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<issue_start>username_0: I'm enrolled in the last doctoral-level course required for my PhD, and the course material is very difficult, requires a tremendous amount of time, and yet has no relevance to my research. I'm a hard worker who regularly puts in 90+ hour weeks balancing a full time job, research and course work. I'm no slacker, and I love a challenge; I'm no genius, but have a near-perfect GPA.
The course is infamous among students, and I discovered that, due to its difficulty, most students simply resort to cheating on the problem sets, copying answers from prior years. Meanwhile, I've regularly sought assistance from the instructor and TA, and reached out to fellow students in the course (no other student seems interested in working/studying together). You know, the typical things any intelligent adult would do. The problem sets alone occupy about 40 hours a week of my time - yes, really, and I am typically an efficient person.
Sure, I get the fact that the course is helping to identify a weakness in my knowledge of this domain, but it also has little bearing on my research. **What are some strategies in dealing with this situation?** The course is my "last requirement barrier" to being free to focus solely on research.
Informing the instructor about the cheating would be unwise, because I know that this has happened in the past, and that the instructor simply makes the remaining work impossibly difficult and rescinds assistance. It would just make the situation worse.
"Talk to your advisor" is an obvious thing to do, but my machismo and refusal to fail makes we want to seek other options besides begging to be able to not have to take the course. Any ideas?
---
*I'm really touched and appreciative of the responses. I've chosen to "stick it out" and significantly de-prioritize other obligations besides my job and this one course. I'll update this drama at the end of the semester so others can see what happened.*
---
*With one month left in the semester, I've dropped the course. "Toughing it out" has been a rather futile waste of effort. Details below.*
---
The midterm exam had problems that were barely related to any of the lecture topics or problem sets; no assimilation or synthesis, no re-application, and no exam problem was even in the ballpark of our coursework. Despite my preparations, it was not an exam one could prepare for. I welcome and believe in tough exams, but this was absurd; it was as if the exam was from an entirely different course.
Details of a term project have been released with only one month left in the semester, leaving little time to accomplish a very significant project. It's too bad, because I welcome the challenge and it seems fun. But the scope of the project, in addition to upcoming problem sets that alone take 40 hours a week, is a bit unreasonable at this point.
I do encourage others to stick out a tough course by removing other commitments and focusing on succeeding in the course (e.g. doing nothing but the coursework). It's just not possible in my case.<issue_comment>username_1: As you seem to have exhausted all natural support ideas that come to my mind (collaborating - particularly surprising that no one wants to, and not a good sign for your program's climate; seeking advice by TA and instructor), I don't see what else you could do but suffer through one harsh semester, and stick it out. Not working 90+ hours, instead trying to get more sleep, would almost certainly help; but saying this would be patronizing as you probably know it yourself.
Keep also in mind that in most fields, if your GPA is currently spotless, one poor grade in coursework should not matter at all.
If you are absolutely certain that every other student copies their solutions, you are put by their actions into competitive disadvantage, and a strongly unfair position. Your honest attempts are probably less good solutions than the accumulated-over-several-years answers of your classmates. You shouldn't be penalized for being the one honest student. As you don't want to make it known, it would be natural to thus think of getting a short-term fix by copying solutions too. I like to think though that producing less good homework on your own will pay off in the final where your hard work might be rewarded, and the others might find themselves at a loss as they merely copied solutions.
It boils down to sticking it out, unfortunately.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Your description of your PhD program makes it sound quite unhealthy. There is a required course that students can only pass by cheating, the faculty have been apprised of this and that "only makes it worse"? Yikes. If the students don't care about academic integrity and the faculty don't care about the students, then things are dysfunctional to say the least.
It is not reasonable for one required course in a PhD program to take 40 hours a week of a student's time: that's a full work week. Spending that much time in the course in order to pass it doesn't make sense to me: something else will suffer in your program. (By the way, you say you also have a full time job, so that's another 40 hours a week. So you are spending 16 hours a day, Monday through Friday, on your job and this one class, and then whatever else you have to do for your PhD program gets done on the weekend? That's not being a hard worker. That is dangerously little down time. Putting yourself in that situation is a very poor investment for your own health, sanity and success.) To say that you can only pass the course by doing this much work sounds to me like saying you can't pass the course and that you *must* seek out another option. If you're not doing that because of "machismo": please be aware that that doesn't actually make any sense. Neither does a "refusal to fail": what you currently have is a plan that is very likely to lead to failure. Get a better plan.
I am very concerned that -- apparently, anyway -- everyone else is succeeding in the course by cheating. That's not acceptable. You say that it wouldn't help to point this out to the professor. Unless you have already personally contacted this professor about this issue, I don't see how you could know that. In my experience, the way that skullduggery like this gets perpetrated is because the people involved think they have "no choice". Of course you have a choice. I strongly recommend that you tell everything you've told us to the course instructor. Yes, there is the possibility that this could "make things worse". It could even jeopardize your future in the program. However, your future in your program is by no means secure at the moment, and if all your negative fears come to pass it does not sound like the program is worth your time.
If you approach the faculty with the attitude that the program has to be functional and ethical for you to stay in it, I find it very likely that they will work with you and help you through it. If they don't, then I think you're better off out of it. I realize that's a hard answer, but it's what I feel is the correct one.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Perhaps you should consider not trying to do all the problem sets.
If you only spent, say, 20 hours on each problem set, what would the consequences be? Maybe you could still complete 75% of the problems, and skip the most difficult or time-consuming ones. And maybe you'd still learn the material almost as well.
It sounds like you're not terribly concerned about the material in this class with regard to your research (though I would get a second opinion from your advisor on that - there could be connections that you simply don't know about). If so, then your motivation for taking the class is just because it's required. So try to estimate the minimum amount of work needed to pass the class, and make sure you're doing at least that much; but perhaps it's not worth it to push for a perfect grade.
In many graduate classes, one could skip a large fraction of the coursework and still get a grade of B. People will know you didn't do a great job in the class, but it won't get you kicked out of the program. And unlike the situation in undergrad programs, where every GPA point can seem critical in the race for grad school or a good job, in many contexts graduate GPA means practically nothing. People will look at your thesis, your papers, your advisor's opinion of your work - but your transcript gets only a cursory glance.
Given the difficult circumstances and the lack of other good options, I think this might be worth seriously considering. Of course you will have to set aside your "machismo and refusal to fail" - but these traits, taken to an extreme, can be a serious **detriment** to success in grad school, academic life, careers, etc. So you're going to want to learn how to temper them anyway, the sooner the better. Keep in mind that a B is not a failure; it's a strategic decision to prioritize other things. A good general doesn't try to win every battle; sometimes retreat is the best option in the long run.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: There's one possibility which hasn't been mentioned:
Perhaps this is the test of character?
I'd hunt down some prior students and find out what happened in that course. What did they (class members) do when they faced the fork in the road? (Cheat vs. Unfinished work) Even in 3rd person so they might be willing to share what others did (without betraying their own actions).
Are you willing to cheat and turn in complete solutions across the board? Or, are you willing to submit unfinished work, where you answer a reasonable number of them and present what direction you'd take with the remainder?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Here's what you do. Ask the professor if this challenge is actually reasonable -- if it's some sort of final "trial by fire" strategy within the department. If so, ask him to state that. And then, as long as it is humanly possible (others have succeeded), you can simply put your nose to the grindstone and try to accomplish it.
Otherwise, it could be the department has slacked in evaluating student complaints. It *might* be an unreasonable request. Ask your Provost to investigate the matter. Burn-out is not an accomplishment for the department.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: If you think that talking to the course instructor will not help, talk to your advisor first.
If this is a course everyone in your program must take, then your advisor will already have experience with students struggling in this course.
They might have solutions we don't even know about, e.g. a helpful book which explains everything more concisely so you don't have to spend as much time with the course book, or an older student who'd be happy to answer some of your questions.
Or they can talk to the course instructor about the workload, which might turn out better than students complaining about the workload (which - from the POV of a TA - they always do, regardless of the actual workload).
I know you said you don't want to go to your advisor, but this is one of the things to learn during such a program - when to ask for help. Trust me, as long as you're not on the top step of the career ladder, it's important to report problems early enough that your boss can do something about it. If you wait until you get a burnout, your advisor won't be able to advise you how to not get one.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: It is important in life to know when it's time to go to the next level of the hierarchy (I miss the correct expression in English).
If the work is basically impossible to be completed without cheating, and without sacrificing everything else, you MUST report that to the head of department, to the boss of your professor.
In a job, in the future, will you always comply with directives from your boss, even when you are sure they are counterproductive? you must go to the higher level in the hierarchy and complain.
The same now.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: Good Ph.D. training requires that you are able to opening talk to your research advisor. You need to have this conversation, and explain your situation. I do not know of any graduate programs that will kick out for postponing your research in order to pass a class. I do know there are programs that will kick you out for poor grades, and programs that will not award you a degree if you do not take and pass a class.
Having said that, there are going to be inevitable delays in your Ph.D. research. This is going to be one of those delays. Your advisor's hands might be tied, but getting research done is probably very high on their priorities. If they receive government grants for research, then they most certainly need to maintain productively.
Simple put, you wont win if you fight the system. Focus on the class, and tell your advisor what you are doing and why you are not working on research. Nothing more that you can do. Your advisor will likely take up this issue with the director of the course or in the next department meeting. Finally, get all of the required (and only required) classwork out of the way before you start to get serious about research. At some point in the very near future, you should be able to teach yourself about any topic in your general field. That is one of those skills you should develop as a Ph.D. student, and as other have suggested, this might be testing that very ability.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I will be working as a waiter to make extra money, but I am also an ardent academic. I want to know if I can make audio and/or visual recordings of interactions with customers *without* having them sign some sort of waiver. Thus I won't necessarily have the names of participants.
Can I later publish some papers without actual evidence other then someone listening to the tapes and concluding they are not all me pretending to do different voices? It's in the interest of social psychology - will anybody consider this too invasive without permission? And is it less invasive and acceptable if i just try and conduct research on game theory (e.g., possibly trying to manipulate purchases between two customers as competitive relations)? Will it just be considered anonymous contribution, or am I soliciting information while withholding my actual objectives during interaction?
I have no ethics committee monitoring me.
There are 3 days before I start my job.<issue_comment>username_1: What does your advisor thinks of that?
What does your ethics committee thinks of that?
Because, as far as I know, every and all experiments that remotely involve humans need to be approved by an ethics committee.
I'm from computer science but I had a few experiments involving people and that is usually the rule...
And remember, each country has its own set of laws, make sure you know yours!
Apart from that, my first impression was "bad idea". Even if it is, by some weird loophole, legal, it is not very ethical, at least IMHO...
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: You indicate not only that you plan on recording their likenesses, but also that you intend to do some degree of experimentation.
Sometimes if you are strictly doing observation with anonymous convenience sampling, your IRB will let you get away with it, but the moment you start manipulating variables in any way, that is experimentation, and that requires informed consent.
You need informed consent.
You might be able to get away with doing your social experiment to write it up for your blog, but you almost assuredly would not be able to use this for any degree of academic publication.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I assume you are in Namibia, based on your profile. It is actually very hard to determine what the relevant laws of Namibia are, so I suggest contacting one of the senior faculty in Human Sciences at UNAM, who are most likely to know what the review procedure is (for instance, what the committee is called -- in the US, "IRB", which stands for "Institutional Review Board", has the authority to review human subjects research -- they will know how "human subjects research" is defined locally). For example, you would want to know whether it is against the law to photograph or record persons in public without their consent. It is possible that there is no law regarding privacy, beyond Article 13 of the Constitution, which would not be relevant here. Even if there is no statutory restriction against citizens conducting unapproved research, it probably could contravene university rules, and you could be expelled for conducting such research, or you could be forbidden from using the research. Plus, the owner of the restaurant could fire you for messing with his customers.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: For the United States, at least, there is an [excellent set of human-subjects decision flow-charts](http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/policy/checklists/decisioncharts.html) published by the US Department of Health and Human Services. Some aspects are US-specific, but most of it is a generally good guideline for thinking about the ethical boundaries of "What ethically counts in human subject research?" and "What precautions do I need to be thinking about when conducting research with human subjects?"
Navigating these charts with respect to the scenarios that you have proposed, I find the following:
* From Chart 1, both are clearly research involving living human subjects, therefore sending us to Chart 2 (possible exemptions).
* **Recording customers without their knowledge:** This is observation of public behavior, except the information you capture can identify people and its release could possibly cause harm (e.g., by revealing that a person was in this restaurant when they were supposed to be somewhere else). Therefore, it must be treated with care, and requires external review by an IRB.
* **Intervention with the aim of studying effects on customer purchases:** Intervention definitely requires external review by an IRB.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Other answers have covered the actual academic aspect of this - what you need to do to produce publishable research. There is also an aspect that is technically off-topic here, but would be on-topic if you asked about the same plan on workplace.se, which I recommend doing.
There are at least two reasons your employer might disapprove of you recording customers in the restaurant:
1. If/when it comes out that an employee has been recording customers, and using them without consent as research subjects, it will damage the restaurant's reputation, not just the employee's. Depending on local rules, it might also expose the employer to legal liability. That is regardless of whether your activities require consent for academic publication.
2. Recording customers, and doing research on them, is likely to distract you from doing your job. Your full attention, during working hours, should be on taking orders, serving meals, and any other tasks for which your employer is paying you.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Just wanted to ask why you don't simply observe and take field notes, why record people?
In UK you would also have to deal with data protection and maybe freedom of information legislation.
I think you can still produce a high standard of work without having to use tabloid journalist tactics :-)
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Does anyone have any information, either formal or anecdotal, about being a research assistant as a nondegree student, specifically with the aim of getting published?
In particular, I am referring to a situation where someone with a bachelor's degree takes coursework as a nondegree student and tries to participate in research in preparation for graduate study.<issue_comment>username_1: This wouldn't work for me as an employer of research assistants. Undergraduates and random people off the street rarely have technical sophistication to be able to participate in my research projects. I'm pretty sure that in most cases I'm beholden to my NSF grant terms to pay a PhD, a postdoc, or a student to do the work, since this is what we said we'd do in the grant application budget. The people may be more or less interchangeable to the granting agencies as long as the work gets done, but I believe there's more to it than that.
I don't think a non-degree-seeking person can be a/an (graduate or undergraduate) research assistant under my university's HR rules either since they must be currently enrolled as an undergrad or graduate student to have either of those titles. Also, I'm basically not allowed to have an unpaid research assistant nor am I interested in such a person. First, it's probably [illegal in the US](http://internships.about.com/od/internships101/a/departmentoflaborsnewguidelinesforinterns.htm), and second, it's a bit off-puting to me that you would come, do some research, and then leave once you've gotten the publication that you think will get you into grad school. I prefer to have a deeper, longer relationship with my research collaborators than what it takes to get one good publication out the door.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Ask the school. Some have programs which give undergrads the chance to work in research labs, with the actual jobs being determined by the researcher's evaluation of their skill level. It may just be cleaning cages and washing bottles or the equivalent, it may be more seriously assisting the research protocol, or it may start with the former and grow as you demonstrate that you have or can acquire the needed skills. It all depends on what that particular researcher is looking for and what you can offer them.
If this program exists, they'll be able to give you a list of who's currently looking for what. It's then up to you to contact them and interview for the position.
Some versions of this offer an academic credit or two; some pay at on-campus-undergraduate-job rates.
Again: only your school knows what's available at your school. First step is to ask whether it exists. If you're not sure which office might be in charge of this, I've found that the administrative assistants in the department office usually know just about everything about the school, or know who to ask.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I was recently informed that a manuscript that I submitted to a journal a long time ago has been accepted.
I submitted it as the sole author, however, my advisor had some comments and suggestions that I applied to the manuscript.
As a courtesy I would now like to add him as an author.
My question: can a second author, i.e. my advisor, be added once I receive the galley proof, or whatever that is called, to the manuscript.
Any thoughts would be highly appreciated.
Possibly related to this [question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13676/adding-co-authors-after-acceptance).<issue_comment>username_1: The difficulty here is that there's not a lot of ethical flexibility. It's possible that this is a borderline case, where it's genuinely unclear whether your advisor should be an author and the two of you could reasonably change your minds. However, most cases are not near the borderline. As a general rule, either your advisor should have been an author all along (in which case submitting the paper without him was unethical), or he should not be an author now (in which case adding him would be unethical). It's possible to change the author list after acceptance, but the editors will be suspicious and will ask for an explanation of why nothing unethical is going on.
I assume you discussed authorship with your advisor when you submitted the paper, and both of you approved of the author list at the time of submission. (If you didn't discuss it, then you need to do so immediately.) In that case, what has changed? It's usually best not to revisit the authorship once it has been agreed on, but if you feel strongly about it you could explain that you feel the current author list undervalues your advisor's contributions and that you think he should become an author. (Note that as <NAME> points out in the comments, this is only allowable if he made substantial intellectual contributions to the research, not just to thank him for his supervision.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I would like to draw your attention to the [Vancouver Protocol for Authorship](http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html):
>
> 1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work;
> or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the
> work;
> 2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important
> intellectual content;
> 3. Final approval of the version to be published;
> 4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the
> work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity
> of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
>
>
>
According to the protocol, a candidate for authorship must meet all four criteria to be considered an author on the piece. Of course, some do not follow such protocol, but this is the expectation.
Considering that you have already submitted and the piece has been accepted, it would appear that your supervisor does not meet all four criteria, in particular points three and four. Otherwise, for your supervisor to meet the criteria of authorship, they would have had to have given you approval and permission to submit the manuscript in the first place.
Thank them in the acknowledgements, that's usually the appropriate way to handle this situation.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: Right now, I work full-time and am applying to EE grad school (part-time) for next Fall.
Does a person apply to Masters Program, earn the Masters, and then they are eligible to work on Phd?
Or is applying to Phd a separate application process? I am in USA.<issue_comment>username_1: The answer to your question is highly dependent on the **context**, in particular, the *country* and/or the *specific institution*. A typical way is to apply to a Ph.D. program, having completed (or almost completed - often termed *early admission*) a master's program. In addition to the early admission, which is focused on students in their later stages in a master's program, some schools have a *transfer* policy, which, vice versa, is focused on students in their early stage in a master's program (for an example, see [this page](https://www.grad.ubc.ca/faculty-staff/policies-procedures/transfer-masters-doctoral-programs-without-completing-masters)). Having said that, there are institutions that allow people with bachelor's degree only to *apply directly* to a Ph.D. program. For more details on this topic and/or some anecdotal examples, see [this Quora discussion](https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-get-admission-into-a-PhD-program-without-a-masters-degree) as well as [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/22032/12391) and [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/14661/12391). Finally, it is even possible (though quite rare!) to enroll in a Ph.D. program *without having even a bachelor's degree*. See [this discussion on Academia.SE](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/17841/12391) for details and inspirational examples.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In my Mathematics program in the US, you could (with a Bachelor's) apply either to the Master's program or the PhD program directly. You could also (I think, though it's not what I did so I'm not sure) move from the Master's program to the PhD without reapplying, or get your Master's from the PhD program as an intermediate step.
However, while all of these were options, you were best off applying directly to the PhD program no matter what your intentions were. You were more likely to be offered funding if you were pursuing a PhD.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: When applying for undergraduate schools it was relatively easy to look up average ACT/SAT scores and GPAs of admittance to know if I would be a competitive applicant. As of right now I want to pursue a PhD in math and I'm struggling to know if a program is within my reach or not. Last year my grades tanked and I went from a 4.0 math GPA to now a 3.2 with a 3.5 overall. I'm working now to hopefully get that up and I'm planning on taking a year off after where I may stay in my undergraduate town to continue to take more classes to raise my GPA but either way I'll have a C and a BC on my transcript so I don't know which schools are within my reach if I get enough research experience/letters of recommendation and which I shouldn't even bother with.<issue_comment>username_1: If you can show real research potential (papers in one of the journals for undergraduate research, participation in research as an undergraduate) that will probably weigh more than raw GPA. A dip in grades is certainly worrisome, as it hints at losing interest. You'll have to have an explanation.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The best type of person to answer this question is a mathematician who knows you and knows roughly what a successful applicant to your desired programs looks like. A bad grade or two does not necessarily imply a gap in your knowledge. Even if it did, it may or may not be a gap that the admissions committee cares about.
Here is one relevant anecdote: I once applied to a top 20 school (math Ph.D.) and was not accepted. I asked the admissions director what I might do to improve my application. He cited some low grades that were a red flag for him: a B+ in linear algebra and B- in abstract algebra. He did not even seem to care that I had a C (lower grade) in differential equations, and he said nothing of my GPA.
To go with my point in the first paragraph, my advisor had in fact (for various reasons) told me not to apply to this school!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: It's also useful to identify professors in the department of your target school performing research in which you're interested. When you apply, be sure to mention that professor (or those professors, if their stated research topics are very similar) in your application.
Therefore, to help with your justification of the bad grades, it may be possible to show your *good* grades in the courses relevant to your research interests and your *poor* grades in courses irrelevant to your interests. This may also help you avoid worries of waning interest from the admissions committee ("I got so interested in [this topic with good course grades and directly tied to Professor Jones' research area] that I didn't devote enough time to [this topic that's irrelevant to stated research goals with bad course grades], and that subsequently resulted in my low marks in this single course").
It's an idea, but I think anything you can do to make those grades seem uncharacteristic of your general performance and interests will help your case. It's not so much a matter of overall GPA, but how you performed in the courses that count.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: What is the difference between MBA and Masters in a specific subject of Business studies like, master in Management?
What will be a better option for one if he intends to be a researcher in future?
And does MBA degree specialize a specific subject of business studies?<issue_comment>username_1: An MBA is a professional degree designed for students who will go to work in industry and not pursue further graduate study or research. Students in MBA programs typically all take the same courses in lock step with very few electives or options. It generally isn't possible to specialize in a particular area in an MBA program. In that sense, an MBA program is very much like medical school or law school and totally unlike graduate study in engineering and the arts and sciences. Students in MBA programs usually have several years of full time experience working in low level corporate jobs after completing a bachelors degree. Because they have had some exposure to the corporate/business world, the courses that they take draw on that experience.
In comparison, the Master's in Management is a professionally oriented degree program aimed primarily at students who have just completed a bachelor's degree. These programs tend to be more theoretical simply because students have less practical experience to draw on. Many business schools also offer professionally oriented masters degrees in more specialized technical areas (e.g. a Master's degree in mathematical finance or operations research or analytics.)
PhD programs in business schools are typically very separate from MBA programs and the students in the PhD program will typically take very few if any courses with the MBA students. PhD students take more theoretical course work, take advanced courses in an area of specialization (e.g. accounting, finance, marketing, etc.) take course work in research methods, and then conduct research and write a dissertation.
If you're just completing a bachelor's degree and want to get a masters and go to work in industry, than a Masters in Management is the typical path. If you're just completing a bachelor's degree and want to become a business school professor then a PhD program would be appropriate. If you've had several years of experience in business and want to move up in management, then an MBA would be the typical path for you.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to the nice answer by @BrianBorchers (+1), I would like to clarify several aspects that you are interested in (stated in your question), but he hasn't touched upon (if I haven't missed it).
Firstly, I would say that the biggest difference between MBA and master's degree in a business subject is that the former is a general degree, whereas the latter implies some specialization or, at least, focus. Considering this aspect, one could expect that typically an MBA graduate is potentially a more well-rounded business professional than a graduate with a specialized master's degree.
Secondly, I would say that, **if you are not absolutely certain about what area of research you want to specialize in**, the *optimal approach* would be to go the MBA route. That would allow you to be exposed to a wider variety of disciplines and areas of study, thus, increasing your chances to find areas of research that best fit your interests, goals and/or personality. An additional *positive side effect* of this approach is that, should, for some reasons, you decide later to pivot (temporarily or otherwise) and work in a managerial role, you would, in my opinion, have better career options and flexibility being an MBA graduate rather than one with a specialized master's degree.
Thirdly, in regard to MBA specialization, there are indeed many different specialized MBA full programs (or *specializations* within a general program, also referred to as *tracks*), in addition to standard general MBA programs. For example, consider [this list of MBA specializations](http://www.stern.nyu.edu/programs-admissions/full-time-mba/academics/specializations) at NYU Stern School of Business.
Finally, I agree with username_1 in that you should target enrolling in a Ph.D. program, if you want to become a researcher in business-related areas of study. Such programs are typically offered through universities' business schools (for example, see [this program](http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/programs/phd) by Stanford GSB).
Some schools also offer a relatively similar degree of *Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)*. Personally, I am not a big fan of this route, since not only the abbreviation can lead to you being confused with a database administrator :-), but, on a more serious note, Ph.D. programs are often more rigorous and, thus, more respectable and valuable than similar DBA programs (though, it depends on institution, as some top universities also offer DBA degrees - in any way, DBA is typically a **more applied** degree than Ph.D.). In addition to *standard DBA* programs, there are also *specialized DBA* programs, like [this one](http://www.olin.wustl.edu/EN-US/academic-programs/dba-in-finance/Pages/default.aspx), as well as *executive DBA* programs, like [this one](http://www.psbedu.paris/en/programs/executive-dba).
You might also find useful to read [my answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/48363/12391) to a related (MBA vs. Master of Science) question.
Upvotes: 0
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2015/10/02
| 295
| 1,288
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<issue_start>username_0: Recently Microsoft has released a dataset, [Microsoft Academic Graph](http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/mag/). I have used DBLP dataset before. I want to know what is the difference between these two datasets.<issue_comment>username_1: I am not very familiar with both data sets. But it is pretty clear to me that the *Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG)* data set is *much more comprehensive* than the DBLP one in at least one aspect: **field of study**. As far as I know, DBLP data set covers only *computer science* subject domain, whereas MAG's coverage goes far beyond that. For more details, see [this relevant MSR paper](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=246609).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Microsoft academic search dataset is part of the initiative by Microsoft for providing searchable interface to users for searching through the corpus of research data in all areas of research. This includes publication, year, author or any such relevant information pertaining to the dataset. Whereas, DBLP dataset as an academic initiative from the university of Trier to create a dataset regarding the research publication in area of Computer Science. Therefore, scale and scope of both the dataset is different.
Upvotes: 0
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2015/10/02
| 1,281
| 5,795
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<issue_start>username_0: In a number of questions raised here, it has been implied / asserted that research involving human subjects which has not received IRB approval cannot be published. In my own area of research (which is not experimental), I know of no evidence for such a restriction by journal policy. I am therefore curious about the mechanics and nature of such restrictions. Are there journals with explicit policies of this type? I would especially be interested to know of examples in areas outside of the social sciences and medicine. I do, however, want to restrict the question to reputable journals (leaving it up to the experts to make the distinction).
There are a number of underlying questions that motivate this question, so I'm looking for the tools to answer them myself. For instance, in two highly-regarded experimental journals in my field, there is no public statement about requiring IRB approval, so I wonder where the enforcement comes in, and whether authors (especially independent researchers) are given fair notice prior to submission. Right now, I just want to know where there are (non-biomedical) journals that positively *do* have such a policy.<issue_comment>username_1: For example, [here](http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/experimental.html) is the bioethics policy for the *Nature* journals. It includes the sentence:
>
> For experiments involving human subjects, authors must identify the committee approving the experiments, and include with their submission a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all subjects.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: From Springer:
>
> When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
>
>
>
<http://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/journal-author/journal-author-helpdesk/before-you-start>
Notice that those policies are not from any *journal*, but from the publisher, therefore encompassing **all** their publications.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Some journals may not expressly have a policy because it's actually assumed that a lack of IRB approval would halt a research project from taking place *well before the publication phase*. For example, several Schools of Public Health require all work to go through IRB determination before they begin. Similarly, many funders require a statement of IRB approval.
Given that, some journal examples:
*American Journal of Epidemiology*: "If a study has involved any contact with human subjects or if it is otherwise appropriate, authors should state in their Methods section that their institution's review board has approved the study proposal, as well as the manner in which informed consent was obtained from subjects (if applicable). Authors should follow the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki (41st World Medical Assembly. Declaration of Helsinki: recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects. Bull Pan Am Health Organ. 1990;24:606-609)."
*Epidemiology*: "It is the authors' responsibility to verify that any study involving human subjects has been approved by the committee on research ethics at the institution where the research was conducted, in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association. State in the manuscript that such approval was received and, where applicable, that study participants gave informed consent."
*New England Journal of Medicine*: "In appropriate places in the manuscript, please provide the following items: If applicable, a statement that the research protocol was approved by the relevant institutional review boards or ethics committees and that all human participants gave written informed consent"
*The Royal Society*: "For experiments involving human subjects, the committee approving the experiments should be identified and the research conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. The authors should confirm that informed consent was obtained from all subjects."
*Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*: "Research involving Human and Animal Participants and Clinical Trials must have been approved by the author's institutional review board. Authors must include in the Methods section a brief statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments. For all experiments involving human participants, authors must also include a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all participants, or provide a statement why this was not necessary. All experiments must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Authors must follow the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' policy and deposit trial information and design into an accepted clinical trial registry before the onset of patient enrollment. For animal studies, authors must report the species, strain, sex, and age of the animals."
The last two are definitively not social science/medicine only journals.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> examples in areas outside of the social sciences and medicine
>
>
>
For an example far out side those areas, Physical Review journals [require](http://journals.aps.org/authors/human-animal-research) IRB approval "when applicable." Here is a somewhat rare [example paper](http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.018102) where IRB approval was obtained.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/10/02
| 1,799
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm aware, that this question is going to appear too emotional and exaggerated, but I'll try my best to describe the whole situation as it is, unbiased.
**The point** is, I'm major degree student who changed his field of study from Informatics and Computer Science (I've got B.S. from it) to Computational Mathematics. I was not very happy with lecturers' behavior in B.S. degree ([HERE](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/40696/problems-with-bachelors-thesis-supervisor) is my question about Bachelor's thesis, where my supervisor effectively refused to cooperate), but now it's much worse than everything I've ever imagined.
Most of my colleagues in this new field look down at me, like I was some pauper who went there to steal something to eat. The most terrifying thing is, that even some professors obviously share this attitude, that Informatics and CS student are not worthy of being accepted by mathematicians. **The first inciden**t happened approximately 2 weeks ago and I asked about it [HERE](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/54493/lecturer-ridiculing-me-in-front-of-class-for-making-a-mistake).
Today, **the second incident** happened, or better, climaxed. Since the first week of this term I was trying to contact one of professors, who was responsible for my *acclimatization plan* (one subject, where are the most important things from B.S., so you could catch up with your colleagues in your new field). He was supposed to send me some studying materials and tell me, which topics I should learn. Also he should tell me about terms of my exams and the topic of the project he wants me to do. He did none of these things, so I was contacting him again and again.
He usually responded to my e-mail with some vague info about "consulting it next week on Skype". Yesterday I insisted on consultation, but he told me, that he only wants to do it through Skype. Then he send me some messages late in the evening and in the morning today with the text similar to this: "Do you have the time to consult it right now?" I had no chance to even read it exactly in the time the message was delivered. Today I accepted the whole "Skype thing" and send him an e-mail in the afternoon again. He told me that he'll be online today at 8 p.m. But, even after three my messages, he wasn't. I got only short e-mail about him being ready in 5 minutes (so he was near his computer), but he wasn't. I gave up waiting in 9:30 p.m. After 10 p.m. I got e-mail from him with text "OK, tomorrow I'll be here from 10 to 11 a.m.".
I consider this last message to be a pure mockery, he probably wants me to wait for him again and again, even in weekends.
The problem is, I don't know, **what should I do now**. My greatest dream was becoming a successful scientist. After B.S. I was offered a part-time job in our research center and I got about 6 offers to the industry positions (even a programming job for company which produces airplanes). Even if those positions were much more lucrative, I accepted the position in research. Because of this research center is our university ranked top in my country.
I've sacrificed everything I could to this dream. My friends (who are away or in the CS field), hobbies (bodybuilding, martial arts and even fishing were too time-consuming activities) and my health too. I've started loosing hair, weight, my hands are trembling permanently and I had to undergo lesser back surgery because of long-term sitting, so now I have the typical "drug-addict look". It didn't matter too much to me, I was working and studying about 14 hours every day.
But now I'm incredibly frustrated, sad and shocked because of my new lecturers' and colleagues' attitude. I feel like I cannot continue my degree here, but I don't want to leave either, because I would've left my job in research.
Ok, so here are **my questions**:
1. What do you think I can do about professors' attitude? I don't think an official complaint is the best idea because of their positions.
2. Is it possible to suspend my career in the academy, take the job in the industry and try to get into another research center next year? Or will it damage my career as a researcher deeply?
