As a male student, did I say something wrong to this female professor? A professor and I spoke recently (I'm a grad student), and she told me about her upcoming sabbatical, and I wished her well and was genuinely excited for her and her travel plans.  But the reaction that I got from her was one of caution and displeasure, with no reciprocation of good vibes.  I mostly said stuff like "that sounds amazing that you're going to Country X for Y number of months!  I hope you enjoy your time there, I love Country X!"

I'm a male student.  Have I possibly said something condescending or disrespectful to a female professor, by showing my excitement about her travel plans?

When I analyzed it a bit, I came to the conclusion that I would have had the same reactions if a male professor told me of his sabbatical, travel plans.  So, I don't think that I've said anything sexist.  But I am not 100% sure.

From what you've said, it doesn't sound like a sexism issue specifically, but it might have come off that you regarded her sabbatical as a vacation rather than serious work. You might be worrying about this a bit too much--she's probably already forgotten the exchange.

Well from what I see is that you're just trying to have an effective communication with your professor by giving the impression that you're excited for her plan. This is one of basic communication skills that people have to connect with others. If she reacted differently/ negatively, I don't think she understands a proper effective communication in human relations.


Is it acceptable to email an author to ask for a copy of his book that is currently out of print? (Apologies if this isn't the place to ask, as I'm not a college student or independent researcher).
I am a secondary school student in Ireland currently working on a large project for a history class and the topic I have chosen is relatively obscure. The most thorough of the few books written on the matter seems to be currently out of print. I found a used copy for sale a while ago at an exorbitant cost, but I'm unable to find even that now.
Would it be okay for me to email the author to ask if he could direct me towards somewhere where I could find a copy of the book, or send me a pdf? I would be willing to pay, although I doubt I could afford the full price of the book originally which was upwards of $100.

A question like this is almost always acceptable to ask. I cannot imagine that somebody will take offense at this, and I expect most academics appreciate high-school students looking for help and a reliable source, and I expect most will try to help if they have the time. However, time is big limitation for most academics, so do not be put-off if the author doesn't respond, or possibly bluntly mentions they cannot help. This will not be personal.
Make sure to keep your email polite, but especially, make it to the point. They will not really care about your life story, but introduce yourself as a high-school student, introduce your topic/research and mention that you want to use their book, but are not able to find it and don't have the funds to buy it, and ask if there is any chance that they can help you by the means you proposed, but do not outright ask if they can send you a copy for free. Thank them for any time they invest.

You can ask.  Is it acceptable -  well sort of;  BUT is is polite and proper?
Offering to pay helps negate the asking issues.
It would be silly as the author would not have copies of the book to give out unless it had been self published.
He probably has no pdf and may not even have WP files.
Your best bet is to look at worldcat.org and see what library has the book nd then contact them to borrow it.


How can a PhD student defend their correct ideas or claims to their supervisor? I am a PhD student who works in theory. Too many times, I have to defend my ideas or claims in front of my supervisor. I have failed to do so in the past and it worries me.
Please note that I am only interested in defending correct ideas, not wrong ones.

Some of the things I have tried are:

Doubt every line which I read.
Try to prove each term clearly in front of him.
Go over the material at least two times.

These kind of things are not working.

My research supervisor has told me that I need to defend my ideas and claims. There have been many times where he asked me to change something about the idea; I did it; and then he asked me why I changed it.

Question: How to defend your correct ideas or claims in front of your supervisor?

Edit : Many times I have tried to defend a wrong idea and there were some times in which I have changed my right idea ( based upon his feedback) and after I changed my idea he told me "your original idea was right, why did you change it?". How to deal with this situation also?

How to defend your correct ideas or claims in front of supervisor?

If your advisor is anything like me, they care much less about right or wrong in these meetings, but they want to hear what your thought process is and which angles you have covered. Suggestions to try something else should not usually be understood as "you did something wrong, do this other thing instead" but more like a probe whether you have also investigated this other angle, and if you have not chosen it, how you justify not doing that.

As such, the central element in "defending" your idea is to, briefly but clearly, outline why you have done what you have done, and not done what you have not done. Proving stuff in front of your advisor should help, as long as you do it correctly and clearly. If it doesn't, you are either not being as clear as you think you are, your advisor isn't competent in your topic, or you have a much deeper problem (e.g., you and your advisor are not on the same page about what problem is to be solved). However, note that even an objectively "correct" approach is not immune to questioning - maybe there are other approaches that are easier, faster, or preferable in some other way? You need to have an argument at the ready for why you have not chosen them.

If looked at in that light, situations where they suggest approach A in the first meeting and then probe you on your usage of A in the second start making more sense - they have not suggested A because of some secret advisor-tech that makes them know the right answer in advance, and telling in the second meeting that they suggested the idea is not a convincing enough reason to go forward with it by itself. Even if they suggested it, you still need to explain why A was better than other approaches.

  Too many times, I have to defend my ideas or claims in front of my supervisor.

Frankly, I can hardly imagine a supervisor who questions your ideas "too much". As long as they are respectful and helpful, questioning your work and suggesting alternatives is pretty much all that good advisors do. It's kind of the job description.

If you are working in theory, then you are presumably writing proofs. If you write them in Coq, they will be unassailable.


Submit an article to a conference, which contains a section that has been already published I want to submit an article to a conference, however, let's say 50% of the content of such article has been already published. The reason of such 'variation', is that after some suggestions, we applied some modifications to the methodology and the way to analyse the data, so basically a variation of the study resulted from that, but the core remains the same.

I actually never had the opportunity to present this study in a conference before or after the publication, so this is something that I'd really like to do; but I'd prefer to submit the 'second version' of the study, since I think that it is more complete than the published one.

I know that (if accepted) the entire article would not be published in the  conference proceedings (only the abstract), since its related to a published article, still I  would like to know if submitting an article that contains some part of a previously published article is something acceptable to do.

I'd appreciate your comments on this.

You could treat it as a new paper. Maybe after the conference, you could add more results and publish a paper from it.


Showing research to professor who is not my advisor I am a PhD student in mathematics. I am going to participate in a conference. I want to show my research to some great mathematcian who is a specialist in the area that I am working on.

A friend of mine had a bad experience with showing her result to some great mathematician. In fact, she showed her result to the guy and he said that it was good and to keep up the good work, but two months later he put an article in arXiv and most of the parts of his article were as same as my friend’s. As such, I am bit scared to show my result to someone. On the other hand, I need to show my result to someone for completing a minor thing.

Does someone have any idea what I have to do?

First of all: you should really be asking your advisor this,  not strangers who don’t know your circumstances.

In any case: if you have a result that you feel is ready to be shown to others, why not write it up and put it on ArXiv yourself? That way no one could do this to you.

There is such a thing as a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that you could have the person sign (whether they would agree to sign it is another matter, but if they don't and you think your research is something that is worth stealing, don't show it to them if they won't sign). It would be best to see an attorney about this, but if you cannot afford an attorney, I think there are plenty of do-it-yourself NDAs online.

Also, taking another person with you who at least half-way understands the conversation would be good so that you would have a witness to the discussion. That would automatically discourage most people from stealing your ideas.

If they would agree to allow the meeting to be voice-recorded or video-recorded, that would also discourage them from stealing from you, and that would be even better proof in court in case they did steal the idea from you; be sure to state the date of the recording and state the names of the people in the beginning, and state that they are all aware that they are being recorded.

By the way, if the research that was previously stolen from your friend was documented and they can prove the date of when they developed that research (they might have saved it on DropBox or other cloud storage on a certain date, or something like that), they might be able to sue that professor for stealing their work. Again, they should see an attorney about that.

Many attorneys are willing to talk to potential clients one time for free. Your school might even have an in-house counsel who might be willing to talk to you or your friend about these matters for free; however, if the professor who stole the work is from the same university, then talking to the university counsel would be a very bad idea because their first priority is to protect the university and its employees.

The person who said that you should talk to your advisor is on the right track, although your advisor could possibly steal from you also. This all kind of depends on how valuable your research is.

It would always be a good idea to ask if it's ok to do a voice recording at all meetings. I think most people would agree to that. You can also probably get away with taking a photo of any work you write on the blackboard or whiteboard. Always save your research on DropBox or someplace like that at various intervals (do NOT erase old research files, just add new dates to the new research or put them in folders that have the date on them--don't make changes that can change the modify-date to the current date after you save older research). Then you have a way of proving that these ideas are yours and you can show how they changed at various intervals and can prove that you had a certain idea at least by the date on the file. In the past, many people would send plans of things they planned to copyright to themselves in a postmarked sealed envelope and left the envelope sealed in the filing cabinet in case there was ever a question of ownership of the idea.


Do I need to ask permission to use image from a publication I am involved in an EU H2020 project in which we are developping some educational and support material for companies to support them in implementing energy effeciency measures. Factsheets will be made available in the form of Powerpoint or Word documents on a platform that companies who have signed up to the platform will have access to. The documents will be made available under a Creative Commons license, so the companies will be able to adapt the documents (Powerpoint, Word) to their specific needs if they need to (e.g. add their logo, simplify or reformulate some parts).

