Grades are too high for the department - what should I do? I recently taught an undergraduate seminar course, in which each student has to read a research paper, summarize it and present it to the class. In the first lesson I explained to the students the components of the grade: attendance, summary writing, and presentation quality.

Most of the students did great jobs: attendance was near full, summaries were good, and presentations were great. Many of them did more than I expected - they contacted the paper's authors to get more information, presented movies and demos, engaged the class in discussions, etc. So, when I wrote the grades to myself, most of them were between 90 and 100.

But then, when I told this to the department vice-chair, he told me "what have you done? You will cause a grade-inflation! The department policy is that the average grade on seminar courses should be at most 85!"
I totally understand this policy - grades that are too high might show that the course was too easy, and they do not sufficiently distinguish between good and better students. Also, they might be unfair to students who took the course in previous years.

However, I am not sure what I should do now. I haven't published the grades to the students yet. Should I just re-scale the grades so that 90 becomes 70? I feel this is somewhat unfair to the students who worked hard for their presentations. Are there better options?

One really wants to say that the vice-chair is an idiot, but I will refrain. The policy is idiotic in any case. I've taught at places in which nearly every student excels on every measure I could devise. Why would I want to pit one student against another for the purpose of an artificial "average"? They weren't average.

If you have the twenty best people (students or employees for example) in the world and you measure them in any single way, then half of them will be below average. Just how fine can you make the graduations so that someone can be "called" worse than someone else.

On the other hand, if the average, as measured over several runnings of the class, is around 85 and if there are clear differences in behavior and outcome, then "rewarding" everyone equally is also idiotic.

You set a standard. People met it. The standard was not that you must do "better" than someone else. If you change it now you have an ethical failing.

I hope you have enough standing in the university and in the profession that you can stand up to such unfair and unethical suggestions. If your group of students was exceptional there is no reason not to mark them as exceptional.

If you want to lower the average in future, with a different group of students, make the course more demanding.

But if you change the grading structure after they have finished their work then you are doing evil, not teaching.

This is your first problem:

  I feel this is somewhat unfair to the students who worked hard for
  their presentations.

You think just about your students. What about students that got 80 for the work that you are willing to give 95? Is that fair to them?

Your second problem:

Course is too easy. Now it is too late to fix this, but for the future you should make sure students have hard time "maxing out" easily. Not to torture them for fun, but to make sure that the spectrum of outputs is recognized(instead of half of the results piling on around 95).

This brings us to your current situation. You should rescale the grades, but unfortunately this will hurt some students because since course is easy precision of the measurement was bad. But it is unfeasible for you to do anything about it now.


Postdoc in the US : what salary should I ask for I live in France and I'm currently applying for postdoc positions in fundamental mathematics, at several universities in the US and elsewhere. For my application at the University of Denver, I'm asked to give my desired salary, and I have no idea what to answer... I don't know at all what are the standards in the US, I don't even know if it's homogeneous or depends on states... So two questions:

1) Do you have an idea of what could be a standard income for such a position? (To be more precise, it's a visiting assistant professorship with a teaching load of five undergraduate courses over three quarters during the 9-month academic year.)

2) I don't know if the desired salary is taken into account during the search process. Do you think I should ask for a lower salary in order to have more chances to be hired? Or should I, on the contrary, ask for a higher one and expect they will bargain?

Thank you in advance, I'm a bit lost since it doesn't work at all in the same way in France...

First, it is important to understand that a visiting assistant professor position isn’t a postdoc in the sense that you are being hired primarily for research and based on your research background.  This position will be funded by the institution rather than by grants. Teaching will be an important part of the job, and your teaching experience will be important in the selection process.

The American Mathematical Society publishes an annual survey of faculty salaries.  I’d encourage you to look at the survey to get a sense of the range of faculty salaries in the US. Figure that a VAP will be paid slightly less than a first year tenure track assistant professor.  If I had to guess, I’d expect a position like this at UD to pay somewhere between $60K and $70K.

I also recommend highly to do some research and find out what the going rate is for postdoc fellowships in your field in the US (and for your level of competitiveness).  You still won't want to write down a number.  But you need to know that when evaluating offers.  As with any job there can be other factors like benefits, cost of living, duties, fun place to live, advancement.  [All that said, the job with the higher $$ is almost always the best fit...they are showing how much they care with that.  And it can affect future salary offers as well.  Never go in low.]


Is all research connected via citations? When looking at the paper-is-cited-by-paper binary relation in an undirected manner: Is all research connected to each other or will there be many connected components?

In other words: Is there a way from a, say, computer science paper to a chemistry paper by walking along the citation graph?
Let's say we are only looking at publications in established, well-known conferences conferences/journals.

When looking at the paper-is-cited-by-paper binary relation in an undirected manner: Is all research connected to each other or will there be clusters?

First, it's possible to have an unconnected paper. Unlikely, but possible, to write something that has no citations and is never cited. This is clearly an edge case, but you did say all.

Second, all research can connect, but there can still be clusters. The two are not mutually exclusive - fields will cluster, presumably, but there will then be some links between fields. My suspicion, from personal experience, is that these papers will be methodological in focus primarily.

  In other words: Is there a way from a, say, computer science paper to a chemistry paper by walking along the citation graph?

Third, yes, you could get from a CS paper to a Chemistry paper. I know this because I can trace that tree in my own work, and the work my work cites. The path isn't even all that convoluted or exciting.

I'm sure, each paper is connected to all others. The question is, how long is this citation way from one paper to the other. This is the sort of the 5 handshakes rule thing.

I bet, one can even prove that all academic texts are interconnected through the works of, for example, Sigmund Freud.


How do conferences detect double submission? My first year undergraduate teammate has submitted our project work to multiple conferences. I want him to pull back the submission before reviewers take action against us. But he wants proof that conferences actually care about it and can detect self plagiarism and double submission.

This is in electronics, where conference proceedings count as publications.

"Actually care about it": Read the conference's rules.

"Can detect": Irrelevant.  Like many things in academic research, this is primarily honor system.  If your teammate thinks that whether something is acceptable is determined by whether you can get away with it, they need a serious attitude adjustment.

By the way: do you have a faculty advisor on this project?  They need to know about this.  They would also be the best one to give you advice on the specific norms of conferences and publishing in your fields.

Submitting without the approval of all authors is obviously wrong.

Putting that aside, what’s the problem with submitting to multiple conferences? Its not the same a dual publication of journal articles - a permanent citeable record.

I routinely submit work to two conferences - it’s in the remit of both, but there is virtually no overlap in attendance. Presenting work at multiple conferences improves visibility and networking.


What are the steps I need to take when an author won't answer clarification questions? I have recently read a paper in the Journal of Empirical Finance.
I was interested in the methodology that the author was using, but in terms of the data collection, the writing was particularly brief and I struggled to replicate their results.
This could have been clarified easily by the author, but they choose not to reply.
Is there anything I can do here or is it the authors choice not to answer questions about a published article?

I get far more emails than I can reply to, but occasionally I do reply to random emails from people I don't know concerning papers I have written.  The main factors that lead to me replying are: (1) I can see that the person is genuinely interested and has tried pretty hard to understand. (2) The person has a very concrete question that I can easily write down the answer to. (3) I am not overly pressed for time from other obligations.
In your case I cannot tell what kind of email you wrote.  But if it says roughly "Dear X, I am interested in your paper but I don't understand your data collection methodology.  Could you explain it in more detail?  Best regards, Y." then I would ignore it for sure.  Why?  Basically the person has written a minimal-effort email, and so I assume they probably read the paper with minimal effort too.  And what they want from me is completely unreasonable: They want me to write an expanded methods section just for them.
On the other hand, if the email would show a deeper understanding of the topic, and they would clearly explain their confusion and ask a specific question that I can easily clarify, then I am happy to do so, even if it takes a couple of paragraphs of explanation.  However, such emails are rare.
When you publish a paper, the paper stands on its own, with all its strengths and weaknesses.  A paper does not come with any warranty or guarantee that the author will freely provide all interested readers with further personalized instruction on the topic of the paper.

Write a paper detailing your failure to replicate their results.
If you replicated their methodology and got a different result, then that's something noteworthy in itself. As a result, the most logical thing to do is to write a paper citing their paper, and then explaining how in your attempt at replicating their paper, you have obtained different results. Given that the ongoing replication crisis is apparently affecting economics, producing proof that a paper has failed to replicate should be eminently publishable.
It might be polite to give the authors of the original paper a little bit of warning of what you're planning on doing, though.


Correct verb for professor "writing" student exams? On their CV, how should an associate professor go about making a bullet point accomplishment that they "designed / wrote / created / produced" student exams? that is, devised several pages of questions (and corresponding answers) meant to test students' knowledge about the subject or sub-field.
How does this verb change for an assistant professor who serves a higher rank professor, but who was given lee-way or freedom to similarly also create/write exams from scratch as they see fit?

