Is it weird to display ads on an academic website? I have never seen (or realized) an example of an academic website which displays ads.
I am thinking of a website not hosted by the institute, but as a personal website, paid by the faculty member.
Does it look weird/unethical/unacceptable if a person uses a service similar to AdSense for their website?

Such a website is itself an ad: for the lab, the lab's research, and for the personnel running/working at the lab.
In many ways, a lab website is like a resume. While it's not unusual for newsletters published by some local org (say, a school, church, youth group, etc) to have local ads to cover publishing costs from the neighborhood dental clinic, grocer, etc, but you wouldn't expect to find these on a resume.
Probably most people are conditioned enough to online ads that they wouldn't even notice them, but if they did it might seem a bit weird, and if they were at all intrusive it would be downright ugly looking and reflect badly on the lab. If I were working in a lab where the PI had a website with ads, I'd be embarrassed by it even though it wasn't my own responsibility. If I was visiting such a site, I might wonder if I've stumbled on some illegitimate content farm site by mistake.
I doubt a typical academic's website gets anywhere near enough traffic to make ads make much sense financially. The cost of potentially putting off a precious visitor doesn't seem worth it to me to pocket a few pennies.
If the site is hosted by the university or with any grant funds for research it is likely illegal or against some terms to make any personal profit off such a site; even if the funds are just used to pay back the site costs it's a gray area that is still probably not allowed. A university could certainly even have a policy on this even if their funds are not directly involved if anything about the website affiliates it with the university, including being an official or pseudo-official website for a lab operating out of that institution.
It's just not worth the potential conflicts from any angle I can see.

A major cause why conspiracy theories, fake news, and bad science is so prolific today, is because it's profitable. The recipe is simple: create a website which pretends to be a newspaper or an academic site. Monitor the current news, and then write an article which states the exact opposite. People will share the "shocking discovery" on social media, their followers will click on it, and then the creator of the site earns money from the ads, especially if they get lucky enough and their article becomes viral.
You really don't want to create the image in your readers that you are operating such a site.


How is a paper with multiple authors usually written? I am attending graduate school this fall and one thing that I still could not wrap around my head is that some of the papers are written by seemingly a group of authors (5 people or more). I am curious how this is usually done.

Are each person assigned a small chunk of work and the paper is put together when everyone is done? This raises so many questions such as what if a person doesn't finish his or her part? How do you piece together the paper so that it is coherent throughout (since people may have different perspectives or understanding).

And is there important differences between a paper written by two person and those written by five or more?

I think that this article from the Research Whisperer covers aspects of how multiple authors can collaborate to get a paper done. It is an interesting and quite brief read that I would recommend.

TL;DR version:

One leads the project and the initial drafting with others
contributing to an almost complete draft.
The team splits the work into broad sections for each collaborator, which then draft, combine and revise.
Decide on all the details and each writes its own section with minor final corrections.

From my experience, the first one would be the most common with an almost final version making it to the very senior people in the article.

My field is theoretic Computer Science, and I don't want to speak in behalf of the whole field but personally (and this is probably a very individual) I like collaborations where a lot of the work is done while sitting together throwing ideas to the air and discussing them and then thinking (everyone together) later on solutions or new ideas for problems we encountered then calling everyone again for a followup meeting.

(The writing is a different story, but who cares about it anyway?)


What is the difference between a review paper and a research paper? I have been working on a review paper. After publication, how will it add on my academic research profile? When I will apply for MS or PHD admission, will it count as publication?

A review paper is likely also known as a "survey paper", where you read (i.e. survey) related works in the field and then comment on them. Usually, a review paper should be able to contribute a small amount of knowledge in its own right to the field by providing a taxonomy of work.

Another type of paper that reviews extensively related work but isn't actually a review paper is a "systematic review paper" in which you usually ask a meta-question about the field.

If it appears in a refereed, peer-reviewed journal, then yes, it is a publication. In fact, if done well, these works can often have pretty high impact and can be cited very frequently. However, as already noted, since they don't usually involve substantial original research they need to be augmented with traditional research papers. If a graduate student has only survey papers or systematic review papers, I'd wonder as a search committee reviewer if this student did nothing but read related work rather than working on research.

With respect to MS or PhD applications, I'd think that the fact that you have a publication at all is already a bonus point for you. Most students who apply to these programs don't have publications.

I would describe a review paper as different from a research paper. A research paper is one's original work that may be researched scientifically or otherwise, but a review paper is where someone goes through work already done/researched and gives suggestions as per that field of research. The suggestions would be if the objective, goal, problem were met by the researcher. Whether the research is of value now or in future, solutions to the problem, what is interesting, etc.


Plagiarism-checker to prevent self-plagiarism I am working on my PhD thesis and have to write a monograph based on my publications. To prevent that I plagiarize myself, I came up with the idea to automatically check my thesis against my publications.

Is there already a tool for this work-flow?

  Input: PDf of thesis and a pile of PDFs;
  Output: annotated PDF of thesis.

Summary:

Make sure you understand the standards of self-plagiarism relevant to your project.
Your institution's LMS likely provides access to an automated plagiarism checker you could use.
Automated plagiarism checkers are imperfect.
Some people think that commercial plagiarism checkers are unethical.

If you haven't already done so, talk to your dissertation committee about their understanding of self-plagiarism. What exactly are they concerned you might do? What are their standards, and are these standards reflective of common standards in your discipline?

Once you know how your committee understands self-plagiarism, talk to the people who administer the learning management system (LMS) at your campus. Many LMSs include access to commercial plagiarism checkers, and many of these services allow teachers or students to upload selected papers to the plagiarism checker's database. (The idea is that the plagiarism checkers allow teachers to check student work against unpublished papers that other students--like roommates or sorority sisters--have submitted in response to the same assignment in a different section of the course). If you put your publications into the plagiarism checker's database, you should be able to use the plagiarism checker to identify potential self-plagiarism.

HOWEVER, automated plagiarism checkers are imperfect. Whichever one you use, it will probably flag some stuff that isn't really plagiarism, and it might miss some stuff that is. The automated checker should supplement your own judgment, not replace it.

Finally, some people think that commercial plagiarism checkers are unethical because they collect papers and make money off of them without paying the authors. The courts have ruled that it's fair use, but you should at least know that the issue exists.

Use Mendeley while doing your edit and make use of its robust functionalities which will prevent most plagiarism as it helps in annotations.


Professor put me in cc when sending recommendation letter to college I am applying to? As the title says, I received an email yesterday, presumably I am in Cc of the email that my professor wrote to the university I am applying to. In my understanding there is always some mystery about the letters. But what exactly is the norm here? Does anyone care?

It is becoming more widely accepted that people have the right to be aware which information is kept on them by various organisations, to request access to this information and in some cases to request this information to be deleted (see e.g. FOI for UK, GDPR for EU). So by cc'ing you in, you professor acknowledged your right to access the same information about yourself that (s)he is sharing with the third party.

No, it does not reduce your chances — it is perfectly reasonable for professor  to show the recommendation letter to the candidate, if they wanted to, and in some places it is even required.

I would say NO, it does not reduce your chances.
Why would you think it would?
A letter of recommendation is no secret.
Even though it seems from the comments you were in BCC (so nobody can know).

Maybe think about it this way: You have certain qualities or capabilities. You professor obviously thinks that these qualify you for what ever he is recommending you. So there are no secrets anyway. You and your professor knew your capabilities and now the receiving party knows as well. It should not be a surprise to anyone, that you know why you are recommended.


"The Immigration Reform and Control Act" (IRCA) for EU applicants I'm a European Union citizen living in EU and applying for an assistant professorship position in US. The application form asks the question

  For purposes of compliance with The Immigration Reform and Control Act, are you legally eligible for employment in the United States?

I know too little about U.S. immigration laws, and the text of the mentioned act looks complete gibberish to me. Could anyone say what the standard answer to this question would be and why?

Remark: this question is formally different from the one stated in a question on general eligibility (first, here the context is a particular legislation act with its own terminology, second, there the question contains "presently", and, third, there no answer refers to IRCA explicitly). In law matters, this difference may be important.

As far as I know, these clauses in application forms, are there for legal and nominal reasons only. The university is legally obliged by law to put this clause. This does not mean the committee will actually take this into consideration, and my experience is that they don't.

You should thus write that you are not eligible to work currently in the US, as indeed you are not. But this should not constitute a cause for concern.

The IRCA basically lays out what is required to establish that immigrants are able to work in the US. The question is unclear for foreign citizens: until they arrive with the appropriate visa, they are unable to work legally in the US. So you might want to check if they mean that you'd be eligible for a visa, or if you already have one.


How do you deal with your Rate My Professor ratings? I recently saw my ratings on RateMyProfessor.com and it's very disheartening to see all the negative reviews from a course for which I worked so hard. Comments like "sh***y professor" are very difficult to accept. How do you all deal with it? Also, how much does it impact one's career? It's taking a toll on my mental health for sure.