I would like to know how best to proceed to be able to use images (graphs, diagrams or other) from scientific publications in these factsheets. Can we simply use them in our documents by citing the reference, but without asking permission? Or should we ask permission to the author?, university? or publisher (e.g. Elsevier)?

Depends on who's holding the copyright. Whoever has it is the one who gives permission.

Check the first page, in particular the imprint at the top. If it says (c) the authors, then the copyright is held by the authors; if it says (c) the publisher then you have to ask the publisher.

I suggest, given how you want to use those materials, you should get permission - this will avoid any possible difficulties later.

They image owners may well say "that's fine, just a reference" etc but if they say "no" you can find an alternative, without other issues.


Protecting my project from theft by panel I am submitting it to I'm doing an (external) bachelor's degree in the field of computing and am in the second of my three years. The final requirement of this degree is a project, complete with development and a dissertation that has to be submitted to the institute and defended at a Viva. I've taken the liberty of researching well into a lot of parts of my potential project, and have given a lot of thought into it.

My long research has prompted my few family/friends in the industry to ridicule me (which I don't mind), and have warned me that creating a "good" project would run the risk of "questionable" practices enacted.

In short, I've been told that the panel might fail my project and transfer all it's content to a favoured student of their own if they find mine interesting enough. I do not know if this is a fact or just a rumor. But, I don't want this to happen (with me or anyone else).

What measures can I take to make sure that they can't do things like this to both the dissertation I submit and the code I develop? I've already thought of private repositories on online version control systems to keep the code, but what about the dissertation?

Note:

we are required to include a declaration signed by my advisor and myself that allows the dissertation to be used by the institute for loans and publishing, as well as to outside organizations.
I'm intending to release the software as open-source after I graduate, so this may be a problem.
If it is stolen, I doubt that complaining to the institute will help, and may result on the ganging up on me.

P.S.: I hope I don't sound like a whiner or moron.

My long research has prompted my few family/friends in the industry to ridicule me (which I don't mind), and have warned me that creating a "good" project would run the risk of "questionable" practices enacted. In short, I've been told that the panel might fail my project and transfer all it's content to a favoured student of their own if they find mine interesting enough. I do not know if this is a fact or just a rumor. But, I don't want this to happen (with me or anyone else).

I hope that this is just a paranoid rumor. It would not be founded in any university I am aware of, but of course not knowing your institution, one can't say anything for sure.

However, the question is what you can do to minimize the risk, if you feel this is an actual possibility that you need to insure yourself against. Usually, the best bet against having your work stolen is to make sure that as many people as possible know of this work as yours. For instance, you can show it to other faculty members that you trust (if you need an excuse, you can always ask them for feedback), or upload it to a (timestamped) preprint service. For code, the best is probably to just upload everything as open source to GitHub or a similar service.

Send your full project documentation as a registered letter to your own address and , if you know any, friendly attorney-at law. Such letter must stay not opened, not from you, not from attorney. The idea behind it is, that the whole project documentation is registered as yours at defined date.

I've done such more then once to protect my start-up ideas from plagiarism, if i was going to discuss ideas with venture capitalists. According to at least German law, such protection fully works, if it discussed at any court.

Edit (13.08)

I have even found an online notary, notatus.de (sadly only in german), which offers legally proofed document depositation / escrow, specially for the purpose of authorship protecting. They offer even depositation and letters of deposit for computer files, so one isn't forced to send paper documents. BTW, this service is free!


Is this ethical: "I like your paper and if you submit it to Journal X, I will be the reviewer" Is this ethical?

Researcher A asks Researcher B, "Where should I submit my paper?"

Researcher B says, "If you submit it to Journal X, I will almost certainly be the reviewer and I think highly of your paper."

All journals in the field have single-blind review policy. That is, the reviewer knows who the author is, but the author does not know who the reviewer is.

If it is unethical, is it only unethical if researcher B actually submits to Journal X and gets researcher A as a reviewer? Or does the ethical problem disappear if researcher B submits to a different journal, or submits to Journal X but gets a different reviewer?

If we replace the word "reviewer" with "editor", this would typically be seen as normal behaviour. I.e., editors often have pre-submission discussions with authors about the suitability of a manuscript for their journal.
In the case of editors, it is a standard part of their role to have discussions with authors about submissions and in some cases encourage authors to submit their work to their journal.

In addition to "editor in chief", many journals have associate editors and the like who act as editors for submissions related to particular topics. They also often have some scope, although typically less than the editor in chief, to encourage submissions.

Finally, the person you mention sounds like they might be a very active reviewer for a journal and quite often get asked to review submissions on a topic related to your paper.

I think the ethical issues relate mostly to whether everyone is acting honestly and in good faith, and that conflicts of interest are not perceived.

Editors are allowed to solicit submissions, and they almost always know the identity of the submitting authors. They are meant to be well-regarded members of the academic community and are trusted to make publication decisions based on academic merits and not based on friendship or other bases.

Reviewers are a little different. Reviewers are meant to review in good faith and base their decision based on academic merits. For journals that expect double blind review, I think that encouraging authors to submit to a journal where they are likely to be a reviewer is problematic. For journals that only have single blind review, the issue is more one of honesty. Specifically, the reviewer should generally inform the editor if they encouraged the authors to submit the paper. That way, the editor can integrate that information into the assessment of that reviewer's review and assess it for bias.

More generally, the implications of the reviewers comments are problematic. A more appropriate comment would be "I think your paper is good and it would be a good fit for journal X." or "I know that the editor of journal X would be interested in your paper." By focusing on the idea that they might be a reviewer, it implies that they might give a more favourable review than a random reviewer, which from some perspectives implies a biased review process.

If you are submitting the paper to that journal, you could remove most ethical issues by acknowledging in your cover letter that your colleague and potential reviewer recommended that you submit the manuscript to this journal. This would allow the editor to consider whether they want to let your colleague be a reviewer, and if so, how their review should be treated.

From an academic standpoint- it is very dangerous. It is better not to do it, and it may backfire in a big unseen way.


Should I ban electronic devices (smartphones, tablets and laptops) from a course? TL;DR

In the coming semester,
I will be teaching a "seminar" type course with around 30 students.
I would like to disallow students in the course
to use any electronic devices (smartphones, tablets and laptops)?

Questions:

Is banning electronic devices in my course a good idea?
How do I enforce such a rule?

Background

In the coming semester, I will be teaching a "seminar" type course.
The course is fairly small, with fewer than 30 students.
We will spend most of the time in the course
listening to students presenting their ideas,
and the students critiquing and giving feedback
on other students' presentations.

I have had a few years of experience teaching
large lecture courses with more than 100 students per lecture.
In these courses, many of the students prefer
to type their notes on my Powerpoint slides,
rather than writing on a physical copy of the lecture notes.
Unfortunately, as I walk around the classroom,
I invariably notice that a significant proportion of the students
are distracted during the class by their electronic devices,
e.g., checking their Facebook, Instagram or playing games.
(I would estimate about 20% of students
are distracted at any given point of time.)

I have noticed that I work better without electronic devices
because I am less distracted and can focus better.
Consequently, I would hope to minimize the distractions faced by students
by disallowing students in the course to use any electronic devices.

Why do I want to ban electronic devices from the course?

The main goal of the course is to teach students
how to analyze and present business case studies.
The course is not one that is heavy on facts or memorization.
Instead, students need to use their powers of observation
to follow along presentations by their fellow students,
and to evaluate their presentation style, body language and slide design.

Consequently, for this type of course,
I do not see that electronic devices add any value.
In fact, there are many research studies which suggest that
electronic devices negatively affect students' learning.
For example, an article in Psychology Today writes the following:

  Cognitive capacity and overall brain power are significantly reduced when your smartphone is within glancing distance—even if it’s turned off and face down—according to a recent study. This new report from the University of Texas at Austin, “Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity” was published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.

  During this study, the UT Austin researchers found that someone’s ability to hold and process data significantly improved if his or her smartphone was in another room while taking a test to gauge attentional control and cognitive processes. Participants who kept their phones in a pocket or bag also outperformed those who kept their phones on the desk while taking the same test. Again, even if the phone was turned off and face down on the desk, the mere sight of one's own smartphone seemed to induce “brain drain” by depleting finite cognitive resources.

(I'm a student)

Why do you want to ban the laptops?
Just because some students get distracted? If this is the only reason, that is almost a question of philosophy: Should you force the students into a situation that you think is best for them or should you assume them to be mature enough to decide what's best for them?
If your students were around the age of 12 years old, I'd agree that you should ban the laptops. But I'm assuming that your students have to be somewhat self-disciplied anyways to study for the courses in their 'free-time'.

