<issue_start>username_0: I pay close attention to how my rating scores/comments are like on the RateMyProfessor website. Very rarely I reported inappropriate comments (which violated site guidelines) for removals, and the average score has been decent (4.8).

Since last week, after I reported a comment (with improper language which violates the site guidelines), very suspiciously the same student (who is angry about their bad grade) has been trying to (even until now) leave 10+ **intentionally untrue, deceiving** comments with low scores.

My average has now been brought down to below 4.0. I've been frustrated because this severely compromised all **true** comments left by previous students. I reported this to the site and am still waiting for a response. Any suggestions?<issue_comment>username_1: As the comments suggest, just ignore it. You will always have disgruntled students even if you do a great job. Some will blame you for their own shortcomings.

But the best "defense" against such negative comments is the positive comments from those who think you served them well. If those appear also, then a reader can easily judge it for what it is.

If you want to "sabotage" such things, just point other students to the site, without comment. You don't need to "defend" yourself when your other students naturally do so themselves.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Let's assume that your primary concern for caring about your rating is that you want students to see you in a positive light for some reason that you hold dear. Further assume that this is personal for you, and you recognize that RateMyProf reviews do not hold much weight for your chances of tenure.

There are two very common scenarios that happen when the *average student* visits RateMyProf. It is typically your average student that will put weight on RateMyProf, and it is typically the average student that will spend time writing a review for you on RateMyProf, so keeping the average student in mind is important. I believe then that there are two types of profiles on RateMyProf that very accurately reflect how professors are when they put their teaching hats on (of course, sample size is huge here):

1. **You generally have a high score, positive comments, and a few comments that suggest you probably got a PhD in tormenting students in classrooms.**

The students will notice that the majority of comments and ratings suggest you are a great teacher, you care about your students, and most importantly you are good at teaching the *average student* (this seems to be the case you fall under). Students will accurately be able to flag the relatively small number of negative comments and assign those as problems on the part of the student writing that negative review. After all, there really is nothing to gain by students from writing a good review for you other than that they appreciated you as an instructor. On the other hand, in this scenario, the incentive to write you a bad review is driven by spiting you, and it's pretty easy for the average student to recognize when that is happening.

2. **You have a low to low-medium score, a record of bad-subpar reviews by the students, occasionally there are some shining reviews among all of the bad ones**

Students viewing this type of profile will probably be correct in their assessment of your inability to teach to the *average student*. Students looking at a profile like this will likely identify that, for some reason or another, your teaching style is not suitable for them and that students are probably being more truthful about their negative reviews then the outlier of the previous scenario. It is much more telling when many students write bad reviews, because it indicates a pattern of poor communication instead of an outlier. On the other hand, students looking at this type of profile will notice some of the 'glowing' outlier comments and probably recognize that those students are the ones that are either harder workers or are relatively gifted to their peers and would have succeeded anyways. To the average student, those great comments don't hold any value because it does not apply to them.

There are other scenarios that are more difficult to distinguish, particularly those of average score, because the lack of polarity makes it difficult to assess what is going on. But based on my experience as a student that has used RateMyProf to help me choose courses, and from many conversations I have had with friends in the fraternity/sorority system as well as other student organizations, many of the *average* students can accurately assess (with a sufficient sample size of reviews) whether a professor is going to be a good or bad educator/instructor for the average student.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: You didn't ask a specific question, but I can give some suggestions that I hope help put the matter in perspective.

1. You are frustrated. Frustration is an emotion that's both legitimate and understandable in the situation you describe. Allow yourself to feel that very real emotion—but, while respecting its reality, recognizing that you can make choices independent of feeling the emotion.
2. You have acknowledged that the site's average rating does not have serious consequences for your career, and I suspect you also understand that the effect on readers of the site are also limited. So the stakes are not high here, which can be reassuring.
3. You have engaged with that site's official procedures for curating comments. You can't control the outcome of that engagement. So let them do whatever they do (obviously responding helpfully to any queries they send back) and otherwise turn your mind to things that you value and can affect.
4. You can't control what other people do, even a student who is acting maliciously. As above, you can choose to turn your mind to things that you value and can affect.
5. Letting go of things you can't change might feel unsatisfying. That's a perfectly legitimate way to feel. Regardless, you can choose to spend energy on other things. Easier said than done, sometimes, I know! but recognizing that *emotions don't have to be solved or overcome* is, I find, a great help in making choices when negative feelings are around.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Create your own review.
=======================

Briefly explain your teaching philosophy. Perhaps make an addendum: very briefly mention the disgruntled student's reviews. (I don't think it would look good to mention the exact rating though.) This is optional and just shows the data (rating) is falsely skewed.

If the RateMyProfessor staff haven't taken down that student's 10+ comments, they're also unlikely to take down your own comment. If I was a student looking at a professor's page, I would want to know the rating and 10+ comments are ingenious.

You might want to also check out the "I'm professor [you]" button.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: This comment by @<NAME> should be an answer, so I am humbly quoting in mine.

>
> Stop worrying about RateMyProfessor and the like.
>
>
>

Also, "welcome to the Internet. We have cookies".

The same thing often happens with anonymous student feedback, where students try to "get their own back" or even deliberately harm the lecturer. The solution is, again, the same. You ignore it because you must not pick a fight with the Internet, not because you allow yourself to be bullied or slandered, but because your reputation and professional worth does not hang on some unsubstantiated comments thrown at random. Everyone knows and understands how "reviews" work, and besides, you do not want someone naive enough to believe them to become your student.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: *A slightly different perspective, even if the end result is the same of other answers.*

Is that site well-designed?
===========================

You reported the untrue and duplicated comments.

* If the site admins act on it, it means that **the site works**: the problem is solved.
* If the untrue reviews stay there, it means that **the site is completely bogus**: it's not to be trusted **at all** with anything.

So you should not care either way. Not "because Internet", but because **if this problem isn't solved, the site itself becomes irrelevant**.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: Here's a perspective you may not have considered: maybe your disgruntled student did you a favor.

I used to ask students every semester to give me scathing reviews on RateMyProfessor saying nobody should take me except math-loving workaholics. That way slackers shopping around for an easy TA would be less likely to pick me. Also, anyone that saw the reviews and took my class anyway would spend the first month expecting the worst and diligently keeping up.

So, what did they say-- you're a hard grader? Can't teach? Bad students will see their future and be scared away. Good students notice that all your bad reviews are in *one contiguous streak*, keep reading, see the good reviews, and take you.

It's a great filter!
Upvotes: 3


<issue_start>username_0: I am finishing my PhD soon. The area in which I pursued my PhD is very challenging as I was only able to publish couple of papers even after spending many years. I want to switch into other research are due these reasons

1. to attract more students
2. to be comfortable to do research (along with teaching, I should be able to do research)

Even though I like the research I am doing right now, I seem to be isolated in my university. If ten students join my university for a PhD, hardly one student takes this area. My research area is not like machine learning or deep learning etc, so researchers of my domain are also not that much interested in my work.

The thing is I can work different research area but: **Is this the right time?** I am heading to a post-doc and learning a new area will probably take several months. Although my switch is not 180 degree, I am still worried.<issue_comment>username_1: This decision requires a fair amount of courage and planning. In short, yes, it is very much possible to switch your research area. Whether or not such a switch is successful depends on how well you plan it, and on the supportive nature of your future employers. You should be upfront with your postdoc advisor about your intention to switch. Because of the learning curve associated with the new area, expect a reasonable amount time (6 months or 1 year) before you can hope to produce research output in the new area. They should know this in case they are hiring you with the intention of fulfilling some funding obligations/deliverables in short time frames. My suggestion is to see if you could try to find a link betwee your current and intended area. If so, you could use this link as a bridge to move towards your new area, instead of all at once (which can be very overwhelming).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As you noticed, switching fields inevitably takes its toll as you have to spend some time to get familiar with the new topic.
To make this worth it, you need to enter a rapidly expanding field (which does not have enough home-grown candidates that would outcompete you with experience) or your experience in your current field must be an asset for the new one – ideally both.
Apart from structural reasons (not leaving in the middle of a thesis or other project), the only thing in favour of a late change is gathering field-specific experience in the old field that helps you in the new one.
Most likely, you already have done this and if not, you better hurry, because:

The higher you climb on the academic career ladder, the more experience in the field will be a requirement. The next step are tenure-track positions and similar where you not only need to have a sound research plan, but also have to convince others that you are the best person to enact it and can supervise others doing it – which is at least extremely difficult without any prior experience and something I have never heard of. Therefore the postdoc is the last stage at which you can hope to make a switch. (That is at least before you have the academic freedom of tenure or similar, but for that you first need to get there.)

For whatever it’s worth, I switched fields shortly after my PhD into an expanding field, which is quite a common move for that field.
Upvotes: 2


<issue_start>username_0: In the past, I was only teaching graduate-level courses where I was creating the material myself. It was slides with material from various books, research papers, and my own work. Accompanied by exercises and small projects that I would build from scratch.

