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1668 | Is it rude to ask for accommodations due to a learning disability?
I have a learning disability where I can only learn through seeing (not seeing and hearing). As a result, I need to have headphones in class to block all sound. Should I just tell the professor this?
Actually, you probably want to ask more, such as whether the professor could adapt his material to cater for the fact that you will not hear what s/he is saying.
@DaveClarke: That's sort of a mixed bag, and would be difficult to accommodate. It's certainly worth a try, but you shouldn't expect a priori a positive result. It's a tough challenge to adapt a lot of material, especially for the needs of one student.
What is this disability called?
I'd say it is rude to not make lecturers aware of any special requirements you may have. I'd very much want to know of any special arrangements (be it that somebody can't attend to exams because she is part of the school orchestra and will be on tour or a disability) in a timely manner.
@user13107 Misophonia?
@vonbrand I think the disability office, if any, of the OP's university should give proper advice on the matter
It would not consider the request rude, as long as you have a reasonable justification for needing to wear headphones during class (which you do). How you might approach your professor and whether he'll accommodate your request may depend on where you're located and whether your jurisdiction provides protections for individuals with disabilities.
In the United States, for example, individuals with disabilities are protected though the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which require colleges and universities (amongst other organizations) to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities—in your case, needing to wear headphones in class would be considered a reasonable accommodation (although this might depend on the subject of the course—in a woodworking course where headphones would pose a threat to safety, for example, it would likely not be a reasonable accommodation).
There are also proper channels a student needs to go through to request medical accommodations—initial requests should not go directly to the professor. Universities and colleges will have a centralized student disabilities office that handles requests for disability accommodations and it is this office that will require documentation of a disability and determine what accommodations a professor will be required to provide. They will then send a form to your professors indicating what accommodations they need to give you. Because of ADA and health privacy laws, the disability office will not tell your professor what your disability is and your professor is not allowed to ask you what your disability is.
Although this answer is very much local to the United States, similar protections may exist in other countries as well. Rather than approaching your professors directly, consider asking your university's student advising office, student life office or health clinic whether professors will provide accommodations for disability (you shouldn't need to tell them what your disability is). They will then be able to point you to resources that will work with you to find solutions.
In the Netherlands, the procedure is similar: in general, students should consult the central students office rather than professors directly. However, I'm less convinced that lecturers will be ready to write everything on the board/slides in order to compensate for the auditive channel being "switched off".
The accommodations may not require the instructor to write everything out in class, but may instead take the form of providing lecture notes to the student. Usually, accommodations can be granted unless they constitute an undue burden. Indeed, asking to have everything written out in class is a much different accommodation than asking to wear headphones during class.
@HarrisonW.Inefuku This is not necessarily easy. I copied my own preparation notes for one of my students, but my own preparation notes are written for me, it takes me about three times as long to write something understandable for someone else.
I think more common than the lecturer providing notes (which may go beyond reasonable accommodation), is paying someone (often another student) to take and share notes.
I would like to add that in my experience an increasing amount of professors now specifically say on the first day (or in the syllabus) to let them know if you need any special assistance within the first week of class. So I would recommend doing both - talk with your schools "Disability Services" department, AND talk with the professors after class to discuss your situation to the extent you are comfortable doing so. Most people are happy to do simple/small things, like allowing diabetics to have food/drink in class, and the only problems are when you ask for something more work intensive.
My understanding is that it's also wrong per the ADA to extend accommodations wily-nilly rather than through the office.
If you are in the United States, I would suggest you identify the office on your campus that services students with disabilities. That office can formally write you an accommodation for your disability, which you can share with your professors. By law, professors must follow the accommodations that have been created for you by the office on your campus that services students with disabilities. You do not have disclose your disability to your professors, but you do need to provide them with documentation.
(+1) Welcome to the site. I agree with what you say, but your saying "By law, professors must follow" makes it seem a bit more rigid than my experience. In my (admittedly little) experience, the office made it clear that accomodations were only to be taken within reason, e.g. I wasn't expected to make a new course or have any different standards for the students with learning disabilities. I've never had a student with physical disabilities in my courses.
I believe the request certainly isn't rude - I'd almost consider it your responsiblity to let teaching staff know the best way for you learn. How much effort the teaching staff put into servicing the request is dependent on the policies in place at your own institution.
Where I work, we'd co-ordinate with the educational support office, who would have met with you in the first instances, worked at the best process, and come to us with some recommendations (so they are looking after things like assessments and reports and the like).
To be honest, I have a student who has not reported any ADA-qualifying issue who requested (and got) permission from me to wear gun-range over-ear noise-blockers during exams (we're both very Southern, so all clichés aside, it's easy for both of us to tell that these cheap cans are not in any way specially augmented in a secretive way). I don't see that self-creating a silent zone is in any way inappropriate, it isn't disturbing others, and she made the issue far easier to deal with than she would have had she actually decided to pursue the matter as a potential ADA issue.
But yes, if you feel that an accommodation might help ameliorate your federally protected condition, then by all means, pursue it!
Its not rude to ask and that is supported by the previous answers .If you are at a real university that has real exams that have candidate numbers on them and are moderated by lecturers at different universities then when you pass a paper you are just as good or just as bad as anybody else .I had a tutor to help me when I was repeating a course that I specialised in repeating .Over 20 years later when my tutor became a senior lecturer I let news of my learning disability slip .I passed and thought that If I had told the UNI would have things been any different .I dont think so because why should they make allowances for me .
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86402 | Presenting a Negative Result
This past summer, I came up with a research project that I wanted to pursue (I am in high school). At first, I thought that the experiment would take about a month. However, I experienced more problems than I could have ever imagined. Finally, over half a year later (and after hours upon hours of research), I ran my experiment. During the whole research process, I believed that my alternative hypothesis would be supported. However, it wasn't.
I will be presenting my research at science fairs very soon, but I fear that all of my hard work will be overlooked because of my negative result. Is this fear warranted? Is there anything that I can do to ensure that this does not happen?
A falsified hypothesis is not a null result.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_result
I have little experience with Science Fairs, but in my experience research that has not led to positive results can be fairly well received if the research has been done very carefully, but the bar you need to pass is high. That is, if most people believe that A -> B, and your experiments show no support for A -> B, then there is a danger that people will conclude that you did not do your research carefully or claim that it is "obvious" that A !-> B.
If the context is a science fair, maybe you could reframe your result in a positive way (as in: reword the result as showing that you proved a positive), i.e. "you would think A implies B, but my research shows they are unconnected".
Could you please post the instructions provided for participation in at least one of these science fairs? // In general, when preparing your poster, and when standing next to your poster, answering questions about your project, be upbeat and honest, and focus on what you learned (e.g. about experimental technique).
For what its worth, even though this is a question about a high school science fair, the general nature of the question makes it still relevant here. Good question, looking forward to more answers.
Short answer: No.
I have judged science fairs in the Southern US for many years. The "negative result" is not going to affect how highly you are ranked. I once supervised high school students who won the local science fair competition and went on to be semi-finalists in the Siemens competition. Their project was mostly comprised of "negative" data suggesting that a newly reported finding in the scientific literature might be wrong: link to their project. Their "negative" data was later used in a major scientific paper link (Notice how the title contains two instances of NOT; basically a paper entirely made up of "negative" data).
Science fair projects are mainly judged on:
Clarity of presentation
Adherence to the scientific method
Logical conclusions based on the data
Coming across as professional, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and personable during the interview
What you should do:
Emphasize why it was important to test your hypothesis in the first place.
Critically analyze why the results did not support your hypothesis. Of course, the hypothesis could have been wrong, but could you have tested it in other ways? Is a technical problem a possibility (it always is)? Could you tweak your hypothesis in a way that it would explain the experimental results?
Think about alternative hypotheses and how those could be tested. Be prepared to discuss these during your presentation.
Focus on preparing an awesome looking poster,
Do not be negative or unenthusiastic during your presentation. This cannot be emphasized enough. Keep in mind that 95% of the experiments that a scientist performs "fail". And most science fair judges know this!
Good luck!
As another science fair judge, this is a fantastic answer. I'll add: also please critically analyze your experiment to see whether you could have done anything differently yourself.
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65844 | Does prestige of PhD granting insitution matter for those wanting to work in industry? And can a high level post doc position elevate an application?
I know for those wishing to have a career in academia that branding is key for securing a tenure track position. Branding is also key for certain industries at the undergrad level. I was wondering if that bias softens a bit at the PhD level, specifically for life science roles. How many doors shut if one gets a degree from a Top 30 instead of a Top 10 institution?
I figured HR recruitment would not have a clue how great your PI is in whatever field. Moreover with software based resume screening being so prevalent, searching for MIT, CalTech etc... may be a shortest route to get resumes down to reasonable number.
As a follow on question, say one gets a postdoc at an elite institution does that have any effect on said bias?
Any comments are appreciated.
Possible duplicate of http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90/university-rank-stature-how-much-does-it-affect-ones-career-post-ph-d/154#154
@Alexandros I disagree with it being a duplicate since I am referring specifically to industry and dealing more with the tier level of the school. The question in your link is very generic.
What bias are you talking about - the 'bias' of people looking at the school you graduated from? I also can't wrap my head around the statement that a Postdoc might effect 'said bias'. Can we use less catchy, and more descriptive words?
@gnometorule Yes. At the undergrad level it is quite large, but finishing a PhD is tough no matter where you go. I want to know if the bias diminishes somewhat at the Phd level, for industry roles (not limited to a research lab). So if one attends a strong school, but not necessarily Ivy or Ivy-like, how much of a ding is that against you? Can that be eliminated with a post doc at an elite institution?
I think it is very dependent on industry and the position. Pharma, biotech most probably value academic experience more than others
Just because someone got into MIT's PhD program and managed not to drop out, doesn't necessarily mean they are a great candidate. Perhaps eliminating those employers who think otherwise is not such a great loss.
Ok, get it now. I don't think we are talking about a 'bias' here: you fear that the ranking of your Ph.D. granting institution will not play in your favor with industry; if you get a Postdoc at a higher ranked school, will this help in industry? And does ranking at the graduate level matter in industry?
As a Ph.D. (PostDoc), and in many industries, you rarely come in through HR. It's probably more common to rely on contacts, friends, academic collaborators, and recruiters. This already somewhat dampens the impact of where you studied. If you hope to get in through HR, expect trouble. What I say next assumes that you largely stay near your field of study (you're not a biologist seeking to do momentum trading).
Not quite dissimilar to JeffE's answer to a related question, at the PostDoc level you are expected to have some research to show; and as you probably won't show it to HR, the people you talk to quite possibly understand what you did, or maybe even are familiar with it. They also might know, or have heard of, your PI, which you mention as well you wonder if they do. A famous alma mater is certainly nice, but it will matter much less than how highly they think of what you did, and how it fits into your possible job there.
Applying as a Ph.D. (only) in industry will put much more emphasis on your graduating institution: in many fields, even if you publish, it might not yet be printed; and the breadth and number of your contributions tends to be naturally fairly small. I think hiring, in industry, based on name makes more sense then; but your field of specialization, and what you did, still matter quite a bit.
Finally, the further your potential job is from your field of expertise (and that is common too: I've seen people go from CERN to building user interfaces), the more names matter - as is probably no surprise to you. It also matters in just making people curious about you - in the stage of getting an interview; whereas what I wrote before is you discussing a job at a desk or lab.
I'd actually argue that where you studied can make a huge difference in industry prospects, not so much due to tier, but precisely because you're more likely to go through a contact. Different institutions can have very different contacts, and the industries/companies that are more closely linked to (people at) your institution will be much easier to get jobs at. One of the most important factors of doing a post-doc is that it exposes you to an additional set of contacts.
The following is based on my experience as both a hiring manager and as a participant in the hiring process in industry.
I'll say "not so much", with the slight caveat that it slightly depends on the type of position to which you're applying. When we were hiring at the bank, we gave a lot of weight to the undergraduate institution. For those applying with PhDs, weight was given if the advisor was well known in the field, but beyond that not so much. We placed a lot more importance on the ability of the candidate to actually explain what they did quickly and concisely. A few times we had candidates who were from outstanding programs and outstanding universities, but that really only got them the initial phone screen... if they couldn't broadly explain their topic in three minutes or less they went in the reject pile like anyone else.
The same was true for postdoctoral fellowships.
I will say that there were a few candidates who got a leg up simply because they had collaborated extensively, and they had some connection with someone on the team. Again, though, that just got them in the door... we never hired someone simply because they had a performed research at a respected university.
The answer is that a better PhD program is better for your "industry" prospects, all other thing being equal. But as you noted, this tendency "softens" for PhD students.
That is because people who interview PhDs are more technically oriented themselves. PhD resumes tend to "short circuit" HR and go directly to hiring managers. These managers will want to know what you've done in your program and how well. So pick the school that best matches your aptitude and interests. If it is a Next 20 program that you will do particularly well in, that will make up for the supposed quality of the school.
Bottom line: You'll probably want to be a better student at a "Next 20" school than a mediocre student at a Top 10 school. But if you figure to be about as good at one school or another, then the Top 10 school is better for the resume.
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31495 | How should I express theorems without a proof in a research paper?
What do you do when you have a conjecture, and you run experiments that confirm your conjecture, but you are unable to provide a formal proof (perhaps because it's too complicated)? Do you name them as conjectures or observations or... what?
This is in the context of a CS theory paper.
It's still a conjecture, now with some supporting evidence.
A theorem without a proof is not a theorem.
@JessicaB: Any theorem that is literally without a proof is a monkey. Vacuously, that is.
In mathematics and TCS (which is really a branch of mathematics), if you don't have a proof, you don't have a theorem. (You write "experiments", which I will assume means "computer calculations". Please let me know if this is not the case.) Doing some computer calculations can be interesting and even sometimes publishable, but it does not constitute any kind of proof, formal or otherwise. (Added: Well, unless it does, of course. You can prove a theorem by reducing it to a finite calculation and doing that calculation by hand or by computer or some of both. You can't prove a theorem which pertains to infinitely many cases by doing finitely many of them and claiming "and so on".) Also, although the word "confirm" is often used in this way in empirical science, in mathematics to "confirm a conjecture" means to prove it.
I see two possible questions here:
How do I write up computational evidence for a result that I cannot prove in a paper?
Can I publish a paper in which I do not prove my conjecture but only have computational evidence towards it?
The first question is more straightforward. You state the conjecture -- i.e., the statement that you think is a theorem but can't yet prove. Some discussion of the provenance of the conjecture is probably a good idea but is not strictly necessary. However, if you got the conjecture from somewhere else you must indicate that. Then you document the calculations you made. Finally, you probably want to make some remarks about why the calculations make you confident in your conjecture (if that is the case). Here sometimes informal reasoning can be helpful: e.g. if your conjecture is that for two sequences of integers a_n and b_n that a_n and b_n are always congruent modulo 691, then if you check this for the first 100,000 terms then in some naive sense the probability that this happened by accident is (1/691)^{100,000}, which is vanishingly small.
The second question is much more complicated. It can be hard to publish papers in which you do not prove a theorem but "only" give computer evidence...but not as hard as it used to be. Mathematics is slowly becoming more enlightened about the merits of computer calculations. I would say though that you need to understand the field much better to be able to predict whether a paper primarily containing computations would be publishable than to publish a more "theoretical" paper: many, many referees and journals will say "no theorem, no proof, no paper", so you should expect to work much harder to sell your work.
Well, the problem is simply too complicated, and yes, by experiments I meant computational experiments.
I have been working on this problem for over 3 months now, and I am hoping to raise some discussion on the topic and perhaps even initiate some collaboration that hopefully leads to an enhanced theoretical understanding of the problem.
"Well, the problem is simply too complicated" I'm not scolding you for not being able to prove the conjecture! Every mathematician I know has conjectures they would like to prove but can't. That's almost the definition of a mathematician....
Good point! this is perhaps the first time I've encountered a conjecture that I haven't been able to solve after a few months. I guess, this is the beauty of Math!
@NeoN 3 months is not a long time to work on a reasonably complex mathematical problem.
The important thing is to be honest and clear. In any proof-oriented subject (including theoretical CS), you should carefully distinguish theorems you have proved from conjectures you believe but have not proved. It's reasonable to give evidence in favor of your conjectures (such as your experiments) or to discuss possible proof techniques that might work, as long as you are clear about what you have or haven't done.
What makes this awkward is that sometimes beginners are tempted to be a little unclear in dishonest ways. Suppose there's something you are pretty sure you could do if you had more time, and it's embarrassing to admit that you haven't yet been able to work out the details. It can be tempting to write something vague like "These techniques apply to case X as well" and rationalize it by saying it's not technically a lie, since you never actually said you applied them to complete the proof. Nevertheless, it's unethical since it misleads readers into thinking you've done more than you have.
Even if you don't feel this temptation yourself, it's important to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, so it's best to be extra careful about anything near the borderline of what you have or haven't proved.
Do you name them as conjectures or observations or what?
Conjecture sounds like the appropriate name here. Observation might make sense if this terminology is commonly used in your subfield, but it sounds potentially problematic to me. It sounds a little too much like something you could prove but are omitting the details for, rather than something you have been unable to prove (so if you use that terminology, you should be careful to make this clear).
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160935 | Has the pandemic changed opportunities for graduate funding for on-line PhDs?
In the past, I wanted to start a part-time PhD in History, but due to my geographic location and unwillingness to move, I realized there were no funding for a student like me. Usually if students want to study a PhD on-line, it required self-funding, which means $30k out of pocket minimum. Everyone advised me that, if I wanted to get funding for my PhD, I'd have to study it on-campus in a traditional format.
Given the pandemic has shaken up higher education somewhat, is this a situation I should revisit?
Is it now very common for students to receive a research fellowship to fund one's online PhD?
There's some strained legality these days around funding for remote students...I suspect it won't last beyond pandemic restrictions.
The situation has not really changed. https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/11133/13240
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160947 | Is it bad-practice to have a high citation to content ratio in academic writing?
I'm writing a high school history textbook. While writing my book, I'm finding its becoming very heavily laden with sources. If I used Turabian's footnote style, they tend to fill half the page. Perhaps 1 source per 2 lines of text. My reasons for this are:
The history involved three different groups of people, but typically
only one point-of-view has been presented in most general sources, so I'm having to check more sources from these other points of view (which has revealed to me that a lot of sources are missing important details).
There is heavy bias in much scholarship, because the scholars are writing about their own ancestors, or have much local pride, they ignore facts that contradict their developed image of their ancestor as a "hero".
Indigenous groups with no written language were part of the history, so the facts can be difficult to pull out, and requires cross-checking and confirming information across multiple sources while filtering out the biases mentioned above.
Sometimes a great source ignores the basic details, like the date of the event, so I have to include cite general sources for the date alongside the more thorough detailed source with better analysis of the event.
Is too many sources frowned upon? Most secondary textbooks I see are strangely quite absent of sources. Is there some way this is bad practice?
I don't think you should be changing your citations to fit them on the page - you should be using a different citation style.
I likely will change the citations to be placed on the page at the end of the chapters, so they don't take up much space. I'm not concerned with that issue, but whether or not having such a dense amount of sources is frowned upon.
Are you working without a publisher? Without an editor?
I've only finished 10 chapters, have 40 total, so I think it is too early for working with a publisher.
@Buffy asks a good question. It's not too early to work with a publisher if you can find one interested. Publishers know the audience you are writing for and what books for that audience should look like.
That seems like a normal amount of citations for a history textbook.
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109314 | How do I determine which of two International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2018) is genuine?
International Conference on Web Services (ICWS) is one of the top conferences for web service researchers. But this year (2018), I find there are two ICWS websites:
http://icws.org/2018 (this one is the old website for ICWS 2017, 2016..)
http://conferences.computer.org/icws/2018/ (this one is sponsored by IEEE)
How can I determine which conference is genuine? And as I'm a Chinese researcher, another thing I care about is that which one is recognized as the B-level conference by CCF (China Computer Federation)?
Both the organizing committee for the Seattle conference and the San Francisco conference have members at Chinese universities, so perhaps if you email them they could help you understand which one is recognized by the CCF. That is, if people here don't help you sort it out first!
OK. What about the first question? which one is genuine? or in other words, which one's papers will be inside the final proceedings (and indexed by EI, IEEE, Google Scholar, etc.)?
Looking a little closer, the IEEE conference in San Francisco is the one that has prior proceedings, and it has an "Important Notice":
Note that any other similarly named conferences are fresh starters beginning this year and operated by a different organization in Seattle, Washington that has nothing to do with IEEE.
The thing I can't immediately tell is whether the Seattle conference put on by "Services Society" is real or fake.
That conference says in relation to its proceedings:
The Proceedings of ICWS 2018 will be published in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) by Springer International Publishing AG. Currently the Abstracting and Indexing services covered by Springer’s data feeds for LNCS proceedings include ISI Conference Proceedings Citation Index (included in Web of Science), Engineering Index EI (Compendex and Inspec databases), DBLP, Google Scholar, IO-Port, MathSciNet, Scopus, and ZBlMath.
I did confirm that the Seattle conference is on the list of upcoming Springer Proceedings. Springer published several prior proceedings related to ECOWS 2004 and 2006, the conference the Services Society conference traces its history to:
the International Conference on Web Services (ICWS) was first conceived in June 2003 in Las Vegas, USA. Meanwhile, the First International Conference on Web Services - Europe 2003 (ICWS-Europe'03) was held in Germany in Oct, 2003. ICWS-Europe'03 is an extended event of the 2003 International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2003) in Europe. In 2004, ICWS-Europe was changed to the European Conference on Web Services (ECOWS), which was held at Erfurt, Germany.
The IEEE conference says it goes back 12 years.
The Services Society has been a registered non-profit organization in the U.S. since at least 2011, according to this IRS lookup. The Principal Officer on that registration is Zhixiong Chen of Mercy College (the mailing address on the registration matches his office address).
He mentions on that same profile page:
President of the Services Society, a non-for-profit organization, promoting collaboration between Academia and Industrial practitioners on Services Computing and delivering relevant open course modules, sponsoring with IEEE conferences like IEEE Services 2010
So, my best guess is that Services Society is related to some entity that had been involved in running the initial European Conference on Web Services; that conference perhaps became affiliated with IEEE and the name ICWS; Services Society had some minor affiliation with the IEEE ICWS; and now it is running a separate conference of the same name. (In fact, according to an announcement in IEEE Xplore, the Services Society ran the 2009 School on Cloud Computing with the 2009 5th IEEE Congress on Services (SERVICES 2009).)
What I do not understand is why, if that's the case, IEEE would say there is absolutely no link between the two. The poorly sourced ICWS Wikipedia page claims that ICWS is run by both Services Society and IEEE.
It is possible that the Services Society conference in Seattle will have a legitimate conference, and it does have a satellite conference in Shenzhen, China. However, it is definitely NOT the IEEE ICWS.
If the Chinese Computer Federation conference list does not specify that it is the IEEE ICWS conference, then there is some possibility that the Services Society conference is acceptable to them. In that case, since both the organizing committee for the Services Society Seattle conference and the IEEE San Francisco conference have members at Chinese universities, perhaps if you email them they could help you understand which one is recognized by the CCF.
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82400 | Are there accepted criteria to define an author's institutional affiliation?
I ask this question because there are institutions that pay authors an honorarium to add the institution as an additional affiliation when the authors publish, even when those authors do not have any kind of contract or appointment with the institution, nor do research or teach there. This is clearly a way to game the system and increase the number of publications accounted to that institution. This is evidently not ethical, but I do not know if there are any stated policies or regulations on this practice. The end result is that a university that does do not provide funding or resources for research will have the same number of publications as the university that does conduct and foster research.
I recall a similar question that was asked some time ago, but at a first search I couldn't find it. My feeling is that only the main institution can have rules against such fraudulent affiliations. Note however that many researchers have perfectly ethical (unpaid) multiple affiliations because they collaborate with several institutions (e.g., I have a double affiliation).
Related question: What should you do if a co-author has an unethical affiliation?
Even closer: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/41684/19607
This is pretty old, but I will provide an answer to an increasingly relevant question. Affiliation is understood to be where the major part of the work was done. If this is not the author's current primary employment, then those details should be included in the contact details and/or acknowledgements. Any paid affiliation is unethical. Surprisingly, I did not find any reference to this "creative affiliation" in the COPE standards https://publicationethics.org/.
Many publishers include a statement about what to do if affiliation changes during the publication process - i.e. how to credit the institution where the work was begun and the institution where the publication was finalized. For example "Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address." from Elsevier Guidelines for Authors (https://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-archaeological-science/0305-4403/guide-for-authors, but they all include this). It seems that what the OP describes is so unethical that no one has addressed it explicitly (yet).
Don't be afraid to be an independent researcher. No affiliation may be fine if you are not truly concerned about who gets to "own" your research. I have seen papers where the person does not have an affiliation.
As far as experience goes, an author's institutional affiliation matches the location of their name on a payroll, regardless of their publishing.
In other words:
on the payroll of University of 123 = institutional affiliation is 'University of 123'
on the payroll of no research institution = 'independent scholar'
Any other arrangement may be characterized as 'creative affiliation'(along the lines of creative accounting).
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95690 | How to see how many times a document has been cited?
I'm working on my thesis and I'd like to see if some documents that I'll use have been used before to see if the topic and focus I'm working on has been done before. At the moment it seems it hasn't, I looked for citations in Google scholar and it has only 1 citation, Academia.edu has around 2000, but I must have Academia Premium to see it. Is there any other way to look for citations? Is it worth to have Academia Premium?
Are you saying that Academia.edu claims that the paper has 2000 citations but wants you to pay to see them? Given how inclusive Google Scholar is this seems highly doubtful.
elsevier's free version of scopus, etc.
Even if subscriptions are required, your library may have access to many of the citation index type publications.
For biology and chemistry-related publications you can use Europe PMC as a search engine - it indexes citation counts and is free to use. Since it only shows open citations (those that publishers have made freely available), the citation counts will be smaller than those for the Web of Science, but you can access that info without subscribing. Alert: I work for Europe PMC.
For papers in mathematics and related fields, arXiv tracks how many times a paper has been cited by other arXiv papers. In some fields this might not be useful, but in mathematics/computer science/some fields of physics it’s going to be a very good approximation.
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102158 | Who assigns paper to reviewers for a conference and what are the challenges?
Note: I'm aware that the reviewing process in a journal has been explained elsewhere on this site.
My question is about the process for peer-reviewed conferences.
Question 1: In a peer-reviewed conference who assigns submitted papers to reviewers? and what is that party called?
Question 2: Is the party above a group of people or one person?
Question 3: What are the problems in this process? In other words, (is it fair to ask) what if a person in this process acts dishonestly?
Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/101385/20058
In very small conferences and workshops (with up to 50 submitted papers), reviewers are usually the members of the program committee. The papers are assigned manually by head organizer (Conference chair or chairs if there are more). Usually the chair knows the members of the program committee well and is able to take care of any conflicts of interest. Reviewers are also asked to declare their conflicts as soon as they get the papers to review (with implication that then the conflicted paper is reassigned).
In larger conferences, papers are assigned to tracks, headed by Area Chairs, who again do the similar job than conference chair at small conferences. In such conferences, Area Chairs may form the program committee, and the reviewers are other researchers in the field that get invited to review papers. Essentially, one level of hierarchy is added. In such conferences, paper matching is sometimes done automatically based on keywords supplied by the authors; in the same way, conflicts of interests are detected. One of such systems is Toronto paper matching system, used by many conferences:
https://openreview.net/forum?id=caynafZAnBafx
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103183 | How can multiple people grade assignments online so that different graders don't see each others' grades?
this question is related to how you do your double blind marking for assignments, we are looking at the coursework plugin for moodle but are interested in how other other institutions do this. a specialist piece of software? paper? excel spreadsheets?
To clarify this would be two markers not being able to see the grades the other marker has assigned to the student, unless the grade is within a percentage.
This would be passed to a third marker if grades cannot be agreed upon.
How many student results are you working with?
Hi, we are working with around 100 students. What about yourselves?
One lot of 180 the other 160, but I don’t have double marking - just starting to think how I would do it in excel...
This feature is currently not available in Moodle.
Please have a look at the link below.
https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Assignments/Grade_Assignments/Delegated_Grading
Trust this matches your requirement
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185382 | Which alternative names can one use to refer to a "blind experiment"?
Which alternative names can one use to refer to a "blind experiment" (defined by https://www.thefreedictionary.com/blinds as "2a. Performed or made without the benefit of background information that might prejudice the outcome or result: blind taste tests used in marketing studies.")?
A colleague recommends to replace the word "Blind" (for the sake of inclusiveness) by "masked", "hidden", "anonymous", or "unbiased", but I fear that the referees will suspect me of not knowing that I am actually referring to a "blind experiment", and negatively evaluate my submission because of that (I am sure to commit other newbie mistakes, but I do know what a blind experiment is).
Note: This is distinct from my other question (For inclusiveness sake, what is the consensus about which usage of "blind" should be changed?)
about the consensus about which of the usage of the term "blind" should be replaced: for an academic submission (to a conference, where there is no opportunity to answer to the referees, just an acceptance or rejection of the submission by the program committee based on the reports of 2 to 3 anonymous referees), I do want to replace the term "blind" so that to avoid annoying any referee...
Does this answer your question? For inclusiveness sake, which usage of "blind" should be changed?
I was the one asking this other question! They are related but distinct (in my mind at least).
Why would the usage of the term "blind experiment" annoy a referee if this is the common teminology in your field?
@JochenGlueck: My (non-coauthor) colleague threatened to refuse any future collaboration with me if I stuck to the use of the term "blind" (when I only stated that I did not understand her objection, but that is an unrelated issue). They are a potential referee, and I assume that other potential referees might share their opinion.
Thanks for your response! So what term does this particular colleague use in papers instead of "blind experiment"?
Her experiments were not blind at all (that is my contribution). I was suggested various terms, and am considering the use of the term "masked experiment" in the sense that the experimenter's view is "masked", even though no real "mask" is involved (just turning the screen so that the subject sees its display but not the experimenter). ["hidden experiment" sounds misleading, and "unbiased" preposterous, as there could be many other bias!]
Are you sure "anonymous referee" is the same as "reviewer in a blind-review process"?
@EarlGrey the concepts are related but not identical. I added details to my note to precise the context: I will submit to a conference where there is only one opportunity to convince the referee, no discussion.
I've had an opinion along the lines of the other commenters for a while, that substituting blinded would be far too confusing to be worthwhile. However, today I used 'double-blind' in a presentation and was informed that my institution employs people with limited vision who have personally registered their objection to the term ‘blinded’ in the context of blinded trials.
In terms of practical substitutes, NASA uses the term "dual-anonymous" for peer review. This is sufficiently entrenched that they don't seem to need to define on first use.
This paper also offers a reasonably convincing argument to me that 'blind' isn't the best term even just for tangential reasons, and starts to make the argument that blinded could be replaced for scientific reasons for being imprecise. It also mentions some practical issues with its use:
She is told that she is part of a double blind trial in which she and
the doctor will be blinded to the treatment. Taking fright, she
withdraws her consent and goes home, terrified that this “blinding”
experiment may deprive her of what little vision she has left.
The term “blinding”—commonly used in clinical trials—is particularly
inappropriate in the ophthalmological setting, not least because an
outcome measure of a particular trial could indeed be blindness.
They suggest "masked".
"Masked" is used as a substitute in even quite old papers without first defining it, and it's introduced in a few university texts on the topic.
The APA Manual of Style, 11th edition, says
The equivalent term masking (or masked review or assessment) is
preferred by some investigators and journals, particularly those in
ophthalmology (see 5.7.1, Confidentiality During Editorial Evaluation
and Peer Review and After Publication, and 19.5, Glossary of
Statistical Terms).
A Springer journal refers to the process as "journal’s peer-review system is masked (i.e., double-blind). Thus, leave all identifying information off the manuscript."
In fact, a Google Scholar search for 'double masked study design' returns ~800K results (compare to the 2.3 M results from 'double blinded study design'); adding flags -opthamology -eye to remove that field yields ~500k results from broadly across the life sciences.
So I at least feel reasonably comfortable that my audience will be familiar with (or can straightforwardly learn) the term "masked" in place of "blinded".
This paper offers some fairly reasonable objections to even the double- part, mentioning the blind- part only briefly:
In some situations, it can be confused with the condition of being
without sight [2, 5, 12, 20, 22, 23] Some authors prefer “masking” to
“blinding,” although the meaning of either term in a clinical trial
may not be readily apparent to nonnative English speakers [18, 22].
Further, some authors use the terms interchangeably [5,6,7, 10,11,12,
15, 18, 24, 25], others insist that only masking be used [17, 20, 23],
and still others insist that only blinding be used [2, 5, 22]. In
addition, masking is sometimes used to describe how treatments are
made indistinguishable [18, 19, 25, 26], whereas blinding usually
indicates which groups are unaware of treatment assignment
[1,2,3,4,5,6]. Finally, searching the literature for “blinded,”
“partially blind,” or “fully blind” randomized trials also identifies
dozens of unwanted citations to the condition of being without sight.
The reviewer comments make it clear just how much of a minefield this topic is:
“Fully blinded” makes sense only if everybody agrees on what “fully”
means. The problem is not the definition proposed by the reviewer,
which is excellent. The problem is whether researchers will define
“fully” the same way. The literature identifies at least 12 groups or
individuals that can be blinded in a trial. The likelihood that a
study will blind all of 12 groups is close to zero, meaning that
nearly all studies would have to be described as “partially blinded,”
a term no more informative than “blinded.”
And finally there's a really good suggestion along the lines of cbeleites' Alternative (above), in the reviewer commentary, which is both scientifically unambiguous and can sidestep this problem:
We also propose that all trials described as blinded include the details in a standard “Who Knew”
table that would indicate whether each of the 6 groups most commonly blinded was or was not
blinded, what information they were blinded to, how blinding was implemented, and whether it
was compromised during the trial.
I think that your best approach is to explain in the paper that
Rather than referring to our trial as "blind," because [your reasons here], we use the term "masked."
I don't think it would be reasonable to object to mentioning the former term "blind" in the context of explaining why you are not using it. It isn't as clearly bad as some other words.
(single|double|triple) blind experiment as well as blinding or employing a blind* against ... are technical terms with well-established meaning.
I'd like to point out that substituting something else for a well-established technical term in itself makes a text targeted for the corresponding technical audience less inclusive, burdening readers with questions about the precise meaning of the employed term. E.g., whether that particular term is used to emphasize subtle differences to the established term.
And it is much less inclusive against non-native speakers of the paper language, who are familiar with the technical terms, but to whom your substitute term may not come as a natural choice.
I'd therefore suggest that you stick to the established technical term (and, as a side note: please give a precise description of your blinding techniques ["... were blinded by .... against ..."].)
If I'd feel an additional need to explicitly express respectfulness for blind people, I'd put a footnote that I judged the potential of verbal injury to bind people against the potential loss of inclusiveness due to non-standard terminology and decided in favor of the established term.
*As a personal side note: *
* which suggests to me that we may be talking about blinds as in curtain or shutter rather than blind as in people. Which of course also has a root in not seeing.
Along this line of reasoning, if you are forced to substitute the term, single/double curtain experiment may be a possibility: "masked", "hidden", "anonymous", or "unbiased" all are meaningful in combination with "experiment", but do not have the same meaning as blinding (one may go for "masked", but at least in my field, masking is already used for multiple other entirely different effects/approaches). This creates a danger of the resulting text being misleading.
In contrast, I believe that "curtained experiment" is an entirely new term and while being burdensome for readers, it forces readers to look up and use your definition.
As an alternative, you could give a precise description of whom you blinded how and against what effects without mentioning the term blinding. This would take some more space and words, but it is anyways far more informative than saying only blind experiment.
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204926 | How to cite articles published under another name?
QUESTION
If an author published an article with the name A, but later changed their name to B, using the latter in their publications.
Is there any general consensus about how to cite their work authored as A alongside their work as B, in order to avoid confusing the reader (believing those are two distinct authors when they are in fact the same person)?
Options which come to mind would be to cite them
as "B (formerly known as A) introduced the concept of (...)[1] and proved that (...)[2]",
as "B-A introduced the concept of (...)[1] and proved that (...)[2]" (albeit this might be confusing), or
emailing the person to ask them their preference (which I will probably do).
Is one of them the usage, or is there any that I could not think about?
REAL LIFE EXAMPLES
A researcher adopted the name of their spouse ("K") in their scientific articles, but later divorced their spouse and published under their original family name ("M").
A researcher published under their family name ("V") but later married and combined their name with that of their spouse ("W", resulting in "V-W").
I want to avoid confusing the reader when citing work published under both the older and the present name, but hopefully without wasting space and reader's attention on personal details in a footnote. Lacking a proper answer I would contact the person, but I prefer to ask first if there is a general consensus.
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65464/citing-an-author-who-changed-his-name https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44213/if-you-change-your-name-while-doing-research-can-you-list-both-names-on-a-publi https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10926/should-i-cite-author-names-as-they-appear-in-the-journal-or-as-i-know-them-to-be https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/91872/how-do-i-handle-a-colleagues-gender-change-when-citing-their-paper
Are you talking about a bibliographic reference & citation? Or about mentioning so-and-so in a literature review? If the former, I think you also need to account for the fact that the author's name attached to the article (possibly their former name) is an important piece of information for your readers who might want to find & consult the work you're citing; which would argue for citing their articles under the name A.
I would say: use the form found in the published paper. After all, the purpose of the reference is to help someone find the paper, isn't it?
Depending on circumstances, there may be reasons that a person might prefer not to have their change of name highlighted. Even if the individual doesn't mind, your readers will not know their views and may question your motives in announcing the issue publicly. In most cases I think it would best to avoid mentioning it at all.
Sorry if I was not clear: I will be citing works from before and after the change of names. Just using the publication names could create the impression that they are distinct persons, which could be confusing. I added a minor comment to clarify this in the question.
An important real-life example that may affect handling: trans people sometimes change their name, and dead-naming such a person is (usually) considered quite rude.
"Just using the publication names could create the impression that they are distinct persons..."? Not at all. Every other option creates the confusion. Just sticking to the bibliographic record is the only way to go. I do not care about the family situation of researches I am citing. In fact, your knowledge could be outdated. The person could have changed the name again and without your knowledge.
@D.BenKnoble There are actually some options for them to update their names in published papers.
@JackRed not exactly: I am referring to how I refer to the authors in the text of the article, not in the bibliography (no way I will change how they are cited in the bibliography, it should be as close as possible to how it was published).
If it's even necessary at all, use a footnote
My view is that the citation is an identification of the paper not the author. Moreover, for most research work we are interested in setting out the content of the relevant literature rather than worrying about who wrote it. The latter may be important in papers setting out the history of the development of a field, or writing about a specific researcher/author, but it is not usually the focus of our literature review and referencing. Consequently, in the standard case (i.e., when writing a paper that is not about the history of the development of a field or a specific researcher/author) there is usually no need to make any effort to identify that different paper are or aren't by the same author. If you refer to "Smith (1997)" and "Jones (1999)", both by the same author who started as Ms Smith but later got married and changes her name to Mrs Jones, this would still be fine because it still correctly identifies the papers at issue.
It sounds like you might be dealing with a slightly trickier case where the latter paper is an updated version of essentially the same work. If this is the case and you want to note for the reader that this is the same person, my view is that a footnote is perfectly adequate for this. You say you want to avoid wasting the reader's attention on a footnote, but that is precisely the purpose of footnotes --- to give some ancillary detail separated out from the body of the paper so as not to distract the flow of discussion.
It is also worth noting that this same problem occurs more broadly than just when there is a change of name. It can occur when different people have the same surname (often because people from the same family have become academics in the same field) and it can even occur because we have long lists of authors on some papers and so we only list them partially, with et al referring to the other authors. Thus, a set of papers all by the same authors (let us call them Nguyen, Jameson, Xi, and Foster) might be cited as "Nguyen et al", "Jameson et al", "Xi et al" and "Foster et al", leading to essentially the same situation you describe.
I think this is the right answer. The point of a citation is to allow readers to find the referenced paper. You can't find a paper if you don't provide the name of the authors as it was used on that paper. In all likelihood, you will not know anything about the lives of almost all authors you will ever cite, so not mentioning anything about changed names does not strike me as wrong.
Your last point is especially true in fields where the last author is the senior author. In that case the first author might be the PhD student, followed by a post-doc, another colleague and only at the end the senior author. When a new paper is published, it will be by a new student, new post-doc but same senior author, who well likely be in the "et al." part of the authors' list.
I guess this is little more than an opinion, but I think that citations should be made "as published" without alteration. That is the formal part. If you want to add a note that the name has been changed from A to B it would be fine, but the citation itself refers to an historical record.
My preference in adding a note would be to put it after the citation itself, perhaps in a footnote, not as an alteration of it. This aids in searching for things.
Imagine a case with three authors, all of whom have changed their names. Suppose it is also a case in which authors are listed alphabetically. "Who the heck are "Able, Baker, and Croft. There was a paper by Xavier, Yosarian, and Zeno with that title."
As a side note, I also suggest that new academics choose a name for publication purposes that they will stick with throughout their career. The common or legal name can be different from the publication identity. Among other things, your CV will be clearer.
I will be citing works from before and after the change of names. Just using the publication names could create the impression that they are distinct persons, which could be confusing. I added a minor comment to clarify this in the question. OF COURSE, the bibliography will have the publication names.
I don't even see the need to make a notation in the vast majority of cases, unless the biographical record of the cited author is under discussion in the paper.
@ScottSeidman, yes, I agree. The record is what it is. Changing the names, can imply a new paper (and possible plagiarism), just as not changing them can imply a different author.
I added an interesting example to my answer.
@yarchik, to whom are you addressing the comment? I think I say the opposite. Cite the paper as published. Or are you addressing the OP?
I agree with the previous answers that the most important use of a reference is to find the work in question. So I would always begin with the name on the work itself. Nevertheless, I consider identifying the author to be a second worthwhile purpose, so, if the author is better known under a different name, I would also give that name, usually in parentheses and often with an equals sign. For example, "Jaime Ihoda (= Haim Judah)". As far as I can remember, no editor, referee, or copy-editor has objected to my using this format (admittedly a small sample, since the issue comes up only rarely).
Stylistically I think the equals sign is a bit odd outside of a mathematical context, you could perhaps replace it with née: originally or formerly called
@Wolfie But né/née creates additional problems. It is gendered so you may not know which version to use, and it specifically refers to the birth name which may be different from either name you are giving (or the wrong way round). For example, you might want to cite "Mary Westmacott (= Agatha Christie)", but née would only be appropriate if followed by "Agatha Miller".
@EspeciallyLime The 2nd definition "originally or formally called" which I quoted from Merriam Webster is not gendered or specifically referring to a birth name, that's just its most common usage. The Agatha Christie example is an alias, so "a.k.a" would work, it's also not what either of OP's examples were describing.
@Wolfie née literally means "born" (feminine).
I don't know what to say, other than its adopted English meaning being exactly what the referenced dictionary states it is
X (who also [or later] published as Y) would probably work pretty well.
There is very rarely a need to do this. Cite the paper exactly as listed in the indices of record.
I'll add this example, written by an old late colleague, Bob Doty. He was a founder of the Society for Neuroscience, and the first (I think) president.
He wrote a retrospective on the work of Ivane S. Beritashvili https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030645220901121X
That name is actually a diminutive (or some other form of name variation). Much of Beritashvili's work was published under "Beritoff". Bob cited the works under the name they were published under.
(As an aside, Bob cited me in that, and it's one of the things I'm most proud of)
When following your institution's referencing rules, are you citing the paper and the author is just a part of the citation or are you citing the author?
Maybe a bit cynical, but the answer is obvious – we are always referencing a paper as it was published and changing the paper's author in your citation (i.e. not writing the name(s) written on the paper) would result in referencing a paper that doesn't exist, which is – of course – wrong.
Hmmm. I guess I don't understand down votes on this.
In no way am I suggesting to change the names in the bibliography part (which should obviously stay identical to that in the paper being referenced), but rather in the sentences describing the history of previous research (e.g. "Smith\footnote{Formerly knwon as Jones.} defined the concept of (...) [1] and later proved that (...) [2].")
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161029 | Will a journal reject a paper for citing an Encyclopedia?
When writing a paper, when I identify some area I'm uncertain of, I try to track down a good source in JSTOR, the library, etc. I am in a situation where I found there is no academic source available on the subject. Scholars studying the topic within the confines of a specific territory, I could find none presenting the information globally.
To be really specific about the case, I need info on the territories a European nation acquired globally, changes to that territory over time. All sources I uncovered were territory-specific, and it would seem silly to cite 10 separate books for this general information.
So that leaves me citing the Encyclopedia in about 10 places in the article, which I normally stay away from except for building background knowledge. Is that something that will be a problem to publishers if I have citations to something like Encyclopedia Britannica?
Things that I've seen cited in research papers include encyclopedias, preprints, this website, Reddit and 4chan. Certainly there is not a blanket "citing non-research-paper things gets you rejected" rule.
No
If other secondary sources like review articles are acceptable, then an encyclopedia is acceptable.
If the information is a well-documented, undisputed territorial boundary, then secondary sources should be adequate.
Personally, I have never heard of a paper being rejected for citing the wrong type of source in my field of research. If the source is wrong or irrelevant, that could be a problem, but type of source does not matter. In physics, non-peer reviewed sources like ArXiv can be cited, and these are less reliable than encyclopedias.
The answer depends on the nature of the information and the field - context you haven't provided and can't really on this site.
In general, information in the Encyclopedia Brittanica should count as reasonably reliable general information. You must cite it if you quote directly, and probably should in any case at all questionable. (You need not for, say, the dates of the Civil War.)
That said, relying heavily on that source for current (technical) information may well be a reason for an editor or referee to reject your manuscript.
"That said, relying heavily on that source for current (technical) information may well be a reason for an editor or referee to reject your manuscript." - Why? Certainly not more than relying on outdated articles in journals.
Can you give an example of a type of information or field where this would get a rejection I do not believe such a thing exists.
@AnonymousPhysicist I have no direct knowledge of this. I do know that if I were to referee a (math) paper that quoted wikipedia or the Brittanica for a theorem I would ask for a reference in a refereed publication.
Then I think you think the answer is no. Please edit. Revisions are not rejections. Despite the tagline "The Free Encyclopedia" it is clear the question is not asking about Wikipedia.
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160410 | Is there a search tool for finding primary sources in US History?
If I search a tool like JSTOR, ProQuest, or Academic Search Complete, I typically just find secondary sources. Occasionally I can find primary sources there, but only when it is part of a translation or transcription project, but it is rare for me to find these appear in my results. Sometimes I can find books that compile these, but one $20 book might contain just 40 primary sources, which seems minuscule.
I'm looking for US History resources like letters, dairies, military orders, military reports, commission reports, etc.
Is there a search tool that compiles a vast database of primary sources?
I doubt it. The vast vast majority of primary sources are still only available on paper in the sole original copy. There's a reason that historians have to travel to do their research.
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18793 | What are the different components of degree titles called?
Some degree titles have many components, e.g.:
Master of Arts in Psychology: Behavioral Health
|_A__|_B_____|_C___________|_D________________|
Another e.g.:
Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction: Special Education
|_A__|_B__________|_C___________________________|_D________________|
What are these components called?
To take one of your examples:
Master of Arts in Psychology: Behavioral Health
|_A__|_B_____|_C___________|_D________________|
"Master" is the degree. Etymologically, "degree" comes from "degré": the step of a stair (or rung of a ladder). "Degree" can be synonymous with "level" or "extent" - it is a measure. You could say "the level of a degree", but that would be a tautology. It's not incorrect, but "level" is redundant there - "degree" already says everything that you'd be trying to get from "level". Degree is a very flexible word, and can be used to refer to just part A, parts A+B, parts A+B+C, and parts A+B+C+D.
Then either:
"Psychology" is the subject and "Behavioral Health" is the speciality, or "Psychology: Behavioral Health" is the subject. You might also hear "field" used instead of "subject".
"of Arts" doesn't really have a well-recognised name. You could call it type, kind, field, sort, school or faculty, but in the end, if you want to ask what sort of Master's someone has, you'll probably end up saying something like: "What kind of Master's? Master of Science, Arts, MBA, something else?"
I really don't think that A should be called the degree. An MBA is not the same degree as an MPhil or an MS. I've followed up with details in my own answer.
I am not aware of either (a) a consistent way of referring to the parts of the degree title or, more fundamentally, (b) a consistent way of deciding even what goes into the degree titles! None of my degrees have a colon or any listed specialty or sub-field. For that matter, what I translate from Latin as a masters degree is actually a Scientiæ Magister (which should properly be abbreviated SM, not MS).
According to academic tradition, all PhD are degrees in philosophy. As a result, a PhD in biology is a doctoral degree in philosophy (in the sense of thinking and research) with an specialty in biology. On the other hand, a DSci would be a doctoral degree in science in the field of biology. It's not clear to me that we would want to refer to the fields or specialties in that case the same way in any sort of rigorous way.
EnergyNumbers' answer seems like a good attempt to parse out the answer. That said, I agree with Shane's answer that "Master of Arts" is the name of the degree. So, in:
Master of Arts in Psychology: Behavioral Health
|_A__|_B_____|_C___________|_D________________|
I would say that A+B is the degree. A is not the degree because an MBA is simply not the same degree as an MS, MFA, MPH, MPhil, etc.
C is the field, subject, area, or specialty. D is the sub-field, sub-area, or sub-specialty. I think adding a "sub-" makes this relationship clear.
I would call "A" the type, or maybe the level, of the degree. I like level because if I were to ask someone what their highest level of degree was, I would expect to hear something like doctorate, masters, bachelors, or associates and would not expect to hear that it was a bachelors of science.
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18573 | Do any schools maintain records of when instructors arrive and depart the classroom?
Recently, my college began placing staff around the school to record when instructors arrive. The record is to the second. A school announcement also warned against arriving late and ending lessons early by even fraction of a minute. I am somewhat surprised to find this in a tertiary institution. How common is this?
"I am somewhat surprised to find this in a tertiary institution." I am not. Only a tertiary institution would have so much free cycles left to spare as to be able to pull this off, and faculty so unworthy for such a practice to be gainful in any sense. Decent institutions don't have to worry about stupid stuff like that.]
@Kuba I think "tertiary" here means third-level (i.e. college/university level), not third-class.
@user10529 In any case, the institution of such a policy makes the instituting institution a tertiary one, as in third-class :)
I thinks it depends if the instructor is Tenured, part time or a contract instructor. For the later two, I would believe that the school would have some time sheet system for payroll purposes. Its becoming common.
Temple university has a template for time sheet for instructors
http://www.temple.edu/cjtp/pdfs/Instructor%20Timesheet.pdf
Also, check out this link
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/kean_university_now_requires_f.html
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18513 | Is "no late work" a common policy?
When I wrote my syllabus for this term, I added the line "Late work will not be accepted." In the past, I just took off a large percentage of the grade per day, but I became tired of the added work of managing papers that students handed to me at random times and places.
The students, naturally, complain this policy too harsh, especially when some larger projects are worth 25% of their grade. I searched the Internet to try to establish what the norm is. I found many syllabi from famous universities, but found very few even list any policies at all.
Is "no late work" a typical rule?
"took off a large of the grade"? slice? piece?
As a student, I had a number of courses which did not accept late submissions at all. I also had courses which had similar rules to what you've done previously, deducting points for late work, and other courses with other different policies besides. I see nothing wrong with a "no late work" policy that is clearly stated in the syllabus. (I was an undergraduate in Texas.)
Oh my that's bad. Even exams can and should be able to be made up for a good reason. 25% of the grade lost for a couple of days is insane.
Yes, it is very common. For examples you can try Google queries like "no late work will be accepted" site:harvard.edu.
@Joshua I have a hard time seeing what would qualify as "insane" in what the OP proposed.
In industry, late work could cause serious consequences such as huge financial loss. You are doing your students a big favor by imposing no late work policy so that they learn this precious lesson as early as possible if they are going to work in industry after graduation.
Is “no late work” a common policy? It should be.
As a student I have found a mix of approaches based on the size of the assignment. For small (less than 10% of the grade) no late work is accepted, and for larger ones they have the sliding scale of ~5%/day.
If a student hands in work late, make sure to enquire if they have applied for an extension, in case they have a valid reason to be late (illness, bereavement and other personal problems) Red tape sometimes takes long to come through, and all you need to do is write the date they handed it in on the paper and delay marking it until you receive their extension confirmation. (It took me 2 months to get my official extension confirmation when I was in Uni once)
I thought that it was ALWAYS implict.
Due to a much criticize, I have delete my post. Chenqui.
for exceptions, see http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21365/being-the-right-kind-of-demanding-as-a-college-instructor
One issue not covered by the many good answers is proportionality.
There's nothing wrong with having firm deadlines and sticking to them, or allowing a grace period with corresponding deductions, and so on. But it's your job as lecturer to make sure the 'punishment fits the crime'. If you have a zero-tolerance late policy and a short time window for a hard assignment that counts for a lot of points, then the policy is disproportionately harsh even if it's fair and clearly stated. I bring this up because you mentioned assignments/projects that carry upto 25% of the grade.
This is partly why I use a sliding scale late policy, where students can turn in things late, but lose a percentage of their score for each day they're late, upto a week for a 2-week assignment at which point they earn nothing. If you wish to have firm deadlines for a project that accounts for a large portion of the grade, then you might consider creating intermediate deadlines to break up the penalty. This way, students can learn the consequences of missing deadlines without facing huge penalties. It is also more robust to unforeseen events that no one can control.
Codified rules are good. They don't preclude you from being accomodating of special situations. Say a student approaches you well before the deadline and has valid reason to be late (illness, tragedy, ...). This might be obvious to many, but maybe it needs to be said.
(Also, I challenge that university attendees should be forced to do anything. Give them material, give them offers for support, and then the exam. Those who can not motivate and organise themselves should fail. Unfortunately, that point of view is not economically (US et al) and/or politically (EU et al) opportune.)
True. What I meant to say was that the OP mentioned zero tolerance AND lots of points. Then a short time window is the last piece that turns this into an unfair policy.
On another hand the final exam is worth more and showing up late is not acceptable....
One percentage point per day is not enough IMO. I like multiplier = 0.90 ^ (days late), which is 100%, 90%, ~81%, ~73%, ~66%, ~59%, ~53%, ~48%... but never quite gets to zero.
Concidering the strength of the punishment for not making the deadline, I think that it should be at least so high that students cannot take advantage of being late on purpose and using the extra time to produce better work – otherwise it would be unfair to those who are on time (which is one essential argument for deadlines). What exactly makes a punishment appropriate depends however so much on the nature of the task that it does not make sense to discuss actual numbers here.
@Nick S: Every college I've been into has rules for making up the final exam. Apply them to the other assignments.
@Joshua And those rules apply in special circumstances.... There is a huge difference IMO between allowing a repeat due special circumstances and allowing late work...Note that students complaining that late work is not accepted is not the same as "in special circumstances" late work is not accepted......
I've never taken a class where we were directly punished for showing up for an exam late. The punishment was always implicit and proportional (if you show up late, you have less time to finish; the later you are, the less time you get).
@BrendanLong The deadline for an exam is not the start of the exam, is the end of the exam. The equivalent of the start of the exam would be when the assignments are posted/announced...
In the UK, it is normal to have a deadline in exams, usually 30 minutes after the start which you must meet in order to sit the exam. This is typically also the time after which you can leave the exam early.
Don't you feel that the grade you give a student should reflect the quality of their work? Unless you are teaching a course in time management, I don't see how the student's time management skills should affect the grade at all. IMO you either accept what they hand in, or you don't. If you do accept it, you grade it on its quality, same as you do for what every other student handed in.
Disclaimer: I am a student in Central Europe (Computer Science), but an enthusiastic one ;)
"No late work" rules are common for both courses with many (>100) and with few participants. Usually, there will still be a couple of students trying to get a deadline-extension, but in my experience this number is far smaller if you make the "no late work" rule clear to everyone.
Just keep in mind that students have other work besides your course and make sure that there's enough time to do the assignment. I don't really see the point to give less than two weeks - if a student falls ill for a couple of days or is otherwise occupied, a second week will give him or her the chance to nevertheless produce a good solution.
Even for regular homework assignments, I think that giving the students two weeks time will result in far better hand-ins: they can ask questions/request clarifications one week after the assignment was published in the lecture.
+1 for "make sure there's enough time." Even for a short assignment, don't assume that I can find an hour in the next two days to complete it.
"I don't really see the point to give less than two weeks." One possible point is that students retain much more from a lecture if they do a follow-up assignment as soon as possible after the lecture -- two weeks later is almost as bad as two months later.
@MarkMeckes If you want the follow-up assignment to immediately follow the lecture, make it an in-class assignment. Otherwise, don't assume that students should be able to rearrange their schedules to accommodate your tight deadline, however well-intentioned.
@ff524: I don't expect my students to rearrange their schedules, I expect them to arrange their schedules around the classes they're taking.
There is little point in giving two weeks if they work on every assignment two days before deadline.
@Raphael We were often forced into those two days due to projects for other classes. In my experience, professors seem to like to assume that they're the only ones that give homework, and assign due dates accordingly, not taking into account we have stuff to do for other classes as well.
@Izkata: True, but that situation is (after some burn-in) independent of the length of any assignment. (And no, the assumption is rather "that's doable, so those that should pass will manage".)
@Raphael It's uncommon for classes to pack your schedule so you never have free time. The issue is that sometimes you'll get four or five classes assigning a "reasonable" homework assignment at the exact same time. The homework feast-of-famine situation happened to be a couple times, and it was really annoying because the workload would have been fine if I could have spread it out a little bit more.
@BrendanLong Well, at my department you get one exercise sheet per week for every course you take (with few exceptions). So you always have things to do. And, apparently, (some) students are particularly bad at managing/balancing that load and prioritising ("Can I hand in on Mondays instead? I want to drive home every Thursday afternoon.").
@BrendanLong That type of problem is very common in germany. Oftentimes, tests are clustered in 1-2 weeks, which creates huge timing issues. But this type of problem also occurs at the end of the semester: everyone gets their assignments from every course. I really liked teacher which gave assignments early in the semester, so you had a chance to spread out the workload.
@ff524 It is absolutely OK to assume a student has 1hr to do a short assignment in 2 days if you either (1) announce this policy on the first day of class and in your syllabus or (2) post all of the assignments online at once on the first day of class. This allows students to work ahead if need be, and schedule their time in advance. I think 2 is more reasonable than 1.
I am sure this varies between lecturers/courses; some universities may have more or less stringent policies but none that I have seen. In my own surroundings, a deadline used to be a deadline. This has softened over time due to many circumstances. Lecturers/teachers are more stressed and enforcing deadlines inevitably involves more work; students seem to find more and more excuses for not being on time. It is hard to point the finger in one or the other direction.
It is, however, interesting to think about the fact that deadlines are still deadlines in society. If you do not send in your tax report in time you are fined; if yo do not pay your bills you are "fined" etc. More critically, if you cannot finish a work task on time you may lose out on salary increases promotion or even lose a job, the latter particularly if you run your own business. So learning to cope with deadlines is important yet it seems to not be prioritized.
So what can be done? Key is to be very clear on what will happen from the start. If you make assessment criteria you can state that a late task means fail/zero points or whatever the perspective is. At the same time you can say that for a larger task, points will be deducted or grade lowered a step at a time after each time period the work is late. My former advisor gave all of us the option of being late but told us that points will be deducted. It was up to us to judge if we would benefit from being late (Better answer gave more points than was deducted for being late). This fostered some form of responsibility where you as a student had the power to decide.
So I do not think that it is difficult to impose rules for lateness that allows students to assess the effects of being late. Learning is of course about learning a subject but it is also about learning to function in society (in the work place) and that involves developing work standards that are good. So when imposing rules that involve lateness, it is also important to make the rules very clear and also to provide suggestions for what you perceive as a good work ethic/schedule to pass the tasks well, i.e. provide the students with enough information to also see what will not work. If you fail to do so the lateness effects may only seem as punishment.
+1 for So learning to cope with deadlines is important yet it seems to not be prioritized.
True, though if you don't pay your bills, you're fined, you aren't generally immediately sent to collections or thrown in jail. If you don't send in your tax report on time, you have to deal with bureaucracy, fill out a bunch of papers, and probably won't get your refund very quickly, but you will still generally get it eventually. Learning to deal with deadlines is definitely good, but still, the real world isn't usually "turn it in on time or you're just completely screwed with no recourse", either.
@neminem ... but losing a significant amount of points isn't exactly "being screwed with no recourse" either. It's exactly what you mentioned for the other examples - it's quite bad, and you would generally want to avoid it, but it's not the end of the world if it happens.
As I understand it, there are a lot of career paths (e.g. medical school) where having a single 'C' on a college transcript is an automatic and irrevocable disqualification. And if you have a 'no late work' policy and individual assignments worth 25% of the grade, you're talking about giving an otherwise perfect student a 'C'.
@DanielMcLaury And if the students shows up late for the exam, you are also giving an otherwise perfect student a "C"... If the assignments for a class are worth 25%, then they should be a higher priority for that student than a 10% assignment... And we are speaking about probably multiple assignments worth 25%, being late once is not the end of the world... Being late always would be an issue, but then would you really want to accommodate that student?... And since you brought up medical school, would you want the student which is always late to be your heart surgeon?
"And we are speaking about probably multiple assignments worth 25%, being late once is not the end of the world"
Sorry, what? If you miss a single assignment worth 25% of your grade, then your grade tops out at 75%.
I would say that in general it depends. If assignments are going to be happening regularly or are kind of a hard mathematics course (think calculus, differential equations...) then I think the no late work policy is valuable. This is particularly true if you plan to post a solution to the assigned problems shortly afterwards.
On the other hand in a class that I teach most of the assignments are more project oriented. As a result they will take longer than a normal assignment, and they are also far more open-ended (a solution from student A may look nothing like solution from student B, but they may both be completely valid). As a result the approach that some students use may lead them to take longer on an assignment than others. I use a sliding scale as discussed above; Typically I allow 1 week grace where each day costs a few percentage points, and after that the assignment is not accepted.
as for pros and cons,
pros:
students seem to like the flexibility, sometimes many of their assignments are due in one or two days and this allows some buffering (at a cost)
with a digital submission like blackboard the late grading is very easy to do
assignments appear to have more work put into them, instead of students doing the bare minimum they tend to explore their solutions more
cons:
since introducing the policy some students tend to turn in homework later (typically 1-3 days)
some students treat the final deadline (1 week late) as the deadline, so a limited number of students will turn in their homework late consistently
Overall I am happy with the solution though, and I would suggest offering a slight grace period where it doesn't make your life too difficult. The main approaches that I've seen being either % off per day, or x number of free late days for the class.
+1 for "if you plan to post a solution to the assigned problems shortly afterwards," which seems to be an issue not addressed by the other answers.
As an undergrad computer science/philosophy major at a top 10 school in the United States, I would say that 90% of the classes I have taken have had a no late work policy. Particularly after the end of freshman year, it's understood that you need to get your work in on time.
However, it's usually understood in these classes that there is still the option to ask the professor for an extension, which will almost certainly be granted in cases of illness, etc, unless the class is just too large/has an automated grading system (checkouts of code on a particular date from SVN, for example) that prevents this. The late policy covers the case where a student just doesn't hand in his or her work when it's due and says nothing to his or her professor, and there is really no excuse for that.
I think it depends a lot on the culture and the institution. In America, er, a decade or two ago, I remember there was usually some penalty for late work at the Universities I and my friends attended, but "no credit for late work" was rare. However when I was at university in England, there were no penalties for late work in any of my classes. Even very late work was not considered a problem. Personally, I found that having all the time I needed to do the work, resulted in me being far more productive (if not as timely, but no one cared about that), and doing much more interesting and better writing, as well as not abusing my sleep by staying up all night.
I find the last part interesting, as typically when one is late on an assignment it results in less time for the following assignments... And then you get no better writing and more abusing sleep..
Ah but if no assignments have punitive deadlines, that doesn't need to happen. My overall amount of work done went up by a lot, actually, as I would actually spend several productive days working on a paper, revising it, turning it in when I was happy with it. So it didn't create a backlog - it just had me feeling no deadline pressure or resentment, and doing the work when I was ready and had thought of something interesting to write about, instead of stressing and resenting the deadline and doing something at the last minute, losing sleep, etc.
I highly doubt that any instructor would accept assignments long after the final examination. Typically the final exam is a hard punitive deadline for all the assignments... Which means that the total time you can spend on all the assignments is the same, no matter how deadlines are set... It is an illusion that with no strict deadline, you get more time for all assignments, but this is a very popular thought among the students... The reality is that you only get extra time if you start the assignments late... If you have 2 weeks for an assignment but you only start it a day or two before ..
... the deadline, yes by extensions one actually gets more time and less abusing sleep. But exactly the same result can easily be accomplished by starting the assignment 2-3 days earlier... Or, and some of my students are shocked when I tell them this, one should simply start the assignment 2 weeks before the deadline as one is expected.
Have you heard the expression, "what we resist, persists?" Do you think the shock of a student hearing that they could start assignments early is about not having heard it before, or about having to be punished into learning the truth of that obvious statement? I think the suffering and head-butting around deadlines comes from the power conflict in the situation. It's not about learning the obvious truth of when things could be done, and it doesn't have to be a stressful power struggle, and when it's not about that, it can be about much more interesting things.
At least, that was my actual experience, and it made a very dramatic difference for me. If I need to turn in a paper in exactly two weeks or I will be punished, I am likely to resent it, put it off, and be reactivated about power stuggles, and stay up all night the night before and crank something out. If I can turn it in when it works for me, and it's no big deal when, then I will stew on it till I think of something I am actually interested in, and be happy about doing it, and take the time I want until I'm satisfied with it. It made all the difference for me, and I'd never want to go back.
It really depends a lot of the course... If the assignment is a long creative work, yes I agree you cannot force inspiration and then a flexible deadline might make a difference... But then that's a completely different story, 2 weeks for such an assignment is a terrible deadline... And at my University, I never heard of any colleague giving a long project and only 2 weeks for it. On another hand, especially for science courses, if the assignment is just about solving some problems, then your comments simply don't apply anymore.
That's a good point. I was taking all humanities classes with writing assignments in England, and no science courses.
I remember an answer I once got for a piece of work handed in a few minutes late (and rejected):
How can you have nothing ready for 30 days and then suddenly have something in the last few hours?
In fact, I had been working on it the whole time, trying to constantly improve it, despite the fact that I had a working solution early on. Waiting was a mistake and helped me learn to prioritise.
So welcome be hard deadlines, they teach planning and prioritisation, and save examiner time.
My problem with a "no late work" policy is that it disincentivizes learning. If a student forgets an assignment or can't quite finish it in time, they no longer have any reason to learn the material; they get no credit for learning it because they cannot turn it in late. Because of this, I favor a 10% or even 20% per day penalty as oppose to a no late work policy.
I also think the "prepare students for the real world" argument is invalid. In the real world, if you miss a deadline for something (work deadline, tax filing, etc.) you will get punished somehow, but you likely still have to complete the work; it doesn't just disappear. Also, preparing the students for the real world is a secondary goal at best. Helping students learn the material should always come before preparing them for the real world. Internships and first jobs are much more suited for preparing for the real world.
Aren't doing better on the final exam, doing better in followup courses, doing better in job interviews, doing better on the job, and "gee my mom and dad paid all this tuition money so I'd better get something out of it" reasons to learn the material?
So, college students are known for being great planners with lots of well thought out long term goals who rarely make poor decisions...? Don't pretend like rewards months/years down the road are of the same value to students as instant rewards. Also, for gen-ed courses, almost none of what you mentioned applies. How can you motivate a CS major to learn more about chemistry? Well, you can start by not disincentivizing them with a silly grading system.
College students are adults.
That's exceedingly dismissive and I'd say flip to sweep this and so much else under the rug with "he's/she's an adult". Are you going to hold me to your arbitrary standards even though I'm not even considered legally competent among other things? And even if I were, what you said is inappropriate for a great many people, probably a quarter, for any number of other reasons.
I specify a due date, but have a 48 hr, no questions asked, grace period. If a student gets an assignment in by the due date, I give a small amount of extra credit (typically 0.25 pts added to his or her final percentage*). I do not accept assignments after the grace period. I never get complaints about this policy.