I like writing my notes on the laptop. If you or the content of your course requires the students to take notes, please allow electronic devices. If the course is entirely focused on participation and taking notes would actually be useless, it might actually make sense to forbid using the devices because then the students would probably participate more.

In a class with only ~30 students, the following does not apply, but regarding your observation that some students are playing games during your lectures:
You will never be able to give the lecture in a tempo that fits every of the 100+ students perfectly. Some may be constantly bored and it suffices for them to listen with one ear while they are gaming or working on something else. Some are perfectly happy with your speed but get bored once somebody who was a bit slower asks a question.
In my experience, when I try to listen to a (to me) boring lecture, my thoughts just drift after a few minutes and I have not much to take away from the lecture. If I instead find a balance so that I can listen to you while it's interesting and keep myself awake and active by doing something else while it's not, I get more out of it.

  Is banning electronic devices in my course a good idea?

In general a big no from me, because students don't like to be told how they should behave. Why would you need to enforce something like that when they are here because they want to learn. However, I encourage you to mention your observations to them and that you think the electronic devices might be detrimental to their learning, so they can make an educated choice.

In your case however, with only 30 students where you expect them to actively participate instead of just listen and understand, it can make sense.
But if only one student is presenting and the rest are supposed to sit and listen (opposed to interactively asking questions and discussing) then I feel like it's a similar situation to my usual lectures.

  I have noticed that I work better without electronic devices because I am less distracted and can focus better.

True. On the other hand, I can learn better with electronic devices because it is easy to look something up that I didn't understand without having to interrupt the lecture to ask a question. It's also imo better for note-taking because you can paste parts of the slides and freely rearrange them.

  How do I enforce such a rule?

First of all, please provide a good reason to the students along with the statement that it is forbidden. Otherwise you will get a few of them on the wrong side and they will still try to use the devices. Without cooperation, enforcing this would be very hard I imagine.

Secondly, give them a good reason not to get distracted. If they are required to be present anyways, it might be an idea to give out grades for participation. Or ensure that the content of the lecture is really interesting.

Think also about when you want to make exceptions. What if somebody has special needs, e.g. does not see the screen from afar? What if some student has an important deadline incoming and wants to work on that during your class, but still came to not miss completely everything? Etc.

Alternative Solution:

  Some of the best instructors I had knew at which point of their lecture they should ask questions and took the time to learn students names. Then you can first ask the questions to people goofing off, and follow up with someone paying attention.

This is a quote of DBB's answer, and it reminded me of a tutor we had who everybody considered to be really great. The thing that set him apart is that he noticed when somebody was getting bored, distracted or lost, and asked that person a question. It might be a really simple one just to get their focus back, or it might be one that tests whether they are bored because they already know the content or rather because they're getting tired. Often, when one student would not know the answer, a different student would know the answer (and could explain it to everybody who lost track) or nobody else knew it either and the tutor knew what he had to explain again.
Such questions make people who are zoning out focus again, even if they are not the ones who were asked. And if it is fine to say "I don't know", nobody is afraid of being asked either, so they can answer honestly and give the tutor information about what they got and what not.

The course is fairly small, with fewer than 30 students. We will spend most of the time in the course listening to students presenting their ideas, and the students critiquing and giving feedback on other students' presentations.

Banning electronic devices can simulate cases where such devices are forbidden/inaccessible for a real reason. In such cases you cannot easily google the answer up.

As jaia allready noted, explain your reasons in the syllable clearly and leave options for those who must use ellectronic devices.

As I understood your desription, the course is focused on learning how to criticise someone's work and how to respond to a critique. There is no need of using electronic devices at all (except for people with special needs).


Citing (or not) a flawed or incomprehensible paper or preprint Is there a good practice of citing (or not) a paper or preprint that you consider flawed (or at best - totally incomprehensible)?

Once I had a problem of that sort. I wrote a paper on a topic, which was not very popular. Even if I was not using other's results directly, I wanted to cite a few papers solving very similar issues.

Then I had a dilemma if to cite a preprint tackling the same problem, using methods I don't understand (with a feeling that it is incomplete, flawed or just extremely badly written).

Ii that case it is better to:

simply drop it,
cite but make it explicit that you are just mentioning it, not using their results,
or cite making it explicit that you have serious doubts on its content?

EDIT:

By a preprint I understand sth which is archived on arXiv or sth similar.

in what follows, I'm assuming you're correct in your assessment of the flaw.

The first step is to communicate with the authors. If you mutually resolve the flaw (they accept the mistake, and/or redo the proof), then you either cite the corrected version or mention when citing the paper that it has a flaw and cite your discussion with them as a personal communication.

If the conversation with the authors stall (they're nonresponsive or shift the goalposts), then you can cite the paper and briefly outline the flaw in an appendix (or if you're space constrained, post a brief link to a document available elsewhere). I'm not entirely happy with this last idea, but I can't think of anything better in a space-constrained scenario.

I don't think that incomprehensibility is a good reason for not citing, or citing negatively. You'd have to narrow down the incomprehensibility to something in particular that the authors are not clear on (a definition, a set of cases, or something like that). Again, this should be a last resort if the authors are not responsive to contact - ideally, matters of lack of understanding should be resolved between the authors without it making it into the paper.

post-caveat: my answer deals mostly with theoretical papers. In more applied works, it might be trickier to determine whether something is "known to be incorrect" or "not known to be correct".

I would never cite a pre-print except possibly as "personal communication".  In fact, that is how authors have asked me to cite their pre-prints.  If it is not published, it is not a part of the cannon.  That's what publishing is about.


Is an author allowed to use the same figure in different papers without citation? Authors A, B and C published paper [1] in journal X.
Author B created a figure for paper [1]. The figure is not essential and does not contain any important data. It is just a geometric ilustration.
Authors C and B are writing a new paper [2] for journal Y.

Can the same figure be used in paper [2] without any mention to paper [1]? Is it ethical? Does it violate copyrights of X? Is it considered plagiarism by Y? How about the situation X=Y?

(Authors A, B and C are friends, so there is no problem for author A.)

Unfortunately there's no easy general answer to the copyright question, since it depends on the terms of the copyright assignment the authors signed with journal X, as well as the complexity and originality of the figure (you can't easily copyright an image of a triangle, you might have more difficultly with an image showing e.g. multiple stages of an algorithm). If the image was created programatically, then one possible solution might be to redraw it with slightly different data and new labelling.

It's also important to note that just citing the original source doesn't automatically make the copyright legal issues vanish. While the journal's home jurisdiction (or the authors') might grant you fair use rights/a fair trading defence, these each have their own restrictions, based on how much of the original the figure formed. Many academic publishers have a web portal allowing authors to request permissions to republish. These frequently (but not always) give reductions/waivers on fees to the original authors, or to articles submitted to their own journals.

Can the same figure be used in paper [2] without any mention to paper [1]?

Yes. Relax, it is only an illustration.

Is it ethical?

Yes of course. Who would you harm by reproducing the figure? Why would you have to do a different figure to make the same point? If something is unethical here, it is wasting time on this issue.

Does it violate copyrights of X?

Never mind. Academic journals may sometimes be evil but they won't sue you for this.

Is it considered plagiarism by Y?

Possibly a harmless, tolerated form of plagiarism. About as serious as exceeding a speed limit by 1 kph.

How about the situation X=Y?

Might legally make some difference. But ethically and practically irrelevant.


After initial contact, how long should I address a professor as "Dr. Smith" or "Professor Smith"? Let's assume that I've contacted professors in the United States and referred to them appropriately as "Dr. Smith" or "Professor Smith" based on their having attained a Ph.D.

If they respond to me informally, should I continue to address them formally? If so, for how long?

This is so highly dependent on particular universities -- let alone particular regions -- that it is probably best just to ask students and faculty what is the culture at their particular university.

I will give one example.  At most American universities you should begin by calling all your instructors by "Dr." or "Professor", although in some cases your instructors will be neither one of these and should probably say so in response.  For anyone who is either a Doctor (i.e., has a doctoral degree) or a Professor (in the United States this usually means "is on the tenure track", but already there are variations...), it seems a bit rude not to use one of these two appellations.  When students call me "Mr. Clark" I assume they are just forgetting that they are not in high school anymore.  But whether "Dr." or "Professor" is preferred is highly variable.  At my university it seems that "Dr." is the go-to appellation: I have even heard other faculty refer to me as "Dr. Clark" when talking to students.  Nevertheless I prefer being called "Professor": getting my PhD was nice.  Getting a tenure-track job took place three years later, and that's when I really made it big.  However at some places you call people "Professor" because you are not sure whether they have a doctorate, and for the ones who do, "Dr." is the superior honorific.  Et cetera...

(I believe I learned some of this from Paul Halmos's Automathography, which I highly recommend to all academics and not just to mathematicians: to mathematicians I would require that you read it if I could!  He goes on to explain more nuances than I did above.)

