submit math from "test #2", submit vocab from "test #1", submit writing from "test #2"). At any rate, because you are applying to math departments, the math score is really what matters!
Hope this helps and good luck!
Edit and disclaimer: My background and experience is in applied math and computer science fields. As another poster pointed out this may be different for pure math department applications.
"Past publications speak to this much more directly than do GRE scores" - From what I've heard around this site, that is not at all the case in pure math. Do you yourself have experience with PhD admissions in mathematics that contradicts this?
@ff524 Thank you for pointing this out. Editing my post with a disclaimer for "applied math and computer science".
(Also note that when the OP says "math GRE" he/she is likely referring to the subject exam, not the math portion of the general GRE.)
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69679 | How can I distinguish harsh treatment from my advisor from "tough love" and direct feedback?
Usually during our meetings my advisor will complain a lot and tell me I am doing stuff wrong. How can I tell if he thinks I am a bad student or if he is just trying to give me direct feedback?
Keeping this general so this question becomes a reusable resource.
Advisors don't hate or love students. If your advisor doesn't want you; he/she will ask you to look for another advisor.
So, are you doing stuff wrong and need to get your act together? Are the complaints about you, or your work? Is he challenging your work (which he should do), or challenging you as a person? What is wrong with direct feedback?
Without wishing to be dismissive of your concerns: I don't think you should use words like "hates me". I'd feel better if you changed the title to say "... advisor thinks I am bad" which seems to preserve the intent of your question but is less inflammatory
@seteropere Students will not be asked to leave if that makes faculty look bad in front of peers.
Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2257/how-to-deal-with-constant-pressure-given-by-advisor
@seteropere I find that highly unlikely; last I checked, advisors are human.
You could ask? e.g. "I find it difficult to tell if you think I am performing poorly or if you are just giving me direct feedback. If the former, I don't mind the honesty, but I would appreciate knowing."
A teacher's dedication to and needs from a student change significantly as you go from undergraduate to graduate school. Sounds like you are talking about an undergraduate advisor, who is probably trying to motivate you. If it is a graduate advisor, he might seriously be concerned about your ability to finish your projects.
@Amadeus9 advisors hate and love your work. You, as a person with body and language, isn't a factor in this.
@seteropere I agree that it shouldn't be, and maybe I'm most cases it isn't, but it seems naive to dismiss it entirely out of hand.
It doesn't matter. What matters is what he is telling you to do about it and whether you are doing it, and whether it is reasonable. If it is unreasonable, or if he hates you for extraneous reasons, there is nothing you should do about it, unless it impinges on his professional behaviour, in which case you need evidence for a complaint. If he just wants you to improve, improve.
Certainly an advisor CAN hate a student. You have to cope with this if it happens, as long as the hate doesn't completely interfere with the work. Which is what matters.
I only bother with hard feedback if I believe the student is capable of more than what is currently happening...
@Amadeus9 So... you devote time to ensuring advisors are human or something? Seems like an awkward way to spend your time.
What is the job title of someone who gives direct feedback, if "advisor" isn't it?
@Dilworth, Quote:"You have to cope with this .." (emph mine)- No, no one "has to" cope. Kaz: well, if only things had been just so very clear cut in real life.
@PKG, you are correct. The OP in fact has two options: either cope with it, or quit the PhD.
He's probably giving direct feedback. If your adviser really hated you, he wouldn't spend the time in improving you.
I don't know why this answer is getting thumbs down... I think it's a valid point. Maybe not the longest answer in the world, but pretty accurate
@marcman - Yes, it's a valid point, but it doesn't really answer the question. The question asks, "How can I tell if it's X or Y?" and this answer only says, "It's probably Y." (Not my downvote; I'm just speculating.)
Also just speculating, but it's perfectly possible for someone to spend time berating if they hate you. That is, after all, how you end up knowing that they hate you.
@J.R. I interpret the answer to be "You can tell that it is Y, because X makes little sense. Of course no guarantee as I can;t read his mind."
@J.R. No, the answer says "It's probably Y because of Z", where Z is a concept that doesn't take many words to explain.
Sometimes advisors have trouble recruiting and don't have a choice. A mediocre student is often better than no student at all.
This isn't necessarily true. There are many reasons one might give feedback other than "because they don't hate you". They may be compelled to by department rules, they may be trying to scare you out of the department, they may crave a sense of superiority and gain that through berating others, etc, etc. There is a long list of reasons a professor may provide "feedback" other than the one listed here.
@JayCarr, I like your way of not treating the matter simplistically, which is untrue of other responses.
Know his style. There are advisors who think that it is better to be direct and tough with their students. At the end, they are preparing you to the real-life after PhD and don't want you to waste your time (and theirs) with something they see as incorrect. There are other advisors who are very polite. "You are wrong" is their last resort. This also depends to the student's culture and how he/she perceive such criticism.
When I first visited my advisor's webpage, I thought he is rude. At least this is what others have told me about him: tough and rude. Very hard to work with. Now, After 5 years with him, he is just a serious guy. Loves research and wishes students to be serious like him.
On the other hand, some advisors care about every detail you give to them while others are very hands-off. Knowing your advisor's style would help you very much.
So how can you tell? Act as a professional. If your personality is involved within the criticism then he might have some prejudice against you. IF it's all about the work, then most likely he is just a serious guy that wants you to proceed fast. The best thing to do is to stick with one of his criticism, fix it, do your best in addressing it. And check with him again. Then compare what he's saying now with before.
You thought your advisor was rude because you visited his homepage?
@Sverre Not really. I was mainly mis-informed about him before visiting his webpage.
I just don't understand what you visiting his homepage has to do with anything, then.
@Sverre I think he means his impression of the advisor before he met him (looking at his webpage searching for advisors) was "tough and rude"
There is a third explanation: your advisor does not know how (or lacks the motivation) to give feedback that is not complaining.
Get a second opinion
Try to get some feedback on your work from someone other than your main supervisor. Maybe you have a secondary supervisor you can talk to, or you could offer to give a talk at an internal research meeting. If people bring up similar points (perhaps in a politer way!) then this points towards your supervisor being harsh but fair.
Is the criticism constructive?
Is your supervisor bringing up points that are useful, and possible for you to act upon, or just putting your work down without any indication of how to improve it? If it's the latter, try pushing your supervisor for constructive points. Something along the lines of: "OK, that's a good point, can you suggest a way that I can get around the problem?" If they avoid the question, then that's not a good sign.
The previous two points won't distinguish between a poor supervisor who is not good at giving feedback and a supervisor who has something personal against you. So, you also need to find out:
Are they the same with everyone?
If your supervisor has other students, chat to them. Have they had the same experience as you? If so, then it's probably nothing personal and is just your supervisor's style.
If your supervisor is old and established, chances are they are just being short and to the point. It isn't about what they think about you, its more about what they think about the thing you just handed them.
If your supervisor is younger though, then all bets are off. It could mean anything. My supervisor went to one these "How to be a good manager that gets the most out their workers" type 3-day courses, which he and other PIs at my place of work were encouraged to go to. They hold them every year, but last year the notes of the in-house management course was "leaked" (well, left in a bin..) and it suggested PIs try using tactics like "tough love" on at least 1 student in the coming year so you can see if its a good management style for you/your lab, plus its an important skill for a manager to know how to do, and it sends a clear message that you're the boss, etc. There are numerous books on how to manage a lab -- I encourage anyone who feels like they have a strained and unnatural relationship with their boss to read one.
I don't think it has to do with age. Advisors can be skilled or incompetent at any age.
Haha, true :) But certainly for young advisors they are incentivized to try "modern management strategies" which at the student level manifests itself as "I think my supervisor thinks X, but I don't know why because we have no history that would result in X".
I would question why the advisor's intention is even relevant. Many times in my own life I have been presented with antagonistic attitudes / individuals. The question that I always asked myself was:
"Is this helping me?"
If the critiques were aiding my quest to better myself, if they were helping me to be better at the task at hand, then I allowed for the harsh criticism that I was receiving. Sometimes in my life I have found that kind of criticism to be highly motivating. At other times, it has been detrimental to my mental health. This judgment call has to made irrespective of the intent of the criticizer. An overzealous coach can be just as emotionally draining as a belittling advisor.
The key determining factor is how you, the target of the criticism, feel about the message being received. Does it inspire you to do better? Does it make you want to curl up and cry? This feeling may even vary day by day based on your own emotional state.
In summary, I would offer that the important question is not the intention of the advisor, but how you receive the criticism. What better way to handle an advisor wishing to do you harm than to transmute that negativity and better yourself with it.
I'd ask.
"What do you think about me as a student?"
Aside from being a mind reader, this is your most direct route to the truth. The "as a student" part is optional really. It could open the floor for a more communicative relationship. You might find out some good things. You might find out some bad things. But in the end, you'll learn something. If your advisor's replies are equivocal, ask a more specific question. The mere asking of a personal question like this could soften your advisor up a bit, at least momentarily, or have them reflect on your working relationship.
You could pursue second-hand information, either about yourself or about the instructor's previous relations with students, but anything you hear is likely biased. Anything negative you hear this way could merely stem from your instructor's natural venting process and may needed to be digested with a grain of salt.
I would say you should just ask him.
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18832 | Should postdocs work only on the projects they are hired for, or can they work with other people in the same research group on other projects?
Would the latter be an issue with the funding body, when the project proposal and budget only covers the expenses for hiring one postdoc? Note: it is the supervisors who got the grants, not the postdocs themselves.
See http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3327/what-is-expected-of-a-postdoc?rq=1
My question might be a duplicate of http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/4745/collaborating-with-professors-other-than-the-advisor
Since the supervisor got the grant, he is ultimately responsible to the funding agency for the research that was funded and for any results. So the postdoc should definitely talk to the supervisor.
Actually, this would be a great opportunity for the supervisor to help the postdoc grow academically, since postdocs are of course expected to take on more responsibilities than Ph.D. students, and start making their own reputation in a field, not stay in the supervisor's shadow. So the supervisor should certainly understand that the postdoc will start flexing his wings and be interested in other topics - it just needs to be commensurate with the goals that the supervisor got the money for.
If, conversely, the postdoc got his own grant, he should first of all look through the paperwork he presumably got, signed and returned before the money started rolling in. It is quite possible that an expectation of the funding agency as to the amount of work the postdoc should be spending on this particular project is already somewhere in the paperwork. Of course, even in this case, it makes a lot of sense to discuss this with the supervisor, who presumably has a lot of experience in this field, and possibly with this particular funding agency.
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99616 | How to cite and publish unpublished governmental statistics correctly?
Conducting a research which needs governmental statistics, I have encountered a problem. The problem is I need to have precise data on farming in an area, but the data are not published.
I had to go to the relevant governmental office and convince them to provide me with the data. Afterwards, I had interviews with officials and they--based on their internal documents--provided me with the necessary detailed data.
Now I am thinking how to cite the information; I think the obtained data should be published, at least as a letter to the researcher, so that I can refer to it.
What I am going to do is that I give the obtained information to the department and ask them to check it for reliability, then they issue an official document containing the necessary approved information. However, the point is I am myself preparing the tables etc., so this is my work--the tables produced by hours and hours of interview and then extracting the info and then making tables based on it--not theirs although they will check it carefully.
What to you think? How should I deal with it?
You should inquire what the relevant laws say. Otherwise, you might get in trouble publishing governmental information. Usually there are fairly strict regulations for this kind of data.
@skymningen I already have the department permission to use the data; the data are not confidential.
But there is a subtle difference between "use" as in "use to generate your own results from" and "use" as in "use as your own, including publishing the original data". (That's why we have so many GPL licenses and such.)
@skymningen I have told them I was going write a scientific article which will show the data they provided me with.
To reword what @skymningen says - as I had told my team of (coincidentally, government-employed) analysts at the time, it's one thing to have possession of the data. It's another thing to actually be able to use it for your purposes. I would get a lawyer if I were you. There are some states (assuming U.S.) that have laws in terms of how their data are reported or used.
@Clarinetist Interesting! Assuming that there are no legal constraints and I have the right to use it for my research purposes, how should I deal with it methodologically?
@Juya how about you do it the other way: you get permission to use and publish the data THEN come back and ask about methodology...
@SolarMike I already have their cooperation and I am permitted to publish the data.
So what is your problem then? The permission to publish the data (if legally backed) will have specific rules about how you can or cannot do that. Anything that is allowed you can do. Anything that is not, you can't your question starts with the premise that you want them to pre-publish the data (letter to the researcher) under their name, but ends with you being unhappy with their plan to publish the data without your name on it as an official document. That is a contradiction we cannot solve for you.
I would cite it as "Agency name, unpublished data" in the text. As a made-up example in a list of citations:
US Department of Agriculture, Farm Information Statistics 1999-2015, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, unpublished.
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73137 | Can I do experimental research after doing a computational PhD in Chemical Engineering?
I am a graduate student in Chemical Engineering at a good research university in the USA. I came for the master's program and started working with a professor from day one. It has been a year, I like the research I am doing, and am on my way to publish a paper. The research is challenging and impactful but is purely computational.
I am moving to the PhD program here. There is no issue with research problems or stipend—I am fully funded—but the idea of pure computational for the coming years is freaking me out. I am worried because I cannot run experiments anymore and I am wondering whether this limits my opportunities after my PhD. Am I going to narrow myself in research careers if I am going for a computational PhD?
I've removed the question at the end: "Is experimental research given more value than computational, even in the scientific community?" That's because it's a separate question, and SE questions should have only a single topic. It is also too subjective to be answered here.
Especially in chemical engineering, it is definitely possible for people to move back and forth between experimental and computational work, and even to combine the two in a single career (although this is much more difficult, obviously).
Both of my graduate co-advisors have made similar transitions during their careers—from a mainly computational focus to a primarily experimental focus. It is definitely feasible.
The main issue that you'd want to remember at the earlier stage of your career is that the further away you want to leap from your PhD research, the harder it is to find someone willing to sponsor you to do that. For instance, doing an experimental PhD related to the topic of your computational PhD should not be too difficult; moving from computational combustion to experimental biomedical engineering would be much more challenging.
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3456 | Advertising one's publication
After posting a preprint on arXiv, or after an accepted paper appears online, how to bring other's attention to it?
(Unless one is already a big name in one's field, or one proves a long-standing and well-known open problem, I doubt that just waiting for things to happen is going to suffice.)
For sure one can give talks or present posters on relevant conferences. But are there any other methods of bringing it to the attention of others who might be interested and for whom it may be beneficial?
The question is both about "classical" methods and any relevant Internet tools.
