Applied for PhD, professor asked me to disclose offers from other universities, why?

I don't have a definitive answer, but I can offer some interpretion: with such a question a potential employer, not matter whether academic or not, is probing how likely you are to accept an offer if you were to receive one.

What I suggest in this circumstances is to tell you have other offers, if you did receive them - it will make you look attractive - but not specify them. After that, hint to the fact that your other offers are not your first choice, unlike the present one - that will make you look committed.

Of course all of the above stands if you did receive other offers. Honesty first. But no need to be honest about what is your favorite choice, as it's probably impossible to be honest about it, at least until you know what the offers are anyway!


does conference presentation topic need approval from PI

That would depend on a few things, including your field. What is the custom there? If the PI is, or should be, a co-author then you would need it, ethically, I think. S/he might have other plans. If the work is partly theirs, then you need it in some places legally, if I interpret other answers on this site correctly, and ethically in any case.

I'm depending on your use of the words "with a former PI" here. To me that implies they have some contribution to the work that requires acknowledgement, hence approval.

But, for political purposes and keeping good relations for the future, you should probably seek it in all cases.


Does a research professor burn his bridges (intentionally or unintentionally) when he leaves for another university?

In principle no but in practice the decision to leave may lead to some tensions, even if @Karl and @Dan Romick rightly point out that it should not be so.

There is always a  element of risk involved in hiring someone: a department has usually invested some time and committee work to hire this person, possibly had to lobby the administration for the position, may have supported this faculty with teaching buyouts so she/he could establish a research program.  When this investment suddently disappears, very few will normally congratulate themselves at the thought of starting the process again (especially if the competition to hire the faculty now leaving was hot, and there were multiple good candidates).

Many no doubt will be sad to see a friend leave: there is no more reason to burn bridges than if a good neighbor moved to a new town.

Of course there are people who are truly hated (for legitimate or jealous reasons) and everyone's happy to see them go.  In the same category some researchers feel they are not getting the support they rightly (in their minds) deserve.  In these rarer cases, the departure can be acrimonious.


How to contact EiC when his emails seems like auto computer generated reply

I suggest contacting the publisher and asking them for a status update. The publisher is likely to have more time, and should be able to provide almost as good an update. IEEE's website lists some people to contact. You might be able to find an even better contact person from the journal's website.

I'd write in the email:

Is my paper under review?
If it's under review, are there any problems (e.g. the only invited reviewers haven't responded to the invitation for 3 months, and no new ones have been invited)?
If there are problems, can you ask the EiC to look at the submission?

In a first email I wouldn't mention that I've already contacted the EiC. If they ask about that, then only I'd say I've contacted the EiC, but received what looks like an automated response.


Use an experimental device in a paper and not mentioning the one who made it

You didn't answer the questions I posed in the comments, so I'll have to make my best guesses as to what happened. Seems to me that you are asking about two types of damages: not getting authorship on the follow-up paper, and not getting paid for the device.

Authorship. This one really depends on exactly what the new paper says. I'm assuming that (1) at least one person [your advisor] is an author on both the old paper and the new paper, and (2) the new paper briefly described the apparatus but focused on the new results. In this case, I certainly think they should have cited the original paper when describing the apparatus, and possibly offered you authorship on the new paper -- but it's not clear to me that their failure to do so rises to the level of academic misconduct. Your university's ombudsman is likely the next step if you want to investigate this further; however, this will likely alienate the professor in question (and, as I said, it's not clear to me that you have a case).

Getting Paid. It's not clear to me why you would have any expectation of getting paid for building an apparatus as a student. In general, your intellectual property while a student belongs to the university (even more so if they are paying you). I don't know why your professor would have promised to look into getting the department to buy the apparatus...perhaps he looked into it and was informed that the university already owns it because you were a student when you made it. In any case, if you were owed money, your next step would likely be to sue the university, since your direct requests have largely gone unanswered (you would have to weigh whether this were a good idea; cutting your losses may be wise).


My wife and I were both MEXT scholarship recipients for the graduate school "research student" scholarship. I got mine in the US by embassy recommendation. My wife got hers in Japan by university recommendation. (University recommendation within Japan is highly competitive and would be impossible without very good on the ground connections at a university that receives slots from the Monkasho).

Assuming you mean the embassy/consulate version, you need to apply to the consulate that covers your city.

There's a written test and an interview. Depending on the numbers, they will either do everything on the same day (common in the US) or split everything across multiple days.

To successfully get a scholarship via consulate/embassy recommendation from India, you are going to need to do really well on the written test for Japanese and the test for English.

Moreover, I would recommend (against the instructions the consulate may supply) first identifying professors in Japan with whom you would be interested in pursuing a graduate degree. After you've come up with a list, e-mail them indicating you are hoping to apply for a MEXT scholarship. With this in hand, you can describe a specific project.

This is key because you need to submit a project idea as part of your application. Preferably, you should write this in Japanese and get it checked by a native speaker capable of academic writing.

With this in hand, you will also have an interview if you make it that far. I have no idea how the interview is evaluated, so I don't have any tips on that.

At the time I applied, I was already in a PhD program in the US in my 3rd year, had Japanese grammar knowledge at about the N3 level, kanji knowledge at roughly the N2 level (currently, I have the JLPT N1). I had lined up a project with a Japanese professor. I may have already met with him at that point in time.

Best of luck.


Doing a PhD in data science / machine learning after a PhD in civil engineering

I will agree with the commentators who say that one PhD is enough. I am sure you can start applying ideas from machine learning in your field (civil engineering) and perhaps after a while even move to a completely different field. PhD is essentially a qualification that demonstrates your ability to engage in abstract learning and research. You don't need two of these degrees to doubly-certify yourself. If you feel that you are lacking in certain aspects of knowledge related to machine learning or data science, find collaborators in these fields -- that's way more efficient than taking classes (and more productive in terms of research output).


Can a bad grade in a class be negated by a good grade in a more advanced class?

In general, can (and will) good grades in more advanced classes negate bad grades in prerequisite classes in the context of graduate admissions?

Only to a very limited extent. Getting a C (or F) in calculus during Freshman year is likely to be completely ignored if you got straight As after that. Other than in such extreme examples, no, I would not expect to be able to negate past grades. But of course, each grade is only one data point, and additional data points can significantly improve your overall record.

  roughly B-, which is in significant contrast to my near straight A transcript.

So, this is an outlier. Like in any other sort of data analysis, a single outlier in an otherwise homogeneous record is unlikely to have much/any effect. Sure, getting a good grade in the more advanced course could make it even more clear that this outlier was not related to the subject. But it seems like you are already on track to get put in the highest "tier" with respect to GPA, so you may want to consider investing time on the other facets of your application.


Currently taking graduate course as an Undergraduate

In order to get a good chance to go into graduate schools for Math in Canada and USA, do I need to get a A or A+ in graduate courses as an undergraduate?

I don't think anyone cares too much about the distinction between A and A+, since the standards for what merits an A+ vary so much between universities or even individual professors.

  Or, is A– alright?

This is a little more meaningful, but it's not likely to be the deciding factor.  If you have a great application otherwise, nobody will care about an A- or two.  If your application is not so compelling, getting straight A's won't help much.  This could make a difference, but it's really a low-order effect.


What are the pros and cons of having multiple co-advisors during a PhD?

The number of advisers you have really is a scenario-by-scenario issue. For example, during my PhD I had three advisers. However, only my primary supervisor was involved with the day to day aspects of my research whilst the other two showed up occasionally and asked some questions before disappearing for a few months again.

I do know of other cases where students have been split 50:50 between two advisers which also means two labs and two offices with them jumping between both trying to keep both happy because the two advisers don't talk very much.

It all depends on the research you're doing and the expertise of those around you. I imagine that in most cases, your primary adviser is enough but there are definitely cases, for example in interdisciplinary research where the expertise of an adviser from a different field would be very handy.


How many and which references to own publications should be included in a research statement for post doc position?

I think it would be best if you cite a small number of most relevant work. Readers from your field will probably get an idea from a limited bibliography. You can perhaps provide with a link to a page that you set as an extended version of bibliography related to your work. If page limit is an issue you can explore various alternative citation styles which might be more compact and save you space. One example is to use just the name of first author followed by et al.


Citing a work authored by “A. Smith with B. Jones”

The main point of citation style is to allow the reader to identify and find the work in question, not to please the authors, correctly represent their contributions in detail, or reproduce how the authors were listed on the publication in absolute detail.
In fact, hardly any publication has equal contributions.
Probably the only reason we do not see other conjunctions very often is that most citations are to papers where the journals control the style and nip any trend towards this in the bud.

On the other hand, the odd with may be confuse the reader. Consider:

  Smith with Jones (2020) established …

As a reader, my first assumption would be that you made a mistake and I consider the following “corrections” equally likely:

  Smith & Jones (2020) established …
  Smith (unknown year) with Jones (2020) established …

Hence: Ignore this peculiarity for citing. It does not hinder the reader to identify or find the paper. It is only confusing and unnecessarily complicates things.