All that I really can say is what will not describe "creation of exams".
In some versions of English, "writing an exam" would mean "taking the exam" in other English. That is, being an examinee, rather than an examiner.
"Setting an exam" in some contexts is understood as "creating the exam", but seldom in the U.S.
It is not typical, but I'd think would be relatively clear in most versions of English, currently, to say "created exams" or "composed exams".
(Nevertheless, people looking at the CV would think, "hm, what? Of course. Why is this person mentioning this?")

A common model used for creating instructional materials is the ADDIE model.  Its five phases are:

Analyze – Gather information about one's audience, the tasks to be completed, how the learners will view the content, and the project's overall goals.

Design – Write a learning objective, identify and break down tasks to be more manageable for the designer, then determine the kind of activities required for the audience in order to meet the goals identified in the Analyze phase.

Develop – Create the activities that will be implemented.

Implement – Test all materials to determine if they are functional and appropriate for the intended audience.

Evaluate – Use formative and summative assessment to assess the project's elements and revise them if necessary.

Use the verb that most accurately describes what you actually did.  In your case, it might be "develop assessment instruments."


Word choice for salutation in a formal email to your PhD adviser, Is *Dear Boss* appropriate? I am a first year PhD student in France, born and raised in India. It is not customary in here where I am doing my PhD to call one's adviser boss but I do, partly due to my reluctance to call her by the first name, partly attributed to the culture in which I am brought up. As one comment suggested, "Dear professor" would have been an appropriate choice but she doesn't have any teaching duties and is a full time researcher. I would have used "Dear Madam" if I were in India but no one here use that. I think "Dear Dr. X" is too formal and no one here use that either. Many prefer "Hi X" but I think that is too informal.
Now that I am writing an email, Is Dear Boss an appropriate salutation? If not, what would be an appropriate salutation in a formal email?

In my view, in academia, the word "Boss" carries a large amount of semantic baggage that you probably don't want to invoke. Although you mean it to be polite and respectful, it also has an ironic context which you may not have detected. By saying "Dear Boss" can also imply that in your opinion they are neither dear to you or deserve the respect as a superior. It is safest to avoid such salutations altogether in emails.

As others have indicated this is very culturally dependent and I think you are bringing too much of your south asian culture to a european environment. Do what the locals do and emulate other peers is the safest and wisest approach.

In North America – British professors to the contrary notwithstanding – an email between two people in the same institution (physically or otherwise) is considered to be of the same format as an interoffice memo. [Please note that like an interoffice memo one can see to whom it is being sent without a salutation and one can see who it is from without a complementary close.]

Of course it is the nature of the French to make sure that they do not do anything as it is done in other countries.  So, although the North American protocol seems logical to we Vulcans, the best I can say is viva la difference.

                                     Herr Professor Doctor Robert D. Jewell


reference letter from current line manager? I am currently a lecturer at a UK university, and I got an oral offer from another university. I was called by their HR today saying that their official is condition on satisfactory reference checking with my current line manager, who is the HoD of my current department. In my case I do not know my HoD is willing to provide a reference letter, as I am pretty sure that he will not be happy knowing I want to leave.

I am wondering if this (requiring reference from current line manager) is a common practices for UK universities? If there is any alternative solution to it? Thanks for your suggestions in advance.

It is common practice in UK universities. It would also be considered bad behaviour if your HoD was unwilling to provide a reference, or if he wrote a bad letter out of spite or revenge or similar. Of course, there are people who take it personally and are unpleasant when people leave so there's no guarantee he would be reasonable.

You should be prepared to have a discussion about why you want to change universities. Is it a promotion? Or is there a research group that is closer to your field? Presumably you applied for the job for some reason. You haven't said why you think he may not be happy. If you have been there only a short time, there might be some bad feeling. But people move all the time for all sorts of reasons.

I would try talking to HR and letting them know that you prefer not to give that reference as you are searching secretly.  This is of course the norm in corporate jobs, so HR may be much more understanding than you realize.  Suggest some alternates (old advisor or a peer who knows you're looking).  At least, it is worth a shot.  See what they say, before you just give in.


Should I apply for a second masters degree (PSI master's program) after already having done a dual degree in physics? I am a master's student in India, supposed to apply for PhD applications this year. However, I am still unsure of what I want to pursue in my PhD program. Meanwhile, I came across PSI's one-year master's program which seems like something I would like to explore. Should I apply for it or another master in the same subject will be a drawback for admission committees when I apply for a PhD in the US? I am also a bit reluctant to apply this year for PhD because of the pandemic.
Also, while presently I am mostly interested in computational work related to general relativity, I want to explore more in the theoretical side, hence inclined towards the PSI program.

I would say if you apply and are successful then it would be worth taking, I think the program in general is well-regarded but if your worried about it looking weird to have two masters degrees you could refer to one as physics and the other as theoretical physics. The program is very challenging to get into but it covers lots of material in theoretical physics, though goes through this material very fast (and the entire lecture series is online).
You will also get to know all the other participants well which will be good for networking in the future, and you will get to meet a number of well regarded researchers in theoretical physics (and because of the reputation they will probably be more likely to keep an eye on people who participate in the program).
The only thing that comes to mind is that it is possible PSI may be looking for students who don't already have a master's degree, but I have no knowledge of that and it if it is an issue, then its not an issue with respect to your ultimate goal.

Should I apply for it or another master in the same subject will be a drawback for admission committees

It's likely getting another (3rd?) master's degree won't help much and may signal indecisiveness in admissions committees.  You've already proven you can get a master's degree in a STEM subject.  It may raise concerns that you will "Master Out" of a PhD program.
It could actually work against you if you aren't publishing. You've spent double the time in grad school, you'd be expected to have more papers published than other applicants.  The university would prefer you did more research at their institution.
If you think PSI would be a good fit, then you should apply to the PhD program instead.
What you should do instead - work for a professor
Instead of getting another official degree, see if a professor will hire you part-time to work with them.  This will usually give you access to classes for free, and (hopefully) provide a great reference and research papers (both of which will help your application).


How to ask an editor to exclude a reviewer when the reasons are personal I am submitting a manuscript to a journal. I wish to exclude a colleague from being the reviewer of the manuscript. The journal has a single blind review: authors are known, reviewers are anonymous.

Question in short: The reason for this exclusion request are personal (see below), and I'm not sure I want to expose those reasons. What is the most effective ways to exclude a reviewer whom you don't trust to make a fair judgement?

Personal reasons for exclusion request::

We had a couple of harsh interactions. She had criticized me personally, and  had short arguments about our different attitudes
towards publishing, writing and research.
I believe she has already wrote a "reject" review on my manuscript (for a different venue).
To my judgment, she has standards that are uncommon in my research community, and so would judge my work on unconventional higher
standards.
Her personality, in my view, is harsh and critical (and unpleasant) and so each of her judgments are prone to be more negative than
others, on average.
She is related to the area of my manuscript (I have cited her manuscript and given her full credit for the work she did), and from
her point of view me publishing the manuscript would, psychologically,
be a personal disappointment, because her related work has not been
published.

Questions:
1. Can I ask the editor not to send it to her review?

Should I ask the editor for this? Would it benefit me?
How can I explain my request, and should I explain it?

Notes:  i) I don't want to write any of the reasons I listed
above! Because they are mostly personal! And would put me in a
very unpleasant situation psychologically at least.

ii) I believe that the review process in general is very
subjective, and so there is always a way to consider the same work in two opposite perspectives: positive and negative. I believe the
reviewer I want to exclude would highlight the negatives, and diminish
the positives. And recommend a rejection.

This question is different from:
 Sound reasons for excluding a reviewer,
 because the current question asks how to exclude a reviewer
 irrespective of the justifications of this exclusion. In other words, I'm not asking what are "sound reasons to exclude a reviewer",
 but rather HOW to exclude her, independent from the existence of sound reasons.

More details of the difference:

In Sound reasons for excluding a reviewer the term "sound" is probably meant to be an objective term. However I claim that the reviewing process is not an objective process at all. Thus, there are at least three different interpretations of Sound reasons for excluding a reviewer:

What kind of reason would be regarded as sound by the editor of the journal?

Or

Is there a set of objective reasons that the scientific community views as legitimate to exclude a reviewer?

Or

What can I, as an author do, to exclude a reviewer, if I think he/she has a grudge against me, irrespective of the objective reality, or the justifications of this act of excluding the reviewer?

The OP has not clarified whether he/she means 1, 2, 3 or another question.
These are all different questions.
I'm asking 3.

=====

I cannot merge my account with I am a guest (which is also me) because I don't remember the email I used for "I am a guest".

There is often a standard statement/option on submission which offers the opportunity to declare possible "Conflict of interest." (CoI); not only for yourself, but also reviewers who might have some with you. To my knowledge this formulation intentionally leaves open whether the CoI derives from possible favouritism, antagonism, competing funding/research interests or other.

