What name should I give to be acknowledged in a paper?

If you have already published papers, then use the same name as on your papers.

If you haven't, then now is a good time to decide what you want your "professional name" to be.  There's no particular need for it to match your legal name.  You might just think about what you want people to call you in academic or professional situations.  (And if it's a common name, you may want to choose a more unique variant; e.g. including a middle name or initial.)

But if possible, choose something that you think you'll be comfortable using for the rest of your career. It's awkward to change your professional name, because you can't go back and change your name on papers you've already published, and people will have  a hard time connecting the work you've done under the two names.

(This matters less for an acknowledgment, though, since it's not really that important for people to know that it's the same person as on your later papers.  So you don't actually have to worry about it too much right now.  But it's a decision you'll have to make eventually; might as well do it now if you're ready.)


What would I do if an editor didn't publish my manuscript?

Based on your timeline, my guess is that your email didn't reach the editor. Perhaps it went into her spam folder, or he saw it and then forgot about it, etc. There's little chance this is malicious. After all, the editor has nothing to gain by holding your manuscript unpublished. Now that the book's been published, there's no chance of inserting your manuscript into it either.

You've already emailed the editor, which is all you can do. At least it'll make clear where the error was, and more optimistically, perhaps the editor will find somewhere else to publish your manuscript. It's all you can do, and next time, you can ask the editor for a confirmation of receipt if you don't hear back from her after a while.


Attribution when creating images from other sources

I think it's somewhat unusual for academic papers to have a Credits (I would use the plural) or Picture credits, for two reasons:

Academics usually strive to produce their own content, rather than reuse.
Most people wouldn't follow the proper attribution/disclaimer rules.

I, however, think your way of doing things is very adequate. Your Creative Commons attribution seems correct: as you can see here and there, the CC attribution requirements are actually pretty flexible.

The one thing I might do differently is the use of references for each of the attributions. It seems a bit overkill (takes up more space) and somewhat blurs the purpose of the references list. I would simply put the attributions inline in the text:

  This diagram also utilises the following third party images: server (by mimooh, 12-Aug-2011, http://openclipart.org/detail/155101/server-by-saisyukusanagi), etc.

Also note that, at least for openclipart.org but also for other online resources, you can actually abbreviate the URL without loss of functionality: http://openclipart.org/detail/155101 instead of http://openclipart.org/detail/155101/server-by-saisyukusanagi.


Early Career Publishing strategies? (Keep publications to a minimum before tenure-track job?)

I read that whatever you publish before beginning a tenure-track job does not count towards tenure,

The first part may be formally correct at some universities, but this restriction is impossible to enforce in practice.  Your reputation has a high-quality researcher doesn't depend on only your faculty publications; it depends on all your publications.  The people who write your tenure letters will write about your best work (in their opinion), regardless of when you published it.  Pretending that your pre-faculty publications simply don't exist would be stupid, even if it were possible.

A much more accurate statement is that your tenure case will focus on your publications since being hired as an assistant professor.  Faculty publications are more important, but that absolutely does not mean that pre-faculty publications don't matter at all.

(I am assuming a reasonable tenure process, where the committee actually makes a good-faith effort to assess the quality and impact of the candidate's research record, as opposed to merely counting CV bullets.  Sadly, some departments are stupid.)

  so it might be wise to wait with those publications until a tenure-track position is reached.

This is absolutely wrong.  Competition for tenure-track faculty positions is fierce—a typical tenure-track position, even at a mid-ranked department, attracts hundreds of applicants.  Submitting anything but the strongest possible application is foolish.

Candidates for tenure-track jobs are judged primarily by the quantity, quality, visibility, impact, and reputation of their research record.  All else being equal, applicants with more good publications are much more likely to be hired than applicants with fewer good publications, not only because they have longer CVs, but because they can attract stronger recommendation letters (because the references have more research to talk about).

Normally, of course, all else is never equal, but here I'm comparing your changes if you publish more versus your chances if you publish less.

In my experience*, getting a tenure-track faculty position is considerably more difficult than getting tenure.  Most PhDs do not get faculty positions; most assistant professors do get tenure.  Worry about getting the tenure-track faculty position first.

(*I'm a full professor at a highly-ranked American computer science department; I've written dozens of tenure letters and have many years of experience on hiring and tenure committees.)


Why do Math journals provide you with LaTeX class files and instructions and they also advise you not to spend time typesetting the paper?

I don't know, but here's a possibly useful tip: when I get sent latex style files and complicated instructions for how to format my (accepted) paper, I usually try right away to get these files to work and to format things in the way asked of me...for up to half an hour.  If at the end of half an hour (or slightly less if I am feeling impatient that day) the task is not yet finished, I generally give up and say that I wasn't able to get the style files to work.  In almost all cases, the editor in question asked no further questions and gladly did the formatting himself.

The exception was a note I submitted to the American Mathematical Monthly, where they were extremely picky and passive aggressive about the changes they wanted made.  After at least six (not an exaggeration!) emails from a secretary of the form "For some reason you still haven't included your references in the proper format..." I lost my cool a little, gave them blanket permission to format the (three page!) paper however they wanted, and requested that they leave me out of it.  Which they did, and the note appeared a few months ago.

Moral: this is one of those tasks that will expand to take up as much time as you let it.  Given that most journals have professionals who will devote further time to typesetting your paper after you sign off on it anyway, why not sign off on it sooner rather than later?

Let me add as a counterpoint that there are some smaller, internet based journals where most of the nuts and bolts work is done by a single person, who is working hard to put out the product rapidly and well (example: the Journal of Integer Sequences).  In fact I seem to recall that Prof. Shallit of JIS spent some time reformatting my accepted JIS manuscript, which then got electronically published within a few days of its final acceptance.  He really went above and beyond, and if I have it over again I will do more on my own side.

Added: Looking back at your question, I worry that I may have misinterpreted it: are you asking about the initial submission of the paper? Definitely do not mess with any style files or publication instructions before your paper gets accepted. I agree that "instructions for authors" pages seem ambiguous on this point, but in all of my experience authors, editors and referees have a common understanding: first we decide whether we want to publish the paper, then we worry about its format and type-setting.


Nontraditional summer employment for academics

Have you thought about NASA?

I personally know a fair number of faculty who have spent summers working at Langley and Kennedy, and I can pull up a quick application form for JPL's summer faculty research program. A lot of people, faculty and researchers included, put NASA on a very high pedestal, but it is definitely an attainable position. I am not very knowledgeable of the limitations placed upon you, but I do know fairly valuable work is done, perhaps even outside of your comfort zone -- I know of a fluid dynamicist who worked at skunkworks in Kennedy, for one.


Encountering former, abusive advisor at a conference

This doesn’t answer your explicit question, but have you considered sending an email to the conference organizers asking for your poster to be reassigned to a different part of the poster presentation area so that it’s not right next to the former adviser’s poster? This could go a long way towards minimizing the possibility of trouble, and will probably make it easier for you to handle the task you have set yourself of overcoming the anxiety you have related to meeting him at the conference, while leaving you some wiggle room to maneuver in case that turns out to be more difficult than you expected.

The email doesn’t have to go into details, just say this is a person you’ve had some conflict with in the past and you would prefer for your poster not to be close to theirs. If I were an organizer I’d be more than happy to accommodate such a request.

Good luck, I hope things go smoothly and that you’re able to focus on sharing your work with others and having fun.


Can a first author of a pre-print be demoted in the version sent to a journal?

Yes.

Preprints are preprints. They're preliminary versions. It's not surprising if the preprint differs from the version that's submitted to a journal. Author orders can even switch during revisions, during publication, etc.

You also ask about the first author "defending" himself/herself against this, which implies you think the order switch is unethical. In that case, speak to the other authors first, argue why the first author deserves to be the first author, and if they can't be convinced (+ you're equally convinced of your position), that's when you escalate.


For writing samples, is it necessary to provide an English translation of a conference paper written and presented in my native language?

It would be advisable to submit a translated copy of the paper (with the original) for a PhD program in the US (or any English speaking country), as chances are, the people reviewing your application may not speak your language nor have easy access, or time to have the document translated.

It may be wise to submit the original with the translation, with an official note stating that it is a true and accurate translation (say from your university or the publisher if they provide this service).


Lack of undergraduate research experience and impact on PhD applications

Keep going at it!

If local colleagues only take students from 4th year onwards, there must be good reasons - like fairness, openness, transparency, risk assessment... Look forward to your 4th year and beyond :)

Also, how typical is your 'lack of experience'? If all students of your 'class' share this, you will not stand out negatively, and PhD recruiters will expect you by default to have limited experience. Then of course if you manage to acquire relevant experience, that will make you stand out from the crowd.

Your question 'what if not...?' seems to go far beyond your original point and your main ambition.

Take it as a game and keep the flame alive. Keep looking for opportunities, and you are bound to find one that will fit your circumstances.

