How/should I modify my ethics review proposal when asking questions not stated in the original application?

The simple answer here is that if you go outside the scope of what was approved in your ethics clearance, then you are doing something for which you do not have ethics clearance.  Thus, the answer to your question depends on the specifics of what you have described in the application that was approved.  If your approved application represented that you would use the specific base questionnaire that you submitted, as written, then you will need to amend your application if you now wish to deviate from this.  If your approved application merely represented that you would ask questions within a certain field, with the questionnaire serving only as an example of the type of question, then you probably have scope to deviate a bit while remaining within the scope of what you described.

For this reason, it is a good idea when you draft an ethics application to anticipate possible adaptations you may wish to make as you progress your research, and describe your proposed activity in a way that is broad enough to allow you some "wiggle room" within the scope of the approved research application.  This is a balancing act --- if you give too little detail then it will be too vague to be approved, but if you are too specific then you are imposing constraints on your research that you may wish to change later.  In my own field, of statistics, it is common for an ethics application to give some information about the proposed model/method for analysis of data.  In this case you need to make sure you frame this broadly, to allow yourself the discretion to adapt your method of analysis to the features of the data when it comes in.


Can I use these letters of reference later?

I suggest that if you want letters that won't become relevant for a few years, that you tell the writers that so that they might be able to update their recommendations at the appropriate time, without forgetting you. Keeping in touch is also useful for that.
I don't know the procedures at Waterloo, but some universities require direct transmission from the writer, not the candidate.
Whether they help or not depends on too many things, including the unknown future, to comment directly. But having the "on the shelf" is probably useful.


How many authors should attend a conference?

Perhaps things are different in India than some other places, but I'd suggest that at least one of you go, as required. The others should make a decision whether the conference, itself, independent of the presentation, has enough value to justify the cost in money and time spent. If any of you intend an academic career, the opportunity to meet others has positive value in building future circles of collaboration.
Note that there may be some discounts for student presenters.
Ii think that, in general, a "certificate of participation" has little value other than as a remembrance.
Of course, if you can draw on a grant for this, the computation changes quite a lot, and then the main cost is the time and effort for the individual. That may not be trivial, of course. Talk too your professor(s).
And, congratulations.


How do faculty search committees evaluate candidates for faculty or post-doc positions?

Belive it or not, search committees actually read/skim your articles (not all of them, but some of them) and judge the work and not where it was published. I try and look at least one publication in a specialist journal from each position the candidate had and one or two articles from journals with a broader readership (aka high impact) if there are any. I never, and do not know anyone that does, try and rank papers/journals and pit one candidate's publication history against another. It is a much more holistic process than that.


How do recruiters consider parental leave in one's career path?

The US hiring committees I've been on generally don't handle this issue, because it's mostly orthogonal to the hiring decision.  We can't legally discriminate on the basis of gender, age, martial status, sexual orientation, parental status, or fertility.  We can and do discriminate on the strength of the applicant's cumulative research record (including recent productivity) and their reputation in the research community.  Short gaps in an applicant's research record are inconsequential; everybody has off years.  Longer gaps, even if they last multiple years, can be ignored if their post-gap work is sufficiently stellar.  (And if their work isn't stellar, even without the gaps, why would we want to hire them?)

However, this is an issue that promotions and tenure committees have to address.  At my university, parental and other leaves extend the tenure clock, and tenure/promotion decisions are based on the candidate's cumulative record since their last promotion, not their cumulative record in the last n years for any fixed value of n.  The committee usually knows that the candidate's clock was extended, because we can figure that out from their CV, but we are usually not told why, because it's none of our business.

There are many reasons why a researcher might take a leave of absence / stop their tenure clock / have a gap in their publication record.  I've seen all of the following:

Parental: having or adopting a new child (either or both parents)
Medical: serious injury or illness, of either the researcher themselves or a close family member
Bereavement: death of a researcher's spouse, child, or other close family member
Entrepreneurial: building a startup company
Administrative: holding a service position, either at the university or elsewhere (for example, at a funding agency)


Etiquette: Interrupting your supervisor having a meeting

Is what I did wrong?

Picking up his phone might not have been the best idea, unless he specifically asked you to do so. What if the call received was a personal one? How would you handle that? Then interrupting a meeting to relay this information was not a good idea. However, you will make many wrong decisions but it's important to learn from them.

  How should I approach him afterwards?

I advise open communication this case. Begin with an apology then continue by explaining your reason and end by asking what process he would like you to follow should this occur again in the future. Finally, ask for clarification if the answer is vague.

Example:

"Apologies for answering your phone & interrupting your meeting"

"but I believed this call would be urgent."

"If someone calls again, what would you like me to do?"

"Should I answer & take a message? Should I ask them to wait? Should I interrupt you if you're in a meeting?"


How to organize repository of common research papers for lab members?

The simplest solution to this problem that I can think of is just to use Mendeley (or service with similar functionality) that allows people to form groups (public or private), based on their research interests. Then, all activity, such as adding relevant papers, etc., automatically appears on group members' news "wall", plus they can set up e-mail notifications and such. For more details, see corresponding Mendeley's pages: https://www.mendeley.com/features/collaborate and https://www.mendeley.com/groups.

Obviously, solutions for more complicated research workflows will require more specialized software tools: open source, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) or custom built.


Start by reading the papers.  A structure may suggest itself -- for example, four separate sections, or a structure organized by theme.

If you're not sure, after reading the papers, then try writing a couple different outlines.

If you're still not sure, you could perhaps take a look at a couple of strong response papers (written, obviously, about different papers, but hopefully in an area you can relate to)?

You can also go see your instructor in office hours, show him or her your outline and ask for guidance.


It likely depends on the journals to which you are looking to submit your papers. Different journals have different copyright options, some allow you to publish a "draft" (i.e., identical to the final paper), as long as your don't post the actual article .pdf, and you provide a link to the published journals. Others might have an embargo period, after which you are free to publish on your website.

SHERPA/RoMEO provides information on copyright policies for various journals:
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php

If you are at an institution, it might be worthwhile to talk  with a trusted librarian, as they will sometimes be able to assist you with negotiating copyright contracts with the journal editor, so that you are able to publish copies of the articles on your website. Authors will sometimes use publishing 'hacks', such as copyrighting or even publishing an article themselves before submitting to journals, so that the author owns the copyright instead of the journal.

Open access journals are another option, although some may be predatory or require a fee to publish your articles. For example, Elsevier charges up to $5,000 if you want to avoid an embargo period.

So,

  Overall, is this a good idea or should I strive to rephrase content even if not legally bound to do so?

In my experience this is a relatively common practice, just be careful to follow the copyright restrictions negotiated between yourself and the journals. Rephrasing content is not always a good solution, as some fields consider it unethical to publish the same work in multiple forms/venues.

Elsevier Gold Open Access Price List: http://cdn.elsevier.com/promis_misc/j.custom97.pdf


Do grad students in the USA typically have more or less student debt than undergrads?

I think you are underestimating the number of graduate students who do not get any form of financial support. Like you said, most students in STEM or engineering PhD programs full receive full support. PhD students in humanities/social sciences departments are less funded compared to STEM students, but at least are given tuition remissions.

On the other hand, majority of MA students in any discipline generally receives no support. Then there is MBA students, law students, doctoral residents etc. They are the ones who make up a big portion of all graduate students and most of them have to get student loan to complete their graduate programs.

For example, a typical law school graduate would end up with 60k-100k+ loans at the time they pass the bar and get a job.


How should a teaching-assistant calm his anxious student down in an exam?

I appreciate the gestures but I don't generally agree with the stated actions:

  I try to calm them down before the exam by talking to them privately
  after the class and reminding them that they are perfect students and
  should not allow nervousness to ruin their exam's mark

I would avoid doing that because it's borderline patronizing. It's impossible that all of them are perfect students and if you just talk to some of them who are nervous, that would not reflect well on the instructor from the angle of being objective and fair.

  At the exam hour, when I see such students; I try to bring them some
  water and sugar to help them feel more comfortable and answer their
  questions more relaxed.

Also awkward. By doing so you're singling out the seemingly nervous students. I don't oppose distributing some candies/snacks before hand but I don't agree with delivering food and drink to students who look like nervous.