What you call your instructor also depends on things like their age, their gender, and honestly perhaps even their ethnic background.  As a tenured Caucasian male, the desired aura of authority is already there: I don't have to do anything special to summon it. On the other hand I am still "young" -- closer in age to some of my students than some of my colleagues -- so if I met a student in a non-academic context I would not want any deferential treatment.  (This is also a generational thing: telemarketers, phone company employees and so forth now call me and refer to me by my first name, and I wonder where our civilization is heading...) I am totally okay being called by my first name by any university student.  Whether they are similarly okay doing so is another question, but I encourage this behavior particularly from former students and in contexts outside out of the university campus.  If I were 65 years old and wearing a suit, calling me by my first name would seem less appropriate.  (In fact I had to steel myself at first to call all of my colleagues by their first names, even the ones who were famous mathematicians before I was born.  But that is definitely contemporary American academic culture: any of my colleagues who calls me "Dr. Clark" is signalling that they want to strangle me.)

I feel that it is especially important not to use less formal appellations for female faculty.  I covered a colleague's class a few weeks ago, and one of the students asked a question, beginning with "Miss Matic said..." And my answer began "Well, first things first: it's Dr. Matic..." I then got the student to agree that that was the correct thing to say before moving on to address the question.  Also I feel honorbound to stand more carefully on honorifics when addressing minorities.  It is sad to me that contemporary American society has not gotten past the point where this seems necessary...but it hasn't yet.

I may be unaccustomed to customs at US universities, but if someone addresses me "informally", i.e. with my first name or "Hey", (that was the point of the question, right?) I will do the same towards him.
A professor expecting anything else should quit university, and become a high middle school teacher.


I am non-tenured and have been offered a tenure-track position at my current university, but I don't want to stay here long term. What should I do? I work at a midwestern university in a very small department in a specialised field in the Humanities. I've been working here as a non-tenure track assistant professor, and have been offered a TT position.
I genuinely dislike the place I live in, not for aesthetic or social reasons, but because I have experienced racial harassment fairly consistently since last year (the area is extremely conservative, and does not look kindly on difference of any kind. I'm brown, female and immigrant). It got so bad I had to file a police report against someone who had been harassing me at my apartment. That's not the only instance, though. I've been abused on the streets and told to 'Go back home where I come from, you b*&T*h' while out running. Among other things.

I was offered an extension on my non-TT contract a while back and would give anything to go back to the non-TT track with the possibility of leaving for another TT position outside the university after an undoubtedly difficult application season or two.

I'm happy to continue working here, as I like teaching here, but I can't do this for another 20 years, which is what my department head talks about when he refers to the tenure track. I don't think I can live or work here for that long, no matter how nice it is to be wanted in the department. I've tried approaching him with a long list of the encounters I've had here, and he seems genuinely nice, but also said that there is nothing he can do, which I understand. Most faculty I discuss this with keep telling me to 'forget the racism, it's just a few idiots'. I can't be quite that sanguine about it. They don't seem to understand the psychological effects of living in a place where you run the risk of harassment every time you step out of the house.

And yes, I get that the market is bad. By dint and design, however, I work on a rather niche subject which IS rather marketable.

I am rather anxious about taking this offer, and was wondering what to do. Any tips or advice would be much appreciated.

There's nothing to prevent you from accepting the TT position (which presumably carries better pay and more prestige) while still pursuing positions elsewhere.  Indeed, having a tenure-track position may improve your chances of getting an offer outside, or may increase the leverage you have to bargain with if offered something elsewhere.  And there is absolutely nothing wrong with accepting the TT job and then leaving (after a year) for another position.  Your department head might not be happy, but this kind of thing is not viewed negatively by the academic culture at large.

In short, I see no downside for you to accept the tenure-track offer.

An answer to the general question (the one in your title):

Tenure track positions should be the default - they essentially mean you don't get arbitrarily fired. So, you've just been offered a regular position. Take it. If you later decide you want to leave, then you'll leave.

Adding the specific information about racism and harassment:

Well, one option you could consider is actively fighting against racism - in the university and in the community. As a TT you'll be in a better position to do this, as well as to promote and support others - students, graduate researchers, teachers (in the university) and public figures / community organizers (outside the university) when they do the same or when they're targeted. Now, I realize not everyone can/wants to shoulder this burden, so it's perfectly^H^H^H^H^H^H somewhat understandable if you decide not to. In that case - still, take the job. Look for another position on the side, and if one comes up - then you'll have a proper decision to make among two concrete alternatives.


Thesis reviewer requests update to literature review to incorporate last four years of research. Do I need to do this? I'm about to defend my Phd thesis in November 2016 in software engineering. I  started my Phd in February 2010. One of my thesis reviewers stated in his review comments that my bibliography references are too old: the most recent work I have quoted in my bibliography is from 2012; that was when I was elaborating my thesis' state of the art. He stated that I have to check main works done in the field of research since 2012.

I am not excited about completing a new literature review two weeks before my defense. Thus, I was planning to say at the defense that the bibliography is old because my thesis began several years earlier. Is this an acceptable response? What would you do in this situation?

The criticism is that you're not up to date on the current state of your own field of specialty, and it is not a light matter.  If the "reviewer" is some sort of committee member that can throw a wrench into your exit process, you should address the criticism.

The real issue is how to address it.  My assumption here is that your defense will be "typical", with a formal presentation followed by some sort of closed session.

You have a very limited amount of time before your defense, and you need to use it wisely.  To start, I'd pick the five most relevant citations to your work that you have, and search them forward to see who cited them, and read those papers-- there will probably be less than 20.  If nothing earth-shattering has happened, you will eventually add those to your reference list, and all should be good.  If there is something earth shattering and pertinent to your work, you probably have more research to do at this point.

How will your reviewer know you did it?  Well, for the closed session, you should have a slide in your rack entitled "review of recent literature".  In closed session, make the opportunity to say "in review, a criticism of how up to date my knowledge of the field was came up.  This was accurate, and this is how I've responded...  I think I've covered this, and will continue to stay up to date with the literature".

To add, they may require a bit of a rewrite-- that's actually fairly common-- but worry about that when the time comes.  The strategy is to to convince them that you've done the work, and you're ready to do that rewrite.  You don't have the time to do it between now and your defense, and my experience is that the document is largely sealed until it's defended anyway.  You're trying to set things up so your revised dissertation will be signed off on without a thorough going-through.

I'm surprised he or she did not encourage you much sooner to include more recent literature. Other than seminal work, often including research older than 3-5 years is discouraged by advisers. I don't think you can get around "modernizing" your literature review and always do what your dissertation chair says if you want to finish on time!


Research supervisor is easily distracted in meetings with me I don't think my research professor takes me seriously. I have noticed that in several of my meetings with my PI, he gets distracted very easily.

Now I know of people my age who get distracted (in their 20s), but he insists it's something natural... and he's way older. For example at our last meeting, he was advising me on what I should do for the next part of my project, I was writing all that stuff down, and then he spaced off. I was looking through my notes to see if I understood everything correctly, and he stared up at the ceiling. Next, he asked me if I knew what the ceiling material consisted of. When I said I had no idea (I was trying to brush off the question because there are more important tasks at hand), he made me look it up on the spot. At the moment I thought he might have become bored, maybe there was an awkward silence, but now that I've been thinking about it more, this is not the first instance where this has occurred. He does this in front of my other classmates as well.

Is he just joking around? Trying to lighten up the mood? Am I awkward? Am I not important? How do I address this to him?

Most people can concentrate better when they are still fresh, so my suggestion is try to schedule a meeting with him early in the morning, or as early as possible. Like the other answer has suggested, try to keep the meeting as compact as possible. Also, you might also have to try to keep him occupied on you so that he don't have any time to start thinking of something else. This can be done by keeping the discussion on. You have to learn to write while thinking and talking at the same time.

I have a few practical suggestions for you, to cope with your advisor's distractibility.

Set the scene.  For example, if squirrels or interesting people outside his office window are drawing his attention, tell him the light bothers you and ask permission to lower the blinds.  If he gets mesmerized by his screen saver, ask if it would be okay to turn off the monitor, or position yourself so that his back will be to his monitor.  Etc.
Ask permission to tape record your meetings.  Write down your notes later.  Keep things moving in your meetings, so that he doesn't have a chance to get too interested in the ceiling.
Bring along a couple of quiet fidget items, and put them in on the edge of the desk or table, where you can both reach them.  For example, one of the modern forms of silly putty.  The little donkey who takes a bow when you push up on the base.  Etc.
Observe how many minutes it takes for him to get distracted, subtract 5, and try to wrap up your meetings in that many minutes.
Have some of your conversations while on a small hike together.
Give him a yoga ball as a gift, for sitting and bouncing in his office.  Tell him you heard it's recommended for optimal back health and concentration.
Observe what time of day seems to work best, and schedule your meetings accordingly.
Bring along a high-protein snack to share.
Allow yourselves a 25% failure rate.  Be philosophical about it.  As mentioned in a comment -- don't take it personally.

