Is it okay to copy somebody else's words and sentences? So I am writing my master's thesis, and am reading a lot of papers. I usually do a lot of 'backtracking' (meaning, read one paper, then look at who they cited and go read those papers).

Doing this, I have found that a lot of authors straight-up copy words and sentences from some of the papers they cite. I don't mean a full paragraph or anything of that sorts, it's almost never more than a sentence, but it does happen a lot.

This is particularly annoying when I read a sentence in one paper and think hmm, that isn't entirely clear and could be expanded upon further, and then I track down the similar concept in another paper to see if there's more info there, but I then find the exact same sentence written there, with no further context provided.

For example, currently I am reading a paper which states

  The alternating coefficients of the method may mean that in practice, the theorem does not hold.

I'm not quite sure what they mean by this (why are the coefficients alternating? And why does that impact the validity of the theorem?? Does the theorem not take into account the alternating coefficients???), so I look at a paper they cite that talked about this theorem a bit more, and that paper has the exact same sentence (with no further context).

This makes me think that not only was

the sentence (in the non-original paper) copied straight from the original paper without using quotation marks

but also that

the author of the non-original paper doesn't actually fully understand the meaning of that sentence (just like I don't), and hence, since they don't understand it, they can't write it in their own words, and hence just copied it verbatim.

Am I reading too much into things, or is this behavior common, and if so, what is the proper etiquette concerning what this is acceptable or not?

As I'm sure you know it isn't correct to just copy things from others. However, there are a couple of additional considerations.

Something is really plagiarism only if it is copied without citation. Then, the author is claiming the work of others as their own. The safest way to avoid this is to use quotes, as you suggest, but certainly to cite.

However, if some of the work you find is old, it is also possible that the standards have changed a bit over time and are now a bit more rigid. Citation and being clear about who originated ideas is the important thing, not, specifically, the punctuation.

But another consideration, especially in fields such as mathematics is that there may be only one way to write some given idea in words. So, in a calculus textbook, for example, the definition of the derivative is nearly identical to every other calculus text on the planet. This sort of thing has actually been discussed in courts, as I understand it.

But for your own work, be as clear as you can be. Cite anything you use and clearly mark what is being quoted using some reasonable typographical convention. Of course you also need to worry about copyright infringement, but that is a different issue. The sloppiness of others shouldn't bleed over into your own work.

The question of copying without understanding is a deeper problem. I won't comment on that.


Can I list tentative invited talks on my CV? I am a graduate student in mathematics currently applying for jobs in the US, mostly at small liberal arts institutions.

I have accepted an invite to give a talk at a school in mid-November.  May I list this talk on my current CV and expect people to realize that as it's dated "November 2016," it is scheduled but has yet to happen?  Do I need to mark it as tentative?  Or should I simply leave it off?

In terms of status-enhancement or proof of merit, the actual giving of the talk is of almost no consequence. The invitation is the thing that "proves" status and merit (such as they may be). So, yes, list it, all the more considering that you probably don't have many such episodes to put on your CV.

For that matter, if you yourself had some (unfortunate, presumably) reason to cancel from your end, still, you did get the invitation.

From their end, to cancel your talk after issuing the invitation would be a fairly severe gaucherie... so I'd bet it won't happen. Even if it did, almost-surely the official reason would be some funding problems, not that they've discovered that you're a poseur and a bad person, etc. So the status and virtue leading to the original invitation are not diminished.

Being invited to give presentations is a kind of proof of one's relevance to the research community.

There are rumors of "an internet", supposedly allowing easy, massive, long-distance asynchronous communication without the expenses and perils of long-distance personal travel, but until that possibility is assimilated into the academic community... much like the notion that "publication" could mean literal publication, rather than running a status-and-merit gauntlet... :)

Joking (???) aside, it's not the literal giving of the talk, and is not the literal publication in refereed journal, that confer status or prove merit, but the invitation (resp. acceptance).

You can. But put it at the end of your CV, if you do so. It would not bother anyone, as people previously said on the page, although I guess it probably would not make you get the job or have a great positive difference on the image your hypothetical employer will get of you when he receives the CV.

It depends of you, mostly, the choice is yours.


How to Store Incidental Information Gleaned in the Course of Conducting Research I'm in the throes of writing my first substantial research paper in the field of Information Science. The topic looks promising and my advisor seems pleased with the work. Because of the nature of the work, there are a lot of intermediate steps involved in obtaining the raw data, preprocessing the data, then running the experiment proper and recording the results. These intermediate steps involved a lot of programming on my part, building one-shot tools to solve problems along the way to conducting the experiments.

I understand that reproducibility is a huge issue in computer science and I wish to lessen the burden upon my future self and upon my lab mates if/when the time comes to follow up on this trail of experiments. Certain software has to be installed, path variables have to be configured, firewall settings have to be set up to allow transference of data - and similar technical problems that wouldn't be appropriate to include in the resultant research paper proper.

How do I record all of these technical and procedural steps such that a future interested party (be it myself or one of my lab mates, or perhaps even an outsider to the lab who has an academic interest in the resultant paper and software) can reproduce the experiment? Do I leave myself open to being "scooped" if I set up a website with an academic blog or wiki in it?

These are excellent questions! You are especially wise to recognize that your future self will have unfortunately hazy memories of what parameters you chose and why. (I've also been mulling this process myself, and was considering asking a similar question!) Your question is definitely related to prior questions here, but I think those don't necessarily cover collecting data, and some of the answers haven't aged as gracefully as others because they deal with "try this kind of software."

To the extent that your advisor and lab already have a workflow set up, try to work this into it. Is there a shared server for documents, or an application like Dropbox or Box? Do you have a shared Zotero group for bibliography and files? Do you use Git or other version control software? (Version control may be less relevant to you if you're the only one working on the code, whereas it will be critical if multiple people fiddle with it.)

Keeping notes about results

Many scientists are trained to use research notebooks, and there have been interesting discussions about those; aeismail suggested Colin Purrington's tips on maintaining a lab notebook. From looking at an excellent question across tools and a question about Python in particular (though it can be extended), Jupyter is the next tool I will look into for myself, and it may be what you're looking for.

For my own dissertation, for tables and charts I created in Stata, I had a clear file naming scheme about where I outputted and saved them. It was easy (conditional on already knowing LaTeX) to make a LaTeX doc that pointed to those files and could update with the newest version of the results.

File naming and organizing hierarchy

TCSGrad pointed to Jason Eisner's advice on file organization. In particular, I like his advice there of putting in files or file names or folder names the tags: to-do, how-to, logbook, acknowledge, and send-to.
I also highly recommend having, in your project folder, a folder called "Raw Data". This is the original data, as downloaded or found or whatever. In "Raw Data", have a readme doc, whether it is a text file or spreadsheet or whatever, that says where each bit of Raw Data came from, when, under what conditions, etc.

To capture the software setup and system parameters, perhaps have a similar Setup folder (with the executable files for software you install, and a similar readme). (Docker is one tool to capture and easily replicate the correct computing environment. A group like Software Carpentry might be able to provide guidance.)

A separate "Data" folder can have your cleaned versions of the raw data, and folders for "Code" and "Output" should be similarly separate. (Datasets you create should still go into Data, probably.) You might even find it useful to have separate folders for (nicely formatted) "Tables" and "Figures".

Whenever you submit something or have a major draft, try to save a copy of all the things you're relying on, as-is.

Making the notes available?

This prior question asks about the (dis)advantages of an open lab notebook, and there was some good discussion.

How do I record all of these technical and procedural steps -- including installing certain software, setting path variables, and firewall configuration -- such that a future interested party...can reproduce the experiment?

You can write a script that automates the necessary steps and reproduces the results. (Writing that script after you've produced your results will be difficult. Try writing the script as you go along.)

(Anything more sophisticated is surely complimentary.)


How would you give your students a tournament as assessment? I am currently teaching calculus and I thought it would be a good idea to do some kind of limit (and later derivative/integral) calculation tournament. The thing is... The students only seem to give their best if the activity is an actual assessment so I was wondering how can I prepare a tournament as a fair assessment.

The main issue is that as an assessment I want every student to be able to get the maximum score (otherwise it wouldn’t be fair), however since it is a tournament only one student can get the first place...

So I was wondering how one can organize a tournament in a way that is fair for all students? There are some remarks to take in consideration:

There should be a prize/incentive for attaining a better place in the tournament compared to the other students.
Everybody should be able to get the maximum score.
There should be some kind of rule which determines whether a student is out the tournament or not.
Every student needs to participate.
The whole tournament shouldn’t take longer than two hours; I can’t spend too much class time on that.

So with those remarks in mind how would you guys organize a tournament? I'd like to compile some suggestions before planning it.