I am not a professor. Perhaps it would be useful to you to understand this from a student's perspective. I am a PhD candidate and did my undergrad at the same school I'm in the PhD program for. This has given me some unique insight into the difference between what is put on a review, and the actual person (one of whom I work with closely) in reality.
RateMyProfessor encourages extremely harsh reviews. From a professor's perspective this is simply noise in the channel.
As a student RateMyProfessor became virtually worthless after I got through the middle of my undergraduate courses. Early undergraduate courses tended to be a grab-bag of instructors and professors. Some of them not even in the same field they are teaching. You will find that as course numbers increase and topic becomes specific (implying higher difficulty) the ratings skew heavily to the negative. The conclusion here, I think, is obvious. Student's want easy grades. But the explanation for that is not simply "students are lazy". As a student I didn't really get time to enjoy my classes. In order to graduate in 4 years I had to stay focused entirely on two goals: (1) minimize time spent studying (because I had several classes to worry about as well as a part time job) and (2) maximize my grade. I got out of my CS program with a 3.7 GPA which given that I took several hard classes really amounted to a mixture of actual work ethic, careful selection of professor, and time management.
You might say "well that's quite contrary to what I'd expect of a PhD-worthy undergraduate!" given that I am a PhD candidate. But truth be told, it wasn't until my last semester of undergrad when my course load was low that I really got to enjoy my classes for what they were. Until then, it was simply a game. Optimize the parameters of the equation whose solution is your graduation. The crushing weight of both expectation (get a good job) and retaking classes costing significantly more money made this equation my single greatest concern. Though you didn't say you were in the US I am speaking from a US standpoint. This is absolutely a consequence of extremely high prices for classes (where failure isn't a financial option), the unspoken requirement of a college degree for a good job, and the time crunch to get into industry to make some actual money.
Knowing this, take these things with a grain of salt. Know that especially if you are teaching undergraduate courses your students are adversarial. You could be a bad teacher, that is certainly a possibility, but more likely you have screwed up their solution to the equation required to graduate. Keep this in mind and seriously evaulate whether you are a measurably bad professor or you are teaching a hard subject and students who misinterpreted your presentation (as in you, personally) are upset you screwed up the game they are playing.

I think the only way you could counter this is for you to produce a few introdutory video productions of what you are teaching and post them online or YouTube , that way students who have seen your bad reviews have an opportunity to make up their own minds


Where did I lose control of my studies? I am a 5th MSc semester mathematics student at a local German university. Since fall, I have been working on my thesis, which is the only remaining task for finishing my studies.

I had not had particular difficulties during my studies, apart from the usual struggling and doubts I suppose every student undergoes: before my masters studies, I had spent 7 semesters at another university on two BScs in physics and mathematics. I am paid by a public scholarship. I had decided to change the university for my master's half for personal reasons and half in order to have a greater choice in courses held. My average score is 1.5 at the moment, which also had been my final score for the two BScs.

Now that I have started my thesis, nearly everything has changed: I am working with a professor whose courses I took several of, all with good grades, so she did not object to supervising my thesis. Although I have not had severe problems with my studies before, I am getting nowhere with my work now:

For understanding a single paper I am supposed to work on I sometimes need weeks, let alone the questions posed to me to think on, which I sometimes spend weeks without any serious results I could present. I have the impression that I am lacking creativity, intuition and a sufficient knowledge which I think I should have acquainted during my courses.

My problems have driven me into particular personal problems: I have lost contact with most of my former colleagues I used to spend every weekend with, partially because they seem to have lost interest in spending time with me, and partially because my mind is governed by thinking of my inferior scientific performance and the conviction no one wants to have to do with such a poor student. I cannot enjoy leisure time since I permanently have to think of the open problems that haven't worked out over a long time. I cannot claim to have chosen a university where I am competing with the best.

For 1½ months I have been taking antidepressives and having psychotherapy, which barely helps to soften the biggest peaks of auto-aggression and contemplating self-harm, but have not yet helped me to find another view on what I'm doing.

TL;DR

Although my university performance seemed sufficient for me not to worry much about it, starting working on my master's thesis has revealed a vast lack of mathematical knowledge and poor mathematical working capabilities. The longer I work on it, the more I lose any self-esteem.

Question: Where should I have foreseen my problems? Which signs did I ignore? Where did I miss to put things on the right track? And: how shall I find value in myself, now that I have found myself incapable of pursuing research, and have lost everything else?

Nothing you've described sounds like a serious academic problem.  Taking weeks to understand a paper, and working on a problem for weeks without results, are entirely normal in research mathematics.  And there is always a large gap between what you learn in coursework and what you need for research.

Trying to get better by just working harder or longer can be counterproductive.  It is important to spend time on other things, even when you feel like you're way behind.

Clearly you have some problems with mental health right now.  I'm not qualified to advise you on that, but it's good that you're getting professional help, and it's only been 1.5 months - such issues don't usually get "cured" as quickly as that.  Even if it takes time to get better and delays your academic progress, that's not a major problem.  Academia works on very long timescales and several months of low productivity is nothing in the big picture.

At the end of the day, maybe you'll decide you just don't like doing mathematics research.  That's okay too, there are lots of other things you can do with your life.  Math is particularly difficult in this regard, in that math coursework has a very different flavor from doing research (exercises with short elegant solutions, versus long messy problems with awkward solutions that only accomplish half of what you really want).  Liking coursework is not necessarily a good indication of the same for research, so a lot of people do leave the field at this stage.  Again, there is nothing wrong with that.

Professional mathematicians tend to be people who really do enjoy doing mathematics research, and they tend to describe the work in terms that make it sound like it is inherently enjoyable and anyone that doesn't like it must be broken somehow.  But that's not true.  If you get better and discover that you enjoy it, great.  If not, that's great too.

I have spent lot of time in research projects. So what you are going through is completely normal. As it is research, you need to go through lot of material, digest them and wrap your head around them and then spend lot of thinking time to apply them to your context. There will be lots of ups and downs, failures, restarts, feelings of inadequacy when you are unable to think through. You need to accept this as part and parcel of doing research.

How I coped with this? When doubts came, I reminded myself that people saw something in me which made them accept me for such work. The more time you spend doubting yourself, the less time you have to think with clarity on your actual work. Secondly, I consumed myself with reading - the more I realized I didn't know, the more I read.The more doubts I had, the more I experimented. That way I found so many ways of not doing something. The process of elimination leads to the right way. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. Thirdly, I spent some time doing what I liked whenever I had any mental block.

Research is overwhelming but as you have been accepted for it, that itself is a great affirmation that you can do it. My advice is avoid the pitfall of negative thinking and promise yourself that you will not waste a single minute entertaining thoughts which are not related to your research.


Accused of copying code for autograded assignment I'm an undergraduate studying computer science at a local community college. Currently, I'm enrolled in an intro computer programming class that I unfortunately am unable to test out of (I asked my advisor). It is the prerequisite to the OOP class at my college (the class that AP Computer science would transfer to), which I took four years ago as a freshman in high school. I have already taken data structures and algorithms and am presently taking discrete math. The point being, I have very little to learn from this class. Last night, I received an email from my professor saying that my code on a recent assignment was identical to the solution in the textbook.
I will admit that I did search to find the answer code because:

The autograde is extremely bad and requires spaces and other punctuation to be identical, all while not telling you what is wrong unless you look closely. It runs a series of units tests and compares the text output.
Again, I won't learn from this class, so I'm not hurting myself by not properly learning
The tests are worth 80% of the score, and I have been doing those fairly, so anything I do on the assignments will have little affect on my grade.
The problems are incredibly fake and are nothing like the real world problems I engage in at work.

Generally, I've been searching to find a solution to a similar problem and then editing it until the autograde accepts it (so what I'm copying serves as a template to save time). In this case, I stumbled upon what turned out to be the actual answers.
So technically I did copy the answers, but it was not me attempting to get out of work that I would actually learn from or need to do to pass the tests. I am very frustrated with how awful this class is and please note I would not do this for any other class.
What I am not sure of is what to do now. I already have received a zero for that week's work (a tiny percentage of my grade) so I could go forward as if nothing had happened and ignore the remaining assignments (each week is about 55% easy work that I have been doing, 45% horrible labs that I often skip) and end up with about 85% on the course assuming my future test scores represent those in the past.
Looking at the academic policy on the syllabus, as my first offense I will likely not see any other actions against me, but I don't want my professor to think I am a cheater. I have never cheated in any class and I don't consider what I did in this case to be a problem (I would argue it breaks the letter, but not the spirit, of the rules). How should I respond to this and go forward?