I have experience collaborating with people with ADD and ADHD. Not all of the above ideas are guaranteed to be helpful with any individual distractible person.  Experiment.


Interview not reimbursed if offer is made but not accepted (UK) I'm applying for Lecturer positions in the UK (entry-level faculty, other academic systems might call the position "Assistant Professor").

I just got short-listed for one of the positions I have applied to, and am currently arranging the interview details (time, date, and expenses reimbursement). Going through their forms, I have noticed the following statement:

  Candidates who are offered a contract of employment by University of XY but reject the offer lose their entitlement to claim reimbursement of interview expenses.

There is a similar question already. However, the candidate noticed such a clause only after buying the tickets, while I am trying to react to it beforehand.

This strikes me a bit odd. My questions are:

Is this a typical procedure for interviews for such positions? Is it a red flag? (Or at least, a yellow one?)
Is there a polite way to respond to this, indicating that I do not agree to this policy, but without sounding like I just want them to pay for a tourist visit?
These positions have a fixed salary range in the UK, however the call is made across two ranges (simultaneous call for Lecturers and Senior Lecturers), and after all it is still a range. What prevents the University from extending an insultingly low offer to a candidate they do not want to hire, hoping that the candidate would reject it and therefore forfeit their right to expenses reimbursement?
I was planning to evaluate this University further as a potential good match for me at the interview (see context below). Since I expect the expenses to be relatively small, should I just risk paying them on my own and go check the University out, even if I decide it is not a good fit?

Some context: This particular University was at the low end of the openings I am applying to. The research profiles of the staff did not look overly attractive, but the facilities were well equipped and I could find a couple of interesting people.

I had almost decided not to apply, when a colleague told me about a Research Centre associated to their University. I haven't originally noticed the Centre as it was not affiliated to the Department I am interested in, but a very different one. However, this Centre is very interesting for my current application domain, and could provide me with invaluable data to continue research in that direction (and bring that domain over to that University).

This Research Centre was the number one reason I decided to apply in the end. I've mentioned my definite interest in it in the application, figuring they would not call me if they were not interested in a collaboration with that Centre.

However, even after deciding to apply, the truth is, this particular University is at the low end of my list. I am serious in considering it as a potential place of employment, due to the presence of the Research Centre. However, with all the negative points still in place, I was going to form my final opinion about that University at the interview, which I think is a reasonable approach - both the candidate and the interviewers should look for a good fit.

When I was in a similar situation before, I rejected to go to the interview and have requested to not be considered further, specifically as I did not think the position was a good enough fit to risk the expenses. This was, however, for an industry interview, the travel expenses would have been much steeper, and they were not covering interview costs under any circumstance.

This is common in the UK. In general interview expenses are relatively low. Many people take a train in the morning to the university and return home that night, so there might not be any food or lodging costs and only a relatively inexpensive train ticket. For an international candidate arranging flights and trains may require a 3 day stay, as it did for me.

I simply told the department that I was very interested in the position, but was not in a financial position to be able to cover my own interview costs if I found the departmental culture to not be supportive. They gave me a guarantee to cover the costs in writing. If your expenses are more than a train ticket, there is no reason not to ask.

Be aware, the offer may be made the day of the interview and they may want a decision the next day. The UK system doesn't really let you get competing offers.

I'm surprised that you are surprised. If this isn't common practice, then I'm surprised. Universities don't have unlimited funds to work with and are interested in building a strong faculty, not gaming some reimbursement system.

The polite way to respond is to say yes or thanks, but no thanks. Your choice. Your risk. But it is their money, after all. I think it unlikely that they would agree to change the policy. I can't think of an incentive to change it unless they are very very interested in you.

The only thing preventing them from making you an insulting low offer in hopes you refuse it is that it would be stupid for them to do that. After all, it implies they really don't want you but would be stuck with you if you accept. I can't imagine that is a good thing for them to do.

If they are within your parameters for an acceptable job then you need to decide whether it is worth the risk of absorbing the cost in case you get a better offer. If it is outside your parameters there is no reason to bother them further. You can, of course, investigate them, if imperfectly, from a distance. But if you need to do that investigation first hand, you need to accept the fact that it will come at some cost, possibly.

You could, of course, interpret the existence of such a policy as an indication that this is fundamentally the wrong place for you to start your career. In that case, just say no. There is no reason to continue.

That is to say, if you find a policy at a potential employer that you find wrong or distasteful, you might suspect that there are other policies that you would find equally offensive or worse. This is especially true if you believe that the policies are in place to take advantage of you since you have little recourse. So, at a minimum, you need to be cautious.

If this place were high on your list for other reasons, you might (gulp) ignore the issue as you might if it is a trivial amount of money.

And, you can try to negotiate a better outcome as user StrongBad was able to do. But I remain skeptical.


Math PhD Applications: Is it better to show just my good GRE score, or should I also send my low initial score? I am applying for mathematics PhD programs in the United States.

I did not major in mathematics as an undergrad and I did not do so well the first time around on the GRE Math subject test (about 60th percentile). I have since completed a Master's in mathematics and my score has improved to about 90th percentile.

I think it could benefit me to send both scores since it shows my progress. Will admissions committees in general view this in a positive light? Or should I just send my most recent good score.

Send your best one. GRE is typically used simply as a filter and including your lower score will probably hurt you more than it helps.

As I recall, in my day at least one could not choose which scores were sent. A complete history of scores was sent with a score report.


After PhD, no support from PhD supervisor I am writing here to get good advice for my career. I completed my PhD in Mathematics last year. I was quite happy after my PhD that I have gained a PhD degree, but I don't have any idea what I could do with this degree. Normally people apply for postdocs after doing PhD to become more independent and gain more exposure to research in their field. However, what can they do if their supervisor does not support them to apply for postdoc positions? What if their supervisor says "you are not an independent researcher, so I don't think you could really sell yourself as an independent researcher?"

I am stuck in my career after having lots of negative feedback from my PhD supervisor, who always says not to apply anywhere, and just stay here (my country) and integrate yourself with your colleagues. How could someone stop you or discourage you to apply anywhere else in the world?

One of the biggest and toughest situations for me is the field I had chosen for doing PhD has no funding all around the world and I can hardly find postdocs in my field. And even if I find an advertisement of a post relevant to my field, my supervisor discourages me from applying by saying that that is not exactly relevant to the field (topic) in which you had done your PhD. It's so weird to me that is it necessary to have the same topic for a postdoc to apply in which a person had his PhD? Can't we slightly change our research topic relevant to the field (same background).

The main problem is to apply for any postdoc we need a strong reference letter from our PhD supervisor. What can people do if they doesn't know what their supervisor writes about them in the reference letter? I spent four years in my PhD and not once did I did realise that my PhD supervisor is unhappy with my work. But now when I am back in my country on completion of my PhD my PhD supervisor has negative thoughts about me that I can't sell myself as an independent researcher, I will need guidance and direction.

And he is probably true, because most of my work in my PhD was done by him. And he never let me be independent throughout my PhD. I don't even know how people find topic of research/problem to work on and how do they find techniques to attach on the problem. I had been given a problem with my supervisor and direction as well. I had done all the coding by myself advised by my supervisor and later analysing results and proving those results was done by him. In the end of my PhD when I was writing my research paper I put his name on it where he said no to me and writing paper solely with my name only.

Currently, I am a lecturer in my country. However, to survive in an academia I have to publish papers and supervise master's students. However, I am not feeling myself independent in research, due to the reason I am applying for some postdoc positions, where I have no support from my PhD supervisor. What should I do at this point? Should I leave academia? Should I go to industry? To join an industry what skills I do need to have? How can I make myself a perfect candidate?

I am really stuck in my career without having any support from my PhD supervisor after PhD. I am looking for some really good suggestions for my career. I shall really be grateful.

Let me answer the following question out of many:

  What if their supervisor says "you are not an independent researcher, so I don't think you could really sell yourself as an independent researcher?"

Based on the evidence you gave, your supervisor is right. You typically need 3 to 5 recommendation letters and some evidence for being able to acquire funding to get to the next level. If you get no support from your supervisor, these 3 to 5 letters have to come from someone else, and you gave no evidence from whom. As soon as you get a "yes" that these letters can be written, you can get them uploaded to a dossier service and reuse them for your next 100+ applications, but, the way things are described by you, you don't have 3 to 5 "yes", so, you cannot declare yourself independent enough. In short, you are not independent enough from the goodwill of your supervisor, and, since you probably don't have this goodwill, you might probably have more chances for positions that do not require this goodwill, i.e. (unless your internationally shine in your area) no assistant professorhsip positions this time, perhaps even not grants or scholarships.  Maybe later, maybe not at all, but not now.

Otherwise you might simply lose months on writing 100+ applications and get zero outcome. If you sell yourself as independent while you are not, you simply spend time and money on letting others know how immature you currently are.

I would love it if you prove me wrong. I'm sorry for being that negative - I'm speaking from experience.

If you can't get letters from your ex-supervisor, try to get letters from your collaborators.


