Can I write a paper out of a simple idea? Sometimes I have simple ideas that can be useful. They could be obvious or not, or it is possible that no one ever considered them the way I did.

For example:

To gather information about the statistics of the unemployed in a city or state, I suggest to build a website in which unemployed people register and enter their information. This information is very useful for decisionmakers on unemployment. But, after a while these statistics are not valid. On the other hand, unemployed people are very reluctant to update their employment status via the Internet or they don't have access to it. To solve this problem, we can send an SMS to them and they answer with 1 (as employed) and 0 (as still unemployed), then we integrate these answers to the central database. This way, we have up-to-date information in periods.

The idea was that simple, however maybe no one in our country implemented it. Could it be a paper? If yes, what can it include? Because it is as short as the above. Should I, for example, explain how we integrate the SMSs to the database (however, it may be simple too or the subject of other tools or papers). If I implement the system, should I provide the statistics of unemployment in a city or the percentage who contribute the plan? Totally, I don't know what else such a paper should cover.

For another example, suppose that I am the first one who invented the sliced bread. How long could my paper be and on what would I probably argue?

However it was just an example and after some research I may realize it is not workable, but I should say I actually built the website for an organization in my city one year ago (However not the SMS and updating part), then I was thinking if I can make a paper out of it. Maybe I could use some parts of the real data I gained in such paper, for example the people who registered (which was more than 80% of all the unemployed ranging from 20 to 40 years old) and those who had a cell phone (which was more than 98% of them), this topic shed some lights on my way.

I like papers about simple ideas. (I am writing one right now, hope others like it as well.) They are far easier to communicate and understand than complex ideas.

Then again, the question is why nobody else has thought about an idea if it is all that simple. In your specific example, the idea may not be workable, because people may simply delete the update SMS without replying to it. (And those that do answer may not be representative of your sample as a whole.)

So I would say that writing a paper about a simple idea is good, but it needs to meet the same conditions as any other paper: it needs to show that the idea actually works. An idea by itself is usually not worth an entire paper. Having the idea is often the easy part. Showing that it works is where the actual work happens.

So: Build your website for one city, let it run for six months, then write a paper about what you learned.

How to show that something "works" may well be the hard part. (For instance, in some parts of machine learning it is easy to "show" that a method is better than an established method by testing both on many datasets but then only reporting those on which the proposed method is superior.) Some journals/conferences/reviewers may be more stringent about what they consider proof that something "works". You may be able to get a publication out of a proof of concept by just building the website, without running it productively. Or by running it productively, but without assessing in some way whether the statistics collected by the website are actually more accurate than those collected in some other way. Look at what kinds of papers your target venue or community publishes, and let yourself be guided by that.

EDIT 2016-04-07, about that article based on a simple idea: it turns out that this simple idea (a randomized probability integral transform) was really good. So good, in fact, that multiple people had had the same idea previously, and at least partly independently of each other. Happily enough, a guru in the field pointed this out to me when I circulated a preprint and didn't savage me, but pointed out shortcomings of the rPIT and possible new lines of inquiry. The paper has just been published.

Bottom line: your simple idea may be good, but chances are that those ideas that are both simple and good have already been worked on.

I myself conclude that it follows the same common steps to write any paper, to explain them I directly go to the examples A (SMS to the unemployed) and B (sliced bread)

1) You should first ask  what is the problem? An idea without mentioning a problem is lame.

For A) After awhile the unemployed statistics is not up-to-date and people don't update them for these reasons...

For idea B, some scenarios is possible

1) Many breads is wasted because of the way people buy, store and use them
2) A plan to increase the consumption of bread or jam (It looks like more a business idea? it works if bread and jam company are partners)

2) What is your idea or plan?

For A) Sending periodical SMS to the unemployed to gather short data
For B-1) Sliced bread
For B-2) Sliced bread

3) Then you may ask What is the contribution of this idea to my field of study?

Gathering data about unemployment using SMS, for example, might be a useful contribution to the field of economics (if it is indeed demonstrably better than existing methods), but as currently described it is not likely to be a useful contribution to computer science

4) How does it solve the problem

Description of the idea and the way it works

5) How are you sure? why it is better than other solution?

There could be several ways to show it for A:

Based on the statistics of cell-phone penetration in "the unemployed" their usage pattern, previous researches,  arguments like "Concerning the penetration of cell phones, SMS is a cheap and effective solution to gather periodical and short data..."
Testing the idea in a small city and showing the results

For B: Test it on some families, or better a city

Do they buy it?
Problems with its consumption, (with which foods they can consume it)
Is it have any affect on you or them to consume jam more...
Is the cost for slicing bread compensated?
....


Why is Google Scholar popular in some fields but not in others? In disciplines such as computer science and engineering, Google Scholar is a fundamental tool in not only searching for recent work of a researcher but is also frequently used as a metric for the proficiency of the researcher.

I've noticed in many other fields, e.g. political science, or even math, Google Scholar is not nearly as popular.

Does anyone have any insight into why this is the case? Do these other fields have other tools they use to follow researchers or measure their output? Perhaps these factors are not as important in these other fields?

Math already has an excellent tool, MathSciNet.  And, more importantly, MathSciNet is much more accurate than Google Scholar.

If you are a mathematician, look up yourself in both places and compare!

Probably there are more computer-illiterate people in these fields.


As a student, how much time should I spend helping other students with research? Assume that one has a skill (assume, programming) and is one of the very few in the department to have it. The other students need a bit of this skill for their projects and you help out when you can.

Where do you set the limit for how much effort/time you spend on helping others this way?

Pros:

You get insight into other students' work.
It's a welcome break from our own research
Maybe earns you a second/third author for setting up the experiment
Networking !

Cons:

Effort/Time spent
You don't necessarily improve your skills (For instance, coding in Python for someone else doesn't augment my Python skills by much. What I do might be really routine)
You tend to have a soft commitment towards that project. For instance, if I start working on it as a favour, it doesn't really come off well if I leave 'em midway.

EDIT: I do enjoy the work so long as it is at least a little challenging. I often get really n00bish questions and that is when I start reconsidering my stance on helping people.

You forget one consideration: do you enjoy using that skill? To take your own example, I enjoy programming, and even though I might not learn or get anything technical from it, I enjoy solving someone's else problem with some lines of code :) Of course, one should be careful of the time spent and the reward you can get from it, but doing something you enjoy is very different than doing something you can, but don't particularly enjoy doing.

For instance, I can probably install a server and manage a website (with a CMS) for someone, but I don't enjoy it, so I would be very explicit about the benefit (I do that for you if you do that for me). But I could do some cool coding on my free time.

On a completely different aspect, it also depends if you intend to stay in academia: it's a very small world, and the person you're doing a favor to today might be the one sitting on your tenure committee in 20 years (if you work in the same department and all stay in academia, it's quite likely that your paths will cross again at some point in the future).

One idea: If you could ask the student if it's okay to record your sessions helping them (sort of like what Salman Khan did with Khan Academy), and then maybe save your sessions, then maybe you can then re-run those sessions for later students (so that you won't have to repeat yourself as much, and so that you can always show yourself when you're explaining the concept at your best). That way, you can do that and spend your time giving more personalized instruction to who-ever you're helping.


Is it appropriate to request that the department hire a female faculty member? Our department is currently hiring a new faculty member. At the moment, the faculty gender ratio in our department is very skewed, even for our field. I believe that this has a negative impact on the department environment.

There is general consensus among the grad students on which candidate we support. This candidate is highly qualified in terms of her research and teaching. Moreover, among all the candidates who have visited, she is the only one who has any experience with diversity initiatives and getting underrepresented groups into STEM. This is very important to many of us, especially since the department is planning to add an undergraduate program in the near future.

We are planning to write an open letter to the department in support of this candidate, citing her qualifications as someone who has worked to make science a more inclusive place for women and other underrepresented minorities.

My main question is is whether it is appropriate for us to additionally express our desire for a woman faculty member.

EDIT: Thank you for all of the answers, it certainly gives us a lot to think about. I would like to follow up on a couple things.

When I say something like "we think the department should hire a woman", I don't strictly mean that the next faculty should be a woman regardless of any other factors. Rather, I mean that the department should hire someone who will be able to relate to the issues women face in academia and STEM, and help champion female students in our department. The average woman will be in a better place to do this than the average man, so perhaps I should have been a bit more precise about what I meant in the original post.
While "diversity programs" designed to get underrepresented minorities into stem are discriminatory in the strictest sense of the word, they are in place to address systemic injustices which have existed for a very long time. The hypothetical examples of discriminating against men and women don't account for the fact that many gender/race imbalances in academia exist because of previous institutional discrimination.

the new faculty should be female in order to help address the wildly disproportionate gender ratio in our current faculty.