Another way to go at it could be to approach higher education institutions where you would be interested in applying, and ask them what their expectations are in terms of lab work experience.

This way you will have a clear vision of the standard you have to meet to have a good chance of being offered a place, and potentially a scholarship.
You will not have to second-guess what they want any more, and you can focus on achieving what they look for, and more.


Should I write a comment paper regarding the following issue?

If your claim is valid, strong and holds for all possible kind of problems that could be supported by the lemmas given by the authors, then you should do the following:

As the paper has been accepted (you should wait. Because, the paper you read is the paper you read might be from author's personal sites or arxiv (as I assume)). So, once the journal/conference publishes the accepted paper online, you could write a comment paper/a short paper based on your claims.

Without online publication by the journal, it is really difficult for you to talk to anyone. I guess.


"Caught" in a plagiarism program for an exam but not actually cheating

Don't panic. If you did nothing wrong, all you need is to explain what you did and everything shall be OK.
Based on some similarity metric (computed automatically or spotted by a naked eye), your lecturer or teaching assistant marked your work as a potential case of collusion (working together on individual exams). Now you are invited to a meeting, whose purpose is simply to investigate what happened. As a lecturer, I attend them routinely (from the other side than the one you find yourself in), and I can tell you that 50%+ of cases are dismissed immediately.
During the meeting, you will be asked a number of questions. One of them is likely going to be "did you work together with someone"? or "did you share your work with someone"? Answer honestly and provide details when they ask you to. Don't stress out and try to remain calm and polite as much as possible. If you need support, you usually can bring a student union representative or a personal counsel with you.
Don't overthink it. You are not accused at this stage, the misconduct is only suspected by the system. This meeting is not a trial, it's more like a routine checkup. There can be similarities between you work and the work of other students, but as you said, if the problems are simple and straightforward, the similarities are quite possible.


Anonymous Student Feedback: Moving forward from abusive comments

It sounds like you've encountered the well-known downside of online disinhibition effect, more colloquially known as GIFT.  There is simply nothing that can be done to prevent some people from being horrible when offered anonymity.

So, let's parse out two different questions about how you should react: 1) what actions should you take to protect yourself and other students? and 2) should you continue to use the anonymous feedback form?

Let's start with the first question: given that you know there is a horrible person in your class, what should you do to protect yourself and other students?
I see three basic possibilities here, either a) the person is insincere in their statements and is trolling you to try to get a reaction, or b) the person is genuine but not a threat, or c) the person is an actual threat to the safety of yourself or others.  If you are concerned that it might possibility c), then if there is any way for your IT staff to penetrate the anonymity and investigate, it's reasonable to ask them to do so, just as if somebody had made a serious electronic threat through some other channel (your institutions likely will have a process for reporting serious threats of harm, though, which may mean you shouldn't start by going directly to IT).  Otherwise, it's probably best to ignore it and move on, because otherwise you're just giving them the reaction and power over your actions that they are looking for.

Now, turning to the second: should you continue to use the anonymous feedback form?  The one problem with true anonymity is that if you get more nasty comments, you can't tell whether they came from the same person or not. I would recommend looking into whether you can get pseudonymous information from your system, i.e., so that Student X's comments are all collected together and Student Y's comments are all collected together separately.  That way, you can separate out and discard feedback from the horrible person (essentially marking them with a "troll" filter), while still getting meaningful feedback from other students who have more positive disinhibition from the anonymity.

It's a pity that some people are horrible and try to screw things up for everybody else; the rest of us need to try to figure out how to appropriately protect ourselves and our institutions while keeping them from profiting from this behavior.


Eramus+ is an EU-funded program. Non-EU countries can join, but need an agreement with the EU. Since the UK is no longer part of the EU, and they've yet to conclude an agreement with the EU, they can't participate anymore.


Is it okay to charge for a software created during a uni project?

You'd have to check the case of your specific school and country. At least here in Chile, by law everything a student creates as part of their classes belongs to the school.

Sure, they'll probably be generous in their relation with you, but you must at very least talk to them.


How can I recover professionally from being a crank?

A few suggestions:

If it were me, I would be very forthcoming about the illness. Of course, no one is entitled to your private medical information, so you will have to decide what you're comfortable with. But "an undiagnosed brain tumor caused me to act erratically" is a very convincing explanation, and does not reflect poorly on you.
Consider reaching out to your previous advisors / colleagues. Even those who were furious at your previous behavior would probably accept that an undiagnosed brain tumor caused you to exhibit poor judgment. It's a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" situation.
Along similar lines, consider contacting the university, and the specific school within the university, to discuss whether the expulsion can be expunged or converted to some other classification. Most universities are really understanding if you speak to the right people.
When you apply, I would absolutely explain what happened. I would give a shorter version of what you wrote above -- even if they don't recognize your name, they will see that you were expelled, so it's better to tell your story. And you did a good job telling the story above, so I trust that you can write an explanation that is similarly clear and compelling.
There will likely be no need to provide medical proof. You could (perhaps even should) offer to provide proof, but I suspect most admissions committees would not request it. Among other reasons, it will likely be clear from your tone that you have recovered.
I don't think it's necessary to send an apology to your entire mailing list. But I don't think doing so would be inappropriate either. If you do so, be concise: no need for more than a sentence or two.


What is appropriate length of supporting information?

There's a difference between putting a lot in the SI and referring a lot to the SI.

If you have a lot of results (for example you created a lot of new compounds) your SI has to be big to fit all the characterization data. I'd say it's also good to put more detailed version of the experimental part in the SI. The version in the paper should make clear what and how you did something, the SI could contain a version that's actually usable as a protocol. Length shouldn't be an issue here.

Referring a lot to the SI is not that great. If you have to refer to the SI a lot, this shows that the paper is not streamlined, you're not focused on the main findings, and you're making people read two manuscripts at once if they want to go into any detail. The paper should stand on its own without the SI. Tthe SI should be something extra, not required reading.

In your case, it could be that you're needlessly referring to the SI in the text regarding characterization and quality control. Those references do not need to be there, you can put the summary of the SI at the end, stating that the SI contains all characterization and quality control data (and protocols).

As a good example you can look at one of the latest papers from the group of Phil Baran, active in natural product synthesis and new synthesis methods. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.6b13229 has a SI of more than 900 pages (not online until it's out of the "just released category), and there's not a single in-text reference to the SI. A slightly older example has a 127-page SI that is online at the moment: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.6b00250


"Can I write my PhD thesis based on another student's paper if I'm a co-author?"

I feel a difference between the question title and the question content. It boils down, to me, to "were you a notably active contributor to this paper"?

If the answer is yes, and you take care about rephrasing published text, re-drawing figures, you can reuse the results. A thesis should be personal, and show your personal contributions. A PhD thesis based on only one paper is not uncommon in mathematics, yielding short theses. In other domains, you can expect to write one or two chapters for a published paper, by extending results, adding experiments. Not a whole thesis.

If the other student's contribution is significant enough, he should be acknowledged in the chapter introduction for instance: "this chapter is based on a joint work..."

If the answer is no, I am afraid it could be a case of plagiarism, and loose ethical behavior.


Should an advisor care if their student becomes overweight?

Becoming overweight is not an issue per se.  Major physical changes, however, are often a sign of an major ongoing mental or physical health event.  Rapid weight gain, for example, is often associated with depression or thyroid problems, both of which can have a major impact on the student's ability to learn and work.
As such, I would definitely be concerned if a student was visibly gaining a large amount of weight---not because of attractiveness or disapproval of weight, but because of what else it might indicate.

I would find it highly inappropriate, however, to bring this up with the student by saying something like "I've noticed you've gained a lot of weight" because there are also a lot of more benign reasons somebody might gain weight, including recovering from mental or physical health problems that would also be none of my business.

I would, however, notice it as a possible red flag, and start to keep a more careful eye out for other signs of distress, which might legitimately trigger a conversation about, for example, mental health.


Reviewers’ comments are not sufficient to reject my paper, what to do?

You make the suggested changes, assuming you agree with them, and submit to another slightly less prestigious journal.
Most likely, the editors didn't think your paper was interesting enough for their journal, and the reviewers weren't sufficiently enthusiastic about the paper to convince them otherwise.
At the top journals, for a paper to be accepted, it's not enough for reviewers to recommend acceptance; if the reviewers don't explain in convincing and gushing detail about why the paper is the best thing since sliced bread, it's not likely to be accepted.  (Of course there are the few exceptional cases where it's obvious that the paper is the best thing since sliced bread and there is no need to gush about it.)


How to cite a figure that has been already modified from another source?

"Reused with permission and modified after [1]." sounds good to me. It will also depend on copyright, which some journals require specifying in the figure caption. Whether the copyright allows re-use and modification is of course key.


Should I offer to come to campus if given a phone interview?

It is worth asking and is probably worth a visit even if they would rather stick to a Skype interview. They may prefer that so as to treat all candidates equally, but if that isn't necessary, they might prefer you to come in person.