To what extent might a non-faculty staff member expect -- or demand -- academic freedom? Faculty and students are generally regarded as having some degree of academic freedom (tenured faculty sometimes having more than non-tenured).

Non-faculty staff seem to be a different matter. Specific institutions might have policies addressing this, but I'm asking more from a general / philosophical standpoint: is there any basis upon which a non-faculty staff member at a university might expect -- or demand -- academic freedom? Or should non-faculty staff basically assume they do not have academic freedom?

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has a set of Recommended Institutional Regulations concerning Academic Freedom and Tenure, which has the following to say about academic freedom for staff:

Other Academic Staff

a. In no case will a member of the academic staff who is not otherwise protected by the preceding regulations that relate to dismissal proceedings be dismissed without having been provided with a statement of reasons and an opportunity to be heard before a duly constituted committee.21 (A dismissal is a termination before the end of the period of appointment.)
b. With respect to the nonreappointment of a member of such academic staff who establishes a prima facie case to the satisfaction of a duly constituted committee that considerations that violate academic freedom, or of governing policies against improper discrimination as stated in Regulation 10, significantly contributed to the nonreappointment, the academic staff member will be given a statement of reasons by those responsible for the nonreappointment and an opportunity to be heard by the committee.
...
21 Each institution should define with particularity who are members of the academic staff.

Essentially:  those staff that an institution chooses to define as "academic staff" should be able to bring grievance against a "duly constituted committee" if they believe they have been terminated (or not reappointed) in retaliation for speech or actions that should be protected under the umbrella of academic freedom.

Non faculty staff are rarely research-focused, grant seeking PIs. If they are adjunct professors, they're hired for the purpose of teaching, thus the question is moot as research isn't a focus. If they are research staff (research professor, post doc, etc), they are hired for the purpose of supporting the advising PI. True academic freedom (to study and pursue whatever topic of interest) is earned through tenure, though non tenured research faculty retain a degree of academic freedom too, as long as their efforts secure funding and/or promote the reputation of the department (if not, tenure would be unlikely).


Can two universities have the same name? I am now developing a database having information about universities. The database has a feature to prevent a duplicate name for the university title. I actually wonder of whether it is possible for 2 universities/colleges to have the same name in one country or different countries.

EDIT:
I am actually not asking to make this database field the unique identifier for my university entries, but rather for preventing potential duplicate of a university when the the data entry guys use the system. I know I can do a quick check on duplicates but I thought to use this Unique attribute if universities have unique names worldwide.

There are a number of Belgian universities which were one institution formerly, but have been split in two independent institutions during the language conflicts between the French and Dutch speaking citizens in the 1960ies. At the moment they in principle still carry the same name, but in the different languages. Examples are the Free Universities of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Université Libre de Bruxelles) or the Catholic Universities of Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Université catholique de Louvain).

Yes, two university can have the same name. One example is the Indian Institute of Technology, which is located in several places in India.


Are people who left academia happy with their decision? Is there any extensive research/study/survey that looked at what percentage of people who left academia were happy with their decision after X years?

I mostly interested in the computer science field (machine learning) in the US, but curious about other fields and locations as well.

People leaving academia can be PhD students or after (tenure-track, tenured, soft-money research positions, national lab researchers, etc.).

I believe some of the national longitudinal surveys would cover this for the US.

For instance, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort started tracking "middle school" age students in 1979 and is still tracking them. They have hundreds to thousands of attributes including education and many measures of health and happiness (though not all are updated every year).

Another example is the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health).

Well, I cannot think a reason that such a study should be either thought of doing or published... It lacks in many aspects (strictly speaking of study) and has really many dependencies (e.g. economical, political, cultural, scientific discipline, field in the discipline and others).

What I think that you actually seeking is some sort of justification for preferring one after the other. Since I can only speak of my self, I will try to present my point of view.

Professional and academic "worlds" are interconnected. Neither is better, "scientificier", more correct or anything than the other. Actually, (I believe that) it is supposed that academia is the more risky research department of a society, where by "risky" I mean research that mostly not results in a commercial ready product. But academia involves also teaching, where by teaching means that you have to pass to others what you know.

On the other hand, professional world is not only sales. It has development, implementations and other really interesting parts (at least to me). Of course, without sales there would not be any actual "sales"... but that's something that I cannot discuss because I think my self as a little biased on that subject. Professional world has also patents, applied knowledge, problem solving on implementation (and not in simulation) and actually making things that work all the time.. not only in the lab or at the presentation. I think that you can image what would happened if your car, your kitchen, your laptop and all the other facilities worked as most things in academia presentations, applications etc.. Armageddon!

Finally, a PhD is not only a way for an academic career. It is also a good way for creating a start-up company! Or obtaining patents! Especially of you get paid during your PhD.

So, what someone should choose must not be based on "how most people felt" but on which enviroment feels better and what goals this person have, i.e. wants to create things that actually work? things that are used as they are by many? Or teach and conduct research for unsolved problems or in order to optimize existing implementations?

And a final tip, if you are thinking on starting a PhD for pursuing an academic career then you choose it for the wrong reason (at least on my perspective). A PhD should be started for satisfying the inner need of research and not because taken as a career solving degree.


PhD advisor lost funding, need advice I am an international PhD student in an engineering department in US and was fully funded for all two years, but just two weeks before the fall semester (without any warning), my advisor informed me that he cannot support me, apparently he lost all the funding sources this July. He is quite happy with my research and wants me to pay this semester at least half of my tuition and live on half of the monthly stipend. He informed me that after this fall he will find a TA to support myself.

Now, my problem is that my work is experimental and needs constant funding. While TA will cover my expenses, it will not cover the experiments. Even he does not know how and when the funding for experiments will come (he didn't look confident at all). Should I think of changing the advisor now? I am personally thinking of taking an MS with my current work and looking for a funded lab for PhD in the same university.

If your advisor can't support you and your research, find another advisor as soon as possible. Your department/grad program should be able to help with this and talking to them should be your next step - it's also possible they can do something to get you funded in the immediate term. In fact, this should have been the advice your advisor gave you instead of suggesting you try to float around for a semester.

You might be able to keep your current advisor as a co-advisor or something, but frankly the way they handled this situation (waiting to tell you until now) is absolutely horrible and unprofessional (and selfish): they would have known long ago that funding was expiring and if they were waiting on some pending grant applications they needed to inform you then so you could line up other support.

I wouldn't be able to trust that person again.

Either find your own source of funding or another advisor.

If you work well with your current advisor, then I would advise you to keep your current advisor and try to find funding some other way. Maybe you can apply for research stipend or scholarship or maybe some deal with your university where you can work part time teaching BSc / MSc courses at the same or neighbouring department. This is not a very uncommon solution, at least where I'm from.

Being able to work with a wise advisor who you are compatible with can be worth A LOT to you in the long run. Not only during your studies but easily as long as at least 5-10 years afterwards.


Are search committees biased in terms of a candidate's looks, such as long hair for men? As a male Ph.D. student in engineering, I have not had a problem with long hair at any of the reviews I've attended with funding agencies, conferences, etc. However, I wonder if search committees will view long hair in a negative light.

I would particularly like to know if anyone has known of any instance in which a male candidate's long hair worked against their chances of obtaining an academic position, but I've edited this question title to be more general with respect to a candidate's outward appearance attributes which are under their control.

First, let me place my answer in the context of American academia.  I'm sure that in some other parts of the world social conventions are different.

Contemporary American academia is one of the more formally progressive and tolerant subsets of western society.  There are American schools which recognize a student's right not to have any gender!  Although this is an extreme point, academic culture places a premium on toleration of personal differences, to the extent that most hiring committees are instructed not to take such "irrelevant things" as personal appearance into account.

But do they?  I think all human beings do, in some ways.  I do believe that people who are more physically attractive make more attractive job candidates, all other things being equal (and there are lots of studies to back this up).  Recently for health reasons I lost a substantial amount of weight, and I think that my relations with undergraduate students are noticeably better, e.g. resulting in higher evaluations.  Of course this probably has at least as much to do with the way I (nonverbally) communicate that I perceive myself: being more comfortable in your own skin shows.

As a result, if long hair feels natural and good to you, then I would recommend that you keep it.  Like Samson, it may somehow be a source of strength for you.  I was going to say that even the fact that you're asking about it seems slightly strange, but then I remembered that as a graduate student I would shave my goatee every fall (when I was teaching) and let it grow every spring (when I wasn't).  I have now had a goatee continuously since getting a PhD in 2003!  I also used to dress more nicely for class than I otherwise would.  While I still think that one should not wear clothing which is especially ratty in any professional context, I have long since learned that nobody cares whether I wear sneakers or a jacket or anything like that.

The other thing is that it is not 1964 anymore: the men who were long-haired youths in the 1970s are now some of the senior people around, and many are still proudly growing long what remains of their hair.  Both of the men who have been department heads in my time at my present job grow their hair longer than what conservative mores would recommend, and the current chair has hair halfway down his back.  It is really no big deal.

