If you are asked to participate in review, is your submission likely to be accepted?

It's unlikely that a decision has been made yet about your paper.  At least in the sorts of conferences I'm familiar with, no decisions are made before the program committee meeting (except possibly eliminating completely inappropriate submissions, such as crackpot or off-topic work).  This means all reviewers are recruited before any decisions are made, since all the reviews are needed at the meeting, so being asked to review supplies no information about whether your submission will be accepted.

The only correlation is that you shouldn't be asked to review something too close to your own submission, to avoid conflicts of interest.  If you are worried about that, you could always ask the program committee member who recruited you as a reviewer.  It's possible that they just screwed up, without realizing the potential conflict, but it's more likely that they think this paper is far enough from your submission to be safe.


No, reviewing is not mandatory, it's just good community service.

When I'm soliciting reviews, as an editor or program chair, I would actually much rather have people who don't want to review simply decline to review.  It does mean that I have to search for more reviewers, but it's much preferable to getting low-quality reviews or no review at all.

Moreover, there is always a limit to the amount of service that one should be expected to do.  If you're reviewing a good amount of papers (see discussion in this question about how much is enough), you should feel free to triage. Just be polite when you decline: even with things you don't want to deal with, it's usually better to simply say "I don't have time right now" (true enough) than to offend a person by completing the sentence with something like "... for your crappy journal" or "... for this horribly tedious-looking paper."

Of course, there is always the possibility of encountering an ego-centric jerk on a power-trip, but life is too short to spend all of fearing that you might encounter such.


My postdoc advisor just now said she cannot support me after 6 months. What should I do?

Given that your contract wasn't finalized, there probably isn't much you can do.

But there are a couple of options, all risky. You could ask the PI if there is any chance that additional funding could happen to at least complete a year. The answer might be maybe and you could decide to take a risk and do the short postdoc and hope for more. In fact, you could ask to be first in line for additional funding. You might actually be able to help secure funding as part of your work.

You could also, just drop out of the position and search for something better, provided that you have some way to make that work.

But looking for another position immediately is certainly a smart thing to do.


Does a recommender need information about my current job?

Yes, it's normal and very good for him to have this information.

Think about it.  Which of the following letters (slightly exaggerated) seems stronger?

  I was Adamia's PhD supervisor.  She wrote her dissertation on XYZ and obtained nice results on P, Q and R. Since then she has been a postdoc at ABC.  I have no idea what she's doing there and I really don't care, it's probably not that interesting.

It shows that you used to be doing good work, but doesn't establish a continuing record.  Compare with:

  I was Adamia's PhD supervisor.  She wrote her dissertation on XYZ and obtained nice results on P, Q and R. Since then she has been a postdoc at ABC, where she has been working on J, K and L, and published two papers in top journals.

If he can address your current work in your letter, he can assert with more conviction that you have an ongoing pattern of success that is likely to continue into a new job.


What is a cv including the marks obtained in BSc and MSc?

As far as I know any school will require your transcript for a phd program. If they already have that information then I would say that its the CV with GPA included (which is completely normal), if not I would send them CV and your transcript.

You can always contact the school and they'll tell you exactly what you need to send in.


How much score in GRE computer science subject test is considered 'good'?

As @davidshen's answer points out, my answer is now moot, because the GRE subject test in computer science is no longer offered.

For most applications to strong departments, there is no good score on the GRE CS subject test; there are only bad scores.  A score below the 50th percentile is a red flag, indicating significant gaps in your undergraduate CS background.  (The raw score is completely meaningless to most people, even those of us who work on admissions committees; only the percentile score matters.)  But graduate school is about research, not standardized tests, so no GRE score is good enough to get you accepted.

There are a few exceptional circumstances where a high GRE score actually gives some useful information.

As Daniel says, a score in the 90th percentile or better can partially make up for a poor GPA.  (It worked for me; my GPA was worse than yours.)  It's probably not enough on its own, though.  (It wasn't for me.)
GRE scores are useful for calibrating GPAs of students from unknown schools.

On the gripping hand, many graduate programs (like mine) don't require GREs; their admissions committee may not even think to look at your GRE score unless you point it out in your statement of purpose.


Could teaching at community college for a few years harm my career?

I'm worried that it would create a record of affiliation with a low-ranked university that would make people see you as "from" that university, and thus be biased against hiring you. Is there any truth to this?

I think it depends when you do it.  If it is in between your master's and PhD, as you somewhat tentatively suggest: well, I know many people in my academic field (mathematics) who paused in between degrees to teach at the high school level, most commonly for two years.  I have seen absolutely no stigma attached to this.  On the contrary, when people have to make lightly educated guesses as to whether a certain candidate will be a good (read: not problematically bad) teacher, then holding a teaching job for more than one year pushes that guess in a positive direction.  Teaching at a community college is generally viewed as a "higher level job" than teaching at a high school, so I think this should carry over.  As a specific example, within fairly recent memory we took a PhD student who had been teaching at a community college.  She got her PhD and now has a tenure-track job at a university.  So: no stigma here.

(The above answer assumes that you have made it into a PhD program and have kept up your "higher academic skills" as much as other candidates.  Whether that is the case is up to you.)

The part of your CV after you get a PhD will be viewed with much more scrutiny, both in terms of chronology and specific jobs held.  If you want to get a tenure-track job at a research university, any post-PhD academic employment other than a postdoc or tenure track job at a research university will count against you.  (Sorry.  I don't make the rules -- I'm just reporting the situation as I see it.)  Even taking an industrial job might not count against you as much as teaching at a community college: in my neck of the academic woods an "industrial job" is an enigma of blankness eliciting neither delight nor scorn -- our eyes just slide right off of it.

Let me say though, that while teaching at a community college between degrees is a possible trajectory to an academic career, it does not necessarily make sense to me for someone to plan on that in advance.  That is to say: why are you contemplating taking a break of several years from your graduate studies?  If the answer is because you feel a bit burned out or that you want the chance to figure out whether an academic career is for you, I think you need to know that the post-PhD academic job market is one step shy of airtight at the moment.  It is not for the faint of heart or the uncertain of commitment.  I suggest you think carefully about your long term goals and whether a PhD is really a necessary part of them.


What are some good practices for applying to the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program?

I think it's helpful to understand how NSF graduate research fellowship applications are reviewed.  [Caveat lector: This answer was written in 2012; the application requirements and the evaluation procedure have both changed significantly since then.  I strongly recommending consulting someone who has been on the review panel more recently.]

Each application consists of the following components: a 2-page personal statement; a 2-page description of past research; a 2-page description of proposed future research, transcripts, and exactly three recommendation letters.  If you attempt to send four, NSF simply refuses the fourth letter; on the other hand, if only two letters arrive by the deadline, your application is rejected without review.

All 10000+ applications are reviewed in a single three-day physical meeting.  Applications are split into 30+ subject areas, each considered by a separate review panel.  Each panel has 20-30 members and reviews 300-400 proposals.  (All these figures are ballparky; panels vary in size depending on the number of applications.)

Before review, applications are divided into levels based on the applicants' time in graduate school: None (30%), less than a semester (30%), less than 12 months (30%), and more than 12 months (10%).  All level-1 applications are reviewed together, then all level-2 applications, and so on.  Expectations are significantly higher for more experienced applicants.  The precise expectations obviously vary by discipline, but in computer science, pre-students need a credible research plan, early students need publishable results, and older students usually need multiple publications.  The "more than 12 months" level is only for people with extenuating circumstances, like a significant change of field.

The 12-month limit counts time that applicants have actually been registered, not time since entering their first graduate program.  So a student who started a PhD program in August 2011 and does not register for classes this summer will still be eligible in September 2012.  If you want to apply in your second year, do not take classes your first summer.

Each review consists of a "letter grade" (excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor) and a narrative evaluation of "Intellectual Merit"; a letter grade and a narrative evaluation of "Broader Impact"; and an overall numerical score.  The panelists use the numerical scores to cluster the applications into four categories: Yes (10%), Maybe (25%), Honorable Mention (5%), and No (60%).  NSF uses the narrative evaluations to decide which Maybes get fellowships and which get honorable mentions.

Every proposal is reviewed twice, the proposals in the No pile are retired, and each of the remaining proposals is reviewed a third time.  Thus, each reviewer reviews roughly 35-40 proposals.  On average, each reviewer spends 20-30 minutes on each proposal.  That's just enough time to read each of the documents once, make a snap judgement, and then assemble a narrative review from a pile of boilerplate sentences.  It's brutal, especially because most applications are strong.

So anything you can do to make your reviewers' life easier will work to your advantage.  Every component of your application should directly address each of the two main review criteria.  In particular, all three statements and all three recommendation letters should include a paragraph describing intellectual merit, starting with the phrase Intellectual Merit in boldface type, and another paragraph describing broader impact, starting with the phrase Broader Impact in boldface type.  Both paragraphs should say something specific, substantial, and credible.

For security/privacy reasons, the review panel does not have internet access; reviewers are not even permitted to use their own laptops.  So if you use your StackExchange participation as an example of broader impact, be specific about how you participate; the panelists can't look up your answers or your reputation.