Some illustrative examples leading the alternative ad absurdum:

In a paper with alphabetical author ordering, you do not try to figure out who contributed most and name them when citing. Not only would this often be unfeasible if not impossible to find out, it would also strongly harm the identifiability and searchability of your reference. Aaronson’s contribution to “Aaronson et al.” may be minor; they were just the first in the alphabet.
If a paper has co-first-authorship (“these authors contributed equally”) and further authors, you still cite it by only naming the original first author. Taylor may be a co-first author with Williams on “Taylor et al.”.
You can imagine arbitrary complex authorship phrases. Would you honour the following?

  A. Smith together with B. Jones and some contributions of C. Taylor as well as a chapter by D. Williams

Depending on the journal’s style, a paper by the same group of authors may list them as:

  A. Smith, B. Jones, C. Taylor, and D. Williams
  A. SMITH¹, B. JONES¹², C. TAYLOR³⁴, D. WILLIAMS¹⁵⁶
  A. Sᴍɪᴛʜ*, B. Jᴏɴᴇs†, C. Tᴀʏʟᴏʀ§, & D. Wɪʟʟɪᴀᴍs♠ [sorry for Unicode abuse]

This should not affect your citation the slightest.

The only exception I can think of is if you are Jones and this is your CV, which should humbly reflect that your contribution was only minor.


Should I ask my master's advisor and co-advisor for a recommendation letter?

It's absolutely fine to ask for reference letters from both of them. Be aware that they may be somewhat redundant if you worked on the same project with both of them. So if referee A worked on project 1 with you and referee B worked on project 2, it would be much better than if both worked with you on the same project.

To clarify - it is expected that you get letters from your advisors. In fact, not getting letters from the people who worked most closely with you in an academic setting will send all sorts of wrong signals to people reading your application. They may assume that you fell out with them or had some other issues that prevented them from recommending you.


Are there any guidelines for labeling axes in plots/graphs when the "unit" is "number of people"?

You always have to distinguish between the quantity and the unit.

All the quantities referring to a number of entities have unit 1, so you don't need to put any unit after the number.

About how to call such kind of quantities, you're actually relatively free to decide, depending on the specifics of the case at hand. You can certainly call a quantity that counts certain elementary entities X as number of X. But, in case, don't use amount of X because that has a specific meaning in chemistry.

Examples of quantities called number of X can be found e.g. in the IUPAC Green book:

  N is the number of identical (periodic) events during the time t. (p. 13)
  bi gives the number of electrons which occupy a given orbital energy level εi (p. 19)

Even better, if that number is a recurring quantity in your paper, label it with a symbol and use that symbol to label the axes: "Let nr be the number of people who always wear red trousers [...]".


How to make my CV attractive for a faculty position application?

Most applicants for an assistant professor position will have a PhD and some postdoc experience, and (hopefully) a solid line of publications in their main research line.

It is unfortunately not universally agreed what constitutes a "successful" career. So, if you are several years past your PhD, as a search committee member I would want to see what you had done in the intervening time, and I would want to know it was relevant to what you want to do now. You need to be able to reassure the committee that you are still an active researcher, you are still respected by other academics, and that you are (or could become) a competent teacher. The problem with CVs is that just listing a job title does not quite convey what is entailed there. How would I know how to evaluate your "extraordinary education program" just from a few lines on the CV? (I'm certainly not going to look at it, I have 100 other applications to read through.) Are you up-to-date enough for university teaching?

The real place to make your case for this is in your research statement or cover letter. That is where you can explain your unusual background, presenting it as a strength that makes you stand out above other candidates. You can describe your industry experience, framing it in terms of how this has aided your development as a teacher-scholar, and you can describe the principles and outcomes of the educational programs you were involved in.

An additional strategy would be to ask one or more of your referees to discuss your background in their letter. It could be beneficial to the search committee to have an outside opinion, from a real academic, that someone who may look unusual is actually really good.

So, is there anything you can do for your CV itself? Well, make sure the list of publications is solid. That's among the best evidence for a search committee that you're an active researcher.


Should I correct a successfully completed Master's dissertation before publishing online?

You should always correct and polish your work before publishing it. Therefore I would suggest you implement the fixes recommended by your professor, and correct the typos you mentioned. Having done this, you should point out somewhere in the publication that this work was partially adapted from the document you submitted to your institution, stating that you fixed a couple minor things.

As @darijgrinberg suggests here, you should also remove any official logos and statements that might be included in the document, as to avoid it being confused with an official university publication, let alone copyright breaches.


My name on transcript has no surname. Should I list it as a "former name" when applying for universities in U.S.A. and Canada?

It sounds like the forms you have been provided already give a sufficient means of clarifying, particularly you indicate the form is specifically meant to link a current full name to an alternative shown on formal records.  While the university may have been thinking about different cases, like names changing via marriage, it fits your situation as well.

I would suspect getting an affidavit or other formal attestation is not necessary: if they are not asking for it in the other cases where a name does not match, they should not expect it for your case either.


Do I need an explicit permission to publish someone else’s table in another paper after citing it?

Unless the paper you are citing it from has been licensed under something like a creative commons license, you most likely need permission.* The good news is, if you're citing from a reputable publisher and publishing with a reputable publisher, this should be easy and free. Below is a screenshot of, as an example, a recently published article from JACS, note the highlighted "Rights and Permissions" link.

Clicking this link will take you to the Copyright Clearance Centre. Follow the on-screen instructions to register your request and receive your license. Most of the major journal publishers and learned societies have a reciprocal agreement that allows content to be reproduced between their journals free of charge.

If an open access article has been licensed under a Creative Commons (or similar) license, you do not need to follow this process, you can just use it under the terms of that license (typically this means that you'd need to include the reference it was taken from and "copyright [year] by [publisher or authors], used under cc-[type]" in the figure caption).

Do be careful with non-commercial use though - if you work in a university, you count as non-commercial, but the publisher probably counts as commercial. So you can't usually rely on a non-commercial permission for republishing in a journal.

*Data itself isn't copyrightable, but the table is. Exactly where the line is drawn (e.g. if you re-typeset a basically identical table) I don't know. But getting permission, in most cases, should be trivial. So there's no reason not to do it.


How can I make sure I (a white male teaching math) am sensitive to "underprivileged" students in my class?

First I want to say that my answer does not depend on your gender and race, which I consider irrelevant. I will answer the question in two parts, one relevant to any field, one to mathematics. I suggest changing your title to something like: "How can I show respect to students from different backgrounds?"

General Answer

Understand that your students have had different experiences, which will affect how they perceive your and others' behavior. For example, the phrase "Can I help you?" may be perceived positively by someone who is used to others' wanting to help them, but it may be perceived negatively by someone who has had that phrase used toward them in a hostile manner (e.g., by a retail worker who follows them around to make sure they don't shoplift). I would encourage you not to think that the former student is rational and the latter student is irrational. Everyone generalizes based on past experiences. I encourage you to attend any diversity training offered at your institution or read about microaggressions, phrases that might be innocently meant but negatively experienced.

Be aware that everyone, including you, has unconscious biases, picked up from the cultures you've lived on. You should be aware that most elementary school teachers, regardless of gender, call on male students more often than female students. You may find it interesting to take an Implicit Association Test, although you should be careful making inferences from it.

Encourage students to give you feedback about how to improve your teaching, especially this aspect. We have the option of adding our own questions to course evaluations. I added to mine:

  What could the instructor do differently or keep doing to make the
  course feel inclusive to students with a variety of backgrounds,
  learning styles, and  mental or physical abilities? This would be a
  good place to mention any micro-aggressions.

Mathematics

This goes beyond what you asked, but I encourage you to learn about stereotype threat, a well-documented effect in which evocation of stereotypes affects students' performance on tests and other high-stake assignments. For example:

  Spencer, Steele, and Diane Quinn, PhD, also found that merely telling
  women that a math test does not show gender differences improved their
  test performance. The researchers gave a math test to men and women
  after telling half the women that the test had shown gender
  differences, and telling the rest that it found none. When test
  administrators told women that that tests showed no gender
  differences, the women performed equal to men. Those who were told the
  test showed gender differences did significantly worse than men, just
  like women who were told nothing about the test. This experiment was
  conducted with women who were top performers in math, just as the
  experiments on race were conducted with strong, motivated students.

Read articles about inclusive pedagogy, especially as applied to college-level mathematics. I have been told that active learning techniques benefit all students but disproportionately those from underrepresented backgrounds.


A professor matches my previous research and the other matches my interest. Which one should I choose?

Ultimately, I would choose to work on what I'm interested in rather than what I have experience in, assuming that you have enough background to follow your interests (but in a 7 year PhD program, you'll have time to learn the techniques you'll need) and that there is a future for you after completing the program.

(Learning how to use capital letters and to punctuate your sentences properly will also help in the future.)