This year I have to teach a new undergraduate-level course. The material I need to cover is more standardized and there are at least two very good textbooks that cover the material nicely (pdfs available at the library, incl nice examples, etc.).

1. Should I still build my own material? It seems like a waste of time since the material is very basic and standard and I could not reach the quality of the textbooks that are at several revisions. On the other hand, I would avoid issues like this: [Professor only teaches what is already in textbook. Should I quit going to the lectures?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/13363/42952)
2. If I teach the textbook, doesn't it feel like cheating? I mean, I'm explaining things they can find in the textbook. For some students, it's useful because they need someone to ease them into the subject before they dig deeper. For others, they can simply read the book.
3. Another way to go is to develop complementary material to the textbook (lab exercises, computer examples, etc.) but still, teach the book. But, I am not sure how I feel developing supplementary material to someone else's textbook.

Any experience to be shared or references?<issue_comment>username_1: I think that the third option is widely accepted. Students will complain about the other two, though different students and for different reasons.

The book is an outline and is a fallback for students. If it has good exercises, then they can get practice. But you will still want your own exercises to supplement in many cases, and certainly for exams. But I think a lot of, maybe most, professors follow the outline of the book even if they don't lecture precisely from it. Their exercises may be a mix of those taken from the book and those they develop themselves.

And, encourage students to take good lecture notes and not depend completely on the book.

And using your own material lets you adapt a bit for your students if they don't fit a standard model.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Even for most graduate courses, I find having a textbook useful. Part of the reason for this is that I think it benefits students to get multiple perspectives on the same material. From my personal experience as a student, I know that sometimes having an instructor follow a text too closely can be a problem, since if a student has trouble grasping the particular presentation of an idea—and that idea is presented exactly the same way in the textbook and in class—it can be real difficulty. (This can be particularly an issue when a lecturer is teaching from a book they wrote.)

When I develop a course, using a given text, I try to do a few things. First, to avoid confusion, I adopt the textbook’s notation whenever possible. That means that students will have a consistent mathematical description of the material, whether they are looking at their notes from my lectures or reading in the book. Second, I try to choose examples for my lectures that complement the book. Sometimes, the specific derivations or examples in the textbook are complicated enough or important enough that I cover them in class in the same way that the book covers them. Other times, I let the students read the text and choose different examples, so as to expose them a variety of different approaches to the same kinds of problems. Third, I try to identify points in the book’s treatment that may be unclear, so that I can provide extra elucidation of these specific points.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I had a similar situation twice during my adjunct teaching career. Maybe my experiences are useful.

1 I was teaching an all-new undergraduate course. At that time, there were no textbooks (there are some now). I planned to teach entirely from my notes. I was advised by the more experienced members of the department that students really like to have a textbook assigned. So I assigned some text (which covered about 1/3 of what we did in class) and used a lot of my notes.

2 I was teaching an undergraduate course that other people taught before in this department. Everyone involved felt that the books used before were unsuitable. (One was someone's Ph.D. thesis - a very good one, actually, but it assumed from page 1 that the students already knew everything that they were supposed to learn in this course, and then proceeded to discuss interesting stuff outside the scope of the course. Another is a "popular entertainment" style text, not suitable as a textbook at all.) Once again, I said I wanted to teach from my notes and was advised by other more experienced members of the department that students really like to have a textbook. After a lot of searching, I found a combination of 2 books that covered most of what I needed (I still have out lots of notes).

TLDR: Students like to have a textbook, to have homework problems assigned from a textbook, and to have assigned readings, even if you don't use all of the textbook, and supplement it with a lot of your own materials. Therefore I vote for option #3.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: This is from the perspective of someone remembering what it was like to be a student.

These are some reasons why having a textbook was very useful.

* When you are solving a hard problem on a problem set, it helps to be able to go and study text and examples written up very carefully to check every step of your understanding. Notes taken in class are imperfect records of a lecture and so are not a substitute. A good set of lecture notes from the teacher could serve this role as well, but they won't be as "student-tested" as a text book, which can lead to them being too high level or skipping too many steps.
* The same goes for studying for exams. The lecture notes are often a really good starting point for remembering what material was covered and going through examples done in class. But if there's a point where one can't remember what the point was based on the notes (or maybe never understood), having a textbook means you can go back and review those points in detail.
* Being able to read ahead in the book before a lecture lets you have an idea of what the material is before seeing it in lecture, which can mean you know what parts are tricky and that you need to pay attention to. Although, to be honest, I did not do this as much as a student as I probably should have.

Having said that, these are some reasons why I *didn't* like it when professors did some version of "just teaching out of the textbook" without adding any of their own insight (for example, showing slides that were just going through the textbook material in order)

* The lectures often felt "stale". I think classroom learning is partly about transferring material, but on a deeper level it is also about transferring enthusiasm about the subject and showing how an experienced person thinks about it... in other words, how to learn and to "be" a practitioner of that field. This comes across much more clearly if the professor organizes the material in the way they find the most logical. It is very obvious if the lecturer is bored with the material.
* The lectures often felt pointless. Even if this wasn't strictly true because one can ask questions to a lecturer they can't ask to a book, it is hard to feel motivated about attending a lecture as a student if you know you are only going to get information you can also get in a textbook.
* A person can explain something in different ways than a book. Much like a film should not be a shot-for-shot remake of a book, a lecture should not be a word-for-word reading of a text. The lecturer should take advantage of the medium and their experience to explain things in a way that *can't* be done in a textbook (demos, live coding, videos, informal arguments, little tricks, adding some personality, tangents, examples of how these concepts show up in the wild, making the material "feel" more personal and approachable by having a person talk about it...), and leave aside things that *can* be better done better in a book (every single step with every notational i dotted and t crossed of a 10+ page derivation).
* Having access to different explanations of the same material is incredibly valuable. If your lectures are based on, but modified versions of, material in the text, then students automatically have access to two different ways through the terrain.

For these reasons, from a student-centered perspective, I would vote for option 3.
Upvotes: 1


<issue_start>username_0: What do you think would be the better choice prestige wise? Prof I'm working with gave me the choice to choose which to submit to. To be clear, the top conference is CVPR and the mediocre conference is a relatively new ACM conference.

I care about prestige because I'm applying to graduate school, and I want to make the best impression.

--Edit--

To clarify further, it's a short paper in the CVPR workshop which wouldn't go into the proceedings and rather would just be a poster.<issue_comment>username_1: First, ACM is reputable and so the conferences they hold are reputable, even if new. The ACM is a valuable "brand" on a paper is a good thing for a CS academic. Some of the "new" conferences I once attended turned out to be major events and have had a long history. OOPSLA became SPLASH became ...

IEEE is also a valuable brand of course.

Second, a poster session may have a very large number of available slots and it might be limited only by the size of the room at the venue. So, it isn't especially difficult to get accepted, compared to a paper which will receive serious review and competes for a limited number of time/space slots.

So, if something (posters) is easier to do that something else (paper), the latter will have more "prestige" value. This is especially true if the poster material is not going to appear in the official proceedings and so is more ephemeral.

Maybe you can work it out to do both. Write the paper and write a separate poster presentation that talks about your work (and might even refer to the paper). Posters are better for building some interest in your *ongoing* work, especially when it is incomplete, and also for meeting people that might turn out to be collaborators in the future.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> poster in top conference vs. Paper in mediocre conference?
>
>
>

Credit for publications is significantly greater than credit for posters, so I'd suggest going for the paper (you could go for the poster too).
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Both previous answers are misleading in this specific scenario, where the choice is between CVPR (main conference) and an ACM conference.

*Both conferences require submission of a full paper!* The only difference is that CVPR will decide after the review how your paper is presented, whether as long oral presentation, short oral presentation, or poster. Independent of this, all accepted CVPR papers will be published in the conference proceedings without mention of the presentation type. *You cannot submit your paper to both conferences*, this would be in breach of CVPR ethical guidelines, and likely ACM as well.

Regarding impact or prestige, nothing will currently (2020) beat an accepted paper at CVPR, no matter the type of presentation, if you are working in computer vision or deep learning related to computer vision. Having a CVPR paper under your belt would be great for graduate admissions.

That being said, on the flipside this also means that getting your work accepted in CVPR is likely to be much more difficult than to get it accepted at a normal conference. If this is your first submission to any conference, and you are doing most of the work yourself, then I'd wager your chances of getting accepted are in the range of 10-15% (If you submit an average paper that is written reasonably well, of course if your work is really outstanding, then disregard this rough estimate).
Upvotes: 3


<issue_start>username_0: I am planning to hire a postdoc (in mathematics), and have never done this before. My department is far from diverse. I have read that a good way to achieve a diverse pool of candidates is by advertising widely, including circulating them to special interest groups.

I can definitely see the benefit of this. Members of underrepresented groups may tend to be less "well connected" in the community and, as a result, the advertisement might have a harder time reaching them. At least, this seems to be part of it.