This question is highly relevant. The accepted answer (mine) is probably the worst one; be sure to read them all.
I disagree with eykanal's evaluation of his answer.
I am surprised that nobody suggested blogs.
@ArtemKaznatcheev Actually, I was thinking about such things. However, if a blog has one entry per a few months, I guess that readership would be ~ 0. So, do you know any collaborative blogs inviting others to present their results?
@PiotrMigdal well, if you don't keep an active blog or use it solely for advertising, then obviously nobody will read it. Presumably your blog hosts content other than your own papers and updates regularly. Otherwise it is more an extended CV than blog. However, combining efforts to run a blog is a good idea: just talk to others in your field or with similar interests (I know you do this already for Open Science). My personal experience though, is that it is often hard to convince others to contribute to joint projects like blogs :(.
@ArtemKaznatcheev It was my point. That I don't have time or energy to run a quality blog. But if I could contribute a few times a year, among many others, it would be great. (BTW one of the ideas in Hacking Science is exactly to make blogs acting like lectures or journal clubs, so man people can present their, or other's papers, to everyone). Yeah, I have a lot, lot of experience with convincing others to contribute. And usually, unless you kidnap their family (which is not an option, as you need to feed them with your PhD money), it almost never works...
Eykanal is basically right, but there's a fine line between networking and being annoying. There are plenty of circumstances where sending email to more famous/senior colleagues is perfectly fine.
If you already have a professional relationship with someone, it's perfectly fine to write a quick email saying something like "Thanks for the great lunch conversation we had at [conference] last month. You might be interested in this paper I just wrote." Yes, a recent lunch conversation counts as a professional relationship.
If you don't already have a professional relationship, then you should probably limit emails to a few key people who have a direct connection to your paper -- either you build on one of their results (which your paper cites), or improve one of their results (which your paper cites), or they've written papers on closely related topics (which your paper cites) . But within those constraints, emailing your paper is perfectly fine; everyone likes to hear that their work is useful and interesting.
If you do send your paper out, be sure to welcome comments, but don't expect a response from anyone. That silence from Famous Person On The Internet doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't reading your paper; they're probably just really busy.
In general, I would say no. Poster sessions and talks are the main way of sharing your research. You can try contacting the authors of any widely-known blogs in your field, and you can try sharing your research with any collaborators from other projects (i.e., ones who don't already know about it), but anything beyond that and you're venturing in the realm of being annoying.
There's one major exception that I can think of, and that's in the case where you're publishing a research analysis technique. In that situation, you can publish a toolkit that uses your method, and that may help speed up adoption of the technique. For example, in neuroscience, the SPM fMRI data analysis toolbox is very widely used. The group behind the toolbox came out a few years ago with a new set of techniques—DCM—for mapping brain activity, and incorporated those techniques into the toolbox. Because of this, many researchers now use this analysis tool. (Of course, this also means that you'll have many researchers using the tool incorrectly, and you may have to publish instructions on when and when not to apply the technique.)
JeffE pointed out another exception; if you're building on the results of another research group, it is definitely acceptable to contact the researchers in that group to let them know if your work. They're the most likely people to be interested in your work, and (arguably) they are in a position to give you the most useful feedback.
Don't forget about old-fashioned face-to-face conversation. If you go to a conference, it is likely you will meet new people or re-connect with friends or acquaintances from other institutions. A common first question in such conversations is "What do you do?" or "What are you working on now?" This is a natural lead-in to tell this person about your latest work. Try to keep it short and tailor it to the known interests of the person you are talking to. If they are intrigued, they can ask more questions and keep the conversation going. The same principle applies if you meet someone on a research or seminar visit somewhere (whether you are visiting them or they are visiting you). Face-to-face conversation is less efficient than a talk or poster, since you are only getting to people one or two at a time, but it is also usually more compelling.
It's worthwhile doing this even if you are also giving a talk or poster at the conference, since it can serve as advertising to convince them to come to your talk or visit your poster. Alternatively, you can give a talk on one topic and advertise a different topic (say your previous paper) in conversations. Again, it's worthwhile to tailor your choice of which result to advertise in conversation to the interests of the person you are talking to.
Other suggestions:
Encourage your co-authors to give talks on the paper as well. This can be a mixed blessing, because people tend to associate a result with either the person they hear it from or the most famous person on the paper, but it definitely helps to spread knowledge about the paper.
If you have your own travel money, you can write to someone and suggest you visit them and give a seminar. You can also write to someone asking for a visit if you don't have money, but that is rather pushy, and is best reserved for cases where you have a strong existing relationship with the person, such as a past supervisor or recurring collaborator.
Again, if you have money, you can invite someone to give a seminar at your home institution. This is an opportunity to learn about their latest work and also to chat with them and tell them about yours, as above. Even if you don't have money, there may well be a local seminar series that has some, and perhaps you can make a speaker suggestion.
This one is less under your control, but one of the main ways people hear about new results is indirectly, when someone else mentions them or cites them. What this means is that if you can get the information about your paper to just one person who can directly use it to advance their own work, you have doubled your advertising power.
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30606 | What are the main reasons why academics leave academia? (Looking for references, not personal opinions)
Is there any research/study/survey that looked at the main reasons why academics leave academia?
I did read a few articles explaining why some particular academics left academia, but I would like to have some statistics to see what are the most common reasons invoked.
I mostly interested in the computer science field (machine learning) in the US, but curious about other fields and locations as well.
From what point on is someone an academic?
@TheAlmightyBob Let's say PhD student or after. I'm mostly interested in tenure-track or tenured persons though.
What counts as "leaving academia"? For example, do soft-money research positions or national labs count?
@jakebeal I am definitely open to surveys that include them.
"What are the main reasons why academics leave academia?": Retirement? ;-)
I suspect the number one reason is that the offer of positions is much smaller than the demand (with some notable exceptions).
I don't understand why there are 2 'too broad' close votes while there is no real answer to my questions (the existing answers are interesting but don't give any reference). Please comment if you cast a close vote.
@CharlesMorisset Thanks, I have modified the title to make it clearer. Please let me know if it's okay now.
I retired immediately after completing my Ph.D., but would have switched back to industry if I had continued working.
I am much, much happier and more effective doing technical work than teaching or managing. The computer industry has well-established technical tracks that allow career advancement without becoming a manager. The academic world, at least in the USA, seems to require teaching and administrative work from everyone, regardless of individual preferences and talents.
No hard stats on how often each reason occurs, but from anecdotal evidence:
Switching fields
Some people simply choose other carreers - either they're disillusioned with their research topic, or with some specific people/managers, or found a much better paying job in other domain. This is pretty much the standard set of reasons for any other jobs.
Lack of continued funding
The only academic-specific reason that I have seen - it's often hard (or subjective) to say if it's "not enough money" or "you and your research are not good enough to compete for the money", but it certainly happens - some research project ends, a new one doesn't get started (yet), then people get other jobs to feed their families, and don't come back afterwards if/when new funding arrives.
For machine learning specifically, I think a major reason is the high demand for such skills in industry (both in existing businesses, in startups/spinoffs or as consultants), which makes leaving easier compared to some other fields. This applies to other fields that are close to the market as well (for instance engineering).
Innovation and tech transfer is important for universities, so I am not entirely sure how to classify researchers that 'leave academia' to start a spin-off to valorise the IP generated during their research career. That said, many machine learning scientists take this 'exit', which can be unavailable to researchers in more fundamental fields.
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30916 | Are people who left academia happy with their decision?
Is there any extensive research/study/survey that looked at what percentage of people who left academia were happy with their decision after X years?
I mostly interested in the computer science field (machine learning) in the US, but curious about other fields and locations as well.
People leaving academia can be PhD students or after (tenure-track, tenured, soft-money research positions, national lab researchers, etc.).
Surveys are essentially flawed in this regard. If someone quits academia (for whatever reasons), irrespective of what he feels inside, on being asked, he will always say he is happier now, plus tell you why academia is so loathsome, and why he is so proud of not adding more "nonsense" to the world. What else will he tell people?
@New_new_newbie Not really true for me. Please see my answer to another question.
@New_new_newbie: many people (me included) quit academia for a variety of reasons, both personal and professional. If I could go back with a reasonable job stability, I wouldn't think about it for a moment. I love some aspects of the academic culture, the freedom, doing research, even teaching. But at the moment I'm not prepared to pay the price of endless postdoc contracts involving restarting my life every two-three years in a new country until that hypothetical permanent job comes.
Define 'happy'. How would you expect any sort of objective answer to this question?
@finitud - I am not disagreeing that that particular reason is not a valid reason that drives people away. I'm only raising doubts that people won't (in general) open up about regretting this decision in a survey.
@CapeCode: There's lots of research on what makes people happy. Just because you can't define happiness in an external way doesn't mean you can't ask people if they're happy; of course, you have to take self-reported results with a grain of salt, but that's true with almost any survey.
This does not answer to the specific question, but it could be of interest: A lot of work has been done by Johnsrud and Heck (check GG scholar) on predicting who will leave and who will stay in academia, and the effect of morale on leaving or staying.
@TheDarkSide: Your first comment makes it sound as if people who leave academia would exclusively do so because they become disappointed with academia (and therefore have bad feelings when looking back to their time in academia). At least in my field of CS, to me it seems more like one of the most common patterns is that people stay in academia until they get their doctoral degree, but it is the plan all along that after getting their doctoral degree, they head for the industry.
I believe some of the national longitudinal surveys would cover this for the US.
For instance, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort started tracking "middle school" age students in 1979 and is still tracking them. They have hundreds to thousands of attributes including education and many measures of health and happiness (though not all are updated every year).
Another example is the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health).
Well, I cannot think a reason that such a study should be either thought of doing or published... It lacks in many aspects (strictly speaking of study) and has really many dependencies (e.g. economical, political, cultural, scientific discipline, field in the discipline and others).
What I think that you actually seeking is some sort of justification for preferring one after the other. Since I can only speak of my self, I will try to present my point of view.
Professional and academic "worlds" are interconnected. Neither is better, "scientificier", more correct or anything than the other. Actually, (I believe that) it is supposed that academia is the more risky research department of a society, where by "risky" I mean research that mostly not results in a commercial ready product. But academia involves also teaching, where by teaching means that you have to pass to others what you know.
On the other hand, professional world is not only sales. It has development, implementations and other really interesting parts (at least to me). Of course, without sales there would not be any actual "sales"... but that's something that I cannot discuss because I think my self as a little biased on that subject. Professional world has also patents, applied knowledge, problem solving on implementation (and not in simulation) and actually making things that work all the time.. not only in the lab or at the presentation. I think that you can image what would happened if your car, your kitchen, your laptop and all the other facilities worked as most things in academia presentations, applications etc.. Armageddon!
Finally, a PhD is not only a way for an academic career. It is also a good way for creating a start-up company! Or obtaining patents! Especially of you get paid during your PhD.
So, what someone should choose must not be based on "how most people felt" but on which enviroment feels better and what goals this person have, i.e. wants to create things that actually work? things that are used as they are by many? Or teach and conduct research for unsolved problems or in order to optimize existing implementations?
And a final tip, if you are thinking on starting a PhD for pursuing an academic career then you choose it for the wrong reason (at least on my perspective). A PhD should be started for satisfying the inner need of research and not because taken as a career solving degree.
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31553 | How often do authors actually perform and publish the work they indicate as the future work they plan to undertake in a publication?
Quite often authors indicate that they will carry out some more work to complete /extend the project in the future work / discussion section.
E.g.:
We need to automatically create new entities; this is work in
progress.
or:
In the future, we plan to deploy more sophisticated copy detection
mechanisms, such as those in [10].
I have a high respect for the paper I used as an example, but I have first-hand witnessed other authors who write strong commitments like "We will do X in a future work" without any intent to do so.
Hence my question: Is there any research/study/survey that looked at how often authors actually perform and publish the work they indicate as the future work they plan to undertake in a publication?
I am fully aware that some formulations seem to indicate a strong commitment, while some are more suggestive ("some ideas thrown in the air").
An aside on "We will do X in a future work" -- The purpose of such a statement can be actually twofold: on one side, it allows authors to keep an article focused on a specific topic without enlarging the discussion too much; on the other, it allows authors to publish quickly. In the latter case, however, it can backfire: the reviewers might reject the article with the motivation: "well, do X, first". In any case, the future of a certain work might not go as it was planned for various reasons, that is, shit happens ;-)
The statement can also a highlight a future application of the presented method or put the method in a larger context without obligation to do it. The goal is not to commit, but rather to reinforce the utility of the paper.
I have witnessed a few times where 'we will do x later' is honestly their goal, but their mindset is to call an academic 'dibs' on that later work. Meaning, we know this project can go in x direction, and we want to take it there, but it might take some time, please dont do it before us.
Interesting idea. However, you also need to consider funding issues. Having the ambition to do something and having the possibility to actually do it are two different things.
Having the ambition to do something and having the possibility to actually do it are two different things. — Funding is not the only reason one might not achieve a research goal, or even the most significant reason. If you already know that something will work, doing it isn't research.
@JeffE Yes of course(?), and I haven't implied otherwise. Also, the Q is asking about extensions of research projects, and why these ambitions are fulfilled or not, not about doing something that is known to work (i.e. pure application).
I don't think there is any data on this, so answers will be no more than anecdotes and opinions.
It depends on two factors: how well the researchers are organized and funding. I would say less than half of the research groups I know in Computer Science manage to follow their future work plans. The ones that do manage to follow their plans, have clear areas in which they are active and write their projects after half the work was done :)
Funding has repercussions on what you do at work: most of the time you will have to do the tasks related to your funding as opposed to what you would like to do (future work of your favorite article). The problem is funding stops at some point and then you take another project without getting to the future work from your previous article.
If you had worked well in a field, had some articles, there is no reason to abandon that work just because the funding ended, but you will have to follow it between the funded tasks and in your free time.
There is also the alternative that you write a follow-up research project and get to do a part of this future work in the second project.
I have gone through all these phases:
I have future work that was never done
I have future work that was done in the follow-up project (precisely a sequel project)
I have future work that was done in projects that were not related
I have also seen future work from some of our articles implemented as commercial project at a start-up by some of the co-authors of the papers
If you work around the clock and if you like the field you're working in, you will definitely find a way to integrate your long-term research goals with the current project goals or with the next project goals.
EDIT:
At least in CS there is no survey/study/article about such a thing, as far as I know. There are though articles that look at how often a certain technology gets into a new company.
I recommend you reread the question, especially the paragraph that starts with "Hence my question: Is there any research/study/survey..." Is your "answer" to the question "Is there X?" Yes or No?