What does a successful NecTAR application look like

I don't have any personal experience with NeCTAR; maybe someone who does will chime in.

But if it's anything like the US and EU analogues I have worked with (e.g. PlanetLab, GENI, OneLab), this information is used mainly

to collect information about how the system is being used (e.g. to report back to funding source), and
to filter requests that are clearly ineligible (e.g. "I want to host my personal website on your cloud"),

not because they reject some serious, eligible requests based on application details.

If that's the case here, too, you really don't need to worry too much about what you write. Something of the form

  My research is on X. I will use the system in order to do Y.

should suffice. (If you happen to have a project website, adding a link to it is also nice.)


Is it appropriate to ask professors to give you a mock interview?

It depends on the professor. If it's someone who knows you well and has the time, then they would probably be happy to help. Most of the professors I came across during my undergrad were more than happy to help preparing me for grad school interviews. Just make sure you ask well in advance, so they have time find an appropriate time, and don't take it personally if they say no: professors are really busy.

EDIT: Make sure you ask professors that have been through the graduate application process in the same country you are applying, if possible. Ones who received their PhD elsewhere, or say 50 years ago, will probably turn you down simply because they don't feel familiar enough with the process (unless they are directly involved in admissions for your school's graduate program).


Consulting potential postdoc positions: Good idea to avoid the email being ignored

Professors are often very busy. Sometimes they receive more than 100 emails per day, not including automatic messages. An email from a stranger without essential information in the subject field / first line is not likely to be answered.


How should you deal with a teacher who is difficult to understand?

I was in a similar position as your classmates in my language course. I'll describe the situation so you can "step into my shoes" and see how it looks from the other side. Hopefully, this will help you understand your situation a bit more.

I'm fluent in spoken Chinese, but being illiterate in would prevent me from passing the equivalency exam, so I took the Intro 101 course with most of the class not being able to speak any Chinese.

Our professor was a grad student originally from China. Her English was acceptable as she was a native Chinese speaker, and she had only come to the US after college.

I had no issues with other students (the class was probably ~15 people) asking for directions to be repeated again more slowly.

Reason? Because, from experience, I know languages are hard to learn. I may be fluent in Chinese, but if I were to take a French class, I'd be in the same boat.

The other students in your class should be able to recognize that you are a new learner. Now, leaving the class might not have been the best response, but you can't change that now. I would recommend not leaving class in the future. That's counter-productive.

Have you tried talking to the other students or asking them for help? I'm sure they're willing to help you learn Japanese as well. Certainly, if they already know the material, they might not even want to be in a rush to go through all the material.

I guess a final concrete example is in order.

  If you were an English teacher with a college mastery of English, and teaching a 1st grade English class, would you be annoyed when the 1th graders asked 1st grade English questions?


When are reference letters requested during applications for a professorship (W1/W2/W3) in Germany?

I've never heard of the custom of requiring the candidate to provide a list of references for a faculty position in Germany; the hiring process is very different from the US and UK. The procedure is usually as follows (there's bound to be a more complete answer on this site, so I'm summarizing):

The hiring committee meets and decides on a text for the announcement as well as on criteria by which applicants are excluded (wrong subfield, no service teaching experience, that sort of thing).
After the deadline, the hiring committee meets again and selects (usually) four to eight candidates for a formal interview.
After the interviews are completed, the hiring committee meets again and decides which of the candidates to keep in consideration. It is for these candidates (usually three or four) that reference letters are requested -- but in a specific fashion: Two or three eminent experts in the subfield are selected by the committee (often beforehand, i.e., in step 1) who are then asked to review and rank all candidates. Needless to say, previous employers or supervisors are not the best candidates for this (but sometimes can't be avoided).
Based on the reference letters and their own opinions from the interviews, the committee decides on a ranked list of candidates to be offered the position. Then the administration takes over...

Note: I'm going by my own field -- mathematics -- here, details and especially the numbers may differ in other fields. But from what I've seen of the process in other fields, the general procedure is the same. If individual reference letters are indeed required in addition to the comparative ones, I'd assume they are requested as late as possible -- and only if necessary -- to avoid needless work for the writer. (There is significantly less of a "reference letter industry" in German academia.)


I have two PhD offers. Can I accept one while waiting for the grades for my preferred option without the latter finding out?

You should contact both programs and openly describe the situation.

Each individual academic field is fairly small, and academics do regularly talk to each other. Reneging on an offer will tarnish your reputation. Even if you successfully pull off this stunt, you will earn some enemies, which can bite you later (e.g. seeking jobs, applying for grants, etc).


How to ask for feedback from research students on my supervision abilities?

Set the Stage

At the start of each relationship, let each student know that you value feedback, that you are adaptable/flexible in your approach to supervision, and that you will be asking for their feedback both during and at the end of the end of the supervision period.

Reinforce the Message and Values

During the supervision period, look for opportunities to demonstrate your adaptability, your interest in feedback, and it is OK for them to offer feedback even if they might feel a bit uncomfortable.  (Some people resist giving feedback to supervisors, including for gender/age/cultural reasons. They need to experience the process working successfully to overcome that resistance.)

Asking for Feedback

Aim for a face-to-face meeting, though it's fine if some people prefer to give feedback in writing.  Before you ask for feedback, first ask what is important to them in supervision relationship. You need to understand their frame of reference and values. Then ask: "What worked well for you? And what didn't?"  Then you can ask the feedback question: "For those things that didn't work so well for you, what would have worked better for you?"  You are asking how things could be different for them, within their frame of reference.  You aren't asking them to step into your shoes and advise you on how to be a better supervisor.


How to publish an article that is only one page long?

Basically you’re asking to write a short letter, comment, or communication. Some, but not all, journals allow for such submissions, although usually they are in response to an existing article in the journal.


When can I safely use CC-BY license on arXiv?

Using a CC-BY license on arxiv.org will be fine whenever you don't need to retain exclusive rights. CC-BY is a non-exclusive license, and you are free to grant as many non-exclusive licenses as you wish. However, you won't be able to grant a exclusive license thereafter, which is what most commercial publishers are looking for. The typical "transfer of copyright" would essentially be an exclusive license in these cases.

If you intend to publish the paper submitted to arxiv.org with an open access publisher, it should generally work with a CC-BY license. Most open access publishers require only a non-exclusive license to publish a paper, so there would be no conflict here. It may however not be possible to go to a publisher which requires either an exclusive license or a copyright transfer afterwards.

Interestingly, a copyright transfer may be less restrictive than an exclusive license in this case. In principle, it should be possible to transfer copyright even if a license have already been granted to someone else (that's how a company would buy software from another company that has already been licensed). So, why not try the following with your next paper:

Submit it to arxiv under a CC-BY license.
Submit to a commercial publisher, and add a statement like this to the copyright transfer agreement:

  "This agreement is with the understanding that a non-revocable, non-exclusive license under the terms CC-BY has been granted to a arxiv.org."

I wonder how they'd react...


Unintentionally disrespectful in the Statement of Purpose/Academic essay

The culture regarding the academic titles is quite country-specific. In some countries (e.g. Germany) academics are more often referred to by title and surname, Prof. Famous, even in a classroom. In some countries (e.g. UK) students will address their lecturers by their first name, but refer to them by their title and surname in official writing.

However, these traditions rapidly change now because of the cultural mix in academia. With the growing numbers of professors with unusual names for European cultures, it is a more common practice now to include both name and surname after the title, e.g. Dr. Hu Rich.  It is impossible to maintain the same standard, and I don't think that academics generally care too much. It is still considered a good tone to keep the titles in official academic writing, but I don't think we expect all MSc candidates to know this.

Overall, my advice is: don't worry to much, don't write to correct it, just make sure you do it properly next time.


Writing a recommendation letter for a student I reported for academic dishonesty

The best option is:  Don't write the letter.  In a case like this, I would outright refuse to provide a recommendation.

However, if you are not comfortable with a non-negotiable refusal, you might want to simply tell the student that you cannot provide a positive letter for them.  If the student insists, then you should write an honest letter that gives a balanced evaluation of their ability and personal traits.  The fact that you caught the student cheating is a critically important piece of information in this regard, and it needs to be included. The cheating will almost certainly be the most salient feature to anyone who reads the letter, which will make the net effect of the letter, regardless of whatever else you say in it, strongly negative.  And if the student insists on you writing the letter in this situation, that is basically what they deserve.


Access to databases stopped in Slovakia – how to deal with it

Individual access

This question details a few ways to access scientific publications, without resorting to now-unpaid subscriptions.

Collective access

Research into ways of influencing your government's decisions that are legal in your country.

Writing an open letter to a relevant person in your government (that'll likely be your Minister of Education / Minister školstva) and distributing it through Slovak Academy of Science / Slovenská akadémia vied for other scientists to sign could be a good start.
Depending on what is legal in your country, organizing a protest march / a picket could also be an option.
You are likely not the only person annoyed by these changes: find others who will be willing to join your cause.