This is not a good reason. Gender imbalance is fought by educating everybody (males, females and any possible group) equally and hiring the best people, regardless of their gender, not choosing people by gender; that's sexism.

  The candidate that we support is highly qualified in terms of research and teaching. Moreover, among all the candidates who have visited, they are the only one who have any experience with diversity initiatives and getting underrepresented groups into stem. This is very important to many of us, especially since the department is planning to add an undergraduate program in the near future.

These are very good reasons to hire someone, and reasons to be proud being hired for. If I were her, I'd find disrespectful being hired first because I'm a woman and second because of these good reasons.

  We are planning to write an open letter to the department in support of this candidate, citing her qualifications as someone who has worked to make science a more inclusive place for women and other underrepresented minorities.

Again, these may be good points to write in the open letter, but the fact that she's a woman shouldn't matter. She's a great candidate no matter what her gender is.

I find this logic of hiring women because they are women very sexist, towards both men and women. Towards men because they are at a disadvantage, towards women because you're treating them like kids, giving them a preferential route they don't need. Women can clearly be good enough to be hired just for their skills and not for their gender.

Fight for her to be hired if you think she's the best choice. Write the letter and explain why she's the best choice, that she's better than the other candidates because she is better, not because she's a lady.

My main question is is whether it is appropriate for us to additionally express our desire for a woman faculty member.

Let's make it simple: Do express that desire, but put it in a different letter. (And don't send the two together...)

Also, considering the harsh responses you've gotten here, instead of suggesting a sort of a counter-bias, claim that your department currently has a bias which must be corrected. That is, don't sail against the wind, but with it: Counter-bias for women is controversial, but bias in favor of men is unacceptable. Correcting the latter is, in practice, somewhat of the former. I wouldn't make personal accusations in such a letter, but would suggest forming a committee to review and suggest changes to the hiring process.


How can a prospective PhD student assess whether a potential PhD advisor is hands-on or hands-off? Different ways I thought of:

Looking at the size of the potential PhD advisor's lab: e.g., if many (>10) PhD students or post-doc, then likely to be quite hands-off.
Asking current or former members of the potential PhD advisor's lab. (but sometimes it is difficult to establish contact with them and obtain a frank answer, plus that's a bit tedious to do for each potential PhD advisor's lab).
Directly asking the potential PhD advisor but I am unsure whether this is a wise approach as for example if the prospective PhD student is asking the potential PhD advisor whether they are hands-on or hands-off, this could be construed as being too much dependent or independent from the PhD advisor (e.g., a hands-off PhD advisor would typically prefer independent PhD students), which might reduce the chance of being accepted in the PhD program in case of mismatch between the PhD advisor and prospective PhD student.

What could be other techniques for a prospective PhD student assess whether a potential PhD advisor is hands-on or hands-off, preferably without impacting that chance is to be accepted in the PhD program?

Just ask their graduate students.  There’s no reason people won’t be frank about this question, hands-off advisors don’t think being hands-off is a bad thing and vice-versa.

I agree with your methods. I know other techniques:

Check the publication list of the advisor. More than 20 publications per year as last author means that the advisor prioritizes quantity over quality and has no time to be hands-on.
Check the website Labvisor to see if there are any reviews from your potential lab.
Take a look at the advisor's office. If it's a mess it means the advisor has no time to organize it nor to be hands-on.
Ask the potential advisor how is the process to write/author papers. If the advisor just does the final review, that indicates a hands-off approach.
Is the advisor on the board of the Faculty or any other research institute? If so, the advisor has no time to be hands-on.
Check the websites PubPeer and Retraction Watch and see if there are comments on the advisor's papers. Draw your own conclusions.
Is the advisor wearing a lab coat? Then they are hands-on. If they wear a business dress, they might be too busy in meetings. Ask if there is a dress code in the office.
Ask something related to travelling. Is it normal to travel to research partners locations OFTEN as a PhD? To where in the World? Are there many potential conferences to travel to after the pandemic? A lot of travelling means hands-off.
Ask if you should collaborate with their current PhD students or just with the advisor. In the former case, they may be hands-off.
Is your potential advisor a PI? Being PI involve a lot of responsibilities that give no time to be hands-on.

Edit: These might be heuristic "techniques", like indirect questions in a job interview, that can give you a sense of how the potential advisor works. Of course one can not draw 100% certain conclusions from them. But some of these insights might be confirmed by some PhD candidates' experiences. What do you think?


How do advisors typically apply pressure on PhD students to get work done? I tend to get much work done when some external force (a teacher) applies pressure. Skills such as speed reading and rapid writing come to me only while working under pressure. Also, sometimes the best solutions only come to me immediately before deadlines. I am interested in starting a PhD, but nervous that there will be long stretches where I will not have to submit progress or there might not be much pressure for me to get work done.

Do students working towards a PhD thesis typically face frequent deadlines and pressure in the form of specific targets? How do advisors typically apply pressure to their PhD students?

I am interested in starting a PhD, but nervous that there will be long stretches where I will not have to submit progress or there might not be much pressure for me to get work done.

Congratulations for having identified one of the major differences between research projects on the PhD level and earlier levels even before starting a PhD! In my opinion, dealing with problems on your own and without real pressure for weeks ore maybe even months is really a characteristic feature of PhD research. One of the competences which you should acquire before the PhD degree is to go through such phases successfully.

That said, there's of course different types of support (or pressure, if you prefer to call it so) from your supervisor and your fellow researchers, mostly your supervisor's group or collaboration partners.

Your supervisor may ask you or suggest to submit a paper to a specific conference, which has a submission deadline.
You may be involved in a collaboration project, where regular meetings with project partners take place, and a presentation of the latest results will be expected.
A third-party funded project may require regular reports on research results, which you may be asked to provide if you work on that project or a related topic.
Many groups have regular meetings where people discuss their latest research results. You'll be expected to contribute some results of yours from time to time.

But of course, how much pressure is built up by such expectations varies from place to place.
Also, a difference to undergraduate research or coursework is that consequences usually do not come immediately if you fail to "deliver", but will only be visible on the long run, over the course of one or two years maybe.

Generally, I'd say that a young supervisor with a growing group will put more pressure on you to deliver research results than a more established researcher with a large group, because the young supervisor depends more on your results for his own progress, and should have more time to work with you closely.

Also, the group you're involved in matters a lot, because discussion with colleagues stimulates research ideas, and also puts you into a mode of "having to deliver something". Check a potential group for jointly authored publications (not only PhD student + supervisor) to get a feeling for how active it is in terms of collaboration. The latter point is especially important for a large group with an established senior supervisor.

Don't bother. You will be wasting your time and others, and possible stopping someone more deserving from the getting opportunity of a lifetime. I expect someone with or aiming for a PhD to be telling me what needs to be done, not expecting me to tell them.

The whole point of having a higher level certificate is not to prove that you can be taught, it is to prove that you can learn and you can work. As an employer, I want someone that I can present with a problem and get back a solution. If I have to stand over your shoulder asking "have you done it yet?" then you wont enjoy my company, and I certainly wont enjoy yours.

---- edit to address some of the comments below ----

I was being deliberately harsh but not (intentionally) insulting, I apologise for any offence taken. I did not criticise the OP for his or her self-organisation, only their self motivation, and it is this I am hoping they will re-evaluate. In academia, as in commerce, it is expected that a junior will have to be told what to do, and that a senior will already know and be getting on with it. This is often the most useful distinguishing feature between them. I would expect a PhD candidate to be a senior, or one their way to becoming one, but I accept that opinions can differ.
I do not understand how the certificate of achievement can be considered as anything other then a significant accomplishment. In industry, I do not much care what subject you have mastered as it is unlikely to be relevant, and extremely unlikely that I will be able to ask you meaningful questions on it, but I do care that you have mastered a subject, and I will want to know how you solved problems and approached difficulties. For it is that ability to overcome obstacles in the pursuit of knowledge the makes you a master in the eyes of your peers.

To the original poster, I suggest you find a way to internalise those external pressures you say you need. Whether it is your diary or your professional pride that is applying the pressure, you need to find a way to keep focused and keep working when you are bored, tired, distracted and/or frustrated. When not only is no one pushing you, but when people are telling you that you are wasting your time, wasting their time, that you are wrong or that you have already failed.


What to do about top students making other students lose confidence? About once a year, I end up with a section with a student who is well ahead of others in the course. Often, these are students auditing the course, but sometimes are senior students attending 100-level courses or students majoring in the subject attending a course for non-majors in a made-simpler-for-non-majors course.