Please can you explain the basis on whch you say there are no studies of this in CS? What literature search did you do: what databases, what search terms?
@EnergyNumbers Here is why I can say these: I have kept detailed records of the activity of several of the top research groups/universities in several fields like Semantic Web, NLP, IR, ML, InfoVis, and Logic. I know this does not apply to all fields. I have then looked through what the history of their publications and overall narratives say, as well as at Google Scholar, IEEE, ACM, Springer and DBLP. Scholar offers top publications for each field, for example, DBLP shows citation graphs, etc. You can use as keywords the hot topics in each field, and you will get to the bottom of it.
@EnergyNumbers Please keep in mind that projects dictate what the future work is, and sometimes the future work sections are written with the knowledge of what the next phase of the project will need. In that case typically future work is done, because the project requires it, but otherwise, one of the things I have mentioned in the answer will happen.
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31483 | What percentage of papers submitted to a conference or journal have been previously rejected in the same or another venue?
Is there any research/study/survey that looked at what percentage of papers submitted to a conference or journal have been previously rejected in the same or another venue?
I am mostly interested in the computer science field (machine learning) and English-speaking venues, but I am curious about other fields and languages as well.
Although your question is interesting, it seems like a question aimed at your individual research, which I do not think is on topic here
@Alexandros IMHO whether it relates to the OP's individual research agenda should not be taken into account when voting or closing questions.
@Alexandros I don't see any issue with this type of question. A quick search indicates that perhaps 5% of papers survive submission to The Lancet, for example. What happens to the other 95%? Surely they don't just get forgotten.
As a PS to my comment, even with a hypothetically generous 75% of the submitted papers are absolute garbage and would never get into any journal, that still leaves 20% of decent or almost-there papers with their fates in the air.
Yes I am basically looking for some studies on paper recycling.
To collect such data you would need to access all the submissions at some conference/journal, then check the submissions of a following relevant venue to see if any papers were resubmitted (including resubmissions that use different titles, related work, or with different flow, order of authors etc..) I don't think accessing all the submissions of a venue is possible as an external person, thus the whole process in not feasible in my opinion..
I haven't found anything in computer science, but this has been well-studied in other fields.
For example, one study1 surveyed authors from 923 scientific journals from the biological sciences in 2006-2008 and found that
about 75% of published articles were submitted first to the journal that would publish them
(implying that 25% of published articles were rejected by another venue before finding their ultimate home).
A more common approach found in the literature is to follow up on the fate of rejected manuscripts from a particular journal (as opposed to the original target venue of published manuscripts).
For example, a study of manuscripts rejected by the British Journal of Surgery2 found:
From the 926 manuscripts rejected by BJS, 609 (65.8 per cent) were published in 198 different journals with a mean(s.d.) time lapse of 13.8(6.5) months. Some 165 manuscripts (27.1 per cent) were published in general surgical journals, 250 (41.1 per cent) in subspecialty surgical journals and 194 (31.9 per cent) in non-surgical journals. The mean(s.d.) impact factor of the journals was 2.0(1.1). Only 14 manuscripts (2.3 per cent) were published in journals with a higher impact factor than that of BJS.
This trend is not especially new. Studies from decades ago also show large numbers of rejected papers being accepted somewhere, eventually. For example:
A study of 350 manuscripts rejected by the Annals of Internal Medicine, a general medical journal, during 1993 and 1994,3 found:
Of 350 rejected manuscripts, 240 (69%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 64% to 73%) were eventually published after a mean of 552 days (95% CI: 479 to 544 days, range 121 to 1,792 days).
A study of papers submitted to the American Journal of Roentgenology in 19864 found:
At least 82% of the major papers and 70% of the case reports that are submitted to AJR are eventually published, either in AJR or elsewhere
An interesting study I came across measured the reverse phenomenon: published articles that are subsequently rejected5.
As test materials we selected 12 already published research articles by investigators from prestigious and highly productive American psychology departments, one article from each of 12 highly regarded and widely read American psychology journals with high rejection rates (80%) and nonblind refereeing practices.
With fictitious names and institutions substituted for the original ones (e.g., Tri-Valley Center for Human Potential), the altered manuscripts were formally resubmitted to the journals that had originally refereed and published them 18 to 32 months earlier. Of the sample of 38 editors and reviewers, only three (8%) detected the resubmissions. This result allowed nine of the 12 articles to continue through the review process to receive an actual evaluation: eight of the nine were rejected.
1 Calcagno, V., E. Demoinet, K. Gollner, L. Guidi, D. Ruths, and C. De Mazancourt. "Flows of research manuscripts among scientific journals reveal hidden submission patterns." Science 338, no. 6110 (2012): 1065-1069. DOI: 10.1126/science.1227833
2 Wijnhoven, B. P. L., and C. H. C. Dejong. "Fate of manuscripts declined by the British Journal of Surgery." British Journal of Surgery 97, no. 3 (2010): 450-454. DOI: 10.1002/bjs.6880
3 Ray, Joel, Michael Berkwits, and Frank Davidoff. "The fate of manuscripts rejected by a general medical journal." The American journal of medicine 109, no. 2 (2000): 131-135. DOI: 10.1016/S0002-9343(00)00450-2
4 Chew, Felix S. "Fate of manuscripts rejected for publication in the AJR." AJR. American journal of roentgenology 156, no. 3 (1991): 627-632. DOI: 10.2214/ajr.156.3.1899764
5 Peters, Douglas P., and Stephen J. Ceci. "Peer-review practices of psychological journals: The fate of published articles, submitted again." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 5, no. 02 (1982): 187-195. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X00011183
For atmospheric science, I surveyed a number of journals. The results are published here:
David M. Schultz, 2010: Rejection Rates for Journals Publishing in the Atmospheric Sciences. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 91, 231–243.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2009BAMS2908.1
I suspect the numbers for journals in CS vary widely, as do the numbers for specific conferences. But I will say that most CS systems conferences, as an example, have acceptance rates in the 15-25% range. As someone commented above, most of these papers don't get submitted once and die after rejection. Some get submitted multiple times, get rejected each time, and eventually the authors give up. But I imagine a pretty high fraction get published in the same or a different conference a year or two later. I know of some cases, including a paper of mine, where something rejected one time got revised and selected as best paper in a later instance of the same conference.
So I guess it's a question of why this was asked [some time ago]. If it's to have assurances that one shouldn't give up hope after a rejection, rest assured!
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18058 | Optimal structure of cover letter for PhD application submitted directly to PI
I am currently applying for PhD positions (mainly - though not exclusively - around Germany and Switzerland). As I would like to start as soon as possible and would rather be paid than receive a scholarship, I am not applying via grad schools but directly to potential supervisors.
This is an arduous process as very many PIs interest me, though most do not have the financial freedom of creating new PhD positions on the spot. Consequently I have written a lot of emails and I have developed a short formula which I adapt to each individual PI. The structure is roughly:
Title: 2-3 buzzwords related to the PIs work followed by " - PhD Opportunities"
Introductory statement - Who am I
Short summary of my experience, explicitly mentioning points relevant to his focus and including a link to my full CV
Explicitly state my preferred topics related to his focus
Explicitly ask if he has a PhD position opening, possibly including a suggestion of what sort of project would motivate me, and what about him/his group precisely I found interesting.
Here is an example e-mail:
Neurogenetics and Psychopharmacology - PhD Opportunities
Hello, I am a Molecular Neuroscience major from Heidelberg. I have
recently graduated from our MSc. program and am currently looking for
groups in which to pursue my PhD.
I have very versatile experience in neuroscience - ranging from
molecular biology, microscopy, and genetics in model animals up to
fMRI, eye tracking, pupillometry, and behavioural tests in humans (for
more on this please refer to my CV:
http://chymera.eu/docs/cv-acad-gen.pdf ). I would like to continue
using a broad spectrum of methods in my research, and put my scripting
experience (Python, R, Julia, MATLAB, SPM, FSL) to good use in the
analysis of complex data sets.
I am very motivated by research into mood disorders and genetics; and
I would also like to augment my methods spectrum with
psychopharmacology and NIBS over the following years. I find the
addition of these methods particularly important because in my opinion
they present the most solid ways of testing causality in correlations
between human brain activation and behaviour (as observed via fMRI or
PET).
I have browsed your list of publications and I found your
neurogenetics work most motivating. I would like to ask you whether
you would be able to offer me a PhD position in which I could
integrate the genetic focus of your group with brain imaging and brain
stimulation (perhaps to elucidate brain area function or
psychopharmacological treatment possibilities resolved for
endophenotypes). I would also be grateful for the opportunity to
discuss further project ideas with you.
Best Regards,
Christian
I generally just write one email, and follow up 7-14 days later with a second one if there is no reply within the first week. Of the PIs that do not respond to the first email less than 25% respond to the second.
With this email structure (and what I believe is a strong background) I get a reply rate of ~50%, of which all replies specify that the PI would like to take me on - in principle. Actual invitations for interviews, however, are at about 5%. I am thinking this could be a lot better.
Do you have any (different) email structure which you have found optimal? Are there any other details - such as tone and style - which you think are very important to note in such a context?
I would say you are waiting too long to explain why you are interested in the research group. Your motivation for writing and taking up the faculty members' time should come much earlier in the message—I'd recommend no later than the second paragraph.
I'd also suggest that you might also want to consider sending the message to the Oberingenieur or Akademischer Rat of the faculty members' group; he or she may have a better idea of what vacancies are currently available.
Finally, "cold calling" does not get a high response rate; if there isn't an active opening, most potential advisors won't really respond unless they have to.
how would you recommend I specify my precise motivation earlier? In the first paragraph? Would you recommend I just move that one sentence from one paragraph to the other, or just drop some other paragraphs entirely? Akademischer Rat is a legal description of the position and it's possible for all, some, or none of the members of a group to have that attribute. Also, in my field, this is very rarely advertised on a group's website.
I would move the sentence, but go beyond just simply saying "neurogenetics." You could make specific references to the research topics actually covered by the group, rather than just citing the overall theme. (They want to know you've taken the time to find out more about their group!) As for the citing of underlings, obviously this won't work if your field doesn't provide that information—but for others, this might be helpful advice.
As aeismail said, if there isn't any specific opening, it's better to get in contact with the Studentenberater(in), whose job description includes giving advice to people in your position. If you want to contact a PI directly, it might be better to have your current advisor initiate the contact, assuming that he/she is in good terms with the PI in question. That will get you a better chance of getting the PIs attention than an email directly from you.
I find that advice strange, as most groups in my field - afaik in all fields - do not have dedicated liaison people for students to interact with. The more successful PIs tend to have their own secretary, but secretaries are seldom privy to openings which could be arranged, and unenthusiastic about mediating with students. I for one have never received any sort of reply when contacting a PI through his secretary. Studentenberater is a position held at the faculty, and they are usually better informed on issues of education rather than research.
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31772 | Should teachers announce the grade breakdown during first class?
I noticed that some teachers announce the grade breakdown in the first class or in the syllabus, while some don't. What's the best practice? If giving the grade breakdown at the beginning is preferable, is it better to use an absolute or relative breakdown?
Example of grade breakdown announced in the syllabus (absolute breakdown):
Letter grades are determined at the end of the semester. The default
cutoffs are: a final average of 90 and above is an A, 80 and above is
a B, 70 and above is a C. These boundaries may be adjusted downwards
if necessary because of the difficulty of the assignments or quizzes,
but the boundaries will never be adjusted upwards, so a final average
of 90 is guaranteed to be an A. The boundary adjustment is done
heuristically, and there are no grade quotas, no grade targets, and no
centering of the class on a particular grade boundary.
Example of grade breakdown announced during the first class (relative breakdown):
The first half get A, the second half get B (except in case of failure to try to do the homework or show up at the exams).
I am especially interested in computer science education in the US.
The only reason not to announce it, I think, is if you intend to grade on a curve -- which I consider a lazy alternative to actually getting the tests and homework calibrated to the proper level of complexity.
My undergrad university had a fixed grade scale for all courses. It was up to the lecturers to make sure the difficulty of the work got a good distribution of marks, very occasionally scaling upwards if the course was difficult. I think it's important for the students to get a good idea of what sort of marks they need to get in the remaining items of assessment in order to get the grade they want.
There will surely be a strong correlation if the decision to be ambiguous on Day 1 about what precise performance will result in an A (sort of an "I'll know it when I see it" nod) is compared to the number of student grade appeals at the finale.
I have taught in arguably the most quantitative of departments at a number of schools, and the policies have always revolved around a fixed basket of accrued points to be earned. Want an A? Then get an A level of points on the assignments throughout this semester.
Few students protest their grade when they come up short. Fewer still try for a formal appeal. None have come close to winning it.
I think it depends on the situation (assuming there is no official department or university policy on the matter).
For example, I am a young (math) teacher teaching a single course that has 25 students in it, at a college that I have never taught at before. I figured it was unlikely that I would be able to write exams that effectively separated the A's from the (A-)'s (say) based on some numerical scale that I set ahead of time. So I chose to not put a grade breakdown on the syllabus.
After each exam, I look at the performance of the students, and I give them an individual grade update containing what I call "a good estimate" of their letter grade thus far in the course. This prevents them from just remaining in the dark all term long with regards to their grade.
I have taught sections of courses at bigger schools where the grade scale is set ahead of time and is the same for all 800 or so students enrolled in the course. This makes sense, as the content of the courses is the same year after year, the exams are similar every year, and in general everything involving the course is somehow standardized.
I would say that, in general, it's fine to not announce a grade scale ahead of time if you don't have to. Just be prepared to have something to say about grades, because students will likely want to know. Sometimes I give myself some wiggle room on the syllabus by saying "your grade will not be lower than the following...", so they know that a 90 (or whatever) will guarantee them an A, but they might also earn an A with a score of less than a 90.
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40794 | How to request that collaborators add my supervisor's name to a manuscript
I am collaborating with a foreign author. As I am still pursuing my degree, I have to add my supervisor's name in that paper, even though my supervisor has not contributed to the preparation of this manuscript.
How should I ask my collaborator (foreign author) to include my supervisor's name as a third author? I need some help in this.
Edited: As my supervisor has told me to add his name, I am obliged to add. I have no other options left. I am asking how should I write and request to my collaborator to include my supervisor name in the manuscript. Also, I am afraid whether my collaborator will feel odd or bad if I request him to do that.
Please help me: what should I say to my collaborator so that he may give third authorship to my supervisor?
Is your co-author also a phd student or is he more senior than you?