I'm sorry for a very long description of my problem.<issue_comment>username_1: My adviser told me in my first meeting with him: "I warn you that we'll agree on meetings, and I will just forget to come." This isn't ideal, but I took it as a cute forgetful scientist comment, not an insulting admission. And yes, it turned out to happen a lot.
Professors deal not just with research and supervising students, but they might be involved with industry, probably have a family, and certainly spend much time fighting administration; and the more accomplished they are, the more time is spent dealing with issues they'd rather not instead of focusing on what most like (such as doing research, and supervising). I fully understand that your experiences are frustrating, but they don't strike me necessarily as that unusual. If you find yourself with an adviser who is always extremely reliable, you are lucky. You are not lucky, but this is still to say that all I think you need is patience.
There is more to it though. If your adviser is the busy type, and offers a meeting right after sending you information, he obviously doesn't expect you to have it digested already. You should have taken him up on the offer, and refrain from fatalistic attitudes such as calling re-scheduling attempts a "mockery." <NAME> wrote (from memory) "We cannot change what happens to us, but we can change how we feel about it." While this isn't so easy, it's good advice as attaching negative *feelings* to events in the course of work or study doesn't help. From your questions here, you appear to do that commonly. I think your mind and body would benefit if you wouldn't. To learn this, maybe talking to a counsellor might help, if only to verbalize your frustration with them, and maybe so get it out of your system.
I can't help but feel that the world around you isn't quite as dark as it appears to you. Try to learn how to perceive it that way.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Is there a graduate student administrator? A professor who has special responsibility for graduate students in the department? If neither of those, go for the head of the department.
In any case, contact that person explaining that you have not been able to schedule a meeting with Professor X, and asking for help working with him or an alternative who is more accessible.
Try to keep your communication very factual and relevant. For this purpose, your feelings about "mockery" are irrelevant. All that matters is that you need to get "acclimatization plan" information. Professor X has not been able to either send you the materials or be available to consult about it.
Incidentally, my interpretation of the situation is that it is likely that Professor X is seriously over-committed at the moment. He tried to arrange a Skype call at 8 p.m., which probably means he was going to be doing it from home, where family matters would take precedence.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/10/02
| 842
| 3,543
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<issue_start>username_0: Solving research problems is *hard*. After a while I feel mentally spent. I want to be as productive as possible but I don't know of many good ways to "recharge my batteries" after I have been thinking hard.
I have tried taking walks but in the winter it is snowy and cold outside. I have tried socializing with my colleagues but I find it hard to focus when I get back to work. I have tried switching to easier tasks (like email) but that doesn't seem to recharge my energy levels much.
What are some good ways to take a break so that I can come back to my work refreshed, energetic and enthusiastic?<issue_comment>username_1: My adviser told me in my first meeting with him: "I warn you that we'll agree on meetings, and I will just forget to come." This isn't ideal, but I took it as a cute forgetful scientist comment, not an insulting admission. And yes, it turned out to happen a lot.
Professors deal not just with research and supervising students, but they might be involved with industry, probably have a family, and certainly spend much time fighting administration; and the more accomplished they are, the more time is spent dealing with issues they'd rather not instead of focusing on what most like (such as doing research, and supervising). I fully understand that your experiences are frustrating, but they don't strike me necessarily as that unusual. If you find yourself with an adviser who is always extremely reliable, you are lucky. You are not lucky, but this is still to say that all I think you need is patience.
There is more to it though. If your adviser is the busy type, and offers a meeting right after sending you information, he obviously doesn't expect you to have it digested already. You should have taken him up on the offer, and refrain from fatalistic attitudes such as calling re-scheduling attempts a "mockery." <NAME> wrote (from memory) "We cannot change what happens to us, but we can change how we feel about it." While this isn't so easy, it's good advice as attaching negative *feelings* to events in the course of work or study doesn't help. From your questions here, you appear to do that commonly. I think your mind and body would benefit if you wouldn't. To learn this, maybe talking to a counsellor might help, if only to verbalize your frustration with them, and maybe so get it out of your system.
I can't help but feel that the world around you isn't quite as dark as it appears to you. Try to learn how to perceive it that way.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Is there a graduate student administrator? A professor who has special responsibility for graduate students in the department? If neither of those, go for the head of the department.
In any case, contact that person explaining that you have not been able to schedule a meeting with Professor X, and asking for help working with him or an alternative who is more accessible.
Try to keep your communication very factual and relevant. For this purpose, your feelings about "mockery" are irrelevant. All that matters is that you need to get "acclimatization plan" information. Professor X has not been able to either send you the materials or be available to consult about it.
Incidentally, my interpretation of the situation is that it is likely that Professor X is seriously over-committed at the moment. He tried to arrange a Skype call at 8 p.m., which probably means he was going to be doing it from home, where family matters would take precedence.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/10/03
| 2,284
| 9,693
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<issue_start>username_0: How essential is having my advisor's letter for post doc application?
I had a pretty bad relationship with my advisor for more than 4 years since I joined his lab and sometimes the relationship feels like slow inflammation that can easily flare up. We had very different opinion on how I want to approach my thesis and we argue very often on the experimental approach and the angle of attack. After that, he turned passive aggressive and completely hands-off. I noticed that he started slow to response to my email and given me very small amount time for meeting in comparison to other people in the lab. However, I proved to him that my approach was right and wrote the full paper myself and got published.
Recently, I got contact by a post doc employer who interested in my own work and request letter of recommendation. I asked my advisor for letter and he told me that I should write my own from which he can modify. I feel this is quite strange as he had wrote for all the other people in the lab, including a departing post doc who is currently interviewing for job. He told me he had done the same for other people but obviously he lied to me.
I further asked if he can provide me a copy of a completed version of the recommendation but he refused.
My question is should I still trust him to write my letter and is it essential? This post doc position is a great opportunity for me and either way I do is a big gamble.
Update: I decided to let my advisor wrote a letter for me and I think I may have made a big mistake. Since he wrote my letter, I asked the post doc lab head if my letter is completed and I no longer be able to hear back from him. Before that, he was quick to response to my email and showed great enthusiasm. As an insurance, I use one opportunity I have less desire to as bait to test the water and I still have one more shot at another position I really want. Now, I'm thinking requesting open letter from advisor from now on for any future position or use letter service to check the letter.
Any suggestion? Thanks.
update: Great news! Got interviewed and offered at top ones! Thanks everyone!<issue_comment>username_1: That happened to me, but worse. My postdoc supervisor unilaterally rescinded my grant, I was never completely sure of why.
What I'm currently doing is to include my other advisors/professors and explicitly say that I had a disagreement with him, that he rescinded my grant, but I was cleared of any wrongdoing (the funding agency gave me a new fellowship a few months later) and that's why I didn't ask for a LOR.
My current supervisor was aware of the whole deal from the get-go and he was fine with it.
Be honest, be clear, do not hide anything.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: You are very unlikely to get a good post-doc position without a strong letter from your advisor. If you don't provide a letter from your advisor, that looks like a huge red flag, and most people hiring are not going to consider your application.
If your relationship with your dissertation advisor was poor, that puts you in a lousy position. However, having your advisor ask for a template letter to work from, while not ideal, is not necessarily terrible either. It doesn't indicate the greatest investment on his part in your future success, but it doesn't mean that he won't write a strong letter either. And I wouldn't assume that he hasn't done something similar with some of his other former students, either, even if you haven't heard about it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Once it became clear that you were not going to follow your advisor's advice on important issues, it might have been better to switch advisors to one you could work with. Instead, you continued, in effect, without an advisor. The limited meeting time, slow e-mail response, and requiring you to draft the LOR all suggest to me an attitude of "Why waste my time giving advice that won't be taken anyway?".
You cannot be sure he is lying about having other people draft their own LOR unless you have talked with every person for whom he has ever sent one. He may feel he knows some students well enough to write an LOR from scratch, but needs a draft for others.
The best you can do at this point is to write what you consider to be a reasonable LOR and give it to your non-advisor.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: One thing that hasn't been addressed yet:
>
> I further asked if he can provide me a copy of a completed version of the recommendation but he refused.
>
>
>
You seem to view this as a danger sign, but I would not. Practices regarding letters of recommendation vary around the world (and you haven't said where you are), but at least for the US, the custom is that a letter is sent confidentially from the writer to the recipient, and the candidate (about whom the letter is written) never sees it. The idea is that this makes it more possible for the writer to speak freely.
I'd expect your advisor to refuse such a request even if your relationship was great and he was writing you the awesomest letter ever. It would be very unusual for him to agree to show you the letter, under any circumstances. I don't think it was an appropriate request for you to have made.
Of course, it is possible that he is planning to write an unfavorable letter, but there is really no way to know without reading his mind. To my mind, this particular fact (that he wouldn't show you the letter) isn't really evidence one way or the other.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I think your attitude at this point has to be, "What I really need right now, and all I need right now, is a strong letter of recommendation. To heck with the past."
Your former adviser has actually made you a very good offer: write the letter yourself. Thus, do write a letter that focuses on what the project was about, what you believe you contributed, and what the results were -- including that the results were very meaningful and that your thesis led to a publication. Do mention which outlet the piece was published in. If you think it's relevant, you may also write something about how you think you developed as a researcher during the project. Focus on output and don't dwell on inputs, i.e., don't write something like "Mr. X worked long hours, including lots of weekends".
You have, of course, no control over how your ex-adviser may see fit to edit the letter once you hand it over to him. However, if you limit your letter to what's factually correct and essential to your potential future employer, I think there's an excellent chance that the ex-adviser may simply sign the letter and send it to whomever you say needs the letter. I see two reasons for being optimistic. First, don't underestimate the power of inertia: If the adviser wants to apply any edits (minor or major), *he* will have to do the extra work. Given that you described his eventual behavior (accurately or inaccurately) as passive aggressive, he may decide it's too much work on his part to edit the letter. Second, don't underestimate the desire of many established researchers to have successful advisees. If he were to write something unflattering about you, that may well be read as a sign of failure on his part. If he's at all rational, he'll want to avoid the risk of creating such an impression.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Blaming others or yourself at this point is useless. I would do the following to go around the issue, by politely asking the following two groups of academics:
1. **Your Examiners**: During the viva, you will have a number of examiners, these are one of the best people to ask about recommendation letter, as they know you by your final product (i.e., your thesis) and therefore they will go right to the point. Right in here, you could get at least your two recommendation letters; that is required for most postdoc jobs.
2. **Other Professors In Your Group**: Unless you have been a total social disaster in terms of communicating to the other academics in your research group, while you have been a Ph.D. student; you could ask a number of professors you know in your group. Ask them for a one on one meeting, explain your situation and kindly ask them for the recommendation letter. If you have been a bright student, believe me they have nothing to complain about and will give you a letter.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: You are understandably nervous that something in the content and tone of the final submitted version would give away the strained relationship between you, and work against you in the application process. It is impossible for me to say whether he would be able to write a nice letter without some subtleties of his feelings toward you and your work slipping through. But I can say that it is damaging for you, psychologically, to experience this degree of anxiety and apprehension, and that a letter with subtle negativity, or a lukewarm tone, would harm your application.
You could try this:
>
> Prof. <NAME>, I know we've had our differences. We're two strong
> characters with a passion for science, and we have different
> approaches. Given the fact that things haven't always been smooth
> sailing between us, I wanted to ask if you are really comfortable
> writing a letter of recommendation for me, or if you think it would
> serve me better to try to find someone else.
>
>
>
You need to find some way of reading him, and getting a handle on what sort of letter he would send.
If in doubt, don't include him as a reference. Do send the committee a brief explanation. Keep Fábio's experience and happy ending clearly in your mind.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/10/03
| 771
| 2,989
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<issue_start>username_0: I've seen several English translations for "PhD", but seems to me that it did not originate from England. Who introduced the term, what did it originally stand for and where did it originate from? I'm curious where anyone has traced out this history.<issue_comment>username_1: Term *Ph.D.* is an abbreviation from *Philosophy Doctor* (also referred to as [doctor of philosophy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy)), an English language variant of the Latin phrase *Doctor Philosophiae*. Historically, the linguistic roots of the title can be traced back to early meaning of modern English language words *doctor* and *philosophy*. The former comes from Latin word for *(license to) teach* (see [this Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_%28title%29)), while the former comes from Greek phrase for "love of wisdom", implying *general knowledge* acquisition. While I am not aware of who introduced the term "doctor of philosophy" (and, most likely, it cannot be proved accurately), if I can make an uneducated guess, it most likely has been introduced some time in medieval Europe. Interesting additional linguistic and historical support of the above-mentioned information can be found in [this related discussion](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/57387/which-was-the-first-doctor-m-d-or-ph-d) on *StackExchange*.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The title [PhD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_European_research_universities) as the name of an advanced degree was first awarded in [Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_European_research_universities) at the Humboldt University of Berlin in the 19th century. From there it spread to the US, Japan and elsewhere in Europe.
The chicken and egg problem was simple: you don't have to have a PhD to certify someone as an expert in some field of knowledge if you are already a world-leading authority in that field of knowledge. The faculty at the Humboldt University at that time were all already widely known experts, and so they were able to credential other as experts.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: In the older English universities there had been for hundreds of years the senior doctoral degrees (Doctor of Science, Doctor of Letters, etc) that were broadly equivalent to habilitation in the universities of continental Europe. They were awarded in recognition of a very great mass of work, much more than a mere PhD dissertation. The holders of those degrees did not, in their opinion, NEED PhD degrees to decide to confer them on other people. When I was a post-graduate student at Cambridge 50 years ago there was a certain inverted snobbery amongst some of the teachers: I was taught Galois theory by Mr X FRS. Presumably he did not feel the need to prove himself by bothering with any postgraduate degree, and what is more, his senior colleagues presumably thought he did not need to do so either.
Upvotes: 0
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2015/10/03
| 396
| 1,512
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a Google scholar [account A](https://scholar.google.si/citations?user=gty0SkUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao) which is linked to my Google account and it all works well. But there is also another copy of me, a Google scholar [account B](https://scholar.google.si/citations?user=u7JW7bIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao), which says that it has a "verified email" (which is my university email). Apparently, I must have confirmed it some time in the past.
How do I access account B? I cannot access it through my Google account, which just takes me to account A. Is there some way to make it send an email to my university address that will let me access it?<issue_comment>username_1: You could try the following sequence in order to generate an email to your university address:
1. Sign out of Google.
2. Navigate to Google Scholar.
3. Click "sign in" in the top right corner
4. On the log in page, click "Need help?" in small font just below the "Next" button.
5. Select "I'm having other problems signing in."
6. Enter your university email address to which Account B is associated.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I have found an answer: think hard about whether there are other Google accounts that I might have and through which I could have authorized the Scholar account.
In my case, there is a long forgotten "temporary" Google account which was created for me by Goolge during that period when they decided to merge all of its services under the Goolge+ umbrella.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2015/10/03
| 1,582
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<issue_start>username_0: It has happened to me the second time that I was turned down by a referee (different one) not taking his responsibility seriously. Of course, I let each of them know about my application and the reference request well ahead of time.
The first time I requested the reference letter I was told that everything would be sent on time, etc. But one week before the application deadline the reference was still not sent (even despite my reminders) and so I quickly found another referee who rescued me. I never told the first referee that I found somebody else and the referee never got back to me over the email again...
The second time I had the "advantage" (or rather a deception) of being able to meet the referee everyday in person and so the day before the deadline I reminded that professor in person concerning the reference, also sent emails, etc. He promised into my eyes he would send it on that very day, but the deadline passed and the reference was never sent... No, the referee did not die, did not have an accident or a bomb in his office. They just could not be bothered.
I think it is very sad to know of the existence of such people and their behaviours, especially considering the fact that they used to be (some of them still are, probably should not be) my close collaborators with whom I spent many hours together.
I believed them. I thought I knew them, but only afterwards I realized that whatever smooth words they may have told me in the past, they did not mean them.
*How do I ensure that the reference gets sent on time, how can I determine that I can trust somebody who I test the first time?*
Usually more than one reference is required and I know that on some people I can rely 100%. Their yes means yes and their no means no. But what about the new referees? I was thinking of telling them of a deadline that is e.g. 15 days earlier than the actual deadline and in case no reference gets sent by my deadline, then I would contact an emergency referee to send the reference by the actual deadline. But sometimes, an electronic application tells the referees of the actual deadline and therefore I cannot make my own deadline.
Also note that many referees do not want to give you their reference that you may read it, but rather want to send it directly to the application committee. Thus something like having a backup letter, I am afraid, is not an option, especially in cases when the reference needs to be signed electronically by the referee oneself.<issue_comment>username_1: As a practical matter, you *can't* ensure that the person will actually send the letter.
However, there are some things you can do to increase the chances. First, consider how reliable the person has been in other interactions with you. If somebody has a history of being unreliable, then either avoid them or make backup plans. (And if this is somebody you have not had any interactions with before, then why would you be asking them for a letter of recommendation? Even if they did send one in on time, it would almost certainly be a weak letter -- not out of malice, but out of lack of history from which to build a strong letter.) Sometimes, if you have reason to believe that the person has written a letter of recommendation for a third party in the past, you can ask that third party what the experience was like.
Second, make it as easy as possible for them to write the letter. Provide them with at least your CV and an informal reminder list of previous interactions you have had with them and other pertinent details. Do not just assume that they will remember all the details you hope that they will talk about.
In extreme cases, you can even provide them a draft of the letter you hope they will write. However, some people may be offended by this, so I wouldn't go this far unless you have okayed it with the person first, and I wouldn't even bring it up unless you have strong reason to believe it would be welcome.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> But one week before the application deadline the reference was still not sent (even despite my reminders)
>
>
>
This strikes me as entirely normal. I try to write most letters a few weeks before they are due, but I end up writing some letters during the last week, and I believe this is pretty typical. I don't have any statistics handy, but I'd bet that a substantial fraction of all letters of recommendation are written in the last week (or later!). It may be stressful for applicants, but it's not unusual or particularly worrisome.
It's also worth noting that many deadlines for letters are actually flexible, and experienced faculty often know which ones are. For example, NSF graduate research fellowship deadlines are absolutely inflexible (if you miss the deadline by one minute then you can't submit at all), while graduate programs in mathematics at U.S. universities are almost always flexible about letters (if you submit a letter a few days past the stated deadline, it won't do any harm). Someone who doesn't seem to care about a deadline may just know that it doesn't actually matter. It's not nice to do this without explaining the situation to the student, but it's not necessarily as terrible as it looks to someone who thinks the deadline matters.
Unfortunately, a few people really are irresponsible, and I don't know of any ideal solution to this problem. One strategy is to propose frequent reminders, along the lines of "I know you are juggling a lot of things this semester, so I wonder whether you'd like increasingly frequent reminders to minimize the chances of a last-minute rush. I could send you a reminder e-mail once a week for the last four weeks before the deadline, and once a day for the last four days (of course stopping once you tell me it's submitted). Would that be helpful? Or what sort of reminders would you prefer?" I doubt anyone would be offended to be asked, since they could always ask for fewer reminders. This can't guarantee that someone will make the deadline, but it minimizes the role of forgetfulness or poor planning.
>
> I was thinking of telling them of a deadline that is e.g. 15 days earlier than the actual deadline and in case no reference gets sent by my deadline
>
>
>
I would feel a little offended if an applicant deliberately misstated the deadline in this way. As an alternative, you could explain that you feel very nervous about deadlines and ask whether your recommender could please submit their letter two weeks before the actual deadline. They might not agree, but the worst case scenario is that they say that's not convenient. (I would agree if someone asked me, assuming they gave me plenty of time to write the letter, but not if they asked too close to their proposed deadline.) I wouldn't generally recommend asking this, since it would come across as eccentric, but eccentricity is better than dishonesty.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2015/10/03
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<issue_start>username_0: If a quarterly journal wants to publish a special issue, should it be published as an additional issue or it should replace a regular seasonal issue? Are there any guidelines on this or it's a matter that depends on the journal's policies?<issue_comment>username_1: As far as I know, special issues replace regular issues. Sometimes a special issue may have a part dedicated to regular papers.
To make an example, [this webpage](http://iopscience.iop.org/0026-1394/page/Special%20issues) lists the special issues of the journal *Metrologia* (a monthly journal): you can see that those issues follow the regular numbering.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Both ways are possible, but usually they are called differently. If the issue is replacing a regular issue, it is called **special issue**.
If the issue is added to the standard set of issues, making an extra one, it is usually called **supplement**. And even here the conventions differ; some supplements are published with a regular issue, and some are published separately. Most often, they are numbered as `1S`, `1A` or alike, but form an integral part of the volume.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2015/10/03
| 405
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<issue_start>username_0: If I have a list of numbers 24 x 105, 15 x 105, 2 x 105, etc. In a medical journal article, is it acceptable to write 24, 15, and 2 x 105?<issue_comment>username_1: Acceptable styles for anything, including the treatment of exponents, tend to vary journal to journal - the only certain way to know which method of expressing the exponents would be to consult the style guide to see if there is any guideline mentioned (on a link with something like 'Author Guide' or similar).
Due to readability, I very much doubt that it would be acceptable (I have never seen exponents written in such a way in journals).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Short answer: **No.** It is not acceptable, because it is confusing. There are examples when a list of data points includes 3x105 and 5x100 at the same time --- how can the reader be sure how to interpret what you suggest?
If you insist on using it, you have to get around the confusion in some way. One of the used tricks is if you make it in a table:
>
>
> ```
> --------------------------------------------
> Experiment 1 2 3 4 5
> Value (in 10^5 kg) 24 15 3.1 8 40
> --------------------------------------------
>
> ```
>
>
This way you make it clear that the multiplier 105 applies to all values. This is mostly usable for large data sheets. For couple values like you show, I would stick to the standard notation and keep the multipliers with each value.
Upvotes: 4
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2015/10/03
| 2,066
| 8,903
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<issue_start>username_0: As a grad student (Note: I am in the humanities, so nobody is really technically inclined), I have an address from my institution (.edu) but I rarely use it. I suppose I do "use" it, but it forwards to my gmail and usually I reply with my gmail address. Almost all of the other grad students, as well as many professors, in my program -- and elsewhere in my field -- do something similar; they don't use their edu addresses, but instead exclusively use gmail. I have been increasingly wary of Google's oversight and have been thinking about switching. But: Considering Gmail's monoculture among academics, is it more "professional" to use a Gmail account, or one that you personally own such as <EMAIL>? Or just weird?
To be clear: This is not about which email address to attach to a publication. That would clearly be my edu address, as it forwards to gmail. This is about what it 'says' about me.<issue_comment>username_1: I would suggest setting up your institutional email to forward to whichever account you personally like using best. That way, you can put your institutional email as your "official" professional point of contact. Once somebody's in touch and communicating with you, in my opinion it's mostly just important that you not have an address that's dubious enough that it is likely to run into spam filter problems.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't know how people view things in the humanities, but in mathematics having your own domain named after you sounds a little presumptuous, at least to me. Some people do, and I find this normal for people like writers or some programmers, but not most types of academics. In addition, sometimes these go defunct because people stop renewing them, so something like gmail is a more "stable" solution. If you dislike gmail and don't want to use your institutional address, check out some other email providers (yahoo, zoho, mail.com).
Note: to me, instituional addresses still seem more "professional" than something like gmail, but sufficiently many people use gmail for professional reasons that it doesn't look strange to use it. In fact, something like gmail is often a better choice for young people who haven't settled down and may change their institutional address several times.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I agree with @username_1 about forwarding everything. You clarified in the comments that one reason for this question is because you're entering the job market, so I assume you will be graduating soon. One thing to check would be when (if ever) your institutional email expires, and what happens when it does (e.g., do all emails sent to it bounce regardless of whether you set up forwarding?). Usually nothing happens for at least 6 months post-graduation, but better to be safe than sorry.
Overall, I think what comes before the "@" symbol matters much more than what comes after. If you have an unprofessional email name, it doesn't matter who hosts your email. I don't think people pay too much attention to the details of email addresses as long as they pass the basic "is this something I would be comfortable telling my grandmother" test.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Email is never *free*, which means you have to either pay by viewing ads or pay by sending money. If you have a problem with the lack of privacy at Google, you can always use a provider that can better respect your privacy through the use of a more traditional business model. Most paid providers offer generic domains that don't stand out as much as `yourname.com` in addition to having the option of custom domains. A generic, paid-provider domain will, in my opinion, come off as less pretentious than a custom domain. It might also imply better stability as it shows your email system is professionally managed.
Having had the same concerns on more than one occasion, I have researched email hosts thoroughly over the years. Two very well regarded providers dedicated to email are [Fastmail.fm](https://www.fastmail.com) and [POBox.com](https://www.pobox.com/). Both have massive client bases and will probably be around for a very long time.
Finally, be wary of hosting your email with a general web hosting company (cPanel hosting and the like). Without getting too technical, almost every low cost web hosting provider has something called [inode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inode) limits which a heavy email user will hit very quickly despite promises of "unlimited" storage. Stick to the providers who are dedicated to email as they will use file systems designed for huge mailboxes.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: The concern voiced by the OP is misplaced: The problem is not "what does an email address SAY about me" but rather, "if someone tries to email me in 8 years after reading this paper of mine in a publication, what will happen?"
If you use your own domain name or otherwise maintain your own mail server/domain, you have to keep doing it, or mail sent to you will go undelivered.
As a newly-minted graduate entering the job market, your email address says NOTHING about you...unless your email is something heinous like "<EMAIL>"
If there's anything I would suggest, it's that your email address is a concatenation of your name, i.e. if your name is <NAME>, your address is "<EMAIL>" or "<EMAIL>." That is far more "professional" than "<EMAIL>."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I am quite convinced this doesn't matter at all. As a Gmail user for both my personal and professional activities, I have never encountered problems with using a Gmail address. It's the public address on my website, my CV, my software, and most of my publications (at least those after I decided to use that account exclusively).
Using that account on a permanent basis means that despite being at my third institution (PhD, postdoc, Assistant Professor) in the past few years, everyone along the way always knows the best way to get a hold of me. In fact I transacted all of my job search activities via that account both for my postdoc and my current Assistant Professorship. No one seemed bothered by it at either stage; and they shouldn't be bothered by it.
You could obtain the same convenience from a personal domain, but the difference between that and Gmail is negligible. (This assumes of of course that your Gmail address is something approximating your name or a reasonable substitute for it.)
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: The short:
>
> What you pick for your personal email is entirely up to you since the only people that will see it are those that have moved into your out-of-work life.
>
>
>
I think this is a non-issue, for reasons that no one has answered yet.
When you have your email forwarded to your Gmail, you can also set up Gmail as the sender for your other email address. This means that you can read mail to your EDU address in Gmail, and also *send emails and reply to emails* so that the from field is your EDU address.
The configuration of all of this is beyond the scope of academia.SE, but there are plenty of other sites in the stack-exchange network where the question has probably already been answered.
In terms of the non-academia question about professionally of Gmail in the workplace: it is completely fine to use your Gmail for personal communications. Anything professional should go through the domain name of the company or institution that is employing / sponsoring you.
If your main work is at one university, but you're doing residency at another and have an email address there, most of the time you probably will still use your main institution's email. The exception to this rule guideline is when you need to communicate with the administration about needs that are under their 'jurisdiction' (facilities, scheduling, etc).
The fact that other colleagues use a non-professional email account for their communications does not mean it's good etiquette. It could (and likely) just means that they are too lazy or too lacking of knowledge to properly setup their email systems for proper separation of professional and personally messages (while also remaining convenient). You can do better than this. From this, what you pick for your personal email is entirely up to you since the only people that will see it are those that have moved into your out-of-work life.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: I would think you are more likely to switch institutions than gmail is to go out of business. Both events are likely to happen, but you changing institutions has a higher likelihood than gmail being discontinued.
You have a reasonable expectation of privacy using email. You don't have actual privacy, just a legal framework that gives you additional protections when you communicate via an email.
Upvotes: 0
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2015/10/03
| 1,502
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a mechanical engineering graduate student, and am working on my final project. I am doing a finite element analysis of a particular phenomenon. I was hoping to find test data of that particular phenomenon using a quick google search, and sure enough, I found some. The test data will be helpful in showing that my analysis results are accurate. I found the report on a vendor’s website. Can I reproduce the test data from this report in my final project? Per the “fair use” clause of the copyright act, since this will be used for scholarship/research (no profit involved), am I covered?
Can I also reproduce images from the report?
Added detail:
Thanks all of you for your answers! I am certainly going to cite the source of the data and images. Tom, to explain a little more about the data - it is friction coefficient data that applies to two very specific materials. Company A did the testing for Company B. Company B has posted the test report on their website (they are a vendor, and want people to know how low friction their particular material is). I want to know if I can use the friction data from the report, and one or two images from the report (properly cited). The reason I ask, is that Company A explicitly states in the report, "This document is provided on the basis of strict confidentiality. Subject to any statutory requirement, the contents must not be disclosed to a third party, without the prior consent of Company A." I know that I can contact Company A and ask, but if they do not give me the right to use the data and images... am I still ok?<issue_comment>username_1: *The following is **NOT** legal advice. I am **NOT** an attorney. You should **ALWAYS** consult a competent attorney about any legal matters, including this matter.*
Generally, raw data is not covered by copyright law in the US. I don't know exactly what the data you're using looks like, but if it's something akin to baseball statistics (a bunch of numbers), those can't be copyrighted (though their presentation can be). If it's just raw data, you don't even need the fair use exemption as there is no copyright protection.
As for images, those are almost certainly covered by copyright law.
Fair use is a four-prong test that is measured by a court. A good way to get a sense of whether or not your situation falls under the fair use exemption is to consult a competent attorney who can compare your situation to past rulings. Keep in mind, though, that an attorney can make an educated prediction, but cannot guarantee an outcome. The four factors considered, to give you an idea, are:
>
> 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
> 2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
> 3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
> 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
>
>
>
While all four prongs may be considered, you do not have to meet a specific requirement for all four. It's up to the court which of the criteria matter, or don't matter, in your situation and how much.
Keep in mind also, from a pragmatic standpoint, that copyright law would only be enforced if the publisher of the data decided to file a law suit. If that's unlikely, all this discussion is moot.
Finally, you can always just send in an email and ask. Given the nature of your work, they might just want a citation. And if they give your permission, you have nothing to worry about.
---
**Update**
@Jacob added some more details about the situation.
What struck me as interesting in the added details was the statement *This document is provided on the basis of strict confidentiality.* If the data is truly in need of protection, like if it is a trade secret, it might be smart to exercise some extra caution here. Having posted the data on the open Internet, the company probably could not do much to keep you from using it. However, if it's truely valuable, they may fight to protect it which could create a huge headache, to say the least.
I think I outlined why you might be able to use the data with and without fair use above. I want to add however, that does not mean you should use it without permission. Even if the data is not protected by copyright, it would be best to ask permission if for no reason other than basic courtesy.
Being turned down does not change the law. If something was not protected by copyright before you ask, it will not be protected after you ask. If something falls under fair use before you ask, it will still remain under fair use after you ask. You really have very little to lose by asking. I can tell though that you are hesitant to ask so I will suggest you do so without revealing too much information about yourself and your work. Instead of diving in with a long, detailed explanation of your research, put your toe in the water with some basic details and see how they react.
For all you know, they might be interested in your work. Since it seems like your area of expertise, this might even lead to something more like a job interview. There is a lot of potential upside.
I don't want to say too much more about whether or not the specific data is covered by copyright because this is not a place to get legal advice and I am not someone to give it. But in general, if you put the raw coefficient numbers in the prose of your work, you are probably safe regardless of fair use. If you want to copy any photos, graphics, or detailed descriptions of the numbers, you'll have to do so under fair use and/or with permission.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: (Disclaimer: I'm from Europe and speak mainly about [Central] European copy right legislation). Also here, facts (friction coefficient of *xxx* is *y*) are not subject to copyright. But collections of facts (such as an encyclopedia, or a table of friction coefficients) are, given it was enough work to put together that collection.
---
One way to be sure you can use the report is to *ask* the company. Being able to write "with kind permission of *company*" in the caption of the reproduced image does immediately answer all possible copyright questions anyone and in particular any examiner of the thesis may have.
And, who knows, they may be very interested in knowing about graduates who work in the field...
Upvotes: 0
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2015/10/03
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<issue_start>username_0: I always thought that the way journals elect their reviewers is that probably they or their editors ask some famous researchers to review some of their papers. I mean, reviewers are probably *asked* to review papers.
Recently, I have seen some journals and publishers which advertise on their websites saying something like
>
> If you want to be a reviewer for our journal/conference, please send your CV to our email address; we will assess your background and if you are accepted, we will inform you where to start reviewing our papers.