Eager et al. describe how they use flipped classrooms to teach a mathematical biology course. As part of their course, they use "competitions" to motivate students. They discuss some of your concerns in a method paper:

  One of the difficulties in teaching a class via the flipped classroom is how to properly assess and examine student learning [3]. Because the class is very modeling focused, and modeling is a time-consuming process, traditional exams are very difficult to administer in a course like MTH 265. The authors’ solution to this problem is to do away with traditional
  exams in favor of both individual quizzes and group mathematical modeling competitions.
  The individual quizzes involve the students choosing two small modeling questions from a
  group of three questions and solving them with help from their class notes, homeworks,
  past computer programs and video lectures. These quizzes are given over a 55-minute time
  period. The questions in these quizzes are structured in such a way so that, after the student
  chooses which two problems to work on, he or she can solve both questions in a combined
  40 minutes—meaning that some (but not all) of the modeling process is given to them. These
  exams provide the students with an incentive to learn the material on their own (which is
  nontrivial in a flipped course with a large group component), as well as the motivation
  to become proficient in using some of the elementary skills a mathematical or quantitative
  biologists would need to possess (e.g. diagram building, script writing/amending, elementary
  algebra and calculus, scientific writing).

  The mathematical modeling competitions stemmed from the successful 24-hour Wisconsin
  Mathematical Modeling Challenge at UW-L, as well as the success of similar activities in
  other mathematical biology courses [8]. These competitions complement the individual, inclass
  quizzes by providing students with more open-ended modeling problems and a longer
  timespan to produce their solutions. These modeling problems can ofen be introduced with
  only a few paragraphs of text—with few or no equations. The students, in groups, then
  have 24 hours to come up with an appropriate model for this system, as well as answer
  the biological question posed. The group of students with the best solution is rewarded
  with perfect homework scores until the next modeling competition. The class has either
  an individual quiz or a modeling competition at the end of every other week for a total of three individual quizzes and three modeling competitions during the semester worth roughly
  30 percent of each student’s final grade.

Full citation (in case link breaks):  Eric Alan Eager, James Peirce & Patrick Barlow (2014) Math Bio or Biomath? Flipping the mathematical biology classroom, Letters in Biomathematics, 1:2, 139-155, DOI:
10.1080/23737867.2014.11414476

As a disclosure, I have collaborated with Eager and gave guest lectures in his Bio Math course about my own research.

Here is a suggestion. It has its advantages and disadvantages and I haven't tried to implement it myself, but you asked, so here are my 2 cents.

There should be a prize/incentive for attaining a better place in the tournament compared to the other students.

Apparently you are not willing to give out extra points or anything
else that might influence the grade. Then just make a few nice drawings,
write "The first (second, etc.) place in the calculus tournament" with
the date and your signature over them, laminate, and attach some silly
little prizes (a box of pencils, a figurine, a notebook, etc.) to each.
It'll cost you 40-60 bucks and a few hours of drawing, but it'll work.

Everybody should be able to get the maximum score.

If you have 10 students, prepare 30 tasks and hand them out one by one. For every task the first one to complete it gets 10 points for the task (counted towards the grading score) and 31 minus the number of the task (from 30 to 1) to determine his rank (the first problem is worth 30, the second 29, etc.; the rank is the sum of values of solved problems). Once a student solves three problems, he is not participating any more. You run the tournament until either everyone is out, or nobody can solve the current problem, or the time is out.

There should be some kind of rule which determines whether a student is out the tournament or not.

Addressed above.

Every student needs to participate.

Well, with this scheme at some point he'll be the only eligible competitor if everybody else is done, but if he just cannot do the task anyway, it is his problem. I think it is fair enough.

The whole tournament shouldn’t take longer than two hours; I can’t spend too much class time on that.

That depends on how many and how good the students are and on the difficulty of the problems assigned. Also, do you want just answers or explanations? You can replace the factor 3 by 2 in this scheme, but with more than 20 students it becomes somewhat problematic to implement in under 2 hours. What I expect is a fierce competition with quick answers in the beginning, followed by a slower run once the top students are out, followed by a bunch of dropouts staring mindlessly at the problem (or at the ceiling) forever (unless you impose a time limit on each problem). One partial remedy for this unevenness would be to present hard problems first and to decrease the difficulty along the way.


What is the difference between a Panel Study and a Cohort Study? I am having a special subject named "Methodologies of Scientific Research" in which there is a reference on Panel Studies and Cohort Studies for conducting a longitudinal survey. I am confused to what is the difference between Panel Study and Cohort Study ? In Wikipedia they look the same, that is Panel Study redirects to Cohort Study.

Edit: My field is related to Computer Science and more specifically Information Technology in an undergraduate level. The subject "Methodologies of Scientific Research" though is not constrained on applications on IT, rather it is more general and we have research examples from other sciences like Sociology, Biology, Economics etc.

The terminology for longitudinal research designs differs somewhat between disciplines. However, to my knowledge most discipline refer to a "cohort" as an entity that can be distinguished by a certain event as for example the year of birth or graduation from high school. The general idea is that there is an observable variable for the cohort membership and that individuals from the same "cohort" have something in common, e.g. the risk to die from lung cancer due to a common time of exposure. Thus, a "cohort study" looks at one cohort or compares different cohorts. In most cases, cohort studies use longitudinal research designs, but there are also cross-sectional cohort studies.
The use of the term "panel study" seems to me more vague but a "panel study" is in most cases a longitudinal study which has at least observations from two points in time. Panel studies do not need to focus on cohorts.
Hence, cohort and panel studies both look specifically at the timing of certain events and variables.

For further information you could for example have a look at the following articles in the International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences:

Mason, W.M. and Wolfinger, N.H. 2001: Cohort Analysis, in:
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences,
edited by N.J. Smelser and P.B. Baltes, Pergamon, Oxford, pp.
2189-2194.
Duncan, G.J. 2001: Panel Surveys: Uses and Applications,
in: International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences,
edited by N.J. Smelser and P.B. Baltes, Pergamon, Oxford, pp.
11009-11015.

Cohorts and Panels are techniques employed for selecting a sample frame for a particular study. They do not specify the time frame for data collection. So, therefore, cohorts and Panels can be formed to collect data for both cross-sectional (one-time data collection) and longitudinal studies (repeated data collection over a specified period of time).


Lab colleague uses cracked software. Should I report it? I've just (accidentally) found that one of our colleagues in the lab (who is a graduate student) uses a cracked piece of software on his personal laptop (We were talking near his station and a pop up went up and warned about the fake license of the software).

The software is an expensive one whose student version is freely available on our shared server; however, the student version's features are often not sufficient for our tasks. So I realize that he might have to do this to handle his job. I don't know if the supervisor is aware of this.

All in all, as it's not acceptable to ignore the copyright, should I report this issue to any responsible sector?

I don't feel that general academic ethics obliges you to report this, unless you have reason to believe that it might be endangering the research of the lab (giving inaccurate results, introducing viruses to lab computers, etc).

You will have to make your own judgment as to whether you are obliged to report by any of the following: your own personal code of ethics, your institution's policies, your lab's internal policies, your PI's expectations, threat of lawsuit from the software vendor, your local law, or likely consequences from any of the above for failing to report.  You could also consider whether to warn your colleague and give them a chance to remove the cracked software before reporting them.  But all of that is beyond the scope of this site.

Report it to the vendor. They are the victim. If this is MATLAB, then it can be reported on the following web page:

https://www.mathworks.com/company/aboutus/policies_statements/report_piracy.html


In this time of crisis, would the journals Nature and Science prioritize papers about COVID-19? Would Nature, Science or other leading academic journals prioritize publishing work on COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has caused more than 3k deaths so far?  If so, has this happened before in the past, during another crisis?

Absolutely. Journals are ways of disseminating scientific information, and they do take into account what is of current interest.

More specifically, however: Both Science and Nature do not just publish scientific articles, but also commentary and news stories. For example, in Science they are in the "News" and "Perspectives" parts of the magazine, and they definitely cover current events. As, if I may add, they should.

When your question bears the underlying motive/question, if it easier to publish in nature and science in the next years by doing research on this topic, then my answer would be no. There will likely be an over-proportional amount of COVID-19 related papers be published in top-tier magazines, but at the same time an enormous amount of additional funding money will flow into biomedical research institutes and create competition to solve this problem in a kind of competition, while many biometdical researchers and drug developers have already stated that the development of a remedy against COVID-19 will take 1-2 years. As Buffy commented above and I conclude, the review likely becomes and should much more rigorous for COVID-19 related papers. Additionally the submission rate and competition to get into review will rise.

I'm aware of several retractions in nature magazine covering biomedical breakthroughs over the past years. Many retractions related to COVID-19 would not be very advertising for a journal within a reproduction crisis within academia.

I also want to mention that really important and technical papers are not only published in top-tier journals like nature and science, often the authors also choose intentionally a journal within the community to fasten the progress and reach the biggest possible dissemination. In case of COVID-19 a journal most of the researchers within a community have access to and which offers a format allowing the authors to transport the content they think is necessary to disseminate in the fastest and most completest way with short review time (which is often much longer among nature and science) to the community is probably a much better choice to save human lives.

It's a delicate question when the research question affects million of lives within a short time period, what ethically the right publishing and reviewing  behaviour should be amoung authors and journals. There are of course preprints for nature and science, but do nature and science really have the best specialists, reviewers and review system for solving a very specific scientific problem within short time or rather journals that cover since decades virus deseases? I'm at least wondering if COVID-19 will also create new ways of publishing/commenting of researchers worldwide within short-time on a very high quality level and with open-source access.