If there are people high up in the hierarchy of Slovak Academy of Science that sympathize with your cause, they are likely to have some influence on your government.


Do colleges/professors sign contracts with educational publishers that require them to use the publisher's learning platform?

Is it possible? I suppose so, but that's not the way things normally work. Usually the professor, or a committee of professors, decides what textbook and/or homework system to use. There is not usually a contract, and they can change to a different book or system at any time.

I can think of several more likely reasons for using the system:

Simplicity. A generic online learning system like Blackboard has little pre-made content, while a system from a publisher will come with questions already written.  Writing even one quiz per week "from scratch" in Blackboard is highly time consuming. Giving quizzes on paper is also more time consuming, and takes class time.
Textbook integration. The online systems from publishers are often tightly integrated with an online textbook. Students often complain about systems like Blackboard, saying they don't see the link between the questions there and the textbook.
A desire to try out online systems. From the question, it sounds like the professor could get more "value" from the system. Perhaps she's just trying it out, before really committing to it. Or perhaps she is concerned about complaints if she assigns more frequent assignments. Student feedback is important in this case.
If a committee decided that the online system is required, perhaps the professor could be "playing along" by assigning a minimal amount of work on it, just enough to avoid criticism from colleagues.


My former university department gave out three annual awards, with a certificate and a plaque. The recipients were chosen by an awards committee of faculty. The three awards were for research, for teaching, and for service. The committee would accept nominations from anyone. I doubt that self nominating was ever encouraged, however.

Someone in the administration sends out a "call for nominations" a couple of months or so before the awards.

In addition, occasional special awards were given for something exceptional, such as the design of a new degree, awarded to the members of the design committee.

The awards were presented at one of the "all hands" meetings that we had periodically. Presentation was usually by the dean.

The following are also possibilities. Photos taken, maybe placed on the "wall of honor". An article in the department newsletter. A public announcement to local media.

Note that this was department level. The university can also do similar things at the larger level, both regular (annual) and special awards.


I was rejected twice from two MSc programs, should I quit trying?

If this is necessary for your career, certainly don't quit trying yet. But realize a few things:

Being at a top school doesn't always matter much for graduate studies, especially in Canada where Masters programsv tend to be more like mini PhDs. So you may find you have more success applying to smaller schools where there is a supervisor whose interests match your own. The supervisor likely matters more than the school.
Strengthen your application in any ways you can. Take some time to get experience in your field outside of academia. Do some extracurricular activities that show leadership potential. If you can upgrade your marks, do so. See if you can turn your bachelor's thesis into a published paper.
Put lots of effort into the other aspects of your application. Make sure you have excellent references. If there's a place to explain extenuating circumstantial, use it to explain your GPA


Are there cases where an accepted paper is retracted for lack of originality?

By "revoked," I assume that you mean retracted. I have often heard of papers being retracted for plagiarism, but never for reinventing the wheel.

I believe that the reason is, there are so many different ways to invent wheels, that it is almost always possible to tell if an idea is actually an independent invention.  A reinvention will likely use somewhat different terminology, have a different formulation of the problem, use different types of evidence, or whatnot.  There will be so many small differences, that it would be clear that the work is original, in the copyright sense, and not an academic fraud.

The fact that is it a reinvention of an idea that was already discovered elsewhere, however, means that it is likely to sink into obscurity once this fact is discovered... except... sometimes, a reinvention is not just a reinvention.  Sometimes, the reason for a reinvention is that an idea has not reached a community.  In that case, the contribution may not be the reinvention, but the importation of a mature body of work from elsewhere, in which case even a reinvention of a wheel may constitute a legitimate scientific contribution, in the form of bringing together two strands of research that complement one another and allow vital new progress to occur.


As a post-doc, should I pursue incremental research or revolutionary research?

Consider that he may be correct.

There may not be an upper bound, but there is certainly a lower bound to the 'boldness' of work that will move you to the next level.

Indeed, while progress is usually incremental, few good faculty positions go to individuals that produce 'usual' work. Your senior advisor has certainly had time to feel out what is likely to succeed.


What to do when the reviewer of a conference submission provides very negative ratings and almost no comments?

Lack of meaningful review feedback is absolutely abnormal and inappropriate behavior for a good computer science conference (I am guessing computer science based on your prior posts).  The late response and lack of email are within normal variance, though.

Unfortunately, what this probably means is that the conference you submitted to is actually a crap conference.  Re-investigate the conference, and evaluate its quality again: just because something is international doesn't mean it is good.  Even being sponsored by a major society like IEEE may not ensure quality.  Look at who is involved and the level of citation of past work, etc.  If the conference is a crap conference, you should feel thankful that they rejected your paper and you have an opportunity to submit to a better conference instead.

If, on the other hand, despite all expectation it is actually a good conference, then you should write to the program chairs and ask to receive a real peer review.  Every author deserves meaningful feedback on your paper, no matter how bad the paper may be (and I speak as one who has even given a serious review to a submission from a clearly insane individual).


Condensed-matter theory with career prospect in the industry

From previous exposure, I know I greatly enjoy the former option

Do the above one. I did an experimental DPhil in condensed matter physics and there were are very few (well paid) jobs in this field in the UK. I imagine there are even less in theory (I imagine companies will  work with academics to do the theory and then spin-off their ideas where relevant).

When I did my DPhil I also wanted a job which made the most of my physics knowledge, but after a successful DPhil (with a good publication record) I decided academia wasn't for me because of the lack of stability and need to be geographically mobile. I moved into industry and am pleasantly surprised at the amount I use the physical knowledge gained during my DPhil! I'll get put on / approached for relevant projects (in the CMP domain). Pleasantly, I find I get to dedicate about the same time to projects I find interesting in industry as in academia: too much time in academia was spent chasing grants, teaching students and helping my peers.

All in all, for your PhD do what you enjoy most: if you end up loving you should stay in academia -  don't bother moving to industry. If you end up enjoying it less than you think, you will get a great job in industry with either of those PhDs. Decide later at the end of your successful PhD!


Submission to arXiv of PAMS submitted paper

Only the first option (the default) is no less restrictive than CC BY-NC-ND.  You can always choose it, but you cannot choose the others unless you get special permission from the AMS.  I have no idea whether they would grant such permission, but it can't hurt to ask if you care.

However, it doesn't matter which licenses are listed as options, since you are by no means limited to these choices.  This list just consists of options the arXiv offers you with one click, but you can add a footnote to your paper specifying whichever license you like.  In particular, if you want to use a CC BY-NC-ND license, then you can do so despite the fact that the arXiv's list doesn't include it.  (You also have to choose one of their options, presumably the default, but that's not a problem.  If a paper is available under two licenses, then users can choose to use either license to justify their use of it.)


How to make a great faculty interview presentation?

You might find this guide useful: https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1085

The key organizing questions are as follows:
• What problem have I worked on?
• Why would anyone work on this problem?
• What is significant about what I have done?
• How has my work made progress on the problem?

Here's a sample structure for a 45-minute research job talk:

Content * Time * Target Audience * Detail Level / Purpose

Background * 15 * Everyone present * Your parents would understand it

Your approach * 10 * People in related fields * Show you know the field

Your results * 10 * People who work in your field * Show that you are the world expert on something

Summary * 10 * Everyone in the room * Relate your results to the big picture

I found this structure particularly useful because it's easy to lose sight of how specialized one's work is. You need to make the talk relatable, and to speak to a broader audience than, for example, a conference presentation or a journal article. Even though these faculty might be in the same discipline and have phds, there is every chance they don't follow your subfield. Only part of your talk needs to demonstrate the cutting edge aspects of your research. Most of it should be broader.

Of course, your mileage may vary, but I found this advice convincing (and it worked for me!)


What are the most important factors when considering graduate school in chemistry?

As a second year grad student in chemistry, I would say the two most important factors are if there are multiple professors you could see yourself working for and if you feel like you could spend the next 5+ years of your life at the school/in the area. You are going to be stressed out with work, so you want to enjoy where you're living.

I haven't heard of any US chemistry PhD grad programs that don't pay tuition + insurance + stipend, so I don't think that's much of a worry (I would, however, make sure you get all that).

The renown of the school and success of past alumni is actually less important than you'd think. Grad school is all about your research advisor and your research (i.e. a better professor at a lower tier school is better than the other way around).


I think you lay it out just fine in your pro/con arguments. At the end, it is also a cultural thing: In pure math, for example, chalk talks are acceptable and not entirely uncommon. On the other hand, in applied math they are very uncommon and it would be rather surprising to see someone give a chalk talk -- to the point where people would wonder whether that is the person we would want to hire. I suspect that in other fields, that stigma is even stronger: Imagine someone in a business school giving a chalk talk.