>
>
>
This is very good opportunity for students who are not very famous in their field and want to start reviewing for journals and conferences to send their CV and assess their opportunity to review for a journal or conference; but I want to know if somebody does reviewing for these journals which have such system for attracting reviewers, and mentioning involving in such volunteer paper reviewing in his CV; will this harm his academic reputation?
Is it acceptable for academic community that somebody send his CV for a journal and ask them to accept him as a reviewer? How such advertisement on a journals website is considered? Do reputable journals and publishers have similar advertisements for attracting reviewers to their publication group and can such advertisements be considered a sign of a non-reputable journal/conference?<issue_comment>username_1: I am hard-pressed to imagine a situation in which reviewing would hurt your reputation. It does pay, as your question hints, to check up on the journal you'd be reviewing for to be sure it isn't scammy, but asking for reviewers isn't much indication one way or the other -- almost every journal needs a stable of willing reviewers, and what harm does asking do?
Yes, editors do choose reviewers for a given paper as carefully as we can, but we mostly haven't the luxury of "who's the most famous person working in this area?" because Most Famous Person is swamped. So we keep a stable of folks who have signed up with us, and we look through it for potential reviewers.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It's more a question of whether you want to be reviewing for a given journal. Doing your first few reviews can be extremely instructive, even if the papers aren't of high quality. Later on, you might become pickier.
As other comments point out, most people who write reviews see this a "service" to their community, and do it because being an active member in the community has many benefits.
To answer your question, then, reviewing cannot harm your reputation, except indirectly by wasting your time.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In my corner of academia (mathematics), I am not aware of any self-respecting journal that advertises for reviewers. The only examples of this phenomenon I've seen were from obviously bogus/predatory journals. To my mind, advertising for reviewers is one of several clear warning signs that this is not a journal I'd like to either read or contribute to.
With that said, a. this only reflects my limited perspective, and b. even if my perspective is correct, refereeing for such journals is not likely to hurt your academic reputation, in particular since refereeing is anonymous so no one except the journal editor would know that you were doing it. As others have commented, your time may be wasted but your reputation is not in serious danger.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: If you intend to list your service work on your CV, then I think there are some conferences and journals with which you strictly want to avoid any affiliation, because they have reputations of being spam or pay-to-publish venues. An explicit request to ask potential reviewers to submit CVs *can* be a red flag for such conferences and journals. You should certainly research the quality of the conference and journal before investing time in reviews, to ensure that you are engaging in a meaningful peer-review process.
On a related note, I think most junior researchers get into reviewing initially by sub-reviewing for their supervisors. If your intent is to do more service, then it may be worth making your supervisor aware of that.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/10/03
| 787
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<issue_start>username_0: So let me tell you my story: I studied Industrial and Systems Engineering in the 24th best university in my country, which is around number 1683 in the world. I am from Mexico and thankfully our government is eager to pay our full tuition if we are accepted to one of the best 200 Universities in the World to study a Master's Degree, mainly in engineering.
My main challenge at this moment is to be accepted in a masters' program at an International University. My grades are good, I have a "promedio" of 92, which is pretty high, although not the highest of my class, and I had outstanding results in the professional test. Because of these results, I was exempted of having to do a bachelor's thesis.
* Should I sacrifice my opportunity of earning working experience to dedicate myself to make a good Thesis? I am eager to do so if I really need to.
Thanks a lot to the people that took the time to read this.<issue_comment>username_1: I've never been on an (academic) admissions committee, but I can hardly imagine that, instead of reading the title of still another bachelor thesis, I find "exempted by university from writing bachelor thesis because of my course performance near the top of class," and consider that a negative. So I don't think you should sweat that. In most fields, undergraduates are not expected to have done research prior to taking up graduate studies; exceptions, as I have learned here, include math where this appears to be more commonplace. For some of your target fields (eg, supply chain management), I know it isn't, or at least wasn't, as some of my research was arguably on the most theoretical end of it, but I had no relevant experience with it prior to writing my paper; but that could have changed. I don't know about the others.
In terms of being accepted at a good school, the ranking of your alma mater is probably what I would worry about most. You'll need strong letters, ideally from people known internationally (check their publications; ask them). You should definitely approach someone from your U.S. experience for a letter.
Finally, your first, second, and last question (as well as part one of your question 4) are highly personal decisions that you are unlikely to get feedback on here. They are off-topic, and even if they weren't, I wouldn't ask such questions on an anonymous internet forum. Ask friends, family, any mentor, and yourself.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Different countries have difference expectations at the Bachelor's level, which means they have different requirements for entry into Masters. For example, it is unusual to do research as part of an engineering degree in Australia. I therefore suspect you could apply to an Australian university to do a Masters in Engineering without complication, and there are several in the top 200. In addition, you would be coming with funding, which (I am sad to say, but good for you) makes you a more attractive applicant.
I suggest you approach it from the other direction. Get the list from your government of which universities it considers acceptable, then look at a couple from each country in the list to see which ones seem to not require research. Once you have identified suitable countries, look at all the universities on the list from that country and find a program you like.
Upvotes: 0
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2015/10/04
| 1,145
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm in the second year of a master's program and I'm considering taking a year off before doing a PhD. I am excited to do a PhD and have some idea of what I want to research, but I am not sure if jumping right into it would be beneficial. The main reason is, simply, I've been in school my whole life and have felt pretty burnt out at times in the master's. I'm not sure I could start the coursework/proposal/thesis process all over again right after finishing my master's. The second reason is I'm switching to a new discipline (but still in the social sciences) and feel that a year of independent reading to acclimatize myself to the discipline would be beneficial, without the pressure of constant deadlines and assignments.
Are these justifiable reasons for taking the year off, or should I just jump into the PhD? I'd hopefully be working full time, working on applications for universities and scholarships, and reading lots. I'm also a bit concerned with funding - would scholarship committees be more skeptical of applicants who take a year off before the PhD?<issue_comment>username_1: Your situation mirrored mine - got to the end of the Masters, but felt tired and did not feel comfortable to dive straight into the PhD. I was able to get into and complete the PhD without any problems at all.
There is no harm in taking a bit of time off, in fact, doing so, could be beneficial, particular with (as you stated):
>
> hopefully be working full time, working on applications for universities and scholarships, and reading lots.
>
>
>
If possible, perhaps try and have a paper or three published in this time - based on your reading. Make contact with Academics within the fields of interest (without pestering them, of course).
In any case, the time that you take to do pre-reading etc would work in your favour, as you would potentially have a greater conceptual understanding of the research you plan to pursue. This would likely help in your applications, as well as help focus your thesis proposal (as I found when I took a year off between Masters and PhD).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I would definitely advise taking a year off if you indeed feel as you've described. Burnouts are common and costly, and you might want to prevent one at all costs. There is nothing wrong with taking a break. Even though in academia it's sort of subliminally assumed that you're going to sacrifice your life, sanity and your unborn children to research, there really is nothing bad to say "hey, I need some time to myself." And no one is going to care, least of all admissions committees. You can even turn this break to your advantage by doing some volunteer work, or part-time research work. Seriously.
Personally, I spent 5 years doing undergrad in psych, then 2 years doing a Master's and by the time I finished my first year of PhD in clinical psychology I was so burned out after 8 years of post-secondary education and 5 years of constant academic research that I crashed & burned and dropped out of the PhD. Periods of rest are conducive to general sanity. Best of luck.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_1: I was at the opposite end of this paradigm myself. Last year I graduated with a Master's degree, and jumped straight into a PhD. This was at the advice of my personal tutor/Master's supervisor who said that if I took a break then I would forget a lot as that with a subject such as mine (mathematics) it's much easier to forget a lot of it in such a short amount of time than other subjects. I was also adamant at the time that further study is what I wanted and I was preoccupied with that rather than applying for graduate jobs.
However, his advice ended up not being beneficial to my specific situation, because I went into a PhD straight afterwards, in a slightly different area to what I had been accustomed to before, and 8 months after starting my supervisor and I were getting worried about my slow progress and so I decided to go for good. It also didn't help that I was feeling burned out during the last couple of years of my undergraduate course and that in itself may have indicated that doing something other than academia for a while would have been a good idea. I then took a 5-month pause before starting a teacher training course.
So, I think a break is a great idea as it'll allow you to broaden your horizons. Ignore anyone who says having a break can be disadvantageous, because a PhD is more about contributing to and learning new knowledge than remembering what you know already. It's much better to admit you need a break for the time being for your own good, than pressurising yourself into further study just to keep the study cycle going.
Best of luck!
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: Hi I am doing a phd in theoretical computer science, and will be finishing this year and applying to postdocs for Fall 2016. I am an American, but for various reasons would like to study in Europe. Ideally the professors I am interested in would have postdoc funding available, but since that is often not the case, are there any grants/fellowships that cover postdoc salaries available for americans studying in europe? Are there other funding options I'm missing? Am I correct to assume that in europe like in America one gets postdoc funding from the professor (or from a grant), not from the department as a whole? As you can see, I know little about how funding works in Europe!
In case the answer to my question is country specific, the countries that I am most strongly considering so far are Germany and Switzerland.
Thanks for your help!<issue_comment>username_1: First, recall that Europe is not a country or a monolithic block: this means that though there might not be funding opportunities at the European level, individual countries or universities might have agreements with the US or with specific US universities for the exchange of researchers.
>
> Ideally the professors I am interested in would have postdoc funding available, but since that is often not the case,
>
>
>
You don't specify the duration of the postdoc position: for a typical duration of 1 yr, it should not be too difficult to find a professor with funding available.
>
> Am I correct to assume that in europe like in America one gets postdoc funding from the professor (or from a grant), not from the department as a whole?
>
>
>
This is certainly correct for Italy, where I work, but it is also probably correct for many other European countries.
Take also into account that the time needed to open a postdoc position, even with funding available, can vary among countries (for instance, the time needed to open a post-doc position in Italy is around a few months).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: UK is definitely of the 'professor has funding' variety of post-docs. However, there are also Fellowships. This is funding intended for a researcher doing their own research and there are programs specifically for Early Career Researchers. For example, there are Fellowships available through the EU Horizon 2020 program, see <http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/> (note - extremely competitive) and through the various discipline funding councils, I think computer science would be <https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/> and the fellowship info is at <https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/skills/fellows/overview/>.
You can also try organisations such as Fullbright.
A couple of other points - you should be clear about what you expect. I see lots of comments here about postdocs being training positions. This has not been my experience, I have had little supervision and no training. If you want training, you would be best off to join a project that involves several people, or seek a Fellowship with a training component. Also, make sure you are on the email / forum lists for academic communities that interest you, this seems to be where a lot of post-docs are advertised.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: For Germany specifically there are the [Humboldt Fellowships](https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/humboldt-fellowship-postdoc.html). These would fund a postdoctoral position or up to 2 years. For fellowships of this type they have a high success rate of around 30%.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I am coming to the end of my present post-doc position which is in a fairly narrow area, one that I am deeply interested in pursuing further. I am struggling to find a new role in the same area.
What are the implications for someone in this position when i) taking up an unrelated post-doc role, or ii) working in industry until a suitable role comes up?
Some good answers so far, but I would like to extend my original question to:
iii) What are the implications were I to accept a role working in field A, and continue to publish work in field B. I assume in this instance I would naturally discuss this and only proceed if my primary investigator were happy with it, for example, but could there be other implications/considerations?<issue_comment>username_1: There are many whom I know have done their post-docs in a field far different from their primary area of research and work. I don't see this as a problem. Post-docs and PhD dissertation may also widely differ from person to person. I have not seen such a phenomenon affecting their career.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I have faced the similar kind of situation at the end of my PhD dissertation.
1. For your first issue: I often found it very comfortable with my PhD work and I wanted to continue. But, I was not able to find in proper Postdoc Position. I applied several labs related to my research area, however not received any positive response due to several issues like time, research funds availability, contract ends for other Postdoc scholar. I got one response from a lab that does not relate to my field, but got impressed with supervisor. I choose to work with him. Fortunately, I started to work in different field, however, I had always dream to work in my previous work field. I believe that you may find some really good people around you, who are working with the same area you wanted to work with, are closely related to your current supervisor. Now you can continue to work parallel or start after completion of your current contract.
2. It's upto you, you may find it suitable to work with some academic institutions to continue your research and have some good publications, that may help you to get better Postdoc Position in future. Joining in industry may distract you from research unless the industry is closely related to research.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I got an idea for a research paper in the field of Computer Science, the topic related was about computer networks. At the beginning, I was working with a colleague who had a lot of background in programming networks protocols, but the problem was that due to some other tasks of him he had to left the project.
Now the problem is that I do not have anybody with the programming networks skills enough to continue with this research, so I decided to turn it into a theoretical paper; like the ones that are presented in other fields like math.
I would like to know, in a bird's eye, what should I include so that my research would be considered and not rejected because it is missing the experimental part. I have based my article in theoretical parts of CS such as graph theory and so on.
Any advice?<issue_comment>username_1: There is an academic field called **theoretical computer science (TCS)**, which lies at the border of math and CS. There are lots of venues for work in this area. However the motto for TCS is certainly *not* "We couldn't do the implementation, so we decided to make it theoretical"! I am by no means an expert in TCS (I know just a little more than absolute zero), but I don't think that **computer networks** is a key TCS topic: it sounds more applied than that. (I just checked [this wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoretical_computer_science), which seems to largely support my position. Obviously an expert opinion would be better here.)
My advice to you is to find someone else to help you with the implementation / experimental part so that you can carry out your research along the lines you originally envisaged and not theoretically-as-a-consolation-prize. How can you do this? You could (try the things at the top of the list first):
* Ask people in your department. Even if they do not have the skills themselves, there are more of them than you so the chances they know someone who does will increase.
* Ask about it on the internet, including various SE sites.
* Attend relevant conferences and seek out people with this expertise.
* Visit another department and/or a specific person whom you think can help.
* Write up a **preliminary version** of your work which only does the theoretical part and makes clear that you are looking for someone to help with the implementation. Post this work on your webpage / the arxiv / some (presumably not top tier) conference.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As someone who sits between theory and practice of computer networks research, it is hard to advice what you need to do without the specific topic. I suggest that you model the fundamental problem mathematically, and then evaluate the problem analytically as well as conduct some numerical studies. This still requires some 'implementation', but it is no longer packet-based simulations per-se. I would also look at papers from IEEE INFOCOM or IEEE Trans. on Networking or Elsevier Computer Networks -- these journals tend to carry more 'theoretical' papers. Quite often, they apply tools/concepts from TCS. Hopefully, these papers give you some ideas the level of theory and implementation that you need to present. Note, in general, you need to have a feel of the expectation of a given community. Some venues reject a paper without any actual implementation whilst others will drop a paper if there are no proofs in sight.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: It is common practice - at least in mathematics - to refer to people one cites in the paper simply by a surname. Hence, one could see sentences like *"This awesome theorem is due to Smith."*.
However, occasionally the initial is added, and so the above might turn into *"This awesome theorem is due to <NAME>"*. The obvious reason might be that there is also a A. Smith who could be mixed up with J. Smith, but the phenomenon also occurs for people with unique surnames (within the field). Why? (In particular: When should I add the initial, if ever?)<issue_comment>username_1: I've recently come to think that one should always add an initial or two, just to reduce potential confusion. Also, doing so consistently is some push-back against the pop mythology that some people are in the special category that everyone knows who they are, and are referred-to in a different, more heroic style. (The simplistic, so-called "Great Man" theory of history of science and everything-else makes it harder to understand what actually happened and happens...)
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Question: What if there are two authors, namely, <NAME> and a <NAME> both published their papers in the same year?
Including initial and even year of the publication does not solve that problem. That is why I prefer to cite the publisher just after his name appears.
*This awesome theorem is due to Smith [8].*
or
*Smith [5] disagrees with Smith [8] in his paper.*
Of course the sentence written above is bad practice. There should be another way to express the same thing better. I just wanted to give an example to dissolve ambiguity.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I think you can stick to using only the author's surname (without the initial) as long as your citation number, in that particular document, is written alongside the (first) mention of the author, depending of course on your citation method.
**The important thing to remember here is that your reader needs to be able to identify the source from your references.**
In my work, I usually only mention the author where necessary. I mostly use the number (corresponding to my list of references) at the end of an idea or sentence where credit is due.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: ### Background
I am having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around papers for my distributed systems class. I and two partners have to write a research paper, and we must cite around 20 research papers for the paper in our bibliography and also use them as a jumping off point for our material.
I am a computer-science student. I see a lot of stuff in the paper about discrete mathematics, and algorithms. I took a discrete mathematics class, however I have forgotten much of it by now, and I don’t know if I was too competent after leaving the class. I did well, but I don’t know how to apply outside of problems. I am new to distributed systems as well. Everything in the papers are so overwhelming.
### Question
I am so used to thinking, speaking, and seeing things in vernacular. There’s so much jargon in these papers that I feel like I am reading a different language and I am so lost. I will read through multiple paragraphs or sentences and just not comprehend a thing. I don’t know how to grasp the main points from the abstracts and then pull those out of the rest of the paper.
How can I deal with this?<issue_comment>username_1: 1. Ask your professor for help. That’s what he or she is there for. (But be warned – there may be no way around needing a real understanding of some basics in discrete math and in algorithms.)
2. When you say you are used to seeing things only in the vernacular, that means you have been getting away with only vaguely understanding them. The jargon isn’t there to make it hard for you; it’s there to make everything precise.
3. When I have some reason to work on something for which I don’t know the background, I find a collaborator. If I can’t, I give up and find something else to work on. (Of course, this only works if there **is** something you have background for so that other people will have reasons to collaborate with you. That’s why graduate school takes so long!)
4. Reading technical material is not like reading a trashy novel. Seriously reading and understanding the details of a paper relevant to my research (in mathematics) takes about two hours per page.
5. You probably need to make up your own examples and work through some of the papers sentence by sentence, working out how each sentence works out for your examples. Obviously you cannot go into that level of detail for every paper, but not all of them will be equally important to you as starting points.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I have had the joy of switching fields a few times and faced this each and every time. What worked for me may not work for you, but it's worth a try.
Take notes on the paper. Write down words and phrases you are unfamiliar with, draw interconnected diagrams if necessary. Pursue each and every reference that seems useful, and do the same with those. You'll start to build up an understanding as you do this. Then you'll learn something that knocks everything you built up back down and forces you to rebuild your understanding. This will likely happen again and again.
I tend to do this with highlighters and notes, but I guess more modern folks can use Mendeley and such.
Of course, if you happen to find a book discussing some of these ideas you are interested in, then read that. However, the edge of research is often far beyond the ideas available in a book by the time it is published. So the network of understanding you build up may end up having a few holes in it that you don't even realize are there. That is, unfortunately, the nature of the beast.
But keep at it, put the time in, and it will reward you. I wouldn't focus so much on the "I need 20 references." As that tends to make you insert references inappropriately. Instead, you should be familiar enough with the subject to be able to do so and insert them naturally into the paper. This isn't always possible for folks working on the edge of very small and/or very new fields, but you do the best that you can.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Recently, we were working on a new idea in physics and engineering. At the end (after writing almost 6 drafts and even ready to submit draft) only I realized that I had made a stupid error in calculation and some errors crept up from numerical simulations. So it changed one main result which was the crux of the paper. Now the new result is not appealing as well. I explained the situation to my advisor over email and I am yet to meet him.
I am feeling so hopeless and diffident in the work. Has anyone else faced similar situation? How did you overcome?
We spent about an average of 4 months on this. Do you think I wasted a lot of time of my advisor on this and how can I try not to make errors in the future?<issue_comment>username_1: I think that the best way to overcome your situation is to realize that **nothing out of ordinary happened** - *to err is human*. In my opinion, research is about discovering truth and enriching knowledge (including the one of the researchers'). And making mistakes is a natural part of the process. I would just discuss my work with advisor openly and do my best to learn from that.
I don't think that you have wasted anybody's time. I (along with many other people) believe that *negative results* are also **valuable** (for example, see [this paper](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3917235), [this journal](http://www.jnrbm.com/about) and [this workshop](http://press3.mcs.anl.gov/errorworkshop)). The same applies to *other results*, such as similar to existing results, not impressive results, etc.
As for *strategies* for not making mistakes, I don't think there are any to prevent them completely, as I said, but you can reduce their probability by *not advancing too fast* in your research (i.e., rushing to obtain results or to publish) as well as *asking feedback on your work from other people* beyond your advisor or other people closely involved in the research (perhaps, even, from other disciplines, in order to obtain opinions, based on different *perspectives*).
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Recently, we were working on a new idea in physics and engineering.
>
>
>
I take it that "we" means you and your thesis advisor?
>
> At the end (after writing almost 6 drafts and even ready to submit draft) only I realized that I had made a stupid error in calculation and some errors crept up from numerical simulations.
>
>
>
It's good that you caught it before submission and great that you caught it before publication.
>
> So it changed one main result which was the crux of the paper. Now the new result is not appealing as well.
>
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Do you mean that it is not as appealing as the result you thought you had, or that *in addition to having to change the statement of the main result*, the new main result is not appealing? Anyway, "appealing" isn't really the standard here. Are you left with a novel, publishable result or not? That's something to talk to your advisor about.
>
> I explained the situation to my advisor over email and I am yet to meet him.
>
>
>
Okay. Of course you definitely need to meet with him. Now for your questions:
>
> 1) I am feeling so hopeless and diffident in the work. Has anyone else faced similar situation? How did you overcome?
>
>
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Yes, so far as I know the majority of working academics have faced similar situations to yours (I, as a PhD student, spent substantial time on work that turned out to be faulty). How to overcome is personal, but very broadly: first you diagnose the situation to see what can be salvaged: very often it's something, and you have to work yourself through the psychological hurdle that what you actually have is "not as appealing" as what you thought you had. But almost the entirety of published academic results are not what the academics really wanted to do: that's the way research works. If you thought you had something and you are sure you don't (but first **make sure**: a lot of times a mistake turns out to be fixable, and stupid mistakes can be just as fixable as "smart mistakes", sometimes more so), then after a suitable mourning period, kiss it goodbye: there is no point comparing your present situation to the lovely situation that turns out to be counterfactual. Then you pick yourself up and get back to work. It is good to try to identify specific morals. If you can learn anything from your mistakes, then you will have made clear progress, all in all.
>
> 2) We spent about an average of 4 months on this. Do you think I wasted a lot of time of my advisor on this and how can I try not to make errors in the future?
>
>
>
You haven't described the nature of your advisor's involvement. If he was not involved at all, then I don't see how you could possibly have wasted his time. If he was involved, then you're in this together, and it's his problem and his mistake as well as yours. Every thesis advisor knows that all researchers are fallible and novice researchers are, on average, more fallible than veterans. A faculty member who writes a paper with a student and just assumes that the student's work is correct knows that he's taking a gamble.
I think this is a good opportunity for reflection in your research process, both individually and together with your advisor. Were each of you assuming that the other person was double-checking the work? That's something to talk about and avoid in the future. More specifics of how to do better in the future -- if there is some dramatic improvement to be made; maybe you just got unlucky -- are exactly what your advisor should help you with. This is worth at least one lengthy conversation. If what you hope to do better in the near future is not clear in your own mind, it may be worth multiple conversations and multiple check-ins regarding your future work over time.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Both previous answers are excellent. First of all, you should be very happy that you discovered the error BEFORE publication. Errors do happen, but you should also acknowledge the fact that there probably was an error in your workflow. Speaking from a CS prespective, for any new problem introduced in a paper, one must clearly describe what are the expected results when solving this specific problem. AFTER clearly defining the problem and its expected results then you must try to find a method that tackles it.
For this reason, many CS papers propose a naive benchmark method for any new problem, which might be super slow but it guarantees 100% that it gives
out correct results. Then the same papers propose an "optimized" version that does the same thing, but in a much better optimized way. Although in the paper the selling point will be the fast method (and how faster it is compared to the naive version), during the "debugging" phase the naive version is very important because it always gives you the correct results. That means that everytime you do an optimization, parallelization or something similar to your proposed method, you must always check that you get the exact same results with the naive method. That guarantees that no errors are introduced at any phase of your implementation which leads to a better paper, safer assumptions and correct results.
Speaking from a personal perspective, even after publishing more than a handful papers and having done the coding in most of them (and knowing by now what usually works and what not), any time I add a new major optimization that makes the "optimized" version, e.g. 10% better, I almost always get a subtle mistake in the results (that might give wrong results in 3 out of 1000 experiments). Again, these errors are easy to spot because after any major code change, I always compare results to the naive method. Then I fix the "subtle" bug, get the correct results in all cases and move-on to the next optimization. Rinse, repeat.
Regarding your case, for a bug to go unnoticed for 6 months, it is obvious that you probably had no "naive" method that gave you the correct results to compare your results with. This is a big mistake that is mostly done by inexperienced researchers. We all should have confidence in our abilities to think of a better method to tackle problems in our area of expertise but **thinking a correct idea and actually implementing it to be correct are two different things**. You should always have a naive method that 100% gives correct results, before starting working on your "optimized" method. This slows down experiments (because the naive method might require several hours to run for all your test cases) but it is your safety belt when you are speeding towards a better solution. That way, errors are easily spotted within a few days or weeks and are easy to fix, many weeks before even starting to work on the paper. Moreover, it shows early if the method you thought has any true potential, before losing another six months to make it better. Also, it makes you confident that what you write in your paper is correct and no unpleasant surprises will happen, when other people try to recreate your results. Thus, next time, when you will work on another problem and a new paper always write a slow, bullet-proof method that gives correct results (checked manually one-by-one) before writing the new optimized version. The will protect you from losing another six months or publishing a paper based on wrong assumptions.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: You would be astonished at the amount of time that can be flushed down the toilet during your PhD. However, you have to remember something important: that's what research is. People get some strange idea that we always know ahead of time how an experiment will turn out. Nonsense, of course. If we knew what would happen ahead of time, it wouldn't be an experiment, would it? And every time one of those million dollar instruments goes down and you find yourself on your knees, elbows-deep in the cockles of random, unlabeled wiring, sometimes for months at a time.
Your PhD is not for you to show off how amazing you are to the community. Some folks have everything go right. Others don't. That doesn't make the person who had everything go right have a more valid PhD than the other. Ultimately, your PhD is about making the statement that you are a master in a particular field, and acknowledged as such by your peers. That doesn't always mean success. Sometimes it means tackling a problem in such a way as to make it easier for the next person ahead of you.
We all want to be the person who invents an FTL drive, cures cancer, whatever. Few of us will be. Few will become rich, famous, or particularly successful as a result of our research. That's how it is, and eventually (usually *after* the PhD) you learn to accept that.
It's hard to say what's best, to write more papers with less content, or fewer that were more powerful. The second would seem obvious, but it isn't. I knew a woman who got her PhD with something like 23 papers during that time. Which sounds amazing, and you would think she would be fast tracked for greatness. And you would be correct, her career continues in the Ivys, last I heard. But other folks sneered, since her papers consisted of "I changed the pH to 6 and wrote a paper" and "I changed the pH to 7 and wrote a paper" and you get the drift. But despite such sneering, she succeeds. So which is better? Clearly, hers was an example of a degree in which lots of things went "right." So what?
Your validity as a scientist has never been and will never be about your results. A PhD doesn't mean you are smarter than anybody. It means you had the luxury to dedicate the time to a degree. What a PhD is *supposed* to mean is that you have shown yourself trained in a particular manner of thinking. That you don't just plug the numbers in and read off the result. As a PhD, your job is to be he person who squints at the numbers, mutters under your breath, and tears the work *even when it is your own and it tells you exactly what you want to hear* to shreds.
So, for what it is worth, rejoice! Your post convinces me of nothing but that you are in a good place. Of course, it isn't easy to do-confronting an advisor with a screw up, facing this stuff, it's terrifying, humiliating, painful. But that's what it is to be a PhD, to have that ability to do all of this and walk through that fire, having the integrity to see what is true and what isn't, having the courage to pick your course, and having the strength to go through all of the slings and arrows that come at you when you go along that path.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Here are my lessons-learned from a firm where a "mistake-hunting" culture is strong. You can save a lot of time and have a clear mind on more important things, if you simply know or follow these simple rules:
* Errors are human. The more you work, the more you make mistakes. Yet more disturbing: the smarter you are, the more you will make mistakes.
* Ergonomy, structure and good practice will help you avoid making mistakes. For example using an appropriate code editor, write comments, etc. Don't hesitate to write a plan for your code, as you would do for a document, this will help to keep the overview.
* Most mistakes are discovered during a first check, less are discovered during a second check, etc. So, it's inefficient to check again and again, just do a job as clean as possible from the start, and one or two thorough checks.
* Check your methods and your results in a systematic and structured way: list of strategic things to check, what is expected, what is obtained.
* If possible, show your work to someone else (or even have someone do a test independently). It's amazing how fast one can find one's own mistakes, simply by explaining, because it requires to set the mind in a different way.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I had the same experience: on the night before my Master's thesis defense, I discovered a mistake in my statistical analysis that completely reversed the result of the paper. Worse, it reversed the result from something that was "interesting" to something that was only merely a confirmation of what we might already have suspected. I spent the entire night correcting the mistake and reprinting all of the hand-out copies of the paper, and walked into the defense with only a couple of hours of sleep.
I have rarely felt more discouraged and disappointed in myself, especially because the mistake was such a simple one.
The professors had reviewed my previous incorrect drafts beforehand, so right at the start of the defense I pointed out the mistake in the previous version and how it reversed the results. In addition to professors I knew from my department, they had also invited a statistician from the Math department, and as I described my mistake I could see him nodding.
During the QA at the end of the defense, one of my professors, who had always somewhat intimidated me, said (paraphrase from memory): "You could easily have simply ignored this mistake, walked in here and defended the opposite result, and none of us would have known any better. I appreciate your honesty." There's no way to know whether what she said is true -- for all I know, that statistics professor came in having noticed the mistake and ready to tear the results apart -- but her attitude about the issue certainly helped set my mind at ease about it.
They granted the degree.
You haven't wasted your advisor's time. If your result is true, then it is still important whether it is appealing or not. As far as avoiding errors: you'll never avoid all errors, but my own experience did leave me an important tool that has helped me to find errors earlier rather than later in the years since. Whenever I start to feel that a result or explanation is "good enough", but I haven't proven it yet, though the urge is to move on and build on that result, I just have to think back to that all-nighter and the defense the next day to muster the motivation to check my inputs, assumptions and conclusions one more time.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I have an assignment for a psychology class that is "requiring" me to contact dozens of family members to find out their traits and what health conditions they may have. Truth is, I don't have the best relationship with many of my family members.
**My question:**
Can my professor *require*, at the penalty of point loss, that I actually contact my family members? Or can I provide obviously fake data?
---
**edit:** I wanted to clarify. When I said *"obviously fake data"*, I meant to convey that I would actually inform my instructor that the data was false before turning in the assignment.<issue_comment>username_1: As interesting as it may sound, such an assignment ought not to be a "requirement" *per se*. It would be best to explain the situation to your instructor first. A true instructor trained in psychology should find an alternative to your condition.
An alternative that may seem acceptable would be to do the assignment with a friend's family instead (edit: without being intrusive about sensitive information regarding medical histories). This friend should be not from your colleagues of the same Psychology class to avoid duplicate results. It is customary in some cultures to accept a friend's family as one's own. This would not be against your assignment since its rationale remains the same -- understanding people. But if possible, discuss this alternative with your instructor before application.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: No. And if the people being queried are identifiable, you may even be looking at a HIPPA violation for passing medical information on to unauthorized people.
Agree with Keshlam that the real assignment might be to see who will refuse to perform the assignment; although I'd be having big issues with any lecturer who tries that one on, given the personal aspects of the data which might be revealed.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Can my professor require, at the penalty of point loss, that I actually contact my family members?
>
>
>
No, because for all the professor knows, you might be an orphan without any living family members.
However, I suspect the request is meant in less literal a way than what you are taking it for. You should clarify this with your professor.
The issue is that the professor probably wants to create such an assignment that involves a number of subjects, without overburdening any third parties, while at the same time avoiding that everyone asks their classmates and all answers to the assignment are based upon essentially the same sample.
Some examples of similar suggestions to students that I find completely normal:
* "Have your girlfriend/boyfriend proofread your thesis before submitting it."
* "Ask your parents to use your prototype before running the study."
None of these means that you really need to ask these specific people, or that you shouldn't ask anyone else. They are just a way to express that you should find someone that probably only you are in touch with (so these other persons do not have to spend days for answering the requests of dozens of students), someone who might possibly have a different background (which, depending on the task, might be desirable), and at the same time someone who you can reasonably ask for such a favour without coming across as too demanding.