Another point to keep in mind is that reviewers are probably not experts in the applicant's chosen subdiscipline.  An application by an aspiring astrophysicist studying planetary climatology (to make up a random example) might be reviewed by a high-energy astrophysicist, an expert in planetary formation, and a string theorist.  Yes, your statements must include enough field-specific technical detail in your statements to be credible, but the overall goals and merits of your proposed research should be clear to a broader audience.

For fine details, it's always best to talk with faculty in your field who have experience with NSF fellowship winners, either as an advisor, a reference, or a panelist.  (The most useful letters read "I have written reference letters for x NSF fellowship applicants, of which y were successful; I would rank this student among the top z of those fellowship winners.")  It's also a good idea to talk with past fellowship winners in your (target) department; ask to read their applications and their reviews.

See also NSF's advice.


Student dissatisfied with exam grade: what to watch out for?

By asking for an exam, the student asked you for a fair, honest, informed evaluation of their mastery of the course material.

If you believe that the exam grade fairly and accurately reflects the student’s mastery of the course material, say that, and explain why.  Be respectful and honest.  Stick to your guns.

In particular, you should have some record of your announcements of both the contents of the exam (“How was I supposed to know this?”) and your expectations for certain grades (“Why did I get this grade?”)—the course syllabus, or a handout, or email to the students.  You should have sources/proofs for the correct answer for each question (“Why is this wrong?”), rubrics for awarding partial credit for partially correct or suboptimal answers (“Why did I get so few points?”), and well-reasoned rules for converting raw exam scores to reported grades.

If you do not believe that the exam grade fairly and accurately reflects the student’s mastery of the material, then you need to reevaluate the exam for all students. You’ve already done this by throwing out one question and curving the scores.


What is proper author order when you write paper based on colleague's work?

In this particular case

Author of the framework
you
your advisor

but that is strongly dependent on your local and institutions' customs and practices. Ask your advisor informally. When still in doubt, always add yourself second to the first draft. If appropriate, your advisor will suggest moving you to first position, which is a lot less embarrasing than the other way around (your advisor suggesting you should take your name down a notch)


Can two people use the results of their publication for their theses?

This depends on your country and university regulations, etc. In general you can use the results of your papers in your thesis but e.g. in my case (Europe) if I would use a paper that I only co-authored I would have to indicate what I did myself and what was done by the other author(s).

On one hand it would not be understandable to me if you could not cite a paper in your thesis (and you should be able to also indicate that you are one of the authors and that you did this and that in the paper). Citing papers in other papers/books/thesis is something you should do to clearly state where the results you are using come from (unless it is a textbook stuff).

If you are about to copy-paste parts of the paper or the whole paper then yes, this may be different and could strongly depend on your university regulations and I expect you would be at least required to clearly state what you did yourself.

On the other hand it is probably never a good idea to go against your advisor directly. Ask him/her about this, say what would you like to do with the paper, hear them out in detail what is the problem with that and propose a solution. If this is a case of regulations then there is no going against it as you would only harm yourself. If this is the case of ethics then your advisor should and hopefully will explain the situation - that is also what advisors are for, or at least should be.

I would like to give you a better answer but at this point I really miss the background and big picture to do so.


My guess is that the time in processing status follows a roughly bimodal distribution. The first peak is when everything goes well, and certainly occurs before even a day has passed. The second, presumably broader, peak depends on how long it takes the automatic processing system to fail, and someone to have a look at it. I don't know where this second peak is located, but the point is that I expect there to be two "normals", depending on whether your submission had technical issues or not. Personally, I'd feel justified in contacting arXiv after three days or so.


Best certification for requesting disability accommodations for GRE?

Follow the instructions given by ETS. They are very specific about what kind of documentation they need.

Give your current psychiatrist the link and ask if he/she can provide everything on it, and if not, what he/she recommends you do to collect the necessary documentation.


Professor I am working with asked for my code

You seem uncomfortable sharing interim results with  collaborators. That goes against the collaboration spirit and I implore you to share all results. In the future, don't start a collaboration with anyone who you aren't willing to share interim results with.

  I am just afraid this other professor will be using (a modified version of) my code and then not include me on a any manuscript that will be resulting from the code.

You are afraid this other professor will commit academic fraud, steal intellectual property, or both, seemingly without any basis for concern. Again, I implore you to share all results. (Although I think it is unnecessary, you could defend against this other professor by making interim results available online.)

Read the comments, they are excellent.


Is it appropriate to ask a professor via e-mail for a letter of recommendation?

In-person requests are always the best route, because you can gauge willingness and eagerness to write the letters much more directly than via telephone or email.

However, if you can't be there, because you've moved away, then it is of course appropriate to ask for letters by email. Whether or not the professor will grant the request or not is of course a question. However, I would mention that you've moved (and where you currently are) as part of your request, so that the professor knows why you're not able to come in for a meeting if asked.


Is it conventional to provide topic related word definitions in a glossary?

Since your thesis is about  Rubik's cube a section where you establish cube vocabulary, complete with definitions and examples, is entirely appropriate.  You can duplicate some of that material in the glossary, but I suspect your readers won't need to refer to it often. I would not introduce abbreviations or acronyms for "cubie" and "facelet".
The first time you introduce a standard algorithm like depth first search you explain how it works and note that you will abbreviate it as DFS. You put that in the glossary.


Removing a part of a paper during major revision

What is common is for the author to improve the paper as much as possible, hopefully making the reviewers happy. What you suggest makes sense, though so would factoring out the removed material into other formal publications sooner rather than later.

You could ask the editor, making your case, or you could just resubmit your best version according to your current understanding. I'd include a note as to what you have done along with your reasoning.

But there is no reason why you can't also prepare the long version in parallel, in case the editor would rather have that.


How to understand if it's the moment to become a team leader?

As someone has noted, much of this is down to your personal preference, but there are a few notes I would make on your question, your thinking behind it, and what it entails:

Postdoc

Your characterization of a postdoc isn't necessarily accurate - especially the parts about scientific freedom and adapting yourself to the scientific strategy of the lab. In my lab, I deliberately recruit postdocs with strengths that are not my own, and rely on their expertise to help guide strategy. Similarly, when I was a postdoc, my interests in several different approaches to a problem were something the lab indulged, even if they were decently far afield from their "mainline" work.

Junior PI/Team Leader

It's not clear here what you mean by "Junior PI" - if you merely mean that you'll be new, and not senior faculty. But when it comes down to it, you're a PI, or you're not (and note depending on the project you might not be - for example, I have some full professors who are on a project with me who are adapting themselves to my scientific strategy, because in this case I'm the PI).

But the advice I give my students and postdocs is this: You should be ready to tell your own story. Not an extension or adaptation of mine. You're ready when you can string together what you've done into a coherent whole, and be able to point to a spot on the scientific horizon supported by that story and say "I'm going to head that way." But it needs to be past "I used X method", "Y question was asked and here's the answer...", etc.

Note, some people don't care to get there, and live long, fruitful, and scientifically interesting lives.

And the flippant, slightly bitter answer: When you're tired of doing research and want to spend your time in meetings and answering email. ;)


Best way to politely remove someone from paper authorship who planned to contribute but did not?

Removing people late in the preparation stage of a manuscript is always prone to bad feelings. It is of course unfortunate that this is a fact. This is why it is always a good idea to try to set up some ground rules for authorship (or contributorship). There are many posts under the authorship tag that discusses the Vancouver Protocol which is a set of rules under which authorship/contributorship is determined. I usually provide the link to ICMJE as an example. The basic idea is that to be listed as author you need to fulfil certain criteria. Some have even devised a point system to calculate if a person is worthy of authorship/contributorship.

But, to answer the question when you face the fact. There is no easy answer. You could decide to be strict and simply state that no sufficient contribution has been made (quoting the Vancouver Protocol list). How badly this is received is something only you can evaluate. And, only you can assess if you think it is worth it if the consequences are in some way "high cost". You can also decide to let this one slip through and make sure you have a clear arrangement around the next manuscript you write. I also think it is a good idea to start introducing ideas around authorship/contributorship in your research environment. I am sure many will dislike the topic but you are on safe grounds. Remember, many, maybe I should say more and more, journals request lists of contributorship and provide a basis for evaluating them (usually following the Vancouver Protocol list)


Citing unpublished figure from an ex colleague

The correct thing to do is to cite them for the figure by name, if they will permit it. List the citation as "private communication". You should also probably indicate the it is "adapted from a private communication..."

You have committed plagiarism if you give the impression that you are the source. But it is easy to avoid with a citation.

You can probably handle it in acknowledgements if you are clear about what you are acknowledging. Use language similar to the above.


First author submits manuscript before final approval of all co-authors

An article should not be submitted to a journal (or otherwise distributed) without the explicit approval of all the authors. All authors can be held responsible for the contents of the article: errors or frauds committed by the first author can be blamed on the other authors as well. (Remember Yoshiki Sasai.)