It is a good way to get a feel of a place and to meet a few students and several faculty. I don't see any downside in asking.

"I'm actually quite close and could easily arrange a face to face visit. Would that be preferable?"


Using Discord to support online teaching

Answer to "How do I log onto discord? How do I invite my students?"

Head to https://discordapp.com/ and follow the quick directions to make an account. You should then see a screen that looks like this:

Discord is broken up into "servers", which are subdivided into "channels". There is a list of servers you are currently logged into on the left bar. Click the plus icon to make a new channel. You'll see a screen like this:

Click "create a server". You'll see the following screen, where you can name your server:

You'll then see this. If you have interacted with people on Discord before, it will suggest you invite them to your class. (I've blacked out the names of the people I've chatted with.) Instead, select the shown link and e-mail it to your students. The channel will remain in existence and be permanently available.

Answer to "How do they add themselves to voice and text channels? How can I break them into smaller groups for group discussion, and how can I monitor those groups."

Each server is subdivided into channels. Voice channels play in your headphones and listen to your microphone; text channels are chat windows. You can only have one of each active at once, but you can easily switch between them; simply click on the name of a channel to switch to it. The list of your channels looks like this; each voice channel displays under it (scribbled out in the image) who is in that channel.

What I've done is made two channels of each type and asked students to split themselves among them. I click back and forth to eavesdrop on and join conversations.

Note that the past history of the text stream is continually available. So, if students have been typing a lot, it is quick for you to scroll back and see what has been said. I would suggest you encourage students to type, the same way you would encourage them to write things down when doing group work in person.

Answer to "How can I and students type math in discord, if we know LaTeX?"

You can add bots to Discord channels. The way I know to do this is, after you have already created the channel, go to the webpage associated to the bot and click on the invite button; invite it to your channel. For example, go to  https://top.gg/bot/510789298321096704 and click on the Invite button as noted here:

MathBot provides a quick text interface to LaTeX, a basic calculator and WolframAlpha. If you type =tex before something, MathBot will render it in LaTeX mathmode. Beware that this means that, if you want to mix text and equations, you'll need to say something like

=tex \textrm{Let}\ k \textrm{be a field and let}\ S \textrm{be the polynomial ring}\ k[x_1, \ldots, x_n]

Preceeding a line with =calc will access a simple built in calculator, for example, =calc 9*43 should produce 387. Using =wolf should pass whatever you type along to WolframAlpha.

TeXit allows people to type LaTeX (demarcated with dollar or double dollar signs) and have it turned in to TeX. This is far more user friendly than the TeX feature in Mathbot: Simply typing Let $k$ be a field and let $S$ be the polynomial ring $k[x_1, \ldots, x_n]$ should work with TeXit running.

For more help regarding TeXit's commands (which also include a calculator and WolframAlpha), type ,help and it will send you a direct message.

Answer to "How can I and students embed photographed images or hand drawn sketches in Discord?"

You can also drag and drop files into a Discord channel. PDFs turn into links; standard image files such as JPG, PNG, GIF are embedded in the stream. See here. This could be useful if your students have tablets, or have paper and cell phone cameras, so they can take pictures of their work and upload it.

I will report, however, that in a recent test run, most students found the "make image, transfer to desktop, drag-and-drop to Discord" workflow to be clunky and awkward. We are considering whether we want to use shared whiteboard software as an alternative. Other suggestions are welcome.

An easier way to share quick sketches is by pasting images directly into discord. You can draw a sketch in MSPaint or some other program, copy it the image itself from within the program (no need to save it as a file), and then paste the image into any text channel. This is also convenient way to share screenshots; Windows can snip portions of the screen with Win+Shift+S, and Mac and Linux have similar features. After taking a screenshot into your clipboard like this, it can be instantly pasted into Discord.

For more complex things, you can share your screen in realtime if you are using the desktop Discord application. Simply click the "Go Live" button in the bottom left:

You can then share either a specific application or your entire screen. Others can watch by clicking your username (it will have a bright red indication that you're live), and then clicking Join Stream.

More information here.

What are some other tips?

Note that you can mute your microphone when you are not talking, to cut down on static. If you frequently forget to do this, Discord's "push to talk" feature makes it so your microphone is only on when you hold down a specific key on your keyboard. See here for more.
A protocol which has worked well in large VOIP calls I have been in in the past is that, if someone else is talking and you want to talk next, type the letter "Q" in the chat window. When they finish, all the people with Q's speak before anyone else starts. That wasn't much of a problem for my class today, but I plan to enforce this protocol if it seems like some people are never getting a word in edgewise.
You can adjust the volumes of other people in the chat individually. See here.
You can edit past messages to remove typos. Click on the ellipses in the upper right of the message, then click on the edit option. Other options here are to pin a message, so it is permenantly at the top, or delete it.


Is it appropriate to send an email to a professor at the end of the semester thanking them for their teaching?

In the academic culture I am familiar with, this is a perfectly appropriate and appreciated thing to do after grades have been released. (A letter at the end of the semester but before grades are finalized can look like an attempt to influence the grading process.)

I have received some emails like this, and I was very happy to receive them. They left me with the impression that the student is a mature, appreciative, and thoughtful person, not that he/she is somehow trying to be a "teacher's pet."


What are the standard workloads for mathematics TAs at state and private universities in the US?

Not sure if this data point is really deserving of being an answer, but:

I graduated from a top-25 math department at a fairly large state university 5 years ago.  The standard TA assignment was 4 lower-division recitations (e.g. calculus) per semester.  Our contract permitted us to be assigned up to 20 hours of teaching duties per week, though most weeks the assigned duties took significantly fewer hours.  Students working as TAs for advanced courses (upper-division or graduate) were usually assigned 2 recitations, but were also expected to grade homework, etc.

So what you describe doesn't sound totally out of line, unless you are spending considerably more hours per recitation.


Applying for Physics PhD program with strong application but weak test scores

First of all, congratulations on publishing and achieving that GPA! Together with strong letters that should make for a strong application, even with weaker GRE scores - maybe excepting places that use some kind of subject GRE score cutoff (if your score is too low). However, there's no such thing as guaranteed admissions for open applications like this. It'll depend on other applicants, your field, which research groups are looking for new students, etc.

The upshot here is that the GRE scores are easier to change than any other part of your application. Do all the practice tests, figure out tricks that work - dimensional analysis will take you far on the physics GRE, for example. You can also sit for the actual tests more than once, which might help with the stress levels.


What should I write in the preface of my master's thesis

You write:

What are the problems you are studying.
Why are they important.
What are your own contributions. (Maybe: "We present detailed proofs of the results...". Or maybe: "We summarize the results about A...".)
Is there anything new in your contributions? Mention that, too. Maybe you are writing in a different language, combining results that have not been explicitly combined before, providing a more detailed proof of some statement than you could find, etc.
What has been done before? A brief literature review is appropriate.

You should combine those parts in a way that feels natural. They are not section headings.

Plagiarism

To avoid plagiarism, do not copy text from elsewhere. Write in your words. This is especially true of free text, such as the introduction and literature review.

Furthermore, cite your sources. For example: "This proof follows the proof by [4], but we include additional details."

It might not be useful to rewrite theorems and definitions in your own words. If they are common knowledge (can be found in several textbooks), you can use the common ones. If the definition is less established, or if there are several variants and you have chosen to use a particular one, then a citation is appropriate, and explicitly mentioning any verbatim copying.


How are travel expenses paid by conferences?

In my experience, most times the person being compensated pays for their travel in advance, and then the conference recompenses them (save your receipts!).

Occasionally, however, the conference will arrange (and pay for) the dominant expenses (typically airfare and/or lodging).

The first is often actually preferable for speakers who can afford delayed recompense and trust the organization, since it gives more flexibility in making one's plans.  Usually, however, you don't get a choice.


To mark is to evaluate student work based on the rubric established for that work which, itself, will be a combination of University policy, subject policy, and what has been presented in the course administrative documents.

If you are unsure of what is expected of you with marking, it would be wise to discuss this with your head of subjects or course coordinator as you will need to conform to your university's policy on marking and could face issues if your marking deviates from that.


Do I need to include citations when writing my own lecture notes, if I make them public?

First, I think we should maintain good standards of ethics and scholarship for all public/published documents, regardless of whether they've been through peer-review.

Thus, even for "standard" material that's visible in many textbooks, it is "fair play" to acknowledge what you looked at to inform yourself. Indeed, this bit of information does also impart something useful to potential readers.

So, at the least, I'd have a bibliography, and, if not constantly citing those sources, at least some bibliographic notes explaining in some further detail how you used them. This could be a part of an introduction, for that matter, rather than putting it at the end.

(While it is certainly true that at some point(s) one can no longer remember where one first saw something-or-other, so it's difficult to give accurate credit, it is still possible to do a bit of historical research to find out something of the origins of an idea...)