In these examples, the exemplary nature of the mentioned roles is usually understood; at least, I have yet to see a student who would truly respond to the first (w.l.o.g.) request: "Ok. But I can't have my thesis proofread because I don't have a girlfriend/boyfriend." Of course, it's just an example of a single person who might or might not exist or be available.
The request by your professor, in contrast, to ask "dozens of family members", seems a bit extreme in comparison, but as a bottom line, you should still try to find out whether it wasn't just an example.
>
> Or can I provide obviously fake data?
>
>
>
This, in contrast, might be counterproductive. You already wrote you were going to inform your professor if you do so, but better do this earlier than later. In most situations that I can think of, using an arbitrary group of real people as a sample for something is a closer match to one's real family members than making up that data.
The issue I'm seeing become apparent when considering the possible pedagogical goals of the assignment:
* **The professor wants to point out a phenomenon that typically appears in data from real people.** In this case, fake data will probably not exhibit the respective traits and thus will be worthless in this respect.
* **The professor wants you to get the experience of interviewing real people.** Obviously, this experience is not gained from producing artificial data.
In contrast, the following education achievement that you might be reaching is probably *not* aimed for:
* **The professor wants you to practice ways to create a realistic set of artificial data.** If that were the task, the assignment would have asked you to generate artificial data right away.
**Therefore, my two suggestions are:**
* Asking another group of people rather than your family members should be accepted by the professor. You may want to ask the professor, even though personally, I might even do so without commenting on it.
* Producing fake data, even when known to the professor, might be counterproductive to the goals of the assignment, and therefore should definitely first be discussed.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: This assignment shouldn't even exist. If people's health were to be surveyed, the data should be gathered by a health professional in an anonymous manner. *End of story*.
You would be well within your rights to object to the professor about the content of the assignment (can't you interview about something non-personal, instead?), or failing that, to the university's ethics board.
Is the primary objective of the assignment related to the *interrogation* of your family members, or the analysis of the results? In the former case, the professor should chose a different topic (i.e. politics, climate change), and in the latter it would seem reasonable to just provide the same (made-up) data to everyone. Making up your own data doesn't seem like it will solve anything - certainly not for the rest of the class, who likely also have some objections to this (have you spoken with others?)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: On one hand, falsifying data is unethical period. Do not do this.
However, your professor, ethically and legally, should not require this assignment. This is gathering non-anonymous data. Also, depending on situation, this assignment may be discriminatory to certain students or even jeopardize their safety. Orphans and people with abusive family members come to mind.
My suggestion is to go to the professor directly, and explain the situation. Ask if you can work with another family or something similar. Either way, do not give full identifying information about the people in question. Sometimes honesty actually works.
If the professor rejects this proposed solution, and does not allow another acceptable solution, go to the university's ethics board. Make sure you have all reports in physical format, with copies made, with the school not knowing about all of the copies.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Dan, If you are still reading...(:-)
It seems that many are overthinking your question and hopefully you have not been totally confused. Talk with your instructor and let him know of your dilemma. Assignments like the one you mentioned are routine in psychology classes. They are designed to help you see how genetics and family history affect people. Grandpa was an alcoholic, Dad and Uncle Jim are alcoholics, then you are at a higher risk than if there are no alcoholics in the family. Same with mental illness and many other physical illnesses.
And by the way it's HIPAA not HIPPA and it is not geared towards individuals but professionals who have access to medical records.
Don't be afraid of the assignment and have fun with it!
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: So here is my conundrum. I am in my last year of my undergraduate degree which is a specialist in math and economics. In the early years of my program I was having a out school issues that I didn't think were affecting my performance but in the end did. I am in the process of getting good grades in thisnlast year in my courses, but regardless of me getting A+'s across the board I would still not have brought my GPA up enough to apply to any masters programs. During my studies I took a few math courses that were beyond my mathematical maturity at the time of the courses and as such got poor marks in them. This was due to my over eagerness to want to learn advanced concepts without respecting the process one needs to take to get there. As such I have been taking those intermediary courses now and they are going better.
I have a large desire to go to grad-school so I have been trying to think of ways to improve any faint hopes that I could somehow turn things around and I was wondering how the following strategy would affect my cause:
Graduate(well the formality part anyways) but then come back and repeat the advanced courses I did poorly in and on top of that do the other advanced courses that I have not taken obtaining good marks in these, then applying the following year. My question is how would this appear on an application? It won't affect my GPA directly, but it would illustrate that I have excelled within this set of courses of a higher level. Of course this would have to go with doing well on the GRE and anything else as well. Thoughts or advice?<issue_comment>username_1: This is not an uncommon situation in my opinion, and I'm glad to know that you've stepped up your game and doing well in your classes now. I would suggest this, at least try this cycle to apply to M.S. Math programs. Keep in mind this, as long as the school has a research program/PhD in mathematics, you will be fine. This does not have to be a top 10 school, or even a top 200 school. Take the GRE, and apply to many schools (it is not, in my opinion analysing students, difficult to get into some M.S. math program currently). When you get there, work hard, make a reputation, and then apply to PhD programs if that's your goal, or pursue whatever else you want. If your GPA is a 3.0 or higher, I think you have a strong chance. If not, keep in mind that your last semester had solid grades, and you can make your point to graduate admissions. From what I understand right now, most math grad students are applying for PhD's, meaning that there is space for M.S. students like yourself. Apply to various schools, and open your horizons. I personally believe that repeating your old courses is a waste of time, because I strongly feel like you have a good chance at an M.S. math program.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I largely disagree with the other answer.
The bottom line is that graduate school in mathematics is much more challenging than most undergraduate programs in mathematics, and the academic job market in mathematics is rather cruelly competitive even for those who excelled in their graduate programs. So my first question to you is: what are your goals? Do you know what you're setting yourself up for? Sticking with something out of sheer determination can be commendable *if* you have a clear view of the situation. If you decide that you're willing to walk on foot through the desert to reach your goal, that could show gumption...but first, find out how far you need to walk. If it's 500 miles, you're not showing gumption, you're showing a dangerous lack of planning.
>
> I have a large desire to go to grad-school
>
>
>
Why? What are your specific goals? Do you mean that you want to get a master's degree in mathematics and then apply it to do....what? Do you mean that you want to get a PhD? That you want to pursue an academic career? I have the sense that the answers to most of these questions are "yes", so I will proceed for most of the answer under that assumption.
Maybe it sounds harsh to wonder why someone who has not excelled in something at the undergraduate level wants to pursue it at the graduate level...but I think it's kinder to be a little harsh if it helps people properly perceive the situation.
>
> I am in the process of getting good grades in thisnlast year in my courses, but regardless of me getting A+'s across the board I would still not have brought my GPA up enough to apply to any masters programs. During my studies I took a few math courses that were beyond my mathematical maturity at the time of the courses and as such got poor marks in them. This was due to my over eagerness to want to learn advanced concepts without respecting the process one needs to take to get there. As such I have been taking those intermediary courses now and they are going better.
>
>
>
So in your last year in the major, you're *retaking intermediate level courses* and doing better in them. This means that up until now your performance in all your coursework was not good enough to satisfy the requirements for an undergraduate major? Realistically, that's bad news: I teach mathematics at the undergraduate and graduate level. As the grades lie: *some* of the students who are getting mostly A's should consider grad school; other students who are getting mostly A's should probably not be. Students who are getting the lower range of "satisfactory" grades have not really understood the concepts of the course, but we hope that the lack of understanding will not snowball too much into the next course so that they can get through the major anyway. This is not any kind of preparation for graduate work.
In my opinion, in order to have a shot at getting into a reputable graduate program (master's or PhD) *and* for such a program to be worth your time, you really want to excel in the undergraduate coursework. If in your last year you are taking intermediate level courses, you don't have a chance of doing that before you graduate.
I would consider spending another year in your current degree program. If that's going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars then that's a serious thing to do and I would think several times before doing it, but it still might be a good investment in your future. If that is not an option I would suggest that you do "postbac" work and/or enroll in a "nondegree program" at a quality undergraduate institution that lets you take the advanced undergraduate courses for grades.
The alternative is to apply to a master's program. But if you are applying to a master's program with a poor background you will probably have to pay for it, which could be just as expensive (or more so) than staying in your current program. Moreover you may find when you get there that you are (i) poorly prepared relative to the other students, (ii) expected to do work at a level you've never been held to before (iii) in a new environment where you don't know anyone or know how things work and (iv) no one around is particularly invested in your success.
Finally, a really poor master's program could end up being....poor. I've seen students enter into a PhD program with master's degrees who were clearly not as well prepared as students coming directly from a more reputable undergraduate institution. Also a good performance at a miserable place is not much of a steppingstone to a good PhD program.
All of this is predicated on the assumption that your desire to go to grad school meant that you wanted to get a PhD. If you mean that you want to get a terminal master's *en route* to a specific real world job: in that case, attending wherever you get in and sticking it out becomes a much better plan.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I don't understand why a research institution (that awards PhDs) would employ (expensive) full-time research officers. Why couldn't those jobs be done by a group of government-funded PhD students instead? (The PhD students seem to be free or at least less expensive to the institution.)
No funding? Simple, just hire more PhD students! They can do whatever the institute requires them to do, such as publishing X number of papers. They are smart but cheap.<issue_comment>username_1: The main outcome of a PhD program are PhD students themselves — skilled independent researchers, ready to embark on the journey to the world of open problems and research tasks. Other outcomes are assumed, but not guaranteed.
1. **Timeliness** of delivery. PhD programs are notoriously known to last months and years beyond the anticipated submission date. Research contracts in industry usually have very strict deadlines, and the delays will ruin the company's profile.
2. **Quality** of research output. The level of PhD research vary, and sadly, the quality vary as well. By design, PhD projects should be run single-handedly, and therefore the outcome depends crucially on skills and motivation of a PhD student. There is not safety net or shared responsibilities, which brings a lot of human factor uncertainty when it comes to the quality of output. Note also that the writing styles are diverse, and most PhD students have no expertise in writing according to strict industry standards.
3. **Closeness** between research question and research answer. Being a long-time project, PhD study can deteriorate substantially from the original course, especially if something exciting is revealed in the preliminary analysis. Many PhD students end up writing very good theses, but answering a very different question, that was originally set in front of them. This is good for academia, and not necessarily so good for the industry that needs their question answered.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: A PhD is where you learn to do research to a doctoral standard.
A research job is where you apply what you've learnt.
These things are different things. They are not the same thing.
It's like why you see a qualified doctor instead of an undergraduate studying medicine.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: To add to the answers above, there is a term institutes are starting to refer to as "PhD syndrome". This has to do with continuity of PhD projects, especially once the students have graduated. Yes, PhD students are "free" labour to work on certain projects, but what happens more often than not, is that once the 3-4 year period is done, these students move on and do not leave behind maintenance and contingency plans. Project handovers are highly complex and require extra "downtime" for research and training; companies will have to account for this.
I took over a biogas project run by an institute and driven by MSc. students in a community. Within months the system had collapsed, with comments from the community such as " we can not take this project seriously as the project faces keep changing and we feel like we are being treated like a lab". But maybe within research institutes with limited external stakeholders, the use of PhD students may be more sustainable.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Why do software companies hire senior developers, when they can get smart hard working people fresh from college at a fraction of the price? Because experience matters, and there are things that a senior can do, that a team of ten juniors can't.
The same happens in research. My former group hired a postdoc from a completely different discipline. When he arrived he lacked a lot of basic knowledge from his future field; and yet, he was getting productive results in a week. A PhD student with the right background would have likely taken a month to get to that level.
And finally, there is work that a research assistant does that does not merit a PhD. For example, maintaining in working conditions a critical machine in a lab can require a lot of dedication and familiarity, so it is worth paying someone to make sure it doesn't break. Since it is not novel research, it hardly contributes towards a PhD, and you don't want to train a new person to do the job every four years.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Aside from the "right person for the right job" answers that are perfectly appropriate, it is not responsible behavior for a department to continuously bring in students to carry out such work.
If you take every faculty member doing research, you might think of their students as being replicants of the faculty. The job market for academic researchers at faculty levels simply can't grow to support a model where Ph.D. trainees can do all the work. Universities are slowly shifting the model to help students into (what we academicians call) the "alternative" job market, but this is a process we're all learning about, and we're not there yet.
A current area of focus is on the next level of training -- post docs. NIH, a huge funding mechanism for life science research, is strongly encouraging mechanisms to limit the eternal post-doc. In response, my uni has CAPPED post doc tenures (I can't remember if its five or six years). This applies to the TOTAL post-doc experience, so you can't post-doc somewhere else for five years, and then come here and do another five. So, if a PI wants to keep a post-doc around after they're ineligible, they have to come up with a staff scientist position, with higher pay and more in the way of a benefits package.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: From the way the question is stated you seem not to understand how important is the role of supervisor for a Ph'D.
With very few exceptions, it is the supervisor who chooses the project/problem for the student with the following goals in mind (among other things):
* try to make sure that the problem/project can be completed by a student.
* try to make sure that the timeline for the project can be completed within a reasonable period.
* make sure that the student learns the needed results/techniques/tools needed for the project
* provide guidance whenever when the project hits an impasse.
A Ph'D student most often cannot chose his project for himself/herself/itself. **If he cannot do that, how can he chose one for another student?**
**Also, how can a student evaluate how hard and how long will take for a project, a project which often needs tools from areas he is unfamiliar with?** This often is a skill gained after years and years of research, and even then we are wrong from time to time.
Besides working on a project, Ph'D is also a venue for gaining knowledge. This is usually of two types: basic knowledge in the mainstream of that (sub)field, and specialized knowledge for that project. Ph'D students usually know where/how to find the first type, but they most likely need help with the second. **How can a Ph'D student recommend another where to gain knowledge he is unfamiliar with?** Most likely, the "guiding student" will have no idea what "his student" needs to learn.
Last but not least, when a project hits a problem, it is often a subtle problem: either something most PhD students cannot solve or often one where the PhD student has to learn something he is not familiar with yet... How can then he help another student in this situation?
If supervising a Ph'D would be a punching card job, where you just go to work for 8 hours, and do repetitive tasks than your suggestion would be fine. But it is not.
Ask yourself the following question: how confident would you be in your surgeon, if he is a resident which is learning on the job from another resident?
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: As professor I have to organize a lot of digital documents. I have working systems to do this for research and teaching and I am quite happy with these. Moreover, questions on such topics have already been asked, e.g., [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/52675/organizing-data-and-files) or [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13230/best-practices-for-organizing-digital-and-physical-articles).
However, for administrative work I regularly find myself thinking about where to store and how to name different documents like official minutes, my own notes, agendas, invitations, accompanying presentation pdfs, study regulations, law gazettes,... I have not set up a working system that I am happy with and one reason may be that, when I start to be in some committee, I do not really know in advance what kind of documents will come in. Should I arrange them by type? Should I only keep links to the place where the newest version is? Should I organize everything that is related to a certain meeting? I may add that I have a system to organize documents for hiring committees as I already know what kinds of documents are involved but that is basically it.
So my question is:
>
> How do you organize your digital documents related to a certain administrative job?
>
>
>
You may answer with general guidelines but I am also interested in solutions for specific cases.
I'll upvote anything that I find reasonable and check the answer as correct that helps me best.<issue_comment>username_1: The lovely thing about organizing things electronically is that it's much easier to re-organize than physical paper. The problematic thing is that you can let things accumulate for a lot longer before noticing there's a giant pile forming.
My own personal solution is thus to start each new commitment as its own single folder. For example, if I'm serving on a committee, that committee gets a folder and everything about it goes in that folder. Likewise, I have a folder where documents about required trainings go.
If only a few documents show up, one folder is enough. For example, for the journal where I'm an assistant editor, I've got only one folder with just a handful of files, since almost everything I need to remember about that responsibility is in its online system. When more than a dozen or so documents appear, however, I'll create at least one subfolder that can hold a cluster of documents that I don't want to have staring me in the face every time I think about the project. As things further accumulate, swelling the contents of the top-level folder or the subfolders I've developed, I'll continue developing structure and substructure reactively.
Thus, by deferring organization until there's a quorum of things to organize, I give myself time enough to learn about the organization of information that I need to do. By beginning organizing when there's a dozen or so items in a location, I deal with organization at an early enough stage that it's not a daunting and time-consuming task.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The general guideline would depend on the type of responsibility:
* If your work has to a single responsibility over multiple departments, then organise your docs within departments.
* If you have multiple responsibilities over within a single department, then organise according to the responsibilities.
* If you have a mixture of the two, you may nest one on top of the other as sub folders with the least number of items (departments or responsibilities) as the top level partitioner (or whatever you feel comfortable with). Otherwise you may use tagging (as in OS X) or shortcuts to avoid duplication.
From the description of your documents your responsibilities circle around event organising and management. In this case you may organise your documents as directories as events.
You may keep your own notes as raw text in the appropriate directories or use a notes management software such as OneNote or Evernote.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a computer science engineer with around 3 years of experience designing and implementing large scale software systems. I chose to join a job right after my masters, to get a feel of what the industry holds. Having spent my bit here, I now want to get back to academics, especially back into my areas of specialisation. I hold a masters in computer science with a specialisation in Information Security, but no publications. I have a decent (mediocre?) GPA of 8.8 in my masters. I also managed to publish a thesis during my stay in college. However, there is no publication associated with the subject matter of the thesis itself.
What should I do to build upon my profile? Here's a list of things I'm already trying -
1. Contributing to Open Source Software in Security.
2. Changing my job to fit a more "security" based profile. However, as I have not worked directly in this area for the past three years, this is proving to be a tad difficult.
3. Trying to learn the ropes of ethical hacking (think bugcrowd for instance).
What I have NOT done (yet)-
1. Directly contacting professors/post-grads (or even peers who got into research) working in the areas I'm interested in.
I'm not sure if all this, even though time consuming, would lead to any concrete results. Can my industry experience lead to anything? Am I on the right track? What are other things I could do?
To be more specific, I'm looking for pointers to things that can be done while in the industry to construct a research profile.<issue_comment>username_1: I also took roughly 2-3 years "off" from academia to work in industry before starting my PhD (not computer science related). I actually think such stints are useful if you frame them in a certain way. You could talk in your statement of purpose about your journey to applying to the PhD, including why you went into industry after the Master's degree instead of continuing to the PhD. Many students struggle in their statements to convey why they wish to obtain the PhD and/or why they feel that they can ultimately finish the degree. In your case, you can talk about going into industry to figure out whether you truly want to go back into academia (the "if you love it, let it go" approach), and then talk about how what you're doing in industry directly applies to what you wish to study. I think many programs would welcome such an application.
I'm less familiar with what 8.8 means, so I cannot comment on whether this is a detriment or not. Having no publications after completing a Master's degree and 3 years post-Master's degree may be a weak spot that you should address in your application. At least in the U.S., graduate admissions can be influenced--sometimes heavily--by personal connections. To that end, I would recommend contacting potential PhD supervisors very soon to introduce yourself and inquire about any openings s/he may have for PhD students. It does take a non-trivial amount of time, but I do think it's worth it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Several things I would recommend to begin doing as you are gearing up for applying to PhD programs:
1. Read the research of the professors at the top 5-10 schools you are interested in. Nothing interests the professor as much as those who are interested in their research -- and the only way to convey genuine interest is to have genuine knowledge of their projects. You can typically find their publications in their CVs and research lab websites, as current projects. Note that often (for unknown reasons) faculty CVs that are online may be 3-5 years out of date, as might be the websites of their research labs. For this reason, it's a good idea to directly query academic research databases (IEEE etc.) for most recent conference proceedings or journal pubs with their names. Read their publications and check out any open-source tools they have made available online. Also, check out the names and research centers of any other faculty (at same or other institutions) affiliated (co-publishing, co-leading grants, etc.) with these professors. This can be a good way to narrow down the list of "backup" programs to apply to (see point #2).
2. It is not uncommon to apply to about a dozen PhD programs to get an admission. Rather than putting all eggs in one (or three) baskets of top 3 programs, plan on applying to at least 5 "backup" programs that might not be top tier, but that are also strong and are situated in places you would not mind living for a good chunk of your life.
3. Think broadly and deeply about *your* research interests. You mention narrowing down to "security", but in the academia I imagine there are 100 different flavors and sub-fields within that broad area, depending on different technologies, theoretical and analytic frameworks, etc. (As one strategy, Wikipedia can be a great way to deepen/broaden perspective and gain general familiarity with some of the key concepts and players in the various sub-domains of a broader domain.)
One key aspect that should be communicated in letters of application to a department/program is one's research interests, and how they tie in with the research directions of the department's faculty. Having a clear sense of a handful things you would like to study will help you tailor your application letters to various departments.
This will provide you with the flexibility but also the focus and self-reflection needed to craft strong applications to top programs as well as an overall well-rounded application strategy across all programs to which you might apply. Good luck!
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for a job and I have to submit (among other) the list of all my citations (excluding autocitations of course). I wonder how the list should look like. Should it look like references at the end of any scientific paper? I guess not since then you could not tell which papers of yours were cited?! Is there any standard way how to do this?<issue_comment>username_1: I also took roughly 2-3 years "off" from academia to work in industry before starting my PhD (not computer science related). I actually think such stints are useful if you frame them in a certain way. You could talk in your statement of purpose about your journey to applying to the PhD, including why you went into industry after the Master's degree instead of continuing to the PhD. Many students struggle in their statements to convey why they wish to obtain the PhD and/or why they feel that they can ultimately finish the degree. In your case, you can talk about going into industry to figure out whether you truly want to go back into academia (the "if you love it, let it go" approach), and then talk about how what you're doing in industry directly applies to what you wish to study. I think many programs would welcome such an application.
I'm less familiar with what 8.8 means, so I cannot comment on whether this is a detriment or not. Having no publications after completing a Master's degree and 3 years post-Master's degree may be a weak spot that you should address in your application. At least in the U.S., graduate admissions can be influenced--sometimes heavily--by personal connections. To that end, I would recommend contacting potential PhD supervisors very soon to introduce yourself and inquire about any openings s/he may have for PhD students. It does take a non-trivial amount of time, but I do think it's worth it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Several things I would recommend to begin doing as you are gearing up for applying to PhD programs:
1. Read the research of the professors at the top 5-10 schools you are interested in. Nothing interests the professor as much as those who are interested in their research -- and the only way to convey genuine interest is to have genuine knowledge of their projects. You can typically find their publications in their CVs and research lab websites, as current projects. Note that often (for unknown reasons) faculty CVs that are online may be 3-5 years out of date, as might be the websites of their research labs. For this reason, it's a good idea to directly query academic research databases (IEEE etc.) for most recent conference proceedings or journal pubs with their names. Read their publications and check out any open-source tools they have made available online. Also, check out the names and research centers of any other faculty (at same or other institutions) affiliated (co-publishing, co-leading grants, etc.) with these professors. This can be a good way to narrow down the list of "backup" programs to apply to (see point #2).
2. It is not uncommon to apply to about a dozen PhD programs to get an admission. Rather than putting all eggs in one (or three) baskets of top 3 programs, plan on applying to at least 5 "backup" programs that might not be top tier, but that are also strong and are situated in places you would not mind living for a good chunk of your life.
3. Think broadly and deeply about *your* research interests. You mention narrowing down to "security", but in the academia I imagine there are 100 different flavors and sub-fields within that broad area, depending on different technologies, theoretical and analytic frameworks, etc. (As one strategy, Wikipedia can be a great way to deepen/broaden perspective and gain general familiarity with some of the key concepts and players in the various sub-domains of a broader domain.)
One key aspect that should be communicated in letters of application to a department/program is one's research interests, and how they tie in with the research directions of the department's faculty. Having a clear sense of a handful things you would like to study will help you tailor your application letters to various departments.
This will provide you with the flexibility but also the focus and self-reflection needed to craft strong applications to top programs as well as an overall well-rounded application strategy across all programs to which you might apply. Good luck!
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I noticed that scientists are one of the most hermetic societies around. Does anybody know how can some "nobody" safely publish an interesting idea, at least, interesting for that someone?
I think that there are plenty of people that have regular jobs and didn't make it through to the scientist/researcher career to be able to present a paper or the like.
**Edit**: *Your question has been identified as a possible duplicate of another [question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/48585)*. I think it differs in that I'm not asking how to make a paper and what kind of ideas are suitable. I'm asking how to publish it after I wrote it hopefully accomplishing a paper's requirements.<issue_comment>username_1: It seems to me that you have a common misconception about the nature of scientific publications. You talk about somebody wanting to "present a paper" and "an interesting idea," but you do not mention *what this is intended to accomplish*. This sounds to me like you're thinking about the publication as an end in and of itself, or as a way of making scientists listen to your ideas. Neither of these is the case.
Scientific publications are, ultimately, about communication. They are part of a long, slow dialogue within a community, and peer-review is a filtering process by which a sub-community attempts to determine "Is this piece of work substantial enough to consider taking seriously?"
If you just want to get your ideas out there, you don't need peer reviewed publication. You can disseminate ideas through many different types of media, and if your writing is well-presented and interesting enough to others, you can draw attention and affect the scientific world without any need for peer review or even credibility ([more's the pity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversies)).
If, on the other hand, you want to make scientists listen to your ideas, peer reviewed publication won't do that either. Most scientific publications are barely read and never cited. To have an impact on scientists, you need to figure out how to speak their language and how to participate in the community and its conversation *in a way that relates to what other scientists are thinking about*.
Honestly, this is really hard. It's not because science is closed and wants to keep outsiders away: some sub-communities certainly hold such attitudes, but usually there are other related communities that are quite open and welcoming of newcomers. Mostly, though, it's hard because you have to prove that, out of all the vast number of ideas floating by every day, your ideas are the ones that are worth the time and energy to consider carefully. Doing that requires gathering strong and objective evidence, presenting that evidence in a clear and compelling manner, and placing it in the context of the larger dialogue in the community with which are you attempting to communicate. All of those are difficult, and if a paper fails on any of them, it is likely to be rejected and/or ignored, because the people reading it won't understand why it's worth paying attention to.
Now, what does exacerbate the difficulty of getting involved in science is the difficulty of getting at some sections of the literature. High-cost subscription-only journals can make it impossible for outsiders to access key parts of the ongoing conversation, thus making it much more difficult for them to participate. Some parts of the scientific community have taken good steps towards addressing that (e.g., physics and math), while others are generally quite terrible. If you're dealing with one of the latter, then many scientists will still gladly share pre-print copies of their articles, but it does make things much harder.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As my old and wise supervisor used to say: "You don't know unless you try it".
So, go ahead, find a conference that is related to your idea, and then submit a paper. If the idea is worthy they will publish it. Every conference committee will be happy to see new ideas and contributions in their field.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: It's the time of year we lecturers get asked for references from graduating taught postgraduates who seek to move on to do a PhD. While I'm generally happy to act as a referee, I'm unsure whether there is a best / standard practice here. I'm naturally more inclined to agree to providing a reference when a) I remember the student, and b) the student's work had merit.
Is this wrong? Should I provide a reference even when I don't remember the student or their work wasn't particularly good?<issue_comment>username_1: You don't have to provide any student with a recommendation. In fact, it can actually be a detriment to the student to have a tepid recommendation. If you find yourself unable to write anything beyond what can be confirmed by a transcript (e.g., that the student did take your class or that the student got an A in the course), then that is usually a sign that you're not someone who should be writing a recommendation letter.
My personal method is if I know the student very well and s/he did good work, I write the letter. If I cannot recall who the student is, I ask for a one-on-one meeting to get a sense of why s/he is asking me for a letter. If there is a compelling reason that I (instead of someone else) should write the letter, then I usually agree with the caveat that it may not be a very strong letter because I'm not as familiar with their work. If there is no reason that I should write the letter over someone else, then I usually decline.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Should I provide a reference even when I don't remember the student or their work wasn't particularly good?
>
>
>
**(tl;dr: no)**
Why would you? The entire purpose of references is that you are staking *your* name and reputation on your declaration that you know a particular student and think their work makes them worthy of recommendation.
If their work was rubbish or, worse, you don't even have a clue who the student *is*, how can you possibly be in a position to write them a reference?!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: You should be honest up front about how strong a recommendation you can write.
While of course there's nothing stopping you from refusing to write it at all, that seems to me like a somewhat unhelpful thing to do. Even if you have nothing good to say about the student, why wouldn't you give your opinion of them when asked? You don't have to, but why not? So, the question you're asking shouldn't really come up.
In practice, students probably realize that a bad recommendation won't do them much good, so if you're at a point where you hesitate to write it because of how bad your relationship was, they probably wouldn't want the recommendation from you anyway. If you tell them ahead of time, "I can write it but I won't be able to write a positive one because I don't feel comfortable vouching for you to that extent", the student will put two and two together and try to look for another recommender who will write a better letter. Perhaps they had a "backup option" in mind: Someone who hasn't worked with them as much, but might have a more favorable opinion.
Often a student will have a list of possible people to ask for a recommendation, and it is helpful to know if someone at the top of the list won't write a good one, because they can just move on to the next person. Probably the student would prefer that you told them you won't write a strong recommendation instead of agreeing out of a feeling of obligation and then writing a weak letter.
I think some people also deliberately agree, and then write a negative letter (whether through outright criticism or just damning praise) to sabotage the student's career. I personally find this dishonest and mean, but the recommendation *is* supposed to be a confidential appraisal of the student, and I can see how some feel it is justified (for instance, perhaps you wish to stop a very careless student from becoming a heart surgeon because it will put lives in danger). So, I suppose it's your decision whether you think the student is just not good enough to help, or so bad that you should actively impede them.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: On my course my university provides past exam papers but does not release mark schemes and I know this is the case for other universities. I am dyslexic which makes reading hard, and for my high-school exams I used exam papers with the mark scheme as a self-study method, (meaning I attempted questions and used the answers as a source of information on that topic). Which leads to what I see as one of the main arguments against not providing mark schemes; by providing exam papers you give students an idea of what they need to study but not the information they need to know (i.e. the answers) meaning they will spend time (which could be spent on learning other things) looking in text books for answers.
So what are the reasons for not providing mark schemes to past exam papers?
**Edit**
Just to clarify some points:
Firstly I am from the UK hence the phrase 'mark scheme'. When a wrote the question (which was a while back know) I guess I was more tending towards the idea of a mark scheme as example solutions rather then a 'grading rubric'. I must admit 'mark scheme' was probably the wrong phrase to use in the question. Just to keep the question consistent with the answers, the interpretation of a 'mark scheme' as "*any method that allows the student to work out what they are expected to write in the exam*" works best.
Also a while back I did email the relevant people at my university about the situation concerning 'mark schemes', also explaining about my dyslexia and how I learn best. They replied by simply saying that the review the situation every year, but gave me no further information for the reasons behind it.<issue_comment>username_1: The main point here is that you have dyslexia, and therefore the university and consequently your professors should know about it; as they can help you navigate better throughout your studies.
You need to address this through student services. They must have staff that deal with dyslexic students. they will then contact your professors and let them know about your dyslexia and the way you need to study to achieve your goals.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm not aware of any particularly compelling reason not to provide solutions for past exams, but here are two possible reasons:
1. Providing solutions encourages students to study by learning isolated facts. If they have to look things up, then they are more likely to absorb some of the context at the same time. (Looking things up takes more time, but you typically learn more than just the one thing you were looking for.)
2. Some students find it very difficult to resist looking at solutions when they are provided. They will think for a minute or two about a problem and then check the solutions and convince themselves that this is exactly what they would have done if they had spent more time. In some fields (such as mathematics) working out a solution oneself is usually much more educational than reading someone else's solution. Withholding solutions is inconvenient for students, but the inconvenience may push them towards better study habits.
Only your professors can tell you why they do not provide solutions; without knowing the specific situation, all we can do is guess. It can't hurt to ask them and to explain why having solutions would be valuable for you. They may not have strong reasons and might decide to start providing solutions. (And, as <NAME> points out in his answer, you should also get any appropriate accommodations for dyslexia.)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I'm guessing you are from the UK, given that "mark scheme" is a phrase I heard there and not anywhere else. Anyway, I asked this same question when I was doing my undergrad. My answer will be centred on the UK university system, because this is likely different in other places. If this isn't you, disregard my answer.
They re-use exam questions. Not the same ones every year, but every few years most lecturers recycle questions as long as the content of the course has not changed. Sometimes the numbers or the wording are different, but the methods and the content are often the same. If they released the marking scheme and the solutions, it means that you could simply memorise the answers instead of actually learning the content.