This said, as a matter of convenience, some authors may give their go-ahead in advance and/or without seeing the last version, if they sufficiently trust the first author. Still, they should say it explicitly.


It sounds like an unpleasant environment to me. But still, this is one incident, right? So it might make sense to wait a little longer and see if this was a one-off or fits into a pattern.

If this turns out to be a pattern, you shouldn't stay in this lab beyond your Masters degree. If you really need a publication from your Masters degree (something that's not at all required in my field, for example), you should actually consider going to a different lab. If you feel like your supervisors anger, or your colleague's backstabbing, is too much, go to another lab as well.

While you are in this lab, there is surprisingly little to 'handle' about the situation. Just do your work, as separate from your colleague as possible, ignore your supervisor's anger but do try to get as specific feedback from them as possible, finish your Masters on time, get your recommendation letter and leave.

This answer sounds incredibly jaded and that's because it is quite self-centered: this is just a way for you to get through your Masters as painless as possible.


Reject a paper based on relevant but pointless research direction

Generally, as a reviewer, you are being asked for your opinion of the paper's correctness and its significance (importance, level of interest, etc).  Evidently in this case you think the results are not significant or interesting enough to publish in this journal, so you should say so in your review.  If possible, you should explain why you think so: the authors don't give any compelling applications, the results are only a marginal improvement on what's known, etc.

This isn't reason to decline the review.  Thinking the paper is uninteresting isn't "prejudice".

If the editors don't agree with your assessment, they are free to disregard it and publish the paper anyway.  But you do have a responsibility to give your honest opinion.

In fact, I would suggest that you evaluate the paper's interest before you start to carefully check its correctness.  If you believe it's not significant enough to publish, even if correct, then you can so inform the editors and save yourself the time.

There are some exceptions, where the editors may only be interested in whether you believe the paper is correct.  Perhaps they are already convinced it is sufficiently important (from their own opinions or other reviewers), or perhaps "importance" isn't a criterion for publication in this journal (e.g. PLOS One).  If that's the case, then the review invitation should make this clear; otherwise, do consider the paper's importance as part of your review.


What happens if the speaker dies on the way to the conference?

It is up to the conference committee to decide in exceptional circumstances. This is probably all that can be said about this.


Accessing research databases with company computer?

You should check with your library policies, but use of academic library (and other) resources for work outside an academic educational/research context is very likely against policy and may violate the licenses by which the university has obtained access to material (i.e., the library has obtained a license for the students and staff of the university to access the material for noncommercial purposes related to academic research and education; they likely have not obtained a license for those students and staff to access the material for commercial purposes outside the university).

Using your company's laptop might be a bit of a grey area since you are transferring materials to the property owned by the company; if you are using the company laptop for academic purposes, you might be in violation of company policies but it has nothing to do with the library access. Whether simply accessing library materials from a commercial source if you are not using those resources to do non-licensed work (i.e., to use the access for commercial purposes) seems like a question only a lawyer could answer, and you won't get legal advice here.


What can I do with multi-subfigure figures on ResearchGate.net

One answer, hinted at by @Anyon's comment, is to generate, for each figure, a PDF with the subfigures laid out as they are in the full work - and upload that. Perhaps one also needs to include the subfigure captions in that PDF.

This seems like a lot of hassle, but perhaps one can make LaTeX automate this somehow.


As Gnometorule mentions in the comments, you'll find a variety of other types of assessments.

The three most common ones for end-of-course assessment are the exam, the project, and the paper, but they definitely aren't the only things that can be used to determine a grade.

In literature classes, and I'd imagine the majority of humanities classes, papers are a more common form of assessment.  Even exams, when given, are more paper-like being in essay format.  In most math courses, on the other hand, you'll tend to find exams are more common.  In computer science courses or the visual arts, projects are probably more likely the substantial source of grades.

It's also not uncommon, at least in the US, to find other elements of courses counting for part of the final grade.  Participation can be an important element of discussion classes, or classes where interaction with other students is very important such as in music or theatre courses (and those may also have a performance/recital as part of the grade, though that may be considered a test of sorts).  Homework may also be counted as a portion of the grade.  Portfolios, which can be a sort of mix of hybrid of homework and/or smaller projects, are also relatively common.


Are journal papers published in journals more useful than arXiv papers when applying for a postdoc?

ArXiv papers are preprints, not publications, so their value in the context of a job application is definitely lower than a paper that has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. In your example, assuming all other things being equal, the answer is that yes, the job candidate with 3 journal publications would be at an advantage relative to you with your 2 journal publications and 1 arXiv preprint.

Of course, all other things are never equal, and papers differ enormously in their quality, scope, and significance, so that it’s quite possible that your one arXiv preprint might still end up overshadowing any of the three journal publications of the other candidate. So I would advise you not to get too caught up in these sorts of numerical calculations. The number of papers has some significance, but it’s very far from the only thing people care about.


Thoughts on Student with Bad Grades in Easy Courses and Better Grades in hard courses

The comments are a bit surprising to me. I had several Bs and 2 Cs on my transcript (overall GPA 3.57, though my major GPA was more like 3.8), and I got into a very good engineering graduate school (US top 10) for my PhD. Maybe my admissions process was special in some way.

Some things to think about:

At many schools (see comment), nobody can tell from your transcript what the class average was for the course you got a B+ in (or any other course)
Nobody can tell that you got a B+ because you were bored

If you want to bolster your chances, stop slacking in the "easy" courses. Find some undergraduate research opportunities. If you did so well in your graduate courses, those professors might be worth approaching.


Do Mathematics Grad schools in the US expect a research paper from a Masters Student for admission into a PhD Program?

As mentioned in the comments, no.  In the US, there are typically 2 master's tracks one can take: a thesis option (with some coursework) or a non-thesis option (more coursework + exams).  Most students I know who do master's degrees in the US (many of whome go on to PhD programs) do the non-thesis option.  In fact, many undergrads do a non-thesis masters (or something like Cambridge's Part III) to help them get into good PhD programs.  So in the US, in contrast to some countries like Japan, it is not expected.


Does a significant participation weight on the final grade increase classroom discussion?

It is of course difficult to judge objectively whether a discussion is productive, but there is some literature on the subject.

A 2010 review [1] on classroom participation in college says about graded participation:

  Course policies on participation as set by the instructor also impact student participation. Berdine (1986) and Smith (1992) suggested that whether or not students participate depends on how much their participation counts toward their final grades. The “pearls of wisdom” approach where students record their participation each day to count toward their end of semester grades was found to be effective in increasing participation in the assessed course and reported to increase participation in other courses (Junn, 1994). Fassinger (1995a, 2000) suggested that students should earn extra credit rather than counting participation as part of a student's grade, and Boniecki and Moore (2003) and Smith (1992) found that rewarding students with extra credit did increase participation.

and

  Mandatory participation (Dallimore, Hertenstein, & Platt, 2004) and calling on students, even when they have not volunteered (Auster & MacRone, 1994; Dallimore et al., 2004) can both be effective practices for encouraging participation. However, Moguel (2004) noted mixed perceptions of cold-calling, and Karp and Yoels (1976) noted that this happens in only about 10% of classroom participation.

The paper by Dallimore, Hertenstein, & Platt [2] mentioned above uses a student survey, and asks students what they thought was effective at improving classroom discussion:

  A questionnaire was administered to students on the last day of the course. We asked students to respond to questions regarding what professors do or say that: (a) increases student participation and (b) either increases or decreases the effectiveness of the discussion.

Some students cited graded participation as increasing student participation:

(This is part of "Table 1 Student Responses Regarding Quality of Participation and Effective Discussion Factors")

However, they used cold-calling alongside grading participation, which students seemed to find important:

  Notable in Table 1 is the fact that graded and required participation is a major category that emerged for both quality and effectiveness. Respondents repeatedly identified the importance of graded participation, suggesting that instructors should "make it a significant part of our grade." When asked what a professor says or does to increase the quality of student participation, grading and requiring participation were regularly mentioned (including responses which would be considered cold calling according to our definition). For example, one student observed, "the fact that professors call on most students to answer a question increases my incentive to prepare [thus enhancing discussion quality]."

A more recent study [3], also using a student survey, found that in a survey before the course,

  43% of students surveyed indicate they participate more when participation is graded.

After the course (which had required, graded participation), a little over 40% of students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "I participated more in this class because participation was graded":

(Table 5)

and roughly 30% of students said they participated more than in other courses:

(Table 6: Participation Comparison: Current Course to Prior Courses)

[1] Rocca, K.A., 2010. Student participation in the college classroom: An extended multidisciplinary literature review. Communication Education, 59(2), pp.185-213.

[2] Dallimore, E.J., Hertenstein, J.H. and Platt, M.B., 2004. Classroom participation and discussion effectiveness: Student-generated strategies. Communication Education, 53(1).

[3] Paff, L.A., 2015. Does Grading Encourage Participation? Evidence & Implications. College Teaching, 63(4), pp.135-145.


The first rule of thumb is never do work without clarifying authorship. (This is usually harder said than done, especially if one is a graduate student).