So it depends a bit on the cultural norms in your field. I would think that a slide talk makes sure you're always on the right side. I will also point out that chalk talks have real issues with visuals. For example, if your hand writing is not extraordinary, some people may not be able to read what you have to say. Secondly, there is  the saying that a picture is as good as a thousand words -- but good pictures are just really hard to do on the board because (i) it is inherently 2d, and (ii) there is a limit to the complexity that you can reproduce on a board. If there is anything in your talk that could be presented in a visual way (and I would say that there is, even though I know nothing about your research area), then it's worth doing that in a visual way and that implies that you'd be better off with slides in most cases.


What should I do the day before submitting my PhD thesis?

I would suggest reading through it one more time for pleasure. Savor the writing you labored so hard on, marvel at just how much work has gone into this, and reflect on where you are now compared to where you were when you started this labor.
To abuse the poetry of Genesis:

And the student saw every thing that they had made, and, behold, it was very good.
Thus the thesis was finished, and all the host of its data. And on the seventh day the student ended their work which they had made.


If you could find a department that is fairly close to your interests that has a lot of teaching assistants (TAs), that would be a great way to fund your studies.  I suspect Management is not such a department.  I wonder if Economics would have enough affinity?  Perhaps Economics would have a pretty good number of TA positions.

Another possibility might be to try to find a job that would pay for your schooling.  This might require a part-time school schedule, at least initially.


I'm RAing for a friend who's a professor at my school. How should I address him in conversations about the research?

How should I address this person?

You should ask him how he would prefer to be addressed, and then follow that.


Do new professors typically get paid for course prep done prior to starting their job?

It's also my understanding that your situation is standard.

Basically, you're expected to know how to teach that class already.  Any prep you do before hand amounts to you getting ready to do the job they hired you for, which a normal private sector company doesn't pay you for either.

But really, the explanation doesn't matter so much as the fact that this is widely accepted as normal.


How to interpret the French terms cahier and tome in citation

According to the  webpage of the Journal de l’École Polytechnique, each cahier corresponds to a one year volume, and  tome corresponds to an issue.


Open to the public means ... open to the public (presuming they can sit quietly in a room for 2 hours or however long your wife's defense is).

Moreover, (edit though I thought I was clear), it's very common in the US for family including parents and spouses to attend PhD defenses.

My wife and parents came to my defense (philosophy PhD USA). As did a friend of ours who was a foreigner living in America with no connection to philosophy. A philosophy PhD defense at least at my institution is them drilling you with every objection and reason that they think you're wrong for two solid hours.

While I assume a nutrition science PhD has a different format, I hope that neither the committee nor the person defending the dissertation has much time to look around and see who came and to think odd thoughts about the professionalism of the candidate based on who came to their defense.


Does it make sense to pursue two master's degrees?

I'd say, having two masters degrees could definitely help you if you consider the 2nd one as a back-up plan (in terms of research fields/directions) if you cannot find a good PhD position in the field relevant for your 1st (main) one. It should, of course, depend on the availability, so ideally, there should be higher competition in the field of the "main" one, and not vice versa.
If you already know that you only want to continue in the field of your "main" one, and see the 2nd as an additional line on your cv, I doubt it is going to help you much, maybe unless your 2nd one is more math-heavy than the 1st one (which is not the case, as I assume from your question). In that regard, considering your 2nd masters direction a back-up plan could be quite smart.
Yet, if your 1st one is more fundamental and your 2nd is more applied, one way I can think of how your 2nd masters could help you obtain a PhD position in the field of the 1st one is: if during your 2nd masters, you learned a specific technique, or software etc, which is highly relevant for the PhD project you are aiming at. There is always a bit of luck involved though, unless you make a thorough analysis of the PhD positions market a few years ahead.


PhD approved by advisor, rejected by examiners

It is difficult to answer the question without also judging the supervision and other aspects of the student-advisor "relationship". I have been involved in a case which also resulted in a fail. I, being non-Australian) got the impression the thesis was done either by meeting a time deadline or by the student "deciding" so. I cannot imagine any advisor would recommend the thesis as completed in the shape it was. I could not, as examiner, figure out what rules made the thesis judged as competed, it would simply not go in my own system.

In my case we bring in an examination committee from other universities and mostly from abroad. The thesis must stand an international scrutiny. This also means the advisors and students are aware of this requirement. In your case, as well as the one I experienced, I ask myself what sort of system is in palce to safekeep the general scientific standard?

As you can see there are many open questions which makes a simple answer difficult to provide. In some cases it might be possible to use the feedback to improve a thesis. In the US system it is common that a thesis is given revisions to complete. In my system (Sweden) all this quality work has to be made before time, there is no recouperation after a fail. Hence, the options depend on what is possible within the Australian system. If it is possible to revise and re-defend? then that is one way. Tpo take the work elsewhere might be possible but if the work does not stand international scrutiny then that option does not look bright. If there are deeper misunderstandings that lead to the verdict then it might be possible to claim a "mistrial" but failinga PhD thesis is not a good thing under any circumstances. I am just left wondering why it happened, not so much to put blaim but it seems something(s) must have failed in the process and finding out the reasons may provide a better view of possibilities to go forward.

finally, start again? another 3-5 years ona different project will require both a strong interest and financing (I would presume). It is possible but usually, I do not think anyone would subject themselves to another PhD period lightheartedly.

EDIT:

An example that just occurred.


How helpful is it for PhD admissions to be second author of a paper in a recognised journal?

This is a normal and expected thing for graduate students to do.  You should definitely list it on your CV and make it visible in your application to PhD programs and it will be a positive factor.


Is there a financial benefit for PhD student to join a funded research project

I'm not in the U.K., but in my part of the world, it's common (one might say usual) for computer science PhD students to be paid. Is the determination of whether a PhD student is paid related to whether the project is funded? Not necessarily.

When is it appropriate to ask about payment?

Should you talk to your supervisor about this? Instead of asking

  Is it normal to not be paid?

ask yourself

  Is it unusual to be paid?

In any scenario in which is is not unusual to be paid, it is neither inappropriate nor offensive to (politely) ask whether you can be paid for work you are doing.* In your case, it is definitely appropriate. So, go ahead and talk to your supervisor about this.

* Here is an example of a scenario where it is not usual to be paid, and it was therefore inappropriate to ask for payment. As you can see, it's an extreme example :)


PhD hopping due to professional but non-research issues

Is this a valid reason to give other departments when inquiring about working with them?

Yes, absolutely!  By not providing the necessary resources for you to begin on your expected start date, the university has released you from any obligation to attend.  You are a free agent.

  How can I formulate this in a way which is positive?

It's not clear that you need to formulate it at all.  Since you never attended your intended university, you are under no obligation to mention it in your CV or application.  At most, you may need to explain the one-year gap in your education/employment record, in which case — if asked — I'd suggest something simple like "I was admitted to the graduate program at [University X], but I was unable to attend because of unforeseen delays in processing immigration documents, which was out of my control."

As a courtesy, you should also explain your decision to pursue other opportunities to the department that admitted you, and in particular to your prospective advisor (if you have one).  In fact, I would recommend starting there; your department/advisor may be able to pressure the university bureaucrats into providing the paperwork you need.


Choosing the right selection about previously submitted a paper in a journal

If you had chosen "yes", then presumably the editorial management system would give you some options that eventually return your submission to the original editor who was handling it, who would see that they'd asked you to indicate ORCID IDs and you've done so. If you chose "no", this wouldn't happen and they would treat it as a fresh submission, which might mean your submission reaches a different editor. So the answer is no, you did not choose the right option.

That said, it's not a big problem. Your submission could very well reach the original editor anyway (because their specialty matches yours the best). Even if it doesn't, modern editorial management systems are capable of flagging duplicate submissions, which should catch your paper. The journal staff would then fix any problems for you.

Accordingly I suggest doing nothing. If you're concerned, you could also email the journal (use the desk editor's email, not the editor-in-chief's), and they should handle it for you if they didn't already notice it.


Will I be paid a percentage of the fee that readers pay to download my article?

How much do I get from it (as the article's writer) ?

Nothing.
Moreover, through subscription fees, your university is very possibly paying a substantial amount of money for access to your work.


What type of content (depth/breadth) is expected for a short presentation for Asst Professor interview in the UK?

While really short, 10 minute job talks in the UK are the standard and I actually think they work pretty well in that they do a good job of weeding people out. Sure, there were applicants that we turned down because they screwed up the job talk, but generally if the job talk went well, we were happy with the candidate. The best job talks accomplish 4 things.

First, they demonstrate ownership of your research. Many recent graduates were handed a PhD project and really never made it, or a portion of it, there own. Schools want to hire people that own their research. Talk about what your supervisor envisioned the project as being and how you transformed it into something even better.

Second, they frame the research in a way that makes it broadly accessible and highlights links to other members of the faculty. You don't need to hit the faculty member over the head, but you can talk about how your work on underwater basket weaving is important to consider when studying transportation of goods. During the Q/A portion of the talk, there is almost always a question about how your work relates to someone else's in the department. Alice may ask you how your work links with Bob's.