The entire idea of exams is to determine how much of the material of each module you have understood, and often that means the ability to answer a question you have never seen before.
I always thought they were being very generous by giving students the past papers (without solutions), because at least that gives the student an idea which of the content to learn in the course, and which is less important. If you have access to 2 or 3 years of past papers, it's easy to see which ideas repeat and which do not. Then you can focus on your learning on the things you expect to see.
And a bit of unsolicited advice, because I discovered my dyslexia during undergrad and I feel your pain here. I echo what the poster above says about contacting Student Support, because you can at least get extra exam time and study skills, which is very helpful. I was even given a note-taker, so I could relax and pay attention in lectures instead of spending all my effort un-dyslexiing my notes. If you're dyslexic, you may need to study a lot 'more' (in terms of hours) than the average student, to make up for our brains being wired differently.
You should not be wasting time checking textbooks for answers, because what is important are the methods. If you learn the background [insert field name here], you will be able to solve most questions. If you only learn answers, you can only answer those specific questions and you'll be overly reliant on the material from the past papers.
Edited to add: Here's what worked for us. See if your lecturers are willing to release a 'sample exam' along with solutions, or at least if they're willing to go over the solutions for it in your revision lectures (the ones right before exams). Granted this isn't a lot of time, but it's still helpful, and it's the closest my lecturers ever were to releasing the marking scheme or exam solutions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: There is no firm policy here, but most colleagues post the solutions to exams, and I post relatively detailed grade breakdown too (sometimes with several solutions, and occasionally even with solutions from the students, when someone comes up with a different solution).
Having the solutions and grading is relevant to allow students to complain about grading mistakes (yes, they do happen). And it cuts down on complaints, not all outlandish "solutions" with low grade land on my desk for regrading (and later explaining *why* the grade is low).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> by providing exam papers you give students an idea of what they need to study but not the information they need to know (i.e. the answers) meaning they will spend time (which could be spent on learning other things) looking in text books for answers.
>
>
>
This line suggests that you might have misunderstood the scope of exam papers. You should not treat the past exams as "these are the subjects I need to learn and I can ignore the rest" [i.e. information they need to know], but as a way of testing your knowledge against the past year exams.
Now, if you need to look in the textbook for the answers this is typically a sign that you don't know how to answer that particular question, and that you should probably spend some extra time with that topic.
Releasing the answers leads to the following simple issue: often students will read the answers instead of solving the problem. And many times the answers will seem simple, and the students will get a false impression that they know the material; but understanding an answer is not the same thing as
being able to answer the question in the first place...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Thinking about my own choices:
I don't like giving out solutions mainly for the reason already given: students will tend to look at the solutions over working them out themselves, which means they do not learn as much. Or worse, they never actually get round to looking at the solutions at all, in practice assuming that having the answers filed is good enough (although I doubt they realise this what they are doing).
Not giving out the mark scheme (which in my case comes on the same page as the solutions for exams) is for a different reason: marking is not as deterministic as students like to think. No matter how carefully I try and write down what the correct answer should be and what the marks are allocated for, I almost invariably find that the solutions produced by students do not match what I've written. To give marks that fairly correspond to the work a student has produced, you have to look at the range of answers given and fit them as best possible to the marks available. Sometimes you realise that your mark distribution doesn't quite match where the students had difficulty, so you slightly re-distribute the marks over the parts of the solution. Whatever you do, there will be answers that are hard to classify as one mark or another. The key point is that you end up with something accurate enough, given how large an effect the marks will have in the end and given time constraints (eg it is not worth me spending an extra 5 minutes on a script over a mark that will count for 0.1% of the module).
But, while some students recongnise this, many don't. They insist on arguing over every mark, which takes up time and energy for the marker and is potentially unfair on other students who have the grace to accept their mark.
(I'm not saying here it is wrong to challenge marks that seem a long way out - everyone makes mistakes, so I have not problem with students pointing out sections of work unmarked or marks added up wrong. I'm talking about the students who try an argue that their answer should be just on the other side of the boundary for getting a particular mark.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: Perhaps not very relevant for first year exams, but certainly later in the course is that there is no well-defined marking scheme. In the UK system the level of marking (the degree classes) is generally based on rather esoteric concepts such as depth of (conceptual) understanding or reflectiveness of the approach.
Especially in open-ended essay style questions it is not too hard to provide a guide to the answer that is clear for expert markers as to the expected points that students make. The actual answers by students are generally very diverse and require expert assessment (no dumb application of marking scheme) and counting "points" may be counterproductive, especially where students have learned to overload an answer with "possibly relevant" information.
While it is certainly true that reusing exam questions happens and can be beneficial (you can improve the questions over time), providing a marking scheme that students can not use to self-mark or answer guidance that needs expert understanding is not helpful at best. It is more likely to be counterproductive. An approach I may experiment with instead is to discuss in class format the answers given by actual students and the reasons for marks (multiple answers for the same question).
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: How to cite a paper with a typographical error in the title. In the reference list, should I correct it (and make it hard to find) or let it as is (and make an impression I was sloppy)?<issue_comment>username_1: **Do not correct it.**
The purpose of references is to help readers locate your sources as easily as possible. Correcting titles might give the impression that you are referring to another work.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Do not correct it, if its only in the reference list then that's completely fine. If you actually refer to the name of the paper in yours, you may add "(Sic)" afterwards. (See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic> )
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: This would be an excellent time to use the Latin **sic**:
>
> *("thus"; in full: sic erat scriptum, "thus was it written") inserted after a quoted word or passage, indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed exactly as found in the source text, complete with any erroneous or archaic spelling, surprising assertion, faulty reasoning, or other matter that might otherwise be taken as an error of transcription.* [**source**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic)
>
>
>
It is commonly used as a suffix in bracketed form after a citation e.g.
>
> <NAME> (2006). “[The Princess and the Politicians](http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Princess-Politicians-Intrigue-Diplomacy/dp/0670889644)” ***[sic]***
>
>
>
or used after an erroneous word or passage
>
> She wrote, “They made there ***[sic]*** beds.”
>
>
>
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: My personal solution to this is using square brackets, as often used for editorial adjustments. (In the sense of Brown: "This is a great idea." → Brown claims that "[t]his is a great idea.")
Similarly, you can cite
>
> <NAME>. "A solution to the thee-body problem"
>
>
>
as
>
> <NAME>. "A solution to the th[r]ee-body problem"
>
>
>
I think it's obvious enough that the [r] was inserted to improve an error and not the other way around. Also, if it were a play on words between "thee" and "three", it would be much more likely that round brackets were used, as in "th(r)ee". Outside formulae I would understand square brackets to be used for said "editorial adjustments" almost exclusively.
This best works when there is an extra or missing letter, but then all the typos I've come across in titles were of this type. For more serious errors, I would use [sic] or (sic). Also adding doi to a citation and paying attention to the issue numbers (which are sometimes not even printed on the published version) can help track down a paper with a misspelled title.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I wrote a paper that contains a fairly long and intricate proof. Now I have a new paper I am working on that extends this proof to a slightly different setting. Even though the overall setting is only slightly different, in my opinion this small difference is still quite noteworthy. For example, there are a number of other papers which use the result from the previous paper, and one can almost automatically get improved parameters for these applications.
The overall outline of the new proof is almost identical to the previous one --- it consists of about 5-6 pages with ~10 definitions/propositions, which occur in the exact same order in the two papers.
However, the proofs are subtly different --- I would say that the difference are far too subtle to merely hand-wave away with something like "We can show using a similar proof that ...." These differences are not confined to a single proposition either, they are spread out across the entire proof.
So, I am faced with a few options which seem less than appealing:
1. Copy the old paper nearly verbatim, with new proofs in the appropriate places. This has the advantage that the new paper will be mostly self-contained and readable. But the downside is that the is massive (self) plagiarism --- I am forced to copy pages of text without block quotes or specific attribution. (I of course state in my new paper that I am heavily copying from my old one, so there is some attribution)
2. Try to rewrite the old proof in a basically different way. This avoids the plagiarism problem. However, this will definitely not help the reader trying to compare the new result with the old one. It also seems perverse that a proof which was carefully laid out and understandable has to be restructured for no good reason.
3. Just mention the differences between the new paper and the old paper. But this will be almost unreadable unless the reader has a copy of the old paper and compares the two papers line by line. I would be forced to say something like "as was shown in Proposition 6.13 of [old paper], we have the following.... We then apply Proposition 6.14 of [old paper] and ...."
I am inclined to go with option (1). (If I was not the author of the old paper, it would make me much more queasy). Are there any good guidelines or suggestions for this situation?<issue_comment>username_1: **Do not correct it.**
The purpose of references is to help readers locate your sources as easily as possible. Correcting titles might give the impression that you are referring to another work.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Do not correct it, if its only in the reference list then that's completely fine. If you actually refer to the name of the paper in yours, you may add "(Sic)" afterwards. (See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic> )
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: This would be an excellent time to use the Latin **sic**:
>
> *("thus"; in full: sic erat scriptum, "thus was it written") inserted after a quoted word or passage, indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed exactly as found in the source text, complete with any erroneous or archaic spelling, surprising assertion, faulty reasoning, or other matter that might otherwise be taken as an error of transcription.* [**source**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic)
>
>
>
It is commonly used as a suffix in bracketed form after a citation e.g.
>
> <NAME> (2006). “[The Princess and the Politicians](http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Princess-Politicians-Intrigue-Diplomacy/dp/0670889644)” ***[sic]***
>
>
>
or used after an erroneous word or passage
>
> She wrote, “They made there ***[sic]*** beds.”
>
>
>
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: My personal solution to this is using square brackets, as often used for editorial adjustments. (In the sense of Brown: "This is a great idea." → Brown claims that "[t]his is a great idea.")
Similarly, you can cite
>
> <NAME>. "A solution to the thee-body problem"
>
>
>
as
>
> <NAME>. "A solution to the th[r]ee-body problem"
>
>
>
I think it's obvious enough that the [r] was inserted to improve an error and not the other way around. Also, if it were a play on words between "thee" and "three", it would be much more likely that round brackets were used, as in "th(r)ee". Outside formulae I would understand square brackets to be used for said "editorial adjustments" almost exclusively.
This best works when there is an extra or missing letter, but then all the typos I've come across in titles were of this type. For more serious errors, I would use [sic] or (sic). Also adding doi to a citation and paying attention to the issue numbers (which are sometimes not even printed on the published version) can help track down a paper with a misspelled title.
Upvotes: 4
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| 705
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<issue_start>username_0: I had a paper accepted by an Elsevier journal about two weeks ago. I’ve already gone through the process of submitting the publishing agreement form and manuscript proofs online.
Then, a few days ago I received a rejection notice. No new reviewer comments were included. I thought this might be in error, so I wrote to the journal and just received a response that it was not an error, but they gave no real explanation for what happened.
I didn't make any content changes during the proofing process and the initial reviewer comments were all favorable.
Do I have any avenues open to me to fight this?<issue_comment>username_1: I cannot speak from experience here (fortunately), but my next steps would probably be (skip steps, you already performed):
1. Read carefully through all your correspondence for any hints regarding the reason of rejection.
2. Elsevier sometimes publishes preliminary versions online. If that happened, check the respective page and see whether any explanation is offered there.
3. Write to the journal or the journal’s chief editor and asking explicitly for the reason of rejection.
4. Write to the publisher (Elsevier) and complain about the situation. Append the entire correspondence with the journal beginning with the acceptance of your paper. The publisher should be generally interested in the integrety of its journals and also wasted resources on your paper, given that you already had proofs.
5. Threaten to make the whole affair public.
6. Make the whole affair public.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: For a respectable journal (which I would assume an Elsevier journal to be), this behavior seems so weird and unacceptable that I am tempted to assume that you are only telling us parts of the story here.
Specifically, the part about "but they gave no real explanation for what happened" is curious - what *was* the reason they gave? This will very much influence the advise you get here.
If, for instance, they said that the previous accept mailing was sent out in error and the new reject notification is correct based on review results, well ... then it would definitely suck for you, but I see no way to fight this decision. You are then basically in the crowded boat of people that feel like their journal paper was rejected even though the reviews were not that bad. That you received an accept notification first does not fundamentally change this. I also do not share the hope of <NAME> that you could potentially sue for compensation - as far as I know, journals typically reserve the right to cancel publishing a manuscript at any point in the process, so legally they should be fine to change their mind even at a very unusually late point.
If they said that they have in the meantime learned that parts of your paper are already under copyright elsewhere, then you can either clear up the misunderstanding (if it is one) or alternatively propose to revise the paper.
If they *really* give *literally* no useful explanation (don't answer your mail, or answer with no actual information), then I would fall back to the answer of username_1 and contact Elsevier.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I would like to apply for Ph.D. programs in history, but I am a graduate of a science program. Do I need another degree in order to apply to history Ph.D. programs?<issue_comment>username_1: I cannot speak from experience here (fortunately), but my next steps would probably be (skip steps, you already performed):
1. Read carefully through all your correspondence for any hints regarding the reason of rejection.
2. Elsevier sometimes publishes preliminary versions online. If that happened, check the respective page and see whether any explanation is offered there.
3. Write to the journal or the journal’s chief editor and asking explicitly for the reason of rejection.
4. Write to the publisher (Elsevier) and complain about the situation. Append the entire correspondence with the journal beginning with the acceptance of your paper. The publisher should be generally interested in the integrety of its journals and also wasted resources on your paper, given that you already had proofs.
5. Threaten to make the whole affair public.
6. Make the whole affair public.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: For a respectable journal (which I would assume an Elsevier journal to be), this behavior seems so weird and unacceptable that I am tempted to assume that you are only telling us parts of the story here.
Specifically, the part about "but they gave no real explanation for what happened" is curious - what *was* the reason they gave? This will very much influence the advise you get here.
If, for instance, they said that the previous accept mailing was sent out in error and the new reject notification is correct based on review results, well ... then it would definitely suck for you, but I see no way to fight this decision. You are then basically in the crowded boat of people that feel like their journal paper was rejected even though the reviews were not that bad. That you received an accept notification first does not fundamentally change this. I also do not share the hope of <NAME> that you could potentially sue for compensation - as far as I know, journals typically reserve the right to cancel publishing a manuscript at any point in the process, so legally they should be fine to change their mind even at a very unusually late point.
If they said that they have in the meantime learned that parts of your paper are already under copyright elsewhere, then you can either clear up the misunderstanding (if it is one) or alternatively propose to revise the paper.
If they *really* give *literally* no useful explanation (don't answer your mail, or answer with no actual information), then I would fall back to the answer of username_1 and contact Elsevier.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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| 971
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<issue_start>username_0: I am in the process of looking at applying to do a Masters degree. I finished my bachelors degree about 4 years ago, and this will be a different university I am applying to, in a different country (bachelors was in UK, masters will be in NL)
Since I don't know who works at the previous university any more (and didn't really have any particular person to ask anyway, as none of them are likely to remember me), what would be the procedure to go about getting a letter of recommendation from someone there?
Should I just email their Student Services department? Or is there some particular process for this?
Thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: (transforming the comments into an answer)
The point your question seems to be missing is that *professors* give recommendation letters, **not** institutions. LORs are "personal" commitments from people that know you, know how you work, behave, etc. People that do not know you will most likely decline or send worthless letters.
That counts old professors that remember you, regardless of where they are at the moment. Track them down. And there is not that much of turnover in universities, I graduated 10 years ago, most of my professor are still there...
If no professor knows you, you won't get LORs. You don't need to "make friends" with the professor, good grades on his/her course should be enough. An undergrad research advisor would be better, but not necessary. It won't be a stellar letter, but for MS, it doesn't need to be. Just to reinforce: letters of recommendation are personal, not institutional.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The basic dilemma you seem to be caught in is that there is a certain contradiction of systems:
* In some cultures/institutions, it is completely normal not to be known by any professor while doing one's Bachelor/Master degree. It is not a sign of sub-par motivation or skills, and it is not a failure of any sort; it is the expected flow of one's student career that might let a student get directly in touch at most with a few doctoral candidates.
* At the same time, some cultures/institutions are completely unaware of this (or choose to ignore it). As a result, they might request a fixed number of LORs for certain types of application, leaving it up to the candidate to get those letters in a system that is not designed to provide students with opportunities to get such letters.
Still, there are a few chances for solving this issue:
* You could try and ask the supervisor of some personally supervised project you did, such as a graduation thesis.
* If that supervisor was a doctoral candidate, they might have left the university by the time you need the LoR. In some fields, many, if not most doctoral candidates leave academia for good after getting their doctoral degree, and it might even be impossible to track your supervisor down when they work in the industry. Moreover, the new employer might not allow the former supervisor to provide any semi-public confirmation on behalf of the supervisor's former job at the university to former students.
* You could try and ask the former examiner of your project or PI of the supervisor (in scenarios I am familiar with, this is often the same person). It is well possible they do not know you (and possibly even never met you in person), but they may be able to dig up the internal report about your project from your former supervisor.
* You might try and contact the examiner of an exam where you got good results. While the examiner might not know you, you could try and explain your situation and highlight that you would like to focus on the topics of that exam in your future career.
Note that in all of these cases, a somewhat likely outcome is that they will ask you to write the LoR yourself and then submit it to that person for checking whether they can agree with the statements in the letter and sign it. Beware that especially people from LoR-writing cultures tend to consider this practice severely fraudulent, while especially people from non-LoR-writing cultures tend to see this practice as completely ok and in fact the only reasonable way for students to get a LoR.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I want to do a Master's in CS, but I didn't do the undergraduate in CS, so I want to know if I can get a letter of recommendation from a professor that I know but who didn't actually teach me.<issue_comment>username_1: The general rule when it comes to letters of recommendation is that you should not ask for a letter from someone who does not know you well.
In this particular case, it's not sufficient that the professor you want to ask knows you. It is more important that he knows your *work* well, and can comment on that to graduate schools regarding your potential as a future student in their program.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You can get a letter from anyone who is willing to write one for you. They will normally only say they will write the letter if they know something about you. I've personally written letters a few times for students who had problems with their dissertation supervisor, and I knew something about their work for one reason or another, e.g. they'd tutored for me, I'd second marked their (undergraduate) dissertation, they've turned up regularly to research seminars and asked good questions or even given a talk, they've done research with me or my PhD students. Actually, some of those can be more important than having taken a class with someone.
If someone asks me for a letter and I don't know them, if they just ask me because I'm well known in my field, and they can't say why they want me to write the letter, then I will tell them I can't write a strong letter. If I have time and they still insist, I write a letter that says "I can confirm that this is a student at my university, their GPA is [whatever, I look it up], and I have no idea why they asked me to write this letter." Depending what you need the letter for, it's possible that would be enough.
A better plan would be to exploit office hours, sign up and visit a few times, discuss (first read!) their papers, and *then* asks for a letter. Then the letter might be made stronger by the impression you've made.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Keep in mind the overall goal -- you want to convince the admissions committee that you're a great student, and would do well in their program.
Of course you can point out your own strengths yourself, but it's even better if someone they trust testifies to your strengths. If the person your asking hasn't seen your strengths personally, they won't be able to write a personal letter attesting to them.
So get to know people, either by going to office hours (as said above), taking a class, taking up a side project, or working for them.
If you want to stick with people you already know, you should be aware yourself about how your background in \_\_\_ prepared you for a CS degree, or shows you're likely to succeed. If you can let the recommenders know how they can help and why you chose them, they might realize they can help rather than thinking they cant.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I have an important question, so please try to answer it precisely and carefully as possible.
If I want a career in one field in academia, would it be inadvisable to publish some other academic researches in other fields.
I have seen an [article in a blog](http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2011/03/30/how-to-get-tenure-at-a-major-research-university/) that suggest against it. But on the other hand I think that ability to publish research and practise this process is important for academic persons.
Nevertheless, lately I browsed Shanghai ranking and they have a rule that divides the researcher contribution by the number of departments they published in.
To expand my point,for many fields it is necessary to combine expertise from different disciplines in order to sythesis some new approaches. So frankly, I really do not understand the logics behind such an archaic approach.
So the question is, will it help publishing in more than one discipline or will it really make everything more difficult?<issue_comment>username_1: A matter connected to your question is discussed in the recent issue of ACM XRDS Magazine ([Vol. 21 No. 4, Summer 2015](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2809623&picked=prox&cfid=551215396&cftoken=46517882)) under the title, *"Crossing Boundaries"*. It describes the need for interdisciplinary research.
Publishing papers in diverse fields allows you to explore your opportunities and provides insights for novel ideas. In the early part of your research career, it would be admirable to have a fine understanding of various domains in your domain. After which you may delve into the details on what interests you the most from what you have broadly researched.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Interdisciplinary research is both an advantage and a disadvantage.
Interdisciplinary research is advantageous because the interaction between fields is often extremely productive in creating new knowledge and breakthroughs. Lots of extremely important things start out as interdisciplinary research, and it's where entire new fields tend to emerge. In my opinion, most of the most exciting research you'll encounter is interdisciplinary in nature.
The disadvantage is that until the new area starts to be recognized as important, interdisciplinary work isn't well "claimed" by any discipline. This means it's harder to get published, harder to get funded, and generally harder to get respect from colleagues working in "core" areas. There are often very few people who fully understand the content of an interdisciplinary project, and the importance of an interaction is often only recognized in retrospect.
This tension is, I believe, the reason that you often see articles calling for more interdisciplinary research. Many people recognize its importance, but if it was well-supported by existing community dynamics, they wouldn't need to write these articles.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: If you're interested in several different research fields and manage to publish on a good level, then go for it! The crucial question is whether you can align your work in the different fields such that they form your unique profile. You should therefore take care that your published work always relates to the research profile that you want to establish for yourself.
Regarding job prospects, I guess the pros and cons balance out. On the pro side, you can apply for a wider diversity of jobs that are not limited to one specific field of expertise. On the con side, you'll probably intimidate some committee members with a diverse publication record, certainly containing journals that some of them never heard of (and hence can't judge).
Essentially, you'll have to own your diversity and make it a point for you. But you'll have to follow through and make diversity part of your profile. If it's just a side project in a loosely related area that you probably will have no long-term interest in, then it's probably just a waste of time.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: There's a job application (UK based) which says something about having to have around 2 or 3 years research experience, but not necessarily have obtained a PhD.
What if I have a PhD and 2.5 years research experience postdoc? Does the PhD also count towards the "research years" ? I increasingly view a PhD as "training" rather than "research"...
**EDIT**
Of course there is a research element to any PhD, but the emphasis is on training to become an effective researcher.<issue_comment>username_1: Typically, time spent as a graduate student counts at least to some degree as research / professional experience. For example, [the IEEE counts education culminating in a Ph.D. as five years of "professional practice,"](http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/senior/senior_requirements.html) no matter how many more years it may have actually taken you. Those 2.5 years of postdoc most definitely count, though, so it seems quite reasonable for you to apply.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Excellent question! I put it down as experience anyway, but it seems to be shrugged off more often than not, as it was considered necessary as part of a degree. When I was applying for jobs, I got a call from one where the guy went over my resume over the phone, saying things like "And you don't have ANY industry experience? You didn't even do an intership? What were you doing over your summers?" to which I could only give the flabbergasted reply "Doing...research..."
So, yea, I'd definitely put it down as experience. But don't think that people will necessarily take it too seriously, sad to say.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm preparing a paper about *Web UI Automation Testing*, and would like to publish it in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.
In this journal description they said:
>
> The IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE) is an archival
> journal published **bimonthly**. We are interested in well-defined
> theoretical results and empirical studies that have potential impact
> on the construction, analysis, or management of software.
>
>
>
I searched their website, but can't find a clear estimation, how long does it take to publish in it, but I have heard from one of my colleague, it may take about 9 months.
I need my paper to be published within 2 months, what should I do?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> I need my paper to be published within 2 months, what should I do?
>
>
>
You cannot expect your paper to be published within 2 months in the IEEE transactions even in the luckiest case.
First, you have to submit the paper, and from your question it appears that you are still preparing it. Then, once submitted, your paper should undergo the peer-review process, and this can take anywhere from a couple of months to around one year, depending on the number of revisions, and it can even end up with rejection. Finally, when accepted, papers are not typically published in the next available issue (\*), because its composition is decided well in advance, and so your paper will be published a few months later from acceptance.
(\*) IEEE Transactions have an online early publication service which is disconnected from the journal periodicity, but even taking into account this, 2 months is too short a time.
A detailed description of the various stages of the publication process, with typical duration, can be found in the answer to [*What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?*](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/55666/20058).
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to Massimo's excellent answer:
**How often a journal appears has *nothing* to do with how long the review process will take. Those are completely disconnected things.**
Generally speaking, TSE is an *excellent* journal. 9 months of review time is even on the low side. I think 1 to 2 years is more common. 2 months is completely out of the question. Furthermore, the fact that you assume it *could* be done in 2 months leads me to believe that your chances of getting accepted at TSE without a much more experienced co-author are very slim.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Simply look at existing papers, and on the footnote of the first page, you'll see the date in which a manuscript is received, revised (maybe a few times), and then the acceptance date. After that, look for the month+year when it appears in print. This should give you the lag time.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Imho, publishing withing two months in ANY journal is impossible - IEEE or low impact factor journal.
In communications engineering, the fastest way to get a paper published is to submit it to a conference, and even those had submission deadlines typically 3-5 months prior to the actual conference. Submissions to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory usually took 2+ years (!) to be published, submissions to other journals (e.g. AMS Advances in Mathematics of Communications) sometimes were published within one year, but only if no major revisions were needed.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: IEEE Access: submission to publishing time is 4-6 weeks.
IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics: submission to publishing time is 2 months.
IEEE Sensor Journal: takes 1.5-3 months.
you can try IEEE Access and I think IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics will also covers topic area if your work presented in the Consumer Electronics Context.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I am going to apply for a graduate program, whose outcome totally depends on the potential supervisor's propensity to recruit any applicant for his/her research group.
One of the professors' research interests have a myriad of overlap with mine. But he does not answer my emails. He is not in sabbatical, but very busy, such that I am suspicious whether my email has been read or not.
The last chance to know his opinion would be calling him by phone. But I am afraid that this way would not be so gratifying in his perspective.
As a rule of thumb, is calling a professor by an applicant a good idea?<issue_comment>username_1: In my case at least, the following helped me deal with busy academics who don't respond to my emails (both as a student or academic):
**Face To Face Meeting**: If an academic does not reply to your email, trying to talking to him/her face to face through an online chat (e.g., Skype) or in person, is much better for you, than a phone call from you. This is because, he/she will get a better understanding on what you are, and he/she needs to make a commitment to listen to you; because he/she knows you are looking at him/her.
**Arranging The Meeting**: Because he/she seems very busy, find his/her department, and try to find the secretary for his/her research group. And kindly ask the secretary to ask the academic for a meeting.
**Worst Case Scenario**: The secretary ask the academic that Mr.x wants to have a meeting you. The academic for some reason does not want to do that, so then he/she will search at his/her mailbox and then will answer your emails. At least you get an answer to your sent emails.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Another strategy which I have used as a student: Call them when you would guess that they're not in the office, and leave them a message (it's a little less awkward), then, when they call you back, they will already know what you have to talk about and have a response prepared. This has worked for me in the past.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Do not phone. You should not have emailed. There is a standard process for acceptance into graduate programs, and contacting the professor is not part of it.
In the US, at least, and in the fields I'm familiar with, professors with any kind of international profile are inundated with applications to work in their lab/graduate program, even though in most cases, the professor has little or no control over whether students are accepted into the graduate program, since that is run by a graduate committee. Accordingly, emails to a professor asking to be taken as a member of their lab, before the student is accepted into the graduate program, are worse than useless; they are pestering a busy person with irrelevant requests. Such emails are typically deleted as soon as the professor reads the first sentence, or at best -- if the professor is extremely generous -- forwarded to the appropriate person.
This is multiplied by ten if the email sender doesn't have a good grasp of English, because (fairly or not) such emails are often perceived as simply carpet-bombing, spammed to scores of people on the off-chance of a hit. Again, professors may receive **dozens** of such poorly-written begging letters per week, almost all from completely unqualified candidates. (The question here, while far better written than many such letters, is far enough from standard English that it would likely hit this barrier.)
It is multiplied by a thousand for a phone call. It's quite likely that if you did make phone contact with the professor, the act of phoning would add you to the "Do not touch this person with a ten-foot pole" list, even if you were accepted to the graduate program.
If you are interested in working with this person, there is probably little point in contacting her directly. Go through the standard graduate student application procedure and then once you're accepted, contact the person and make it clear that you are already in the program.
The exception would be a potential graduate student who is truly exceptional. This does not mean an overlap of interests; it means an overlap of interests *plus a very strong skill set*, meaning pretty significant work in the field already, or some other really out of the ordinary ability -- not grades, not a prestigious university, but actual demonstrated skills. And this would not, typically, be communicated by the prospective student, but by someone associated with the student whose judgement would be more reliable, like a professor or industry expert. So even in this case, the student should not be pestering the professor with emails or phone calls.
There may be individual exceptions, who welcome this sort of thing, but the odds are very much against you.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently was given a job offer for a ([edit] research support/IT support) staff position at a university in a city I have been trying to relocate to for family reasons but I am concerned that if I take the position any chance I have of getting a tenure track position will be over. My background is in computational physics and I have a successful post-doctoral appointment currently (multiple first author manuscripts in some high impact journals within the short time, 1 year, I have worked), but the location is not-ideal for personal reasons.
My question is: if I take this job will it look poorly on tenure track applications? If it helps the position is fixed-term and much better pay than my current post-doc. I have always been told in graduate school that if you get off the tenure path, you can't get back on.
EDIT: I should note that the IT position is listed as a Research position, where I will be providing research support for the supercomputing center by leading/developing workshops, presenting work at HPC conferences, and still writing manuscripts (just in more of a CS/IT domain instead of physics) and the position is only for about 4.5 Months. Didn't know if that would change anyone's responses, but thought I should clarify that it is not help-desk/sys. admin work.<issue_comment>username_1: It may hurt, but I can fully understand why location is so much a priority for you. Having a computational physics degree will open a lot of doors for you, so here is what I recommend:
Take the job that you were offered, and since it is in a university, go ahead and acclimate to it. Try to distinguish yourself as much as you can in this position and climb the ladder as much as you can. Whilst doing this, try to get an adjunct appointment in the physics department (build some connections) and go from there. I don't know if this university is a research university, but I have seen others do something similar to this. They'll pick up a position in another department, get to a senior position, and then use this to pick up an adjunct position. Eventually, after a couple of years, you can quit the IT dept. and try to move full time to the other dept. This is attractive to the institution because you are already on the payroll of the institution and so becoming an adjunct shouldn't be that difficult.
Please note that this is through my experience seeing others in my local university.
I wish you the best,
**EDIT**
After seeing your edit, I can strongly say that my advice holds valid. I agree that from a simple IT Support position, this would be a longshot, but from a IT HPC Research Position, you will beyond doubt be involved in computational physics work. That will help build connections, a research portfolio, and a good start.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I would think it's not advisable to take this position unless you already have a research position lined up for a local university in the near future (under a year at least). At least in my field, getting tenure anywhere at all is hard. Unless you are particularly in demand (which seems unlikely from your described position so far), if you want tenure you have to put that above location (even to some extent country, not just city), and then apply at every opportunity to move to something where you want, in the hope that one day you will get it. It's not a good situation, but there are too many people for the number of jobs available.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2015/10/07
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<issue_start>username_0: I live in Mexico and I go to a private University where doing a thesis isn't a requirement for graduating (many universities in Mexico follow this). I only take classes and do small projects for exams. But I want to do a graduate program in Canada or USA or Europe. I don't have any experience in the field. What are my chances in getting into a graduate program without any relevant work?
What should I do if it is very important?
I'm studying actuarial Science so I don't have any sort of Github account or online work. And I'm not aiming at a very top university.<issue_comment>username_1: This depends on the field that you want to enter, the school that you want to go to, and so on. Your question is a bit broad, but I would say that lower ranked institutions (which doesn't at all equalize to bad or worst), will be willing to consider you, and you can indeed build up a good career from them. A small research project shouldn't hurt, but if you cant, I do not believe that you are at a serious disadvantage.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: In Europe you typically do not need any research experience or industry experience to get into [MA programs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%27s_degree).
You typically do not need this to get into a PhD-program either, but it helps to have something to show; a very nice MA-project, perhaps a published (or publishable) paper from your MA-work, popular publications such as newspaper article or similar where you communicated you subject, a nice open source project you contribute to, etc. Some contributions to the field you apply in. This is not a requirement, but it helps when candidates are evaluated. The admission for PhD-programs mainly depend on the research proposal you have submitted: do the comity have faith in your project, it's potential impact or interestingness, does it align with the institutions research goals, and does it seem realistic to complete in time?