So I'm skeptical about @Wolfgang Bangerth's answer if Nature and Science should prioritize COVID-19 papers without changing their review system/duration and if both magazines are the best place to publish such papers concerning the importance of a fast progress in R&D. This depends really a lot upon how biomedical researchers share information in the fastest way via specific journals with short but rigorous review while retaining a high reproduction rate of the results.


What is the meaning of “Review process will be blind to review”? I am new to publishing and want to publish a paper as an independent researcher. The conference I want to submit this paper to states the following on their website regarding the review process:

  Review process will be blind to review.

Does it imply that the review process is double blind? If not, would stating my affiliation as an independent researcher have any negative impact?

I am currently working for a startup company and worked on this paper in my spare time. Since the company is not associated with my research, I decided not to put in the company as an affiliation.

This sounds like it means double-blind review, but it is not really clear; the phrasing is not standard nor grammatically correct.  If it is important to you, you should contact the conference organizers and ask for clarification.

Actually I wanted to comment with "why would you want to submit exactly there", but I am too new here, reputation must be damned! I am confused over the formulation, too.

For experience, someone on the PC would sight the submissions and tell you if something is not Ok. Depending on the size of the conference, however, it might just be a desk reject.

You might want to contact the PC chair and ask.

Well, here are also some suggestions for alternatives, if your focus is image processing. The list is not exhaustive.

Conferences:

CVPR
SIGGRAPH Asia
Pacific Graphics
MICCAI
Vis
SIGGRAPH of course, but top-level and expensive
ICCV (heard too litle about it)
ICMR (heard too litle about it)
GraVisMa (heard too litle about it)
Bioimaging (heard too litle about it)

Journals:

IEEE TVCG
IEEE TMI
The Visual Computer
Computer Graphics Forum
ACM TOG (very high-reach)

I don't know of you picked the conference based on location, but submitting to a journal could also broadcast your result and you don't need to travel. For talking to people a conference is obviously better.


Conflicts with colleagues as a postdoc - reason enough to start looking for the next job? I have recently started as a postdoc at a well-regarded foreign university. I like the place and I have no particular problems with my professor (even though his style isn't exactly to my taste, but I could live with that and take the difference as a learning opportunity).

However, I have a major problem with my fellow postdocs and other junior colleagues. I get the feeling they're just too full of themselves -- but whatever the reason, the situation is that I simply want nothing to do with them. Given that our research group is the only group at the department whose research I could plausibly participate in at the moment, this leaves me with practically no opportunities for fruitful daily scientific interaction.

I'd like to return to my home country after a couple of years of postdoc positions abroad, so I'm feeling some pressure to get the most of my time. I have often heard that the most valuable thing you get out of postdoc positions is the contacts you make. If this is the case, I'm probably wasting my time at my current job. On the other hand, my current institution has much more resources, scientific activities and opportunities to meet distinguished visiting researchers than pretty much any place else I might get to.

So the question is: what should I prioritize when deciding whether to continue at my current job? Is it worth tolerating intolerable colleagues for the opportunity of working at a prestigious and well-endowed university?

I'm sure a recommendation from my current professor would weigh a lot when looking for the next job, but I'm also quite sure I haven't been able to prove myself to him yet.

(Copied from an answer posted below by the original poster:)

I was deliberately vague about the nature of my issues with my colleagues, but I do understand it's relevant.

Of course, it might be just culture shock, as someone suggested. On the other hand, I do feel there's a very unpleasant group dynamic in my research group.

We're conducting research on the beetles of Borneo. I used to be in a group that studies the beetles of New Guinea, and we often have guests who study the beetles of Java or even some other island. But the general atmosphere among my colleagues is that only Borneoan beetles are worth studying. My earlier work is considered definitely useless and irrelevant - and this was also told me explicitly, right after I had presented my work.

The professor seems to share the attitude in some respects, but he's old and experienced enough to understand that even though he might himself care only about the beetles of Borneo, others might still care more about beetles elsewhere. My junior colleagues just think that if it isn't Borneo, it's bullshit.

If I isolate myself, I will have problems learning about Borneo. If I try to learn about Borneo from my colleagues, I'll have to endure constant putdowns of my own interests and earlier work.

(To anyone who actually studies beetles: I'm sorry for using you as an example.)

I have often heard that the most valuable thing you get out of postdoc positions is the contacts you make.

I always thought the most valuable thing you get out of postdoc positions is the research experience and the research papers. The contacts/connections would be the by-products after you conduct quality research.

You said "I'm also quite sure I haven't been able to prove myself to him yet.". If you leave now, you wasted all the efforts you spent to apply for your current postdoc job and the time you spent on the job so far only because you don't like your colleagues?

I understand you are at a well-regarded foreign university. My guess is that many of your colleagues came from different cultures/locations than yours. That's probably why you feel that they are intolerable.

My advice: concentrate on your research (which is your job). Work with your professor and those colleagues if needed. Do your best.

Edit after the OP put in some more details:

Your example sounds like you are in the wrong group in the sense of research direction. I don't quite understand why you went there in the first place. But, you are there now. I would try to stay there for a while if I were you. I would collaborate with my colleagues. I would learn beetles of Borneo from them. I would show them why beetles of New Guinea are also worth studying. I'll do my best. If it still doesn't work out after a while, then I'll quit and find another postdoc job, the right one this time.

Even if you have a good postdoc, you should keep an eye out for one that is even better.  However, if you stay in your current position less than a year you may be viewed as unreliable by future employers.  (US perspective)


How to deal with students who refuse to do anything except take exams? This is a follow up to my previous question. Some context:

I teach at a new Fachhochschule-type institute, where my course is 5-day, 1 hour/day course to 20+ students.
I am actively teaching, providing the material, and encouraging the students to always ask questions.
My course is structured to have 4 days of lecture and 1 day of practical. In the practical, I explain a real-world problem and give the students graded exercises.

In week 1, the exercise in the practical was to prepare a half-page report on a short consultancy problem. I gave them 7 full days to write the report. No one asked questions or stated any concerns before the deadline.
The day after the deadline, only half the class had submitted on time, half of which only at minutes before said deadline. I was gobsmacked, since even half of the submitted results were very poorly made (one even stated, in the report, "excuse me, but I didn't understand anything"), by totally missing the point or even copy/pasting definitions without context from the lecture notes. In total 1/4 of the class actually proved that had sit down and worked actively on the practical.
The next day I explained that their actions were completely out of line, since in 6 months they are supposed to go in the workforce, and this behavior of completely ignoring and not giving notice to the professor would be very detrimental to their careers. I refused to evaluate any latecomer who did not advise me on time. My stern reaction did upset the students who didn't submit. I even received an 1-page email (double the size of the report) from one of the students claiming that my job is only to teach and their is only to take exams, and they are not obligated to do any extra work I give them.
Is there anything that I can do to improve the cooperativity of said students? Should I modify the final exam mark structure or organize the lectures differently? Since this is my first shot, I don't really know how to proceed.
Clarifications and Update:

It is technically true that the student's grades (according to university policy) are determined by exams only.
But, I am allowed to have practicals and other assignments count as part of the exam score. My mentor confirmed this.
I think these students are bad apples because they are clinging to this technicality rather than doing the useful assignments (or at least respectfully letting me know of their concerns in advance).
Based on the discussion here and with my mentor, I have decided to count the practical for extra credit only.

Welcome to higher education! Students will use formal assesement to guide their learning, and no amount of cajoling, or appealing to their sense professional or intellectual propriety will change that. Some students will always work above and beyond what the assessment requires of them, but most won't.
Assessment is how students comprehend what is the stated aim of a course. Instead of fighting against it, you might embrace it. For each learning outcome there should be an assessment that is aligned with that outcome - that is, it is impossible to successfully complete the assessment without have met the learning outcome. The learning activities are then designed to meet the outcomes. This might seem like "teaching to the test", but in fact it is the opposite: in "teaching to the test", the assessment defines learning outcomes, here the learning outcomes define the assessment. Biggs and Tang [1] refer to this as "constructive alignment". [1] is a good read for the evidence that students have more or less always measured what they are supposed to learn by what they are assessed on.
Thus you would ask "what learning outcome am I hoping my students achieve by this homework, and where is that assessed?". If the learning outcome isn't assessed anywhere, then it should be. If it doesn't meet a learning outcome then perhaps it shouldn't be set.
In practice we either make homework credit bearing (even if only a tiny percent of the overall credit), or, more frequently, ask an exam question that tests the learning outcome that a homework is aimed towards, and a student won't be able to answer without having done the homework. The final possibility is that the homework is practice for what will be tested in the exam. In this case you need to make this abundantly clear to the students. Even then, you will probably only get a fraction of the class doing it. The consolation is that this is the part of the class that deserves to do better in the exam and undoubtedly will.
[1] Biggs, J and Tang, C. (2011): Teaching for Quality Learning at University, (McGraw-Hill and Open University Press, Maidenhead)

Give them an F, and report the one who sent the snotty email for disrespecting a staff member.