I would love to advertise widely, and specifically to organizations which will help me reach underrepresented groups. However, I am finding it difficult to find viable options for doing this... Many sites charge hundreds of dollars for each job posting. While I would love to post it everywhere, it doesn't seem realistic. The main things that I have come up with are:

* Mathjobs (<https://www.mathjobs.org>). I expect that this will reach the largest number of interested applicants (the job is in North America). But this is really just the standard place to post things.
* Association for Women in Mathematics (<https://awm-math.org/>). This actually seems like a really great option.
* Distributing the advertisement through mailing lists dedicated to my area of mathematics.
* Some professional societies in mathematics allow members to post jobs (I think).
* Advertising the job at the end of research talks (although, it doesn't seem to be that commonly done in my area, so it might be awkward...).
* Advertise to colleagues and ask them to spread it by word of mouth.
* Posting to social media? Although I am a bit wary of this.

Apart from the AWM, I don't really see how any of these will benefit members of underrepresented groups specifically, and, even the AWM is mainly targeting one group. Does anyone have any other ideas? Suggestions?

This post focused mostly on where to *advertise* the job, but I would also love to get input on all aspects of achieving a large and diverse pool of applicants! Please feel free to share any advice you have.<issue_comment>username_1: <https://jobrxiv.org/> and twitter although I don't know how much math people use either. For my bio-related field they're pretty good.

You'll probably get plenty of diversity in your applicant pool but you'll end up removing most of it when you filter for prestige PhD institutions and advisors. You should try to remember that URMs from second tier PhD institutions are just as smart in aggregate as the population from Stanford or whatever, but are likely to publish worse and have fewer opportunities. Evaluate them based on who's outperformed for their grad environment and in general you'll probably have a bunch of applicants you wouldn't have otherwise considered. (This is also useful for identifying the halfwits from Harvard who have underperformed despite every possible advantage - don't hire them).
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: In mathematics, essentially all jobs in North America are advertised at MathJobs.org, so getting more people to see the advertisement will be difficult difficult. Indeed, what is allowed and expected when posting a job opening is very much country dependent.

The candidates will likely be very concerned with the atmosphere in your research group. There are two obvious places possible candidates will look if they are trying to decide to apply or not.

One is the on-line CV that you and other potential supervisors have on your websites. If you did some mentoring be sure you mention that. All those ``synergistic activities'' in your biosketch are things you might want on your website on on an accessible CV.

Before anyone looks at your CV or website, they will be looking at the advertisement. To whom is the advertisement appealing? What campus resources did you decide to mention?

I am not sure about social media as my idea of social media is MathOverflow. I have heard positions mentioned briefly at the end of a talk, so why not do that?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Avoid tight deadlines
=====================

I am not in your field and not even in the same country, but one piece of advice I would give is to ensure that there is a reasonable span of time between the advertisement and the deadline. It can often take some time for advertisements to actually get noticed, because most people do not check a job site every day, and many people will have very large volumes of electronic mail (hence, it may take a while for them to actually see an advert posted to a mailing-list). Given that you mention a desire to recruit from a diverse pool, it is worth keeping in mind that people with poor health and/or caring responsibilities may find it harder to check for job advertisements regularly and assemble an application in a timely manner.

Basically, you want to avoid situations such as:

>
> I would love to apply for this, but the deadline is 5pm TODAY. If only I had seen the advert last week, I might have been able to apply.
>
>
>

>
> Oh, this job looks fascinating, but it will take a lot of effort to reformat my CV to show me in the best light. Oh, and the deadline is 9am on Monday. More weekend working. Oh, and I had better contact <NAME> to ask for a reference. He never answers electronic mail on the weekend, so I will have to 'phone him and hope he will not mind.
>
>
>

>
> Ah, this would be a dream job. But the deadline is less than 48 hours away, and I promised to take the kids to the beach tomorrow. Would I be a bad mother if I reneged on my promise? I cannot even blame the weather forecast this time! Or maybe, I can take the laptop with me, and be very careful not to get any sand or seawater in it.
>
>
>

>
> Why do I always have to get ill at the wrong time? The mailing-list had an advertisement for this great job a week ago, but by the time I got out of hospital and went through my mailbox properly, I had missed the deadline.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: The typical advise is that men tend to apply even if they are not a perfect fit for the position, while women tend to only apply if they feel they satisfy all the conditions. Thus, do not exaggerate the requirements in the job posting.

If your university/department/faculty website has lots of pictures of smiling students, make sure the pictures show diversity. According to some research (not public), this is not noticed by the majority but elicits positive attention from some minorities.

An illustrative link of how typical the typical advice is: <https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Where to advertise is only a small part of the challenge in ensuring a diverse pool of applicants.

Checking the language used in the advert is extremely important. It is quite easy to build in words that exclude certain groups of applicants. For example, are you tempted to write that you are a “young dynamic team”? You’re likely to exclude older post docs. The best solution here seems to be to get a diverse group of people to review the advert and ask themselves if they would apply. Use their feedback.

There are also gender decoders that can spot gender-specific language. Try e.g. <http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/>. This spots more than just using he/she to refer to applicants.

You should think about whether to use “they” or “she” directly in the wording of the ad (s well as "he") to make it clear that gender diversity is desired. This may require legal input in some jurisdictions.

Furthermore you could be very explicit in the types of diversity that you welcome. Give examples of how you support parents, LGBTQ, underrepresented minorities (do you have employee resource groups?), and so on.

You could try to be effusive - not just the classic “we welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds“, but “we cherish and celebrate the differences that all of our colleagues bring to our team” (seen recently in an ad for a startup).

I have to stress that the language used here is purely for example, and you need to get a second opinion or possibly a legal review depending on where you are.

Good luck in getting your Postdoc!
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_6: I was recently at a diversity forum, and a Google rep gave a talk that included some of their research on this. They found that in their own job advertisements, there was almost a step function in the number women who applied vs the number of words in the job advertisement. Once the number of words passed a certain threshold, the number of women applicants fell suddenly.
(ETA: The theory was this was related to the length of the description of necessary/desirable qualifications)

Also including the boilerplate tagline along the lines of "We welcome diverse applicants of any race/gender/ability..." has been shown to increase diversity in the applicant pool too.
Upvotes: 1


<issue_start>username_0: I'm applying to PhD programs this year. How common is it to email potential supervisors before submitting my application, asking if they have a spot available? Could this improve my chances of admission? I've heard that this is the norm in European countries. What about in the US?

I have a masters degree (Mathematics) and know roughly the area of research I'm interested in.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, this is very common in the U.S. If you play your cards right, you will already have a *pretty good idea* which institution(s) will accept your application when you apply. In some cases you may get an informal offer before applying if you go this route. This has been my experience.

Contacting potential advisors / program chairs before applying for a doctoral program in the US tends to be more popular for PhDs and other research-based degrees. This is far less common for practice-based or professional doctoral degrees (especially for those degree programs in which the relationship with one's advisor isn't important). It helps to explain your research interests and to find someone whose interests align with yours...but flexibility will also serve you.

If funding comes into play (it should for a PhD program), getting to know a department and potential advisors becomes even more important. Departments want to know who they're investing in. Will you likely "stick it out" and finish the program? Do your interests align closely enough with theirs? Is funding available for your tuition AND living stipend AND research costs? Can the department trust you to teach a few undergraduate courses (or labs). Will you be pleasant enough to work with for several years?

I've gone multiple routes. In round #1 (2008) I never received interest from the PhD programs to which I blindly applied. Several programs that I contacted in 2010-2011 ("interesting" economic times) were quick to tell me that no funding was available for the following year (or probably the next). That, of course, saved time and lots of application fees. As I researched my options, I spoke with several potential advisors by email, phone, and in person (via campus visits that I set up). This ultimately led to two "informal" offers with funding. I formally applied *after* that point to those two universities and only those two. (Even with an informal offer...you still need the formal offer in writing before making a decision.) I'm glad I did so many phone calls and in-person visits. I eliminated several possibilities just based on these conversations. Faculty websites aren't always accurate and up-to-date. :-)

On the other hand, a few years ago when I applied for my EdD program (dissertation-based program but no funding offered) I sent a short email to the program director expressing my interest. She set up a Zoom interview with me and we discussed my research interests and professional goals. I was accepted and then assigned to a dissertation advisor. This process was much more streamlined, but the department was also much larger than my previous PhD program. And, with no funding offered, the department wasn't taking on the level of risk that a traditional PhD program would.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, as @username_1 has described, this can be a good tactic -- but only if done properly. That answer describes some examples of proper form.

However, please don't just blindly send email to every professor you can find. You need to show that your interests have applicability to the professor, to show you've "done your homework" and chosen your targets well, and that there is a real reason for the professor to keep reading (and, hopefully, respond).

I'm a professor at a well-known US university, and I get dozens of emails every month that are obviously sent without any indication that the sender has even looked at my website to see if my research interests align with their stated capabilities and goals.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: As @Buffy comments, the other answers do not seem so accurate about R1 and R2 grad math departments in the U.S. That is, funding is mostly as Teaching Assistants, administered through the department, not by individuals, *and* funding-and-admission decisions are also made at a department level, by a committee.