Honestly, your best course of action is to apologize to the professor, admitting your fault and vowing to do better in the future. You can beg weakness and panic, but don't try to justify it to them or others. Such an apology is best made in person, possibly impossible now, and embarrassing, but it adds an extra element that you understand the error.
If you learn from your mistakes you are becoming a better person. But if you refuse to learn, others will cease to respect you, with long term consequences.
But by stepping forward with an apology you might assure the professor that you understand the issues, in which case they won't feel quite the need to watch your every future step with a jaundiced eye.
You screwed up. Own it. People aren't perfect. We can learn, however.

I would suggest to just bite the bullet for that small assignment and be careful in future ones. If your CC has a page where students can leave reviews of courses, considering leaving a review of this course describing your professor's actions to make future students aware.


How to ask for reference from a non-academic acquaintance? I have a non-academic acquaintance who is at a senior position in the telecom industry. He might have good links in academia. I am thinking to ask him for suggesting or referring me to his contacts in academia for a post-doctoral position. I do not want any favor based on nepotism or anything like that, just a chance of getting my CV noticed.

I am confused about it being ethical or not. Maybe I am being too eager.

How can I approach my acquaintance about this without giving 'him' the feeling that I want his favor or that I want to use his name?

PS. It is about North American institutes.

How can I approach my acquaintance about this without giving 'him' the feeling that I want his favor or that I want to use his name?

You do want his favor and name, but that's fine: If he helps, then he is doing so because he wants to.

You ask nicely, and by wanting his name to push your cv forward you want his favor and support.

So, realise what you are asking and respect that.


Can non-reviewers influence the decision about a paper in a program committee? In a Program Committee (PC), can PC members non assigned to a paper still have a look at it and make comments influencing the decision, assuming that the reviewing system allow them to access the papers and the reviews?

If they only make a comment, should this comment be sent to the authors (EasyChair, for instance, does not forward the comments to authors)? For instance, consider the case where a PC member thinks that an important reference is missing, regardless of the overall quality of the paper, what should she/he do? Add a comment? Ask to be assigned as a reviewer?

In theoretical computer science conferences (which often use EasyChair), I have seen the following practices:

Once all reviews are in, PC chairs often encourage all PC members to comment on all papers on which they have something useful to say.
Sometimes the comments are just discussion that may influence the final decision in borderline cases.
Sometimes the assigned reviewers modify their reviews based on the comments (e.g., they realised that they overlooked some important point).
Sometimes the PC chairs ask some of the assigned reviewers to incorporate the comments in their reviews.
Sometimes the PC chairs ask non-reviewers to convert their comments to (short) reviews.

Reviewer A asks colleague B who's not a reviewer to give his opinion on a paragraph because B has more knowledge about the specifics of that paragraph, then incorporates that feedback in his review.
Just one example of how it could happen.
Or Reviewer A knowing full well that his boss, manager B, won't like a review being critical of the work of prominent person C, so he decides to recommend strongly such criticism be deleted in order to keep his boss happy and his job secure.
Could happen too.

Are both going to show up on a review of the review process? Highly unlikely. Are both plausible scenarios based on human nature, even if not part of the review process? Highly likely.


How do really talented people in academia think about people who are less capable than them? To be more specific, how do really top professors think about students who are much less smart than them, the students can be their Ph.D. students or just students who were taking his/her class.

This is a main problem I am concerned about when I have something I don't understand, and because of this, I am often hesitant to ask my professors or other friends, because I am afraid that they would look down upon me and think I am too stupid/useless/incapable, etc?

Can someone who know this give me some advice to overcome this unhealthy attitude?

I wouldn't say I'm a 'top' professor - hopefully someday, heh - but here's my take on it.

I couldn't care less how 'smart' my students are or aren't. It's tough to quantify, and different people have different strengths, and it's easy to mistake knowledge/experience for intelligence. At any rate I feel that my job is the opposite of competing with my students in any respect. I want to help them do well in (class/research/etc.) and find it all interesting and rewarding.

I always urge my students to ask me for help if need be, because:

I do try to explain things well and clearly, but I don't always know if it totally gets across
All of my students are different in a gazillion respects, meaning that they're not all going to understand the same things easily
Providing extra assistance is part of my job!

I tell my undergrads that someone who has gotten an A in my class and gotten lots of help from me deserves that A exactly as much as someone who has gotten an A in my class with no help. Everyone is entitled to my assistance, even on a weekly basis or whatever. I don't think poorly of students who request extra assistance. The course is meant to have my students learn a thing or two; if they're a bit confused, I'm more than happy to clarify. The students I worry about the most are the ones who could benefit from extra help - which all of my students are permitted to seek whenever they'd like - but who haven't sought it out!

The only students I actually get at all impatient with are the ones who show indisputable signs of dishonesty or implausible excuse-making or picking on classmates or whatnot. Those ones irritate me. The rest are a joy, whether or not they seek extra help.

How long is the professor's career in the field? Decades?

How long is the student's career in the field? Years?

The true top professor (teacher, mentor) knows about this difference and take it to the account. They expect the student to know less than them and assess the student's performance with respect to the expected knowledge rather than their knowledge. Bad professors (teachers) use their (long gathered) knowledge to outclass people with shorter (time to gather the) knowledge.

Some students are slow to connect informations they are given. That does not make them dull. Some students tend to miss or forget some links. That does not make them dull either. True question is whether the student is interested in deeper knowledge of the subject.

If you want to be sure your ideas are true; if you want to know more you must ask.

You may think the question is dull (for the professor). But he may think of the question as "they are asking for A, because they do not know about B and C (are rlative to A) yet." And the response won't be "How do yo dare to ask that", but "That is good question" instead.


Should I publish in a journal that appears on Beall’s list? I have written an article in the field of Information Systems and I would like to publish it in a journal. I downloaded the Scimago journal rank, and decided to publish in a journal called Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology. This journal appears to be in the quartile Q3 of Scimago, but one thing that caught my attention is that they publish three volumes per month. Each accepted submission must pay a cost of 300 USD.

When I was searching for the reputation of this journal, I found that it is listed in the famous or infamous Beall’s list. My questions are:

Why does this journal appear on Scimago if it is a predatory one?
Would it be a good idea to publish in it?

Beall's list is grounds for high suspicion, not a ban.  In the case of this particular journal, it looks like not a very good journal, but not an obvious scam.  Google Scholar finds a number of articles with moderate citations, and on first inspection they don't look like metric gaming, so it looks like it wouldn't be a black mark on one's record.

Bottom line: probably legit, but if you've done good work isn't there somewhere better than you can publish it?

Legit journals charge open access fees to make your article available in order to get more citations. My University has $3000 dlls a year grant for open access publications, it is cheaper to our university to pay fees than having to subscribe to paid journals. JATIT is legit, I have published few articles there, it is also listed in the Australian ERA Journal list. It is indexed by Scopus that is the minimum standard for credible journals. JATIT is a low ranked journal but credible enough. To those people that ask why should we pay money for a low ranked journal, the issue is time, many journals take two years to get something published while JATIT can get your publication published in 3 to 6 months. Many of us are on a time clock for tenure and cannot afford to wait 3 years for a publication so we rather pay. Also, we need citations and low ranked closed access journal generates hardly any citation.

In few words, JATIT is OK but I wouldn't bank only on this journal to get tenure. It is fine to have few articles from this low-ranked journal but you need better to be considered a credible researcher.

Our University does not use Beall's list, the main criteria for evaluation is indexed by SCOPUS at least but preferably by ISI Thompson rueters. The Beall list is very biased, JATIT is in Pakistan so anything that comes from India, Pakistan, China, etc., that charges money goes to this list right away disregarding indexes, impact factors, etc.


Can I share my results published results/research on my personal website or Medium blog post? Is it OK to share my results on Medium blog post or my personal website when I have signed a copyright form with IEEE or IET?

In the paper submission, I only shared the method and results. But I want to share the exact codes that I used to produce the result. Will it violate the copyright?

The second question is if I publish my result on my blog post before submitting my paper, will it cause any trouble with the reviewers or reviewing process?

In most cases, yes you can, but you should ask your university if they have rules regarding hosting on websites/blogs with research products. Some places for example require that such a site is university hosted, can not be hosted abroad etc.

Should you do it? Absolutely, with the proviso that you should publish your paper first, or together with the code. With scientific results becoming more and more complex, it is often necessary to have access to various codes, for the purpose of reproduction. If your code is useful, it can also be quite profitable in terms of citations - remember to require people to cite your paper when they use your code.
Note that there are several journals (depending on your field) that actually specialize in publishing manuals for such public codes. CPC is a prominent example for physics (https://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-physics-communications)

Can you - probably yes but may depend on what you signed with your institution.

Should you - no - peer review exists for a reason, and also if you make your results public how can you then produce a paper from them - especially if someone else publishes a paper based on your results. so you can make the code available after publishing your paper...

Edit: Buffy said it best in one comment below: Exploit your work first then publish the background.


Why are most scientific articles locked behind a paywall? Can someone give me a legitimate, convincing argument as to why scientific papers should be locked behind subscriptions and paywalls? That unless you happen to be on a campus, you can't get view a manuscript without paying an often extortionate amount?