What credit does inclusion in "Who is Who" book add to the researchers and academicians? This question has two intents. Firstly sharing an email I received, as an academician, with other academicians and also clarification on the contents of this email and the way it works.

I have received the following email.

  Dear XYZ,

  I am the editor-in-chief of Who's Who in the World® and I have received your name through a private nomination process. I'm writing to ask if you would provide us with information about your personal and professional accomplishments for possible inclusion in the forthcoming 33rd Edition.
  Inclusion in Who's Who in the World is a sign of true success. The book is a global reference source relied upon by universities, libraries, corporations, and governments around the world.

  Like LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and Facebook, it costs you nothing to be included in Who's Who in the World. But unlike those resources, our books only contain biographies that meet our rigorous selection criteria (see below). Also, our books are available both online and in print and are used by the world's most respected institutions. So among other things, Who's Who in the World provides all the benefits of high quality networking. Many people put this recognition on their résumés or CVs.

  Please click this link to the Who's Who in the World Biography Submission Form and you will be taken to our password-protected site. The submission process takes only a few minutes, and the benefits of being included are significant.

  Deadline: February 23, 2015 Congratulations on being nominated!

  Sincerely,

  Fred Marks
  Editor-in-Chief, Who's Who in the World®

I googled this message and found some other people are getting it. I further drilled down and found that my email is allegedly given to them by Thomson Reuters (from the Thomson connect website that is the sender of the above email). So, I assume I am not the only one and will not be the last. I assume many of you academician and researchers will receive the same email so I thought it is good to raise the concern here since I found no other discussion elsewhere.

The email is being sent from

Who's Who Selection Committee
and the reply-to field shows    Who's Who Selection Committee

The email is Signed By "thomsonreuters-authorconnect.com" (suggests that my email is being given to them by Thomson Reuters).

The company behind this email is called

￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼Marquis Who is Who, Publisher of Who’s Who in America® since 1899

Here are my concern:

How much is this website credible? Does anyone (including academic employers) give credit to those listed there (email says, inclusion in Who's Who in the World is a sign of true success. The book is a global reference source relied upon by universities, libraries, corporations, and governments around the world).
Registering into the system needs to fill a form that contains almost every single piece of information about me, including my parents, education, work, wife, certification, political/social activities and many more which is quite scary to me. How can individuals rely on this particular website and share their information. Does inclusion in this particular website gives so much credit that people lose privacy?

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

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

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

This sounds to me like a scam. Check out the actual e-mail address. Does this correspond with Marquis' Who's Who? My bet is that it does not. Marquis could not care less who you are. I have been in Who's Who in America for the past five years. For the first four years, I received everything in writing via mail. Only this past year did I receive anything via e-mail. You have been scammed. As an academic, you should know to check your sources; in this case, the e-mail address.

Forbes' critique of 1999 was accurate. Later, they reversed their evaluation after the company was sold to News Communications, Inc. When Forbes first set up their college rating system, 25% of their rating was based upon the high achievements of alumni, based upon WWiA listings. Today, Forbes compiles its own list of highest achievers. 32.5% of their rating is based upon this list. Shifting from WWiA to their own list has produced no significant change in relative ratings.


What can professors do to encourage properly written email messages from students? (Motivated by https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55082/hey-i-was-wondering-of-your-students-write-like-this)

The writing style probably [stems] from the electronic age of text
messaging. In any case, an email between an a student and professor is
a professional communication (not a social text message).
[Example:] "hey. i was wondering if your students write like this when they send you emails or ask for your help in an email and weather or not your willing to respond when such little effort is put forth when writing."

What can professors do to encourage properly written email messages from students?
(Other than being a positive role model.)

hey. i was wondering of your students write like this

Alas, yes, they do (however, I'm a non-native English speaker who teaches international students whose level of English is extremely varied, and there's not much I can do about grammar).

Anyway, during the first lesson I give the following pieces of advice (which are frequently ignored, though):

Sender address: please, use your institutional email address and avoid personal fancy addresses like "dirtydeedsdonedirtcheap@hardrock.com". But if you really want to use such an email address, at least configure the email client to show your real name and surname.
Subject: write a meaningful subject: if you don't put a subject and respect point 1, I'll surely delete your email without even reading it, thinking that it is spam.
Course information: please specify which course you are attending or have attended: I teach several courses and if you don't specify this I may not be able to answer (this piece of information is the most frequently missed).
Express your issues clearly: if you have long questions or complicated issues, just ask for an appointment instead.

Your email communicates to me that you're still living in high school.
Please try to communicate to your professors more formally.  This
exercises not only your ability to form well-crafted sentences, but conveys knowledge to your professors
that you respect their time and their craft.
If the latter is not the case, then you won't
be able to depend on timely (or perhaps even proper) answers in
return.

[Edit:  Sorry I can't but help keep that first sentence.  Rewrite as proper.]


Can I take multiple GRE subject tests in the same day? Is it possible for a student to sit for more than one GRE subject test in one sitting? For instance, back in high school, I was able to sit for multiple SAT subject tests in one sitting. I, along with other students, had the option of sitting 1, 2 or 3 tests of our choice. Is there a similar policy for the GRE subject tests?

No, you may only take one test during a single session. Unlike the SAT subject tests, you get three hours to do one test, not the other way around.

Source: I've took a GRE subject test last year.

There is only one testing time per day, so you can't take more than one test in a day (ok, if you flew east across the international date line, you might be able to pull it off).

Theoretically, there are multiple testing times in the same week.  The GRE does offer Monday testing in addition to Saturday testing, though this is supposed to be only for religious and cultural purposes.  (I say 'supposed to be' because somehow my own subject test was scheduled for a Monday, which I realized after not being admitted to the testing center on Saturday.)


Is it unreasonable to set assignment deadlines on Saturday/Sunday? I read a similar question
(Knowing that most students submit assignments right around the deadline, is it advisable not to set deadline that is very late at night?)
about setting assignment deadlines at different hours of the day
(e.g., 9 AM, noon, 5 PM, 9 PM, midnight).

At my institution,
we use a learning management system
to manage our courses.
I require students to use it
to submit all of the assignments for the course.

I am wondering if it is reasonable to set assignment deadlines on Sunday.

On the one hand, I don't want to ruin the weekend for students
who may be working on my assignment at the last minute.
However, I feel that Sunday deadlines
have minimal conflicts with students' other commitments.
If for example I were to set the deadline on Monday,
students may skip classes to meet my deadline,
or they may be busy with work from other classes.

Question:
Is it unreasonable to set assignment deadlines on Saturday/Sunday,
say 6 PM on Sunday?
Would this be forcing students to work on the weekends?

Don't assume anything about your  students' schedules. Set your deadlines so everyone can manage their time based on their own needs.

You are concerned about encouraging your students to do work on the weekends. Consider that many students have customer service jobs that require them to work on the weekends (retail, restaurants, etc). They might work nights or swing shifts. They might have children to care for at certain times. You have no way of knowing if doing homework on a Saturday or Sunday is convenient for them or not.

Don't arbitrarily pick a deadline based on what you perceive to be best for them. Give your students a full week to work on assignments if you can, because they might only have small chunks of time available to do homework. Make it due when it really needs to be done, such as when the next class starts.

For example, I worked 10 PM to 7 AM Thursday through Sunday for my first couple of years in college. I often worked on homework during my lunch breaks, which could be at 2 AM on Monday morning. I'm sure all of my instructors assumed I would/should be sleeping at 2 AM, but it was actually a perfect opportunity to finish up homework.

Since there will always be students that procrastinate, and some percentage will inevitably have an emergency at the last moment, you may want to make it clear at the beginning of the course that you are not able to grant any extensions for any reason, because the deadline is already at the last possible moment. Also give the reason why that's the case, whether it's because you will review it in class, or there will be a quiz on it they need to be prepared for, or whatever the reason is. Be clear that since you are already giving extra time, you expect them to manage that time properly, so that an unexpected difficulty does not make their homework late.

You can always choose to make exceptions later for truly exceptional circumstances, but having a clear policy that you don't make exceptions will discourage people from taking advantage of your already generous deadlines. I've taken many classes with this policy, and I've never heard anyone complain about it.

If you intend to start grading the assignment when you get to your office on Monday morning, what would be the point in NOT allowing students until midnight Sunday?  (And, of course, accepting work that arrived in the early hours of Monday morning, as long as it WAS 'on your desk' by start of work hours Monday.)


Is it possible to do a cheap or free online or distance Ph.D. program? Is it possible do to an online or distance Ph.D. program at all?

If so, are there ones that are cheap or free?

To a first approximation, it's not possible.  There are few online or distance Ph.D. programs, and they usually have bad reputations.  A Ph.D. from a university with a bad reputation will actually be worse for your career than having no Ph.D. at all, so you should be very careful.  Plus these programs are as far as I know never free.  You can get financial support for Ph.D. work in several ways (competitive fellowships, a faculty member's research grant, teaching classes for the department), so depending on the field you may not need to pay anything yourself and may even earn a modest stipend, but that's not because the program itself is cheap or free.  Ph.D. supervision is intrinsically time-consuming and expensive.