Based on the limited information you have provided, it seems that authorship may be warranted here. If your analysis was used, especially if your "explanations of how to interpret the results" were used verbatim, you need to be given authorship. If you are in a position to do such, I would send a short email to the professor and explain that you feel your contributions deserve authorship. It costs the professor nothing to add you as an author. Since you are outside academia, you have the option of not working with the professor further. Regardless of the outcome, you can still list the project as a project you participated in as a statistician.

This will be somewhat field specific. Such practices could be confirmed by looking at other similar papers and seeing what type of attribution the statistician was given. This will also back your claim if statisticians are usually given authorship in the field.

Also note that a poster is not the same as a journal article. Authorship for posters is usually somewhat loose; authorship for journal articles is much more official.


Publishing in a SSCI indexed journal for Computer Science Researcher

This strongly depends on each particular country's bureaucracy, and on your planned career path. Unfortunately I don't think there is a single answer, but rather you will need to look at the requirements of the specific grants you will be requesting, specific positions you will be applying for, etc.

For example, I'm in a similar position as you and located in Spain. I need to publish in SCI journals for my promotion and tenure applications, because here if you are at a science department SCI is king and the rest counts practically zero for those purposes. However, when applying for a project grant I have been successful going to a non-CS panel and highlighting my publications in non-CS venues, and when applying for EU funding I have been successful highlighting good conference papers in my subfield (which is really where the most relevant publications are) and not even mentioning SCI. Americans in my field go straight to conferences and not even bother with SCI, Chinese do publish in SCI because it seems to be a requirement there, some offers for positions I have seen in northern Europe just list a mix of SCI journals, non-SCI journals and conferences that are relevant, etc.


All my papers have alphabetical author lists, but an award application asks for author lists to judge contribution

If you are concerned, you may want to include more information about the culture of coauthorship in mathematics.  For instance, you could enclose the following updated AMS culture statement.

As a mathematical "lifer," I want to be honest: the way that we handle coauthorship in mathematics does sometimes obscure the individual contributions of the authors.  On the job market, this is often circumvented by getting letters from one's senior coauthors describing the contributions you made.  You might consider doing that here, or that may be too heavy-handed for this case.

You could also talk to a mentor in your department and see what they think.  They may have more experience with what happens at the university level.


Asking for recommendation letter before beginning internship

You're hugely overthinking this.

It's normal for an undergraduate project student to ask their supervisor for references
It's normal to be making applications, and requesting references, before your course of study is complete

Consequently, your future supervisor knows that he may well be asked to provide a reference for you and doens't need "warning" of that fact now. Asking him now won't cause him to increase your workload, although it's unlikely to do any harm (context: OP seems to consider an increased workload to be good) either.

That said, once you know what you're applying for, you should give him details and ask him if he is willing to provide a reference well in advance of any deadlines. This will give him time to prepare a reference letter (or whatever's required) and will enable him to tailor it to your specific applications; it will also prevent him being caught unprepared if they just phone him and ask him about you.


How much time does each stage of paper in Elsevier Editorial System (EES) take?

Each electronic manuscript handling system typically has a set time frame for each part of the review-revisions process. The systems have default values which, I would assume, are what most journals use. It is, however, possible to custom make the different time periods for each part of the process.

1.Submitted to Journal:
This usually does not involve a lot of time and a reasonable time frame might be 5-10 days depending on factors such as workload, time of year etc. The step might involve inspection of the quality of the submitted material, but not necessarily.

2.Editor Invited (Conditional - this step may not occur):
This may again be another 5-10 days and may be affected by workload etc.

3.With Editor:
The main problem that occurs here is difficulty to assign reviewers. The editor may also be overloaded with work. The time frame is likely something like 3 weeks but will vary.

4.Under Review:
Each journal has a time frame and  3 weeks is what I am accustomed to in my field. Reviewers that accept reviews and never return them is a problem here. How quickly the editor tries to assign other reviewers to speed up the process will vary from person to person and journal to journal.

5.Required Reviews Complete:
I am not sure if you actually mean revisions here because typically the author gets about 3-6 weeks to revise the manuscript. This is another point where delays can occur but they are self-inflicted.

6.Decision in Process:
The decision process may require some time since the editor needs to read the revised manuscript and the revisions/rebuttal from the author to make a decision. In many cases there is cause for another round of reviews which would loop back to 4 and 5.

7.Completed – Accept:
7 could be 6 if the manuscript gets accepted after one round (rare in many circumstances).

Once accepted, the manuscript goes to copy editing and type-setting. This may be a quick process depending on the resources provided by the publisher. Journals using LaTeX have the advantage of having print ready proofs basically at the turn of a switch.

To sum up. Each of these steps can take various amounts of time depending on the working conditions at the journal as well as the expedience of reviewers and authors. I think the time frames I have outlined are reasonable but that does not mean all journals will be that quick (or slow, depending on your view).


Should it be publicly or privately posted on YouTube? From my
  understanding, the videos are being made public.

Private, and the instructor should be telling students how to do this and reprimanding them if they are not.

  What advantages with respect to simply asking for the paper to be
  handed physically or scanned and e-mailed?

well, the student seems to be explaining their thought process in the video. this could help the professor correct students who are astray. Something that will be hard to do when students are remote.

  Does it provide good proof of authorship? I.e. people can hardly
  re-use a handwritten paper delivered to the teacher, but knowing that
  the student's face is not on the video and the teacher may not
  recognize the student's voice, I'm unsure it gives reasonable
  confidence that the student is behind the microphone doing the work.
  Maybe a student reposts an old (deleted) video if the exercise has
  been used in the past.

This seems like it could be an issue, but I feel as though it would be about as big a problem as other forms of cheating with "in person" assignments. If teachers can recognize two similar papers, there is a pretty high chance that they would remember an entirely copied video. You also should be able to notice if someone isn't able to explain the work they did properly.

  It this nice for one-shot experiences, or is it functional for
  continued usage? I.e. could a teacher give the same video assignment
  over several years? Possibly with the same exercise problems?

Functional for continued use, although the instructor should still be teaching each week. I had an instructor record each lesson and upload it to a private YouTube playlist for review. If class was missed he would simply take a previous years video and upload it, and then ask if there were any questions. It was insanely helpful as a student and I think almost every teacher should do it (I still go back to some of those lectures for review and the class was over a year ago).

  Are there any intelectual property or image rights concern? I.e. for
  music/movies, performers/actors are continuously paid for exhibitions
  of their performances, while intellectual properties such as the
  contents of one's thesis are often waived to the university. What if
  these videos are later included for paid online courses?

Yes there are, but if the videos are private and only used by students in the class, you should be fine. Videos like this should only accompany an in person class, different things should be done for a completely online class.

  Is there any advantage for the professor with respect to simply asking
  the video file to be delivered on a Dropbox folder or similar cloud
  storage method?

YouTube is probably easier for students but Dropbox is probably a little more secure. By that I mean the only security private YouTube videos have is that you can only find them if you have the proper link. In theory students could share the link and work ahead, or someone outside the university could have access to the class. I have known some teachers that won't record lectures because of this (god forbid learning takes place).


Will an advisor schedule a PhD defense just to get rid of an underperformed student?

Based on what you say, I doubt that there are any issues other than getting yourself prepared. The comments here at this writing are all valid. It seems like she just deferred to your own judgement about scheduling but was giving you a way to extend prep time if you thought you needed it. I don't read anything negative in to that.

Likewise, I can't see any professor scheduling a defense just to "get rid" of a student, whether a superstar, a typical student, or an underperformer. In fact, in the latter case, most would rather give the student time to come up to whatever standard is expected.

Some professors, of course, when faced with a seriously underperforming student would be more likely to counsel them to leave academia and find a more suitable career before possibly facing a failed defense and then carrying that record for the rest of their lives. But there is no hint of any of that here.

Some professors press their students pretty hard to finish, but because they judge the student ready to move on.

But, you did ask, and you were adamant. You can live with that and get ready, or you can go back to her and say you misjudged and would, indeed, like a bit of extra time, if that is what you really want.


I am an Undergraduate Student who landed a job as a Data Scientist. Should I pursue a PhD and can I do it while working full time?

There cannot be a definite answer to your question, because we lack basic information regarding the project, arrangement etc.

I think the best way to find out if something like that is possible is to consult your local department where you finished your BSc, the people with expertise as close as possible to your future project, who will be able to judge if this makes a valid and potentially fruitful research plan. If yes, then I do not think you will have big problems admitted to the PhD program.

As a side note, observe that you might be asked to deal with some Master level courses/exams etc which, if you work full time, and depending how difficult is your department, will not be a piece of cake.


Is it considered rude to address a PhD holder as sir or miss?

I'm a male PhD holder from a private university in Malaysia. This answer is based on my personal experiences.

It is very common for me and my male colleagues to be addressed as 'Sir', and I have not personally come across any (local) academic staff for whom this has been a problem. Generally, 'Sir' is considered suitably respectful, especially as it's pretty often used as a translation for the Malay 'Tuan' or various Chinese dialect honorifics which could alternatively be translated to 'teacher' or 'professor'.