As my supervisor has told me to add his name, I am bound to add. No, he is your supervisor, not your overlord. You can discuss it, and iff after that he insists on his name appearing, you may be reducing your options. There are other ways, like an escalation, but riskier.
I disagree on the duplicate. That discussion was about when should the supervisor be an author; this is a supervisor (possibly) wanting to force his way in.
@Davidmh I yet have to see a situation where PhD advisor insisted on adding a name, but the student resisted (and, ultimately, defended thesis). The imbalance of power is huge, so it this sense, yes advisor is one's overlord (unlike boss, which can be changes with much smaller consequences).
If you are on sufficiently good terms with your collaborator (which is unlikely though, as you probably wouldn’t be asking this question in this case), you may consider putting all the blame for not including your supervisor on your co-author – if he approves to this. This way, you may be spared from repercussions from your supervisor and avoid acting unethically. (Beware that whether this is actually a good idea depends on many variables, such as your supervisor’s temper, which only you can estimates.)
@Wrzlprmft This should be an answer. (And I like the idea... but if done inappropriately or things go wrong, it may mean problems with both one's supervisor and collaborator.)
@PiotrMigdal: It does not really answer the actual question as asked. And what you describe is one of the reasons I added the warning.
As I am still pursuing my degree, I have to add my supervisor's name in that paper, even though my supervisor has not contributed to the preparation of this manuscript. You only "have to" in the sense that failing this, you may face bad repercussions. You absolutely do not "have to" in the sense of being justly obliged -- in fact, if you were not in a vulnerable position, your obligation would be to reject such a gift authorship.
Why is the supervisor telling you to add his name, instead of writing the entire set of authors himself?
You're in a difficult position and there aren't a lot of good options here. Your adivsor is wrong to have put you in this situation. From an ethical perspective, I think it would be wrong to have your supervisor as an author on this paper. On the other hand, you also clearly feel that you have no choice in the matter and feel that standing up to your advisor on this issue is not worth the trouble it would cause. Ultimately, that is your decision to make.
The best course at this point is to set up an honest conversation with your collaborator. I would do it over the phone or video chat. Explain the situation clearly and completely (just as you have here) and explain that you feel like you've been put into a difficult situation.
If your collaborator is also uncomfortable and is willing to be the "bad guy" by going on record as putting their foot down on the ethical issue of authorship (even if they are more open to the possibility than that), you might have a solution.
In that case, you can go back to your advisor and say that you asked your collaborator to put their name on the paper and that your collaborator pointed out that according to their university's and/or funder's rules and/or their own personal convictions, they felt that it would be wrong. The policies and rules bit is almost always true because basically all rules on these subjects say that co-authorship in these situations is wrong. Tell your advisor that you did your best but you could not get your collaborator to budge on the issue. Your advisor may be mad, but they won't be mad at you.
If your collaborator is not willing to potentially annoy your advisor, an in-person conversation will at least allow you to make it clear that you're not comfortable with the situation either. At that point, the two of you will have to decide what to do.
I'm sorry you've been put into a such a tricky place.
Downvoted. You are asking the student to be a messenger between their advisor and their other coauthors, and in particular to mediate any disputes over coauthorship. This is an incredibly unfair position to put the student in. The other parties are adults; they are perfectly capable of communicating directly with each other. Better advice: Introduce your advisor to the other coauthors, and then get out of the way.
@JeffE, have you had experience that that approach worked? My friend experienced this once, and at that point the two professors actually know each other, since we all are in the same institution. Yet, the student is still made the messenger, we felt at that time that asking the professor to discuss with the other professor will definitely be seen as rejecting the professor (otherwise you would just include his/her name), so we gave in. It is tricky situation indeed.
Yes, I have seen successful adult discussions about co-authorship, with multiple senior people involved. All co-authors were CC'd on all emails and were invited to all meetings. No students were forced to intermediate or were blamed for the outcome. You aren't asking the professor to discuss with the other professor; you are inviting the professor to convince the existing authors that they should join the paper. After all, you can't "just include his/her name" without everyone's agreement!
While conventions vary greatly from field to field, if your supervisor has made literally no contribution, he or she should not be listed as an author. There is been plenty of discussion here of this issue; see e.g.
Co-authorship for not very involved supervisor
When should a supervisor be an author?
What are the minimum contributions required for co-authorship
While I agree with your answer, it is not to the question asked by the OP (it was not if one's advisor should be author, but how to tackle this issue with collaborators when he insists to be an author).
While in theory you are right, in some fields the norm is to list your supervisor regardless of contribution, especially if you are a grad student.
Like many questions from graduate students, I believe a possible answer to "How should I write and request to my collaborator to include my supervisor's name in the manuscript?" is "Ask your supervisor.".
The question to ask is something like this: "I'm about to write to Foreign Author to get your name added to the paper. What should I list as your main contributions to it?"
If the collaborator finds the result reasonably convincing, the supervisor's name gets added. If not, it is not your fault.
If your supervisor has made no contribution, and there was no discussion with your collaborator about your supervisor, and especially if the work is already done, you should have another conversation with your supervisor as they should not be on the paper.
The only way I could see you asking the collaborator is by saying something along the lines of, as long as it is true:
My time dedicated to our collaboration, and the knowledge I brought to
the project was only possible by the advice of my advisor and the
funding I have been paid with. Would you feel comfortable with adding
my supervisor on the paper?
You may just be in a difficult situation in which there is not win. If you do try to force your supervisors name, you may ruin any relationship with your collaborator. If they have any position in the academic field, you may be making a bad name for yourself. You may also burn bridges with your advisor, but the story would sound bad if your advisor said he could not force you to unethically add his name to your collaborators paper.
If I were your collaborator on this paper, I would refuse to add the supervisor's name no matter how you asked. The only reason I would consider adding it is if the supervisor had actually made a contribution commensurate with authorship (if that were the case, you should have mentioned this to your collaborator a lot earlier, rather than pretending that you had done the work).
One way of cutting the Gordian knot is to have your supervisor do some significant work on rewriting or expanding the paper. But, if I were your collaborator, I would need to be convinced that such rewriting/expanding would make the paper better.
And, by the way, your claim that your supervisor must be a co-author on every paper you write is utter nonsense. Any supervisor claiming this to be the case is acting unprofessionally and unethically.
While I may agree with your sentiment, you should note that in some scientific fields, the action being requested is perfectly natural. The supervisor is always included and you may suffer if you don't include them. One of the reasons is that the supervisor may have provided all of the materials (lab, assistants, ...) that makes it even possible to begin your work. Without that assistance you have nothing at all. It is different in the humanities, and even in mathematics where this would be an unusual request. It isn't necessarily right, but it is the norm in those fields.
You may be right, but this is how things work in many groups and OP is the junior person who will lose this fight to his or her considerable detriment.
It sounds like your colleague is the "corresponding author" on the paper, and therefore is the one who has the ability to say who should or should not be a co-author on the paper.
Consequently, depending on your co-author's seniority (relative to your advisor), he may have the ability to decline your advisor's demands on the grounds that he has not participated in the preparation of the manuscript. While your advisor can force you to list him, he can't force someone else to include him as a co-author.
A corresponding author is merely the person who communicates with the journal. They have no special powers or responsibilities in determining authorship - I totally disagree that any one person has the ability to unilaterally say who should or should not be a co-author. All authors should approve the contents of the final manuscript, including the authorship list. Authorship is not granted at the sole discretion of the corresponding author.
After you have asserted that your supervisor really merits coauthorship, you could simply write to your collaborator:
"dear collaborator, could you please add [supervisor name] as coauthor? [supervisor name] has contributed to the research in this and this way. Thanks!"
I suggest a wording like "My supervisor has requested to be added as coauthor". In this way, it is clear who this request comes from. And if someone looks odd and unprofessional, that's not OP.
@FedericoPoloni: if there was a fair contribution by the supervisor, then such a formulation would not be necessary. If there is no fair contribution, then the supervisor should not be a coauthor.
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22032 | Apply for PhD before finishing my Master's degree
I am now in the middle of my master's degree and I plan to graduate in August 2015. I currently study in Germany and for most engineering students here it is common to finish the five-year program (3 or 3.5 years for the bachelor's degree and 1.5 to 2 years for the master's). I'm thinking about applying for robotics PhD programs at different US universities but I noticed that most of them have a deadline in December for programs starting 9 months later. I don't have any publications in any international journals because in Germany this is mostly done by PhD students. But I have worked a lot during my studies (1 year internship, part-time research in university).
I don't want to lose one year waiting to start my PhD but in the same time I think that my master thesis will be a great asset while applying for such a program, especially when I will be willing to continue my research and PhD thesis in the same field as my master thesis. Do you think I should take the GRE and apply for next December or wait until getting my master's degree? And how this would influence the selection process.
This is only my opinion based on my personal experience. Finish your master's degree before you join a PhD program. I went from bachelors to PhD program and failed so miserably that it almost ended my career after 5 years in a PhD program. Again.. this is only from MY personal experience that I say that a Master's degree is like a parachute in case things don't work out. Not saying, they won't work out!
Thanks for your advice, but I didn't intend to quit my Master studies. I just wanted to apply in a way that I can start my PhD immediate after graduating.
It's not a big deal for you not to have publications—remember, many of your peers also will not have published anything, either!
Moreover, it's important to note that in the US, most of the applicants for graduate school do so in the fall of their fourth year of studies—which would, contentwise, typically line up with the third year (or sometimes even second year!) of study in a German program. So, in many ways, you're already much more experienced than your counterparts.
If you're interested in doing this, I would recommend that you just go ahead and apply. The worst that can possibly happen is that you're not accepted, in which case you find another means of achieving your goals.
Having no publications will decrease the chance of the PhD applicant in finding scholarships or funding and I think it is a big deal.
@EnthusiasticStudent: That is highly dependent on field and department.
In the engineering majors I think that the students with more publications have more chances in finding scholarships.
In the US in many fields, it is common to go directly for the PhD. So by all means hurry up! The fact you are in a master is a plus. The only potentially negative thing I can imagine is if your current supervisor or the other professors might feel afraid you will not complete the masters or will not put as much effort after being accepted into a PhD and as a result they may not write enthusiastic letters of recommendation. Side comment: Europeans tend to write lukewarm recommendation letters (probably more realistic), they don't understand that can hurt the applicant a lot.
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57420 | "If multiple papers are accepted for presentation, each paper requires a separate registration fee." -> Why?
I have seen several conferences that specify:
If multiple papers are accepted for presentation, each paper requires a separate registration fee.
Why? Is that purely financially motivated (e.g. an author with 2 submissions may cause another potential attendee not to come, or cost of submitting the paper to the publisher), or does it aim to reduce multiple submissions from the same author? Are there other reasons?
Because they can?
What do you suppose the registration fee pays for? Perhaps there are separate expenses for each paper.
Also relevant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton%27s_law
Since the answer is obvious, can you tell me what percentage of the registration fee typically goes to paper-related expenses?
For most conferences, the primary costs are:
Venue
Catering
Society fees
Program and proceedings
Keynote / scholarship travel sponsorship
The price of these is wildly variable depending on the arrangements that have been made. At the low end, consider a conference using university meeting rooms, asking people to go out for lunch on their own, using volunteer labor and keeping program and proceedings electronic. This can be extremely cheap, on the order of a couple of dollars per attendee, even for a rather large meeting.
When a conference meets in a hotel, the expenses go up like crazy. For a week-long conference in a major city hotel, the venue and catering expenses can easily run as high as $500/person. These are often required to be booked far in advance, based on the number of people expected to register for the conference, and there may be limited flexibility to change these numbers if attendance falls short.
Hotels also frequently ask a conference to have attendees book in the hotel, and will ask for "insurance" from a conference in the form of a commitment to get at least a certain number of rooms booked and to pay for unbooked rooms if the conference falls short of that commitment. This can add thousands of dollars of expenses. These factors can operate at universities too, which sometimes demand high venue and catering fees even when their own professors are organizing.
With an expensive venue, then, a conference's organizers can thus get very nervous about whether they will have enough money to cover their anticipated expenses, if registrations are less than anticipated. This is especially the case if the conference has had difficulty meeting its expenses in the past, and may be in trouble with its sponsoring society as a result.
Forcing people to register per paper is one response to trying to avoid this type of shortfall. Not only is there the fee, but if you're registering a second time, you're more likely to send a second person from the group, who will likely have their own hotel room. For a conference that may be facing a shortfall in its hotel commitments, a single registration easily can be worth $2000 in increased income and decreased hotel penalty.
Personally, I still don't approve: I think that a conference operating at such a razor's edge would do better to take other approaches to trying to make up its budget shortfall. I can understand, however, why the organizers of respectable conferences sometimes choose to do it: it's not that they are getting rich, but that they are trying to keep from going bankrupt while they make their venue rich.
Why... The conference organizers make money on attendees. Do you really need such a conference?
(Never seen this business in my professional field; up to 2-3 presentations per author are free of additional charges)
Apart from @jakebeal's answer, I believe the charges per paper are imposed as publication charges. It is true that the factors like venue, catering and travel sponsorship are the same regardless of multiple publications in the same conference, the article itself is considered doesn't.
This is because some conferences may have a hard limit on the number of articles to be published and the accommodation charges (like those constant factors) are arranged on that basis. Although you don't consume the resources allocated for that conference more than for what is provided for a single person, they are allocated for you nonetheless. Of course in other conferences, such expenses can be dynamic as the allocation of resources can be done after the total members (not total papers) are confirmed.
IMHO, I don't really think it would be advisable to publish more than one paper in the same conference as far as the corresponding author is concerned. You would be able to get a diverse feedback when publishing in separate conferences.
Actual cost per paper in actual society publication charges is typically very low compared to registration costs---what I've seen is on the order of $50 or less.
@jakebeal: True, the rest comes along with the preallocated resources per author based on the number of manuscripts with the assumption that most authors would publish only one paper in the conference.
most of publishers do not charge for publishing papers. Quite the contrary, top publishers like Springer/IEEE/ACM would pay the organizers for publishing papers (or give free proceedings copies/access). Proceedings are normally sold, though, thus, if conference organizers want to distribute them to participants - it is an extra cost
@al_b Your assertion is incorrect, at least as far as IEEE is concerned. The costs are low, but they most certainly do charge.
@jakebeal, well, now I learnt that ACM and IEEE do charge sometimes. My experience previously was with a society which was working with ACM and IEEE and Springer and the publishers only paid to the society. Still, I can assure that Springer does not charge the organizers for publication.
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20121 | Is it possible for me to apply for a student and working visa to obtain a post-graduate degree?