Here are what I usually do to lower their anxiety:

Evaluate if examination is the best way of approaching the assessment, and if there are alternatives. Can the exam be distributed as three smaller tests? Weekly quizzes? Final project? I often use the students' likely career settings as a benchmark: Will they be more likely asked to write an analysis report with access to information, or trapped in a room to recite formula? etc.
Allow a one-page, self-prepared notes. It's a good compromise between closed-book and open-book. The actual benefit, however, happens when they were preparing for this piece of notes, as they have to actively digest and evaluate the information.
Incorporate questions that do have an absolute answer, but focus on showcasing thought process. Emphasize that there are some questions that have no absolute right or wrong answer, but merely to test the reasoning skills of the candidates.
Play some soothing classical music in the background prior to the start of the exam, and then fade it down before the starting time. Bach's work well... Vivaldi's four seasons work nicely as well.
Make some past questions available, or at least provide some mock example questions. This is to get rid of anxiety caused by unfamiliar format and types of questions.
Progress from basic, memory-based questions to more elaborated questions. Try not to strike too hard at the beginning. Build up their confidence through recalling some facts/definitions.
Clearly delineate the points allocated for each question. This is to ensure that they know they should stop before writing the 5th sentence for the 1/2 point.
Lower the proportion of final grade attributed to exams. Avoid having final exams bearing too much weight.
Invite seemingly collapsing students for a short break, and let them make up for the time afterwards. I have only done it once. The student was in serious distress: panting, red and teary eyes, heavy patches of sweat soaking through the shirt (room has AC.) I invited the student to go out for a chat, and the student immediately broke into loud crying once I closed the door. I and another TA gave the student some prep talk (aka, try your best, the past homework has shown that you can deal with the questions, etc.) and a 10-minute calm down. We let the student have 10 more minutes at the end. The student did manage to pass.


How many professors are children of professors?

I've noticed this too. There is a longstanding literature (mostly in sociology) about social mobility that looks at parents' and children's occupations. Beller and Hout (2006) report that father-to-son occupation correlation was about 0.30 to 0.40, and Piketty (2000) gives an overview of intergenerational mobility for a handbook chapter.

Getting closer to your question, Torche (2011) finds that in the U.S. there is a "U-shaped pattern" of occupational (and other status) similarity, when child education is on the x-axis. For those with just bachelor's degree, their outcomes are barely correlated with their parents', but people with advanced degrees or low education are much more likely to be similar to their parents.

Through Google Scholar, I did not quickly find related literature about whether academic careers stand out from this trend in some way. However, I believe academia would have even higher intergenerational replication, for the following reasons.

First, academic jobs require high levels of formal education, and education is one resource that is often transmitted across generations (cf. Roksa and Potter, 2011). (Professors could especially set up their kids for success while advising on what kind of college to attend, or whether a university offers good undergraduate research opportunities.)
Further, academia has more or less an apprenticeship model and has many unwritten rules to navigate; growing up with that as the "family business" should help one navigate that career path.
Finally, while there are lots of doctors and lawyers on TV, and those are professional careers many are familiar with, being a professor is a bit more of a niche career, and it may be harder for people from non-professor families to even think of it early on.


Is having done research a must when applying to a graduate program in CS?

In Europe you typically do not need any research experience or industry experience to get into MA programs.

You typically do not need this to get into a PhD-program either, but it helps to have something to show; a very nice MA-project, perhaps a published (or publishable) paper from your MA-work, popular publications such as newspaper article or similar where you communicated you subject, a nice open source project you contribute to, etc. Some contributions to the field you apply in. This is not a requirement, but it helps when candidates are evaluated. The admission for PhD-programs mainly depend on the research proposal you have submitted: do the comity have faith in your project, it's potential impact or interestingness, does it align with the institutions research goals, and does it seem realistic to complete in time?


Advice/guidance when interviewing for a faculty or postdoc job via Skype or phone?

A major difference from an in-person interview is that interpersonal visual cues such as eye contact are absent or impoverished (even in Skype, because of poorer resolution / latency / smoothness than actual reality) and a rapid verbal back-and-forth is usually impossible.  So it's more difficult to assess the interviewers' reaction and when they've had enough of your answer.

Typically the interviewer(s) want to hear you talk about your research for several minutes and will ask a few rather open-ended questions that are mainly designed to get you talking. You should run with that and just keep talking and let the interviewer(s) say something when they want you to stop- it's too difficult to try to monitor their nonverbal reactions. Some candidates make the mistake of not saying much, in an attempt to not over-sell themselves or in an attempt to act suitably subordinate. The interviewer(s) really want to hear you describe your work in your own words and feel your enthusiasm and general attitude.

The interviewers themselves will realize that it's difficult to have a normal conversation rapport so don't let any awkward moments or technical difficulties stress you out, the main risk is that you won't say enough.

To show you aren't off in your own world, you can't use the normal nonverbal skills very much, therefore be paticularly sensitive to the exact questions they ask, but once you answer the specific question feel free to answer more broadly, a broad perspective tends to impress.


What does "inclusive page numbers" mean?

The alternative is to include only the first page number, which is sufficient to clearly identify the referenced article but in this case the journal is wanting to use a style that includes the end page.
They probably included this in the directions because they cannot reformat references with missing info, and to save their publication staff the time of pestering the authors for the info at a later date.


The position of TA automatically comes with a certain amount of authority, which is referred to as legitimate power. Having said that, you can increase your perceived amount of authority by demonstrating expertise in the subject area (expert power). Expertise needs to be combined with the ability to actually communicate the complex material as well. It is much harder to communicate complex information than it is to be an expert in complex information.

In addition to these skills, authority can be further enhanced through softer skills such as demonstrating care for the students and providing additional support when necessary (referent power).


Is it wise to upload all the publshed research works to the Standard Paper Repository of Turnitin?

You should get legal advice regarding the consequences, and the intellectual property, legal or ethical issues that may arise from uploading your research, or student work, to their database.

The Turnitin blog seems to indicate that whatever documents you upload to the Standard Paper Repository will be further used (capitalized) to serve other customers:

  Opting to store papers in the standard paper repository contributes to report accuracy around the world; this is because papers submitted to your assignment will be added to our global database, allowing future submissions to any institution to match against your students' papers.

Several concerns have surfaced about these practices:

"Turnitin: If you're a student, all your intellectual property might belong to us"
"Anti Turnitin manifesto calls for resistance to some technology"
et cetera...


How to find an academic mentor as a professional

I think it this can be achieved. Here are some thoughts on how I would do it.

Many academics lack practical skills but require practical skills to evaluate and test their theories and get the publications they desire. These are the kind of academics who will be interested in working with you. To find them, you should first find areas of research that you are interested in where your skills are relevant. Find researchers in those areas who are looking for people with skills you possess (look for what they want for their funded PhD positions and Post-doc positions).  Based on this information prepare a clear value proposition - a set of things which you can offer the researchers, and what you would want in return.

Make contact. Ideally do this through a mutual connection who is well liked and respected. If that is not possible then you should try to talk with the academic face to face or on the phone so you can make it as easy as possible and create trust more quickly. Academics are often very busy and cautious of having their time wasted so this is important.

The suggestion above might seem like it involves too much commitment, but you will almost definitely need to show you can provide some sort of return for an academics time before they will work with you so unless you can show how working with you will get them publications or grants they probably won't be interested in helping you with your personal interests.

With that considered, if you are successful with your journal publication you will have a much better chance as the academics will be able to see that you have what it takes to write papers and thus infer that you will be likely to be able to get more publications with relatively little help from others.


How do I teach a course that has an extremely clear textbook?

For many classes, one doesn't have the students read the material beforehand.  I personally am having students do that in my classes this semester, but I'm also not typically lecturing.  If you are lecturing, I feel it is often counterproductive to make students read the material you will lecture on in advance (the ones that get the reading won't get much out of your lecture, and some of the ones who don't the reading may be wasting their time).

The main thing I suggest is to think carefully about what are your goals for the class, and use that to guide your course design.  (Are the goals just to have the students understand what is in the book?  Or something more?)

Here are a few concrete possibilities to consider:

Don't make students read the book in advance, just lecture.
Cover some of the material with out-of-class readings and some with lecture, and maybe have students present some of the material.