Third, they highlight which aspects of the technical details you have mastered and what things you still need to master. They will want to see that your current technical skills will allow you to pull off an interesting and funding worthy project. The best talks bring the audience to the weeds, acknowledge you are at the weeds and that you are happy to talk about them all day/night, all without actually going into the weeds. At the end of the talk you will inevitably get a probing technical question about some detail of your method from someone who has read your papers and understands what is going on (at least in a narrow scope). For these questions you apologize to the audience that you are about to jump into the weeds and give the technical answer.

The final thing is that they present a set of aims of the next research question. Ideally, the whole talk builds towards these so the faculty can see how your previous work leads to the aims and that your skill set will let you answer them. Even better is when a couple of other faculty can see ways to collaborate with you on the project. You do not need titles of sub projects or a timeline. Having identified a funding mechanism is always nice. You don't want to sound too independent at this stage, rather you want to come off as receptive to input and willing to modify the project to capture the strengths of the school. If there is a dinner/lunch afterwards, this will be the foundation of many of those discussions.


Paper contributions and first authorship

Authorship questions are among the most difficult aspects of academia and where feelings may run high. First, it seems you have a reasonably good working relationship with your advisor, it is good that she asked you. Some would tell you, some would just do it. So from this perspective, your advisor does what she (in this case) should.

The question of ordering of names is tricky and there are no simple rules, or actually there are simple rules, but they may be difficult to apply in the individual case due to a variety of reasons, including anything from personality clashes to just simple difficulties to asses who has done most. There are examples of point systems where authors are given points depending on what they have done and how much. In one case, the study design and writing (discussion) had much higher weight than aspects of experimentation and data analysis. the problem is that one should agree on such matters before starting on the writing.

So, to assess your and your co-author's contributions, you need to split the project down in at least four parts:

Who came up with the original idea and designed the study (high credit)
Who did the experimental work (equivalent) that generated the data
Who did the analysis (equivalent) of the data
Who contributed to interpretation and discussion towards the conclusions

Each of these have some weight with 1 and 4 most often larger than 2 and 3. Then when several persons split a chore you need to figure out roughly how much of each point each person has contributed. This would then give you a profile of who has done the most (important) work etc. I completely agree with anyone who would say this is easier said then done but you probably see the principle.

So to the question(s). If you have work earlier or later on this is of less significance, it is what type of work you have done and of course how much. figures can be extremely important. Good graphics convey the message in condensed form. plotting data is, however, in most cases not much more than a technical issue. Creating conceptualizations of processes, events etc. can be key to the paper so making figures can be a considerable input to be counted.

You can also check the text on this link for a text on authorship. An example of how authorship can be determined is given on AuthorOrder


OK, I'll attempt an answer here. The question, as I interpret it, is how to resolve the situation where your colleague published research that you had advised, without including your as coauthor.
I am in a similar situation myself: a much senior colleague has commandeered my student's work and is attempting to publish it without me. Like you, I am livid.
But, I've put a lot of thought into this recently and my opinion is that you should take the "high road", i.e. where you can claim moral superiority. If you do anything that can be viewed as vindictive (e.g. reporting them for software piracy) then it will likely do more damage to you than to him.
So what can you do? Well, unfortunately I don't think there is much. The academic system can be grossly unfair, and there are people that take advantage of that. All we can really do is either quit (a strong temptation of mine) or learn from the experience and move on.


What is a good set-up for the board of directors/executive committee of research institutes?

There are many examples of University research boards and their makeup (as I'm unsure what your research institute focuses on, it's difficult for me to pick a similar one, but it's easy to find examples on the net) however I'd definitely recommend a few things from my experience on non-profit boards.

Firstly, all those influenced by your decisions should have a representative. This means students in your case - it's vital to stop problems down the line.

Secondly, wherever possible, all members should be elected as impartially as possible. This isn't always easy, but it's an important step in proving the high standards of the board.

Lastly, realise that a board of any kind tends to get into cliques. Anything you can do to stop that is important. Examples to stop that would include a rotation of positions, or setting tenure lengths.


Is paying participants below min. wage ethical?

I've had this conversation with various researchers in the crowd-work community, and it is actually a bit of ongoing controversy. Right now crowd-work can be terrible for many workers - way below minimum wage, many tasks are a waste of time and just broken (cannot be completed), tasks take way longer than the poster estimates and ends up wasting workers time, there are few controls from being denied pay for completed task for spurious reasons...and on and on.

So there are communities of people who are trying to improve the situation for crowd workers, and this includes things like trying to improve pay standards, less time-waste, better designed tasks, catering to crowd-worker communities and "guilds" (people often cooperate to find and complete 'good' tasks), etc. Some propose voluntary guidelines for researchers to try to pay at least something vaguely like minimum wage, even for micro-tasks.

With that said, the current state of professional ethics and norms (and applicable laws) - as of the beginning of the year 2017 - is in flux. However, paying crowd-workers to complete online tasks is still regularly paid below anything comparable to minimum wage. So while you weren't on the vanguard of people advancing the standards for crowd-work, you weren't conducting torturous experiments on prisoners and orphans, either.

Therefore, you should be fine to just follow the norms of your field and state compensation (not all fields explicitly mention the amount of pay). Nothing to hide, and I definitely don't think you should try to skirt the issue and claim you paid for data.

That said, for future readers working in crowd-work, you should be aware of a few things:

- There is controversy on how crowd-workers (or "gig workers" more generally) should be classified, protected, and treated.
 - The current state of things is to consider crowd-workers as "not employees of anyone", and so minimum wage does not apply.

 - Researchers are treating crowd-workers as human research participants in some aspects (not subject to minimum wage and typically compensated very little monetarily when possible).

- At the same time crowd-workers are usually not recruited, given informed consent, and debriefed in ways entirely comparable to regular research participants.

- Minimal consideration is given to guiding ethical principals like "Beneficence" when it comes to crowd-workers (or even "Justice" and "Respect for Persons" for that matter). Most IRBs require that you at least pretend to make the participant better off then they were before in some way, such as learning about how science is conducted, but it really strains belief how this can apply to micro-tasks (like image tagging) performed on most crowd-work platforms.

- Some researchers seem to give no real thought to the idea that there are humans working on their research tasks, who are often putting in many hours of labor for them, and often subject crowd-workers to poorly designed, frustrating, time-wasting tasks.

- Some crowd-workers are in fact trying to make a living through crowd-work, and most are not even living in countries with wages so low that the pay is vaguely decent.

This is all very much a part of social advocacy, especially as many believe that crowd-work and gig work are major parts of the future of work in our civilization. Laws have (and will) trail behind these changes in the workforce, and so everything from labor laws to taxation is often a mess and does not apply with great consistency, and these things are highly likely to change in the next decade or two.

Finally, the state of ethics today is still that it is quite typical and normal, and only occasionally "frowned upon", to pay crowd-workers well below anything approximating a minimum wage. It is the norm of today, and you should be honest and forthright about it regardless of how you feel things should have been or should become in the future.


How do you make sure you don't plagiarize unintentionally?

Use citations for relatively recent work that is not your own (an exception to this is the idea of "common knowledge". For example, you don't need to reference Newton or Leibniz when you employ calculus).
You are not plagiarizing when you develop layers of references and then build on that body of knowledge to add a contribution to it (and hence, becoming part of the body).
When you state a fact, result, argument, assertion, etc, that is not your own but that of someone and do not use a citation, then you are plagiarizing because your readership will interpret that part of the paper as an original thought of your own.
Using citations properly is a skill you will develop over time, so do your best to cite everything that you think requires a citation early on and then you can always edit down things later. As time goes on, you'll understand what does and does not require citation.


Welcoming collaboration in a cover letter

As a general rule, I use: If something might come across as too direct or even threatening, package it with a positive example.
In this case, that means to first mention existing and well-working collaborations which you (and your current collaborators) wish to keep up, even if you changed your position. In the best case, some of your current collaborators would be your references and would mention the same in their LOR.

Packaged with this information, mention that you look forward to building new collaborations as well. Keep this general, so nobody will feel forced into anything (and you do not force yourself into anything blindly). But definitely, mention the current collaborations specifically (that should only flatter your collaborators and serves as a nice example those collaborations do exist and are not one-sided.)


Creating a secure test environment for a programming lab practical

As already outlined in some of the comments, it is impossible to achieve what you want: You cannot control a computer to this extent without a severe invasion that would go far beyond anything that I would allow you to do on my computer due to privacy and security concerns. Unless you want to video-monitor students, you can also not prevent students from using a second computer, a virtual machine, or having somebody else working on their computer for them. And even then you need at least two cameras to see everything that the student is doing or that is happening to them and you would have to frequently check that they are working themselves, did not rig the video, etc.

On a more general level, controlling cheating on any exam that is based on limiting resources is already difficult if you do it in a setting that you can control (i.e., your room, your computers, your toilets, etc.).
By taking this battle to the “enemy’s territory” and limiting your knowledge, you can only lose.

I would thus suggest the following alternative.
This is how my programming practicals were done when I was a student.
I also successfully applied this to a programming “exam” in a course I co-organised.