In my opinion as editor, I prefer actually not to know what the precise nature of the CoI is. As long as the author doesn't exclude a larger number of people this way, declaring isolated CoIs are perfectly in the remit of a typical researcher's career and should not count against you.

In rare cases, the editor might not have a choice but to take that reviewer on board, in which case they must take the CoI flag into account - sometimes you see reviews which are clearly not objective (biased in one or the other direction, doesn't matter); the review may still be informative, if that baseline bias is taken into account.

However, I think an isolated CoI should, if at all possible, be taken into account by a serious editor, because many things can be at stake, such as funding, priority, plagiarism accusations and more. If they do not want to do that (for inscrutable reasons), you might consider changing publishing venue.

To be honest, many of the non-personal reasons you have given are good reasons why this person would be a good reviewer, whilst the personal reasons are quite subjective and speculative. Academia is not about meeting average standards, and so a reviewer who is unusually critical is a huge asset. Remember, it is ultimately the editor who decides whether to publish, not the reviewer, so if that reviewer's standards are impossibly high (and not just "higher than average"), it should not be a problem.

If this person is very familiar and connected with your work (i.e.: a collaborator, not a rival), you might argue that it would be conflict of interest to have him/her as reviewer. Otherwise, if you are really convinced that this person has some personal axe to grind against you and will be determined to stop you publishing, your best best is to submit to a publication that utilises double-blind review.


Am I required to hand out private encryption key to head of institute? I am a PhD student at a German university. Motivated by a longer absence of a (technical) coworker due to illness, the accessibility of data of the members of my institute has been discussed for such cases. My computer is owned by the institute, but I am the only one using it, and I have completely installed and configured it to my liking. In particular, I am encrypting my data. I do have some private data on that computer as well, e.g. emails since my private email account is linked in my email program, but also some music, and perhaps a few photos, my private PGP key, etc. The setup is pretty similar to some of my colleagues.

Now, I was asked to either physically or digitally hand over my private encryption key (or password) in order to get access in some emergency case. Apparently, my colleagues have done so already. I feel very strange about this, since I grew up learning that passwords should never be given away. I have raised my concerns, e.g., that this would also enable access to private emails or other data, and allow to send emails in my name.
But these were marked invalid, since private data has nothing to do on my work computer (even though everyone uses it that way).
Alternatively, I was told I could unencrypt my hard drives.

My questions are:

Am I required to hand over my private encryption key by law?
Morally, how would I best act in this situation?
Should I hand over a wrong (digital) private key and hope that this situation would never happen?
Instead of rebelling, I am thinking to give access to part of the system only, i.e., put certain data in an encrypted container that they cannot access? I do not have to mention this anywhere if I hide the container good enough...(maybe that is not even necessary).

It is probably worth to note that no one is really involved in my research topic, i.e., no one really depends on my data. I could however imagine someone to be interested in possible (unpublished) results in the case I am gone.

This seems like an X-Y problem. Why is important work data only kept on a computer on your desk, in the first place? I would expect it to be on a Git repository, or on the shared storage space of a workplace server.

Once you fix this problem, the issue you mention becomes irrelevant: your data will not be lost if your disk suddenly becomes inaccessible.

So a practical way to address the issue could be offering to put more of your work data in shared servers and git repositories, so that the problem disappears. Ask your superiors which data they are worried about, and offer to keep them online preemptively.

First of all, if IT is correctly managed, your private data may very well already be available because they are backed up.

Then, the ability to have private data on your device is dependent on the local law. You can have the case where everything belongs to the company/school, up to the case where you have the right to have personal data and they are legally protected.

For the first case, you are deliberately working against your institution by defending them access. It does not matter what you think, how they handle their data is their decision.

In the second case it gets more complicated. There is the part where you actively work against your institution like above - for the portion which belongs to the institution (because I guess there is something which belongs to them, right?). You must not encrypt that part.

If you have legally personal data then you can do whatever you want with them and your institution would not access them anyway (again, if this is the legal framework). The complicated part is email, when personal and professional data is mixed.


How to become a peer-reviewer? I am in an interesting situation, I have a masters degree in electrical engineering but have been working as a software engineer for about 10 years. I have a lot of interest in doing peer reviews and contributing to research part-time in computer science. But I find it very hard to convince anyone to let me review their work.

My question is, is it possible to do so while working in a day job? If so, how can one go about signing up to do peer reviews? All the journals seems to want to see credibility before you can peer-review any articles or papers.

How can one get started midway through their work career?

As an editor, when I need peer-reviewers, if I don't know someone with expertise in the topic at hand, I look to see who has published peer-reviewed work in a similar area recently. No-one signs up to do reviews, it's up to me to go out and find them. Which means, if you haven't published peer-reviewed work recently, you aren't likely to get any invitations.

So, in my case, if you want to do peer-reviews, the first step is publishing something in a peer-reviewed journal. Otherwise, no one will know you're there.

This doesn't mean someone who isn't publishing is never qualified to provide a peer review. But if I don't know you, and you haven't published anything yourself, I have no way to evaluate if you are qualified to provide a good review.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the distinction between an interesting paper, and an interesting publishable paper, may not be clear to someone who isn't actively pursuing academic work in the area.

Another answer  describes an example about someone without the qualification. In most answers he was successful in becoming a reviewer. That was after a professor who knew him provided a reference.

Let me put some emphasis that the main point is that that he was referred to the editor by someone already known, and assumed to be competent to the editor.

Only that established the assumption that he would be a valuable reviewer - concluded from the professors assumption of the same. The editor may have based his decision on this assumption alone, without caring about any other indications of the reviewers competence at all, and rightly so.

An example where this would make perfect sense is when the professor knew that the reviewer is qualified to publish leading edge papers of the subfield, but did not publish on it due to some unrelated reason. Say a psychological condition of chronic paper writing phobia.

This may seem exceedingly rare to happen in the real world.  But since the answer of Ethan Bolker provided a second real world  example, in addition the one used in the first paragraph, just three minutes after I posted this answer, I allow myself to hope there is some non-zero credibility to it.


How to deal with the frustration of doing PhD at a low-ranked university Though I did my bachelor's at a top-notch college, because of low GPA I had to settle down for PhD at a low ranked university. Now I see that there is lack of intellectual atmosphere and very few people to discuss academic stuff in and around my area of research. I discuss with faculty, but it would have been nice if there was a good graduate student atmosphere which is lacking. Now I get frustrated often with the fact that it was my low GPA which led to all this. Also in general the graduate student atmosphere is very discouraging.

What should I do to make my life better? Some people tell me to mind my own business and not worry about the environment. But to me no peer level discussion leads to feelings of loneliness.

Stop whining and start kicking ass.

Work hard with faculty (and undergrads!) that you respect, do some awesome research, and then (if you are very lucky) move to a better department, either as a PhD student, a postdoc, or even a faculty member.

Meanwhile, own your past mistakes, but forgive yourself for them.  You put yourself in this situation, but holding onto your frustration and loneliness, instead of doing the best with what you have now, is only going to keep you frustrated and lonely.

(My undergrad GPA was 2.4/4.0.)

nobody cares about your university, the only important thing at least in Europe is your CV. If you can publish paper in good journals then nobody will think about your university.


Is there any appropriate way to offer cash to a lecturer or TA for private tutoring? Due to financial issues, I've had to work in order to support myself alongside my degree, and unfortunately due to work obligations I've had to miss some lectures and classes.  Due to not spending much time at the university, I also don't have many friends who would be willing to help me catch up.

Would it be appropriate in any way to ask the lecturer or the class TA to help me on a 1-on-1 basis?  I think I've managed to fall behind sufficiently far that I would need several hours of help to catch up -- could I possibly suggest to the professor that I can offer you £50/hour for your time?  I don't want it to be construed as bribery or anything inappropriate -- I just want to pay the person fairly for his/her time.

Is there an appropriate way to do this?  I know that in my high school some students paid teachers for 1-on-1 tutoring, but I'm not sure how it works in university?

For context, I'm in the United Kingdom, I'm doing a master's degree, and the end-of-term examinations are administered anonymously (i.e. the person grading does not know whose paper he/she is grading).

At my university in the USA, it would likely be illegal for the instructor or the TAs of the particular class to participate in this. There is just too much of a (perceived) conflict of interest since they are evaluating you for a grade for the class.

However, there would not be anything barring you from approaching a graduate student who was a former TA for the class; nor would there be a problem in approaching an instructor at another institution or someone who is at your institution who is not teaching your section of your class that term. You could even ask an upperclass student who took the class last year to tutor you.

Your department secretary may be able to connect you with a grad student who needs a few extra dollars and isn't in the conflict-of-interest position to tutor you directly. Or post something in your local craiglist or student bulletin board system.