I'm skeptical of how serious your question is.  Hoping for a free online Ph.D. isn't really reasonable; furthermore, if you have no time to attend a university, then you probably have no time to complete the years of full-time research required to write a Ph.D. dissertation.

However, I felt it was worth answering to warn you about scams from unaccredited universities.  There are plenty of diploma mills that will offer you a relatively cheap and easy Ph.D. online.  Such degrees are completely worthless, so they'd basically be stealing the fees from you.

MOST PHD PROGRAMS IN THE USA ARE FREE!!! YOU WORK FOR THE INSTITUTION
AND THEY WAIVE YOUR TUITION!!!! (You BECOME a servant for a professor for 3 to 7 years) (He may or may not give you a phd after your service!!!)

I suspect that most of the people answering this question have never
been in a doctoral program!!

1) DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY GETTING A MASTERS!!
For most phd programs, you only need a ba or bs to apply.

2) Phd courses are all home made by the teacher from academic journals!
Text books are not used (you already know every thing in all the textbooks)

3) The training program consist of reading adademic journals.(Thousands of them), then doing your research project.

4) The goals is to train you to be able to write, research articles for
academic journals ( not to train you to teach in a college).

5) If you want to be a college teacher a phd is required to get a full time
job.  Ba or Bs Or Masters is good enough for a part time college teaching jobs.

6) College Chairmen are usually only hire people like them selF!
if the chairman is harvard or columbia, he or she will only hire
people from those schools!!!

7) REPUTATION OF THE SCHOOL IS VERY IMPORTANT, IF YOU WANT TO GET
A COLLEGE TEACHING JOB!!

8) London university and the university of south Africa had very
well respected external academic phd programs that could be done
outside the country. I know of one person witha a south africia
external phd, who worked at NYU business school.

9) The courses are twice as difficult as a regular BA course.

10) Most Phd students are foreign, so they audit the courses 1 or 2
times, before actually enrolling.

Good luck,
Bill


Difference between campus police and campus / public safety Why do some American universities have actual campus police, with guns, while other American universities have "public safety" officers who don't have guns?

For instance, Georgia Tech and the University of Chicago have campus police.

Is it determined by the level of imminent danger that surrounds the campus?

In the US, most state universities will probably have police, but it is a state matter so it varies from state to state. Private institutions probably don't have police, but still need security for students and otherwise. Private institutions could, in theory, contract with local police for coverage (some places) but can't form their own police forces.

At state universities it is the state that is responsible for safety and security and it is probably cheaper/easier to integrate training, etc. if they are police. They also can speak and act with the authority of the state if they are sworn officers. And use deadly force, of course.

In New York, for example, the police on state campuses are separately organized from the town police where the campus is, but they have all police powers both on and off campus. They carry guns, tasers, etc. and wear bulletproof vests when on patrol. I think they have special training so that they respond more appropriately to young people than municipal police might.

But many of the campuses are in small towns, even villages, in which the overall danger/threat is minimal.

It is probably more of an administrative matter, combined with the paranoia of politicians who don't want to be blamed if something really bad happens and they can't claim to have taken all possible precautions.


Resume writing guideline for applying a PhD position I've been working a Software Engineer for almost 7 years. A few months ago I finalized my Master's degree on Computer Science, and now I'm thinking in applying to a Phd program in a European College.

I have no prior experience in research -besides the Dissertation for the Msc- so now my resume is very enterprise oriented. I'm a big fan of Gayle Laakmann resume tips, so the current version of my resume is very goal-oriented and brief but I'm not sure if that's what academia expects of a resume.

Do you have any suggestions on how to do a resume to applying to a Phd Position in Computer Science? Also, a template or an example would be of great help.

I've never heard of a University admitting students based on a resume.  Universities use transcripts, standardized test, statements of purpose, and letters of recommendation to admit students.

The statement of purpose is probably the closest to a resume, but this is meant to be more of a narrative of why you're pursuing a PhD, not a sales pitch about how awesome you are (which is what a resume is).

From your question it sounds like you may not have much experience with graduate research.  This is fine, but it sounds like you're approaching the PhD as another job, which is wrongheaded.  A PhD gets you out of the trenches of customer demands and allows you to focus on "pie in the sky" problems.  If you want to remain business focused, a PhD may not be for you.

If you do want a PhD, you should speak with your profs. from your MS degree.  They will be able to guide you towards universities and programs that will appreciate your industry experience.  Is there a reason you don't want to apply in the US (using the word resume suggest you're American).

All scholars want to pursue PhD. They intend to study the new and past problems so that they can redesign the novel theory for the well-being of the globe. In that case,if he or she expects to take PhD, he or she must gain the qualities such as: *Firstly:He or She must obtain continental country-wise Marks in every sphere of educational stage what Europe requires. Secondly: She or He has to take M.Phil or equivalent in the particular track's research work.Thirdly: He or She must overview the rules and regulations for the pursuant of PhD.He or she has to apply with all credentials such as:Transcripts, Certificates, Passport, ID Card, Social Security Number, Application Fees, English Language Proficiency Test Scores which requires and schedule time submitted.Fourthly: She or He has to completed a resume or CV, Personal statement, a research proposal and 2/3 recommendation letters which requires if applicable.
Finally: He or she makes up of his or her mind to design a dynamic research quested problems and resolves ideas where the scientific world can gain a novel theory's inspiration for the discipline of Computer Science so that the reviewers can throw a satisfaction to innovative a new policies for the well-being of the mankind and womankind. In that solution anybody of the globe can find out a good path to pursue an educational career goals.


What do I write as response for an academic misconduct investigation? I am a first year student at a UK university and submitted an essay for one of the courses a couple of months ago. Now, I received an email in which I am informed that some passages of my essay are too similar to the sources, and that the sources were not satisfactorily referenced. I have never worked by a reference system before, because my country doesn't use any. I have 10 days to write them back, and if I don't, a formal investigation will be carried against me for possible academic misconduct. What should I say in the written statement and is my lack of experience a good enough motive?

If I understand this correctly, you were under the impression that proper quotation of sources means to have them in your bibliography (and nothing else). You then quoted from those sources without quotation marks and footnotes to the reference quoted.
I’d explain that to them, apologize, and ask for a good source how, in the future, to quote according to their specific guidelines. That’s the truth; it doesn’t strike me as terrible in your first year, but you’ll have to hope your professors agree.

Since you are a first-year student, the bar here is pretty low.  Still, your professor has threatened to escalate this to a formal academic misconduct matter (presumably based on an allegation of plagiarism) and so you should note the standard Miranda advice used in policing: anything you say may be used against you.  In view of this, you should immediately read the academic misconduct procedure at your university, and check the rules for when you are required to make a statement in your defence.  At virtually every university in the Western world, due process requirements mean that you are not required to respond to an allegation until after you are given a written statement of the details of the allegation in the formal proceeding.
In the present case, since you have been told that this may be escalated to a formal matter, I recommend that you do not address the allegation at all.  You should write back politely and say that you are open to talking to your professor to learn more about how to cite sources properly, but you do not propose to comment on your submission, since it is now anticipated that this may lead to a proceeding for academic misconduct.
(As a final note, I think you are almost certainly wrong when you say that your country doesn't use any referencing system.  Academic work in virtually every country in the world abides by some conventions and rules on referencing.  Perhaps the guys in Hutt River Province don't, but virtually every country does.)


Author has published a graph but won't share their results table I am trying to reproduce some of the results in a paper from 2018 where the results were included in a graph but no exact values were given. There is no results table to go with the graph. I can't exactly compare what I produce with my guesses as to what the values in the graph are. They also did not specify one of the parameters used to produce the results.
I have emailed the authors multiple times and they keep ignoring my question about sharing these values with me and apparently do not have the parameter values as they don't have the logs any longer. I am unsure how to proceed with this. It's a paper published in a high-impact well respected journal.
Any help or guidance would be appreciated. I am not being rude or brash about the way I've asked for these results. I just explained I want to compare to them and can't use the graph because I need some level of accuracy.

There is no results table to go with the graph.

Use Datathief: https://datathief.org/
Despite the name, in most countries using Datathief is explicity allowed by copyright law.  Data cannot be copyrighted.

They also did not specify one of the parameters used to produce the results.

Two possibilities: it does not actually matter or peer review has failed.  When it is your turn to peer review, check for this type of mistake.  Sorry I cannot not help in this situation.
Paper authors can choose not to answer their email if they wish.

So do your own experiment and make your own graph.  Compare the graphs.
Why do you need the specific data anyway?  There will be noise aka experimental errors in all the data so they wont be exactly the same every time which makes needing the original data irrelevant.


Is it unethical to take a photograph of my question sheets from a sit-down exam I've just finished if I am not allowed to take them home? Last semester I've retaken a course and went through the exam. It was a sit-down exam and all students were present. All students are required put their possessions (phones, cameras, etc.) in their bags and put their bags in front of the room.

The students were not allowed to take the question sheets home.