Let me say finally that the odd faculty member who mutters something sour about your hair probably had other reasons not to like you.  And if not, do you really want colleagues who are so superficial and intolerant?  Times are tough, but I think one needs to make feeling comfortable in one's own skin a high priority.

You are making a mountain out of a molehill. Just cut your hair and grow it back when you get the funding, job or whatever. Just keep it neat. Dress up nicely and conduct yourself well. Unless your hair is like the guy below, you should be fine.


How to create an environment in which students can report teacher-student sexual harassment? I teach physics at a community college in California. A series of female students have told me about sexual harassment by the same tenured male math instructor. Two such incidents went like this.

one incident:

"Professor, I'm having trouble with my homework. Could you give me some help?"

"Sure, let's go have drinks and talk about it."

another incident:

"Professor, can I come to your office hours for help?"

"Sure. You know, my office is soundproof."

I reported the problem to the vice president who handles Title IX. She told me she needed the students to file formal complaints. In one of these incidents, the student was still enrolled in the guy's class. The VP said they could transfer her to another math class to protect her from retribution. I gave the students this information and suggested that they file complaints. A year later, it turns out that they haven't.

I suspect that almost no students at my school know how to go about reporting sexual harassment by a professor, and that almost none know that any measures could be taken to prevent retribution. My school is about to institute a mandatory online orientation, which will cover sexual harassment, but it treats sexual harassment as a general phenomenon and doesn't deal with any of the specific concerns, such as retribution, that arise when it's teacher-on-student harassment. I tried to convince the VP that we should do better outreach on this specific type of sexual harassment, e.g., with posters, including information about how students can be shielded against retribution. This seemed to make her very uncomfortable. I suspect that such a thing would upset interest groups such as the teachers' union.

A related aspect of the problem is that this is a community college, and it's a commuter school, so many students have weak ties to the institution and do not think of themselves primarily as students. The psychology is probably very different from what you see at elite four-year schools where you see this kind of thing.

How do schools create an environment in which students can and do report teacher-student sexual harassment? Are there best practices at other schools (possibly schools similar to mine) that should be emulated?

I refer you to the Student Conduct Administration & Title IX:
Gold Standard Practices for Resolution of Allegations
of Sexual Misconduct on College Campuses report from the Association for Student Conduct Administration. While this report is specifically about responding to complaints about student-on-student sexual harassment, many of the "best practices" described there apply more generally.

Some specifics from that document:

To better understand the climate on your campus, there is a list of "Questions to Ask Your Campus" on page 19 of the document mentioned above. These questions may help you identify the problems and a way forward for your specific college. (There is no one-size-fits all resolution to this problem.)
Find out if it is possible (e.g. for your Office of Institutional Research, if you have one) to conduct campus-wide climate surveys to understand whether existing efforts to inform students of sexual harassment policies and procedures are effective. If (as you suspect) they are not, this survey will serve as a baseline against which to judge the effectiveness of changes in how you present and disseminate these policies.
How comprehensible are your policies to your student body? Would your students feel the need to involve a attorney or a parent in order to understand the policies and procedures related to filing a sexual harassment claim?
Make it easy to report sexual harassment. A campus should have several avenues through which students can report (phone, in-person, email, and online form, for example).

To reduce the barrier to making a "formal complaint," make the student's first interaction as simple as possible:

  For example, if the first conversation includes something like, “You’re not going to want to go before a hearing board of three
  older faculty members that you might later have as instructors and discuss intimate details of your sex life,” that student is not likely to file a formal complaint.

Help students understand that even if they are not prepared to make a formal complaint, they can still get some relief from the situation (with "supportive measures" as they are known in Title IX). For example, in your scenario, the student should be allowed to change classes (and she should understand that she can transfer to another class) even if she is not ready to proceed with a formal complaint.
According to the April 2014 Q&A Guidance on Title IX from the OCR, the school's written Title IX grievance procedures should explicitly include "sources of counseling, advocacy, and support" for students. Does your school's policies include these? Are they adequate?

Another useful document is How to Protect Students from Sexual Harassment: A Primer for Schools, from the National Women's Law Center.

Put up a modern-day "complaint box" online for anonymous but moderated complaints.  (You can delete anything that's spam.)

Display the collected results on the site.

The site should also explain students' rights and colleges' legal obligations, with links.

Include instructions for making a formal complaint.

Put flyers on bulletin boards to direct students to the site.

Your target audience is the whole student body at your community college.

You can pay $10 extra per year for privacy on the url, so that it cannot be traced to you.

Students will become indignant when they see how widespread the problem is.  This will help them gain courage.

The administrator must be forced into action by student activism.

Find some women's organizations on campus to ally with.  They can help get the word out about the site.

Don't tell anyone you are the creator and the maintainer of the site.

Compare your college's policy and practice with those of a sampling of other community colleges.  Here's a randomly chosen example: http://www.mc3.edu/about-us/misconduct

This reading will help you get a clearer idea of what needs to happen (form a task force?  define a policy?  designate an administrator to receive complaints? etc.).

Once there are some effective anonymous complaints on the site, and you have a clear set of demands, it's time to create a petition.  You can do this with a google form.

Ideally the petition would be launched by a campus organization, not by you as an individual.  But you can do any or all of the legwork.  You can go with the organization's representatives to present the petition and signatures to a top banana.

Include some quotes from the Clarence Thomas - Anita Hill story.  You've got to get people fired up!

Edit:

After reading How to Protect Students from Sexual Harassment: A Primer for Schools (pdf), from the National Women's Law Center (mentioned at the end of the answer written by @ff524 -- thank you!), I now think you may be able to use this document to pressure your college to do more than it has been doing.  Here are some excerpts:

  In addition to but not in lieu of a formal grievance procedure, you
  may want to facilitate informal actions in less serious cases of
  sexual harassment by providing a mediation process or by speaking
  directly to the accused harasser. Remember, however, that your
  obligation is to do what is necessary to stop the harassment, prevent
  its recurrence and effectively address its impact on the victim; if
  informal steps are insufficient to resolve the problem, you must take
  additional action.

  Posters about the [anti-discrimination] policy and sexual harassment
  should be placed in hallways, locker rooms, classrooms,
  administrators’ offices, student activity areas, or other public
  places.

  Once your school has notice of possible sexual harassment of students
  –– whether carried out by employees, other students, or third parties
  –– you should take immediate and appropriate steps to investigate or
  otherwise determine what occurred, regardless of whether the student
  who was harassed decides to file a formal complaint.

  A student who has been targeted by harassment should not have not to
  change his/her activities or move out of his/her classes in order to
  avoid further harassment. Follow up with the student to make certain
  the harassment has stopped and that no retaliation has occurred.

  [To ensure that its anti-discrimination policy is effective, the
  school might conduct a survey of students, teachers, staff and
  parents.]

  A description or summary of the policy, with names of persons to
  contact for more information, should be included in all major school
  publications such as handbooks, course catalogs, or orientation
  materials.

If you feel you've hit a brick wall with the person in charge of implementing the school's anti-discrimination policy, it might be time for a petition, built around the NWLC document, and a meeting with a higher college authority.

I hope you can find a couple of allies.  I get the impression your college could do with some sort of oversight committee of teachers, students and parents.


How can I get back on track after falling behind on my online courses? I need some advice on how to catch up on my online courses. I have gotten really far behind on my work and lack the motivation to keep going. This my second year taking online courses and it seems harder than the first. What should I do to move forward?

As Yoda says... "Do or Do not... there is no 'try'"

As both an educator, and a student in online learning I can feel for you on both sides of the coin. Allow me to inject some of my personal tricks... tools to help you.

First off... contact your teacher/instructor/professor. This is critical point one and both appropriate, and professional. This reach-out opportunity is your chance to tackle a few serious steps toward getting back on track:

it allows you to admit that you have lost motivation and that you
know you are behind.
shows you to be accountable for your lost
placement and willingness to get back on track.

Next, a mentioned before, start "triage"... an emergency assessment & prioritize a list of what must be completed first. Some projects could be banged out in an hour, but worth only a few % points. Others may take 2 days but have serious weight on final grades. Refer to your syllabus and see what is most important for the final grade. After you have assessed their importance and created a complete list of everything due, estimate their completion times (2 hours, 6 hours, 2 days etc etc)

Once you have a prioritized list of what weighs heaviest, and their estimated times... create a time line with the total number of days/hours/weeks remaining in the class. I use excel as it is easy to navigate and layout the time frame. Pen and paper works just as good though. Hopefully you have weeks and you have enough time to right the ship... but if it is days, you need may need to sequester yourself and focus intently on finishing.

Now that you have a list, and a timeline, inject the items to be done into the time line (create a gantt chart) and you have your plan of action ready to go.

...NOW... All of this is the plan. Only you can physically make the commitment to turn off the tv, step away from the video game, opt to not go out drinking, to the movies, or dinner... and settle in and FOCUS.