The appropriate way to do it is explain what you want, and why you are willing to pay for it. You have to be careful to not say something like "I want to pass this course, and I'm willing to pay you to make that happen", since that would look like an offer of a bribe which would be illegal. It is not illegal to pay a person for personal tutoring. That is the point at which your concern should end. It is possible that university regulations forbid an employee from accepting such an offer, but it is the employee's responsibility to make that determination, not yours. If it is forbidden, or if the employee would simply feel uncomfortable with the appearance of conflict of interest, s/he can tell you so and may be able to point you to an alternative tutor.


Changing level of difficulty of assignments for a course based on average class performance As a teaching faculty in mathematics, do I need to change the difficulty level of assignments after assessing the average class performance in the first couple of lectures? I am not sure if this is done across universities in graduate level courses.
Or do I continue to maintain the rigour irrespective of whether students are following(enjoying) the lectures. Should the teaching faculty worry about the faculty grades from students at the end of the semester course?

In the most common scenario, there will be students from weaker background, and we need to be responsible for them as well.

I would suggest that you step back and ask yourself why you are giving these assignments. Some people give out assignments purely so that they can grade students and then they think about fairness of grading, etc.

But, if you consider that it is through reinforcement and feedback that students actually learn then the solution becomes clearer. If you consider that the human brain works by actual physical rewiring - connecting synapses - then you see that students need these exercises to make the material clearer in their minds and so that they can move the ideas from short to long term memory. This is discussed in the book The Art of Changing the Brain by James E Zull. It is pretty fundamental to learning theory in general.

Thus, the exercises should be there to enhance learning, primarily.

So ask yourself whether the exercises you use are enhancing learning or not. Or are they just a stumbling block that some students can't get over? If it is the latter, then you should use different exercises that better enable learning.

My goal was always to teach every student. If I had a reasonable number in a class and if they were willing to do what it takes to learn, then I could be successful. But for many students it takes a lot of practice to come up to speed, as well as a lot of feedback.

But my goal was never to just deliver information and use what you want of it. Wikipedia does that job pretty well.

However, for your weaker students - those who are willing to do the work, anyway, there are other options. If your current exercises are good in some ways and you don't want to drop them, you can provide additional exercises for those who want to try them. These might be chosen to better enable good performance on the current set. But you should also provide some mechanism for the students to get some feedback on these new exercises. From you is probably best, but sometimes peer-review might be sufficient. Or even set up study groups among the strugglers.

Just change the marking scheme.

Instead of all points for final correct answer, which is what some do, (and I found it brutal - a 20 point question graded as 0 as final answer had the decimal point in the wrong place).

Try doing partial marking based on relevant parts of the solution. I do do this, X points for this, Y points for that and you can make the final answer worth 30% or 50% whatever is appropriate.

This helps the weaker students who may not complete the question in the allotted time as they get points for the progress they made.

That way you don't have to re-write the assessment questions, just a marking scheme.


Should I not ask my students about their hometown? Recently, I taught a class of five students. I asked for their native place and all  told that their hometown is X, but I didn't tell my reason for asking.
I asked them because of the reason that I can communicate easily with them if they are from Y, since I can speak the language of my hometown Y well.
Although I can communicate in our common language, I cannot communicate as well as I can in Y's language.
My doubt here is whether this would constitute discrimination based on place or is it perfectly fine to ask them?  Is it similar to asking about race, religion, caste, etc., which is generally not recommended?

I thought it would be good to edit my answer to start with a link to an article written from the perspectives of people who have had the question "where are you from?" asked repeatedly and who can explain some of the issues with it much better than I can: https://hbr.org/2020/10/whats-wrong-with-asking-where-are-you-from

No, don't do this the way you describe.
I suspect you're talking about local languages in a nation state where there are many many languages, and yet there is a common national language like Hindi or Mandarin. I don't have any personal experience with this situation, being an English speaker in a primarily English country, but I think there are some more general ideas that I'd recommend you think about.
Three recommendations: first, if you must do so, why not merely relay where you are from? If a student recognizes this location and can infer you can speak an additional language with them, they can make this connection on their own. Avoid asking questions of others that they might be uncomfortable with or that might lead to stereotyping.
Second, avoid playing favorites (or even appearing to) as an instructor. I think it is natural to associate with someone who shares something with you (fans of the same music? same hobby? same language/hometown?) and to treat them differently, as well as to view someone from someplace less common as "different" or "other". I'd avoid asking questions that categorize people. A safer alternative sometimes used as a mnemonic by instructors is to ask about a more generic "something special", where students can choose exactly what piece of information to share (that said, not all students really like these get-to-know-you games, myself included).
Third, although I think there are a lot of good reasons to promote and cultivate languages and prevent their loss, I'm not sure the university classroom is the best place. Students who learn concepts from you in a common local language to both of you may have difficulties when they advance and are in other courses (or the "real world") needing to use the same concepts in a more typical language. Practicing using the language of the course may be better for both of you.

First of all, asking about one thing to find out another is sneaky and somewhat manipulative.  If/when people find out, they may feel hurt by this.  Secondly, I like the idea of expanding a class to include another language, but it has to be done right, and if it's done without prior warning, I strongly disagree with it.
A lot of answers focus on the harm that can come to students who learn concepts and jargon in a language that isn't the predominate industry language.  And that's a valid concern.  On the flip side, sort of next to the 'favoritism' thing, but beyond perceptions and hurt feelings... It's unfair to the students who don't speak your native language to have parts of the class that they can't access.
I'm an American English speaker, and I'm now imagining being in a class with 30% hispanic students (which is accurate to how my elementary school was), and having the bilingual teacher teach certain math mnemonics only to those students who understand Spanish.
Granted, the reverse exists here, and is just as (or more) problematic, especially for children.  But I agree with the other answers here: There's an understanding that the course is taught in a specific language, and the students signing up for the class are not expecting to need to know a different language.
If I were in your class and was one of the few students who did not know your native language, and you were to explain important concepts to only those who did, and I missed valuable information because of this, especially if my grade suffered or I felt like I couldn't apply the rest of the information because of the missing content, I would likely go to the dean or try to ask for a refund for the course.  And although there may be no intentionally missing concepts, it's easy to forget that you haven't explained a concept, because you explained it on the side.
On the other hand, if it was in the course description, "Professor speaks X and Y", or "Office hours help available in language Y", then there's no problem with that.  The students know what they're paying for before they sign up for your class.  And the students don't have to tell you personal information to get to the point.  To my previous example, if my parents had enrolled me in a bilingual English/Spanish school, no one could be upset if half of math class was inaccessible to me because I don't speak Spanish.


What are the strategies for getting feedback on articles? As an academic, one has to publish. Often, an article is drafted, and you need feedback of a colleague.  I see that quite often some perspective articles are often written by long-term collaborating pairs of authors.

What are some strategies people use to get feedback on their articles  (outside of immediate boss; and in the case that none of the friends in the field of work in the specific domain of the article, and one needs specific (not general) feedback)?

How do you approach a colleague to simply read your article. Or do you just mention it at a conference to the most suitable colleague - would you like to read an article and give me feedback? How do handle the co-authorship or acknowledgement? Do you establish the limits at the "approach time"?

What are some strategies to establish a "publishing" duos (buddies).

When I have a manuscript nearly ready to submit, I send it (by e-mail) to colleagues who I think would be interested in it.  I politely ask them to read it and send me any comments they have.  Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't; it's understood that there is not an obligation.  Of course, some of them send me their manuscripts too, and they're more likely to read mine if I have read and commented on theirs.

The colleagues I send the paper to (usually about 2-4 in number) may include:

Senior people who have mentored me
Past coauthors and collaborators
People I don't know but whose work is essential to that in my manuscript

People in the first two categories are usually willing to assist based on our existing relationship; those in the last category are generally pleased to see their work being cited and built on.

I don't usually need very specific feedback at this point in the process.  If I was concerned, say, about the correctness of some part of the work, I would have worried about that long before I wrote the article.  Occasionally I may have a specific question about, e.g., suitability of the manuscript for a particular journal.  In that case, I would send the article to one of the editors of the journal or to a colleague who often publishes in that journal, and ask specifically.

Any colleagues who provide substantial feedback will be acknowledged at the end of the paper.  Providing this kind of feedback certainly wouldn't qualify one for co-authorship.

Unfortunately, an academic researcher either exists in the echo chamber of his lab (specialists in their field), or among competitors, or among the lay public. None of these are ideal arenas to form "publishing" duos (buddies). One would always want the upper hand or to be placed in a more prominent spot in the author list. In this way, research is often observed to be siloed or split off into various factions. The academic publishing machine pairs you up with 3 often anonymous people you have little influence in choosing to critically review your manuscript but of course negative feedback that is not interactive nor a discussion but a letter in response to your letter as it existed so many years ago. If rejected, you can use the reviews to improve your paper, but of course you have burned the bridge of being able to submit that topic to that particular journal again. The concept of a publishing buddy would exist in the balance of a knowledgeable field specialist and generalist.


Toxic, harassing lab environment I have just started a research position (around 2.5 months ago) at a top-10 university. I am having my own funding and was initially quite excited about the opportunity, and did and do love my project.