Such students are often eager to learn, quick to volunteer to come to the board or volunteer their work for peers to check (e.g. in a writing course), active in discussions, and they tend to take charge of group work. This does not seem like behavior I should discourage. Yet, in such sections, I notice significantly reduced confidence, participation, and engagement among other students, who seem uncomfortable with having a strong student constantly outdo them. Other sections tend to have active lessons, with many students eager to volunteer or join in a discussion, but in these sections, the class atmosphere is quiet and I'm reduced to calling on names and getting unwilling participants to carry the course along.

What can I do to turn this situation around?

When I was a TA, I always found these types of students the most difficult to handle.  You don't want to crush their enthusiasm, but you also don't want to let them dominate and make it harder for other students to learn. It's also important to remember that just being way out ahead of other students doesn't cause this phenomenon: you're dealing with somebody who is both ahead and feels a need either to show off or to receive affirmation from you the instructor.

Some tactics that I found effective were:

Establishing clear ground rules that people had to raise their hands to be acknowledged, rather than just shouting out.  Then you need to become comfortable waiting long enough for other students to raise their hands too.
Saying things like "Everybody needs a chance to learn, so I'm going to make sure that we get some folks up to the board who haven't been there very often."
Rather than asking for volunteers, actively calling on students who have been silent.  It's embarrassing for them, but if you do it kindly and make it into a guided learning experience at the board rather than a test of their abilities, it can be a very good thing.
Privately discussing with the enthusiastic student, something like: "I'm very pleased at how well you're mastering the material, and I need to make sure other students have a chance to have the same learning opportunities, so I'm going to call on you less often."
Giving "extra credit" work that the enthusiastic student can be working on to occupy themselves.

In all cases, what you want to emphasize is the importance of active learning by participation, and how it's important for all students to have those opportunities.

Addendum: I was talking about this with my wife and she told me about a tactic that she uses that I think is another excellent addition to the toolkit:

Divide the class up into rough geographic zones and call on zones round robin, e.g. "Left side answered the last question.  Let's get an answer from the middle now."

College students realize that there will always be someone more knowledgeable out there. They know there are going to be people that are majors, retakers, old serious adults, or students with genius parents. If you want to get your other students to participate then just randomly call on people whether they raise their hands or not. Tell them to pick group leaders by rock paper scissors.


Voice too "authoritative?" As part of my graduate program, I am required to give presentations to a group of attendees and a program panel about various topics including but not limited to research, involvement, and case studies.

The audience pays attention but rarely ask questions. A survey was released about my effectiveness as a lecturer and nearly 65% of attendees stated my voice was "too authoritative."  A common problem was my voice being authoritative and causing the audience to be too timid to ask serious questions related to the topic. Talking in an "enthusiastic" tone (in my own opinion) yielded no results. My voice is very deep and, in order to project well, I tend to speak loudly (no microphones).

What are some tactics to get the attendees engaged and not appear "too authoritative?"

EDIT:

Let me add some details that I find relevant that I missed adding. The survey is handed out as attendees walk in. Between each lecturer there is a 10 minute "intermission" to allow attendees to exit or enter. The attendees are required to hand in surveys as they leave. The uni hosting the lecture combines common themes among the surveys. It is unknown how similarities are determined except to the staff reviewing the surveys. The results are then emailed to the lecturer with good and bad things about the lecture. I am then required to email to my supervisor.

The solution will depend on what the survey respondents meant by "too authoritative". For example, it might mean any of the following:

your talk is pitched at too high a level, so people feel dumb when
they don't understand, and are too intimidated to ask questions
your style is argumentative
one or two people did ask questions, which you didn't answer clearly
your style is pompous
you sound overconfident
you state your opinions as fact
...and so on

I assume the survey was confidential, so you can't go back to people and ask them what they meant. So I suggest you ask a few colleagues who are good speakers what they think you need to improve on.

  My voice is very deep and, in order to project well, I tend to speak
  loudly (no microphones).

A deep (low-pitched, bass-y) voice projects farther than a high voice. You may simply be speaking too loudly for the room.

Based on experience, I would say that it is making sure that the statements do not excessively utilize a large amount of jargon that is relevant to a specific discipline. The reason that jargon comes across as authoritative is because it usually is within the domain of a specific group of people (and of course, not all people have access to the terminology either due to lack of knowledge i.e. a broad understanding of the discipline.)


Do Springer, IEEE, Elsevier charge a fee for non-open-access journals? My PhD advisor and lab colleagues think that Springer, IEEE and Elsevier journals non-open-access charge authors for publishing a paper. (They usually only publish in local journals.) All the info I've found points to the contrary (except for "gold" open access journals, which do charge authors), but all I've found are people commenting on particular journals saying that they do not charge.

Nonetheless, I've found very few journals that explicitly say "submission and publication is free of charge". For example, JAIR mentions that there aren't any submission fees, but does not mention publication fees.  Frontiers of Computer Science does not mention charges at all in their instructions for authors.

I'm sorry if it's a stupid question, but I can't for the life of me find any definitive yes/no information online. (I don't have a concrete journal in mind since this all started because we are looking for one, but it'd have to be a machine learning/artificial intelligence journal.)
Do Springer, IEEE and Elsevier journals generally charge an author fee for their non-open-access journals? It may include submission fees or post-acceptance fees as well as page or figure charges.

I agree with the other answers, but they are anecdotal, and you asked for some "definitive" answers to help you convince your colleagues and advisor. Here's what I found:
IEEE
None of the IEEE journals has a required charge for non-open access publications.
The publication FAQ says:

For a detailed listing of paper charges by publication, download the List of Voluntary and Overlength Paper Charges (PDF, 287 KB).

Here is the current version of that list. You will note that some journals have voluntary "sustaining" charges for "normal-length" manuscripts. In fact, IEEE policy specifically states that those charges are not obligatory:

IEEE Policy 6.9 permits some types of periodicals to levy page charges. If your publication is one of these, it is your company or institution, not you, which is being asked for support. Payment is not obligatory nor is it a prerequisite for publication.

In the statement above "page charges" refers only to charges for not-open, not-overlength, not-color-print articles. Many IEEE publications do have "overlength" page charges, which are mandatory - if your paper exceeds the "normal" length then you must either reduce the length of your paper or pay the overlength charges. The length of a "normal" paper depends on the journal and publication type (normal-length "letters" may be as short as 1 or 2 pages, for example.)  Some also have charges for color figures appearing in print, although there is no charge for online-only color.
More definitive info is available for each journal in the IEEE Xplore site, at the "About Journal" page, section "Author Resources", link "Additional Information", which opens a PDF with detailed "Information for Authors" (see an example).
(The document also does not include the recently added IEEE open access options, which do have required charges, which are listed here.)
Springer
The Springer author FAQ asks

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO PUBLISH IN A SPRINGER JOURNAL?

The answer there is:

For the majority of Springer journals, publishing an article is free of charge.

If a journal requires page charges, you will find them on the journal's springer.com homepage or in its Instructions for Authors.
Charges might apply e.g. for color figures or over-length articles. The information on these extra costs will also be available from the journal's homepage or its Instructions for Authors.
Charges for open access articles: If you choose to publish an open access article ("Springer Open Choice" article or in a "SpringerOpen" journal), there will be an Article Processing Charge (APC) to be paid by the author. As a consequence, the article can be freely read, downloaded or distributed from SpringerOpen.com and SpringerLink.com by any internet user.

Furthermore, even for open-access journals, Springer advises:

SpringerOpen journals routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries; and individual waiver requests are considered on the grounds of hardship on a case-by-case basis.

Another Springer FAQ titled Why publish with Springer? claims:

Page charges do not exist.

which I think is as close to "definitive" as you can get.
Elsevier
Some Elsevier journals do have author charges, and by searching the Elsevier site I did find a (very) few non-open journals with required page charges.  I did not find any in CS with author charges, though.
The official policy I found is:

I am submitting my paper to one of your journals. How do I find out if there are page charges associated with this journal?
Page charges are journal specific. Many journals do not have page charges for submitted papers.
To determine whether the journal to which you are submitting has page charges, you will need to find the homepage for the journal and check it's specific submission instructions.

So if you're looking for a definitive "No page charges," Elsevier is not the answer.  In practice, however, there are literally only a handful of non-open Elsevier journals that charge author fees.

http://www.editorialmanager.com/homepage/DOCS/Author_Tutorial.pdf

Starting on page 35 of this pdf, this Springer journal details how there is a fee for paper submission ($75 charge for members; $100 charge for non-members) and the paper will not be forwarded to the editorial office until the payment has cleared. Additionally, there are other charges when they go to production (e.g., $50 per page for the first 5 pages, $35 per page for pages 6-10, $20 per page for 11+ pages).