Or if you really want them to do a lot of out-of-class reading:

Even if it is a normal lecture class, you can treat many of the classes as labs, and give the students mini-projects to do (possibly in groups/pairs).
Since you said non-computer exercises aren't appropriate, come up with meta-exercise questions for students to discuss in groups (what are pros/cons of Method X?  how would you design Y?...)
Spend a little time reviewing the reading and design lectures around additional applications of the material.


How to prepare for being a TA (Teaching Assistant)?

Be honest and be yourself. Students will latch on to your discomfort and will use it as an excuse for their performance. I have found that if you are honest with them with a statement along the lines of "I am new to teaching, so please be patient while I work out my teaching style and get more comfortable. If you have any concerns about how class is going, please speak to me as soon as possible." they are much more forgiving of your mistakes which you are bound to make. There is nothing worse than students who feel they cannot pass the class due to your teaching, so allowing them to voice their opinions early can both help in your teaching (i.e., "You stand in front of the board too often." or "It would be more helpful if you spent a little more time going over X.") and in your students attitudes towards you. But be careful on this front, make no instantaneous decisions. I always will say something like "I will think about it and get back to you next class if the policy X needs to change." Always get back to them about it, even if it is a no.

Additionally, talk to other grad students and faculty if you are finding you are having problems with teaching. I would be surprised if your department or university had people did not staffed just for training of instructors for teaching duties. Talk to them and voice your nervousness, they are there to help. Even think about all your classes and what the professor did that you hated or liked and try to emulate the best attributes as best you can. But don't try to be these people, just be yourself.

The key here is talk to everyone, do your best, and be yourself.

Since you're just starting out, I don't believe that they would throw you in cold into a classroom and say "teach" without any forewarning or even knowledge of which class, but they might depending on where you are (and talk to other people about what to do quickly if possible). You will probably start out grading and/or doing recitations/review sections a few times a week until you are more capable/comfortable with maintain your own class.

Good luck in teaching and studies! I always think being able to explain what you know to other people is a true sign that you know it yourself.

Addendum: The books that earthling suggested will always help. If you are in mathematics, I also suggest How to Teach Mathematics by Steven G. Krantz. Even though it is written for those teaching math, it is also a good read for almost any new instructor, particularly in the sciences.


How to write an effective but very gentle reminder email to supervisor to check the Manuscript?

I will just write how I approach the matter with very busy supervisors until now. It has worked without issues and our relationships has not been impacted at all.

The best thing is to take responsibility of the submission process (if you haven't done that already). When you have either the manuscript ready to submit or after you have done the corrections on the reviewers' comments, you can send an e-mail to your supervisor telling him/her that you have done all the corrections and answered to the reviewers (if applicable) and you are ready to submit.

Put a deadline for the submission (not the journal deadline, but yours) and ask him to send his comments, if any, by then. You are planning to submit it on that day, unless you have his comments that require big changes.

Also ask him if he needs to change the deadline, then he can propose a new one. But don't leave it without a deadline, as it could go forever.


Authorship for insightful suggestion during a talk?

You should at least acknowledge the person who made the suggestion.

I would also ask this person if they would be interested in working with you to coauthor the paper.  If the person who made the suggestion is very senior or doesn't work in your area, then they'll likely be happy with the acknowledgement.

However, a suggestion like this, without any further involvement in the writing of the paper isn't by itself sufficient to merit coauthorship under guidelines such as the ICMJE guidelines for authorship.


What is a right way to criticize a published method in my paper?

There's no need to harshly criticize the authors of the first paper, however strange it seems, even if their approach is plainly wrong. After all, as you say, it appears that they are the only ones who actively worked on that research topic before you.

So, be constructive and build upon what they've done. For instance, you might write something like:

  Bob et al. [1] developed an algorithm to square the circle. This algorithm can square the circle in 198 steps. Here we present a modification of the original algorithm which can square the circle in just 87 steps. This modification is based on the observation that blah blah...


What is the "chalk talk" at job interviews?

I can't comment on how common this is outside of biomedical sciences (my field), but it's becoming quite common in this field.

In terms of what it is, the "Chalk Talk" is a chance for you to talk about your research (past, current, and future directions) without hiding behind Powerpoint slides.

You'll typically be given up to an hour to do this, in front of the hiring committee and/or faculty. You'll have a whiteboard/blackboard/flip-chart so you can draw down a key figure or two, or write an outline of what you're speaking about. It's less formal than a normal talk at a job interview - if you are asked to do one, expect to be interrupted and questioned throughout.

There are many reasons these are becoming popular. It's easy for candidates to talk through a deck of slides they've had weeks to prepare, and the hiring committee doesn't necessarily learn that much about them as people or scientists. This is more dynamic - it lets you see how people think on their feet - and gives a real opportunity for people to display their passion. It's daunting to speak for an hour with no props or prompts, but a good academic who knows their field, has a clear research plan, and cares about their work should be able to do this.

Source - personal experience (I have been on training courses specifically about giving chalk talks in faculty interviews, albeit in a different field).


Inventors on patent regarding research results

First of all, your legislation is what counts. Patent law differs substantially between legislations. The remainder of my answer is based on the situation in Germany - but similar rules may exist for your legislation.

  Is this an unspoken rule at many universities that advisors and co-workers are also inventors on a patent

IANAL, and I'm not even totally sure about the situation in Germany, but I'd look for spelled out rules in

the "employee invention law" (Arbeitnehmererfindungsgesetz)
if you are employee as well as PhD student: your work contract or the relevant collective wage agreement
you may have signed a contract for your PhD that has relevant clauses, e.g. stating that any invention you invent is treated as "academic invention" regardless of whether you are also employee of the university or not.
If you are PhD student but not employee (e.g. paid by a scholarship), things may be totally different.
If you are in a research institute which is not part of a university, rules again can be different (industrial invention rules instead of academic invention could apply)

I found a web site dedicated to "inventor's compensation" (in German and for Germany).
They explain rules to estimate how much the invention the inventor's own invention and how much the company contributed (influenced e.g. by whether you used the university lab + instruments, and by your profession: how much of an inventor you are expected to be due to your profession and job).
This website explains that for you as well as for your (supposed) co-inventors, a point value (according more or less to a check list plus some common sense) should be calculated, and the percentages of co-inventorship are then calculated as percentages of the sum of all co-inventors' point values.


How do I politely decline student requests to meet during my "research time?"

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]


Should all subsections of a paper start on a new page?

Depending on the length and complexity of the work, you choose the top level sectioning.

For short works -- scientific paper, lecture notes < 80 pages, etc., you in general use only sections and lower.
For longer works -- thesis, long lecture notes, books, etc., you in general use chapters, sections and lower.
If your long work has multiple sort-of separated parts, you can add parts -- notice, however, that usually, part numbering is independent. Therefore for instance Part I contains chapters 1, 2, 3 with some sections, and Part II contains chapers starting from 4, ...

Now, the standard way to go is to start parts and chapters on a new page, and leave sections running through the pages.

Needed to say, most standard publications (articles, conference abstracts, theses, books by standard publishers, ...) have to comply with some guidelines provided by the publisher, and these guidelines are usually very restrictive.


What's the point in waiting 6 or 12 months before allowing researchers to make their Belgium-funded article open access?

I think you are reading this wrong. It's not that you are not allowed to make something open access before this time span, it's that you have to after it when public money has been used. This is called Delayed Open Access (thanks to Anyon, who mentions this in a comment).

Specifically note that the journal is free to open up the paper earlier:

  The publishing contract may provide for a shorter period than that set paragraph 1.

(for instance, if you paid the open access fee). I think the most salient point is this:

  The right provided for in paragraph 1 can not be waived.

That is, you cannot sign a copyright transfer to a closed-access journal that gives them the right to not make it open access even after the closing period is over.

If you are asking why they don't require immediate open access, you are back at Najib's answer - publishing is a business, and presumably the Belgian legislation has decided that Delayed Open Access is an acceptable compromise between the publisher's interests and the public's interest in free access to scientific information.


A student sure can ask for re-grading, but he or she should have strong evidence that what was graded was better than perceived by the grader. It is a very bad idea to try argue how the teacher should be grading (e.g., asking her or him to grade according to what work you claimed you provided rather than the quality of your homework or exam). These questions are up to the teaching teams, not up to the students, and yes that makes the situation rather unbalanced. What you can do about this is to ask for a general change in suitable meetings if they exist.