I have some trouble with the mentorship, however, and the following things have happened so far:

I was sitting across my mentor during one of the first meetings I had with him. I was not aware that because of my clothing (I had a rather loose-sitting shirt on) and the way I was sitting, one could see my décolleté. Although I understand that looking at other people is quite normal, not only did my mentor stare at my chest, he then also leaned back and laughed in an arrogant kind of tone. Although he has not done that anymore, he still looks at my body in quite discomforting ways (I see him staring at my backside, my waist etc.). At this point, I am spending my time thinking about what to wear when I meet with him to avoid such situations. Then I end up being bothered that this has become a concern of mine.
I am the only woman in the group, and sexist jokes during weekly meetings are a thing. It seems that specifically, one of the students tries to cement his status by making jokes I would not like and that this student knows that the mentor will laugh along at these jokes (which he does loudest) which will also impact the relationship of me and the mentor in a negative way - which it does, though I see it as the mentor's responsibility to act differently. I have never been at a lab before where jokes about women's bodies were considered normal during meetings.
When we discuss work from a female scientist, the tone is quite different than when work from a male scientist is discussed. Again, I am well aware that we all have biases. But the discussion of a female scientist's work became aggressive quite quickly, with the mentor saying things like "This work makes me so angry that I can't control my anger anymore". I haven't experienced such bursts of aggression towards male scientists, and his behavior shapes the overall environment of the lab, and aggressive behavior I experience from the students are in my opinion at least partly a consequence of his behavior.

The student is the kind of person who knows where people's sensitivities are and uses that knowledge in his favor - but my concern is really much more the PI than the student, since, at least to a great extent, his behavior sets a blueprint for acceptable behavior and the rules of the lab.

While I have not experienced this before, there still is the possibility of leaving and ending up in a similar situation - maybe I was just lucky so far with my supervisors? It is a fear I have, it does not have to be logical. But I simply am afraid of leaving a careerwise unique opportunity without knowing what will happen next

What should I do?

Brief update I changed my lab and I am now at another "top 10" university and extremely happy. Supportive lab environment, supportive and respectful PI, great scientific work. I am glad I left and don't have any doubts anymore that this was the right decision.
Advice for others experiencing something similar: I got (anonymously) help from people who experienced similar things, but kept everything very lowkey. I tried to part as peacefully as I could from the old lab, and pointed out positive aspects of the new labs during the job interviews. I care very much about my principles, but also understood quickly that the universities would use all of their force against me if I would speak up, and decided at this point to protect myself (and my mental health).

Also, I want to thank everyone here for their support!

First of all, not all research labs are like that. You can find better work environment elsewhere, perhaps even have luck in the same University.

The academic world, however, is extremely small, and people will talk behind your back. You can't fight that. One way to minimize this is to minimize amount of time you spend in the current group.

Hence, one of few options is update your resume and start looking for another job. Your current situation will not become better. One of the reasons is that you have no political capital (friends) to change it, and filing complaint will definitely make your life worse in the group forever.

While searching for new job, try to connect with local chapter of Women in Science or similar unofficial group. Major universities have those these days. Ask them for help and advice. Another contact is something like Office of Equity and Diversity. These people have seen your situation before and will give guidance.

When you get a new job offer, you might want to consider filing complaint with HR specifically naming your current group leader. Hopefully, university will pay attention and investigate.

IMO, the "lingering" will die off in time. Just remember who you are and what you're there for. If it works out with your mentor in a very short time, then stay there.
I had to work with 23 women in my group at one time in life. There were 4-5 men, 23 women and a woman supervisor. Also, there was a feminist in HR who (I found out later) had it in for me.
I just worked on myself, worked hard. Gained there admiration so well they would eventually give me hugs when I walked in to work and stood at the end of our work area (except the supervisor).
I worked there for 30 years and 5 days until retirement, but for different groups. Moving around did me some good.
It's not really sexual harassment - yet. Now, having said that, I never heard crude jokes about women at work - that's not right. I would do like someone said, read the guidelines of conduct, how one should act with fellow students will be in print. Document.


For graduate admission, would 3-year bachelor’s program without thesis suffice in chemistry field? I am a Thai graduate from a university in New Zealand with a 3-year Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) without having completed a thesis. Although I could have done my fourth year doing a thesis which is called “Bachelor Honours Degree” in New Zealand, my scholarship sponsor did not allow me.

I am now a research assistant at the research center in Thailand. I really wish to continue my career further in academia abroad since I feel more comfortable when studying or working in English. However, I found it difficult to apply for the international scholarship and admission for master’s or PhD program as the general requirement would be either having completed bachelor’s degree with practical components (I assumed this could be a thesis) or graduated with 2:1 honours degree equivalence such as in UK.

I tried to apply for master’s degree at one of the Northern Irish universities but got rejected since my academic qualification wasn’t enough and they required me to complete my fourth year with thesis.

I am wondering if there are any countries/universities that thesis would not be generally required for a graduate admission?

My employer suggested me to keep sending emails to many potential professors to see if I can be exempted from the requirement. Would that be possible?

Thank you so much for your time.

If you were eligible for a

  Bachelor Honours Degree (Chemistry)

at a New Zealand university, then you would probably also be eligible for the the same degree at most Australian universities.  Unlike the UK, "Honours" is a degree sort of like a masters.

New Zealand degrees are not widely known outside Australia and New Zealand.


Is there any risk of having my research scooped after posting my manuscript onto bioRxiv? I want to post my manuscript to bioRxiv before submitting onto formal journals, but I still have several concerns:

Can I claim I am the first for the discovery by posting my findings on bioRxiv ?
Similarly, is it a feasible way to prevent others from publishing ealier than me on the same topic ?
Are there any risks of having my research scooped after posting my manuscript on bioRxiv ?

Thanks and Best regards,

Michael

In fields that use arXiv, publication in arXiv does establish a definitive date-stamp on the work (and an accompanying archival DOI) that is generally understood and respected by practitioners in the field. Nobody could reasonable "scoop" a work published there without being called on it by their peers.

bioRxiv is intended to provide the same for biology-related fields and technically does so. The culture of those fields, however, is often not yet as accepting of the idea of pre-publication and incrementally evolving works. Hence, for example, the much greater concern with the ideas of "priority" and "scoop" to begin with.  A few journals still even consider sharing a pre-print in bioRxiv to be a sort of "self-scoop" that prevents you from submitting for peer review in that journal!

Still, the only way to change this culture is to embrace more open and sharing practices. I would advise checking whether others in your sub-field use bioRxiv, checking the publication policy of your target journal in SHERPA/RoMEO, and checking if your co-authors are amenable to pre-print sharing. If you see others in your subfield sharing, and if there is no veto from the journal or co-authors, then go ahead!

Putting immature article before peer review is not proof of discovery.
If yes, we can easily scoop other's findings by posting quick, short and sloppy article in Preprint server (after knowing their data for example in some research conference) .

Also, the benefit of Preprint server is that researcher can publish there data quickly before long peer review and publication process.
However, in reality, most of the author post their articles in preprint sever when they noticed that some other group were also working on the same topics and wanted to insist their priority. This is quite ugly and selfish motivation.

All paper needs to go through peer review when the paper needs to be polished.
Even though that is time-consuming, this process is equally required for all academic paper.
Therefore, posting article in preprint server after knowing some competition is dirty scooping.


Advantages of different citation styles? I find it hard to find a comprehensive overview about what kind of citation styles there are, and what should be taken into consideration to choose one.

It seems to me that the most important factor is when the journal/conference requires a specific citation style. Another factor is that it might be better to use what the people in the field are used to. But what advantages are there for different citation styles, apart from the fact that some are more established?

E.g. I see that numbered citations sorted by occurrence make it easy to find the citation listed in the bibliography while reading the paper from front to end. (Author,Year) citation styles allow the reader to recognize names but could possibly be ambiguous when an author published two papers in the same year. Why aren't both approaches combined to keep the advantages of each, and cite in-line with (Name Year [1])?

There exist strong differences in humanities vs. STEM how literature is read, written and therefore cited.

For example, in humanities it is much more important due to e.g. schools of thought who has written something than in STEM. Even in STEM some journals ask you to give the page of a book when citing those, some not.

There is likely no good overview, because in the end the editor should know best, what citation style is the most efficient and useful one for the content, format, author- and readership of that journal.

In STEM many journals don't want all author names in the reference list, rather due to shortness than usefulness imho. To me, personally, it's often much more important to see which last author/group leader conceived an experiment rather than which first author PhD student did most of the exeperimental work with >5 other co-authors which becomes more and more common.

For review articles with >100 references it's often simply not practical to show all co-author names. For letter articles, representing often high importance of the results, the first author et al. often publishs several papers focusing on a dinstinct research question/method/object and deserves more highlighting and fame.

Even withing a single scientific branch like physics you will therefore find very different citation styles serving different purposes for different publishing formats.