I find this very odd as I've never had a journal request payment to submit or publish a paper.


Is it ethical to use proprietary (closed-source) software for scientific computation? I have data from an ordinary scientific experiment. Now, in order to analyse the data, the most convenient way for me is to use some proprietary, closed-source software.

Is it ethical to use such kind of software in research?

If do use it then this part will be a big black-box in my research. So if someone cannot reproduce my data analysis with the same or with some other software, then it depends on the mercy of the software company if we can find out what went wrong. If the software company does not want to cooperate, then what went wrong might never be found out. I have the feeling that this opposes the principles of science.

I do not think that this is an ethical question in the first place. Reproducibility is not harmed by the requirement that money needs to be spent on buying software or setting up an experiment (or are there open-source particle accelerators?).

While open source solutions are preferable for many reasons, there are clearly cases where using some proprietary software P is appropriate:

When it is known (and has been verified) that P's implementation of method M is correct while the known open-source implementations of M have not (yet) been established as reliable. Conversely, when open-source implementation O is known to give correct results whereas for P this has not been established, then clearly O should be used when there is a choice.
When one can reasonably expect that P is widely available in research institutions (and thus to researchers), like for example certain mathematical / computational packages.
When P allows for a much more (time-/resource-)efficient execution of experiments.
When P is a software package needed anyway to extract / process data from a big-ticket instrument.

Note that I am assuming that P can actually be bought by anyone. If P is not commercially available but rather a closed-source in-house solution then an open-source package is preferable.

It should not matter.  Most but not all scientific calculators calculate sines the same way.  Do you know how your calculator calculates sines?

Some free software is simply inferior.  A specific example is OpenOffice.  As wonderful as it is it fails at some tasks that Microsoft Office handles with aplomb and doesn't even attempt others.

What if I use a Hewlett-Packard gas chromotograph because it's the only one I've ever used and someone else gets different results using another brand?  Am I responsible?


Mathematics journal publishing colour diagrams for free I have a paper with colour diagrams that I wouldn't like to convert to grayscale for publication. I think colour greatly helps to understand some complicated patterns. I know most journals accept colour pictures upon payment, but I'm not willing to pay for letting others publish my own work and get benefit out of it. Forum Mathematicum is a nice journal which publishes colour pictures for free, but I recently published a paper there and wouldn't like to repeat. Do you know of any other nice options? The paper is on algebraic topology bordering with quantum algebra.

I would recommend you to publish on arXiv.org (http://arxiv.org). It's a very solid online publication outlet, free, open access and especially popular in mathematics and other hard science disciplines. Liberal guidelines with no mentioning of restrictions in terms of color.


Ethics: donation link on github repository for an academic side project I'm a grad student in the United States with a strong programming background in a field where most people have very little programming experience. A while ago a faculty member I know requested my help; they were working on a manuscript for an analytical framework with major applications, but needed someone to implement it in software because it addresses very computationally difficult problems. By creating a somewhat performant proof-of-concept to go with the manuscript, and contributing to the manuscript in other ways, I got to be a coauthor, and it was published in a very high-tier journal. I then developed a complete software package that has been published under my account on Github, and then we published it as a software note with me as the first author in another pretty decent journal.
Currently, I'm the sole developer of the software. It's fairly complex and unlikely I'll be able to find someone that could pick it up. I still like to maintain it and add features to it because it has cool applications and I want to see it be used and be successful. The problem is, writing and maintaining good software (which my field desperately needs, and is what I would like to do career-wise) is very time consuming, and it's harder to justify taking time away from other things to keep it going now that the manuscripts (e.g., more tangible rewards) have been attained. I was thinking of adding a donation link to the bottom of the main page on github for the project as a way for people to show their support for the project. As a grad student, even a little bit of extra income (and I know enough about funding in the open-source community to not set my expectations high) would be a huge help, and would make it easier for me to justify spending my personal time on it.
The question is, are there any ethical concerns with doing so? I mainly did it as a favor and a way to get my name on some good publications, so it is an academic project in that sense. With that said, it was done in my personal time without university resources.

It is ethically acceptable to ask people to give you money when they are receiving nothing in return.  The fact that the request is on a Github repository, or that it is attached to software, or that it is attached to a university project, are not particularly relevant.
You should not use university resources to ask people to give you personally money.  A personal Github account is not a university resource.
Asking for money is unlikely to lead to receiving money.
Before selling anything (like software licenses) you need to check your university policies and see if the university has a legal right to your work.


How to respond to a company that wants specific details on implementation of my PhD research? A company approached me for an interview to explain my work, which has been published as part of my PhD. As I understand from their email, they want to understand my work so that they can use it. However, nowhere in the email they mentioned that I am going to be paid or involved in this project. How would you approach this?

I find this email strange because they are asking me to explain my work and give them information on how to implement it so that they can make money out of it without me having any role in their project. Is this normal? Should I ask to be paid?

It's not normal to work for a company for free, and I'd simply answer something like this:

  Dear X,

  I am glad to know that my PhD work caught your interest. I can
  provide more information under a suitable consultancy contract.

  Kind regards,

  L222

Note: We don't know the content of the company's email and, as some have remarked, the above response might be a bit too sharp, especially if their attitude is not so exploitative as I assumed. A milder approach, which I like, is that outlined in Dan Romik's answer. Since only you can read the email, I strongly encourage you to consider carefully both approaches, regardless of the accumulated votes.

Accept the invitation as "a chance to discuss mutual interests" Find out from them exactly why they are interested. i.e. to define what their problem is. You are trying to find out if there is a match between what they need and what you have done, but you are not going to reveal anything that is not in your thesis, except for incidental stuff. If it emerges that there is a match, remark on that, with whatever degree of enthusiasm you feel is appropriate, and then ask them, so where do we go from here? They are then left to propose some form of collaboration, consultancy or employment and you negotiate from there. In brief, plan how YOU can be in charge of what happens.

Your university probably has rules about much time you can devote/ money you can accept under various arrangements. Become familiar with these before the meeting


One year teaching in India After a short-term period working as a postdoc (same institution where I got my PhD),  and I felt the need for a change and spent the last few months teaching in Italy, where I'm from. I really enjoyed teaching. Now I'm back to applying for postdocs, and in case nothing interesting comes up, my plan is to move to India or somewhere else in Asia together with my girlfriend and work there as teachers. We both have MSc in physics, and we could teach maths and physics up to high school level.

Do you have any advice on how I should approach Asia -- who to contact, where to look, etc.? Any tips would be very helpful.

I have just come back to my home country after an intense experience in Asia, as a postdoc in China. I will give you some advice, and what I heard about India. I had originally considered India as a possible destination as well.

I do not understand much of high-school teaching, and cannot help you there.

The best scenario Asia has to offer at the moment is a combination of personal safety, delicious exotic food, and ample job opportunities. You can expect to be mesmerised daily by traditions and sudden twist in lifestyle, while enjoying an absence of violence and threats; you will get as many interesting job offers as you keep on asking.

However I recommend you to be extremely careful. I was scammed on my salary and welfare conditions by reputed Chinese institutions, as partially discussed in the link below:
Persistent issues with salary pay as a postdoc in China: What can I do?

From what I discussed with many colleagues, similar issues are common in Chinese academia, but are just not openly discussed. And a solid resistance to exposing and discussing problems is a mark of Asian culture, be it in China, Pakistan, India, Japan, which you will be quick to bump into. I heard from Indian nationals that salary scams are not common, but other issues with administration and workmates are routine. (For instance postdoc salaries in India can apparently get delayed for 2-3 months, but eventually they will come; you may expect "informal fees & favours" to get procedures done). I think most of the difficulties I've faced in China would have driven an European nuts, as the cultural impact is so deep. In short, expect to attract a lot of interests in Asia.

Furthermore I recommend you study the destination country you choose very carefully as well, in deciding the region you'll be focusing on. Like China India is such a huge and heterogeneous nation; surely your experience will heavily rely on how you adapt to local standards of where you land. I left Asia with the impression that in the long run it pays better if you focus on 2nd-tier cities instead of heading straight to the more international 1st-tier megalopolises. Expect to learn the local language from start, and complete deprivation from your comfort zone in different spheres.

Finally I warn you about the food and a different concept of hygiene. I am sure you may have heard that some regions in India have a problem with urban chaos and water safety. Almost all foreigners I have known who lived in India for more than a brief stay got seriously sick, typically from some kind of food poisoning. Many could not finally adapt to consistently spicy cuisine. I was never sick in China, and I loved the food.

I believe it will be a great, memorable experience, but I recommend all preparation and precaution you can muster beforehand.