This is slightly different in universities with significant foreign teaching staff (I also have experience with 2 such examples), where some staff take more notice of these titles, but even in those situations I've not yet seen any academic staff take offense. It's easy enough to introduce ourselves to students with something like "Hi, my name is So-and-so and I'd like to be addressed as Dr. So".

That being said, please do not use 'Miss'. That's only partially acceptable in very Chinese-centric institutions, and not at all acceptable outside those. 'Ma'am' is much better, even though not as well known locally.

Finally, considering our local culture, there's probably a hard age limit above which you'd wish to be very careful how you address a teaching staff. Generally speaking once the academic staff is mid-40s or older (or old enough to be your parent) you should be more careful in including titles. The younger staff just starting out generally do not mind.


What do you do when your best friend cheats and has become top 10 in class of 250?

You say that several students are cheating. This is actually good in the sense that you maybe can avoid specifically naming your friend.

One option is to contact a relevant faculty member (ideally one that you know and trust) and say that you know that several of the top graders are cheating. A second option is to do this anonymously.

The advantage of doing this anonymously is obviously that people will not know that you reported this. The disadvantage is that it may be less credible.

BTW your friend is completely incorrect. It definitely does affect you, since the ranking and the prizes can affect your future career. If she can't understand that, then she perhaps isn't such a good friend.


What to do with dead times during your PhD?

The best thing to do in the summer after your "third" year of PhD is to take stock of where you are and where you want to be. Then you want to create a plan to get there - basically, write yourself a realistic roadmap, working back from what a successful job search looks like.

In Economics, you will be focused on the job market in year 5. You will want to be prepared to convince committees that you are a good hire - that you are prepared to hit the ground running and get tenure at their institution. Look at the CV of the hires from this round for your ideal institutions and compare your CV. Do you need another paper? A grant? A major award? Make a list.

Then create your calendar. Put on important deadlines. Plan when you want to submit other things and what the turnaround is likely to be (it will be long).

Keep in mind that the fifth year is basically a wash. You don't achieve anything of note. You may finish an R&R, but other than that, refining your job market paper and your presentation plus applying to and interviewing for jobs takes all your time. If you are not clear on what that year will look like, read some of the excellent job market guides from AEA or Econ bloggers. Also consider the book "The Professor is In" or Vitae columns.

Given this, I would probably argue for thinking hard about grants and what proposals you might want to have ready to send during year 5. This involves some real generative, creative work. It means thinking about what you want your research agenda to look like as an Assistant Professor. Having this sort of thing in the pipeline will be impressive to hiring committees.

Once you have done this, you should also consider doing things that make you happy. See some family and friends and get some exercise. Or do something vaguely work related but actually pleasant like creating your website or signing up for some summer institute/workshop. This summer is the last time you will have to really kick back (presuming you are worrying about moving after you graduate)!


The academic standards require that the paper explains how the compound was obtained, so that the results can be reproduced by others. So, either:

The product is commercial, and the paper should say how it was obtained? if it's not stated, you can ask the authors for the provider and reference.
They extracted the product from a natural source, and then the authors will describe the extraction procedure.
They synthesized it, and thus they report the details of the procedure, as well as the reagents used (and providers). You can buy the reagents, and reproduce the synthesis.


I used a fork of a GitHub repository whose paper I cited – should I also cite the fork?

You should cite the original paper and the GitHub fork.  You are obligated to cite all sources you used, even if they overlap.  Your methods should also state exactly what code you reused.


Advice on publishing original theorems with easy proofs

There's a good chance the rejection is because your results are not interesting enough for the journal. In other words, the journal is looking for not only new and interesting results, but also complicated proofs and/or new techniques.
So: submit to another, probably less prestigious journal. Alternatively, you can submit to a similarly-ranked journal and hope the peer review process results in acceptance, which is entirely possible, because this particular reject reason is a judgement call and different people will come to different recommendations.


Where to find curriculum for a specific program?

At many US institutions I believe what you are looking for is often called a "course catalog". This generally lists degree programs, what courses are required for each major/minor, as well as a description of each course and their associated credit load.

With this phrase in mind a quick Googling returned a variety of listings for top Universities:

Carnegie Mellon Undergraduate Catalog
MIT Course catalog
Undergraduate and Graduate catalogs for University of Wisconsin-Madison

If that's what you were looking for, just the magic phrase "course catalog" will help in the US. But in other countries? Well, a search for a course catalog for University of Cape Town in South Africa produced a link to the student "handbooks", which appear to be the same thing as the US course catalog.

It appears each country has their own preferred term for what to call this, so finding the magic words for each country might be a bit of a trick.


Does it look bad if letter of recommendation comes from an emeritus professor?

The best reference is the one that is both honest and based on extensive firsthand knowledge of your qualities. Emeritus status would seem irrelevant to me.


What kind of research experience is a good or satisfactory research experience for grad school admissions?
How do you set the threshold?

There is no threshold.  Instead, graduate admissions committees judge research experience on a continuum.  At one end are things that hardly count at all (e.g., independent textbook study described as research).  At the other end are extremely impressive publications.  Most undergraduate research is somewhere in the middle, and how meaningful it is can be difficult to judge.  To help the committee, you need to explain what you did, why it is interesting, what your contributions were, and perhaps what you learned from it or got out of it (especially if it didn't lead to a publication in a high-quality journal or conference).  It's also important to have a letter of recommendation that addresses this research, to evaluate your contributions.  If you just mention a paper on your CV, without giving this sort of background information about it, then it probably won't help your application much.

Will I get an edge over other people with no publications or who does not want to publish at such places?

It's hard to predict.  Nobody's going to be counting papers or setting thresholds for impact factor.  Instead, the committee will be looking for two key things:

Have you demonstrated the ability to do research?  (Some people get wonderful grades but do not succeed at research.)

Do you have enough experience to know what you are getting into in graduate school?  (Some people think they want to do research, but when they discover what research really involves they change their minds.)

Instead of worrying about thresholds and quantities, I'd suggest focusing on making sure your application satisfies these criteria.


Should I notify the teacher that he accidentally gave out the answers to an assignment?

Send him a polite email explaining that, while you completed the assignment on your own (which I am assuming to be true), by stumbling upon the solutions in advance you had a hard time doing anything different. Professors are people--he should recognize his mistake and appreciate that you were forthcoming. Chances are he'll reassign the project or discount its weight toward your grade and just tell people to review it anyway because you need to know the material. The sooner you say something the better though. Indeed, after a while it may look like you were trying to hide it from him.


How should I use a laptop in class without distracting others?

Professors don't share the same rationale so mileage may differ. Usually, the younger ones are more forgiving. Those born before late Generation X (aka 1970 or before) are more likely to feel awkward because in most of their education life, portable computers had not been made popular. So, personal computer and laptop were/are much less integrated into their daily life.

In fact, it's not the laptop, it's what the laptop being used for and the manners of the owner's. Here are some guidelines, most are in my syllabi as well:

If the syllabus does not require a labtop but you'd like to use one, inform the professor through e-mail for permission. This step, however, can be skipped if the majority of the students have started using one since the beginning.
Sit to the side or back so that your screen will not interfere with other students' line of eyesight.
Mute all sounds.
Be courteous about where to plug your charger and make sure no one will trip over the wire.
Type quietly.
Refrain from doing anything other than tasks related to the materials being covered (no Facebook, Reddit, Youtube, games, porn, jokes, e-mail, IM, shopping etc. even you think you have nailed down the contents).
Occasionally establish eye contacts with the professor.
Ask questions, keep engaged.
If there are very few students and the interaction becomes more of a meeting, angle your laptop to either or your side by about 40 degrees so that it's not becoming a wall between you and the professor, or you and other students.

I also ask my TAs to sit at the back of the classroom so that I can make sure karma finds its way when I tally up the in-class performance portion of the final grade.


Should diacritics be kept when citing a paper written in an abundant diacritics Latin-based script language?

Nowadays, every sufficiently recent typesetting system is able to deal with diacritics. When submitting to journals, the real problem are the publishers' typesetters, who are -- at least in my experience -- frequently careless in copying letters with diacritics.

So, my advice is: keep the diacritics, as the style guides and common sense suggest, but check carefully the proofs received from the publisher.


How do you cite from a presentation or poster at a conference?

The specifics of the citation would depend on the citation style you are using. I am most familiar with Chicago style. To cite the presentation you've linked to in Chicago style, I would put:

David Ferreira, et al., "Climate of an Earth-like Aquaplanet: the high-obliquity case and the tidally-locked case" (presentation, Exoclimes 2012, Aspen, CO, January 16–20, 2012), accessed June 8, 2012, http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/exoclimes/2012/pdf/talks/Day02_Ferreira.pdf.

Following these guidelines: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/08/

For APA style, you would only cite a presentation in a reference list if there is a tangible remnant ("recoverable data") of the presentation (e.g., slides posted on a website). The citation would look like:

Ferreira, D., Marshall, J., O'Gorman, P., Seager, S. & Lau, H. (January 2012). Climate of an Earth-Like Aquaplanet: the high-obliquity case and the tidally-locked case. Paper presented at Exoclimes 2012, Aspen, Co.