* I don't round final percentages. Students are in charge of their own rounding by getting the extra credit for turning in assignments by the due date
I have never seen a no late work policy; on the contrary, most of the classes I have taken/TAed accepted late work and took off no credit when the amount of time late was reasonable (1 or 2 days if you were asking questions / professor knew you were working on it.) This is probably due to the fact that most of my classes have had 5-10 students in them; the classes that I have taken with 20+ students have all accepted late work with a similar penalty as the one you described.
The question follows: Do you want every students best work, or do you want every students best work within a very strict time frame? If an assignment is difficult, and not just time heavy, it might be worth relaxing a no late work policy in my opinion.
It is entirely possible to have a hybrid, in which weekly assignments are not accepted late but larger assignments can be late with penalty.
"Do you want every students best work, or do you want every students best work within a very strict time frame?" I want students to learn as much as possible from the course. Research on learning has shown that students retain more from a lecture if they do follow-up work as soon as possible after the lecture, regardless of how well they do on that work.
@Mark Meckes: and is that difference large enough to offset learning less from the work itself because it has to be done at a more likely unsuitable time?
@Mark: Based on studies I've seen, yes.
I've always been a student that turned in HW late, and it varies widely depending on the professor. In general, I have found the humanities departments the most harsh about deadlines. The natural science classes are more lenient, with some professors clearly stating that they will accept late HW with a deduced grade. Others will accept late HW unofficially before they return graded HWs to students, and yet others will work with you more flexibly. There hasn't been a single professor of mine that hasn't accepted at least some late HW from me.
As a TA, I fully accept late HW, with no deadlines, and likewise return the HWs to students late (you can call it a "suggested deadline"). My teaching principles are fairly libertarian, and my students tend to learn a lot during the semester. That's what I care about. The only time I care about HWs and examinations is to see whether I'm doing an effective job at what the students' pay me to do, which is teach them. It's only fair to examine the students to see if I'm failing them.
It's appalling to see professors demand of their students, who, just in case anyone forgot, pay the professors' salaries, demand of their students to learn a certain way within a definite deadline. Nothing in my experience has been more detrimental to my learning. I've gained the most out of classes that allowed me to turn in HW late.
Just in case anyone thinks that students who fail to "respect" deadlines are intrinsically procrastinators, I declare that it was quite the contrary in my case. The reason I submitted HWs late was to ensure I read the whole relevant text before attempting the HW. I wanted to know exactly what I was doing when I solved a problem, rather than use "ad hoc" methods to get something that resembles the correct answer. Moreover, I would often find a passage in a text that interested me, so I would pursue the topic and do some research. Sometimes this "research" would take a week out of my time, but I learned more from the self-driven pursuits than all the professor-imposed, who was paid by me to teach me, HW combined.
It's time we do away with harsh grading policies and strict deadlines, because I don't know a single person who has ever learned that way.
On the other hand, I do know a lot of wage-slaves, also known as employees at major companies, who rent their bodies to their masters; and the masters certainly will demand of their subjects to have work done on time and subject themselves to meaningless evaluations by authoritarian figures. That isn't the environment in which people can learn and discover; that sounds more like mines, sweat-shops, and assembly line to me. Unless one wants to impose an assembly-line education, which is what's common in USA universities these days, I'd advise against serious deadlines.
their students, who, just in case anyone forgot, pay the professors' salaries — Incorrect. My salary is paid by the state, not from tuition income. (I do not accept late homework, even for illness or injury. I do, however, forgive homework under extenuating circumstances, so that the student's grade is unaffected. And I'm happy to give feedback on anything.)
@JeffE I guess your students and their parents don't pay taxes?
Yes, but so do I. And so do their future employers.
None of what you're saying is inconsistent with a firm but later deadline. You're merely arguing that the deadlines you experienced were shorter than you'd like.
Great JeffE, then I hope we could agree on running our classes on more democratic principles, just as we all pay taxes.
@TheLateGreat you don't purchase learning. you pay for the time and expertise of people who've spent a long time studying the topic you're learning. If you want to buy your education, you can always buy a degree. But then it won't have much value.
@Suresh I do agree that what I'm saying is a bit "harsh", but I was forced to respond this way due to the staggering consistency of the answers. I think you do pay for your professors time to teach nonetheless, and a student should have a fair say in what they expect of their professors, as well as vice-versa.
Sometimes, "staggering consistency" = "correct". I should add though that I've seen courses (often, mathematically oriented ones) dole out homework that has no deadlines and merely needs to be turned in by the end of the semester. The problem is then that the homework fails as a diagnostic tool to identify student weakness and misconceptions that could have been rectified if detected early.
@Suresh certainly in my case the HW grade was more of something to put on a spreadsheet than a diagnostic tool. Moreover, I'm not against deadlines, per se, but when you combine this with how the overall classroom runs, it does become an impediment to learning. How the classroom should be run.... that's a topic for another day, but I think how things worked before state-subjected education was on the right track.
For anyone interested, I would recommend Prof. David Hestenes "Towards a Modeling Theory of Physics Instruction". http://modeling.asu.edu/R%26E/ModelingThryPhysics.pdf
This is what worked best for you. Other students may find (in the long run) that a lack of firm deadlines would be a detriment to their learning; for instance, it gives them the option of putting off work until they've forgotten how to do it. I understand your point of view, but I don't think you can claim that it's the one right way to do things.
I think the focus of teaching should be students' learning,
and all policies including late assignment policies should be designed with
the goal of improving student learning and experience.
A good fair policy would encourage learning and good behavior,
a bad unfair one would do the opposite.
I think students generally care too much about grades,
it is important to refocus them as much as possible on learning.
Assignments, tests, and grades are tools for teachings not goals of teaching.
The hard deadline policy is common but
I think it is also a common experience of instructors that
it doesn't work well.
It is important to think about why it is so,
if we understand why hard deadlines do not work well
then we can design better policies.
In my experience,
the followings are the main reasons for missing deadlines in most cases
(roughly based on the justifications my students gave me
when asking for extensions in my previous courses):
Technical difficulties:
small unexpected submission difficulties,
i.e. they have finished assignments but
they were unable to submit it before deadline,
e.g. they lost power just before deadline.
Procrastination:
Considerable number of students leave working on assignments to the last minute.
They are also not good with estimating the time they need to finish assignments.
So they go over deadline.
Special cases:
events beyond students' reasonable control prevented them from finishing assignments, e.g. serious illness.
Of course we would not want to penalized students for the 3rd reason.
But we should also try to help those in the first two groups.
One common alternative to hard deadlines is having grace days,
but it has a too high administrative overhead in my opinion,
and it doesn't really work much better.
They will use up their grace days and
then go over deadline.
If we give them a grace day for all assignments
then we are essentially shifting deadlines in their minds.
After discussions with a few more experienced instructors
I switched to something similar to Suresh's policy for my last course and
it worked quite well.
There was almost no serious complaint.
Here is the policy I used:
1% penalty for every 30min after the deadline.
First, it is easy to implement.
I use an online submission system so it is quite easy to compute and apply these penalties
using time-stamps for latest submissions, it is a simple script.
Second, it is effective way of helping the first two groups.
This policy gives them two extra days after the deadline if they really need.
Most late submissions miss the deadline by a small amount of time.
Being essentially a continuous linear penalty function it makes sure
the penalty is proportional:
a student who goes over the deadline a few minutes doesn't loose too much points.
I give students typically 2 weeks for submitting assignments.
I don't think it makes sense to give more that 2 extra days.
Too many days and too soft penalty
will essentially shift assignment deadlines in their minds and
cause further procrastination.
The hourly lateness penalty creates a sense of urgency that daily penalty would not.
I had around 100 students and they seldom went over a few hours.
I also put deadlines on Friday evenings.
Students who don't like doing assignments
hate to spend their weekend on them.
Student who submit their assignments on time
do not have to worry and spend their weekend working on assignments,
this adds an extra incentive for them to finish it by deadline, or
if not possible with as little lateness as possible.
In addition,
it also makes sure that the following week
we can focus on our topic
without them worrying about assignments.
To deal with the 3rd group
I don't use my late assignment policy,
I use an special consideration policy.
If a student misses an assignment deadline with a good reason,
e.g. serious illness supported by medial documents,
I apply my special consideration policy to accommodate them
e.g. I may move the points for the assignment to other assignments.
When I was a student, one of the first things we were told was "No late work is accepted. Not even if it is only a matter of seconds. Not even if the printer catches fire or you're snowed in".
My university had previously just subtracted from the grade, and had been warned by the authorities that this was against the rules. So they stopped doing that, and instead enforced a zero-tolerance rule of "respect the deadlines".
And honestly, it worked well. The only requirement is that you make absolutely totally sure that all of your students are aware of these rules! Like I said, it was drilled into our heads on day 1 (and repeated regularly ever since). And it was enforced for the entire Computer Science department, not just for individual courses.
Of course, students can always ask (preferably in advance) to have an agreed-upon extension in special cases (perhaps in case of extended sickness, or whatever else it might be), but if it's just a matter of "I didn't finish in time", then tough luck. You either hand in what you have, even if it is incomplete, or you don't hand it in at all.
Honestly, I kind of think it is the only fair policy. Lowering a student's grade for handing his work in late strikes me as much weirder. Their work should be graded on its quality, and nothing else. "your ability to manage time" should not be part of the curriculum. If two students hand in equally good work, they deserve the same grade.
I think the important point is that being late doesn't mean that you can't hand in your work. It just means that instead of handing it in late, but complete, you hand it in on time, but incomplete. And you get graded on what you handed in.
As an undergrad engineering/computer science alum, I will say that I am biased towards having a late policy. Scale the assignment difficulty appropriately to account for "extra" time at a penalty and codify the policy to be clear and non-negotiable, ie 10% off per day. The other option is to tell students late assignments are not accepted, but extend deadlines appropriately based on student feedback. The goal remains the same: maximize participation.
The reason I support this is pedagogical. It is not to account for students being irresponsible. It is to attract more students to complete an assignment, allowing them to be methodical and calculating with their learning experience while ultimately maximizing the value they receive from a course.
The goal with college classes, from a pedagogical view, is to maximize turnout and participation. These are solid measures indicating that students are learning and that the college experience is economically valuable. If there is a no late assignment policy and 25% of students received a zero or extremely low mark for being unable to "complete" on time, we have an issue that could potentially be fixed with a course policy change. So I argue that it is better to have a late penalty while scaling content difficulty appropriately.
I was exceptionally busy during my senior year, taking the max amount of credits where all classes were advanced level/difficult. I recall one class where the policy was no late assignments. This was a very difficult programming class. I was on the wire for time, and pulled repeated all-nighters to complete an assignment for this course- right past the due date. I was very stubborn and I refused to just give up, although in the back of my mind I considered the high likelihood I would receive a zero. It ended up being accepted with no penalty and I received a high grade where the average grade was significantly lower.
Many would say this is not fair. But from my perspective, I learned more actually doing the assignment rather than being defeated - the alternative fate would have been to cease all work and receive a zero had the policy been uncompromising. As someone who is a perfectionist- I prefer not to stop until I know I have produced something that is robust and meets all requirements- this hits home even more for me. I believe that from a learning standpoint, accepting late assignments is far more likely to result in higher quality education. If a late penalty makes a course "easier", scale the content appropriately. Or surprise the students on a case by case basis at the instructor's discretion.
The goal is to get as many students as possible in a course to give a best effort attempt on an assignment given a variety of schedules, circumstances and uncertainty in the assignment itself. If after some date they receive a zero you will always chop off a number of students who can do the assignment with more time, and would with the opportunity, even with dramatic penalty.
And if the policy had been "no late work", then instead of just handing in what you had, you would have done nothing? Be realistic. You wouldn't have been "defeated", you would simply have handed in something that wasn't as good as it could have been if you'd had more time. Which is kind of a common situation to be in throughout your life.
That is sometimes true and sometimes not. In that particular case I would have failed the assignment completely. I consider that defeat. It is actually not as common a situation as you may think. Very rarely in life do you need to complete something, once, before a certain date or face failure. Things we do at work don't just disappear once a certain day passes; it just gets deferred until a later date. The point is that handing in something that isn't as good as it could have been is bad. The goal is to get as many students to hand in their best work as possible. Is that so far-fetched?
no, if that was the goal, you wouldn't have deadlines at all. It is up to the student how much work they want to put in before the deadline. Universities are not obligated to coddle you. And you're still hung up on the (wrong) mindset that "if it is not perfect, then it might as well not exist". In real life, people do not just "defer" the task you've been working on if you exceed the deadline. Instead, you just have to make do with what you've got. You, not I, are the one pretending that things just disappear if you can't perfect them before the deadline. They don't.
But please enlighten me as to how it is "fair" that you get a full grade for breaking the rules. You were supposed to do X before date Y. By your own admission you were unable to do that, and would have failed the course if they hadn't been lenient. Why did you deserve that leniency? You were unable to do what the course required.
I'm not going to tell you I deserved anything. I am going to tell you that I have personally experienced the benefit of a late policy in courses. Those policies have allowed me to absorb more from a course than what would have been possible without one. The goal for me was always to learn. Forgive my selfish desire to maximize learning. You imply that the goal of a university is to sink as many students as possible, ie no student deserves "leniency". I argue that the goal is to maximize participation. Target any average for a course, but get as many students to try their best as possible.
I disagree with you that a university is a kind of kindergarten. Yes, I believe it is reasonable for universities to require something of their students. That does not mean I believe the goal is to "sink as many students as possible". But I don't understand why a "no late work" policy would have caused you to get 0 points on your course. What prevented you from just handing in partially complete work and get some non-zero grade?
In any case, I think you are mixing two different concerns. Yes, I believe that universities should maximize learning in general. But I don't believe that should extend to grading. Your grade should reflect the quality of your work. It should reflect what you "deserve", no ifs and buts. The lectures and exercises and assignments and projects should certainly be structured to maximize learning. But when you are graded, you should not be graded on "what you might have achieved if we'd suspended the rules". Nor should the grade be adjusted for "what might motivate the student the most"
The presence of a late policy here was the difference between me completing an assignment to outrageous success (90+) and failing it (ie <60 points). I see university as a series of challenges for students. To me, you want to get as many students to beat a challenge as possible. For this reason when things incidentally are really tough (ie having a bad day) and a professor happens to extend an assignment - even for 24 hours as in this case if I remember right, I am beyond appreciative.
Your grade should be on the work you present, correct. What you are implying is that a late policy suspends rules. Policies are up to the discretion of the professor. You are arguing that is a moral conundrum; maybe it is. I am arguing that it is a practical solution to a practical problem that happens to better the learning experience for everyone involved. Students have schedules and real-life issues. Flexible policies and grading are a boon, especially to the driven learner who openly accepts an outrageous course workload.
handing in something that isn't as good as it could have been is bad — [citation needed]
I don't know about "typical," but I have definitely seen it used. I've taught mostly in design schools where understanding the importance of hitting deadlines is a core part of the training.
Having said that, most instructors are a little more moderate. Some will say students are allowed one late assignment per semester, some will accept any assignment late for half-credit.
My own personal policy was this: As long as you made a reasonable effort to turn an assignment in on time you could always improve your grade on that assignment by resubmitting any time before the end of the semester. If you missed that first deadline, no deal. But if you turned in a project at, say, 25% completion on the day of the deadline and then before the end of the semester managed to get in the remaining 75% you could have full points. But that's just me.
One other thing I go out of my way to say on day 1 is that communication is important. I had a student who didn't show up for class all semester only to tell me two weeks before the end that he'd been caring for an ailing relative. I could have made an accommodation in week one, but what am I supposed to do in week 13?!
I think the appropriateness of such a policy depends on the class and the students within it, and even when it exists, I'd consider flexing it for extraordinary circumstances.
For example, I once had a student who turned in late work because they were called up to respond to a national emergency. Is that really something I should have savaged their grade for, even if generally the class had a pretty strict deadline policy (because I was trying to turn grades around fast)?
An important role for a college professor is to prepare the students for the real world. And in the real world, deadlines are firm. You think a customer or an employer cares that you have a "good excuse" for being late? That you "tried"?
Trust me, you'll be doing all your students a favor by accustoming them now to the reality that schedules are unforgiving.
I work at a middle-ranking UK university and we have a rule of 5% per day for 5 days then zero. I think it becomes counted as a cost by some students. "No late work without a doctor's cert", providing everyone knows well in advance, seems as fair as any other, what with the deadline being part of the test.
The university I attended had a no late work policy, however, some of the modules did allow a 24-hour late work window, but work submitted in this 24 hours was capped at 40% (Minimum pass grade).
Your students have the reasonable right to expect you to operate the policies decided by your department. Whilst I have every sympathy with the notion of 'a minute late = no marks' providing exceptional circumstances are accounted for, it's really not your decision but rather a decision that should be made by your department and uniformly applied across different courses.
It is unfair on students for your course to operate a different policy to the other courses they are taking because it (a) unfairly requires them to prioritise the work for your course over other courses and (b) it requires them to notice that you've set different regulations. So, whether or not your method has merit, you should adopt the same system as other courses they are taking.
I'm kind of surprised that your university/department does not already have a formally stated and agreed policy on this.
My department leaves this decision to the individual instructors. As it should. And no, students don't need to notice; instructors just need to tell them.
The comment on noticing was based on the assumption that was a general ruling. If every course does things differently then that alters expectations.
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21965 | Is it appropriate to assign Mechanical Turk-type tasks as extra credit?
By the end of the term, I always end up with quite a number of D and F students who want to improve their grades. Meanwhile, I usually have lots of menial tasks on hand during the summer, e.g. data entry, translations, proofreading, photo tagging, etc.
None of these tasks is work I am assigned or paid to do.
All of the tasks relate to my courses in some way and the resulting efforts would benefit the next group of students who attend my courses in the subsequent terms.
My school has no official "dead week", but naturally these tasks would occupy time that presumably the students would otherwise use for final exam preparations.
Is there any ethical or professional reason deeming it inappropriate to assign such tasks as optional extra credit, allowing students to move their 50 to a 60 or 60 to a 70 after ~10-15 hours of repetitive work?
No. Just no....
Nice question, +1. To me, a big red flag went up at "these tasks would occupy time that presumably the students would otherwise use for final exam preparations". So your menial tasks would probably crowd out preparation for other finals, where students would do some actual academic work. This does not seem fair to the students or other instructors. Could you schedule your tasks for after finals?
Why not have them dig your garden over and paint your house, while they're at it?
I'd hate to get surgery from a doctor who passed his degree by tagging cats in photos.
What if the class he teaches is "Real World Applications in Data Entry, Translations, Proofreading, and Photo Tagging"? You're all jumping to conclusions.
@coburne: You forgot to add "....: A Menial Approach."
@village I guess you would say that giving credit where it's not due is wrong. But why would inventing a pretense to give the credit eliminate the wrongness??!
What comes next? House cleaning? A back massage? Or even worse?
As I see it, the grade in the class is supposed to measure a student's mastery of the material. Letting students improve their grade via unrelated menial work is not consistent with this standard and seems dangerously close to letting the students wash your car for extra credit.
+1. I'm trying not to disparage anyone, but jobs that a secretary could do do not seem appropriate ways of gaining academic credit... especially when this could mean the difference between failing and passing a course (the OP explicitly mentions F students).
Yes, if the work improves their mastery of the course material, that may be appropriate, as long as there's no deception (i.e.: the work is openly and publicly known to be of personal benefit to the professor). Other than that, it's a hard no.
+1 for "[this] seems dangerously close to letting the students wash your car for extra credit." My feelings exactly.
If the work improves their mastery of the material, that additional mastery will show up in their final exam scores, so no extra credit is necessary.
@xLeitix I have had multiple profs assign extra credit to participate in studies in their department which isn't all that disimilar
Agreed with all of the above. Will add that "extra credit" is slacker nonsense. It's supposed to be bonus points for students who have already completed their assignments and are looking for an added challenge. Now it's become a panacea for students who can't be bothered to properly complete their assignments the first time around. I never offer it as "make up" in any of my classes.
I will assign extra credit challenge problems from time to time in order to spice things up. They are always directly related to the class and equally available to everyone. Moreover they are worth at most 1-2 percent of the grade in total. When students approach to ask about extra credit in order to compensate for doing poorly, a good response might be: "First do all of the assigned work. Then we can talk about extra credit."
My feeling is that it's sort of a sliding scale based on the amount of time they have to put in, the amount of credit they get, and the relevance of the task to understanding course material.
It's not uncommon for professors to allow (or even require) students to act as participants in a study (e.g., fill out a survey, be part of an experiment) for credit, on the theory that such participation helps them to "understand the research process". If the tasks they're doing have some relevance of that sort, I think you have an easier case. If it's totally mindless work with no connection to the class, it's more dubious.
Also, at least at my school, every such opportunity must (by human-subjects rules) have an alternative credit opportunity that takes roughly equal time but doesn't require such participation (e.g., write a paper). This kind of alternative is designed to ensure that students aren't forced to work for the professor's benefit in order to improve their grade.
Also, assuming by "50", "60", "70", you're referring to their overall course percentages, that seems like a massive amount of credit to me. When I've given or received extra credit, it's usually been much less than that -- equivalent to maybe 2% or at most 5% of the overall grade. The intent is not to allow students with a flat D to move to a C, but to allow students who have a high D to move to a C. I think offering extra credit that allows students to raise their grade by an entire letter sets some dangerous precedents, especially when combined with the mindless-task aspect.
In the same vein, extra credit assignments usually were the work-time equivalent of say, one homework problem, or at most one homework assignment, expected to take the students maybe 3-5 hours tops, and often an hour or less. 10-15 hours of mindless work sounds like a pretty awful prospect to me. I think it's a bad idea to misuse the extra-credit leverage to have students slaving away for hours and hours.
So basically, I think it is possibly defensible, but more so if the tasks are not truly mindless but have some reasonable connection to the class. Also, I think the amounts of time and credit you suggest are a bit high, and especially so if the task is just grunt work.
Incidentally, as an example, I once was a TA for a class where the professor assigned homework in which the students had to take a spreadsheet and perform certain category-coding tasks on the data. I suspect (but do not know for sure) that the professor was using the coded data for his own research. However, the data was relevant to the class topic, and the coding task, although not exactly an intellectual challenge, was a realistic encounter with this sort of data, in that if students were to later write a paper using such data, they might well have to perform such a task as part of the project. Also, the amount of data coded was rather small (about 50 spreadsheet rows per student, as I recall). My own opinion was that, although such an assignment was perhaps not the best way to get students interested in the class, or enhance their understanding of the material, it wasn't unethical, because it was small in scale and legitimately (if uninspiringly) relevant to the topic of the class.
Yeah I would not dismiss this idea as unethical out of hand for just the reason you mention about study participation
+1 for "relevance of the task to understanding course material". If that is absent, there is no other justification I can think of, and plenty of arguments against.
It is not ethical, you are misleading future possible employers about how capable the student is. A degree is a measure of how well someone can learn and how well they know their subject, not how well they can tag photos.
You are also devaluing the degree, so making it harder for other students at your university to get a job. A course that few people fail is of little value to the people that pass.
(Proofreading may be OK in a English degree)
Perhaps I should have mentioned in my question that the course subjects actually fits close to the various tasks I assign them, as you suggest in your last line. For e.g. proofreading methods is covered in one my courses, not only would the students practice proofreading, but meanwhile be proofreading the very readings that they read in class. Meanwhile, the photos to be tagged all contain technical terminology that students must learn in the course, so the students would be reviewing that material and typing out the terminology they ought to have learned.
@Village - you should definitely include that information in your question.
A student is willing to exercise the skills they do have to compensate for the skills they need to improve in - that's a highly valuable skill for an employer.
It's funny to me that you mention Mechanical Turk in the question because it suggests where things might go if you were to implement something like this. You'd give students tasks. They'd post them to Mechanical Turk, offering a few cents in return. Your tasks would get done, and the students would get extra credit.
But it seems better to just post the tasks to Mechanical Turk yourself instead of inviting students to buy a passing grade in your class.
If you do it, make sure the kids who have B's have the same opportunities. They probably care more about their grades, and would more ambitiously take the opportunity to do something dumb for the A.
Getting an A from doing mindless work seems even more unfair than a bare pass. A pass means that you can probably get something done, an A implies mastery of the subject.
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109717 | If my article submission is rejected while my PhD thesis is being examined, do I have to tell the examiners?
Because I submitted two journals, and my scholarship just about to end which I have just finished and approved by my supervisors.
So, yep. I wonder if it is necessary to tell the examiners of the thesis, about the progress of my journal submission, while the thesis is under their revision.
As I learned throughout this journey, good news about article submission is always on the borderline for me. So, the news is not necessarily a good one, and I don't know how much the news will impact the examiners' decision about my thesis.
It might help to know what structure your thesis-committee is: are they all/mostly at your institution, sort of like a team of supervisors, or are they at other institutions? In the first case, they may be able to provide advice/edits that help you publish (assuming the thesis contents overlap with the submission), or at least moral support.
They all from other institutions. However, they can come from anywhere in the world. All I know was the university actually encourages to have the global examiners, rather than the local one, and I don't know who they are.
The acceptance of a paper is not something that you are obligated to raise to the members of your thesis committee, because it is not a part of the evaluation of the thesis—it has to be considered on its own merits.
That said, if you are asked about or choose to inform them of the status of the manuscripts, you should not lie about its status.
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109057 | Reply to reviewers
I recently submitted a manuscript and and a reviewer asked about sample size:
The sample size is low to draw a strong conclusion to change the national policy, it is better to assess this trial as a pilot study. It is advisable to propose a multicentre trial to assess whether these findings are specific to this region. How the sample size was calculated and what is its external validation tool?
My manuscript is an observational reporting of a newly created hospital registry that included all patients with a particular disease. Since I was only reporting that data, no sample size calculation was done.
My question is how should I address that with the reviewer?
The sample size would be the total number of observed patients. What is the issue exactly?
Are you sure the reviewer understood that particular issue in the paper? The question is classic and you should have "N = 4795" stated somewhere.
Yah the total number of participants was included in the study, this was his comment..: "The sample size is low to draw a strong conclusion to change the national policy, it is better to assess this trial as a pilot study. It is advisable to propose a multicentre trial to assess whether these findings are specific to this region . How the sample size was calculated and what is its external validation tool?"
Based on your comment, it sounds like the reviewer is mainly suggesting a change of framing, about your discussion section and the generalizability or scope of your results.
I may not understand fully what you mean by "hospital registry." It sounds like a database or initiative set up at one hospital (or perhaps small hospital chain). My answer (and the reviewer's critique) would probably not apply if the registry actually has a large regional or nationwide scope.
When you introduce your data, you can describe your data in ways that help the reader evaluate this population's representativeness and generalizability. You can then argue in the discussion the extent to which your results would generalize. Between the initial data description and the discussion, you could find other data to help you "triangulate" your results and put your population in context.
Does your region have a similar incidence of this disease as other places in the country? And what percentage of cases nationwide are there, compared to the number in your sample?
Does your sample include all the presentations of this disease that are in the literature?
Does the background information of these patients (distribution of age, gender, race/ethnicity, income/insurance status, comorbidity, risk factors) match the background information in the known literature on the disease?
If not, is this because the literature is too limited, or because your sample is not representative? It might be beneficial if your population actually overrepresents groups rarely afflicted with the disease.
Further, if you are aiming to change policy at hospitals across the country, then in some sense your N = 1. You should explain when introducing the data why the hospital (management structure, funding, etc.) is also representative.
If there is any comparable data you can systematically check your data against, that could be a useful new analysis for the end of your analysis/results section. As a check on the reliability of the data you have, you can also argue that your data in the registry is consistent with (or outperforms?) available data from the prior system. That is, do you have enough data so far to show that you're successfully describing what happens at that hospital?
It's also extraordinarily hard to get a policy or implementation that works in one place to work in another place, and so even if your work provides evidence toward a national policy, the reviewer may be right that, the "next steps" goal should aim for a slightly larger implementation. Thus, you may want to bring this up as a "limitation" to bring up in the discussion or conclusion section, along the lines of:
While our study used the entire population of patients [in context], one may wonder if this approach will work beyond [context].
In light of these possibilities, embracing the reviewer's framing (this is a success as a pilot study, as opposed to a major study with limitations) may be useful, especially if you yourself are interested in working on scaling this up or implementing it more widely. Good luck!
Excellent response to a very vague question!
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107354 | Is it ethical to force graduate applicants to decide before they hear back from all schools?
I have applied to and been offered admissions to a masters program in a U.S. university, but I'm still waiting to hear back from some other places. The deadline to accept is before the 4/15 national deadline for funded graduate programs (as the program I've been accepted to is not funded).
I've expressed my situation and my concerns, and my intent to enroll in the program unless I am offered admission to a funded program. However, the admissions staff claims that what I'm suggesting (withdrawing my acceptance at a later date) is unethical, and that I must commit to or decline the offer from their program by their deadline. There were also unwilling to give an extension.
While I understand that it's not good to cancel on anyone in any case, I feel that I am not acting unethically this way, and that actually they're acting unethically on their part! If I understand correctly, they likely do have a waitlist of some kind and still can offer my place to another students even if I withdraw. However, if I decline their offer, there is no way for me to change my mind!
So, is it ethical to make students make a decision before they've even heard back from all places they have applied to? If the admissions staff are not willing to change their mind, what can I do besides withdrawing from their acceptance at a later date anyway?
Ethics aside, there may be financial complications for you if accept the offer of admission and then decline. In particular, you may have to pay a deposit upon accepting admission into the program or you may have to enter into an agreement under which you could be billed later for tuition even if you withdrew before the start of classes. You should very carefully read the acceptance letter to look for such issues.
Was information about when offers would go out and the time limit to accept offers available to you before you applied to the program?
I think this is going into opinion-based territory, which is discouraged on Stack Exchange: the goal is questions and answers that can in some sense be "objectively" correct. For [tag:ethics] questions, I think we usually address this by answering based on the consensus of the academic community, if any, rather than on the poster's personal ethics. But in this case, since the practice you describe is pretty much universal, it's already clear where the community consensus is.
Just for perspective, I'd note that on the regular job market, you get an offer and a (short) deadline to take it or leave it. You wouldn't expect a prospective employer to help make sure you have the chance to consider every other possible opportunity; indeed, it's likely better for the employer if you don't. Nobody bats an eye at this.
@BrianBorchers No, and that's partly why I felt a bit outraged...
Have you communicated your deadline conflict with the funded program? At this point, at least a few of their admission offers have been declined; they may be willing to either offer you admission now, or let you know that your chances are slim.
I am always confused about this "ethical" in such questions. Administration runs via (published and ideally logically consistent) laws and then rules (based on the laws). There is no space for ethical considerations in administrative issues.
@R_Berger There is ample space for ethical consideration in setting up the rules/policies. In particular, at least in the US, the people who set policy about admission deadlines are faculty. (Also: laws can require unethical behavior.)
@NateEldredge In the job market case, top universities do band together to protect their students: no employer with a booth at the Yale job fair, for instance, can have "exploding" (time-limited) offers or force people to accept before a certain date. This is probably how the national deadline for accepting places in funded graduate programs was created, as well. I think this poster's problem might be a reasonable one for schools to band together and create a policy on, as well.
Don't overthink this. Accept the position. Then ditch if you get something else. You are talking 4 years of your life. You only get one life. They have new students like yearly mayflies. Obviously, they know there is a bit of a matching dance going on (in some systems like med schools, it's even systematized). If you bail, they will find someone else. It won't get noticed or affect your future reputation or anything like that.
@NateEldredge: I've also seen people join a workplace, and then leave after three days or a week when a better offer came though.
The April 15 Resolution technically applies only to offers of financial support, not to offers of admission. There’s no clear-cut rule saying a school can’t require an early answer for admissions, saying it’s unethical to do so is a difficult claim to make. To my mind, it’s definitely poor form and suggests that the program is either (a) quite prestigious and doesn’t need to worry too much about yield or (b) rather noncompetitive and desperate for enrollees, but they’re risking rejections as well with the hardline approach they’re taking. (Funny how extreme cases in different directions can take the same approach!)
However, given that the program in question is unfunded, it's completely unreasonable for them to expect you to commit irrevocably to an offer of admission, particularly since they are effectively not committing any additional resources to offer you admission. I would thus feel no moral qualms whatsoever in withdrawing my acceptance if another, funded program were to make an offer before the April 15 deadline.
This does not answer the question, which was about the ethics of the school's actions, not the student's actions.
@Magicsowon - That would make an interesting question, if it hasn't been asked yet.
@Magicsowon Perhaps in the US, but that’s certainly not the case in Europe, for instance.
@AnonymousPhysicist I disagree. I completed my masters by paying my own tuition while I took 1 class a semester because I worked full-time at a well-paid job. I was probably helping to fund other grad-students who had a much higher need for that support.
Ethical for them to have this deadline. Also ethical for you to cancel the acceptance of an unsupported position if you later get an offer for a supported position elsewhere. Doing this would burn bridges only between you and the admissions folks (not professors) but keep in mind they have backup students waitlisted to account for cancellations.
... or at least they say they do....
@aparente001 My medical school even kept the wait list active after classes started, and when we had one person drop out within the first 24 hours of the start of the semester they filled that spot by the end of the week with the person who became our class president. I'm sure other graduate schools have similar contingency plans since the loss of even one student can be a significant financial hit to the school, but this financial justification raises numerous other ethical issues.
@RudyB - I'm not following. Are you talking about numerous other ethical issues in the case of a coordinated decision deadline? Or in the uncoordinated case, which OP is facing? Or in the case of the example of your medical school which invited a back-up person on Day 2 of the semester? // I'll explain my comment: I've noticed that sometimes the most aggressive behavior is just a front.
I'm not even sure this would burn bridges, given the reason for cancellation.
I have another perspective on this. They are well aware of what they are asking for and the implications for the students. In fact it seems obvious that they are deliberatly forcing an early decision for that very reason. My question then becomes, if they are acting this way now how will they act after the students have enrolled? Is that really a school that seems like they are putting the quality of the education first or are they more likely to squeeze as much money from you as possible? If you have to ask if your prospective school behaves ethically at the first contact I would be very sceptical to their entire business. Granted, I'm from a country where all education are free so YMMV.
Interesting point, sbi. Welcome to the site!
Yes, I agree that this sounds like the program is coercive. The other possibility is that this program rarely has people applying to both their program and funded programs, which would signal it is perhaps of different quality than expected. (Or this is just how they've always done it and they still get enough students enrolling that no one has bothered to change it.)
To your surprise perhaps, the program in question is pretty famous & prestigious in my field (although, having asked this question, I would rather not reveal what my field is).
Hmm... At top universities, Masters programs are often treated like cash cows, I believe. They often provide revenue that helps fund doctoral programs. And I doubt a faculty member would hold it against you that you did something rational for your academic career.
This does not answer the question, which was about whether the school's actions are ethical, not whether it is advisable to enroll in their program or general advice about what the poster should do.
I concur with the other answers that for an unfunded program there is no ethical issue for you withdrawing if you obtain a funded position, although you will definitely burn bridges as noted. However, there may be complicating circumstances.
In my case, I applied to schools A, B, and C. All three were a part of the same university system but different locations and aside from the overarching administrative structure the schools considered themselves relatively independent of each other. My first choice was school A. I interviewed at all three and first received an acceptance from school C, my last choice. I had seven days to respond, and accepting their offer of admission would automatically withdraw my applications at schools A and B. Within that time period I received an acceptance from school B and an offer of a small scholarship from the overarching university, transferable to any of the schools to which I had applied. I politely declined school C, but again I had only seven days to accept or reject school B's offer. As before, accepting the offer would have withdrawn my application to school A, my first choice. In the end, I declined school B also, prior to receiving an acceptance from school A, but I definitely do not recommend that strategy without thorough analysis of the risks.
I'm not sure how your second paragraph is relevant to the question.
It is relevant if the person is applying to multiple schools within one state university system. I'm just trying to illustrate that the strategy of accepting your first offer may limit your ability to gain admission to your preferred program.
This does not answer the question, which was about the ethics of the school's actions, not the student's actions.
I am not saying that my answer is the answer to the question, but I am saying that it is relevant to consider the student's perspective in different circumstances, that actions by the school may severely limit future choices by the prospective student. I gambled, won, and earned my doctoral degree, but there was a possibility that I would have proverbially shot myself in the foot by my actions. You have the ability to agree with me and upvote "this answer is useful" or disagree and downvote "this answer is not useful".
@RudyB - Actually, OP's question appears to be whether the school is behaving ethically. Many answers got sucked into a related but unasked question of what would be the ethical thing for OP to do....
There are no rules or standards, so they can set their deadlines however they like.
However, they cannot tell you that accepting and then withdrawing is unethical---the lack of established rules applies the same way. This is especially true if, as I suspect, they are discouraging that behavior for their own convenience.
If that statement was driven primarily by their own interests, it is disingenuous or deceitful---and therefore unethical.
So, overall, I would say that the deadline itself is not a problem, but they crossed the line when they insisted that you cannot withdraw.
I have nothing to add to the ethical discussion of other commentators. However, if you want to get a better understanding of why these short-deadlines occur, and the 'game theory' behind them, it is worth reading some of the works of the mathematical-economist Prof Alvin Roth. He has written a book about this, and there is also a video of him talking about the subject.
TL;DR: "What else can you do...?" Ask admissions officers at schools you're waiting on so you might get more information. There may also be value in asking faculty you know well.
I make the assumption that faculty at that masters program would have little power/incentive to change the commitment deadline for the OP in this case; any comments with evidence for or against this assumption would be useful.
You have two pressing questions: is what they are doing ethical, and what can you do? (I now address the ethical question at the end.)
Since that program does not want to budge, you could politely inquire of one of the programs you are waiting to hear from. If you explain this situation, saying that you take a commitment to a school seriously, they may be able to address whether you still have a reasonable chance of admission to their school this year and/or whether you are likely to hear a decision by the masters program's deadline.
Because of the April 15 Resolution, the other admissions offices are probably not bombarded with these questions (I assume). An administrator would probably feel free to say that they cannot answer the question if they do not want to or cannot answer. This approach is unlikely to yield a definitive answer unless there is a yes or a no they are about to send out, but it might give you more information before you send a deposit.
If you have a good relationship with a faculty contact at a school you're waiting to hear from (e.g. a recommender or someone you have extensively talked with about potentially working with them), you could explain the situation and ask if they have any advice. You may get no response (faculty are busy), generic advice (such as you're getting on this site), or advice with inside info ("Well, you're near the top of our list..." or "This was a strong class of applicants this year, so it would take a lot of luck for this to happen..." or "We're really not sure yet what our class will look like, and we don't usually know further until much closer to April 15.").
Unless you have an extremely good relationship with a faculty contact at this unfunded masters program (for instance, they were your undergrad advisor as well), it would probably do little good to ask advice of a faculty member there. You'd be questioning your commitment to their program (which would not be a great way to start a relationship with someone there if you do attend). Faculty may have little control over the present workings of the administrative process, and/or changing the rules for you might set a precedent that harms their program.
Ethics:
I believe I'm in agreement with the other posters on what your course of action should be, though everyone phrases it slightly differently. If you do not have all your information, it is OK to accept the offer but back out later. It's within the school's rights to demand whatever they want, as they are not bound by the agreement for funded graduate programs, but that their demands are somewhat coercive toward someone in your position and that it would be best (though beyond what is ethically required of them) to give you more time. (Especially so because they did not make this timing conflict clear when you applied.) Given the existence of a deposit payment, you are not obligated to remain enrolled if a far more beneficial offer comes along: they have made this a financial obligation on top of/rather than one of honor. (In the U.S. mortgage crisis, the people who were worst off were those who felt morally obligated to continue payments on their "underwater" mortgages, while more financially savvy people cut their losses and walked away.)
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5556 | What incentives do academics have to write text books?
As noted in this question, academics should write research articles. In many fields, these are way more important than books. It's original research that counts for getting a PhD position, a post-doc, a tenure-track position, grants, etcetera. Writing a good textbook about an advanced subject is very difficult and very time-consuming. Its advanced nature means it won't sell many copies, so the money can't be much. Then why is anybody writing advanced scientific textbooks at all? What are the incentives?
cough vanity.
There are very very different motivations for publishing monographs, or editing collections, to publishing textbooks. Monographs are the mode of choice for the publication of a considerable volume of scholarly humanities work, for example. In fields like History, Continental Philosophy, Literary or Film criticism, the monograph is capable of sharing major original contributions to scholarly knowledge in the way that a braided chain of papers can't. In these fields the monograph (or equivalent) is the publication requirement for appointment.
Another reason to write an advanced text is that you have developed a body of research around a topic, and it's stabilized enough that you can present the material in a structured form. The incentive here is that the distilled understanding helps you understand your field, and it helps others work in the area as well. In addition, a well-written book can get you lots of citations, impact, and recognition (the same kinds of things you get with papers, but possibly even more).
As Gian-Carlo Rota put it, "You Are More Likely to Be Remembered by Your Expository Work" http://www.math.osu.edu/~nevai.1/MYMATH/rota_ams_notices_01_97.html
I think only very few people become famous through their textbooks.
Who said anything about fame :) ? But seriously, I said recognition, not fame. In large fields (math and bio come to mind), surveys/monographs play a very important role in synthesizing literature and presenting it to a wider audience.
As someone who is working on an advanced textbook, I've had to ask myself that question. It's certainly not for the money (which I expect will be not nearly enough recompense for the time spent working on it). Here are the answers:
Citations: Not a big factor for me, since I expect citations to my book will displace a lot of citations for my older papers and shorter expository work on the subject, but as other people have noted, for a lot of people it is an important factor. A book that becomes the "standard reference" for a topic can garner huge numbers of citations. (Also true of review articles.)
Creating a textbook: It can serve as a textbook for a class I have taught before and may well teach again. This is a class for which there is no existing good textbook. In this sense, for a big investment of time now I make my life easier in the future by creating a good resource for students taking my class.
New research ideas: Writing it presents an opportunity to organize my thoughts about the field, and to go through and find and fill holes -- or just things I think haven't been done the right way -- in the existing literature. In this respect, it is an extension of my existing research program and inspires new research to fill the holes that I find.
Understanding existing literature: Writing the book also provides a good incentive for me to go back and understand other peoples' results that I think should be included in the book. There's one paper in particular which is important, but very difficult to understand, and I've put off making the effort to figure it out for many years. The book provides an additional motivation to actually do it, and furthermore make it accessible to others as well.
Teaching new people about my field: This is partially altruism and partially self-interested. The altruism part is probably self-explanatory. The self-interest part is that if I can provide a good introduction to the field, I may convince more people to work on an area I am interested in, and furthermore can get them to think about it in the ways I like.
Just one or two of these reasons would probably not be enough by itself, but the combination makes it, I think, a good use of my time. I've written these answers as they apply to me, but I think the same mix of reasons, with different weightings, apply to other people who write advanced textbooks.
People around me that wrote a textbook almost always do that because they want to share the course material they developed for, say, an introduction to hydrology course. They are proud of the material, and feel that the specific approach their material takes is not yet represented in the current textbooks. So, I think for a lot of people they feel it is a significant addition to their field. Mind that these almost always already have tenure.
In addition, in the German system there is an additional reason to write a book. Writing a book (or monograph) is one option to get your habilitation. This is an additional step to take in addition to a PhD thesis, often written with at least 10 years of experience.
AFAIK, no, a book is not strictly required for habilitation in Germany. Maybe in humanities, but not in fields, such as computer science, at least not everywhere. Unless you mean that publication of the Habilitationsschrift must be as a book with an ISBN, etc. But that is the case also for any dissertation. You definitely do not have to author a monograph, or a textbook to pass the habilitation procedure.
In Serbia it is certainly necessary to write two books to go all the way up the academic ladder. Mostly people write one textbook and one monograph. In any case, the concept of writing a book as a necessity exists, and a textbook is the natural solution for many.
@Ana: yes, you are right. Such requirements exist for instance also in Slovakia. But how useless most of those books are... For a country with 5M residents, there might be 10 people to be interested in such a monograph - and most of them really are published in the local language. What a waste.
@walkmanyi - a waste indeed.
In the Wiki page for Richard Feynman,
Feynman has been called the "Great Explainer". He gained a reputation for taking great care when giving explanations to his students and for making it a moral duty to make the topic accessible. His guiding principle was that, if a topic could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not yet fully understood. Feynman gained great pleasure from coming up with such a "freshman-level" explanation.
My undergrad major is math. Among all the mathematicians, the ones I remember most (good and bad) are the authors of the math textbooks I used in college.
As for the more advanced scientific textbooks, I believe that the efforts putting all the research results together and organizing them are no less valuable than the individual articles.
One case is where you already have the material (course notes, material you gathered from organizing a tutorial on a topic, etc): publishing it as a book used to make it widely available, a lot more than photocopies. Now, with the advent of the WWW, printed books might be less relevant for diffusion, however.
Another incentive, in case you don't have the material ready, might be the same as for writing reviews: if your book is successful, it will be highly cited and enhances your status in your field. Also, you can try to imprint your own ideas and vision for the field in the next generation of researchers.
While this SE website mostly attracts people from more technical and scientific fields which progress through research articles, there are whole areas of academia where the first question that comes up to junior faculty is, "So, what is your book about?". In social sciences (at least in the less technical programs) and humanities, you are expected to publish your dissertation work as a book, so by the time you go for tenure, you need to have at least one, better two -- another one based on your more recent work (which, by the way, is called scholarship, rather then research). You can easily tell by looking at the CVs of professors in say sociology whether they are in a research department or scholarship department: the former list papers first on their CVs, while the latter put books first (and may not have any papers at all).
Having said that, in the technical fields, it is often valuable to have the material summarized in one source, sometimes even for your own reference. That's how some of the advanced textbooks are formed. Some books are produced as edited collections of invited papers from a specialized topic conference, and it may have been a part of the grant funding that you, as the conference organizer, promised to the funding agency, so that your results are disseminated as widely as possible to the people who could not make it to the conference. (Other people mentioned other obvious ways for the books to shape up, mostly from lecture notes.)
A lot of books are written on sabbaticals, when top folks move away from the daily routine and can concentrate on what they enjoy most: playing in their dirt, moving around their Greek letters and integral signs around, etc. Publishers often approach high profile people and suggest to send their books to them; even I get these generic emails from Wiley or CRC or Springer from time to time. Of course, for publishers that's their business and a way to generate money; I don't think the authors are compensated even remotely enough for the trouble of writing a book. At my consulting rate, writing a book is an undertaking worth a new BMW X5; if somebody else is paying for that, as is the case with sabbatical professors, then this may be an entirely different business :).
If your own field moves through research papers, then you simply won't have the time to work on any books, unless this has been discussed with your chair and faculty, and everybody unanimously agreed that you are so good and so famous in your subfield as to afford spending a whole year away from the programmatic research writing a stupid book.
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7684 | Six-month post-doc on J-1 Research scholar visa, can one apply for another J-1 if physically departing before end of contract?
Someone I know (nationality French) has accepted a six-month post-doctoral fellowship in the United States. The hosting institute will sponsor a J-1 visa; my understanding is that J-1 visas are much quicker to process than H-1B visas, and since she should start as soon as possible, they opt for J-1. A J-1 Research Scholar visa has the following limitations:
Professor and Research Scholars must:
(...)
Not have participated in a J-Visa program for all or part of the 12-month period immediately preceding the start date of a professor or research scholar program unless they meet one of the following exceptions:
(...)
The participant's prior physical presence in the U.S. on a J-visa program was less than six months in duration
If she physically leaves the United States one week before the end of her contract (having been in the US for 5 months, 3 weeks), for example to attend a conference in Europe or for working from home, can she still apply for a new post-doctoral fellowship (NB: I'm not talking about an extension of the existing post-doc) at a new J-1 research scholar visa, or will a H-1B visa be the only route still accessible for a new post-doc?
As a person who have gone through enough visa paperwork, I have to say that the only valid answer to that question is what the person in question will get from the non-immigrant visa department of the U.S. Embassy. Any other answer will most likely be irrelevant when/if it turns out that the embassy thinks different from whatever answer(s) you might get here (or anywhere else for that matter).
Yale University has a very nice explanatory page for those 12 and 24-month rules, which are more complicated than the excerpts you quote:
This seems to contradict your quote. Note that it says specifically “for any amount of time (one day to five years)”.
Oh, right; I missed to quote an earlier part Not have participated in and completed a professor or research scholar program within the last 24 months preceding the beginning date of their new program’s commencement. I guess my quote relates to J-1 visas that are not Research Scholar visas...
I have been in that situation with a short-term visiting scholar and I could get a new J-1 but I had to leave the country and apply for a new visa. Maybe it might have been possible to transfer the SEVIS fee to the new visa without paying it again.
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8542 | How hard do early-career academics in the United States work, really?
I'm finishing a PhD in Sweden this year and seeking a post-doc in the United States (atmospheric remote sensing). It is clear that a job in academia is not a nine to five job; nor do I want it to be. I often work late in the evening when I'm on a productive spur. When an important dead-line is coming up, one needs to work harder, and there is no overtime paid. I accept that. However, no matter how much I'm interested in my research, I do enjoy and need a reasonable amount of spare time, too; relaxing on the weekends, occasionally a long weekend away, and sometimes a longer trip, such as three weeks in the wilderness.
Regarding the normal work ethos for early-career academics in the United States, I have a hard time judging what is normal and what is excessive. Some examples:
Erick Carreira letter warning post-docs that he expects all of the members of the group to work evenings and weekends.
My apparent naïveté in believing that a sabbatical means not working, despite Wikipedia describing it as a rest from work, or a hiatus, often lasting from two months to a year. I was thinking of my friend, who spent a year between his PhD and his first post-doc travelling from France to Mongolia mostly on foot.
Someone commenting I am not a good role model, but when I don't work on a Sunday, I count that as a vacation day.
NASA postdocs having no employment-related benefits such as paid vacations, sick leave, or unemployment compensation.
Question How do we end the culture of “endless hours at work”?
We don't have such a work-ethos where I'm at. I belief that working too hard risks stress and burn-out, and does not increase productivity in the long run, nor human well-being. I want to do science. Doing science makes me happy, but having time to relax while not doing science is important for me.
Does the selection of examples I gave above represent a normal situation in U.S. early-career academia? Should I expect an attitude where asking for a 3-week holiday during the summer is considered as being not serious, or is the situation in practice usually not as bad as the examples above make it sound? How hard to early-career academics in the United States work, really?
+1. While it may be tempting to answer that question with anecdotal evidence, testimonials and remembrances, it can actually be answered based on statistical data (and analysis of said data). I humbly advise us all to try to avoid “easy” answers…
Hej! I have first hand experience of this issue from working in Eng. Dept in a top technical school in Sweden and then moving to other places but refrain from answering the question given @F'x's advice. Lets see what sort of statistical data emerges...
Another interesting perspective to this question is how hard should early career researchers work. I agree that a list of anecdotes is interesting but not very meaningful, but the notion that hours worked = productivity really ought to be squashed.
As a fellow grad student in Sweden considering to move abroad eventually, I feel your pain. I really think it's a fundamental difference in how people are managed. Numbers mean less on this side of the Atlantic, I think, and I am very happy about that. I really doubt that counting hours and keeping the "Democles' sword" over people will make them produce more in the long run. I realize that this is not the place for it but I would love to discuss this issue with people at some point, for instance on the AC.SE chat
To make the opposite point of @F'x comment: you should not make a decision about your postdoc based on statistics, because you may fall anywhere in the distribution. The expectations you have to meet will depend almost entirely on your postdoc advisor, so ask him/her. I recommend stating your own expectations clearly and firmly in the interview; if you sense resistance, then you already know what you're getting into.
"Three weeks in the wilderness" ... you only do that during scheduled breaks in the academic calendar. Unless you can arrange to work on atmospheric remote sensing in some wilderness location.
Are you asking about all, or those who survive to be later-career academics?
@keshlam That's a very interesting distinction to make, and it would be interesting to see an answer address that distinction. When I asked the question, I was asking about all.
Working conditions (hours, paid holidays, benefits) in the US, in academia and not, are generally atrocious from a European perspective.
TL; DR: 51 work hours a week with 12 vacation days a year
It is very difficult to assess how hard someone works. It is relatively easy to quantify the input (number of hours worked and the number of vacation days taken) and the output (papers and grants). In 2003 the Sigma Xi post doc society in the US began collecting data from 7600 post docs across 46 different US institutes about a number of issues including hours worked, vacation days taken, papers published and grants submitted. A summary report Doctors without Orders is available. Aggregate data is available via the Wayback Machine. I believe this is the best data set available to answer questions regarding the input and output.
The self reports suggest 12 days of vacation a year and 51 hours a week on average with 25% taking less than 7 days and working over 60 hours. The self report of the publication rate is around 3 with one grant application.
While self reports of hours work and publications are potentially biased, they might be a better measure of the perceived "hardness" of work than the actual hours worked. Obviously it would be nice if the publication and work rates were objectively verified. Obviously, publication rate and hours worked may not be the best metrics of how hard someone is working. This study found that alcohol consumption was negatively correlated with output. It is not clear if high alcohol consumption is positively or negatively correlated with how hard one works, but it might be relevant. Finally, Forbes has a report that University professors have the least stressful job, so maybe despite the hours, we don't actually work that "hard".
The comments to the questions suggest that understanding the input/output function would be desirable. This should be possible from the raw data of the Sigma Xi study, but not from the aggregate data, to determine if the inputs (hours worked) predict the outputs (papers and grants). I would be surprised if there was not a strong correlation, but also wouldn't be surprised if there were a number of outliers (i.e., lots of input and little output and little input and lots of output). Now, publication rate may not be the best measure of output as it doesn't consider quality. A psychology study found that impact factor is not correlated with publication rate suggesting that quantity and quality, as dubiously assessed by impact factor, are not correlated.
Did they try to get a sample of all postdocs, or only their members? I wonder if members of such a society are representative, or if they may be disproptionally ambitious.
@gerrit the survey was conducted at a wide range of universities and open to all biomedical post docs. They looked for bias. See the second link I provided for an overview.
Of course the serious source of bias is in the self-reporting.
I don't see how you can call this 'the answers', when it only covers a single area of research.
@TaraB I just looked at the report some more (and edited my answer). I think the Sigma Xi report actually includes all fields and the biomedical field just dominates the numbers. In the absence of contrary data I default to believing that how hard academics work is field independent
@DanielE.Shub: That's a fairly strong null hypothesis you've got there. I prefer to admit, in the absence of data, that I just don't know.
@JeffE my prior is based on my interpretation of Occam's razor.
I just looked at the report. "All fields" apparently means "All fields of experimental science". Computer science and mathematics are not represented at all. (Yes, math and CS postdocs are too true Scotsmen!)
Does anyone know what the workload of a succesful Math postdoc is? Here, Math postdoc means teaching+research, workload means number of vacation days/year and number of working hours per week,successful means one who after 1 or 2 postdocs will get a TT offer.
A few questions on this very interesting and nicely done answer: 1) many of the links from Sigma Xi have gone dead, and with only the link and no formal name I can't seem to locate the summary, data, or study. It isn't prominently featured on the website that I saw under their publications. Perhaps a more clear citation, with title? 2) It is said that a study positively correlates alcohol consumption with output - but the study summary itself reports a negative correlation (more booze is associated with less output). Am I missing something, or is this just a wording error?
@BrianDHall I fixed the links the best I can. I could only find the aggregated data on the Wayback Machine. I fixed the error on the direction of correlation.
Is there anything like the above studies for graduate students?
Why is this question being singled out for a higher standard of "statistical" reasoning than any other post on this site? I offer my experiences as an early career engineering professor in the US as "anecdotal" evidence, and do so with at least as much credibility as respondents on an anonymous survey.
In my experience, it's not at all about how "hard" you work (i.e., the number of hours per week) - it is about what you accomplish. In my first year as an academic I attended 7 conferences, authored or coauthored 4 journal articles, wrote three NSF grants (one of them successful), began projects with 2 grad students (both of whom eventually graduated with PhDs), taught three classes (two of them new to me) and served on the curriculum committee. That's the kind of involvement you should be expecting. With that said, nobody is going to look at how many days of vacation you take, how many hikes you take in the mountains, or how many times you spend an extra day or two at a conference location exploring the area. It is about managing your time effectively and accomplishing things (that will appear on your CV). Finally, the day of truth arrives at the tenure decision, and no one will care about weekends or vacations: but about your contributions to the field (papers, conferences, grants) and academic reputation (as evidenced in your letters of recommendation).
As for the sabbatical question, it is not a vacation. Most academics who take sabbatical go to another institution (industry or University or lab) and work with new people in an effort to learn about new things. Sure, there are fewer responsibilities (no teaching, no committees) and fewer distractions, but this is why it works! The last sabbatical I had, I finished writing a book and entered a new research field (helped by my new colleague-friends). At my school we have a laughable method of oversight: at the start of a sabbatical one writes a two or three page description of what the planned activities are and why they are beneficial to the researcher and the school. At the end of the sabbatical, one writes a two or three page summary of what has been accomplished. As a whole, professors are self-motivated, love their work, and care about the intellectual legacy (the works, students, and influence) that they leave behind. Sabbatical is an effective way of getting out of ruts, of opening new doors, and of expanding knowledge.
It's not “singled out”: I saw a potentially high profile question, in which I had a lot of interest, and wanted to avoid it turning into a discussion… but you're free to disagree! And yes, your anecdotal evidence has as much credibility as any one respondent of the anonymous survey… now go gather 6805 friends and we can talk :)
It seems to me that if we want to read the results of surveys, we all know how to use google. The point of most questions on SE is to encourage people to answer. In this case, your comment asked people to not speak up (unless their answer was "based on statistical data." So yes, it was "singled out" -- this is the only SE question I have ever seen where answers were requested to pass a threshold of statistical rigor.
@bill: Only by a single user, not the OP, who you are perfectly free to ignore as you did. =]
@bills but the question is about "how hard you work" and not "what you accomplish". By stating your outputs and job responsibilities, I don't believe you have answered the question and am down voting.
I cannot know how efficiently or how quickly the OP can work -- but the OP does. By answering as I did (about what is expected) the OP can try to gauge whether the job is worth attempting. How hard must the OP work? "Hard enough to accomplish the things that need doing" is my answer. But I cannot answer this in terms of hours/days, nor will anyone else care how many hours/days it takes.
I would like to put StrongBad's instructive answer somewhat into perspective.
In a survey*, 55 percent of newly hired faculty (tenure-track) at a large regional university in the U.S. called the present year the busiest of their life. These faculty members were also asked to self-assess their weekly working time. They estimated a mean of almost 60 hours per week, not very much above the finding reported in StrongBad's answer.
However, when the same persons were asked to keep record every fifteen minutes of whether or not they were doing productive work, they recorded a mean of some 30 hours per week. (This probably excluded things like writing emails or taking phone-calls, but it expressly included teaching with preparation and grading, office hours, committee meetings, scholarly reading and writing.)
This is not to suggest that these scientist were hypocritical; they probably felt overworked most of the time. The divergence between reported and actual working-time could be due to the social expectation, possibly more entrenched in the US than in Sweden, that scientists must be "hardworking", or due to biased self-perception grounded in a high stress-level, or both.
From this, one may take the practical lesson that it is extremely important both for sanity and productivity to separate work from recreation and "having a life". As to the OP's primary question, early career academics in the U.S. do work hard, but there is a difference between working hard, working long hours, and working productively; moreover, at some point, the former and the latter may be inversely correlated.
*Boyce, R (1989). Procrastination, busyness and bingeing, in: Behaviour Research Therapy 27(6), 605-611. (PubMed link)
I don't think these two figures are inconsistent at all: postdocs are generally required to mostly just do scientific work. New faculty suddenly have added to that: undergraduate advising, teaching, faculty meetings, departmental service committee, graduate student advising, etc. None of that is "productive work" by postdoctoral standards, and it takes a lot of time per week.
@jakebeal some of that extra work is included in the 29 hours, but the article does not make clear what is "productive" work and what is "other".
I think that any measure of "productive work" that categorically excludes writing emails is too stringent. If I didn't write emails, I couldn't do any of the required parts of my academic job: teaching, research, administration, service.
@jakebeal I have edited the answer to clarify which tasks were included.
@PeteL.Clark In my interpretation, the respondents themselves decided what they did or did not count as actual work; however, teaching etc. were counted.
@henning I just looked at the study you linked, and I simply do not believe the data. This claims that the faculty spent only 1.5 hours/week on research-related tasks and zero supervision of graduate students. This is so out of whack with my observations of faculty in research-oriented universities that I simply do not believe it. The study says nothing about where the faculty were or what fields they were in, so it's also problematic to evaluate from that perspective.
@jakebeal I must admit that I somewhat am puzzled by this small amount of what was counted as research too.
@jakebeal if I read it correctly, the data are from first year TT faculty teaching a 3-3 load. Most faculty do not have graduate students their first year and with a 3-3 load they are not getting any research done either.
So, not in research-oriented posts at all then: a 3-3 load and no opportunity for students supported on startup funds is not consistent with any R1 engineering or life-sciences department I know.
This answer reminds my on one of the more memorable talks I've heard. https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/104868/87129
A lot of work you need to do is not "productive work". Not to mention overhead of walking around, waiting for people to become available or events to being etc., which is not work at all but is part of your work hours. -1.
I wanted to follow the @F'x's advice on avoiding easy answer, but I had to add some points:
There is no constant working style across the United States. In academia, the working fashion significantly varies from university to university, from department to department.
IMO, there is much more emphasis on effectiveness in Sweden. Instead, in the United States, there is more focus on timeframes.
To my knowledge, it is rare to force post-doc and other researchers to work during weekends, though many of them normally work during off-hours to be successful in the forthcoming competition (in continuing their career).
Duties during sabbatical (simple teaching and lecturing) is much less than official duties at home. In other words, an academician needs a long refreshment leave far from heavy duties, but not completely off. It is similar to working holidays (in immigration terminology).
In conclusion, if it is a post-doc position, the working rules are mainly defined by the group leader, and for assistant professors, this is the university atmosphere, Dean, and department chair controlling the working fashion.
Note: Once again, this answer is based on personal experiences rather than statistical data.
there is much more emphasis on effectiveness in Sweden. Instead, in the United States, there is more focus on timeframes — can you elaborate on that?
@gerrit Labor system in Scandinavian countries is more result-oriented. Even the education system does not care about routines but the result. In Finland schools, students have freedom what time they want to go to school. Finland universities needs less courses for graduation, as compared with the US universities.
I've downvoted this comment because, again, the question is about "How hard do you work?" and not "What do you accomplish?" I believe the value of the question is in the "how hard" because presumably, everyone wants to accomplish a lot, but varying people have varying thresholds for what their work tolerance is. Everyone believes, for example, that there's an expectation that early-career professors work 60-80 hours a week for tenure (i.e. to be successful). Is that an actual number of straight working hours, or do we have a lot of "down time" in between?
@Irwin the OP asked how much time an early-career academician must spend in the United States by referring to a rule that post-doc researchers must work during weekends too. I commented that a US professor normally pay more attention to the working hours comparing an Scandinavian one. This is not about accomplishment. In any case, I do not understand your negative attitude for downvote. I clearly stated that I want to add some points (rather than a definite answer) on different issues raised by the OP, but it was too long to be quoted in comment. Though this is common all over the SE sites.
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21979 | Can students finish much of their PhD thesis before applying to a PhD program?
Are students allowed to complete a large portion of their research independently, then enroll in a PhD program, apply for a defense panel within the first semester, and quickly finish the thesis? Has this been done before?
Update: Question trimmed. I'm looking for an answer whether students can be admitted with much prior work on the thesis already complete, to finish in a short time (perhaps one year fix and improve the work), and whether there are real examples of people who did this. I not asking whether I myself am personally capable of completing this prior work to sufficient quality.
Naturally, rules will vary between institutions. As a data point, where I did my PhD, students couldn't submit their thesis until they had been enrolled for 8 terms. My guess is that such rules are pretty common. Off-topic: aside from any question of humour, I find "PhD Comics" completely unrepresentative of my experience as a student. Others may disagree.
I think some universities have an alternative route that enables the award of a PhD to an established researcher, based (mainly) on a substantial body of published work. This is intended for, e.g., researchers who have spent their career in industry. I'm not sure this is likely to be applicable to your situation.
Adding to what Artie said, PhD comics is a parody. It mirrors reality: sometimes supervisors demand unreasonable things, funding is scarce, and research is a pile of frustration. But only sometimes. If you like research, by all means, apply for one.
I'm confused: you seem to equate "did a lot of research" with "read everything in the topic and wrote a 200 page literature review". These are very different things: the latter is not research as much as it is review.
In Germany there is a thing called "externe Doktoranden" (external doctorate student). They work and are doing a PhD part time. I do not know if something like that is possible in your country. However, I do not see the point in doing it, as your chances at the academic job market are usually horrible and your thesis will probably not be good (in Germany most of the people are doing it for the fancy title). @Suresh also has a good point. What you are calling research is just literature review. Knowing what was done in the field is a requirement to start with research in that area.
@TheAlmightyBob What the OP proposes is like an "externer Doktorand" at all. Even externals need to apply before starting to do their research, and have their academic supervisor involved during the entire process.
Reader Dilbert.com, and then you won't want to work in the private sector either. Xkcd might want to make you work at NASA, YMMV. Also, depending on your field, literature reviews are often only sufficient to start independent research, rather than being 90% of a thesis...but I do suppose fields vary widely on this, I can't say for sure.
@xLeitix That is true. The involvement of the supervisor however depends on the supervisor (and probably the research area). But it prevents being a "real" PhD student (there is no required coursework and you still work (and get paid) while doing that).
This is quite odd--PhD comics has actually encouraged me to pursue graduate education. Something tells me I'm not typical, though.
@avid: here in the UK it's called a "PhD by publication", which requires that you have published work considered (by a mess of citeria) equivalent to a thesis. This can be applied for after the work was done, as you say it's intended for people who have done research outside academia. But probably doesn't help the questioner since even if that 200 page review is publishable, actually getting it published is one hurdle, and getting it accepted equivalent to a thesis is another!
@SteveJessop I think that's essentially what I was thinking of...
What do you wish to do with the PhD once you have it?
This is even funnier than PhD comics! :-)
@TheAlmightyBob: wrt. "real" PhD students and coursework. In my field (chemistry; in Germany) it is untypical to require coursework for PhD students. Typically, attending a research seminar is required, but not courses. And not so long ago, doing PhD research was considered your private fun, i.e. nothing you're paid for. The typical PhD student in my institute was paid for being TA (plus a few by scholarship). Enrolling as in formally signing up as a student also is not a typical requirement here. Doing research is the requirement.
Late comment: Reading Academia SE itself could put someone off the idea of getting a PhD as an apparent nightmare situation. It's not an unbiased sampling.
I can't speak to whether this is possible, but I can advise as to why I think it's a bad idea.
Firstly, PhD Comics is a largely satirical and humourous representation of life in academia. Some of those comics can be scarily true, but you can probably find a comic that parodies any job you care to imagine. It doesn't mean they all suck.
Even if you could do this, for most people and disciplines it's not a good way to get a PhD. You really should find an advisor to help you guide your research. Colleagues are great to bounce ideas off of. Having an office to work in and access to a good library is a huge advantage. You will have access to high-performance computing and lab facilities, if needed. If you're lucky, you'll find someone to pay you to do your research.
At the end, you will graduate being well-absorbed into academic life. You'll have networking skills, have been to and presented at conferences, your research will be of a higher quality, and you will overall be a much more well-rounded and knowledgeable researcher than had you stuck at it alone. The skills you learn as a PhD student are essential if you wish to have a career in academia. If you wish to go on into an industry job, they're still pretty darn useful.
"The skills you learn as a PhD student are essential if you wish to have a career in academia." You can also add the publications that would greatly help if academia is the target.
@PatW In most cases you should have an advisor or collaborators to help co-author the paper, but being affiliated with a university is not a requirement to publish. Though you're much more likely to publish more and better papers if you have an advisor and/or collaborators.
What I meant was that if OP is going for an academic career, publishing during his PhD would be very profitable. The situation OP wants to get in does not give him much time to do so and will probably hurt his chances in getting a position in academia.