Do I have recourse if one professor's section has a higher average grade and "easier time" than my course's section?

I'm certain your university has some sort of student affairs or advising.  That's who you should talk to.

I teach a class that has another section taught by another professor, and we've worked hard to align the workload and grading.  We did so initially at the behest of the department and our own student advising dean.  Both of us found the request perfectly fair.

A few points to consider though:

Are the classes really identical?  It sounds like they are from what you wrote, but be sure.
Has this been a long-time situation?  If it has been, it's possible the department is well aware of the issue and has been unable to bring about change.  In that case there's no harm in adding your voice to it, but temper your expectations.
Is one of the instructors a new professor/post doc/grad student?  It's possible they're new to this and aren't aware that the difference is a problem.
If you're unable to get anything changed it may just be something you have to accept (or change sections) - tenured faculty often get a lot of leeway in how they handle their classes.

Regardless, if you're going to do anything, don't confront the professors until you've spoken with student affairs or advising.  This isn't something you should be putting your own reputation on the line for, and certainly not with anything like a formal grievance.


I think the codes available in papers are provided as materials for several purposes, including

Help reviewers and journal's board to efficiently evaluate the work and identify its technical merit.
Enable readers to better grasp the algorithm/method proposed
Enable researchers to utilize the code in their future research to avoid duplication
Help (novice) researchers to play with the code for educational benefits
Provide opportunity to peers to further improve the proposal

However, you may contact the author(s) if the want to use the code for

Commercializing the algorithm/method
Use the code for activities that generates money
Register patent using available contents

In my institute, I see lots supervisor ask their master students to read recent papers and identify a small research problem to alleviate during their project work. Students either use the given code or contact the authors for code, which authors usually provide the code.

So, I think you don't need to explicitly state the code copyright in the paper. But, if you are really interested to do that, you can have a footnote in the first page allowing readers to utilize the code in full, if the EiC does not mind.

Hope it helps


How to avoid and address a lack of gender diversity in grant proposals?

This is a hard and important problem.  There are a few things you can do to address it.
First, admit that there is a problem indicated by the demographics of your discipline.  Tell the funding agency that

neither of the institutions involved have female staff eligible for the grant scheme working in the area of our proposal.

Tell them briefly about your universities' plans for future diverse hiring.  Tell them that the grant applicants do not have control over the diversity of current staff (if this is true).
Explain how the project will contribute to gender inclusivity.  You said you plan to hire one postdoc.  How will you encourage gender minority scientists to apply for that postdoc?  How will your selection process prevent discrimination?  How will that postdoc receive professional development that will advance their career?
Will you be communicating about your project to the public, and will that be done in a way that reaches people of all genders?
It sounds like your project is applied.  Will the application benefit gender minorities?  Even if they get a minority of the benefit, it's still worth pointing out that your project does not exclusively benefit one gender.
Do not add a token applicant.  You are obligated to allocate the project funds efficiently.  Some people argue that tokenism has the opposite of the intended effect.


How can I challenge a professor who is ignoring me in an online course?

I would be polite but persistent.

It may be the case that the online test system auto-grades answers. The instructor may have to go into the system to regrade your answers, and this may be causing the delay in the instructor's response. So, make sure your email contains all the needed information to understand what you answered and why, as well as the extent to which this affected your grade (X answers were marked as wrong for the the same reason). And try to be a bit patient before emailing again (a couple of days).

Is there a discussion of significant digits in your text? Often intro texts have something like this in an early chapter or an appendix. If so, you can point out that part of the book and say that is why you thought rounding to three significant digits was correct.

In your communication, I would avoid saying you think your answer is better than that of your professor. I would instead try to emphasize that the book led you to believe that your answer was also correct.


Selecting journal reviewers through cover letter

They don't require you to send a cover letter to five referees, but just to indicate in your cover letter the names and contact info of 5 potential reviewers. It's just to help them finding reviewers for your paper (as they say, they might not use those you provided). But I don't think you need to contact the reviewers first.

As far as I know, it's a pretty common procedure, I've seen it for several other journals.


What are reasonable alternatives to changing your name for academic publishing when you have a common surname?

In terms of publishing papers, I'm not aware of any requirement to use your legal name. A common example would be those who continue to use their maiden name (where people change their name on marriage). A friend of mine did the reverse, and wrote her first paper under the name she would assume when she married shortly afterwards.

The trickier case is what will appear on your PhD. It may not matter much, but it would probably make life easier if that said the same as your papers. You'd have to talk to your university about their rules.


Will it hurt me if my advisor's last name is before mine alphabetically?

Yes, there is a subtle unconscious bias. Even in a field where author names are always alphabetical, papers will be cited in talks as Author1 et al, so if you happen to be Author1 your name will be slightly more disseminated.

Is it true? Yes. Is it fair? No, not entirely. Is it a big deal? No. Should you change your advisor as a workaround? No.

The best way to overcome this bias is going to conferences and getting your face and name known to other people in the field. So it won't matter if your name is Aardvark or Zwingli, because people will know you anyway and know that you did some respectable work.

Another thing you can do to reduce the impact of this bias on your CV is adding a statement on the lines of the following sentence that I put in mine:

  "As is common practice in mathematics, the author order is usually alphabetical and does not reflect a difference in contribution. "

(by the way, I can relate: I have been alphabetically last author on 86% of my joint papers).


Coauthor always postpones working on article

Not only you can remove his name, but you should remove it, if his contribution is limited to minor error correction. You can instead thank him profusely in the acknowledgements. And send the draft to him before submission, saying you will submit within a few days.

Your third option of a blog post is also good, if you do not care too much about your publication statistics.

Excerpt from Cambridge University's guidelines on authorship:

  Normally, an author is an individual judged to have made a substantial intellectual or practical contribution to a publication and who agrees to be accountable for that contribution. This would normally include anyone who has:

  made a significant contribution to the conception or design of the project or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND/OR
  drafted the work or reviewed/revised it critically for important intellectual content.

  This is general guidance only and may not apply to all disciplines or journals which may set different standards.

  Anyone listed as an author on a paper should approve the final version of the paper and accept responsibility for ensuring that he or she is familiar with its contents and can identify his or her contribution to it.

  Individuals who contributed to the work, but whose contributions were not of sufficient magnitude to be listed as authors should be properly acknowledged, usually in an acknowledgements section.


How to alleviate "back to school" anxiety as a graduate student?

Early in my grad school career, I dealt with many of the same feelings that you describe. Often, I could not sleep or function well academically or personally because my anxieties were uncontrollable and intrusive. If you are finding it difficult to deal with your anxiety, I would suggest visiting student mental health services or a similar resource available to you as a graduate student. They may be able to help you determine whether your anxieties are typical or reaching the level of clinical impairment, and suggest behavioral and/or pharmacological strategies for managing your anxiety. One of the thoughts that most delayed my seeking help was the notion that I should just be able to "deal with it" or "stop stressing out." But sometimes it's not possible to do that without help.

Today, even having received, and continuing to receive, help for my anxiety, sometimes I find myself at particularly stressful intervals and dealing with the types of thoughts you describe. In addition to continuing to follow my medication regimen, I use some of the following tools:

Regular exercise
Good sleep hygiene (http://www.sleepeducation.com/essentials-in-sleep/healthy-sleep-habits)
Meals with adequate protein and fruits/vegetables (e.g., not just fast food/delivery even though it's easier)
Progressive muscle relaxation--you can find cheap or free audio files on Amazon or iTunes that will lead you through this exercise
Try exercises in the Anxiety & Phobia Workbook by Edmund Bourne.
Avoid becoming overwhelmed by setting concrete, achievable goals and breaking larger goals down into smaller pieces. Make daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Ask your advisor(s) to help with accountability for certain self-imposed deadlines. I have found habitica.com to be a fun way to help keep myself on track with my to-do lists; you could set up a group on there with fellow grad students to help each other stay on track.
Inviolable "you" time, set aside at the same time every week. Don't work all the time. Make time for an activity you enjoy. You'll be more productive and creative afterwards.


Generally speaking, the academic community does not consider it to be self-plagiarism to use your own previously published writings as part of your thesis, provided appropriate references are given.  You can summarize or reword if you wish, but it is not necessary for ethical purposes.

Whether your institution, or the journal where you published your article, will allow this is a question that only they can answer.


Contact your department, CC'ing your advisor.

It happened to me once: I was paid over the summer by my department even if I was out of the US for an internship at a company research lab in Europe.
I came back in September and found additional money in my US account. I told our administrator. she figured out what happened and she told me that in case I had already spent the money, the department would have found a way to ensure things would get straighten out with the university.
I still had all of it, so I just wrote a check to the university to return the money.


Who should I ask references from for my computer science master's application?