I am an HND degree holder and I want to know the chances I have to fund my tuition and my expenses if I apply for a student/working visa from Nigeria and what is the duration?
I don't think a higher national diploma (HND) degree is recognized as the equivalent of the bachelor's degree from a regular university. Consequently, it is unlikely you would be able to use it to gain entry to a master's program in either the US or Canada.
I can't guarantee this is the way it works in Canada, but at least in the US, most students on visas have limited ability to work outside of the university, and certainly are unlikely to earn enough money to cover tuition as well as living expenses—the wages for typical student employment is on the order of $10/hour, and few students work more than about 20 hours per week. (That's approximately $10,000 per year.)
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21073 | After 3 Years of PhD - problems with University registration - Fight or apply for another PhD
The Main problem is university registration as the process is vital to enroll as a PhD student, so that I can submit my thesis and defend it. Administrative issues here in Germany have prevented me from completing the registration process because I am an overseas student and some issues to do with deadlines.
Some good news are have published three papers as first author in leading journals and written the thesis work as well.
Is it a good idea to dump this registration process and take another PhD or should I apply for industry jobs? Note that I am not committed to staying in academia.
Your question confuses me. Are you asking whether you should give up on your half-written thesis based on what sounds like a formality? If so, the answer is no, but then I am also not sure why you are even asking.
I am still not a student in the University (because of registration issues) after 3 years of PhD program. So can i give up the process and get a job in industry section (without the PhD). Thanks for your help
So you are saying you did not manage to get the registration process done in three years? That does sound serious, but the we will certainly need more information about what the actual problem is (immigration issues, legal issues, lacking support from faculty, etc.) to give advice. Please edit your question accordingly.
What are the administrative issues that prevent you from enrolling as a student?
I don't think this question can be answered without more information. What has been happening over the last three years (regarding interaction with faculty, having an advisor, status as a student, funding, use of university facilities, etc.) and why? What do faculty members and administrators at the university say about the prospects of getting a Ph.D.? Without understanding what's going on here, it's hard to say anything constructive.
I deleted my comments because I'm lost here. OP is in a 'PhD program' but does not have an advisor and is not a registered student, he's not a freelance researcher neither. I have never heard of such a situation although it's apparently not surprising to some.
@Jigg: Being a grad student and being a researcher in Germany are parallel processes; see my response below.
I suppose the OP has posted a confusing message due to not being proficient in English, but he's not aware of it. I vote for close, in this form.
@QuoraFeans: For someone in the German system, the situation can be exactly as described. There's no need to close.
@aeismail: "Administrative issues", "prevented me from completing the registration process", and " some issues to do with deadlines" is not terribly specific. We could imagine many things here. Was he caught plagiarizing from the Internet (like many other German PhD?), has he missed a deadline by several months? This is not a concrete problem the OP is facing, or, at least, he is not explaining his concrete problem.
@QuoraFeans: Administrative procedures in Germany academia are arcane and byzantine, particularly where foreign degrees are involved. More likely than not, some forms weren't submitted on time, and now the department or university is giving him grief about it.
@aeismail: I have no doubt you could be right, but since we don't know exactly what happened, nor whether there is a problem that can be corrected, the question remains meaningless. A future user of the site won't be able to know whether this question applies to his situation. Equally, the advice that you gave, (talking to his advisor) might or might not be the most appropriate. Maybe the relationship with him is already strained, maybe it's not his business, or it's not within his power to solve the problem.
For the benefit of the wider audience, a little background into the German PhD system is in order.
Researchers after the master's level are hired as Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter (researchers, literally "academic personnel"), and work for the individual research groups as half- or full-time employees, with the commensurate salary and benefits.
In parallel, students are expected to register as doctoral students (Zulassung). Such a process will typically involve some classwork for international students, particularly those studying in engineering fields (and those with degrees other than the area they're now studying). One of the forms to be filled out in this process is the Betreuungsbestätigung, which is a commitment by the signer to be the candidate's advisor.
Normally, deadlines are deadlines; however, if there are mitigating circumstances, many departments will allow the advisor to petition for exceptions to be made. Given that you've made good research progress, it would seem reasonable that your advisor would want to ensure that you get your PhD. So, before doing anything else, talk to your advisor.
Your answer makes the question clearer. The first category seems to be some sort of post-master research staff. The second category seems to be a PhD program. In the case of the 1st category, I assume the OP has a supervisor (or similar role). Does he have an advisor in that case? Your answer seems to suggest that he does have an advisor. Would you clarify?
That's done in the second step. See above revision.
If possible try to stick with finishing the PhD. You are almost there.
Try to find some legal advisor to help you with the issues. Some universities may even offer free legal help and have persons acting as ombudsman.
Finding good job opportunities will not be an issue in any case.
The OP is not officially in the student list. I am not sure what finishing the PhD means. If the university does not recognise the OP as a student, how and why would they offer free legal help?
Finishing means writing and defending PhD thesis. At some universities the Law cathedra, in order to give practical work for their students, offers some kind of services to public. This is for free and just to give advices&options that persons in need may pursue further.
@qoobit But it's not clear that OP has actually even started a PhD. Yeah, he's done some research and published some papers, but that doesn't make him a PhD student.
@JeffE: The OP has clearly been trying to become a PhD student, but somehow the process hasn't gone the way it's supposed to.
'Finding good job opportunities will not be an issue in any case' on what basis can you say this?
I admit, I have no scientific proof but more of personal experience with some of PhD students I know. Positive thinking should help anyway.
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21364 | How do I compare my thesis research work to commercial products that I can't obtain?
My MSc thesis work in Computer Science involves developing a software solution for a particular problem for which already exist several solutions, in particular commercial software. I know I can't ignore them in my work and have to cite them, but I have no access to them, so I can't perform any comparisons to prove that my work will actually contribute to research in this field, rather than simply being another software program trying to deal with the problem.
What's the best approach in this case?
What does your advisor say about your dilemma?
Some software companies have trial licenses or inexpensive/free licenses for universities. A company might also provide a copy (perhaps for a limited time) for research purposes.
Is it that the commercial software is prohibitively expensive ? If it's relatively cheap you could always ask your advisor to buy a license.
The research domain is delicate (forensics) so it's not so straightforward to obtain a license for this kind of software, furthermore do you really think that they would let a potential "concurrent" to prove that their work can be improved?
Well if it's a commercial product then I assumed it was being sold.
You can try to find collaborators that have the software and could run them for you. You can offer them authorship in exchange to sweeten the deal.
It's my experience that software companies attempt to secure intellectual property rights for their codes in the form of patents. This is especially true in the United States. You could attempt to find information about the subject matter that you are interested in using the publicly available US Patent and Trademark Office portal, PAIR.
A search on a company name - as applicant, or keywords in the title or abstract might get you somewhere. If you are successful, you will not - necessarily - find code. What you might get is an outline of how the patent's subject matter fits into the existing state-of-the-art. In this way, you can map out what these commercial vendors' software does and if your work will extend the subject.
@Guido: if you can show that any given patent does not give full and complete disclosure on how to work the subject matter of the invention, then you can apply to have the patent declared invalid on grounds of insufficiency. See e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufficiency_of_disclosure
Therefore, by law a patent must provide sufficient information to work the invention, or the patent is invalid. It's the deal an inventor strikes with the state: show the state your clever idea, so that any skilled in the art can replicate it, and you can have 20 years monopoly to work your invention
@GuidoJorg: Thanks for the +1, and I hope we don't tire our readers with these long comments!
Regarding your example of machining parts with low tolerances - if a skilled person would not have considered this a requirement, and the patent didn't clearly indicate this requirement, then the patent could be considered insufficient. The experience doesn't have to be disclosed, you are right. Hence the perennial difficulties of courts to establish "the skilled person" to whom the patent is written.
Another issue is that, in the US at least, if the patent applicant knows of a better way of ...
...working the invention than that disclosed in the patent, then there is a chance the patent will be invalid. There is an obligation in the US to disclose the best mode/practice/evolution of the invention in the patent application. Leaving information out can leave the patent vulnerable.
The "skilled reader" is a legal construct. It isn't a single person, nor can the skilled person be expected necessarily to exist. The skilled reader could be a team, for instance. It's a tricky business, working out sufficiency.
This is the first good consequence of the software patents I have seen.
If you want to shoot high, read their advertisement. If they want people to buy their stuff, they probably say something like Recovered 78% of the data after feeding the hard drive to a white shark. Note that this benchmark will be done in the best possible conditions for their specific algorithms, but will give you a nice high target. If you get anywhere close, awesome! If you beat them, tell them to hire you!
If this is not available, you may email the company and ask them for a benchmark or some sort of quality assurance.
Lastly, to state the obvious: have you tried to search for "[name of the program] benchmark"? Maybe someone with a licence has done it and posted it online or on a research paper.
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123980 | How to make sense of a 2019 paper published in 2016 journal issue?
I submitted a paper to a social sciences journal and it has been accepted. However, the publisher tells me it is going to be printed in the next weeks in the 2016 issue. How to make sense of this? Apparently the issue has been delayed a few years. However it will not mention the year 2019 and it is officially a 2016 paper issue. No digital copy since the journal doesn't have a webpage. Can I still put 2019 in my CV? and if I want to present it in an upcoming conference?
It is an old journal in French that might had issues with their timeframe, collecting papers, printing, and moreover getting the editing work done on ambitious projects. Is it really an issue when the work was done? If this is part of PhD research, want difference does it make if it is possible to indicate in bibliography that the work was submitted and printed in 2019?
If any journal editor is reading this...please don't do this ever. Why, why, why.
In these days academics get evaluated on bibliometrics more and more aggressively. At least where I work,"you must have N papers published in the past M years" is a common requirement for various funds / promotions. With this in mind, having a 2019 paper published with a 2016 date is an even worse deal than it looks. Maybe it doesn't matter to you now, but it may matter 3-4 years from now.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
I would pull the paper. I would be worried that the issue is never going to be published and that the paper is going to sit in limbo for years. The fact that the journal has no web page, even in the social sciences, is concerning to me. Are you sure that libraries are going to get this newest issue when it comes out for it to be archived?
If I were to keep the paper in the pipeline for the journal, I would want some reassurances. I would look at the journal editorial board and review process. If the review process was exceptionally speedy and the initial decision was accept as is (or very minor revisions), I would worry the journal is desperate. A high rate of turn over in editors or reviewers (i.e., different people on every iteration) would also concern me. I would put a time contingency on the copyright transfer so that it expires if the issue is not published in the next few weeks.
Then you have all the issues with playing with the timeline. How are people (e.g., tenure committees or search committees) going to know when you did the work. Even saying that it was published in 2019, isn't the issue, committees want to know when you did the work. I can only imagine the headaches that it could cause with funders when trying to explain why work funded in 2018 is in a 2016 issue, regardless of when it came out. Screwing with the timeline is also probably going to mess up a lot of bibliometrics (e.g., 5 year impact factor would only go for citations through 2021 or really a 2 year window).
Publisher says it will be published in the next weeks. Without that assurance, I'd probably agree about pulling it. I think it is worth a chuckle, not a panic, actually.
@Buffy yup, and I bet they keep saying that to the poor sap who submitted a paper in 2015.
Your "bet" is just a guess, of course. And pulling the paper keeps it unpublished for at least a while longer. Fine if you already have a good pub record and stuff in the pipeline otherwise. Less fine if not. Reacting with irritation to a journal, even when justified, does little to advance your own career. I can't say whether withdrawing is best, but I doubt you can either.
@Buffy I added some more suggestions about pulling the paper.
There might be an issue with pulling the paper if the author already signed over the copyright/agreement to publish forms.
@Kimball then let the universitys lawyers handle that. There's probably a way out in cases like this.
"I would not but a time contingency on the copyright transfer that it expires if the issue is not published in the next few weeks." I couldn't parse this sentence. Would you be able to rephrase it?
@LightnessRacesinOrbit that is because the sentence did not male sense (see edit).
In your CV, I think it would be proper to put the official date (2016), but also acceptable to note that it was (will be) "published 2019". For presentation at the conference, I assume you need to submit it first. You can send a note to the program chair explaining the situation.
It will always be a bit anomalous, but it is what it is. Even in a formal citation you can list both dates - 2016 issue, published 2019.
Chances are, the journal is having trouble filling its issues. It doesn't have enough papers, so issues promised to subscribers were never delivered - the journal now "owes" its subscribers the missing issues and your paper was put into one of these issues.
C'est la vie.
There might be a lot of reasons for not being able to produce issues in a timely manner. If the journal were dedicated to an especially arcane field, that would be pretty common, I think. But other, valid and invalid, reasons might come to mind.
If it's a new journal, my guess would be that the editorial board were overly optimistic about how well the community will react to it (e.g. by starting at 4 issues/year instead of 2 issues/year). If it's an old journal, then I'd guess either the field is becoming less popular, or the journal overestimated future submissions and decided to increase its issue count prematurely.
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21786 | What should I do if a student has already done all the work for my course elsewhere?
Some background info: I'm a graduating Masters Students teaching a Web Development Class. This is my first teaching gig and this is a required course for CS students.
I have one star student who is already VERY good at web development. He overhauled three of the university's sites, making them more accessible, beautiful, and more performant. He is also pretty known among the faculty because of this. Let's just say that he knows the whole scope of what is being taught in my class, probably more.
What I want to know is if there is something that I can do to help this student? What I'm teaching him is probably just tickling his capability, and he is also very driven enough to create sites for our university. Can I talk about my department (CS Department) to let him skip my class/have him create sites for the uni instead? This student is very smart and I really feel he is much more engaged with doing real world sites (our sites) that I want to give him my time to support this instead of simple workload.
I have also talked to him about this and he really does think that developing real sites is fun.
So would it be unusual if I approach my department about this request? If not, how should I phrase this?
*Also, he closely works with me and a few other faculty for the site creation.
I am not sure I understand your question. You said "He overhauled three of the university's sites,". To me, this means he is already doing real world sites. And then you said "let him skip my class/have him create sites for the uni instead?". What exactly are you asking?
@scaaahu basically, support him in creating real world sites, and still have him pass or 'finish' my class or earn credit. At the very least maybe allow him to take another class (like letting him pass on a credit by examination).
What are the requirements to successfully complete this course? I guess that some amount of homework is required in the syllabus, otherwise if there is only a final exam then the answer is trivial: he can take it without following the lectures.
Talk to the person in your department who is responsible for overseeing the undergraduate education program (the title is usually a variant on "undergraduate advisor" or "director of undergraduate studies"). Such individuals usually have the authority to waive and approve courses that are not part of the "official" study plan when exceptional circumstances arise. This individual should be able to tell you what is necessary to obtain a waiver, and what could be used to substitute for it within the program.