What English expression resembles the German "Tutor"? In Germany, it is common for students to hold “Tutor” positions, which entail a weekly teaching class (e.g., 90 minutes) and the correction of exercise sheets handed in by students.

I would like to list such a position in my CV, which is in English.

What English expression should be used for this type of work? Is teaching assistant suitable?

Firstly, even in Germany there are different word for this. Besides Tutor there is also wissenschaftliche/studentische Hilfskraft, HiWi (short for Hilfswissenschaftler but has apparently different meanings in other contexts) or Übungsgrupperleiter, for example, and the usage of these words may even vary between different parts of the university and their usage among students/faculty/administration is not always consistent.

However, I think the most widely used term in English speaking countries is TA (teaching assistant).

The word Tutor was borrowed from German into English and is just as valid when used in English as when used in German. It means exactly the same thing in both languages.

The reason it does is because prior to adding tutor as a new word to the English language, there existed no English word that carried a definition that closely met the specific nature of the German definition of tutor and since the word was easy to pronounce it was readily adopted into English. In fact, the word tutor is a classic example of the dynamic beauty of the English language as an uncapped, ever expanding language.


Is there any reason to get paper reprints of your articles? Is there any reason to get paper reprints of your articles? Some journals charge for reprints others give them for free. Should I save the trees and not ask for the free ones? Are reprints so important that I should be paying for them?

I guess I should add I have only seen reprints offered in bundles of 100 (maybe 50) and getting 10 does not seem to be possible.

I did it initially so that I would have a nice paper copy of my paper. In principle I could hand these out to my colleagues and other people who were interested in my work.

This is rather out-dated these days. You can just send interested parties a pdf and they can read it on their iPad. Save the trees.

I don't see any reason at all to actually pay for reprints. You have a copy already, right?

Many of these answers look rather unimaginative a few years down the track, and are obviously provided mainly by mathmos and scientists. With the proliferation of digItal and documents circulated by email, your pdf is less likely than ever before to be read. In my experience - having ordered and posted (yes posted) paper offprints - I had a greater response from recipients than if I'd sent a pdf,  which people now routinely ignore. Offprints are handsome and suggest thoughtfulness. Save the electronic copy for your promotion application.


Are TED presentations academically credible? Many people, including myself, are fascinated by TED speakers. They provide us a new perspective. For example, see the TED talk The best stats you've ever seen by Hans Rosling.

However, when I talked about this to an anthropologist, he said that the statistics in this TED talk are unverifiable. He suggested that the speaker doesn't give us his sources, so therefore the talk is no longer a scientific talk. As a result, he suggested, real scientists are clever enough to stay away from these presentations.

Do TED talks have the necessary rigor and foundation to be citable in papers and other "scholarly" publications?

I think you are asking two slightly different questions at the same time:

“Are TED speakers and their ideas credible? (as in "likely to be correct")” I'd say yes, since TED's process for inviting speakers is at least as strict as that of many scientific publications. Most TED speakers are invited to speak at TED because they've become renowned scientists through their peer-reviewed publications.
“Are TED talks scientific (as in "usable to base your own science on")?” Here the answer is definitely "no", for the reasons you mentioned: they lack the information needed to be independently verifiable.

Note that this does not mean that their content is wrong or unscientific; it just means that the talks are incomplete from a scientific point of view, and thus not by themselves verifiable. But most TED presenters will previously have published the findings they present at TED in a regular peer-review scientific publication in a scientific format.

The bottom line is: you should treat TED talks like you should treat Wikipedia: use it to quickly understand new and interesting concepts. But before you actually apply one of these concepts, verify them using scientific literature.

Let us work out the following analogy: TED as a journal, Talk as a published article.

When one meets a questionable article with unverified claims, they may of course doubt the conclusions. A usual thing to do then is to write back to the Journal and raise your concerns to them. The Editor may possibly come back to author inviting them to write an erratum explaining / correcting / substantiating the conclusions of the Paper.  This process is known as "scientific discussion" and is a blood flood of academia.

As long as the Journal maintains and empowers such procedure, I would see it as a completely trustworthy source, despite occasional mistakes and errors in published articles, which are probably inevitable in real life.


How can I find images to use in my thesis that are free/unrestricted by copyright? I need to add some  images to my thesis. I would strongly prefer that these are free (no cost) and not restricted by copyright.  I have used Google Image to find images, I don't know how to determine what the copyright restrictions are, or what license types apply. I will not use them in any published paper, just for my unpublished thesis.

Thanks

P.S. Here are the search options for Google Image:

This depends highly on your countries laws and regulations.

For example: The German copyright laws has some limitations for the use of works in the area of teaching and research.

With the CC licenses you risk less mistakes. But you have to take care of the correct distribution.

name the author and source if the license contains BY.
don't change the file and only use it in the original composition when license contains ND (no derivate).
don't use media with licenses containing NC (not commercial) in a thesis or paper that contributes to (pending) patents. That could be interpreted to be a commercial use.
[changed:] according to the (IANAL-)comments one can use SA (share alike) licensed material without putting your thesis under the same license

In any case, pages that give information about the media-license are good sources, because you mostly have a clear licensing statement for any file. So you can easily decide whether and how to use it. I doubt that an author will change the license later on. You could use a web preservation repository service like WebCite to create evidence that the file had a specific license when you found and decided to use it.

Suggestions for search:

Wikimedia Commons
Flickr (thanks to Henning for the suggestion)

Another royalty free stock image site is: http://www.sxc.hu/

I would also suggest take pictures of your own. You can pose for yourself or ask family or friend.


Very short phd interview presentation in just 2 slides I have been invited for a phd interview and I was asked to prepare a 4 minute presentation with a max of 2 slides only on myself and my research interests. The fact that it's extremely restricted in time and number of slides makes me a bit too anxious. I'm not sure what info I'm expected to present in such a short time and in just 2 slides. Any tips?

They want you to be very specific and very quick, that's fine. That's good.

Slide 1: Who are you? Your academic past, or some other relevant information (e.g. industry experience, if relevant to your future research). That should take about 1 minute.

Slide 2: What are your research interests? Did you do a masters, and if so what is it about, what was the main result? Other things that you'd be interested in doing during your years as a student. Here it's important not to veer too far off course. Especially if you're joining a "pre-defined" program, but showing additional interests is a good thing.

Both of these slides can be set up as bullet points that cover the main sentence from each point, with or without "reveals", up to your preference. And practice with a friend, and with yourself (record and time yourself).

Good luck!

Don't use slides at all. They know your name. They have your resumé. Just talk. Say why you are passionate about the subject you wish to research. Say why your academic achievements qualify you to research it. Make eye contact as you do so.

If you use slides they will distract you from making those key points, and they risk distracting the interview board too. You want them to focus on you not on your slides.

By all means prepare slides that you never show if that helps you plan your talk. But don't show them!


What are the legal and ethical implications of "padding" pay with extra hours to compensate for unpaid work? I have come into a strange position and could greatly use some advice on how I should proceed. I am an undergraduate student at an American university in a computer engineering program. For the last several months, I have been hired as a student developer working for the university. However due to HR issues I have been working without any compensation. (I have so far worked over 300 hours for the university without pay.)

However last week they have finally got around to filling out the HR paperwork to officially hire me. My immediate boss feels bad about me working all this time and wants to "make it up". He has suggested doing this by going and "padding my pay" by a few hours each week until the time is covered. However I have been told to not let anyone else know or there will be trouble for it. This feels very shady and I am really struggling over whether this is something that is acceptable or not to do.

I know the thing that most people are likely to comment on is “Why the world did you not just quit?” The reason for this is really twofold. The position is a really nice one, I am able to be doing development work to help build up my resume and pay for school as a freshman student. The second being that I really do need the money from the position to help pay for school, and I was told throughout the entire process that I would start being payed “Just next week”.

I understand that they probably were just taking advantage of my ignorance (this is my first job), but has anyone ever had any experience like this where they can give advice on how I should proceed? (Or if the suggested method of padding hours is acceptable?) I’m told that “People do it all the time”, but also being told “don’t tell anyone” just makes it seem somewhat suspicious.

Any advice that could be provided would be greatly appreciated. (Particularly concerning the legality and ethics of the situation.)

This question was originally posted on https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/78016/working-without-compensation-what-to-do
but as they said academics tends to look differently on "under the table" dealings, they recommended I try to post it here for a better answers.

Note that this answer is culture-dependant and my experiences will probably not fit directly with the situation in an American university, which you described to be enrolled in. However, the answer can help understand situations in which the described inofficial arrangements can work out, and also outlines why your situation is rather different from those.