Your best course of action is to send an e-mail or approach professors who have taught you and in whose class you achieved great grades. If they agree to, you can mention that you would be willing to discuss your interests/experience in a mini-interview, and provide any documentation (CV, transcripts, description of program, etc.) that they might need to write a strong LOR.


How to show graduate schools my strong self study background?

Yes, things like typing up notes, writing a "learning/seminar blog" and being active on SE sites are good ways to help indicate the level and seriousness of your studies.  However, unless you are spectacular at this and manage to become well known this way, on most admissions committees, no one will have seen this stuff before they look at your application.  This means that they can check out your blog, notes etc but probably will not unless they are interested anyway, or it gets hyped up by your letter writers.  Consequently, this will be of some advantage in alleviating concerns of your time off, and is certainly worth doing for your own preparation, but it is better if you have something more reliable in your application.

Here is one suggestion: if there is an appropriate professor from your undergrad, preferably one you were fairly close with, you can try contacting them to let you know what you're studying, with aims to go to grad school, and ask if they can spare a little time to (i) suggest reading materials/exercises/projects, and possibly (ii) answer occasional questions you may have.  They may also be able to (iii) give feedback on your notes/blog, though it makes more sense to wait to ask about this until you have something in hand to show them.

Professors are busy people, so someone may or may not have/make time to help you, but we enjoy working with good students, so at least you should be able to get some suggestions on reading materials.  On the other hand, there's also the possibility the professor is willing to work rather closely with you.

In addition to providing valuable guidance to your own studies, this will keep at least one professor abreast of your continued studies, which should then come through in your recommendation letter from this person.


An abstract is a preliminary submission that summarizes the contribution of a paper. There are usually strict limits on the length of an abstract, either in terms of words or of total characters (rarely do they exceed 1000 words or 5000 characters; they are often substantially shorter than this.

An extended abstract and a full paper are nearly the same; the primary difference is that an extended abstract tends to be somewhat shorter than a full paper; I've seen extended abstracts from 2 pages up to 6 pages, while conference papers run from 4 up to about 12 or 15, depending on the space allotted.

One other important difference—outside of computer science, extended abstracts almost never go through a formal peer-review process before being published, while a conference paper will typically have at least one reviewer. (I think this is the case for almost all such papers, but there may be exceptions.)


How do employers verify academic transcripts?

This can be done in any number of ways depending on the country and the employer:

The employer might tell you to get the university to mail them a sealed envelope with the transcript
The employer might ask you to grant them guest/view access to your online student records (depending on the Student Information System at your university)
The employer might ask you to send an electronically verified copy of the transcript (through a service like the National Student Clearinghouse in the U.S.)
The employer might call the university and ask them to confirm particular information (e.g. the GPA and a couple of randomly selected grades -- this was what my former employer did)
The employer might mail a copy of the transcript to the university as you suggested

In short, unless you know an employer's procedures, assume that they will find some way of verifying the information, either directly or with your help. Not complying with a request to verify the transcript after securing an offer (when a decent chunk of money is on the line) would look extremely suspicious and be grounds for withdrawing the offer in most jurisdictions.


What about writing an abstract for a conference without having a research?

In my experience, this it is reasonably common in some engineering and computational science conferences which are organized as minisymposia, which have only presentations, and no peer-reviewed papers or proceedings, when the authors are most of the way to a result and expect to achieve it. The abstracts are often submitted describing the process to date with the results not mentioned or only mentioned including the results so far. I won't say that there has been no research done at all, but it's pretty common in my experience to see partial results submitted as though they were complete. Some of the results are presented having only been completed the night before the talk or the morning before an afternoon session. There are no lies in the abstract but only generic or vague phrases about the results in the abstract, and the attendees come expecting to hear about whatever results are achieved between submission/acceptance and the presentation. I've seen all of this happen in computational areas where running a simulation or computational experiment the night before is sufficient to get the result or negative result to put in the last slides of the talk the night before.


You question whether you satisfy the requirements for a position as a PhD student. The minimum requirement for such a position is a bachelor's degree, albeit, many positions will require a master's. You satisfy both of those requirements, so your move from software development to academia is entirely plausible.

You seem to believe that publications are required for a PhD student position. They are not, at least, not at many institutes. They are nonetheless useful, even "just a couple," even if "[they're] rather weak," since they demonstrate an ability to do research and an understanding of the research process.

You are concerned that your referees are engineers, rather than scientists. This isn't a problem, actually it is an asset, as is your software engineering background. Impact is a measure of success in academia and your real-world experience can guide you towards practical research problems that have more potential for impact.


I think it is good that you have included it, and that you have included it in a separate section (another alternative would be to include yet another section, towards the bottom of your CV, listing "consulting activities", but it certainly falls under an 'experience' heading).  Having some consulting experience under your belt gives you some credibility that a 3rd party finds your insight valuable. If this consulting activity has ended, I might also note as such (e.g., 2015-2016) so as to avoid any hesitation that your time may be shared in the future.


Is the name of this institute acceptable?

Interesting question- here in the UK, we don't use the term polytechnic anymore with technical and vocational training being pursued in further education colleges as opposed to higher education universities.

So, if you were speaking to someone from the UK, it would be appropriate to say:

Guangxi College of Transport.

Does that help?


Where to get second opinions on independent research?

Assuming the research is at an advanced enough stage, the best option is certainly to submit a paper to a peer-reviewed journal: free independent expert opinions, provided with advice on how to improve it!

[edit] If the research is at an early stage, there are often venues which welcome submissions of prospective ideas and "works in progress": it's often the case for small-scale specialized workshops, but there might also be journals which fit this profile as well (this probably depends on the field).

Of course it's always possible to contact academics to propose a collaboration with them. Some might be interested, but if you're asking them for guidance and mentoring then why not do a PhD with them? That's the standard way to get adequate research training.


Is it a good idea to email to potential grad advisor with personal website email domain?

Nowadays, I really don't think it makes any difference whatsoever. You are free to use whatever domain you like, so long as it's not somehow offensive or insipid (for instance, if the choice would be considered a curse word or epithet). If there's something potentially offensive, your email could get blocked by a spam server or filter.

Otherwise, though, it really doesn't make a difference. I'm not going to judge a student more or less favorably because they use an email address that isn't a school-based address, or if it's a "vanity address" like the one you've listed.


Is it normal to CC my professor when they introduced me to someone?

Most faculty are curious and would like to know what their students are doing, therefore you should CC them. If you CC them, they don't have to ask you if you sent the email.  If you CC them, they have the opportunity to clarify what you have written.

Some faculty consider deleting an email to be an unpleasant chore.  If your supervisor is one of those people, do not CC them.

Otherwise it is a matter of individual preference.  Few people consider it rude to CC or rude to not CC.


How can I ask an unacquainted professor to collaborate with me?

There is no single answer to such a question as you deal with people. Regarding whether they will collaborate or not, it really depends on the professor, their style, their current available time to get involved in your work.

But it is very unlikely that collaboration can happen without prior introduction in a venue, or through another third party who knows both of you. You can target a venue where they speak there, and approach them and chat with them to get some sense whether they are interested or not. Follow your heart in these matters. If you do not feel comfortable to the person or get a feeling they are not taking you seriously, forget about them and do not waste your time and ideas with them.

From your post, it seems you are almost done with your work and you want someone to revise it. This can be achieved by submitting your paper to a reputable conference, where experts in the fields are reviewers. You can check some venues where this professor you are interested in is reviewing (not guaranteed though, but if they are an active researcher in the field, they can be in the committee of some conferences.

Is it safe to deliver unpublished work to others? Again, depends on the person. It is better to deliver it for official review where there are some rules governing the process and other parties involved.


Gamification of your time-management method maybe an answer. Gamification is the latest trend in the Internet that involves putting game elements to motivate users to engage more in a website's activity. First of all, you can set experience points to each task, and exp requirement for each leveling up, badges for completion of tasks. Be sure to take care of your health while you do this.

About anxiety, procrastination and other symptoms, there are a number of reasons:
(1) The slow monster
(2) The not-believe-in-future monster
(3) The exhaustion-of-thoughts monster
(4) Nightmare and risk monster
(5) Anger monster
(6) Crying monster
(7) Self-restriction/limiting monster

So, these are the monsters that you need to fight in your adventure. If you can fight off them, high chance you will be able to finish your thesis. Good luck!


Students admit illicit behavior in private communication: how should I proceed?