Awesome thanks! I do believe someone in our department carries "undergraduate advisor" as a title.
@user15966 Note that a waiver typically replaces a grade. If the student really is good at the topic you should ask him whether he wants the waiver (assuming you know you can get it) or whether he wants to follow the course anyway, and get the chance to produce a top grade.
If the course is waived, there may still be credit requirements to make up, which means that the student can spend the equivalent amount of time doing something that's more productive/more appropriate, too.
I am still an undergrad and a friend did exactly this for exactly this context several years ago
I encountered a similar situation in the past. The student explained the situation to the lecturer and the lecturer agreed to give the student all the exercises in advance so that he could finish them in one go if he liked (instead of waiting and submitting a new exercise each week). The student did not need to attend class but had to do the final exam. That way the student didn't really get unfair special treatment (he got graded like the rest of the students) but could minimize the time wasted on something that he already knows.
While I'd appreciate my time being minimally wasted as a student, I'd still be a little upset having to pay tuition for a course that wasn't intellectually benefitting me.
@Cornstalks sadly for those of us still in undergrad there are far too many courses like that. Requirements are requirements and it has to be a special case to get out of it, at least at my school
In my view, not being required to take a course when you can exhibit full mastery of its material is hardly "unfair special treatment". It is more like "fair special treatment", although it is less special than "nonstandard enough to require some human intervention in the mechanics of the degree requirements". In my experience different academic cultures have different attitudes about this: when I taught in Canada I was surprised that the attitude usually was: "You know the material? Great. Then just show up for the final exam and you'll get an A." In the US this is not the norm.
Also, I have to point out that your proposal does not "minimize the time wasted on something that he already knows": the minimum amount of time to waste on something that you already know is 0 (you can pick the units).
Having the student do free labor for the department in return for a course credit is somewhat evil. Paid work should be paid work.
At my school, if a student can prove they already have the skills that we teach in core chooses, we have the option of waiving those applicable requirements and letting them take higher level courses instead. The core course requirement is waived, but the number and distribution of courses required are usually not.
In any case, talk to your chair or DUS/DGS as appropriate.
The choice of credit or pay is something that should be up to the student to decide. Some students would rather have the course credit than the cash, others won't.
I disagree. It devalues what a course credit means (free labor for faculty!).
Perhaps we're working at cross-purposes. I was assuming that this was some sort of "independent project/study" arrangement, not something directly within a course. (But I'd also note that this is very much a cultural phenomenon.)
It also raises questions of evaluation. Should he get grade on the basis of how many hours he put in? The quality of the final product? The beauty or sophistication of the backend algorithms? How happy the other faculty are with the work? Should the department offer course credit to all of their work study students - even those engaged in physical labor?
And why stop at labor=credit, why not substitute cash for labor so that you can buy an A in the course for $5000, which could then be used to hire other student workers.
Independent studies are the property of the student. He should be allowed to do an intellectually stimulating project in lieu of credit but it should be for his own enlightenment and benefit not his faculty supervisor's. Otherwise, why not require data entry for all first year students?
@RoboKaren Surely the best sort of project is one where everyone (advisor and advisee) benefits? Or should I stop suggesting that my research students work on topics where I genuinely care about the answer, and where I intend to build on their results later? "Useful" need not mean exploitative. And the student here may be delighted to have such a high-profile "client" on his CV...
I assume your research students are not in a core course when doing such research? And I'm assuming research leading to their degree is different from creating a website for the department.
He signed up for the course didn't he? I'd give him the same exams but different assignments. Sounds like you are teaching at a Tech School. Give him a University course. You have a Masters. Make him learn something. Let him work on something more scientific such as how to take the Opera source and replace the crippled WebView of Android with an Opera browser as well as make a one-size-fits-all by letting Opera be embedded in place of the UIWebView in iOS. I know, that's a bit extreme; but, you get the idea. Give him a challenge. I'm sure there is something in the Web Dev space which takes scientific level of understanding. At least he can catalog the various and nefarious async and two-way-data-binding frameworks and compare and contrast. Open the "Challenge" assignment to all of the class. You might have a few sleepers in there. make it worth an "A"; so, then legitimately everyone has the same opportunity. Just some ideas. (Teaching professional courses is even more extreme: almost always there's one person in the class who knows everything and several who know nothing.)
The problem with this is he's doing a lot more work for three or four credits to pass CS201, work that will not be reflected on his transcript.
At my university we have a system set up so a student can challenge a class and if they can pass the final exam then they get the credit for the class on a pass/fail system. The other choice in most colleges is having the student adviser for the program waive the class. I am a Computer Science Major and I have had entry level computer courses waived by my adviser because I knew the material well enough to advance to higher courses.
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85439 | Is it useful to add excerpts from teaching evaluations in a teaching statement?
Is it useful to add excerpts from teaching evaluations in a teaching statement included in a faculty application?
A fair amount of teaching statements seem to contain some, but since excerpts are typically cherry picked I wonder whether the admission committee cares about them.
Here is an article that surveys how teaching is evaluated in a mathematics faculty search (YMMV in different fields). Based on this, in general, teaching evaluations are valued, even if they are not asked for. This leads me to think that including information from evaluations (e.g. comments but also summarized numerical ratings) is a good practice.
http://www.ams.org/notices/200710/tx071001308p.pdf
I think that including excerpts from teaching evaluations alone may not that valuable since, as you say, the excerpts can be cherry-picked. If you also add the mean ratings along with standard deviations, the excerpts will have more weight, IMO. In addition, if these numbers and excerpts can be used to support that your teaching philosophy is contributing to improved learning in the classroom, that would be even better.
The question is best approached by looking at how sales and marketing organizations work; after all, you're selling yourself by applying for a position on the faculty and the way to be successful is by using proven sales strategies.
Marketing organizations know that customer testimonials are probably the MOST effective way to earn a new customer's business. The evidence is everywhere: TV commercials, online advertising, print media, etc. Present a client talking about how your product or service went beyond expectations, and new clients will feel a level of confidence in signing on with you.
So, YES, include testimonials, but do so in a way that's understated - NOT cocky!
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84925 | What are the downsides of using arXiv references instead of conference/journal references for the same paper?
I read in the instructions for one conference:
Please do not use arXiv references for papers that have been published at official venues such as conferences, journals or workshops. Please make the effort to identify these at least for all papers prior to 2017.
What are the downsides of using arXiv references instead of conference/journal references?
As a general comment for those advocating that arxiv isn't paywalled, I usually google the name of the paper I'm looking for if I can't access it by other means, leading to arxiv/researchgate/archives-ouvertes/etc...
@FábioDias (Ways to get free and legal access to research papers as a researcher)
When you say "somewhere", what kind of somewhere is that?
@E.P. Instructions for camera ready version of papers at EACL 2017 sent by email to authors.
@FábioDias: Even though the reader may be able to find open-access copies of a cited paper, there are valid reasons to directly cite the arXiv paper. At least: (1.) saving reader effort, in particular if you put a clickable hyperlink to the arXiv version; (2.) making it clear that references to figures/theorems/tables/etc. are relative to the arXiv version and not the publisher version (or some other online version), in case they differ; (3.) not give the impression to readers that they are encouraged to pay for the publisher version of the paper.
@a3nm On the other hand you lose the credibility associated with a known conference/journal - not worth it IMHO. "Article finding" is an art that all researchers eventually learn... And you can't really reference arxiv tables/etc directly, because they change more often than published articles (the argument is reversed).
@FábioDias you can cite a specific version of an arXiv article.
@FábioDias: regarding the credibility problem, you could always cite an arXiv paper with a note "Presented at [conference]" or "Published at [journal]"
@a3nm or just cite the published article and let the user find it at arvix, your site, etc... Honestly, I don't see the point of mixing the two citations "to save reader effort" because the effort of googling a title is negligible (and par for the course for researchers). I fully agree with the guidelines mentioned by the OP, and it is what I usually do. I have cited arxiv, but only where there was no other version of the paper (and it was an important reference), which I had to vet myself, since it was not peer reviewed...
@FábioDias I disagree that "the effort of googling a title is par for the course for researchers". Links in references should be more common in my opinion. Also, indicating arXiv in the reference shows that the paper (or at least a pre-print of it) is open access. Most articles aren't.
Using arXiv instead of a conference / journal reference has an obvious disadvantage: readers won't know that the paper eventually passed peer review and was published. This is important context, especially if they want to cite the paper themselves later.
Using arXiv in addition to a conference / journal reference might make sense, but some might consider it redundant.
readers won't know that the paper eventually passed peer review and was published. Indeed, +1. They also won't know where it was published, which can be just as important a piece of context (e.g., Annals of Mathematics vs Predatory Journal of Mickey Mouse Mathematics).
+1 for do both. That's good practice, and not redundant as arxiv may contain a newer version, extra material and is open access.
@innisfree newer version than the journal version? Extra material over the journal version? Are you kidding? It would be extremely bad practice to add material and keep updating the paper on arxiv after it has already published, except maybe to correct some egregious error, and even then an erratum should be issued, since many people would go to the journal as the official source for the paper rather than arxiv.
Yep, extra material, that was cut from published version for brevity or as it was e.g., speculative. And updates for typos, or even updates in light of new experimental data. Not considered bad practice in physics.
Journals often ask that any archiving (eg on the arXiv) has a reference and a link (eg by doi) to the published version. I've started including the arXiv number (inspired by Scott Morrison) in the abstract of the published paper in a reversal of this demand. eg https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11225-015-9603-6, https://dx.doi.org/10.4310/HHA.2015.v17.n2.a4, https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10485-015-9400-4 Thus if people leave off the arXiv number in their reference to my paper, then anyone looking up the journal version will have it in front of them with no effort at all, and ideally won't waste $£€
It's good to add that arXiv has papers which would not pass peer review, but this is not obvious from a mere skim.
@Szabolcs, what are fast ways to tell if an arXiv paper would not pass peer review?
ArXiv sometimes picks up on the publication of preprints automatically and provides that data in the meta information for a paper (one of several reasons to always link to the abstract page rather than the PDF). Even if the publication isn't auto detected authors can provide this data directly and it will (eventually!) be included. Personally, I cite the published version and add the arXiv URL as a note entry in bibtex for the best of both worlds.
One reason I haven't seen mentioned is indexing of citations. Some services that create citation statistics might not correctly associate the preprint with the published paper.
But linking to the arXiv version is always a good idea:
It's a lot easier for the author to update an arXiv preprint than the version in a Journal.
E.g one of my papers has some (minor) errors in the published version
which are fixed on arXiv.
Not everyone has access to paywalled journals, especially not all
the time (e.g. from a mobile device).
(Related to your last point: Persistent URL for each DOI pointing to open access papers when available)
To add another upside: arxiv versions show the year in which the paper was first made public, which is helpful for understanding the progression of ideas in fast-paced areas such as deep learning.
Venues are important for judging if a paper is worth reading.
ArXiv is a mixed bag, as it is not peer reviewed, and may even have been changed!
If I look at references, and they come from some predatory publisher or fake conference, I don't bother reading them. Experience tells me they are at most a rip-off of some other work, and in the worst case simply copy&paste from Wikipedia.
Now if your work is based on these things, I would be rather skeptical if it really works. Even many papers published in top conferences are nonsense and not reproducible.
So please, indicate which papers have at least passed some peer review, and in which venue - to at least hint at their quality.
"Venues are important for judging if a paper is worth reading. ArXiV [sic] is a mixed bag" -- compare to the largest STM academic publisher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Criticism_and_controversies
"and may even have been changed" Non-issue, because you should cite arXiv preprints with their version number!!
The "not peer reviewed" thing is not as important as you seem to make it. Usually, authors retract their arXiv preprints if the referee finds a serious error (although authors don't always correct minor errors found by referees).
@darijgrinberg: Lots of arXiv preprints have not yet undergone peer review, and many never will.
@darijgrinberg you should does not imply that people do it right... people also should cite Wikipedia only with a revision number, yet nobody does. And I've seen many - even prominent, not only crap - unreviewed papers on arXiv.
@Anony-Mousse: I am not implying this. Sadly, few people do it right. What I mean is that this shouldn't prevent you from citing an arXiv preprint, since you can easily do it right. The problem with the crap preprints is more substantial, but authors usually understand well enough whether the papers they are cited are good or not (or at least whether the parts they are using are reliable).
Let's look for some statistics: Where are predatory publishers based?
The main concern should be to assist your future readers as much as possible, including to enable them to track down the source article. If you can direct them to the latest version and provide a DOI for them to track it easily, then it would be beneficial to do so.
If that version happens to be a reputable peer-reviewed journal, then all the better to get your readers to trust your claims. If submitting to a journal they will also use your references to determine whether your topic is relevant for their publication, they expect you to have cited publications in the field including their journal.
Disclosure of the version you've based your claims on is a valid concern. In my experience bioRxiv updates manuscripts to the published version but it may be worth checking that the aspects you've based your citation on have not changed, particularly if they've been retracted. However, it does look good to show that you have included the latest findings in your field in your literature review. Perhaps it may be suitable to cite the published version and include a sourced at arXiv note or url? Similar to how you would give the date accessed (version) for a website source.
The optimal way to assist readers is to link both the journal and the arXiv version, possibly even pointing out whether the two versions substantially deviate (if you know it). I tend to do exactly that in my preprints. Unfortunately, this kind of information maps badly onto standard bibliography formats, which is why I think not many people do it. (I write my bibliography manually, so I don't have troubles doing it.)
@darijgrinberg Ideally (as I've suggested) but where only one can be given, I'd recommend the (more credible) journal if possible. Giving both versions if may not be accepted by many journals in the interests of space. Even a note such as "sourced on arXiv" should be enough for most readers to trace it down on google if they had the journal reference.
The arXiv version is not always updated to match the published version, which is the official "version of record" (although these days it is rarer and rarer that the arXiv version is not updated to match the published version).
This is true, but not always: sometimes it may also happen that the arXiv version is updated after publication to fix errors that were found since then. It's up to everyone to decide what they consider to be the "official version of record".
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86687 | How much does it cost to make a MOOC universally accessible, as defined by the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990?
Is there any research/study/survey that tried to quantify the cost of making a MOOC universally accessible, as defined by the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (mirror)?
I am aware that the cost depends on several factors, such as the type of content the MOOC contains ( video / text / etc.).