Once upon a time, before the internet existed, the only way to distribute scientific content to a worldwide audience was through print. There are obvious costs related to printed publications such as paper, ink, printing, distribution, etc. Commercial publishing houses were established, which took care of this task, as well as the editing, the type-setting, organizing the review process (mind that the reviewers are typically not paid, but they still have to be found, contacted, etc, and all of that also costs money in a pre-internet era).

Many of these commercial scientific journals gained a certain reputation over time, and it became attractive for scientists to try to publish in the highest valued journals. For the publishers it was (and is) attractive to maintain the journal's reputation (e.g. expressed in its impact factor, etc), in order to attract an abundance of high quality manuscripts, select the best ones, and keep a large audience.

This was (and to a large extent still is) the status quo when the internet arose. This is also basically the answer to your question.

Now with the internet, it is perfectly possible to reach a large worldwide audience without the costs of printed journals (e.g. ArXiv). Also, peer review could be organized in an alternative manner. However, the commercial publishers have a lot of interest in keeping the old business model alive, as it is the source of their revenue.

So why are things largely as they were 50 years ago? There are a couple of reasons for this. For one, there is the absence of a platform that fully replaces the ring of scientific journals, including a reliable peer review process (or accepted alternative). Furthermore, people tend to do what they are used to doing in the past, and senior researchers (the ones who take the decisions) are used to publish in the traditional venues, and teach the juniors to do the same. Lastly, many researchers are (at least partially) evaluated with respect to the reputation of the venues they publish in, which keeps the old and established journals alive.

Additional info about the quality criterion for selecting a journal to publish in:

The universe of open journals is being polluted by the many vanity presses, to the point that the term "open journal" is starting to become disreputable.   I get ads for open journals that promise to review a submission in 2 weeks!

Other factoids:

Some commercial publishers allow the authors to pay to make their papers open.

The US government is pressuring researchers to make their papers open, regardless of publishing venue.


Can faculty do research during a labor strike? At an institution where the faculty are unionized, I imagine that they could, in principle, go on strike. Presumably this would involve a halt to all teaching and service activities.

But what about research?

I see many potential problems here:

Many faculty have obligations to federal or other funding agencies that cannot be lightly set aside.
Some experiments may run for years and even a few days' interruption
could be disastrous.
Grant deadlines could be missed, again potentially causing devastating interruptions in a research program.
How far would a prohibition on research go? Is sitting and reading papers in your living room considered to be crossing the picket lines?

I'm sure others can think of other problems.

Frankly, I don't want anyone telling me when or where I can work and if a faculty union is going to do that, I'd be very reluctant to participate. I would hate to be caught in the untenable position where I must either be a scab, or I must stop thinking about the work that is so central to my life's purpose. I'd be very interested in hearing any insights that those at unionized schools might have.

Consider the following FAQ from West Chester University discussing the possibility of a strike:

  Will the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education universities, includingWest Chester University close if a strike is called?
  No. The universities will remain open if a faculty strike is called. By law, individual faculty members have the right to decline to participate in a strike called by the union so individual classes could still be held.

and at University of Northern British Columbia:

  I am doing research as part of my degree. Will I be able to continue during a strike?
  It depends. Some research may be allowed under the terms negotiated at the start of job action. Also, anyone may cross a picket line during a strike unless the Administration declares a lockout (in which case nobody is allowed in). You should discuss this with your supervisor.

  How will a strike impact the delivery of supplies, reagents, enzymes,
  etc.? During the 72 hours prior to the start of job action, the
  parties negotiate “essential services,” that is those things that are
  deemed essential. In general, anything not declared an essential
  service would be impacted, which would probably include most
  deliveries. You should discuss this with your supervisor.

And a report about the University of Puerto Rico (admittedly, this is a student-led strike):

  Since the University of Puerto Rico strike began, faculty and students have only had intermittent access to its labs. Even when they are allowed to enter, they are working with dwindling supplies of some chemicals and other research materials. Closed campuses mean new shipments cannot be delivered.

These suggest, in a formal capacity, some research might still be able to take place, either from crossing the picket line, or from negotiations for research that is time sensitive (for example, many biology experiments which must be monitored, changed at certain intervals, etc.) but that they may certainly suffer during long strikes.

Beyond that, one imagines that it's impossible to faculty not to do "research" in the more expansive sense of the word, as occasionally that involves idly musing on a subject, and there's no reason to suspect that faculty would stop thinking about their life's work during a strike. Rather, it's far more likely to impact classes.

I think you cannot avoid taking a side here, because inaction is also a statement.

To me it seems that you see yourself not as part of the university, but merely attached to it -- as long as they provide resources and no better offer comes along, you will continue to work there, but you don't want to get involved any further than that.

This is not a healthy relationship with an employer, though -- it means that there is no communication about working conditions. That others saw the need for a strike is a clear sign that this communication has broken down university-wide.

This strike is going to determine your working environment for years to come, which is going to affect your research far more than a few skipped days.


Post-graduate publication, adviser is not in my field I finished my PhD degree last year. I had a bad experience with my adviser over the 4 years. He treated me like a technician. He used the data I collected and analyzed to publish with his post-doc in a top journal. They just put "personal communication" in the paper when they used my analytical method. Then, my name was under the acknowledgement section. I even never be communicated regarding of their manuscript producing process. I found it out based on randomly reading papers online.

In addition, he insulted me when I was in his lab. He tried to threat me for rescheduling my wedding date.

Now, my adviser pretend nothing happened in the past. He keeps chasing me for publishing one of my PhD chapters with him. I have a full-time job now. I just keep ignoring his emails. However, one of my committee member told me that he has been bugged by my adviser for my latest information. He wants me to talk to my adviser even I don't want to publish with him.

Could anyone give me advice?

Thanks.

Option A:  Blow him off.  You did your Ph.D.  You're done.  Work for your current employer and to feed your family.  The academic rat race is not your concern.  And it's not even like this guy cares about the science being lost. He just wants another sticker on his helmet (pub count).

Option B:  Tell him "what's in it for me".  Maybe get something out of him, like inclusion as co-author on a review or the like.

Option C: Write it but tell him you will be the communicating author, you're in charge and not interested in edits from him and he can just ride along for a pub count (maybe a little gentler stated than that, but that is bottom line).

When I was in this situation, I went with option C.  But I actually cared about the science getting out and had the paper ready to go, no issues.  Also my advisor never messed with my text (I never had an edit from him on previous papers).  [And even in this case, it only came after a year or two of the guy, sitting, before he came back and agreed to my terms.]

I would probably go with C for you. But make it clear to him who is in charge.  Some of these professors are not used to grad students that take them on.

You probably will never get satisfaction on the previous slight, but if you tell the guy "I wasn't happy with how you handled X.  That is behind us.  But I have to evaluate if I can trust you going forward before doing any work on Y." maybe he toes the line.  He may not, so then put him in deep freeze.

I can't promise you a great outcome.  But I do know if you don't sometimes stand up for yourself people will take advantage.

If your job is taking all your time, you don't have to publish again - that is your choice.

Have you explained all the circumstances with your "committee member"? If not, that may, at least, explain to them the "real" or at least, your view of the situation.

If you do decide, after due deliberation, to collaborate and publish a further paper, then you need to set out a "cast iron" set of parameters such as you will be "first author", you will be the point of contact, etc etc AND have this agreed with the advisor and your friendly committee member. You will also need to include what happens if the advisor pulls the "change of direction" stunt on the paper to relegate you to a footnote while still using your data...

But, imho, is that all worth it?


Retracting CS (conference) papers Suppose you learn of a confirmed fundamental error in a CS conference paper (for a reputable conference) that smells of gross negligence. Is there any way to get it retracted? Whenever I've asked, people told me that CS conferences don't do that—and I've surely never seen it for PL conferences (though this paper is on algorithms).

While we can't talk specifics, please assume I've already done all the due diligence to confirm the error, down to getting the authors to confirm it.

I understand such errors won't kill people directly as errors in life sciences could, but I'm still concerned. Maybe a more serious version of https://xkcd.com/386/, but still.

The specific case

Years ago (around 2009) I've confirmed the flaw with other experts of the field (let's call them A), who confirmed it with the authors of the paper (let's call them B). I was just an undergrad and not working in the field, so I didn't participate in the conversation. This paper is still cited years later by the authors (as a "preliminary version") without mentioning the error—though a later paper citing it changes a key equation and (maybe) fixes the problem.

*Those experts avoided publicizing the flaw out of professional courtesy—making enemies of the author would allegedly have risked hurting their publication chances. However, they (had to) go as far as citing the paper without mentioning issues in follow-up work. Out of respect, I hence won't mention even the subfield of algorithms or the conference.

I'm also outside of the field—I got involved simply because I was friends with one undergrad doing research with experts A and he just asked me help when he couldn't make sense of the paper by B.