I find that I often pull up a neflix/amazon selection and put on a movie or something I have seen a dozen times already so I know what is happening without actually  "watching" it. This seems to help to with eliminating that deathly silence in my den.

Only you can find your own motivation, and make the hard decission to actually buckle down and focus. It is hard (and I have done it) to find that once you have lost a few weeks. Perhaps pick a few smaller exercisses or tasks form your plan and finish them first to get that sense of accomplishment to fire off a few points in your direction. That may be just the sense of completion you need to find the next level of commitment.

Last point, and perhaps the most important... DO NOT GIVE UP!

First of all it boils down to how far you are curios and passionate about the subject area of the course you are talking

From question it seems that you were interested to learn but some what distracted with other reasons

Remember One Thing
The state/situation/position you are in are the action of your past thoughts and that's this truth will apply for your future too

Have a Plane Of Action

First prioritize your activities i.e do first things first

Remember your goals

That doesn't mean that you should have a life time goal but it points that a person with out a goal is as good as kite with out a thread

Learning something without any purpose doesn't at all interests you

First of all learn the purpose of what you are learning and history around it and it's evolution and talk about it with you friends who shows interest towards some discussion that gives you little boost of encouragement and interest towards the course

If He can then you can

Please don't get carried away by peoples judgement about you because they to are humans and it's self implies that humans vulnerable to mistakes work hard and prove them wrong ....I know that's what you will do from now

Have a RoleModel

We all tend to have role models based on our interests ,having and remembering them from the work they have done will always keep you motivated and forwarded

Please Don't get carried away by immaterial ,fragile ,immortal temporary pleasures ,all these can entertain you for a short period of time but they will  fade away soon

Every Expert was once a beginner

Don't give up at the first attempt that's not the nature of winners

i.e When you are trying to catch a rabbit out of a folk and you could not get it don't change the rabbit but change the tactics

-----------Wish you all the Success in you life---------
Einstein,Newton,Euler,Madam curie,Martin Luther King ,Columbus,Alexander,....


In a yes/no question, a student gives the right answer and an unnecessary but wrong explanation. How to grade? Example:

Q: Does Venus exhibit retrograde motion? (1 mark)
A: No. This is because Venus orbits the Sun and not the Earth.

The first part is correct: Venus does not exhibit retrograde motion. But the explanation is incorrect: the reason Venus doesn't exhibit retrograde motion is because it's closer to the Sun than we are. Mars for example also orbits the Sun and not the Earth but does exhibit retrograde motion.
Do I award 1 mark or 0? On the one hand, for obvious reasons, the grading scheme only covers whether the student said "yes" or "no". Based on that, I should award 1 mark. Further, if the student hadn't written the incorrect explanation, then the answer is perfect, and it feels wrong to penalize the student for going beyond what the question asks for.
On the other hand, the explanation is clearly incorrect and the student should've known the correct explanation (it's part of the curriculum). It also feels wrong to award full marks for semi-incorrect answers. For example, if the student had written something silly such as "This is because Venus is made of Swiss cheese", do I still award 1 mark?!
Ideally, I'd award 0.5 marks, but for various reasons, fractional scores aren't permissible.

You asked for a yes/no answer (which, as you've discovered, has its disadvantages) and got one plus some other stuff. You should grade the yes/no answer and ignore the other stuff. If you like, you could add a note like "You got lucky! This is actually because..."

The whole point of yes/no or MC questions is that you grade only the answer, and assume that type-1 and type-2 errors cancel out or are normalized out. That paradigm doesn't work if you don't uniformly ignore everything other than the answer.

More concretely: other students likely got this question right using the same incorrect reasoning, but didn't write their reasoning down. There is no way to identify these students; so, you need to make sure they get the same score as this student.

Ask them to give a confidence score (1 to 5 say) for their explanation. A high confidence but wrong explanation suggests a real lack of understanding for example.


Fellow student asked question from take-home exam on Stack Exchange In an advanced university course on computer science and problem solving, one of my fellow students asked for a solution to a home exam on one of the Stack Exchange sites. The question he asked is taken directly from the exam without modification also stating that this is practice question for the upcoming exam. He got the solution. There was more than one question.

The professor always creates questions that are unique. It clearly states that questions on the exam must only be directed to the professor himself.

Now for the moral dilemma. I feel very uneasy about reporting although knowing that it will hurt future students and in the long term the status of the school. Will it affect me? Most likely not.

I would like input on how others would reason about this.

Let's be clear here. From your description, the student clearly cheated by violating the take-home exam's stated policy that (quoting from your comment on @user2768's answer) "it is prohibited to ask anyone for an answer". Thus, your question reduces to the generic question of "should I report a fellow student who cheated?", to which the answer is "yes", as discussed endlessly on many previous questions on this site, e.g.:

Is it okay to report classmates cheating on exams?

Is it reasonable to report another student for cheating when it has no impact on me?

When is it acceptable to report classmates who cheat on an exam?

Should I report cheating to my professor? If so, how?

One can debate (as some here are doing) the viability of take-home exams as an assessment tool, since such exams create relatively easy opportunities for cheating, but that is besides the point. The student cheated, and should be reported. The "moral dilemma" you are referring to is a completely bogus one created by the outdated cultural conditioning that exists in many societies according to which "ratting people out" for bad behavior is morally wrong -- see my analysis of this issue in this answer.

Edit: I noticed that you wrote in a comment that “his account is filled with questions related to assignments in different courses”. Thus, he is not just a cheater, he is a serial cheater, which makes the case for reporting him much stronger. I suggest saving evidence of his cheating (screenshots etc) before reporting to prevent him from hiding his wrongdoing by deleting the questions.

Has SE been used to learn? If your fellow student posted several questions and got good answers which he then used to learn then all is fine. He just used SE as a learning resource. Much as he could have used a book, which I am assuming is fine for a take-home assignment.

If he just copy-pasted the answer without learning then he has not acquired the knowledge which would give him a passing grade.

You can't know if your fellow student copied and pasted or got a good learning experience just from seeing him post a question in SE. Thus you have two options:

Question your fellow student to check if he deserves a passing grade and if that is not the case report him.
Let your teacher do his job. Have a bit of faith in him.

I would advice to go with the second option. 1st option is there just to show how bad an option it is.

This answer is in contradiction to the OP's statement:

  It clearly states that questions on the exam must only be directed to the professor himself.

This is so because that requirement is unethical. There is only one criteria which matters when evaluating a student : Has the student acquired the knowledge that is the subject matter of the course?

"Can the student solve this problem without using Stack Exchange?" is not a valid criteria for grading. Usage of such kind of criteria is often the result of lack or competence, student massification and/or lack of resources. A competent teacher with enough resources should be able to evaluate his students without artificial restrictions.

It might be the case that the teacher is doing his best with what little resources he has, maybe he is not the one at fault. But regardless of who are the cause of these artificially restricted exams you are in no moral obligation to follow such artificial restrictions.


Is it fair for me to drink caffeine during tests? For some of my more difficult and early morning tests, I will buy coffee and bring it with me into the exam. My hope is that the caffeine will help me be fully alert, think more clearly, and write answers more quickly.

However, I know that drinking caffeine puts me in a slightly different state of mind physiologically than my classmates. Is it fair for me to drink caffeinated beverages at tests? If it isn't, is it merely something rude that would be nice for me to stop, or a form of mild cheating that I would be wise to admit to and discuss with my professors?

That would be totally acceptable. Remember, you are also in a totally different state if you went to the toilet right before the exam. If you drank a litre of water in the morning. If you ate something for breakfast that happens to contain lots of short-chained carbohydrates, providing lots of energy for your brain.

You have to draw the line somewere and coffee is definitely acceptable, if not expected.

Edit:
As several comments suggest, your other question about rudeness because of smelling beverages: that's different from course to course, and you will probably have to employ some degree of common sense there. People are usually not bothered by coffee smell as opposed to french fries or the sounds of eating potato crisps. If in doubt, just ask your TA or fellow students before going to the exam.

When there are thousands of ways to be proficient at any given subject, hundreds of ways to learn and execute the skills required to be successful at any given subject, and a million ways to fail...  Is it fair to measure a student's proficiency with only a narrow sliver of a window into said student's ability provided by a paper test in the first place?

I say absolutely not; And limiting the student's scope of success to what one person (or few people) think is the 'correct' application of a concept is setting education back hundreds of years, and is entirely unfair to the students and society at large.

That being said, do what you have to do to get out of that trap so you can move on to the real world where you're going to be applying those skills and concepts as a matter of survival-- where you're free to drink as much coffee as you want, and use as many calculators and references as you need to get the job done.  Don't ignore the lessons! Just get through the tests without worrying about fairness- the world isn't a fair place anyway, and you're the only one responsible for being good at what you do; Not the education system; So who cares if it's fair that you drink coffee?  As long as you pass your tests and enter the professional world as a reliable quality producer of goods and services.