For more examples in APA citation, look here: http://citationonline.net/CitationHelp/csg04-manuscripts-apa.htm#53


In the UK it is possible to apply for an MPhil (Masters of Philosophy) degree (which is essentially a mini-PhD) or alternatively an MRes (Masters by Research) degree which is generally shorter.

A caveat: the MPhil may be interpreted as a botched PhD as the degree is often awarded to PhD candidates who don't cut the mustard or drop out. Don't let that put you off though.


Having A Third Committee Member From A Different University - How To Pitch To The Third Member?

I suggest two things. First, most important, is that you don't make the pitch. Let one or both of your advisors do so, perhaps to a person you suggest. You might even give them a couple of suggestions and get their feedback.
It is harder to turn down an invitation from a peer than from an unknown student. The email, if that is the communication mechanism, will be read and likely not ignored.
Second make sure you lay out the responsibilities of the advisor early on so they are comfortable with the task they are taking on.


What's the ethics of (paid) proof-reading college admission essays?

Having a qualified reader provide more than superficial corrections to an admissions essay is a valuable asset, and one which is almost certainly required for top tier institutions. Many American students are literally surrounded by qualified readers with diverse perspectives, while international students may have fewer contacts with the requisite mastery of the language. If the only competent advice a student can obtain is from a paid reader, they are still only narrowing the gap with their American peers. I think there are only two ethical arguments to consider here.

First, is the paid service worth anything? If the criticism and corrections are junk and the service does not increase any student's chances at all and the service provider should reasonably be aware of this, then it's clearly unethical.

Second, does the contribution of the reader go substantially beyond what an American student would receive? Specifically, do the contributions of the paid readers potentially cross the line to misrepresent the abilities of the applicant? If the submitted essays are not representative of the, as you put it, story and voice but also of the English competence of the student, it could be a disservice both to universities and to inadequately prepared students.

If you are clear of these two issues, I see no ethical complaints. Of course, a generous person might donate their time, but that doesn't make a student who needs to earn a living unethical.


Can outside observers discern graduate student agency from a CV or papers?

I think that what it is possible to do in doctoral studies varies a lot by field. In some fields, if a student were required to come up with their own problem it would be nearly impossible to get started until many many years had passed. In others, it is much more natural for students to propose feasible projects. But even in those fields in which it is difficult, there are a few students able to do it and have their idea accepted by the advisor. The latter may be a stiff hurdle in many cases.
But, to answer the question, I think it may be a mistake for the individual to try to do this themself. It is likely to come across as bragging that can't easily be validated. On the other hand, if others are willing to make such a claim about your "agency" it will serve you well, especially if it comes from a well-respected researcher, perhaps your advisor.
Whether this can be discerned from the CV or not is less important IMO, than how it sounds to the reader. If you say (implicitly) "I'm smarter than you..." it isn't likely to help your career.
And for the most explicit answer to your question, it depends on the reader. A very sophisticated reader may realize that a problem solved is truly fresh and provides new directions for research. But most won't be able to do that sort of analysis, I think.
And, I think this only matters at the beginning of your career, which makes the advisors statements both helpful and sufficient. After you have been "in the game" for a while it will be obvious if you have "agency" or not.
And even if the advisor proposes (or insists on) the problem to be solved, it can still be very challenging to complete it successfully. I worked on three problems leading up to my degree. The first was too easy to be significant. The second was to hard to make any progress. The last was both significant and successful. But still hard enough.


Applying for a PhD program after withdrawing from another one

my question is whether I need to submit a transcript from my previous PhD program?

There are two ways for you to proceed.

The wrong way:

Don't submit your transcript from the failed PhD attempt. Once you get accepted somewhere, look over your shoulders for the rest of your career wondering whether you will be found out and face undesirable consequences.

The right way:

Submit all transcripts and explain in your statement of purpose or similar, very briefly, that you had some unfortunate health problems during your previous PhD attempt that are now under control, highlighting that you have moved on and since have successfully completed your current graduate studies. Never, ever worry about that past experience coming back to haunt you.

I hope it is obvious that the right way is the best way forward.

For your second question

  How severely would my bad grades in that PhD program affect my application if both my undergrad and masters GPA are 4.0 ?

I'll refer you to the following related question: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students?


How does a typical CS Ph.D program start

A PhD program is principally about training you to be a researcher. Research is all about doing things no one else has done before and pushing the boundaries of knowledge.
A necessary first step is to get some understanding of what others have done before you. Unlike coursework where you typically learn things that "everybody" knows, when you do research you often need to understand what other people on the boundary of some specialized area of knowledge are doing: you have to be able to read their papers and understand what they are doing.
If you're in a field that involves algorithms and computation, one of the ways to understand what is going on is to take algorithms that other people describe and code them up in a way that you can test them and probably replicate the results of the paper. This is also a first step to either modifying their work or to making a comparison to something else you might design.
The thing you are meant to be learning is not only how some algorithm works or should be implemented, but also in learning how to learn. You won't learn how to learn if you rely on someone else teaching you all the time. So, yes, it's normal to be expected to do these things on your own (for the most part). It's not a job where the goal is actually to replicate these papers in the most efficient way with the personnel available, the goal is your own learning how to understand and do things.
That said, it's okay to get stuck and ask for help. It's just that you should make a lot of your own effort first.


Should I worry that my bachelor's degree will be revoked because I only completed half my internship hours?

You shouldn't worry about it. The general principal is that the dean of the college that signed your diploma felt you had met the requirements. It would be unusual to second guess that decision years after the fact without a compelling reason (like new evidence of fraud).

We've had a lot of questions about degree revocation recently. Everyone agrees that this is extremely rare, and almost non-existent when the student acted in good faith and the university deliberately issued the degree. It is difficult to imagine a mechanism where the university would even notice the discrepancy, much less care enough to pursue the matter.

By the way, I recently gave the opposite advice to a similar question. But the situations are a little different--in the other case, there was a question about whether the degree had been awarded, and why it was awarded. Your degree was issued according to the normal process.


Do US university professors consider papers published in IJERT

Sorry but ...

It’s on the blacklist of predatory journal so yes it is considered, but considered very badly.  I would see this as a black mark against anyone, and in fact recommend you take it out of your CV if you are co-author.

The suggestion that a paper cannot be published because the “editors had more better paper to publish” is in itself a statement about the quality of the submission.


When submitting a journal article, can I cite a paper which cited my arxiv preprint?

This depends on what the journal's policies are. But in general (i.e. unless the journal overrides this), there's no requirement that the paper you submit be exactly the same as the paper you put on arXiv. It's often the case that the last round of edits you make prior to publication won't be reflected in the arXiv version, and you could consider the addition of citations to be part of that round of edits.

I have seen citation loops in the past, and nobody raised an eyebrow about them. In fields where posting preprints on arXiv is common, it's well understood that this can happen.


Computer Science - final year project of undergraduate degree (individual vs teamwork)

This answer will be just one sided. If you don't have experience working with a team, do that, and do it well. Modern software systems are built by teams and experience in working cooperatively is extremely important as well as valuable.

But make sure that the team works as a team, not just dividing up requirements into individual tasks. Take a leadership role if you have to in order to assure this. If you haven't investigated Agile Software Development in the past, nor applied it appropriately, then I suggest you take a look at it. It supports a tightly integrated team in which all members have knowledge of all parts of the system. In an industrial environment this means that the firm isn't at risk of knowledge disappearing if a team member leaves. But in an educational environment it can also mean that the team members (students) become educational resources for one another.

If you have a lot of such experience with effective teams already, then it is a bit of a tossup. Otherwise, it is an experience that can serve you well.

If the project is primarily building software, then I'll make a further recommendation. I generally suggest that new teams use XP Extreme Programming for their first agile project, not because it is necessarily better, but because it gives you a lot of advice on what to do day-to-day while you get used to the philosophy. It requires certain practices that need to be done faithfully. Otherwise it will fail like any other methodology.


What is considered a reasonable length for a math research paper?

Different math journals specialize in papers of "around" a certain length. Trans AMS, for example, publishes long papers. The web sites give the limits and they are, I assume, pretty rigidly enforced.

I don't know that such long papers need to glow in the dark, but they need to justify their length. It is possible that a single theorem has an exceeding complex and long proof, the details of which are mostly new. If the theorem is important, then it will be justified.

At the other end of the scale a paper with somewhat more modest results, but which presents a complete (and novel) body of knowledge that might be extended by others, likewise warrants a long paper.

But don't try to make a paper extra long just to try to get into Trans AMS. It won't be helpful. And don't make a paper short by leaving out essentials making it impossible to understand.

As short as possible, but no shorter, is probably the right idea.


Timezone of "AoE" for a conference submission deadline?

This means that as long as there is a place on earth where the deadline has not yet passed, you can still submit.