As far as I know, it is very common to pad payment as described for smaller student jobs, so in the end the actual work hours and the actually received sum of payment match. Reasons include:

University administration/HR departments tend to be (considerably) less spontaneous than what is sometimes required for fulfilling certain research-related tasks. This can become particularly discriminatory towards foreign students, as they might have to wait for documents from other agencies outside of the university (e.g. the agency responsible for foreigners in the respective jurisdiction).
Workload created by ongoing research is by no means balanced in any way.
The time available to students is not balanced in any way.
In contrast to the two above points, student work contracts are often not sophisticated enough to account for that variation. They assume a uniform workload such as n hours a week.

Evidently, these issues can create a severe discrepancy between what is confirmed on paper (e.g. "4 hours a week for 3 months starting in July") and what both parties directly involved in the research want to agree upon to their mutual satisfaction (also with respect to not impeding the student's studying). Hence, it seems, distributing actual work hours differently to what the contract says is a way to counteract the negative effects of bureaucracy both towards research projects and the preferences of the people involved, and therefore not ethically problematic.

However, all of these arrangements usually work because they are conducted by people who responsibly handle the relatively large inofficial leeway. In your particular situation, I do see some warning signs that your superiors might not belong to that group, which indeed evokes the question “Why the world did you not just quit?” for me:

There was no clear agreement between your superior and you about the inofficial arrangement before it started. It seems your superior 'feels bad about [you] working all this time and wants to "make it up"' as late as you have been working for a considerable number of hours.
Your superior apparently did nothing to change things earlier. The contractual definition of work hours is, among other things, meant as a protection for the employee from negative side-effects (working too much; having too little time for studying; ...). It can seem justified to bend the rules for the reasons described above, but then the responsibility to protect the employee is passed on to the employer's "manual control". When they learn your officially paid hours are not just behind the actual working time by a week or two, but that no payment is in sight yet, it is up to your superior to tell you to pause working and to try and influence HR themselves.
Rather than knowing more or less the deviation between what the contract says and what actually happens, you were repeatedly told you 'would start being payed “Just next week”'. While it may have been HR telling you that, this should have been another reason for your superior to suspend the inofficial arrangement for the time being, because obviously it cannot be implemented within parameters known to both of you (given that the parameter of how long you will actually have to wait was totally unknown).

As a final remark, you say you "have been told to not let anyone else know or there will be trouble for it". It is not quite clear how this request was phrased and what is meant by "trouble", or especially, who the "trouble" would be directed at. If this is meant to be "trouble" for you you are right to consider this quite shady, as apparently, your superior is not going to take responsibility for the arrangement1 on the off-chance that anyone complains, and maybe also that the number of hours you amassed is substantial enough that someone might indeed bother to investigate.

1: At the very least, by describing the arrangement as a way to retroactively make up for the due payment the student missed due to unforeseen administrative issues. IANAL, but while probably a violation of procedures of some kind, it seems unlikely anyone would bother to create consequences as there is no tangible damage if the student is paid for the worked time eventually.

If you do it then for sure you need to not tell anyone. If you keep it just between you and your supervisor then you could probably get away with it.

The problem is that slight chance you don't get away with it. You would likely get kicked out of school, possible criminal charges, and they may ask for the money back.  If your supervisor fessed up and said he was in on it then not likely they would file criminal charges but if he throws you under the bus then you could be facing criminal charges.

Ask for another way to make up for that time.


Is it appropriate for an undergrad student to ask a professor to sign a non-disclosure agreement? Allow me to first give some context.  A friend and I have been discussing a business idea involving a technical device that I need some guidance on how to perfect.  My friend just told me he is taking a class with a professor that founded a company with a device similar, but distinctly different from mine, and I would love to talk to him about this during his office hours.  If he is willing to share I would like to ask about how his device works.  I would also like to ask him how to do a few of the things I am struggling with.  Before I tell him all the details of my idea, I would like to somehow protect my idea, since I do not know this professor at all.

So, I am asking all the academics out there, how would you feel if a student asked you to sign a non-disclosure agreement given these circumstances?

I don't understand most of the current answers, which mostly assume you want technical advice without paying for it, but requiring an NDA. If this is indeed what you want, I agree it's a bad idea.

However.

You write that this professor has already gone into business. This implies that he has a certain basic understanding of how business works. He probably has signed his fair share of NDAs, as well as requiring others to sign his.

It appears perfectly reasonable for you (or your friend) to set up a short meeting with this professor, say of 30 minutes or so. Quickly present your idea in a rather general manner, in an "elevator pitch" - at least outlining what problem you want to solve. Think beforehand how much you are comfortable revealing. Tell him that you'd like his advice, and be frank that you are not comfortable giving full details without protection for your intellectual property. (I'd also look for protection if I knew this professor, not only if he were unknown.)

Have a proposal ready for possible next steps, which would include him signing an NDA and his investing a little time for a discussion. Ask him explicitly what he'd expect from you in return for investing his time. Professors are busy people, and more so if they run a company on the side.

You may actually have a good chance that he'd be happy to mentor you to a limited extent pro bono - most academics are idealists at heart, otherwise they would be in industry from the very beginning. However, if you want more in-depth advice, be prepared to offer hourly rates, possibly conditional on your idea getting off the ground.

Always keep in mind that professors are busy, just as are other businesspeople. Don't come with a mindset that you are entitled to advice, but ask politely, and things may go well. If this professor is active in a similar line of business as you are, this may be a very good opportunity - he may have contacts in the industry and/or to funders that may very well be invaluable.

I think asking the professor to sign an NDA is fine, using the approach written by Stephan.

However, I think a better solution would be to have a meeting to determine whether the professor has the expertise needed, then offer to hire the professor as a consultant if she's willing.

Tell the professor up front that the meeting is about consulting on a project for your business.  During the meeting, keep the discussion focused on questions about the professor's knowledge and experiences.

If the professor is interested, a NDA would be the next step.  After the NDA is properly executed, get all the project specifications and pitfalls (even potential pitfalls) out on the table so the professor can make an informed decision about doing the work.

Your consulting contract should include a clause for what happens if the work is not completed, a detailed specification of what is to be delivered, the terms for payment, and an assignment of intellectual property (that is, any work the professor does belongs to your company).  If you don't have cash to pay for the services, consider offering equity.

Please keep in mind that a NDA is a good start, but it isn't a cure-all.  You still have to know if someone breaches it and you have to pay the legal fees to enforce it.

BTW, you can always go out and learn enough to make a prototype, then HIRE an expert to be your Chief Scientist if you still need them later.

Edit:

The OP hasn't formed a company and isn't sure about how to proceed.  This answer would only apply in the case that a company exists and the development direction is relatively clear.


I feel like I got screwed over by my PI? No name on publication I am an undergraduate student working under a PI in a research laboratory. My PI pushed out a paper very recently, and I was not mentioned as an author. My PI did not even notify me that he was going to publish this paper. I can comfortably say, without inflating, that I did roughly 1/6 - 1/5 of the work. 3 out of the 8 figures (quantitative figures, not just bar charts slapped in Excel) in the paper were created by me for past posters at conferences, including code I have written to do some analysis that was used as a tertiary argument/talking point in the discussions section. My PI is not very quantitative, and being a qualitative field of study, I felt like a gem asset as someone who is heavy into maths and code.

When I approached my PI, he said he felt like my work was minimal (!!!) and he would put me on the next paper, seemingly brushing me off in the process....

I understand as an undergraduate I should be appreciative of this opportunity to be in a lab in the first place, but I think it's more than fair to get credit for substance that went directly into a paper.

What can I do?

I will be applying to graduate school soon and I don't want to jump labs as looking inconsistent. This is a topic I'm interested in. I feel like I'm stuck, though.

I'll follow up on my comment, as none of the answers go in this direction, and I don't think you're getting the greatest advice.

  While I have no way of knowing whether this applies to you or not,
  making figures and such might not reach the intellectual contribution
  necessary to be counted as an author. This is why Acknowledgement
  sections exist. Before deciding on how to respond, think about what
  your scientific contribution was.

You may or may not have made a contribution that merits inclusion as an author.  Some labs/PI's are very generous about this, and some are not, but if your work was purely "technical", my own inclination would be to offer Acknowledgement and not authorship.

Generating figures:  scientific illustrators do this every day as a living (less so these days, but they're still around) and don't get authorship.  Photographers too.

Writing code:  this is a little less clear, and probably depends on direct contribution to algorithms.  If you are, for example, writing code that takes the mean and standard deviation and spits them out in a readable format, that's technical.  If you HAD TO UNDERSTAND THE SCIENCE in the paper to write the code, that would push me toward authorship.  If I could hire a contractor who knew nothing of the research to do it, I'd lean toward acknowledgement.