-1 It does not answer the question. Plus, it contains a lot of wishful thinking.
@PiotrMigdal The question has been edited somewhat in the meantime. But be that as it may, I still stand by my answer. In questions like this, I think an evaluation of the pros and cons is extremely useful - not every yes/no question warrants a yes/no response as the singular answer. What component of my answer do you think constitutes "wishful thinking"?
@Moriarty He does not asks for pros and cons. He asks for possibility of an 'external' PhD. (At least in the current version.) You don't even address such possibility (or lack of thereof). Wishful thinking - most of PhDs I know are not a big boost for research for a self-driven person (either doing someone's else work OR ones own but in isolation). Perhaps for most people doing research on one's own is not suitable, but if OP explicitly ask about this possibility, it is like "Q: Where I can get good burgers?", "A: Don't it them, vegetables are healthier.".
In principle, this may be possible at some universities, but not in all. My current employer, for instance, requires students to be inscribed as PhD students for a certain minimum number of semesters before handing in their thesis.
However, I would assume it an almost impossible task to find an advisor that would roll with this model. Doing a doctoral study is as much about the process as it is about the end result, and finding an advisor that would just accept your final thesis without having seen you doing the research (and without being able to provide input on the general direction) will be difficult. From a practical point of view, I would honestly also be surprised if you would be able to actually produce an acceptable dissertation from scratch without any input from senior researchers, or at least other PhD students.
Finally, and I am aware that this is field-dependent, but in many fields, doing your literature survey is really only the very first step to doing research (and really not the hard part). Hence, I would reckon that you are still far away from the 90% completed dissertation that you mentioned.
EDIT: to answer your concrete question:
I am sure somebody somewhere has already done this, but I am not aware of anybody, and, as I said, it would formally be entirely impossible in my current university. I would also assume that it would be very much frowned upon by the rest of the faculty should a professor agree to this model.
You have no interest in becoming a PhD student just because you read some comics? It so, it just indicates that you didn’t do your research (about what being a PhD Student means) properly.
If you are doing independent research because you find it interesting, it might be beneficial for a PhD project. Find an academic who works in that area, contact them, present your research and see if they are willing to become your supervisor. They can advise you what the rules of their university are regarding the minimal period between enrolling in a PhD programme and submitting a thesis. This period might be different for full time and part time students. In one of the UK universities I used to work, part-time students (university employees) were required to be enrolled for at least 12 months.
If you want to do as much work as possible before enrolling into the programme, I would advise against writing the literature review (or at least against writing its full version), as it might turn out to be waste of time. Read “everything” in the topic, do some experiments or develop a prototype (or do whatever practical work can be done in your area), come with an idea about your research and speak with a potential supervisor. If you manage to persuade them that the idea is good, this is great, but the discussion might give you a different direction, you might want to modify the idea.
Another thing to consider – some universities (in UK) have 2-stagies process – the students are supposed to submit a transfer report after an year/an year and a half and have a viva, which usually leads to a MPhil degree, if it is successful they can proceed further to the final thesis. A transfer report typically consists of description of the problem, short literature and an overview of your ideas about the research/experiments/methodology, etc. with a schedule for conducting it. You can write in advance the bigger part of it but don’t do it before speaking with a potential supervisor.
If you are going for a full-time PhD, you might need funding. Check first what funding is available, the specific requirements of the funding bodies might mean that your idea has to me modified to fit them.
Last but not least – chose your supervisor carefully. The importance of having a good work relationship with them can’t be overestimated. Your overall experience as a PhD students hugely depends on it.
I know it is a cartoon, but the cartoon taught me these things: (a) PhDs are very stressful for most students, (b) students must often focus on advisor's interests, not own interests, and (c) students must live on a shoe-string budget. Did I get those wrong?
a) mine wasn't stressful. IMHO, most of the stress is due to lack of research experience. The students who I know were stressed (one actually left the programme), had this bad time due to not had done research before and lack of supervision. Their supervisor just threw them in the deep water - "find a topic for your thesis and persuade me that it is a good one", followed by numerous meetings when he simply rejected the ideas. (b) see the last paragraph of my answer, (c) it depends. Speak with the supervisor (I did and was offered a part-time job in the uni) Have you considered a part time PhD?
According to my experience, you've got all three wrong. Our work environment is the least stressful I've ever experienced (excepting the week before a paper deadline, but that's really our own fault for always starting a bit too late). I'm spending most of my time pursuing my own research interests (which of course overlap quite a bit with my supervisor's, as it should unless you really screw up), and while I did take a 14% paycut coming from industry, my salary is still well above the median income in my country (Sweden). YMMV.
@village it's not stressful it's frustrating, I'd say that any situation where you hold responsibility but not freedom is frustrating. A PhD is a prime example.
I'd actually add that it is mostly stressful not because of PhD experience itself, but because of a certain period in life it coincides with - all people in their mid-20's are starting things out and as soon as something goes wrong start questioning their choices and depressing over things. That concerns most of the people of this age and doesn't have much to do with academia in particular.
Answers to a,b,c and d depends a lot on the supervisor. Good supervisors are friendly, helpful and make the PhD stress free, and they won't force their agenda to you, and have good funding source. I was lucky to have not one, but two very nice supervisors, and my PhD was my best experience in life. As counter example, I know quite a few Chinese students who normally look for Chinese professors for supervision due to language convenience, but Chinese professors are used to stealing student's research by putting themselves as first author (that's what they're used to do in China).
So, I think it's important to talk to the supervisor and his/her students beforehand to see if he/she is right for you and also whether you are right for him/her.
I agree that choosing the right supervisor is key. If the stress gets to me, a chat with my supervisor calms me down. I can trust my supervisor to look after my interests, even ahead of his own. Whenever I lose confidence in myself, I remember that my supervisor has been through this before, knows my capabilities, and is confident I can do it. As for the shoe-string budget, that depends on your funding.
Since you've changed the question, my comment transforms to an answer. There are many people far more qualified than I am to talk about this, but none of them have answered in this way, so here goes:
In some UK universities (I happen to be in the UK) and also elsewhere in the world, there is an alternative route to a PhD called a "PhD by publication", which you can find out about under that name in the UK and presumably other names in other countries / languages. There's also a rarer "PhD by practice", which I believe is intended to cover work that isn't as such "published" at all, such as fine arts, architecture, theatre and whatnot.
I sort of doubt that a paper that "should" be peer-review published but that you haven't published, or in general work that you keep entirely to yourself prior to submitting for the PhD, would qualify even for "by practice". But it's largely down to the regulations of the individual institution, so if you're interested then you should contact specific institutions for further information. The general theme, though, is that you don't get a PhD just for working in a field. Your work should have enhanced the field, in the same way that a traditional PhD is an original contribution to the progress of its field.
Either route requires that you have already produced work that is deemed worthy to contribute to a PhD. You will demonstrate this work as part of the application. Of course there's quite a lot of detail and judgement as to what's deemed worthy. It may also be deemed necessary to submit new written work to bring together multiple separate publications into a coherent thesis. There is no guarantee at all that work you think is good, will be considered good by the institution when you apply. That, after all, is one of the roles of a PhD supervisor, to assess the academic value of your work before you do it as well as afterwards.
This is the way to quickly be awarded a PhD based on past work. It is intended for a professional in some field that does research outside academia, or someone within academia but who for some reason has not been enrolled in a PhD program while publishing. It's suitable for example for research scientists in industry, or authors whose work contributes to some field even though they aren't employed as academics. It is not construed as a means to avoid the main part of a PhD program, and indeed it doesn't work by enrolling you in the program and immediately examining you. It's a distinct, designed route to a PhD.
In the same way that people might weigh the value of your PhD based on where you got it from, people might weigh the value of your PhD based on the route you got it. Which is a diplomatic way of saying that a PhD by publication is not universally accepted to be as good as a conventional PhD. In particular it makes no attempt to prepare you for professional academia, and academics will know this.
To give you examples of short PhDs, there are instances for some prodigies in mathematics that they got their PhDs in about two years, e.g., Noam Elkies. Elkies also published in (one of the) top math journals in the world when he graduated, so it made sense for them to graduate him. There are some one-year PhDs in the history of mathematics, though these are typically nominal PhDs given to Russian mathematicians that needed one to leave Russia, to come to the US, and to find a new academic position.
Clearly, these are exceptions to the typical rules and these were only done at top tier universities for top tier talents. I believe the intent for these short PhDs seems a lot different from what your intent is.
FWIW: The five years I spent in grad school are the best five years of my life. You may be not allowing yourself to have the experience of a lifetime.
Most US and Canadian universities require four semesters worth of coursework, and passing candidacy and/or comprehensive exams before you can propose a thesis. Some of this is different in other places, e.g., in the UK, where you would typically come in with a MSc degree. Doing a PhD while working elsewhere is much more common there. One university there ("The Open University") specializes in distance learning. What you suggest is also more common at German universities, where you can find top-notch professors, and won't have to pay much in the way of tuition. But, be warned, it often takes a very long time, and you would first enroll and then work with your advisor on developing your thesis work. Plenty of people never graduate.
As someone has pointed out - doing a literature review is not research. It's the beginning of it, particularly in the sciences and engineering.
In my experience (I am tenure-track faculty at a US institution), people outside of academia call a lot of work "research", and beginning graduate students confuse programming, prototyping, reading with the contribution that is inherent in successful and publishable research.
Second, keep in mind that doing a PhD is about so much more than handing in a thesis. It is about laying the foundation for a career in research. A PhD involves going to conferences, meeting people, publishing, hearing guest speakers at your institution, critiquing your lab mates' work in lab meetings, writing a proposal or two with your supervisor, and so on.
In many places (e.g., here in Finland) the following two things are largely independent from each other:
Doctoral student status (i.e., being enrolled as a doctoral student). You have got the right to take courses, there is a professor who is willing to advise you, etc. There are of course high expectations but very few formal obligations — you are your own boss and you can do whatever you want, at your own pace.
A job as a doctoral student or a similar position (i.e., having a working contract with the university). You receive salary, and you are also expected to do something in return. Formally, your advisor is your boss and tells you what to do during your working hours.
Of course 2 usually implies 1. However, it is perfectly well possible to take 1 without 2. In that case you can get your salary from whatever source you want. Typical examples include:
working part time elsewhere and doing your studies part time
working full time elsewhere and doing your studies part time (and having no free time or holidays)
working full time in a job that somehow also supports your PhD studies
getting a personal research grant and doing your studies full time.
I do not recommend this for a typical student, but in atypical cases all of these are possible. And yes, you can certainly defend your thesis as soon as you, your advisor, your university, and the external reviewers are happy with it (whether you finished it 6 monts or 6 years after formally starting your studies).
In a slightly different version this was even more typical in Germany: PhD students were often paid for TA jobs, while their research is theirs. Changed much now towards having a research working contract (which IMHO has drawbacks on how much you can actually do what you think should be done). And actually there is another independence: having an advisor is largely independent of being enrolled to university as PhD student.
At least in Jyväskylä there was, a couple of years ago, a requirement of 60 ECTS credits of coursework.
Short answer: life is short, reduce the risks of wasting your time.
Long answer:
You are free to do as much as you please before starting a PhD. There are usually requirements about some minimums, but the good thing is that you are likely to stay close to those minimums and not get to the maximums (sometimes infinite) if you start your PhD from scratch.
You may also enjoy some spare time if all you have to do during your PhD is waiting for the minimum time to pass.
However, you should be aware that if you do independent research this may be neglected by your supervisor or simply everyone in the world. That is potentially possible and for a number of reasons:
bad quality, e.g. being unscientific or ignoring an important part of the state of the art.
it's on an irrelevant topic about which nobody cares about.
it's not aligned with their interests
it's independent and they don't like people trying to bypass them (oligopolistic practices, they have the key to research, if you don't go through them, you are not doing research)
the fragment of your thesis that you do at the university is on a different topic and becomes a whole thesis on its own
it's already done
whatever
The point is, all the time that you invest before starting the PhD may be wasted, actually a large chunk of the time that you invest during the PhD (at some university) will most probably be wasted as well. This is what happens with investments.
The main part of a thesis is publishable and published research
There are "PhD by publication" options that others have mentioned. If you have a number of solid peer reviewed publications, then that is an option that you can take to get a degree quicker. If you don't have such publications, then your thesis can't be mostly completed, it has all of the nontrivial work yet to be done.
Unpublishable things can't be "much of a PhD thesis"
No matter how much work you've put into 'research'-as-in-reading-and-reviewing, data gathering, etc, all of that is just preliminary background work, even if you have put it in a nicely structured 200-page document and label it a "thesis". The main and time consuming part of a PhD is obtaining novel, relevant and thus publishable results; if you don't have them, then that's not a PhD thesis, and not even a half-done thesis.
In general, it is not a good idea to do a whole lot of work on a PhD thesis before taking the PhD program. The reason is because your earlier research/exposition will likely not be up to the PhD standards that you will learn by taking the required courses.
That said, there are some topics that are very data intensive, and if you do a lot of the data gathering before taking the PhD program, and most of the data "processing" and interpretation after you're in the program, that's a different story. Here, the ratio might be 50-50, not the 90-10 that you hypothesized in your question.
I don't agree that gathering (useful) data requires less skill/training than other aspects of research.
@ff524: There are people who left corporations to take PhD programs in say, marketing, and their best source of day came from their former companies and day jobs.My former economics professor, for one.
PhD student who never completed here (so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt). I would advise against what you're describing because I do not believe it is in the spirit of the system and it raises issues for all who know what you are trying to do.
Like life itself you can choose to shortcut the system but if people find out what you've done they can punish you for it.
If you completed a significant amount of your research before doing your PhD then published it as part of your PhD thesis what on earth was your supervisor doing? What would your PhD examiner(s) say if they found out - do another year of new research then submit again? What are the ethics involved of what you have done? How does that look for those who are involved in what you did? What does it look like for the University and what will academics in other departments say?
A further issue crops up if the University is funding you. If I give you funding for three years and you said you were done in less than two as your supervisor/funder I would simply turn round and say do additional research for another year so you have a greater body of work published.
Another wrinkle is that in certain Universities it is not possible to submit a final dissertation for a PhD before two years ("thems the rules").
It is possible for people to finish PhDs early compared to the average of that university/country (I knew a talented faculty member who did this) but I do not personally know of anyone who managed to do this in under two years.
To answer your questions directly:
Are you allowed to do your research before your PhD enrolment and be viva'd after one year?
Theoretically you can do anything so long as you will find people who will agree to it. Practically it's very unlikely you would find a well regarded department who would want to this in anything but the most exceptional circumstances (proposed PhD student is already held in high esteem by the department and the entire field of academics in the field they wish to publish in (because your external will come from there)). If you withhold the fact that the work was done prior to the PhD you step into ethical issues.
Has this been done before?
I don't personally know of it happening in field I was researching. You can finish faster than average (three and a half years where I was) without prior work and I know part time students who have done so (but...).
One extra note: you had better make sure that your work is novel and hasn't been published anywhere else before before you submit it or there's another can of worms waiting for you...
This is possible in Germany, where enrolling as PhD student is usually not necessary (but possible on a volountary basis) - but it has nothing whatsoever to do with "finishing quickly" since you anyways have to do the usual amount of research work.
However, formally all that is really needed for a PhD over here is a professor who will "take" the thesis. In theory, you may arrive there with your thesis written, have that professor read and approve it, and then start the formal process of submitting and defending.
While arriving "out of the blue" with a written thesis is unusual (and would be risky in terms of whether the thesis does fulfil the required standard), there are some situations that are formally similar but are far more common:
PhD student does normal PhD research & publications at "their" institute, but does not enroll as PhD student since that is volountary. Also, a supervision agreement is typically not a formal requirement (unless the funding asks for it). So the first point where formal university burocracy meets the candidate is when they ask for the forms to hand in.
Similar: PhD students who do their research at a non-university research institute or in industry. Those institutes cannot grant a PhD, so the thesis is handed in at a university. Again, in practice, such a PhD student typically had the normal amount of supervision, but may not be known to the university until just before handing in.
This applies also (with less supervision) to people who after years of industrial research decide to put those results together to get a PhD.
I've done something like this as well: started a normal PhD without enrolling, got some jobs (full time research) before handing in*. Years later, I handed in at another university closeby to the non-university research institute where I was working at the time (and with the professor who is also director of that research institute), taking my "original PhD work" from the 1st university plus some bits and pieces from the ongoing full-time research jobs that thematically fitted in.
* getting a full time job as "almost finished" PhD student happened to about half the PhD students in that group.
Some of them finished years later, others never as the importance of the PhD often lies in the work rather than the formal certificate ("we see from your publications that you do have the proficiency required for the PhD, and that's what we really care about") and further diminishes with ongoing professional experience in the field.
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23652 | How to indicate when quotation marks are not used to quote someone in APA?
I am careful about placing attribution to quotes in assignments. Occasionally, in assignments, I must use quote marks for purposes other than quoting, but my instructor misinterprets this as a "quote missing a citation".
In the Wikipedia article on Quotation Marks, one can find a list of examples of other uses of quotation marks. Suppose I need to use quotation marks to "signal unusual usage" ("Quotation Marks", 2014) or show some "distinction" in "usage" ("Quotation Marks", 2014) or even scare quotes. Is there any way in which I can indicate this, in APA style?
Providing an example or two would help a lot here.
I meant an example in situ: show as an actual example sentence or two containing such a use of quotation marks.
APA does not provide a distinction. It is assumed that all thinks enclosed in quotation makes are either quotes, and therefore attributed, or something "special". The hope is that your text clarifies the reason for the quotation mark. In most well written papers, the reason for the quotation marks is pretty obvious. Therefore APA style does not mandate a difference in usage.
As to why your instructor is flagging them up, it is possible your instructor is using some sort of automated system to find the missing citations or that your usage of quotation marks is excessive or improper. It is probably best to talk to the instructor to figure out what is going on.
Normally referencing styles (APA, Harvard, etc.) address the issue of referencing the work of others. The "example" you have given is not an issue of using someone else's work and, therefore, I do not believe it would be addressed in any referencing system.
Your instructor should certainly understand the idea that quotes are commonly used for many reasons, including indicating a turn of phrase which might not be obvious to some. For example, I would not badmouth my boss because I "know which side my bread is buttered on." Clearly this is not a quote but rather a turn of phase, a saying, or an "idiom."
All that said, I do see a lot of student who forget to cite direct quotes and, as an instructor, it is very frustrating to me.
If you are using idiomatic expressions, with which your instructor is unfamiliar, you might add a footnote explaining it to "lend a helping hand."
APA style is much much more that just a referencing style. It is a 250+ page book covering all aspects of manuscript presentation style of which referencing is 2 chapters. It is much more similar to Chicago and MLA.
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23445 | Do I need to define all forms of cheating in the syllabus?
Every year, students seem to find new ways to "cheat" on the work. Every year, my course policies section grows longer and longer (a full page now) to match the newfound methods. I list all forms of plagiarism and exam rules and penalties. I additionally post similar rules on assignment instructions, particularly defining areas where I found students "cut corners" while still literally following the instructions. I teach many freshmen and foreign students who are not familiar with college expectations.
Do I need to define all forms of cheating on the syllabus? Is there some way to apply and enforce a blanket, "no other cheating permitted"?
Some examples include:
Copying and pasting text from Web sites.
Submitting classmate's returned assignment as late assignment with own name.
Foreign students using machine translation exclusively to write essays for writing courses.
Using TTS for speeches.
Peering at other papers during exams.
Copying from phone during exams.
Submitting work they made in other courses.
Adding names of extra non-contributors to group work.
Doing work for a classmate.
Pretending to be another student during an exam.
Attending different sections during exams to preview the exam or try different versions.
From (11) it seems like you are giving the same questions to different students at different times, in a classroom exam text. That seems bad practice in my view.
Many colleges and universities have an 'academic integrity' policy or standards. I would reference this policy and indicate all violations will be referred to whatever judiciary committee or structure is in place with your institution. It is the responsibility of the student to know what is and is not a violation of academic integrity standards.
In The Netherlands we like to joke that in Germany, they apply that Alles übrige, daß hier nicht gestattet ist, ist verboten, which means Everything else, that is not (explicitly) permitted, is prohibited.
And, in France, everything that is not [explicitly] prohibited, is permitted.
If you consider 3, 7 and 11 (or do you mean the answers, too?) cheating, you seem to need a list, yes. :)
Thanks mister! I never even knew there were this many awesome ways to cheat. You broadened my horizons. Before I was thinking of quitting school but now I feel confident again and very motivated to get my diploma instead of starting a gang. With this edumacation maybe I can even become the presodent!
To be honest, I do not consider (7) and (11) cheating and wouldn’t follow these rules even after you’ve stated them (different rules apply for thesis work – but even there it’s not a blanket prohibition on reuse). The rest, however, is so blindingly obvious that whether you stated it or not makes no difference.
Sounds like a huge amount of this would be covered by "All work must be your own."
Some offenses might not constitute academic dishonesty under your university's policies but might also count as not doing the assigned work and thus worth no credit. For example, if a student used TTS to give a presentation in my class, I'd assign no credit because the student didn't complete the assigned work, even though this wouldn't be "academic dishonesty" according to policy.
If you list all forms of cheating (or actually only try to - because that's impossible), your students will resort to loopholes to circumvent your rules ("I was not copying from a phone, it was a (smart)watch").
I think your problem quite literally is that you specify too much. If you provide a long list of things students are not allowed to do, it is natural that students assume that the list is comprehensive (that is, everything that is not on the list has to be legal). If you do what chubakueno proposes and have a single rule Plagiarising == fail, most people would be fully aware what that means.
EDIT: clearly, this does not mean that you should never go into more detail. Of course, if one has unusual or unexpected rules which other comparable lectures in the same university do not have, then of course they need to be explained. However, most of the examples given by Village are IMHO pretty obvious.
Frankly, many of the items on your list cannot reasonably be assumed to be ok, no matter the rules. For instance, did you really have a student tell you with a straight face he thought it was ok if he pretended to be somebody else to write the other guy's exam?
Can we safely assume that a first-year student knows the definition of plagiarism? Some of the points are quite nuanced (e.g., (3) and (7) in Village's list), and it is quite possible that a foreign student has never heard that word in their life.
@FedericoPoloni By and large, I am all in favor of treading students (even freshmen and foreign students) as adults. This also includes that, if e.g., an assignment text uses a word that you are not sure what it means, you clarify.
I agree with this but I think it's worth specifying that self-plagiarism is also out (that may well be a new concept to them), and maybe giving some examples, being explicit that they're examples.
The OP did state(in a comment) "submitting work completed in other courses". This is not exactly an obvious rule. But is often(was with me anyway) part of the university policy itself.
I agree that trying to define a comprehensive (exhaustive) list is pointless, as someone will always find a new way to cheat. I would tell students that cheating is not permitted, point them to some standard school academic ethics code as a starting point, leave enough wiggle room that you can catch and punish new methods of cheating, and invite anyone who's not sure if something crosses the line (e.g., collaborating on graded homework [but not a take-home project]) to ask you (or the provost, or whoever appropriate) about it.
I do have many foreign students who are completely unfamiliar with not just the word "plagiarism", but also the concept. It is possible that in some countries different behaviors are accepted by teachers. For e.g., some students claimed that their former teachers always let them "work together", i.e. submit identical work. In some countries, students are encouraged to write the words of famous authors and scholars from memory and citations are not required.
@Village ok, I am afraid I cannot help you then. I have certainly never met students to which the entire concept was genuinely alien (and I have taught people from pretty much all continents by now).
Does your school not have an academic code of conduct? Usually schools have very comprehensive (but succinct) definitions of "cheating" and "academic honesty" simply so nobody has to roll their own. Every syllabus I've ever had or used in any school I've ever been to found it sufficient to say "in addition to the syllabus of this course, you are also required to follow the school's code of academic honesty. Failure to abide by this code will result in immediate failure and referral to the appropriate administration."
This is even easier with the advent of web resources where you can explicitly link to the academic code of conduct in the syllabus (or some mirror of it if it's not online for whatever reason).
If not, I definitely agree with xLetix. Providing a comprehensive list of "bads" subtly implies that everything else is valid. Certain you can say "among other things...", but you should not have pages of examples. Certainly you can give one or two examples of blatant plagiarism, but otherwise give a succinct definition that's broad enough to allow you to catch all cases and leave it at that.
If your university doesn't publish its own academic integrity policy, you can always adopt another school's policy in your syllabus. "This course will follow MIT's academic integrity policies; see https://integrity.mit.edu/ for full details."
@JeffE I'm not sure I like that. MIT can change their policies at any time, and you in your school, should not be willing to immediately adapt whatever it is that they're doing.
@Cruncher MIT can change their policies at any time between semesters, but their definitions of "cheating" and "plagiarism" are unlikely to materially change. And of course you shouldn't adopt any policies that you haven't read thoroughly—every semester—and actually agree with.
These basic ideas should be prominent:
Your work must be your own.
Your ideas must be your own - you must identify and give credit for any ideas which are not yours.
You must be honest and ethical in all behavior related to assessment.
You might want to provide some separate information about exams. For example, you are/are not allowed to have your book/notes in the exam. Suppose someone for instance has information on their phone (and they are not allowed to have notes or the book), but they claim that phones were not excluded. You can, when discussing it with them, ask them whether they think this was honest and ethical behavior.
Part of the point of this is that it is their responsibility to identify if work or ideas are not their own. If someone claims, for instance, that copying from a website does not mean that their work is not their own, you can ask them where and how they acknowledged the use of the ideas.
As suggested by a commenter, I am expanding my comment to that of an answer. Many colleges and universities have an 'academic integrity' policy or standards. For example, here is one such policy at the University of Michigan: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/academicintegrity/. You can find many other policies and standards regarding academic integrity.
I would include the exact language of any such policy in the syllabus. When you review your syllabus, you should draw explicit attention to this policy and indicate that all violations will be taken seriously and referred to any judiciary committee if necessary. You can also take it one step further by having students actually sign a statement that they have read and understood the policy. Once you have done this, students assume the burden of ensuring their academic behaviors are entirely consistent with the policy.
The other part of the process is actually following through on violations. I don't have problems with this issue in my class because students are very much aware of exactly what will happen if violations are observed. Of course, some students will claim that they "didn't know." Ignorance of violations of academic integrity are simply unacceptable among college / university students who should be treated like adults. You don't want to give the impression that you are lenient on any such policy.
Don't include the exact language in your syllabus - otherwise there will be inconsistencies when the policy gets updated and your syllabus still includes the old version.
@user1915639 So, if you don't have the exact language, then what do you recommend. If the policy changes, so should your syllabus, right?
Just say "You must comply with the university's policy on X", with a link to the URL for the policy (assuming there is a URL which will always point to the latest version - otherwise just link to some page higher up in the hierarchy e.g. all current university policies or something).
I do think it's important to discuss academic integrity in the context of a specific class. But the students already agreed to abide by the university's policies, including academic integrity, when they matriculated. So I doubt it's necessary to go the extra step and sign your syllabus's statement.
The comments so far all seem to come from the perspective of the educator. Having recently made the transition from undergraduate completing exams and assessments, to postgraduate setting and marking them, I offer the following advice based on my experience.
My university requires every single student to complete an online "Plagiarism and Academic Honesty" course each year. This course takes the form of a few dozen slides detailing many complex rules and examples, attempting to cover every form of assessment in every academic department. No-one ever actually reads the content of this course; the old concept of "TL;DR" is true even when your academic or professional future is at stake. Based on this experience, I rule out the "exhaustive restrictive list" approach.
We also have the polar opposite as a University-wide policy: a very short, to-the-point statement about always behaving with complete academic honesty and integrity. This is always qualified, however, with a link to the full "legalese" policy. Again, no-one reads this. There are also numerous loopholes. For example, the policy states that you must not use another student's work without attribution. Copying an entire report and then scribbling "I copied all this from Dave" in the margin would therefore appear to be fine. This further leads me to the conclusion that a restrictive list is not the way forward.
So what do I see as the best option from both sides of the assessment process? Assume nothing of your students. They will have come from a wide variety of cultures where "academic honesty", "plagiarism", "cheating" and all related terms have very different definitions. Public exam processes used in schools also vary across the globe, so you cannot rely on "it's the same as it was before university". I would therefore advocate a "permissive list" as the best policy:
You are only permitted to take pens, calculators, and rulers into the examination room.
All work must consist solely of the thoughts, ideas and work of the named candidate (or group, where applicable).
Using the thoughts, ideas or work of others is permitted only where it is attributed and clearly marked as not your own.
All work must be original and created for the purpose of this assessment.
I believe those four rules cover everything in the eleven points above, plus other methods of cheating.
"Copying an entire report and then scribbling "I copied all this from Dave" in the margin" - this may not be plagiarism, but that does not make it a good classroom paper. Not plagiarising is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for a good grade.
It seems like in your case, you might just list what is allowed.
Imagine you have entered a room for the first time. You did not bring anything or anyone with you. This room has only a desk, a chair, a few blank sheets of paper, and a pencil. Anything that you would not be able to do in this room is not allowed in the exam.
Generally, you could just point out a few non-obvious things to adequately illustrate the spirit of the rule, and then say:
This list is not comprehensive. I will punish anything that gives you an unfair advantage. Use your own judgement to decide what would be acceptable, and if in doubt, ask.
After all, you are not required to have every decision you make in class to have been written in exacting detail beforehand (at least in most schools). You can just say, "even though I didn't explicitly say copying from your friend is not allowed, it should have been obvious to you that I would consider it cheating". Also, some things on your list should not even be mentioned. Whatever excuse the student who tried to take an exam for someone else came up with, I guarantee that they knew full well they shouldn't have done it, and they knew you knew they knew. I don't see how
No cooperating, no open book, no cheating
Doesn't cover everything except 7 and 8 on your list. Do your students honestly think that they're allowed to copy from a phone during an exam that isn't even open-book?
This is bound to be country specific, but like most people here from US institutions, I refer to the University code of conduct. However, I highlight gray areas. This means I don't list obvious things like (2) or (6) on your list. I would say something like this
"In this class you must follow the academic code of conduct [link to code], all violations will be reported to the judiciary committee. Note, in college academic dishonesty extends a bit further than you might be used to, so read the code carefully. For example the following things are not allowed [insert a list of two or three non-obvious things - I include 1. not understanding something you write, 2. Turning in basically the same assignment as a collaborator, even when collaboration is permitted].
Don't make it sound like you are giving an exhaustive list, but it is good to highlight some gray areas.
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31065 | What should I let students do when they finish exams early?
I organized my students to take their exams in the school’s computer labs. Some students finished well before others. In each section, I tried different policies for what students should do in this situation, but none worked very well.
I let one section of students leave when they finished, but make much noise while moving their chairs and gathering their things. Furthermore, I am concerned that students will find ways to cheat, e.g. leave and access the Web-based testing system from their iPod.
I let one section do as they like on the computers when they finished, but this made it difficult to determine who was finished and who was using resources to cheat on the exams.
I gave one section some extra credit work to do if they finished early, but many students did other homework instead, which led to similar difficulty in determining who was finished or cheating.
What is a good policy that does not cause interruption to other students but also does not hinder proctoring efforts?
In a written exam, you could allow the student to hand in their paper and then retrieve a book (that they left up the front of the room) to read until the exam is finished. If you can finalize the submission of an electronic exam before the exam time is up, perhaps you can do a similar thing.
In the first case: Did most of the disturbance happen shortly before the end of the exam? It’s due to this that we do not allow students to leave early in the last 15 minutes of the exam time at my university.
Also: How long do your exams take and how many of your students finish how early?
Exams are 90 minutes. The fastest 5% of students finished in 30 minutes. Most finished at 60-70 minutes. The slowest students 5% used the entire time.
I'm surprised your institution discourages leaving early. Students that are finished don't need to be monitored for cheating as opposed to keeping them there and watching them fidget for another hour. In all of my grad and undergrad classes we were allowed to leave as soon as we were done. Hopefully, by this level of education, the students will understand that reasonable time spent on the exam does not relate to grade on the exam.
Out of the box answer: do exams 4 times longer than now (that should take them 120 minutes). Correct exams. Normalize so that the best one has 100% of the qualification. Alternatively (if there are several exams per course) allow qualifications over 100% (e.g. up to 150%, never 400%), so they can get the (ponderated) average. 120% in one exam and 80% in another could imply a 100% in the final score. If there are special mentions for some students (there are in some cases) then a draw is less likely in this scenario.
@Trylks: I strenuously disagree. I think exams that are designed to take longer than the time available are a terrible idea pedagogically, regardless of how they are scored.
@NateEldredge I completely agree. In my studies I had an exam done with that reasoning: complete a project in groups (of ~3) in X hours (basically write a compiler's front-end, from lexer & parser, typechecker and intermediate code generator, in about 160 hours). The end result is: 1) students wont go to lessons during such a project 2) Students get really tired 3) Students get really angry because, even without sleeping, you simply cannot produce what most people would consider a good result. 4) The professor is hated forever afterwards. Although written exams are probably less stressful.
@Bakuriu I did that, for a subset of Pascal, and it wasn't that bad. Besides, that is not an exam, that's homework that may count for the final qualification. An exam (according to my personal and very casual definition) has questions, answers, and at most as many time intervals exclusively for it as questions are in the exam.
@Trylks The reasoning is the same and the disadvantages are the same: what do you earn by stressing students so bad? You are just evaluating how much the students handle stress, not how much knowledge do they have on the actual course subject. Besides I wouldn't call "homework" something worth 85% of the course mark, that you have to complete in 6 days straight during lesson period.
One thing you could do is encourage your students to double-check their test results if they finish early. Whenever I finish a test well within the time limit, I always go through the entire test again and make sure my work was correct, which usually saves me a few points of credit and takes up the entire remaining test time. I suspect this would give many of your students who leave early something productive to do with the extra time that also improves their performance.
@NateEldredge At what level? I was raised on exams like these. I think it depends on the maturity of the class. I've made tests where there are more points possible than the value of the test so students can choose to "punt" on some questions. When I was a student, I regarded tests like these as an opportunity for some friendly competition with my peers. The only problem is if you don't make the situation clear to your students beforehand.
@DavidHill: At every level. Just because they are often used doesn't mean they are a good idea! I understand that others may feel differently, however.
Jeez. Just let them leave.
@Bakuriu why do they have to complete in 6 days straight something that takes 160 hours? That's insane. We had about the full semester to find that time and do that work (which was 60% of the mark). How would you call that?
All my university exams in the UK were done under proper exam conditions, meaning you weren't allowed to take anything into the exam other than your pens/pencils, a calculator if allowed, and a clear bottle of water with no label. We were not allowed to leave in the first 30 minutes or the last 15 minutes. If we did leave, we had to do so quietly and weren't allowed to return. All our bags were left outside the exam hall, so we weren't rummaging around in the exam hall.
One way to minimize disruptions would be to make sure that the students leave their coats, backpacks, etc. in a designated area (near the door), such that they aren't opening zippers next to a test-taker or walking past someone with a bulky coat or bag. I think that particular aspect of what is disturbing the others could be clarified.
Why were the students leaving early disruptive? Under the rules of every institution that I've been at you are under exam conditions until you leave the room. They should be utterly silent and respectful to other students or face the usual penalties for breaking the rules of exam conditions.
If you're not happy with them leaving early I'm not sure why you would do anything to occupy them. Make them sit in silence and wait for the the exam to finish. Boredom never killed anyone.
+1. If students are sitting in the rows of a lecture hall, having to get up to let someone else out can be a nuisance. But I can't imagine a computer room layout that would be like that.
@Moriarty We have had decent experience with using only every other row (if you have the space). But then, few students leave our exams early.
The problem with leaving them quietly is that essentially you end up punishing your more capable students for finishing early. In school I finished almost every exam in <50% of the allotted time, that's a lot of hours of sitting quietly wasting life.
@JonStory: Believe me, I am familiar with those wasted hours. However, I think it's entirely reasonable to inconvenience those few for the benefit of a better running exam. Compared to the amount of your life you will waste commuting, say, it's not a big deal.
@JonStory By allowing students to leave, you also encourage the less capable students to give up and leave early. But which of the two evils is the lesser, is a tricky question.
@Moriarty I've never seen that in practice,either as a student or a TA. Both the weaker students and the pre-meds (snark) stay to the end in hopes of either finishing more or triple-checking their work. Some of my spouse's top medschool classmates left exams very early and nobody gave a [redacted]
Are these adults? If so, isn't forcing them to stay in a classroom false imprisonment? If not, would this question be off topic?
@AaronHall: Don't be stupid, of course it's not false imprisonment! They can make the adult decision to fail the test by breaking the rules.
I don't think I've ever seen such an attitude towards grades, and I've been in quite paternalistic settings.
By allowing students to leave, you also encourage the less capable students to give up and leave early. — [citation needed] Allow, yes. But encourage?
-1 for the last part. Boredom never killed anyone, but you waste the time of the students which put effort into learning the stuff. As a Student I hate to sit and wait for an hour or so ...
@AaronHall: In that case, wouldn't forcing them to stay in the classroom, or in a restricted area around the classroom (if you include the bathrooms, for example) during the time of the exam, be "false imprisonment", as well? Of course it wouldn't; by signing up for studying, they agreed with a certain set of rules (and usually had to sign for it!), which include the acceptance of minor inconveniences during certain exam-related situations. Someone at university age is usually mature enough to cope with those restrictions on the comparably few occasions they ever matter.
@AndroidRookie: I slightly question whether someone who gets seriously bored while sitting around for just an hour in a silent environment is actually fit for studying. Aren't there always so many things to ponder about, to plan, to think over, in one's mind? I see it like this: That time is only wasted if the students do waste rather than use it.
-1 for the attitude "Boredom never killed anyone.".
@PiotrMigdal: It's an exam. It's a short, one-off, period of time which serves the primary function of successfully examining the students above all other purposes. If that requires the students to sit quietly with nothing to do for a while, so be it. It really is no big deal.
@JackAidley OK, for you it is not, but other may dislike (or consider it a waste of time) to sit hours doing nothing (it wasn't said if the exam is 1h or 5h). For (almost?) all exams I attended I was able to leave at any moment.
@JackAidley I wouldn't consider it a big deal, but I would definitely consider it an impractical use of time. If there's 15 students in a class and 14 are done at 45 minutes and the last student plans to use all 2 hours, is holding the 14 students there for "benefit" of the 1 student really necessary?
@Compass: if they cannot leave early for whatever reason then it is a perfectly decent alternative. As you should note from the first part of the answer, I don't advocate it as a first course of action.
@PiotrMigdal: Our OP has already called that out as a problem.
@O.R.Mapper Not everyone works in the same way you do. Some people need (or prefer) external stimuli and will grow extremely agitated just sitting there quiet. And some people just have other exams they could be studying for, except they didn't bring study materials because they assumed you'd treat them like an adult and let them go home when they were done.
@ChrisHayes: I'd argue one can expect that an adult can sit quietly without growing extremely agitated. That's how the students are treated, when the situation (e.g. an exam with the conditions alluded to in various of the answers here) calls for it.
@O.R.Mapper Being an adult means that when you grow agitated you won't act out in some way. It does not mean that your students aren't in some form of distress from the experience. Personally I find it ludicrous to even consider telling students they aren't allowed to leave when they've finished their work. Penalize the ones who leave loudly and let the good, quiet students go.
@ChrisHayes: They shouldn't act out, by, say, refusing to remain seated until the exam is over. I think the reality is even the quietest student will make some noticeable noise when packing their bag and leaving (let alone force others to temporarily get up from their seats, if the exam is done in a "lecture hall" type of room). And even if they could be entirely quiet, that would just start the issue of someone outside of the room knowing the exam questions, and thus possibly colluding by leaving messages in the bathroom etc. Unless that can be prevented, fairness requires that everyone stays
@O.R.Mapper If they want to cheat by leaving messages in the bathroom, they will, unless you're barring them from bathroom breaks (and I hope you're not). I don't think we should punish everybody for that remote scenario which isn't even prevented here. I've never sat in an exam where students weren't allowed to leave at the end, and I would massively lose respect for the professor if I were in such a position, that their best solution to cheating was to force me to waste my time.
@O.R.Mapper In any case this is getting rather too long for comments and I expect the whole thread to be deleted soon anyway, so let's agree to disagree.
I would suggest perhaps letting them leave in a more constructive way - when finished, the student raises their hand and waits for a tutor to come to them. They state they've finished and are escorted, quietly, from the room. Add a minimum time at the start and end during which they can't leave, to avoid disruption at the important settling in and final rush times, but during the bulk of the exam, people will barely notice.
Alternately if they aren't allowed to leave by the faculty, I'd arrange something whereby the student has a marker (eg a red cone of paper) on their monitor during the exam. When they finish, they raise their hand again and you come to remove the cone, at which point they're allowed to browse and do homework etc. that way you can differentiate between those finished and those attempting to cheat.
I like both options you've presented, but the first is probably simpler in practice to monitor. Proctoring an exam is complicated with the distractions that the second option you've indicated provides.
Well, it depends to an extent on staff ratio, but I agree that it's better to avoid if you can't do it well. My preference would be my first option too - allow them to leave without disrupting others
That 'red cone' strategy needs to be the other way around - that is, holding it gives permission to browse - otherwise you can just take it off yourself mid-test.
That probably depends on your room setup: I imagine it should be fairly obvious in most if someone is reaching up on top of their monitor. Either method should work, though, and can be chosen as to suit your environment
I had one teacher, that put crossword or sudoku at the end of each test sheet. I think it is much better to give students something to do in the spare time. You should choose something that you can easily differentiate from cheating.
I would worry that the students that get stuck or lost would get distracted with such items and lose focus, potentially causing lower grades than they would get normally.
Well, If someone loose focus on test because of sudoku, they would probably lose it otherwise.
This is from personal experience as a student and proctor.
A student's "stuff" --
The best rule to have is that students are not permitted to bring anything to the testing site. If this is just not possible, you can ask students to put what they bring along a wall or up front, on the floor, near the teacher's desk. This rule alone can result in students bringing less stuff to the exam.
Phones and electronic devices --
Ask all students to pull their phones out before the exam starts and ask them to either put them on silent or simply turn them off. At this time, tell them to put them away and inform them that if a cell phone or other electronic device is seen in the open before the student leaves the exam room, they receive a zero on their exam. They can wait until they are in the hallway before looking at their missed calls/messages.
Computer monitor --
Tell students that after they have completed their computer-based exam to turn their monitor off. This can be optional based upon circumstances. You could also ask the students to close all open programs and return to the desktop.
Permit students to leave upon finishing their exam --
Tell students that they are in "exam mode" until they leave the room. Any spoken words that are not directed at a proctor or the instructor will result in a zero on their exam. They can retrieve their belongings from along the wall or from the area near the teacher's desk. You can even go so far as escorting students to the door and opening and closing it behind them.
DO NOT assume that students who finish last are weak students --
I am a graduate student and am usually one of the last to complete an exam. I am also one of the highest grades in the class. Some students have text anxiety or concentration problems that cause them to take longer on their exam. You can even offer to allow students who know that they take longer on an exam or have concentration issues to sit in desks that are furthest from the door or locations that are prone to disruption from students leaving.
I hope you find this useful.
@nyuszika7h. Good call, thanks. I updated my recommendation above.
I simply make an announcement with, say, 30 minutes to go requesting that, to respect the concentration of the students still working, students finishing early remain quietly seated until time is up.
This usually has the intended effect. The worst thing that's happened is that some students get up and try to leave immediately after that announcement. I meet them in the aisle and quietly repeat my request.
You did not specify what grade level these students are at. I tutor third-graders, and if they are let go early, they are definitely disruptive. But if this is college level, you are nominally dealing with legal adults. Forcing them to stay in the room until class is over sounds like unlawful restraint. I didn't even require that my students show up, except for the major exams. But they would lose all possible points for class participation, and hand-in assignments were always due. But, I explained, their chances of passing one of the exams were very close to zero unless they managed good study habits. A couple students tried this each term. Some got A+ and some got F. I finished one of my 3-hour PhD exams in 20 minutes, handed it in, and walked out of the room. It never occurred to me to ask permission, and if I had, the exam proctor would have thought it bizarre. (I passed with a perfect score).
If you have college students who are "disruptive" if they are not in class, your school has deeper problems than whether or not students can leave exams early, and they are not your problem. Even as an undergrad, we were treated as responsible adults, and such grade-school silliness as I've been reading here would never have happened.
I'm amazed that college-age students even tolerate such treatment. Or need it.
Note: if the students are disruptive, one way to control them is have them line up, buddy-to-buddy, and hold hands while walking in the halls. Like I did in pre-K.
The context of academia.SE is higher education, so grade level is implicit in the question.
I would have thought that from the "charter" of the group, but the question and many of the answers made it sound like the context was Pre-K-5, like the school I tutor in. The whole discussion seems remarkably silly in the context of higher education.
I reread your answer and now I understand your point that students at a certain level should be treated like adults. But in large classes (e.g., hundreds), or with only a few minutes to go, a stream of leaving students (who are also packing up their belongings and excusing their way to the lecture hall's aisles) can be disruptive to those trying to finish.
I do see the general concerns of allowing students to leave early; after all, they might meet up with whoever leaves for the bathroom while still taking the exam and provide them with information specific to the exam.
Now, of course that could happen as long as no-one has left, too. Someone could hide information in the bathrooms, or someone could meet up with someone not taking part in the exam at all, or that latter person could hide some information in the bathrooms after the exam has started. These issues could be mitigated in the following cases:
Only students taking part in the exam can enter the bathrooms. This depends a lot on the architecture; unless the lecture hall is extremely large (> 500 seats maybe, from what I could observe so far in universities?), the average number of required toilets at any moment during lectures generally does not warrant an extra set of bathrooms reserved for a single lecture hall. And even then, those bathrooms seem to be more often than not accessible in a way that one does not have to cross the lecture hall (and thus can enter and leave the bathrooms without anyone in the lecture hall noticing), for the very purpose of allowing outside people to use the bathrooms without disturbing whatever is going on in the lecture hall.
Students need to be accompanied to the bathroom door. Depending on how many proctors were assigned, and the size of the room/number of students, this may or may not be feasible. And even then, it would not totally prevent the exchange of information to take place in the bathrooms themselves.
The inside of the bathrooms needs to be checked whenever a student is brought there. This would require to have at least one male and one female proctor around. Highly unlikely to happen in gender-unequal disciplines such as computer science.
Those cases of cheating would be somewhat undirected, anyway. It may depend on the exams, but we generally try to not ask for any knowledge that needs to be memorized (in some cases, notes are even allowed during the exam). Our exams are usually designed in a way to test whether some knowledge can be applied in scenarios that are described on the exam sheets. Hence, the major concern is not cheating by accessing the course material or other references; the major concern is having someone else specifically solve one's particular tasks from the exam at hand. Therefore, what needs to be prevented is the contact between someone who is still taking the exam with someone who also knows the exam tasks. The straightforward solution to this is asking students to wait until everyone has finished.
Another point is that no matter how quiet students try to be, when they get up, they will make at least some noise:
Walking around creates some noises on non-carpeted floor, so that should generally be minimized. Leaving for the bathroom is allowed as there are medical reasons for that, but there are usually no such reasons that would warrant the impatience of having to leave right away.
Students who leave need to pack their stuff (writing utensils, drinks/food, other objects they needed to have around such as watches and their student IDs), which again will create some (more than just from writing) sounds.
In case of "lecture hall" type rooms, that do not have single chairs, but folding seats mounted to the next row of tables, students who do not sit right next to an aisle can only leave by making everyone else between themselves and the aisle get up. It is annoying when that happens in a cinema, and it is downright antisocial to disrupt someone's concentration like that who is taking an exam.
Some students may complain that they are wasting time, and - from an egoistical point of view - they may be right. However, unless we can provide a single room and a single proctor for every single student, that is not how exams realistically work:
They do not have to stay for an unexpected amount of time. If the exam was scheduled to take place between 2 PM and 4:30 PM, they can expect to leave by 4:30 PM. The time was known beforehand, and they will have arranged their schedule accordingly.
They are not the only ones taking the exam. Indeed, they (think they) have finished their own exam. But that doesn't mean they can stop caring about their environment at that moment, as the world still isn't centered around them; once they have stopped writing, it is their obligation to allow the other students to finish the exam without any further disruptions. I do not believe in punishing students who take longer by giving them an even harder time. Proctors need to guarantee avoidable disruptions are avoided, and giving in to someone's impatience is definitely avoidable.
The time is only wasted if they decide to waste it. There are plenty of things to do while waiting in a silent environment; from thinking - to get one's thoughts away from the exam topic - to sleeping. All of those are much less counterproductive with respect to the other students than insisting on creating more noise by leaving immediately.
Some overhead is to be expected. Reading out the exam rules and checking attendance in the beginning takes quite some time (in large exams, often more than 20 minutes). That is expected when taking an exam, and likewise, students should expect that there will be some time after they have finished writing that they still need to spend in the exam room.
Therefore, my general preference is to simply ask them to wait till the time is over. They can use some of that time to make sure they completed everything correctly (when do you ever get the chance/time to check what you wrote in an exam? You should use that opportunity!), and other than that, they are adults. They should be able to show a little patience on a few occasions.
EDITED to further address some more specific points that were brought up in various of the comments in this thread.
We always had exams in rooms with directly connected washrooms...
@gerrit: Sure, some rooms are built like that, but most exams I have seen were conducted in normal lecture rooms with the closest washrooms being the those for the whole floor (which tends to be more than enough, in terms of free seats per interested person on the floor).
In that case, I would anyway expect anyone going to the toilet to be accompanied.
@gerrit: With only two proctors available, that would leave only one person in the room, so that's not always possible. And if you add the possibility that someone who finished early might hide something (or themselves) in the washrooms to exchange some information there, the proctors would have to enter the washrooms with the students, which would consistently require at least one male and one female proctor - extremely unlikely to happen in "gender-unequal" disciplines such as CS ;-)
@gerrit: For smaller classes there is a good chance that there is only one proctor. Certainly that's the case for the classes I currently teach: it's me. Don't ask what happens if I have to go to the washroom...
@NateEldredge I've seen situations where the single proctor left for 5 minutes. Formally that would have invalidated the entire exam, so understandably, nobody reported this incident.
It depends a lot on the class and on the age of the students, which the original poster did not share. University students are expected to behave like adults, secondary school students may need a bit more supervision, especially if the school is not set up to accommodate students with no particular assigned place to be.
If a lot of students are going to be finishing early it may not be possible to give them a place where they can sit separately and use materials that contain possible exam help (even their class textbook may be inappropriate to read within view of students who are still working on the exam); in this case it may be best to provide reading material on the exam computer that will allow them to get an early start on future work, such as a reading assignment from a later chapter of the coursework.
Extra credit questions on the exam may also provide a way to keep all students occupied for the full exam time.
(As an illustrative example, I finished my final exam in a university economics class in 20 minutes, checked my work three times, and still walked out in less than a third of the allotted time. Telling students to spend the extra time to check their work may not be helpful.)
Based on your question, it sounds like several students may be asked to sit quietly for 30+ minutes. I don't know the specific policies of your university, but here are a few suggestions.
If you have an empty back row, allow any student who has turned in his exam to take a seat behind currently working students and use phone, laptop etc.
Have a TA offer student escorts outside the building every 10-15 minutes. This will be the way students can leave before the exam is up.
Double check policies. Universities in America (and likely Europe) generally count the exam done when the student gets up from the chair. The students are not generally disruptive as they leave the building, and the no in and out policy prevents students from colluding in the bathroom.
Checking all entrances of a whole building sounds like quite a huge task.
I'm going to agree with Jack on a couple points (why is students stepping out disruptive?) - with few exceptions and on major difference I think:
Test is over, class is not over
The main difference I'd like to point out is that in my limited experience (as a student) the test being over doesn't mean the class is over - normally that means you start lecture on the next chapter/section/subject... After a test students are free too:
sit at their computer - visible to staff and clearly not involved in test taking activities
run to the store (nearby, in building, snack shack)
just meander outside in the hallways until everyone is done - being respectful of our class AND neighboring classes.
etc
be back in your seat at X-time for further lecture
Either at a predetermined time (Test is 45 minutes) or as soon as all students are done taking the test, a 15 minute break commences that is then followed by further class time.
Test starts at 11 in the computer lab. You have until 12:15 to be finished (60 minutes for test, 15 minutes for break) and seated in the normal class room. Be respectful of those taking test, and those in nearby class rooms is more than reasonable if you are doing it outside of the normal classroom (computer lab).
What do you consider disruptive?
I think all of these suggestions to "Raise your hand to get permission" reeks of grade school and isn't something you do with responsible adults. I would find THAT more disruptive than Be quiet, respect others and wait or step outside until the test+break is over
But I think a major unanswered part is what are YOU calling disruptive? Students weaving through packed seats? Students saying "I'm done"? Students simply moving? Doing cartwheels through the isles due to the joy of finishing a test?
If you need to put up a guide, and treat it like every other disclaimer -
Don't eat the Chiclets included with your hard drive.
don't use hair dryer while in the shower.
Don't do cartwheels after the test.
... because SOME idiot had to eat the Chiclets or use a hair dryer in the shower, then do so. But I think those kinds of situations are probably covered in the generic "Don't do that" information you get when you start college.
This will depend on your local norms for class scheduling and exam length. Around here classes are usually 50 minutes, and an exam is scheduled to take the entire 50 minutes - there isn't time for lecture or other activities afterwards.
Raising your hand in an exam room is fairly common, due to the restrictions on non-verbal communication. Having class after exams is fairly uncommon - especially after a 90 minute exam (2 hours plus, including the time taken to seat everyone, read regulations, collect papers etc)
Among the three policies you suggested, only Policy 1 - Let them leave when they're done is good - or rather, it's the only morally acceptable one.
The reason is that you have no right to keep people in their seats doing nothing when they're done with their exam. That would be treating them like prisoners. You can and should make an effort to arrange things so that their leaving will be less disruptive (e.g. chairs which don't make a scratching noise when pulled...) - but nothing beyond that.
There's nothing immoral about making students stay; they freely agree to that condition when they sign up to the course. By this logic, it's immoral not to let them talk to each other...
@sapi: They did not "freely agree" to let you lock them up doing nothing.
That would be treating them like prisoners No.
@einpoklum: They freely agreed to obey by exam conditions (restrictions), and in turn be guaranteed exam conditions (warranties). Among those warranties is the one that they do not get disturbed by other students walking around, unless inevitable (such as by going to the bathroom), and among those restrictions is that they do not disturb other students by walking around, unless inevitable (such as by going to the bathroom). I do not see a reason why it would be inevitable that they show their immature side by becoming impatient rather than wait until the exam is over.
@O.R.Mapper: I believe you're fetishizing contractual consent. You do realize there's not much that's 'free' about it, right? Anyway, leaving a room after you're done with the exam rather than being forced to remain in your seat is not acceptable, and if students have any bit of backbone, they just won't do it, so it's inevitable.
@O.R.Mapper: Oh, by the way - my university decided a few years back to prevent exam-takers from going to the bathroom through most of the exam. So the inevitable is also sometimes evitable, if the establishment is presumptuous enough...
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85960 | Can non-peer-reviewed work be recognized by the community?
A number of years ago I was enrolled in a university as a PhD student and was working on a specific thesis topic. My intent was to earn my PhD with this work. Due to lack of funding, I was unable to continue, but I have continued this work independently for a number of years.
I have managed to complete this work now but finding the right place to publish it seems ever more causa perduta for me. I am thinking about simply publishing it for free and trying to distribute it on the Internet. I am also thinking of making translations into several languages myself. Besides publishing in my mother tongue I am thinking to translate it into English and Russian and possibly German, too. I hope this can make it available for as wide range of specialists as possible. But yet the problem of peer review remains. Even if accessible to everyone on the Internet it isn't going to be something gone through the peer review process and it is likely my thesis itself would cause controversy.
As such, my question is, can research be accepted "in any form" by the scientific community? Does anybody know of cases within the past two decades when such a thing (research first published "free on the internet" being eventually accepted as mainstream) has happened ? I just want to know is this even possible in modern science or would it just "disappear" in the huge noise of the net.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
It sounds like there are several questions going on here, so I'm going to try and break them down one at a time.
As such, my question is, can research be accepted "in any form" by the
scientific community?
Yes. While the scientific community at large is much more likely to accept research that has been peer-reviewed and published, within a community of researchers things are a bit more loose. Some ideas get passed around on list servers and through emails via pre-prints long before they are published.
Does anybody know of cases within the past two decades when such a
thing (research first published "free on the internet" being
eventually accepted as mainstream) has happened ?
As noted by zibadawa timmy in the comments to the question, the work of Grigori Perelman appeared on arXiv, was well received and is highly cited. However, as the commenter also pointed out, Perelman is a well established mathematician so their work gets much more notice when something is published to arXiv.
I just want to know is this even possible in modern science or would
it just "disappear" in the huge noise of the net.
There is no guarantee that this will happen, nor is this a modern phenomenon due to the internet. Always remember the history of science. Gregor Mendel's "Experiments on Plant Hybridization" is considered to be a seminal paper, but was published in the fairly obscure Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brünn and it wasn't until after his death that his work was rediscovered and he was properly credited.
To address your work directly based upon the comments to your answer. I would suggest that your best approach would be to get back into university for your PhD so you can receive mentorship and guidance. If that is not possible, your second best bet might be put together a manuscript and send it off for peer review in various journals. If it get bench rejected by the editor then they may provide feedback on better venues for publication. Likewise, reviewers who think the work is worthy of publication in a different venue will also do the same. This could help to find a home for your work.
Also, based upon some of the things you have mentioned with regards to complexity, I would highly recommend looking into the work of Stuart Kauffman and their book "The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution" in particular. Some of what you are describing sounds like work that is actively being done and published by scholars that investigate complexity in the context of complex adaptive systems. If that work is indeed similar to what you are doing, then that may point you in the direction of venues for your own publications.
As far as I know (and believe me I follow the field closely) Kauffman himself has a tons of problems finding funds and places to publish (and this is really HUGE name by all standards there) so what about a little researcher from an unknown country having ideas outside the mainstream? Can you see now why I am so desperate?
@YordanYordanov Maybe when Kauffman was first getting started, but as a MacArthur Fellow he's very well established at this point and a lot of people want to hear what he has to say. The hardest time in an academic career is going to be when they first start establishing themselves.
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88651 | Is it normal that a peer reviewer would ask for an executable file in order to check my results?
I have just received a decision letter for my submitted manuscript to an Elsevier journal. It was a revise and resubmit. However one of the reviewer asked for an executable file in order to check my results. (I felt distrust from his comment..)
This is regarding a computer science paper on testing the efficiency of an algorithm on a set of instances from the literature. I compared the results of the algorithm with those of other authors.
To clarify: the paper talks about some software, and the reviewer wants to be able to run the software?
I don't know how common that is (I'm not a computer scientist), but so long as any license on the software permits you to give it to the reviewer it does sound like a reasonable request.
If the algorithm is ganna be published anyway, I don't see "why not"!
@DSVA: "If you publish an algorithm you need to somehow publish the actual code"... what percentage of published algorithms do you think come with source code?
@Mehrdad "what percentage of published algorithms do you think come with source code" a lot less than the percentage that should come with source code. Imho if you can't verify the claim without implementing the algorithm, then it should have source code attached, and the source code should be reviewable, or else it's not good science. No reviewer in their right mind would accept a paper with "magic happens here" in the middle of the proof so "closed source software happens here" shouldn't be allowed either.
A distrustful reviewer is a good thing, it means they are going to give your paper a stern test, and if there are problems with the paper, they are more likely to find them, which is to your long term benefit. I very much doubt they distrust your honesty, just the result.
As someone with little-to-no experience publishing software (or algorithms), wouldn't providing them with a compiled executable only provide them with a way to run your code, not view it?
@Sumyrda "Imho if you can't verify the claim without implementing the algorithm, ..., it's not good science" Unfortunately, things are often not that simple for algorithms. Many algorithms can be proven correct, yet still be entirely non-trivial to implement. This is the reason why algorithm engineering is a serious field. One such case is Chazelle's triangulation algorithm. His proof is most likely correct, but there is no implementation for a while (as far as I know), even though it is an often 'used' algorithm!
In general Science terms, only a genuine peer-reviewer is liable to do such a thing. An excessive percentage are liable to flag it away as too hard. Their was a day (I'm told) when peer-review meant REVIEW!. Someone else was confident that you knew your stuff and would put their name (albeit anonymously) to the conclusion. Such people are of course very annoying, but they are part of the foundation on which real science is built. Or used to be.
What other way do you suggest should he go to verify your results?
@Discretelizard "Many algorithms can be proven correct, yet still be entirely non-trivial to implement." But that's exactly what I said. You either show pseudocode and prove that it is correct, or if you can't do that for some reason, especially when you claim that your algorithm is faster than some other algorithm, then you should have to show your code - or provide some other way to verify your claim if you can think of something.
Please clarify: Is the paper about an algorithm? Or a program? Or the results a specific implementation produced on specific input?
You should never distribute executables, but always the source code. Nobody, wants to execute an binary program without compiling it from source. It could do anything on your system. One can try to workaround with an sandbox, but why not distribute the source, if it is part of your scientific work?
@JonasStein I think the only reason I would want the source code would be so I could examine it for errors, not because I'm worried another researcher is going to bug my system. Especially one who didn't volunteer such executable but instead is producing it on request.
@PhdStudent "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." I certainly have trust in our scientists, but that trust is earned through verification and peer review. When we publish science without verification, we open ourselves to pesudo-science at best and willful deception at worst.
I observe the use of male pronouns to refer to a presumably anonymous reviewer. I think this is our implicit biases working against us.
@Sumyrda There's a difference between source code and pseudo-code. Source code IS an implementation, just not in executable form yet. Pseudo-code is not source code, it is only a method to describe algorithms. But if you meant that at least some sort of verifiable (by the reader) argument for the results of an algorithm must be present, then I of course agree.
@Discretelizard Exactly, it has to be verifiable. Whether it's verifiable by going through the pseudo code alongside your reasoning or by reviewing your source code doesn't matter, but one or the other has to be possible. I'm torn about verifying the claim by running tests against a closed source executable - there's still too much "magic happens here" in there for my taste - but it's better than nothing.
I don't know if it's normal, but it should be normal for all reviewers to make reasonable efforts to verify that the claims authors make are correct, so to the extent that it's not normal, I can only commend the reviewer for being willing to make an effort that other reviewers don't make. What you sense as "distrust" is the reviewer doing their job, nothing more or less (and it is probably somewhat accurate to say that a reviewer's job is to distrust the author's claims, so I don't see the idea of being distrusted by a reviewer as something to be ashamed of or offended by).
By the way, it should also be normal for authors to make available any software (including source code whenever possible) needed to replicate and verify their results. So if you are unhappy with the reviewer coming back to you with annoying requests that delay the decision on your paper, next time around you can preempt such issues by releasing your source code (or at least submitting it to the journal) alongside your manuscript. I am sure the reviewer would be much happier and ultimately everyone would benefit, including you.
Thank you for your comment, perhaps I felt offensive because it is my first journal paper. However, in my research field it is not common that authors make available their code..
Anyway, i will send the executable to the reviewer because he stated that without this check the paper cannot be accepted . Thank you again.
As someone who works in the industry and reads papers as "an outsider", it has always struck me as very odd that there's a tendency to "hide the code". My feeling is that code, just like a paper, should be out there and available. I'm absolutely with Dan here, it should be done more. To me at least, not publishing code always has a bitter aftertaste of there being something dodgy going on.
Unfortunately, most of the algorithms and numerical methods described in journals like Journal of Computational Physics (a very reputable journal!) are implemented in in-house closed source codes. I did some review there and I just had to trust the results.
It would be nice for authors to make available software even when it isn't needed to replicate or verify their results. I can think of one algorithm paper which I once tried to implement, and I gave up because it didn't seem to type. A reference implementation would have helped understand the paper.
Agree about the proper framing of the feeling of "distrust" - better to interpret it as healthy scientific skepticism, which every reviewer should have. I put a level of trust in peer-reviewed papers (especially for topics I'm not intimately familiar with) precisely because they have satisfied a panel of reviewers' skepticism.
@SBI It's not odd at all. If you invest 4 years of work into a code, you need it to pay off in enough papers/citations/attention to get you a promotion. One paper will not do that, and if you release your code, you'll need to spend another lengthy period of time coding up a new publishable result while your rivals use your code to scoop you. It's not so much "publish or perish" as "publish more than alternative hires or perish". (Personally, I did release my code; I also perished.)
The answer has assumes that the reviewer has only the best intentions at heart along with a idealistic tendency to improve the scientific culture. While I'd commend those things instantly, unfortunately we live in the real world. One needs to consider that the reviewer is an anonymous person asking for the core part of a research process with a clear expertise in the field and the consequent potential interest in it. I'd advise carefully considering such requests also from the perspective that there are individuals who could try to exploit their reviewer anonymity and privilege.
Another red flag that catches my attention is that they request an "executable file". The user has no way to verify that the executable doesn't just print the results with no algorithm behind, aside from reverse-engineering it (without going into too much detail here). Such request can possibly mean that the reviewer tries to lull the author into a false sense of security by intentionally not requesting the source code.
@user3209815 : They may be catering toXerxes point: releasing the source code may not be acceptable because other authors can then scoop the OP. Making the file executable means they'll have to decompile it... which may not be viable. Although, as you say there's no way to verify that such an executable doesn't just print out the results required.
@Xerxes How can your idea be publishable in a paper though, if it depends so much on closed source code? I mean, you lay open your entire idea anyway. I've written code basing on papers countless times. Usually, code is more a proof of concept rather than holding more information than what you publish anyway. The other way around though, it becomes trickier. Making claims without showing they actually work is... difficult.
@SBI Of course, the paper must be such anyone can implement the algorithm indeed! But that can be a lot of hard boring software engineering work.
@Xerxes Ideally your work would be adequately supported by some funding agency (usually public). In return, you open source your code. Practically, I understand that you do what you have to do.
@Xerxes that is why code should be released with licenses that requires attributions. If people are going to take your code and publish a paper based on it, they would have to attribute you as the original author of the code, just like they'd have to cite you if they used results from your published papers.
@VladimirF: "I just had to trust the results". No, you didn't. If results are produced by software, then you should be able to verify the results, and if you can't verify them, then you don't accept it. There's the saying "pictures, or it hasn't happened".
I'd add that the executable (compiled code) by itself, while it would allow replication of effort, wouldn't be particularly useful in the grand scheme of things. The source code, as others have said, is the more important thing. Either it's commonly available software (in which case, why couldn't the reviewer(s) download it themselves?), or it's a rare or proprietary code, in which case the source code is the more important detail. It's the method that needs to be replicated, and the binary is a black box that hides the code, which is the method.
Reviewers are bound by confidentiality—you can provide code to reviewers without releasing it. Yes, reviewers cheating happens sometimes—though seldom.
There are multiple movements towards reviewers trying out code; see http://www.artifact-eval.org/ for one approach.
@gnasher729 Do you trust experiments even when the authors did not make their facility available to you to re-do their experiments? What if that numerical method was implemented in a CFD code to which the authors don't have full redistribution rights? The computation may take many a lot of cpu time on a supercomputer and the reviewers will not re-compute them anyway. I wouldn't for that paper I reviewed. The analysis of the results might also be time consuming.
@Xerxes No, you did not spend 4 years on your code. You spent four years on your algorithm, which you are already letting the world know about through your paper. The code is simply an implementation of it that you could have written in a fraction of the time, had you started on it after you had settled on the algorithm.
I come from a different field, in which the code we use isn't a major output. But if a referee asked for the code, we would provide it and happily. Most of our work is done in python so an executable wouldn't be usual, the source would (also true for matlab).
In fact the only thing I find slightly odd here is the use of executable rather than source.
Don't be offended by the request for a couple of reasons: It's not the reviewers' job to trust you; it's their job to check your paper. If a reviewer takes enough interest in your work to want to run your code, they haven't dismissed your paper out of hand.
I like the final point. It would even seem a bit honouring to me if the referee would be willing to try out my software :)
@Džuris indeed, it means they are taking your paper very seriously.
Thank you for your second paragraph! No one here seems to see this. When I read the title of the question, I assumed OP found it odd that someone would request an executable rather than the source code because that indicates they don't care enough to check the source code for errors / mistakes / deliberate mistakes and in fact are too stupid or lazy to compile the source code (which I assumed was provided) themself.