EDIT: I forgot to specify why I say "gross negligence", and I agree that was bad on my part. Here are the neutral facts as best as I can recall them/verify them:

the included pseudocode has a type error in a crucial routine—if you index a matrix you need two indexes, not one. We started investigating because we couldn't make sense of the pseudocode. This was on a second paper specifically about the implementation. EDIT: All 8 accesses to the array in 21 lines have this type error, so it's no typo.
the algorithm fails on the running example. EDIT: by running example here meant the example used throughout the paper. But I rechecked and the offending example is just the 2nd they use.
the paper implements and benchmarks the algorithm it describes against a naive implementation, yet it didn't detect that the algorithm results are (EDIT) incorrect. After you've done 90% of the work, comparing results is pretty easy.

I wouldn't talk about negligence for an error in a correctness proof (which the paper seems to implicitly claim). And maybe the above is not gross negligence in this setting, but it does feel rather sloppy. I'm happy to be corrected though.

EDIT2:

The question starts with "Suppose you learn [of a case that...] smells of gross negligence", then focuses on retraction (not misconduct). You can question that assumption only if no such case exists. I do sketch one example but that's just supporting evidence; the focus of the question cannot be trying the specific case. I'm fine with also discussing this case, but I'm just trying to argue plausibility.
I still think in such a context one should compare expected and actual results, at least once you have implemented both. The guidelines of the German Science Foundation say "good scientific practice includes the following fundamental principles:... consistently and critically questioning all results". Which sounds common sense to me.
I'm sure aware of honest errors (which should also be corrected somehow). Nobody expects all proofs to be error-free and formalized.
Google suggests "negligence" can only be "gross" if it endangers people's life. I'm surely not suggesting that. If that's how it's understood, I apologize for that and amend to negligence.

Correcting errors in conference papers is certainly possible---I have done so myself.

Most reputable peer-reviewed conferences are associated with some sort of society or organization that maintains their archives, e.g., IEEE, ACM, AAAI, and that society will generally have a process for correcting or retracting their conference publications that looks much like their process for correcting or retracting the articles of the journals they maintain.

In many cases, however, a conference paper is superseded by a following journal paper, which effectively becomes the final and archival version.  In this case, while the authors have been less than honest about the flaw in their original paper, the later correction means that adjusting this particular paper in the archive is likely not a critical issue.

Publishing an erratum to a conference paper will be impossible, I expect, because the publisher won't care, if he still exists.

The correct way would have been to mention the error in the later paper and fix it there. And it would have been good style to cease citing the old one afterwards. But I wouldn't regard this as gross scientific misconduct. They are simply pushing their H-index a bit.

Whoever is interested will not trust the original conference paper anyway (which is rarely well-written and complete), especially if there is a later, proper article by the same guys on the same subject. I would read it only to find the differences and errors, which can be very enlightening.


How to approach a student with bad hygiene? I teach engineering at a community college in the US. I currently have a student with very poor hygiene. He stinks pretty badly, has obviously greasy hair, doesn’t change his clothes frequently, and I usually seat him in the back of the room (during exams and labs, when I have power over seating arrangements) so I don’t have to smell his (relatively strong) body odor.

This student has also spoken with a colleague of mine about his low self-esteem. He’s worried that he isn’t making friends, and doesn’t know if the people he hangs out with are hanging out with him because they want something from him (help with classwork) or because they are truly friends.

In my opinion, this student follows me around like a puppy, and he tries too hard to impress people (students and faculty alike). I am a young-ish female faculty member and I try to create very large boundaries, especially with my male students. As an example, he frequently finds the need to explain to me (in way too much detail) why he gets questions wrong on exams (I don’t care, and I don’t need to know, which I’ve told him several times with no success).

So, I would like to mention to this student that his hygiene is off-putting and isn’t helping him out in the friends department. However, because he already follows me around like a puppy dog, I don’t want to encourage any more interaction from him. Additionally, it frankly embarrasses me to have to bring up hygiene issues with somebody in their late teens / early twenties. How can I bring this issue up while still maintaining my boundary as a female faculty member who doesn’t want her male students following her around and asking her for advice all the time?

I was hoping that I would be finished up with this student by now, but I am the only professor who teaches Electrical Engineering courses, so I can’t recommend that he take classes with someone else, or ask another colleague to discuss this with him. He will be taking another of my courses next semester and I don’t personally know any of his other intended professors for next semester to ask them to bring it up.

I think honesty is the best policy.

We had a pupil at school who also had a really bad hygiene issue, his body odor was horrendous. As an example, once another pupil squirted yogurt at him and it got in his hair, it was still there days later!

It turned out he had no sense of smell. A teacher noticed the problem and told him directly 'I think you have a bit of a body odor problem, most people shower every other day' Or words to those effect.

It turned out that he was actually grateful (after the initial embarrassment of course) and to this day his friend will gently remind him if he is a bit smelly.

If you feel a bit uncomfortable saying it directly maybe you could try to find out more about his home life. Surely his parents would tell him to shower more?

There could be a benefit on both sides if you tell him directly, it may make it clearer that you are his teacher and he is the pupil, it will probably reinstate some boundaries and reduce/stop the unwanted interaction.

Obviously I don't recommend saying it in front of anyone and I can see a problem with you calling him into your office alone, but there is bound to be a time when you happen to be alone together such as after class or something. Or you could wait until he brings up the subject about having low self-esteem, you could also have this conversation with your colleague who has previously spoke to him and maybe they could broach the subject with him. But as said above by having the conversation yourself you may eliminate any romantic feelings and reinstate the teacher-pupil relationship.

Also you have to remember that your role as a teacher is to make sure you give every pupil all you can for them to succeed. His poor hygiene is in no doubt holding him back and will do so in the future; can you imagine if he turned up to a interview like this? If he was struggling in class or under-performing on his projects you would pull him to one side and have a word with him, so pulling him to one side and having a word about his hygiene/odor is really no different when you get over the initial embarrassment.

I am going to suggest a different approach. You do not seem to want to tell him that, and in fact you seem to be wanting to distance yourself as much as possible from this student. I am assuming there are other students in your class, female students as well, with whom you may feel more comfortable establishing a closer relationship. You could then try to gather from her (or them) if there is an external problem you are unaware of regarding this student (home situation/homeless/etc.) and deal accordingly.

Alternatively, you could find out if other students may have approached him already regarding this issue, or the student you approach may decide to talk to him.

If the problem is as bad as you are describing, you are most likely not the only one who has noticed this problem, and not the only one who might be bothered by it or looking to talk to him.


Will a paper be retracted if a flaw in released software code invalidates its central idea? Say I have written code that performs a physics calculation. After this, I get a paper published based on the results of the code. In the interest of advancing the progress of science, I upload the code used for the paper on, say, GitHub. I also post a link to my code on GitHub on my website. I do this to facilitate discovery and use of the code by those who are interested in my results. Imagine that someone, in the process of reproducing my results (using the aforementioned code), discovers a flaw in the logic of the code. Correction of this logic flaw leads to invalidation of the central idea of the paper.

Will this lead to retraction?
Will there be any positive gain to me as a result of publishing of the code?

If the main idea in the paper has been invalidated by the correction in the code, you would do well to try to retract the paper yourself. This is just a point of professional ethics. It also protects you in a way from future claims if people don't examine everything thoroughly.

The journal may not be able to actually retract the paper, but might be able to post a note (printed or online) that the paper has a flaw (noted by the author, hopefully).

But others, relying on the original thesis of the paper might be misled in their own work. You really don't want that to happen.

Honesty in science is assumed. Make it so.

You might also be able to publish a better paper, based on the corrected code. Work toward that end.

I do not know much in your field. In computer science (e.g., machine learning), I think no one can ensure the code is 100% correct.

To my point of view, I think two most important things in research are (1) idea and (2) presentation. Once you can clearly convey your idea to your audiences, I think that is the good article, which has its own value. As such, that paper should not be retracted.

However, we need to try our best to ensure all the reported results are correct (to the best of your knowledge) before the submission.


Why do departments fund PhD students instead of postdocs? If I'm not mistaken, most PhD students (at least in the sciences, which is the field I'm most interested in) are funded. They're provided with a stipend, and all tuition fees are waived. In other words, it's effectively a low-paying job for them. My question is, why fund PhD students instead of postdocs?

I'm dismissing the altruistic reason ("we fund PhD students as a service to the community") immediately since it doesn't make sense - presumably if someone is spending money in this fashion, they'd fund need-based scholarships. The only other reason I can think of is that the department wants something out of the PhD students - presumably research output; can't think of anything else - that they think they're getting a good deal on.

Now according to Google, the typical PhD stipend is about $20-25k / year. Meanwhile, the typical postdoc is paid $47k / year. That means that a department can hire approximately one postdoc per two PhD students. To that we can add:

Postdocs have already been trained; PhD students are in training. Postdocs should hit the ground running while PhD students take time to get up to par.
PhD students especially in 5-year programs spend the first couple of years taking courses, i.e. not doing research work.
Postdocs can do other things like supervise Masters students that PhD students can't.
PhD students apparently have a high attrition rate, as high as 50%. Postdocs have been in the business longer, so presumably are also more aware of what they're going into.