There's a disconnect here between the your perception of the contribution you're making and your PI's perception.  Just because he feels that your scientific contribution was "minimal", that does not mean he doesn't believe your work is valuable.

You might sit down with him and ask if there's any way you can make deeper contributions to his body of work, or if there's a small project you can really make your own.  Another option would be to use the experience you've gained there to apply for summer research opportunities (depending on what year you're in).

Of course, there are curmudgeons who just won't believe that an undergrad can make author-level contributions regardless of the contribution made, and that's unacceptable.  As I said before, from your description I have no way of telling whether you're dealing with someone in this category, or whether your contributions were of a basic technical level that arguably don't merit authorship.

I can say that many moons ago, as an undergrad, I was doing single-unit neural recordings in spinal cords (running electrodes up and down, listening for neural activity), and building electronic lab apparatus that helped with the experiments, and doing histology.  Some of the rasters I generated were used directly in publications.  I didn't consider that authorship level work then, and I still don't, as any technician could have done it, but it was certainly a valuable experience that helped launch my career.  Now, almost 30 years later, I'm still in touch with the PI of the lab (I was working for his postdoc), and he's been a wonderful advocate of mine throughout my career.

Your PI's recommendation, at this point, should be treated as a valuable commodity, and if you negotiate this disconnect with maturity, that letter will be even better.  Also, the experience you gain now will give you something real to talk about during interviews, which is also incredibly valuable.

Directly relevent: What are the minimum contributions required for co-authorship

http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

You have been treated unfair and if you ask me you should look for a different opportunity instead of getting stuck in the same work group for grad school. Switching fields or the work group doesnt necessarily looks inconsistent but can also be considered as a broader array of interests or competences.


Why do American colleges and universities have sports teams? In the USA, college sports are popular, and colleges may offer scholarship based on athletic skills.  Yet, universities spend significant money on sports, and nobody earns as well as the head of the sports team.

Considering that the universities are losing money on it, and it's not their core task, then why do they spend big money on sports?  Who benefits, and how?  Do all major universities have commercialised sports teams, or are there major exceptions of universities choosing not to take part?

Here is one side effect of a university having a famous sports team as mentioned by Federico Poloni in a comment: people know your name. This helps recruit new students, it helps alumni impress potential employers with a degree from somewhere they have heard of! I only know that Boise State University is actually a real university (and as it turns out a pretty good one) because their football field has blue turf.

One feature of American colleges and universities that is easy to forget is that they are often in the middle of nowhere. Pennsylvania State University is in a town named State College. You can guess which came first. So imagine you have thousands of young men and women in a place that is barely a town. What do they do on Saturday afternoon? Some will start organizing teams to play sports and then start going to nearby schools to play their teams. This grew greatly since the old days but the idea that a residential university is partly responsible for providing non-academic activities for their students take part in still exists as a real force. At smaller schools which do not have sports scholarships the sports teams are more about playing because the students enjoy it and it is just part of campus life.

Also at many schools the mission statements include character formation such as "building leadership skills." If this is the case you can actually argue that having some level of athletic competition on campus actually is part of the core mission. Maybe not an absolute vital part but one that contributes to the mission.

I am of course ignoring in large part the money and corruption that is part of the NCAA Division I level of college athletics. Of which there is an extraordinary amount of both.

Most schools, except for d3 schools, break even with their athletic programs. Americans want to be proud of something, that something for colleges is athletics. Most people wouldn't want to go to Harvard if they didn't have a good football team. I helps to bring diversity (age, interests, grades, and money) into colleges.

I'm going to start here with a disclaimer, This is my opinion based on how I think it came about. I have no references except life experience from which to draw this opinion.

To me, sports teams came about because they needed to tire out their students. A large group of young people with nothing to do except study need an outlet. If all they did was sit in their chair and study all day, students would become restless. Restless powder kegs of young people developing world views is not good for stability.  Provide a healthy distraction that keeps people fit and active. If you aren't a member of the teams at least you can go out, get some fresh air, watch and play vicariously.

Sports also provide a method by which people goal oriented can be motivated to remain strong and healthy; similar to Shaolin monks developing their exercises to enable them to stay awake during religious lectures(sounds like college to me).

Once these sports teams were in place, a desire for organization and status essentially lead to formation of leagues and regulations. Arms race capitalism happens and here we are today.

Also, above people mention there are places in Europe, far from everyone else that make due without sports teams. To put some sizes in perspective, Penn State, mentioned above, in the city State College, is in the center of Pennsylvania and surrounded by barely populated farm country. Pennsylvania as a "state"(technically, commonwealth), is literally half the size of the United Kingdom. If you were on that campus back when the school was founded back in the 1850s, there was really nothing to do and no where to go.

my 2 cents, thanks for reading.


How can teaching assistants deal with grade disputes? From the answers to this question, it is clear that TAs in the US are usually responsible for grading students' work.
In my country, most of the TAs face the following challenges:

Students confront TAs and attempt to negotiate for extra marks in order to pass, or to improve a grade;

Students confront TAs and attempt to negotiate for extra marks by using a friend's answers as evidence to support their case;

Students inquire about the subtle methods used in grading: the amount of marks awarded for each step, the reason for a decrease of even 0.5 marks, or they ask to see the solution manual, etc.,

And then these conflicts evolve into personal enmities, which may eventually cause the TA serious consequences (a heated confrontation, loss of students' respect, etc.).
The issue is worst if the assignment's answers are quantitative or mathematical. There is no solution manual and sometimes no way to guarantee consistent and fair marking over a great number of student assignments (even for a single particular question).
So I want to know how TAs in the US—or in other countries—avoid these complications. What are the key techniques?
Note: Some say it's a minor issue. No. It is a major issue and often arises with TAs in my country, where the professor is not involved in the distribution or evaluation of grades.

In the United States, the professor responsible for the course should take responsibility for resolving disputes (but not requests for corrections and clarifications).  There is an expectation that they will be heavily involved in grading, even if the bulk of it is done by teaching assistants.
In some cases, the professor may choose not to involve themselves in grading at all, and leave it up to teaching assistants to resolve disputes.  I do not agree with this practice, but if you are stuck with it, you can handle disputes by:

Using a rubric to grade.
Resolving all disputes using the rubric.
Refusing to compare the work of different students.  In the USA, comparing students' papers runs a risk of violating privacy laws.

Ultimately a portion of students will never agree with you about how you grade (they want to learn something different from what you are expected to teach) and this simply must be tolerated.

One way to resolve this for the instructor to specify that assignment marks will not be reviewed unless there is an obvious error by the marker or a mechanical error in entering or adding the mark, and that all reviews will be done by the instructor once at the end of the term.
The effects of this are:

that students typically stop fighting for fractional marks that have practically 0 impact on the final grade at the end of the term, and
that students do not negotiate with the TA.


Is MRes after MSc redundant to get to PhD? I recently finished a MSc and I was looking for a PhD. I noticed that some positions offer a PhD only through a MRes of 1-2 years, for a total of 4 years.

Does it make sense applying for another master or is it just redundant?

The MRes degree teaches you the basics of how to conduct research and use research methods according to your chosen field. Depending on the field you select, you use different types of research methods and you get a chance to put them in practice. If you choose to do the MRes degree, it will be considered a higher degree than a taught or research based MSc degree, but lower than the MPhil. The MRes would be seen as a good foundation for you to progress to a PhD and produce original output using the research methods that you have learned during your MRes degree.

As an example, in Computer Science, you only need a 1st class honours bachelors to get into the PhD route and you learn which research method you will use whilst on the PhD route.

You are more likely to be able to bypass the MSc if you have a good first degree. Where I did my Ph.D (University College London), it was a requirement that you registered for an M.Phil, than transferred to a Ph.D, but you could do the Ph.D in 3 years. I think the main point was, if you were doing badly, you had a good chance of coming out with an M.Phil, which is essentially a failed Ph.D in many cases - about not all.


My university requires that I take attendance. How should I treat students who arrive late to class? I might soon teach at a university which requires that I record attendance of students, as follows:
Attendance is a requirement for the course. A person with at least 75% of attendance is eligible to take final exams. A person with an attendance between 65% and 75% is required to submit a medical certificate. A person with less than 65% of attendance is not allowed to write the exam and has to do recourse.

As the university has no explicit rules on how attendance should be recorded, I am asking about this.

I studied many courses, and the behaviour of faculty in this particular aspect varies from one another. The following are the behaviours of faculties I observed mostly:

Allowing the latecomer into the class at any time and giving attendance to the latecomer.
Allowing the latecomer into the class at any time, asking a reason for being late, and then giving attendance to the latecomer.
Allowing the latecomer into the class, but giving attendance based on the reason the latecomer gives for being late.
Disallowing the latecomer by closing doors or with strict instruction.