Moreover, I would like to point out two things :

most of the time, grading is not for acknowledging good effort, but to measure if the student understood enough of the class to have a decent chance in the next one (at least in fields where classes depend strongly one on another, like in mathematics);
my experience tells me that students that consider they understand well but do poor exams in fact understand much more shallowly than they think, and their grades should be taken as an indication that the way they work is probably not good enough.


Is it self-plagiarism to reuse my own unpublished material?

No. Unpublished work is unpublished. It's almost as if it doesn't exist. Given that it is your work, there is no case of plagiarism. I don't even think you need to cite yourself --- what would you actually be citing?

Indeed, how would you prove that you plagiarised yourself?

If your unpublished work has been circulated among other authors and has been cited by them, maybe you can cite it too. But that seems a bit odd.


Recruiting participants online without money in social sciences?

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

a) Sites for these purposes

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

https://www.callforparticipants.com/

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

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

b) Social networks

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

Facebook:

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

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

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

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

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

c) Community based sites

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

d) Your local university network.

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

e) Corporations, NGO, Governmental organizations

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

d) Friends

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

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


MPhil applications - How flexible/sure should I be, and should I mention this possibility?

Typically departments (at least in the U.S.) will tell you on their website whether they have a preference about how you present your intentions.

I think you should try to get into a PhD program if possible.  However, you could apply to one or two master's programs just in case.

If your intention is to eventually get a PhD, just be honest about that.  In fact, for many departments, that would be a plus.

No one is going to hold you to what you write in your SOP.

They want to make sure you are motivated and have some sort of creative idea(s) -- but no one is going to check you against your SOP two years from now.

I'm not sure I covered everything.  To get useful responses, try to modularize.  It's okay to write more than one question.


What if a lecturer has to use the bathroom while on stage?

Ideally, you use the bathroom before lecturing which should prevent you from needing the bathroom during the lecuture. In cases where you are unwell, I find it best to let the class know ahead of time to tell them you are unwell and might need to suddenly excuse yourself, but that you will be back.

Regardless of if you have told the students in advance, if you must excuse yourself, do it politely and tell them you will be back in a few moments.


For a master-degree student, how influential a role do publications play in his phd applications?

Disclaimer: I am a current doctoral candidate with 2 years of experience as the graduate student representative on the admissions committee of my department (in STEM) at a major R1 university in the USA and so, write this answer from that context.

Simply put, a strong research record matters. However, this comes with several caveats. For a successful doctoral application in our department, we look at

1. Standardized Test Scores: These (GRE/TOEFL) will not get you in but can keep you out. Mostly, they serve as preliminary filters and to fulfill certain graduate school minimum requirements.

2. GPA/Academic Record: This matters significantly. Relevant grades in relevant courses matter more. A 4.3 GPA from MIT in Mathematics and Computer Science is great for a Mathematics or Computer Science application. We tend to look at overall GPA's and then at relevant courses to catch red flags. For instance, you want to develop novel machine learning algorithms but have a C+ on "Introduction to Discrete Structures" and B- on "Statistical Data Mining". Red flag !

3. Research Experience: Research experience is important but more so in different sub-fields. This is the same as publications but there are important variations. For instance, in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), having a first author paper in CHI or TOCHI matters more than a first author paper in a conference the admissions committee most probably haven't heard about. If you want your research to speak up, then get published in the best conferences in your field. This is not a requirement but is a very good sign of your nascent research potential. Over the past few years, I have seen increasing numbers of applications to our department come from well qualified undergraduate and masters students with such records. Its a competitive world !

4. Letters of Recommendations: This should be correlated positively with research experience. If your letters talk about your wonderful performance in coursework, admissions committees are generally not very interested (they can already see that from your transcripts). If, on the other hand, you have detailed letters of recommendation from researchers that the admissions committee might know and which attest to your research performance with them, then that is a very good sign indeed !

In other words, its all about signals, signs and red flags. Specifically, in response to your questions:

It varies.
Unpublished manuscripts are not worth much but can serve as a good writing sample in case you do not have any other publications.


How important is the TOEFL speaking score?

The level of the TOEFL or IELTS speaking score is important as a hard criteria for admission to graduate schools in the US because it is an effective first step for the university, the department, and the advisor to police against allowing specific situations to go wrong.

You may be supported by the department as a teaching assistant. In this case, you will have to interact with undergraduate students in labs, in recitations, or as they visit you to discuss their homework assignment or grade. Your ability to speak coherently and clearly is critical in all of these cases, but especially in the first two. Otherwise, the students will evaluate you as being unable to carry out your duties as a teaching assistant because you are unable to speak English.

You may be supported by a faculty member as a research assistant. In this case, you will be required to provide your advisor with verbal reports on your research progress and likely also to give oral presentations about your work. Here again, you ability to communicate coherently and clearly is critical. Otherwise, your advisor may evaluate the situation and decide not to continue to support you because the extra effort he or she requires to communicate effectively with you in English will delay achievements on the project beyond reason.

As a graduate student doing research in the US, you will be expected if not required to be able to communicate the results of your work to the community of researchers in the US in English. This means you will be asked if not required to give oral presentations at local, regional, or national conferences. Your ability to speak coherently and clearly will reflect positively on you. The inverse case is often more dire. When you cannot speak well in English, the net result will reflect poorly on you but can also be taken to reflect badly on your work or the quality of your project.

Graduate programs in the US also require students to take courses. The teaching approach in US graduate courses often if not always demands that graduate students interact verbally with the instructor and with their peers. Your ability to communicate effectively in English can and often absolutely will determine your level of success to complete homework, do project assignments, and pass quizzes or exams.

In summary, you must meet the required verbal score because not doing so is a sign that you can and likely will fail at one or another of your required duties to communicate effectively in English as a graduate student in a US degree program. Universities, departments, and faculty are not interested to support such cases of potential failure. They have enough applications that meet or exceed the speaking requirements that they do not need to waste their time on those that do not.

One possible exception to the above must be acknowledged. In some cases, the admission criteria to the university could state that verbal scores below the cutoff may be admitted but that, in such a case, the applicant (you) will be required in the first year to pass courses offered at the university in English as a second language. In such cases, university policy may disallow you to be supported as a teaching assistant until you pass the courses. Alternatively, faculty may not wish to support you on their research funding until you have passed the courses. The English language courses may run for a full academic year.

In conclusion, as one who has reviewed many applications to graduate programs in science and engineering, I offer you little to no hope to continue your application process until you bring your TOEFL or IELTS verbal score to the levels that are demanded in the admission requirements of the universities where you intend to apply. The best alternative is to have a faculty member in the department who will make the case to the department and the university to support you as an exception to the rules.


Advice on grading assignments and exams during Covid Pandemic

This is not a policy for a TA to change. The faculty is responsible for the course evaluation policy. TAs just help carry it out. This is especially true if there are many TAs since grading needs to be consistent over all the students in a course.
If you think a change is warranted, discuss it with faculty. But you certainly can do so.
But, the basis of this question is unfortunately too focused on grading rather than learning. It is learning that has become more difficult. It is also true that the methods we use to evaluate students (exams, say) has been affected and cheating has been made easier and harder to catch. If you want to make a positive change, focus on those things.
Personally I think standards of learning should not be lowered. But better ways to construct courses and evaluate students are required now.
Note that employers also are going through the same things that students are, so it is unlikely that they will ignore the difficulties that students face in hiring and in graduate school admissions.


Sexually harassed by postdoc supervisor and forced to quit

There are a lot of bad actors out there, of course, but not everyone. Your therapist can probably give you better advice on dealing with the future than you will get here.

But I'm surprised that you haven't raised the roof at the former institute, and/or consulted a lawyer. Reputable institutes and universities have offices that are supposed to deal effectively with these things. I don't know whether you still have access to them after resigning, but a lawyer is worth consulting here to give you the peace of mind that comes from fighting back against such improper, even likely illegal, behavior.

The perpetrator of these transgressions has no business being in the profession.  It was, among other things, an abuse of authority as well as common decency.