Yes, having a faculty person ardently promoting your case to the admissions committee is definitely a good thing, but is not necessarily decisive, depending on that faculty person's record of following through (or not), mentoring, etc.

Yes, asking faculty ... not whether they "have a spot", but... whether they are currently taking PhD students can be a relevant question. Both people with lots of students already, or who aim to retire very soon, might say that they are not currently taking more PhD/research students. It would obviously be useful to know that, rather than show up and be negatively surprised.

In any case, as other people have commented, do *NOT* write generic emails with a huge bcc list. Take the trouble to address people by name (!!!), at the very least! And if you describe your own interest as X, which is not much connected to what the faculty person does, don't email them at all.

True, people seem to often "reckon" that sending inaccurate emails to people is harmless, because they can just delete them. It's not that I myself keep a grudge list of people who've sent me spammish emails... but it is fairly antisocial to spam people, in my opinion.
Upvotes: 2


<issue_start>username_0: I did my Master's in A university and then moved on to B for my Ph.D.

Covid outbreak started about the time when I was wrapping up my project, I had most of my manuscript done and was pending for iterative feedbacks from my advisor at A university. Due to COVID, my project got pushed back from priority and now, as a Ph.D. student at B university, I'm re-working my manuscripts to submit to an academic journal.

I don't know what to do with my affiliation in this situation. Should I list mine as of B university? Or should it still be A?<issue_comment>username_1: Generally your affiliation is the institution with which you are *currently* employed or a student. University A is a "prior affiliation", unless you still have some formal relationship with them.

Your dissertation/project/manuscript may need to *acknowledge* A for any support for research leading to a paper, but your affiliation should be B.

The acknowledgement can, of course, take the form ... "much of the work was done when I was affiliated with A...".

The same would be true if *all* of the work was done at A. You *were* affiliated with them. But no longer.

---

If people want to find you, they want to start looking at the place you list as your affiliation. Going backwards in time is much easier than going forwards since B may not have an easy way to point people to you at A. But listing prior affiliations as needed helps go in the other direction.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Most of the work was done at affiliation A and your adviser for that project was at affiliation A, and now you are at affiliation B. I disagree with username_1's answer, which is to list your affiliation as B rather than A.

The most common approach is to put affiliation A with a footnote that says: "**Present address: affiliation B**", or to put both affiliation A and B.

You might also like to ask your advisers at affiliation A and B whether or not to include those affiliations on your paper, so that neither adviser can get angry at you for doing what they don't want you to do or not doing what they do want you to do.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In my field (physics) we put both affiliations and we do not necessarily specify which is the current one, which I guess is not very smart. This would probably be acceptable

>
> <NAME>,b
>
>
> aPrevious affiliation, bCurrent affiliation
>
>
> *Email*: <EMAIL>
>
>
>

So they know where to find you and your former institution gets proper credit. Depending on the field it could also be appropriate to just acknowledge your older affiliation in the acknowledgment section in the end, but normally we leave that for grants, conferences or short visits.

In any case, you are a PhD student, so the correct answer to your question is: *ask your supervisor* ;)
Upvotes: 2


<issue_start>username_0: I have been invited for an interview for a tenure track assistant professor position. The interview will be conducted virtually. At the beginning of the interview I am supposed to give a five minute presentation by way of introduction. Very little was provided by way of instructions for this presentation, apart from the time limit.

I don't really know how best to use this time. They have already seen my application materials (research plans, teaching philosophy etc), and will presumably have them to hand, but should I give a summary of what I consider the most important points of those? Or should I give a summary of my career so far emphasising the most relevant experiences? Or should I be trying to introduce some new information that they won't have seen in my application?<issue_comment>username_1: Five minutes is pretty long, so I would at least ask your interviewers if they expect you to cover completely new ground. I don't know if academia is much different to the real world, but in the real world quite often the interviewers haven't done their homework and going back over previous ground is not unusual. Not only that they may have reviewed so many people that they think you are someone else. Often they think they have the star candidate in front of them and the worst thing you can do is let them know otherwise
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: ### Welcome to [Toastmasters](https://www.toastmasters.org/)

(I am not an officer (except at the volunteer/anyone can do it Club level), employee or stockholder of Toastmasters. Just a very satisfied member since 2014. I get absolutely nothing out of anyone joining.)

This is a Toastmasters **Ice Breaker** speech. 4-6 minutes about yourself. (Which is shorter than most other Toastmasters speeches.) I've given 3. First speech for every Toastmaster. Consider visiting a club. Almost all enjoy having guests, and all are virtual now (a year ago, that was against the rules, now it is required!), and since they're worldwide you can certainly find one to fit your schedule. One of the best things I've done in a long time was join. Worthwhile even if you don't have to actually give speeches often.

Most Toastmasters speeches are designed to work on specific skills - vocal variety, gestures, presentation software, humor, research, etc. There are a set of different "Pathways Paths" that have different types of speeches. But every Path, and also the former Competent Communicator program, starts with an Ice Breaker speech. A speech about yourself. There are many different ways of giving this speech, and since the first Ice Breaker is your first ever Toastmasters speech, pretty much anything goes! There are a bunch of different styles:

* Personal History/Timeline
* Focus on one specific aspect of your life - career or a particular hobby or interest
* Why I decided to go Toastmasters - a bit of a cliche, but sometimes actually interesting
* Family History

etc.

Obviously this speech, like any other, might be tailored a bit to particular situations. Your family history probably won't be a good choice for your current situation. But maybe the story of how/why you got interested in your academic field. Or perhaps a story about how some previous teachers influenced your life and motivated you to go into academia. They may well have left it open-ended specifically to see what different people can come up with - if they wanted to know specific facts they would just give you another questionnaire.

Try Toastmasters. Even if you only go for a little while, you may get some inspiration and/or useful advice. If you do stick around and join, you may find the benefits in learning how to be a better speaker really pay off in the long run, whether as a teacher or as a researcher.
Upvotes: 1


<issue_start>username_0: My last Phd work was submitted to a high impact journal (IF >35). The manuscript came back for revision with 2 positive comments and 1 no-suggestion on my last day in his lab. Given its positive comments, I expected to go for next round of review as long as the comments are fully addressed. The comments requested simulations and experiments, which I supposedly would not be able to perform as I graduated and was leaving the next day. So my advisor threatened me on my last day to submit to IF (~5) journal or share my first authorship to someone (person X) who was not involved in the project at all. For the later, he reasoned that X needs to commit full-time ~ 4 months just for revision and stop all other works. Although I explained to go through comments first and discuss and that I can revise, he did not agree any of it. He asked me to choose 1 of his options, no negotiation (like giving co-first after X shows to put significant effort). I agreed to give X co-first authorship under the condition that major revisions will be done to address all reviewers' requests and convince them. Then my advisor privately told X will be the co-first and to revise none, minor, or major; choice is up to X. They spent 1.5 months only for quick revision, without addressing all comments. I told X about the problems with the revision, but no any reply. It was rejected directly by the editor. (At this point, they already broke the deal.)

Then they submitted to another journal, got rejected by the editor again.

Another journal (IF >10) finally passed the editor and came back for revisions. All 3 reviewers are positive. Yet the editor asked for all the comments/experiments to be fully addressed. My advisor did not even notify me about this decision. X told me that they wanted to submit to IF ~5 journal because too many experiments need to be done for the revision. X said need ~ a month or more to revise, and my advisor wants X to focus on looking for a job. So X asked if I am okay with this decision to submit to IF ~5 journal. (This is how I know there is a revision requested.) I am very mad because how X can deserve a co-first if they did not even put in effort and time! The revision comments are very positive, but they said they think it will not go through. (I am basically #w$%t&f?)

Similar things happened repeatedly during my PhD in his lab. I am very mad, but I am helpless. I used to hope this work would help my faculty job search if it gets published. This time, I did not want to "waste" this work while it originally even had the chance to go through IF>35 journal, but they messed it up since then.

Note: My advisor is a complete a\*\*o who used to call/write bad recommendation letters for those who were against him.

Any suggestions on how to handle this?

UPDATE 1: So they agreed to submit a revision. Knowing that they will not treat it seriously like last time again, I revised the majority myself, incorporating old experimental data. There are still many simple experiments (~ 2 weeks worth of time) needed to be done. How can I make sure they will do the job and do it right?<issue_comment>username_1: These are your options:

* Focus on your new project in a new lab working with better colleagues.
* Do the revisions yourself.
* Let the former advisor do whatever they want.