The students do the programming practical with no restrictions except time.
For example, they may use the entire Internet, course material, etc.
After they submit the code, there is a short oral exam on the code.
Depending on the details of your course, you can very this exam in length and relevance, with the extreme examples being:

You grade the code and the oral exam only serves to ensure that the students didn’t cheat (and may be as short as five minutes).
You only check that the code is doing what it’s supposed to do, while the oral exam determines the grade and may also contain questions about other aspects of the course and deeper understanding.
Here, the oral exams may cost more time, but you also spend less time looking at their submissions.

If applicable, also perform plagiarism checks on the code.

Some pros and cons of this approach:

You somehow have to organise remote oral exams, but these could be just via the phone, if that suffices to establish the examinee’s identity for you. Also be prepared that this mode will amplify anxiety, language, and other issues for some students (while it reduces them for others).
You may need to modify your tasks to account for full Internet access and similar, for example it should not be anything to which a bazillion of solutions exists.
Depending on your topic, this may be very difficult.
The exam is more realistic: except for taking exams, your students will have Internet access for the rest of their career and using it properly is also a relevant skill.
The oral exam allows you to gauge actual understanding, whereas the purely written exam may be solved by rote-memorising algorithms, etc.
In case of group work, you do not need to worry much about some incompetent student benefiting from a stronger partner.
(I am aware that this point doesn’t apply to you; I mention it only for completeness.)


Faculty TT verbal offer made, but no written offer (it's been about 10 business days)

A “verbal offer” is not an offer. in the US, any self-respecting institution would at the very least document their desire to extend you an offer in an email sent in very close proximity (same day, or next day) to the “verbal offer”. The actual offer including a precise salary anount and other hiring package information might take a couple of weeks after that, and official, final approval (typically by a university provost or other high-ranking official) might even take a few months, although that part is usually considered a rubber stamp that’s certain enough to happen that people will move across the country and even buy a house before it happens. But do not let anyone mislead you into thinking you have any sort of offer until something is, at the very least, documented in writing.
It is encouraging that someone says they want to hire you. I hope all will end well and that this is nothing more than an example of a mildly incompetent bureaucracy. But yes, they can change their mind (I have seen it happen), and yes, it is a red flag of sorts, or at least a yellow one. I advise you not to assume anything and to proceed with all other interviews as scheduled until your offer is extended in writing, with precise salary information. Good luck!


How to get professors to reply to my email of inquiry for research opportunities / Co-Advising

EDIT: I did not see "3 emails" when I originally answered the question.  I thought we were talking about 1.
In light of that, it seems probable that they are not interested or don't have an opening. There is a chance they are just busy, but seems unlikely.  You could wait a month or so and e-mail again, but unlikely to get a different result.
You should either look for different professors, or start looking around for other schools that have good programs and email them.


Can I withdraw from one conference and attend another one with the same abstract?

It is not unethical, but people will not be pleased.

usually conferences would like to have good presentations, and if yours is accepted, they would like to have it.
if it is currently under review, the reviewers put (sometimes significant) work in it. This work is wasted now.

Nonetheless, it happens that authors of accepted publications do not attend to a conference - which is much worse. So retracting it as early as possible wopuld be a good option.

If the work is under review, it might happen that the reviewers of the other conference overlap with your current reviewers. If I would be such a reviewer, I would immediately reject the second submission because I would assume the work was already published or it would be a duplicate submission (which in both cases would be unethical).

You can avoid this situation by submitting something different to the second conference (or you can check the program committee for potential overlap - but it is not always visible who is serving as reviewers).


Do I have to submit transcripts from school I transferred out of for grad application?

If a graduate school requires transcripts from all your undergraduate institutions, then I would understand that to include the university you attended for just a year.  Under the circumstances you describe, the content of that transcript should not have much effect on the admission decision (or on fellowship offers), but omitting it seems risky because it could get your application rejected (or ignored) on a technicality.


Parts of thesis draft published without proper credit

Your instructor has committed serious academic misconduct several times: if it is your words or your work being published, you should be one of the authors and your permission is required for publication.  It's also not clear from your post whether the same material was published multiple times, which would also leave you vulnerable to accusations of self-plagiarism.

It sounds, at least, like you are no longer working with this instructor, which is a good thing.  You should always look to separate yourself from seriously unethical people, lest you be tainted by association or involvement in their crimes.

Now you are faced with a problem of cleaning up a toxic mess, because your instructor has also lied to you about this "not being a problem" for you.  There are three different aspects of the cleanup that I can see:

What should you do in your thesis?  I think that your supervisor's suggestion here is good: put in a footnote at the beginning that explains where else the various pieces of the chapter have been published (both with and without you as an author), and note that due to misconduct on the part of the other author, you were not listed as an author.  Note that I am assuming the instructor is not required to sign off: if they are, this may be a problem.
What should be done about the papers?  Once you are safely graduated and are secure from retribution in another position, you can contact the publishers and request to have the record corrected.  The note, signed off in your thesis by your supervisor, will be useful here.  If material was inappropriately reused in multiple publications, you might instead ask for some of the publications to be retracted. Don't be surprised, however, if the publishers fail to take action, as many publishers are not very responsive when asked to correct the record.
What should be done about your instructor? It is very difficult for a student to accuse their instructor of misconduct.  Fortunately, it sounds like you have informed a responsible senior individual (the tenured supervisor), and it would now be appropriate for you to pass the responsibility of deciding how to proceed to that person.  Unfortunately, it sounds like this person may not actually take any action, so you may wish (again, once you are away and secure from retribution) to contact people who actually have authority over the instructor and may be willing to act.

Finally, be prepared to simply walk away if you need to: fortunately, this is happening only at the Masters' stage, and so all of this mess can likely be rendered irrelevant by your future work as long as you take precautions (like the note in your thesis) to avoid it coming back to bite you.


Struggling with Lab Dynamics and Mental Health

Is this a normal part of graduate studies?

No.  Good research management would clearly delineate each person's responsibilities and assign appropriate credit.
However, nothing is normal this year.

Should I just let this all go and move on enough to get that diploma in hand?

The purpose of a masters degree is for you to learn.  Focus on that.  You are not in a competition with other students.

How can I deal with the mental load?

Consult a licensed mental health professional if you feel distressed.


How to balance trying hard in a Master's program with stress of working too hard and not having a life?

Emillie,
I to struggle with the same issues.  I am working on my Masters as well.  I have a few handicaps that make my life a bit difficult when trying to do my best.  When I ask my professors questions, I get, Keep up the good work, if you require more time, let me know.  Never the answer to what I am actually asking for.  Anyways, I strive for one day at time.  I keep my head up and continue to find enjoyment in small things, to keep my head from exploding on the larger things.

Remember why you started what your doing now.  Pull your energy from your roots/background.  And focus on why you want to do what your doing!  What is your end game?

Try to get some exercise, specifically cardiovascular.

Then start to eat the elephant again, one bite at a time.

There are those who don't want you to succeed, and strive on seeing you fail, because that is one less person in the pool or class.  When you do finish, and you will, keep that in mind!  Be a motivator!

Good Luck,
Ron


Am I conveying disrespect if I omit my gender pronoun from a conference nametag?

It seems to me that the way to signal respect is, quite simply, by literally respecting people’s choice as to how they wish to present themselves to the world. So I’d advise you to take care to refer to people using their preferred pronoun as they chose to list it on their name tag (or using common sense if no pronoun is indicated). And don’t insult or think ill of anyone for making a choice that you disagree with regarding their pronoun, or regarding a choice not to list a pronoun for that matter.

While this advice may seem too obvious to be helpful, my point is that you are also entitled to the same respect that I just advised you to accord others. When you fill that form, you are choosing how you wish to present yourself to the world. Any choice that you make is 100% legitimate and deserves to be respected, including not wanting to list a pronoun. You don’t owe anyone a reason or an explanation of what (if anything) you are trying to “signal”. And anyone who professes to support other people’s rights to choose a pronoun to describe themselves, by extension supports your right to describe yourself however you choose to. Thus, I don’t see how any such person can take offense to your decision without being inconsistent and somewhat of a hypocrite. It doesn’t mean there aren’t such people who would find a way to imbue your action with a meaning it doesn’t have and take offense, but if there are I’m pretty sure you can safely ignore them, or, better yet, if challenged by them you can easily (and in a friendly way, I suggest) explain to them why they are misguided to be offended.