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: This may be a silly question, but why do people in academia tend to write their emails as `jhon(dot)doe(at)gmail(dot)com`?<issue_comment>username_1: To avoid email harvesting spam-bots. (As if someone can't write a Perl script to make the appropriate substitutions.)
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Academics have a vested interest in being very public facing at times - it's easier to be contacted by potential students, collaborators, the media, etc. if your email address is readily available. And there *isn't* an incentive to hide your particular identity behind a large-scale corporate account (<EMAIL> for example).
Putting your email address out in the world, in plain text, is a recipe for having it harvested by spam-bots. Examples like the one you give are an attempt to make the address (marginally) less machine readable while still making it perfectly human readable.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: As others have said, it's to prevent email address harvesting. So why academic users mainly, and why do they use this pathetically ineffective technique?
Academic users were among the first to actually use the web for any purpose. Universities were the first large-scale source of email addresses, and when the web became available, academic users were the first large-scale group to take advantage of it. When spam started to become an issue in the early to mid 1990s, address obfuscation was actually an effective way of preventing address harvesting -- at least, for a few months, or a year or two, before spammers were doing the obvious corrections.
Even after spammers were correcting obfuscations, the early web users often continued to obfuscate: They had already done it and didn't bother changing it back, or they figured it might help and wouldn't hurt, or maybe they copied a template from someone else and just followed it. Again, these early web pages were not really *designed* as such, they were just some student or early-stage professor hand-coding html. If new web pages are still obfuscating, they're presumably just copying their mentor, or their mentor's mentor, without really thinking much about it.
That's the same reason you see this sort of thing among the other early-adopter classes of web users, like tech folks. People who put out pages in the early 90s had a more or less legitimate reason for it, and the tradition has just hung around.
(I just looked at my web page, first hand-coded with HTML in 1995, to see if I did this, but I don't even see an email address on my page any more. I don't think I ever bothered to obfuscate even when I did include contact links.)
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Because those people (in academia or elsewhere) didn't learn proper ways to protect their [e-mail addresses](http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01_j4e8Ujrk6TLQSEg-JPxbg==&c=CXuZiC8vle30VFmHt2sRieFnDdoJn8tl3IDdF4oDMWg=) from spam bots.
Edit: I'm not sure how can I expand this without repeating <NAME>neider's comment. It is naive to believe that email collecting script would not be able to do basic regex substitution which defeats the use of `(dot)` instead of `.`. People writing their e-mails this way just make them less readable for people, not for bots.
Upvotes: -1
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2015/10/07
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<issue_start>username_0: I am invited to interview for a PhD position. I am very afraid about the questions which will be asked. However I have a big fear, and it is that I am currently PhD student, started 1.5 year ago. I was the only PhD student in the group who was not paid, so I needed to work extra for an international research project to finance myself. Some months ago I again spoke with my supervisor and he told me he has no budget and I am free to leave the group whenever I like!
Due to all this, I decided to change my group. Now I am invited to interview for a competitive PhD position ( in another university but the same city). I would like to get this fully paid position which also fits well to my experiences, however I do not know how to tell the new professor about my current PhD?
I did not mention my current PhD in CV, and just wrote about my working experience in the last 1.5 year.
How shall I explain this issue to new professor? Can this issue be a reason that he does not accept me?<issue_comment>username_1: You don't have the degree, but you were registered as a graduate student for 1.5 years, and that should be on your CV. If you had listed it, there would be no problem at all: "Unfortunately, my current program was unable to fund me. I would prefer to give my full attention to my PhD studies and research, without the need for an outside job."
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: If asked, tell him the whole situation if asked or in a situation to do so. Finances is a legitimate reason, and any reasonable person would understand. Be straightforward and tell him what you told us, this is my common answer on questions like this. I know this from a wealth of experience,
Upvotes: 1
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2015/10/07
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<issue_start>username_0: I have witnessed multiple doctoral examinations at my (top-10 rated) university in which the student did not, in my opinion, demonstrate the required level of knowledge and understanding under questioning but was awarded the degree anyway. The committee consists of the advising professor, usually one or two additional professors (one of whom may have been a co-advisor), and the professor that chairs the doctoral examination committee in the department.
I suspect that the degrees are awarded at least partially out of expediency because failing the student after admitting him/her to the examination would be unfair to the student and indicate a failure by the advisor and be embarrassing to both, especially because the examination is open to the public (so other students as well as friends and family are present).
In addition, I believe that choosing one examiner to be a co-advising professor is a blatant conflict of interest, since failing the student would also amount to a failure of the co-advisor and is therefore not in his/her interest. The third examiner is sometimes selected by the advisor strategically from a pool of current or former collaborators.
Finally, I get the impression that the chair of the doctoral examination committee defers to the recommendation of the advisor and does not serve as an additional arbiter of standards for the department (as I assume would be his/her duty), again out of expediency, because if he/she did refuse to sign the departmental forms, it would create a conflict and presumably a lot of additional work.
I know I'm not the only one who feels this way about the situation, but so far nobody, to my knowledge, has spoken out. I'm inclined to speak out anonymously because I find the lack of enforcing standards to be embarrassing and sickening, especially given the rating of my university. Speaking out, even anonymously, could create problems for me, which is why the best way forward is unclear to me.
Does anybody have any recommendations about how best to proceed? Are my expectations unrealistic?
**Edit:** One commenter asked me to be more specific about what I thought they lack. Briefly put, they all struggled to answer questions about the problems they investigated. These questions required nothing more than a fundamental understanding of the relevant physical processes. Some of the required understanding is part of MSc courses and would not have been acquired as part of the PhD research itself. What troubles me is that rather than continuing to question the student, the committee members seemed to be going out of their way to give clues and avoiding pushing the student too far in the sense of making the deficiencies too obvious.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, I have seen some similar things in my life and this is indeed a very tricky question. There is a strong tension between our ideals regarding the quality of PhD's (and other degrees) we feel our institutions should be awarding and the practical realities on the ground, which involve messy and awkward decisions that have a direct influence on people's lives. This reality is such that sometimes we feel we have no choice but to compromise our lofty ideals to some extent. As long as the compromises are small, this is probably as it should be, but when the compromising reaches alarming levels, it is reasonable to start becoming seriously concerned.
What I would suggest is this. First of all, it may be worth remembering that the behavior you are describing is not your doing nor your responsibility. The chair and the members of the doctoral examination committee are the ones who are making those decisions and putting their own reputation and credibility behind them. So, although you find the behavior concerning and perhaps for a good reason, you cannot reasonably be expected to fight all instances of poor decision-making at your university. Thus, one option is to simply do nothing except to resolve privately that if you ever preside over a doctoral examination yourself, you will follow your conscience and let the chips fall where they may, and thus play at least a small role in making your department and university better.
If you want to be more proactive, an honorable course of action would be to actively pursue the role of chair or member of the doctoral examination committee so you can put the goal of raising standards directly on the agenda. Or you could strive to be appointed to the departmental committee that decides the makeup of the doctoral examination committee, and thereby help get people with high standards be placed on that committee and help prevent the kind of conflicts of interest you are describing. Through such behavior you will be setting a personal example and showing that you are not just criticizing others but willing to take action yourself for the goal you believe in. Since you mention that you believe others in your department feel the same as you, you may find that you have a good number of allies who will support you in your mission, and even your opponents will respect that you are acting on your convictions. Of course, it will take time and effort to bring about change, so be prepared for a long struggle ahead.
Finally, if your position within the department does not make it realistic for you to seek the kind of active, visible role I suggested above, or you are unwilling to make such a large effort to see change happening, I don't have much to suggest. I don't think there are easy fixes; **someone** will have to do the work to change the culture of your department. If it's not you, maybe you can work behind the scenes to identify more senior allies willing to take on that role. You might get lucky and find someone passionate enough about the subject, but probably you won't.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: An issue not yet raised is that of expectation. If the defense is sold as a "thesis defense", as it frequently is in North America, then it is unreasonable to expect the student to have prepared answers to questions outside of that scope. In the defenses I have been party to, it was strictly about the thesis itself. The outcome of deliberations had to fall into one of four narrowly defined categories:
1. Accept thesis as is
2. Accept with minor corrections
3. Major revisions required
4. Reject
(I have seen categories 2-4 used; 1 I take to be exceedingly rare.) All of these categories have to do with the thesis. Nowhere does it state that the candidate must exhibit sufficient expertise in the general subject area; this is supposed to have taken place during preliminary and qualifying examinations. (With the continuing specialization and narrowing of focus it is not even clear that the subject area can be properly defined.)
As username_1 states, changing this state of affairs requires a deep change of culture and lots of time and energy.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Nobody knows everything. My experience with defenses is that the questions keep getting more and more difficult, until the student says "I don't know", at which point the faculty make an effort to walk the student through the issues. After the committee is convinced that the basics are really in place, this process repeats itself. AT many universities, this process takes place behind closed doors with the committee, AFTER the public presentation.
So, what should *you* do? Assuming, for the moment, that you're faculty, if there has been a closed session after the defenses you were not privy to, you really have no idea how the student performed in the closed session, thus you have little to say officially about the matter. That said, if you believe that the student does not merit the degree, and that releasing said student to the world would harm your department's reputation, you might mention your concerns to the chair of your DEPARTMENT'S grad program or your chair (not the Dean's office, university officials, etc.). Keep it in the house.
If this resonates, this might rise to the level of a committee or general faculty meeting, in which case you can offer your suggestions on how your department might better groom your candidates for defense -- Perhaps a more rigorous proposal process or more frequent committee meetings or even create a system where the student gets more practice and feedback on presentations and QA sessions (we have a summer presentation series of grad students presenting to other grad students with no faculty presence that seems to help). If this conversation doesn't happen, and you still feel strongly about it, talk to your chair about placing you on departmental committees that have some oversight, like your graduate committee, and gently try to sell your point there. As others have said, this becomes an issue of changing the departmental culture. My own opinion is that this difficult task is best approached through a "what can I do to help make this better?" strategy, rather than a dig in your heels, "We're doing it wrong" stance.
One thing that I've seen that puts students in bad situations like you describe is late formation of doctoral committees. Committees should form early, and meet with regularity. If you don't do this, you can wind up in a situation where a faculty member gets involved too late to do any good.
The one approach I WOULD NOT recommend is playing pariah on a students committee at defense. If you want to make your statement, the time is actually WELL BEFORE the defense takes place. You can nudge a committee you're on into laying out a careful schedule of benchmark reviews with the student, and whip him or her into shape if things aren't looking good, and even hold up the defense date until the student is ready.
Interestingly, at our university, the policy following distribution of the dissertation used to be that the committee chair (who is external to the department) would informally ask other committee members if the defense should not happen. This has changed to a more anonymous electronic mechanism where each committee member needs to affirm that he or she believes that based on the dissertation, the student is ready to defend.
If you're a student observing the sort of pattern you describe, you might mention it to your adviser or chair, but I wouldn't expect this to be well received. I'd put this in my "stuff I've observed that I can do better when I launch my career" pocket, and try not to forget it later.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I have observed the same problem in a number of high-ranked universities in the North America and Europe. In fact, I would say that I have only observed two or three defenses where the student exhibited true competence and control over the subject matter (factual and logical) -- all were my own students. Coupled with student-progress related discussions at faculty meetings, this led me to reexamine my assumptions about what the degree Ph D "means". Rather than consider only what I believe the standards *should* be, I concentrated on what they actually are. Consequently, I saw that none of these dissertation defenses were *shockingly* below the existing standard, even though they were sometimes disappointingly low. I came to understand that the students' shortcomings were largely a failure to consider alternative and a failure to know facts, but generally not a failure to have any idea how to answer the question.
As a member of the examining committee, you (may) be in a position to clearly indicate that the student is not ready yet, and if that is the case, you should not shirk your obligation to maintain appropriate academic standards. If you are not in that position, you have two realistic options. One is to focus on asking relevant questions from the floor. Institutions vary in terms of how "outsiders" can interact with the defense, ranging from completely closed to open to the public and anyone can ask questions. The goal should not be to prevent the student from getting the degree, but rather to make it publicly known that there is a problematic failure to enforce proper standards regarding core knowledge in the discipline. The second is to make this be an agenda item for discussion at faculty meetings, where policies regarding graduate programs are (possibly) set. It may be that requiring a specific course at the PhD level would address the problem.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: The observation that the level of knowledge, skills and achievements shown by someone finishing their PhD varies wildly both among institutions and also among students at the same institution is a very widely made one, but nevertheless is still striking to those who observe it for themselves. At my current institution, we have some graduates that I really wonder how they could possibly have gotten through the program, and we have other graduates whose superior work shocked me: once every few years a graduating student in my current department (UGA math: about the 50th best in the country) has a thesis that would have been regarded as distinctly strong at the department where I received my PhD (Harvard math: always in the top three). Is the variation lesser at a place like Harvard? No, I think it's greater. In 2003 I graduated from that department with a respectable thesis. [One of the 2004 graduates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryam_Mirzakhani) had a thesis that was, suffice it to say, orders of magnitude better. Do Harvard math PhDs have an understanding of the relevant mathematical processes? On average, yes, to a reasonable degree. All of the time? No, probably not.
I don't think it is helpful to cast the problem in "whistle-blowing" terms. That suggests some kind of clandestine nefarious activity, but so far as I know most interested parties are acutely aware of the issues raised by the OP and described above. If the OP is a tenure-track faculty member at the institution he describes, it is (to say the least) entirely his right to take action to enforce higher standards in the PhD program. I don't understand the need to do so anonymously -- you don't need to do your job anonymously, and doing so sounds difficult.
Here are some thoughts about how to get involved with this.
1) **Pace yourself**.
The cliche is that young faculty members come in wanting to fix the new department. In my experience these desires are overall quite positive, but they need to be tempered with an awareness of how the department actually works (which will not be exactly the same way as the few departments they have previously been involved with) and also need to take time to get to know the personnel.
While you are an assistant professor you should start serving on thesis committees of other students. You should be conscientious but less vocal than you plan to be in the future: you have a lot to take in. In particular I think it's best if you spend at least a year observing PhD students and the PhD program before taking on students of your own. So long as faculty are invited to exams and thesis defenses, make a point of showing up, even if you are not on the committee. If such events are not typically open to faculty members, consider asking if you can show up "as an observer".
2) **As long as you are confident that you will not be making real trouble for other students and faculty, don't be afraid to enforce your personal standards. You need not be held to the lowest common denominator.**
As a faculty member in your department, some portion of the task of setting the standard for the students falls to you. You can be stricter or more exacting than some of your colleagues, so long as you are not making bitter enemies or ruining people's lives. In my department, the oral exams run by my research area are well known to be longer and more grueling than anyone else's oral exams. Maybe this dissuades a few people, but not too many since more students study in my research area than any other area. A faculty member who has a reputation for high standards *and working with students to meet them* often becomes very popular and influential in the department.
3) **Realize that the thesis defense is too late to "hold the line" for any standard other than the requirements of the thesis work and the written thesis itself.**
Academic traditions must differ a bit, but I have never seen a thesis committee test for basic knowledge during a thesis defense. The job of the thesis committee is to make sure that the thesis is an *acceptable* written document and of course to convince ourselves that the student was responsible for it. That is not a formality: it often involves hard work down to the wire by the student, the advisor and some of the committee members to get the thesis in acceptable shape. The thesis defense itself really is a formality: in my experience whatever issues may remain with the written thesis are not even much engaged at the defense itself, though they may still be dealt with later. If the committee doesn't think the student is ready to get a PhD, the thesis defense should not be scheduled. Period.
If a student exhibits a lack of basic knowledge at the thesis defense: yes, that's a distressing failure worth doing something about. But the failure took place years before. Most PhD programs have several rungs of exams, both written and oral, extending over several years. A student should not be able to pass these exams without a knowledge of the fundamentals of the field. Moreover the typical culture of academia is that *not everyone passes these exams the first time they take them*. Generally speaking it's quite culturally acceptable as a faculty member to say "Sorry, Student A doesn't know Subject X well enough to continue on with his studies." In my experience, these kind of exams are often done relatively quietly in the department. Some faculty -- maybe those who are directly affiliated with the most relevant coursework -- are involved in administering the exams. The majority of the faculty may not be. If you're crusading for higher standards (not a bad thing!!), *this* is your place to get involved, get active, and draw your lines in the sand. Take time to figure out exactly what the problem is. Are the exams not being graded seriously enough? Are the syllabi not testing what you want or not testing it to a high enough level? Are the advisors of students given an undue influence over the result of these exams? (E.g. "It is a waste of my Student A's time to know Subject X. I want him to work on Subject Y only.") Once you've identified the problem(s) you can get to work on the amelioration process, patiently but implacably. Because it is in fact not a criminal conspiracy, if you are passionate, smart and keep your eye on the ball over a period of years, you will have more of an influence than other faculty members who are a bit too lazy, too "nice" or too whatever to run things in the best way.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]
|
2015/10/07
| 714
| 2,345
|
<issue_start>username_0: I want to cite an IEEE norm in a document. They provide several way to cite it on their website and in particular `bibTeX`. This is perfect because I use LaTeX.
However, the citation does not contain any author field. This raise a warning.
Should I keep this warning or modify the entry to avoid it? And in this case, what should I enter as author?
[Link to the norm page](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=4610935&filter%3DAND%28p_Publication_Number%3A4610933%29). In abstract, go to download citation.
For example bibTeX citation only:
```
@ARTICLE{4610935,
journal={IEEE Std 754-2008},
title={IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic},
year={2008},
pages={1-70},
keywords={IEEE standards;floating point arithmetic;programming;IEEE standard;arithmetic formats;computer programming;decimal floating-point arithmetic;754-2008;NaN;arithmetic;binary;computer;decimal;exponent;floating-point;format;interchange;number;rounding;significand;subnormal},
doi={10.1109/IEEESTD.2008.4610935},
month={Aug},}
```<issue_comment>username_1: I assume that the venue you want to publish in follows the [IEEE editorial style guide](http://www.ieee.org/documents/style_manual.pdf). On page 38, the guide shows how to reference standards:
>
> Basic Format:
>
>
> [1] *Title of Standard*, Standard number, date.
>
>
> Examples:
>
>
> [1] *IEEE Criteria for Class IE Electric Systems*, IEEE
> Standard 308, 1969.
>
>
> [2] *Letter Symbols for Quantities*, ANSI Standard
> Y10.5-1968.
>
>
>
So this is what the end result should look like. If this *is* your end result, you can disregard warnings.
However, I'd assume that BibTeX issues warnings about missing authors because it *expects* authors in the particular entry type you are using. You may need to recode your BibTeX file entry from, say, `@Article` to `@Techreport`. If you run into problems with (Bib)TeX, [tex.SE](https://tex.stackexchange.com/) may be helpful.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In my experience, the bibtex entries provided by many publishers are often quite bad, and IEEE is one of the worst offenders here. So it is quite common that one has to edit them before they become usable.
For this specific entry, the type "article" is clearly wrong, and the root of the problem.
Upvotes: 3
|
2015/10/07
| 8,076
| 27,381
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am subscribed to the arXiv daily digests for my subject area. I find myself, every day, doing the following, when I get to work:
1) Browsing through the arXiv email and right-clicking on the articles of interest to me (to open each of the pages in a different tab in my browser)
2) For each of these pages, downloading the pdf by clicking on the link, re-naming it `by .pdf`, and saving the pdf in a directory on my PC
[3) the directory is then automatically synched to my tablet during the day]
4) Looking at the articles on my commute home on my tablet.
I am bored of doing (2). It only takes 10-20 seconds per article (depending on things like how many carriage returns or inappropriate characters I have to remove from the cut-and-pasted article title and author names -- e.g. math characters (I am a mathematician and symbols in titles do not cut and paste well)) but when I'm interested in 5 articles and one has a lengthy title with carriage returns and symbols in, my mind wanders and I start thinking about whether this has already been automated by someone, because it seems to me that there would be no obstruction to doing so in theory, but I would not be capable of doing it myself.
Does such an automation exist?<issue_comment>username_1: IMO, the way to implement this would be as a browser or e-mail client extension. Personally, I have a subscription for [e-mail alerts](http://arxiv.org/help/subscribe) because it lets me select subject areas. Recently I looked into extensions to make that more easily readable, so I searched the Firefox and Thunderbird extensions for things related to arXiv, but my search turned up nothing interesting.
Of course, it could exist e.g. as an extension for some other browser; you know, it is tough to prove nonexistance.
Given the arXiv ID, an “external“ solution should be pretty easy (getting the PDF is a simple manner of `wget http://arxiv.org/pdf/$ID`, and extracting the title and authors from the `abs/$ID` page should be simple enough, as well). However, the question is what you gain by that.
Instead, I would recommend [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/) as an alternative type of solution. It lets you save article metadata from arXiv and many other sources in the click of a button. It can also download and archive PDFs automatically, on your PC or on their server (where you get a very limited amount of space for free and can pay to get more).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You can use [JabRef](http://jabref.sourceforge.net/) for this. More precisely, there are [plugins by <NAME>](http://www.lhnr.de/ext/) that do the job:
* [arxiv-rss](http://www.lhnr.de/ext/arxiv-rss/) to browse the list of new preprints and import the ones you want;
* [localcopy](http://www.lhnr.de/ext/localcopy/) for downloading the PDF and automatically renaming it (according to a pattern you can define).
This isn't 100% automated (you still need to manually click "download arXiv PDF" once you've imported the entry in your bib file), but this is still much better than doing it all by hand.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Try [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/) which can save multiple items from certain Web pages (you'd have to view the list in a browser).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: FWIW, my Python (2) code that downloads arXiv preprints (PDF and source) given a text file containing hyperlinks (usually, a copypasted arXiv digest from an email):
```
# batch-download arXiv preprints linked in a text file
# (meant for the emails that come from arXiv).
# Written for use in Cygwin or Linux; not sure how it
# behaves on a normal Windows python.
#
# Syntax:
# - "python arxdown.py mail.txt [folder]":
# Downloads all arXiv preprints hyperlinked in "mail.txt"
# into folder [folder].
# - "python arxdown.py https://arxiv.org/abs/1308.0047 [folder]":
# Downloads https://arxiv.org/abs/1308.0047 into folder [folder].
# If [folder] is not specified, a default one is used.
# Even if the arXiv hyperlink comes with a version number,
# the script downloads the newest version by default; this
# behavior can be disabled with the "-u" switch.
import os
import urllib
import urllib2
import re
import time
import sys
import socket
import shutil
import string
import lxml.html
from unidecode import unidecode
import itertools
defaultpath = "/home/arxiv" # The path into which the downloads should go if no folder was specified.
arxivprefix = "http://arxiv.org" # Replace by one of the mirrors ( https://arxiv.org/help/mirrors ) if the main site is slow/down.
resting_time = 4 # time (in second) to wait between downloads; too small a number seems to get me banned.
args = sys.argv
if "-u" in args:
# use version numbers provided
newest = False
args.remove("-u")
else:
newest = True
if len(args) > 1:
# args[1] may be either a file containing URLs, or a URL itself.
try:
# Is it a file?
mail = open(args[1])
proper_mail = True
except IOError:
# Nah.
mail = [args[1]]
proper_mail = False
if len(args) > 2:
# Whatever remains better be a path.
tempdirname = args[2]
else:
tempdirname = defaultpath
else:
print "no mail text or hyperlink given"
sys.exit()
# create temporary folder for downloading, if not already existing.
try:
os.mkdir(tempdirname)
except OSError:
pass
os.chdir(tempdirname)
for line in mail:
if "://arxiv.org/abs/" in line:
# Which preprint to download?
for arxid in line.split("://arxiv.org/abs/")[1:]:
arxid = arxid.split(" ")[0].split("v")
if len(arxid) > 1:
arxid, vernum = arxid[:2]
else:
arxid = arxid[0]
vernum = False
arxid = arxid.strip()
response = urllib2.urlopen(arxivprefix + "/abs/" + arxid)
html = response.read().split("\n")
# Which version to download?
if (not newest) and vernum:
vernum = "".join(itertools.takewhile(str.isdigit, vernum))
else:
for htmlline in html:
if "tablecell arxividv" in htmlline:
vernum = htmlline.split(arxid + "v")[1]
vernum = vernum.split("\"")[0]
break
arxidv = arxid + "v" + vernum
print "\n attacking ", arxidv
# Build filename for the downloads.
# I am being heavily conservative here; all kinds of
# harmless symbols get kicked out.
author_surnames = []
valid_letters = string.ascii_lowercase + " -1234567890"
for htmlline in html:
if "citation_author" in htmlline:
auname = htmlline.split("citation_author\" content=\"")[1]
auname = auname.split(",")[0].lower()
auname = lxml.html.fromstring(auname).text_content()
auname = "".join([i for i in unidecode(unicode(auname.lower())) if i in valid_letters])
author_surnames.append(auname)
author_list = "".join([author + " " for author in author_surnames])[:-1]
print "authors: ", author_list
for htmlline in html:
if "citation_title" in htmlline:
title = htmlline.split("citation_title\" content=\"")[1]
title = title.split("\"")[0].lower()
title = lxml.html.fromstring(title).text_content()
title = "".join([i for i in unidecode(unicode(title.lower())) if i in valid_letters])[:75]
break
arxidv_name = arxidv
if "/" in arxidv_name:
# This is some special-casing needed for old-style
# arXiv IDs (such as math/0112073), since the slash
# would confuse the file system.
arxidv_name = arxidv_name.split("/")[1]
resulting_filename = author_list + " - " + title + " - " + arxidv_name
print "downloading as: ", resulting_filename
# Downloading. The "while readsize" loop is meant to protect
# against some temporary failures that haven't been occurring
# lately.
# Beware: It is stupid and might create an endless loop.
readsize = 0
while readsize == 0:
urllib.urlretrieve(arxivprefix + "/pdf/" + arxidv, resulting_filename + ".pdf")
readsize = os.stat(resulting_filename + ".pdf").st_size
if readsize > 4500:
break
testopen = open(resulting_filename + ".pdf")
for line in testopen:
if "may take a little time" in line:
time.sleep(4)
readsize = 0
print "retrying..."
break
else:
readsize = 6666
testopen.close()
urllib.urlretrieve(arxivprefix + "/e-print/" + arxidv, resulting_filename + ".tar.gz")
print "\n resting..."
time.sleep(resting_time)
if proper_mail:
mail.close()
```
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: Here you go!
Take any of the `new` or `recent` links from <https://arxiv.org/> and substitute it under `Settings`.
```
#!/usr/bin/python3
# encoding=utf8
import os, re, subprocess, sys
import urllib.request as urllib2
import urllib.parse
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
version = 1.0
arguments = {}
arguments['-h, --help'] = 'Print help'
arguments['-v, --version'] = 'Print Version'
# ================== Settings ====================
url = "https://arxiv.org/list/astro-ph/new"
# ================================================
class color:
PURPLE = '\033[95m'
CYAN = '\033[96m'
DARKCYAN = '\033[36m'
BLUE = '\033[94m'
GREEN = '\033[92m'
YELLOW = '\033[93m'
RED = '\033[91m'
BOLD = '\033[1m'
UNDERLINE = '\033[4m'
END = '\033[0m'
if __name__ == "__main__":
# =============== Argument parser=================
if any([1 if arg in sys.argv else 0 for arg in ['-v', '--version']]):
print(version)
sys.exit(0)
if any([1 if arg in sys.argv else 0 for arg in ['-h', '--help']]):
name = os.path.basename(sys.argv[0])
# Display help
print("This is {program}. Get your daily arXiv-dose.\n".format(program=name))
print("Usage: ./{program}".format(program=name))
print("Currently I'm fetching", url, '\n')
for key in arguments:
print("\t{:15}: {}".format(key, arguments[key]))
sys.exit(0)
# ================================================
# ============ Generate and fetch url ============
try:
req = urllib2.Request(url, headers={'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0'})
html = urllib2.urlopen(req)
except urllib2.HTTPError:
print(url)
print('"{}" not found. Correct spelling?'.format(search))
sys.exit(0)
# ================================================
# ================= Find papers ==================
soup = BeautifulSoup(html, "lxml")
articles = {}
# Get DOI and URL
papers = soup.find_all("dt")
for c, nnn in zip( papers, range( len(papers) ) ):
articles[nnn] = {}
doi = c.find_all("a", title="Abstract")[0]
doi = doi.get_text()
articles[nnn]["doi"] = doi
link = c.find_all("a", title="Download PDF")[0].get("href")
articles[nnn]["url"] = 'https://arxiv.org' + link
# Get Title, Authors and Abstract
meta = soup.find_all("div", class_="meta")
for c, nnn in zip(meta, range(len(meta))):
title = c.find("div", class_="list-title")
title = title.get_text().replace('Title: ','')
articles[nnn]["title"] = title.strip()
authors = c.find("div", class_="list-authors")
authors = authors.get_text().replace('Authors:','').replace('\n','')
authors = re.sub('[a-zA-Z]+\.+\ ','',authors)
articles[nnn]["authors"] = authors.strip()
try:
abstract = c.find("p", class_="mathjax").get_text().replace('\n',' ')
except AttributeError:
pass
articles[nnn]["abstract"] = abstract
# List findings
for paper in articles.keys():
print( '\n' + color.BOLD + color.UNDERLINE +'{:5}'.format(paper) + color.END,
articles[paper]["title"])
print( 6 * ' ' + articles[paper]["authors"], '\n' )
print( ' ' + articles[paper]["abstract"] )
# Get user input list
while True:
download = input( '\n' + color.BOLD + 'Download (2 12 ..): ' + color.END )
try:
download = [ int(i) for i in download.split() ]
break
except ValueError:
print('Not a valid list: "{}"'.format(download))
pass
for file in download:
url = articles[file]["url"]
filename = '{}-{}-{}.pdf'.format(articles[file]["title"], articles[file]["authors"], articles[file]["doi"])
# EXT4 limits filenames to 255 characters
if len(filename) > 254:
filename = articles[file]["title"] + '-'
for author in articles[file]["authors"].split():
if len(author) + len(filename) + len(articles[file]["doi"]) + 5 < 255:
filename += author.strip()
filename = filename[:-1] + '-' + articles[file]["doi"] + ".pdf"
print(color.BOLD + 'Warning:' + color.END + 'Too many authors for |filename| < 256.')
print('Truncating to ', filename)
# Download
subprocess.call(["wget", '--quiet', '--show-progress', '--header', "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0", "--output-document", '{}'.format(filename), url])
```
This will give you a complete list with title, author and abstract. You can then enter a list of numbers to download as `{title}-{authors}-{doi}.pdf`.
```
[...]
120 Flavours in the box of chocolates: chemical abundances of kinematic substructures in the nearby stellar halo
<NAME>, <NAME>
Different subtleties and problems associated with a nonrelativistic limit of the field theory to the Schroedinger theory are discussed. In this paper, we revisit different cases of the nonrelativistic limit of a real and complex scalar field in the level of the Lagrangian and the equation of motion. We develop the nonrelativistic limit of the Dirac equation and action in the way that the nonrelativistic limit of spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ wave functions of particles and antiparticles appear simultaneously. We study the effect of a potential like $U(\phi)\propto \phi^4$ which can be attributed to axion dark matter field in this limit. We develop a formalism for studying the nonrelativistic limit of antiparticles in the quantum mechanics. We discussed the non-local approach for the nonrelativistic limit and its problems.
121 The Masses and Accretion Rates of White Dwarfs in Classical and Recurrent Novae
<NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>
Different subtleties and problems [...]
Download (2 12 ..):
```
---
Installation
------------
1. Save the script as `arxiv` in `/usr/local/bin`
2. `chmod +x /usr/local/bin/arxiv`
You should now be able to execute it by just typing `arxiv` in terminal.
Requirements
------------
* `python3`
* `python-beautifulsoup4` (`pip install bs4` if you use `python-pip` package)
* `wget`
---
Current version of this script is available [here](https://github.com/suuuehgi/arXiv).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: The following script uses [`arxiv`](https://github.com/lukasschwab/arxiv.py) python API to download friendly named files.
**Features:**
* Inputs: URLs or `.pdf` files.
* Outputs: corrected `.pdf` files.
* Corrects `.pdf` files that have *already* been downloaded!