>
> I agreed to give X co-first authorship under the condition that major revisions will be done to address all ...
>
>
>

You agreed to the co-first authorship. You should not break that agreement. Unfortunately, revisions being "done" is subjective so you cannot punish the other party for breaking their part of the agreement. Next time, only agree to someone's authorship *after* they have earned it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Go back to your first principles of your own personal ethical code. Your situation is complex so calmly apply the question is that right or wrong. If it's wrong then decide will I let it go or will I act on it. If you decide to act on it you will know you're acting on principle and are in the right. Also try to think, what is the other person's point of view. Do they think they're right and I'm being unreasonable. When you're calm, try to speak to the coauthor as it sounds like the supervisor is not a good avenue for you. Get it published, out of your hair and draw a line behind it. It's not that big a deal about the impact factor and impact factor is currently used inappropriately as a standalone ranking. Read up on that, you may be using/ thinking of the impact factor in a way it was never intended to be used. Co- first author is also no big deal, try not to be egotistical, if the other co-author gets this over the line and it gets published then you've been spared that work. Try to be relaxed, these things happen literally the whole time in academia.
Upvotes: 0


<issue_start>username_0: For students, some textbooks publicize no solutions, some just half (either odd or even numbered exercises), and some all. How's this decided? Does the author have the final say? Can publishers override an author? A debate between both?

I'm not asking about instructors' solution manual that divulges solutions just to instructors.<issue_comment>username_1: Such rejection **is very unlikely to happen** and [if happens] would certainly be due to **field-specific** established conventions and **not** particularly **because of the [non]alphabetic order**.

To avoid that, try using the common variable conventions for the field. For example: *i* vs *j* for complex unity (square root of `-1`), or use `i, j, k` primarily for indices in programming-related fields, or use *calligraphic* *R* and *C* for the field of real and complex numbers, respectively, etc. Reading well-received papers from your field and asking for feedback from your advisor and\or more mature co-authors would allow learning about such conventions.

With all that said, a common reviewer's argument for revision\rejection that "the paper uses **unnecessarily unusual, unjustified, uncommon, and cumbersome notation**" is a totally valid one. Again, the case of a simply non-alphabetical order does not apply here. Therefore, this **potential** review response is not applicable to the situation **as it is described** in the question.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Let ***a*** be the number of math-heavy papers I have read that use an alphabetical order to introduce all their variables. Let ***b*** be the total number of math-heavy papers I have read. Let ***c*** = ***b*** - ***a*** be the number of math-heavy papers I have read that did not use said ordering. Then ***c*** = ***b***.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: It is certainly not that a reviewer will suggest a revision based on the non-alphabetical order of introduced variables. However, if you have a long list of dependencies between your variables and no particular naming scheme that allows the reader to see that there are no vicious cycles in the definitions, it may become extremely hard to check the proof and the reviewer may indicate it together with a suggestion to introduce *some* explicit logic in naming that would guarantee that we do not define $A$ in terms of $B$, $B$ in terms of $C$,..., $Z$ in terms of $A$.

There is also another way to convince the reader that everything is OK even if you have piled up the inequalities between the randomly named parameters in some crazy order in various technical lemmas. It is to make an *explicit* assignment in the end (say, as functions of a single large parameter $L$: $A=L^{10}$, $B=L^{-3}\log^2L$, etc.) and leave it to the reader to check that all the conditions are met for this choice (it should be a trivial exercise; otherwise you need to do it yourself). I personally prefer it whenever possible. Otherwise I try to introduce some naming convention or just list the order of dependencies in the beginning explicitly so that the reader can easily refer to it any time.

The general principle is that "everything that simplifies the work and spares the time of the reader is good even if it increases the time and complicates the work of the author" (because the hope is that your paper will be read by more than one person; otherwise what's the point of going public with it?).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Let a force *a* act on a particle of mass *b*, giving rise to an acceleration *c*. These are related by Newton's second law, *a* = *bc*. By special relativity, the particle's rest mass is associated with an energy *d*, a relation involving the speed of light *e*. This relation is given by Einstein's famous formula *d* = *be*2. Etc.

Accept or reject?
Upvotes: 1


<issue_start>username_0: On their CV, how should an associate professor go about making a bullet point accomplishment that they "designed / wrote / created / produced" student exams? that is, devised several pages of questions (and corresponding answers) meant to test students' knowledge about the subject or sub-field.

How does this verb change for an assistant professor who serves a higher rank professor, but who was given lee-way or freedom to similarly also create/write exams from scratch as they see fit?<issue_comment>username_1: A common model used for creating instructional materials is the [ADDIE model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructional_design#ADDIE_process). Its five phases are:

* Analyze – Gather information about one's audience, the tasks to be completed, how the learners will view the content, and the project's overall goals.
* Design – Write a learning objective, identify and break down tasks to be more manageable for the designer, then determine the kind of activities required for the audience in order to meet the goals identified in the Analyze phase.
* Develop – Create the activities that will be implemented.
* Implement – Test all materials to determine if they are functional and appropriate for the intended audience.
* Evaluate – Use formative and summative assessment to assess the project's elements and revise them if necessary.

Use the verb that most accurately describes what you actually did. In your case, it might be "develop assessment instruments."
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: All that I really can say is what will *not* describe "creation of exams".

In some versions of English, "writing an exam" would mean "taking the exam" in other English. That is, being an examinee, rather than an examiner.

"Setting an exam" in some contexts is understood as "creating the exam", but seldom in the U.S.

It is not typical, but I'd think would be relatively clear in most versions of English, currently, to say "created exams" or "composed exams".

(Nevertheless, people looking at the CV would think, "hm, what? Of course. Why is this person mentioning this?")
Upvotes: 2


<issue_start>username_0: I am 16 years old at the time of writing (so I have no supervisors to seek advice from), and I'm working on a Mathematics paper at the moment, which I plan on submitting to a journal for publication. In the paper I have about 9 lemmas and theorems in total; they are all just formulaic (by formulaic, I mean that they are all just formulae rather than an idea or property about something, eg for argument's sake the quadratic or cubic formula).

Is it a good idea for me to include a list/summary of lemmas and theorems in the paper after my introduction, or should I simply include a couple of the main results in the introduction and not bother with a list of formulae I establish?

It just seems to me that to see all of the results without a summary near the beginning would be quite hard; you'd have to scroll down many pages.

Thank you for your advice.<issue_comment>username_1: If the lemmas and theorems are unrelated (unlikely) then a list might be fine. But if the purpose of the paper is to prove the main theorem(s) then giving that purpose and naming just those in the introduction is probably more standard and easier for a reader to get a sense of purpose.

So, my guess is that your second suggestion works better. If there is one main theorem then focus, primarily, on that. But if one or two of the others has some independent use then you could expand a bit.

Mathematicians are used to following a train of proof through a fairly long argument, but knowing the goal ahead of time can be helpful.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: What is most appropriate and would give your paper the best chance of being taken seriously by the research community, is if it conforms to the writing conventions of the field.

The writing conventions of the field do not include having a list of theorems. Therefore, I’d advise you not to include such a list.

Good luck with the paper!
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]


<issue_start>username_0: In my university, professors in Computer Science decide by themselves the licenses for the code of their research group. This happens without consulting the university legal team (or the university, more generally). As an undergrad researcher, this strikes me as incredibly odd.

I have the following questions:

1. Is this common practice?
2. Is this good practice?
3. How should a situation like this be handled?
	1. Is it reasonable to expect the software only to be published only if the contributors that did most of the work agree on it?
	2. The software may or may not have economic value. Is it reasonable to expect the professor to consult if he is allowed to distribute it under open-source licenses?

For more specific context, I have checked the percentages of ownership on patents. It turns out research Groups get <10% of the ownership. My university doesn't have any special rules for software.

I have no interest in my possible ownership of this software. However, it worries me that my group director is able to make this decision on his own.<issue_comment>username_1: Patents and software licenses are completely different. Relatively little software is actually patented, and I'd suspect the university wants to be involved in any patent applications. University involvement in patents is also a way for a researcher to avoid the high cost of patenting anything (lawyers and such).

Patents need to be registered. Copyrights don't (US law, but it can vary elsewhere). Publishing a "creative work" implies a copyright for the creator.

A software license is usually about permitting some limited use of copyrighted materials, though patents can also be licensed. Some, but not all, universities want a say in software licensing. More want a say in patents.

Distinguish carefully between copyright, patent, and trade-secret (which doesn't apply here). All apply in different ways to IP.

In general (US, anyway) creative works get an automatic copyright. Only "inventions" are subject to possible patent. There is some controversy about whether a piece of software is an "invention", but in recent years it has often been considered so. This has led to some strange outcomes.

Currently (US again) copyright lasts a long time. Disney would like it to be infinite. Patents are more limited. This pushes some to prefer copyright when there is a choice.

---

A college or university that isn't heavily involved in research (teaching institutions) may have much less restrictive arrangements generally, since such questions arise less frequently - especially for patents.

---

The [Public Domain article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain) on Wikipedia has a general discussion of various aspects of IP and how long protections last. There are other, more specific, articles there, also.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Lawyers cost a lot of money. The university lawyers are probably busy trying to keep the university from being sued for any of several reasons and don't have time to go sort out legal review for a million software licenses. Outside counsel will eat your entire group budget as a retainer.