I can't recommend that you fight it, as you know the overall situation better than I do. Your own health is more important than any fight. So your therapist should be your first source of advice on this. But you can explore a fight for vindication with the therapist.


Why are some conferences no longer indexed by Scopus?

Scopus, just like DBLP, has standards.  In fact, if you look at Scopus' description of the conference coverage, it appears that they actually just scrape DBLP to get their computer science conference listings.  As such, while I don't know about the particular conference that you mention, I would expect that anything that DBLP drops, Scopus will drop as well.


Using MHRA, do I need to cite a translator when referencing an online text?

One of the several reasons for citation is to give credit where credit is due.  Thus, you must cite the translator.  How to do so?  Just like you would an editor.


Suggesting reviewers for a very sectorial double-blind submission

I would suggest (1), with a tweak. There is no need to mention that these reviewers may have seen it at a conference. As you said, it does not constitute a conflict of interest. That is the only reason you should mention additional information about a reviewer.

Let's be clear, there is nothing illegal about a reviewer having come across your work earlier. It may break blindness, but then, blindness is often broken in double blind reviews for various reasons (small communities, typical writing style, figure formats etc.). This does not really compromise the review. The only exception I see is if the reviewer is a petty competitor, who would use his prior knowledge to rule against your paper.

If you feel that any of these reviewers may be biased against the work, don't suggest them as preferred reviewers, regardless of their standing.


I want to help out my Professor, how do I ask? (Humanities)

Your thesis will be your research experience in the humanities, absolutely.

Speaking quite broadly, in comparison with the sciences, most research is done individually and published individually.  Thus, as your professor has said, focusing on your thesis —which you're doing individually, though with some general oversight from your advisor— is getting you that experience.

Again speaking broadly, consider the process that you've gone through / are going through / will go through for your thesis.

Read a lot of books and articles.
Come up with a really cool idea about something in one or more of them.
Talk to your advisor to decide how you want to approach the topic, maybe getting a handful of ideas of important articles or viewpoints, etc.
Find articles/books/chapters that contribute to your arguments.
Write your thesis.
…
PROFIT! (except for that student debt...)

Now, consider the process for most of us in the field when we write articles:

Read a lot of books and articles.
Come up with a really cool idea about something in one or more of them.
(Optional) Talk to colleagues (either friends, or via conferences) about how you're approaching the topic, maybe getting a handful of ideas of important articles or viewpoints, etc.
Find articles/books/chapters that contribute to your arguments.
Write your article/book/chapter.
…
PROFIT! (except this is academia, so not)

The only real difference is that you're working closely with your advisor, and later in the "real world" (academia), you're going to mainly work solo, except for occasionally consulting with others when you present preliminary work at a conference or when you bat ideas off of friend or colleague's head.  In both cases, though, the actual research work is done by you, the actual planning and development of structure/ideas is done by you, and the actual writing is done by you.

Or consider it another way, what kind of research help could someone give you that would actually be of help to you?  They can't come up with the ideas, because, well, then they get credit.  You don't want them writing it, because then it's not your thoughts and anyways you'd probably end up wanting to reformulate 90% of their arguments/word choice/etc to fit with your exact idea.  At best maybe helping you track down some obscure article that mentions some obscure factoid, but that's almost always going to be inconsequential to your overall development of the topic and hell, half the time when doing those searches is when you find the really good stuff for later articles.

There are some projects that are useful to have multiple people working simultaneously (especially nowadays under the banner of digital humanities), but if your professor needs people, they'll let you know, and as their advisee, you likely be the first student they ask.

tl;dr: Don't feel the need to be useful, just do a good thesis.  That will get you the best experience (and the best letter of recommendation).  If they need help, they'll let you know.


Pros and cons of informing students about the outcome of their course’s evaluation

If a complete process is put in place such transparency can be a good thing. However, doing half a job can be destructive.

I'll note that there are public fora in which students can Rate My Professor publicly. Some of the comments made there are very negative and hurtful. However, when such occurs, other students can counter the negative reviews with their own observations.

In light of this and my own use of soliciting anonymous feedback from students in a public form, I suggest that it is positive, provided, and provided only, that students seeing the feedback have a public way to respond - probably anonymously.

Yes, I realize that this can result in endless bickering, but it was never my experience. Bad reviews by bad actors countered by good reviews from good actors is pretty obvious, just from the tone of the replies. No one needs to make official judgements of the responses, as they speak for themselves.

I'll note that while this is opinion, it is backed by fairly long experience.

Many professors might fear such a system, but, for me at least it was entirely positive, even though some of my reviews were very negative. Better it be out in the open than just passed invisibly via gossip in the quad.

I'll add that I never had to reply to public negative reviews myself. If they were truly invalid, the students would put the record straight themselves. If they were valid, well, then, I needed to adjust something. I therefore wouldn't suggest that the professor's replies should be made public. For me it was never needed.


One at a time:

Why are there 5 reviewers instead of the usual 2-3? There're many possibilities, the two most likely of which are 1) they routinely invite five reviewers because historically, not all of them will accept. This time they did. 2) Some of the first reviews received were poor (your description makes it seem like so, but I don't know the details) so they invited more reviewers.

Do you need to talk to the editor about how they came to an out-of-scope decision with major revision reviews? Probably not. The editor's decided that your paper is out of scope already, which is usually equivalent to a rejection.

Does the editor suggesting you submit to a sister journal mean you have to go through the review process of that journal? Yes. The sister journal will have different requirements, and the editor might not even be a member of the editorial board of the sister journal.


Although I don't have any specific tips on structuring this type of paper, you might be interested in this list of journals that focus on publishing scientific software. You should be able to find lots of examples of "software" papers there. Those papers that I have read in Methods in Ecology and Evolution have been particularly high quality, and you might try starting there.


While in Phd I developed a lot of code that I want to turn into start-up. Can I do this?

I'm not aware of any blanket prohibition, anywhere, that say that you can't use code developed during a PhD for a commercial venture - but most Universities in the US will have some kind of intellectual property agreement in place to state what the process is for doing this.

You will need to check with officials at your University to see what agreements you are subject to - but you should go a step farther than this. Specifically, you should see what departments might exist that can actually help you.

In the US at least - and I'm sure many other institutions around the world - there are departments specializing in intellectual property, "knowledge transfer", corporate spin-offs, start-ups, entrepreneurship, etc. These can be a rich source of support and networking, if they are available to you, even if you have intellectual property agreements that assign various rights to the University.

Universities want to earn money for these projects, as I'm sure you do as well, and 100% of $0 is $0. Universities often heavily facilitate the process of converting this work into money, and it is not abnormal for even a place that has heavily restricted intellectual rights assignments agreements to assign use rights and royalty agreements that have zero cost for the first $200,000+ US dollars in income. There are often even startup grants available, accelerators (even if they are not called that - places that provide space and equipment to help starting businesses), introductions to investors, showcases, and more. You won't know until you ask and look for them, as where they are located tends to vary heavily by institution.

For the exact nature of the agreements that apply to you, we can't say; I've seen everything from "the student owns their own work" to "anyone funded assigns all rights and ownership to the University", and I'm sure there are agreements everywhere in between. You are right to check them out in advance of a major decision, but this is so specific that you'll need to talk with multiple people are your specific institution to see what applies to you. You may also need to speak with an outside legal professional (lawyer experienced in this area, etc) to verify, but your local administrators are your best first point of contact to see how things work.


Graduate Student Co-authorship Etiquette (Dissemination of Student Papers Not For Publication)

I understand why you are a little peeved that she offered to send it to the Dean without checking with you first, but I think you need to swallow your frustration on that point.

Instead, you need to figure out what your goals are.  Right now you are reacting: you are letting your emotions control your reactions.  Instead, you should figure out what end goal you want to achieve.

Do you want to make sure that the paper is in good enough shape, before it is sent to the Dean?  Then negotiate a timeline with your co-authors.  This might mean you both have to give a little: you might have to work extra hard to get your revisions in; and they might have to be willing to delay sending the paper a little bit until you've all had a chance to revise to your satisfaction.  That's a perfectly reasonable request.