@UTF-8 It's also possible they don't have a compiler (maybe can't because of licensing/platform issues) or don't have the skill in that language to make sense of the source. Even then I'd still want the code
Upvoted and a ++ for the fact that it is weird they want an executable and not the source. Heck when I grade homework, I want the source and anything else required to get it to compile, including compiler commands/statements/options/arguments if it is anything more complex than "g++ foo.cpp -o foo"
To summarise the situation with your data:-
1) You came up with an algorithm on paper/Matlab/whatever.
2) You implemented that algorithm in some programming language.
3) You built a set of test data to exercise your algorithm, and came up with some results for what it should do in theory.
4) You put that test data through the code and came out with some results for what it does in practise.
In this process there are various places where things can go wrong with your methodology. Your code may not correctly reflect your algorithm. Your test data may have been worked backwards from the code instead of forwards from the algorithm. Your test data for your algorithm and your test data for your code may not be the same.
Unless the reviewer has the algorithm and the source code and all the test data for both and all the output data for both, they cannot verify that your work is sound and your conclusions are valid. This is not subject to dispute - it is logically impossible, if they want to properly review your work. Anything else is making assumptions which may not be valid.
I have personally been affected by this situation, when my company bought some control theory IP from a researcher. He'd written papers on how this was supposed to work and the theory behind it, and then he'd built some electronics to implement his theory. His papers covered the theory, and also included schematics for the electronics. When I read this to work out how to implement his theory in software, I found that the schematic had an extra filter in it. The action of this filter turned out to be critical to the system being stable or even effective, but it was not documented at any point anywhere in his work. It wasn't until we had a phone call with him that we found out what the purpose of the filter was, and how we were supposed to tune it.
This was in a paper which theoretically had been peer reviewed when it was published. Clearly it hadn't been peer reviewed thoroughly enough! His results showed that given the same data, the implementation output was pretty close to the theoretical expected output, and the effect of the filter was at a different place in the response. Still though, the implementation flatly would never have worked without this filter present, and it wouldn't have been at all hard to include this in the theoretical model. He could even have said "this filter is required for these reasons, but can be ignored in this area of the response we're looking at for these reasons" and he would have been covered. What is not acceptable is what he did, which is to fail to mention it at all, because the end result of that is that someone trying to implement his work would be unable to.
Like I said, he still got his paper published, and no-one complained at the time. It should have been spotted by his original reviewers though. In your case, your reviewer should be looking for discrepancies like this - it's the whole point of peer review. So if people are asking you for things you haven't made available, (a) it's a good sign they're checking thoroughly, and (b) you should have made it available in the first place as best practise.
Artifact submissions are a thing in CS. What I've seen is that you'd prepare a virtual machine, where your software is already set up and ready for making experiments. So, the reviewer may be referring to that the journal has some official procedure for artifact submissions. Alternatively, some authors just make the source code of their tools and benchmarks available via services like github, and the reviewer may be suggesting you should also do this. Regarding the distrust, computing people are naturally wary about benchmarks and tool comparisons, as the final figures may depend a lot on how your experiment is set up (e.g., if you compare to your own implementation of an existing algorithm, did you implement it correctly). It could also be that the numbers that you give in the paper seem a bit odd, but then the reviewer would have pointed to what exactly doesn't look right to them.
Submitting an executable isn't the same as submitting source code. An executable doesn't really give the recipient any access to your original code (as a computer science student should already know, of course). I don't see a problem with this request.
I see a major problem: the executable run on the same test cases is going to produce the same results. even if those results are wrong due to an error in the program.
I'm curious how you would send an "executable" of, say, Python code, without giving access to your original code? Are you expected to obfuscate it?
@jamesqf They could try other cases, not covered by the authors.
Any executable can be decompiled to produce functionally the same code. Any code that compiles to JVM or .NET can be decompiled to something relatively close to the original, and even machine code can be torn apart with enough work. While I deeply believe source code should be published with publications like this, if you refuse to do so, you can't offer an executable as if it will hide what you wanted to hide from your source code.
@CaptainEmacs but they can't do that if they can't see what the program actually does. It might as well have data embedded in the executable or do something else than what is claimed.
@mathreadler Of course, it could all be unlucky. However, I have had exactly this situation during my PhD, and the authors sent me an executable and I could try my examples with it. If there is bad coding (hardcoded constants), sometimes it is still possible to edit the binary to fix that (I have done that, too, once).
Source code can have bugs, and to truly effectively review an algorithm, a prose description of the method alone may well be insufficient. Sharing something beyond the text is beneficial; a good paper with the actual source code (+sample inputs) is the gold standard for reproducibility.
One fun wrinkle: depending on where your reviewer is, you might not be allowed to give them a binary. Eg, some code uses proprietary libraries that are licensed freely in academia, but someone in industry might require a separate license to even use an existing binary, much less compile it. (this happened to me once, though not as part of peer review)
Given my personal experience with open source communities and the assumption that the paper includes the entirety of the algorithm in question, then sending the source code or related compilation of said software wouldn't produce many negative effects.
This would allow the reviewer to verify results and claims made by the paper's author. The key issue the reviewer might be looking for is that you correctly implemented algorithm in source code an are not mistakenly relying on a feature of the programming language, OS, or hardware to make claims about its running time or other features.
Off the top of my head I would relate that in I/O bound cases its easy to mistake efficient algorithms for, as an example, Javascript's ability to make almost every function call asynchronous. Of course this is mostly seen in I/O bound operations rather than proliferative computational loops. Then the efficiency measured is not that of the algorithm as a formal proof but; instead it relies on a language specific feature.
The salient point is that there are many cases in which the formal algorithm and the implementation can diverge from representing each other faithfully and in doing so the conclusion, if based on empirical metrics such as running time, can run into many issues where an improper implementation can attest to an incorrect conclusion.
It is an idiotic request on his part.
He could catch a virus.
There is no realistic way he can check that the executable implements what is described in your paper, ergo no way the request has any scientific value whatsoever.
He should be asking for the source code, and that is all you should agree to give him.
#2 is often false. A significant number of problems have the characteristic that checking a solution is much easier than finding a solution. In such a case, a reviewer can verify that a black box does indeed produce correct solutions and measure the runtime complexity. This would be particularly valuable if, for example, the reviewer noticed that all the examples used in the paper had particular characteristics that made them easier to solve than the general case, as he could formulate his own test cases.
@BenVoigt But what black box? How can the reviewer know he has the black box implementing what the paper claims?
There is a valid point that use of a black box doesn't assure that paper contains an accurate description and explanation of the method used -- but the reviewer may be much less worried about the risk of having faked the description given that a novel method is proven to exist, at least compared to the risk of faking both method and description.
@BenVoigt I cannot make head or tail of that after the word 'but'. A black box does not prove anything about the claims in the paper. It only proves that a black box exists that produces the results claimed, somehow.
@Magicsowon I would like to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. I have the title deeds. I won't show them to you but I can send you an .exe that will print 'yes' every time you ask it whether I own it.
@Magicsowon “a Linux user might feel safer than a Win user” Linux user here. I don't agree at all. You could easily write a program that damages personal documents or sends them through a network connection on both platforms, if the recipient is kind enough to run it for you. Linux is safer for "widespread" malware that is not targeting you specifically, also because there are more which are made for Windows.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:49.194829 | 2017-04-27T21:24:56 | {
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112018 | When should I start applying for a PhD program in the UK?
I am starting my MSc. this September (UK), and am strongly planning ahead and setting myself goals. Simply, when would be the appropriate time to submit my applications?
My MSc is 12 months long and will go from Sept 2018 to Sept 2019. I was thinking of applying 6-8 months into my MSc.
What do you think? When is the most logical time to submit my applications?
Just before the application deadline?
This kind of depends on what sort of PhD you wish to study.
For the most part, you don't get accepted for a PhD position in the UK by applying to a graduate program. Most universities/departments simply do have a formal "program". There are acceptations to this of course. Several of the larger funders run formal programs, look out for the Wellcome Trust PhD 4-year programs for example. Some of the research council's Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) operate on this basis as well. These are rare, and tend to be highly prestigious and often associated with research institutes rather than university departments (the Wellcome trust ones are also very well paid compared to other ways of doing a PhD). They are recruiting earlier and earlier in order to try to grab the best students. For example, the Sanger Institute 4-year program's 2017 deadline with 2nd of December.
For the majority of PhDs in the UK though, the supervisor will apply for funding from a funding body for a particular project. If they are successful they will advertise individually for applicants, interview on their own schedule, and the successful candidate will start at the earliest convenience of the both the supervisor and the candidate. This often ends up being the start of the next academic year as the candidate generally has to finish their Undergrad/Masters degree first. When these positions are advertised/when the closing dates are will depend most of all on the funders grant deadlines. Our DTP (where we get most of our students from) has a dealine just before christmas and we will generally be advertising in Feburary. A good place to look for adverts for studentships like this is FindAPhD.com. Another place to look is jobs.ac.uk. I would have alerts set up on these sites for the whole year, but expect the busiest time to be the first quarter of the year.
Finally, if you will fund your PhD yourself somehow (either though your own funds, or that of a company or from a foriegn government), its generally up to you. The application process may take a couple of months and if you are not native the visa process can take months as well. If you want to aim to start at the beginning of the new academic year (which is not a terrible idea, since you'll be starting with all the RCUK funded students, making things socially easier), I'd probably start this process in the early spring: give you plenty of time, and it you are sorted early, waiting to start is not going to be a problem.
Minor counterpoint: this could be discipline-dependent, even within STEM. It seems currently the case in most UK (pure) maths departments that one should apply directly to the university, perhaps after unofficially contacting some people in the maths department, stating explicitly that one is seeking funding. Departments will then have their own mechanisms for allocating the limited amount of funding they have, from various sources; this can include RCUK studentships that have been allocated to the department from a more central pool
I guess this is more or less what I meant by the third route I talked about. Except that we would never consider anyone unless they knew exactly what funding it wast they were planning to apply for and what their chances of being successful were. The EPSRC, like other councils in RCUK, now longer awards all departments block grants for students, but operates through DTPs. Some depts will choose to operate a program, others will fund projects. I don't know of any that operate as a scholarship scheme that is only available if you apply by other means, but I guess that probably exists somewhere.
Funded PhDs in the UK usually follow the academic calendar and start in late September or early October. Accordingly, application deadlines tend to be in February or March (often set by the funding councils and hence will be the same for every university).
The exception to this is if you are planning to self-fund your PhD, in which case you will have more flexibility on starting dates (but check with the universities you are going to apply to if you are planning to do this).
The best time for you to submit your applications is probably as close to the deadline as possible, especially if you want to use your supervisor/ tutor/ other lecturer from your MSc as a reference. The longer you wait to submit the application, the better they will get to know you and hence be able to write a better reference.
However, don't wait until the last minute to ask for a reference! Ask well ahead of time (>1 month) and let them know when the application deadline is so they have time to prepare.
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7902 | Website management for group seminar
I am planning to start running a group seminar, with talks scheduled regularly, at my institute.
The seminars might be of interest for people in neighbouring areas, too, so I would like to have an "archive" website with all the abstracts and a calendar of the upcoming seminars, and of course I'd like to send out e-mail notifications (and optionally also a RSS feed/calendar widget for the more tech-savvy users).
Is there any software or service that can help me automate some of this setup? I thought of opening a blog-type site on some hosting site, probably either Wordpress or github/Jekyll.
Do you have experience working with similar tools? Do you think they would really save me some time? Or maybe is it better if I just add a page to my academic website, send the mails manually and forget about the other fancy addons?
Having once been the guy making a site for a lab only to have it abandoned because I made it too complicated, I would strongly recommend that, whatever you do, you make it simple to maintain; unless you're the lab PI, the site you build will likely outlast you.
Wordpress is very easy to use, with lots of built-in functionality, freely available themes, and tons of tutorials online describing how to use it. Other CMS packages have similar benefits. Unless it's strictly necessary, I would avoid "rolling your own" software; almost all lab websites are the same few pages, and you don't need something complex for that.
I agree with @seismail that you should check whether your department will make the page for you or at least agree to host it. It will definitely improve branding.
A site hosted by your university, on your university website, will probably be a better choice than an externally hosted website. This is because you'll be able to immediately identify the seminar series with your university, and that will help to improve its branding. (It also looks a lot more professional!)
As for software, there are a lot of different options. I can't really offer a lot of guidance on this, as we have staff whose job it is to maintain our websites. Which one you pick will depend a lot upon the kinds of features you want, and how steep a learning curve you're willing to negotiate.
You might consider using google groups combined with a google calendar. It can be set up to provide email alerts and a calendar, and you should be able to extract an RSS feed as well.
+1, Google Apps are the easiest solution for this setup. You have a Calendar, Group Discussion, and also Drive where you can upload abstracts, papers, whatever you like. Drawback is, every participant needs a Google Account.
Another option could perhaps be using Google Sites (https://sites.google.com) rather than Google Groups (and again use integration with the Google Calendar).
I have always hosted reading groups and seminars using a page within a wiki. There are a bunch of firms that will provide you with a wiki for free or for a small price and many that specialize in doing it for Academia (e.g., PBWiki and WikiSpaces and I'm sure there are many others).
You might have to send out your own email announcements but that burden is pretty minor.
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2914 | Are PhD scholarships and assistantships taxable?
I'm currently in the process of applying for various scholarships to fund my PhD.
Many scholarships mention explicitly the approximate amount per year of the scholarship. This is usually the amount excluding tuitions, so the amount mentioned is intended to be a stipend to cover living expenses.
I've never seen it mentioned anywhere, nor could I find a definite answer of this online: will this stipend be taxed? E.g., should I subtract a certain percentage off the scholarship amount that's mentioned, to calculate my real monthly income? Does this depend on the country the scholarship is given in, or are there international agreements on this?
I'm in the initial stages of setting up my PhD programme, therefore I'm in contact with professors in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada, so ideally, answers to my question apply to any of these countries. If it's relevant: I'm a dual citizen (European/American Citizen).
Depends on country, undoubtedly.
have you found out what is the tax percentage in New Zealand? I cannot find a way to send you a private message
Helpful discussion at http://sbseminar.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/wanted-page-of-tax-info-for-nsf-fellows/
@user4050: No, I had to postpone the start of my PhD till next year, so I stopped exploring all this some time ago. But next year I'll probably have to dig into it again, so if you find the answer....please share :)
If you are a US citizen, you have to file taxes every year, regardless of where you live. Whether you owe money depends on tax treaties between the US and your country of residence.
If you are a US citizen: GET AN ACCOUNTANT
Taxation does depend very much on the country, as well as the type of award you receive. The amounts similarly vary from nation to nation. To give two examples:
In the US, scholarships and fellowship stipends are taxed as ordinary income. However, in some cases, for externally funded awards, you need to be careful, as the university might not withhold taxes. In that case, however, you would need to make estimated tax payments, as you are still responsible for paying the tax "on time!"
Don't forget that your tax burden may also include state and local income taxes, depending on where you live. Making matters even more complicated, cost of living fluctuates wildly: you're probably better off with a $25,000 award in the midwest than a $35,000 or $40,000 award in New York City.
In other countries, the system can vary. In Germany, for instance, graduate fellowships are not taxed, while "standard" graduate positions, which are considered employees of the state, are taxed. At the same time, however, people receiving the taxed positions receive health benefits and pay into the social security system. Stipend recipients are responsible for their own health insurance, and do not accrue time in the social security system.
Wow...here I was, half-expecting most scholarships (except a few privately funded ones) were exempt from taxes. Seems I've opened up a stinking tar pit of doom...
My graduate stipend was taxable in the US at the federal level. However, there were exceptions at the state (Pennsylvania) and local level. If I was being paid out of grant money to perform "duties necessary for the completion of my degree", then it was not taxable at the state or local level. Those taxes were not taken out of the paycheck in the first place. If I was being paid to teach more than the two semesters it was required, then I got state and local taxes taken out.
@DaveClarke Although Dave's answer provides useful info, this answer provides more general, top-level information. In any case, this answer makes obvious that it varies so greatly from country to country, that my question has no clear answer. Therefore, I'll accept this answer as the most satisfying one.
The stipend is taxable at the federal, and possibly the state level depending on where you live. The tuition waiver however is non taxable. Any grants and loans you may receive are also taxable as income.
@JohnB: It depends on how the tuition waiver is handled. A direct payment to the school would not be taxable. A payment to the student which has to be redirected to the school may be taxable.
@aeismail, while the payment to the student may be taxable it will become a wash when you file your taxes, in the US at least. In the instance of a payment to the student the school will report it as billed tuition on the 1098-t at which point the student will be able to claim that payment was made when the file taxes and it will wash out and tax obligations for the payment provided it does not exceed the amount of tuition and fees billed.
@JohnnyB: It probably comes out as a wash in the end—but students might need to watch out for estimated tax payments.
When I was in grad school (1998-2004), my stipend was subject to US federal and CA state income taxes, but not to payroll taxes (Medicare & Social Security). It's complicated.
@coneslayer: Not really. Income and salary are two different concepts in most tax systems. A stipend is definitely income, but not normally considered a salary, therefore it's not subject to payroll taxes.
@aeismail If your 23-year-old grad students are showing up with an understanding of that distinction in the tax system, they're way ahead of where I was at that point. All I knew is that I was getting a paycheck that looked like every other job I worked, but not all the same taxes were being taken out.
OK—I was filing the federal 1040 plus tax forms in three different states while I was still a teenager, so it was obvious to me. I can't vouch for my colleagues.
I don't know if you're interested in building a single and comprehensive answer, since you're already upvoted, but: in the UK, students do not pay income tax (as they receive a studentship/scholarship) and are exempted from paying local taxes (Council Tax). They have access to the national healthcare system. Students who TA may get access to national insurance and may have to pay tax on their TA revenue. In France, students are treated as normal workers and pay income and local tax, but the level of tax is relatively low for the income of a PhD student. Healthcare and pension are included.
Adding a data point for France: it is taxed, and it is in the lowest income bracket.
In Belgium, we have two kinds of ways of paying PhD students. One is a bursary, which is untaxed. The other is a salary, which is taxed. The amount the student gets in the hand is roughly the same, though there are factors such as amount of experience, whether there's a family and/or children, etc, that affect the value.
Whether a bursary or salary was offered depends upon where the funding comes from. In practice, the tasks of the students in each case are the same. No additional money is provided for tutoring, though it is expected that students help out with tutoring and other activities.
Tuition fees (less that 1000 euro per year) are not covered by the scholarship. Money for books is not provided, though in our department students can order books for the library and keep them on their desk for as long as they want to. Sufficient money for conference attendance is generally available, independent of the scholarship, as far as the student is concerned (which means, managed collectively by the supervisor).
Belgian PhD students earn a comparatively good amount of money, I think almost the highest among PhD students in Europe. (I can't find a reference for that at the moment.)
Would the salary come out of tutoring (or similar), so "non-PhD related labour"? Or is that the part of the scholarship that's left over after tuition fees, books, expenses for conferences, etc. (PhD related labour)? Or both? :)
I've updated my answer. Let me know if it doesn't answer your questions. And note that it applies only to Belgium, but perhaps only to Flanders or even just KU Leuven or our department.
I agree with most of what has been said. To add up to it, in UCLouvain grad students are typically either salaried teaching assistants (which takes around 1/3 of total time or less) or untaxed bursaries who are forbidden from teaching or any other work, at least for a FNRS/FRIA scholarship.
When thinking about taxation you need to consider how tuition and fees are handled. Under some circumstances, you could be responsible for paying tax on the money used to pay your tuition.
You also need to think about minimum earnings. If your only income is your scholarship, the tax burden will be small. If you have additional income, then the additional tax burden from the scholarship could be very large.
So in other words, before starting to work for extra income, I should make a few calls and check if the "extra income" will result in a net loss of income?
@RodyOldenhuis yes, but in most countries negative income cannot happen. What I mean is that the increase in tax liability associated with a scholarship (or extra work) can be very different between two people. The tax liability of someone with no other income might increase by less than 10% of the value of the fellowship, while the tax liability for someone with a lot of other income might increase by 50% of the value of the fellowship.
Is this a theoretical or real-world issue? I don't think I've heard of anyone being taxed on tuition coverage, but I'm certainly not an expert.
@AnonymousMathematician real-world (at least to the extent that the US is real-world): See example 2 at http://www.irs.gov/publications/p970/ch01.html#en_US_2011_publink1000178003. I have been told that in the humanities example 1 also is relevant since some scholarships are all "teaching income".
I think it's important to point out that an important criterion for taxing tuition benefits is that you need to get the money. If the scholarship pays the money for tuition directly to your university (as many do), then you're not normally responsible for the taxes on it (unless you get a form declaring it as income).
I am in a similar situation. Based on my research on departments in Canada, Australia, and the US, as already been mentioned the stipend is always taxed. Sometimes though you are in a lower tax bracket.
EDIT: I found this information about the UK
Income Tax
58. Payments made as part of a NERC studentship are not regarded as income for income tax purposes.
Students should note, however, that earnings received during the final year from sources such as teaching
and demonstrating should be aggregated with income from post-award employment when assessing income
tax liability for the tax year in which the award ends.
I think your UK research is mistaken. Training awards such as PhD stipends are exempt from tax.
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109757 | What does a research proposal for PhD applications consist of?
Am presently trying to get PhD admission in somewhat reputed universities in India. However most of their application ask for a research proposal about which I have no idea. What does that mean and how should I write one in about 500 words?
Any guidance will be very helpful! Thanks in advance!
Welcome to Academia.SE. You may want to take a look in this close related question. In addition, where the restriction of 500 words comes from?
"research proposal" aka the question you want to investigate / research .,..
@TheDoctor The application limits the number of words in research proposal.
Propose a research topic, maybe using a hypothesis (it depends on you subject area): clearly identify what you want to find out.
Show why this a relevant piece of research for the rest of us.
Explain how you would attack the topic, what is your intended approach.
Show related research where others, if possible well known researchers, have done their research.
During your research, all these elements could change, however, if you lack of an idea before, it will be hard.
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97890 | Is copying methods from a paper from the same group plagiarism?
I just wanted to see what people think about a possible plagiarism issue. I found a new article which, as far as I can tell, uses data first shown in an older publication from the same group but with a different first author. This may be irrelevant but I thought I'd mention it anyways; this new article's only novelty is to analyze the old data with a model developed in another group.
To the point: this new article has many (more than 8) sentences taken from the older article from the same research group. These sentences describe the experimental setup. It's clearly the same setup as the older article.
Is this plagiarism? I've been taught that it is but I've talked to another academic who says it's not since there are only a limited number of ways that methods can be explained.
Do they cite the old paper where these methods were first discussed?
Yes, they cite that old paper.
Suggesting quotation marks is a job for some people.
Experimental and methodology sections are increasingly being recognized as "exceptions" from plagiarism, for reasons of practical necessity. For instance, I use the same basic technique to study different problems in engineering and material science. One of the sentences in my methodology section is:
We use the SHAKE algorithm to constrain the bonds in water molecules [citation].
There are only so many ways to write this statement, and at the same time, I can't ignore this information, because it would imply a change in method. Is it plagiarism for me to reuse the same wording as in an earlier paper? If it is, I'm in big trouble. Similarly, if I were an experimental group, how many ways are there to say:
We used chemical X from vendor Y as received.
For this reason—because often methodologies are very similar to previous methodologies within a research group–many journals now do not consider such so-called "self-plagiarism" of the methodology section to be a problem.
If a methodology is common to many papers, then reusing a description of it (with citations to previous use) is not plagiarism: the ideas are manifestly not original, and the language is viewed by those in the field as being routine rather than distinctive. Still, I think one should keep verbatim copying below a certain threshold....
....I don't read papers with methodology sections, so let me explain it in terms of my own field. If you are quoting a theorem, no one would ever say "Hey, your statement of it is exactly the same as X's; why didn't you change it?" That would sound nuts. On the other hand, if I state a sequence of theorems in a manner identical to a previous paper, then after a certain point one wonders why the reader is not just referred to the previous paper.
I was thinking along the same lines as @aiesmail . Especially in the biomedical sciences one lab may produce a series of methodologically near identical papers where I'd consider it highly desirable to not try to gratuitously vary the description. It's hard enough to follow the exact steps, and any variation might induce the question whether the description means a variation to the process. In the literature I see a lot of hand-wringing about the "problem" of how to avoid self-plagiarism, while offering consistent, standardized methods, and I think that's a pendulum swinging too far.
@DSVA: I didn't say that there has to be a citation; my comment was of the form "under these conditions there is no plagiarism". That does not imply "under other conditions, there is". I am working in a very different academic field from you (no experiments!) so in many cases I simply don't have an informed opinion. I'm curious though: how long are the repetitious parts of your papers? Under a page? Over a page?
Plagiarism is presented to students as a binary concept: either you're doing it or you're not, and you'd better not, because if you do it there are clearly defined repercussions meted out by a clearly defined group of people, the academic honesty personnel at the university.
In post-student academia, the truth is that plagiarism functions more as a continuum. Instead of one set of rules that all the world's academic members agree upon, there are less precise (though no less deeply held) cultural norms that most of the world's academic members mostly agree upon. There is also no good analogue in the "real" academic world of "academic honesty personnel": instead, academia is largely self-policing.
So in your case, instead of asking "Is it plagiarism?" you should be asking "Is this an academic best practice? If not, how bad is it? Is it actionably bad?"
In the case at hand:
[T]his new article has many (more than 8) sentences taken from the older article from the same research group. These sentences describe the experimental setup. It's clearly the same setup as the older article.
My view on this is: it's far from being bad enough to merit any outside corrective action. Because the word "plagiarism" sounds very serious and we in academia have a stake in keeping it that way, I would not use that word in this instance. (And if you do, your colleagues / superiors / affiliates may think you're overreacting.)
Three key points:
Plagiarism is defined as using the ideas and/or distinctive language of someone else. I gather from your description that the two papers were written by the same group. (You say "with a different first author". I don't see the relevance of that -- all the authors of the paper are all the authors of the paper when it comes to issues of academic integrity and citation.) Recycling your own work is a different academic crime, often called "self-plagiarism," but I discourage people from using the term "plagiarism" to describe it: it gives the wrong idea.
You say that they cite their older paper. That's a key point in their favor -- it means they are not trying to fraudulently pass off old work as being new. One can even argue that the paper went through the refereeing process and the referees and the editors apparently had no issue with the repetition. (That doesn't necessarily make it okay, but it provides some useful perspective.)
The essential currency of academic work is intellectual novelty, but that does not mean that everything that appears in an academic work is or should be intellectually novel. There is a certain amount of routine, procedural stuff that needs to be there, but that most expert readers will quickly pass their eyes over.
I hope you notice that at no point did I claim that the authors have followed best practices here. I do think it's lazy to lift multiple sentences and whole paragraphs from a previous work. In my opinion, even if something is completely routine and what you write is going to read the same way as what many other people have read before: okay, then you can type up a new, uncopied version quickly and easily. Also, as a reader, when you catch someone copying anything, your opinion of them and the novelty of their work goes down a bit.
I will end with this: I remember once, some years ago, reading a paper of a certain student of one Professor A and having the feeling that the paper was morally similar to a paper of Professor A's that I had glanced at before. When I compared the two papers side by side, I found that not only was the intellectual content closely analogous, but the student had evidently written the introduction to his paper by starting with the introduction to Professor A's paper and making close to the minimum possible amount of change necessary for the same text to introduce his own paper. I did not seriously consider pursuing a plagiarism charge on the student...but it left me with a negative impression of his creativity, independence and work ethic. From what you say about the two papers, the main issue is not that some routine procedural passages were copied, but really that the second paper is rather derivative on the first -- not fraudulently so, but in a way that makes the second paper not that interesting to you. That you think this about the authors' work is, I think, the most appropriate negative consequence of their actions.
I would argue that in some cases citing the older paper can actually be less 'ethical'. If you consider the situation where the authors use essentially the same experimental technique in two different papers and describe it with the same wording, but that the technique itself is not novel and they were not the first to do it, then citing their previous paper could seem like an unjustified/frivilous self citation. Of course it is always possible to reword sentences to satisfy some arbitrary rules about 'self citation' (or copyright), but in many cases this serves no sensible purpose.
@Bobgom: I agree that a more primary citation is to be preferred. In terms of reusing common, routine text: some positive amount of this is certainly okay. On the other hand if, say, three pages of text were copied verbatim from the previous paper, that would not be okay -- no academic paper should contain this amount of derivative content -- and doing this without a self-citation would make it much worse, since then the derivative-ness is being hidden from the referees and readers.
Does the new article cite the older article, or otherwise address the older article? If not, I would say it's almost certainly plagiarism. If the author's of the new paper did, in fact, quote the older paper, and not give it an in text citation, they could be considered plagiarists, but are more likely just sloppy writers.
I think that the 'other academic', you referenced, is probably incorrect. Their statement is true to some degree, but I cannot think of a single instance, except for a definition or law, where there is only a single way to phrase a statement like you described.
If you don't think my answer was clear enough, I'd recommend running the paper through a plagiarism checker. Many schools do this, and they are often the final word in discussions like this.
There may not be a single unique way to say something, but if I use the same methodology in forty different papers, do I need to find forty different ways to say it?
@aeismail Plagarisim is copying someone else's work without due acknowledgement. Even if you copied yourself, you would have a defense against plagiarism because it would be yourself. If you really want to make it clear it is work done based on prior work, you can always reference yourself.
Every journal has their own rules regarding this scenario. Most commonly, if the method is identical to one published and you can be sure that no changes at all were made, you would be asked to make an very brief description of the method (few sentences) and cite the published paper. Other editors may ask you to rephrase the methods section, which should not be too difficult. I would still cite the original publication.
In short, ask the editor what their policy is.
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19544 | Interview for a PhD position at a German university
I am interviewing over Skype, for a research position at German university. So far my interviewer and I communicated via email, and he sounded formal but pleasant.
I have no clue how interviews are conducted at German universities. Is it subject-based or do they just want to know the student's skills and motivations?
Also, since i am interviewing for a position in machine learning, should i expect questions about the current trends and research?
All of these things are completely up to the interviewer. Especially in Germany, where the selection process is usually run directly by the professor hiring you.
I currently work in Germany, and have exactly the situation xLeitix mentions in his comments: I have positions which I am able to choose directly who I want to hire, independent of any admissions committee.
In such interviews, I want to have a sense of the student's technical prowess, as well as a sense of their motivation and interest in the position itself. Since such positions are usually directly associated with particular projects, I want to make sure that the candidate is reasonably qualified to tackle the specific project (rather than just being generally competent in the field).
I am just curious: how long do such interviews typically last, and how many students will you interview to fill each position?
Interviews with good candidates typically run 30 to 45 minutes, but can last up to an hour. When the candidate doesn't match up to the printed record, it can be much shorter (which is obviously not a good thing). In previous rounds of interviews, I've interviewed four to seven finalists, out of maybe 50 applicants.
I would say there is no general rule. You should ask the interviewer if you can prepare something - so you will get more information in which direction the interview will go. You can also directly ask about the length of the talk.
Typically I would except a talk about your past projects, i.e. your Master's thesis. Since this is a research PhD position in Germany it is very likely that it is part of a externally funded project. So questions about the project can be expected.
The main reason for the interview is that the interviewer wants to get a picture of you - on a scientific but also on a personal level. Typically there wont be a hiring committee, but you have to convince the professor that you are the right person for this position.
"So questions about the project can be expected." - this sounds a little misleading (or at least I am not sure how it is meant). I would have said that if anyone, the applicant would be expected ask questions about the project, as typically, the applicant has no information about the project yet (more realistically, the applicant is, at their entrance to the PhD stage, only just learning that such a thing as "projects that fund positions" exists), while the interviewer has all the information. Or did you mean the interviewer might ask questions related to the project topic?
To add to other ansers, an interview in Germany is often only a opptortunity for the applicant for becoming asked to finally visit the group a half/full day and for the employer to filter out interesting students, when too much good ones apply. In my field, physics, >100 applicants for good PhD positions will be normal. Maybe 3-4 will be invited to visit the group actually and then the professor or a committee makes the decision. If you're living in Germany, they will often simply invite you to make a presentation at the face.
It's a fast and important opportunity to check if you can fluently speak the language (at least English) or rule out eventual contradictions/gaps in your CV or ask some informal questions (scientific/engineering family, hobbies,...). But, from my experience phone interviews are not very common in Germany for STEM PhD positions, also not in non-academia job world.
I don't have so much experience how overseas applicants are treated here as we don't have many and master degree is often necessary (you didn't say how far away you're from this group), if interesting candidates are even invited to visit groups and traveling costs are paid (at least partly). But traveling within Europe via train to visit the group is common and costs paid. Mostly after 1-2 mails without a pre-phone-interview, because a well written CV is often enough to invite then 3-4 good applicants and fill the position. If you are applying for a very specialized topic from overseas where it's unlikely that there are many good candidates, then I would take this much more seriously and prepare really some text to present your master work in a short and pregnant way. Some interviewer will expect this or tell you explicitly, but in any case it is your fault to be not prepared :)
So I would check and was checked myself language proficiency, short descprition of master's work, relation/motivation to/for this PhD work and country, other applications I filed and what I plan to do after finishing PhD. You will maybe also face some hidden questions. There was one position I was interested in where it became known to me after interview and visiting the group (but finally not offered) that the professor searched somebody spending also some post-doc years at this group (a small young group that was just build up) and not ruling this out completely. Such questions some professors will ask you explicitly, some indirect, as it is hard nowadays to forecast your life 5-10 years. But showing the professor that I just wanted to do PhD in his group and city and then move on finally cost me this position.
Formally it's an interview of you, nonetheless you should also ask some questions at the end of the interview that are not mentioned in the job description (salary, teaching duties (language demands, master students), advisor, overall time frame, attending conferences, vacation...). It's not a good strategy to bombard employer in mails with such questions before it is not clear that they are really interested in you. Show that you're are thinking determined self-confident curious guy, a bit like a good flirt ;)
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36506 | Why do some fellowships require "leadership experience"?
The fellowship I'm about to apply requires me to express my past leadership experience in the personal statement. Why? I understand that leadership is a soft skill that everyone should have, but this is academia, not business. People in this environment put cooperating before leading. Of course, even in business, there is no group that work like in military, the person in low level still can suggest idea and change the leader/manager's mind. The role of the leader is inspire and amalgamate separate people to one united unit. But in academia, everyone should inspire themselves, and the science itself are the glue to attach people together, right? So why don't these fellowships require me to show my past cooperation, rather than leadership?
I think you have a severe misunderstanding what leadership means.
"The role of the leader is inspire and amalgamate separate people to one united unit" - well at least you know if academia ever becomes boring, you might just have a calling for management.
@xLeitix, I upvoted your comment, but I think there could be cultural issues here around different perceptions of leadership and teamwork around the world. It's not necessarily just down to OP him/her-self.
I think you have a quite substantial misunderstanding of how academia works. Leadership in academia is crucial: who is going to teach undergraduates, inspire and coach graduate students, hire postdocs, look for grants, lead teams of scientists? Somebody with leadership skills, perhaps?
"this is academia, not business. People in this environment put cooperating before leading". I am sorry to say this, but academia can be as (or even more) competitive than the private or public sectors of research. Academia can be highly competitive, professors and groups try to be the best to get research grants, etc. Having good leadership skill is important to succeed.
@famargar I've thought that those things are management skills, not leadership skills?
@BlaisB so is it because of the grants that make academia be competitive? I know that reputation is important, but does it play a crucial role?
Well obviously if everyone had equal access to the same funds, then competition would be lower. However, I feel it is in a way inherent to human nature, lots of people desire to be better than others, the same applies to academia. If Academia was so much about cooperation, you would see a lot more open source code (especially in numerical science) than you see now. Right now, a lot of groups keep their code "in-house" because they feel it gives them a competitive advantage. However this is slowly changing (see some awesome projects like dealii for example).
@Ooker the difference between a manager and a leader are in what drives them through the same everyday tasks. IMHO a leader is striving to reach a goal, a manager is somebody who sticks to his well-paid chair. Regarding competitiveness: I have 13 years experience in academia and 2 in industry. To my experience, academia is far more competitive. I would strongly suggest you develop leadership skills, and this is especially true for US academia.
The description of this particular fellowship includes the phrase:
Winners are chosen based on individual merit, including academic performance and preparation, intellectual capability, English proficiency, and the potential for contribution to scientific education and research in Vietnam.
"Leadership" means the ability to work with and through others. It is much harder than people think - a good leader is humble yet decisive, a good listener yet able to motivate; he can synthesize the thoughts of the group into a common goal and vision, use that vision to obtain resources and allocate them in a way that helps the group achieve its goals. Doing all that without appearing to be "the boss" is real leadership - something that comes with practice. Selling cookies to support your local charity is initiative; getting together with your friends to sell lots of cookies and build a new school, that's leadership. I have heard it said that
Leadership is what bridges the gap between responsibility and authority
Leadership lets you change the scale of your impact; and since this particular fellowship is explicitly created to find individuals who will have impact on scientific research and education in Vietnam, you need people who have both the academic skills and the skill to translate this into impact "on the system".
Demonstrated leadership experience is an opportunity for the selection committee to explore whether you will be able to make an impact - they are not looking for the next CEO, but you will be amazed how much difference a good leader can make in any collaborative environment.
In the US this trait is becoming so highly valued that some high schools have an explicit course "Leadership" on their curriculum - a chance for students to develop and practice these kinds of skills, often in the context of community projects.
It is obvious from the selection summary that intellectual ability, preparation etc. are most important - but I hope you can see that leadership as I tried to define it here has a place in this academic environment.
Precisely because we cooperate a lot, we need good leadership. A good leader is someone who can bring the best of everyone in the group. For example, encouraging everyone to voice their ideas, assessing which ones have actual value, but without making the group pursue all the wild geese. A good leader should also be able to recognise the strong points in the members of the team and assign tasks accordingly.
I accept that everyone here should be motivated, but it is important for the group to keep it up. No matter how eager I am, if my professor were to start giving me contradictory orders, unreasonable workloads, or dismissing my ideas without explaining why, I can tell you, I would not remain that motivated after four years. After all, I can be motivated to work "in the grand scheme of sciency things", but not necessarily in the particular group I am in.
+1 for "A good leader is someone who can bring the best of everyone in the group", not the best for only themself.
Scientific breakthroughs are rarely achieved by a single scientist, but by a research team. It is important that the team leader can identify relevant research questions and direct the group members' work to use suitable approaches to solve them. Often, the breakthrough results are associated more to the group leader than to any group member, even though the group members may have done 80 to 99 % of the actual research work.
Fellowship funders try to look into the future of your career. You will only stay in academia after the PhD or maybe Postdoc level if you have the ability to lead a research group. That is, apart from rare exceptions, you will only be able to associate big scientific results with your name if you have leadership abilities. And these results are what funders try to support in the end.
While research is your primary goal, a secondary goal of universities is to produce people that can "lead."
This is first done as a teacher in a classroom. But ultimately, universities will want their researchers to be able to "consult" for government or corporations, where leadership skills are necessary.
After all, a university is a "beacon" in society.
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19590 | Will taking the math GRE subject test be a plus point for admission in MS/PhD in computer science?
i am undergraduate in computer science looking for admission to MS/Phd in computer science at U.S universities. I know there is no subject test for computer science anymore. In that case, will taking the math GRE subject test be a plus point to my profile?
The fact that the CS GRE no longer exists strongly suggests that standardized testing is not a major factor in CS graduate admissions. Taking an off-topic GRE subject test likely won't make a difference if the rest of the profile doesn't make a strong enough case.
It would be easy enough to ask any department to which you are considering applying whether they would give consideration to math subject exam GRE scores. They shouldn't penalize you for asking (and at any rate it would be worse to send the scores without asking first).
However, I am inclined to agree with @aeismail: the fact that they formerly had GRE subject exams in CS and no longer do must say something about what at least many of the departments are looking for.
Perhaps I should mention that I was involved in making the math subject GRE exam a required part of the application to the PhD program in my department...but my department is a mathematics department. Still, after four years of doing graduate admissions I have some experience that seems relevant: in doing admissions one really wants to "compare apples to apples" whenever possible. For instance this meant getting everyone's understanding that after making the math subject exam a requirement we really would seriously downgrade any application that didn't include it. The reason for this is that when the exam is optional, a lot of students take it but don't send the scores if they are not strong enough. This is obviously unfair to the student who turns in a lower percentile score: they are being penalized for their honesty and for following the rules. I think similar considerations apply in the other direction: presumably very few or no other applicants to CS PhD programs are submitting this score. So if you turn in a pretty good math subject exam score, what is the committee supposed to make of it? How do they compare it with everyone else's application?
Considerations like the above make me think it is unlikely that you will be told that your scores will be considered as part of the application. But there is no need to take my word for it: ask them, see what they say, and if you can, come back and tell us about it.
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115640 | Use of data that may contain future ethical complications
Suppose that you are afforded an opportunity to examine data that was, on the surface at least, collected legally and ethically, but that may contain hidden ethical dilemmas. What precautions, if any, should you take when working with this data?
Two examples that came to mind for me were data collected from a social media site and DNA/genetic data obtained by a genomics company that is supposed to trace your genetic ancestry. These data sources are covered by a consent waiver that gives the service provider certain permissions to use, distribute, and monetize your data. To use those services, a patron is required to sign a waiver/terms of use agreement. A person's data is only collected with their "consent," albeit at times a blind consent.
If I was a geneticist, suppose, and obtained via appropriate means genetic data for a population of interest that had submitted their saliva/DNA to one of these genomics companies, what would be some ethical issues I would need to consider? The subject consented to giving their data, but many times did not necessarily give informed consent. In this example, could it still be unethical to do research on data that was likely obtained from people who just quickly passed through the consent agreements and signed blindly?
This issue is even more relevant in cases of social media data. Most users likely had no idea their data was even being collected because the did not read the user agreement they consented to. Would it be unethical to then use data collected from this social media site, even though it was legally obtained?
Interesting question! I think it'd be appropriate to obtain IRB approval before using such data - even if it has been anonymized to some extent - and many IRB policies do require informed consent.
My naive sense is that it would depend, strongly, on what you intend to do with it and whether that is in line with the reason it was collected in the first place. In particular, do you intend to use it as is fully anonymized, or do you (near the other end of the scale) intend to correlate it with other data, making anonymous usage impossible? Perhaps you need advice for the specific case from an ethicist, not just an IRB.
This is an interesting question, but I’m unsure if it’s on topic because it seems like more of a discussion prompt than a question with a particular answer.
It's unlikely that your institutional IRB would give prior approval to the genetic research (or even the social network research) because of the lack of informed consent. Starting to do the research without IRB approval would make things much worse.
This may prove interesting : https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(04)17619-8/fulltext and this one : https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-ethics-of-using-medical-data-from-nazi-experiments
As sort of a side note, be very careful about using any data from human subjects without IRB approval; even if you think you don't need such approval, your institution may require that IRB is in fact the formal way that projects are deemed to not require approval, even if such a requirement goes above and beyond relevant legality.
I am sure this happens more often than we care to admit. For me, it's case-by-case. I closely equate this to human experiments in the past. All we hear about was how people were lied to "for the greater good." But I am sure there other cases where some disclosure was given. So, we cannot see both instances as "just as evil." I am sure that it all started from a very innocent perspective of saving human lives. Moving forward, I am sure there are many ethical practices today that will become unethical in the future.
To follow what I wrote about human experiments, keep in mind that Albert Hofmann experimented LSD on himself after the initial accidental ingestion and discovering its psychedelic effects. Was it/is it unethical to experiment on oneself? There might be nothing unethical to hurt oneself, but what if your judgment is affected by the effects of some drug? This is a very deep philosophical topic.
Suppose that you are afforded an opportunity to examine data that was,
on the surface at least, collected legally and ethically, but that may
contain hidden ethical dilemmas. What precautions, if any, should you
take when working with this data?
There is no simple way to answer this kind of general question, but thankfully most institutions in the academic world are equipped with ethics committees whose job is exactly to answer such questions. They provide general guidelines and can be asked specific questions, their role is to guide researchers through potentially difficult questions and to set the boundaries. Depending on the specifics of your case, they might for instance ask you to take additional steps to protect individuals privacy, or even tell you that the study that you are considering is not ethically acceptable. Their expertise gives you legal and moral clarity in an area where you are not the expert.
On a related note, in large research projects it is usually a requirement to plan for this kind of ethics expertise and oversight.
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43448 | What behaviors (desirable or not) are encouraged by an incentive system based on publication throughput?
What (researcher's) behaviors (desirable or not) are encouraged by an incentive system based on publication throughput?
Considering this as a research problem, I propose to list all the potential strategies that a researcher can apply to "game" various academic systems and to increase one's recognition by such systems, starting in this question with academic systems which evaluation is based on the number of academic publications. Later objectives could be to design mechanisms to detect and measure tendencies to follow such strategies, and to identify other set of strategies potentially used to maximize one's number of citations, or more interestingly one's h-index and i10-index, but those later objectives are not part of the discussion here.
To make the discussion cleaner, I propose to remove all moral judgments about the strategies, and to merely list all that could be applied by an academic sociopath in order to maximize his/her success. The goal is not to encourage such behaviors (obviously?), nor to criticize institutions which embrace some of those strategies, but rather to identify clearly the consequences (desirable or not) of an incentive system based on publication throughput.
Feel free to add other strategies in your own answer below, or to edit my own answer below, collaborative Q/A style.
If the asker knows the answer to the question, a blog is a more appropriate medium of expression. I downvote.
@Ketan Your downvote is misplaced. Stack Exchange explicitly encourages self-answering.
Maybe I am being too simplistic, but isn't the only way to publish more?
@strongbad: my understanding is that "publishing more" and "increasing one's number of publications" are mostly the same. So the question is about strategies to publish more. One way is obviously to produce more research results, which should translate into more publications, but are there strategies to improve the number of publications resulting from a given amount of results, or a givent amount of time dedicated to producing them?
@ketan: a blog is the appropriate medium to express private opinions. This question is aimed at collaborating toward an answer to a given, important in my opinion, question...
If you want to increase your academic recognition, focusing on your number of publications is utterly counterproductive. A small number of high-impact publications is not just more desirable in principle than piles of salami-sliced incremental papers that nobody reads, it's more a significantly more successful strategy in practice.
@JeffE, I know (my publication record should tell anyone that I am definitely not maximizing my number of publications). Yet many institutions have incentives toward maximizing publication throughput: e.g. Chilean universities pay research AND salary money for each separate publication, require "at least two publications in international conference" for each PhD students, Chilean funding institutions require "at least one publication per year", etc... The answer to the question above would show them what they are pushing for with such incentives. I will edit the question accordingly.
To everyone: this is not the horrible question that it may first appear to be. I first read it as the OP trying to game the system. Rather, I think he's trying to record the absurd conclusion that current employment conditions in some parts of the world imply.
@PeteL.Clark : Would you like to edit the question yourself so that to remove any ambiguity? I think it is pretty unambiguous as it is (I did describe from the beginning that such strategies would be used by an "academic sociopath"), but English is not my first language. The sole fact that people could interpret my question as an attempt to game the system makes me worried about academia in general :( (Thanks for the vote of confidence!)
This is a terrible question, because it presumes that publications are the goal of science, as opposed to an indicator of actual meaningful intellectual contribution.
Therefore, I will provide a solution that proves the metrics are meaningless per se:
Generate a sequence of N meaningless papers using Sci-Gen.
Have each of the meaningless papers cite K of the other meaningless papers in the sequence.
Identify a set of crap journals that do not perform meaningful peer review with the aid of Beall's list.
Publish the meaningless papers in series in the crap journals, thereby obtaining an i10-index of N and an H-index of K (assuming N>=K>=10).
If self-citations are excluded, then enlist (or fake) a colleague to do the same and cite each other's meaningless papers rather than one's own. If Journal Impact Factor matters, then sequence the papers over three years.
Citation metrics are the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave.
I love your algorithm! Note that the question does NOT presume "that publications are the goal of science", on the contrary: the goal is stated as "to identify clearly the consequences (desirable or not) of an incentive system based on publication throughput". Your algorithm would contribute to a list of strategies encouraged by an incentive system based on one's h-index and i10-index. I fully agree with your metaphore on Plato's cave.
I am very tempted to try to drive a stake through the heart of publication metrics in this manner.
So, a metric is meaningless because there is noise?
@JiK The metrics can be easily gamed, meaning that any meaningful judgement based on them is not really based on the metric, but on something not so readily quantified, i.e., scientific contribution.
If Academia was a game, and if the winning rule was to maximize one's number of publications (which I don't think it is, but which the administrators of some institutions seem to believe), I think that the following strategies would make sense:
Focus on Research :: Abandon all attempts to personal life (and good teaching) and dedicate your life to research. You might manage to produce more publications than fellow researchers who have a personal life and/or spend a large proportion of their time teaching, but never more than fellow researchers applying a combination of the following strategies.
Focus on low hanging fruits :: Choose a finite set of conferences. While attending or when the proceedings are published, review it quickly to mark publications overlapping with your sphere of expertise. Assign a limited time-length (e.g. two days or two weeks) to each problem, and see if you can produce some quick results on it. Spend more time on it ONLY if you have had results within the allotted time, otherwise move to the next topic. Aim to delegate the writing of the results to a junior colleague or to a student in order to optimize your time. Notice how attacking a "long-standing open problem" will NOT help you to maximize your publication throughput.
Minimal Publishable Unit :: adjust the content of a submission to the minimum required, so that to maximize the number of publications. NEVER join two conference papers into a single journal publication, even when they largely overlap, as this would reduce your number of journal publications. Aim to publish the journal version of each conference article as soon as possible so that, if the results of your next conference publication overlaps with the last, the journal version is reviewed BEFORE the second conference publication is submitted.
Self-Plagiarism :: when a partial result of independent interest can be used in various more important results, avoid creating an easy to reference lemma in one publication and to refer to this lemma in the others, but rather reproduce its proof in each of the parallel submissions, in order to make each submission look more technical and lengthy. Aim to submit the various results in parallel so that to further justify this multiplication with the excuse to make each submission independent from the other. Aim to write minor variants of the result in each submission in order to further confuse the situation.
Publishing Clusters :: collaborate with a finite set of x colleagues of your field who have had in recent years at least y yearly publications per year at a given level agreed upon. Agree on a number z (less than y) of research themes per year that each of the members of the cluster is to propose to the whole cluster, to research them and describe their results on their own, and to submit it to the whole cluster for proof-reading. Aim to increase by a term of roughly zx publications (minus potential rejections) your number of publications per year. Aim to participate in at least two distinct clusters in order to confuse things, and optimally to y distinct clusters, contributing exactly one publication to each cluster. As your career advances, rotate clusters to further confuse things, at the cost of a more complex management. Participate in various clusters at various levels of publications to further confuse things.
Pyramidal Scheme :: Maximize the number of doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculties in your laboratory or research group. Minimize your involvement in each project, but insure co-authorship of each report/publication. Focus on acquiring funding to attract and recruit more people. Pay attention to your people's need in term of future careers only when they are relevant to attracting more people and to maximizing your output. When you reach the maximal size at one level, apply to the next level.
Falsify experimental results :: Producing fake results, presented in a difficult to reproduce fashion, in a field where experiments are costly and lengthy, will give you an edge over fellow researchers who labor to gather the funds to perform those same experiments, and make them waste time trying to reproduce your experiments. Aim to recruit junior researchers and/or students and to push them in non-explicit ways (or at least not in writing, only orally) to fake their results so that you can put the blame back on them if/when discovered.
Focusing on the research and low hanging fruit is not cheating as the tag in the question seems to be suggesting.
@ketan: I removed the tag #cheating given that you find it misleading: the theme of cheating is related but not central to this question. Note that the contribution to human knowledge of incentives encouraging scientists to "focus on research" or on "low hanging fruits" is debatable (but that this debate is, once again, out of the scope of this question).
@ketan: note that beyond "Falsify Experimental Results", it is not clear of the other strategies are universally considered as "cheating": for instance, the "pyramidal scheme" seems a good description of laboratory work in Chemistry and Biology, and maybe of the general structure of research institutes in Germany.
@Jeremy A few points: (1) faking results is a high risk strategy in that it could end an academic's career; (2) there are a range of bodies that allocate rewards (e.g., grant bodies, promotional bodies; societies; etc.): these bodies typically use a different mix of priorities - some emphasise quantity, but others focus more on true quality (actual reading of papers; grant proposals; top papers) or imperfect proxies for quality (e.g., impact factor, citations, etc.). In summary, some of these strategies would work for some audiences, but not others.
@JeromyAnglim: I am not advocating faking results, and I am not recommending the other strategies (so it does not matter in which communities people could get away with them). I am just arguing that incentives based on publication throughput are pushing people toward such strategies. The recent scandals about faking data in biology and physics might be the top of the iceberg in this regard.
There is one behavior that is encouraged: vociferously advocate to change the mainstream publishing model to cater the needs of authors to publish more stuff instead of providing the readership with quality, curated scientific content. Subscription-base journals, editorial rejection and scrupulous peer review have to be made obsolete because they only prevent scholars form lengthening their publication list.
Encouraged by whom? Or do you mean which should be encouraged?
@Jeremy encouraged by "an incentive system based on publication throughput" as per your question. In my opinion it certainly should not be encouraged, it's a regrettable consequence, but you said you were not interested in opinions.
oh, ok. I guess I should be more specific. I was aiming for researcher's behaviors rather than publisher's behaviors. I will amend the question accordingly, sorry for not being clear :/
@Jeremy I have adapted my answer according to your comment.
quite nice, I had not thought about this :) It differs from the other strategies in that this particular strategy does not aim to advantage the individual researcher (e.g. the hypothetical "sociopath" researcher trying to game the system) but rather to advantage the whole community.
@Jeremy yes, it's swarm-sociopathy.
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43381 | What texts describe a desired behavior when a personal conflict could affect a professional decision?
In Academia, is there any legal text or chart commenting about the desired behavior when a personal conflict could affect a set of professional decision?
A rough example of such chart would be a text stating that "we, academics signing this chart, engage ourselves to avoid as much as possible to let our personal tastes to influence our professional decisions, or to delegate the decisions to others if we are not certain to be able to ignore our personal tastes.". Such a chart, published by an association of academics and adopted by some universities and/or academics, would not SOLVE all instances of such problems, but would at the very least express the collective will to discourage such instances. (In the same way that a chart signed by students that they won't copy on others nor share their solution does not solve all cheating instances, but clarifies what is considered acceptable or not.)
By "professional decision", I mean a decision that you take on behalf of an institution or group of person, for which your job is to make the best decision for this institution. By "personal taste", I mean anything which applies when taking decisions for one's personal life.
A neutral example would be a secretary having to make the "professional decision" of what food to order to department's celebration, and letting his "personal taste" influence his choice rather than his approximate knowledge of the tastes of the attendance.
Extreme examples would be of senior faculty members using their political position to punish or reward junior members according to their personal values, independently of their professional opinion.
Broader context:
It is only human to be biased against someone with whom one had some conflicts, and only civilized to try to overcome this bias in the context of professional decisions (where one represents the choices of a community, as opposed to personal choices such as with whom you share a meal). One can think of some (uncivilized?) cultures where one does not expect anyone to even attempt to fight this bias, and of some (civilized?) cultures where letting this bias affect professional decisions (e.g. community related) would be frowned upon and considered as an abuse of power or bullying.
It used to be my opinion that academia was civilized and that most academics agreed to such an unwritten rule. It is my experience in my current setting that not only do occurrences of such conflict seem more frequent than in my previous settings, they are also considered normal there, and far from frowned upon, most often considered as "business as usual" or worse, a display of intelligence and strength. I assume that such an attitude could exist in other cultures, from other third world countries to even the US. I am wondering if Academia, which forms an international culture of its own, already has or could have a chart to curb such behavior to a more productive/collaborative/civilized one.
Note that I am not asking if some people in Academia abuse the power that their responsibilities yield (there will be in most communities), nor am I asking for general opinions about specific countries, culture and research areas. Rather I am asking if there are some reference texts which describes the desired behavior in such situation.
Are you only seeking texts which reference this issue within academia or in any professional setting? There are certainly ethical codes for teachers which include doing anything which is not in the best interest of the students is to be avoided if at all possible.
@earthling: I am interested in texts about senior researchers using their power to bully junior researcher into acting in ways which benefit the former. I know of no such text, so I am curious about other texts about similar issues in distinct contexts, of which teachers bullying their student would weakly belong too, but could serve as a first inspiration to draw a more adequate text to propose.
While I am not aware of any formal universal code (there's not much formal universal anything in academia), the generally accepted scientific ethics is that a person with a known conflict of interest should not be involved in reviewing another's scientific work or proposal.
Most scientific organizations where this might apply have explicit policies to this end. For example:
Grant reviewers for the US National Science Foundation are not allowed to be submitters to that same call for proposals, and must recuse themselves (i.e., leave the room) when there is discussion of any recent collaborator, co-author, or person from their institution.
Journals typically ask authors to name people with known conflicts of interest who should not be asked to review. Reviewers are also asked to declare conflicts of interest and recuse themselves, and editors are (occasionally) responsive to well-founded complaints of prejudice.
Conferences similarly ask reviewers to exclude themselves from any papers they have a conflict for, and prevent reviewers from seeing information about any paper they have a conflict of interest for.
Double-blind reviewing of any of these is intended to mitigate the effects of personal conflict, though it is often possible to identify an author anyway due to their topic and approach.
There is no responsibility to collaborate with a person you have a conflict with though, nor to ensure civil interactions at conferences, etc.
All of these systems are quite flawed, of course, and there are a lot of ways that personal conflict does leak into decisions, especially since in many cases it is difficult to distinguish from legitimate intellectual disagreement.
You have the first aspect of bullet one backwards. Of course you can submit to any NSF RFP because you won't know if you are a reviewer until after the RFP deadline has passed. Now if you submit, you won't be asked to review for that opportunity, but that's OK.
You're right: my sentence was unclear; I've fixed it.
@jakebeal: the context of my question is not the judgement of whether a particular decision was due to a personal conflict or to "legitimate intellectual disagreement": most often than not, a decision is based on a mix of both, and deciding the proportion is a problem concerning psychology rather than law or ethics. I am sorry if I am not clear, but I am aiming for another context, about the collective intent that one should try to ignore personal conflicts or tasts when taking decisions on behalf of others. It might be obvious to most, but I met various people in Academia to whom it isn't
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1360 | Do PhD programs care about the personalities of applicants?
Can a very extroverted person, for example, be more favored than a very quiet person? Or is this not ethical? Can someone who is psychopathic be barred from admission?
Is there anybody who can give an educated answer for Europe-based Universities? Seems most answers are about US admissions. I'm already in a PhD programme so I don't care that much, but it would be interesting to read :)
Yes, decisions based at least partially on personality do occur. It's not clear to me what the legal technicalities are - for example, depending on your country there may be laws regarding things like discrimination against the mentally ill - but in practice an admissions committee can do whatever it likes, and nobody will be able to prove there was any illegal discrimination.
The way it typically works is that having a particularly pleasant or agreeable personality won't help you, but having an unpleasant personality may hurt you. If you seem likely to be difficult to get along with, rude, disruptive, uncooperative, or otherwise problematic, then that will generally be held against you. (This may be judged based on your personal statement, letters of recommendation, etc.) It won't necessarily doom your chances: some committee members just won't care, and others may be willing to excuse bad behavior if you are sufficiently talented. However, on average it will hurt your chances, sometimes substantially.
Personalities can count, because nobody wants to be an environment with lots of boorish colleagues. It's just not very fun.
However, in most cases—at least in the US—admissions are done without interviews. Therefore, the only way the personality of the candidate comes through is through what's written in the application. Either the personal statement or the letters of reference might reveal some details about the personality of the applicant. Usually, though, this is negative; I don't put much stock in letters of reference saying "so-and-so has a pleasant personality," since that is almost a de rigeur statement. (Something exceptional that goes into considerable detail, however, is different.)
When you have an interview, however, it's hard to hide your personality for very long. It can make a difference—but generally only if you're a candidate "on the bubble," or if your personality is so polarizing that nobody wants to bother with you, regardless of how nice you are. On the converse, though, I don't think a super-nice personality is enough to get someone on the bubble in.
interviews are common in biological sciences at least
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103438 | Funding problem - salary scale - CNRS
I am here to discuss about a funding problem I am having and I heard a lot of post-docs had before, but I couldn't find any testimony or tips.
My problem is the following and it is very simple. I got lucky to obtain my own funding from a funding agency, the name of which I can't reveal at this time. Of course I was thrilled and few days after the beginning of my contract the funding agency told me the money has been transfer to my institute. Then, I got my first pay check and I had the unpleasant surprise to notice a difference of ~2000euros (before taxes) between what the funding agency was supposed to give me and what the institute was giving me.
Obviously I was surprised and when I asked for reasons it seems the institute has some salary scale and they put me on those scale instead of giving me the money from the funding agency. And obviously they are keeping the rest for themselves.
However, this isn't true for all post-doctoral fellowships. Another post-doc in the same institute with a Marie-Curie fellowship isn't on those salary scale. Right now my PI (which support me 100%) and I are still in the middle of the discussion and I am looking for person that have a similar problem to help me find my way out of this trap.
The institute I am fighting with is the French institute: CNRS. I have nothing against them, but I think our work is hard enough to do research, get funding without also needing to fight for the money we are owed.
Edit posted as answer:
I haven't discuss yet with the funding agency because I am still hoping that the institue will re-evaluate the situation.
What I have understood is that a agreement has been signed between the funding agency and the CNRS that allow the CNRS to pay me based on the salary scale. However I'd never been aware of such agreement. And obviously such agreement will only benefit the CNRS that will keep 48,000€ (24month x 2,000€) in the transaction.
In addition, as I said this agreement only include some fellowship but not all of them such as the Marie-Curie fellowship. But I have no idea why.
Have you discussed the situation with anyone at the funding agency?
In my experience (in Germany and the Netherlands) the personnel department puts you at the lowest scale they can get away with. Only after you complain, will they move you up. Many don't complain, saving the university money.
Was the money tied in any way to the university (e.g. the external agency agreed to your proposal on the strengths of the group you are working in)? If you accepted an offer directly with the funding agency, it's not your university's right to change the already-agreed offer. But if you obtained funding for your group, the university may well be able to take a slice.
This really sounds like the problem is your institution, not CNRS. Yes, CNRS pays you, but only after the institution's administrative staff tell them that you exist, what your job is, and how much you are to be paid. There should be at least one person at your lab whose job this is. Find that person and talk to them. This is definitely not normal at CNRS and I've never heard of anything like that before. If this doesn't work, go to the funding agency directly.
It's certainly the case wtih US federal funding that a person working on a grant can only be paid at their regular rate from the grant, whatever the amount of the grant is. I'd be surprised if any funding agency in any country was willing to allow anything other than this.
I'm not sure if it's relevant but I also got funding for my PostDoc in France (in a CNRS institute) from a foreign agency. However, in my case, the funding was transferred directly to me and not to the institute. Is there any chance to explore such an option?
I talked to some people at my lab about this. I'm tempted to post it as an answer but I'm not authoritative about this, and everything I'm about to tell you is from a 3rd person perspective. If you want me to post it as an answer, let me know.
The short version is that CNRS does this. If you have a postdoc fellowship/grant and you come to a CNRS lab, your lab/CNRS will put you on the payscale equivalent to your peers. It may be possible for some wiggle room, but that is during contract negotiations, not after. CNRS is indeed taking the remaining money.
I'm told that this is one of many reasons why CNRS labs in general have trouble recruiting foreign talent. This does not apply for non-CNRS French institutions (e.g. CEA). Contact your funding agency, certainly, but they probably already know about it and may have an agreement with CNRS already. If this happened to me I'd be livid, so I understand your frustration OP. Contact everyone you can, and update us on whether you can fix this. This is, IMO, the issue with when scientific institutions are led by administration, and not the other way around. Good luck, OP.
Are you sure that CNRS keeps the difference? I only know it for other european countries (CZ and AT), but there is a total salary, from which the institution has to pay some taxes and social insurance for you. The remaining part then shows up as gross salary on your statement, from which you as employee have to pay taxes and social insurance. This difference can be quite significant.
omg, that is too low salary for post doc!!
What did you end up doing?
You find yourself in a tricky situation. Universities often try to establish equity among grantees, regardless of whether a funding source could in theory pay higher or lower salary. The way I've seen others deal with this is through a preemptive negotiation with the university. The scales tip in their favor, because you'll probably apply anyway, but I've seen some wiggle room on salary. But after the fact would seem unlikely. Worth a shot. But, if the granting agency in good faith believes you are making X compensation but you get Y, they might not be happy about it. If you ask your granting coordinator whether you should inform the agency if the discrepancy, it might get some attention.
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16256 | Can a literature review be a "master's thesis"?
I have selected a single question for my master's thesis, within my field of Foreign Language Teaching. Most papers I have read contain just short literature reviews providing some background for a research study that occupied most of the writer's time. I think I could understand my question better if I focusing all of my effort on creating a 100-200 page literature review, examining and critiquing all existing literature on the subject, rather than on trying to come up with some new results.
Can a master's thesis be comprised of just a literature review? Do journals publish literature reviews on their own?
What is your area of study?
You're asking two different questions here.
Yes, you can publish a high-quality literature review in some, but not all, journals. However, many journals also solicit such reviews rather than take them automatically, and many will have length restrictions associated with them. So check with the journal before you start working!
As for a master's thesis, that depends a lot on the requirements of your field. In the humanities, you would probably have to do some searches for primary references, but a large-scale literature review is an important part of such a work. In the sciences and engineering, however, you are much less likely to be able to submit such a thesis. The usual standards there require more original work than can typically be accomplished with a literature review.
A literature review with well-defined research questions that provides a synthesis of high-quality literature is considered very useful research. Generally, such reviews present a taxonomy of the domain, summarize the contributions and furnish them in an abstract manner from different aspects involved.
A good quality review gets many citations, and it provides a very useful stepping stone for new researchers in a given area.
Thus, it can certainly be considered as an MS thesis.
But it depends, of course, on what an advisor or a university will permit.
Though there are different contexts and meanings of the word, often when people say "research" they mean "original research". Reviews are certainly useful to the research process, but may not be considered themselves research.
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28398 | Can one publish ideas well before one has evidence proving the ideas work?
I am rather disappointed by the existing research in my area of interest. There is a big disconnect between the solutions practitioners need and what researchers look at.
I have read everything available on the subject in e-journals.
I have many ideas which I believe can solve some small problems in my field.
I also have ideas for paradigms (or major expansions of existing paradigms) which I believe can help the researchers and practitioners look at the problems in a different light.
I am not in a PhD program, so I lack the advice, time, resources, and know-how for setting up controlled experiments to validate these ideas, so I can only address them as thought experiments or identify the nearest related experiments not directly testing my ideas.
Can I publish short here-is-an-idea paper (e.g. “Proposed Solution for X” or “(new) Model for Y”) well before having any means of providing some proof?
What do you mean by "e-journals"? Can you give specific examples that you are referring to in your field?
By e-journals, I mean the articles available in Ebsco.
Do bear in mind that there are some very applied fields where journals simply don't carry the state of the art, because that information is so commercially viable. So what's your area of interest? I'm absolutely fascinated to learn about an area of interest which is so small that it's humanly possible to have read everything available on the subject in journals, but not to have written on or formally studied that area.
Sounds like you need a blog.
@curiousdannii Blogs filled with ideas that the authors think are game changers are more than abundant, and I don't think any of them help.
Note too that publishing is disclosure, and (at least in the US) starts the clock running on patentability.
"read everything available on the subject in journals" obviously, I don't read each one word-by-word, but I did what I'm assuming most scholars do...skimmed and focused on the important parts, which often involved simply reading the abstract and conclusion to know that the answer I seek is not found within the data. When did I say I haven't formally studied the area?
Generally, no.
Insights are a dime a dozen. Insights with evidence are how science (social and natural) proceed.
Proceeding through your bullets:
You mention e-journals. Have you read the "literature" in traditional journals/books/whatever the field's standard is? There's a lot of good reason to be suspicious of e-journals, so you may not have a full view of the field.