As I was retaking the course, I feel the need to take a documentation to review my answers and to understand the problems better. So AFTER the exam was finished, I take my bag, grab my camera, and then I asked the supervisor (as the lecturer was not present at the site) whether I was allowed to take a photograph or not while gesturing to show my camera (which I had just taken out of my bag). It was denied and I complied without complaining.

Then I told my friend about that incident. He was quite surprised that I complied with that. He told me that he would take the photograph anyway for his advancement in learning, which he said it would be for the greater good but I can't actually spread / redistribute them as it would break the concept of exam itself.

The usual practice in my campus is that if the question sheets are allowed to be taken home, some students would scan and put them into a compilation and share them to the younger students to study and ponder upon as they will get different sets of questions.

Other than that, students that absent at the exam can take it at a different appointed time with a different set of questions.

So I'm stumped whether I should have taken the photograph or not. I thought it was unethical to take it if taking the sheet home is prohibited, but then my friends thought made me reconsider. If I took the photograph I would not create an unfair advantage for those who took the exam at a different date (if there are any) anyway.

PS: I'm sorry if I attracted heated discussions. And I think there is a misconception here. I don't intend to question the rule itself or trying to deceive myself. I only want to know how ethics and etiquette work as I was quite an anti-social from my childhood and I want to start learning about social life. I also didn't intend to redistribute the photograph at that moment.

PS2: My campus was located in Indonesia. I hope this will help to consider the problem at hand

PS3:
The rule was actually enforced by the Department. It would also be enforced to graduate students (and to postgraduate students IF they have any sit-down exams) . My friend which I mentioned above was in fact a graduate student.

The guidelines mentioned not to ask "Undergraduate-specific issues that could not apply to graduate or post-graduate academicians". As this question is also applicable to (at least) graduate students, I think this question is quite appropriate for Academia SE. But if it's still deemed as an inappropriate question by many and was closed because of it, then I'll just accept the closure.

Taking a photo is effectively equivalent to taking the question sheet home.

For either of these: it’s not inherently a bad thing, and (as your friend said) it can be good for personal study, and so on.  However, it can be used for unethical purposes (passing the questions on to students who haven’t taken the exam yet), so the school have prohibited it.  Given this, it is unethical, since it’s breaking a rule (and, moreover, a reasonably justified rule).

If the rules happen to be written in such a way that they just prohibit “taking the sheets home” and didn’t mention photos, then taking a photo may be allowed by the rule as written, but it is clearly still violating the intention of the rule.

So yes, the supervisor’s ruling was reasonable, and you were right to comply with it.

Edit.  There is, however, no problem with politely emailing the instructor afterwards and asking if you can get a copy of the exam (or parts of it).  No need to mention ethics or taking photos in the email; just say that you’d be grateful to have a copy for your own studying, if the instructor is willing to share it.  Maybe the instructor will say yes; maybe no; maybe “yes, but not until next week”.  But provided you are polite, and ready to accept a possible refusal, then I don’t think there can be any harm in asking.

If a rule was clearly unfair, then you'd have grounds to protest. Like if the rule said that white students are allowed to make copies of the test but black students are not, there'd be pretty obvious grounds for complaint.

But barring that, it is surely fair to expect everyone to comply with the rules, whether they like the rule or not. Whether I was the prof or another student, I'd consider it totally unacceptable for someone to say, "I didn't see a good reason for this rule, so I broke it." It is certainly fair and reasonable to ask the purpose of a rule. But it is not justified to break a rule just because you don't see the purpose. Maybe you're not smart enough to understand, or not creative enough, or haven't thought through all the possible scenarios. Heck, maybe you're not dishonest enough to see how others could take advantage.

And realistically, if breaking the rule does not give you some advantage, then why did you want to break it? If you break the rule and others follow it, then you have an unfair advantage.

One could argue that if the intent is to prevent distribution, the rule is ineffective, because a student could surely remember at least some of the questions and pass this information on. But you could say the same of any rule or security measure. If the tests are kept in a locked file drawer before testing day, someone might break into the office and steal a copy. If students are prohibited from getting help during an exam, someone might have a miniature radio in his ear with his friend giving tips. Etc. The fact that it is possible for others to break the rules does not justify you breaking the rules.


Impact of slide quality on student learning I'm working on improving the contents of a university level introductionary course.

Has there been done any research on the impact of lecture slide quality on student learning?

My assumption is that slides that are well structured, follow a theme, spread content over slides in a thought through manner, etc. will give the students better learning. I feel like this is a safe assumption but I've learned not to trust assumption, can this be backed up or contradicted by research results?

The question at hand is whether or not refactoring old lectures is worthwile, as they stand they are sort of hap-hazard and glued together of slides from various lecturers.

If you're refactoring the course, consider moving away from a mostly lecture-based approach towards more active learning. There is a lot of evidence out there to support the effectiveness of active learning techniques (if used correctly). To paraphrase What Is the Impact of PowerPoint Lectures on Learning? A Brief Review of Research: "PowerPoint or slightly better PowerPoint?" is a less important question than "How can I
adapt my lecture course for active learning?"

Having said that, there is some evidence that slide design based on principles from multimedia learning research can have a positive effect on student learning, compared to slides that violate those principles.

For example, in engineering:

  [We] compared learning
  outcomes in 110 engineering students who viewed a technical presentation in which the slides either integrated or violated
  six multimedia learning principles. The presentation slides that adhered to the six multimedia principles followed the
  assertion-evidence approach, while the presentation slides that violated the six multimedia principles followed commonly
  practiced defaults of PowerPoint. Essay responses from the 110 engineering students revealed superior comprehension and
  fewer misconceptions for the assertion–evidence group as well as lower perceived cognitive load. In addition, stronger
  recall occurred in this assertion–evidence group at delayed post-test. These findings support the use of the assertion–
  evidence structure for presentations in engineering education

Source: Garner, Joanna, and Michael Alley. "How the Design of Presentation Slides Affects Audience Comprehension: A Case for the Assertion–Evidence Approach." International Journal of Engineering Education 29.6 (2013): 1564-1579. (PDF)

Here's another example, from medicine:

  Methods: A pre-test/post-test control group design was used, in which the traditional-learning group received a lecture on shock using traditionally designed slides and the modified-design group received the same lecture using slides modified in accord with Mayer’s principles of multimedia design. Participants included Year 3 medical students at a private, midwestern medical school progressing through their surgery clerkship during the academic year 2009–2010. The medical school divides students into four groups; each group attends the surgery clerkship during one of the four quarters of the academic year. Students in the second and third quarters served as the modified-design group (n = 91) and students in the fourth-quarter clerkship served as the traditional-design group (n = 39).

  Results: Both student cohorts had similar levels of pre-lecture knowledge. Both groups showed significant improvements in retention (p < 0.0001), transfer (p < 0.05) and total scores (p < 0.0001) between the pre- and post-tests. Repeated-measures anova analysis showed statistically significant greater improvements in retention (F = 10.2, p = 0.0016) and total scores (F = 7.13, p = 0.0081) for those students instructed using principles of multimedia design compared with those instructed using the traditional design.

Source: Issa, Nabil, et al. "Applying multimedia design principles enhances learning in medical education." Medical education 45.8 (2011): 818-826. (PDF)

and there were also long-term effects:

  Results:  Findings showed that the modified condition group significantly outscored the traditional condition group on delayed tests of transfer given 1 week (d = 0.83) and 4 weeks (d = 1.17) after instruction, and on delayed tests of retention given 1 week (d = 0.83) and 4 weeks (d = 0.79) after instruction. The modified condition group also significantly outperformed the traditional condition group on immediate tests of retention (d = 1.49) and transfer (d = 0.76).

Source: Issa, Nabil, et al. "Teaching for understanding in medical classrooms using multimedia design principles." Medical education 47.4 (2013): 388-396.

A third example:

  To measure the effect of a multimedia design principle adherent PowerPoint presentation on test item performance, student satisfaction, student confidence in potential exam performance, and classroom dynamics.Two versions of an identical lecture were presented in different formats over subsequent years (2011, 2012, and 2013). One with traditional PowerPoint slides and the other redesigned to comply with multimedia design principles. Student scores on identical exam items were compared and a voluntary student survey was used to evaluate the activity.Students performed statistically better on identical exam items, were very satisfied (mean = 7.4 of 10) with the redesigned PowerPoint format, confident in their potential exam performance, and a majority (66%) wanted to see pictures and narration more often.Students may retain information better when presented in a multimedia design adherent format. Student reaction was positive and indicates that students may prefer this method to traditional PowerPoint slides.

Source: Pate, Adam, and Savannah Posey. "Effects of applying multimedia design principles in PowerPoint lecture redesign." Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning 2.8 (2016): 235-239.

I don't think there's any research on 'slide quality and its effect on student learning'. I would imagine that it is very difficult to separate just the effect of slide quality from other factors affecting student learning.