The question is motivated by the lawsuits some educational firms received / feared to receive to due to lack of accessibility of the course materials:
Berkeley will begin removing more than 20,000 video and audio lectures from public view as a result of a Justice Department accessibility order (mirror) (published on 2017-03-06)
Videos for Stanford's CS224d No Longer Available (mirror) (published in 2016)
Settlement Agreement (“Agreement”) are the United States of America (“United States”) and edX Inc. (“edX”). (mirror) (published on April 2, 2015)
Agreements with Colleges and Universities Regarding Accessibility (mirror)
Note that the incident that inspired this question isn't specifically about MOOCs but included much more general content, such as podcasts and videos of lectures. (This in no way affects the validity of the question.)
@DavidRicherby Thanks, good point, I'm also interested in the cost of making videos of lectures accessible.
The question asks for studies or research, and I don't know of any, but I do have some first-hand experience.
Meeting the Section 508* requirements for Web pages used in such a course is effectively without cost if one starts out to make such pages accessible. Retrofitting might cost as much as the original project, but the cost should be near zero for modern MOOCs.
Closed (or open) captions are very expensive. Unless done at a foreign sweatshop, cost is $5.00 to $15.00 per minute, so something like $12,000 as a minimum, up over $35,000, for a one-semester course. In other words, the captioning can cost more than the professor. That's at least part of why some institutions employ ASL interpreters for class sections with deaf students.
Edited to add: I worry about the quality of the content for captions of university-level courses produced offshore at cheap rates, but have no personal experience. I have experimented extensively with captioning through voice recognition for my own courses. It's getting much better, but still requires extensive manual editing. The $5-15 number given above could be reduced by using student labor, especially if the students are majors in the material being subtitled.
Captioning addresses the needs of the deaf. Making course materials available to the blind means being sure that everything that is shown is also described, either by the speaker who is presenting or in a manner that can be rendered through text-to-speech. The latter means being sure that there are good "alt" descriptions of images and that appropriate markup, e.g. MathML, is used for things like equations. In my own discipline, computing, that isn't onerous, and the costs sort-of disappear in the weeds of getting the course done. Things might be very different in a discipline like the visual arts.
*Section 508 is part of the Rehabilitation Act, not the ADA, but you still have to do it.
If captioning costs $5-$15 per minute, how does it become effectively free if you start out with it in mind?
It's the Web stuff that's effectively free. The Web pages used in MOOCs have to be accessible, and one makes that happen by not doing things that would make pages inaccessible. There's more info here: https://www.section508.gov/content/build/website-accessibility-improvement (Captioning remains hideously expensive unless, as in my case, it comes out of the professor's hide, and I can caption only a small part of the material I'd like to make public.)
There was a question elsewhere about the quality of YouTube's automatic captioning. You can find an example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzhHKHSefZU until the government finds out about it. Note that George Boole's name comes out right the first couple of times, but is later rendered as "pool."
"It's the Web stuff that's effectively free." You mean text-and-diagrams HTML pages? All of this stuff, video, audio, and all the rest is "web stuff" (which I think is why I was confused by your answer).
The question isn't about the cost of MOOCs, it's about the cost of compliance, or accessibility. It's the compliance with ADA part that's free with respect to web material. If you're going to compose web pages, record audio and video, etc. none of that is free; there's a cost to all of it. Of that, some of that is "web stuff," and there's a cost to making it. However, there is little or no cost to making it compliant provided one plans to do so from the start.
Now I feel I understand even less. Are you simply making the vacuous claim that, if you plan to do something from the start then it's not an extra cost so the extra cost is zero?
@DavidRicherby Nope, I claim that building accessible web pages costs no more than building pages that will not pass the accessibility tests, provided one plans to do so from the start and so avoids the traps that make pages inaccessible. Vacuous? I don't think so. Did you look at the link I posted earlier?
@BobBrown also, captioning is very cheap if you are reading from a script — as I'd imagine made-for-MOOC courses's videos and audio clips are. It's a matter of breaking up the text into digestible chunks and then there are some great programs that let you just go hitting a space bar in time to synch them up).
There is software that makes good transcripts if it's just one voice. Let me know if you want me to try to remember which one I used with good results.
@aparente001: I've tried Dragon Naturally Speaking with little success. It captures words, but the result requires extensive editing and then synchronizing with the spoken words. Google's engine does better, but see my example above, where "Boole" got turned into "pool." One can download, edit, and re-upload Google's subtitles, and that's mostly what I do when the subtitle task comes out of my hide. Except in the case of major corrections, the synchronization is already done by Google.
@guifa So, who writes the script? That just moves the cost around, but doesn't eliminate it. I can probably count the number of professors who lecture from a script on the fingers of one thumb. (I work from a topic list so I don't skip material or get out of order.) "...you just go hitting a space bar..." No, I don't. The idea that you can effectively double a professor's workload, and with drudge work, is "free" is a concept up with which I will not put. The result of a law requiring that my work be universally accessible is that very little of it will be made public at all.
@BobBrown Well, I write the script, of course. Speaking off the cuff makes sense in person, but if you're going to give the course to several thousand people where they can't ask questions for immediate feedback like in a traditional classroom, tightly scripting things is how I have always done it. But I got a stipend to develop my online course that paid for the extra work, and any extra accessibility issues beyond providing a script that needed to be worked out was handled by the disability resource center, not me.
@BobBrown - I have had very good results with https://transcribe.wreally.com/ for transcribing multiple speakers (meetings). // In my experience, training Dragon to your voice gives good results for a single voice and good audio quality. I have used it with an additional layer of software on top called KnowBrainer, which was helpful. // Chrome has transcription software as well but I like Dragon plus KnowBrainer better.
Providing MathML or raw LaTeX versions of what's written on the blackboard in a math lecture (physics is probably similar) I would expect to be a lot more expensive than captioning. I don't know of any examples of that being done on a large scale.
@NoahSnyder I fear you're probably right. We no longer have blackboards, so I'm used to doing things the hard way.
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21880 | How important is publication for PhD admission?
As a master's student in computer science, I would really like to go for a PhD at a good CS department. However until now, I have no publications and really have no idea how to start research. I'm interested in many subjects but I have not yet been able to narrow down the choice to a specific one. For someone like me who just began his or her master's studies and wants to plan for a PhD, what is the real number one priority besides a good GPA?
In academia the currency is publications. In your PhD, you are expected to produce that currency out of thin air. If you have a dime on day #1 in your pocket, it certainly does not hurt you. However, what the admission committee will be thinking is your ability to produce some big $$.
I would say publications dont matter to start with a PhD, in general. Having them might help in reducing length of your PhD.
A good thing to have is liking for one area in CS, and good knowledge in that area atleast. e.g. systems or security or algorithms or formal verification or databases or distributed systems etc. Later when you join for the PhD program, you will do courses and talk with people to get an understanding on what is a good research problem etc.
Except if the particular PhD program does not involve any course work.
I would say publications dont matter to start with a PhD, in general. — You may be right in general but in strong departments (like mine), having publications is a significant advantage when applying for a PhD, and a de facto requirement if the applicant already has a master's degree.
If your Masters degree is a degree by research then you'll already be starting down the road of learning just how to carry out a research project. So you're in the typical position of most undergrads transitioning to postgrad studies. At that stage it would be quite unusual for you to have been able to contribute to a research paper (based on my experience working in universities in the UK, Germany and Australia).
As you progress through your Masters you will hopefully have the opportunity to investigate areas which may interest you, and narrow down which field(s) might suit your intentions to pursue a further degree. Perhaps during this time you will contribute to some piece of research which will be published before you graduate. Given the timescales involved in academic publishing though this is unlikely unless you, join and make a final contribution to, an established project (for example). This would possibly make you stand out a little more when applying for doctoral positions, but it would not be essential. Masters level research frequently does result in publications, but these may come out some years after you complete the degree (depending on the field of course)!
If your Masters does not have a research component then you will have to make some time to do some independent reading, study recent publications in your field etc and get a sense of what research groups / professors exist whose interests would match yours.
The number one priority would definitely be defining and establishing your interests. So you want to find out what in CS you are enthusiastic about and committed to investigating, and be able to demonstrate that genuine enthusiasm when applying. A good PhD student is in effect a colleague in training rather than a student to be taught, and you want to be able to show that's what you have the potential to become.
This, I admit is a somewhat idealised view of what I would want to see in a prospective PhD student. Where you're located, which universities you wish to apply for, and how they deal with admissions (among other things) will all have specific impacts on what is important. So you'll have to discover, and tailor your preparation to, those criteria too!
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107778 | Can postdocs in the United States apply for funding to support undergrad/MS/PhD students?
As a postdoc in the US, is it possible to apply for funding for a project, which can be used to support one or two undergrad/MS/PhD students?
The answer depends on the funding agency. Some agencies only require a PhD for the PI, in which case it's certainly possible, although it can be difficult to secure funding with only a postdoc as PI. (Many such proposals might have a more senior scientist as co-investigator.)
Other programs have specific requirements that the PI hold a more senior position, such as a tenure-track position, in which case a postdoc could not apply as the primary or sole or investigator.
Institutions also have varying rules about whether postdocs can apply for grants.
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95539 | Referring to the candidate in a recommendation letter
I'm writing a recommendation letter for a candidate that wants to pursue MSc program abroad. I've known the candidate since his first year of undergraduate studies and also I included him in some personal projects of mine. However, I wonder how should I address him in the letter. These are the options:
Address him by last name only:
Mr. Doe was...
Address him as 'the candidate':
The candidate's motivation...
Any opinions on which one is preferred?
In certain fields, the first name may prevail: "John was ..."
I think either method will be fine. Note, however, that you are not "addressing" him, you are "discussing" him.
You are writing on behalf of the applicant, and are supposed to be providing information that shows how well you know the applicant's strengths and weaknesses. That knowledge is more convincingly implied if you refer to the candidate by her name, rather than as "the candidate" or "the applicant."
Also, most good letters of recommendation I've seen actually refer to the candidate by her first name, rather than as "Ms. Doe."
+1 for the answer. I find it convenient to use the full name once. For example, "I am writing this letter of reference for Mr. Coder Alive. ... Coder has been involved with me in my present project on how to answer question on academia..."
+1 for the answer. Although referring to someone using his first name is common mostly in anglosaxon culture, while other nations prefer the use of First+Last name.
Plus, then there is no baggage of choosing a specific title for a woman.
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82098 | Is it bad to apply for the same Master's degree program in consecutive years?
I am an undergraduate majoring in computer science. I want to apply for a top Master program in the US. I have done the GRE test and most of the other things required.
I am currently doing research with my professor so there might be more publication to come but it will be later than the application deadline.
I don't know if I should try to apply this year. There are certain things I am concerning (my GPA might be lower, my reference letter might not be as strong as before, there might be more applicants in the next year) .
There is one thing I don't know how will the admission office work on.
If I failed the first year, will it be a negative factor for my application the next year (say if I could been admitted originally, but because I failed the last application the year before so I am not accepted)?
will it be like I revealed too much information so they can see my change between the two years(for example they found I didn't make much progress like the years before in that year)?
will they compare the two applications(for example they found there is lots of change in my SOP, like my life goal changed largely) or will they be processed totally independent?
Just say I have 25% possibility to get admitted, my situation might be better or worse the next year. If I failed this year I will reapply the next year. Is it worth a shot to apply this year?
Decisions likely depend on factors besides the applications themselves, e.g. which faculty members are on the admissions committee this year, how many applications were received, how many 'spaces' there are in the program (a function of the funding available and/or number of people graduating) etc. Applicants have no control over these. @NMJD's answer points out that some schools will notice if you've applied before, but what I tell my students is that a rejection doesn't necessarily mean you're a poor fit for a particular program. It just means things didn't work out this time around.
I applied twice in two consecutive years for graduate school. Some universities do not track or compare current applications to previous ones, so those schools likely would not notice (and thus would not care).
Some institutions do track if you've applied previously. This isn't a deal-breaker, but then you'd want the year gap to show you made significant gains and improved your application.
Thus, my advice would be: if you want to apply this year, go for it. If you don't get in, find a job or internship and/or take classes that let(s) you improve your application significantly. Develop new skills, showcase an ability to be successful in more advanced projects.
Then, were you to apply that next year, don't mention that you applied to that institution before and got rejected, but do emphasize all the skills you gained during your time off. Talk about how that year prepared you to be a successful graduate student in your essay, make sure the skills developed during that year are clear on your resume and in your description of projects (if there is one).
Edit: If you are concerned the graduate program is a reach for you, you might consider taking a year off to build your skills anyway. You could probably make a decent amount of money for that year, and you may be less stressed and able to get more out of graduate school.
Thanks! Because I found in the online application, there is often a block says "if you have applied this institution(program) before". So I am concerning this might be an evaluation factor.
If I failed the first year, will it be a negative factor for my application the next year (say if I could been admitted originally, but because I failed the last application the year before so I am not accepted)?
I have done graduate admissions in the US (in mathematics), and in all of my experience I have never seen the phenomenon of downgrading an applicant in Year X because they previously applied but were rejected in Year Y.
Let me also say that when it comes to faculty applications, the "carpet-bombing approach" -- i.e., apply widely and often -- is very much the norm. Thus it seems likely to me that the prospect of reapplying looks much more unusual to the student than it will to the faculty members who will be processing the application.
Combined with the trivial (but true) remark that you get into precisely 0% of programs to which you do not apply, I would certainly encourage you to apply in consecutive years if you still have interest.
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10173 | Does membership of academic honour societies carry any professional weight / recognition?
I understand honour societies have been around for years and it is a tradition more prevalent in the western world to recognise outstanding academic talent.
The largest honour society is perhaps the Golden Key which operates worldwide and has over 2 million members. It provides a range of services to members, including leadership training, networking and the opportunity to do good. Membership is by invitation only and only those who are in the top 15% of their class or high performing graduate students are eligible. The eligibility is based solely on academic performance.
I presume being invited to join a honour society is an 'honour' in itself, as the mere mention of this affiliation on the CV would indicate that you are a top achiever.
Question 1: Does membership of honour society carry any professional weight?
(i.e. does it give any additional advantages?)
Note: Honour society is not the same as professional society. The latter, as I understand it, is open to all persons in a particular field (irrespective of their academic achievement but as long as certain criteria are met, e.g. successful registration as a teacher to join a teacher's union).
Question 2: Are there other honour societies in addition to the Golden Key (which seems to be the most dominant one)?
PS: I am unsure of the tag, so putting CV. Please update!
Disclaimer: I am not associated with Golden Key.
I am not associated in any way with Golden Key. I have put a disclaimer.
Top 15% in your class is very different from "the best of the best".