Edit: To address some of what’s been said in the comments and other answers, here are a couple more thoughts that occurred to me:

Someone (@vaelus) said my answer sidesteps the question since it focuses on whether people should be offended, but “doesn't advise on how likely it actually is for people to be offended.” That is correct. The reason why I chose to focus on this aspect is that there are situations where any action we take is likely to offend or annoy someone. Arguably most of life is like that, since the world unfortunately has many unreasonable people. Here too, I expect that some people will likely be annoyed also by the inclusion of pronouns on name tags, and might specifically be annoyed with OP if they were to take the action of including one. So it’s a Catch 22, damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t sort of situation. Therefore in my opinion the correct way to make decisions about tricky dilemmas like this is to base your actions on logic, and to be at peace with your own choices and be prepared to defend them if challenged. “Will people be offended?” is simply the wrong question to ask.
A lot of people are focusing on what OP will be “signaling” with each of the various choices that are available to them. And yet I find it amusing and interesting that almost everyone with an opinion is reading the “signal” a bit differently from everyone else. So, if the signal is such that 10 people look at it and each one is “reading” a different meaning into it (and appearing pretty confident that their reading is the correct one) isn’t that a sign that there actually isn’t any signal there to interpret, or that if there is then it is an extremely weak one at best? (Moreover, this is after we read OP’s very detailed explanation of what their opinion actually is! No signal is even necessary in this case.) So again, I think the focus on the signal is misguided. As @vladhagen said in another answer, the pronoun field is optional, and optional means precisely that. The only signal that not including a pronoun legitimately sends is “I chose to exercise my right not to include a pronoun.”


Securing an Impact Factor rating for a journal

The necessary information is available in the Clarivate Analytics website, which is the official body which calculates and publishes impact factors. The info is based on their citation indexes, which were originally developed by Thomson Reuters.

Information on the journal selection process:
http://wokinfo.com/essays/journal-selection-process/

Journal submission form:
http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/info/journalsubmission-front/

Other relevant information on impact factors:
http://wokinfo.com/essays/impact-factor/


Writing the GPA in the application form, even though the studies have not finished yet

Write your current GPA, and just say: "Current GPA: N.N" if the field allows you to add text and not just a number.  It is the current truth, and the people who are reading it will understand that it cannot reflect classes that you have not yet taken.


For faculty positions that require three years of research experience excluding PhD, how is that time calculated?

According to recent notification from UGC, research experience during PhD can also be included for teaching post.

Specially, in a notice dated 1 March 2016, it says:

  The issue regarding counting of the period of active service spent on pursuing Ph.D. was considered by the UGC in its 512th Meeting held on 4th February, 2016.

  The clarification of University Grants Commission is as follows:

  "the period of active service spent on pursuing Research Degree i.e. for
  acquiring Ph.D. degree simultaneously without taking any kind of leave may be counted as teaching experience for the purpose of direct
  recruitment/promotion to the post of Associate Professor and above."


If my paper is accepted in a Springer journal, can I submit my version of the manuscript to arXiv immediately after acceptance?

The short answer is: yes, staggered posting rights like this are very common - many journals distinguish between your own website, your institutional repository, and a broader repository (eg arXiv, pubmed), with different rules about what version of the article can be posted and when; some have also begun to provide a special category for sites like ResearchGate.

The underlying answer -

Why on earth do they do this?

On the one hand, this doesn't make sense - the PDF is the PDF and once it's picked up by a search engine, it's going to be readable wherever it's hosted. But consider it in terms of discoverability and scale:

one hundred papers from the journal on one hundred obscure personal sites;
one hundred papers from the journal on twenty well-organised institutional sites; or
one hundred papers from the journal on one disciplinary repository

From a publisher's perspective, the first option is not something to worry about, while the second & particularly third options look quite scary. Remember, what they really don't want is everyone saying "great, we can get this all from arXiv, cancel next year's subscription please". So an embargo period gets attached to the repository copies - many journals (most prominently PNAS) manage fine on a subscription basis while still making older papers freely accessible after a year or two, and so it's well-understood that allowing delayed access in one form or another will not ruin the subscription income.

Now, mass cancellation because of self-deposited papers being available instantly is a bit of a bogeyman. No-one's really shown it would happen on a large scale (and indeed arXiv suggests otherwise); library budgets are not (yet) squeezed enough that we've had to start thinking seriously about it; and in any case "big deal" subscription models often make it impractical to cancel specific titles. But it's looming as the threat and most publishers simply don't want to risk it... so they produce very conservative guidance on what you're allowed to do, and work from there.

Over the past few years, many of these publisher limits have loosened slightly as they discover the sky didn't fall, which I suppose is something. At the time of writing, at a very loose generalisation, policies for non-medical scientific journals are mostly converging along the lines of "accepted MS immediately on your own site, accepted MS in a repository after a year, publisher/proof PDF never", but there are a thousand variations.


Why won't good journals retract papers that were proven wrong?

Without knowing the specifics of the papers you are referring to, it's difficult to respond exactly.  In general, however, there is more than one way for a paper to be "wrong", and most "wrong" papers should not be retracted.

The thing is, a paper typically contains more than just a single assertion. When you say that a paper is "proven wrong", it sounds like you are referring to the high-level conclusion, e.g., "Cryptographic protocol X is secure against replay attacks."  Then somebody else comes along and shows that actually, there is a way to do a replay attack after all.

Such a refutation, however, often does not actually invalidate any of the actual technical methods or results presented in the original paper.  Instead, it will more typically involve showing that they were insufficient in some way for supporting the high-level conclusion.  For example, the problem statement might have been formulated too narrowly, or the authors might have drawn a conclusion that was stronger than their evidence actually supported.

In such a case the conclusion of the paper may indeed be wrong, but everything else is indeed correct.  Careful phrasing by the original author may in fact mean that the conclusion is even still technically correct (e.g., "According to this formulation, cryptographic protocol X is secure against replay attacks.").  In short, the results stand but their implications are much less than the original investigator may have believed.

Bottom line: many refutations may be understood as changing our interpretation of results derived using valid methods, while retraction is generally reserved for invalidating flaws in the methods themselves.


There are several possibilities. One is that you are lucky. One is that they are desperate (no, not really). But, I think that the most likely answer is that you have been "seen" by an editor via your conference papers and seem to be a good candidate to review a particular work. I would guess that the editor sees a match of interest and topic that points to you.

If you have the time for it, it would probably be a good idea to accept, just for the experience.

But, no, I don't think it is especially "normal" in most fields. When your advisor is an editor or a close associate of an editor, it might be more common, of course. Perhaps someone like that suggested you.


Should I put the name of proof reader in scientific manuscripts?

You should acknowledge all who made your paper possible. If that is too many to list, then you can be generic and write something along the lines of "I would like to acknowledge and thank all those who helped and contributed to my paper."


You have been told (by HR I assume) that postdocs can not claim their relocation expenses from the University. However, there is a chance you can claim (some) reimbursement from the School/Department or from your PI's grant. It is a bit late to negotiate this already, but it probably does not hurt to ask.

However, if the answer appears to be negative, unfortunately, there is not much to be done. Welcome to the dark side of academia.


How to speed up my research as a PhD student?

In many disciplines, research amounts to an endless series of frustrations, setbacks, and failures punctuated by the occasional success. So while it’s not necessarily true that there’s a slowdown in the middle, it’s usually the case that there are periods of lower output than others.

The only projects that go smoothly from start to finish have either been extremely lucky or tend to be development-based or “following on” from someone else’s struggles. So don’t be discouraged by having a period of relatively fallow productivity—it happens to nearly everybody. It’s a sign that your problem is non-trivial and requires some work and effort to complete successfully.

As for “speeding it up,” I don’t think that’s really possible to do by scanning papers instead of reading them. It’s hard to make specific suggestions without knowing more about the discipline, but productivity in research can be elusive at times, and there really isn’t anything you can do to accelerate things, unless you can somehow try more different solutions during your workday. So perhaps it’s a matter of having fewer distractions and disruptions to your day.


What credit does inclusion in "Who is Who" book add to the researchers and academicians?

They are trying to sell their books and associated vanity products. They know that their primary market for it, is people included in it.

Personally, I'd take an academic's inclusion in it to be a possible indication of gullibility.

If you've got the time, the Forbes article on the Marquis Who's Who series, "Hall of Lame", is worth a read.


How to send an email to a well-known professor for a possible PhD student position?

Your email may run something like this (names and subject areas can be changed, of course):

  Dear Professor Carroll,

  Are you accepting PhD students at the     moment? I am planning to apply to CalTech this year for a PhD in physics and I am really interested in cosmology and in particular, your work on the arrow of time. I am currently a 3rd year undergraduate at University of Somewhere and have taken courses in differential geometry and astrophysics.

  Best wishes,

  mathvc_


How best to present long equations in two-column papers?

When I have had occasion to deal with obnoxiously large equations, I find that there are four strategies that do well for me.  In order of readability, they are:

Shrink the font: if you are allowed (any many venues do allow this), you can usually shrink the font on an equation a few points without affecting readability.
Map separable terms of the equation to new variables, which can be given their own independent definition lines.  This can really help readability in a complex equation as well.

--- The line of desperation ---

Break the equation across two lines: this works up to about 1.6 lines worth of smaller-font equation.  When combined with adjusting font size, you can often adjust where the break occurs to make it look reasonable.
Move the equations to a full-width figure, where you can play all of the same games.