Do US Graduate Admission Committee review and assess International Applicants country-wise? To be specific, my application field is physics. And I am from a country where students are aggressive on standardized tests like gre's since we put much emphasis on training for these tests. I was talking with peers about whether to send my Physics GRE score to my target physics schools which is 800/990(67%) as a computer science undergrad student, and they told me don't do it because, given my nationality, admission committees will set a higher bar for me and a percentile below 85% is a minus. That arose the question in my mind that I know it's normal that in US graduate admission process, admission standards for international students are set higher than those for domestic students, but do graduate admission committee View International Applicants country-wise? I asked my peers about this, and they say that's a widely accepted speculation among them, so I am asking here to verify.

I doubt that there is any widespread effect of this. In fact, most grad schools would want, and many would require, a "level playing field" for admissions. But the GRE is not the main determinant of anyone's admission. It is at most an indicator, among many others, that might indicate success in a program, or not. Letters of Recommendation are relatively important in US.
Your application needs to give strong indicators of your likely success. But you don't need to be "perfect in every way" to gain admission.


Should mathematical symbols and equations be included in a word count? I am currently in the process of finishing up my Master's thesis which requires me to disclose the exact word count.

My thesis contains a lot of mathematical symbols and equations and I am not sure whether those, together with table and figure captions, should be included in the final word count or not.

I know how many words, inline math and display math (in LaTeX terms) elements my document contains, but I am just not sure whether to count them or not.

My university has not given any guidance on what to include in the word count, so I am wondering if there are any general rules that apply in this situation? The only thing I could find on the internet was from APS Journals:
 "The word equivalent for displayed math is 16 words per row for single-column equations. Two-column equations count as 32 words per row."

Any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated!

To me, the key question is this: what is the purpose of the word count?

If the purpose is to fill in a blank that says: "word count goes here", then just take the simplest approach that will give you a number and don't sweat the details.  Personally, I would run "wc" on my LaTeX source in such a case.

On the other hand, in some cases word count is being used to determine how the length of your document relates to a minimum or maximum length.  If it's actually strict, then they'll generally provide clear guidance; if it's an approximate guideline (which is usually the case), then again, just take a reasonable approach that will let you conform and don't sweat the details.

The best thing to do is count all the words including those in the table and also count the words again leaving those in the table and include all of them in the thesis report.


Frustration in getting admission into PhD Computer Science, with background MSc Geospatial Science & BTech Computer Science Am presently really frustrated in getting a supervisor and admission into PhD Computer Science in any University in Europe or US. I recently graduated with MSc Geospatial Science with distinction (cgpa 4.8/5) and I have Bachelors in Computer Science. Ever since I finished my masters have been seeking a PhD admission in computer science in any average schools in europe or US, but all to no avail. I have 3 research papers in top international journal, I even had a research proposal of likely topic relating to Mobile Computing & Mobile GIS, and i seriously think the frustration is weighing me down, please is there something am not doing right or there is any other method of getting a supervisor apart from contacting them through email.

At all decent universities. Ph.D. admission is competitive. Apply following the official procedures to a dozen universities. Make sure your application file really is complete and on time at each. You will not be admitted based on contacting faculty informally.


Is research experience or GPA more important when applying to MSCS programs It seems that for PhD programs the research is more important but, which is more important for masters programs?

The answer, here, is that it really depends strongly on the individual program, since Masters programs vary much more than Ph.D. programs in both their purpose and organization.

For some programs, you can essentially get automatic entry based on grades alone (my own Masters was that way, for example).  For others, research and recommendation letters may weigh in significantly, especially if students are funded rather than self-funding. Research does generally weigh much less than for a Ph.D., however, particularly since a Master is often expected to be a terminal and industrial-focused degree.

Thus, in general, GPA is significantly more important than research, but the degree to which this is true varies wildly by program.

As far as I know, US universities carry out weighted average values for taking in admissions. The factors for admission include General Point Average, Research Experience, Experience, Professor's recommendations, Test results, and Project experience. They come at a weighted average of all the above factors and then give you admissions.

Which college gives more weight to which factor is college dependent and that requires you do a lot of internet search, write to people from the department that you are planning to apply for, find out which factor they value the most and hone your curriculum vitae to suit the situation.


What is the acceptable similarity in a mathematics PhD dissertation when checking by Turnitin? I have checked the originality of my PhD thesis in mathematics using Turnitin. The similarity was 31%. Is this percentage acceptable by most committees?

Is this percentage acceptable by most committees?

This is the wrong question to be asking, since academic decisions are not made based on a numerical measure of similarity from a computer program.  The purpose of this software is to flag suspicious cases for humans to examine more carefully.  It will identify passages that appear similar to other writings, but it can't decide whether that constitutes plagiarism.

For example, part of your thesis might be based on previous papers you have written.  In some circumstances, it may be reasonable to copy text from these papers.  (You need to check that your advisor approves and that it doesn't conflict with any university regulations or the publishing agreement with the publisher.)  Of course you would need to cite the papers and clearly indicate the overlap.  It's not plagiarism if you do that, but Turnitin doesn't understand what you've written well enough to distinguish it from plagiarism.  So it's possible that Turnitin would flag lots of suspicious sections, but that your committee would look at them and see that everything is cited appropriately.

If you haven't committed any plagiarism, then you don't need to worry about this at all.  If you genuinely write everything yourself (or carefully quote and cite anything you didn't write), then there's no way you could accidentally write something that looks like proof of plagiarism.  There's just too much possible variation, and the probability of matching someone else's words by chance is negligible.  The worst case scenario is that Turnitin flags something due to algorithmic limitations or a poor underlying model, but human review shows that it is not actually worrisome.  (Nobody trusts Turnitin more than they trust their own judgment.)

I'll assume you don't know you've committed plagiarism, but it is possible that you honestly wouldn't know?  Unfortunately, the answer is yes if you have certain bad writing habits.  For example, it's dangerous to write while having another reference open in front of you to compare with.  Even if you don't copy anything verbatim, it's easy to write something that's just an adaptation of the original source (maybe rewording sentences or rearranging things slightly, but clearly based on the original).

If that's what worries you, then you should take a look at the most suspicious passages found by Turnitin.  If they look like an adaptation of another source, then it's worth rewriting them.  If they don't, then maybe Turnitin is worrying you unnecessarily.

But in any case a plagiarism finding won't just come down to a percentage of similarity.  Any percentage greater than 0 is too much for actual plagiarism, and no percentage is too high if it reflects limitations of the software rather than actual plagiarism.

I have used websites in the past to help with similar content, they will give you a report of what was found online and help remove/reword the similar content so you don't have to worry about your document being marked as plagiarism.


Colleagues exaggerate problems in department I know this is a topic that some people have strong opinions about, but a toxic culture is developing in my department whereby several postdocs have convinced themselves that they are being mistreated because of extremely small -- often imaginary -- confrontations.

For example, a postdoc encountered a senior staff member in a doorway. The staff member apparently gave her a "funny look", which confirmed the postdoc's view that this staff member is abusing their position of privilege. Anyone who points out that this is a total non sequitur is accused of allowing bullying to flourish.

This situation has been building steadily over the last few years and now five or six postdocs keep a running tally of "microaggressions" so microscopic that it is very difficult to see how they can exist. For example, one postdoc sits with their back to a door, and a professor came in to talk to another colleague, and didn't acknowledge them. This incident was talked about for weeks as evidence of the professor's "rudeness". In other cases, some people are labelled "creeps".

To be clear: I absolutely do not condone abuse. I know power dynamics are real, and that many minorities (of which I belong to several) experience daily microaggressions and othering. I have been on the receiving end of workplace bullying myself, and would never wish to silence real problems. I too am a postdoc, so have no additional power and gain nothing from allowing abuse to flourish.

What worries me is that none of these incidents are being raised with any of the staff members in question. Therefore, many junior researchers have accepted as fact that their professors are horrible and selfish people. I'm concerned about this mindset, because in at least three cases, these "selfish" professors have some form of autism (I know this as I'm a wellness officer). Perfectly ordinary behaviour is framed as malicious.

Personally I've found it very upsetting. Many of the people on the receiving end of this gossip are very kind, if not socially awkward, people. It scares me that so many people uncritically accept that everyone with a permanent job is some kind of bogeyman; of course, I cannot betray confidentiality by informing my colleagues that many of these incidents didn't occur and indeed it's kind of ableist to assume you can read minds all the time. Abuse and power struggles certainly can, and often do, occur... but if any of these complaints were substantial they should be raised with HR.

The sad truth is that I think my colleagues just get their power from trash talking others, and aren't actually interested in the truth. Dissenting voices get shunned (and accused of being privileged / not being woke). Anyone who isn't in 100% agreement gets immediately shut down. But, also, my colleagues are just upsetting themselves for no reason. They're scared of encountering these "terrifying" professors, most of who have done nothing worse than dressing slightly shabbily and being uncomfortable with eye contact.

Anyone have any advice on dealing with this kind of situation?

I don't know whether it would work in your situation, but I have often found that disagreeing in a questioning manner helps defuse more than disagreeing directly when dealing with this sort of 'build up' because explicitly disagreeing makes a person defensive and more rigid in their position. For example, instead of saying "Prof X wasn't being rude", you could try something like "yes, Prof X did seem unusually focussed this morning, must have had something on his/her mind".