Belief in ideas doesn't make them true(r). Sorry.
Is there a reason that you think that these expansions of paradigms haven't been considered? Are you sure that they really have never occurred before?
Perhaps that's the argument for obtaining a Ph.D. or research master's --- to demonstrate that ideas have empirical heft.
If you really want to make a difference, you will have to offer evidence that your ideas work or have worked, beyond the logic you offer.
+1 for insights are a dime a dozen. Insight suggests that the world is flat and the earth is not turning. This is why people believed those concepts to be true for thousands of years.
Why should I be suspicious of e-journals? I found them in Ebsco and they are listed as "peer reviewed".
Sure, one can publish ideas before properly evaluating their value. But it depends. Your area of research might be different from mine, but I have written "position papers" papers in the past where the main purpose is to generate discussion. Then you usually have to go to the conference and workshop your ideas with other participants.
So if there really is a big disconnect between practitioners and researchers, do some groundwork, maybe interview those practitioners so that you can back up your claims when you meet the researchers. Then propose improvements to current research so that you can work on your ideas and study them properly. You may also find help and advice and co-authors for the future.
In order for a work to be scholarly, the content has to be reviewed by a group of experts in your field, tested by those peers for accuracy and then you have to find someone who is willing to publish your work. You don't have to have proof of your findings for them to be published, but the work wouldn't be considered a scholarly document. Just remember that theories aren't just ideas, but concepts that have been tried and tested to be logical and accurate. Whatever you do, make sure that your experiments can be repeated and that you get the same "Proposed Solution for X" every time. Remember that every revolution begins in the mind of one man, and that your "proposed solution" might possibly be the right one, with or without proof.
+1: "Just remember that theories aren't just ideas" - hypotheses are ideas! I get very frustrated by the confusion over these terms in the popular media... :-)
"tested by those peers for accuracy" do you mean, before I should publish my ideas, I should find peers and have them test it out?
Running your ideas by others in your field before publishing would certainly be a good idea. They could give you some early indication of whether this is well know, already refuted, "not even wrong", not testable, or actually interesting. I suspect you want to know that before you start putting your reputation on the line.
Actually, I would think that it's not really a matter of looking like you don't know what you're talking about, but more so of making sure that the material published in the community actually benefits the scientific (or literary :D) community.
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26996 | How to reduce student plagiarism?
During the last term, I recorded at least 50 cases of student plagiarism. The most common cases were students copying and pasting paragraphs verbatim from various Web sites, assembling them together, and calling it their essay.
I took what I thought were sufficient steps to inform students of what was not allowed:
I posted the rules in the syllabus, on the course Web site, and listed relevant rules in the instructions for larger projects.
I issued spoken warnings in class regularly, occasionally showed some examples of such submissions, and also showed students some of the steps I took to catch the plagiarism.
I also set what I thought were strict enough consequences so that students know it is better to do nothing at all than to cheat:
20% grade loss (from their entire grade) per infraction, no matter the value of the assignment (most assignments were only worth ~5%).
Note, these are policies I established from the very first day of the class, and carried through the whole term. Yet, even in the final weeks, I continued to catch copied work and failed a lot of students.
What further steps can I take to reduce this problem?
Just a curiosity: where are you teaching?
I think, too, that what you do is fine. The problem is more of the poor time management or similar factors on the side of the students. If you want to have less fail students, maybe you should focus on that part.
I teach writing courses, focusing on very basic college writing skills, and the problems mostly occurred in the large sections (40-100 students). Yes, I had cases of students who submitted plagiarized papers after being caught once.
You have my sympathies: 50 cases per semester sounds unusually, distressingly high. As with other commenters, I think you should just stick to what you are already doing. If you routinely fail (sufficiently repeated and/or egregious) plagiarists, then the word will get out and over time I suspect you'll have many fewer cases. Unless these students are so out of their depth that they cannot hope to pass the course honestly, cheating when you know it has caused many other students to fail is really irrational behavior. Students are not so irrational, in my experience...
This is exactly why my standard consequence for a second offense, no matter how minor, is an F in the class.
My standard consequence is an F for the 1st offense. I explain the policy in the beginning of the semester: "This is your warning, we're not going to have the 'I didn't know discussion' later." Also I make it clear that I am their greatest resource in avoiding problems. "If you have any questions, you're not sure what's plagiarism, you don't know how to properly cite, that's what I'm here for!" It might sound draconian but I've had near 0 rates since adapting this policy. Also, might want to look again at your percentages. Sounds like I can plagiarize twice in your class and get a C.
Will it be against any laws in your country if a tsudent is caught red-handed plagiarism?
I sit on my departments academic misconduct committee and see a huge number of cases and have looked at a number of statistics. We use TurnItIn at my university and allow students top precheck there work to obtain both a similarity score and a detailed report of which parts of their paper are likely copied. About half our students use this precheck feature, but they seem to ignore the output since the similarity index on the precheck are generally not that different from the similarity score on the final copy. In other words telling students exactly what is copied does not decrease plagiarism. We have a pretty light penalty for a first offence of plagiarism, but the penalty for a second offence is much more severe. Having previous offences does not reduce the probability of committing plagiarism on future assignments, so we do not think that the severity of the penalty matters. We have concluded that the students who plagiarise just do not care and that there is nothing that can be done to discourage them.
Looking at the sources students copy from, we do not think the specificity of the assignment would reduce the number of incidents. What we notice is that some types of assignments (e.g, take home essays) are much more likely to contain plagiarism than others (e.g., exam essays) and that plagiarism is much more likely to occur during the first year. We therefore limit the number of assignments with high rates of plagiarism during the first year.
@shane thankfully no. If you divide the assignment base on number of previous academic offences you get a huge stack for people with zero offences, and a tiny stack of people with two offences. What I mean is that N percent of each stack, not N assignments, contains plagiarism. Does that make sense?
While both of the existing answers have the same basic answers as me, I will add mine simply because I don't have time to make it short enough to fit into a comment.
As Shane wrote, design assignments that are hard to plagiarize and fail all students who plagiarize.
I do both of theses but still have a problem with students plagiarizing. I fail all who plagiarize but they have a chance to resubmit one time (school policy). If it were up to me, I would fail then without a chance to resubmit, but it is not up to me.
In the end, some students do not take the issue of plagiarism seriously. These are the students whom you need to awaken and finally seeing that they will not graduate until they write their own assignments will eventually awaken them.
I have had students (more than one) who end up taking one of my modules three years in a row (because they keep failing for plagiarizing). Eventually, they all get it and do their own work (or they change schools). The students who get caught and open up to me usually have the same reason: They waited until the last minute and did not have time to complete the work, so they took a shortcut.
I have even had students who clearly spend hours modifying the work of someone else just to avoid detection. I constantly wonder why they would not simply spend those hours doing the actual work. I don't always get a response when I ask the student.
First semester students are usually worse than more senior ones but it does seem that some students think that even though one teacher is tough, they still try it (and sometimes succeed) with other teachers. A more coordinated school-wide effort would seem to help with this, although I have been unsuccessful in making my colleagues as concerned as I am on the topic.
To reduce plagiarism I would increase the penalty to "failure" for any instance of plagiarism. This policy might make students react emotionally and therefore might seem difficult to do. Therefore, I would add to your "let them know in advance" policies a few statements (eg in the syllabus) to show the problem context, as "Last semester 50 students failed the class due to plagiarism," and "the purpose of the policy is to protect the value of the university's degree. If the school gets a reputation as a cheaters' school, the value of our degree may drop to that of a low tier school."
Plagiarism is violation of administrative policy enforceable by a forfeit of benefits. Students are all adults and should know about plagiarism from their former schooling prior to attending the university.
First case: Warning and educational session explaining intellectual dishonesty
Second case: Exmatriculation/expulsion.
We as society need such specialists and often we pay our taxes for their education. Tolerating plagiarism allows students to graduate from the university with an art of criminal thinking. Exmatriculation is in this case just a prophylaxis of more substantial and society-harmful crime.
I used to work in a college when desktop computing was in its infancy.
it was inevitable that a class of 30 students would come up with similar papers if they all used the same research sources.
I failed 27 out of thirty papers submitted in the first week because they were all copied from Microsoft Encarta, which was available in the college library. I knew that the article had been copied and pasted as I had a print of it on my desk which I had used to prepare the module with. After a class protest against my actions I reviewed my actions and failed the other 3 as they had copied the article but at least had the good sense to re-word it so it wasn't quite so obvious. Sadly, none of the students had acquired any knowledge of the material.
This is a very hard decision to make if you are alone with the problem.
It is my experience that teaching institutions tend to gloat about having a hard line / zero tolerance policy towards cheating (plagiarism is cheating, at least once the students have been told so), while being rather soft on cheaters when it comes to actually taking action.
I would therefore recommend that you actually ask your bosses (department heads and the like) what they recommend. Do make sure they are not encouraging you to waste your time (by taking action against cheaters only to see your actions canceled by some committee). If your institution actually enforces a hard line policy, go with it. If it is rather permissive, well, you cannot do much more than go with it too... :(
Just a couple of things to add, having been the plagiarism czarina at my school for a number of years.
1) The university should have a campus-wide policy so that students in different sections of the same course don't receive widely differing consequences.
2) It's written into the California Education Code that teachers cannot grade punitively, so failing a student for plagiarism was out. We could give the student a zero on that paper only, and figure that zero into their final grade.
3) We sent particularly egregious cases to the Student Discipline Officer, who as the President's designee could be punitive or whatever she felt appropriate.
4) Many students come to college not understanding how to cite sources correctly. They need to be taught.
5) Change your assignments every semester and as one responder said, write questions in such a way that students will not be able to easily cut and paste.
The thing that has worked best for me is to explain that citation and accompanying references show me, the instructor, that the student has actually done work instead of just jotting down whatever comes immediately to mind, and that I reward work.
That and assigning a grade of zero on the first instance with a warning that a repetition will result in referral to the student conduct office.
Depends on the number of your students and a little bit of work from your end. I did teach a programming class with 100 students. I did the following:
Created 20 topics and with a little bit of guideline for each.
In a class, asked students to write their names and I put them in a hat. Then asked a student to come to the board and pick names from the hat. So we randomly created 20 groups of 5.
Monitored their work every week to see who is doing what in the group.
The last 2 weeks of the course and during the presentation of their work, I asked each person individually in a group what they have done and if the rest of the group agree with that.
Almost all students came through. The best thing was created this interactive process, I was happy because they were gradually building up and learning and solving their problems ,and they were very happy because they felt they got what they deserved.
The university I attended and teach at has the same plagiarism policy and I've only ever heard of 3 cases occurring during my time learning and instructing.
The policy is that if you are caught plagiarizing you fail the course and can be taken to court. Legal charges depends on who they are stealing from and if that person wants to press charges. Of the 3 cases I have seen never has anyone pressed charges.
In terms of what you can do to reduce plagiarizing there's various methods that depends on what your university allows you to enforce. First, I would fail a student immediately if it's copy & paste. If it's a student who clearly just doesn't know how to cite things correctly (example: "famous quote in paper" no acknowledgement as to who said it).
You seem like you put a good amount of effort into telling your students the consequences for plagiarism but I don't think losing 20% will deter a lot of people form at least doing it once. 80% is a passing grade though simple path would say if they assignment is less than 20% if your final grade, just don't do it rather than copying it from somewhere else.
You mentioned that you teach a writing course? In my writing courses we had to have a peer proofread our rough drafts before moving onto the final paper. If you do something similar then you may want to encourage having students review a digital copy of the assignment and have the peer run it through copyscape or even inform the students to run their own assignments through copyscape.
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27104 | Is there a comprehensive system for identifying course objectives?
When planning my courses, I usually try to establish a variety of objectives, beyond the primary objective described in the course description, and layer many minor objectives into the lessons. Courses for freshmen tend to have more objectives, as they are often learning about the requirements of being a student at college.
As an example, in a course called "History of New Orleans", I would focus on these objectives:
content (e.g. know major events in New Orleans' history)
cultural understanding (e.g. develop affinity/understanding of the perspective of different peoples in New Orleans)
vocabulary (e.g. academic meta-vocabulary, terms specific to the content)
research skills (e.g. assessing bias in sources, writing a works cited)
practice with technological tools to assist (e.g. software for accessing historical records)
group work skills (e.g. effectively combining work)
academic behavior (e.g. learn that plagiarism is not welcome in college)
I have seen tools such as Bloom's Taxonomy, however, that seems too narrowly focused on the course topic and does not seem to broadly cover many of the skills I've listed above. I want to find some table/system/taxonomy to help me to identify and organize the objectives.
Is there a system to assist course instructors in selecting course objectives?
Perhaps the closest thing to a system would be the objectives that were developed for the full curriculum?
An example from my area. In biology, a recent call encourages universities to be less focused on subdisciplines and more on core concepts and competencies. After many meetings, biologists settled on these:
Core concepts: evolution, structure and function, information flow, energy pathways, systems.
Competencies: application of the scientific method, quantitative reasoning, modeling and simulation, interdisciplinary connections, effective communication.
If I were writing out my learning objectives for the lecture on photosynthesis, I might list that photosynthesis fits into structure/function and energy pathways core concepts, and I would be motivated to include a discussion of a classic experiment so students can practice the scientific method and some calculations for students to apply quantitative reasoning.
I would imagine that history (or any other discipline) likely has a similar list of important concepts plus important skills they want their students to have.
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24096 | How to engage in discussion after a presentation on an unfamiliar topic?
Sometimes I am in a conference presentation or seminar which there are only a handful of audiences, and after the presentation the atmosphere simply urges the audiences to ask questions or the presenter will be embarrassed. I do want to contribute to a meaningful discussion, but the problem is that I am unfamiliar with the topic, and after listening to the presentation, I can only understand the background briefly. I cannot formulate a good question after the presentation.
You may wonder why I attend a presentation which the topic I am unfamiliar with, and sometimes it is driven by curiosity, and sometimes it is compulsory (like invited speakers from my supervisor etc). I know it may be possible to formulate a good question by reading the publication of the speaker beforehand, I have tried it actually but the efforts to understand an unfamiliar topic seems too much, and it may not worth it especially I cannot come up with a good question afterwards.
I don't want to be looking stupid after a presentation, but also don't want to start a discussion which is not quite meaningful just because nobody raises a question. Is there any way to help one to start a good discussion for a topic which I am unfamiliar with after a presentation?
Is there any way to help one to start a good discussion for a topic which I am unfamiliar with after a presentation? — As you become more aware of the problems folks in your field are solving, if you are curious enough, "good" questions should come about organically; this takes time and depends on the individual. Don't worry about looking stupid for not asking a question; as Honest Abe said, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
If you attend a talk with your main goal being able to ask a good question afterwards, you are doing something wrong.
In some fields, there are questions that can be asked after almost any talk. If you want to be provocative, you can ask almost any theoretical computer scientist "Does your algorithm work well in practice?" and almost any non-theoretical computer scientist "Does your technique have any theoretical guarantees?"
@JeffE I took the liberty of stealing your CS examples and include them into my answer. I hope that is OK.
In general I agree to what @user46345 and the others said: If you do not have a good question (and no good reason to ask one anyway) it is better to be quiet.
However, sometimes it is important to ask a question. Two examples that come to my mind are:
You are the discussant of the talk (and you had no opportunity to read the paper before the talk or the speaker already answered all your questions in his talk).
You have a very shy audience that whats to ask questions but no one wants to be the first one to ask.
But there are probably others.
The best thing to do would be to read the paper first and think about a question related to it. If that is not possible there are still some other options to use:
If you haven't understood something during the talk: ask about that.
It is not your field of expertise, so no one expects you to know
everything about it.
In most fields a very common type of question is about applications. In economics this could be "What are the policy implications
of your results?". @JeffE has the following examples for (theoretical) computer science "Does your algorithm work well in practice?" and for non-theoretical computer scientists "Does your technique have any theoretical guarantees?".
"Sensitivity analysis type questions": Is the assumption A crucial?
How would your result change if you change assumption B? They still
require some knowledge of the subject but not as much.
These questions can be used as backup as long as you still have some knowledge about the topic of the talk and you have paid attention (asking something the speaker explained 10 minutes earlier makes you look really stupid). However, it is usually better to avoid asking questions than forcing you to ask one.
You don't need to feel pressured to participate in a discussion that you are not familiar with. If it is a subject that you feel strongly about and are familiar with, I am sure a question would come to you; if, OTOH, you are not familiar and were there just because you were invited, and had not time to get acquainted with the subject discussed prior to the presentation, it is best to stay quiet. Do not force it, as it will be obvious and you will end up looking not-very-smart. Leave questions to those who know what to ask, and if they ask nothing, it is not your duty to save the day.
Another thing to keep in mind is that it all depends on the type of presentation/discussion. If it is a less formal one, asking a personal, but interesting question will both engage the speaker and the audience. For instance "What was the hardest part of the project?"
Again, it helps if you inform yourself prior to the presentation - do not just walk in there without knowing nothing about the subject discussed or the presenter, if you want to participate. Asking a question unprepared can even lead to some awkward situations, e.g. asking an actor how he feels about working with some actress who just happens to be his wife whom he is divorcing right now and she is suing him for millions...
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111892 | Two lecturers, one course, one class
This is my first question here, so please correct me if I'm wrong in my way of asking.
My question is suggested directly by the title. In my college institution, for each subject, half of the semester is handled by one lecturer, and the next half by another one. The reasoning is that each lecturer needs to have near equal teaching responsibility. If one lecturer only is applied, there might be some lecturers who have lower or higher workloads than others.
Another reasoning is that this way we can minimize the bias that can happen with just one lecturer. If a lecturer has bias over some students but the other does not, it will somehow even out, rather than just this first lecturer handles the whole semester.
Some negative effects are there of course, but how do you think the negative or positive effects are affecting the learning and teaching experience? My heart says the negatives are just too much.
What negatives are there in this situation? You haven't mentioned any.
OK. I have put some in the comments for the answer.
Your question does not contain a question. Can you please add what you want to know? Note that "what do you think about this?" tends to not be a good question for the Stack Exchange format.
Double post: https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/14269/one-course-subject-one-class-two-lecturers . Please do not post to two SE websites at once; wait for one site to deal with the question and, if those are not satisfactory, post to the other with link to the previous question.
I would propose to re-phrase the question to clarify the issues involved. E.g. teaching load as a motivation makes little sense to me, but complementary approaches to one topic are of great benefit for the students and we are doing it in many lectures with very good feedback.
Ok then. I just voted to delete it as I have also posted on other SE website. Thanks for telling me the rules..
This happens often, lecturer A does micro economics then lecturer B does macro economics.
As students you may prefer A over B but they also like to work towards their strengths...
As long as they cover the material and the assessments are appropriate then 2 lecturers or 1 is not an issue.
You don’t give any negatives but I have mentioned some perceived issues.
Hmm ok. I thought the negatives are obvious but alright. One example is as you mentioned. For another example, sometimes just for the sake of having 2 lecturers (well, by considering the positives of course), we put aside the matter of lecturer's competency and let a lecturer, who has very less experience on a subject, teach the subject. Sure, this lecturer can learn first, but wouldn't the result be better if he/she has experience, like have taken the subject when in college and got good grade before? Another negative is that since the material per semester is continuous, (cont'd)
(continuation) a lecturer hopes to see the progress of students understanding. Isn't it harder to do this with two lecturers? Change happens after mid term by the way.
Don’t put critical information in comments -edit your question with that info - people don’t trawl through comments trying to piece together your question...
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113701 | Hypothesis incorrectly stated and submitted
I realise after submitting my dissertation lask week that I posed my hypothesis in the wrong manner.
I posed them as
I believe that X will not be a predictor of Y
I subsequently went on with results which returned a p value of 0.01 and subsequently said we reject the null throughout my discussion.
It may be simply viewed as a typo. Am I likely to suffer greatly as a result of this mistake. I proceed with my methods, data analysis and discussion as if the hypotheses are proposed in the correct manner and given the overall premise of the dissertation and explanation of the result, it's quite clear what I am trying to achieve I believe.
Am I likely to simply be failed as a result of this error?
Any help greatly appreciated as I'm very as this has been submitted and I am extremely worried
I'm hoping to be correct here, but this depends partially on personalities. Since you found the error, you should immediately inform everyone involved of the error and offer to supply a corrected version immediately. If people are reasonable they should act reasonably, of course. If you wait, and someone else notices it, you will have difficulties.
Getting things absolutely backwards is likely more common than you imagine. Also, when you write and then proofread your own writing, you are very likely to see what you want to see, what you think you wrote, rather than what you actually wrote. Most reasonable people will recognize that, have a bit of a chuckle and move on.
But you have to be the one to raise the flag.
You raise this issue on a week end. If at all possible, don't wait for the new week to inform at least your professor.
One of the reasons that books have editors and journals assign reviewers is to catch these kind of errors of inattention. Sometimes an advisor will perform that function for a student, but not always.
Hi, thanks for the response. I previously had a formatting issue they allowed me to correct so I simply come across as careless at this stage which made me apprehensive to say anything. However, I decided to mail my course director and make him aware of my error. Our course although MSc dealt sparingly with hypothesis testing so I'm hoping he understands, do you think if he simply rejects my offer to correct that it will be failed?
"If you wait, and someone else notices it, you will have difficulties." - I think this may be too strong. The OP may have difficulties. I think it's far more likely that graders will chuckle and read on. Quite probably, they typos like this regularly. After all, as you write, "Getting things absolutely backwards is likely more common than you imagine." So: by all means inform people (even if you already previously informed them of a formatting issue - yes, it's unfortunate, but better than not to inform them), but certainly don't worry about it inordinately.
Hi Stephen, thanks for that, it settles my mind a tad. I just hate coming across unprofessional but I simply have so much invested that I don't want this to be a difference maker. I emailed them and asked them to be aware as resubmission 3 days later is probably too much and not necessary. Thanks for the comments they're very much appreciated.
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114509 | Changing supervisor before starting the PhD - not selected
I approached a supervisor about a PhD application. At this university, you must have two supervisors, so after a meeting, he invited the other "supervisor" to discuss the topic.
Honestly, this new supervisor doesn't suit my topic. In fact, he proposed some topic changes that I am not happy to do. However, for the rush of the moment and the nervous, I said yes. After, I checked the credentials of the new supervisor. He just graduated last year and I would be his first PhD student.
I received the offer letter and this last supervisor was appointed as the main supervisor. I received a scholarship from my government (not from the university), so no funding is attached to the supervisors or topic. I haven't "officially" started the PhD.
I will have a meeting soon and I was wondering how I could ask to change the main supervisor? I will argue that I want to focus on my original topic, but what to do if they say that I can change the topic, but with the same team? Is it wrong that I would like to have a more "experienced" supervisor as the primary supervisor?
Thank you.
Could you please specify the country or geographical area? The relevant procedures and expectations can vary a lot between different countries
Sorry, the PhD is in the UK. I will formally start in October this year. My PhD is not linked to a project of the supervisors.
Your wishes and concerns are valid, but your options are limited. You say you agreed, which was not your best choice. Of course you realize this, but maybe too late.
Unfortunately this is more of a personal relationship issue than one for rules. I know how bad it can be to have an inexperienced, ill-matched, advisor, especially if you aren't enthusiastic about the topic.
One option is to go elsewhere for your degree - an extreme solution that will cost you time and perhaps, money.
A possible solution, depending on personalities is to go back to the first professor, with whom you seem more comfortable, and lay out the situation, in essence begging to work under his/her direction instead. Don't open with the suggestion that you may need to withdraw if your request can't be granted and think about whether that is actually what you would want to do. But your possible withdrawal might be a last resort argument. It is a bit dangerous to use, however, if made in such a way that anyone, especially this professor, thinks less of you as a result.
One outcome of such a meeting might actually be that the professor can convince you of the correctness of the current situation (with the new advisor and problem), based on his/her reading of the state of the art. It is useful if you have a senior professor keeping a bit of a watch over you and a junior professor as the process unfolds, so maintaining a good working relationship is essential if you intend to continue.
Thank you for your answer. I forgot to mention that the scholarship from my government in linked to the university, but not to the topic-supervisor. Your advice to talk to the first professor was my option, but once again he send me a reply copying the "primary supervisor". So now the meeting is once again with the three of us.
People have told me that this is the correct time to ask the change, as my PhD will start in October, because I have heard that really to feel identify with the supervisor background project is really important.
@Matt, it is too late to correct, but I meant a face to face meeting, not just email. If you have a meeting, you want to avoid offending the person who may wind up with primary authority. But you can still bring up your interest in the original problem and listen to what they both have to say. But this three way meeting really needs to be in person. It is too easy to minimize your concerns (and passion) if you try to communicate remotely. And yes, you need to settle it before you start. Hard choices. Good luck.
Yes, this meeting will be on person. Originally I sent the email to ask for a meeting, it is not that I'm trying to do evrything by email. He add the new supervisor to the meeting (even my intentions were to only disscuss this with the first supervisor). I really hope everything goes well. I will focus in the importance to keep my topic (that honestly requiere a different supervisor)... Hopefully, verything will be change to the best. Thank you!
One issue that you may not have considered is that this is an administrative and faculty development issue rather than one that directly affects your day-to-day research.
Remember that for faculty to secure a long-term position, one of the requirements is that they show an ability to mentor students through the PhD process. It is very difficult to do this if they are not officially assigned as the main advisor of PhD students. For a senior faculty member who is already in a permanent position, this is likely not as significant a concern.
Basically, I would just ask in this meeting what are the supervision duties they plan to have rather than what's "official."
Yes. I was meaning to add to my answer that the senior professor's intent may have been to mentor the junior professor in advising. If that is the case then it should resolve cleanly, other than the question of the research topic.
Thank you both for your comments. I totally understand the challenges that face young academics to earn a "permanent position". And that somehow in the future I would like to have the change to supervised students.
However, I feel that things haven't occurred en a very "transparent" way. I approach one supervisor because I feel that he could really support me, but I ended with some else, doing his topic (that I'm still having doubts).
As you mention, I need to clarify the roles of both of them. In my home country, a young supervisor starts as a secondary supervisor with the first PhD student and not as primary. But, if here they told me that they will be equally involved, I could be more relaxed.
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137106 | How much advanced notice is expected for faculty interviews?
I have a faculty interview for a Canadian university coming up some time in the next week. For this interview I have to prepare 2 lectures.
I still havent received the date, nor the lecture topics. So I havent even booked time off work yet.
How much advanced warning is expected for this sort of thing? I feel that I would need ample time to prepare and with working full time elsewhere, it might be right. Or maybe Im just overreacting and stressing out.
Probably too variable for a useful answer here. Are you sure that you don't get to pick the topics?
@Buffy yes. They said they would get back to me on the presentation details.
Better if you ask, then.
This is really unusual and I expect that there's been a miscommuncation or someone has screwed up. Surely they've already picked a date on their end and have either forgotten to tell you or something went wrong with the email. Have you checked your spam folder?
@NoahSnyder, yeah I have. I actually emailed them a couple days ago with some questions but noone has responded yet.
Since time is a factor here, don't leave it to email. Pick up the telephone and call someone (search committee chair, department head, etc).
They could be waiting on other candidates to finalize their plans before knowing when the remaining available days are. You should at least find out the topics in advance and be ready.Given that it's typically so one-sided (many applicants for few jobs) there's no telling how unreasonable they might be. You are of course always free to say "sorry I can't make it with such short notice", but I presume that's the last thing you want to do.
@ASimpleAlgorithm, that makes sense... It is unfortunate that they couldn't just schedule all of us later (in 2-3 weeks or something) to give ample time to prepare. Although it might not be the desirable to say "sorry can't make it", I will have to figure out if the time I have will allow me to make the right impression.
@NateEldredge, ugh, this is actually my old department and people are so hard to reach! I'll have to try again on Monday.
You may have missed an email somewhere or been subject to an HR snafu. We recently had one out of five people that we interviewed for a position miss an HR email that explained the timing and subject of their interview lecture meaning they weren't prepared for it when it came. Another time, someone just didn't show up, we assume, because details were missed. Check your spam folder and contact HR right away.
@GrotesqueSI, thanks, but I stated earlier that I checked my spam folder and contacted HR a few days ago.
It's totally reasonable for you to want to plan your schedule at least a week ahead.
Contact them and ask if they have the date yet, or if not, when they expect to have it.
And even if they don't know the date yet, they should be able to tell you the lecture topics.
Thanks Nate! Do you think it would be acceptable to ask for a different date (for example, a week later) if they take a while to schedule me in? I would really rather not last-minute the day-off request at work.
I believe that is completely reasonable
@Catsunami If your only concern is the last-minute request for leave, and there are no knock-on effects such as needing to arrange cover for teaching, make the last-minute request. Finding a time when everybody on the interview panel is free can be difficult.
@Catsunami: You can ask, but as David says, scheduling interviews is rather difficult for a search committee. And they are usually under some pressure to complete the interview process quickly, since the longer they wait, the more likely their preferred candidates will receive and possibly accept other offers. So if you ask for a later date, they may well say no. Thus my advice would be to make every reasonable effort to attend the interview on the date they set, even if it is somewhat inconvenient or causes minor friction at your current job.
"How much advanced warning is expected for this sort of thing?"
The answer is that it varies between departments, schools, faculties, universities, countries, etc., and even between different recruitment rounds within the same department.
Although it is not helpful for the candidate to get this information very late, it is certainly not uncommon for interviews to delay decisions about dates, topics, instructions etc. to the last minute due to administrative reasons. For example, if the department is in a rush, or they have multiple posts, etc. The best way of course is to contact the department by email and ask.
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26415 | Research Methodology Books for beginners in Computer Science research
I am looking for Research Methodology textbooks in the field of Computer Science. Most books I came across are useful to social science, economics etc.
In our part of the world a person who wants to do research should study a course in research methodology. But most books in research methodology are from social science, economics perspective.
Would like to know some from technology/computer science/engineering perspective. Some must read books for general reading also would be good
It would be useful to narrow the scope to something more specific, computer science is a beast with many faces.
@MarcClaesen Indeed! You could fill a whole book on that subject.
Research methodologies are usually independent of your area. Often, the application of some methods and the examples used to describe them differ depending on the area. For example, empirical research is a methodology that can be applied whether you do research in CS, psychology, or physics. This methodology teaches you how to conduct experiments that are sound (by minimizing different threats to validity) and how to analyze the data in a statistical way (e.g., when to use which statistical test to accept a certain research hypothesis).
In medicine, you might conduct experiments to analyze the effects of some drugs whereas is CS, you would do some performance experiments to analyze the effects of some optimizations. The methods used in both areas are the same, the application might differ largely though.
Hence, it would not harm to study a text book from psychology / statistics, because the tools you learn there are also valuable for CS (e.g., knowing the difference between qualitative and quantitative research or descriptive and analytic). Furthermore, there is no CS-methodology (at least I am not aware of).
This book is "research methodology for computer science". It's a quick and easy read that clarifies many issues specific to the computer science field. The problem is that it is available only in Brazilian Portuguese, as far as I know.
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8597 | How important is the publication venue for academic hiring and grant applications?
A comment in this question says: but spending some money to publish in a high rank journal can open more funding opportunities in future, doesn't it?. In another post, JeffE writes in this answer:
Personally, when I read a CV, I only spend a second or two on the self-declared research interests and jump straight to the publication list..
If a candidate (either for hiring or for a grant) has good science but the publications are not in the most prestigious journals, but in slightly less known journals (but still journals that are not obscure), does that significantly hurt their chances? Or is it really the content that matters and is the venue of publication less important?
Note that my question is specifically about the venue of publication. These related questions do not answer my question:
What can I do as a graduate student to maximize my chances of obtaining a professorship?
How important is number of publications and prestige of the publication outlets for getting a tenure-track job?
How important are citations when applying for jobs or promotions?
Not really a full-fledged answer but I believe having a publication in a high-rep journal can be the last touch of spicing on a dish that is your research profile. I know individuals that are very talented, have great track records but haven't really made it to the bigger scene based on the lack of that 5 minutes of fame you would get from a publication in a famous, high impact journal. Likewise, I have met scientists who don't seem to know what they are talking about, but have GREAT publications if you only consider where they are published.
There is probably not a single truth here but I would make the following statements:
Having a good publication record is the basis for basically everything in academia. The question is then what is good? As a fresh PhD student citations will be near zero (I am guessing in most fields). Having publications in citation index listed journals is therefore a definite plus. Having several as first author is a must (see What does first authorship really mean? for a discussion) I would also argue that having papers not part of the PhD (even if not first authored author) is a plus since it indicates activity.
As a new post-graduate you need to improve the publication record as best you can. You need to show that you do your own new work but also be part of collaborations in some mix. Building a publication record takes time and will partly be up to your own efforts and in some way also by chance (you never know what opportunities lie ahead).
To get employed, you can basically only compete with a good publication list. Everyone knows this takes time and I am guessing all fields have their own "standards" as to what is a reasonable publication rate. In my field where papers are based on field investigations, 2-4 papers per year is considered acceptable, the longer-term average should be towards 3-5. The rate is thus an aspect that should not be over-looked.
Typically you will have a dip post-PhD because it takes time to build or get into a new environment and to start writing new papers. Having something on the back burner for that period may thus be useful to bridge the gap.
As a final note, the citations will be more and more important after a few years. In my field it usually takes a few years to start getting citations because the results will inspire someone to apply for money, go into the field for new investigations, and then write papers. In a lab or theoretical environment such response times may be lower so check with seniors in your field what applies. A good question to ask is perhaps if there are ways to promote ones work to increase citation records, I do not have the answer to that question.
Bottom line: publish in as good journals as possible. Good quality counts but a reasonable publication rate is also necessary. Citations will come with time.
Having several as first author is a must — ...unless you work in an area that does not recognize first authorship, like mathematics or theoretical computer science.
For what it is worth, this question is discipline specific. In natural sciences, you have to go through 5-8 years of post-docs, and the question of how to get a professor position is such a distant future that you shouldn't even bother at this point, and have to concentrate on getting into a productive post-doc position (rather than the one that will simply suck up all of your energy on 60+ hour work weeks, without giving much in return). In some fields, like economics or statistics, you get a tenure track position right after the Ph.D. In some other fields, like some branches of sociology or anthropology, there is no "research", but there is "scholarship" instead, and the first question you are asked is not "How many Nature papers do you have?" but "What is your book about?".
Having said that, my impression (I am a statistician, also worked with psychologists and economists) is that generally the perceived order of importance is:
The prestige of the top journals that you published in as the first or the solo author
Whether you have papers in top journals in the field, no matter what order author you are
The share of top journals in overall record: if you have 20 publications with only 1 being in a top journal, that's arguably a worse record than 10 publications with 3 top journals (although it depends on a particular university; in some academic incentive systems, you are better off publishing 5-6 crappy papers a year without every attempting top journals)
Citations will hardly come into play until you are about 5+ years into the game post Ph.D. (going for tenure in economics or statistics; going for tenure track positions in physics or biology, although I can only speculate about these fields). For some departments, citations may never come into play if you have publications in top journals, which are assumed to generate citations semi-automatically.
As a grad student, you are still learning the rules of the game. Treat academia as such; don't assume that good research will prevail -- it might, but it could be too late for you. You have to be aggressive in pursuing top publications, invited presentations, etc., and a lot of people just don't have it. You have to recognize whether your personality suits academia, and try to seek other venues if it does not. (I don't know if there are psychoanalysts specializing in placing people into academia, but that would be a golden niche for somebody :) ). In many disciplines, there is as much or even more good quality research being done in industry than in the university setting.
Despite the importance of hiring, many departments do not devote all that much energy to it (at least, not until the field is narrowed down to a handful of top candidates being invited to give job talks). For these departments, it can make a big difference if they know that you at least passed the (often considerably greater) scrutiny afforded by publication in a top journal.
Not having publications in top journals will not necessarily sink your chances, but it will limit your chances to those places that don't make it a de facto requirement. Check out the publication records of recently hired faculty members at institutions you're interested in to get a hint of what your CV ought to look like.
(Note: getting a good postdoctoral fellowship is typically much less publication-dependent, at least in those areas of the biological sciences with which I am familiar.)
getting a good postdoctoral fellowship is typically much less publication-dependent — ...except in theoretical computer science, said the broken record.
getting a good postdoctoral fellowship is typically much less publication-dependent - That's not my experience (in any area of computer science that I am familiar with). (I'm agreeing with JeffE, with the addition that in my experience it's not limited to theoretical computer science.)
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1068 | Are there any good job directories for academic work?
I'm currently looking for a PhD position and have started to realize that a lot of my time goes into sporadeously surfing the web in hope of finding an open position. Are there good job directories for academic work that lists available positions?
Have you checked ACM Career & Job Center? link: http://jobs.acm.org/jobseeker/search/results/function/Academic%20-%20College%20and%20University
Based on your question title and phrasing, I'm assuming in my answer below that by "PhD position" you mean a job requiring a PhD, not a student position for working towards a PhD. If you mean the latter, then the answer varies even more between fields and countries.
...unless you're European, in which case "PhD position" may very well mean "position as a PhD student". Could you clarify?
@Speldosa How did your job search go? I added another link to my answer. I am guessing you might have already checked that website!
It would depend on what your field of work is. But heres a nifty little list that I keep an eye on (I am looking for a postdoctoral position in academia / research and these websites are quite helpful to me)
www.phds.org
www.postdocjobs.com
http://www.cfd-online.com/Jobs/
http://www.aps.org/careers/
http://www.academickeys.com
There are a few websites suggested in the answers below/above my response to this question and they are quite nice too!
Besides that you probably have a general idea as to what you'd want to work as / work for. You could perhaps target a bunch of universities and faculty members for prospective positions?
Good luck!
It's almost impossible to give a general answer to this question, since different fields handle things in very different ways. Your profile says you're a cognitive scientist and philosopher, which is beyond my competence, but for other readers here's an answer for mathematics jobs in the US:
The largest number of job ads for US academic jobs in math, especially at but not limited to reseach-oriented schools, are found at http://www.ams.org/profession/employment-services/eims/eims-home. In particular, most math departments do not advertise on generic websites (not field specific) unless there are university requirements to do so, and you cannot find most math jobs without going to math-specific sites. I have no idea whether this is typical for academic fields, or unique to mathematics.
One unusual feature of mathematics (compared with computer science, for example) is that there's a centralized application site, http://www.mathjobs.org/jobs, which covers a surprisingly large fraction of jobs and makes handling letters of recommendation very easy. It's still important to look at ads on math society websites, since some schools do not allow departments to use mathjobs.
For industrial or government employment, it's a real mess, and different subfields advertise in rather different places (or sometimes hardly advertise at all). I don't think there's anything valuable to say there without narrowing things down quite a bit.
http://www.higheredjobs.com
They have jobs broken down by Job Category, Region, and Institution Type. They also do a great job of keeping you informed of opportunities when they are added to the their database. You provide your CV and potential employers can search for applicants by credentials.
The European Commission supports the web-portal EURAXESS - Researchers in Motio which has also a job portal. EURAXESS is especially helpful as it lists jobs from all European Union member countries in all disciplines (incl. sciences, humanities & social sciences). You can filter for countries, research fields, positions (PhD, postdoc, professor, ...) and your own keywords.
You should consider location-specific job directories:
Some countries maintain such directions: in this UK, for example, there is jobs.ac.uk
Most universities have a job directory, so if you have decided on your dream geographic area, you can look at the corresponding listings.
Also, some journals have a job listings section (just like your local newspaper):
Science
Nature
In case you are interested in working in Germany:
www.academics.com
(I guess relevant ads will be in English)
Many jobs are advertised by scientific associations or institutionalized networks of researchers. At least this is true for political science, but I figure it applies to other disciplines as well. You can easily find relevant associations by googling for $discipline association. For example, the American Political Science Associations (APSA) has a nice job directory on their website.
Moreover, scientific associations and other networks frequently circulate vacancies through their mailing-lists. Non-association mailing lists are another great source for academic job-hunting. For example in Germany, jobs in the discipline of international relations are advertised through the IB Liste, jobs in history and cultural studies through HSozKult. Again, use your favorite search engine to find relevant mailing lists for your discipline.
I would emphasize more mailing lists and less scientific associations in this answer. There are lots of discipline-specific mailing lists that are not tied to an association.
http://www.myscience.cc/jobs
Take a look for a good research job adverts aggregator. Also adverts in top-notch magazines like Nature, or similar in the field of your interest are relevant. Your nearest library is your friend.
I create a platform for Academic people. You may search academic jobs updated daily at Academic Gates platform. There are thousands jobs collected daily. Hope it help!
Are you in an any way affiliated with this site? In case, you should this close the affiliation. As is this answer looks a bit spammish.
Yes, I am an owner of this platform, I create it to collect all academic jobs for academic community. Sorry. I have just edit a bit to point directly to the job page. https://academicgates.com/job @MassimoOrtolano
You should then edit your answer to specify that you are the owner and make it also a more complete answer, otherwise the community will consider it as spam. See this help page: https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/promotion
@MassimoOrtolano Thank you! I just edited it.
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24078 | I have career gap after bachelors degree and irrelevant work experience. How do I write SOP for MS admission in US?
I pursued a Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Communication Engineering stream and I completed the course in 2010. I was jobless for more than a year so I did a 3 months course in Java. Im Sun certified. I still wasn't able to find a job. I got a job in a Business Process Outsourcing company as a customer support associate. I had to take the job, as I didn't have any choice. I worked from Aug 2012 to Nov 2013. Now I'm interested in doing an MS. I'm afraid I don't get admitted. I'm especially interested in University of Texas at Austin. I don't know how to project my negative points in the SOP. I don't know what points to include and what to not. I have no clue. Please help me.
Unlike employers in industry, I believe that graduate admissions committees don't care if there are gaps, irrelevant work experience, or changes of direction in your employment. Their sole concern are your credentials and capabilities to do academic work. You should focus all your attention on communicating your skills and capabilities to do Masters-level Computer Science work. This includes your course grades as an undergrad, your GRE scores, your computer experience in industry, your recommendation letters, and your engagement with professional and academic communities.
(Business schools are probably an exception to this. Work history is probably important to getting accepted in an MBA program.)
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14404 | What's the rough budget size for one person year (research asssistant/postdoc) in academia?
For my CV, I want to mention the budget size of third-party funds I helped to raise, but I do not know the financial details. So:
What's the rough cost for one person year in academia, including personal costs, travel costs, overhead costs, etc.
Update: Since the budget seems to depend on the location: It was a German project ("DFG Einzelantrag auf Sachbeihilfe") and I computed the personal costs per year to be about 60 thousand Euro. But I have no clue how much the travel and overhead costs are per year.
This is very localized. You might at least want to promote the "in detail" content to the main question, since an answer needs to be Germany-specific.
It seems odd that if you've helped raise these funds that you wouldn't know what the exact values are. Is there a reason that you need to calculate the costs per person rather than just listing the value of the award?
It seems very silly to try to guess the number. Either ask the PI who knows the financial details, or leave them out and let people make their own guesses. No one is going to be impressed by the amount of money you guess you helped to land.
Vaguely related recent post out in the blogosphere: http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2013/11/price-check-you.html . The kind of rule of thumb that floats around the business community in the US is that taxes, benefits and overhead about double the "pay" figure (exclusive of all that travel and so on).
I'm not sure it's possible to provide an acceptable answer to this, as it will vary so much by field and country. For example, I work at a research institute with high containment facilites which operates a full economic cost model, so the per-capita overheads are very high compared to many comparable facilities in other countries, or academics in other fields in the UK.
The total amount of funding is difficult to guess. If you can't get detailed information, it's better to just state the number of positions in the grant and the total duration. Even that could be left out. If you're applying within Germany, everybody will know what a "typical" DFG grant includes. For applications somewhere else, I'm not sure how relevant this information would be.
The personnel related funding received from the DFG is standardized. See for example there for rates in 2012. The important question here would be wether it's a full-time or part-time position. That is field-dependent.
Overhead cost is standardized at 20 % of the total funding (at least for recent grants, it has been less earlier).
Travel costs and other is really dependent on the project.
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114839 | Tips on answering "What can you do to enhance our department?" and "Why are you a good fit?" type of questions in job interview
I am preparing myself for a job interview for a lecturer position. According to many articles on academic job interviews, a common question to be prepared for is that " what can you do to enhance our department?"
I'm not sure what exactly the committee would mean by that? I understand that I should tailor my own answer but question is not really clear to me.
Is this "lecturer" in the UK sense, or in the US sense, or... ? These are very different positions.
Good question Dr. Garrett. Its a lecturer position in the US at a very prestigious school.its a dream- come true- gig for me.
Ah, then a further question: a research-oriented place granting PhD's, or "small liberal arts", for example. These, too, are very different places...
Very strong research.
This is an update for those who are planning to go down this route:
I had my interview. I was asked a lot of questions regarding my teaching philosophy and experience.
I was asked why I like to teach at their university?(to protect my privacy name of university will remain anonymous-but lets say it's a prestigous research university).
One particular question I was asked was that what was the most difficult part of teaching I ever faced and how I dealt with that.
Also they named a few courses and asked if I've taught them before.
They asked if I have ever taught classes as instructor and not a TA.
They asked a follow up question asking if I did A to Z of the course preparation myself, e.g. writing syllabus, making exams etc.
At any rate, while I didn't get the cliche of why-are-you-a-good-fit? the committee aimed to get to know me and investigate my teaching skills in detail by asking straightforward questions.
Well, what can you do that nobody else in the department can? Some possible examples:
If you've had experience teaching electronically, and the department doesn't currently offer e-learning, you could point this out.
If you have expertise in a certain subject that nobody else in the department has, you could point this out.
If you've seen the content, homework assignments, etc, of the current courses the department offers, and you think you can do better, you could point this out. For example maybe in your experience students like to learn about [topic] which would be a really good addition to the department's [course], and you are very capable of teaching [topic].
Before doing this, I would look for evidence that the department actually wants to offer e-learning, etc. Otherwise, it could be that the reason they don't offer it is that they think it's a bad idea. If so then such an answer could inadvertently demonstrate that you're not a good fit.
This is an opportunity to sell yourself. The question is vague which allows you to take the conversation to whatever topic you want to bring up. Teaching? Research? Potential collaborators?
Here is a short list of ideas that I used when I got questions like this:
I can teach X, which I think could help the department.
My research interests overlap with Y's.
No one in the department is currently doing research in Z.
Another technique is to transform vague questions into questions that you can answer. I did this a lot. See my list of questions that I was asked during my faculty interviews for more ideas.
Potential collaborators is especially good if you know some things about their faculty.
@Buffy I'd suggest to always know a bit about the faculty. I skimmed nearly every faculty member's website during the flight or night before each of my interviews. If they were even somewhat relevant to my research, then I would skim a paper or two as well.
Keep in mind that if you're being considered for a teaching-only position they may not care at all about your research interests.
It is an obviously open ended question that is intended to be hard. It will be used differently by different people. Often it is used because they can't think of anything very specific to ask you. In the book Siddhartha by Hesse, Siddhartha is asked the question by a potential employer. His response is "I can think. I can wait. I can fast" which seems a bit non-responsive. The statement has been widely analyzed.
A similarly orthogonal answer is sometimes fine, or not, but it depends on your reading of the situation. But the answer should somehow be meaningful to you.
One specific piece of advice, though, is not to use the question to appear arrogant. "I play well with others." Fine, even if a bit silly. "I have a 180 measured IQ." Not fine.
It is good to think about the question. It is also good to think about why you want this job. When you think about such questions, think beyond your professional capabilities. Think about your goals, your other interests, etc.
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96264 | Should I explain a single bad grade in my personal statement?
Overall, I have always maintained a good standing in all of my undergrad classes. Most of my grades are either As or Bs. With only one Junior level course with a D. Is it worthwhile to explain this one bad grade? I am afraid that since all my other grades are good, I will only be highlighting that one bad grade by talking about it.
If the course is particularly relevant to the program you're applying to, then it might make sense to explain it. If not, then not.
If you decide to explain the grade, make the explanation as brief as you can. Don't tell a long story that will divert attention from the rest of your statement.
There are really two parallel circumstances to consider here:
The grade is highly relevant to the program in question. In that case, you might need to address it, as someone will be focusing on that coursework in particular - partially because they will be relying on you knowing the content of that coursework, and with that grade it's hard to argue you do. Though in this case, it's also probably a good idea to strongly consider retaking the course. In this case, you might touch on the reasons, but that should be 1) Short and 2) Be a legitimate reason why this might not accurately reflect your abilities. "I didn't like the professor" is not that reason.
It's just a random class. 'Women in Medieval Art and Literature' and you're applying to a Microbiology program. 'Calculus 1' and you're applying to a Comparative Literature program. 'German 4' and you're applying for a Computer Science program. In this case, I wouldn't draw attention to it.
Excellent response. But a minor quibble [PREVIOUS REVISION]: Poli sci isn't my field, but I would imagine some of the more political economy-oriented ones would expect you to either take grad level microeconomics, or at least be able to more-or-less follow econ papers. Either could involve calculus.
Probably a fair point - I've changed it to be even more far afield.
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96342 | Who holds the copyright if I did research at one university and write a thesis at another?
I worked for a research project on the migration of a prototype to a low-level consumable solution. I am also co-author of a paper that describes the math used for that project (my contribution was not the math, but the tests used to evaluate the performance of the algorithm). According to the work agreement I signed, the copyright of the paper and the code belongs to university A (although it acknowledges the author's attribution).
I am also writing a thesis for an academic program at university B (paying the tuition by myself). The main researcher of university A gave me permission to use the algorithm as the basis of my individual research. I also have some ideas that can improve the overall performance.
If I base my work on the algorithm of university A (which was already published) and write a different implementation (even in a different language), could I still lose ownership of my thesis? (I am trying to avoid any infringement)
PS: the abstract of the paper of university A was accepted and exposed in a conference, but the final document has not been sent yet (as usually done in these kinds of events).
There are two different issues here, claims on software you write and claims on the thesis you will write.
The former depends on the jurisdiction you live in and whether the algorithm is patented or not. If you re-implement it, and can prove that you have not used any bit of the old code (which is extremely hard if you have seen the old code), then there is no copyright violation, but you might still need to pay royalties due to any patents (if your jurisdiction allows software patents). If you only have ever seen pseudo code, then there is no copyright violation as you cannot copy any code that you have not had access to. If have seen the code and you want to be sure there is no copyright conflict, ask a student who has not seen the old code to re-implement with only a natural language or very abstract description from you. Even if you are writing in a different language, if you have seen the old code, this might be constructed as copyright violation, depending on who the lawyers are and which jurisdiction you live in.
Your thesis is not covered by any copyright or patent claims on the algorithm. Copyright only covers claims on derived software. You have written a thesis which is not a piece of software. The findings in it are your own, the text are your own. Nobody can touch that. There is no patent violation either, as you are not doing anything even remotely commercial. And most jurisdictions have explicit exemptions for scientific use of patents (in others it's implicitly in the way how patents only cover commercial use).
What you should do is ask the legal department of your university to clarify this. They know how to deal with intellectual property and what is allowed and what isn't allowed in your jurisdiction. And stuff like this is their job.
Thanks, this is a really exciting conversation. If the code used in the University A's project was a migration of another work done by the researcher in a foreign country and the university where he developed the original code released it publicly, then I feel that the code of University A won't be a blocker for any further implementation into a third language in University B. Would a disclaimer note will be sufficient to avoid any confusions?
You confuse two different things: The copyright attaches to the written work (in your case the thesis). The intellectual property attaches to the content of the contribution (in your case, the algorithm).
Likely (though I'm not qualified to give legal advice), the copyright for your thesis resides with you and/or university B, whereas the intellectual property in the algorithm resides with university A.
Copyright is a form of intellectual property.
More precisely, the specific implementation is covered by copyright. The idea of the algorithm is not copyrightable, only the actual code (so you can reimplement it and will have your own copyright). However, it might be patentable. If university A filed a patent on the algorithm, you might need a license to use your own implementation. I do not know what kind of use might be patent-relevant.
I see, WIPO says that IP covers: patents, copyright, and trademarks. And although copyright protects moral and commercial rights on the software (like @nengel said), patents exclude the commercial use to only one legal person. That is why SURF (to give an example) can only be used without a license for educational purposes.
@nengel put more clearly what I meant to convey. The copyright to your thesis is with university B; the patent on, or the right to patent, the algorithm is with university A. The copyright in the actual implementation of the algorithm may reside with either university, but B may infringe on A's rights if A chooses to patent the algorithm. A may have already lost their right to patent, however, if the algorithm has already been published.
Are you saying that if the code is divulged in public (by university A) before applying for a patent, it will invalidate the patentability? Clever.
@huanma2268: That's a legal question I can't answer. But it is correct that you can not patent material that has previously been published.
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96638 | How do I politely decline student requests to meet during my "research time?"
I'm a young (female) professor in a (U.S.) department with a small graduate program and a research expectation. I usually teach Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and try to save Tuesday and Thursday for research (where possible). On MWF, I'm quite good about meeting with students, even if they stop by outside of office hours (or on any day during exam weeks). My week or more homework assignments are generally due on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday (there's no good place for students to drop them off outside of class and I like discussing them as they turn them in) so I get requests by students who have put off their homework to meet on Tuesday or Thursday, even when I mention this preference in advance. I've yet to come up with a nice response that I'm satisfied both:
Reminds students I'm busy with other work (despite the fact that
their tuition pays part of my salary).
that still encourages them to keep reaching out for help and encourages them to think of me as the approachable professor I try to be (at least on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).
Suggestions for a nice email response?
(1) What level are these students? (2) How often is HW due? Do you really have three due dates a week?
Sorry, I meant to say that homework is due about once a week, always on a class day. I've had the question occur both for undergraduates (major and not major) and masters students so far...
Just an off-topic side-note: you may consider discussing the homework not on the day they hand it in but on the day they get it returned (assuming the homework gets corrected). This way, students see what they did right/wrong are can better focus on the necessary parts. Otherwise, listening again to the problems you have just fought with enough and are happy to hand in and "forget about" for the moment is not so pleasant/effective.
Another consideration you might take into account is when the homework is due. Students, like most people, tend to put things off until they have to, meaning that the day before homework is due they will probably want to get in touch the most. If you make homework due on Tues or Thurs at 9am (for example), then you'll probably get many more requests to meet on Mon, or Wed, when you don't mind making yourself available.
I would add something to other answers and comments with respect to the HW timing. True, as @spacetyper said, student procrastinate. But you have good reason to both be available on MWF and ask homework these days, so why not let them know that if they need any help with HW they need to ask it at least two days in advance, and the day before due date is NOT a day they can ask you for help? It will help them not procrastinate, and be compatible with your constraints, which are perfectly legitimate.
"I am unavailable. Please schedule time during office hours."
It is not reasonable to ask students to memorize your weekly schedule. It is not unreasonable to ask to meet on Tuesday, Thursday. It is reasonable to decline such requests.
Other options to help manage this: Always have homework due on a Monday (so the preceding days you're clearly unavailable). Use an online learning management system to have the homework uploaded at a convenient time (e.g., I have my deadlines on Sundays).
I've yet to come up with a nice response that I'm satisfied both:
Reminds students I'm busy with other work (despite the fact that their tuition pays part of my salary).
There is no need to "remind" students of anything. They likely neither know nor spend any meaningful amount of their time wondering what you are up to when you're not teaching them. Nor is it any business of theirs where your salary comes from.
that still encourages them to keep reaching out for help and encourages them to think of me as the approachable professor I try to be (at least on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).
It is commendable that you want to be approachable, and to be seen as approachable, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. However, from the students' point of view it is likely to be seen as inconsistent that you are so approachable on those days and yet refuse to meet them on other days. In my opinion, any attempt to explain the logical reasons for this inconsistency is going to have very limited (if any) effectiveness -- the students simply don't have a good enough understanding of what the life of a professor (or any professional of a similar age and career status) looks like to be receptive to your explanation.
The upshot of this analysis is that you need to accept that setting the boundaries that you need to set to get your distraction-free time for research is going to make you look slightly less approachable and/or likeable in the eyes of the students. The problem is not one of finding the right words to put in an email, but instead of accepting that "nice" and "approachable" is sometimes inconsistent with "gets things done".
Suggestions for a nice email response?
Here is my suggestion:
Dear [name of student],
I am afraid I am not available to meet with you tomorrow. As I mentioned in class and in the syllabus, my office hours are [insert office hours], and I may have limited availability to meet at other times on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but I am not available on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you have an urgent need for help, feel free to try talking to [name of TA] or to a fellow student. I do very much appreciate that you are seeking help to improve your understanding of the material, which is a positive thing that sadly not enough students do, and look forward to seeing you at my office hours sometime soon.
Best,
[your name]
I like the last sentence. It is true and sends an encouraging message, without apologizing for the result.
Marking this as the best answer, as I think it does a better job of answering the question asked than Elizabeth Henning's answer and I too appreciate the last sentence. That said, I do have some concerns with sending either this answer or Lighthouse Keeper 's answer because of exactly what Elizabeth Henning's first paragraph mentions. While the benefits (quieter research hours) outweigh student reaction (remembering this is only one email), a better question might be whether it's more worth avoiding the situation (as @ElizabethHenning suggests) or continuing current hw policy.
I think you give too little credit to the students. Even as a first year undergrad, I perfectly understood when a professor told me he was in the middle of a calculation and that I should come back later or the day after.
@Davidmh if only all students were as reasonable as you. Trust me, not all students are.
What I don't like about this answer is it violates "the lunch rule" - it says when you are looking for somewhere to go for lunch, you're not allowed to say no to a restaurant unless you propose a different place to eat. I would instead propose a new specific time that fits your schedule and ask if that works for them.
@corsiKa you're of course free to disagree with my answer, but your reasoning isn't very convincing. The OP is already going out of her way to meet students outside of her office hours on certain days. You seem to be saying the email isn't good because it doesn't make her go out of her way even more by doing something else she's also under no obligation to do, namely suggest an alternative time. Well, she did suggest a time: her office hours; there's no need to say anything more. The lunch rule may be a useful heuristic among a group of friends, but it's illogical to suggest it applies here.
This answer is about 1000x better than the "That doesn't work I'm busy" I got from a professor or two (or the permanently closed office door with no answer, even during alleged office hours). I wouldn't worry too much about it @Mathprof
@DanRomik How is a professor trying to schedule this meeting (that she's willing to do) different than any other professional scheduling a meeting? If you can't make a proposed time, you propose a new time yourself. That's just professional courtesy.
@corsiKa I don't know where you got the notion that such a rule exists at all. But even if it did, it wouldn't apply here because the professor and student aren't two professional coworkers in a symmetric relationship trying to schedule a meeting. Rather, the professor is a service provider with certain very specific obligations towards the student, namely to make herself available at a regularly scheduled time - office hours. And she has met that obligation; she is not required to do anything more, and in particular she's not required to suggest any meeting times outside of her office hours.
Your attitude sounds overly apologetic to my ears – students cannot reasonably expect that you're available for a meeting on a specific day of their choice. I would answer as follows:
Thank you for your interest in a meeting to discuss the homework. Unfortunately, I am fully booked on Tuesdays. However, a meeting on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday would be suitable for me.
students cannot reasonably expect - I see you're applying logic to an illogical group, a common rookie mistake.
Completely agree. I too am a prof who is very generous with meeting students (though as a man, I don't explicitly worry about appearing approachable). But any student who asks to meet outside of scheduled office hours is already asking a favor, so although I try to satisfy this when I can, I have no hesitation about saying no if I can't. (The only exception is if a student can't attend ANY of the scheduled office hours, in which case I do feel some responsibility to find some other time at least once every few weeks. But it sounds like you're already being very flexible, which mitigates this.)
@Kimball I don't get your point. I'm not suggesting to confront the student with logical arguments, but with clear boundaries.
That was, what I think the kids nowadays refer to as, a joke. In this case meaning students do not expect things reasonably, they just expect things.
I like this response the best! If the student comes back with "I can't on MWF, what about next Tuesday?", you can then decide whether helping this one student is worth disrupting your research time over.
The grad students should understand that you have TR set aside for research, so just tell them that. Undergrad students, especially lower-div students, are not going to understand why you can't meet with them when you're already sitting in your office doing "nothing." (And they are more judgmental about "unhelpful" female instructors.) So any of the boundary-setting emails suggested in other posts are fine, but be prepared for the fact that it's not going to go over well with them.
A better long-term solution is to manage when and how often you get all HWs and to plan on a certain amount of day-before help. Electronic submissions or other alternative assessments might also help you keep your research days uninterrupted.
This comment certainly seems truest to my experience, if not a direct answer to the question as asked. In (noncoordinated) classes where I have the option, you're right that I may need to reexamine how/when my students turn in homework, depending on my various priorities.
Elizabeth and @Mathprof, I agree 100% with the first paragraph of this answer, but don't understand the advice in the second paragraph, or OP's concurrence. I don't see in what sense is it "a better long-term solution" to adjust your HW schedule (or any other aspect of how you run your course or organize your schedule) in order to cater to some (not all) students' irrational tendencies and biases. It's the students who need to do the adjusting, not you. You both seem to be assuming the premise that professors need to be "nice" at all costs. I believe that's not a productive mindset to have. ..
... My recommendation (which is just one person's opinion, offered for what little it is likely worth) is to make decisions about when you collect HW based on only rational factors (those to do with your own convenience and needs, as well as those of the students). The students' bad habits and inability to plan ahead long enough in advance to be able to seek help they might need from you, or the fact that some decisions you make may not "go over well" with some of those students, do not count as rational factors in my opinion and should not influence your planning decisions.
@DanRomik Being "nice" has nothing to do with it. It's about doing your job, being pragmatic, and not setting yourself up to have to buck the tide down the line. Furthermore, not every instructor has the option of completely disregarding their students' expectations, and it's presumptuous for you to assume that wanting help the day before an assignment is due is the result of "bad habits." Many students have family obligations, jobs, disabilities, etc.
Ok, good point about not everything being about bad habits - I acknowledge that there could be other issues, and it's reasonable of a professor to want to be as accommodating as they can, and even reasonable to want to be nice (I do as well, when it doesn't conflict with other goals I perceive to be more important). My recommendation stands however. "Being practical" is what I would count under "rational factors", and there are certainly legitimate factors to take into account in HW scheduling. And other factors that (in my humble opinion etc) should not be taken into account, as I said.
I'd add that it's practical to care about student evaluations (as long as it's considered for tenure reviews) and that there's a good body of evidence that women professors who are not considered "warm" and "approachable" get considerably worse evaluations (more so than men in the same situation). Although a single email doesn't make up an evaluation, it's possible your letter is more "rational" for a male professor than a female one. The are many rational priorities I hold higher than "good reviews", but I'm not sure ease of homework collection is one of them.
@Mathprof agreed, your concerns are very reasonable. Another possible strategy to consider is to be prepared to explain your approach to teaching (and its effect on evaluations) during the tenure review. Personally if I were reviewing a tenure case, I would be more impressed by someone who acts fearlessly on her beliefs (assuming they were sensible ones), in the service of the best interest of her students and research, and takes the trouble to explain why she acted as she did, than by someone who sacrificed some of that to get slightly better teaching evaluations.
I don't understand why a undergrad student should not (opposed Roma grad student) understand that a prof has to do research, office and sponsor recruiting. Especially if you tell them once. It perfectly fine to post that on the office door under the office hours.
@DanRomik the questioner will have to decide for herself her own priorities. However if the institution is heavily dependent on tuition and the questioner's research is not funded then she is not on track to getting tenure.
TR? Research time in French?
TR = Tuesdays and Thursdays, as usually abbreviated in collegiate course catalogs
In addition to other answers, how about something like
"I'm afraid that I have a [research paper|grant proposal|referee report|...] that I have to finish soon, and I have to reserve my Tuesdays and Thursdays to make sure I can do so."
I wouldn't explain yourself at all to students who are disrespectful, but polite students might appreciate learning that you (like all faculty members) are under a lot of pressure yourself.
The problem is that you are falling into the trap of framing a narrative in which OP is accountable to the students for what she does with all her time. She isn't. The students aren't entitled to this information, nor are they in a position to even fully understand what it means. And while she may have a grant proposal due this week, what if next week she doesn't? What if she wants to just meditate on life, or read a textbook - will the students accept that as an explanation? Or should she lie and make up a deadline? See the problem? The only consistent approach is not explaining yourself.
@DanRomik I wouldn't recommend this in all circumstances, but perhaps when students are being polite and seem receptive to such an answer (and not likely to argue).
Let me further add -- Personally, I'm sorry to say that I was the kind of undergraduate who always demanded explanations, and in retrospect I'm very grateful to, and I learned a lot from, those people who were patient enough to offer them. So my advice is based on what I choose to do myself. Whether it makes sense for others, I can't say.
Yes, but it's precisely because you and other students demand explanations from professors that I'd be wary of giving one. I've had students like that and found that the more explanations you offer, the more they keep coming back and asking for more explanations. As I was saying earlier, that's setting yourself up for trouble: maybe this week I am truly urgently busy with a deadline, in which case it seems reasonable to explain, but next week I may not be, but the student will still expect an explanation. What will I say to them then to avoid causing disappointment and resentment?
The bottom line is that even if the professor is well-intentioned and wants to satisfy the student's curiosity, and even if the student is polite and respectful, by explaining you are implicitly agreeing to a narrative in which the students feel like they are entitled to get a report from the professor about what she is doing and why. That could cause problems down the road. I understand it's counterintuitive, but sometimes the desire to be nice causes us to behave in suboptimal ways. And sometimes it's in people's best interest not to have something explained to them that they want explained.
@DanR - It doesn't hurt to educate undergraduate students every now and then. While I agree with the closing sentiment of your last comment (sometimes it's in people's best interest not to have something explained to them that they want explained), there are other times where people are a lot more understanding when given such explanations. It's not like the research side of a professor's duties needs to be kept as an it's-none-of-your-business secret for four years. I agree it's not necessary to do so every time, but it's not hard for me to imagine a scenario where this is a good approach.
@J.R. agreed. ___
@DanRomik: In response to your question "What will I say to them then to avoid causing disappointment and resentment?" Nothing. My suggestion is based on the idea that a brief explanation may, in some circumstances, lead the student to some understanding. If a student bugged me a second time, I'd just say something like "Sorry, but as I mentioned earlier I'm only available on MWF." If that causes disappointment and resentment, then so be it.
Your system has an inherent contradiction.
Here are some ideas to get you started in thinking about a solution for future semesters:
Since you need two days to yourself, and students need a day to visit you with homework questions, plan your lectures for TWO days a week, for example Monday and Wednesday, or Tuesday and Thursday. Pick an appropriate day for the extra office hours.
Or teach, for example, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with homework due on Friday. In this case you could make yourself available to help those who are stuck, on Thursday, and then you'd have Monday and Wednesday to yourself.
Get a TA who will hold office hours the day before homework is due.
Have the students hand in two submissions for each homework assignment, where the first is the scaffolding for the second.
Give full credit for homework turned in on the official due date, and some smaller amount of credit (e.g. 80% or 90%) for homework turned in a couple of days late.
Set aside two blocks of time on Tuesdays and Thursdays to provide homework help remotely (via email), and let the students know what those blocks are, for example you will check your email at 12:30 and at 4:30.
In the meantime, take some class time to explain very, very clearly that you are unfortunately not available on Tuesdays and Thursdays to help with homework questions, and tell them that what separates the women from the girls and the men from the boys is that the women and men will plan ahead based on their instructor's availability to help with homework questions.
Your unavailability on Tuesdays and Thursdays could be due to:
a long commute
childcare constraints
receiving chemotherapy or some other treatment, or supporting someone who is in treatment
a second job (for this we would imagine that you are not full-time)
needing to finish up your PhD
etc.
My point is that the students do not need to be told why you're not available on the two pumpkin days (i.e. the days you turn into a pumpkin).
My theme is based on the Faber-Mazlish idea Take Time to Teach expectations.
The practical answer is just say no and tell them to try on the other days. Don't bother to explain a reason.
Some suggestions:
Consider to write your policy handout or whatever to make clear that you are available some days and not the others. Maybe X times for drop-in (the office hours), Y days for appointment, Z days off limits.
Consider to change your method of instruction to more examination and less homework projects. In particular homework that requires help from the instructor (since you are not available to give it). Nothing wrong per se with either method of teaching/assessment. But given the practicalities.