It seems more sensible to me that departments should concentrate all funding on postdocs, and leave PhD students to pay for their own education. This is already the case for undergraduate studies. Why do departments continue to fund PhD students?

"I'm dismissing the altruistic reason"

Therein lies one of the biggest problems with your question. I work for a land-grant state university in the U.S. Our mission includes education. It's not an altruistic reason, it's literally why we exist.

The other flaw in your question is assuming that the money to hire these two groups is fungible - it isn't always. For example, there are grant programs where education of graduate students is a major component of what one is supposed to be doing - "we're going to hire a postdoc" is simply a non-alloweable use of funding.

There are some other nice features of graduate students to consider as well:

They're cheaper. While a postdoc is probably more value for complex activities, there are sometimes things that require some expertise, but not a full-blown PhDs worth. Masters and early-stage PhD students are excellent people to conduct literature reviews, field collection, etc.
You can identify promising researchers early. Lets say you see someone in undergraduate courses whose impressed you. If you only recruited postdocs, you're essentially saying "Look me up in 6 to 8 years, I'd love to work with you." If you recruit graduate students, you can usher them into their research career.
You get them for longer. Postdocs are (by and large) transient positions, and much of their time may be taken up by looking (rightly) for another position. In many labs, especially those without long-term technicians, graduate students may actually have more institutional knowledge.

In general, postdocs are expected to be able to write good scientific texts and have some reputation in their field. In particular, they are expected to be able to attract their own funding by writing research/grant proposals.  This is not how it should be: postdocs are good at research and should concentrate on it, "converting coffee into theorems" (or, more generall, money into research)! But this is how it is, and is unlikely to change.


What external funding opportunities are there for American or British students undertaking a PhD in Sweden? Consider an American and/or British (dual) citizen who is currently undertaking a PhD at a Swedish institution.

For instance, in America there are a variety of National Science Foundation fellowships available to graduate students in America.

Possibly, an American could use the Fullbright fellowship to fund their study at the Swedish university they are already at?

Higher education in Sweden is free at the PhD level, and free for EU citizens at any level. It is possible that an American who wants to take a Bachelor/Master level course as part of his PhD studies might need to pay a ~100$ application fee, but that should be it.

PhD here is a full time job, so your living expenses will be well covered by the salary. It also means that you would start the application by finding an open position through university websites, or approaching a potential supervisor to create a new position. Additional scholarships are aimed mostly to cover the tuition fees for students who do need to pay, or to finance brief research collaborations.

The Sweden-America foundation supports Swedish students pursuing higher-level education in the US. Only Swedish citizens are eligible to apply, but you may be able to find additional information at their site, or by contacting them:

http://sweamfo.se/
http://sweamfo.se/lankar-till-externa-stipendieprogram/


Mentioning LGBTQ Identity in Personal Statement for PhD Applications I'm currently applying to grad school to do a PhD in physics in the United States. I would really like to mention in the personal history statement/diversity statement essays: 1) the work I did in my undergrad to create a safe, informal community for other LGBTQ students in my department and 2) how it's a future goal of mine to be an openly gay professor (having an out-and-proud academic role model would have been very valuable to me, even though that may sound ridiculous*).

Is it prudent to mention my orientation in these essays? Or am I just asking for trouble?

My identity is very important to me as is the work I have done/plan to do to make academia a more accepting environment, but at the same time, I am scared that I will be risking my chances of getting into grad school by mentioning what's still considered a very 'controversial' issue by many people. Hope this question is appropriate for this forum, and thank you in advance!

(Edit 11/25) Note these statements are not the statement of purpose (which is entirely academic) but rather extra essays requested in addition to the statement of purpose. UC Irvine gave advice here about these essays as:

  Write about your contribution to diversity in your Personal History Statement or Diversity Statement of the graduate application, if there is one. If there is no Personal Statement or Diversity Statement, then include a paragraph about your contribution to diversity and diversity activity in your Statement of Purpose.
  If appropriate, briefly explain what obstacles you have had to overcome and how
  that shapes what you aspire to do in your future career. This has been found to be an accurate measure of future success, dubbed grit.
  Describe any contributions to increasing diversity in the Personal History
  Statement or Diversity Statement. Discuss specific things you may have done
  (mentoring, tutoring, Physics or Astronomy Club president, etc.) that have acted to broaden the participation of women, minorities or other underrepresented groups.You could also discuss what you would do at the institution you are applying to improve equity and inclusion there; for example, start a graduate women in physics group or lead outreach events. Be sure to read up on what programs already exist at that institution.

*To explain just one example of why it would be useful to have an out instructor, I was subjected to explicitly homophobic criticism by one instructor at my undergraduate institution. I did not complain because I did not know whom I could trust, but if there had been an instructor who was out/even out as an LGBT-supporter/ally, I would have felt comfortable complaining about the harassment.

Edit (in response to revised question):

In light of the revised question, this sounds like exactly the sort of thing they are asking for, so yes feel free to talk about L, G, B, T, Q and X.  However, my guess is that whatever you write here won't make too much of a difference (as long as you don't make yourself sound crazy or anything), for the same reasons I indicated in my original answer.

Original Answer Below (where it sounded like this was about a personal statement):

Unless they are asking specifically for you to address diversity issues, I don't think it matters much what you say about LGBTQ issues in your personal statement, as it has nothing to do with physics.  Note: depending on the department and admissions committee, the statement of purpose may be important or not important (e.g., Why do admissions committees consider the Statement of Purpose to be important? and How important is the statement of purpose in a PhD application for admission to a top school in the US?).

What I look for in a statement of purpose (in math, which I imagine is similar to physics) is basically what I look for in the rest of the application: your preparation for grad school, your talent and work ethic, your interests/fit with our program.  Though it also helps to get a sense of your personality (so it's not good, e.g., if you sound like a crackpot).

I don't think the issues mentioned in your question reflect too much on these things.  On the other hand, I don't think it will hurt your application if you want to briefly mention at least (1) and possibly (2) if you can weave them in naturally, but these things shouldn't be the focus of your personal statement, as they say nothing about why you want to go to grad school.  (Certainly your CV is a suitable place for (1), so it can make it onto your application there.)  Academia is relatively LGBTQ friendly in my experience.  However, we don't want to know your whole life story on your application, just the part of your story related to (in your case) Physics.

Sexual orientation should be your personal issue. Let's be professional.  Your personal identity should not be an exception from the current positions. And furthermore, how being an openly gay professor is related to what is most important - being qualified academic with teaching skills? And honestly, I think that you only want to claim your potential future rejection to be subject of your openly declared sexual orientation.


Is it normal to have a hard time comprehending academic papers? I am starting my PhD in statistics program next year, and I have some concerns.
In my institution, there is a mandatory course that every PhD student has to take in lieu of taking one qualifying examination.
The course requires students to read five academic papers and write a report, which will be graded by faculty members.

I was browsing through the reading list for this course, and I often find myself pondering over one twenty-page paper for days and weeks because I want to make sure that I understand all the  math, concepts, and other details of the paper.
I am supposed to make a report for one paper/month, and I am now quite worried about what I am expected to do as a PhD student because it feels like it takes me forever to comprehend a single paper.
I feel discouraged because I have done very well in my bachelor’s and master’s programs in statistics, but I am having such a hard time comprehending these academic papers.

Is it normal for beginning PhD students to have a hard time comprehending academic papers?

Yes, yes it is. But it gets easier. What most people don't realize when starting out reading academic papers, is that not every paper is an island (to paraphrase...). Terminology and 'lingo' is something you learn over time, and suddenly you realize that you no longer have to look up every second concept you stumble upon in a paper - it simply references stuff that you already know.

This is of course also the reason that forcing new students to read papers, and even write a report about them to make sure that the papers have been properly digested, is a very good idea. The fact that members of faculty even take time out to grade these reports, tells me that you are probably in capable hands.

Every person had that time of not comprehending some papers/ academic papers especially if it does have a lot of information. More pages to read we sometimes forget the ideas contained in some pages while reading the concurrent ones. So I think it is very normal if sometimes you did not understand a certain concept because everybody does. What I did if that time happens to me, I read it succeedingly 5 or more times to grasp the information contained in the article and then I can now write my own reflection or output.


How to deal with journal requirements to share data when data comes from industry and industry partner would not permit sharing? Many authors, especially in manufacturing, use data from real manufacturing companies (not from a lab experiment) for their research. They are asked to report only the results from their analysis on those datasets in journal papers without publishing the underlying data due to confidentiality agreements with the companies. However, I see that the journals are increasingly asking the authors to deposit the raw data so that the research is reproducible. On the other hand, the companies are not ready to make their internal data go public but they are ok with publishing the summary statistics on the datasets. As a result, authors face difficulty in publishing their research results in journal papers.