Do you want to be listed as first author?  If so, why?  You said the paper is not going to be published.  So why do you care?  If you think your contribution means it is appropriate for you to be first author, and you care about it, then raise the point with your co-author.  But approach it with humility and gentleness.  Remember that we're human; we have a tendency to overestimate our own contribution and underestimate others, so you need to correct for that.  Also, definitely do not ask to be first author as a way of getting revenge; that is petty and beneath you.  Take the high road.

And, take this as a lesson.  Generally, it is best to discuss authorship early in the project, not wait until the very end.  In my collaborations, there is often an understanding from the start about who is the lead on the project; the expectation is that the lead has the overall responsibility and will most likely put in the most work, and in return will likely end up as first author.  These discussions about authorship are often easier to happen earlier than later.

Anyway, bottom line: Figure out what you want to achieve (what you want the end state to look like).  Then, figure out how to ask for that.  Set aside your emotions and your negative reactions to your co-author's initiative in moving things forward without checking with you first, and focus on what end state you want to achieve.  I suspect you might find that you share pretty much the same goals as your co-author, and there's no need to get upset or strain your relations with her.


Other authors are notified except me, good or bad sign?

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

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


Should I send a follow up mail to my potential PhD supervisor?

Always insist on what you want. But: Always be polite. Never be too pushy or write too quickly if you can avoid it. 1 week seems too quick.


Graduate School Application: should I mention where my working paper would be submitted

I'm in a business school and our norm is to list a submitted paper as "under review at so and so journal" on our CVs. People tend to update their CVs in this manner before heading off to the job market so that selection committees can see that they have projects that have progressed. I've served on a doctoral admissions committee in our department. Knowing that an applicant had a paper that was far enough along to be submitted would have put that applicant at the top of my consideration list.


Ph.D.-ed philosophers vs Doctors of philosophy vs philosophy Ph.D.'s?

To expand upon @MattSamuel's comment, any/all of the following probably work:

I work with...

...a group of philosophy Ph.D.s
...a group of philosophers with Ph.D.s
...a group of doctors. Doctors of what you ask? Philosophy.
...a group of philosophy researchers (ed. note: tends to imply Ph.D.s, but not explicit)

The simplest option in my opinion? "This is Dr. X, Dr. Y, and Dr. Z. They all study philosophy."


Short-Term Research Programs for International Students

For Australia: Endeavour Research Fellowships offer a 4-6 month research trip to Australia for most countries, including Iran (Endeavour).

For Europe: As mentioned in the comments, the DAAD offers a number of different scholarships for research trips to Germany. The Iran DAAD page is here and the pages for other countries can be easily found by searching.

For the USA: The Fulbright offers an exchange program for students to spend an academic year in the USA, but it isn't available for students from Iran (Fulbright).

Note that all these are for currently enrolled graduate students - if you are trying to fund research when you are in between a MS and a PhD then unfortunately I'm not sure how much luck you'll have.


How do I ask instructors for more challenging and/or interesting homework?

Why not just ask?  Maybe this seems naive but if you approach the professor and say, honestly, you don't feel you are doing as well as you could or even should be, they would be willing to discuss that; a student taking an interest in their learning is a valuable thing.  You can state your desire for creative questions, and ask if the professor has any recommendations for outside material, or has some of their own.  I can't imagine any professor being anything but delighted at the prospect of a student being self-aware of their performance hurdles and seeking more advanced knowledge in the professor's field.


What should I do when a former student tells me about misconduct from one of their current TAs?

Is this generally acceptable conduct for graduate students?

I think you know it's not. To tell someone that they are so bad at a subject that they should quit is definitely rude and out of line for pretty much anyone in a supervisory capacity, especially if their advice was unsolicited. That said, if someone asked for a fair evaluation, telling someone they might be more successful in another field isn't per se inappropriate.

It seems possible the TA was rude to her because of her gender. Anti-women bias in CS is well-known, books have been written on it. Unfortunately, we don't know right now whether this colored his actions. But, it does mean you should encourage her to report his actions in case he has been similarly rude to other students, but especially women.

As for what you should do, I recommend you help her and be supportive if she decides to make a complaint. However, you shouldn't make it for her. I say this for a few reasons, in decreasing order of importance:

You've stated you didn't witness this exchange, so as it stands, this is an issue between your friend, her TA, and the professor. So all you have to go on is what she said. It sounds like we both believe her that the TA was very rude, but maybe there was a language barrier on either or both parts.
You're not a professional advocate. You don't want to do something wrong and sink her case for her.
It's my personal philosophy that it's not your place to try to take care of someone's grievance like this yourself.
Unless she is committed to anonymity, the professor is likely to want to talk to her anyway. You can't answer all his questions as well as she can. But if you are willing, offer to come with her to the meeting with him for support.
Gender affects every interaction we have. The possible  gender issues only make this case more delicate. I would suggest any man to not try to "handle" this issue for a woman unbidden. (It doesn't sound like you are, but a note for other readers).

I would only go so far as to offer to pass on an anonymous letter that you put your weight behind, if she doesn't want to reveal her name to the professor. I would just stay away from putting her complaint into your words.


Should I consider quitting my Ph.D. after 6 months?

First of all, put aside your cum laude moniker. You are not in undergraduate anymore, you are in graduate school, and while you were miles ahead of your peers before, you now find yourself in a mix of your intellectual peers. This should be expected.
Second, there is no reason to be shy about raising your concerns in full disclosure to your advisor(s). The alternative is that you eventually leave anyway, so why not be brutally honest?
Your 'confusion' may stem from a lack of clear direction and path forward.  You can mitigate this by forcing yourself to write down you academic goals, and devise a plan to meet them, within reason given your advisors' interests and capabilities, of course.
Most of these things can be solved through communication; but unfortunately in higher academics communication can be difficult.
If you decide to go a different route, just make sure it is for your reasons and not those that are circumstantial.


Can I ask for co-authorship if I share code and am willing to help applying code to the problem?

You can discuss with her and her advisor whether your help warrants authorship, but it would be rather unhelpful to refuse her even if she or her advisor declines.  I would say, if this is true, (1) Sure!  I'd love for more good research to come from my work! and (2) Since my project isn't published yet, we'll need to include a good description in the methods and it probably makes sense for me to be a coauthor.

If the target journal particularly advocates open-data and open-access, you might have to release your work in order for them to get it published.  It's important to talk through first to make sure everyone's okay with that.  In general it's a fantastic idea since it means that work is not so difficult to replicate, and if you have a valuable tool maybe others will benefit from it.  But when you're laboring to finish your own work in time and worried about its perceived novelty, it can seem a little less appealing.

Just have the discussion (in a friendly manner) now so there aren't any unpleasant surprises later.


What happens if a student takes pictures of a test and sends it to classmates that have not already taken it?

Your friend engaged in outright cheating. In nearly all universities, what they did is a major violation of the codes of conduct that students are rightly expected to abide by. This isn't a "grey area" situation, your friend knowingly did something that was very wrong and I cannot imagine that the university authorities will see much cause to show leniency in this case. Further, as there were likely only a limited number of student who took the test early, your friend is likely to be caught. The professors probably already suspect who it is and are gathering evidence. I doubt your friend will have time to go through the whole process of transferring before they are found out. Further, if one of the few students who took the test early suddenly applied to transfer, it would look quite suspicious.

In this situation, there really isn't much that your friend can do. The ethical thing to do would be to admit what they did and accept the consequences, with the faint hope that coming clean will lead to some degree of leniency. That said, if self preservation is the only concern, they can sure attempt to transfer before they are caught.

As for you, as a budding academic, choose your colleagues and friends wisely. People's bad actions can rub off on you and they can bring you down with them. Someone willing to do this is a poor friend to have indeed.


Currently with a research group for my Master's degree, but am receiving no directions. Is this normal?

I find it odd that you have been given absolutely no guidance whatsoever. That doesn't quite sound right. While your advisor may not give you step-by-step guidance to getting started, a little bit of a start by explaining a problem to tackle or suggesting some recent review articles to look at would be the least an advisor could do to get a student started.

When you're done with your higher education, the goal of it will be to enable you to become an expert in a field in which you haven't studied or explored. Learning how to learn is the most important skill you can develop—and your advisor should help you to build those skills!


Why do PhD students volunteer at conferences?

tl;dr No registration fees, networking and attending relevant sessions.