The cost of lawyers has to be balanced against the fact that most academic software is functionally valueless. Spending a lot of money and time to ensure you have the correct rights over something that is worth nothing is a good way to be an unsuccessful academic.

Finally, if you do have something of value and you spin it out to a startup, the university can get it's taste by taking a low-double-digit dilutive share or a couple percent non-dilutive (with the goal of cashing out around series A). So the school doesn't even have to pay a lot of attention to what you're doing until you try to turn it into a company.

Related to your edit- you might be able to refuse to allow the parts you've written get released by claiming copyright over your specific work, but that will probably destroy your current relationship with your group. They are also free to clean-room reimplement whatever you wrote and cut you out entirely. If you think it's valuable you'd be better off trying to go into business with the other people who control parts of the product, fighting them is a very bad idea. The university is not interested in getting involved until there's money on the table and will side with the professor they've invested in almost 100% of the time.

Also, if you've committed your code to a project with an existing license (like MIT) you've already released it under a permissive license and you can't revoke that.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: The software developed by most academics has no commercial value. It is a research product, similar to a paper, and is usually shared with other researchers by hosting it on the researcher’s web page (as I do) or on GitHub or other repositories. There is usually no need for any sort of license, but some people will include a license to make clear what use by others of their code they see as acceptable.

There is also no need for the university to be involved in any of these decisions, just like the university doesn’t tell researchers what “license” to use for the papers they publish. I think your main source of confusion is related to thinking of research code as some kind of valuable property that needs to be protected. In 99% of cases that’s not the reality.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]


<issue_start>username_0: I learned from [this thread](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/3628/22560) that review articles are often written by experienced scholars, but I wonder if a graduate student can publish a tutorial as his/her first publication? For instance, [Tutorial on Variational Autoencoders](https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.05908).<issue_comment>username_1: It is not up to you (or a collection of random people on the 'net) to decide if the tutorial paper you want to write is up to your target venue's standards. In any case, you not being one of the stars of the field should not be a criterion to accept/reject. Sure, a rockstar has probably a wider perspective and experience teaching the stuff, so they'll probably (possibly?) write it up better.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Actually, I find that a relatively inexperienced (but not naive) person can write a valuable tutorial for novices. The reason is that they may remember how hard it was to get started and, especially, to gain insight. More experienced people, especially experts, often lose the sense of how difficult it once was.

I once specifically wrote a treatise on a topic I was learning in order to capture the wonder of it all along with the difficulty and what to look out for. It turned out pretty well.
Upvotes: 2


<issue_start>username_0: My collaborator and I submitted an article to a special issue of a journal.
He did most of the writing of the article,
while I did the technical work such as running simulations, generating plots,
and typesetting the article in LaTeX.

After two revisions, the article has been accepted with major (one reviewer) and minor (the other reviewer) revisions needed.
We were given a relatively short (3 weeks) deadline to make the revisions,
due to the deadline for making up the special issue of the journal.

Unfortunately, my collaborator has suddenly become unreachable by email for the last 5 days.
As we're living in different cities,
I have no idea if he experienced a medical or family emergency,
or if he suddenly is no longer interested in the article,
or is no longer alive?
(He's probably alive, touch wood,
my point is just that I feel quite confused with the situation,
and my imagination is running a bit wild at this point.)

**Question:**
How should I proceed with a short deadline for revising our journal article submission,
if I am unable to reach my collaborator?

I could try to do the rewriting completely by myself,
I believe this is do-able.
However, is it "kosher" for me to submit the article revision,
if I don't hear from him before the submission deadline?

I could also do nothing, and wait, hoping that he becomes reachable again,
but the longer I wait, the greater the risk that we'll miss the deadline
and have to go through the entire journal article acceptance process again.

I'd really appreciate some advice as this is quite confusing,
and it feels strange to be so close, yet so far,
in getting this journal article finally accepted and published.

---

### Update:

A few days after I posted this question,
my collaborator finally responded to my email.
He didn't explain exactly why he was out of communication,
but I am inferring that he was really busy with things on his end.
We'll be working this week to get the paper submitted on time,
it will be a bit tight but I think it's manageable.

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions,
fortunately I didn't have to use them this time,
but hopefully someone else who encounters this situation in the future
can use these really helpful suggestions.<issue_comment>username_1: Certainly you can start on revising yourself while you continue to try to reach the other person. If you reach them you can give them what you have done and continue from there.

Perhaps you can reach them through a third party if you know of someone, perhaps someone they work with.

Doing nothing seems like the worst option.

But if you have to send in your own revision without help, let the editor know of the problem, Perhaps they can extend the deadline a bit.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I personally would start to write the revision. Maybe the person is just on vacation?

If your co-author did most of the wrting (as you said), I think it is in his/her interest to get this article published.

Basically you have these two outcomes:

1. Your collaborator answers before the deadline
2. Your collaborator doesn't answer before the deadline

So think about it, in both cases it would be highly beneficial if you start the revision already. If you are on good terms with your co-author there is a very low chance that the person doesn't answer because there is no longer interest in the article.

In the worst case, your co-author doesnt answer. Then you should just revise the article as necessary for the major revision and submit it.

Since this is a journal article and not a conference article, I guess the deadline should be extendable if you really need it.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: (Promoted from a comment.)

As well as agreeing with other posters that you might as well start working on revisions yourself, I would strongly suggest that you contact the editor **now** rather than waiting for closer to the deadline. You can indicate your uncertainty, i.e. that everything *might* be OK (co-author responds to your queries, revisions get made, everything is submitted before the deadline), but it is best if everyone knows what's going on earlier rather than later. In addition to explaining the situation, you might ask:

* how strict the deadline is
* what editorial policies would apply if you end up needing to resubmit without being able to contact the co-author for approval (i.e., would the editor let you resubmit without having been able to formally receive consent from all of the co-authors? This could be a "don't ask don't tell" sort of thing, but transparency is best if you can manage it ...)

It won't take the editor long to respond to a short, clear, query, and there's no harm done if it turns out to have been unnecessary.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: I am wondering if a call is not an option.
You can also call the reception at his/her institute, one of the students, etc. The fact that the deadline for a paper you both wanted out is approaching gives you the right to try every way to contact him, in my opinion. This would also let you know if that person has problems of a sort, though their nature might be or not revealed. Actually, in most cases that would be my primary concern as for coauthors are often kind of friends.
If the lack of answer is on purpose, well, you must ascertain it anyway.

Once all ways to contact your coauthor failed, again is my opinion that you could proceed alone and submit.

**Edit** after comment.

I've considered it somehow implicit, but on resubmitting you should inform the editor about the situation. This would move the responsibility to the Journal. A possible outcome is that the article will appear in a standard issue of the journal.

Further - when the revision is straightforward - it is standard for the submitting author to contact all coauthors and pose a very short deadline for them to answers. Then s/he proceeds anyway. There is no much ethic involved. All of them worked for and wanted the paper out. Even in the case that one coauthor changed opinion, then it is his/her duty to communicate with the others.
Not revising, although has no public impact, is a sort of retraction and should motivated based on the paper content. Any other option is disrespectful of the editors and referees work, to add a point missed by other answers and comments.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Is your collaborator employed somewhere, at university or in industry? If so, he surely has co-workers, and their e-mail addresses and phone numbers can be found somewhere in the internet.

Try to get in touch with one of them. Call or e-mail his secretary, a postdoc, some other co-worker. At least one of them certainly knows why he does not answer and might have more possibilities to get in touch with him. A secretary, for example, usually knows the private phone number of her boss. They would not give it to you, but they can call him and ask him to respond.
Upvotes: 2


<issue_start>username_0: I received this message form the editor "Thanks for note. We have tried 11 potential reviewers to date and have one review at hand and another that is promised. We will be in touch once the second review is acquired".
What this meant? May be he rejected the submission if can't find the second reviewer<issue_comment>username_1: You have two lines of text, and that's really all there is: You can try to parse tea leaves, but you will never know. So sit back and relax: the decision will ultimately come, whatever it may be.

To be more to the point, the editor really just says what is happening: They're having difficulty finding people willing to review the paper. One could come up with a number of reasons why that might be so, but you really don't know, and speculation isn't going to get you any closer to the truth. The only way you could find out *why* they have difficulty finding reviewers is to ask the editor, who may or may not want to talk about it. You could also suggest possible reviewers in a reply to the editor, which the editor may or may not want to consider.

In the end, you really can't know what is happening from just these two sentences, and it is unproductive to spend your brain power in coming up with possible scenarios.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It's just three sentences but it's quite revealing:

* They invited 11 reviewers
* At least two reviewers agreed to review the paper
* One of them has already submitted the review
* The other has a review due date that's sometime in the future, and the editor believes that the reviewer will actually submit a review

Your editor isn't having trouble finding reviewers - he/she has already acquired one review and another is promised.