Any strategies to handle this situation effectively and convince editors about the non-availability of the datasets to other researchers?

I am going to question the premise:

You ask: Any strategies to handle this situation effectively and convince editors about the non-availability of the datasets to other researchers?

I'm going to say: You can't and you shouldn't.

It isn't that the journal editors don't believe you when you say "This data is not able to be released for other researchers."
They don't really care why it isn't available,
but they do believe that without that data, it is not the kind of article they want to publish.

Some options which may be valid depending on circumanstances:

Find a journal that is Ok publishing without data. (For understandable reasons these might not be as good as the more stringent ones)
Create a new synthetic dataset, that has similar properties to your real data, and present your primary results on that. (And mention as a secondary point your results on the real data)
Work out what it would take to make the company happy to release the data:

Perhaps removing identifiers (E.g. for personal identifying data k-anonymity is a common technique)

See also the related question:
Can you publish studies based on confidential customer data that comes from private companies?

@Lyndon White makes a good point about the journal reserving the right to decide what kind of articles they would like to publish. Though I'm in agreement, I would like to raise one point of caution.

Publishing is a commercial enterprise, and is driven by economic considerations and profit margins more than increasing reproducibility. The fact that these aspects are actively discussed on ASE is a sign that gradually researchers are becoming aware of how skewed the market is.

In this scenario, a journal could demand data on the grounds of scientific reproducibility, and make this data available to subscribers only. This feature could increase subcriptions from rival industries as well as research labs. In effect, the journal would then be selling data from one source to another. The authors would be willing to turn a blind eye because the journal is prestigious, while the source of data (eg. industry) would grow increasingly distrustful of this journal, widening the industry-academia gap. I find it difficult to see this as a good sign.

The only solution that comes to mind is the erection of mutual non-disclosure agreements between the journal and the author, that permit the author to decide (atleast in part) who gets to see/use the data. This has its own flaws, but it could be a start.


My undergraduate thesis project is a failure and I don't know what to do So I'm writing my undergraduate thesis and I have written around 80% of it. My project was to develop a device to use in the lab, but my first prototype doesn't work at all and I don't know if I should just write that it didn't work. I don't have time to make another one. I have to finish this as soon as possible because I'm starting grad school at a really good university :(. I haven't told about it to my supervisor. My question is how bad is it to present a failed attempt at something like the development of a device.
I hope someone can help me.

"It didn't work" is not a thesis.
However, "this is what I made, this is how I tested it, these are the results of those tests, this is how I attempted to fix/would attempt to fix in the future", etc, can be just fine, even if the ultimate conclusion is that your device isn't currently functional.
Undergraduate theses are typically fairly short-term projects, so you may not be able to follow up with all the avenues you would have for a longer project.
Most importantly, though, talk to your supervisor. Their role as a supervisor is for exactly the situation you're in: applying their experience and expertise as a researcher to help guide you in what to do. If everything worked out perfectly without any kinks or setbacks a supervisor would hardly be necessary.
Also most importantly (I'm running out of superlatives here), as a student, the success/failure of the endeavor should be primarily judged on what you as the student have learned along the way rather than the overall outcome (the proverbial "it's the journey not the destination"). Your device may not be working, but if you've learned something along the way I would not say the project is a "failure".

As previously mentioned, as long as you update your supervisor with the situation and be diligent about actually explaining what you did and what went wrong you should be fine. Again as previously mentioned, sometimes a nonfunctional project is a guide for others on how to improve and what to avoid.


Postdoc without PhD? I have never been to grad school, but I have several publications, in good journals, as well as planned future projects. Some very prominent experts know me and think well of my work. In this case, should I apply for postdoc or just go to grad school?

If it matters, I am working in a subfield of mathematics.

At this point in time, a Ph.D. is generally a non-negotiable requirement for a postdoc position.  If you are already carrying out independent research, however, then it might be possible for you to obtain a Ph.D. in graduate school in a significantly shorter period of time than normal.

There are some research assistant positions that might fit into your qualifications. Some of the RA positions may only require a masters degree.


How to improve profile for graduate admissions in mathematics, when coming from a country where quality of math education is poor? What should I do after BS Maths before applying to a well reputed institute for masters and PHD in maths, given that my BS was done from a less developed country where quality of math education is very low?

You seem to be asking how to get admitted to a much better graduate program than your undergraduate program and record merits.  I'm sorry to say that unless you did something during your undergraduate program to make you stand out on a worldwide scale beyond what virtually any undergraduate ever does (in other words, a very low probability event), this is not going to be possible.

Why don't you set more reasonable goals?  If your education has suffered from coming through a systemically poor institution, I would suggest trying to get into a not-top-but-reputable program in a country with high academic standards (which gives you a lot of choices: US, Canada, Australia, the majority of Europe, Japan, some other parts of Asia...).  E.g. in the US even the 200th best university has a curriculum which is largely modelled on that of much better universities, some very serious faculty members, quite solid library / computer resources, and so on.  A student can "launder herself" by doing a master's degree at such a place.  By doing excellently on the coursework and exams, she would show that she has the same skills, knowledge and potential of a strong undergraduate major, and could probably get into a top 50 PhD program.

EDIT: This answer was initially based on the field of Computer Science.

This type of question relies somewhat on your personal opinion and what you mean by a low quality institution.
In my attempt to refrain from any vague answers, my number one suggestion is to publish/present in internationally renowned journals/conferences. This is not only because publications can make you stand out above other applicants, but it proves that despite the lower reputation of your current institution, you are capable of doing research acceptable by international academic standards.

Based on the discussions in the comment section, I will attempt to further specify my initial suggestion. First of all, starting on this path after your undergraduate studies requires serious commitment both in effort and time (it will take alot of introductory reading before you can even start any actual research) but it is definitely possible. Furthermore, the best approach to follow this path would be to join a research lab/team at your current institution. Try to find a faculty member who has a relatively positive perception of your capabilities (maybe you did exceptionally well in his/her class?). If you face problems in convincing someone to advise you due to lack of a positive perception, you can try taking an extra course with that faculty member (and excelling at that course). It will further improve your chances if you can enroll in a graduate course at your institution.


How to improve graduate student recruitment at a small, good, but non-elite department? I am a mathematics professor in a small, good but non-elite department in the US. Several of my colleagues and I would like to work to improve our recruitment of strong prospective Ph.D. students.

We do not really know how to go about this most effectively. Obviously it is difficult, but -- what are some good ways to do this, in addition to

maintaining a useful and informative departmental webpage,
serving our present Ph.D. students as well as we can, making sure they are happy, and (hopefully!) helping them to land good jobs,
maintaining our own research programs, and
continuing to network and maintain professional connections with colleagues at other universities?

Edit: I see this question is related, although in my case recruiting is handled on a departmental rather than individual basis.

All of the ideas that you've written down so far seem quite useful and reasonable, but I think that there is something important missing.  In particular, all of these are aimed at recruiting "generic" students rather than individual students.

Ph.D. recruitment is different than undergraduate recruitment because people choose their undergraduate institutions for so many random reasons, while they tend to be much more focused and "status-conscious" when looking for a doctoral program.  As such, rank matters a lot more for students... when they have no personal relationship.

As such, if you want top students to come to your department, you don't want them to be thinking, "I wonder if Nice University's grad program would be good for me," you want them thinking, "I really hope that I can do my graduate work with Professor Neato!"

There are at least two really good sources that I can think of for recruiting such students:

Your undergraduates: Because of the high variance in how people make their undergraduate choices, at least some really top students are likely to end up at pretty much any decent school.  If you can get those students involved in research as undergraduates, then they will know you and your research personally, and may well be inclined to continue with a cool program that they are already invested in rather than taking a blind leap into a big and possibly unfriendly place far away.
Close colleagues at other schools: Reaching beyond your own pool of students, your colleagues elsewhere are likely to have bright students that they may be looking for a good place for.  If they've got a top student who's just interested in generic stuff, then packing them off to an elite institution and hoping they'll find their way may be the right thing.  But if they think the person might be a good fit for your work on Frabjous Tulip Fractals, then they can refer them directly to you, and again a student may be much more interested in working with a specific professor who they can get to know and meet, particularly where that can improve their chances of admission.

I know of folks who are pursuing both these strategies with significant success.  Other approaches may work as well, such as international exchange programs.  The common theme, however, is to compete on the basis of your individual personal relationships, rather than as a generic institution.

You could use Gradschoolmatch.

It's an easy way to introduce your program to people who are thinking about a graduate degree. It solves pretty much the choke point problem that others have already mentioned.

It works somewhat like a dating site. Prospects have profiles providing information about their academic background and interests. Graduate programs have profiles, too. Since either side can make the first move you don't have to wait and hope.

So, for example, you can spot someone with a profile that you believe would be a good fit for your PhD program, click a button, and follow up with a short warm message.