(for your psyche) I would disaggregate the issue of research universities and undergrad subsidy of research versus the issue of what you need to do. You are in a situation where the school expects both research and teaching. There just is not the same commitment to undergrads at a research uni as there is at a non research uni (liberal arts college or military academy). It's just a fact of life. The schools have made their choice what to do. You have made your choice where to be. And the students have made their choice to go for a brand name versus dedicated instruction. You can still keep people reasonably happy by drawing boundaries and accomplishing the twin missions. Just don't confuse the overall debate versus you getting things done now in the situation you are in. The meta-issues of Harvard versus USNA are different topics than the issue of how Mathprof does a reasonable job at Harvard. And make no mistake about it. You need to get the research done. Especially if you are not tenured. This is the priority.
I hate to burst your angelic bubble, but you are the boss, not the students. Some women professionals may tend toward being played by colleagues or underlings because they don't wish to seem aggressive, mean, un-approachable, etc., etc. Traits males in the same position have and display with regularity.
You have a TA, right? That person should be doing the work, not you. Your office hours should be set and adhered to. It's not your job to offer a short order, cafeteria-style set of office hours. Stick to your office hours and keep your door closed the rest of the time. Make sure your office hours are posted on your door, and that's it.
The people who have responded, excepting Elizabeth, are trying to be just as nice as you. You will get more respect if you stop being so worried about being liked and concentrate on getting your PhD, or Nobel, or whatever. The suggested e-mail is laughable, absolutely silly. Why all the fol de rol?
If you must respond by email (thus taking away your very important personal time) simply send them your office hours and tell them you look forward to seeing them during those times.
As an undergrad I never saw my full professor, I went through my TA. As a graduate student I was able to confer with professors, but was on my own, excepting for my thesis material.
Grow a spine and take care of yourself, your not their mother so stop trying to be one.
Forthrightness and "growing a spine" is sometimes a luxury.
I, too, would not be so strongly in favor of thinking in terms of "getting respect", as opposed to "being nice". I myself think in terms of setting a good role model for "being an adult", as opposed to being a vindictive child or adolescent. Sure, lotta big-shots do behave childishly and so on, but I, for one, would like to set a different model for students. That is, I do not think in terms of "getting respect", but in terms of "being civil", and showing how to do it for young people that might not know that some grown-ups are not predatory @$$-holes. All that.
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96790 | How to tell speakers that their English is terrible?
I just had a lecture from someone who has been a senior scientist (and has completed a PhD, post-doc) at a hospital for already 15 years. So I'm assuming this person is experienced in giving talks in English. However, almost one out of three words was completely unintelligible because of a very strong Spanish accent where every word gets morphed into a Spanish-English hybrid word.
I spoke to two people after the lecture and they both said they couldn't follow along because of the strong accent. The questions after the talk were also not about the lecture but about the speaker's field. My impression is that the talk was a waste of time for the two dozen people present.
Now I wonder if the speaker is aware of this problem, my guess is no and as such I feel the need to bring this to the speaker's attention. If it was me I'd very much like to know that I have a problem communicating because I feel like a lack of communication skills can be a very serious barrier to being a good scientist but I don't know if she feels the same way.
My plan is to use an anonymous email address to send this feedback, sandwiched between two compliments to avoid coming off as a negative person.
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This answer of mine to a similar question would fit perfectly well here. One of my cleverest colleagues has an impenetrable accent. If this person has been successful despite their communication issues, it's probably worth your while for you to figure out what they have to say.
You don't. Don't speak, write more. Let all your works be presented on your website. You can edit it even after ages and are open to constructive comments from the viewers ;)
@stanri it sounds like you have good insight into the situation of the speaker. Given your perspective, what is your view about OP's question?
FWIW sometimes after three or four lectures you may start to intuitively understand and not even notice the heavy accent as you did at first. In my experience both frequency and duration of exposure to any, er, "dialect", have an effect on one's ability to comprehend. Although, depending on how severe it is, an hour or two a week may or may not be enough. Perhaps you could watch some youtube videos of other people with similar speech patterns? (I think that really may have some effectiveness despite striking me as an almost silly thing to suggest)
Just tell them. I am going to guess that you are from the US; compared to other western cultures, American is unusually non-confrontative. In many other cultures giving constructive criticism is entirely OK, even if you don't spend half an hour making up fake praises first. (Making it clear that you are trying to help and not just being mean is a good idea though.) As a non-native speaker who has spent a lot of time stressing over whether I am being understood, honest feedback is quite helpful. Even more so if you can give some specifics (too silent, too fast etc).
This might be productive in a direct conversation, if you are able to establish rapport, and if you can steer the conversation in a productive direction. You could start by asking her to clarify some key point you were interested in. Stop her as soon as there's something you don't understand, and if necessary ask her to spell the word you don't understand. The goal at this point is to succeed in communicating with each other.
If you are able to accomplish that, then you could say
Thanks for clarifying that point. That is really interesting for me. I didn't understand what you said on that point during the lecture -- to tell you the truth, I was only able to get the meaning of some of what you said, and that made it hard for me to follow the arc of the presentation. I'm not very good at understanding nonstandard unfamiliar accents. So I have to rely heavily on the visual with a lot of speakers. Your slides about (topic B) helped me a lot, because they had a lot of detail.
That is a conclusion that helps the speaker move forward in a positive direction.
Additional notes.
Often one needs to crank up the belief in oneself in order to get through the PhD and other hurdles in academia. This sometimes leads one to a slightly Aspergeresque attitude of "I can find the words I need to express myself; mission accomplished; I'm not interested in how well other people are understanding me." Step one is to establish rapport.
Sometimes this rapport can result in the stronger English speaker having some influence over the other. Sometimes it results in the stronger English speaker getting tuned into the other's speech patterns better, and perhaps also developing empathy for what has led the other to his or her current state of mediocre English. This happened to me with respect to my advisor. For the most part I'm one of those people who finds horrible English, or horrible French, or horrible Spanish, excruciating, like chalk going the wrong way on a blackboard; and it continues to torment me later like a stuck song (ear worm). Once my empathy with my advisor was established, certain patterns, such as his tendency to omit words, got a lot less on my nerves.
Today I had a brainwave. If the speaker's English is that bad, the hosting department should provide an interpreter.
Maybe - "I'm not very good at understanding certain accents"?
Agreed, "nonstandard" is not a great way to describe it
Is there a particular reason you've assumed they are a woman? The OP does not gender the person in the question or follow up comments
@TomJNowell Actually, OP did : see the last line of the third paragraph ("... if she feels the same way."
@TomJNowell - Thanks, but I'm rolling back because: I'd support your removal of the feminine pronouns if OP had not indicated the speaker's gender; "his or her" and "their" both being acceptable ungendered approaches, as the author of the answer, I get to choose. If you were the copyeditor and I were the journal contributor, you'd get to choose.
@camden_kid - Can you explain what bothers you about "nonstandard"?
@neuranna - See above.
I'm uncomfortable with the suggestion that people with Asperger's don't care whether other people understand them. I think that people with Asperger's are more concerned. Neurotypicals just take it for granted that they can phrase things however they want and people will understand them. Saying that people with Asprerger's don't care about being understood is bit like saying that people with cerebral palsy aren't interested in walking.
@Mike Haskel: But "this accent is less likely to be understood" is exactly what "nonstandard" means. Are we discussing how the OP should inform a speaker that the way the speaker talks makes it difficult for the OP to understand her, or we discussing how the OP should inform a speaker that there are aspects of how she talks that make it harder for people in general to understand her? If the latter, then "nonstandard" absolutely is appropriate. If we're going to pretend that the OP's accent is no better than the speaker's, then what is the point of this discussion?
Use of "nonstandard accent" implies there is a "standard accent". Is there? Which is it? Does most everybody agree on it being the standard? If the answer to any of those questions is "no", and if you care about not offending other people (however irrelevant the offending point might seem), then I agree that alternatives like "certain" or maybe "unfamiliar" are more neutral and so would serve a better purpose in establishing that rapport you very appropriately talked about.
Just for the record: today, saying that there is such a thing as a "Spanish standard accent" would be fairly offensive to 90% of Spanish speakers. Sure, some accents are understood better by some people, some accents are seen as more "intellectual" etc. -- but to put one above the other would be disrespectful. There is a fair agreement over all Spanish academies, that every Spanish variant is as Spanish as any other. I'm sure any Mexican would be as mad if I told them their accent was "nonstandard" as I would if they told me the same. I can only guess that the same applies to English speakers.
about your chalk sound: there are combinations of languages which work wonders and are cute. Others are unbereable. On top of this it is often dependent on the speaker. I am French and like to speak English with Germans. I find it clear and understandable. When I hear my compatriotes speaking English (when the vocabulary and grammar are OK but the accent is French) I feel pain for the audience. I can barely understand Chinese and japanese speaking English even though I worked with Asians for years.
@Acccumulation - I am no expert on Asperger's! And I only have one data point to go on -- and that data point doesn't even have an official diagnosis. All I know is that there is someone close to me (well, as close to me as this person's differences permit getting close to people) who drives me nuts, with an obliviousness and lack of interest in the reception part of the communication process.
Re whether the use of the word "nonstandard" bumps up the potential offensiveness of the approach I suggested in my answer here, see ELU question: https://english.stackexchange.com/q/412704/112436.
@camden_kid - I edited my answer, hopefully it comes across more neutral now.
I think that your plan is based on number of possibly wrong premises. And even if they were mostly right, I doubt such a plan could have any reasonable success. Let's see my reasons.
I just had a lecture from someone who has been a senior scientist (and has completed a PhD, post-doc) at a hospital for already 15 years.So I'm assuming this person is experienced in giving talks in English.
I've met along the years many senior researchers, even native English speakers, who where definitely not experienced in giving talks, at all. If academic researchers are frequently experienced speakers because, at least, they have teaching duties, some researchers from research institutes are really "lab rats" who rarely deliver talks. To give you an example, a few years ago I was attending a poster session in a conference and I told one of the presenters (a native English speaker) that I was surprised that his work had been accepted as poster presentation and not as an oral one. He told me that it was actually accepted as oral presentation, but he asked for a poster one because he doesn't like to deliver talks.
My impression is that the talk was a waste of time for the two dozen people present.
Talks can be a waste of time for other reasons than terrible language: slides with unreadable results, talk targeted to the wrong audience etc. I certainly attended many talks that could be considered a waste of time for almost anyone in the rooms, and a large fraction of these talks were delivered by allegedly experienced speakers.
Now I wonder if the speaker is aware of this problem, my guess is no
In my experience among non-native speakers of English, most of the people is well aware of their level of English and of their pronunciation: your guess is likely wrong.
I feel the need to bring this to the speaker's attention.
Would you feel the same need if the talk were a waste of time for any other reason? And note that preparing readable slides is usually much easier than fixing pronunciation. And are you planning to do such an action for all the useless talks you will attend in your life?
I feel the need to bring this to the speaker's attention.
As I said, the speaker is probably well aware of this issue, but can you offer any solution that the speaker is not already aware of?
Improving pronunciation is not something that can be done easily, especially if one is not keen on languages. The speaker might have had good reasons for not having been able to improve pronunciation more than that. Time and money can be two of them. I don't know how many languages you speak -- you speak more than one, right? I speak Italian, my native language, English and French. My level of English is decent, but my level of French is basic. I cannot make great conversations in French, just short sentences, and sometimes I've been misunderstood (e.g., I once asked for a book called Rue des Maléfices and the clerk searched for Roue des Maléfices). I'd love to improve my French pronunciation because I spend most of my vacations there but, guess what, I really cannot find the time to do this. Or I'd like to learn German, because I have many German colleagues and I also found some nice physics book in German that I'd like to read without Google translator. Again, I cannot find enough time to learn German even at a basic level.
To conclude, don't.
"Would you feel the same need if the talk were a waste of time for any other reason?" I would. "And are you planning to do such an action for all the useless talks you will attend in your life?" within certain limits, yeah. In the vein of "all that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to stand by and do nothing" I feel that people have a moral duty to improve the world around them.
@Plumpie most of us (Massimo included, I'm sure) try to improve the world around them every day, I feel that's beside the point. The real question is whether your anonymous email will in fact improve the world. I think there's a significant risk that it won't, and may actually do real harm. Lots of experienced people here (who are just as moral and well-meaning as you) are telling you not to send the email. You may want to consider that they have a point, and that they have useful experience that gives them some insight into the psychology of academics with poor English.
@Plumpie "all that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to stand by and do nothing". Do you really think that "pronunciation of English that you find difficult to follow" falls into this category? Do you really think that you are the one who can set the world to rights, and have a duty to cast out motes?
"Improving pronunciation is not something that can be done easily, especially if one is not keen on languages." I have one easy thing that works for me in English pronunciation, which is to speak slower and focus more on the pronunciation. I always have to balance between not taking too much time to speak and pronouncing correctly. If it turned out my presentations are hard to understand, I would love to know that, so I can speak slower. That would make me be able to speak less, but at least it would be more understandable.
"Can you offer any solution that the speaker is not already aware of?" Strongly implied by one of OP's comments is YES: "slow down". As for leaving this feedback to people who know the speaker well, they are probably tuned in to the accent and so may not be aware that it is a problem.
On the contrary, improving pronunciation is (in most cases) quite easy. It just takes targeted practice which, in turn, takes a lot of time. Few people have the dedication (but some definitely should consider it). In the case described by OP it sounds like this is definitely in order but it’s not for a stranger to suggest this but rather for a close friends.
@KonradRudolph assuming you're German (your name), how long did it take you to stop saying "tyop" rather than "dyob" when trying to pronounce job? And you contradict yourself: You say its easy to improve pronunciation - QUITE easy, at that! - but then admit it takes a lot of time ??? Odd. Weird, even.
@GwenKillerby You’re confusing several things here. For one, slight pronunciation errors, while awful-sounding, don’t generally impede understanding. Moderate foreign accents are completely irrelevant here. Secondly, there’s a difference between something being hard and it being time-consuming. Quantum physics is hard. Folding clothes is time consuming. Also, though irrelevant here, I never used the “typical German” pronunciation of the phonemes “d” and “b” in English and I know few people who do. I don’t know why some people even have difficulty with that. Southern German, maybe?
@KonradRudolph If something is time consuming and you don't have time, then, yes, it's hard ;-)
@MassimoOrtolano At best in the same vein as preparing presentation slides is hard (less so, in fact: pronunciation can be improved through rote practice; the same isn’t true for other aspects of preparing a presentation), and it is just as integrally part of a good presentation. If it’s just a question of time, the speaker needs to allocate their preparation time differently. We can argue all day long whether that’s “hard” but I’ll say that this isn’t what most people would understand by the word.
It seems to me that addressing pronunciation in the context of a presentation would be easier in extemporaneous speaking. If you're writing your presentation ahead of time, you can annotate it with notes on how to pronounce the words, and practice going through it very slowly so you can get the pronunciation correct.
@Plumpie, in contrast to Dan Romik, I'm an experienced and moral person as any other person here, and I think your plan to send an anonymous email is reasonable. Non standard and out of the box, yes (that's IMHO is why people here try to refrain you from doing it). Reasonable and rational, also yes.
@Dilworth You're way wrong on the motivations and there's nothing reasonable in an anonymous email: just the incapacity of standing behind own's ideas.
@MassimoOrtolano, I believe you are wrong. Academia is full anonymous feedback, much more hurtful and cardinal than a somewhat amusing email about one's accent. I'm sure the speaker got many harsh and brutal rejections through anonymous peer review, and she's not going to break because some guy decided to write another anonymous email, peculiar as it sounds. So you see, the academia itself has reserved the right of people not to stand behind their own opinion's and ideas, so that they are protected that way.
Don't send the email. Based on my experience, I predict that the anonymous email you are proposing to send almost certainly won't tell the speaker any information she does not already know, only something that she is either in denial about or that she is (for whatever mysterious reasons of human psychology) helpless or unwilling to do anything about. On the other hand, especially due to its anonymous nature, the email is quite likely to come across as hurtful and to cause her negative feelings such as guilt, self-loathing, low self-esteem, depression, etc., that would make her situation worse without leading to any progress towards resolving her accent/language problem.
There is a time and a place to offer people negative feedback that might help them improve, e.g., when such feedback is directly solicited from you or when you are a person whose job it is to offer such feedback. That time and place is not your current situation. So don't.
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Being part of an international research community means, and has always meant, a) learning the lingua franca (so to speak) of the field - some of us are lucky enough to skip this step because we were born into it - and b) learning to understand the wide range of accents that the language will necessarily be spoken in, again much simpler for us native speakers.
If because of auditory disability or "tin ear" you can't understand non-native speakers, then your ability to interact in the international community will be greatly limited. You can try only talking to locals or using only written communication, but you'd be better off trying to improve your skills through practice.
Are you seriously blaming OP for not understanding the speaker's poor English (going so far as to insinuate that OP is suffering from a hearing disability and/or insensitivity to foreign cultures)? That is quite rude and inappropriate, and the fact that OP was himself/herself considering doing something similarly rude is no defense. -1
Well, world english is not a property of UK, US, or other countries where something similar is spoken. It is a new attempt to communicate with less friction. Subsets are important when being intersections, as they lead the way to better understanding. So, easing on what english you might be used to from where you come from, might be the way to go ;-)
Hi, @DanRomik ! In fact, I am. Effective communication - especially but not only international communication - requires genuine effort and practice on the part of both communicating parties. In the case of poor communication, it is much more common for both parties to be at fault. But practice can help! Best wishes.
Although deciphering atrocious English pronunciations is indeed a skill that can be trained (learning the native language of the speaker helps), this post does not answer the question as posted.
International English is a language with easy spelling and difficult pronunciation. The key to understanding weird accents is that the pronunciation is often based on the spelling. As a grad student, I used to meet many people with nearly unintelligible accents. That doesn't happen as often anymore, as I got used to listening International English. These days I have more trouble with some native accents, if the speakers are not used to dealing with foreigners.
@dilletant Noone is saying that English is a property of UK, or US. But there's a line which separates a spoken language by a major fraction of language speakers vs one that's not. It's not about any kind of fairness. It's about integration by the means of lingua franca. If a speaker does not meet the "standards bar", he/she needs to change, not the listeners, because the communication protocol is broken on his/her side
I have to agree that this answer is one perfectly VALID answer. I spent my formative years in both the US and the UK and became adept at understanding a variety of English Language accents. Then in a US university I had a calculus TA with a thick French accent - he got massacred by the student reviews many of which said they couldn't understand him. But I understood every single word he said quite well.
Conclusion: it is far easier to learn to understand foreign accents than it is to get rid of a foreign accent (usually impossible for males past puberty).
The onus is on the listener.
If an entire audience fails to understand a presentation, it is the presenter, and not the audience that has a problem. I can also put in the effort to read poorly written papers, or densely packed slides (and I'm sure everyone has had a lot of practice with that), but that doesn't mean those things are not flawed. I'd also like to see a source for accents being impossible to change @Craig, since I'm (anecdotally) aware of several actors who trained away an accent when needed.
Certainly I have known people who have excellent ability to change their pronunciation. But I have gathered over a lifetime hundreds or thousands of non-native speaker data points in the US, the UK, and abroad in Europe and Asia. I had a brilliant engineering colleague in his twenties from Korea who lived in the US since he was 13 but sounded like he arrived yesterday. Yet in Asia I've met many Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese who speak perfect English who have never lived in an English speaking country.
@mbrig - It doesn't surprise me that you know several actors who trained away an accent (or rather, learned a new accent) - those are people who are by nature language centric. But university/hospital researchers are not "a priori" language centric - they are chosen for research skills. So the researcher in question, after 15 years as a senior scientist, has 0% chance of meaningful further improvement in their pronunciation (rounded to units of 10%). The best they can do is improve the graphical presentation so that it gives a better clue about what is being said, and speak slowly.
@CraigHicks: First you say that "the onus is on the listener" because the speaker can't do anything about it, then you give specific examples of what the speaker can do to improve it (more-informative visuals, slower speaking). Does this not seem contradictory to you?
The OPs complaint was pronunciation. The OP intends to tell the senior researcher that his pronunciation is unintelligible. My comments about were about presentations in general - things that could improve a native speakers presentation. So no, it does not seem contradictory.
----- While we're talking about contradictions, if you read my first comment it say this answer is "one perfectly VALID answer". From the OPs point of the OPs opinion is also perfectly VALID - he listened but couldn't understand anything. However, the OPs POV is also extremely narrow.
@ruakh - In general to get that kind of position as a senior researcher requires unique specials skills and creativity. That talent is rare enough that spoken presentation is takes second precedence - although their written presentation is obviously good enough to pass review, get published, and be read - and that's what counts for researchers.
I can understand the OPs frustration, but getting fixated on pronunciation, which I don't believe the speaker can change any more after15 years, is pointlessly obsessive. The OP might try becoming familiar with the speakers papers instead.
I just cannot wrap around my head how it could be more reasonable to expect to an audience of people from a multitude of backgrounds to be able to understand every single dialect and usage of English than to expect from a (regular) speaker to improve their English so it adheres to one of the multiple understandable standards of using English as well as possible. I have learned multiple languages, but I will never be able to understand every single way that English can be spoken.
@skymningen - And I can't wrap my head around how "if you want to be part of the international research community, you're going to have to get used to other people's accents" and "communicating technical material is the responsibility of both the speaker and the listener" are now somehow wildly controversial points of view. So I guess we're both confused.
I agree with you that the speaker should be told. Contrary to other aspects of a talk (slides clarity, order, etc..) which are somewhat optional and left to the speaker's interest in making a good talk, intelligibility of the speech is a minimum requirement. Not taking care of this is probably hurting them badly.
Last time I attended in a very similar situation one of the more senior speakers approached the unintelligible speaker and flat out told them : "Do you know it's very hard to understand you when you speak"?. I was there and made a little joke to lighten up the comment and we walked away but the speaker most likely got the message.
So, there's one way. If you do not have the seniority required to give unrequested advices in person tho, your suggestion seems fine to me. Send an anonymous email explaining that you had a very hard time understanding the talk. Just make sure you are passing out the right message, that you are trying to make them aware of what you felt was a big issue making communication difficult and not shaming them for it.
As to what people have said in other answers :
1) the speaker might be aware of the issue, but not of its severity. This might give them the push they need to act on it.
2) there's plenty of free and little time consuming ways of improving pronunciation (movies, pre practicing talks, YouTube videos, slowing down when speaking )
3) I don't think you are 'shaming' the , no one asks for British English in academia and accents are usually never questioned..as long as they can reasonably be understood
As I pointed out on someone else's answer: the speaker mentioned by the OP is female
Thanks, didn't notice when reading from phone. Fixed.
I do not assume bad faith. The speaker might well be aware and have a thousand reasons for not being able to tackle this. I just think a polite
and non-snarky email need not offend and might prove motivational and informative.
As a foreigner English language speaker in Academia I do believe this is a problem. I've been to several seminars where the speaker was almost unintelligible.
I have not followed the rest of the discussion on comments, so I don't speculate on the author of the question either.
+1 You hit the nail on the head with "reasonably understood". There's nothing wrong with a foreign accent as long as they're understandable. I've heard Scottish people who speak English with such a thick accent that they're almost impossible to understand, and that's their native language! (Besides which, personally I'd be happy if someone told me my attempts at foreign languages weren't very good if they were prepared to tell me what words I need to get better at pronouncing.)
It's unlikely that a non-native English speaker who often interacts with native speakers is unaware that their English is difficult to understand. Do you speak another language? How would you feel if someone sent you an anonymous email informing you that you were completely incomprehensible? Especially if you already knew that people often had trouble understanding you?
On the other hand, you are correct about communication skills. Nonetheless, it's possible for someone to communicate well during a lecture or presentation despite having a difficult accent or weak skills in the target language. You might try offering feedback about how they could improve their presentation given their current language skills, but only if you know that such feedback would be constructive and welcome.
"Do you speak another language? How would you feel if someone sent you an anonymous email informing you that you were completely incomprehensible? " I'd feel pretty motivated to make a change. "Especially if you already knew that people often had trouble understanding you?" I'm 95% sure she's not aware. If you're talking in a language you know you're bad in, would you talk really fast and clearly show no effort? Because usually when people try hard to speak correctly you can see they're making an effort.
@Plumpie It's more likely that she's perfectly aware but she has no intention of doing anything about it because she feels that her rank and expertise entitle her to that. Either way, it's safe to say that your anonymous "feedback" is not going to be well received.
@Plumpie I suspect that most people would feel offended and somewhat intimidated to receive anonymous criticism. At the very least, it looks creepy.
@ElizabethHenning If she's perfectly aware that she can't communicate properly, and is continuing to conduct lectures, then she is failing to do her job properly, and is letting down people (attendees) who depend on her. If she feels her rank and expertise means that she doesn't need to improve her communication, then she should transfer to a job that doesn't require communicating. I agree on the point that any feedback should not be anonymous.
Contrary to the majority of opinions here, as a non-native speaker, I would say that an anonymous email would be helpful. It won't give you any brownie points, and may hurt the speaker's feeling, but it will be helpful to the person regardless. In general, we already give one another too few honest feedbacks out of politeness -- anything in the other direction would be a valuable change.
The most popular answer here asks: "Would you give the feedback if it were about any issue other than English?" I concede that it's not the norm to do so, but it doesn't mean that such a feedback wouldn't be helpful. Indeed, my advisor gives me feedback on the structure of my talk, its graphs, and its typos -- why not my English as well? (In fact, he does comment on when I need to slow down or fix a grammatical mistake).
The speaker may be aware that he has an issue with language, but he may not realize the extent of the problem. There's a chance that the feedback may help, and it sure can't hurt, so why not?
Granted, since you do not play the advisor role to the speaker, I would absolutely advise against a direct conversation. Most likely, it'll make the speaker feel resentful towards you, no matter how helpful your advice is. (Such is regrettably human nature). But an anonymous email would work perfectly well.
As an advisor, I certainly give feedback to my students on their presentations: I discuss structure, graphics, text and English. But they are my students and it's my role to provide guidance to them (and frequently it's not pain-free for them), but I wouldn't bring this up to someone whose background I don't know.
Your advisor gives you feedback because he is your advisor. The OP seems to be in a completely different relationship to the speaker who is the subject of his/her post, and this makes all the difference to whether his/her actions are either appropriate or helpful
It's absolutely not OP's job or duty to offer feedback. It's also not advisable from an interpersonal skill standpoint to offer feedback since there's a decent chance of the speaker getting offended. But if the OP wants to give feedback via an anonymous email, it won't hurt the OP and have a decent chance to help the speaker.
@MassimoOrtolano I absolutely agree that, as a rule, advisors offer these kinds of feedbacks and strangers don't. I'd like to probe further why do we follow this rule? I find that by not giving feedback as often, we all rob one another of opportunities for improving. There's the legitimate concern of people reacting poorly to unprompted feedback -- hence my suggestion of an anonymous email.
"But if the OP wants to give feedback via an anonymous email, it won't hurt the OP and have a decent chance to help the speaker" - I disagree with the second part, and the only reason the first part might be true is that the recipient won't know who sent them this presumptuous and unsolicited commentary
Why do people who want to offer anonymous feedback think that they are actually in the right?
The fact is that not just OP, but multiple people at the talk find it difficult to understand the speaker. The speaker may not know this fact, hence by just mentioning this fact alone, the OP is potentially being helpful. The OP does not have to offer other advice regarding how to improve the pronunciation, which I admit is much less clearly right or wrong.
@Heisenberg "There's the legitimate concern of people reacting poorly to unprompted feedback" but that is only good for the OP, not anyone else, except for the 2 other people HE talked to. So it's selfish, and therefor, BAD. Also, you're assuming vindictiveness on the speakers part. Why?
Anonymous feedback is for students fearing repercussions and trolls. If you are going to say something "potentially sensitive", stand behind it, specially if the recipient is not your boss.
@GwenKillerby The "anonymous email" strategy protects the interest of OP while does not hurt anyone else. I'm not sure I see how this is "bad". I assume vindictiveness from on the speaker's part because accent is a touchy topic, which may cause some people to react poorly with a non-trivial likelihood. I find the amount of emotion and discussion on this thread as evidence of how strongly people feel about the topic.
Actually, lying politely to the speaker by denying her the knowledge that her lecture skills must improve is more "selfish" than sending an anon email. I think it is a legitimate action.
If your advice is not successfully actionable in the short-term, it may not be considered that constructive by the recipient.
So no, do not send her that feedback.
That being said, ask the organizers of the event (or the faculty in charge) to provide transcripts of the talk in advance the next time around, especially if there is any doubt about the ability of their speakers to speak English clearly.
Do not ask for the slides. The slides are designed to be incomplete (and for good reasons). What you must ask for is the transcript. And by transcript, I do not mean that the speaker should read her own transcript while giving her presentation. Reading a script, while making it sound natural, is extremely difficult.
Ideally, the speaker's own notes (the one she has on the podium) should only of consist of a few keywords and key topics that the speaker doesn't want to forget to mention during her lecture. It should not contain full sentences, let alone paragraphs. So in that sense, the lecture shouldn't match the transcript perfectly. But even when it doesn't match the lecture perfectly, a transcript for a speaker, members of the audience do not understand, can still be very useful.
Providing a transcript in advance may not be what you're used to in your academic field, but it is possible and it's actually a pretty standard practice if someone does a presentation in front of journalists (even when the speaker is a native English speaker). For journalists, supplying a transcript in advance helps catch mistakes before they get reprinted, whether the speaker makes the mistake when speaking or whether the journalist makes the mistake when quoting the spoken words of the speaker.
From the point of view of the organizers, that will require pre-screening potential speakers, by previewing previous talks, or if that's not possible, by talking to the potential speakers directly. This is also a standard practice in some Academic circles, whether the screening process is made obvious or not.
Furthermore, as a non-native English speaker myself with a pretty strong French accent, I'm suggesting that whoever does that pre-screening is a non-native English colleague with an obvious accent himself/herself.
And instead of simply rejecting a talk because the speaker has too strong of an accent, a good pre-screener should still encourage the speaker to still speak at the event, but to supply a transcript in advance at the very least (in addition to any tentative improvement to his accent or delivery), and if that transcript is not possible by a specific deadline, to reject that talk for that event.
"ask the organizers of the event (or the faculty in charge) to provide transcripts of the talk in advance the next time around" Is this something that happens? Surely that would be difficult or impossible to provide. Personally, I deliberately don't write down a script of what I'm going to say in a talk, and even if I did, I doubt I would stick to it very closely. I don't think I'm unusual in that regard.
How is it not actionable? something not actionable would be 'you suck' whereas providing a specific point that can be improved provides a clear path forward.
Asking for a transcript seems like a good idea, but lying about a disability is not.
"What you must ask for [in advance] is the transcript." The what? Talks (with the exception of some fields) aren't delivered from a script. There is no stenographer. There is no transcript.
user2390246, I agree that most people wouldn't follow a script closely, but still a script would still be useful if your spoken English is not understood by your audience. @David Richerby, I wasn't lying, nor I was suggesting lying. People do vary in abilities in understanding foreign sounds. It's like someone who is near-sighted, or far-sighted, or has butterflies appearing in their vision. One doesn't need to be legally blind to politely ask for an accommodation for the next time around, especially if that accommodation is the only way you'll be able to follow what's going on.
@StephanBranczyk If you're near- or far- sighted, you're wearing glasses or contacts unless your vision problem is at the level of a recognised disability. I'm having difficulty seeing "I'm not good at understanding foreign accents" as any kind of recognised disability. It doesn't seem much different from putting in a request along the lines of, "I'm not very good at math so please ask all your speakers to go real slow during the mathy parts of their talks."
Certainly, the OP's advice is actionable and helpful. The speaker must make effort to improve her English, just like she and all of us make effort to improve our lectures, content, form, exposition skills, strategy etc.
@DavidRicherby, If math is not a basic requirement in that specific field, then yes, such a request may be appropriate. The same goes for foreign languages. Some fields require that you know specific languages and knowing a specific language actually helps you understand a particular accent. But if that language is not a particular basic requirement of your field, then you would have a good reason to ask for a written transcript in advance. In any case, I've amended my original answer considerably. I hope that my amended answer gets a better reception.
Requesting a transcript is still completely infeasible.
@DavidRicherby, Then, let's just agree to disagree on that one.
I agree with the commenters that as a listener to the presentation you should probably avoid commenting on the lecturer's clarity (eg because of poor English) unless you are in very friendly and constructive terms with her.
However, I think you could still politely tell her that the presentation was interesting but you couldn't follow perfectly given the poor sound/background noise, and so you would like to receive a copy of the slideset. Then you could suggest to make the slides more self-explanatory.
Your question is more interesting however from the viewpoint of moderators or scientific committee member. In such a case, they have the explicit responsibility to the audience that lectures are clear and understandable. Otherwise, what would be the point of inviting people to lecture at all? Most importantly, a genuinely constructive feedback will be important for the lecturer himself, to avoid future embarassments.
A simple suggestion for anyone with language difficulties is to create/modify a slideset by adding as many self-explanatory phrases as possible. This creates redundancies for a competent lecturer, but saves a poor one. Eventually, such a slideset will only leave the room for poor pronunciation, but all key messages will be firmly delivered.
Some people either make no effort, or have strong difficulties polishing their strong accent. It might depend on the original language. For the English/American native, some people with Roman background language (as I do) fall in this category.
The state of energy of the person can play a role too: when one is sick, stressed or tired, efforts can be difficult. When I give a lecture in English, I notice that after one hour my natural accent begins to show up.
I agree that university authorities are more responsible for the add value of a lecture. Yet, if you tell them, the impact on how they will translate the issue to the lecturer might be far different, from not taking care to harsher remarks.
As your motivation stands between these two extreme options, I would avoid a written comment, perhaps even more with an anonymous email. But that might be a cultural thing; I'd prefer a direct talk, face to face if possible, in the line of your planned email, for instance to check whether the problem is the same in individual talk: thank the person, ask for the slides, pointing that due to accent-related misunderstandings, you might have lost key aspects of the talk.
People often resent unsolicited feedback because the person giving it doesn't recognize that truly empathetic feedback requires effort on the part of the person giving it. Constructive feedback must give a path forward for the person to correct the problem.
I would try this strategy: Purchase Mastering the American Accent for this person, and make a nice inscription:
I truly enjoyed your recent presentation, and I felt disheartened that I was unable to understand much of it. Your research is relevant to mine, and fundamentally important, so I was hoping we could find a way to improve communication. I am available any time to help you with American pronunciation and accent-if you so desire.
Sign it with your real name.
If in fact you do not care about learning from this person, then leave the issue alone.
Yes, you might want to send the email. I think it will have good and productive effect overall, and help the speaker further in her career a lot. Such criticism, though very unpleasant and even hurtful to hear at first, opens the opportunity to self-improvement.
Your act thus shows that you do care for the speaker. Much more than a person who simply wants to minimize his or her in-comfort, shy away from confrontation and leave the speaker alone and deserted without knowing that secretly the community ignores and disdain her.
As for the fact that the email is anonymous, something that have alerted many commenters here, I disagree with the overall opinion. Academia is full of anonymous feedback, most of which has the potential to be much more hurtful and cardinal than a somewhat amusing email about one's accent. I'm sure the speaker got many harsh and brutal rejections through anonymous peer review, throughout her career, and she's not going to break down because some guy decided to write an anonymous email, peculiar as it sounds. Indeed, academia itself has reserved the right for people "not to stand behind their own opinions" and ideas, so that they feel protected to speak freely, through endless forms of anonymous feedback (reviews and student's feedback, to name a few).
Academia is full of solicited anonymous feedback. Anonymous, unsolicited, critical emails feel threatening and aggressive. Why does the email have to be anonymous at all?
@DavidRicherby, actually almost none of the anonymous feedback in the academia is solicited by the person the feedback is about. When students give anonymous feedback in my classes, I'm not soliciting this. It's an administrator decision. The same with other feedback. So your point is moot. Academia is full of anonymous feedback solicited mostly by third parties who wish to regulate and even punish you based on the feedback. A rejection by a journal or a sanction against you due to a negative feedback is more "aggressive" than an email about accent that has nor repercussions.
When you give a class, you know that the admins will be soliciting anonymous feedback from the students; depending on institutional policies, it might even be you who hands out the forms and asks the students to fill them in. When you submit a paper, you know the editors will be soliciting feedback and passing it to you anonymously. All of this is solicited by someone and expected by the person who receives the feedback. So, no, my point isn't remotely moot. And I've never heard of an "aggressive" rejection letter.
No. The fact that you are aware that someone forces you to accept anonymous feedback, in order for you to keep your job, puts the feedback you get as a lecturer precisely in the same ethical status as an anonymous email about one's accent. If at all, students feedback is more daunting as it has consequence on your job security. Also, every rejection is a form of an aggressive action, by definition. And if you didn't get an aggressively written review, well, then I'd say you're lucky.
I'm sorry, but there is no moral equivalency whatsoever between allowing students and peer reviewers to make anonymous feedback and sending anonymous nastygrams about somebody's accent. Note, in particular, that student feedback is anonymous to prevent retribution (the teacher is in a direct position of power over their students) and peer review is only anonymous to the ultimate recipient but the editor knows exactly who the reviewers are. Individual reviews might, unfortunately, be aggressive but the editor's decision is not. If your employer is aggressive in handling feedback on your...
... classes, that is unacceptable and you should complain about it. (Anonymously, if necessary, because, again, you are complaining to somebody with direct power over you and may wish to avoid retribution.)
No, I disagree. There is a very clear ethical equivalence (and I'm being conservative here in your favor), between job-detrimental anonymous feedback solicited by administrators, or editors, and a naïve, authentic, and clumsy anonymous email of a listener that have no consequence on the career of the speaker. Notice that usually the reviewer is kept anonymous from the authors although they are by no means under the author's direct position of power. A rejection is an act of aggression, by definition, and it causes to all of us hurt and harsh feelings. That is the reality.
I believe that you can rationalize every norm, the way you do, so that it sounds as if it is actually devoid of any negative ethical consequences. But the reality is that society is structured and organized following quite aggressive rules.
Please look up "aggression" in a dictionary and tell me which part of saying "No, we won't publish your paper" meets that definition. Also, note that your job in no way depends on any individual piece of student feedback.
You seem not to understand the term "aggression". This concept refers to many different kinds of hostile and forceful actions against a person. For example, executing criminals is a kind of aggression some countries have in their power. The act of executing a person is an aggressive act irrespective of the procedure and moral justification given to this act. Same, though much lesser in measure of aggresivity, goes to firing someone, or rejecting one's paper. Both are actions acutely going against essential interests of a person, causing them pain and suffering. Irrespective of the reasons
I'm sorry but there's no equivalency between executing somebody and rejecting their paper.
There's no equivalency. That's an analogy. Both are legal and legitimate actions, in the spectrum of aggressive actions. One is on the extreme end of the spectrum and the other is hurtful, and damaging but not as extreme. Still, both damage the interest of the individual in order to serve a larger goal. The first reprehesion and deterrence of criminals in order to provide social order, the other to distribute academic capital and resources based on merit.
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4965 | Are academic indicators (h-index, impact factor, etc) really adopted by institutions? Currently used? And how?
Academic indicators (h-index, impact factor, modified h-indexes, etc) have a long string of criticism by academics and not (see here, here or here).
Instead of debating (endlessly) on how "not representative" and flawed these numbers are (or howling generic rants...), I would be interested to know if Academia.SE community members have objective facts and reports on how academic workplaces are currently using these indicators. For instance in the upcoming REF2014 (UK), academics in my institution are urged to use, as their contributions, the papers accepted in highest impact factors journals.
In summary, can you trade your h-index for a better paying job?
For a better paying job, one might rather leave academia altogether, I don't think the oil industry or the arms industry or other evil, rich industries care about the h-index ;)
i'm convinced that academic jobs are moving towards bonus, company-style approaches, as @walkmanyi says below. So then there'll be no need to switch from academia to oil companies :)
Do you have a reference for REF? We are explicitly being told quality is not IF.
@ElCid If people want to earn a lot of money, I'm sure the oil industry and the arms industry will offer a lot more than academia regardless of the system...
@DanielE.Shub we had an internal discussion on the fact that REF2014 will not be based on metrics. But then a good point emerged saying that it will expose the exercise to subjectivity, which is clearly worse. So an internal communication was sent to urge academics selected for REF to pick their choices among the ones with higher IF
Anecdotally, I saw a fellowship in which the official requirement for applying was a first-author paper in a journal with an impact factor of at least 20.
On the European research market, various opinions have been offered on the use of h-index by ERC grant evaluation committees, and the broader relationship between h-index and ERC funding success. People who provide such opinion can be classified in three categories:
affiliated with the ERC
consultants whose business is to offer advice to (potential) candidates
individuals involved in another way, whose advice is most probably only anecdotal
So, what do the first two categories have to say? The official word from the guidelines is, well… absent. But it is politically correct to assert that h-index is not a good indicator of scientific quality and, as such, not used. This gives quotes like:
Quality in science is not proved by accumulating quantitative points. The role of commercial impact factor and h-index is limited. Overemphasizing of publish or perish policy leads to a gradual perishing of all.
On the other hand, practical advice might be a bit more nuanced:
There will also be a new h-index study the successful 2011 awardees in the PE and LS domains. The h-index is regarded as a background indicator rather than a determining factor and the study on the 2010 Advanced Grant awardees showed that each panel made awards across a considerable range and that there were significant differences across the different ERC panels. There was a big variation between different disciplines within the main domains.
and this:
Every applicant had to choose his 10 best publications published in the recent decade and add how many times each of these papers were cited in the literature. The total number L of these citations describes well how the scientific community perceives their recent achievements. These numbers were provided by the ERC in the dossier of every applicant. However, during the evaluation process the panel did not put much emphasis on any bibliometric data. It was the opinions of the experts which did matter, not the bare numbers. Only after completing the evaluation process, I realised a correlation between these data and the final outcome.
To give another perspective: in France, a new evaluation system for higher education and research was put in place 5 years ago (the newly created agency performing the evaluation is called AERES). AERES evaluates each research group every 4 to 5 years, in order to give it an overall rating, which could be A+, A, B or C. This had at least two very practical consequences that I know of:
For yearly financial negotiations between each university and the Ministry for research, the ministry started to require a spreadsheet with the number of university teams rated A+, and the number of A team (B and C didn't seem to count). Financial support was then dependent on that number, at least as a starting point for the negotiations.
It became customary to include this grade in your French grant applications, because a A+ rating was considered a serious advantage. This was written in the “rules”, however…
So, all in all, are bibliometric and, speaking more broadly, academic indicators really adopted by institutions? Hell yeah! They make deciders’ job easier: quantification of research quality makes it easier to make decisions. Smart decision makers do realize, however, that a single indicator does not make for good decisions.
Interesting. Could you be more specific on which basis h-index should be officially calculated in those contexts you mention? I mean, e.g., for a computer scientist WoS is not really a good (favourable?) source of bibliometric data as conferences tend to be preferred in many sub-communities. On the other hand, e.g., Scopus is of a lower-profile and Google Scholar and in turn the Harzing's PoP based calculations are more "anecdotal", rather than "officially useful" as they include also self-citations and less-prominent publications (e.g., TRs).
For computer scientists, all methods of computing h-indices are unreliable. But they're presumably unreliable in the same way for everyone in the same subfield, so they can still be used for comparative purposes. As with any unreliable statistic, it's useful to take multiple measurements, so using the h-indices from WoS and Scopus and Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search is probably the least worst option.
(Arguably, there's no reliable, objective way to compute h-indices in any field. Who decides which citations from which journals count, and how? Fortunately (sic), the reliability of citation statistics is demonstrably lower in CS than in other fields.)
In Czech Republic, researchers are obliged to indicate their most important publications, together with the number of citations, the corresponding impact factors of the journals, as well as their own WoS-based h-index on major grant proposals to national grant agencies (GACR, TACR, etc.). In a consequence, universities care for h-index and other citation metrics internally as well and in result citations/impact factors are tracked and form a basis for annual evaluation, possibly even leading to end-year bonus calculation. So yes, at least in Czech research space citation metrics, such as h-index and impact factors are a big deal.
Later edit:
Since you ask for objective evidence, I refer to the recent manual for GACR standard projects starting in 2012, paragraph 4.2.10, b-d (all in Czech).
Yet another edit in response to ElCid's comment:
There was an equation for calculating an extra-ordinary bonus taking into account the impact factor of the journal authors get their paper accepted in and then taking into account the stated (percentual) contributions of each individual co-author. In result, the formula spit out the amount of money each department-resident co-author would get for the paper. The bonus was a department-specific policy.
Secondly, there was an annual evaluation taking into account the number of papers produced by the researcher, the number of citations received in that particular year (sometimes extremely hard to track), impact factors for journals of the papers concerned (both submitted and those receiving citations) grants received, and other minor factors as well. The evaluation was a faculty wide policy, I am not sure whether it led to direct financial benefit to the researchers, but certainly these metrics were important in the internal university-wide division of funds which also partly hinged on aggregates of the above described metrics. To my understanding, these policies formed an incentive for the faculty to target high-impact journals in their respective fields.
Could you describe the bonus? Are research-active staff expected to get it anyway? What are the effects on other staff?
I'm really enthused by this answer... I am looking forward to other countries sharing and adopting this model, which I believe is ready to deployment, given the pressure and the tight deadlines dropped on academic staff
The main reason to look at impact factor (at the schools where I've worked*) is so that a future hire can most probably obtain funding to continue research (support grad students, purchase equipment, etc.).
Quality publications become an important aspect of any research proposals a future hire would submit. Research proposals are evaluated by other researchers within the network of the research program. Those researchers can freely use impact factor of a proposal's publications as a criterion for evaluation. I don't know of any programs that use it as a mandatory criterion, probably because it's still controversial.
Some professors might get hired because they already have good funding, sometimes because of R&D contacts with industry, a good IP track record (patents), and a low impact factor may be a terrible reason to reject a candidate like that.
As for converting h-index to better pay, I'd say if you're at the right institution, you can convert it to a better package (salary is only one aspect). Impact factor is not the only indicator that you will be successful, but might be an important one for tenure-track (assistant) professor positions. It may not get you a higher salary, but it probably will get your CV higher on the list.
*Hiring committees are formed and they are free to set the criteria for selecting candidates. Impact factor has been used on several committees at my institution, but it's not an established policy. I believe this is an issue of academic freedom.
Research proposals are evaluated by other researchers within the network of the research program. Those researchers can freely use impact factor of a proposal's publications as a criterion for evaluation — Presumably researchers within a grant applicant's own research field can judge the quality of that applicant's research directly, no?
@JeffE If you're fortunate enough to have those experts evaluate your proposal, then I agree. In some emerging fields of research, I'm not sure proposals always wind up in the hands of committees of experts. In such cases, a high impact factor is probably important.
@Fuhrminator: Wait, I'm confused. For papers in an emerging area with few people qualified to judge the quality of the work, most citations necessarily come from authors who can't judge the quality of the work. Why would anyone trust such citations as an indicator of quality?
@JeffE I didn't catch your last comment since my user id is different. I was thinking of young profs in an emerging field who submit a grant proposal to a govt funding agency. The reviewers, none of whom are experts, might use impact factor for lack of anything else. They could also write off the research as bunk because it's some new fad. I'm in IT in Canada and federal grant proposals don't always wind up in the right evaluators hands. They are volunteers, and try to do the best job, using whatever tools are available to evaluate concretely.
The reviewers, none of whom are experts, might use impact factor for lack of anything else. — I suppose they might, but I've never seen that actually happen, either in hiring committees, tenure committees, or grant-review panels. I have, however, seen entire fields written off as pointless fads, despite high impact factors.
As in JeffE's comments to another answer, it is very unclear to me that anyone should be happy that "bibliometrics" assume official stature, especially in the particular situation of "emerging" fields, where one's livelihood thus becomes contingent on opinions or behavior of non-experts?
In the U.S., in mathematics, it seems that this official stature is very recent, in contrast to various places in Europe where (apparently) the bureaucracy was even less shy than here about insisting on "simple" quantification of the "performance" of academics and departments. Of course, presumably, administrations have always simplified their private appraisals of departments and individuals for purposes of "decision-making" (a.k.a., deciding who gets the money), but more recently commercial products (from our buddies the traditional publishers) have been promoted to university administrators, and have been bought and paid for, over the public objections of faculty...
One point is that traditional publishers are happy, I'm sure, to have the significance of their gatekeeper "peer-reviewed" publications more firmly ensconced by the effective endorsement of their "rating" software packages.
"Conflict of interest" comes to mind, for one thing.
(But I'm not eager to trade this commericalized U.S. manifestation for the systematic, nation-wide version available too often in Europe.)
The real problem is that this commodification of "research/scholarship" adds a function-less layer of misdirection and noise to an already challenging enterprise, with already-precarious economics. For those who wish it to be a "revolution" that gets us out from under some old regime, I fear that instead it is merely a different incarnation of the same thing, sometimes owned by the same mulit-national corporate entities.
How does this answer the question of how broadly these indicators are actually used by institutions?
Specifically, in the U.S. this is a relatively new thing, but is being put in place as a definitive metric in the eyes of administrators. I know people in the UK and elsewhere in Europe (in math) who are precisely judged by such metrics.
In many places of South Korea, IF is definitely used for job performance evaluation. In one Research Institute I am aware of, there is yearly evaluations which are quantitative, giving each person a score out of 100. The actual impact factor of each journal publication is used in the calculation, such as the highest IF journals are given 3x more points than low or non. The final score determines job promotion or firings.
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4837 | Can I present the results of a paper that is currently under review?
Among the presentations in a major conference, I attended one where the author cited a paper (of theirs) under review in another major conference. Not only cited it, but showed some of its results.
I have the impression that it should not be possible, since there's the potential risk of influencing reviewers who could also be in the room during the presentation. Or is it only "good practice" not to do so?
Both Dave's and F'x's reply agree on a single point: it is your work, you can do whatever you like with it. That it is under review, does not change that fact at all. It would be rather crazy if there would be a kind of a "submission policy" forbiding the author of the intellectual property to make use of it.
I see their (and your) points. My understanding was the following: I submitted a paper, and I am currently awaiting for its peer reviews. If I start to share the results as a proven fact during a conference, I am essentially assuming that these results should be accepted by the community, hence inducing some sort of short circuit between the reviews and what the community already thinks about it. I had a mentor that was of that opinion, and he taught me that. But I happened to see that behaviour only recently
It isn't clear from your story whether the speaker cited their own paper under review, or someone else's paper under review. All the existing answers assume that it was the speaker's paper.
@walkmanyi: See Suresh's answer. Crazy or not, double-blind submissions require such a policy.
@JeffE: see my comments to Suresh's reply.
At a certain extreme, presenting unpublished results could be considered by a conservative audience as invalid and thus not scientific. On the other hand, if done humbly it could be a useful service of communication.
@Fuhrmanator: I agree. During my doctorate years I was taught never to reveal anything unproven (i.e. peer-reviewed), and for sure my advisor was very conservative in that respect
In favour of unrestricted dissemination
After thinking about the answers provided so far and the discussion in comments, it seems to me that the point of view favouring dissemination of research results unrestricted by the double-blind peer-review process needs a stronger case. I believe that the answer can be derived from higher-level, rather philosophical, principles.
... Or is it only "good practice" not to do so [to present results under review]?
What is the purpose of developing and disseminating research results?
I am an idealist in these things and argue, that it is first and foremost the advancement of human knowledge and ultimately improvement of the conditions of the human society, as well as the world around us -- regardless of what exactly "improvement" means, I have in mind something like a wider social consensus that the change has a positive vector.
Given this stance, unless there are other considerations in the game, there is no reason which could obstruct our advancement of human knowledge, which ultimately rests on dissemination of quality results to the wider public. Of course, we should be careful and act in a good faith so as to be cautious about validity, significance and originality of our results. Peer-review process is only an auxiliary mechanism helping us to filter out ideas/results in violation of these principles, i.e., helps us to recognize and fix our own misjudgements and mistakes, as well as (in the worse case) dissemination of results not advancing knowledge of humankind, but produced for other primary purposes. After all, the ultimate metrics for the results of scientific research is not the outcome of the peer-review process, but rather the long-term impact on the society and the world around us. That is, whether other people will learn something from the results and whether it eventually helps them to build something beneficial to the society.
Unfortunately, thanks to the recent proliferation of the publish-or-perish attitude and its intertwining with the need to advance human knowledge, as well as interactions of these two conflicting forces, gradually peer-review becomes primarily a mechanism to filter bad-faith products - think plagiarism, results falsification and all sorts of other scientific misconduct. Yet, I maintain, the process of filtering should not gain a higher importance than the objective of our pursuit itself. To conclude, if executed with caution, restrictions imposed by double-blind review process should not restrict our ability to disseminate our results.
say that a person in good faith publishes (unreviewed) the wrong data and results based on some clinical experiments. Would that be acceptable?
I guess exactly that happens all the time on pre-print servers, doesn't it?
The only problem of presenting results that are not published is if someone else steals the results and writes their own paper about them. (Though this probably more likely only happens with ideas that are shared too prematurely.)
It is generally considered a good thing to promote one’s own work, and one way of doing this is by giving presentations at other universities.
Even if this work is under review at a different conference, I don’t think it is problematic. When presenting a paper at a conference, you are not necessarily obliged to talk about precisely the contents of the paper. You are advertising the paper, and more generally, your own work, so that people will read it and cite it. If you have bigger and better results, then these will help with your promotion of your own work.
Of course it would be weird, though probably not wrong, to talk entirely about a different paper when presenting at a conference.
you're right I did not think about that aspect. I was mostly concerned on the "moral" side. The presentation was given at a twin-conference though
There is one circumstance where presenting results under review elsewhere would be a violation of code. This is when the conference where review is ongoing requires double blind submissions.
In such cases, there's usually a clause that asks the authors not do anything overt to violate double blind review, and presenting at a different venue (where reviewers might be in attendance) would be an overt violation.
Major point. Double blind review does not exist in my field, so I always forget about it…
Could you please edit your answer and provide links for conferences with such policies? I never came across such a stipulation in double-blind conferences I care for, so I am curious, perhaps I overlooked something.
I cannot agree (yet). I just checked CfP's and submission instructions of STOC, FOCS, IJCAI, AAMAS, just a sample. They do mention policies on multiple submissions, and stipulations on how to edit the paper so as to attempt to hide authors' identity. But I nowhere see any instructions forbidding the author to publicly present results of the submitted paper. Of course presenting the paper publicly allows for a Google attack on the double blind process, but as we all know, often do so the references in the bibliography and other clues. So far, I remain skeptical about your reply.
STOC/FOCS are not good examples, since they don't do double blind. Conferences in machine learning like NIPS and ICML do double blind review. I went over a few of them, and they do ask that the authors not do anything overt (like you mention). I merely argued that public presentation of a work under review at a venue where reviewers might be present could be construed as similar to adding identifying information to the paper. Maybe I should have replaced "would" by "could" in the first line of my answer.
@Suresh: Sorry for drilling into this, could you quote please from CfP's/author instructions forbidding presentation/discussion of one's work elsewhere? ICML/NIPS 2012 editions only include standard double blind review stipulations on how to format/style the submission. Nothing else. Moreover, ICML'12 policy explicitly states this: Publication at http://arxiv.org explicitly does not conflict with ICML. Presentation at a workshop which does not have both a review for novelty and correctness and an official proceedings is explicitly allowed. I still think your answer is not correct.
I think, @Suresh is making the point, that presenting your work that is under double blind review defeats the purpose of this double blind process. As such I, too, would argue that the public presentation of these results could influence the review process and I would advise against it. It of course always depends on the level of detail of the presentation. If it's only one slide covering the results it's a whole different matter than giving an entire talk about the findings.
In the case of ICML, I did not see the clause you mentioned. Since it clearly allows for workshop presentation (and really therefore any presentation) my point is not valid there. I'd probably continue to argue that unless this disclaimer is made explicitly, you are still flouting the spirit of double blind policies.
There is nothing unethical in doing so (including results from a paper of your own under review). It is not fundamentally different from presenting any other unpublished work of yours. If anything, you are taking a risk because people might jump on the idea, do the research at full speed (knowing what to look for), and publish it before your paper is finally out…
It depends strongly on the field of research, and the pressure from the competition. In my field (physical chemistry), it has evolved as follows in the last 10 or 15 years: people used to happily report on their not-yet-published results. Then, some colleagues from the US started to stop doing it, especially at the big conferences, citing fear of being “scooped”. Now, in most conferences, you don't hear anything that has not at least been accepted for publication. There are exceptions, usually local conferences, but also for example the prestigious Gordon conferences, which are held under a confidentiality agreement and where unpublished work is favored.
I see no reason to be concerned about this. Most of my conference presentations are about work I haven't even submitted yet. And the whole point is to persuade people that the ideas I'm presenting are useful. All of my papers go on arxiv.org and on my website as soon as they're submitted.
Why on earth would it be wrong to influence reviewers (except in case of double-blind review)?
... which is fine, I guess. My focus is on those works that are under review already and that you might choose to present anyways. If you see my other questions, I might appear as a sort of audience-freak, since I tend to avoid to publicise material that has not been peer-reviewed. Flawed as it is, I still believe that the peer-review system has to be acknowledged as a presentation-safe approach to one's content. And to the "I-deserve-to-be-here" mantra :)
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8012 | Are reviewers supposed to know each others' identity, after the reviewing process is finished?
I reviewed an article and submitted my review along with a short letter to the editor. As a service the journal permits to see the decision letter and the other review. However, I am also able to see the other reviewers' letter to the editor, which is signed with a name. My own short letter to the editor I did not sign with my name.
Is this supposed to be? If not, should I do anything in particular if I do find out by accident?
The issue is somewhat addressed in some of the answers for the question Are reviewers allowed to discuss their review with each other?. One answer states you're not meant to find out, while another one states once you've submitted your own review, it is normal to know who the other reviewers are and be able to see their reviews. There are two different issues here:
Knowing the other reviewers' identity during the reviewing process.
Knowing the other reviewers' identity after the reviewing process.
Is case (2) normal?
Edit: I might add that the policy of the journal is not a double-blind: the full list of authors and affiliations of the manuscript were purposefully disclosed to the reviewers.
I think you should inform the editor, in case this is an unintended flaw in the software (which I suspect it is). If it is intentional, then the journal should warn referees that other referees will be allowed to see their letters.
No, its not normal to know who the other reviewers are if the journal has a double-blind review policy ( my background is Engineering disciplines, might be different in other fields).
What I have experienced in the double-blind review process both as a reviewer and the author:
Knowing the other reviewers' identity during the reviewing process? NO, not normal.
Knowing the other reviewers' identity after the reviewing process? NO, not normal.
Knowing whether the editor accepted or reject the paper? NO (a very good practice as I have learned).
How can (3) be blind? If it's accepted it's going to be published.
Are you saying that it is nor is not normal? Some punctuation is missing.
@gerrit Of course you can go and check it out later if that's what you want! But I think it's a very useful policy and i have seen it by other editors and we have adopted it as well because: 1-If the paper gets accepted it can take up to one year for getting it published, so you will loose interest and not go figure out who it was from exactly 2-Paper might get rejected and you might assume its case 1 3-paper might get revision and it extends the cycle. What this does is that i have never cared/remembered to go and check later which papers I reviewed got accepted => GOOD Double-Blind practice.
I've experienced big differences between mathematics and theoretical computer science, despite the closeness of the two fields and the overlap of the two communities.
In mathematics, papers are normally submitted to journals. (Conferences are useful for many purposes but are not important publication venues.) Journals usually have just a single referee for a paper, but even when a paper has several referees, they don't learn each other's identities nor do they see each other's reports (except in very special cases).
In theoretical computer science, the top conferences are the important publication venues. Papers (or more precisely "extended abstracts" of 12 to 15 pages) are assigned several referees (members of the program committee, who may sub-contract the refereeing job to others if they wish). After submitting a report on a paper, a referee gets access to the names and the reports of the other referees. Members of the program committee who are not assigned to referee a particular paper get (as far as I know) access to the referees' identities and reports as soon as these are entered into the system. (In all the cases I've been involved with, "the system" is the conference management software EasyChair.)
Generally, reviewers are not supposed to learn the identity of other reviewers for the same submission. As mentioned in the comment by David Ketcheson, this looks like an error from the journal's side. It could also be the other reviewer's error, if he typed his letter to the editor into the wrong field - but the journal should have checked this before letting other reviewers see it.
In general, I never heard of reviewer names or their letters to the editor being revealed to another reviewer for the same submission. In my field, the letter to the editor is often described as "Confidential comments to the editor", and I always interpreted this as only the editor being allowed to see these comments. It is common though in many publication venues that as a reviewer, you get to see the other reviews for the same submission - but always after you submit your review and surely without the reviewers' names being shown.
"It is common though in many publication venues that as a reviewer, you get to see the other reviews for the same submission" no this has never happened to me. A couple of times the editor gave me the other reviews to make the final judgement call based on everything but that was it. It has not been a general practice in my experience.
Really? The CMS systems for many of the journals that I've reviewed for automatically show me the other reviews after I've submitted my own.
There is no good answer to that, and that's once again an example where the answer is discipline-specific. Many disciplines insist on double-blind review: the reviewer does not know who the author is, and the author does not know who the referees are. (Of course, in most specific enough topics, you hit a circle of about ten people who understand a given topic, and you kinda figure out whose paper it is even without googling it; likewise, you can often figure out the reviewers from their suggestion to cite their work.) Some disciplines, or some journals, just send you the original submission with the author's name on it. Some journals disclose the names of the referees after the paper is accepted, but they would warn you of that. Most journals would publish a thank-you list of all the referees in the past year in the last issue of the year.
Now, some interesting twists. I had a referee from a math department contact me directly with his opinion on my paper that was submitted to a psychology journal. Now, psychology is very tight-lipped, and it was on a boundary of a scandal for the journal. But this seemed to be the standard and natural practice in the home field of the referee. Moreover, on some mathematicians CVs, I have seen not only the papers authored, but also the papers reviewed, so it's the opposite of double-blind.
I am a mathematician, and your description doesn't match my experience of peer-review practices. Certainly ensuring technical correctness is an important function of peer review, but the referee is also asked to judge the paper's importance and novelty, for which different journals have different standards. (Some only publish groundbreaking work or solutions to notorious longstanding problems; others will publish minor incremental improvements of existing work.)
Referees are generally anonymous, since their opinions on importance, clarity, etc may be controversial. Exceptions are sometimes made in very special cases; a proposed proof of an extremely famous result (like Fermat's last theorem) may be refereed publicly by a team of experts. I have never seen a mathematician's CV which lists papers reviewed. There may be a few people who disagree with the idea of anonymous reviews and intentionally reveal their identities when refereeing, but they are not the norm.
Interesting. Thanks for putting a first hand expertise into this. I am a social science statisticians, and interact with math folks but irregularly. I'll edit my answer.
There is normally no process to inform reviewers of their respective reports. Some journals may relate back the editor verdict based on the reviewers' comments to the reviewers but not even that is commonplace. In journals with an open discussion format (see e.g. Copernicus' journals), reviewers may become aware of each other and certainly read each other's reviews after they have been posted. But, as long as reviewers are allowed to be anonymous, it is unlikely that journals will adopt such an exchange. It does not appear as if electronic submission systems have such structures built-in (not the ones I have been involved with). To keep reviewers unknown to each other and keep their review reports "secret" until the review is done is of course sound since it ensures independent reviews.
One aspect that has not been mentioned yet: some reviewers intentionally sign their reviews, and what you describe sounds like an instance of this practice. (The arguments for or against this practice are complicated; I will not reiterate them here.) Whether this is allowed or not varies by journal.
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6097 | How do I write a good peer review?
Possible Duplicate:
Scope for the role of peer reviewer
For the first time, I have been asked to do a peer review. I have accepted, because the paper is well within my expertise, and I don't have less time than others.
Are there any established guidelines, checklists, etc. on how to actually do a good peer review? One might consider it common sense (just read the article critically and raise any issues), but I think it might still be helpful to have some checklist on things to look for. For example, is it my responsibility to check that the references are correct? Should I mention cosmetics ("figure X hard to read"), or focus only on the content? And if I do focus on the content, are there specific strategies in doing so?
The manuscript (draft) is a full length journal article.
Hmm, perhaps this is a duplicate of http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/498/1033 but I'm not sure
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16304 | How do people get simultaneous offers?
Several questions on this site relate to a situation where someone gets several offers simultaneously: for example, see How to choose between multiple math postdocs offers?. But how does this situation arise? In my (limited) experience, offers do not come simultaneously, and need to be replied to almost immediately (within a week or so). For example, position A could have the application deadline 1 February, have interviews mid-February and announcements mid-March, while position B could have everything one month later. To have two open offers at the same time seems very unlikely in a specialised field where positions are not open on a weekly basis. Then how does this happen?
@scaaahu I mean within a week or so. I've added it to the question.
This is very field and country dependent.
Having a sufficient number of applications out really helps. That and being a candidate that people really want to hire.
In mathematics, the answer is easy: most American math postdocs are selected on about the same schedule. There are some variations of 4 to 6 weeks, but that still leaves plenty of room for second round offers from an early school to coincide with first round offers from schools that run later.
Further, there's been a tendency for schools that tend to compete over people to try to race each other to making offers, so the number of simultaneous offers ends up being higher than the number of schools would suggest.
(Also, a one week deadline to respond seems a bit short. What I've seen is more like two, with the ability to ask for an extra week or so which is usually granted if there's a chance of another offer.)
(Just for clarity, by most I mean more than half; there's a big early cluster and then additional positions being considered for months.)
First-round offers are also synchronized by the AMS common deadline, which keeps most schools on the same schedule.
The ability to ask for an extra week or so which is usually granted if there's a chance of another offer — doesn't that give the message you are my second choice? If it does, does that not have negative side-effects?
@gerrit: They've already made the offer, so what negative side-effects would it have? I mean, yes, it does risk sending that message, but the faculty can generally take it without too much offense (unless they're the absolute top of their field, they probably know they're not, and they're also aware that people often have personal reasons for choosing postdocs). Moreover, pretty much by definition the request is from someone with a serious chance of other offers, so giving the extra time to decide makes it more likely that if they do accept, they'll stay for the full term of the postdoc.
@AnonymousMathematician Is that specific for any kind of position (PhD, post-doc), or does it apply for all academic positions? It's not the case in my field.
@gerrit That deadline is specifically for postdocs. There's a different one for Ph.D. students. For TT offers, there's no official deadline, but most offers are still made between Christmas and Easter.
@gerrit Would you want to hire someone who had no hope of getting a job at a better school? Of course, it is good if you find candidates who like your school for idiosyncratic reasons, but in general the people you want to hire are probably in the mix other places as well.
@BenWebster If one considers it purely in term of school rankings, I see your point. But if one considers several funded post-doc opportunities with different topics, it's rather subjective which topic a fresh PhD prefers. What I was thinking is that I would leave the message: he/she would rather be doing something else, and that this would leave a negative impresssion as for how motivated someone is. But perhaps I'm looking too much into this. It's anyway nothing actual for me anymore (:
@gerrit: American math postdocs are very different from science postdocs, which are what you seem to be thinking of. They aren't attached to specific topics, and they're funded primarily by university/department money rather than grants.
In faculty hiring, it's not uncommon for the following sequence of events to happen.
Candidate interviews at University A and University B
Sometime later, University A starts making noises about making an offer (usually over email and on phone)
Candidate puts out feelers to University B, hinting that if they were thinking of making an offer, now might be a good time.
University B makes offer (email/phone) to candidate
Much negotiating merriment ensues.
.....
Profit (for candidate at least)
Sometimes, there might even be more than two players involved in the bidding.
In short, the candidate can trigger multiple offers if they play their cards right. Or it can happen by fortuitous timing. But the approach described above is quite common.
In American sociology, hiring usually happens during the fall and winter months (although the 2nd tier market goes on to the Spring, which is a bit different from the fall/winter markets).
During these months, candidates (PhD Candidates, postdocs, VAPs, lecturers) send out applications for academic positions, usually in large numbers due to the high level of uncertainty and cut throat nature of the market-- Most positions get around 200+ applications (one postdoc competition I applied to last year was interdisciplinary social science and received 780 applications!).