I think it's reasonable for you not to support these circumstances, but also no need for you to report/escalate the situation to compel some change in behavior.
In your place I'd advise your students A) that you cannot help with installation of non-standard copies, and B) you can't be responsible if the non-standard software they use prevents them from completing assignments on time (you can choose to be more forgiving if and when these circumstances actually occur).
However, if students are in fact having trouble installing software provided to them by the university (rather than side stepping some additional fees) then I think it's your responsibility to address that root cause first. If you can't get support through the vendor, then this is the issue I'd escalate instead. Your university bought licenses and should either provide support for these sorts of technical issues or expect support from the vendor. Your university can complain to the company they purchased licenses from if that company isn't providing sufficient technical support, or make sure they provide sufficient support themselves.
If there is some additional fee, then you should consider whether that fee is really appropriate and whether there are alternatives.
Lastly, on the Covid-19 issue... I think it's important to be wary of judging others who may need to bend the rules a bit for extenuating circumstances. Breaking restrictions to party is one thing, doing so to access school resources sounds like the most non-issue circumstance you're going to encounter as an educator. Maybe he's really visiting the colleague because they have no sufficient internet access at home, or doesn't have a computer or the funds to buy one. Needing to visit someone else to work on coursework sounds incredibly inconvenient - I doubt anyone is doing such a thing without a reason beyond "I felt like it". Maybe it's not your business to ask, maybe it's something you can ask compassionately about in case there is something you can do to help, but this is not the situation to consider escalating towards some sort of "consequences".


Deciding graduate school... easier way out or face the challenge?

I think having more research experience ... will help when it comes to applying for programs.

This statement answers your own question (in terms of what you believe). By choosing a new school you will inherently be exposed to more research methods and ways of working. While it won't be in your comfort zone and more difficult to find an adviser, you expand your horizons by meeting new people.

  Which decision will benefit me more down the road?

A diverse education is often seen as a huge plus to universities when choosing their PhD candidates; especially if they are at prestigious universities. It shows that you can adjust and adapt to new environments. That being said, maybe a professor at your current university has a great connection to the school where you may want to get your PhD and you wish to leverage that connection? There may be a few reasons to stay, but by not going you risk missing out on countless unknown opportunities.


What repercussions do I risk if I exclude my postdoc advisor from list of co-authors against his will?

His participation in this work [...] was financing me, supervising and editing the draft. The research design and implementation is entirely mine. The original idea was proposed by some external collaborators.

From what I see, I think that your supervisor deserves an authorship of this paper. I think that you also should at least offer the external collaborator a chance to contribute to the paper and become a co-author, too.

Your supervisor (PI) was working on a particular topic and presumably is an expert in this field.
Your PI has an established network of connections, and was able to realise that the idea of external collaborator can work for the problem you are working on. The decision to apply a particular idea to a particular problem is a risky decision, and (in case of success) a significant contribution.
Your PI hired you. This is a risky decision, which itself is a part of a wider research process. The choice of people working on the research project is itself a part of "research design".
Your PI listened to your ideas (at least during the interview) and
approved them. This is a part of "research design".
Presumably, you had a few research meetings with your PI, in which he listened to your ideas, corrected them and approved them. This is a part of "research design" (which is a continuous process).

The fact that your original manuscript was rejected (for which you are the principal author, I assume) can indicate that you are not yet prepared to write to a standard of independent academic researcher. That's why an advice your PI gives you is important and valuable. For this supervision process, and also formal editing on the manuscript, he (or she) deserves to be included as an author.

Now, to answer your question. If at this stage you decide not to follow your PI's lead, you will not benefit from his advice and support any more. Based on what you've said, it looks like this decision can significantly reduce your chance of becoming a successful academic researcher. A particular repercussion take a form of bad recommendation letters, cut off funding, lack of support in internal promotion process, cut off access to your PI's network of collaborators. But most importantly, it is lack of his personal support and advice. Academia is a complicated world, and many early career researchers (including some young professors) can not navigate themselves through it efficiently without a help of their mentor/supervisor/PI. The lack of this help is the most serious repercussion. Do not underestimate it.


Can I avoid getting a PhD recommendation letter from my bachelor thesis co-supervisor, if I have one from my head supervisor?

It looks totally normal to hand in the letter from the main supervisor instead of the co-supervisor. If you need a second letter, ask someone from another project. I would not advise to hand in two letters from the same project anyway, it looks as if you have nothing else to offer.


What should be the theme of a presentation in a research visit?

Short answer: ask them to clarify; ask your PI.

To offer my own opinion, I would expect that for a research visit the appropriate contents of your presentation would be your latest research results. As you are visiting on behalf of your group, start with an overview of the group's main research areas and latest results (ask your colleagues to each make you a slide about their work). Then you could go into more detail about your own work later in the presentation. Perhaps pose some research questions that you think your two groups could work together on (take advice from your supervisor here).

If you get to set the time, a one hour slot with 45 mins + 15 for discussion will be plenty.


Yes, it's entirely appropriate to volunteer to serve as a reviewer.  In doing so, you should be clear about your current background and current position (e.g. that you have a PhD and are working as a postdoc) and your specific areas of expertise.  The worst that might happen is that you'll get no response or be told that they want more experienced reviewers.

Book review columns vary tremendously in the number of books that get reviewed and the depth and quality of the reviews.  In some cases the reviews are brief (less than 200 words) and descriptive, while in other cases the reviews are longer and include more of an evaluation of the work. Some book review columns solicit in depth reviews from experts in the field, while other columns (particularly ones that review a wide variety of books including textbooks) may use reviewers who aren't necessarily experts on the topic.

In my opinion, it's best to try to limit yourself to reviewing books in areas where you really are an expert- I've been asked to stretch further than I'm comfortable with in a few cases, and I didn't like the results.


A "project" sounds like an implementation of something. A thesis isn't normally about implementation, though it could be based on an implementation. Something that can be shown to be an improvement over current best practice, for example. But it is the proof, not the implementation that forms the key to the thesis.

For example, in Computer Science, a thesis often starts with a project. Suppose, for example, that you build a more efficient Garbage Collector for a runtime programming system than any currently known. That implementation isn't the thesis. You need to prove, somehow, that it is indeed more efficient and show the benchmarks. That proof is what makes it research and results in the thesis. But the program you write (the garbage collector) isn't the thesis.

Think of dissertation research as being about knowledge. After the proof is given we know something that we didn't know before. Building stuff isn't, per se, about knowledge.

Caveat: I will edit this if more information from OP makes it advisable.


Why don't researchers request payment for refereeing?

Academics aren't upset about not getting paid for refereeing/reviewing - they're upset because journals charge too much.

There's really four points in the statement "academics do pretty much all the work for free and publishers get the money"

Academics do most of the work
Publishers do a comparatively small amount of work
Publishers get the money
Academics don't get any money

Just because people might object to some of the four points, that doesn't mean they object to all of them.

Academics do most of the work - Most academics wouldn't object to this state of the affairs. Of course academics do most of the work in publishing (especially reviewing) - they're the ones who are qualified to do it. You can't have some bureaucrat take care of reviewing the work, you need someone who knows the field.

Publishers do a comparatively small amount of work - Academics might grumble at this, but there's a comparatively little that the publishers are qualified to do. Typesetting, printing, maintaining the journal website, administration in the reviewing process ... and that's about it. All the actual content decisions have to be done by knowledgeable people (academics). There's certainly some journals which try to offload things like typesetting onto the authors, but in part that's financially driven ...

Publishers get the money - This is the main point of upset. Publishers charge what is viewed as an excessive amount. ... but it's not that they're charging money per se, it's more that academics lose access to the content due to expense. Most academics were completely satisfied when they had access through (paid) library subscriptions. It's only when budget cuts (and publisher price increases) caused libraries to cut subscriptions that academics got upset. But again, it's less having to pay for things and more not being able to access everything they need.

Academics don't get any money - This is the point you're addressing. However, I'd say most academics don't have a problem with it. Refereeing for a journal is considered by most to be community service - it's something that needs to happen, and they're the only ones qualified to do it. It's quid-pro-quo: others review your articles, and you review other people's. Attempting to make it a paid-for enterprise makes the person asking for the money seem greedy.

So where does that leave you? Academics (mostly) don't have a problem doing most of the work - and doing it for free. The complaints are on the publisher's side: they're charging too much for what little they do. Demanding that publishers pay academics for reviewing isn't going to change that. If anything, it will make journal access more expensive, as they now need to pay for reviewers.

So charging a fee when reviewing isn't going to fix the problem, and as Mark Meckes mentions in his answer, asking for one is only going to make you look naive and greedy to the (academic) editor who you're in contact with. Note that there's a very big difference between "Decline to review based on principles" and "Decline to review ... unless you pay me".


To apply to PhD eventually, how important is it to do an MS program with thesis if I have strong undergrad research experience?

Your concern about professor focus in a research-focused MS seems out of place when you have what seems to be a lot of research experience as an undergrad - and I don't know of anywhere where undergrads get more help/focus related to research than at a research-focused grad school, even at the MS level. Yes, it can be a concern in making sure you pick a good program and a good adviser - but that's always true no matter what you do in academia!

If you just want an MS to prove you can get a good GPA, honestly that seems like an uninspiring goal to have for 2 years of work. I would be concerned for your enjoyment of the time and ability to stay motivated if research and a PhD is your interest. And being out of the research loop will not help you write a good application proposal for research, or help you identify more specifically what research you want to do and who you want to work with - which are perhaps the most potentially valuable things to get from an MS if you want to continue with research.