Top 15% of your class is also very different from "top achiever".
"top 15% of their class" - given that class can be ill-defined depending on the university system, note that internationally, this sounds like a somewhat arbitrary criterion.
Does membership of honour society carry any professional weight?
No, not in general. At a very early stage in your career, for example when applying to graduate school, it may be useful as a quick indication that you have received high grades. However, the grades themselves are more meaningful than the honor society membership, and in any case grades only matter so much. It's worth mentioning the honor society on your CV, but it won't make a big difference.
Once you are more than a few years past undergraduate studies, neither grades nor honor societies matter.
In general, I think honor societies (including Golden Key) carry very little weight. One exception is Phi Beta Kappa, which (unlike Golden Key) does not require paying a fee to be inducted. I would be suspicious of any honor society that requires payment for membership.
What is the significance of Phi Beta Kappa?
Alpha Chi is another. The significance of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Chi is as Aaron says, purely academic with no dues. Further, the cutoff point is top 10% rather than 15%. Additionally, chapters for these academic honor societies exist at more elite schools, ones where it's much more difficult to be a top performer.
But what does membership buy you?
Membership gets you nothing, except in two ways. (1) You can put it on your cv (not that helpful) and (2) if you are in academia, your college's/university's ability to induct students into PBK (i.e., "having a chapter") is contingent on having a set number of PBK members on faculty.
I think they are mostly a North American thing. As an European, I have hardly ever heard of them, and they wouldn't impress me at all on a CV. In fact, whenever I read a three-greek-letter-acronym, I can't help mentally associating it with John Belushi at a toga party.
@FedericoPoloni: Your first sentence explains it all. And the mention of John Belushi. It's something from the movies.
@FedericoPoloni sure, and so the Belushi image would make you much more likely to hire, right? Just think of the lift in mood at work socials.
This question mentions a $99 fee to join PBK (not clear if one-time or annual). This contradicts the statement in your answer that PBK "does not require paying a fee to be inducted".
Listing "prestigious" societies like Phi Beta Kappa or Tau Beta Pi is perfectly acceptable. While it probably won't do a whole lot of good, it also won't do any harm. Do avoid listing any societies where you have to pay dues or pay to be inducted: they are a double-whammy since they give the perception that 1) you are padding your CV with inconsequential honors, and 2) are exhibiting poor judgment by paying to do so.
"it also won't do any harm" - in an international setting, I'd be careful with that assumption.
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21749 | Which is more important for PhD applicants — Quality or quantity of research papers?
While applying to a PhD program in computer science, which one is more important?
Publishing 4 or 5 medium/low-quality journal or conference papers or publishing only one paper in a top journal?
The review process of top-quality journals are usually 1-2 years. Which means, one has to begin his/her research during the bachelor's and submit the paper in the beginning of master's degree. But as far as I know, this is extraordinary (especially in my country).
An extra question would be: Regardless of the quality of the paper, is publishing papers in distinct areas or publishing papres in a specific area more important?
I'm willing to move to Northern Europe (UH, TUT, KTH, KU). So, answers from the professors/students of those universities will be highly appreciated.
Having any papers before starting your PhD will put you ahead of most applicants. I don't know much about publishing in CS, but several years for the review process sounds a bit harsh. Even for mathematics (where refereeing is very slow) I thought that the average turnaround is ~6 months. In principle one should pursue top class research if possible, and 1-2 first author publications in a leading journal of the field should get you anywhere. 4-5 (first author) publications in a well-recognized journal sounds like a lot of work to fit in a couple of years for an undergraduate.
Neither. if you want exposure as a computer scientist, publish in a top conference.
@amlrg Note that, in much of CS (especially the theoretical end), there's no such thing as a "first-author publication": authors are conventionally listed alphabetically.
I disagree with the assumption that top journals with slow turnaround times are more highly regarded than top conferences with quicker turnaround times. In most (all?) areas of computer science, the most competitive conferences are at least as highly regarded as the top journals. It is also not unusual for longer versions of conference papers to later be submitted to journals.
As David Patterson (UC Berkeley), Larry Snyder (University of Washington), and Jeffrey Ullman wrote in Evaluating Computer Scientists and Engineers For Promotion and Tenure:
The evaluation of computer science and engineering faculty for
promotion and tenure has generally followed the dictate "publish or
perish," where "publish" has had its standard academic meaning of
"publish in archival journals" [Academic Careers, 94]. Relying on
journal publications as the sole demonstration of scholarly
achievement, especially counting such publications to determine
whether they exceed a prescribed threshold, ignores significant
evidence of accomplishment in computer science and engineering. For
example, conference publication is preferred in the field, and
computational artifacts —software, chips, etc. —are a tangible means
of conveying ideas and insight. Obligating faculty to be evaluated by
this traditional standard handicaps their careers, and indirectly
harms the field. This document describes appropriate evidence of
academic achievement in computer science and engineering.
Your research advisor should be able to provide you advice more specific to your case.
I agree with amirg that having any publications when applying to a PhD program (especially based on undergraduate research) makes you exceptional. Your advisor's recommendation also counts a lot, especially if he or she is well known.
I will not focus on the conferences vs. journals angle here, as this has been answered by other people and I really think this is not the core of your question. I will assume you meant to ask:
"Publishing 4 or 5 medium/low-quality venues or publishing only one paper in a top venue. What is better for PhD admission?"
Firstly, I am not entirely sure in which timespan you plan to produce all these materials. In my subfield of Computer Science, writing 4-5 B-level conference papers takes most PhD students at least 2 years. Writing 1 top paper requires a very good idea, solid research skills, and typically at least one half-year of full-time research (often significantly more). Doing all of that as a (presumably) inexperienced undergrad or master student besides course work seems very ambitious. From my personal experience, a very good master student will publish 1 or 2 good papers during his master's. That's about the best I have personally seen among my students.
Now, the simple answer to your (implied) above question is that both are likely ok. Both, one top paper or 4-5 reasonable papers, are likely to get you into any of the northern european school in principle. However, note that admission to european schools is often not like in the US (see also here), meaning that it is well possible that you still need to find a professor to take you on, which may depend more on her/his available fundings than your CV.
However, when you said "4 or 5 medium/low-quality" papers, make sure that they are not too low-quality. There is a threshold from which a badly conceived paper can actually hurt your chances in some groups. It is hard to give a hard-and-fast rule here, but in the dark I would avoid any predatory journals as well as any conference that does not appear on any of the international rankings (e.g., CORE). If you have an advisor or mentor from the field, he will be able to help you with selecting reasonable venues.
Well, I think I did that mistake. I have published papers in two too low quality conference journals. I shouldn't put them in my CV should I?
@cagirici Hiding papers is generally not a very good idea. Put them in, but don't emphasise them in any way.
@xLeitix could you elaborate on why hiding it would not be a good idea? (I think this might make a good question in itself) For example, I have an acquaintance who does not list one of his papers on his CV. The paper is published in a decent journal and has a few dozen citations. It has no flaws per se, nor does the person disagree with the contents really, but he considers it "pseudoscience" which does not contribute "anything" to the field and wishes to distance himself from it. Would "hiding" a paper in this case, too, be considered unethical or "not a good idea", or is this case-specific?
@amlrg Will you ask this as a question or shall I? :)
@cagirici Please, you go ahead. While I am interested in the answers from the members of this community, your connection to the subject is clearly more personal (and you might be interested in the specific case of "predatory" journals as opposed to the general case of whether it is ever ok to hide papers).
@amlrg I have asked the question, including my story. In case you wonder
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87067 | Is there any regulation governing the accessibility of research papers? (to ensure they can accommodate the reading preferences of the users)
There exist some regulations regarding the accessibility of educational materials (mirror), such as the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (mirror) or the Section 508 (mirror).
Is there any regulation governing the accessibility of research papers?
@NateEldredge Thanks for the suggestion. Persons with "disabilities" may benefit from accessibility features but others may also like it. I prefer to distinguish accessibility from disabilities. I don't like much the disability term, we are all different and some have accessibility preferences.
Since they are generally private (I.e. Non government) publishers, no. However, for example the American Physics Society has been collaborating to make papers more directly accessible out of their internal work flow. One can find links to such efforts with ViewPlus, a maker of printers for the eyesight impaired.
@JonCuster Laws may also apply to private entities. Thanks for the pointers to AMS.
“Preferences” aren’t sufficient to drive ADA compliance. You would need to have a real accessibility claim to drive a compliance request. If all you need is to increase the zoom factor, a publisher need not provide you with a single-column, large-type format of every article in their archives.
Accessibility in mathematics in borderline impossible. Accessibility without having a specific person in mind is... something that would only be requested by someone who has no idea of what would be involved.
To the best of my knowledge, no such law has ever been passed (though I'm no legal expert).
Even if such a law was passed, however, enforcing it would likely be difficult or impossible:
How could one assess the accessibility of a paper that can only even be understood by a tiny community of specialists?
How could one ensure that an obscure or newly-invented notation can be translated to alternative formats?
How could one effectively force scientists to invest time and energy in compliance, when funding agencies can barely even get them to do quick and easy things like pre-registering medical studies?
The onus would be on the publisher, not the author. The basic “standard” is that the work is “screen-reader” friendly. As for notations, and so on, I don’t think it’s as big a deal. Visual impairments short of blindness can usually be handled largely by virtue of having larger displays. It’s for the blind primarily that special accommodations are needed.
@aeismail Have you listened to maths on a screen reader? Even for a human it's not easy to read out a research paper so as to be intelligible.
@JessicaB I’m just mentioning what’s formally required. I suspect publishers get some latitude, because of the technical challenges.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:48.710511 | 2017-03-25T17:04:14 | {
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88273 | Why would a conference discourage authors to submit their papers to pre-submissions platforms (e.g., arXiv) before submitting them to the conference?
I asked some conference organizers whether authors may submit papers to arXiv before submitting to the conference, and got the following reply:
though not encouraging it, [conference name] allows archiving pre-submissions on platforms such as arXiv: therefore you can upload there your article before submitting it to the conference.
Why would a conference discourage authors to submit their papers to pre-submissions platforms (e.g., arXiv) before submitting them to the conference?
The proceedings of the conference are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, so
the license isn't an issue. The only issue I can see is that it may jeopardize the anonymity of the authors (the conference review process is double blinded). Is there any other downside?
I asked the conference organizers why they do not encourage archiving pre-submissions on platforms such as arXiv, but I haven't heard back from them.
This question is different from the question Submitting ACM Conference papers to ArXiv: the latter focuses on licenses, whereas here the license isn't an issue.
The reply suggests that the conference doesn't endorse such behaviour, which isn't the same as discouraging such behaviour. The conference might not endorse such behaviour because the publisher might discourage such behaviour, and the conference organizers don't want to cause friction.
A reason could be: The conference wants to have original papers, not papers already known to the community.
"not encouraging" != "discouraging". To me this simply sounds like ass-covering language: The author of the mail was worried that someone somewhere might otherwise view his sentence as an official encouragement which he was not entitled to give.
Possible duplicate of Submitting ACM Conference papers to ArXiv
@dsfgsho The question you linked to is about license issues
Could one of the 4 close voters explain their votes?
Here is a nice article that explains your question from ACL2017 . Main aim is to protect double blind review system.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:48.710776 | 2017-04-19T15:03:53 | {
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82740 | Why are some academic research datasets not available to people who only have freely available email addresses?
Why are some academic research datasets not available to people who only have freely available email addresses?
For example, ImageNet is not available to people only have freely available email addresses:
In the case of ImageNet, it seems the reason is to prevent commercial research/educational use, as ImageNet does not own the copyright of the images.
@101010111100 wouldn't having a research/educational use license be enough?
I suppose it's easier to verify you are part of a certain organization by using an email address with a domain which belongs to that organization. It's relatively easy to impersonate people with freely available email addresses. In fact, many places these days require university or company email addresses, exactly for the above reason.
@FranckDernoncourt it is a common concept for scientific databases: If you want to be sure only scientists (or scientists from a specific country) access the data. Some databases have a two step model: you can register with every email address but you cannot access all the data. Particularly for databases, which a large number of people want to access, this concept saves a lot of work for people hosting the database (otherwise they needed to control each new user).
@daniel.neumann I see. I guess that's too bad for people willing to perform research without any commercial intent but not affiliated to any universities (e.g., high school students, retirees, hobbyists, etc.). But that'd answer my question, so you're welcome to convert your comment into an answer.
@FranckDernoncourt Yes, that is a pitty. We had a research project with a non-academic partner and had a similar issue. I put my comment into an answer.
@101010111100 care to turn that comment into an answer?
If the owner/hoster of a database wants to provide that data only to a certain group of people (e.g. researchers, EU-citizens) and wants to keep the administrative overhead as low as possible, he has two possibilities:
open the database for everyone, put it under a specific license and a trust that the data is only used according to that license
provide only access to people with email addresses from a specific domain (i.e. official research institutions)
Verifying each registered user personally would be to much work.
The second way is a common concept for scientific databases. Some databases have a two step model (I think, ECMWF uses it): you can register with every email address but you cannot access all the data.
Often, there is no bad faith behind these restrictions. The server capacities might not be sufficient to provide the service to each possible user or the data (pictures, texts, ...) are provided by third parties, who only want to provide those data for free for a certain audience.
I don't think the first item is a realistic way of achieving the desired goal. I think it would even be seen as negligent.
@CapeCode At least when we assume that human is evil by nature ;-) .
@CapeCode Hmm, isn't that how open source or creative commons licences work? We put code online on GitHub for everybody to see under, for instance, GPL, and just assume that companies will not violate the specific terms of the licence we put forward?
@CapeCode is it so hard to have a .edu friend/family/colleague downloading stuff for you? (and +1 for xLeitix point, many companies are careful about license infringement)
@daniel.neumann I don't know about "evil" but OP clearly said on other threads that he thinks accessing content against the will of its owner is fair game. So clearly people will disregard a rule that says "you may only download if you're member of an academic institution we recognize".
@xLeitix that seem to be two different issues. CC licensing is an attempt at preventing content to be used in a certain way, while the issue here is restricting access to the content all together.
@FranckDernoncourt if it's very easy to circumvent, then how is it a problem? I didn't comment on the efficiency of the measure, I guess it's a relatively cheap way of filtering who access the DB. It's obviously not perfect.
@CapeCode You qualified the measure as negligent: isn't that a comment on the efficiency of the measure?
@FranckDernoncourt only on the absence thereof.
@CapeCode this implies that "provide only access to people with email addresses from a specific domain" is more efficient.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:48.711093 | 2017-01-05T22:53:54 | {
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