I applied to about 30 jobs this season, which number is actually considered pretty low (I am in a pretty niche field) and I personally know other people who have applied to nearly 100 positions. The fact is, candidates have limited information regarding the hiring (what the department is "actually" looking for- because many things are not noted in the vague job descriptions), and it is believed that, getting an interview, is not only the workings of credentials and qualifications, but also largely due to "fluke." To up the chance, many people apply widely and in large numbers.
Anyways, many candidates do not get anything after months of putting in applications, and a few lucky ones can get multiple interviews, offers, and so forth (interestingly, I find that probability of getting interviews does not correlate too much with publication records either, except for the absolutely top tier market). It is completely possible to have multiple offers and when you do, it definitely gives you more bargaining power in negotiating.
30-100... I hope for the supervisors that they don't all require tailored recommendation letters!
Do you believe in the "element of luck?" Many people say that if you have this, you'll be able to achieve your life's goals in easier means as compared to others. And relating this to your question, those who receive simultaneous offers are probably "lucky" at that particular point in time. Unfortunate are those who really work hard but are not given such opportunity. Anyway, according to successful people especially those involved in real estate business, "persistence pays" - so never stop chasing what you truly deserve!
I would think they happen mostly by having a relationship with the person doing the hiring. That means that the offer isn't made through a tight bureaucratic process but can be more flexible.
Many positions are never publically announced and the only way to access them is through networking. Some position will even be created to be able to hire a specific person.
Many positions are never publicly announced — [citation needed] (This may be country dependent.)
This quite false in the US in mathematics. Positions usually are widely announced, and not necessarily linked to one professor who makes the decision.
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44434 | Should I focus on GPA or publishing (undergraduate)?
I have high GPA. However, I'm now in my last undergraduate year and I feel attracted to research and publishing research outputs. Should I go ahead with publishing my research? This may negatively affect my GPA a little bit and it takes from my time a lot.
Is it worth sacrificing a little GPA to publish as an undergraduate?
Does publishing worth to GPA scarifying? — Yes. Yes, it does.
Unfortunately, after 4 years, I can assure you that research wasn't a big factor for me.. I hope the best for others..
There is, unfortunately, no single answer to this question. In most fields undergraduate publication is uncommon enough that any publications look good. However, the amount of value added by publications compared to GPA will depend on a range of factors, including the following:
Area of study: Some disciplines may place a higher importance on social or community projects rather than publications, while others may prize GPA. You will need to determine how your discipline prioritizes these academic goals. Within my discipline (psychology) undergraduate publications can be helpful if applying to graduate school, but are not expected of incoming graduate students.
Intended career: Similarly, if you are entering an applied field once you graduate, they may be far more interested in other, more concrete forms of experience. Again, for someone pursuing a clinical career in psychology, publications (especially those that are clinically relevant) might be nice, but employers are more likely to be interested in clinical experience. If you are entering industry they may pay little attention to your GPA, assuming it hits a basic threshold. If you are intending to pursue an advanced degree publications may be more useful, but again this will depend on your discipline.
Amount your GPA will drop: If you have an excellent GPA and will be risking only a small drop (so that you would still consider your final GPA to be competitive), then it may be worth pursuing publication. Many graduate programs in the USA look for a basic cut off in GPA when considering admissions; that is, so long as it is "good enough" it is ok. However, what is considered "good enough" will vary by discipline and program. If you are risking a substantial drop in GPA, it may not be worth it. Be sure you have a sense of how low your grades could be while still maintaining what you consider to be an acceptable GPA. Then determine if you feel the burden of publishing will put you at risk of missing that mark.
Quality/timing/authorship of publications: The overall impact of your publications will influence how much "extra value" they add to your career or academic pursuits. Obviously, higher impact journals will look better than lower-tier. Beyond just having the publication on your CV, the quality of the work and your role in the work will also matter. Being involved with the development or conceptualization of the project will be more valuable in terms of experience than if you assist with data entry. That type of conceptual involvement will better enable you to discuss the project and its implications in job or graduate school interviews. Additionally, in some fields the order of authorship on papers is important and holding a valued authorship position (first, second, last, etc. depending on field) may be beneficial. In disciplines that do not assign weights to the order of authorship (e.g., mathematics), this is a non-issue.
Impact on your personal life: Finally, you will have to determine whether pursuing publications is worth the significant amount of time you believe it will take. Think about this carefully. If you begin to make some trade-offs with your GPA to pursue publishing, and then decide the work load is too much of a burden in other aspects of your life, it may be difficult to refocus on your grades.
If you are having difficulty evaluating these different factors, seek advice from a mentor, professor, or someone who is pursuing the career you are interested in. You may also be able to gather some information about how your field and possible career paths value these factors by looking at graduate program entrance requirements, job postings, and the publicly available resumes or CVs of people in your field.
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3461 | When is it okay to publish when doing enterprise?
I completed my PhD last year and now work in industry. Nevertheless I've continued to work privately on my MSc and PhD thesis' work and lately I've been getting stellar results on the work I did for my MSc thesis. (My thesis work is unrelated to my current employment.) The results have undeniable commercial potential which I hope to explore; yet perhaps because I've spent so much time in academia, I have the urge to publish. I'm keenly aware that publishing has the risk of ceding my competitive advantage to potential competitors, yet I know of a couple of academics who both publish state of the art research in the area of their growing businesses. Therefore I suspect that under some circumstances it is possible to be involved in enterprise and publish, although I'm not sure what those circumstances are.
I'd appreciate your thoughts on this issue. When is it okay to publish when doing enterprise?
Edit: my question is not about whether it is okay to publish if outside academia. Rather, it's about when its okay to publish research that is being seriously considered for a (future) commercial product.
A great question! However, the answer may vary with respect to field, type of discovery, its patentability, how much publishing is beneficial to the society (and your position) vs how much the sole publication can help your direct competitors, etc. Also, bear in mind that publishing is a mean of claiming one's authorship and (if it's stellar) bringing others' eyes to it. BTW: some people outside of academia do publish. If it is unrelated to your work, then there should be no conflict of interests (unless you want to pursue it later, which is also a tricky question).
I apologize. I realize my question was a ambiguous. Please refer to the edit. Thanks.
If you signed a "non-disclosure agreement" as a condition of employment, then be careful that your employer will not interpret your publication as being in violation of that. You say that your research is unrelated, but it might be dangerous to assume that your employer will agree.
The work that I do has got absolutely nothing to do with my MSc or PhD research. Its something I do privately after work at home.
@Olumide don't apologize! You rise a very important issue. But without further info (e.g. field, type of discovery, patentability, why you think that your competitors don't know it already, if it makes a standalone application or needs to be incorporated into a larger products, etc). So it's not up to us to edit it. And just write sth like "it is a face recognition algorithm that is significantly better than other commercially available solutions".
@PiotrMigdal actually the innovation is comparable to face tracking. However it can stand alone as an application or be integrated into other products. And the results I've been getting are superior to everything else that's been published or on the market.
On second thoughts, the fact that I'm not willing to be specific about the nature of the invention here on SE, where it matters least, suggests that I should not publish it. Publishing is a risk, and I'm not sure I'm ready to take it unless I'm sure it won't give potential competitors an insight into my competitive advantage.
The results have undeniable commercial potential
You don't mention which industry you work in, but within the industries I'm familiar with, companies own everything that comes out of their employees' brains. By default, your ideas, techniques, code, and results are almost certainly the property of your employer—even if you developed them at home on your own time using your own personal equipment— and they may not be inclined to let you exploit them commercially. Read your employment contract very carefully.
Thanks. I am aware that many companies do this. But this is not the crux of my question. I'm asking more generally, assuming that one is not in any employment self-employed, under what circumstances it okay to publish research that is being considered for a future commercial product? I'm asking because I've seen a couple of academics publish such research without creating hurting their businesses.
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1869 | Can co-authoring a paper as a new grad harm my reputation/career?
To be specific, I just graduated with a Bachelor's degree, and my final project supervisor has asked me to co-author a paper with him about the subject of the project I did with his supervision.
I'd love to join the research community, and I guess this would a be good starting point, but there are two issues I'm concerned about:
The first is related to the subject itself: (a) I'm not convinced of the quality of the suggested solution. (b) The project tries to solve two different problems.
The second issue is that I'm not interested in the field of the project. My interest is in a different field. Though, both are related to computer science.
So, would participating in this paper do any harm to my reputation or my chances of getting into a good graduate program in the field I'm interested in?
Update:
Thank you so much for the kind answers. Almost all of you agree that the second issue is harmless, but there are different opinions regarding the first one.
So I said that my supervisor knows better, and I decided to go on and started planning the outline of the paper with his help. When I got to the writing part, I noticed that the main body doesn't relate to or even mention the main problem that we've specified. This is when I decided to decline the offer. It just doesn't feel right.
In terms of the perception of the academic community, I will bow to the experience and knowledge of the answers below. However, consider the cost to yourself: If you compromise to work on an uninteresting project about which you have technical reservations, will you have the fortitude to do what you love later or will others set your career path for you?
I somewhat disagree with the previous answers. I think it is largely improbable that publishing a paper would harm your career, but it could if, for example, it is really poor and someone happens to read it.
Eykanal in a comment to Dave Clarke said that "no one would consider holding you accountable for the content of the paper"; I recall that there is a important trend to insist that all authors of a paper should be accountable for its content.
The fact that you do not want to pursue in the direction of the paper is completely harmless, though. There is really no problem working in different areas, the only thing to be careful about is not to spread oneself efforts too much, but this does not apply here.
So the main issue is (a); here I would say that it can be difficult to judge the quality of a result, especially for an undergraduate, and I would advise to trust your advisor. So it is really, really unlikely that co-authoring this paper could do any kind of harm to your career; in fact it could do more harm to decline this opportunity, since your advisor would probably not understand and you will probably need his or her recommendation.
At the end, I do not disagree that much with other answerers; but I would be less general in my statements.
In fields like mine (theoretical computer science) that don't recognize a distinguished first author, all authors are responsible for the paper's content; that's what being an author means.
In short, unless there are ethical concerns, which is unlikely to be the case in computer science, then I'd say no. If you get some paper published as a Bachelor student, this demonstrates your ability to do research, which is what people in charge of admissions are interested in. If the paper gets accepted at a good venue, then this is even better.
At the current stage of your career, your main concern should be getting into a good graduate program. After you write more papers, better ones on the topic you choose, no one will even worry about that first paper.
To continue in this vein, you're just an undergrad, so the only effect of this paper on your reputation will be that you are able to work; no one would consider holding you accountable for the content of the paper.
"No one would consider holding you accountable for the content of the paper." I most certainly would and do hold all authors accountable for the content of their papers.
Yes, participating in a research paper could harm your reputation/career.
But it's very unlikely, as long as you take basic precautions:
Avoid quack journals, crank journals, and the like
Avoid ethical breaches (plagiarism, fraudulent data)
Avoid co-authoring with known cranks
As to your specific issue: "I'm not convinced of the quality of the suggested solution." - if it does indeed solve the problem, then publishing is fine. If it may not, then you need to work things through with your co-author until you agree on whether or not it does solve the problem.
Unless the paper to be published is plagiarized from a different source, I can't think of a case where a publication (in any field, even if its not related to your future field of research) would affect your career negatively in any way. Sure, if the quality/stature of the venue where this is published is not too high, few would take this paper seriously, but even then, it would be better than no publications at all (seeing that you are just completing a Bachelor's degree - my advice would have been completely different had you been a grad student, where the expectations are a lot higher).
Short answer, it is very unlikely that it will hurt you.
If you submit a paper to a conference, you get to see the reviews that will tell you what needs to be improved or not. If in the end it was accepted while being a low quality paper, it is the conference committee's problem not yours.
In researchers' profiles, you can write down: "Selected publications" instead of putting the whole list. Most of the time people will just appreciate that you've written a paper, and even more so if it is at a reputable conference. No one has the time to read the paper unless he/she is actually interested in the topic. There's no sort of "Hall of Shame" for publications.
You will learn, that's for sure. It is very unlikely that it will hurt you.
Minimum conditions for ensuring this - or any other - paper doesn't hurt your career:
The research findings must be sound. don't get tempted into writing, or being listed as a co-author for, papers presenting research when you're "not convinced about the quality" of the research findings; or 'fluffy' papers which don't really present much at all; or mere rehashes of other results etc.
The paper must be relatively well-written - both in terms of language and in terms of structure and narrative flow. Now, I say 'relatively' because this is often hard to get right with the pressure of time and page limits; and with English not being the native language of most researches. So, readers will be somewhat tolerant about this point - but if you write something that is just very hard to follow, or in very poor English, that doesn't reflect well on you.
Unfortunately, attention must be paid to the venue of publication. I must first qualify that... obviously some publications are more highly-regarded w.r.t. their filtering process and the typical quality of articles they carry, and some less so. The thing is, I believe one should not assume that if a paper is published in a 'weaker' journal, that necessarily means it's bad - and if someone is evaluating your qualifications as an academic they should bother to skim the paper itself and make up their own mind. That doesn't always/often happen, so people may well judge your work by looking at where you've published. Of course, this is not something binary ("good" journals and "bad" journals, or conferences) - but having mostly obscure venues in your list of publications does reflect poorly on you, and in some fields I guess there are venues you should actively avoid even at the price of no publication.
Having said all that - for your first publication, as long as it's not a disreputable venue, it doesn't matter much. Most people "start out small".
The last point, about venues, is also a sort of a safety guarantee for you: If you submit a paper to a conference or journal with a good peer-review process, and you're accepted, then it's highly likely that your paper is actually pretty good, and even more likely that it will reflect favorably on you (the converse is not necessarily true of course; lots of good papers get rejected).
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97074 | Courses beyond the second year
Would it be a poor decision to take additional courses (one each in the 5th and 6th semesters) in physics? Should I try to limit myself to taking only courses that are strictly necessary, or is there value in enrolling if it is related to my research?
If your advisor has no objections to you doing so, and you believe the courses will be beneficial to your development, you should do so. Note that the courses need not be directly relevant to your current work—they may be somewhat outside the scope of your research, but might represent an area you'd like to explore in the future. However, don't take courses you don't want to just to pad your transcript: it really won't matter much to future employers (except a few non-academic employers who might care what your graduate GPA is!).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:49.223386 | 2017-10-09T00:14:56 | {
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5547 | Scholarships for Ph.D
I am currently doing my M.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering in India and I want to do a Ph.D. in the US. Are any scholarships available for Ph.D. in the US that take care of all the expenses there (similar to DAAD scholarships offered for pursuing secondary education in Germany)? If there are other similar scholarships for other countries please inform me.
Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/251/what-are-the-options-for-fellowships-for-international-grad-students-in-usa
There are at least 2 such scholarships, which are specifically aimed at international students:
Fulbright Scholarships for International Students (applications have
to be done more than a year before, and its extremely competitive - though now I find applications for 2013-14 have been suspended)
Aga Khan Foundation International Scholarship Programme, which has the following selection criteria:
Excellent academic records,
Genuine financial need,
Admission to a reputable institution of higher learning and
Thoughtful and coherent educational and career plans.
Candidates are also evaluated on their extra-curricular interests and achievements, potential to achieve their goals and likelihood to succeed in a foreign academic environment. Applicants are expected to have some years of work experience in their field of interest
Normally, if you're doing a PhD in the United States—at least in the sciences and engineering—you shouldn't have to worry about having a scholarship. The department or advisor should be responsible for paying your tuition as well as a stipend for your living expenses. So there aren't a lot of "scholarships" in the same sense as for undergraduate study. However, while there are fellowships which provide "portable" funds for graduate study, these tend to have stringent citizenship requirements, and I can't ever recall seeing one for which Indian students were eligible.
Your best bet is probably just to apply to the graduate programs in which you're interested, and see if they have funds to support your graduate work.
Contact potential advisors, if you are really worth it for them they will provide fund for you (when accepted).
The same when apply to universities: most universities give graduate students scholarship ( with the acceptance letter) in form of Teaching Assistant (TA) or Research Assistant (RA).
Some of them don't offer funding with the acceptance letter but the bottom line is: if you are good you will get scholarship (either from Gradstudies Office or from department, from supervisor..etc) while you pursue your degree.
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98904 | Conflict of Interest from previous employment as a graduate student
I am currently working in industry with a pharmaceutical company on a one year contract (front-line sales role). Following this contract, I was hoping to complete my masters of Science in population and public health. If I am no longer affiliated with the company by the time I begin courses, and will not finish a masters thesis for 2 years (where the research is not related to my previous employment), is this a conflict of interest, and how is this managed?
While there may be strong local issues with respect to conflict of interest, I believe that there are enough "general" issues that this shouldn't be closed as "too localized."
You should check your contract for any details in terms of disclosure of products / process etc.
It may be that it could be limited to 6 months, 1 year or perpetual : you need to know...
If necessary ask HR and find out : may be worth just having several questions of which conflict of interest is only one...
The conditions for front-line sales are probably different to a lab-tech with detailed tech knowledge...
If your previous employment is in no way related to your current research, and you are not in a position to favor your previous employer (through research purchases, etc.), then there is no conflict of interest.
The only potential pitfall could be if your tuition were paid for by your previous employer, but even then potential conflicts could be mitigated.
don't big pharma companies pay for research... and the results...
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:49.223724 | 2017-11-13T19:14:52 | {
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99163 | Can I write a systematic review by myself?
I am a nascent academic in a medical field. I want to start publishing early, even before my master's. I see people like me do a lot of systematic reviews, though they collaborate with one or two people with them.
I want to make systematic reviews alone and get published in an open-source journal.
Is it possible? Please also recommend where I can find people to make reviews with other than my workplace.
Going through the process of writing a systematic review is a good discipline for crystallizing your understanding; it may well not result in a paper but you can present your work at a talk, webpage, colloquium, discussion etc. and get valuable feedback/criticism. So do it anyway, just don't get hung up on whether it will result in an accepted paper, and don't sink too much time and hope into it until you get some indications.
There is no reason why you cannot write a review on your own, but there are at least three possible problems:
Many journals accept reviews on invitation only (but if you can find a journal that is willing to publish your review that is great).
Writing a review takes a lot more time than you think, especially if you are starting in the field and are not familiar with the literature.
You may need (or at least greatly benefit from) the experience of someone who has already published multiple papers or reviews: both to check and improve the article and to help choosing a journal to submit to.
But there is absolutely no reason not to try if you feel confident enough. Don't underestimate the time it takes though.
To answer your second question: your co-authors are usually your colleagues or people you have worked with. I doubt you will find "people to write reviews with" elsewhere.
Beyond that, double extraction makes a review more robust - and you need a second person for that. So the chances of getting published somewhere worthwhile (eg not a predatory journal) would be much lower as a single author.
Note that it is often possible to inquire to an editor if they'd be willing to invite a review.
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100045 | Raw score for GRE?
I am currently completing my application for MIT, and they demand the raw scores for the GRE general and subject tests. However, on my ETS account, I only see my percentile and my scaled score. How can I see my raw score? Is there a different way than looking it up in a conversion table?
ETS doesn't release "raw" scores—I believe what the application is asking for means to provide them with the scaled score (and percentile). (You're never told how many questions you've gotten right or wrong.) If you need to provide a true "raw" score, then you'd have to use a conversion table.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:49.224138 | 2017-12-06T09:21:38 | {
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99703 | Resources for writing a good master's proposal?
I would like to write and submit a master's thesis proposal next year and do not know where to start.
Does there exist a template or a step-by-step guide to help me get started?
For instance:
Script how
Introduction
Objectives
2.1 Motivation
Methodologies
3.1 References
Research
Results
Conclusion
I am new to the world of research and am a little lost. Can anybody shed some light on this?
I Already have one subject that would like of write, it would be about
computer network - bandwidth oriented monitoring
The best way to write a compelling SOP is to have a compelling purpose. Focus on that, and the statement will wrote itself. What do you tell people when they ask what your research interests are? When they ask you why you’re pursuing the degree?
If you're planning to write your master's proposal in English, then you're going to need to work on improve your writing skills significantly. I could barely understand what you've written!
Sorry, My official language is portugues, I am terrible with o english, I am using more at community for to practice (with help of google translate)
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100140 | Stressed about Research Project
So, I am a first year master student in one of the best universities in my area and I have the possibility of doing a research project in the next semester. I am torn between choosing a topic that is more related to my supervisor's research (and would get much more impact if published; publishing is also likely to happen) and another one that is more related to what I want to do in my master thesis (but would get much lower impact if published). I wouldn't mind doing the first one (I also find it quite interesting and would do both if I could) but if I want to have a chance of getting a position at this university, would it be more likely if I chose the one related to my master thesis?
Get a position? PhD? Faculty?
Both... But I was thinking long-term, i.e., tenure-track.
The topic of a one-semester research project really has little bearing on your future career. You might as well explore something interesting to you, since you’re learning about your field at this stage. It won’t have much impact on future prospects, because you’ll be evaluated for positions based on your research potential at the time of your application. You’ll also be expected to diversify beyond your PhD topic.
Thank you for your answer! I am aware that this will not define my career to a great extent but I was still unsure if one of them could make my way into a position at this institution more likely... I am also afraid of doing the one related to my thesis as it involves an approach which has never been attempted before.
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27415 | What is the equivalent of European "seminar" in US universities?
At my Czech university where I study computer science (but I believe math and physics are organized the same way here), most courses have both lectures (professor presenting the topic to a large class) and "seminars" (TA giving exercises and homework to a smaller class).
I believe courses at US universities have different structure and that the term "seminar" has different meaning. But there has to be something like our "seminars", right? What is it called? How does it look like?
Could you please add your specific country and field? During my studies (mathematics & economics in Germany), a Seminar was something very different: each student prepared and presented an advanced topic assigned by the professor. The professor attended the session to help and participated in the discussion. No TAs, no exercises, no homework (except for preparing the topic beforehand).
@StephanKolassa Edited. We don't actually use the term "seminar", we call it "cvičení" (something like "exercise class"), but I think "seminar" is also sometimes used here.
In my experience in the UK, 'seminar' refers to a lecture, or more typically a regularly held lecture, where an external researcher presents their research to faculty and graduate students. In any case, it is apparently rather confusing to use the term 'European seminar' as there isn't a unique such notion.
I am from the same country as you, from almost the same field (faculty of math. and phys.) and I must confirm what others say, a seminar is a series of presentations from students or external guests. The "cvičení" are usually translated as "practicals". Even oficially, see http://is.cuni.cz/studium/ciselniky/index.php?KEY=Az1&&id_ciselnik=301&menu=cis_v_data_kf&order_reset=1
This is often called a "recitation section".
Down-voter care to comment?
Not the downvoter, but living in/around Chicago my whole life I have never heard this term. We used "labs" (sci/tech-type classes) and "discussion" (literature-type classes) as mentioned in BrianDHall's answer
@Izkata, OK, but that doesn't make the link wrong. They were called recitation sections by many of my profs, and my link substantiates that.
I have rarely heard the term "recitation section", and I had no idea what it meant until now. "Labs" were roughly the only sort of equivalent in my university, although that's not exactly the same thing the OP is talking about. People would also occasionally form "study groups" in the library. That being said, "recitation section" may be the only direct equivalent, though it's not a universal practice.
I've heard "recitation section" used at multiple universities in the Midwest and Northwest of the US.
I've heard and read "recitation" (no 'section', that sounds weird to my British ear..) from US universities online (e.g. MIT's OCW)
FWIW, in Princeton it is called a precept. As far as I know Princeton is unique in this choice of nomenclature.
I've never heard the term "recitation section". We only called them "sections". I did my Ph.D. at Harvard and taught many such sections.
Generally these are referred to as "labs" or "discussion" sections, as opposed to the "lecture" session.
Giving an example from computer science, it is not uncommon for there to be a lecture session where the instructor (such as the professor) talks about the material, takes questions, etc. Then there is often a lab session, often held in a computer lab, where students can work on hands-on assignments, homework, and course projects. These can be staffed by the instructor/professor or by student teaching assistants, or held as an open lab where the room is reserved but no one conducts the session - students come and go and work as they please.
In fields of communication, philosophy, and history, it is common that this lab session is replaced by a discussion session. The lecture is often of a mass variety, where the professor gives the talk to hundreds of students at a time. During the discussion session the professor or a student teaching assistant holds discussions, readings, gives out assignments, and various other similar tasks.
In physics and biology, again there is often a lecture or mass lecture held by the professor, then sometimes both lab and discussion sessions may be held. Again the staffing and locations vary, but the general theme is the same.
I have personally experienced these in a number of institutions in the US in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, philosophy, history, communications, art, computer science, and psychology...so it certainly seems to be a very common pattern.
These non-lecture sections are almost always of a less-populated variety as well. If the class only has 20-30 students total, then the lab sections are of the same size. If the class is over 30, I have usually experienced lab and discussion sessions to be smaller, with as little as 12-20 students maximum - but this usually varies by room and lab availability and subject, and thus will vary by University, department, and subject.
In my experience this kind of activities are often mixed to regular lectures, too, i.e. having some classes when discussions are held by students, and having some classes that are more regular lectures.
In the Uk at least there are often tutorials which sound similar to what you describe. They consist of a small group of approx. 4-5 students with one tutor (generally a professor/lecturer/post-doc). The aim is to do exercises and go through problems the students are having with the course. Also you are often set homework for the tutorials.
I don't know how common this system is in other parts of the world.
Actually, even in the UK, tutorials are distinct from seminars.
@LightnessRacesinOrbit I agree but I wouldn't describe what the OP describes as a seminar either
Reading the question again, I'd tend to agree with that. It does look more like a tutorial. So.. never mind. :)
What would be the difference in the UK between seminar and tutorial? I'm at the Univ. of Bristol and what OP describes as seminars are called seminars here...
At the institutions I've attended and taught at, these have been called "section" (I've never heard "recitation section"), "tutorial", "discussion section", "TA session"/"TA section", "lab", "small group", and "studio".
Of these "discussion section" was the most common and, at my BA and PhD institutions, the official title for it.
As a variation on Bill Barth's answer, at my last institution, the local jargon was simply to refer to these class meetings as section.
I can't solve this homework problem, I'll ask my TA about it in section.
It may have been short for recitation section but I don't believe I ever heard the longer form.
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7484 | How to buy plane tickets for job interviews?
I am currently on the academic job market, and scheduling on-campus interviews with institutions that might want to hire me.
Suppose I am invited to an on-campus interview at the University of X, and must travel there by air. They handle travel on a reimbursement basis: I buy the plane ticket, and then they reimburse me.
However, the interview is a few weeks away. Since the job market sometimes moves fast, there is a chance that by the time of the scheduled interview, I may have already accepted another offer (say from the University of Y). Of course I should then decline the interview at X, but I would have already bought the plane ticket.
How should I plan for this contingency?
I could buy a refundable ticket to X. However, these are normally several times the price of a non-refundable ticket, and if I do end up traveling to X, they might balk at reimbursing me for such an expensive fare.
I could buy a non-refundable ticket to X. If I end up not going there, I could ask X to reimburse me for the cost of the ticket (or at least the "change fee" charged by the airline to let me use the ticket's value for a future flight). However, I suspect they will be reluctant to reimburse me for a trip I'm not making, and might refuse to do so altogether, in which case I am out-of-pocket.
I could wait until the last minute to buy a non-refundable ticket for X. But it may still be expensive for them (or may exceed their limits), and the most convenient flights may be sold out.
I could contact University of X and ask them for guidance. I'm a bit hesitant to do this, as I am afraid that if I bring up the possibility that I might accept another position, they might think I am not seriously interested in theirs.
Is there a standard way to handle this situation?
This is in the United States, if it matters.
I am writing to disagree with Charles Morisset's answer. (I signed up just now, and am unable to comment.) At least, I would consider part of his answer to be poor advice for applying to TT jobs in mathematics.
In particular, I believe you should always accept invitations to interview if you think they're in your best interest -- i.e., if you would be happy to take a job there, and if you are not absolutely confident you won't get better offers.
Suppose that I had scheduled an interview at A, and I get an interview offer from B. I prefer A to B, but I also really like B. Then I would definitely accept the interview offer at B, even if you might get an offer from A in the meantime.
I say this as someone who was on our hiring committee this year. It is a difficult and stressful process for us, but surely it is much more difficult and stressful for candidates. We understand that candidates want to get the best job possible and expect that they will look out for their own best interests. We expect honesty, but hesitating to accept an interview offer at a school you like, under almost any circumstances, seems unwise to me.
What if you accept an offer from A before your interview at B, and the plane ticket is bought? I would contact B, tell them you had accepted another offer, offer thanks and apologies, and offer either to come and give your lecture, or to simply cancel the trip. Most hiring committees, I think, would be gracious and kind, would ask you not to come, and would refund your plane ticket. Perhaps they would like to meet you anyway, and give you the option of giving your talk. In the unlikely event that they are rude, this will give you reason to be grateful that you will be working elsewhere.
I think there's two major problems with your comment. First, there's no way to put off the invitation or "explain the situation" without hurting your chances of getting an offer. Second, I think the vast majority of professors would be thrilled to have a day that was booked suddenly free to get work done. Interviewing is done so that you can hire people, not because people enjoy it on its own.
If you've bought the ticket for an interview that you honestly intended to go for, and you get an offer in the meantime, it doesn't necessarily mean that you should decline the interview.
You might be pleasantly surprised by the place and realize that it's more in contention than you think.
You might make useful contacts that will help you later on in your career even if you don't go there.
you might get an offer from this place, and having two offers improves your negotiating position tremendously.
I'm thinking of the case that I have accepted an offer from Y before the interview at X. It can't be appropriate to attend the interview at X if I have already accepted another offer. (In principle, X could ask me to visit anyway just to give a talk, but they would probably rather use the time to interview another candidate.)
I'm assuming you're applying for tenure track jobs here. The value of a tenure track job is enough more than the cost of a plane ticket, that I really don't think it's worth doing anything that could compromise your odds at University X. If it's a matter of buying a ticket today or in a couple days, then you can easily drag your feet on buying the ticket without them even knowing. But otherwise, just buy the plane ticket and deal with the tricky situation if it comes about.
It is always best to ask. You can use another pretext as a reason for your “hesitation”. Say, for example (in short):
I wonder what the restrictions are on travel reimbursement. I could buy a ticket X right now but I am not fully sure about the exact timing of the flight (due to family arrangements not yet settled). However the price might increase if I wait.
If you do not want to ask you have no possibility other than 1 or 3. Depends on how you evaluate your chances of finding a job before the interview. Probably 3 is worse than 1: if you have a cool new job you will not mind so much losing a plane ticket. I do not think universities would accept option 2.
While the cost of buying the plane ticket is expensive, I would look at it as an "opportunity cost." If you wait until the last minute, and don't get a job offer and don't get reimbursement, then you have the worst of all worlds: no job offer, and a very expensive plane ticket to pay for!
It is therefore much better to ask the schools for guidance. However, if the issue is a financial one, you could mention to the school that you might need a travel advance in order to help pay for your ticket. Normally they can work out some sort of arrangement if it is a problem for the candidate to pay for her own ticket.
You are correct, however, in thinking that the school would not appreciate having to ask what happens if you need to cancel because of accepting another job. If you do that, you can save yourself buying the plane ticket, because you're probably not getting a job at that school anyway!
I'm a bit confused by this answer. How I can ask the school for guidance without invoking the specter of another job? If I ask "What if I need to cancel", I assume the subtext would be obvious. Also, I'm not sure the financial part makes sense because (like most people) I would just float the ticket on my credit card until I get reimbursed.
If you're a postdoc or a grad student, having to wait one to two months for the reimbursement means carrying a bunch of extra interest. In the short run, that can be a big deal for some people. But I would imagine many schools can buy the tickets for candidates under circumstances like these.
Accept the X interview (if the place is of interest) and buy the ticket now (not letting price go up) and with a normal non-refundable class. In all likelihood, you won't be off the market (at least won't have accepted a Y offer yet). It is in your interest to generate more than one offer at same time to drive a competition for your services.
If you do get a Y offer so early and are not able to delay a decision, you can try to get the X trip moved up (after all they know you will be off the market so there is pressure). Or you may be able to get it reimbursed--for instance by turning it over to X uni ticket office or by having Y pick it up (as they are trying to make you decide now). But it really is to your advantage to collect X and Y competing offers...so I would just stall Y after they make the offer). Worst comes to worst, if you have to pay for a few hundred bucks ticket, it's no big deal if the Y offer is very attractive.
You should go ahead and book your non-refundable ticket now. If you get a job offer from your preferred school prior to this interview, ask them when they need their decision by. If they say a date prior to this interview ask if you can extend the date until after this interview. They will almost always agree to this if they truly believe you are the best position for the candidate.
You should do this for two reasons. (1) Who knows, while at this school you may fall in love with it! But (2) if you don't, and you get an offer from them, you can use it to bargain with the other school. Note you should do this tactfully.
In the end, if worse comes to worse, you have a job and can afford to sacrifice several hundred dollars on a plane ticket. I'd worry about this scenario only afterwards.
Also, sometimes if you tell a school "I've gotten a great offer from another university, but I really like your program. Is there any way for me to move up my interview so I can have your decision before I have to get back to the other university?" They will agree. You should only do this if it is conceivable you could accept their position.
I am not sure why you can't just tell them you have already accepted an offer, and leave it to them to cancel the interview. If they cancel the interview on the ticket that they agreed to reimburse you for, then they have to reimburse you. This shouldn't make them mad because they have the choice of interviewing you or cancelling, so they are no worse off than any other scenario in which you accept the first job offer. It is assumed you will have job offers, so its a risk on their part in participating in the process. Additionally, you could ask about this scenario from a different phone number or anonymous email to get what information you can about the university. Disclaimer: I am not a professor.
"They have to reimburse you": That would be logical, but university travel reimbursement policies are rarely logical :) Standard reimbursement procedures require you to submit receipts and sign a form saying you actually took the trip and incurred the expenses. Some places even require you to submit your boarding pass.
@NateEldredge, so you are saying that they can cancel interviews whenever they want and leave poor graduate students to pay for tickets they can't use? That doesn't sound legal.
@NateEldredge, if that is the policy then they accept the possibility of interviews that are "dead on arrival".
I agree it doesn't seem right. I don't know whether it is legal. I'm not sure I'm willing to rule out the possibility that it could happen...
The university and hiring committee is already committed to paying for your flight out (plus room and board). As such, I think it would be reasonable to offer to pay for half the cost of the ticket IF you accepted an offer at another university.
I would not ask beforehand about anything, but this gives them the opportunity to not be so out on the money and can pay for someone else's ticket out there -- what's $200 out of a $400 ticket compared to hiring the right somebody?
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3475 | Work in an area or work on problems?
I have a question about two possible career paths, for which I was unable to come up a better title. Let me explain what I mean:
Path 1, Working in an area: By this I mean, making a career by adding to the knowledge of a field of study. This may include sorting out open questions in that field or identifying new issues or pushing the boundaries of existing knowledge. This typically involves having a larger perspective and understanding of the field and its relevance to the world.
Path 2, Working on problems: By this I mean making a career by solving a series of specific challenging problems not necessarily belonging to a common field of study. Here one only attempts to understand enough about the problem at hand to solve the problem, but does not show an interest in developing the area as such.
Working in an area requires one to have a broader vision, scholarship and commitment to the development of the area. Working on problems does not involve commitment, but requires one to repeated invest oneself in learning about a new area. By working in an area one can encounter a degree of monotony. By working on problems, one can potentially find new challenges at every juncture.
So my question is: career wise, what is a better option? Specifically, which of these kind of academics are more valued by the community? What, if any, are pitfalls of these paths?
Meta question: is path 2 a path at all or do all academics eventually settle into path 1 after spending some time on path 2?
Edit: I guess the key difference between the two paths is that path 1 leads one to become an "expert" with extensive knowledge in a particular area. Path 2 exposes one to a variety of problem situations and makes one a better problem solver, though it may not make one an expert in any field. For the purpose of this question, you may take the area to be a well studied field such as, say integer programming, which has some long-standing open problems, but is not necessarily so young that it allows for a variety of research opportunities.
You haven't said anything about the area itself. That might affect the answer.
Without knowing anything about the specific area, I'd say that you've set up a false dichotomy. I don't know if anyone ever consciously does one or the other exclusively. Sometimes you work bottom up (i.e path 2 -> path 1), and sometimes you work top down (path 1 -> path 2). Both these "paths" should be dimensions of your research.
I am reading the paths 1 and 2 as follows
Path 1 : The culmination of working on one problem (either success or failure) leads to another which leads to yet another and it goes on and on.
Path 2 : Number of problems on a field that are not related to each other and are stand alone; do not depend on or influence the other.
As @Suresh has already pointed out the answer might heavily depend on the field. But trying to answer in general, it is better to follow the Path 1, as it is mentioned in the question itself, it is focussed on a long term goal and elevated vision. Academia always long for broader vision and greater commitments. An employer would love to hire some one who has a concrete long term goal and enthusiasm.
While Path 2 is not a way that does not involve commitment, it is more focussed on short term goals and narrowed vision, such as getting a degree, finishing a project etc. This also involve commitment, but not on a large scale.
Thus brings up the question, "Why we want to learn or explore?" Irrespective of the field, this seems to be the essence of the question.
it is more focussed on short term goals and narrowed vision -- I didn't mean it to be that way; I meant path 2 as a path where one looks for challenging problems regardless of area, without feeling obligated to develop any particular area. Should I edit for clarity?
Ok, I will try to edit my answer too.
A classic interview question (paraphrased) comes to mind:
What do you think is the most important problem in your area?
What have you done to solve this problem?
Perhaps, these questions might be worth thinking about when choosing a career path.
Although this might look more like a comment than an answer, what I mean is you need to think about your question from several perspectives: what do you think is essential for your field and how you can contribute there, and what are your personal talents or virtues, such as working on technical problems in depth, or administrative skills in managing resources for problem solving in a broad sense, or something else. These are your assets. List them and do analysis on how would they be better applied, what combination of them would yield bigger impact or bigger rewards, depending on what you favor.
This is not a direct response to the question and is a better comment. Try to edit it appropriately. (As long as you earn sufficient reputation, you don't have the privilege to comment everywhere.)
Areas are not well-defined, they change over time and even if a dean know when the boarder between some fields, Nature does not (as they are mostly communities emerging from common scientific interests).
Moreover, confining oneself to a given area may end up into working in a exhausted subfield that people no longer care about (and missing new opportunities).
However, when it comes to your visibility and prestige, other researchers will care only about your skills and achievements in a given field. But again, there is also a question of how much the disciplines overlap, both in terms of communities and methodology.
So here there is a trade-off between being recognized (and prepared) well in one field vs less but in more.
When it comes "is it better to focus on solving particular problems or learning general stuff", the question is a bit different from your career-related one. Opinions may vary (and it may be a matter of one's personal philosophy), but for research_ output (not e.g. teaching skills) the first one is the only the one that counts. And if someone is skilled and committed, the later comes anyway (and the converse is not true).
(Anyway, it's the reason why during PhD it is (arguably) advisable to focus on solving problems (and learning stuff needed to solve them), not on spending hours on general courses.)
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11654 | As a PhD-Advisor: How do I discourage a student from continuing?
I know it is slightly controversial, but I am supervising a student who started with the right attitude, but is now less and less engaged with the research. We are at a point where there's no end in sight, and the student still wants to finish within unmanageable time limits.
The context is peculiar (but I would like to keep it detached from the generality of the question): he's a part-time student, he's paying his own fees (as opposed to a PhD funded by a project), and he's after the PhD "title" more than the research that he has to put in for the title itself.
All these factors make it more difficult to dissuade him from his PhD choice: the endless excuses of putting more work when there will be time (he's a part time student); and the fact that I am proactively chasing him to arrange meetings are all things that are taking their toll.
My (general) question is therefore: how do I dissuade a PhD student from wasting his time and money, when it's clear that she is not PhD-material?
If only my advisor had given up on me...I completed my PhD in 6 years. I was a part-time student, had a young family, was working full time, settling in a new country... the list goes on. Talk to him; not make a decision for him.
If there is a time limit, wait until the limit expires. If no limit, why not let him continue? How do you know he will never finish?
@JaveerBaker: I talk to him all the time, and I am telling him that he should not waste his time and money, to no avail...
@scaaahu: because not all students are PhD material, as my own advisor told me once...
ignore him; admit new students to work on what you want until he get motivated again and comes to your office.
As a supervisor, it's none of your business. Instead of trying to dissuade somebody from reaching their goal, you should support them. It's often a person that motivates people (like an inspiring lecturer). If you do not want to work with the student, you could suggest to switch the supervisor.
Do you want to dissuade the student from continuing because
You think the student is not capable because of a lack of ability,
You think the student might be capable, but just isn't engaging in the work,
You don't see the student is worth investing your time in,
You think the student is wasting his/her money?
If (1), then a frank discussion might be the best way. I have seen other PhD supervisors directly let their PhD students know that they think a research career is not for them.
If (2), you ought to move from dissuasion to a frank discussion in which you try and figure out the reason for the downturn in engagement. Is all well at home? Is it just the usual mid (?) thesis malaise? Has the student lost the big picture and therefore the drive to do the research? Why did the student start the research in the first place? Has the situation changed - e.g. has the life goals been redefined/changed?
If (3) and/or (4), if the student is paying for themselves, then it's their money they are potentially wasting so I wouldn't concern yourself on how other people spend their money. However, the money is presumably paying your salary in part so your obligations to the student remain in that regard. In return however, you can set reasonable expectations on your student. If you make it clear that you expect your student to achieve reasonable goal A by reasonable deadline Z, and the student doesn't, then that opens up another opportunity for a frank discussion along the lines of the need for effective prioritisation of research work and for-money work.
EDIT: To bring this answer into line with the edited question, I would set out an agreed plan of work - and behaviour (esp. showing up to meetings) - with deadlines for the next 2/6/12 months. You might want to work with your Head of Department/School on this to ensure that your requirements are reasonable. It appears that you have already said to the student that in your opinion the student isn't PhD material. In setting out your agreed workplan, you are giving - formally - the opportunity for the student to show that he or she is capable of working to an agreed standard. If, as you say, the student isn't capable, then the student will fail and you can reasonably excuse yourself as his PhD supervisor.
I am suggesting this cautious approach, as I am sure your Faculty will want to know why things went this way, and that you offered the best opportunity for your student (or fee-paying client) to succeed, before you ceased to be his supervisor.
in the 1) scenario, I had endless conversations with the individual, but it's not acceptable for me that I have to call him to meet.
In the 2) scenario, the student is well off, and just wants the title, so I know his motivation exactly
in the 3) and 4) I am slightly worried by what you say: even if they're wasting their money, they're also wasting my time, so setting hard, checkable deadlines might be the only solution
@ElCid: I've edited my answer to make it more in line with the edited question.
I think this is a great answer: it's very important to set out a plan that allows the student to succeed or fail on their own effort, rather than taking away their agency by you making a decision for them.
Upvoted. I believe that providing clear criteria to evaluate success (or failure) will help immensely. Stop calling the student to meetings - just keep a record that if he does not fulfill his end of the agreement (meeting; research output, etc.) then you cannot fulfill yours (supervision).
I wouldn't concern yourself on how other people spend their money. — But he's not just waiting his own money; he's also wasting his advisor's time and attention. In that case, the best approach is to tell the student, respectfully but directly, that you are no longer willing to be his advisor.
There is a lot of context missing from this question, so I'll provide some leading questions.
First, is the student working independently, or are you/ your group counting on their results for some other project? If it's the latter, then you should have a conversation setting out clear and realistic time frames for the work that needs to be done.
If the student is basically operating independently, then how you respond depends on what their goals are. Maybe the student just wants a Ph. D for their own personal satisfaction, and isn't worried about how long it takes. Maybe they want an academic job afterwards, in which case your concerns are valid. You should first aim to understand the student's goals, and then you can suggest whether the way things are going are reasonable to achieve those goals.
If the student didn't have their own funding, there is the additional question of whether it is worth spending your resources to support them, but this doesn't apply here - your student is an adult and can decide if the costs in time and money are worth it for themselves.
Summary: ask your student what they want, and then advise accordingly.
The student is self-funded, and part-time. His motivation is to have a PhD as quickly as possible to apply to a better job with the "dr" title. But the question is more general than this specific context: how does an advisor opt out a student when they're clearly not PhD-material?
@ElCid: Both the parties involved are adults in a consensual relationship. No one's forcing either of you to stay in the relationship. You say you've had several conversations with the student and let him know that he is not PhD material. At this point you've done your duty. It's the student's prerogative, as an adult, to do whatever the hell he wants with his money, including paying for a degree that he may not be suited for. It's your prerogative to opt out of the relationship by informing him that you are no longer willing to be his advisor.
@debray: I like this suggestion, it might be even considered as an answer to my original question
@debray the relationship may well be consensual, but it is also contractual. The student has provided consideration (his fees) and for that consideration, expects by contract to receive the services of his supervisor. I'd advise against not fulfilling your end of the contract arbitrarily without taking the advice of your line manager. IT IS QUITE POSSIBLE that the student has not met their side of the bargain (e.g. reasonable effort/engagement/progress), but you want to be sure of this before just dropping the student. See also my edited answer.
@Nicholas: I agree that the student's fees entitle him to help and guidance from an advisor; I disagree that that advisor must necessarily be ElCid. Unless ElCid's employment contract explicitly mentions mentoring this particular student, it seems to me that the problem of finding him (the student) an advisor is not ElCid's (maybe the Dept Head or Director of Graduate Studies?).
In the event that the O.P. wanted to follow debray's advice, but was worried about the contractual issues brought up by Nicholas, one might also consider helping the student find another advisor if he insists on keeping on. Maybe someone else in the department might be willing to take him, despite the less-than-glowing reviews from the O.P. It would be a nice gesture from the O.P., before saying sayonara.
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158928 | Bullying at a previous affiliation, but now moved on. What to do?
This question is a personal one. I feel like going in circles inside my mind, so I might as well formulate it here for my peace of mind. Apologies if it is not in the right format, or if it does create discussion rather than precise answers.
Academia is rife with bullying, and there is little doubt about that. I have been to counseling to deal with the effects of the lowest self esteem that I found myself in, during my previous job. I couldn't be promoted, I was actively avoided by the colleagues in my research group and my (many) requests for collaboration shunted. Counselling helped a lot, and it made me stronger and more resilient. I found a better job, including the promotion I was after, and now I am well respected and have a group that I can call 'home'.
I was recently called on a duty by a former colleague (nothing fancy, just reviewing some papers for them), and I was tempted to spill all the beans, an aggressive reply and Close the door to the past. I slept on it, and the morning after I accepted the duty. Now I finally realised that the grand scheme of things was for this same colleague to boot everybody else, and become head of the group there, with only lower ranking colleagues around.
So people, what to do... a bloody (well, relatively speaking) revenge that lasts a second but cleanses my soul, or a forgive&forget attitude, swearing not to become the same despicable bully myself?
I'm not sure I understand. It sounds like a former colleague at this toxic department (the same department where you work now?) asked you to review their paper, and you graciously agreed, but now you have reflected on past events and formed an even more negative impression of this person? And the question is whether you should become a "despicable bully" (what would that entail?) vs. doing what you promised or withdrawing gracefully?
Thanks. I have moved on and very happy and enthusiastic about my new department. I also want to be an adult and not a crying baby, so I accepted the duty. When doing so, all memories resurfaced and got me a new clarity about their real intentions. I think I will follow the suggestion of @Erwan and not do the task that I was requested
Regardless of what labels are applied to the situation, it sounds like you left to get away from these people. Continuing to engage with them seems like it will undermine that plan and keep you involved (at least mentally) in a situation that's not doing you any good. I think I'd suggest at least contemplating the idea of cutting the cord.
There's no need to choose between taking revenge or forgiving and forgetting. The better option is to just accept that you no longer work with them, and that they're no longer a part of your life, and get back to living for youself. Trying to decide between revenge and forgiveness is (a) just your brain trying to keep you psychologically involved in a situation that ought to no longer concern you, and (b) a waste of valuable time in your new life.
TL;DR: In the kindest possible way, try not to let your brain get in the way of your new happiness, and move on.
p.s. To be specific, if they ask you to do any further reviews, a polite 'sorry, I don't have time right now' is more than enough.
Agreed. I would even suggest that OP can probably still change their mind about the recent reviews they accepted.
for what it matters: this is a very good answer and on paper that's exactly what I should do. The feelings of injustice (one of my "buttons") trigger me when they resurface, so that's where my question stems from
If you try to take revenge, you are focusing on them. It is no longer about them: it is about you, your new home, your new success.
Do the duty as best and professionally as you can, and show the world what a professional academic looks like.
thanks. Living through these situations is difficult to describe, so a "let me fix it" approach, albeit appreciated, does not always work even though I tried many times what you propose.
then you misunderstood my suggestion. I read your question that you already agreed to do that one thing, and you were wondering if you would "use" that to do revenge or not. Since you already agreed to do that one thing, my suggestion was to do that as best as you can without revenge, and then not interact with that group ever again.
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131713 | Effective ways of organising one's time during a sabbatical
I am about to take a sabbatical period of 6 months. I have planned it with a series of short visits to oversea colleagues (my department does not provide a lot of financial support), but most of my time will be spent in my home country.
The plan is:
to work/submit 4 major journal publications, and
to write a proposal for a local funding agency
This means that I will be mostly on my own, tinkering and pondering and less of a morning routine to go to work.
That scares me: having built a routine throughout all these years in academia, then suddenly spending a lot of time at home, or at the library, risk to become monotonous and ineffective.
What are effective ways of organising one's time during a sabbatical?
Can you be more precise? Perhaps elaborate on your fears.
Do you have a place where you can work without distraction from your regular colleagues?
@BrianBorchers: as said, either home or library, but both seem reclusive
And I thought sabatticals were done in order to take a break from work, not for work! ;)
I work remotely as an academic editor and writer, and have done so for 5 years. The transition from full-time employment to part-time remote work was interesting. I tended to work all the time without leaving much room for self care. What we do in our jobs, we tend to do when our boundaries are relaxed.
I often have large blocks of free time. My productivity suffers (I have personal writing and creative projects) when I don't organize myself well. After years of fine tuning, I have a system that works well for me.
I discovered and addressed three issues:
I am effective for only about 5 hours a day. Anything more and the quality and efficiency of my work suffers; moreover, my physical and mental well-being declines. Accordingly, I work 2.5 hours (with a 5 min break) then take a large chunk of time to play; then I work 2.5 more hours (with a 5 minute break). I find that during play time, I often have creative insights.
Unless I schedule in fitness, fun, and socializing I am likely to waste my time with unhealthy (Netflix) activity. In your case, you might spend your whole time writing 4 articles! That is quite a hefty commitment and your sabbatical time likely should include time for pondering life's meaning and reading the stack of books that is piling up.
Get up when the sun rises and go to bed soon after it sets. I've done all combinations of working all night, playing all night and everything in between. I feel the best when I follow the sun. When I was in Orkney the nights were 4.5 hours long and it was enough sleep for me though I usually sleep 7-8 hours a night. I don't understand it, but there it is.
Although there are many options the productivity tool I found most effective is bullet journaling. It is simple and quick and there's no software involved (although you could buy some if you want to). I create a daily plan bar https://bulletjournal.com/blogs/bulletjournalist/daily-plan-bar
and I also have a weekly plan
https://bulletjournal.com/blogs/bulletjournalist/top-5-bujo-ideas-in-2016
And I never beat myself up for varying from the plan if something more enjoyable arises.
Have a great 6 months.
Good points, except on sleep hygiene. People are to a large extent hard-wired to be 'larks' or 'owls'. Trying to change that deliberately likely leads to bad sleep quality.
these are great points, and most likely to resonate with anyone who's now required to working remotely a few days a week. These points might come handy, and I am looking forward to the challenge of reverting back to the original weekly schedule, once the sabbatical period is over
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4799 | Contents of the discussion section
In an academic paper, we sometimes have a "Results and Discussion" section.
It is not uncommon to add the explanation and discussion of the results together with the results section.
What are the pros and cons of both practices from an academic point of view? How do I weigh them for each paper?
List the results without explaining their significance, which is then explained in the discussion section.
List the results with their explanation as they are being listed, and eliminate the discussion section.
I find the second approach more appropriate to understand the results, since the reader wouldn't need to be going back and forth the sections, but then again, that is just my feeling.
Hi Leon, I edited your question to remove the subjective aspect of it “Which practice do you think is better”… I think it fits our Q&A format better that way. Do not hesitate to edit further if you think I lost some of your original meaning.
I must say that I would have a hard time listing the pros of the first approach (separate results and discussion sections), because I don't like it and it doesn't fit my style of writing. My advice would be: if you can, write in the style that you like best, because that's how your writing will be most natural/readable/convincing.
However, the choice is not Manichaean as you make it sound. There exist a continuum between those two, because it mainly depends on what you call “results” and “discussion”. When I write for a journal that requires a strict “results then discussion” format, what I usually do is that I put most of my text in the results part, and leave some general overall discussion for the discussion part. Typically, it would given something like:
Results
First result. Discuss its implications.
Second result. How it confirms result #1. Consistent with previous observations [ref].
Third result. Again, some discussion of it.
Discussion
Altogether, what is the insight given by these results. It changes our view of this phenomenon somewhat. It is in line with work by X et al., but highlights some contradictions of Y’s model.
That's a bit “cheating”, but I've never been asked to reörganize any paper written in that way.
My post doc advisor has submitted a number of papers with the "Discussion" section renamed "Speculation". While the editor/reviewers have always required the section be renamed "Discussion", her approach rubbed off on me. By treating the Discussion section as if everything is speculation, it becomes clear what goes into the Discussion and what goes inot the results.
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17461 | How many PhD students does a typical STEM professor graduate during their entire career?
The discussion on this infogram made me wonder about the number of PhD students that a full research professor successfully graduates in their entire career. By professor, I mean a full professor, not an associate or exclusively teaching professor or other positions referred to as professor depending on field and location. Of course, the answer is not a single number, but rather a probability density function that is a function of field, place, time, university, and probably other factors. To narrow the scope, I formulate the question as:
For selected fields and countries, what are recent figures on the mean and standard deviation (alternatively median and median absolute deviation, in case the distribution is non-Gaussian) for the number of PhD students successfully graduated per professor throughout their entire career?
(I think the mean should be equal to the ratio of professors/PhD students at any instant in time, but I'm not sure)
In the US, I would bet heavily that the median is 0. There are lots of institutions with no PhD programs at all.
@NateEldredge But I would expect the professor in an institution (or even a department) without PhD students to be a teaching professor who teaches undergrads, not a research professor.
@trutheality such distinctions are not so easily made. In many institutions I have seen in the US a research professor is someone who does not teach anything. There are a very small number of those positions in the US. On the other hand what you call teaching professors still do conduct research. Gerrit, how would you count a student advised by a someone while they were an associate professor?
Why exclude associate and assistant professors ? at least in the US, these are "real professors" too :)
@trutheality:The US makes no such distinction as far as titles: a senior faculty member at Harvard and one at Harvey Mudd both get the simple title "Professor". For the US, a better measure would probably be for the denominator to include all tenured faculty at PhD-granting institutions, and for the numerator to count all students graduates over the professor's career (including those advised as an assistant or associate professor).
I am guessing that someone could come at a reasonable guess using the data in the Taulbee Survey.
@Suresh I exclude those in an attempt to get a more equal field between academics called professor in different countries.
@BSteinhurst I'm not sure. Can an associate professor be the primary supervisor of a PhD student (I think they can't in Sweden, only secondary).
@gerrit my advisor was an associate when I started working with him. It can happen. Where I was a student the issue was whether the adviser has tenure which usually happens at the same time as promotion to associate prof in the US. Exceptions apply.
@gerrit I graduated my first PhD student when I was still an assistant professor. Tenure status is simply irrelevant for PhD supervision in the US. (So getting stats about PhDs only from full profs in the US is going to be impossible.)
I once heard (during a program review) that the "desired" number of students graduated is 1/year/faculty in CS. But I think 0.5 students/year might be a more reasonable number.
So, the OP is asking if there are some statistics in some cases. (We can get plenty of opinions, anecdotes, and objections to the question.) So, if there are some statistics in some particular case, put it in an answer and say what the assumptions are.
How many grad students do you think a prof can supervise at once? In my PhD program, nobody had more than 5. I can't imagine a program anywhere that it could be 100. Let's say 10 as an order of magnitude. Now if that prof is active for 32 years, and each student takes 4 years, that means 80 students, right? So your actual answer is probably "between 40 and 160" if 10 was ok. But if 5 was ok, then as few as 20 - 5*8 and then halve it because not all profs are full force all the time.
@KateGregory: over here (Germany) while the professor is needed for granting the degree, PhD thesis does not need to have supervision. A hermit could write their thesis, and then knock at a professor's door and ask the professor whether they accept that thesis. The professor could then read the thesis, check Hermit's experiments and judge the scientific content and start the PhD-granting procedure (committee, reviewers, defense etc). In practice, supervision is often done by scientific staff ranging from habilitated scientists (have the qualification to be prof)) to postdocs.
It depends on the size and staffing needs of their lab. For example, theoretical computer science and mathematics professors may need no lab support at all. Thus, they are under no pressure to take grad students or post-docs and can choose just the ones that they want.
However, if you are doing work on stem cells, you may need a great deal of lab support. You would want a team of doctoral students and a couple of post-docs at any one time. In order to maintain continuity, you would want to accept at least one doctoral student each year. So if you had a 20 year career, you would have at least 20 students (or 20 - 7 = 13 given that it takes students 7 years to graduate and you don't want to leave students hanging at the end).
You'll need to narrow down what you mean by a "STEM" field in order to get a more precise answer.
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16497 | Is the status of postdocs perceived differently in western Europe vs. North-America?
In a footnote at this answer by on leaving a postdoc early, user Luke Mathieson writes:
A postdoc in the US has lower status that it does in Europe/Australia/New Zealand/...,
I'm aware that postdocs in the USA typically have lower pay than in (say) Sweden or The Netherlands (I did not look into other countries). I don't know if pay is quite proportional to status. In the way postdocs are perceived by others—undergraduates, graduate students, pre-tenure academics, tenured professors—is there a difference in postdoc status in different parts of the world?
I realise this question is somewhat subjective, so I'm looking for either testimonies based on people who have worked as or with postdocs in both western Europe and North America, or in-depth articles exploring this issue.
Might be a bit broad: from the little I've seen, postdocs have varying status in different departments in the same university, from skivvy to putative professor.
@EnergyNumbers Good point. I've adapted the question to make it focus on western Europe / North America. Might still be quite broad though... I'll let the community decide over the fate of this question ;-)
The big difference is that most places in Europe don't have a tradition of assistant professorship, or, more generally, tenure-track faculty. Here's an example of the "typical" career progression of an academic in Austria (durations can vary by a lot, I just give examples here for illustration purposes):
Phd Student (4 to 5 years finished with Doctorate)
Postdoc (6 to 10+ years finished with habilitation / venia docendi)
"Privatdozent" (undefined length, non-tenured position, somewhat comparable with a non-tenured associate professor)
Full Professor / Chaired Professor (tenured position).
Note that there is no assistant professorship, and (2) that no tenured position before Full Professor exists.
Clearly, in this system there are postdocs with many years of experience in their field. They often have developed their own small group, work very loosely with a faculty mentor or completely independently, have their own funding and supervise PhD students that are "quasi" theirs (postdocs are not formally allowed to supervise PhD students before habilitation, but it is common practice that the mentor of the postoc formally supervises the postdoc's staff without involving her/himself much in the actual process). These postdocs are often considered assistant professors, even going so far as to call themselves assistant professor on their web pages and business cards despite not actually being professors de jure.
The general takeaway is that being a postdoc in Europe may have higher status than in the US, but it is not true for every postdoc. As postdoc status can last a very long time in Europe, one needs to look very closely at the person himself to see how senior she/he actually is.
I have a slight difficulty with understanding the Austrian career progression outline in your answer: where do you place the extraordinary professors (ao. Profs)? Thanks in advance.
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16759 | Is there an inflation in the number of authors per paper?
In most (or at least many) fields of academia, peer-reviewed publications are essential. For a compilation thesis, no papers means no PhD. For tenure, you need papers. To get grants, you need papers. Universities may distribute internal funds based on the number of papers per group. In short: publish or perish.
On the other hand, it is quite cheap to offer someone co-authorship. Send a nearly finished manuscript to a colleague/friend at another university for review... colleague reads it, offers some advice, perhaps just minor. First author offers co-authorship in return, and colleague has another co-authored paper for possibly less than a day of work. One can discuss if it is the right thing to do, but that is not my question here. It happens. (NB: I am not suggesting such has happened in the examples listed below!)
Criteria for co-authorship differ per field, but some papers have a lot of co-authors. Perhaps due to having an instrument that was used in an inter-comparison/validation study. Some examples of papers with lots of co-authors, not particularly extreme:
Kasai, Y., Sagawa, H., Kreyling, D., Dupuy, E., Baron, P., Mendrok, J., Suzuki, K., Sato, T. O., Nishibori, T., Mizobuchi, S., Kikuchi, K., Manabe, T., Ozeki, H., Sugita, T., Fujiwara, M., Irimajiri, Y., Walker, K. A., Bernath, P. F., Boone, C., Stiller, G., von Clarmann, T., Orphal, J., Urban, J., Murtagh, D., Llewellyn, E. J., Degenstein, D., Bourassa, A. E., Lloyd, N. D., Froidevaux, L., Birk, M., Wagner, G., Schreier, F., Xu, J., Vogt, P., Trautmann, T., and Yasui, M.: Validation of stratospheric and mesospheric ozone observed by SMILES from International Space Station, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6, 2311-2338, doi:10.5194/amt-6-2311-2013, 2013.
Milz, M., Clarmann, T. v., Bernath, P., Boone, C., Buehler, S. A., Chauhan, S., Deuber, B., Feist, D. G., Funke, B., Glatthor, N., Grabowski, U., Griesfeller, A., Haefele, A., Höpfner, M., Kämpfer, N., Kellmann, S., Linden, A., Müller, S., Nakajima, H., Oelhaf, H., Remsberg, E., Rohs, S., Russell III, J. M., Schiller, C., Stiller, G. P., Sugita, T., Tanaka, T., Vömel, H., Walker, K., Wetzel, G., Yokota, T., Yushkov, V., and Zhang, G.: Validation of water vapour profiles (version 13) retrieved by the IMK/IAA scientific retrieval processor based on full resolution spectra measured by MIPAS on board Envisat, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 2, 379-399, doi:10.5194/amt-2-379-2009, 2009.
(Again, I would like to stress than I am absolutely not implying that there is anything inappropriate about these two examples!)
On the other hand, I rarely see papers written by sole authors, and I have the impression that such papers were more common in the past — but I have no evidence thereof.
Is there an inflation in the number of authors per paper? In other words, is the number of authors per paper increasing and if so, does this reduce the value of a co-authored publication?
Related: What is the average number of articles written per author in a year and has it increased recently?
Very much related: Who all are considered authors of papers written on behalf of a research group?.
When it comes to a massive list of authors, don't miss this one about Foldit, which probably has many thousands.
STOC 2013 had 14% single author papers, 37% with two authors, 31% three authors, 10% with four authors and 7% with five authors. These numbers will also be correct if you ignore the % sign.
This is very much dependent on the field of study. In mathematics, most papers seem to have 1-3 authors; in theoretical computer science (my field), 2-4 seems to be the norm; in more practical areas of computer science, it's a little higher still but mostly fewer than 10 (these numbers are just my impression). On the other hand, I was talking to somebody in the humanities recently, who wold me that single-author papers are so predominant that some journal submission web forms don't even have an input box for co-authors.
I rarely see papers written by sole authors — I am the sole author of about 20% of my papers.
The AIR had something about this a while back.... apparently in 2009 the record was 2512 authors, taking up 19 pages before the content of the paper started! In 2003 a paper won an IgNobel prize for having 100 times more authors than pages :-) http://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/jan/20/improbable-science-marc-abrahams
@Flyto Hah. When downloading a bibtex citation for the 2003 IgNobel prize paper, the author field is simply missing.
I heard a scheme (presumably intended as humor) like this. If a paper has 5 authors, then each author should count it as 1/5 of a paper.
I take inflation to mean that the number of co-authors grows faster than what the content/effort of the research merits: that would imply that if there is a non-negligible amount of such an inflation, it does affect the value of the authorship.
Number of co-authors per paper is increasing
Co-authorship inflation is perceived as a problem
Perceived amount of contribution depends greatly on the position in the author list: first, last and corresponding author are perceived as contributing much, middle authors are perceived as contributing only a bit.
Long version:
First of all, the number of coauthors per paper is clearly increasing, e.g. PubMed provides statics about such questions:
Let me mainly take the optimistic position and list sensible valid reasons for increasing numbers of coauthors.
Some are well known and widely discussed
large combined scientific efforts like big instrumentation, the practical implementation of such long author lists widely and somewhat controversially discussed.
Increasingly interdisciplinary research
But I think that also the density of researchers has increased, which greatly facilitates collaboration.
E.g. I'm in a 100 000 inhabitant university town. The university has about 20 000 students and 7 000 employees (incl. professors - not sure whether this count includes technical personnel or only research staff). That alone is more than the whole town had inhabitants in 1900. Plus we also have a university of applied sciences and a number of non-university research institutes. I'm in of those research institutes, with about 300 employees. So there are several thousand researchers with whom I can collaborate even person to person by bicycle/foot.
This high concentration of researchers facilitates intra- as well as interdisciplinary collaboration. These papers then naturally have more co-authors. Say, an "instrumentation" group develops a customized sensor for a group tackling some application and yet other people develop the data analysis for the paper.
In addition, email, Skype and cheap travel (plus I'm in the luxurious position that there are basically no legal travel restrictions as I'm German and EU citizen) makes it much easier than, say, 30 years ago to know, meet and collaborate with colleagues from all over the world.
Specialization, particularly now that I'm at such a big institute.
E.g. where I'm now I usually receive readily prepared samples for measurements. Actually, being specialized on data analysis I often receive just the measured data (and I'm very lucky if people bother to have a chat beforehand on the design of experiments with me). Someone else prepares the samples and someone who mainly works on instrument development does the measurements. On contrast, where I was before everyone did all of that for their own topic and samples (of course also having emphasis on some part of this work flow). Of course all these people here contribute significantly to the paper.
But it also means that there is a continuous distribution size of contributions. I've somewhere seen a notion that weights the papers by 1/total no. of authors.
Of course, also abuse of co-authorship, such as honorary authorship, does happen, and maybe the specialization can become a salami-slicing of contributions.
I very much like the possibility of including a "contributions" section and decided to do that whenever possible. I think it can help checking against the abuse. At the moment (in my field), I think the existence of such a paragraph alone is a quite strong sign of no abuse of co-authorship.
But I think there are also valid reasons that mean that nowadays more authors are on a paper without the amount of work of the different persons involved having changed:
Nowadays, sometimes technicians who did a lot of the work (and often also contribute to the development of the lab methodology) are mentioned.
Also I believe that students who do research nowadays have a far better chance to end up on the author list.
Maybe a gray zone, which also depends on customs/tradition is how to deal with the higher-up levels of supervision:
Vancouver says: providing funding alone is not sufficient (and of course the DFG goes along the same lines)
German tradition says: head of the institute is responsible for all that is going on in his/her institute, and thus is always included.
To be clear here: this does not mean (and AFAIK has never meant) only an organizational responsibility, but a scientific responsibility, i.e. supervision of the project. The gray zone IMHO comes from the fact that the proper contribution can superficially look similar to improper (i.e. no proper contribution) -- it is difficult to judge from the outside: A very good supervisor may guide in a way that is hardly perceived. If this good supervisor is looking after a good student, after putting his intellectual facilities to the project may find that the good student does well, and not many changes are needed. This is a proper contribution. Yet it superficially can look very similar to a bad supervisor who does not contribute his intellect to the project or paper and just waves everything through - regardless of whether the input is good or not.
I think this paper is interesting:
Wren et al.: The write position. A survey of perceived contributions to papers based on byline position and number of authors,
EMBO Rep. 2007, 8(11), 988–991.