So, I came to the impression that it totally depends on the particular faculty. Mostly I observed 1, 2 and 4. I observed 3 very rarely.

What is the recommended and proper behaviour towards latecomers?

This is an answer to a previous version of the question, where it was not clear that recording attendance was mandatory at the asker’s university. Therefore my answer does not cover the specific situation of the OP, but may still help others in a similar situation.

0)  Allow all students in class and do not monitor attendance.

They are adults and they come to learn. As long as they do not disrupt the class they are free to come and go as they please. I do not see which purpose the monitoring of attendance serves. It sends the wrong signal and focuses students on signing the register sheet rather than on the objective of the class.

I do, however, start each class by thanking students who attend and come in time. Latecomers will miss this part.

This is up to you to decide. You are the teacher. Follow your compass.


Writing a mathematics paper As a sequel to my previous post “ Redundancy of letters of recommendation for scientific and mathematical majors”, I wish to ask a relevant question.

I have been informed that a master’s student of mathematics is not required to have published a paper in order to be admitted to a doctoral institution. However, my applications all experienced rejection so I am trying to write my first paper.

However, my knowledge in mathematics is limited and in a limited time I cannot come up with an impressive result. On the other hand proving a small result and having it published is against my scientific principles, but I think I will finally do it.

Is it possible that a high gpa (19.5 out of 20), a simple published mathematical paper and a good TOEFL grade, but not good letters of recommendation or lack of letters of recommendation will guarantee admission to a top-tier university?

To add to @Buffy’s answer, in all math graduate programs I’m aware of, at least in the US, letters of recommendation are a requirement. So a “lack of letters of recommendation” is actually a guarantee that you will not get admitted. This is not something you can solve by publishing either one “simple” paper, or even many non-simple ones, except in the indirect sense that if you publish many papers then good letters of recommendation are likely to follow more or less automatically.

Keep in mind that this applies to all programs, not just “top-tier” ones.

I am pretty sure the answer is no. There are very few things that can guarantee admission to a top tier school. Some of the things that can get near guarantee a the top of my head,

A faculty willing to work with you.
A very strong research background that admission board can recognize its strength.
Big dollar donations (this is true of undergrad admissions, not exactly sure if it would work in grad. level)

About the last bit, an ex-undergrad. admission official said on camera that it would be 6-7 or even 8 figure donations but sometimes 6 figures + a connection from the school board would do it. I can fish the source if anyone wants it.


Is it possible to work on extra activities (start-up project) during PhD? I am about to get my bachelor degree in computer science. I have applied PhD programs of US universities to earn doctorate degree in computer architecture subject. I kept my hopes high and applied the most of top US schools, but rejected from the most of them (mostly because my GRE, TOEFL grades are not top for these schools, I think). Hopefully I will be admitted some of the schools that I applied.

I know pursuing a PhD and conducting research is not easy, but it is a serious process that requires the one to devote himself or herself to. Luckily I like working on computer architecture and learn about new innovations, techniques, ideas proposed by researchers. I think computer architecture is a field fully open to innovation, research and development. However, at the same time I love spending time on web technologies. I have been developing new applications related with web services, mobile services, social media, content management systems etc.

Do you think would it be really possible to pursue a PhD and simultaneously work on a start-up project?

I am not looking for answers saying that it would be possible as long as you manage your time to work on them both or it is up to your advisor or program etc. I know after some point everything up to you, but I don't know the PhD experience and that's why I am asking this question here.

PS: I hope this question would help others in the sense that it is about the possibility of serious extra activities during PhD process, rather than being an personal issue.

Honestly, my instinct is "no".

Both startups and PhD advance in the same way - the massive influx of effort. And that effort is often unpredictable. Both settings have "crunch time" wherein for the next few weeks, you might as well have dropped off the face of the Earth.

Balancing that is, imo, a very tall order for a human being and will probably result in one of them suffering, falling to the side and getting triaged if you try to split the middle.

That being said, there are paths you can try, particularly if you can manage to either consult for a startup in a way that has structured limits on your time, or manage to link your dissertation to the startup's work enough that your effort counts for double. But as entirely unrelated projects? Its begging to have one fall apart.

It can be great if you learn skills that you can apply in your PhD. Some Universities even encourage it. As long as you communicate this clearly to your professor and still devote enough attention to your PhD it is OK.


After working 10 years in the non-profit sector, will getting a PhD open new doors? I am trying to come up with criteria to decide if I leave my job and start a PhD I was recently offered. One issue is the impact the PhD will have in my career: will it open new doors, will it make me a more attractive candidate to work for the government or the non-profit sector where I have been working for the past 10 years? Or should I just continue working on the issues I already have experience with and a network?

The main reason I am considering the offer is because I love the topic, I have been wondering about it for many many years and I would like to become an expert on it. It will be a big change for me, financially and geographically, as well as socially. PhD students can be very young these days.

The issue isn't your age but what you want to get out of a PhD.

A PhD teaches you how to do research. If you want a job doing research or teaching at the university level, then yes, it might be for you!

For any other type of job, it will probably result in slowing down your career without opening many other doors. In the US, a PhD can take 4-7 years of full-time work with very little pay.

The other possibility is that if you really just love the subject and don't care that it won't increase your salary potential, then it might also be for you.

As already stated above, it depends on what you want to get out of PhD. If you are simply doing it because you are passionate about the topic and don't expect much in return in terms of your career growth then avoid it. You can alternatively read the stuff to have pleasure. It will take a huge period of time and you may end up lagging behind in your career. If you expect some solid career related returns, especially in academics/research then definitely go for it.

Somewhere I heard this "A PhD holder knows too much about too little" !!!!!!!!!!


How to address having been plagiarized by senior scholars without ruining the relationship I recently came across a book written by two senior scholars in my field (anthropology), who cite a paper I published with a colleague two years ago.  They cite us quite favorably and in most places they cite us correctly. However, there are two passages which they have copied verbatim from our paper but without attributing them to us, nor even citing us anywhere on the respective pages.

What should we do about that?  We certainly don't want to ruin our relationship.
What are appropriate steps to be taken?

We have never met the authors in person but been exchanging emails with one of them a few times – all very positive exchanges. He is also supposed to participate in a conference panel with us this year. How to bring it up and what should we expect from them to do?

It is difficult to say if this was intentional or only an oversight - though an improper one. But the fact that they cite you generally, seems to imply sloppiness, not malice. Ask for a correction.

I would simply point out the passages to them and provide them a proper citation for them. Since this is a book, it will likely go through several printings and it may be possible for the future printings to be corrected. Published books often come with an errata page, usually online these days.

You don't need to make accusations, just point out the correction.

If you get a poor response from the authors, then try to contact the publisher, starting with just the same information and request.

But if you get a favorable response, then thank them and, if you desire, say positive things about their work and point again to your own. From a bad situation it might turn in to a good one. But that assumes good will.

Since you do not supervise these senior scholars and you did not coauthor the plagiarism, you are under no obligation to do anything.


How to handle plagiarism on method that does not affect outcome results when reviewing a paper? I was reviewing a paper related to my field (computational fluid dynamics) a while ago and, while reading a part of the methodology section where the numerical scheme and the equations were explained, I had a weird sense of déjà-vu. Regretfully, I found out that the author had plagiarized about three to four paragraph from a paper published two years ago. What was even crazier is that the author had plagiarized me, since the paragraph he had copied were from a paper I actually had previously published, thus explaining the feeling of déjà-vu.

I obviously noted that in my review and in my message to the editor, but I did not reject the paper directly. I acted this way since it was in the methodology section and related to mathematical formulas and really did not affect the outcome of the result. Was I in the wrong? Should such small plagiarism warrant instant rejection or is it sufficient to point them out and let the editor deal with that?

There is no such thing as unimportant plagiarism.  And three to four stolen paragraphs is not small.

You did the right thing to report it to the editor.  But I also would have rejected the paper.  There is no place in academia for academic misconduct.  It certainly shouldn't be published.

I think you should reject it until the plaigiarism is corrected then if all else is good it can then be published.

The correct example should be set - this should be a simple correction for the author.


Author affiliation regarding I completed my master's three months back. Currently, I am writing scientific articles with collobrations in which I use the previous educational affiliation. Is this correct or should I use my current address as affiliation? Please do help me in this regard.

If you aren't still a student (or faculty) you can't use your previous university. But "Independent Researcher" is really enough. Affiliation is there for identification purposes primarily.

But you should probably not  use your current address. It is likely to change and become useless. But it might also attract spammy mails that never go away.

Some might list "none" or "unaffiliated", but "Independent Researcher" seems better to me. It isn't uncommon, actually.