This is essentially personal opinion, I'd be very surprised if there is a measurable difference.

That said, areas have their traditional citation styles, most journals have templates and suggested citation styles. Uniformity makes it (a tiny bit) easier to get the information across, and that is the central goal here. It also makes the journal (or book, for that matter) look more orderly, thus professional. Also a goal.


Indicating a name change after publication My wife has publications under both her maiden name and her married name. How should she indicate that this is the case on her CV, if she wants to mention publications from both time periods?

I know 2 female professors personally who clarify this fact very similarly. What they do is this:

They cite the relevant publications as they were with her maiden name and her new last name.
They add a * at the beginning of the "Publications" section in their CV which refers to a footnote to that page which then says something like this "* Last name changed to Smith from Doe in 1988"

That seems to work very well so far.

Unique ID services for authors like ORCID (http://orcid.org/; non-profit) and ResearcherID (http://www.researcherid.com/; associated with Web of Knowledge) are the way to go. You can list all your previous names on your ORCID profile, as well as alternate spellings. Many publishers (including Nature, PLOS, etc) and funders (both in the US and elsewhere) are starting to use ORCID to help manage authors' identities. ORCID suggests placing your ID prominently on your website, CV, and anywhere else folks might encounter your professional identity, to help with name disambiguation.


Academia research vs. industry research (computer science) After finishing my PhD in Computer Science (machine learning) and after several years as a university lecturer, I decided to transition from academia to industry. As a result of that, I have been working one year for a company, doing applied research.

In my latest performance review, my supervisor pointed out that my only negative point was that I still had an academic mindset towards research, and that I should be able to get better at what he called "risk analysis". He defined risk analysis as the skill of assessing in advance the potential benefits/drawbacks for the company of a given method/technique/algorithm. The aim of that is to be able to rapidly discard methods that are supposed to not solve the company's problems without having to waste too much time on implementing them.

I was wondering whether any learning resource exists (book, online course/resources) that may help me to acquire such a skill. More generally, any recommended reading about computer science research in industry would be much appreciated.

As a researcher in industry, let me first emphasize to you that "industry" is a much broader set of organizations and varies a lot more than most people realize.  Thus, the answer to your question may depend quite a bit on the specifics of the company that you are at.

That said, however, in most cases a key animating idea for researchers in industry is a notion that often goes by a name like "customer focus": i.e., who will care about the results of this investigation?

Sometimes this is pretty straightforward (e.g., "if widget-making is 5% more efficient, then profit margins on widgets go up), but in other cases the relation is much more abstract or indirect (e.g., some prior work I did on potential programming languages for quantum computers that don't currently exist, but where the funder wanted to see how thinking about this might affect their goals for other research projects).

In all cases, however, you always have to be aware that somebody is paying the funds to support your salary and the salaries of your team, and they are giving you that money because they want some benefit to come from your research. This is true in academia as well, but professors are typically more insulated from it because their salaries are generally mostly supported by teaching---and even graduate students can be supported by TAships. If you're being paid to teach and expected to do research on the side, then it doesn't really matter what you're researching in the short term---but you will have more impact if you work on more important problems.

So, to the heart your question: how do you actually go about doing that?

I recommend starting by trying to be aware that at all times there is a "frontier" of research problems that you could be working on. Whenever you do a piece of work, you are choosing to prioritize one piece of that frontier over others.  Notice this fact and ask yourself questions like:

Why did I choose this problem over those other ones?
How will solving this problem affect the other problems on my frontier?
Who else cares about the solution to this problem?

There can be lots of reasonable answers to these questions, but starting to ask them can be extremely helping in moving to a more conscious evaluation of your research choices and whether they're actually moving you in the direction that you want to go in your career.

For more thoughts and suggestions along these lines, I would recommend the following resources:

"You and Your Research" by Richard Hamming, a long-time industrial researcher at Bell Labs.
My own talk on "Surviving Life as a Researcher"

Here are some links for you

this blog

books from Amazon

more books from Amazon

I am not interested in risk assessment but if I was, would sort the books by customer review, would see what the people who read them think, if possible would look inside the book.

Have to say though that I find strange you didn't do it yourself before posting the question.


Withdrawal of accepted manuscript from predatory journal I have sent a paper to the journal that was predatory and I had no idea what that was. Today, they sent me an email that I need to pay 1819 euros to publish my manuscript. On their internet pages stands that publication fee is 1819 USD and 1705 euros. This means that they have changed their "price". They also said that in case of withdrawal I will need to pay 919 euros and that it is a half of price (919 euros is not 50% of above mentioned fees). If i do not pay, what could be legal consequences for me? Please help.

Get legal advice. I don't see any other way about this unfortunately. They could easily say the 1819 EUR charge was a typo and it should've been 1819 USD. It also clearly says on the website that there's a withdrawal charge, although it doesn't say how much. They have removed the reason for the withdrawal charge from their website; however I'm sure I saw in previous versions of the page that the reason is you've taken up the editors' + reviewers' time, which is a defensible argument.

You may have to provide an explanation for why you submitted an article to them in the first place. If you can e.g. point to a deceptive call for papers which did not mention the article processing charge, you have a stronger case.

Having said that, don't worry too much, you're probably going to get away without too much pain. Reasons:

The publisher is OMICS, which has a reputation as the worst predatory open access publisher out there (see their Wikipedia page). You can point to action by the US government against OMICS, which should be especially relevant if you're based in the US.
Because OMICS is so bad, there're likely to have been many authors who wanted to withdraw their articles. If OMICS has initiated legal proceedings against these authors, I'm not aware of them (and they would undoubtedly have been publicized by the victims).
OMICS has already been involved in lots of legal suits, on the wrong side (i.e. they're the defendants). Courts are not likely to be sympathetic to predatory OA publishers.
OMICS has little to gain by filing a suit. The most they can hope for is 1819 USD. That's probably not enough to be worth the effort.

I'd guess that the most likely result is that you'll be blacklisted by OMICS. They might refuse to consider any more of your papers or they might charge higher article processing charges the next time you submit an article. They might even take you off their mailing lists. Do you care? One might even send them some genuine thanks if they do.

Pull the paper.  Don't pay the withdrawal fee.  Stop submitting to such junky journals.


How to explain a bad grade to a delusional student? I guess this comes up quite often in educational context. There is a student who attended a seminar where they were supposed to study an assigned research paper and deliver a presentation to the class. The presentation delivered by the student was very low quality as was also reflected by the low grade given by a group/committee of seminar tutors (from post-doc to associate professor level). The evaluation turned out to be a big blow to the student's ego and even after several weeks, the person can't digest the failure, despite very careful explanation on the spot, as well as several interactions and (failed) attempts to "better the grade by performing some extra work". The student is all the time coming back with requests for additional explanation of particularities of the failure.

What is/are the right pedagogical technique(s) to handle such a situation?

clearly, the student has a high self-esteem and opinion about him/herself
probably did not face a situation of a miserable failure before in the past
the student does not seem to see/accept the relative difference in his/her performance and the rest of the peer group
the committee of tutors was very careful in assigning the grade and went through a thorough discussion. This is not a question of the grade fairness, but a question of student's self-perceived feeling of receiving an unfair treatment

My first question to you would be

  Did you lay out the assignment expectations and how the grade would be determined when you gave the assignment?

If the answer is "yes" (and I expect that it is), I would use that as a starting point for explaining to the student why he/she did poorly.

That aside, it seems that either (1) the student didn't understand what was expected (regardless of the question above), and/or (2) the student isn't prepared for the type of work required, and/or (3) the student had a bad day.

It sounds to me like the answer is firmly #2, as repeated attempts to improve the grade hasn't worked.  Given that you've already spent a good deal of time with the student, it might be time to have a heart-to-heart discussion and say that it is time to stop thinking about that grade and to move on.  Obviously, you need to do this diplomatically, but (as they say), to make an omelet you need to break some eggs, and sometimes a firm and diplomatic "get over it" is appropriate.  I would pose the following questions to the student:

Do you have a clear set of goals that you are working on for the class?
Do you know what other grades are going to be part of the final grade for the class, and do you have a plan for making sure you are ready for each assignment / talk?
Do you conduct practice talks with other students in order to get constructive feedback? (if not, you should!)
(If the problem is English language skills) Have you sought out on-campus help with your writing or speaking skills? (this is available at many larger universities in the States)

Depending on how much time you are willing to devote to helping the student improve, you could also offer to sit in on any future practice talks to give pointers and feedback.  Likewise for written work -- you could offer to pre-read assignments.  This is a slippery slope, so tread carefully.  You want to avoid having the student see you as an always-available tutor, but there are times when providing such support is just part of the job.

Finally, I would stress to the student that one bad grade does not make or break a student, and it is better to make mistakes while in school than later when they might mean more in the bigger picture.  School is about learning, and you learn from mistakes.