DOI: 10.1038/sj.embor.7401095
PMCID: PMC2247376
In addition, we also asked respondents for their perception of general trends and attitudes towards authorship of scientific publications. Forty per cent of the respondents (35/87), for example, agreed that granting authorship to someone who does not meet journal authorship criteria was a common occurrence. Half of the respondents also agreed that author inflation makes it significantly harder to judge whether or not a candidate merits promotion.
While this does not answer the question whether there objectively is an inflation in co-authorship, it means that this is at the very least widely suspected and perceived as a problem.
Also, the outcome of that paper IMHO boils down to: perceived as authors are the first, last and corresponding authors, the middle authors are generally perceived far less.
Personally, I share the suspicion that a significant amount of co-authorship abuse happens. However, my field is small and I think I have a reasonably good overview of what is going on. This includes a (subjective) idea of where I'd suspect honorary authorship or small contributions and on the other hand also some idea of who likely contributed what (specializations) to the paper. In addition, of course the listing of the institutions makes a lot of that clear (e.g. if someone from a statistics department, someone from a clinic and someone from a spectroscopy lab is listed that gives me a very good guess who
did what).
Interesting points. When I asked the question, I only thought of "bad inflation", with researchers giving co-authorship to people not properly deserving it. But it is equally possible that the bar previously was too high, with students doing the bulk of the work not even getting co-authorship (let alone first-authorship). So we should probably separate between an increased number of authors/paper for good reasons (crediting real contributions, increasing research complexity, etc.) from an increase for bad reasons (being too easy with giving co-authorship for tiny contributions).
I am happy to see that there's some acknowledgement that current trends such as ease of collaboration are mentioned in the answer. In my research group, anyone who has an intellectual contribution (even with respect to analysis) receives authorship credit, which generally leads to long author lists as well.
"German tradition says..." This tradition is a clear violation of the DFG Proposals for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice (pp.82f). With each and every grant proposal one submits to the DFG (German Research Council) one signs strict adherence to them. This should be mentioned quite explicit in your (very good!) answer. Maybe even cite some parts from p83 of the DFG document, which gives a good overview on the many common reasons that do not constitute an authorship.
Please, either show a median, or use another statistical method that disregards extremal values, like the 3sigma criterion. We all know that there are exceptional papers with thousands of authors, and these significantly modify the statistics.
@Daniel: I clarified the point: this tradition as I perceive it implies supervision which is a contribution to the scientific content. BUT (and this is where my notion of a gray zone comes from): it can be hard to distinguish from the outside how much the supervisor actually contributed. Thus the tradition leaves a loophole for bad supervisors to slip in as co-author whereas I think it is meant to say that the director of a department should indeed contribute by default to all projects that go on under his/her direction. (IMHO (s)he may opt out)
@tohecz: go ahead and put in another graph. However, I admit that as the average is readily available both as graph and table in the public domain I'm too lazy to dig through the whole of the pubmed data base and aggregate it in a nicer way. Note however, that while there are a few papers in the biomedical field with extreme numbers of authors, this isn't nearly as often as say with experimental particle physics. Besides, I'm not sure whether the median is a better measure here: as author numbers come in integers, the median will jump...
Well, the DFG Proposals are pretty explicit about this (p 83): "Neither the position of institute director and supervisor nor former supervisor justify designation as co-author."
@Daniel: sure - not on itself, we completely agree on that. But it may (possibly also depending on the field) imply the duty to contribute significantly to (other people may say: care about) the projects. Which is the actual thing that merits co-authorship. At least in my field (I know that in maths the view on co-authorship is often different - to the extreme opnion that supervisors who contribute significantly should not become co-authors (http://mathoverflow.net/questions/57337/when-should-a-supervisor-be-a-co-author/57339#57339)). I think we're getting somewhat off-topic:
there are alredy lots of questions that answer "who should be co-author" (even with particular respect to supervisors), and so do the Vancouver as well as the DFG guidelines. This question is about how often such abuse of coauthorship happens - and the point in question is one where I think we both agree that there is the possibility of abuse (which in practice also means that it will be abused).
Agreed :-) I think, my main point was that whenever we refer to the unholy "German tradition," we should point out very explicitly that it has become highly disregarded.
Is there an inflation in the number of authors per paper? In other words, is the number of authors per paper increasing and if so, does this reduce the value of a co-authored publication?
Bit late but somewhat inspired by this question I did some research on author inflation within PLOS journals (due to their nice API).
The full write-up is here, should you be interested, but the TL;DR is that author inflation does indeed appear to be happening, at least in this selection of journals mostly from the life sciences in recent years.
Here are linear regressions per journal of yearly mean number of authors per paper:
In one of the comments I was linked to a much longer-term study which revealed the same trend in a prominent chemistry journal.
The second part of your question is harder to answer but cbeleites has given some good insight and references. +1 for a very interesting question.
+1 for sharing, especially with the blog post and code.!
"On the other hand, I rarely see papers written by sole authors"
A lot depends on the field you are researching. In the sciences you'll often find papers written by 6+ authors - probably because they're a collaborative effort between a team which might be spread across several institutions. In the arts, however, it's not uncommon to find single author articles - especially in fields such as classics and ancient history. If you look at the publications by staff in that department at the University of Manchester you'll find many single author papers:
http://www.alc.manchester.ac.uk/subjects/classicsancienthistory/people/
Looking through the 100+ publications I cited in my ancient history articles, I can find only one which had more than one author, whereas in my computer science thesis there were only 12 with one author - most of which were unreviewed technical reports.
Seems that mathematics is closer to arts than science in one more aspect than I already new.
There are two types of dangers when it comes to publishing as a basis for evaluations. One is certainly as you mention more authors included although they have not fulfilled the basic criteria as for example outlined by the Vancouver protocol. A second effect is so-called salami-slicing where the results are sliced to produce as many publications as possible. There are tendencies such as these and journals have started to act against the by requesting disclosure of contributions by the authors. Salami-slicing should be corrected through the review process and may be more difficult to identify since reviewers and editors do not know the full extent of any particular project.
Against all this is the fact that science has over roughly the past century (different in different disciplines) steadily moved towards larger groups and consortia performing research. This results in many co-authors, particularly on papers synthesizing results from the larger projects. The number of authors have therefore increased but due o several and opposing reasons.
The value of co-authorship has therefore also changed over time. I believe the view of co-authorship varies between disciplines, maybe even a lot. In the disciplines with which I am familiar authorship alone is not sufficient to value a paper. For better or worse, we also look at the impact factor to try to assess the value of co-authorship. This means it may be possible to value a co-authorship of one key paper as more valuable than first authorship of another more run-of-the-mill paper. What this implies is that valuations are not necessarily simple arithmetic although that is certainly how it is often treated. In terms of a thesis, there was a time, not too long ago (when I finished my PhD), when single authorship was looked as the only acceptable form but now, it is a rarity. we do however, require all papers to be listed with a detailed author contribution.
Clearly the main problem is different kinds of free authorships. as this becomes common so will actions to reduce the problem. Top journals have started this and I am sure many others will follow. At the same time the reasons for "cheating" must also be reduced which puts responsibility on persons evaluating applications where publications constitute a basis for decisions.
"authorship alone is not sufficient to value a paper" So, does that mean there is no benefit or drawback to having multiple authors (all else being equal)?
No. I have tried to improve my answer to hopefully shed some more light on the point you bring up. Essentially, I am saying that authorships are usually dealt with by applying simple counting whereas much more should be considered when valuing someone's publications.
As one of the authors of one of the two shown examples I can definitely say
that the long authors list is the result of a large cooperation: 19 of the
over 30 authors listed come from more than 10 internationally distributed
institutions. Validations are always large undertakings involving many data
sources from other groups, and each group has to do some work for such a
publication. Especially in the space/satellite segment, data acquisition and
result retrievals cannot be done by a few persons, these are decade long
processes with many people involved.
So the trend to many authors is just a reflection of the fact that research
is getting much more complex in effort, money, and material involved, the
times when sole researchers can produce scientific results of large impact
in their ivory towers are long gone. No surprise at all, and surely, not a
sign of some "science fraud"...
Hello, welcome to the site! I suspect my question may have inadvertently left the suggestion of an implication of there being something inherently wrong with many co-authors. Let me just stress I did not mean to imply this, and certainly not for the examples listed — I have now added a note to the question stating this explicitly.
After reading the following article, your count does not bring much of a surprise.
The paper, published in the journal
G3: Genes Genomes Genetics, names 1,014 authors, with more
than 900 undergraduate students among them.
The corresponding author was questioned as to whether everyone did make sufficient contribution.
The paper’s senior author,
geneticist Sarah Elgin at Washington University in St. Louis,
Missouri, says that large collaborations with correspondingly
large author lists have become a fact of life
in genomics research. “Putting together
the efforts of many people allows you to
do good projects,” she says.
If you really want a look at the paper, it is available here:
Leung, W., Shaffer, C. D., Reed, L. K., Smith, S. T., Barshop, W., Dirkes, W., ... & Yuan, H. (2015). Drosophila Muller F elements maintain a distinct set of genomic properties over 40 million years of evolution. G3: Genes| Genomes| Genetics, 5(5), 719-740.
Well, if 1014 isn't enough, then how about 5000+ authors:
Only the first nine pages in the 33-page article, published on 14 May in Physical Review Letters1, describe the research itself — including references. The other 24 pages list the authors and their institutions. (Ref.)
The paper has exactly 5,154 authors and is the paper to have the largest number of authors ever known. You can find that paper here:
Aad, G., Abbott, B., Abdallah, J., Abdinov, O., Aben, R., Abolins, M., ... & Abulaiti, Y. (2015). Combined Measurement of the Higgs Boson Mass in p p Collisions at √s= 7 and 8 TeV with the ATLAS and CMS Experiments. Physical Review Letters, 114(19), 191803.
Back to the question, does increase in the number of authors decrease the value of the co-authored publication?
The honest answer would be, it depends. It depends on the field of publication as well the impact of the research produced along with so many other factors.
Scientists are trying to popularise the word 'hyperauthorship' as an umbrella term to cover such papers.
The Higgs paper is special in two regards, as in that it combines the results of two different experiments and that it follows the tradition of the field to include 'ancillary' personel in seminal papers. My name is on there as a computing specialist, not a physicist, even though I am not on any other papers published by the experiments in question.
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209633 | Is voluntarily omitting to cite known relevant previous work a form of plagiarism, and what to do about repeated instances?
Consider the following scenario:
Person A and B start a collaboration, and discuss a variety of concepts over various months.
Person B ceases the collaboration, authorizing Person A to pursue the research alone.
Person A continues the research, finishes it, describes it in article P1, sending the draft to person B for approval of the depiction of their contribution in the acknowledgment paragraph.
Person B threatens person A with legal pursuits arguing of "pending patent". Conference committee says to ignore person B ("that is not how research works"). Article P1 is accepted.
Person A presents the article at the conference, with person B in attendance.
Two years later, person B publishes with other co-authors an article P2 presenting as theirs some of the concepts presented in P1, and failing to cite neither P1 nor person A.
Let's assume that 1) the concepts shared between P1 and P2 were person B's contribution to the discussion leading to article P1 (proving such things is a muddy issue, but it is likely to be person B's point of view?); that 2) person B "did not forget", and that 3) the concepts presented in the publications are a) the same and b) sufficiently important.
Is omitting to cite such specific previous work
a form of plagiarism,
a fault of ethics,
just "part of the academic game" (the exact words from a colleague), or
something else?
I am pondering what person A should do in such a situation. It seems easier to let it go as part of the "game" of academia (and citing adequately both studies in future articles), hoping that karma or "an invisible hand" will insure that research will go on as desired. A colleague suggested that person A should hire a lawyer specialized in intellectual property (which seems quite extreme) and should request an academic leave to focus on such situation (which seems unlikely to be granted).
I am less worried about the fate of person A than about the trend from person B, in that failing to report on their actions could affect other (younger) researchers with whom they would "collaborate" in the future (thinking about an awkward parallel with work or sexual harassment victims failing to fill a complaint being a disservice to future victims).
The details of this story get to be quite convoluted and seem to address one very specific case; can you try to distill it into a single, answerable question that would apply to more than one situation and lead to a general guideline? I don't think we need notation to discuss papers numbered IDs 1-6.
I agree with Bryan, I'm not reading all that
Removed the mention of the other articles.
Unfortunately, this kind of situation does happen, and in fact something similar happened to me (I'd never worked with my person B, but they proved some of the same results, either independently or based on a preprint I had shared with them, and then for years have tried to bury my work, not cite it, and even tell others not to cite it). I'll write this answer aimed at person A.
To answer your question, I would say this is a fault of ethics but is not plagiarism and really should not be "part of the academic game." I think we should all do our parts to steer academia away from this kind of behavior.
It is certainly not worth hiring a lawyer to fight about it. It does not look good to squabble. Generally speaking, the best approach is to move on, publish lots of good work, and earn lots of citations, even if B never cites your work.
In math, it's basically impossible to write a truly comprehensive literature review (e.g., going back to Euclid's axioms). Authors pick and choose who to cite, so it's very unlikely that an academic misconduct case could stick (person B could just say they didn't feel like papers P1-P4 had merit). It is good if you cite relevant papers that your reader might like to read. By not citing you, person B is doing a bad job as author. In an ideal world, your work would be well-known enough that referees would force person B to cite your work. Failing that, you can at least take comfort knowing that senior people who are aware of all the papers, will view person B's behavior as childish and unprofessional. Person A did the right thing to acknowledge person B and that does count for a lot (more than a few citations, I would argue). If person B's behavior becomes a trend, it will be noticed and their career will suffer for it. Best to put it out of your mind and move on to other exciting research projects. "Living well is the best revenge."
We agree. My only doubt is inspired by the "#MeToo" movement. For a long time, the system was making it very difficult for victims of (sexual and work) harassment (and worse) to put forward a complaint, leaving (sex predators and) bullies free to assault one person after the other without any form of punishment, and to call the public wrath against any single individual accusing them. The #MeToo movement changed this a bit, and pushed for systems were such complaints could be made anonymously and revealed once a given number of them against the same person were registered.
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200684 | Is there formal data demonstrating that academic pressures has been increasing over time?
QUESTION:
Is there formal data demonstrating that academic pressures (e.g. "publish or perish") has been increasing over time? Did anybody draw a rough calendar of which laws and rules changed at which time, resulting in the rise of such academic pressure?
CONTEXT:
In some universities of my (current) country of residence (Chile), various bibliometrics-based restrictions (as opposed to checking the content of a research or research proposal) are exerted on academics and students to insure they publish (e.g. an academic needs to have published 7 journal articles in "Web of Science" journals in the last 5 years in order to be allowed to direct a PhD student; a PhD student must have published two such journal articles before being allowed to defend; a Master student must have submitted two such journal articles before being allowed to defend), in addition to various incentives (e.g. bonus salary money from various entities for each article published into such a journal). Such coercive measures and incentives have increased over time (e.g. the threshold to be allowed to guide PhD students used to be 5 articles in the last 5 years, the monetary amounts paid for each publication is regularly increased, etc.).
World-wide, the "publish and perish" pressure of academia has been cited as a cause for various cases of scientific fraud, and it is my understanding that it is seen as having increased over time, but I could not find any formal claim to that.
For a study of malpractices encouraged by "publish or perish" policies, I would like to document formally whether academic policies have increased the pressure to publish on academics, and whether such change of policies can be correlated with observable changes in academic behaviors (e.g. as was done in the article Citation gaming induced by bibliometric evaluation: A country-level comparative analysis for Italian publications regarding one Italian regulation).
First, your example shows that pressure may have become more formalized, not that it has increased. Publish or Perish was the rule long before my career began fifty years ago.
Second, your example is pretty specialized. I would expect a lot of experience to be required before a faculty member could be the lead supervisor of a doctoral student. That is a bit different from overall publish or perish pressure. Some junior faculty would even welcome such a rule so that they don't have to take on that responsibility until they mature into the field.
@Buffy Those are the only examples where I can formally point that a parameter increased over time (nb of publications expected increasing from 5 to 7). In the university where I graduated (21 years ago), one was merely required to have co-guided a PhD student before being allowed to guide one: the fact that a committee was evaluating the content of the proposal was deemed a sufficient guarantee.
Plotting the number of academic job openings vs the number of PhDs produced per year may prove illuminating.
an academic needs ... to direct a PhD student ... a Master student must have submitted two such journal articles before being allowed to defend --- As I'm sure most everyone knows, requirements such as this result in highly variable standards in different fields. There is also the fact that books are more significant than journal articles in many humanities fields.
what can we say, this depends strongly on local conditions. For your country, the path has been a bumpy one, with some discrete jumps in the economical choices (which are political choice), where a bunch of self-assessed better people decided top-down what was the best way.
The long lasting effects of that experience is still here, the dynamics are here explained:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002764220941214
In academy, the publish or perish is just generating noise.
"a Master student must have submitted two such journal articles before being allowed to defend" Pardon me, WTF? How can every (!) Master student be expected to produce sufficiently many sufficiently novel results for two journal papers? Am I missing or misunderstanding something important here?
@JochenGlueck "stay hungry stay foolish" is the rather mild idiotic idea you get if you are in the eye of the (capitalist darwinism) economic policies promoted by the US. If you are in the tornado path, you get Pinochet and its long-lasting reverberations...
@JochenGlueck I was/am as baffled as you are. And I was told that, given the lack of requirement for the papers being accepted (there is no time to wait for the refereeing process to take its course), "bad advisors" just submit "bad papers" in order to let their "bad students" to defend their master, knowing they will be rejected. It is frowned upon but considered a logical conclusion of the measure (the measure itself considered an aberration of the system that nobody can change).
There are studies of fraud rates, perhaps most recently reviewed in the lay press -- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/09/scientific-misconduct-retraction-watch -- The assertion there is that misconduct is, and has been, more prevalent than one might guess.'
Is there formal data demonstrating that academic pressures (e.g. "publish or perish") has been increasing over time?
Possibly not. However, national research bodies (NSF, UKRI, NRF, CONICYT ...) would have data that can be innovatively mined/analysed to extract deeper nuances beyond the 'intended purpose'.
A challenge is also that 'indicators' are varied and not easy to pinpoint, although they are largely known: one of the question you listed has some of them - Are there studies of malpractices in Academia resulting from "publish or perish" policies?.
I know of places where the 'collussion' is prevalent openly (overtly) and in another place where it's covert.
One challenge that academic faced is getting the 'requisite' ethics clearance to undertake research in this area, especially longitudinal studies. Where given, the research gets overly 'narrow' or meta-data. We sure need metrics research and critical realism-based causal mechanisms research beyond the cause-and-effect research.
The following research might give further pointers. PS: There's one I'm trying to remember; I'll update when I do.
Kinman, G. (1998). Pressure points: A survey into the causes and consequences of occupational stress in UK academic and related staff (pp. 1-40). London: Association of University Teachers.
Miller, A. N., Taylor, S. G., & Bedeian, A. G. (2011). Publish or perish: Academic life as management faculty live it. Career development international, 16(5), 422-445.
Kinman, G., & Jones, F. (2003). 'Running Up the Down Escalator': Stressors and strains in UK academics. Quality in Higher education, 9(1), 21-38.
Lee, M., Coutts, R., Fielden, J., Hutchinson, M., Lakeman, R., Mathisen, B., ... & Phillips, N. (2022). Occupational stress in University academics in Australia and New Zealand. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 44(1), 57-71.
Suart, C., Neuman, K., & Truant, R. (2022). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on perceived publication pressure among academic researchers in Canada. PloS one, 17(6), e0269743.
Fink, M., Gartner, J., Harms, R., & Hatak, I. (2023). Ethical orientation and research misconduct among business researchers under the condition of autonomy and competition. Journal of business ethics, 183(2), 619-636.
Fanelli, D., Schleicher, M., Fang, F. C., Casadevall, A., & Bik, E. M. (2022). Do individual and institutional predictors of misconduct vary by country? Results of a matched-control analysis of problematic image duplications. PloS one, 17(3), e0255334.
Gopalakrishna, G., Ter Riet, G., Vink, G., Stoop, I., Wicherts, J. M., & Bouter, L. M. (2022). Prevalence of questionable research practices, research misconduct and their potential explanatory factors: A survey among academic researchers in The Netherlands. PloS one, 17(2), e0263023.
Poutoglidou, F., Stavrakas, M., Tsetsos, N., Poutoglidis, A., Tsentemeidou, A., Fyrmpas, G., & Karkos, P. D. (2022). Fraud and deceit in medical research: insights and current perspectives. Voices in Bioethics, 8.
Because academia is so broad, "pressure" can mean just about anything, and exact reasons people leave academia are not necessarily a matter of record (how does one know if a person who accepted a job outside academia would have preferred a job in academia?? How so you know for certain whether a faculty member left a department because they were denied tenure??), I have some doubt that you'll find a comprehensive reference. You might some ongoing surveys that might prove useful. For example, NSF used to track the careers of a subset of PhD recipients, and the data is at https://ncses.nsf.gov/surveys/earned-doctorates/2021#survey-info. With some work, you can probably find papers that cite that dataset.
Your answer might lie in simple math, though. Assuming one can find an average number of academics who train PhD students, and then estimate how many offspring they sire who are looking for academic jobs, then assuming it's more that one, that means that "demand" for academic slots is growing exponentially. Then, you can just track growth of the number of available academic slots. If the growth rate of trainees is greater than the growth rate of slots, "pressure" is going up.
I don't undertand the claim that the "'demand' for academic slots is growing exponentially". If the generation n fills p(n) positions and each academic in this generation has, on average, f(n) off-springs looking for academic jobs, then the number of available candidates per position for the generation n+1 is f(n) p(n) / p(n+1). This numbers doesn't grow exponentially, unless f(n) does. In particular, f(n) > 1 does not imply exponential growth (it does not even imply any growth at all). (That's of course an oversimplified model, but I think it suffices to demonstrate my point.)
@JochenGlueck yeah, you're right -- I didn't allow for the fact that there aren't automatic positions created for the next generation, so the number of progenitors is ceilings at a cap for a given time.
Thanks for your response! (Funnily, if even such new positions were created at an exponential rate, while the number of candidates would indeed grow exponentially then, the job market would in fact become less competitive - since the ratio p(n)/p(n+1) would be less then 1 in this case. Ok, enough idle mathematical digression... ;-) )
In his videos (e.g. Why is academia so toxic? 6 insider bombshells, PhD Student Advice | 5 insider secrets no one tells you about, etc.) Chemistry Doctor Andy Stapleton lists various issues in Academia and mentions for some of them how they evolve over time (especially in universities always want more). It is not formal enough to use as a reference for an academic study, but it might be a beginning.
Among the problems he mentions, I would highlight
Competitiveness
h-index
Peer review papers
Funding
Not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel
limited amounts of money
being first matters
metrics and comparison
the system creates toxic people
universities always want more
luck plays a huge role
I (or others) might add more links from his other videos (such as 6 Dirty Tactics Found In Academia & Universities | Watch out!)
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27472 | Is there any research on the prevalence of academic theft?
Some — perhaps many — academics seem to be very careful in keeping unpublished work secret. It is not difficult to find anecdotes where academic ideas are stolen, such as in this post by @Markus. Others, such as @NateEldredge in this post write that It seems to be pretty common for people starting out in academia to overestimate the risks of people stealing their work. Personally, I'm rather at the other end of the spectrum, and I don't feel afraid that my ideas would be stolen. Perhaps I'm naïve.
Is there any research on the question: how common is academic theft, really? Such as surveys of people having experienced (or committed!) such theft according to an appropriate definition, possibly compared to peoples' perception as to the risks. It would be interesting to see if there are some facts to refer to. Perhaps it is field dependent?
(By academic theft, I am not talking about plagiarism, but rather about stealing research ideas before anything is published)
Its hard to quantify. Who will admit stealing ideas from the others? Yet Ive heard that from my supervisor, this mostly happens in the peer review process. He told me to be careful if reviewers using weird reason to reject my paper.
@Rein If surveys are strictly anonymous, people might admit. And/or the survey might ask if they know of cases where others have stolen ideas.
I think you have to clarify the field. Stealing ideas might be easier in some lab sciences, for example.
possible duplicate of How much of my ongoing unpublished research should I disclose to others?
Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1966/how-much-information-should-i-divulge-about-on-going-unpublished-research-at-a-c
@Paul: Not really. The question "how prevalent is theft?" is substantively different.
@RoboKaren: I think it's actually harder to "steal" an idea in the lab sciences—because you have to do the work associated with the purloined proposition, and beat the other person to submission.
Another link: My research work stolen and published as his own by the co-author without my consent
Stealing ideas us hard to impossible in the social sciences and humanities. So are there fields where it is easy?
@RoboKaren: You're kidding, right? Those fields have methodologies, research angles, linking items just as STEM fields do.
Unclear what you're asking (despite the typo in my comment).
@gerrit: Nowadays most academic surveys are conducted electronically. I am computer savvy enough to be skeptical that such a survey would be "strictly anonymous" and not computer savvy enough to vet a given electronic survey system for anonymity. Also, speaking for myself: if I stole someone's academic work, I would not admit it under any circumstance. All in all, such a survey might be of some psychological/sociological interest, but it would not carry much weight in answering your question.
I'd say the easiest thing to get stolen is translation labor. I've helped on two projects where I was not being credited. I stopped one midway for that reason.
Is there any research on the question: how common is academic theft, really? Such as surveys of people having experienced (or committed!) such theft according to an appropriate definition, possibly compared to peoples perception as to the risks.
See the related articles:
De Vries, Raymond, Melissa S. Anderson, and Brian C. Martinson. "Normal misbehavior: Scientists talk about the ethics of research." Journal of empirical research on human research ethics: JERHRE 1.1 (2006): 43.
and
Martinson, Brian C., Melissa S. Anderson, and Raymond De Vries. "Scientists behaving badly." Nature 435.7043 (2005): 737-738.
Among a sample of 3,247 NIH-funded scientists in the United States, asked about the behavior "Using another's ideas without permission or giving due credit":
1.4% said they themselves have engaged in this behavior within the last three years
45.7% agreed with the statement, "I have observed or had other direct evidence of this behavior among my professional colleagues including postdoctoral associates, within the last three years."
Please read the article for methodology, limitations, etc.
Not quite an answer, but too long for a comment. In order to quantify how common academic theft is, one needs to define theft. You attempt to define it as:
By academic theft, I am not talking about plagiarism, but rather about stealing research ideas before anything is published
Now consider the following scenario. Alice has been carrying out research on topic X on and off for years. She has a number of nice research findings that she hasn't gotten around to publishing and hasn't shared the findings with anyone. Alice finally decides to start focusing on topic X and publish her existing results. Unbeknownst to Alice, Bob has just started working on topic X as she begin trying to publish her results. I don't think anyone would argue that Alice has engaged in academic theft. The issue becomes what would have to change for Alice to have engaged in academic theft.
What if Alice found out about Bob's intentions from Carol (or maybe Bob himself) and that changed Alice's research direction?
What if Alice only starts doing the research after she hears about what Bob is doing?
What if Bob presents a novel approach to topic X and Alice runs with the approach faster/further than Bob, but Alice is careful to always credit Bob with the new approach? What if Bob presented the new approach N years ago (choose your N)?
In order to quantify how often academic theft occurs, one needs to define what theft is.
Stealing ideas is difficult because you have a victim you have stolen from and presumably they know (or will know) that you stole from them.
Fraud is much more common, much easier to do, and much harder to prove—unless you do something really stupid like re-use the same image multiple times in various unrelated papers, something the people who get caught always seem to do. (Note 1)
Jan Hendrik Schön - Physics
Haruko Obokata - Biomedical sciences
Also common, as Yiuin states, is people (notably PIs and supervisors) taking the credit for their underlings'/minions' work.
Note 1: This means that the either all the frauds are stupid and re-use images and get caught, or that the frauds who don't re-use images are rarely caught.
It should be pointed out that some suspicions should have been raised in Schön's case. What experimental scientist can write a paper every eight days (which was what Schön was doing the two years before he was caught!)?
cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk#Controversies "Close scrutiny revealed that several of the photos of purportedly different cells were in fact photos of the same cell."
I've been a graduate student (Masters at one school and PhD at another) and I have never seen the sort of thing you are describing. I am afraid The Social Network has made everyone paranoid about their ideas being stolen. The reality is that most ideas are difficult to steal, because implementing them might be time-consuming enough that the original person has a huge head start. The only time you should worry is if you think you have a GREAT idea that you think is easy to do once you think of it. You will probably know if this is possible.
In reality though, there are a lot of smart people out there and if you are thinking of it, at least 1 other person has probably considered it. Its much more likely that you are recreating (or attempting something that doesn't work), but that might just be in my field (Neuroscience/Imaging).
On the other hand, I have found that it is pretty common for people to take credit for other peoples work, or use other peoples software without crediting, especially for grant applications. Again though, this might be unique to my field.
The question asked if there was any research on the topic.
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27154 | How to make group work work?
Occasionally I have some material to cover that is best presented in the form of take-home group projects.
Some student groups manage to find a way to coordinate their work well and to complete the projects successfully, with every team member benefiting from the collaboration. Other groups do not do so well:
Some groups evenly divide the work, but still work in isolation, losing the benefits of working with peers.
Some groups push the work to one or two students, while the remaining students merely contribute their name.
I wonder if there are strategies or tools instructors use that can encourage more groups to operate successfully while they are working outside of class?
I've run across a site called TEAMMATES that allows instructors to assign peer evaluations to students who are working on group projects. You may find it helpful:
http://teammatesv4.appspot.com/index.html
I think first it may be worthwhile to accept that in any group work situation there is the possibility that people will worked siloed (or isolated from one another) or one or two people will push the work forward while others are relegated or chose to remain in a passive state.
There are some good reasons for this. I recall being a student with a pretty solid GPA, group projects were a horror for me. If the project grade is based on the overall project and does not take into account individual contributions this meant that students who were less focused on their GPA would be willing to turn in something that was not up to my standards. This led both to situations where other students refused to do work on the project (knowing that the stronger students would carry them in order to avoid dings to their GPA) and to situations where stronger students would freeze out other students (ie the stronger students would choose to take all the work and not let other be involved) in order to maintain control over the project.
Group projects are often used as an analogy for working in the 'real world' where working in groups is the norm. The fundamental difference is that in most cases if a peer is completely slacking or sending in subpar work there is a concrete structure to monitor and handle that issue (which doesn't always work of course but there's almost always more accountability than in academic group projects). You can mimic this behavior in an academic setting by splitting up the grades for the project. Don't give one 'group grade' to everyone, instead have students report on who did what (this is particularly effective if you can have them set this early in the project instead of during turn-in) and correlate the students grade to both their work and their work in the context of the project. Having this set up early can be a great way of preventing aggressive or strong students from freezing out what are perceived as the 'weak links'.
Additionally consider regular checkpoints on the project. This will let you get a feel for the interactions in the group and the content being produced while also minimizing the opportunity for a student to jeopardize the group by waiting until the last minute to work on their part (this will still happen to some extent).
In short - add more structure to the group project. This increases the workload on your end but it mitigates the most common issues you'll see in groups during group projects.
And +1 for mentioning how group projects differ from the real world.
A similar strategy which I've seen work well is to scale each student's final grade based on peer assessment factors. The actual function you use is up to you, but the basic idea is that if someone is identified by the rest of the team as not contributing, they fail.
+1 - first paragraph is me (too much compulsion about the final product wherin other students' contributions are never really up to par. I also agree with splitting the grade and scaling. Personally as a student I'm fine with doing most of the work if others don't want to contribute - I like knowing when things will get done and how well they get done; but in the end, I want to be recognized for my extra effort in the event that others did not contribute to the overall project. Individual evaluations from each student about others' contributions and grade-scaling are a good combo imo.
One caveat is that you want to avoid having a group of strong students filled out to size with an average student. You risk that one student finding himself out of his league and receiving bad peer grades for average work. I've seen this go horribly wrong when a fellow student failed a class just because he wasn't putting in as many hours as the rest of his team who were putting in triple the hours of the other groups.
Splitting the grade is a very good way to encourage the participation of every one. However, it means you know how to split the grade. You can ask for each work to have an author contribution section, stating both who did work on which part and the overall participation of each student. You can also ask the group to tell you how to split the grade. It will encourage them to discuss the contribution of each one together. Most of time if they work fair together they will just split equally, but it will encourage to give less if one did slack which is just fair. Also for longer project (like semester long) I would have Q&A session with a teacher or teaching assistant. Clearly state the fair/unfair work repartition is one of the subject that can be discussed in this occasion. I would definitely not recommend to do the spilt yourself if not equally. There will always be this guy who can talk more than speak that will trick you. If this guy tries to trick the other group member, then they need to learn how to deal with it. it's part of their training. Also some time they will decide to split and work separately, it is sometime the best way to get the thing done and they need to recognise those situation too. Example: they work with people they don't like and interact very badly.
I think letting the student assign their own group roles themselves is critically important for their training. You want them to be able to take decision as a group, as they might need to do when they will be working in a company. They will be natural leaders that will take the reins, but that is ok, not everyone is good in this position. They might enter confrontation, but this is something they will also face later in their career and they need to be prepared for that.
That is a great idea. While the dishonest students will still continue as always, it will likely lead to better results among the honest ones.
Face-to-face marking is a good way to assess relative understanding as well as contribution. I used to do this for lab work, and in the vast majority of cases the difference was at most a few % restrict to things like their ability to keep decent lab books. Occasionally we had a slacker and a relatively hard worker. When one of the pair got double the mark of the other it normally got the message across. Get them to present the work, perhaps to the whole class. No need for powerpoint, just have them stand in front of a whiteboard. Bonus skills training as well.
Drop the flat hierarchy in group projects. Use and quality based hierarchy, assign the hard-working students as group leads. Not all of them have the same level of leading qualities, but ask from them not to take the whole responsibility.
Divide the project into tasks, and tasks into subtasks (if they don't know how to do it internally, but first give them time to try to do it, or ask for that explicitly). Otherwise, clearly assign subtasks to each group member and require each group member to spend certain amount of time per week on those tasks. Lets say each student has to spend 10 hours per week on the project related tasks. Ask students to keep track of the time they spend on a spreadsheet document by marking down the start-end times and describing the solution, or if there is no solution why it didn't work. Require them to provide also references. This document preparation should not last longer than 15 - 30 min per week. Allow the document to be informal.
Make sure to protect your hard-working students. As @Nahkki has mentioned, group project are nightmare for good students, as they take all the workload and do everything just to ensure that the overall grade remains within their standards. However, such behaviour has long-term effects on the hard-working students, resulting in burnout. Protect them as they may show up being useful in the later stages of the project, or sometimes in the future.
'assign the hard-working students as group leads' really? You are suggesting to put all the responsibility on someone you subjectively assess as hard-working? 'Protect them as they may show up being useful in the later stages' useful for what?
why you assume the assessment is subjective? If you know the student from previous classes you can do the assignment during the initial meetings. Otherwise delay such an assignment to a later point in time. If the project is part of an ongoing course you already should have some idea about who is what. If the project starts "today" require transcript/previous experience ;) 2) Yeah, if the project is part of a bigger project associated to the research group, you would ideally want to employ one of the guys as student worker in the same project later on. That was my exact experience
'you already should have some idea about who is what' I generally refrain myself from speculating on future student achievements, some just have a high variability and people change or have sudden imperatives, etc. Making a student your golden boy/girl is not going to be helpful to anyone, IMHO.
whatever you say might be correct for your own context, and not necessarily for mine. so yeah maybe, experiences differ. no point in dragging the discussion ;)
How does the instructor use the hours work log data? Or what do they do with that data? I think the students who do not contribute to the projects will likewise have no problem assembling a fake log.
Does subtasks create more isolation within the groups or do you have a method in your subtask creation that prevents this?
I really can't see this working out well. Those best/hardest working students are going to take on more of the load - they'll get a little more out of it in exchange, while the others will lose out completely. It's by no means uncommon for a near-genius to be rubbish at working in a group let alone leading one, and for a straight-B student to be highly adept at drawing all the threads together. The essence of group-work is learning to deal with this. Would have been my first downvote here, but the 3rd para makes some good points that IMO are at odds with your idea in the 1st.
I took a class that involved group work. The professor allowed groups to vote to fire a member, provided they gave sufficient reason to the professor. This meant that everyone was held responsible.
My group nearly fired someone who kept missing meetings and then lied about it. However, he was sufficiently scared into working hard, so we let it slide.
I'm not saying this allowing teams to "fire" people is the best way. However, I think that finding a way to make team members accountable to each other is essential.
I have some groups with 3 students pressuring 1 or 2 students to do the work for them. Would firing still help in that situation?
@Village: An important aspect to stress with my professor's system: you must give a sufficient reason to the professor as to why you are firing the individual. In your situation some sort of peer review at the end would be the best solution. The professor had that as well, and grades were adjusted accordingly.
Ken Heller, who promotes a group-based approach for physics, uses a neat strategy to discourage slacking.
Exams are divided into an individual part and subsequently a group part, but if a member ever failed (even once) to attend the group sessions the rest of his or her group votes to allow or not allow that person to participate in the group portion of the exam.
I had an engineering teacher in high school who by far was the best (in my high school) at assigning group projects.
Students have a tendency to want to work alone because that is the environment they are accustomed to. High school teaches kids how to work in a 20th century factory: stay in line, follow the rules, do your work and let other people do their work.
My engineering teacher wanted us to work as adults would: he assigned us brief guidelines, and our group was responsible for collaborating and producing something for him. For example, as the first project in the intro to engineering class, he started by showing us a lamp he made. Then he asked us how one could make 10,000 of them for as low cost and as easily as possible. We had to deliver an assembly process (to make the lamp), a parts lists, and a floor plan of the building we would theoretically have.
I think what mostly made it so good was the lack of formatting. Many kids didn't like it, you had to actually listen when he talked because he didn't hand out sheets reiterating what he just said. You had to use your best judgement with regards to making the product look as nice as possible, as apposed to following some guidelines. The class made you think, you couldn't just go from one step to the next and get the correct answer, you had to think for yourself and make up your own steps.
Grading was a struggle for him, especially because this was one of his first times teaching this class. You got a grade for the project (everyone in the group got the same grade), and you got a grades for small check ins to make sure you were actually doing stuff in your group.
Engineering is mostly about problem solving, so when asked questions he would often respond "That's your problem". He did so if people complained they were doing too much of the work, or if their group wasn't listening to them, etc. You can't learn how to work in a group if some higher power solves your communication problems for you.
Hope that helps, sorry for rambling.
It was a great anecdote but I downvoted because it does not address the issue of how to help students divide the work, which is the main concern.
I'm sorry I thought I addressed that: leaving them to manage themselves can be a good solution. Some things, like group communication, are best learned by experience. Telling them to sort out their own problems forces them to learn how to do so.
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27107 | Is it acceptable to heavily reference blogs, forums, and other informal media?
I am pursuing a specific research question. I have thoroughly surveyed existing research on the topic, and found dozens of researchers working on the problem, but was disappointed by their work. Their research:
Does not consider the full magnitude of the problem.
Constantly tests old, insufficient methods.
Overlooks significant details, so the test results are meaningless.
Lacks innovation.
I found lots of interesting ideas posted around the Internet. In blogs, forums, and USENET, I found people with some clever new ideas to approach the problem. These people had a genuine stake in the problem, so I found their ideas actually brought the problem somewhere meaningful. These informally-posted ideas need testing and considerable refinement. They are far from perfect, but many times better than what the academics are dealing with.
I would like to prepare some trials and publish some papers, centered around a number of these ideas. It is only fair that I give credit to the authors of those ideas. Essentially, I need to give credit to lots of anonymous people who posted their ideas informally. I have never read an academic paper containing highly informal references. Can I include references like this in my paper?
MutantTurtle17. “My Amazing DIY Tin-can Refugee Shelter.” MyBlog. 2014.
Retrieved from http://...
SimCityFan2012. “RE: RE: Look at this!” Shelter Designs Forum. 2013.
Retrieved from http://...
Is your question whether you should cite ideas from these sources or whether you should use them? Because certainly if you use them, you are required to cite them.
@ff524 How is your definition of "use"? If Village reads about a cool new approach to tackle a problem in a blog, it will influence how (s)he approaches the problem next, even if (s)he does not use the exact same approach. However, one can hardly cite everything one has ever read about a topic.
@xLeitix I mean "use in a way that typically requires citation," which does not depend on the kind of source it is (academic, informal, whatever)
One option that I have used before, is adding a footnote saying something along the lines of "Inspired by ideas discussed on thisblog.com"
@ff524 But it does. You should not excessively "use" soft sources in a way that requires citation. If you do, you can easily run into the trouble that says that your entire research is based on shaky assumptions.
@xLeitix I mean that the threshold for when citation is required doesn't depend on the source; I'm not commenting on when you should use the source
You might find some responses to a semi-similar question I asked to be useful. It's not exactly the same, but might help a little.
Does your paper really test & verify lots of ideas?
You state that "I would like to prepare some trials and publish some papers, centered around a number of these ideas." How many of those ideas do you expect to actually implement per a single paper?
If you implement, evaluate and contrast three novel ideas from blogs&forums, preferably including a solid comparison against a baseline published method; then that's just three informal items that you need to cite, in addition to the current academic publications.
There are references and references
If your paper assumes something, or claims non-obvious things, then you need 'proof' of it outside of your paper that should come from references. Those references need to be trustworthy - preferably respectable peer reviewed publications.
However, if your paper uses references for giving credit to ideas or pointing to original sources, then that's an entirely different class of reference, where blogs and forums are just as acceptable as, say, referencing archives of private informal letters that are used in studies of literature or history.
If you have never read an academic paper with a lot of informal references, then it is because it is very dependent on the field you're studying - for example, a thesis about racial stereotypes in online media would reference many informal sources as examples; while a thesis about particle physics wouldn't have any.
Why not then just split your references under two headers: References and Sources
This is an actual problem that I also struggle with in some aspects of my research. There are problems in which the blogging and industrial world is, sadly, miles ahead of the scientific state of the art. However, citing an abundance of blogs and other non-reviewed resources is rarely a good idea. A few citations of web resources are usually ok, though. Hence, my (imperfect) solution to the problem currently is to cite the 2, 3 web resources that are best suited for my paper, and try to find academic resources that cover the rest of the ground as good as possible.
That being said, this situation is certainly a possibility for you. If you can take the ideas from these forums and blogs, and bring them on a sound scientific basis (e.g., through user studies or formal analysis, whatever is appropriate for your research) and publish it both scientifically and informally (e.g., in your own blog), there is a good chance that you make a strong impact on both the scientific side and the blogging community. At the end of the day, people tend to remember not only who originally threw a revolutionary idea or concept out there, but also (sometimes even more so) the person that made the revolutionary idea work (or, at least, clearly showed that it works).
Another point is that anything that is not peer reviewed cannot be considered "true", and thus, cannot be used to back up claims (except some very obvious and objective cases). On the other hand, how good is the place where you got your idea, if you did your job well, doesn't matter.
@Davidmh: I've repeatedly run into such situations, and the claim I was trying to back up was invariably something along the lines of "technique X is used in real-world applications of domain Y". For lack of any peer-reviewed surveys on all kinds of new product versions and their single features, citing the software package itself (or its official website) is often the only choice. At the same time, the statement that feature X exists in real-world software is proven to be "true" by the very existence of said software, despite not being peer-reviewed.
@O.R.Mapper that follows in the category of "obvious and objective". In any case, the fact that other people are using it is not relevant for the validity of the research (but it is always good to show that your work has down to earth applications).
@Davidmh: Maybe I am in a field that is rather close to real-world applications, but I have made the experience that showing that certain related work is used in real life rather than just defined in papers can mean the difference between acceptance and rejection of a paper. I think that is because of the very true statement that xLeitix made, "There are problems in which the blogging and industrial world is, sadly, miles ahead of the scientific state of the art.", so comparing new contributions only to other research is deemed insufficient by the respective reviewers.
It is absurd to assert that anything that is not peer reviewed cannot be considered true (or "true"). There are many many factual assertions you could make in research where the relevant reference confirming the assertion is a non-peer reviewed source (e.g., newspaper reports, legislation, court judgments, etc.).
Maybe one way of dealing with having lots of informal references would be to divide the bibliography into sections, so that the reader can easily see the different types of reference (acknowledgement versus justification).
Or alternatively maybe put them all in an extended acknowledgements section (since databases won't be able to do much with blog citations anyway, perhaps it wouldn't matter so much if they don't appear in the official bibliography, provided the reader is sufficiently informed of who came up with what).
An acknowledgment isn't the same thing as a citation so that doesn't seem to be a good solution.
I guess it depends on how you phrase it in your text. If you are saying "x is true because Y said so" then you are claiming that Y is a reliable source who would or should know if x is true or not. If you say "x could be true (source: Y) but let's test it to see" those are very different things.
It may be I've slightly misunderstood the question. I read it not as 'these people have essentially published research in an informal setting' (in which case I'd see this as a citation), but rather as 'these people have generated ideas for research that could be done/suggestions for possible solutions to a problem, but haven't done the actual research of testing them' (in which case I'd see this as acknowledging their ideas, whether as a formal citation or by stating this more explicitly).
I am a mathematician, former editor of several journals (currently, just one). Suppose I were to receive a paper submission with an accompanying email saying something along the lines:
I have thoroughly surveyed existing research on the topic, and found dozens of researchers working on the problem, but was disappointed by their work. Their research:
Does not consider the full magnitude of the problem.
Constantly tests old, insufficient methods.
Overlooks significant details, so the test results are meaningless.
Lacks innovation.
I found lots of interesting ideas posted around the Internet. In blogs, forums, and USENET, I found people with some clever new ideas to approach the problem. These people had a genuine stake in the problem, so I found their ideas actually brought the problem somewhere meaningful. These informally-posted ideas need testing and considerable refinement. They are far from perfect, but many times better than what the academics are dealing with.
Or/and, checking the bibliography list, I see many references to Reddit, Wikipedia, Quora, blogs by people I never heard of...
My crank-meter would go to something like 99% and my first reaction would be:
Should I even bother soliciting a quick opinion (let alone a referee report) on this paper? Or should I check if the supposed solution of the 4-dimensional smooth Poincare Conjecture uses "simply-connected" instead of "homotopy-equivalent to the 4-sphere?"
For many journals you don't need to submit a cover letter along the manuscript. Moreover the above can be said more subtly.
@MassimoOrtolano: True, that's why I put a connector "or/and". Yes, it can be put more subtly...
If the post knowingly belongs to some well known researcher or otherwise a known, notable person, such post can be cited, because even "personal communication" at the end can be a reference. However it is not good as a proof that something questionable is true as this is not a peer reviewed article.
If the author of the post is anonymous or not a scientist, such source is not trustworthy and is only suitable as a raw input data for analysis in social research.
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32232 | Should a formal academic grievance list what an action the student hopes will occur?
I have a problem with a course, but my informal communications with the instructor and chair led nowhere.
My student handbook shows a policy for filing a formal grievance, which seems more like a legal process for solving problems. I must mail a letter to my instructor and wait for a reply from them.
In the letter, I will explain my complaint regarding the course. Should a formal grievance letter also list which actions I hope they will take to resolve the problem? Such as, "My grade should be raised." or "Let me retake the course without record of the first time." or "Tuition refund."
Who are you sending this to? Could they do what you ask for, if they wanted?
First I will send it to the instructor, with some copies sent to others. The instructor must make a decision within a certain time frame. If I am not satisfied, I can go to the chair. I do not know who in the school has what ability to do what. Can instructors grant tuition refunds? None of the school's policies are very detailed.
What are you hoping to accomplish with a formal complaint? Prove that you are right? Get a higher grade? Get a refund? Because, I highly doubt that you will accomplish these goals with a formal complaint.
A refund seems fair to me. Why do you think that is doubtful? Many businesses offer refunds when services are not rendered. Why is a school any different?
@Village "Get a refund" based on "My grade should be raised" is very unlikely to happen, because this sets a bad precedent. On the other hand "Please, let me retake the course" sounds reasonable
Also this "Many businesses offer refunds when services are not rendered" might be true but not based on the word of one person. If 100 people were enrolled in this course and you are the only one posting a formal complaint, that might reflect bad on you. You might be right (for all I know) but formal complaints are for very serious reasons (e.g. professor harassment) and not for not good enough teachers or too difficult courses.
@Alexandros: in the US at least, students with a valid grievance often do get a positive outcome such as a grade change from a formal complaint. It does depend on the kind of complaint and its validity
"Many businesses offer refunds when services are not rendered." -- As perverted the US system is, note that the service offered is to provide teaching, nothing more. Actual learning is your responsibility. Any formal complaint must regard a formal mishap, such as provably unfair (= different from other students) treatment or formal/technical mistakes in the exam (grading). "I should have passed" is not a reasonable claim to make (as the examiner attests the opposite).
The reason that the grievance process sounds like "a legal process for solving problems" is that it is indeed a pseudo-legal process for solving problems. In particular, it is used when the instructor has done something that violates university policy - unfair grading is a frequent complaint.
These grievances typically follow a detailed policy to try to ensure that student complaints are treated fairly. The first step is often to formally notify the instructor in writing, and that seems to be the purpose of the letter.
In the letter, you should lay out the facts as you see them, and you should include the resolution you would like to see. Try to write the letter in a businesslike way - you want to advocate for yourself, but keep to the facts and try not to say things that you cannot justify later.
If the instructor and department chair cannot or do not resolve the issue, it will move up to the next level, which is typically review by a dean. If the dean cannot resolve it, it goes to the next level, which may involve a hearing of some sort. In my experience many complaints are resolved by the department chair or dean, particularly when the situation is clear cut (e.g. a professor didn't follow the grading policy from the course syllabus).
I cannot say what remedies will be available at your school - this will vary by school. There are certainly colleges where the higher-level administration could allow you to take the course again, or drop the first course from your transcript. The instructor will not be able to do those things, but you have to work through the process one layer at a time in any case.
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68662 | Supervisor gave my PhD project to another student
I am a PhD student in life sciences. My PhD project's goal is to analyze specific data and to check a totally new idea in the field I am working in. This project is risky, however, very promising. With my supervisor, we planned all the studies and experiments before the start of the PhD, and he did promise that this would be my project. However, just as I started the PhD, he asked me to finish other experiments as I am the only one in the department who knows methodology and that work was crucial for the lab funding.
At the same time, he gave my project to another student claiming that he wants to know results and to publish this as early as possible. This student started the experiments and to analyze data. Moreover, my supervisor presented him to our collaborator (well known and influential scientist in the field) as the main researcher.
At this point I am desperate. Yes, I am jealous, but just don't know what to do in this situation. I came to this lab only for this project. I tried to mention this to my supervisor, but he just said: "Well, these findings are very important to us and I want to know the results as soon as possible".
It's only 4 months into experiments and I hope that someone could suggest how can I change this situation.
Have you spoken to anyone else about this? eg, department head, graduate programme head etc.? When you say you are 4 months into experiments, do you mean you started your PhD 4 months ago?
Was it ever actually your project? Or was it the professor's and he just assigned it to you but before you ever started on it he gave it to someone else?
Have you discussed with your supervisor what he sees as being your main PhD project?
@PatriciaShanahan, yes, I did. Before the PhD we talked and planned how it all should go. And as I said, he did promise me that this will be my project, thus I started my PhD at his lab.
@AustinHenley, main idea, experiments were formed by both of us. It's not only his idea. And then he gave my other experiments to finish while giving my project to another person.
@user54101 I meant, have you repeated that discussion after the change in plan? Given your comment, you should also discuss co-authorship for any papers that depend on your ideas.
You "planned all studies and experiments" and "[another] student started experiments and to analyze data," it is unclear whether your planning is sufficient for co-authorship, but you certainly have the basis for it and you should consider whether to ask for co-authorship. Moving forwards, you could collaborate on the project with the other student.
You know for the most part supervisors are smart enough to handle their students and their research groups. However, once in a while, there will be a problem either with the student and/or supervisor. So two things here:
Know You Rights and Hierarchies: Simply know what your rights are in your institute. Moreover, know the hierarchies. For example, who is the boss of your supervisor, or even, who is the boss of the boss of your supervisor? You know where I'm going with this? This bring me to the second point.
Be Vocal and Express Yourself at the Meetings: If you sit at your desk and pretend everything is fine, and your supervisor manipulates the situation (assuming you are telling the truth here), then YOU are the one responsible, because you didn't speak your mind. Have a meeting with the head of the group (your supervisor's boss) and speak about it. Tell him/her your story and situation and he/she should sort this out. If you couldn't sort it out, have a meeting with someone higher. They are there to help you.
"If you sit at your desk and pretend everything is fine, and your supervisor manipulates the situation (assuming you are telling the truth here), then YOU are the one responsible, because you didn't speak your mind" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming
If this was really the way you were treated - by which I mean that you have to be sure not to misinterpret statements or promises of your supervisor - then you should run.
A PhD requires trust between the supervisor and the student. After such a breach of trust, you need to find a new supervisor.
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2633 | How do "scientific couples" (from different fields) find positions?
When two people in a couple are both in science, but specialised in different fields, how can they both find relevant positions but still be geographically reasonably proximate?
Compromise and change fields? Work part-time from a distance if employers' permit it (do they usually?)? Travel both quite far each day? One person leaves science?
Are there other ways to resolve this? Any personal experiences around here?
This is a fairly big topic; doing a search through Science (the journal) reveals many articles on this topic. Rather than link to them individually, I suggest you read through the different articles and learn what you can.
This is commonly known as the "two-body problem".
Many universities (like the one where my wife and I work) have dual-career hiring programs explicitly to address this issue. It's definitely worth asking—carefully—whether the universities you are considering have such a program.
Here's how our system works. Suppose Department X offers a faculty position to Partner A, and later department Y offers a faculty position to Partner B. Then Partner B's salary is paid 1/3 by department Y, 1/3 by department X, and 1/3 from a general campus fund.* (Note that X and Y may be the same department.)
So Department Y has a significant financial incentive to hire Partner B. On the other hand, Department X must be willing to pay extra for Partner A; in practice, however, once an faculty offer to A is actually on the table, most department chairs find it hard to refuse to help hire B.
This is why you have to be careful how and when you ask. It's illegal in the US to discriminate against a job candidate because they're married—we're not even allowed to ask—but it is completely legal to hire a cheaper candidate over a more expensive one. If department X already knows that you have a two-body problem, they also know that hiring you will be more expensive. The safest strategy is not to mention that your partner needs a position (or even that your partner is another academic) until an offer is on the table.
*When I originally posted this answer in 2012, this financial arrangement was de-facto permanent, but my university has recently refined its policies. As of June 2018, the joint funding arrangement is permanent (“recurring”) if Partner B has a tenure-track faculty position, and limited to three years otherwise.
Do you know if this practice is common outside of the US? This sounds like the sort of practice which could fall foul of employment regulations is the UK (and possibly the rest of Europe).
How long is X required to pay part of B's salary? If it's indefinite I'd be concerned that it would make A more vulnerable to being laid off or given smaller than normal pay raises as a cost containment measure.
@Mark, the idea of the "double body" accommodation was scolded upon by an ANZ university where both my wife and I interviewed. While lower tier US universities would have seen this as advantageous to hire Ph.D.s from good places, the ANZ university in question viewed this as a preferential treatment, and stepped out of communicating with us. So yes, probably in the UK academic context (which ANZ has inherited), this would not work well.
@StasK What's ANZ? Australia / New Zealand?
@gerrit, yes; sorry, I thought it was a common enough abbreviation.
This is a very difficult, and unfortunately common problem. It is dealt with in many ways, including all of the ones you mention. Solving the problem almost always involves a serious compromise by one or both parties. Couples can take many approaches:
Not compromise on their jobs: both take the best academic jobs they can find. This usually involves living apart, in different cities, sometimes for years. They end up with lots of frequent flyer miles.
One becomes an academic, the other leaves academia: this makes it much easier to live together, but might require a major sacrifice by one of the couple, if they had their heart set on an academic career.
Both compromise on placement quality: couples can commit to both finding academic jobs together. Since it is difficult to find two jobs at the same university, this often involves taking jobs at a lower ranked institution, or less desirable location than either could get on their own. Some universities specialize in recruiting couples: this can be a coup for the university, since they get two researchers who are both higher quality than they would normally be able to recruit.
A long (daily) commute for each person can represent an extremely successful outcome of type 1), or a less successful outcome of type 3). For example, it is possible (although grueling) for a couple to live in Princeton, and have one commute to Philadelphia and one commute to New York.
This is not to say that it is impossible to achieve perfect success: there are academic couples, both of whom are in the same department at the top university in their field. But this requires an extraordinary amount of both talent and luck.
Real-life example: one partner is in Norway, another partner - in the Netherlands...
I have not performed a literature survey, but the only solution that looks viable is to choose a large and well-connected city like London with plenty of scope for both fields.
It is very common in India to find faculty couples, especially in the IITs. It is advantageous for the university as they are, in a way, settling the couple and ensuring their long-term stay.
I wish I could just choose a large and well-connected city like London, partner or no partner. But, since I'm not a rock-star researcher, I probably have a higher chance of finding an industry job in London than I do finding a faculty one. It might be viable (from vie - life; it has a potential to last if established), but it certainly doesn't sound very feasible (from faire, fais- - to do, to make; doesn't seem doable) or achievable in the first place. "Only job solution for academic couples are capitals (big cities) like London" sounds like a polite way to dissuade one from the idea.
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5663 | If tenured staff are virtually unsackable, why is the drive to find funding so strong?
Tenured staff are virtually impossible to fire, why is the urge to find funding so strong? For post-docs and other untentured scientific staff I can understand, for their job depends on it. For a tenured professor it would rather be the joy and honour of doing important research. Apart from a reduction in joy and honour, are there any consequences if a tenured professor fails to get grants?
Bigger teaching loads. Wasted life and ambition.
In many departments, tenured professors can use bringing in external funds to the department as a means of "buying" their way out of some of their teaching and administrative commitments. Similarly, other departments might use additional committee assignments and teaching loads to "punish" people who don't bring in grants. They may also have less flexibility in selecting teaching assignments.
In other countries, such as Germany, a long-term shortage in funding can lead to the consequence of a chair not being "succeeded" when the holder retires; in that case, the institute (equivalent to a US group) the professor is in charge of is wound down rather than finding a new leader for the group.
This seems to me a rather overly cynical viewpoint. I definitely agree with JeffE that most do it because they enjoy doing research, and doing research costs money.
@eykanal I've seen both cases in action. To add to aeismail's notes many departments make raises above the bare minimum COLA dependent on some kind of merit formula and/or voting by the rest of the department. Departments that use voting can get rid of an unloved but tenured colleague by denying him or her raises until they leave in frustration. In departments that use formulas you can give your detractors the finger by keeping the grants/awards/papers/books coming (I know a guy who's devoted the last 15 years to this approach). The smaller the #$%*heap the worse the politics.
Most tenured faculty enjoy research (else why would they take a job that requires it?) and most research costs money. In particular: Faculty who benefit from working with students (or postdocs, or staff) need money to pay them, and faculty whose research depends on specialized equipment or travel need money to pay for it.
This is the carrot; @aeismail is describing the stick. I imagine both motivations can be found at every institution.
In addition, many tenured staff are highly skilled academics, who have worked for years to be able to win highly competitive grant awards for significant amounts of cash.
Tenure implies you're difficult to fire. It doesn't say anything about needing to pay you. @JeffE described @aeismail's answer as the stick, but there's a bigger one. Especially in soft money positions, a significant portion of your salary, much of the funding for your lab, etc. all come from grant funding. While they might not fire a tenured professor who isn't "pulling their weight" with grant funding, they may find themselves losing lab space to better funded or new faculty, not having the resources to maintain a functional research group, etc.
As long as you're comfortable with you, your office, and whatever salary is hard money being the entirety of your research group, you don't need to ever find funding. But if you want more than that, the money has to come from somewhere.
Hmm. I totally forgot about the 9- versus 12-month salary issue.
@aeismail Beyond that, my institution has some very heavily soft money positions.
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2632 | How (un)usual is changing fields?
For a long time I thought that when I start my PhD, my field of research is fixed for the rest of my academic career. However, I've encountered multiple people who have a PhD in space science or particle physics, and have later moved to atmospheric science or remote sensing — one of them even after already having tenure, starting an entirely new topic while remaining at the same institute. How common or uncommon is it to change to an unrelated field within natural science? How much chance would one have of a post-doc if the newly graduated PhD has no experience with the actual topic whatsoever? Is it expected that a Postdoc spends the first 3–6 months getting into the field, or that he/she can dive into the depth right away? Of course, a lot of scientifically relevant skills (data analysis, critical thinking, programming, statistics, etc.) are in common between different fields, but how important is the content of ones experience, really?
Related but different question: How might changing topic affect a career in academia? (different because from e.g. particle physics to climate science is more than just changing topic)
I expect your biggest challenge will be that you'll been competing again others who have focused longer on that field, better prepared, better insights. If the competition is weak, so much the better for you. As far as a career in academia, same issue. On the other hand, occasionally cross-over fields pop up, perfect opportunities for those with feet in two areas. C'est la vie.
Most successful career researchers choose their field fairly early on in their career. This is often due to their approach to research; they have a fundamental question they're attempting to answer, and they spend years attacking different parts of the question through various projects. Pursuing research in this manner allows for flexibility in the research and can lead to some very interesting breakthroughs.
From what I've seen, those who do change areas of interest often do so within a single field, so that the majority of their expertise is still relevant. Yes, data analysis skills can transfer, but much of a researcher's expertise is in the form of a deep understanding of what the past and current state of the field; knowing important (and less important) papers, what different lab groups are researching, what's been tried and what hasn't. Since such a knowledge base can take many years to gain, people are often reluctant to switch.
I would venture that it's more common for a field to shift than for a single researcher to shift; i.e., some new technology or methodology allows a whole group of researchers in a given field to investigate something new or different.
I think that a lot of this depends on what you define by "change fields".
In my observation, there is generally a lot of commonality even in a change, when the change is successful.
For example, somebody might have a mathematical toolkit of skills that they are very good at, and discover that it is useful in an application area that they didn't originate in. As they work in that application area, it exposes them to new problems that they find they need to solve to make progress, which leads to developing new skills and interests. From those one might move again, and so on.
The researchers whose work I respect most have often been through several of these types of transitions over the course of their careers. There are always uniting themes, but the topics, techniques, and intersecting communities may well change over time.
As someone who has changed fields completely, I wanted to chip in. In my experience, changing between fields (rather than within) is extremely uncommon. I have only met one other person in the last 10 years who has also done so; this is all in Europe, mind you.
The entire system of getting a PhD is about (aside from becoming a researcher) gaining very specific knowledge in a specific area- after having gained all this skill and knowledge, it is very costly to then leave the field to something that does not build on those skills nor the knowledge.
My advice would thus be to focus on transferable skills (such as the ones you mentioned) if you know that you want to switch. I knew before I started my PhD that I would never end up in the field- thus, I focused heavily on those and less so on expanding topic-wise. When applying for my post-docs, knowledge wasn't even considered- it was all about my technical skills. It all depends on the post-doc and the field, of course. As a personal note, while I don't regret switching, it was (and still is) a lot of work making up for essentially missing education in the area you work in.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:49.237803 | 2012-07-26T11:55:42 | {
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115141 | Funding for applied mathematics postdoc - how does it work?
I am an applied mathematics Ph.D. student at the end of my Ph.D., looking for postdoc opportunities. My strategy has been to apply for different positions that are already funded. Now I am thinking about applying for funding myself. It seems like a good way to gain independence as a researcher. But I am not sure how to go about it. Here is how I think it works:
Send research proposals to different research groups, asking if they would be interested in the problems and providing a postdoc position if I can get funding.
If one of them agrees, I apply for funding. I suppose that it is normal to apply for the same funding at several places (?).
If I am lucky enough to get a grant, I then contact the research group and get the "position"
Is this the correct way to go about it?
and geographically where are you aiming?
Europe, North America and Australia
If you want to fund your own position, probably the best course of action would be to look for the various postdoctoral fellowships awarded by organisations like the NSF, the European Union, and many other national science funding bodies. Your advisor may know some examples that would be most appropriate for you at this career stage. Each fellowship of course has their own rules, so you would need to study them carefully. Generally, the fellowships at this stage would support yourself through either a stipend or by providing your institution with money for your salary. They may or may not pay overheads. In addition, there may be a modest research budget, which for theoretical fields typically can be used to cover for example conference travels.
In case of the fellowships that I am personally aware of, you would have to mention a host instution at which you would want to carry out your research. Typically you would have to provide a signed letter of commitment from the institution, agreeing to hire/support you if your fellowship would be awarded. So indeed it is important to get in touch with possible institutions. You would usually also have to argue in your application why this place would be a good fit for the project.
So how to go about once you have found suitable funding sources? As you said, it is indeed a good idea to contact professors at those universities that would be a good fit for the project that you have in mind. Your advisor might be able to help here as well in suggesting and/or contacting the right people. At this stage, a full research proposal is not really necessary yet, but you should be able to explain briefly what you are interested in, and how it fits in with the group.
Once you have found someone to support you, you can work on your proposal according to the guidelines for the fellowship. Your prospected host instution may provide some feedback on the proposal, but in my experience this is more common only for bigger grants at later career stages. In my experience, professors are generally happy to support your application, since it is relatively low risk for them. But be sure to secure their support in time, since it may take some time to navigate the bureaucracy to get a letter of commitment, for example.
You can only apply for each fellowship once per round, but you can apply with a similar proposal to different fellowships. In some applications you will be required to disclose this, however. And almost certainly, if you would get awarded more than one fellowship, you would have to choose between them since you cannot get funded for the same research twice.
Since typically the institution has to provide a letter of commitment, once you are awarded a fellowship they will be obliged to hire you (or support you, in terms of office space and such) for the duration of the project. At this point it will be mainly up to the adminstration of the university to proceed and prepare the relevant paperwork.
Good luck!
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:49.238197 | 2018-08-11T10:20:16 | {
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95441 | How exhaustive should I be when enumerating works in a State of the Art
I'm currently writing my PhD thesis' State Of The Art.
I have subdivided the field of study. My problem is that I found my self on many occasions writing paragraphs as follows:
'Several authors has proposed to use the K-POP method to enhance the
egnasticity of the computations by solving the Muffin
equations. In [1] statistical values are used with X improvements.
Smith [2] proposes a Montercarlo solution for Muffin with this and
that results. Also...
And then I realize that there are at least 20 different ways to solve Muffin equations. I could further subdivide the field, but I don't want because this won't really contribute much to my SOA, because all I need to point out is that egnasticity can be improved using a solution to Muffin equations.
At this point I wonder: How exhaustive should I be when enumerating all the works of a given area that I don't want to subdivide any further? Should I describe all? Should I describe some and cite all? Should I describe some and cite some?
Note: needles to say 'egnasticity' or 'Muffin equations' are silly names for the example and the K-POP is usually used for different purposes than research.
It is difficult to give a general answer to "how much detail do you need to summarize", since that depends on a lot of things, but you should first of all ask your supervisor what they expect. That is always the definitive answer to "how much is enough" regarding a thesis: it doesn't really matter what answers you might get at Academia SE; what really matters is what your supervisor (and thesis committee) accept.
That said, if your goal is to provide the most useful information for researchers that might read your thesis, then I would suggest that you be as exhaustive and detailed as possible. If you have gone through the trouble to read these articles (at least enough to actually understand the differences between various Muffin equations), then it would be very helpful to others for you to spare them the read by summarizing what you have read and understood.
From what you describe, though, I don't think writing a textual paragraph would be the most helpful way to describe this information for your readers (nor the easiest for you). I recommend that you present these details in a table which cuts out all the fluffy words and just gets to the point: the name of each variation; the citation of the article that presents it; the key details that distinguishes it from other variations; the pros and cons. In addition, if you could group the 20 variations into three to six categories that are similar to each other, that would be a further helpful layer of synthesis.
There are two further advantages of using a table:
For yourself, a table helps you focus on what is essential in each article. By carefully thinking about the structure of the table (mainly, which columns are necessary), you help yourself to better understand what you're reading and to focus on what you consider important.
You don't need to worry about which ones are "worth" summarizing or in how much detail: you just simply summarize everything, briefly and to the point. That said, if a few variations stand out to you as important, then by all means write as many paragraphs as you want to that discuss these ones in detail. But then you won't need to do that for any of the others that you have already briefly summarized.
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