There has been some talk and background informationabout this already. See this, this, this and this for some background. With this background, IMHO, the primary reasons why PhD students should be volunteers for major conferences in their line at least once are:

First up, no registration fees. Yay ! Primary reason one.
Networking with other PhD student volunteers who are likely to be PhD students in similar departments working on similar stuff. For instance, most student volunteers at CHI 2013 are PhD students from HCI/CS/IS/ischools working on HCI stuff. Its great to meet with peers and bond with them. [Yay for student volunteer party !]
Possible networking with relevant faculty. This could be someone from the organizing committee or the program committee or someone else who you come in close contact with for the duration of the conference. There might be a certain someone who is a good researcher in your line and whom you might want to keep in touch with in the future. Getting in touch as a student volunteer in a conference might be one such strategy.
Picking and choosing conference sessions/tracks to attend. You could, with some dexterity be the student volunteer in charge of a track or a session or a panel which you are really really interested in watching. As a student volunteer pretty much, you stand and assist and you do get one of the best seats in the house, albeit by standing. :)


Can more than one person share PhD thesis?

my question is can we (my brother and I) submit this proposal for the university so we both share the research?

Yes, assuming the university and supervisors don't object.

  do we have to provide 2 seperate research thesis?

Yes (in general). You can work together throughout, but, ultimately, both of you need to uniquely identify your individual contributions. I'd suggest that one of you takes the lead on each work package and that work package is considered their individual contribution, whilst the other provides support. Resulting publications will list both of you, but such publications will only appear in one thesis. (There's some flexibility here, since you might both include material from some publication. Your supervisors can help you work that out.)


Can a theoretical proof-of-concept be published?

From your description ("I have done a bit of math, and it seems to check out"), it sounds like you have ended up in an entirely ordinary and reasonable piece of theoretical/analytical research.  Indeed, such research can be almost precisely characterized (informally) as doing a bit of math and seeing if it checks out.

The question of publishability then boils down to whether your simplifying assumptions are considered reasonable (which you can argue and test by comparison with prior work, both theoretical and experimental) and whether the conclusions reached by checking it out are interesting and significant.

Bottom line: go forth and publish (in an appropriately scoped venue)!


Measuring daily/weekly productivity in academia

If you are doing true research then I doubt that you can measure "short term productivity" meaningfully. You can keep track of how many papers you read in a week and how many gallons of a reactant you use up in a month, but they aren't real measures of progress, just of activity.

The problem is that progress in research requires insight and insight can't be scheduled. "I'm 30% of the way to a major insight in mumble mumble mumble". Well, maybe.

In some fields, other than research, you can do some things. Sometime in the previous century I was told by my writing/English professor that he knew a famous author who wrote every day, starting early, and only finished when he had made "one page" of progress toward his current project. So, he could write a short story every three weeks or a novel every year. But even there it wasn't always possible, because to make that one page of progress you might have to completely restructure your story, throwing out many many pages.

In research, you can go for a long time making little 'visible' progress. You accumulate small insights, but often don't recognize them until later. Then, hopefully, you get the big insight. Possibly this comes as you are falling asleep after a long, seemingly unproductive day, or when you are finishing up a fifty mile bike ride.

Research is, by definition, exploring the unknown. Scheduling activity is possible, but not insight. But, hopefully, you will know it when it happens.


Criteria for choosing undergraduate school to prepare for graduate study: "focus on undergrads" & "extensive rigorous curriculum" mutually exclusive?

You'll need to decide for yourself which sort of school is the best fit for you educationally (this is a highly personal decision, and a school that's a wonderful fit for one person might drive another crazy).

However, I don't think a focus on undergraduates matters much regarding preparation and admission for graduate school.  Not even in the ways you'd think it should, like getting good letters of recommendation: there are disproportionate numbers of students in top graduate programs who attended institutions nobody would describe as focused on undergraduates, so this is clearly not keeping them from being admitted.  In particular, faculty at universities with strong math programs know what it takes to be admitted to top graduate schools, and they provide what's needed.  You might have to put in some effort to make sure you don't fall through the cracks, and this could be a hardship depending on your personality, but for many people it's not so difficult and in any case it's a valuable life skill to develop.

If you're looking to judge universities by how well they will prepare you for graduate school, the main factor I'd look at is how many students they send to graduate programs you might like to attend.  If the number is large (relative to the size of the undergraduate program, of course), then that's a very good sign.  Clearly they're doing something right, and you'll have the benefits of a strong peer group already as a undergraduate.  If the number is small, then you should worry.


Should I do my Ph.D. with a supervisor who rarely responds to my emails?

This depends on you and how you prefer to work and how able you are to carry on alone. Some people thrive on that. Others find it impossible.
Of course, the delays might just be explained by the fact that there has been on commitment yet on either side. They may respond differently once you get a formal relationship.
In some cases it is possible to correspond with other graduate students working under this professor to see if you could expect anything different from what you've seen so far. Do that if you can find a channel to do so. A former student might give you a more accurate assessment, actually.
But there are some warning signs. Don't ignore them unless you are capable of carrying on alone.


How to get work done whilst feeling crippling shame?

This sounds a lot like depression, first step is to go see a professional. The fact that you are sharing your experience and identifying what is going wrong is already a good step in the right direction. Share more, don't walk this journey alone. The best I can offer is general advice (things that worked for me). I believe too many people suffer without sharing, so thank you for sharing your story.
What helped me get through it was as follows:

Identify the next exciting thing that you would rather want to start with or do once this is out of the way (a new job, a vacation, a new task, a hobby).
Break down the work into the smallest possible chunks you can (e.g. write a paragraph on X, containing the following points, or improve on X by trying things 1 - 10, or code one six line function).
Then every day, just try to tick one of those off the list. Write one sentence, the next day try to get to two, the next day to three and so on.
The hardest part is to start. Just start. Think of one thing and just type that out, even if it is nonsense and you know it is. You can always come back later and improve on it.
Forget perfection, just get the stuff on the paper and tick off the tasks, see the progress.
Once everything is "done", critique the work, and write the things that suck about it as recommendations for future work.

Edit:

Forgive yourself every day! What you are going through is a completely valid experience, and you don't have to beat yourself up about it.

The upside of this experience is that you can now more easily identify the next time it pops up and act on it more quickly.
Best of luck. Its not easy but definitely doable even though it does not feel that way.


Regarding literature search I can give you the following suggestion: It sounds you already found some papers that are somehow related to your topic. Maybe your advisor already has some related work in this area? That would also work.

With this publication at hand there are two options to find new interesting work in this area: The reference section of this publication and the publication venue. Look up where the publication was published and read more papers from the same venue.

  At this point, I'm just putting in search terms and finding papers that seem to fit within the general area of my paper and taking notes on Evernote. But, I feel like this could be structured/targeted so much better.

However, for me it does not sound that literature search is your main problem. It is structuring your work. It sounds odd, but whenever I come to this point, I start to write the paper or thesis or whatever your goal is.

So just start writing up any thoughts you already have, include the notes you already have with the citations to the papers you already found. This does not have to be a coherent text, just a bunch of unfinished text segments. Eventually you come to the point where you have no notes and no own thoughts left. Then you will see what is already covered by related work and where you still have to find other publications. But now you know what to search for and you can use more precise search terms! Be prepared to rewrite every sentence several times afterwards, but you get the feeling that your work is proceeding and that is a huge motivation boost.


Definitely don't try to cover everything. This is certainly not expected, and as you noted, is just not possible in a limited amount of time. What they likely would want to see is if you can explain the main points of your research in a succint way. Trying to cover too much will force you to rush trhough the material, making it difficult to follow. You can still show that you master a subject without getting into all the technical details. Indeed, it takes a good understanding of a research problem/project to be able to place it into perspective, to explain the main motivations and the most important results.

So what should be in the presentation? Different people will give different advice, but I think the following guidelines are sensible. First of all, you should identify the one or two main results of your research. Make sure that you have enough time to cover them, for example by addressing the main points in the beginning of your talk. You can go into the details (such as the methods you used) later on. Another important item is the motivation behind the research. Why did you research this particular problem, and why should people care about it? This might also be a good point to briefly mention the state of the art of the field, and explain how your work extends this. Towards the end of your talk you could go more into the technical details, but take into account that most of your audience may not be an expert on your topic.