But it sounds like nobody knows each other very well. Such problems tend to disappear when there is more interaction because people are more likely to attribute a bad interaction to 'must be having a bad day' rather than 'must be a bad person' when they know the person. Would it be possible to encourage more interaction within your department? For example, you could suggest a work-in-progress monthly session where PhD students and postdocs once a year or so talk about their work. If you have 4 people from different groups presenting, then more senior people will turn up as one of 'their' students/researchers will be presenting.

Ah. Yes. I am acquainted with things similar to this...

Yes, being "on the spectrum", is a sort of disability, manifestly. That is, one has trouble understanding the subtexts. And, specifically, one would not understand how other lower-status/lower-privilege people would receive one's comments/assertions/proclamations.

I myself have come to think that people "on the spectrum" can/should be considered "disabled" (in a particular technical sense) since they do have problems dealing with the general population.

The obviously actionable problem is the incomprehension ...

Aaaaaaaaah. I do not have a good answer.

-p


How to cope with life changes and burnout after PhD thesis submission? The last year has been ridiculously difficult. I can easily say it has been 90h weeks 12 months in a row, with the hours taken of rest being vastly overshadowed by intense guilt (over not using that time to work) and inadequacy. I produced a lot of research, published 5 new papers, and produced a thesis which is now submitted for evaluation. On the day I submitted it (about a month ago), I couldn't even read a single sentence and maintain focus - that's how severe my burnout was. My sense of not being good enough permeated every aspect of my being.

I'm finding myself now getting better, slowly and surely. But the brain fog is ridiculously severe. I don't think I have lost intelligence, but the lack of care I feel for my current position as a research assistant eclipses all output I know I'm otherwise capable of producing (or used to be, anyway). On top of that, I feel more tired than usual. I easily need 1-2 more sleep in a day. Normally, I'd be exceptionally motivated to work out, and now I really could not care less. I adopted this "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do." attitude, in hopes to be kinder and gentler to myself as opposed to the whoo-tshh (whipping sounds) dictator I had employed to stay on track in my madness PhD.

I cannot fathom a job in this field anymore, I cannot stand the endless thinking up of made-up projects to pursue research grants. I want out of academia, and this both excites and terrifies me. I feel largely inadequate as a computer scientist joining industry post-PhD because I just spent 3 years of my life not getting industry experience.

I feel lost. Like there's a daily existential crisis. I don't know what to do with my life, and what's worse, I don't even know if I'll recover from this. I mean, what even is this? PTSD? Burnout? Needing a break after excruciating intense labour and emotional distress?

How can I deal with the life changes and the drop in motivation after having submitted my PhD? How do I deal with the remaining burnout?

The first thing to do is to get rid of the 90 hour weeks, and resolve never to get back into that trap. There is a lot of experience suggesting that the maximum weekly output for intellectual jobs is produced at around 40 hours a week. Going beyond that reduces actual production, because of more mistakes and less creative thought. Your mileage may vary, but it would be very unusual for 90 hours to be optimal.

You need to accept that sleep, exercise, relaxation, and social life are all essential to achieving maximum productivity when working, and to general mental and physical health. If you feel intense guilt when not working, and cannot change that by yourself, you may need some sort of counseling to help you get a healthier attitude.

The mental issues you describe could just be because you got into a bad habit of working too long and relaxing too little. On the other hand, there could be an underlying problem that needs a professional. I am not qualified to evaluate that, and agree with the suggestion in comments that you should consider counseling.

I'm finding myself now getting better, slowly and surely.

Well, from your description - not quite. That is, not surely, and in some respects you're now experiencing the repercussions of working yourself to the bone.

  the lack of care I feel for my current position as a research assistant eclipses all

After you come back from your vacation, see if you still feel the same. If you do, it's time to remind yourself, or perhaps ask yourself "Why did I do this in the first place?" - and then re-assess whether you've achieved that goal; whether you want to continue following it (not in 90h work-weeks, nor in 50h work-weeks either); whether you want to try something else (for now or permanently).

Remember, though! You've not "lost" or "wasted" anything - except your peace-of-mind and physical health perhaps.

  output I know I'm otherwise capable of producing (or used to be, anyway).

You're not a paper mill, you're a person. Stop thinking about imaginary theoretically-producible "output".

  On top of that, I feel more tired than usual. I easily need 1-2 more sleep in a day.

When you're stressed out, in an anxiety spell, and/or depressed - your sleep suffers too. You don't sleep as well. That's why you feel you need more sleep, and at the same time - even that sleep is not enough. Consult your physician. He may or may not prescribe some sort of super-mild anti-anxiety medication if your sleep trouble is serious. In parallel, consider an appropriate physical/meditative activity; I have found Yoga to be helpful, but YMMV.

  Normally, I'd be exceptionally motivated to work out, and now I really could not care less.

"work out" sounds like something very intensive and not very relaxing, which gets your adrenaline pumping. Like I said above, perhaps something with less "grrr!"

  I adopted this "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

... but it seems like you're beating yourself up about it. Remember this is not a binary thing; and it's not permanent. So: "For a while, you don't have  to do all those things you don't want to."

Also, I'm guessing this doesn't help with the fact that you're not really sure what it is that you want.

  I cannot fathom a job in this field anymore, I cannot stand the endless thinking up of made-up projects to pursue research grants.

... which is why - after your vacation - think of what it is that you actually want to do as an academic. And if there's no such thing - then your job search should probably focus, at least partially, on out-of-academia positions. This is not "failing" - because your goals have changed.

  I feel largely inadequate as a computer scientist joining industry post-PhD because I just spent 3 years of my life not getting industry experience.

You're quite adequate - believe you me (and I'm a CSer who entered industry after academia, then back again, then back again).
Most industry experience is bad industry experience.
Industry needs people with academic experience.
If you worked 90h weeks, you got the industry experience of some places in industry...
When you leave academia you'll understand what "inadequate" really means.
Forget about adequacy - and think about finding something interesting to do in industry.

  I feel lost.

Many, including myself, have been in your shoes - and worse. Hope this answer helps a bit. Don't try to snap yourself back to full working condition at once. It's a process.

  I feel lost. Like there's a daily existential crisis. I don't know what to do with my life, and what's worse, I don't even know if I'll recover from this.

You need to keep in contact with people - not online, but physically. Visit friends and family. You don't have to repeat everything to every one of them, but try to be open to letting them cheer you up a bit about life.


Are professors allowed to participate in political activities? In the US, politics is probably the most talked-about subject at the moment, and I have strong opinions.

I would very much like to volunteer for a specific party, but I am concerned that I am in a position of power, and thus if I were to be out campaigning for a particular candidate, this could affect my students' freedom to vote, should I run into them while I am volunteering.

Are there any rules in the university that forbids professors from participating in political activities? How much is acceptable? Can I help out with phoning people to get them to register to vote? Can I knock on doors in person? Could I run for office eventually?

Since you are concerned, it must be a good idea to look into the rules, as @Penguin_Knight suggests.  But it would be absolutely shocking if you were not allowed to volunteer for a particular candidate or party: by restricting you from doing that, the university would be infringing upon your own political freedom.

  I am concerned that I am in a position of power, and thus if I were to be out campaigning for a particular candidate, this could affect my students' freedom to vote, should I run into them while I am volunteering.

I'm honestly not sure what problematic activities you're envisioning here.  A university professor is allowed to be a real boy or girl.  Students may run into you while you're outside doing real person stuff, and they have no right to being "protected from you" any more than anyone else they might encounter.  How does running into a student affect that student's "freedom to vote"?

  Are there any rules in the university that forbids professors from participating in political activities? How much is acceptable? Can I help out with phoning people to get them to register to vote? Can I knock on doors in person? Could I run for office eventually?

Again, the answer to the first question is that if you want to know the rules of your university, you should not ask us, because you know which university is yours and we do not.  (Added: As Tom Church points out, there is a small but positive number of US universities for which the answer will be very different from the general case!)  The answer to the last three questions is that I would certainly expect you to be able to do all three of those things (again, you're a real person; you have the same right to knock on people's doors as anyone else!). If you successfully attain office, then this might interfere with your academic schedule and commitments, but it would be up to you to resolve that: e.g. if you live in a small town and get elected to a town council that only meets on Thursday mornings...probably okay.

If you feel strongly that (i) you want to be openly political and (ii) that you do not want your job to be even slightly at risk, here is some advice for that: I suggest you keep a clear separation of your political and educational activities.  When you bring up politics in the context of a course or student supervisory relationship, it should be in the service of an intellectual/academic point you are trying to make, not your own political activity.  When political ideas come up naturally in coursework, you should make an effort not to signal or imply that your own political beliefs are "the right answer".  You should certainly not try to politically proselytize with your own students or suggest that their grades will suffer if their political views do not align with yours.

I'd like to add to the existing answers that although there's generally nothing wrong with political activity, as long as you don't e.g. proselytise to your students or abuse your position to achieve political ends, it can be unprofessional if your field of teaching is itself about politics or history and requires you to have a neutral viewpoint.

So if you're teaching history (especially recent history), politicology, sociology, or some such, you probably shouldn't even join a party, let alone become politically active. And this is doubly true if you are also doing research.