It depends very much on what kind of class this is, and what kind of evaluation tools are used. It is possible that the 'experts' are simply looking at things differently. It is not unusual for brilliant students to see things quite differently, and be right.


I got a very bad review from one reviewer, but the paper was not rejected Some time ago, I submitted my paper to a reputable journal (but far from being one of the best in my field) and have recently received two reviews. One review was positive overall and the reviewer recommened to accept my paper. On the other hand, the second reviewer was very critical of my work. The reviewer explained, in great details, why everything was wrong with my paper (even including the notation I use) and why such research is absolutely pointless and irrelevant. Moreover, the reviewer also criticized my other publications, implied that my research is way below the international level, and recommened to reject the paper. Despite such a bad review, the editor did not reject my paper and asked me to provide a revision without any additional comments.
To be entirely honest, I would've preferred my paper to be rejected after such a review, because I think that no revision can change the second reviewer's opinion about it. In addition, I do not really know how to revise my paper. I can change the notation and rewrite some parts of it in response to some of the comments, but I cannot change the topic of my research to make it relevant in the eyes of the second reviewer.
What would you do in my situation? I'm thinking about writing an e-mail to the editor in order to ask their opinion about the situation and what they would consider as a proper revision of my paper.

Since

the editor did not reject my paper and asked me to provide a revision

you can revise the paper and resubmit with a fair chance that it will be accepted. Respond to all the comments in the favorable review, either by changing something or explaining in your cover letter why you didn't.
Try to put the  tone of the unfavorable review aside so that you can decide whether addressing  any of the comments there will in fact improve your paper.
You could write the editor in advance to ask if this is a reasonable strategy. You don't have to withdraw just because one reviewer was unprofessionally nasty.

On the other hand, the second reviewer was very critical of my work. The reviewer explained, in great details, why everything was wrong with my paper (even including the notation I use) and why such research is absolutely pointless and irrelevant. Moreover, the reviewer also criticized my other publications, implied that my research is way below the international level, and recommened to reject the paper. Despite such a bad review, the editor did not reject my paper and asked me to provide a revision without any additional comments.

If the paper is not rejected while one of the referee reports is negative then the journal is not really "reputable". You do not gain much by publishing there. So I suggest that you withdraw the paper, improve it as much as possible and submit elsewhere.


Is it appropriate to email a professor saying you enjoyed their class, after doing well in it? I recently finished taking an undergraduate class and I enjoyed it. I was thinking of emailing the prof and saying this, but I don't know if it's appropriate or not, for a few reasons:

I would have already said this in the class evaluations, which the prof will read.
More importantly, I recently received my final grade and it was good. If I email now, it might come off as an implied "thank you" for giving me a good mark, even though I mean nothing of the sort.

My question is whether or not such an email would be appropriate.

As my experience of being a TA for multiple courses with various profs, such personal gestures of appreciation are welcomed by the professors. I have actually heard professors refer to the email as something that "made their day". As long as you don't refer to your grades, I don't see a reason why someone would misjudge your intentions, especially after the course has finished.


To submit or not to submit GRE Scores for PhD programs in the United States With the GREs being phased out of so many PhD applications in the sciences, I think this question is reasonably fresh.

I have taken the GRE and scored in the 70 percentiles for verbal and math. I scored a 6/6 on the essay. This score is fine, but not "great" for top biomedical science Ph.D. programs that I am applying to (e.g. Duke, that wants 90+ percentiles).

Do you think it would be worth it to send my GRE report to show that I have taken the GRE and did attain a "reasonable" score? I have a strong application when looking at other factors (e.g. research experience since freshman year, 2 summer research internships at a hospital and in Amgen Scholar program, strong GPA, 3 letters of rec. from my 3 research PIs). Thus, I feel that my GRE score is the one component that does not equally compare to the rest of my application.

This may be irrational of me, but I am somewhat worried that the programs will wonder why I am not submitting a score given that it's clear I have not experienced major financial problems throughout my undergraduate career (nor do I come from an underrepresented/underprivileged background, which is a large reason to why the GRE has become an "optional" test now).

Thank you for your opinions.

If the institution requires them they must be sent, of course. But, as you say, that is becoming more rare.

But if they are not required I would only recommend sending them if they were truly superlative, which yours don't seem to be. I doubt that anyone would consider that you were hiding anything if they aren't required.

Your application need to contain (only) reasons why you are well qualified for the position and highly likely to be a success. Don't include things that point in other directions unless required.

Sounds like you might not be the sort of student capable of succesfully completing your studies in a top-tier program. This is okay. Just aim lower.


What does “resident” mean in title like “resident mathematician”? What does resident mean in title like resident mathematician?

And what are the main subjects where resident is attached to a title? For example, does a resident statistician exist? Or a resident medieval historian?

What are the place where the mathematician resides? I think they are not universities but maybe hospitals or museums, am I correct?

For example, from Writing a successful thesis or dissertation: Tips and strategies for students in the social and behavioral sciences by Fred C. Lunenburg and Beverly J. Irby:

  Ideally, commitee members should supplement your chair's expertise. If your study requires complex statistical procedures and your chair is not a statistician, you may want to add to your commitee a faculty member who teaches your department's statistics courses. We call this person a resident statistician.

To pick up your example, a resident statistician is somebody who holds a position:

at a research institute (or similar) that does not focus on statistics,
that entails to consult other researchers at the institute on statistical questions.

I have never seen this as an official title or job description; rather the resident statistician is hired as a regular researcher or professor. Some resident statisticians perform their own research, while for others consulting is a full-time job. It may also happen that somebody is hired for other reasons and then morphs into a resident statistician because they turn out to be good at it, nobody else would do it, etc.

I use to describe myself as the resident data analyst of my current life-science research group, because it is good way to characterise (part of) my role in a few words.

Do not confuse this with artists in residence.

  And what are the main subjects where resident is attached to a title? For example, does a resident statistician exist? Or a resident medieval historian?

In my experience, resident statisticians, mathematicians, and similar are the most common, but I also know cases of resident biologists (in a biomathematics group) and physicists (in a quantum-philosophy group). I can imagine that a group investigating historical climate would have a resident medieval historian to investigate historical weather records.

Resident means:

  Located here a long time

It is the same as the non-academic meaning, but different from the medical meaning.  Any employer could choose to give this title, but few do.


PhD supervisor stalling research paper submission I am currently trying to submit a research paper to a Journal, I am a PhD student in his final year.
My supervisor, who provided the data for the research paper and has overseen the whole process, is a very difficult person.
When I submitted a Conference paper, things were relatively easy, because of the deadline for submission.

But now with the Journal paper, my supervisor seems to be stalling the process just enough time for me to go to my final examination without having the paper accepted. She is that bad of a person unfortunately. The stalling is by the constant need to change the text and edit the paper, and the never ending stream of comments.

What are my options in this case, could I submit it without her as a co-author if she continues stalling.

Update. Yes having accepted research papers is essential for the successful completion of the PhD examination.
Update. Yes it is stalling, I cannot tell exactly the specifics, but in case someone might have a similar experience and might get some answers here, please assume that this person is doing this to hurt the student's progress and examination.

No one here can judge whether your supervisor is right or wrong. Perhaps your paper really isn't yet ready. I don't know your field, of course, and don't know why it is important to you to submit the paper now rather than later.

Your first consideration should be your examinations, I think, and completing your degree. Perhaps publishing the paper is essential to that process, but you don't indicate that.

But, few students really prosper by directly going against their supervisors. It just isn't a productive career path. And, depending on your field, cutting your supervisor out of authorship might be considered unethical, but even if not, might be a career killer.

Having a supervisor who is happy with you and your work is much more productive. And giving a lot of feedback on your paper is, in most cases, a positive thing.

Once you finish the degree you get to make your own decisions, of course.

I am facing a similar situation. I have been working on a problem for almost 4 years now and have a bunch of results but my advisor keeps adding new and very difficult things to the list of required items. So I won't be publishing anything before I graduate in a few months.
After I graduate, I plan to keep working on the problem but only if/when I get time and won't pressurize myself on it. Progress will be very slow and I don't expect a paper to be honest.
Academia is hard and is full of very difficult people and we are not that lucky to get an advisor of our liking. Just accept that and focus on the quickest way to graduate and then start planning for what you want to do after that. Don't start any argument with your advisor now. That's what I am doing.


Should I continue reviewing a paper after having discovered plagiarised content in it? I received an invitation to review for the International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing. I started to analyze the manuscript by reading the title, abstract, introduction, results and discussion and conclusions before assessing the proposed methodology.

I detected that the authors copied approximately 7 pages from another article without a considerable change so that it looks like his own ideas (plagiarism). should I stop analyzing the paper (assessing the methodology), or continue?  because from my experience I think that the editor will reject the paper even though there is a novel contribution.

Don't bother with more analysis, there is no point, since the paper should be withdrawn or rejected because of the plagiarism (if it isn't decline further review for this journal). Write a brief report along the lines

The manuscript contains 7 pages which are almost verbatim copied from < plagiarized paper >. In view of this I refrain from any further analysis as I expect you to reject the manuscript.