And finally, make sure you practice your talk a few times. Ask a few more experienced people whom you trust (and can give good feedback) to attend a practice talk to give suggestions on how your presentation can be improved. Don't worry if it seems like you would have to redo the entire thing: this will only make it better.


Maintaining sustained productivity and enthusiasm

I think you have some imaginary researcher in mind. They may seem to be working but without any productivity. They may take "breaks" by moving from task to task, say working on a problem, getting stuck, working on a lecture, thinking about family, back to the research problem, etc.

I think there is research that suggests that breaks aid productivity. I've found that active breaks, are very useful when creativity lags. Bike ride. Then back to work. Aerobic things are especially good.

Taking regular breaks or "breaks when needed" can actually help you avoid burn out.

But, more important, when your mind gets into a pattern of ineffective thought, hammering at the same problem over and over is less likely to be effective than putting it down for a bit. Even a nap can sometimes break a log-jam.

My advice is to not try to work past your natural limits. When you feel the need for a break, take one, even if it is only to walk around the room for a few minutes. Even stretching exercises. Anything to get your mind out of the rut that suggested the break was needed.

Don't over glamorize work. Probably you are misinterpreting what you are seeing in others.

On the other hand, many people can (occasionally) get into a groove and are very productive for several hours running. There is a flow and you just ride the wave. I used to do that when programming. But you can't schedule it. Serendipity. It comes. It goes.


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

A poster of which you're not the first author is such a minor thing I wouldn't worry about it (even if it is listed on the conference website).  I don't have a huge publication list but still only include posters I presented (aand only at major conferences).  They don't have anything like the CV impact of a peer-reviewed paper.

Either:

You were accidentally omitted and should be included. In this case the author should contact the conference organisers (but it's probably too late).
Or your contribution was rather minor -- perhaps it only became apparent that your work made it onto the poster at all at the last minute.  In this case while you're named as an author it's closer to an acknowledgement in practice.

Listing it as a publication, if the title can be searched for but you're not named, doesn't seem like a good idea.  Realistically no one is ever going to look.  But if you just happen to come up against someone who's interested in something very specific about the poster that you don't normally do, it isn't going to help you.


Am I too late to get research experience before applying for a master program (Canada)

I don't know any specific expectations in Canada but I doubt the expectations about research experience are very high when applying for a Master. Also you seem to assume that informal experience doesn't count, but it probably does: for instance you could do a small project, e.g. reproducing state of the arts results for a problem of interest and analyzing the results. It might not count as much as a formal research internship but it certainly qualifies as research experience. If a professor accepts to guide you in such a project and gives you a good LOR at the end, then it's virtually equivalent to a research internship. At least that's how I would interpret it, but you should discuss this with somebody involved in this particular Master programme.


Admission into top engineering graduate programs with a GPA just below the cutoff

From another answer I wrote

  I have seen people get into harvard within 3.20 range and I have seen people get rejected with perfect 4.00 from "lesser" schools. From what I have seen it is more about what a transcript / application tells rather than whatever the GPA is... I fear no one here would reliably be able to tell you your odds with this amount of information. Even if you disclose every information you have available to yourself, the recommendation letters written about you will have significant implications.

With that said, from what I read and heard, I begin to wonder if some schools are too trigger happy with student ellimination. They usually get a lot of applications and there is no real way to order them swiftly and reliably. I fear they might employ tactics like:

Elliminate everyone with an F
Elliminate everyone with GRE score < some percentile

It is hard to say if this is a general trend or not.


What to expect as a supervisor's first PhD student?

I was my supervisor's first Ph.D. student and I survived the experience...

Although your advisor is almost certainly trying to do a good job, the simple fact is that neither you nor your advisor has ever done this before so mistakes are likely.

My advice would be to make sure that your dissertation committee includes some more experienced faculty and get them involved in the process (e.g. by having meetings with your full committee, having the committee review dissertation proposal and attend presentations that you might give on the work) as early as possible.


Listed school on interview but not on application

It sounds that you knowingly, and intentionally, deceived the school you were applying to by mentioning that you were working at a university, but leaving out that you were a PhD student in your statement of purpose. The fact that you mentioned that you were currently a PhD student during your interview makes the behavior a little less atrocious. That said, I have never heard of a graduate program punishing a student for omitting information from their statement of purpose.

As far as the transcripts are concerned,

  at the time of application I was enrolled for only two months, and was not taking courses, so I did not upload a transcript on their site.

again, you were not fully honest, but it is not obvious to me that all universities can generate a transcript for a student during their first semester when they are not taking any classes.

Again, nothing bad is likely to come of your behavior, that said, in the future, you should just be honest and forth coming about your situation.


My previous advisor published a paper with my work and did not include me as a coauthor or give an acknowledgement. How to continue?

Contact the editor responsible. Talk nicely to him, and ask him how to proceed.

Since a friend of yours is included as coauthor without his knowledge,  you have quite some leeway. If one of the authors asks for the paper to be withdrawn because of incorrect attribution, this may very well happen. Such behavior is considered scientific misconduct.

Also many universities will have an office responsible for processing with plagiarism and other scientific misconduct, and may be able to assist you with drafting such emails.


I had a rough first year in undergrad— what now?

Although this question may be out-of-bounds for this site... Well, "obviously", you'd want to do better in the future. True, screw-ups are not a plus, but, well, it's already on your record, so what can you do other than try to do better in the future. To give up on your ambitions would be nonsensical: if you don't try at all, sure, you won't fail, but you also cannot possibly succeed.

From my own perspective, it is very clear that many talented, motivated people in late teens and early twenties do screw up. (Not to mention older people too!) Obviously not a good thing, but, yes, quasi-ironically, people who've been through mistakes are sometimes (!) wiser and more effective than people who've magically avoided all mistakes.


Is it a good idea to link your LinkedIn profile in the CV section of your dissertation?

Your question indicates that you want to use a link to your LinkedIn profile in your CV because "it'll be far more up to date than the CV in my dissertation." Are you suggesting that (a) you are going to include a CV that is not up to date, or that (b) your LinkedIn profile will be updated over time and that you won't be able to go back and edit your dissertation?

If you mean (a), then no, you need to keep your CV up to date and a link to an online profile will not work. Your academic CV should always be kept as up to date as possible and it should absolutely be updated before you submit it in an application or include it in a dissertation. If you are doing your CV correctly, it will include different information than a LinkedIn profile and there is a strong expectation that every academic will have one.

If you mean (b) and are just worried that an archival copy of your CV will be out of date, sure, add a link to LinkedIn or similar. My CV links prominently to my academic homepage on at a permanent (i.e., non-university) URL, which is kept up to date, and which includes a link to the latest version of my CV at all point. I include a date in the footer of my CV although folks will have a date in your dissertation. Personally, I think this is better than relying on a for-profit company and its URLs for posterity.

In terms of the QR code, I'd skip it. These days, almost everybody who reads the dissertation will read a soft copy. A hyperlink will be much more useful. I suspect that a QR code will just end up make the document look dated at some point in the rather near future.


Submitting a paper to a conference whose scientific committee includes an academic from a grad school you want to enroll

The chance that a rejection would have this impact on your graduate school application is extremely low.

First, check how many members the program committee has, and realize that only 1 - 3 of them will look at your paper at all during review. Second, even if the paper is rejected, there is a chance that the person handling the paper will have forgotten about the details after a year or more. Third, even if they remember, they may not hold it against you, especially if the conference is very competitive, but rather look at the positive things you show in your application.

On the other hand, think about how acceptance of your paper would later on increase your chances of getting admitted to this graduate school! This would be something that you put in your application anyway, so there's no problem with it being forgotten, and it will make a positive impression even if that particular committee member was not the one to handle your paper. It is definitely a "risk" worth taking!


I recommend against adding an in-text citation, but you could use a footnote if you think it's important. But it may not be. For example, if you were interviewing someone about current theories on some topic, and the person referred to 8 different theorists in one paragraph, it would disrupt the reading of the text to add all those citations. An interview is what it is---less formal spoken language unburdened by the necessity of validating statements with citations. You can add bracketed changes to a transcript when something is really unclear, but you shouldn't amplify someone's speech because you think it's missing something. Take it as it is and do any amplifying in the following text.