Thus, it is the time zone of e.g. Baker Island: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/usa/baker-island


Thanking multiple professors in an email thread

Don't overthink this. If this is still one E-Mail thread and every professor answered everyone else, write an e-mail to all saying "Thank you all for (whatever)". One more e-mail won't hurt, especially if it's clear that this e-mail is the last one and they can get the thing out of their mind.

I wish you the very best and good luck!!!


Is it a good practice to point out errors (politely) in a previously published paper in a review response

If you are building on the work of a previous paper, but the older paper contains a material error, you should not be waiting for a referee to ask about the discrepancy.  A discussion of the error should be included in the manuscript from the start.  It could run something like

  The outline of our calculation is similar to that in [1].  However, it should be noted that [1] actually contains an error in the calculation of the r coefficient....

If your paper disagrees with the earlier literature that it relies on, readers trying to understand the details of your work are likely to be confused.  If a reader notices the discrepancy, they are probably most likely to think that you have made an error.  The referee who looked at your manuscript quite likely brought the discrepancy to your attention, and the right solution is the correct the record before you move on to your own new results.


Is it suitable to ask for extra work concerning my bachelor thesis?

The answer to this depends partly on how supportive your supervisor is. In general, yes, it is fine to ask about making your thesis more challenging, but make sure that you do so in a tactful way, and be prepared that you might be told "no". Bear in mind that this is not just something that you are investing your own time in, someone is going to be marking your work, and this has several implications:

If you go well beyond the requirements, the marker may or may not have the required expertise to judge it effectively.
If your extension ends up involving more material, it will be more time-consuming to mark.
The task that you complete will still need to meet certain core requirements, otherwise it cannot be marked fairly against other students' submissions.

These are all barriers that can be overcome - for example, the more difficult task might involve extending the core results of the thesis in an appendix. That way, if necessary in terms of the assessment, the main part can be judged on its own merits. As long as your supervisor is reasonably supportive, have the conversation, and see what they suggest. It may be that you need to bash out an unremarkable thesis in order to meet the course requirements, but that your supervisor can suggest separate, interesting tasks to fill the extra time that you will have.


Who gives a consent for data publication?

Actually, you don't have too many options except keeping your advisor busy about it. There are some universities apply the rule that if the data do not get published in 2 years or so the advisor can publish it wihtout the consent of the student. However in your situation you don't have right something like that. On the other hand, if you persuade your advisor that you are willing to publish a paper using only your data you may get your advisor's consent. Good Luck


What does it mean when an editor needs additional reviews despite a status of "reviews completed"?

An educated guess is that the manuscript handling system by default expects two reviews. The number of reviews required for a decision can usually be changed by the editor. A reason for adding reviews is that you receive, for example and in the worst case, one accept and one reject from the two reviewers. It is therefore reasonable for an editor to search for additional reviewers to provide a better basis for a decision. Another reason can be that one or both of the original reviewers left reviews but they were deemed unconstructive and the need for additional reviews arose from the lack of reasonable feedback. There can be many other reasonable explanations as well, these are just examples.

Anyway, in this case, it is possible that the editors have not bothered to change the number of required reviews to 4 (which I assume the total would be). The system then shows that all reviews are in and that the manuscript should be decided upon. So hopefully, the editor will try to get speedy reviews and get back to you with useful feedback on your manuscript.


Is there something special about "City Universities" and do the municipalities somehow govern them?

In general, such schools don't necessarily have that close connection to the city government. The obvious example would be City University of New York. In that case, it was founded by the state government. Seven of the trustees are appointed by the governor of the state of New York , and five by the mayor of New York City. But all of those are with approval of the senate, which is a state level office. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_University_of_New_York#Management_structure .

On the other hand, the equivalent in London has a closer connection to the City of London (which itself is a complicated entity). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City,_University_of_London

I'm not aware of a specific city-centric model of the sort you want, and a lot of these seem to be developed on a case-by-case basis. Your best bet may be simply looking through a lot of these and seeing how they handle governance and other related issues and looking for what best meets your needs.


Spousal hire for girlfriend in US university

I am wondering how common/likely is to get the University to do a non-academic spousal hire for my girlfriend. All the documents provided by my institution use the word "partner" which seems to suggest that it is not needed to be married.
  Do you think that being married is typically an (unwritten) necessary condition?

Only your institution will know for sure, but it certainly does not seem unreasonable to ask. Given the wording I would be cautiously optimistic. However, visa might be a problem (as Herman mentions in a comment). The university maybe does not care much about your relationship status when finding a position for your partner, but they may care about having to sponsor a visa (this costs additional money).

  Do you think that asking for help for finding a job for my girlfriend is only possible during negotiation, or I could potentially ask for this later?

You should get all discussions about benefits (and spousal hire is a pretty major one) out of the way during negotiation.

  Do you think it is possible, instead of getting a position for my girlfriend, getting a graduate school position for her?

Assuming your girlfriend is reasonably qualified finding a graduate school position is probably easier than a regular job. However, an additional challenge may be if she would like to attend graduate school in your own department - then conflict of interest rules may kick in.

  If in the future we will break up, could this potentially affect my reputation with the department?

Unless "in the future" is like one month after coming to the US, I doubt that the department will care very much.


How to propose alteration of study subjects in college?

In the comments, you explained that you are currently a student. I would suggest you have a friendly conversation with your professors. Perhaps you know your advisor a little bit, or one of your professors from your class and you're comfortable talking to her or him.

For example, let's say you decide to talk with Professor Smith. I would go up to Professor Smith (e.g., during office hours) and say: "Hi. I had a cool internship at Gaming, Inc. I learned some interesting programing methods X, Y, and Z" (follow their interest in their methods here, you might end up deep in details or your professor may not care). Then ask something like "We haven't covered the methods in my classes. I think they would help other students in our program. Are they included anywhere in our curriculum?"

This will start a conversation with your Professor about the curriculum. Most reasonable professor will be open to your conversation, just don't put them on the defensive. For example, avoid saying something like "our program sucks..." or "you should do...". Also, keep your suggestions positive and avoid being arrogant. Perhaps your program is revising their curriculum now and you do not know about it.

As an aside, I had a similar experience as an undergrad wildlife biology student. During a summer internship, I worked for a government agency using management approaches not covered in class. I asked a friendly professor why we were not learning the topic during an informal office hour. The friendly prof said a couple of reasons (basically their curriculum had not been updated) and then another, crotchety old professor jumped in and though my idea was stupid (he was dinosaur who did not like change). The friendly professor actually changed his view point and started defending my question/view-point. In my case, I was not able to change the curriculum, but I did learn why it was what it was.


Should I resubmit my paper to get the attention of a slow reviewer?

This is clearly answered in the comments by @Stephan Kolassa (making community wiki here just to post an answer for the question).

Absolutely do NOT resubmit the paper! If you do, you could end up having everything rejected.

Contact the editors of the journal. 3.5 months is not such a long time for journal review in many fields (unfortunately) but it is sufficient time to warrant a quick friendly email to the editor asking what the progress is.

Though you should not pester the editor, contacting them after 3.5 months seems perfectly reasonable. But keep a friendly/deferential tone. (Don't demand or complain ... just ask for info.)

(And best of luck with the reviews. The first submission is always the most nerve-wrecking. If it works out, then great. If not, try not to sweat it too much. Rejection happens to nearly everyone.)


France/USA collaboration funding for young researcher?

A good option seems to be a Marie Curie Global Fellowship, funded by the European Commission. See http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/about-msca/actions/if/index_en.htm for more information.

Note that this allows setting up a collaboration plan between any European with any non-European country, so it's more general than what you're looking for.


So, here's my question: If I say "I'm considering to do PhD" and ask
  your advice, what would you ask me? What kind of
  skills/characteristics do you look for a potential academician?

The first questions I would ask is: are you really interested in the subject? Can you imagine spending the next 5+ years thinking about pretty much nothing else?
Why do you want to do a PhD in the first place?

  However, currently I am working on a conference paper and I feel like
  even that is too much for me. It has been nearly 3 months and still,
  the paper draft is to be improved (not the wording but the content).

Now imagine the same thing but replace 3 month with 3 years.

  Sometimes, I let go of my  work and absorbed in other stuff.

This is also not very helpful for pursuing a PhD.

I think in most fields (that might be different for some fields of science) getting a PhD is only for people who want to do research. Apart from that it is only a waste of time and money. So the question you should ask yourself is not: Am I able to get a PhD? But rather: Do I want to get a PhD?

However, if you decided that you really want to give it a try: talk to someone from your university about it, maybe the supervisor of your thesis. Grades are not always a good indicator of the quality as a researcher.

EDIT:

  My life-goal is being a professor. And I love to do research.

That answers most of the questions.

  But I don't know if I'm capable of doing a Ph.D.

No one here can answer this question. You should try to talk to a professor at your university, the supervisor of your Master's Thesis, or someone who is doing research you are interested in. However, do not let your grades disencourage you, I know many students who had pretty bad grades but are great as PhD students and many excellent students who struggle with their research.