Voila! They know about you. Will they engage with you further? Can you attract students? That's up to you and your value proposition.

Obviously, students have biases towards elite institutions. In most fields, those are unwarranted. But those biases come from a lack of insight, more than anything else. It just takes a little mentoring to help them understand your program is a good as any other.

Full disclosure: I'm a professor at Emory University and use Gradschoolmatch to recruit for our pharmacology PhD program. Pharmacology is the unknown step sister of the biomedical sciences--it's not taught at the undergrad level, so it's overlooked by people looking for biomed PhD programs whom we would like to attract.

That problem frustrated me so much that I went ahead and invented Gradschoolmatch.


Can I tell the authors I was a referee for the same paper for another journal? I have reviewed a paper for a journal, which I rejected. I wrote a 3 page report with major and minor comments. A week later, I received an invitation to review the same paper in another journal. The authors have nicely decided to ignore all of my comments, including correcting typos!
Is it OK to state in my new report that I was a referee for another journal, without revealing my identity of course. My report is going to be very similar to the previous one, but I was thinking of making a point about taking my comments more seriously (at least the obvious ones!). I am not planning to reject the paper straightaway, as I think the journal is now more appropriate and the paper has a good, if modest, contribution.

I suggest copy-and-pasting your entire review, after double-checking nothing has changed, i.e., your review is still current. You should make your position clear to the editor and I suggest opening with a statement such as: I reviewed this manuscript a week ago for another journal. The authors have not addressed my comments and my opinion remains unchanged: ... Unlike another answer, I see no problem stating you were the reviewer to both the editor and the authors, since it'll be obvious to the authors anyhow.

I would be sure nothing was changed and then send my same comments to the editor.


What to do about a student who missed multiple assignments and claims illness? I am the professor in charge of a first-year course for undergraduates.
Recently, I received an e-mail from a student,
the general meaning of which is the following:

  Dear professor,

  I am sorry for missing the last few lectures and assignments.
  During the last few weeks, I was really sick with the flu.
  Could you please help me to get right on track with the class?

How should I respond to this e-mail?
Should I give the student an opportunity
to "make up" the missed assignments,
or should I give the student zeros for the missed assignments?

First, there may very well be policies in place to handle this, so I would check those first, in case your hands are tied in some way.

Generally speaking however, I'm fairly permissive with medical absences and helping students catch up, if (as it seems from your email) the desire is actually for them to catch up. In your case, for example, I'd schedule a meeting for the student to try and figure out a path forward.

I'm aware that this leaves me open to being exploited by the occasional student who has decided to fake an illness, but I'm far more concerned with make sure those students who do have major medical or life-related issues have the chance to do well in my classes, and I'd rather the occasional student get away with an undeserved extension than have someone who genuinely needed my help not get it.

We all know the student is telling a white lie here. I think that is a decent choice of action. One thing that really matters is that the student learns. Secondly, its important to uphold timelines in order for the school to be efficient. As long as no one perceives this student to be blatantly disrespecting the timeline given, there'll be little or no damage to the integrity of the rule, making the greatest good being achieved by bowing to their request.


Bad first month in my PhD I started my PhD in physics approximately a month ago. Now I am working on my first project with my advisor and a postdoc that follows me. I made several big mistakes for a little task that my advisor gave me, and now I feel really bad. They were stupid big mistakes that put me in a bad light, as if I didn't understand anything. It seems that I really didn't understand concepts.

I have the bad habit of always waiting for instructions, without taking initiative because in my past studies, professors usually told me what to do next as little exercises. I also have the bad habit of doing things mindlessly and not reviewing them, often resulting in errors.

I know that I am capable of completing this PhD and that I have the possibilities of doing very very well. I have the mental resources to do it(hardware) but the problem are my bad habits(software).

Now I am facing the problem that it will be harder for me to build trust with my advisor. What steps could I take to start building it again? Does a bad start affect things in the long run(like if my first two month are bad, but then I finish great my first year and do well on the other years, will my references for a possible postdoc be bad)?

I am slowly reading articles and concentrating on my little tasks, trying to understand everything I do. Apart from that I don't know what else to do.

Edit: Thank you very much! I will take all your advice and go ahead! Good luck also for the other PhDs

It's your first month. You will be in the program for 3-5 years. Everyone knows this, and you will have the opportunity to redeem yourself. Be patient. Do better in the future. Everything will work out alright.

What's more important is that you understand your weaknesses. Work on them. Become a better person and scientist by figuring out how you can address your weaknesses by either addressing them directly, or working around them.

Friend,

I'm routing for you!  I had a bad first semester in my Ph.D.  Through no fault of my own.  I encountered health issues which had me confined to my bed for 8 weeks.  I couldn't recover from that, so I withdrew from the program and took a different direction professionally.

Enough of my story.  Here's my advice:

To reprogram yourself, you need to replace bad habits with discipline/regimen.  For example, a good discipline is to keep a check-list of things that you need to do and continually churn your check-list to make sure that things are getting done and add new items as they come up.  I have found this approach to be an exceptional way to get things done and to stay on track for both short-term and long-term goals.  You have to force yourself to do this on a regular basis or you will most certainly fail.  I would say that a very powerful regimen is to review and prioritize your check-list on at least a daily basis.  You may also consider having a separate check-list for daily objectives, another for weekly objectives, and a third for longer term objectives.


What should I do if I cannot afford a journal Article Processing Charge? I would like to publish an article open access, but I cannot afford the article processing charge (APC). I am based in the UK, so I do not qualify for some of the available fee reductions or waivers. I also do not have grant funding to coverage the fee. How can I obtain funding to cover the publication fee to make my research open access?

Where are you based? If you're at an institution, I'd get in contact with your library. They usually have funds of some sort to cover APCs these days.

Depending on where you're submitting, it is still possible to get a fee waiver if you can provide financial justification (which it seems like you should be able to do). I don't know how well this works at most journals, but those like PLOS ONE and PeerJ are well known for providing fee waivers for researchers with OA support (apart from a couple of incidents).

Alternatively, you could pursue the 'green' route of OA. Submit your paper, but don't make it OA (via the 'gold' route), and self archive the pre-print, post-print, or whatever the options available for your journal are. You can check policies here: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

Try playing with these options a bit, and then report back if there are further complications or details to add.

You could co-author the article. Authorship will be shared so does cost. Perhaps co-author could have such cost free options. That will not only minimize your cost but will open you to collaboration. Of course there is a trade off in such a scenario but better than delaying the publishing or even not being able to publish.

Please look at my comment below. I did not mean it something unethical.


What makes a good recorded video poster presentation for an academic conference? A "video poster presentation" sounds like a logical impossibility, but now that conferences are online, they seem to be a thing.  What makes one effective?  How is this different from a recorded conference talk? What makes for good content?

First, this answer isn't based on experience of creating such things, but just on general principles. I assume that you want an audience to actually watch the video to the end and that what you have to say isn't so earth shatteringly novel and important that they naturally will. But also, I assume that what you want to say has value in itself, though more for some than others.
First, I think you have about 15 seconds at the start of the presentation to answer the viewers question "Should I continue with this or not?" But the answer has to be obvious from the presentation, rather than just saying outright "This is why you should watch." If you aren't immediately compelling, people will hit the "next" button. It isn't like a class where students are forced to sit and watch.
The last 15 seconds are probably also very important so that people have a succinct message to carry away - make it memorable.
Talking heads are boring. A video has an advantage over a live talk, of course, since interested watchers can hit rewind if they miss a point, but still, do something to avoid the talking head issue. An overly pedantic presentation will probably also induce watchers to move on.
I assume that the most interested people will have some way to contact you after the presentation so that you can get follow up. The format suggested by walkar in a comment sounds like it might be very good, so that people can ask questions after viewing and possibly get some synergy going. But I also assume you don't have control over format.
I'd suggest, actually, that you take some inspiration from an early science oriented TV show intended for children: Watch Mr. Wizard. It was a half hour of simple science done live. The wikipedia article points to some similar things that this show inspired. Some of the shows are available on [YouTube[(https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mr.+Wizard). And note that by using another person, in this case a youngster, as an assistant, Don Herbert avoids the talking head problem. You can have a "conversation" with an assistant that you can't have with the audience.

Background: I'm an old guy with hearing problems. I don't watch TV or depend on video much. When I do, I'm looking for visual impact and am quick to move on if the presentation starts out too slowly or gets boring. On the other hand, I'm interested in lots of things. If you catch me early, I might stick around. I don't need to take notes anymore, so won't, but a clear message about the key insight (the last few seconds) will stick with me and make you memorable.
Oh, and I never missed an episode of Mr. Wizard.

Online poster presentations are displayed on a small screen.  Usually the user interface makes it hard or impossible to zoom and scroll.  Therefore, poster graphical design does not work.  Instead, large fonts and a much smaller number of images should be used.  Essentially, the poster should look like a slide instead of a poster.