**Script:**
```
import os, re, sys, arxiv
def fix_title(title: str) -> str:
return re.sub(r'[<>:"/\\|?*]', "_", re.sub(r"\s*\n+\s*", " ", title))
def paper_to_filename(paper: arxiv.Result) -> str:
author_str = str(paper.authors[0]) + " et al." * (len(paper.authors) > 1)
return f"{author_str} - {fix_title(paper.title)}.pdf"
def parse_line(line: str):
m = re.match(r".*(?P\d{4}\.\d{4,6}(v\d+)?)(\.pdf)?$", line)
return m.group("paper\_id") if m is not None else None
paper\_ids = [parse\_line(line.strip()) for line in sys.stdin.readlines()]
paper\_ids = [x for x in paper\_ids if x is not None]
papers = arxiv.Search(id\_list=paper\_ids).results()
for paper, paper\_id in zip(papers, paper\_ids):
src\_filename = f"{paper\_id}.pdf"
dst\_filename = paper\_to\_filename(paper)
if os.path.exists(dst\_filename):
print(f"[TargetExists] {dst\_filename}")
elif os.path.exists(src\_filename):
print(f"[Rename] {src\_filename}")
os.rename(src\_filename, dst\_filename)
else:
print("[Download]")
paper.download\_pdf(filename=dst\_filename)
print(f"file: {dst\_filename}")
print(f"url: {paper.entry\_id}")
print(f"authors: {[str(x) for x in paper.authors]}")
print(f"title: {paper.title}\n")
```
**Dependencies:**
```
pip install arxiv==1.4.2
```
**Example 1:**
Automatically correct *all* PDF filenames inside a directory:
```
λ ls
1506.02640.pdf
λ ls *.pdf | python arxiv_downloader.py
[Rename] 1506.02640.pdf
file: Joseph Redmon et al. - You Only Look Once_ Unified, Real-Time Object Detection.pdf
url: http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.02640v5
authors: ['<NAME>', '<NAME>', '<NAME>', '<NAME>']
title: You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection
λ ls
Joseph Redmon et al. - You Only Look Once_ Unified, Real-Time Object Detection.pdf
```
**Example 2:**
Manually provide your own list of URLs, filenames, or paper IDs:
```
λ wget -nc https://arxiv.org/pdf/1506.02640.pdf
λ wget -nc https://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03167v3.pdf
λ echo "https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.00157
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.11604
1506.02640.pdf
1502.03167v3" | python arxiv_downloader.py
[Download]
file: username_6 et al. - Shared Mobile-Cloud Inference for Collaborative Intelligence.pdf
url: http://arxiv.org/abs/2002.00157v1
authors: ['username_6', '<NAME>']
title: Shared Mobile-Cloud Inference for Collaborative Intelligence
[Download]
file: Shibani Santurkar et al. - How Does Batch Normalization Help Optimization?.pdf
url: http://arxiv.org/abs/1805.11604v5
authors: ['<NAME>', '<NAME>', '<NAME>', '<NAME>']
title: How Does Batch Normalization Help Optimization?
[Rename] 1506.02640.pdf
file: Joseph Redmon et al. - You Only Look Once_ Unified, Real-Time Object Detection.pdf
url: http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.02640v5
authors: ['<NAME>', '<NAME>', '<NAME>', '<NAME>']
title: You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection
[Rename] 1502.03167v3.pdf
file: Sergey Ioffe et al. - Batch Normalization_ Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shift.pdf
url: http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.03167v3
authors: ['<NAME>', '<NAME>']
title: Batch Normalization: Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shift
```
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: This is probably not quite the right fit for your use case, but it should be mentioned: Arxiv does have several relevant help pages:
* <https://arxiv.org/help/robots>
* <https://arxiv.org/help/bulk_data>
* <https://arxiv.org/help/bulk_data_s3>
The TLDR is that there are various interfaces for programmatic access to arxiv, but indiscriminate mass downloads will be blocked.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: If you prefer a browser plugin to automatically rename downloaded PDFs while browsing, you may want to install [arxiv-utils](https://github.com/j3soon/arxiv-utils) (I'm the author). The plugin simply adds a `Direct Download` button in arxiv web pages, and the naming convention is customizable.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ozWAN.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MW5bd.png)
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: Here is my Python script that will search Gravitational Wave(GW) related papers on arXiv based on the given input inputs(dates) and it will extract title, abstruct, arxiv id and author name; and it will create a txt file containing those information. It can be customized for different fields by changing the URL. Default search `url` is:
>
>
> ```
> # Default :
> ## Search terms - gravitation wave (all fields) or, eccentric signals(all fields)
> ## search subject - physics - including cross-listed papers
> ## Search date - - submission date (most recent)
> ## Abstruct - show, size - 200
>
> # For any other field:
> ## Visit `https://arxiv.org/search/advanced` and for the first time,
> ## edit the search engine with the required terms and subjects and dates then,
> ## search and copy the url and paste the url below and replace dates in the url as `{}` to format custom dates there. (as below,)
>
> ```
>
>
**Main Script**
```
#!/path/anaconda3/bin/python
#This script will search extract gw-related paper summery from arxiv based on input dates and make a text from from that data
# By- username_9
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup # You need to have this library in your conda environment
import requests
import datetime as dt
import numpy as np
import os
print("--------------->>>>>|GW NEWS|<<<<<--------------------------------------------------------------------")
print("(This script will search gw papers on arxiv based on input dates)\n")
print("Write a period type [last_day, last_week] (Press for custom date search)")
action = input(">>>")
if action == "last\_day":
to\_ = dt.date.today()
from\_ = to\_ - dt.timedelta(days=1)
file\_name = "arxiv\_gwdaily\_{}.txt".format(from\_)
elif action == "last\_week":
to\_ = dt.date.today()
from\_ = to\_ - dt.timedelta(days=7)
file\_name = "arxiv\_gwweekly\_{}\_{}.txt".format(from\_, to\_)
else:
from\_ = input("From date [YYYY-MM-DD] : ").split("-")
to\_ = input("To date [YYYY-MM-DD] : ").split("-")
from\_ = dt.date(int(from\_[0]), int(from\_[1]), int(from\_[2]))
to\_ = dt.date(int(to\_[0]), int(to\_[1]), int(to\_[2]))
file\_name = "arxiv\_gw\_{}\_{}.txt".format(from\_, to\_)
file = open(file\_name, "w")
file.write( "--------------->>>>>|GW NEWS|<<<<<--------------------------------------------------------------------\n")
file.write("-----|From : "+str(from\_)+"\t To: "+str(to\_)+"|--------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n")
#
def gw\_news(from\_, to\_):
url = "https://arxiv.org/search/advanced?advanced=1&terms-0-operator=AND&terms-0-term=gravitational+wave&terms-0-field=all&terms-1-operator=OR&terms-1-term=eccentric+signal+&terms-1-field=all&classification-physics=y&classification-physics\_archives=all&classification-include\_cross\_list=include&date-year=&date-filter\_by=date\_range&date-from\_date={}&date-to\_date={}&date-date\_type=submitted\_date&abstracts=show&size=200ℴ=-announced\_date\_first".format(from\_, to\_)
try:
source = requests.get(url)
source.raise\_for\_status()
soup = BeautifulSoup(source.text, "html.parser")
papers = soup.find("ol", class\_="breathe-horizontal").find\_all("li", class\_="arxiv-result")
file.write("No. of papers : {}\n".format(len(papers)))
file.write("\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\n")
i = 1
for paper in papers:
title = paper.find("p", class\_="title is-5 mathjax").text[8:-10]
abstract = paper.find("p", class\_="abstract mathjax").find("span", class\_="abstract-full has-text-grey-dark mathjax").text[:-7]
id\_ = paper.find("p", class\_="list-title is-inline-block").a.text
author = paper.find("p", class\_="authors").text[10:].replace("\n","").replace(" ", "")
file.write("#"+str(i)+"."+title+"\n")
file.write(abstract+"\n")
file.write(id\_+"\t\t"+author+"\n \n")
file.write("\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\n")
i=i+1
print("Done! Data stored in /arXiv/{}".format(file\_name))
except:
print("No new paper during this period!")
os.remove(file\_name)
return url
url = gw\_news(from\_, to\_)
file.write("\n\n")
file.write("\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\n")
file.write("Site url : "+url+"\n")
file.write("\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\n")
print("\nSite url : ", url)
```
But make sure your pc is connected to the internet while the script is running.
**Automation using *Crontab***
This script can be run daily automatically by setting the `action` to `last_date` and by adding the script to *crontab*. There is a way you can do it:
Open the *crontab window*,
```
$ crontab -e
```
add a new *cronjob* and save it.
```
0 9 * * * /path/arXiv/gwarxiv_search.py
```
This script will run automatically daily exactly at 9:00 AM and stores the output text file in the respective folder.
**Using a *Desktop application***
For that, you have to write a shell command which will run the script and open the output(most recent) file. Here is the example code,
```
#!/bin/bash
#-----RUN THE SEARCH SCRIPTS---------------------------------------------------------------------------
source /path/anaconda3/etc/profile.d/conda.sh
conda activate
# Get the current day of the week (0-6 where Sunday is 0)
day\_of\_week=$(date +%w)
# Check if it's Sunday (day\_of\_week equals 0)
if [ "$day\_of\_week" -eq 0 ]; then
# Execute your desired commands or script here
python /path/arXiv/gw\_weekly/gwweekly.py
fi
python /path/arXiv/gw\_daily/gwdaily.py
conda deactivate
#-----OPEN THE MOST RECENT FILE------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Define the paths to the folders
folder1="/path/arXiv/gw\_daily"
folder2="/path/arXiv/gw\_weekly"
# Find the most recent .txt files in each folder
most\_recent\_file1=$(ls -t "$folder1"/\*.txt | head -n 1)
most\_recent\_file2=$(ls -t "$folder2"/\*.txt | head -n 1)
# Open the most recent .txt files in gedit
gedit "$most\_recent\_file1" "$most\_recent\_file2"
#-----END----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
```
Make the shell command executable by,
```
$ chmod +x /path/gwarxiv_search.sh
```
Then add a new desktop application (`/home/Desktop/gwarxiv_search.desktop`), which will run the above shell command(`gwarxiv_search.sh`) on `click`.
```
[Desktop Entry]
Name=GW NEWS
Comment=GW NEWS on arXiv
Exec=/path/arXiv/utils/gwarxiv_search.sh
Icon=/path/arXiv/utils/arxiv_400x400.png # add icon of your choice
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;
```
Also, make this desktop application executable by,
```
$ chmod +x /home/Desktop/gwarxiv_search.desktop
```
and *right click* on the application to `Allow Launching` and it is done!
Upvotes: 1
|
2015/10/07
| 323
| 1,459
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently in the process of preparing a journal club presentation (I'm a Psychogeriatrics physician). I've done a couple before, but always seem to re-invent the wheel when it comes to what basic information should be covered.
For example: checking author biographies and previous work so that I have a sense for the context, potential conflicts of interest, etc.
Other areas I usually cover: papers that cite this article, funding sources and journal impact factor.
Is there anything I'm missing?<issue_comment>username_1: PaulV's contribution is excellent. In addition: Understand the context that the paper appeared in, i.e. try to understand why the author wrote the article. See the article in its historical context.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: My PhD advisor would have us do journal reviews in class. In addition to some of the things you've listed, we also were encouraged to include the following: the formal citation format of the paper, definition of any acronyms that may be unfamiliar to others, brief summary of other related papers by the same author (for context), areas of concern or possible sources of error in the paper, and how the paper relates to your own research.
For journal club specifically, we would also bring along related articles that either had different points of view or were written from a different frame of reference. This helped to bring perspective to the paper.
Upvotes: 0
|
2015/10/07
| 1,283
| 5,227
|
<issue_start>username_0: The situation is as follows:
Once upon a time, the university where I have served as an adjunct decided to bring me on in a fixed-term role spanning a single academic year. This was to get them out of a low-manpower bind due to medical and retirement cases with some of our tenured faculty. The idea was a reasonable salary with benefits. So, classes start, and I have no contract. One pay period goes by, then two. Finally my contract comes through after much back-and-forth between the administration--which I'm to understand is heavily associated with our business school--and our department head. Result? Reduced from a single year to a single semester to avoid the benefits package, and reduced pay because they say they cannot retroactively pay someone who didn't have a contract during the intervening time. Given my history with this institution, I'm *not at all* surprised by this, but this is something of a new low. Yes, it makes good business sense to acquire labor for as cheaply as possible, but it also sends a bad long-term message that I am not valued as an employee. What, if anything, can I do about this?<issue_comment>username_1: This institution seems to be taking advantage of you and not treating you with respect. I honestly think that you should quit and try to find opportunities elsewhere. If not in academia, in industry. I assume that you are a Physicist from your profile, and they are increasingly being hired in the software industry, so perhaps a change in career path? If not, this institution is at least in my opinion, not valuing you as an individual, much less an employee, I would advise moving on. I know this may not be practical, but having been engaged in research in academia and advising, I can honestly say that it may not get better.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: First of all, consult a lawyer before doing anything.
If you were to leave in the middle of the course, that will cause havoc, that they won't probably want. Since they are not paying you for the work, you are under no contractual obligation to fulfil anything (but consult the lawyer), and can leave without giving them notice.
Now, you may find unethical to leave your students hanging like this, but the mere threat that you are willing to do it, may get some wheels spinning to give you a decent offer.
Another option to consider is whatever anti-slavery laws apply in your jurisdiction, since you are working for free; and anti fraud, because you are working without a contract. Furthermore, since you don't have a contract, you are not covered by the insurance, and if anything were to happen during your lecture, there is trouble. Think who would have to pay for in case, for example, a projector caught fire and ruined the classroom.
If your oral agreement is considered a contract, you can't do this; but then they would be acknowledging they have to abide by these rules.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: If I understand this correctly, you're saying that you were offered $4000 per 4-month semester (for instance), and since a month has gone by with no contract, they can't pay you for that month, so are saying that this semester is going to be $3000 instead.
I suggest that you go back to them and say, then pay me $4800 per semester, $800 of which we waive because it was during the time I was not under contract.
Then, suggest that they pay you $6000 per semester, to cover the unanticipated personal costs to cover your own benefits, which you had anticipated coming under the contract.
Then, suggest that THEY are the ones in a bind here...they might have to find a new lecturer tomorrow, if not sooner...or cancel classes and refund the tuition money, AND throw some students under a bus for their now-unfulfilled graduation requirements.
Messy.
They were, if I recall, hiring you because they were short on available professors.
EDIT: this is not an organization that you want to consider your career.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: The fact that they did not pay you for two pay periods means that they have committed wage theft in most states in the US. You should go to an employment attorney immediately. You almost certainly have an oral or implied contract, and whatever they are saying about you not having one or "rules" requiring one is malarkey. You worked, under terms that they agreed to, and they owe you back pay and future pay if you continue to work. I'm not a lawyer nor am I *your* lawyer, so go get one. You are under no obligation to continue to work, but I'd guess that if you do, you will help them dig their hole deeper, since they will, at the very least, continue to not pay you until they've heard from your attorney, your state's Department of Labor (or equivalent), both, or you've won your lawsuit.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: When two parties are stuck, as you and the university are, a letter from a lawyer often gets things unstuck. If you hire a lawyer to write them a stern letter, that ups the ante. It may do the trick.
Expect to spend between $100 and $500. Unless you can get some reduced-fee or pro-bono work from perhaps a local or regional workers' center.
Upvotes: 1
|
2015/10/07
| 1,353
| 5,552
|
<issue_start>username_0: I saw a job posting that says
>
> PhD or equivalent required.
>
>
>
What is meant by *equivalent?* What can be an equivalent for PhD? Expertise gained through work experience and publications?<issue_comment>username_1: In an advertisement for a tenure-track position (assuming from the tags on your question), in the absence of more specific information, I would assume this wording is meant to include other names for a doctoral degree, e.g. [DPhil](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19018/abbreviation-of-doctor-of-philosophy-phd-or-dphil) or one of the other degrees on [this list](http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/doctorate.doc).
Sometimes it even specifically says as much, e.g. [here](https://sites.google.com/site/telemediq/vacancy/phd):
>
> PhD or equivalent biomedical doctorate(s)
>
>
>
Presumably this wording also allows them to hire someone without a PhD, without having HR make a huge fuss, but I would assume that would be a rare situation.
If it said "or equivalent *experience*," then perhaps it could be interpreted to mean equivalent experience gained outside of a doctoral program.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: It could also be an equivalent degree from another country. For example, a degree, equivalent of PhD, in Russia is called 'Candidate of science' (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Russia>)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: While it does seem to be less common now relative to several decades ago, I certainly know, and know of, several folks who had masters degrees, went to work at US National Labs, and were world leaders in their technical fields. Often, to their amusement, they were introduced at conferences as "Dr. So-and-so". None that I knew personally moved to university positions, but most had been contacted about their interest in doing so. All were quite capable of being a professor at a research-oriented university, with strong publication records and funding success.
A different question is what has changed since the, roughly, 1970's when this pattern seems to have been broken. One possibility is that there are many more graduate programs, so those kind of folks are probably just going on to get a PhD.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In addition to the answers given such as "Some doctorate degrees don't have the abreviation 'PhD'" that several people have provided, especially in the biomedical fields there may actually be several possible alternative degrees that might compete for the same position.
For example, there are positions in my field that might capable be filled by a PhD, and MD, or a DVM, each of whom would add their own particular twist to the position, but all of whom might serve the needs of a particular program.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: PhD or equivalent. An experience equivalent to a PhD surely does exist and has been used by almost all major Universities a round the world in recruiting for tenured positions. Professional fields like Medicine, Law, where professional life are as rigorously academic as being in class still use it a great deal. A bachelor degree or masters degree holder but with relevant experience, could be considered an equivalent to a PhD. or better if he had comparable or better experience. However as the opportunities for PhD studies are increasing, most employers are today insisting on the actual PhD. However you will also realize that a lot of top level institutions look for the best brains not schooling history! I was once in recruiting an expert in Elephant Conservation. We had two great candidates. One had an M Sc in Conservation Biology with fifteen years experience working with elephants and 30 papers in top range refereed journals. The Other had a PhD in the same field, but with five years experience with elephants out of which he had published three papers in good journals. They were both very good, however the MSc fellow had greater academic depth than the PhD fellow. The MSc fellow was taken!
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: In some countries it is only literally called Doctor of Philosophy if it is a humanitarian / theoretical sciences subject. "Doctor of Technology" is another and "Doctor of Medicine" is a third, so the name kind of specifies the subject.
To start a PhD in some countries requires a MSc degree first and in some places a BSc is enough. In some areas (both geographically and by subject of study) one year worth of formal course work is enough in some two years is required. In some areas you are expected to produce maybe 5 or 6 peer-reviewed publications in some you may be able to get away with considerably less. Also the length of studies vary. From 3 years in some places to 5 in some and in practice often a bit longer than that.
There really exists no "equivalence". What they are polling for when phrasing it like that is probably not primarily any particular skill set, but rather a type of person who has the personality and mental drives fit for a particular type of role or position.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: A Ph.D is a research degree which involves, in part, convincing a committee of professors that the student is capable of doing professional level research, and writing the results of such research in a formal style. No actual publication of the research is involved. An equivalent Ph.D could be actual publications in scientific journals without having attended, or completed, a formal university degree program.
Upvotes: 0
|
2015/10/07
| 825
| 3,489
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have a distinction (first-class honours) in my undergrad degree from one on the top universities in my home country, which sadly is not in the top ratings worldwide.
This followed by a MSc in the UK, in one of the top-20 world universities. My grades were very low, I failed two subjects.
I was advised to make up for it by getting research experience. In the year after getting my MSc, I got two research internships in the EU, and also a research scientist position at a university.
My goal is to get accepted to a PhD program at the University where I did my masters. I need overseas funding. Now my background is sufficient for that, and I have enough research experience to succeed.
However, I was told that with low masters grades I have no chance to get the funding, ever. Even if I do another masters elsewhere and graduate with distinction, or get even more experience. The answer I got from my advisor was: "Studentships are allocated fairly schematically based on grades, references, publications. In order to get funding, a student has to tick all these boxes."
Is there any way to deal with this situation? Just the idea of not being able to get there ever, no matter what I do, even if I get another degree with outstanding grades, is too harsh to accept..<issue_comment>username_1: **Short Answer**: Yes you can, however it might take longer time to find a place.
**Longer Answer**
In the UK, as long as you find a supervisor that is fine with you being at his/her research group, the university does not interrupt the flow of the supervisor get you as a PhD student.
**Tricky Parts**: Now you need to find a supervisor that find you suitable, please consider the following:
**What are your strongest abilities?** If you failed in a subject about software architecture for example, finding a supervisor in this area is waste of time; as you can not demonstrate that you will be a good candidate for that. See in what subjects you got a good mark, or even excellent mark; go and talk to the corresponding supervisor. See if he/she knows someone so you can apply for a place.
**Supervisor First Then Funding**: Based on your question, I'm assuming you are a European national. In this case, there is more likely for you to get a some European-based funding compare to Asian students for example. So, first focus on finding a supervisor, and then talk to him/her about funding; I'm sure seasoned professor, knows how to help you to apply for a funding.
**Possibilities In Smaller Towns**: You could also try to find a good university in smaller towns, where the price of living is much less than big cities. Also, because the demand is lower compare to big cities, they might have a funding for you.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You don't indicate what your subject is.
Despite this, I believe it will be possible to get accepted to a PhD program in a very good University in the UK with your background.
My advice would be to contact potential PhD supervisors directly. If you can demonstrate an aptitude in their subject area in conversation and prove your knowledge in other ways they may overlook your grades.
That said, I'm concerned, from your wording, that you are more determined to attend a specific university than pursue a PhD in an area which interests you. This is not something anyone who has completed a PhD would likely recommend and if this is your aim I would ask you to rethink your plans.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I notice that when someone asks about GPA, they usually mean an undergraduate GPA. Is there GPA for a masters degree or MBA? If not, how a student's performance is measured (in UK and US)?<issue_comment>username_1: In the US, a student's performance is typically indicated by GPA from high school through doctoral-level study.
In the UK, a student's performance is indicated by "[degree classification](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8170/converting-from-and-to-british-grading-scheme)" levels for undergraduate and taught masters programs. (The names of the degree levels are different for masters courses than for undergraduate courses.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: There is a GPA for M.S and PhD degrees. In my experience, sometimes I see the following: Candidate X applies to University X for its PhD program with an undergraduate GPA or 3.2 and then a M.S GPA of 4.0 (I have seen similar things). Although Candidate X recovers makes up for their performance during their M.S. years, since University X is a high ranked university, they reject Candidate X. Candidate X still has a relatively successful applications cycle, although not by necessarily tier 1 universities.
I understand that a lot more goes into graduate admissions than just GPA, but this is kind of a trend that I have seen. There obviously could be more to it, and it makes for an interesting report where one can analyse dependency here.
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<issue_start>username_0: How can I overcome the tongue-slip problem in conferences, meetings and seminars? I have read many discussions regarding conference presentation, such as delivering a good presentation, staying confident during presentation, avoiding nervousness, maintaining time and many more. But I have not found a proper answer to the tongue-slip problem.
I recently faced it in a presentation, only once, but in my title slide. The word was *extreme,* which I could not pronounce even in 5–7 seconds and felt much shame, finally pronounced it as *esteem.* I had previously done very good practice such as in front of a mirror and closing my eyes. I would also like to mention that I have used the same word several times very clearly in past conferences and also used same word very clearly in my next slide onwards.
How to overcome this problem? Many times I face similar problems, maybe with different words, but I have been noticing that it always happens in first few minutes of a presentation.<issue_comment>username_1: A detailed research on he slip of the tongue was done in [Sigmund Freud's Introduction to Psychoanalysis](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38219/38219-0.txt). It could happen when you are stressed, fatigued, exited, or when concentrating on something else at mind. It could also be a mixture of the above.
You situation could involve more of the last case. As you stated, you spoke the word "esteem" instead of "extreme". This may as well mean that your unconscious mind was concentrating on either your esteem or your critics'. You would be able to counterbalance your unconscious thoughts by increasing your level of confidence in the matter. This doesn't necessarily mean you weren't thorough with your presentation. It means that you are too conscious on the presentation itself. It seems that you rehearsed the presentation so as to focus on many details to concentrate on in addition to the presentation material. This naturally decreases the level of your confidence, which is case 1 -- stress. So fixing even one of the first and last cases should solve your problem in theory.
The slip of the tongue is something that can occur without thought. You may not be able to overcome it by practice, but mostly by experience. Albeit this is nothing to worry too much about as even recorded lectures include tongue slips.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It sounds to me like you're asking how to *eliminate* simple "slip-of-the-tongue" mistakes, which I think is the wrong way to approach this and likely to be counter-productive.
Let's instead start with the assumption that sometimes you are going to make these simple mistakes. First, recognize that it's not just you: everybody does. Some people have more or less than others, and it's likely to happen more often to people not presenting in their native language, but everybody has problems like this sometimes when they're presenting.
Now the real question I would advise you to focus on is this: given that you've already made a mistakes, how do you minimize the impact that the mistake is likely to have on your presentation? The answer is simple but challenging: just correct it and move on. Why is this OK? Because almost nobody but you will have noticed and cared in the first place.
* Many people won't even notice the type of mistake you are talking about. Our perception of speech is strongly influenced by the larger structure of the content. The type of mistake you are describing, e.g., "esteem" instead of "extreme" *will likely not even be perceived by most listeners.* [Our brains are tuned for noisy communication and will simply fix it to the words that "ought" to be there.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_restoration_effect)
* Most people who do notice won't remember, as you move on with your talk. The linguistic glitch will simply disappear from memory, since it was far less important to anybody's comprehension than it felt to you in the first place.
In short: nobody worth talking to will care. In fact, the biggest reason to even bother correcting the word is for your own personal comfort, not for anything about your audience. Just fix it, let it go, and move on. Doing that may be difficult and take some practice of its own, but it's absolutely the right thing to do.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Years ago, I transcribed raw film footage to earn a little extra money. These transcriptions had to be verbatim, with all the ums, ahs, stuttering, etc. included. It's surprisingly difficult to do a verbatim transcription, because *there is a strong tendency for listeners to hear what is meant, rather than what is actually said*. We transcribers had to listen to things three or four times to record the speech exactly. The first time I listened to something, I wouldn't even notice the mistakes!
Some of the transcriptions I did were of people famous for being well-spoken, people I admire very much. I was surprised to learn that *they make frequent speech errors/hesitations/disfluencies, just like the rest of us*.
As a result of that experience, I realised that *while we are all painfully aware of the imperfections in our own speech, others hardly notice them at all*. Most mistakes are filtered out by the listener's brain, and aren't truly "heard".
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: I'm not sure if this is really an answer, or if this kind of plug is allowed on SE...but I would strongly recommend looking up your local [Toastmasters](http://www.toastmasters.org/) chapter(s). Toastmasters, in essence, is a public speaking club for adults. While you can practice plenty in private, there's just no substitute for giving a speech in front of an audience, which Toastmasters can give you in a very friendly and encouraging environment.
The basic run-down of a 1 hour Toastmasters meeting goes like this:
* Some members give a few speeches
* They do "Table Topics" - the Topics Master asks random questions to the members of the meeting, who then must give a 1-2 minute long impromptu answer.
* Some members give oral reviews of the speeches given during the meeting.
* At the end of the meeting the leadership team gives their reports. Some of the leaders include the 'Ah-Counter' and 'Grammarian'. The Ah-Counter will inform you of filler words or phrases you commonly use and give you tips on eliminating those from your speech. The Grammarian will inform you of any improper grammar you've used(they'll be gentle if you're clearly not a native speaker).
You'll not only get the opportunity to practice speaking in public, but you'll receive immediate, constructive criticism. The speech projects give you specific, directed goals to achieve so you're not just stumbling from one speech to the next. Of all the clubs I've witnessed guests are always welcome at no charge, so you can give it a shot and see if you like it without committing to anything.
In addition to the meetings, there are multiple competition periods throughout the year. If you just attend your club meetings, you get comfortable speaking in front of the same audience all the time. But if you go to these competitions, you'll be placed in large auditoriums filled with unfamiliar faces, which is good for improving your abilities.
Toastmasters is an international organization and there are chapters all over the place. If you're in any decently populated area there should be more than one local chapter, and there may even be one at your university. If there *isn't* a local chapter, then you could potentially start one yourself.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Here's a metaphor that might help. It is based on my genuine experience of learning to skydive.
If you ever take up parachuting, you are likely to hear the story of the novice who realised there was a tree in the middle of the field he was trying to land in. There was just one tree and the field was enormous. He became so terrified that he might hit this tree that he was unable to take his eyes off it. Now, parachutes are steerable and they tend to go in the direction you are looking. The instructors and everyone else watched in horrified silence as the beginner slowly, inexorably and inevitably flew straight towards the tree, finally hitting it full on. He ended dangling from the branches and having to be rescued. Luckily he suffered only bruises and no hospital treatment was necessary.
Apply this cautionary tale to public speaking (or any other activity). What you focus on, you will get. Focus on trouble and you will get trouble.
The key to public speaking is to focus on the message that you want to get across. If the subject-matter isn't important then you shouldn't be talking about it. Prepare thoroughly and have all your facts at your fingertips. Have a sheet of reminders so that you don't forget any important points. When speaking, have your notes there. However they aren't a crutch or a safety net but a reminder not to miss any of the fascinating facts you want to get across.
When the time comes to speak, forget all your prepared words and focus entirely on what you want to communicate. Look at the audience and see if they are understanding. Treat them as humans who want to hear about the subject. They wouldn't bother to be there if they weren't interested. They are not there to attend a theatrical performance. The message is far more important than the words.
If you are worrying about how you look and sound then you are being self-centred and making yourself more important than the facts you want to convey.
By all means practice voice exercises so that you speak clearly—maybe even take elocution lessons. As someone else suggested, join Toastmasters and they will give you excellent feedback on your enunciation and clarity of thought. Record yourself reciting poetry. When it comes to the actual event, forget about individual words. Never try to memorise them unless it is a performance of a dramatic work. Focus on what you want to communicate and trust your brain and body to do the rest.
In summary. Stop being so selfish and thinking about yourself all the time. Instead give the audience what they want. They want information about a fascinating subject. Don't think about you, think about them. Tell them what they need to know.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Not Really A Problem
====================
As the other answers and comments have said, this kind of verbal boo-boo is always much more noticeable to the speaker than to the audience. If they actually were to notice, congratulate yourself for having kept them awake and attentive with your lively style and important content.
If the misspeaking is important to the content, merely correct yourself and move on. If not important, ignore it and move on. Do not apologize as that distracts the audience. Intently watch some news anchors or radio jockeys to see how they do just that: correct and move on. Note the keywords: *move on*.
Prevention
==========
While not really a problem, if it bothers you so much you can take steps to minimize (but never eliminate!) such misspeaking. Here are some techniques I learned as an instructor.
Syllables
---------
If you know certain words trip you up, replace them.
If you cannot change them because of content requirements, then practice to over-annunciate them. Practice slowly pronouncing each sound separately. Write the word down, misspelling as needed to create these separate sounds.
For example, turn `extreme` into three or four syllables: x - tah - rhee - mah.
Practice that way slowly. Then re-assemble back to natural speech. But mentally maintain that multi-syllabic structure.
This trick also helps with certain words that your touch-typing hands cannot quite master.
Breathe.
--------
Really, breathe. Occasionally take deep breaths. Feel free to take a moment at points in your talk to stop, take a deep breath. Straighten your back, letting your shoulder blades slide down into place. The physical act of breathing changes your physiology and your mind.
Your audience will appreciate these moments. They need time to digest your content, and form their own thoughts.
Plan for these deep pauses as part of the structure of your talk. After heavy meaty pieces of content, or when touching on something controversial or thought-provoking, plan to give the audience a moment.
Also grant yourself a few unplanned pauses. If at any time you start to feel rushed or anxious or don't quite know what to say, **stop talking**. Take a breath, and let yourself plan the next sentence before speaking. What seems like a long pregnant pause to you the speaker will hardly be a blip on the radar of attention to your audience.
Another way to work in pauses is to occasionally ask a [rhetorical question](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question). Emotionally for you it shifts some of the attention and burden onto the audience members, as you are challenging them to engage their minds. Emotionally for your audience members, it is a mild "wake-up call" reminding them to pay attention. Taking a long moment lets them wake-up and think, meanwhile giving you time for a moment to breathe and turn your body as you pan across the audience.
Rushing is a sure sign of a newbie speaker. And rushing tends to trigger misspeaking.
Speaking to Colleagues & Friends, Not Audience
----------------------------------------------
The idea of an "audience", the sight of a stage and of ordered chairs, tends to provoke speaker’s anxiety. Remind yourself that you are talking to individuals, not an "audience".