Let me be direct here: You are already asking your professors a big favor for writing these letters for you. It is your job to give them all relevant materials up front, and if you fail in this, then you'll have to figure out a way to fix this yourself -- for example by writing to the department where you are applying, putting this information into your statement of purpose instead, or in some other way. You are overtaxing your professor's goodwill by asking him to go back, rewrite the letter, find a way to get that to the departments he sent his letters to, etc.

All of this is of course independent of the actual possibility of updating a letter of recommendation. In most cases, professors get a link to a website where they can attach a letter, and this link becomes dead either once the letter is submitted, or once the deadline for these letters passes. It may become exceedingly tedious to find a way to update a letter once that is the case.


Why do undergraduates pay for their education, but postgraduates are paid?

You're looking at it the wrong way. Both undergrads and grad students are charged tuition by the university. This tuition is used to pay faculty, administration, operating costs, etc. Some undergrads receive full or partial scholarships. You might say they are not "paying" for undergrad, but the university is still getting paid, just from a different source. The same occurs with grad students; many of them are given research assistantships, meaning that their advisor found external grant money and is using it to pay both tuition and a stipend to the grad student. Grad students without teaching or research assistantships, such as many MBA or law programs, still have to pay tuition out of their own pockets.
Teaching assistantships are not external money, but essentially a department is saying that they have to pay someone to provide instruction, so it's cheaper to pay grad students to assist a professor than to hire more faculty. The university is still getting the tuition paid by the department.


How to have productive meetings with Ph.D supervisor

Speaking from experience, both as a student and as a Phd supervisor in theoretical computer science. The meetings with your supervisor serve many purposes. To narrow the scope a little bit, let me only discuss the type of meetings you mention - where you read a research paper and discuss it to a high level of detail with your advisor.

In TCS (and maths, I would assume), the primary goals of having the student read a paper and present it to the supervisor are:

So that the student learns the contents of the paper, especially the main technical tools used and developed in the paper, to a degree where the student can recognize a setting where these tools can be applied, and apply the tools in relevant settings. Because this is research the tools will have to be modified at least slightly every time they are applied. Hence, in order for the endeavor (reading the paper) to be any useful at all the student needs to achieve a very deep understanding of the paper she is reading.
So that the student learns to read, understand, and present (and eventually write) technical proofs. This is a big one - it is incredibly important that whenever you feel that you understand a proof, that you are able to present it at various levels of detail. On one end you should be able to give a “big picture” view of what the Lemma statement actually means, what it gives you, why it should be true, and why this is a non-trivial statement. It is equally important that when probed, you are able to re-create to full detail a presentation of the proof. By full detail I really mean full detail - are you saying “let x be an element of S” you better have proved that S is non-empty first. Are you invoking Lemma 3.5? You have to point to precisely which objects you are applying Lemma 3.5 to, why these objects satisfy the premise of Lemma 3.5, and which objects this invocation of Lemma 3.5 generates for you to use further in the proof.

The level of understanding that I describe above is really the only level that will be useful for you in your research. It also takes a lot of work to get there, this goes way beyond the level of understanding you need to get A’s in your classes. For this reason it is perfectly normal to take 2 months to read a 10 page paper. This is also a great cause of misunderstandings and frustration between students and advisors (the student thinks “I already know this to a level where I would ace an exam on this paper”, while the advisor thinks “the student has no idea what is going on”).

I can not speak for your advisor, but in such discussions with students I often ask follow up questions in order for the student to herself come to the realization that she needs to understand this or that part of the proof better.

Also, professors are not gods. In fact, for me, the vast majority of follow up questions that I ask is because I am struggling with understanding what it is the student is talking about, and I’m trying desperately to figure out whether I missed something obvious, or whether the student is talking nonsense. Doing this (for 2 hours) is mentally exhausting to the point of the infeasible. For this reason the conversation will often naturally after an hour or so shift to lighter topics.

I can’t actually know whether any of the above applies to you, but I do find that the above is a pretty common problem. Let me end with some pieces of advice (much of which has already been said in other answers).

Talk to your supervisor about this. This might well not bring about the change you are looking for, but you will better understand each other’s motivations, frustrations, etc.
If you are worried about your productivity, show initiative. Ask your supervisor about what are the next natural papers to read, with or without discussing these papers with her. Then read them, to the best of your abilities. Ask your supervisor for research questions, and think about them. Talk to your fellow students, and initiate research projects with them. Remember that in the last year or two of your Phd. you should be able to complete a research project from A to Z without any help from your supervisor at all. This involves obtaining the relevant background, asking feasible and interesting research questions and answering them. The best way of getting there is to try to do this as much as possible from day 1 of your Phd studies, and then using your supervisor to help you with your weakenesses. As an example, when I was a student I had no problems with solving problems, but had no idea how to find relevant research questions, and so I would lean on my supervisor and collaborators for this to a large degree. For you there might be another aspect of research that you will need extra support for, and that is what supervisors are for!


Publications and International Standard for bibliographic references

Have you searched for this citation style? There is even a wikipedia article on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Bibliographic_Description. There is an example which gives you an hint how you should structure your bibliographic reference. If a certain element of the list can't be applied to one of your publications , you could leave it out/not mention it.  My guess would be that official university catalogs use this or a similar style and you could consult these to make sure you do it right.


Is the middle of May very late for graduate admissions in the same year?

Yes, it's too late, at least in the US.

All the PhD programs I'm familiar with (mostly in North America, but a few European programs too) require admitted applicants to accept or decline admission offers by April 15.  The admission offers themselves are sent out weeks or even months earlier.  For example, my department tries to finalize all PhD admission offers by mid-February.  We get about 750 PhD applications every year, so to keep ourselves (relatively) sane, we don't even consider applications that arrive after the December deadline.

A few PhD programs do consider applicants for admission in the spring semester.  But I wouldn't recommend trying for spring admissions to the same programs that already turned you down.  In my experience, spring admission is more competitive.  Moreover, a few months is unlikely to significantly improve your application, especially since they've already formed an opinion.

I also agree with Joanna's recommendation: Your best bet is to strengthen your record and apply again next year, for admission in Fall 2013.  If possible, get involved in a research project with the goal of publication.  At a minimum, do something independent, creative, and technical to show off your potential for research.  Show your complete application to your letter writers (or other faculty mentors), especially your research statement, and ask for their detailed and brutally honest feedback.  Listen to them.  Finally, confirm with your references (by asking them directly) that they are willing to write you strong letters emphasizing your research potential.


Is it a bad idea to take a leave of absence to finish a degree?

It is difficult to finish a degree and work at the same time. This is especially the case if you have to write a (PhD) thesis. There are a number of obstacles. Firstly, you will have to work on the thesis during the evenings and weekends, which is both tiring and can induce RSI. Secondly, you will have no life and this is depressing. Thirdly, both your work and your PhD thesis will suffer. Fourthly, the time taken to complete the thesis could drag out 6 months or even 1 year, before you get close to finishing it. Under these circumstances, many people simply do not finish their thesis.

It's not impossible, though. I know of a few people who have completed their theses after taking on another job. It requires a lot of discipline.

If you have the luxury of taking a leave of absence from work to study, then I'd advise taking it. Get the degree out of the way in as short a time as possible.


What is the proper response when a professor teaches a side topic related to the course but the information is wrong?

If the teacher is not a reasonable person, and some are not, you should keep your head down and hope that your fellow students will get some real security training, at least on the job, before making decisions in this area.

If the teacher is reasonable, select a very small number of references on the topic, preferably including peer-reviewed papers. Look for an opportunity to talk with the teacher privately, definitely not in class and preferably without any of your fellow students nearby.

Explain that you have had to learn about some security issues because of your jobs over the last 10 years, and that you have more up-to-date information than is being presented in class. (Yes, I know something of the history of security-through-obscurity, but we are being tactful here). Offer your references. How you play it from there on will have to depend on how receptive the teacher is, and how helpful you are willing to be.


How can I present the significance of two statistical tests in one table?

Those stars (three on all but two entries) use lots of real estate and are very distracting. Footnotes for just those two would help whatever else you do.
Without the stars you might be able to report the second set of results this way:
xx.x (yy.z)

with the caption explaining the parenthetical numbers.
You can also format to make better column width choices.
Please align the columns on the decimal points.


If I take a PhD from a not so well standing university, will I be less respected in science?

Your career depends much more on what you do than on the university you attend. Even for doctoral study. It is true that getting the first job may be easier for those from internationally known research universities, but once you have a position, you also have opportunities, just as does your current advisor.

Also, consider that some students at those top 50 universities won't finish, and some of those who do will face burn-out. Others will just not live up to their "early potential" and not advance very far or fast.

But there is some elitism, of course. Oxbridge is world respected and much is expected of their graduates. On the other hand, Harvard University has an excellent reputation, but it graduates some awfully stupid (and dangerous) people. In the long run it is "merit" that rules the day. It is often written that there is "nothing more dangerous than a C student from Yale". Don't be that student.

I encourage you to stretch yourself toward the "best" university within your reach, though "best" can mean a lot of things beyond world ranking. But then, do your best and work collaboratively with others to advance your field.