My other concern for you is that all that research as an undergrad looks great - while you are an undergrad. But people almost always weight recent information more heavily than older info. So if you apply to grad schools and write about all the research experience in undergrad, and how well you did in courses in an MS...that's exactly backwards, and it seems like that would make someone think you weren't really that interested in research. I mean, you started in undergrad - if you really enjoyed it realized you wanted a PhD then, how did you take 2 years off research to focus on grades?

I'm not saying your proposed plan would be a kiss of death or anything, but it seems like a non-optimal strategy. I'd suggest you think now how you will talk about the experience in a PhD application, if that is your goal, and what story will be the most compelling and intelligible. And what will truly prepare you for the best to have a great PhD experience, and beyond? Keep in mind that after you are admitted to the program, grades only matter in that you need to not fail classes - but beyond that, no one seems to care - not for finishing the PhD, and not for your career beyond.


What is the average number of references in a PhD thesis in the humanities?

As alluded to in the comments, there is no generic "right" answer: the number will depend strongly on the nature of your thesis, the state of the literature related to it, and your personal scholastic style.  Nevertheless, in the spirit of engineering approximations, I will supply you with some rough guidelines.

As a lower bound, I would be startled if it was possible to place most theses within the context of pre-existing work in less than about 20 references.  In certain contexts such as an obscure corner of pure mathematics perhaps this might be possible, but in most cases work does not take place in a vacuum, and other people will have either used similar techniques or cared about similar problems in the past.
As an upper bound, I would be concerned with a thesis with on the order of 200 or more references that the student hasn't been doing enough work on their own original research and has been investing too much time and energy in building a literature review, rather than a thesis.  Again, there will likely be cases where a thesis with an extremely high number of references would be reasonable, but these are likely to be unusual.

Notice the extremely wide range and suspiciously round numbers in my estimates: really there is no "right" answer for how many there should be in general, but perhaps these will help with some initial first impressions in one's thinking.


Formal letter to an academic person holding Master's degree

Don't overthink it. Try to find out the gender and then use "Mr." or "Mrs."
Even many professors don't insist on titles most the time and a person with a master degree is usually just a (former) student, who is one step further than other students. In a second E-Mail you can then use how they call themself in their signature.
"Dear Director" may be appropriate, when the job position is relevant to your E-Mail.
(It may depend on the country how much people want to be addressed using their academic full title)


Good books/resource on mathematical writing

I recommend the paper (series of class notes) Mathematical Writing, 1989, written by Donald Knuth ("Art of Programming" author, among other things), Tracy Larrabee and Paul M. Roberts.
Here is a description from Stanford:

This booklet records the class on Mathematical Writing led by Don Knuth at Stanford in 1987. Among the 31 lectures are guest appearances by Herb Wilf, Jeff Ullman, Leslie Lamport, Nils Nilsson, Mary-Claire van Leunen, Rosalie Stemer, and Paul Halmos.

We saw many examples of "before" and "after" from manuscripts in progress. We learned how to avoid excessive subscripts and superscripts. We discussed the documentation of algorithms, computer programs, and user manuals. We considered the process of refereeing and editing. We studied how to make effective diagrams and tables, and how to find appropriate quotations to spice up a text. Some of the material duplicated topics that would be discussed in writing classes offered by the English department, but the vast majority of the lectures were devoted to issues that are specific to mathematics and/or computer science.

It is helpful not just for mathematicians but scientists and technical communicators of all sorts.


This is a very broad topic, and specific guidance should come from lawyers and the requisite PIs, but in general terms:

there are a lot of reasons a given data set may be too sensitive to share, and containing PII- the domain of GDPR- is only one of them, but when PII is involved, it absolutely applies, and academic research is one of the many domains specifically identified in GDPR language, and is granted more privilege than other domains
when it comes to PII, GDPR does not prevent the storage, sharing or processing of data for legitimate purposes, it just prescribes lifecycle protocols that those who participate in storage, sharing or processing have to follow
those lifecycle protocols are intended to allow for the enforcement of the rights provided by GDPR to the humans whose data is legitimately shared, stored, and processed- to have their data removed, to have processing explained to them, etc.
those who participate in the sharing, storage or processing of data are either "controllers" or "processors" and different responsibilities are attributed to each. Controllers generally are responsible for the acts of their processors, and processors have to do their work in accordance with their controllers
a data sharing agreement has to define those roles and responsibilities for the parties involved, and ensure the sharing protocol fulfills the requirements of GDPR

A granular review of the issue in the context of research is here:

https://iapp.org/news/a/how-gdpr-changes-the-rules-for-research/


Asking for extension in submission of revision

Counting the days, you asked for an extension on 24.12. Not everyone has to be around during the holidays so next time ask maybe a little sooner.

It may depend on the field and journal, but this summer I asked for an extension and I got it. Also considering how certain deadlines are handled around the academia (like 3 months taking the referee to review a revision of the paper just to say its OK), you are probably going to be just fine.

Edit: I just remembered that some time before Christmas I was sent a proof to answer the questions from Journal of Mathematical Physics with a deadline of 48 hours. I guess it took maybe even more than 3 days to send it back and nobody did complain.


Assigning presenters the role of a session chair without prior notice

It's pretty common to assign a chair arbitrarily from among the speakers of a session.  After all, those are the people who are most likely to want to attend that session anyway.  If they assigned someone else, it might prevent that person from attending a different session at the same time, that would interest them more.

It would have been more courteous if they'd asked you privately if you were willing, before putting it in the program.  But being chair isn't usually seen as being a big deal, so they may have thought it wasn't worth the bother.  Or they may be planning to ask you before the actual conference, but they put some names in the program tentatively, and it was published before they had a chance to contact you.

Of course, if there is some reason why it's not convenient for you to be chair, you can always write to them and decline.


Career in Mathematics as an Electrical Engineer

In the US it is possible to switch after undergraduate, but I'll note that the focus of an engineering degree is very different from mathematics. I'd suggest that you switch as early as possible.

One reason that first year math isn't as rigorous as it might be, and not as rigorous as it will be later, is that those courses are intended for a general audience, including engineers, who have less need for a theoretical basis in math. The same will be true of early physics courses.

Outside the US it may be harder to change after an bachelors degree.

I'd suggest staying where you are only if you want a career in EE or at the junction of EE and CS. But your interests seem to be elsewhere.


How can professionals vet research ideas (and potentially collaborate) with academics?

odds are heavily against this idea actually being novel or non-trivial to someone with more formal training

That last line puts you way ahead of most amateur researchers.  In my personal experience most of them follow this line of thought.  If you're interested in talking about your idea with researchers, look up a prof in the field at a local college and write something like

  I'm John, a software engineer with an interest in research in your field.  I've come up with an idea I think is interesting and would like to know more about it.  I was wondering if you or a knowledgeable student might be interested in helping me understand it better.  I know you and your students time is valuable, and I can offer some money if someone would be willing to help me understand this better.  (Be sure to attached an explanation of your idea)

I've never had someone offer me money for help in an unsolicited email, but if I did, I would likely find a grad student who would really appreciate an extra $100 for explaining it.  There may also be scholarly meet-ups a grad-student could direct you to.

Although it sounds like your expectations are not sky high, don't expect to have discovered anything revolutionary, and please be nice to whomever ends up helping you, and don't try to convince them you are an unrecognized genius toiling away in your basement.

EDIT: You might find math.stackexchange.com or codegolf.stackexchange.com to be useful.

EDIT 2: Any prof you send an email to will likely measure it against this scale  for crack-pot ideas.


Is it OK if a letter of recommendation misstates the name of my degree?

No.  The committee will want to know what your reference can tell them about you, not so much whether they can pass a pop quiz on the exact name of the program you're trying to get into.


If I drop from my architecture studies in ETHZ Zurich, can I restart in Manchester?

The question can only be answered by an admissions committee at Manchester. But, like any other application, you need to show them that you are a good candidate to succeed in the program and afterwards. There is competition for any available slot and they want to make the best choices.

A series of failures isn't a great endorsement. If you want to move, do so before the situation looks hopeless.

However, there is an exception to the above. If you fail the exams for some odd reasons other than lack of preparation and diligence, then you might be able to have some professor speak highly enough of you that an admissions committee will make an exception. This is especially true if the professor has some personal or professional relationship with people on the receiving end.

But an anonymous student with a poor record isn't likely to be an obvious choice for acceptance.


Is there any formal format for statement of purpose?

When I applied to grad school I didn't give my SOP a title or address it to anyone in particular, or include any closing salutation.  Some schools required me to put my user id at the top, which I did.

(I was accepted to several places so I think the way I did it should be fine.)


Applying for graduate school with uncertain GPA

Submit your current GPA. Don't do anything else unless required by the school.

No one thinks you're going to know your final GPA now. Schools wants your current GPA to get an idea of what sort of student you are and will make their decision based upon that.