On the other hand it's impossible to tell if your paper is going to be rejected, since after all it's impossible to tell what the contents of the review actually are. There's nothing to do except wait.
Upvotes: 1


<issue_start>username_0: I am fairly comfortable with English as a second language and have been studying at schools with English as the primary language for the last 9 years. I also have multiple semesters worth of experience TA'ing for CS courses in English (conducting lab sessions, giving short lectures etc.).

I recently took TOEFL and obtained scores around 28-29 for reading, writing, and listening sections.

However, I received a 17 in the speaking section. Since I can normally speak English comfortably in casual and academic settings, I believe this low result was due to the automatic grader interpreting my stutter as a sign of inadequacy.

How much would a low grade in the speaking section of TOEFL affect my overall profile when applying for a CS PhD in the US?

Thanks for any answers in advance.<issue_comment>username_1: Given your past experience (as a TA), I'd guess it won't matter at all. Presumably you have developed some coping/compensation strategies to effectively deal with it.

Perhaps you should indicate in a cover letter that you stutter, that it probably negatively affects an oral test score, and that you are happy to demonstrate that IRL you can communicate more effectively than the test indicates.

The US is also pretty good about not discriminating against people with such issues. A lot of that is enshrined in law. See [this](https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/frontpage/faq/disability.html) for example.

But long term anything you can do to become an effective speaker will serve your career interests. But that is true of everyone.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I was in a very similar situation, except that it was the IELTS rather than the TOEFL for me, and that I wanted to apply to PhD programmes in the UK, rather than the US. It all worked out fine.

The role of a language test in PhD admissions is, in my experience, a binary measure. An applicant needs to be sufficiently proficient to be considered; but you cannot outcompete another candidate by being better in the language. It also seems to be rather common to handle the language certification towards the end of the process by making a conditional offer that needs a sufficiently good language test to be converted into an unconditional offer.

Thus, I believe that if your application material is otherwise strong, you can expect a conditional offer with the requirement to submit a better language certificate. At that point, you get in touch with the department and talk them into waving the requirement (actually talking rather than emailing probably works better, as they'll see that you can actually speak English and just stutter). That's how I did it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: As in a comment by @GoodDeeds: in my U.S. R1 large state univ, my math dept has a cut-off of 23 for the spoken part of the TOEFL (=test of English as a foreign language), regardless of the rest of the application. Sometimes a 22 can make the cut, if faculty advocate for the applicant. Most of our grad students are supported as TAs (teaching assistants).

Although I've been involved in our grad admissions for a long time, I do not recall ever seeing a claim that a low speaking TOEFL score was due to a stutter or similar. I don't think we have any system in place for detecting such a claim, either! ... so an application with such a TOEFL score might not get read closely enough for any admissions people to see the explanation, etc.

To have admissions people think about this, you'll need to make a prominent point of it in a cover letter or elsewhere. And/or a direct communication with the Director of Grad Studies in the dept you're applying to, alerting them to the issue.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]


<issue_start>username_0: I teach a module in an electrical engineering MSc programme in the UK for which the students are given a technical project that carries 25% of the total marks. The project is a group assignment and the students work in teams of 3-4 members.

This year, four out of six teams submitted identical assignments (the only differences were their names on the cover page).

In our school, we are expected to flag cases of suspected plagiarism and collusion to an internal academic offences committee. If I do that, the most likely scenario is that they will all get a zero mark in this assignment.

My main concern is that if this happens, the module will have a very high failure rate. These students will need to score at least 75% in the final exam and taking into account their progress hitherto (which has been disappointingly poor), it is more likely for a camel to... pass the module.

Moreover, I expect that the committee will rule that all students get a zero - both the ones who copied the answers, and the one(s) who provided them. At least this was the case last year when a similar case of collusion was taken to the academic offences committee. I'm not sure this is fair to those students who spend time and effort to do the assignment.

Some months ago I had a chat with a colleague, who suggested that there's a cultural aspect to the students' understanding of the concepts of collusion and plagiarism - an opinion that I also found in this [blog post by TurnitIn](https://www.turnitin.com/blog/cultural-differences-in-plagiarism) and [this paper](https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/243096-plagiarism-across-cultures-is-there-a-di-9900dd5e.pdf) that is cited therein. I'm mentioning this because the students who colluded in my class are all international. Although I'm not convinced by the idea that they may simply not understand that copying an other team's assignment is wrong (they are MSc students after all), I can acknowledge that I may be missing something. I should mention that at the beginning of the semester, there was a series of induction events in which we tried to define very clearly the concepts of plagiarism and collusion.

An additional complication is that high failure rates are frowned upon in our department. It's an unwritten rule that the ideal failure rate is 0% and I'm already feeling pressure from the other modules I teach where I get ~15% failures every year. This is also a new module and I don't want it to have a bad reputation.

My question is: **should I should report them to the academic offences committee given that they will fail my module and as a result the MSc?** If so, they will have the right to resit the final exam in October, but they'll still need to score >75%. My other option is to turn a blind eye (in principle we do that for minor infractions), but I don't think this is right. Besides, it may give them the message that they'll pass the final exam even if they don't put in any effort. I do not have the option to give them some other punishment without referring them to the committee.

**Update:** Many thanks for your answers. Today I reported this to the academic offences committee. I presented all the evidence to the committee, but I will not participate in the investigation, which I believe is fair. I think the university has unequivocally communicated its regulations regarding academic offences, so as @Allure wrote *dura lex sed lex*. In my opinion it is both partonising and condescending to suggest that international students should be treated differently or more leniently and even that they cannot understand what collusion is; they have the right to chose to collude and should face the consequences. I do have some concerns about the severity of the consequences, but as it stands, these are the rules. Lastly - and this is a more philosophical question that has nothing to do with blatant verbatim copying - I wonder whether there is indeed a significant difference "[across cultures](https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/243096-plagiarism-across-cultures-is-there-a-di-9900dd5e.pdf)," but this is a different topic altogether.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> In our school, we are expected to flag cases of suspected plagiarism
> and collusion to an internal academic offences committee.
>
>
>

There's your answer. It's your job to report the offense.
Upvotes: 9 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You should. *[Dura lex sed lex](https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195369380.001.0001/acref-9780195369380-e-591)*. Not reporting it sends the message that plagiarism is OK if enough people do it.

The grim consequences you envisage (like departmental disapproval) might not come to pass - after all you can't control if your students decide to cheat. Conversely, I would feel disturbed if the instructor passed cheating students to avoid high failure rates.

As for the students failing the MSc because you failed them in your module, to quote from [an answer to another question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/46267):

>
> Sometimes a student's failure is a teaching success.
>
>
> The lesson is just not the one you wished that you were teaching.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_3: The way I see it, my employer pays me to evaluate my students’ knowledge of the material I taught them. I am ethically bound to give only grades that reflect my honest assessment.

In particular, if an assignment is turned in that I know to be plagiarized, I cannot in good faith give it a grade of more than zero. The student who submitted it has not credibly demonstrated any knowledge, so to do otherwise would be a betrayal of the trust my institution places in me to carry out the job I was assigned to do.

The distinction between students who copied and students who allowed others to copy from them is a bogus one. Both are cheaters, and in practice it is usually impossible to know to which of these two categories a student belongs. [There is no logical policy](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/111410/40589) other than to treat all students who participated in such a collusion scheme as if they cheated and did not do the assignment, even if in fact some of them did.

The allowance you are thinking of making for “cultural” values of “international” students is disrespectful to honest students, who hail from all different countries, including the same geographical regions as the cheating students who supposedly have a misguided understanding of what plagiarism is. You should treat people as individuals, who are adults capable of making their own decisions and need to live with the consequences of those decisions.

The argument that reporting the cheating students will result in a high failure rate is neither here nor there. Perhaps your program needs to do some soul searching about what they might be doing that results in such massive cheating scandals occurring (and the high failure rate that follows them), and what they can be doing to prevent them in the future. But [it’s not your place as an individual instructor](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/170169/40589) to take such high-level questions into account and substitute your own personal justice for whatever the institutional policies say needs to happen in such a situation.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: **Yes, you should report them**. It's the official policy, and it's also the right thing to do. It helps you by spreading out the responsibility for the failures (or whatever). Given the academic level and introductory anti-cheating module, it's overwhelmingly likely that these students have been cheating through their entire academic career, and have grown accustomed to being given a pass every time in this same fashion.