You should also check, whether the paper has already been published as a preprint (e.g. on arXiv) and if so inform the editor and suggest him to require the authors to withdraw from there too (I know of a case where this happened) but you may also contact arXiv directly (to protect your anynomity don't contact the authors or make your knowledge public).

I'll differ the tiniest bit from the existing answers.  It can be helpful to look  at the paper enough to help the editor triage.

Is there anything worthwhile in the paper?  If not, you should point that out.  If yes, as you noted in your recent experience, then provide this information, so the editor will be fully aware of the extent of the conundrum.  You are the editor's fact finder -- let him/her benefit from your expertise.

But you don't need to look at the paper with as fine a view as if you were going to proceed with a normal review.

So, taste it enough to identify the poison before you spit it out.


What is the IEEE citation style for content obtained from wikipedia? I have added a paragraph from wikipedia in my thesis. Now I need to add reference to that wikipedia page. What is the IEEE formatting and citation style for that? Currently I use as below.

In chapter of thesis added copied content from wikipedia as below

  The waterfall development model originates in the manufacturing and construction
  industries; highly structured physical environments in which after-the-fact changes are
  prohibitively costly, if not impossible. Since no formal software development
  methodologies existed at the time, this hardware-oriented model was simply adapted
  for software development [1].

In References page

  [1] (2014, April 22). Waterfall Model [Online]. Available:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model

For correct citation of Wikipedia, see Wikipedia's guide to citing Wikipedia.  Since you are using IEEE styles, you should probably be using BibTeX to manage your citation, in which case you can directly use the BibTeX formatting template provided.

There are very few circumstances (e.g. if you are doing research about Wikipedia) when it is legitimate to cite anything from Wikipedia (or any other encyclopedia, for that matter).

If you think your case is such a legitimate one, please cite the specific version of the article using its permalink.


Computer Science: Workshop paper in top conference vs. Paper in mediocre conference? What do you think would be the better choice prestige wise? Prof I'm working with gave me the choice to choose which to submit to. To be clear, the top conference is CVPR and the mediocre conference is a relatively new ACM conference.
I care about prestige because I'm applying to graduate school, and I want to make the best impression.
--Edit--
To clarify further, it's a short paper in the CVPR workshop which wouldn't go into the proceedings and rather would just be a poster.

Both previous answers are misleading in this specific scenario, where the choice is between CVPR (main conference) and an ACM conference.
Both conferences require submission of a full paper! The only difference is that CVPR will decide after the review how your paper is presented, whether as long oral presentation, short oral presentation, or poster. Independent of this, all accepted CVPR papers will be published in the conference proceedings without mention of the presentation type. You cannot submit your paper to both conferences, this would be in breach of CVPR ethical guidelines, and likely ACM as well.
Regarding impact or prestige, nothing will currently (2020) beat an accepted paper at CVPR, no matter the type of presentation, if you are working in computer vision or deep learning related to computer vision. Having a CVPR paper under your belt would be great for graduate admissions.
That being said, on the flipside this also means that getting your work accepted in CVPR is likely to be much more difficult than to get it accepted at a normal conference. If this is your first submission to any conference, and you are doing most of the work yourself, then I'd wager your chances of getting accepted are in the range of 10-15% (If you submit an average paper that is written reasonably well, of course if your work is really outstanding, then disregard this rough estimate).

poster in top conference vs. Paper in mediocre conference?

Credit for publications is significantly greater than credit for posters, so I'd suggest going for the paper (you could go for the poster too).


Using a software screenshot in a paper When writing a paper which, as an aside, talks about the design of a user interface on a particular piece of software, can one insert a (correctly labeled and referenced) screenshot of the software to help readers understand - or does that cause copyright issues?

For example, I wouldn't use a photo unless I held the copyright, or a diagram - but I'm unsure of the legal position of a screenshot...

If you're displaying the screenshot as part of a paper on user interface, the use of the screenshot will almost certainly fall under "fair use."  Make sure you cite the software properly, and you should be all set.

Generally yes, you're allowed to use screenshots that you create yourself.

Depending on the publisher, they might ask for copyright approvals on the screenshots.

I believe that, as long as you yourself created the screenshot, you're the owner of it (just as if you take a photograph of something, you hold the copyright, not the creator of whatever you're photographing), but this is still, I believe, a legal grey area.

As mentioned, be sure that you provide a proper citation to the software.


Can one prevent a co-author from publishing on arXiv without consent? This is very much related to a previous question I posted here: How can one prevent a co-author from publishing without consent? It is not the same question though.

Consider a situation where a co-author submits a paper without your consent to arXiv. This seems to be more problematic than them submitting it to a journal, because on arXiv it is published (almost) immediately and there does not seem to be an easy way to stop it, and also arXiv does not ask about consent from all co-authors.

It does not seem to be illegal to do this because the co-author has copyright as well and so it seems that legally they could grant a non-exclusive license to share the work. However, it does seem to go against the principles of academic honesty to publish without the consent of all co-authors (and that would include IMHO publication on a non-refereed source like arXiv.)

It does not seem possible to remove papers from the arXiv.

The question is then if there is a way to prevent it beforehand. Assume the co-author is not malicious, but simply a bit slack, so they would be willing to cooperate after it is found out (though if there is a way to prevent even malicious actors from doing this that would be even better).

If it is not possible to prevent it, is it possible to remove one's name from an arXiv article if one does not endorse the paper submitted?

I am aware that the best means is having a good relationship and communication with the co-author in the first place, but I would like to ask what other practical means there are.

To show this is not a completely made-up scenario, here are two examples of papers withdrawn from the arXiv due to this issue: http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.4310v2 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.4296

Once an author has put their work into the public domain, it is very difficult to rescind it. All of the authors still have rights to the works, like attribution or trademark, but not copyright since that was given up as part of uploading to arXiv. So it might be impossible to force arXiv's hand with any legal tool where both of you are co-authors of the works. You do have one option though, but it's not pleasant...

If the co-author claimed joint-ownership over some part of the paper that you can prove (or they will agree) that they do not have rights to, then the works was illegally shared with arXiv, and arXiv have a duty to take it down if you DMCA it. The key is that you have to be sole owner of the copyright, and not shared ownership. Since you never personally signed off on the publication, that should be fairly easy to put forward. I don't know what arXiv says about this though, since their may be a fee for the co-author for retracting the paper - which I suppose you could both share, and i think you should, since arguably you should have done more to prevent a communications error like this ever arising in the first place.

Finally, may i just add, that this would not be illegal, but it would go against the principles of academic honesty...


Should I recommend accepting a manuscript with major revisions because of a strong topic, but quite poor content? I have been given my first manuscript to review for a journal. The topic is a very good one, it fills a research gap nicely and is an area that I specialise in. However, the execution of the paper is lacking. I am about halfway through making comments on it. The English is consistently poor in both spelling and grammar, and the structure is dire, which makes it hard to follow the main arguments. I am aware that bad English is no reason to reject a paper, but the English in this paper is very confused in many places, sometimes multiple times per paragraph, and it's a trial to follow.

I believe that the paper could only be salvageable after a rewrite, but by a third party. I don't believe the author's English is good enough to bring it up to standard. I do not care about being 'kind' to the author, but the topic is so good that I would love to see it go through, but I am torn between accepting it with majors or recommending rejection.  My PhD supervisor has advised me to recommend rejection, but I am still unsure which way to go. Should I recommend acceptance after major revisions in the hope that it will improve based on my [now extensive] advice or just recommend rejection?

Jeff Offutt has a very insightful scheme for calculating the final recommendation based on technical, presentation, and omission grounds (source):

The fields in the matrix correspond to different types of problems:

  Technical Problems
  Minor: Mistakes in background, related work;
  Moderate: Does not affect the key results;
  Major: Changes the key results;
  Critical: Negates the key results.

  Presentation Problems
  Minor: Typos, spelling, grammar;
  Moderate: Make understanding the paper harder  (organization, notation, repeated grammar);
  Major: Prevent understanding of part of the paper;
  Critical: Prevent understanding or evaluating a key result;

  Problems of Omission
  Minor: Omitted background, related work;
  Moderate: Not part of the key results;
  Major: Missing in the key results (proof or experiment,
  lack of control in experiment);
  Critical: Must be in the paper to evaluate the result
  (experimental study, etc) or not enough results.

The source also provides additional information and context.

Based on this scheme, I think the appropriate recommendation in your case would be a major revision.

If the manuscript seems to be technically sound, just because of English you can not reject it.
Different graphical finding can give you the feeling about the good and bad of the work ...

if its good, put up your thoughts on the paper and leave the decision to the editor...

mostly in these cases editors tend to ask authors to give one more look on their manuscript and shares your views with them ...

it would be really ok. the only favour you can do it to keep the tone neutral while suggesting or making comments on the manuscript.