That said, a school may require future transcripts to ensure you haven't bombed all your classes and that you've actually graduated. Any acceptance you get will be dependent upon you graduating. Some schools might also only accept you pending your final grades. As long as your GPA doesn't drop too much (or you don't have a good excuse if it does), you're in the clear.

If you're still concerned you should contact the schools' admission departments, tell them you're still awaiting your semester grades and ask them if your current GPA is fine.


What gets a paper rejected after conditional acceptance?

I have been a part of computer science program committees that actually do reject papers that do not meet the conditions of their acceptance.

In my experience, papers are generally classed into two categories, essentially corresponding to "minor revision" and "major revision" for a journal. The papers that are basically acceptable in their current state are in the first category, and the organizers mostly just trust that the camera-ready will be acceptable as well---after all, it's in the authors' interests to improve it further.

Papers in the second category often get assigned a "shepherd" or, in rare cases, a second round of review, to ensure that they actually meet the minimum quality standards of a meeting. In my experience, this second category is much more rare than the first, and is not used by a large number of conferences.  In general:

The big first-tier conferences are often already overflowing with strong submissions, and don't need to bother about trying to cultivate borderline papers.
More specialized or not-quite-as-good conferences are more likely to make provisions to help turn borderline papers into solid papers, in order to make sure they end up with enough strong papers.
Low-ranked conferences often aren't very choosy in any case.

Turning to understanding the state of a particular paper: look at the process you've been told is going to happen. If you're being told about something like another round of evaluation or a shepherd, then your paper is likely borderline and you probably need to work hard to improve it to keep it from being rejected.  Otherwise, "conditional accept" is likely to be more a matter of wording than serious judgement questions.


Is it okay to work on a research project with a professor at a different university, in addition to main PhD project?

In the UK the funding system is somewhat different to many other countries: PhD students are either self-funded, or receive stipends through Centers of Doctoral Training or from University funds. Since you are not funded from you professor's grant, you do not work for him/her. You work on your PhD project to become an independent researcher, and as such, you can (and sometimes expected to) make your own choice in how the project is executed.

Of course, a simple courtesy requires you to ask your supervisor first before collaborating with someone else. One obvious reason is that you probably don't fully know the relations between your professor and other colleagues and could potentially disclose some of your supervisor's research ideas to a colleague who is more of a competitor than a collaborator. Academia is a twisted world sometimes and it is although you have full right to manage your own PhD project, a bit of information and advice would never hurt.


What is a authentic source of civil engineering BS graduation rate in united states in the last few year?

Check out the American Society of Engineering Education's "Engineering by the Numbers" publications here: http://www.asee.org/papers-and-publications/publications/college-profiles

There are samples available online, but the full reports do have a cost.


How is a PhD applicant's potential as a researcher evaluated?

The author is supposed to be able to discern and determine some strengths from
the applicant's personality and his academic procedure, could which
considered as valuable points in her view point, to be known and
succeeded as a graduate student. As an instance, the author might
praise his teaching capabilities, based on his benevolence to help
the other students to understand the academic subjects, in a better
form. As an another example, she might assess him as an assiduous
person, as he had summarized many articles to conflate his essay's
introduction, systematically. More interaction she had with the applicant, more
robust explanation she would present about the person... As a matter
of fact, the author can focus on every positive aspect of the
applicant and try to elaborate the details, reasonably...
Readers do not often expect any official evidence for the asserted
points within the LoR. They would be convinced by the letter's
credibility, if the author has shown the relevance between the level
of the support for the person and the depth of the relationship with
him. Obviously, knowing the author's identity would act as an indispensable factor to authorize the LoR and its content.

Good luck


What are the equivalencies between the higher education in France (Licence - Master - Doctorat) and the higher education in the United States?

Since France is a member of the Council of Europe and follows the Bologna Process, this question could be very well be applicable to many other European countries as well.

The bottom line is that undergraduate studies in the US are basically thought out as a four-year program, not three years. France -as most Bologna participant states- has chosen the three-year option for the first stage of university studies, in this case the License. This is a bit different from Spain and the UK, where there is perhaps more tradition of working respectively with Latin American and US universities. Recognition of Licence and undergraduate studies in either direction is not immediate in other cases.

However, there are perhaps larger possibilities for American universities to exercise their own judgement and flexibility as to recognizing foreign titles, than in some European countries. So, in some cases it may be possible for an American university to say: "OK, I recognize your French degree as 3 years studies, now you need to pass this, this and that courses to enroll in graduate studies."

There is a good article on the subject here , that basically states that American universities are aware of the problem and are increasingly open to finding solutions for European students.

I would go straight to the Admissions people at your university of choice, find out how they see your precise situation and what advice they can give you.


Different admissions committees may handle things somewhat differently, as might different members of the same committee.  However, I wouldn't worry about an 88th percentile score.  As you say, it's respectable but not impressive, but that's OK.  At top five universities, no score is high enough to be genuinely impressive by itself, and I don't think anyone gets that worked up about modest differences.  (It's understood that some people are quick enough to score in the 99th percentile without breaking a sweat, while someone else might only reach the 90th percentile, and this difference is at best mild evidence for who has greater research potential.)  At lower-ranked universities, there might be a little more scope for standing out via a high score, but it's certainly not necessary.  I'm not aware of any university that would rule someone out for being in the 88th percentile (although of course I'm not familiar with every university's policies).  By contrast, there are universities at which a 50th percentile score would cause consternation.

Of course, you'll have to have an impressive application in other ways, particularly letters of recommendation.  However, you'd need that anyway: the extra margin of safety you would get in your application from having a higher GRE score would be small.

If you feel worried, it couldn't hurt to try taking the exam again.  However, doing well in your REU and writing a great senior thesis are far more crucial than improving your GRE score, so you should definitely not compromise on those.


Is there a term to describe when students are in one classroom for most of the day?

Something close may be a “floating teacher model”.

A room is predominantly occupied by one instructor then another comes in during the primary instructor’s prep period to teach his or her lesson.  There’s no reason one room would be restricted to only two teachers in this practice. “Cart” teachers or “mobile” teachers are also commonly used terms for these roles. While there is research on this practice, I haven’t come across any where all teachers are subject to moving between rooms. That’s not to say a universal term for the structure does not exist.


Publishing a paper with questionable statistics

Well, if you're having second thoughts is because deep down you have a solid reason for it.
And, you do, as you said in your text, the statistical data is lacking additional background support. If possible add more data to the existing data, and make changes to the text accordingly.
Is frequently found on research papers, some shortcuts when presenting experimental data that is lacking some explanation/support. For instance, changing the axis scales, present data in a normalized axis scale, among many others. These data presentation techniques will force the reviewers to spend more time analyzing your data looking for clues on lack of validity. In such cases, even if it gets published, later on, it will be reflected on the number of citations (for instance). To simply put, I don't recommend doing it nowadays.


I would assume that there is no formal rule about figures in the introduction (at least i haven't heard of it). Still, it would be unusual because introductions tend to not get into specifics. I'd guess it depends on the context of your paper, but if you keep it very simple and brief, you should go for it.

In case of doubt: if your paper is well-structured and well-written in addition to presenting content within the scope of the conference proceedings you aim to submit in, your submission probably would not get submitted over an explanatory figure. It could be that reviewers ask for the figure to be (re)moved though.


How to see how many times a document has been cited?

I used a lot Web of Science. You can see who cited what (if it is indexed) and it usually has links to the full text. See its wiki page for more information, including links to other search engines.

Where I work, the administrative staff takes their bibliometrics from Web of Science.


If you really don't have much project experience, how to list your project descriptions when applying for a Ph.D. position?

I am in STEM but not CS, so this is general advice from my experience with graduate admissions in physics + chemistry. Disclaimer that this can vary for different institutions and different application reviews. An application review committee will often want to see:

Have you demonstrated success at the skills required for successful conduct of research in the graduate program?
Have you demonstrated mastery of the necessary undergraduate content?

Based on my STEM background, I would offer the following advice:

Thoroughly explain your background, but don't make it longer than necessary. They read many applications, don't make it longer just for the sake of being longer. It's obvious when this happens, and it reflects poorly on the application.

Emphasize the skills you've acquired and applied. You might consider briefly explaining the purpose/goals of the project, and then even have a separate section about the skills acquired/implemented in the project that would be most transferrable to your graduate student career.

List everything you've done. I shot myself in the foot assuming that every undergrad did the things I did, and not stating them explicitly. Perhaps your course project descriptions will be briefer, and perhaps the committee won't care, but it's unlikely it would negatively affect your application in comparison to not including them at all. Think of how you frame them: were there unique skills gained in those projects? Do they lend themselves to showing your capacity for growth, throughout your projects?

--
That all said, if you know and can get advice from someone in the specific department you're applying to, they will be able to give you advice tailored specifically for that program.