[As I wrote in this answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/170173/43544):

>
> If these are university students, then it seems to me overwhelmingly
> likely that what's happened is a reflection of prior habits they've
> been following for... maybe 12+ years now? I'd say at this point it's
> naive to think this is truly "the first offense". What if these
> students are cheating at work in every single one of their college
> courses, and then pleading "first offense" or "didn't know" (very
> common, and should be disregarded as utterly unbelievable), and so are
> given this allowance continually throughout their program sequence?
>
>
>
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: If 2/3 colluded and they were all international students, then that is proof that this was due to misunderstanding. When I had to do experimental work at university, the set-up was that we had to work in groups of two, a report was to be written and we would be be graded based on the report. But it was then one report per group of two students, the grade applied to both students and usually one student would write most of the report. This sort of a system is common practice in many universities, so this may be the source of the misunderstanding.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: Something doesn't add up: Obviously, the students didn't think what they did was forbidden because they didn't try to hide the fact that the papers were identical. Probably, because they were supposed to cooperate to begin with, they falsely assumed it's OK to cooperate across groups. As with most misunderstandings the fault may not be exclusively on one side, which is the reason for my suggestion:

Have a session where you explain the rules in unambiguous terms. If there is a language barrier or something similar, make them take a 5 minute test afterwards that lets them decide whether a few choice scenarios are proper behavior or not.

Invalidate the project for all those who submitted the identical results. Have them retake an equivalent assignment or, if that's impossible due to time constraint or lab hours etc., an exam. Make it optional for the others, for fairness, to participate in the replacement project/test if they wish to improve their grades.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: >
> ...copying an other team's assignment is wrong.
>
>
>

tl;dr;
------

It might help you decide what to do by considering deeply what you mean by "wrong". AFAIK, there is nothing Biblical (or Koranical, or [insert totally objective moral dogma here]) that governs your behavior in this specific scenario. Will reporting them to the university office create a situation that is more "right", in your view? Will doing something else create a situation that is more "right"? Ultimately, your ethical system is *yours*, and as an educator you should really make an attempt to navigate these waters for yourself (with some aid, perhaps, from other stackoverflowers).

tfa
---

Probably, it is not the case that you consider plagiarism to be a moral error [in-and-of itself](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-intrinsic-extrinsic/). Often, I find that educators have vague notions that individual plagiarism causes some further inherent ill much later (e.g. at time of employment), or slippery-slope logic leads to a conclusion that plagiarism can cause class-wide problems. There are possibly other considerations that are valid, for example [this answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/171360/88505) implies that if you give your word to do a thing (possibly implicitly by accepting payment for a job), then it would be inherently wrong to not do that thing. I would consider this valid. You may or may not be of this opinion. However, many academic positions give a great deal of leeway to professors when deciding how to implement policies in their classes, so this consideration may not even apply.

Personally, my strongest ethical motivator is that I feel that knowledge of science is an inherent good. As a science educator, this implies for me an ethical responsibility to educate. Perhaps more strongly, I feel an ethical responsibility to educate *despite what my educatees may or may not want*. If I have taken on the duty to educate student X, and student X doesn't want to be educated, then this does not relieve me of my duty to educate them.

In this context, if student X is utilizing plagiarism to shirk their studies, then I feel ethically bound to take steps to prevent (!=punish) this thing. What steps to take? If pursuing a particular course of action regarding their plagiarism will cause student X to, for example, be expelled from the program, then I would want to consider carefully my actions. Possibly this will open a spot for another student who will actually learn, allowing me to fulfill my duty to educate. Possibly such an open spot will only be filled by a student with similar habits, in which case I would want to find a method that would actually prevent these actions rather than simply flunking a never-ending cycle of plagiaristic students.

In this same context, it may be the case that student X is diligently pursuing their studies, but is simply using plagiarism as a tool to pass a class that they may otherwise not be able to pass, or to get an "A" having actually "earned" a "B". In this case, pursuing an action that would cause student X to be ejected from the program would be antithetical to my duty to educate, and would therefore, in my ethical system, be wrong. I may have other ethical duties due to official university policies requiring me to sort students by ability with maximum efficiency and accuracy. To me, these are secondary to my ethical duty to educate.

As such, if I were in your scenario, I would have some delving to do. Is it actually the case that these students were utterly incapable of completing the assignment? If so, then this assignment probably isn't very educational (which is the primary purpose of assignments, IMHO). Perhaps I should give a different assignment to replace it. Is it actually the case that students are simply shirking their studies? If so, then perhaps I should re-assign the same or a similar assignment of comparable difficulty, letting students know that they must actually be diligent in their studies. Have these students been shirking their studies repeatedly, even after similar attempts to encourage them to diligence? Then perhaps these students are simply lost, and you should report them to the appropriate department so that they can be replaced with students who will actually attempt to learn.

All of this is not to say that you should follow this suit. This is simply to say that perhaps the ethics of the situation are not so simple as to admit a black-and-white answer. Or perhaps they are. Since you will be dealing with this ethical conundrum for years to come, you should really make efforts to come to a system that *you* find ethically consistent.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_8: I know you already reported this (which I think was the right thing to do), but for future readers, let me take another angle on this. Specifically, I'd like to focus on this paragraph:

>
> Moreover, I expect that the committee will rule that all students get a zero - both the ones who copied the answers, and the one(s) who provided them. At least this was the case last year when a similar case of collusion was taken to the academic offences committee. I'm not sure this is fair to those students who spend time and effort to do the assignment.
>
>
>

That being said, would it be fair to the students that were punished last year if these students received no penalty whatsoever for an identical offense? Policies need to be enforced uniformly (or not at all) to avoid arbitrariness.

It would also be unfair to the two teams that completed their own work, because the 3 teams that evidently put forth no effort whatsoever would be graded as if they had actually done the assignment.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: I see you've already taken action so this comment is late. Something for you and others to consider maybe is:

* You are correct this work should be graded zero.
* However maybe you could give them an opportunity to remedy their error?
* Reject the plagiarised work, and give them a stern talking to, explaining why you have rejected it, and explaining that they were warned and should know better.
* Give them a tight new deadline to redo the work to the proper standard and resubmit. Explain the consequences if this is not done. Explain that they are on the edge of being banned from the university (or whatever the likely max punishment would be from the Academic Offences Committee).
* Keep your line manager / Department Head informed of this and your actions.
* Likely they will still fail the course, but at least you gave them a chance to remedy their errors and they have learned from this.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_10: A few things:

* it is important to report it, even if there is no punishment past "they have to redo the assignment and not collude" (which is more work for you of course) - reason being, there are serial cheaters and they "get by" by apologizing profusely if caught
* no matter what they do, it will likely be more work for you OR you will be completely disillusioned (which happened to me when I reported multiple cheating incidents and they said "you didn't say explicitly they couldn't copy"...)
* glad you actually care
* finally, give them slightly different assignments - 3 vs. 4 variables, 100 vs. 200 ohm resistors, whatever. It's a little more annoying to grade, but if they collude to get the right answers, they should be learning something!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: Yes, absolutely without question. In fact, I've seen situations where the majority of the class cheated. It's not pretty, but it's been done before.

This isn't playground hair-pulling or petty vengeance, academic integrity is sacred and it's right to report it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_12: I totally agree with the other answers, you should definitely report this.

An aspect of the situation which I think other posts did not mention: you don't actually know that two-thirds colluded.

>
> The project is a group assignment and the students work in teams of
> 3-4 members.
>
>
> This year, four out of six teams submitted identical assignments (the
> only differences were their names on the cover page).
>
>
>

It is very easy to not cheat when you work alone. **When you are in a team of 3 or 4, your work will be plagiarised if there is one rogue team member. This can happen without your knowledge.**

So, the most you can say, is that there is at least 1 person in each group who colluded with others.

*It seems to me that it is unreasonable to assign 25% of the total marks for a group project, and then get punished for plagiarism, when the University cannot prove that every individual was aware of what is going on*. You cannot expect from each team member to evaluate whether another team member's contribution is original or plagiarised.

My undergraduate Physics course included a part when 3-4 students worked together, but that project carried less than 0.5% of total marks, which I think is reasonable. 25% is ludicrous.

Nevertheless, this is not your problem. If you can influence these aspects of the course in the future, I would advise you to do so. Report collusion.
Upvotes: 1


<issue_start>username_0: Is it okay to just rewrite whole chapters from a book while describing a theory you are using in your Bachelor Thesis? Is it okay to only have two books as references and few (3-5) papers on arxiv to cite?<issue_comment>username_1: You need to beware of copyright law here. A "rewriting" of a chapter could be construed as a derived work, for which a license is needed. It is better to formally quote small excerpts as needed. Even paraphrasing, if excessive, can involve copyright issues. And of course, you need to cite what you use to avoid plagiarism.

The number of books/papers that you need to cite is best asked of your advisor(s) and what they will accept. It is a purely local question.

Note, however, that some things fall under the "common knowledge" exception to IP conventions. You can write your own understanding of things you've learned if they are common knowledge. Most undergraduate material (certainly not all) fits this exception.

But, for practice in learning to be an academic, if that is your goal, a rather formal approach (quoting, citing) is probably in your interest. The reader is pointed to the originals and can consult that as necessary.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Don't quote or paraphrase whole chapters: extract and rework the material you actually need.

Whatever sources you use, be sure to cite them properly.

Whether those chapters and the several arXiv references are "enough" depends on the subject matter, the kind of dissertation, and the standards in your program. Talk to advisors in your department and look at other theses submitted at your school to get an idea of what is expected.
Upvotes: 2