Before your talk happens, have a few chats with a few people who will be in attendance. Give them an overview. Let them ask you a couple questions about the content. Look for these faces during the talk. Lock onto any face and think of yourself as talking only to that person for a sentence or two.
When you find your words lock-up, just think of talking to a colleague over a casual coffee break. I find that literally imagining the visual imagery of talking comfortably with a colleague can unlock those words.
Practice, Practice, Practice, Ad Nauseum
----------------------------------------
Practice your talk in your office. Practice your talk in front of your cat. Practice your talk in the mirror. Repeat three times, office, cat, mirror, office, cat, mirror.
Not to memorize a speech, but just go through the content step-by-step repeatedly.
Do a "dress rehearsal", with colleagues. Some teams regularly give a "brown bag talk" where they meet for lunch and someone gives a less formal talk.
Keep repeating until you are sick and tired of the content. [*Ad nauseam*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_nauseam) is the goal.
This helps in two ways:
* Emotionally, if you are tired of the content, you’ll find your anxiety level will diminish.
* Intellectually, with repeated practice you will find and lock onto certain phrasing, certain rhythms, and favorite sentence patterns. These will roll off your tongue more naturally. Once you have these “chunks” of language at the ready, your brain has *so* much less work to do during the presentation. You will feel the load lighten mentally, and misspeaking is much less likely to happen.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I wholeheartedly support the answers by @username_2 and @username_3. But I would like to add my two bob's worth.
Everybody is different and what works for one person might be anathema to another. Personally I find practice takes away the spontaneity of the presentation. I rehearse what I'm going to say as I prepare the presentation. Typically writing some of the more clever phrasings into the speaker's notes. I do one read through to check the timing, etc. And that's it.
I too make mistakes, slips far worse than saying "esteem" instead of "extreme". I sometimes make a joke of it and either way just keep going. I keep the speaker's notes handy, but rarely glance at them. I'm more conscious of keeping the tempo to finish at the prescribed time. I use a count-down timer on my phone.
I have sat through literally hundreds of talks, presentations. The memorable ones are where the presenter was obviously on top of the topic, passionate about the topic and projecting a personality with whom I would love to chat with at the pub.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: I once had a keynote in front of 500 people and someone in the front row was making some kind of crazy gestures which were a bit disturbing. At some point I thought he had a health problem as he was moving his fist from his chest to his throat. I stopped to ask him if he was okay (the whole audience looked at him) and he replied that HE was ok, but that my zipper was down... The whole audience looked at me (yes, over there). There was a roar of laughter.
I answered that it was a good thing that at least my underwear matched the trousers and that I hoped this was not the only thing which would be memorable in that keynote. Some more laughs and we were good to go on.
This is to say: **just relax**. Nobody cares about tiny mistakes. People really want you to have a great speech particularly when they see that someone is struggling with the speech.
As seen in the scientific documentary *Four Weddings and a Funeral*, stress during a speech can be tough but everyone is with you : <https://youtu.be/2PubPWuEQp8?t=27>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: One particular version of this that I am prone to, even in more casual conversation but especially when animated and thus speaking quickly, is the occasional gibberish word. I have over the years realized that this is the consequence of attempting to simultaneously speak two (multi-syllable) synonyms, which begin with the same sound but end differently.
I hypothesize that this may be the result of my left and right brain sending slightly different thought streams for the sentence. I have reduced this by deliberately and consciously slowing my speech slightly when I get animated.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: I can offer a few ideas for you:
1. You need not read every word on your slides out loud. After two tries with the word *extreme*, you may gesture at the troublesome word, and then go on. You may even allow the audience to read an occasional whole sentence on their own.
2. You noticed that your difficulties arise primarily in the first two minutes. Interestingly, I have noticed that the first minute or two of a talk, many people tend to take in very little of the content of what the speaker is saying. That first minute or two is needed for acclimating to the speaker. Keeping this in mind, you could put some unimportant filler in the very beginning; this way, there's no harm done if you read a word inaccurately.
3. You might experiment with being up front about the problem. Just as someone might bring a hearing impairment or a neurological condition out in the open at the beginning, you could display a slide that informs the audience that you have a slight speech problem which might require you to occasionally gesture at a sentence on the screen while remaining silent. You could let this slide speak for itself, or you could read it out loud -- either one would work.
**Edit --**
I had another thought. Since it may be hard to anticipate which word might give trouble, it would be good to have a rescue plan in place in case this ever happens again.
Suppose you are on a particular slide and a certain word doesn't want to come out right today. You may give it one more try, but then, even if you're hopeful it will work on the third try, I advise you *not* to try again. Instead, use a synonym, or just point at the word with a laser pointer or a yard stick pointer, and say something like "that word!" and keep going. Just as you would muddle through and keep going if one of your images inexplicably didn't show up on the screen during the talk.
Nerves can affect a person in unpredictable ways. A long time ago, before the advent of digital recording, I set up a recording date in my community college's recital hall to record my audition for transferring to a music conservatory. While I was in the middle of one of my pieces, a prelude from a Bach suite, my nerves had an unexpected effect: I couldn't hear myself properly. My cello sounded incredibly muffled, as though it and I were in two neighboring rooms with a pretty soundproof wall in between. Since I was on a tight budget, I didn't feel I could stop, regroup, and begin the movement again -- I felt I had to keep going. What a strange feeling that was, to play but not be able to hear. (The recording actually came out fine!)
So, if you are nervous, you might not have the control over your tongue that you normally have.
What makes nerves? I mean, what makes a person nervous? Adrenaline. Without that shot of adrenaline, your talk would be deadly boring. But every time your body gives you a shot of adrenaline, you are playing Russian roulette, because the result of the adrenaline is unpredictable.
I'm explaining this in the hope that understanding what's going on in your body will help prevent a panic reaction if you have a speech mishap. Because really, the speech mishap itself isn't the main problem, is it? I think it's the panic reaction that might come secondarily to an unexpected pronunciation anomaly.
It would be helpful to practice slow, deep breathing for a few minutes every day, to train yourself to respond this way when something goes very differently from plan.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: In my opinion, the harder you try to correct your spelling, the harder your time will be in presentation.
If you pronounce the word **extreme** as **esteem**, then keep it this way! There are many people in the word that pronounce English words in an incorrect way because of the structure of their mother tongue.
As long as you spend a huge effort and still pronounce it in a wrong way, the audience will understand what you mean when you say **esteem point**. The important thing is what you tell the audience, not how you tell it.
If you *must* get rid of it, talk to yourself in English frequently. In daily life. **Do not rehearse your presentation**. Use the sentences that you use in daily life.
While doing this, try to imitate your favorite actor, for instance.
After some time, you will get used to the pronunciations of different words, including **extreme**, **congratulations** and so on.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Is there any resource (blog or website) where one can find all communication related to any published scientific paper? For example I found some advise on how to write a "rebuttal letters" but not a "real life" rebuttal letter. Same is true for cover letter or reviewers comment. Is there any open-access journal which make everything public (or any researcher have done so)?<issue_comment>username_1: It might highly depend on your field of research... But here is a list of tools / resources that can help you track all the documents associated with a paper:
* [Altmetrics](http://www.altmetric.com) track all the online activity associated with a published paper, including Twitter, Facebook or blog posts. [Exemple here](http://www.altmetric.com/details/4561664)
* [Pubpeer](http://pubpeer.com) is a platform for post-reviewing about any published papers
* Exemple of open access journals that include the reviews with the publications: [eLife](http://elifesciences.org) , [Frontiers](http://frontiersin.org/)
I hope it helps!
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Your best bet, oddly, might be to guest-edit a journal issue. Canvass your acquaintances for journal editors who might appreciate an apprentice.
You'll also see some of the correspondence just by peer-reviewing, but editing will give you access to the entire process.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently submitted a paper for publication and received feedback that the paper was too complex. It contained two relatively independent concepts. The material would best be served by splitting it into two papers and submitting them independently.
I have to say I agree with this editorial analysis.
However, I am now stuck as to what to do. The first concept can stand on its own, but it is largely useless without the second one. The second one has to assume the first one exists so it can build upon it.
But, as I understand it, for a journal (or a good one, anyway) to publish an article, its research must be not only sound but properly justified as well. Only, I can't justify the research in the first article without referring to the second one, and I can't present the research in the second one without using the first one as a basis.
To further complicate the matters, I'm working at an intersection, and the two articles would probably work best if submitted to different journals in somewhat different fields.
How do I format my abstracts, introductions and conclusions to pass this message across and improve my chances of acceptance?<issue_comment>username_1: If both paper would fit into the same journal, you could ask for a back-to-back publication of the papers.
If that is not an option, you can independently submit the papers and cite the first papers as submitted in the second (editors usually do not like it). You would have to provide the first paper as part of the second submission to the reviewers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This is one of the things pre-print services can address quite readily, even for fields that don't normally use preprints. Putting both papers on arXiv (or another field-equivelent) allows them to exist in a citable form, and as one or both of them make it through the publication cycle, the linking citation can be updated to reflect this. FigShare will also let you upload documents and provide you with a DOI, though I've never actually seen this done in practice, and it's likely arXiv or an equivalent is more appropriate for a full-sized manuscript.
If you're in a field that has conference presentations and the like that *aren't* equivalent to publication (for example, much of biomedicine) you may also be able to cite a poster or presentation given at a conference.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: My application for admission to a degree program or research position at universities in Europe, USA, Australia, and so on has been rejected. If I then write several new papers for journals and conferences and again apply to the same university, is there any chance for me to obtain admission, or will I be automatically rejected?<issue_comment>username_1: If both paper would fit into the same journal, you could ask for a back-to-back publication of the papers.
If that is not an option, you can independently submit the papers and cite the first papers as submitted in the second (editors usually do not like it). You would have to provide the first paper as part of the second submission to the reviewers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This is one of the things pre-print services can address quite readily, even for fields that don't normally use preprints. Putting both papers on arXiv (or another field-equivelent) allows them to exist in a citable form, and as one or both of them make it through the publication cycle, the linking citation can be updated to reflect this. FigShare will also let you upload documents and provide you with a DOI, though I've never actually seen this done in practice, and it's likely arXiv or an equivalent is more appropriate for a full-sized manuscript.
If you're in a field that has conference presentations and the like that *aren't* equivalent to publication (for example, much of biomedicine) you may also be able to cite a poster or presentation given at a conference.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: If 2 proposals were similar, the first asks for travel and equipment and the second didn't. Would the second have a better chance of being funded?<issue_comment>username_1: Interesting question for sure. This depends on a lot of factors, the type of student (performance, etc.), institution, research area, who they are asking for money, etc.,
Without this information, it is hard to give you a "yes" or "no" answer, although its a bit difficult a question anyways. We can say that if you're asking for less, you may have a better chance at more funding, but its still difficult to say.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Depends on the agency, purpose of the grant, and other factors. If it's an NSF grant to fund students to work on a theoretical problem, then a grant that's half travel will probably fail. However, I'm a co-PI on a supercomputer acquisition grant that's well more than half equipment funding. Ask the cognizant program officer listed in the RFP if what you are thinking would be a problem or not. Don't forget to list planned international conferences if you are targeting some. International travel can require additional permission at some agencies.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I think you are looking at this from the wrong side. Funding agencies typically won't care so much *what kind* of costs your project accrues, but rather how large those costs are in the end. That is, if there are two scientifically comparable projects, but one is much more expensive than the other, this will make the cheaper project more attractive to fund than the expensive one. Whether this cost discrepancy is due to higher personnel costs, or due to other factors, won't be central to the decision.
However, multiple factors make your question whether you want to ask for equipment and travel less important than what you might think:
* At the end of the day, the costs of equipment and travel are typically very small in comparison to personnel costs, so this is unlikely to make a big difference for most grant types.
* The case that two projects are so similar in terms of scientific merit that relatively modest equipment and travel costs have an actual impact *and* the agency cannot fund both projects is not very common.
* Many agencies (at least here in Europe) reserve the right to cut down on your budget if they think it is over the top. That is, if your project would be ok without equipment and travel, they *may* end up just funding the project but not granting the equipment and travel money. This is particularly common if your proposal does not make it clear enough how this money is essential to the execution of the project. At the end of the day, everything that kind of seems like a "nice to have" cost is very likely to not be granted.
**Summary**: worry about your proposal. Don't worry about equipment and travel costs.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: It depends on the nature of the research. Reviewers will be concerned (somewhat) with whether the expenditures are necessary, and if equipment and travel money is added to the proposal gratuitously, that would hurt a proposal. Or, if in one proposal there is no need to ask for travel or equipment because that requirement is already covered somehow else, then the no-travel proposal might be able to accomplish more for a given dollar amount than one where money had to be spent on travel. But proposals aren't highly similar in such a controlled way, and including travel and equipment won't put a proposal at a disadvantage (unless the request is clearly gratuitous).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: This depends enormously on the type of grant and funding agency. For example, for typical NSF grants, it works as follows (my experience is with the Division of Mathematical Sciences, but I believe these procedures hold more broadly):
1. The panelists that review the grants are aware of the requested budget, but they are told their ratings should not take the budget into account. I.e., they are supposed to rate how valuable the proposed activities would be, and not how cost-effective the proposal is in comparison with others (that's the program officer's job). If you submit a budget that is wildly out of line with everyone else's, then it might hurt your ratings anyway if you offend or upset some panel members, but it won't really make a difference if you stay within the normal range. Reasonable requests for travel and equipment are fine.
2. Once the panel has rated the proposals, program officers then make decisions that take the budget into account, and an expensive proposal might get turned down in favor of something cheaper. However, program officers can also cut budgets, and that's the preferred solution in cases where it wouldn't excessively damage the whole project. There could be overall cuts or individual items removed from the budget. If your travel and equipment aren't essential and are the only things keeping your proposal from being funded, then they will just be cut and you'll be no worse off than if you hadn't included them.
The only way to know about your specific funding program is to ask someone who knows. The best solution is to ask someone who has been heavily involved in the review process and knows how it plays out in practice. (Current program officers may feel compelled to give bureaucratically acceptable advice like "ask for whatever you really need to carry out the proposed project", which doesn't directly address your question.) Barring that, anyone who has been successful in getting this sort of grant could offer some insight, although it's less useful than a behind-the-scenes view.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a mediocre (3.3) GPA in undergrad due to illness (legit - I had to take a medical leave and was hospitalized), but I have great grades from my graduate institution. I worry that search committees will not look highly upon my application. As I would like to apply for these positions, so how should I tell the search committee why I did poorly in undergrad?<issue_comment>username_1: Interesting question for sure. This depends on a lot of factors, the type of student (performance, etc.), institution, research area, who they are asking for money, etc.,
Without this information, it is hard to give you a "yes" or "no" answer, although its a bit difficult a question anyways. We can say that if you're asking for less, you may have a better chance at more funding, but its still difficult to say.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Depends on the agency, purpose of the grant, and other factors. If it's an NSF grant to fund students to work on a theoretical problem, then a grant that's half travel will probably fail. However, I'm a co-PI on a supercomputer acquisition grant that's well more than half equipment funding. Ask the cognizant program officer listed in the RFP if what you are thinking would be a problem or not. Don't forget to list planned international conferences if you are targeting some. International travel can require additional permission at some agencies.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I think you are looking at this from the wrong side. Funding agencies typically won't care so much *what kind* of costs your project accrues, but rather how large those costs are in the end. That is, if there are two scientifically comparable projects, but one is much more expensive than the other, this will make the cheaper project more attractive to fund than the expensive one. Whether this cost discrepancy is due to higher personnel costs, or due to other factors, won't be central to the decision.
However, multiple factors make your question whether you want to ask for equipment and travel less important than what you might think:
* At the end of the day, the costs of equipment and travel are typically very small in comparison to personnel costs, so this is unlikely to make a big difference for most grant types.
* The case that two projects are so similar in terms of scientific merit that relatively modest equipment and travel costs have an actual impact *and* the agency cannot fund both projects is not very common.
* Many agencies (at least here in Europe) reserve the right to cut down on your budget if they think it is over the top. That is, if your project would be ok without equipment and travel, they *may* end up just funding the project but not granting the equipment and travel money. This is particularly common if your proposal does not make it clear enough how this money is essential to the execution of the project. At the end of the day, everything that kind of seems like a "nice to have" cost is very likely to not be granted.
**Summary**: worry about your proposal. Don't worry about equipment and travel costs.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: It depends on the nature of the research. Reviewers will be concerned (somewhat) with whether the expenditures are necessary, and if equipment and travel money is added to the proposal gratuitously, that would hurt a proposal. Or, if in one proposal there is no need to ask for travel or equipment because that requirement is already covered somehow else, then the no-travel proposal might be able to accomplish more for a given dollar amount than one where money had to be spent on travel. But proposals aren't highly similar in such a controlled way, and including travel and equipment won't put a proposal at a disadvantage (unless the request is clearly gratuitous).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: This depends enormously on the type of grant and funding agency. For example, for typical NSF grants, it works as follows (my experience is with the Division of Mathematical Sciences, but I believe these procedures hold more broadly):
1. The panelists that review the grants are aware of the requested budget, but they are told their ratings should not take the budget into account. I.e., they are supposed to rate how valuable the proposed activities would be, and not how cost-effective the proposal is in comparison with others (that's the program officer's job). If you submit a budget that is wildly out of line with everyone else's, then it might hurt your ratings anyway if you offend or upset some panel members, but it won't really make a difference if you stay within the normal range. Reasonable requests for travel and equipment are fine.
2. Once the panel has rated the proposals, program officers then make decisions that take the budget into account, and an expensive proposal might get turned down in favor of something cheaper. However, program officers can also cut budgets, and that's the preferred solution in cases where it wouldn't excessively damage the whole project. There could be overall cuts or individual items removed from the budget. If your travel and equipment aren't essential and are the only things keeping your proposal from being funded, then they will just be cut and you'll be no worse off than if you hadn't included them.
The only way to know about your specific funding program is to ask someone who knows. The best solution is to ask someone who has been heavily involved in the review process and knows how it plays out in practice. (Current program officers may feel compelled to give bureaucratically acceptable advice like "ask for whatever you really need to carry out the proposed project", which doesn't directly address your question.) Barring that, anyone who has been successful in getting this sort of grant could offer some insight, although it's less useful than a behind-the-scenes view.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a TA for a class on graduate-level Digital Signal Processing, and one of my responsibilities is to lead a discussion session. It's a 50-minute session that happens once a week, and the professor teaches the class for 3 hours in the week.
The professor had suggested that I discuss the solutions to the homework problems in this session, so today for my first session, that's what I did.
However, I felt this was quite a waste of time, since everyone who had had problems in the homework had come to my office hours and got them cleared, and everyone else in class had managed to do the problems. While I went through solving the problems on the board, I wanted to actively engage the students by throwing in questions about details, what-ifs, some important tricks to remember, etc. But it was a mostly unresponsive, bored-looking class with frown faces.
Should I not go through the homework solutions, and instead focus on important topics covered in lectures?
Also any ideas on how to lead a discussion session in a way that the students who actually managed to do the homework (which is the vast majority of the class) don't get bored?<issue_comment>username_1: In general more than 90% students in any class don't prefer to discuss homework problems. Though these are truly necessary to sharpen the understanding, but it could be great if you first discuss something about your professor has already taught and try to get an idea that how many students are really interested in your class.
Many time what happens, many students don't know the benefit of a TA class. Because they just think whatever your proffessor has taught that is enough. So you encourage or convince them that they can interact easily without any hesitation to make clear their doubts or understandings, no matter that is a homework or previously taught lectures.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: **Clear up common points of confusion you've encountered while grading.**
If you are also grading homework for the class (or you know the grader...), you can identify common mistakes or points that students seem confused about. Even if you explain these on the individual homework papers on which students made those mistakes, (a) many students don't bother to follow up if they don't understand the grader's comments, and (b) it's possible that other students *would* have made those mistakes, and didn't only because they made a different mistake instead.
Discussion sessions are a great time to point out these potential pitfalls, warn students away from them, and *discuss* why they represent a wrong understanding.
**Ask a question as a confused person.**
I like to challenge a class (in the context of the discussion - not necessarily on an exam!) by asking a question that is ill-formed, confusing, or based on a mistaken premise. (Not to trick them - I warn them that this is what I'm doing.)
For example, I like to find questions asked by Real People on Stack Exchange sites (like [Signal Processing Stack Exchange](https://dsp.stackexchange.com/)!) related to what I'm teaching, and challenge students to formulate a good answer. Then we discuss the answers as a group.
Answering a "real" question posed in this manner often requires much greater mastery of the material than solving the "nice" problems we usually give students.
**Pose a design problem.**
On a similar note, the "nice" problems we ask questions often have boring, "nice" solutions that require straightforward application of what they have learned, but not much original thought and critical thinking.
Raising a design problem - i.e. "How can we design a DSP pipeline to do X?" or "Here are two designs that solve a particular problem. What are the benefits and disadvantages of each?". These, too, can come from mailing lists and forums. [Here's an example](http://www.dsprelated.com/showthread/comp.dsp/63241-1.php) of the type of design problem I'm thinking of.
(Of course, these should be problems your students *can* solve, based on what they have learned.)
**Have students nominate topics for discussion at the
beginning of a section.**
At the beginning of the session, ask the students to suggest a few topics from the lecture or homework that they would like you to review in greater depth. Then have the class as a whole vote on the nominated topics to determine what to do with the session.
Source of this suggestion: [TA handbook for UCSC](http://graddiv.ucsc.edu/current-students/pdfs/ta-handbook.pdf)
**Ask the professor to provide you with past exam problems for use in the discussion sections.**
Students seem to *love* working on past exam problems :)
Specifically, you may want to do it as follows:
>
> Hand out a printed copy of the questions (double-sided, stapled). For each question:
>
>
> 1. Read the question aloud, or ask a student to read the question aloud.
> 2. Ask if the question is clear.
> 3. Have them discuss the answer in small
> groups.
> 4. Ask for votes, or ask someone to explain their answer.
> 5. If the
> class doesn't all agree on the correct answer, then you can have them
> discuss further, or you can try to clarify a difficult point.
>
>
>
Source of this suggestion: [<NAME>](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/advice/how-to-ta.html)
**Give mini-lectures about things you think deserve to be retaught.**
Especially if you have the time to also attend the professor's lectures, you can identify topics that he may have had to rush through.
Similarly, you may give a "refresher" on a prerequisite topic that students don't seem adequately prepared in.
Or, you can give a mini-lecture on a topic that, based on homework grades, students just aren't getting.
Source of this suggestion: [<NAME>](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/advice/how-to-ta.html)
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: My impression that you should be solving problems, but not the ones from the homework. Prepare some problems that share the same idea, but not exactly the same, and discuss them with your class, or, as username_2 suggested, make use of past exams.
On the specific question of how to get the students involved, I suggest splitting each problem in small and increasingly hard questions. Say, if the bigger problem is focusing on some aspect of amplitude modulation (I'm not keen on DSP), you might ask 'What is amplitude modulation?' as the very first question of the problem. Presumably, everyone in the class knows the answer, but have a student answer this question in front of the audience. This way, you might mitigate their fear of standing out and going to the blackboard.
As an added bonus, you may ask easier questions to the students that are underperforming, and leave the hard ones to the best students in your class.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I asked a professor for a letter of recommendation for graduate programs and she mentioned that she normally doesn't write letters for people who haven't done research with her. I took advanced classes of hers and did well though, and she agreed to write the letter, although hesitatingly. She mentioned that she normally only writes letters for people she's known for a while, so even though I did well in her coursework, am just now embarking on research with her, and have a history of tutoring for her class, it doesn't seem to be enough in her eyes. She also mentioned that she would have me write most of it and that she would basically just sign off on it.
Is this a warning sign? Should I turn to someone else to write the essay? A lot of the professors I've had left the university or were not full time professors, which is why I don't think they would be good people to ask for letters, so it's really hard for me to find recommenders right now that would be appropriate. Any advice would be appreciated.
Edit: Wanted to clarify that she seems like she had good intentions--she was willing to expand more on my teaching and ability to convey higher level concepts to new students, but that this type of letter is not the kind of letter she normally writes. Having seen the opinions of everyone, what is a good way to gauge whether or not she actually wants to write the letter?<issue_comment>username_1: Suggesting that you write the letter and she will just sign it could be the professor's way to drive home the message that she does not want to write this letter of recommendation. I feel she is really unwilling to write the letter and probably hesitatingly agreed either because you were insistent or because she felt an outright refusal might seem rude. It would be better not to push her to do something that she does not want to. In your place, I would definitely look for another professor.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I have written my own letters many times, and had it explained to me that it's a common courtesy to provide the first draft out of respect for the mentor's time. It also allows you to tailor the focus of the letter to be relevant to your upcoming opportunity (win for you and time saver for your professor). As long as she has the opportunity to edit/add/remove before sending it, this would not concern me.
I would be concerned about her hesitation in writing in the first place. You would have to use your own judgement to discern whether she hesitates to recommend you, or truly hesitated because she is not used to being asked for non-research letters. If you feel good about the work you did, and believe it was valued, write a letter that mentions the specific things you did that make you exceptional. It will remind her about how great you are, while also pointing it out for future prospects. But beware, a hesitant professor may be trying to soften the blow of telling you they would not recommend you highly, for whatever reason. You need to consider those possibilities, or even ask her directly and respectfully.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I also have the same policy for the following fact: doing well in coursework does not necessarily equate to doing well in research; e.g., a student may be very good at passing exams but can't do project work. I need to see a student in a research setting in order to write a meaningful letter. Otherwise, the reference letter will simply be a consolidation of what the coursework marks already say.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: At my university, PhD students need to give a presentation at the end of their first year. A panel of academics judge the work and then have a Q&A session with the student to assess their progress and aptitude. The panel has the power to delay progress if they have any concerns. It can be a stressful time for students.
There has been a suggestion from a colleague that we arrange a discussion after the presentation (during the Q&A time) so that junior students can learn what is required. However, I'm not sure that this is right because the student is not present - they're answering questions of the panel.
Though I do see value in the discussion, I think it might be best for all involved to be done as a separate, trial presentation. This way the PhD candidate can modify their presentation to make it better and the discussion can be had without the student being absent. However, this means two talks so it's more time for all involved and may add stress/confusion for the candidate.
I'd be happy to know how other universities do things and what you think.<issue_comment>username_1: I think the basic rule is that you should not evaluate one student in the presence of others. The problem with carrying out a public evaluation "with the student's consent" is that that the student may feel pressured to give their consent.
On the other hand, if a student gives a talk in a friendly environment, then I believe it is appropriate to hold a public discussion about how the presentation could be improved. Care is needed, but I have found that it works. We usually start by asking the student what they would do differently next time.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: (Since it looks like I've understood the question, I'll turn the ideas in my comments into an answer.)
As I see it, the students are finding the situation stressful because they are required to do something they feel uncertain about, there is an obvious cost to failing, and they don't feel confident in their ability to meet the required standard.
The proposal is to use students' work, which they are already feeling worried about, for the benefit of others (not themselves). Having been on the receiving end of this themselves (except the first few), they should feel a bit more confident that they understand the requirements. On the other hand, now in addition to the academic assessment they are also to be assessed by their social group, either in their presence or otherwise (some will find one more stressful, others the other). Most PhD students can work out for themselves what aspects of a talk were worth copying, but explicitly pointing them out in a group setting is more judgemental, even if only positive things are directly said ('damning with faint praise'). They will have to spend several more years with these people, providing moral support to each other. The overall effect then is to slightly reduce the likelihood of failure, but significantly increase the cost.
I think the same benefit could easily be gained in a much better way. Choose a student who did a good job in their presentation, and ask whether they would be willing to do a repeat to help others. Some will be too shy, but it shouldn't be long before there is one who is willing. For a repeat performance, there is no academic cost attached. Messing up ultimately won't matter, so the student will feel more confident. They also have the additional confidence from being chosen as an example of a success. This time, they are essentially being honoured within the social grouping, rather than critiqued, so they are being rewarded rather than being put at risk of shame. By videoing the talk, you would only need to go through this once.
The main method I've known for students to become less stressed about having to give a presentation is for them to have opportunities to practice doing so where the potential cost is very low, the main example being in junior seminars (student-run seminars, preferably without faculty present), although reading groups are another avenue. In addition to direct practice, such activities build community within the group, which is likely to reduce the difficulty because students can find out what is required of them by discussing with their peers who have already been through the process. If you'd prefer to have more direct input, one option might be to have a graduate class whose explicit purpose is for everyone to get better at presenting, by having people give presentations that are then discussed (no grades though).
Upvotes: 2
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2015/10/09
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<issue_start>username_0: Can I mention someone's(academic) name and comment which I got from a mail, to another academic (to increase the credibility of my work) without informing the first academic that I am going to use his name and comment?
For example, I sent my work through an e-mail to Professor X( Ph.D ). He wrote me back briefly that -
"the **analytical results are correct**
but they are not practicable. You should work on approximation algorithms for .... ...."
I think the part "analytical results are correct" adds some credibility to my work and I would like to mention <NAME> and his comment(whole comment) when I write my next mail to someone else. Since, academics have issue with mail from strangers(tagged as 'crackpot' or 'crank'), this comment might interest them.
***But do I have to ask permission from Prof. X to mention his name and comment to another academic ?***<issue_comment>username_1: You should ask permission from Prof. X.
Quoting a statement like "the analytical results are correct" implies endorsement to some degree.
You should be very careful not to say anything that could imply endorsement without permission of the "endorser."
Note that if he *does* give permission, you still have to be careful not to quote his statement out of context. For example, you should not say
>
> Prof. X said my analytical results are correct.
>
>
>
instead, you should explain what he *really* said, more like
>
> I showed this work to Prof. X. He said that the analytical results seem correct, but not practical, and he suggested that I look into approximation algorithms.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Note your statement here:
>
> ...to increase the credibility of my work...
>
>
>
What you are saying, in effect, is that your work is not sufficiently credible on its own to achieve your desired results.
You are employing the logical fallacy [Argument from Authority](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority):
* Premise 1 - Professor X is usually correct on matters related to his field.
* Premise 2 - Professor X says (part of) my work P is correct.
* Conclusion - Therefore, without a doubt, P is correct.
Instead of asking Professor X (which I would strongly suggest you do if you're going to use the quote) for an "endorsement", consider strengthening your work. Professor X already told you to do the latter:
>
> You should work on approximation algorithms for .... ...."
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: It sounds to me like you don't have a relationship with either Professor. If so, don't quote the first one. Don't even ask.
There are other ways to get what you want. The first Professor gave you an opening. If you follow through on his advice, you have a means to build a relationship with the guy. Mentors actually love it when others take their advice (since it doesn't happen as often as they'd like). So if the advice seems worth pursuing, go for it. Just think of it like a friendly game of tennis. It's only fun when the other player is able to return the ball back to you. So return that ball (if you think it's worth it) and keep the exchanges going.
As to the second Professor, there are other ways you can get feedback from him. And you're right, email is horrible if the guy doesn't know you already.
If he's located in your general geographical area, you should drop by his office. If that Professor can associate a face to the email, it's much more likely he'll take your email much more seriously.
Another thing you can do is frequent the same mailing lists and the same discussion forums this Professor contributes to (assuming you can guess which ones they are). If you become familiar with his research and his computer science-related interests, that's another way to grab his attention. If you provide good feedback on some of his ideas/projects/posts/code, he will most likely do the same for you in return if you ask him.
And by the way, do not fake an interest in his research. Study his research/interests until you're genuinely interested. People can smell fake enthusiasm. So don't fake it if you're not really interested.
And finally, don't be afraid to ask for referrals to other academics if a particular Professor reads what you have to say, but is not interested. The only reason I'm not suggesting you do that for the first Professor is because you don't seem to know him and he does seem interested. He just thinks that your project should be going in a different direction, so he's not likely to refer you even if you ask him (without you first incorporating his initial feedback into your project).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: I admire your chutzpah. But please save it until the appropriate time. Prof. #1 kindly gave you useful feedback -- now take a little break from emailing, and focus on finishing your undergrad and getting started in grad school, where there will be people right there under the same roof who can give you lots of guidance, support and positive feedback. It's good to have curiosity and initiative. They will stand you in good stead in your graduate studies.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: An American professor lectured in our university about American higher education. He mentioned that the university environment is not limited to formal education (what is the case in Europe more or less). A university courtyard is like a park and students are always hanging around.
He also mentioned that it is not unusual for a professor to gather students and sit on the grass outside and run a class. This is something that I have never seen in Europe (at least Hungary where I study).
Most universities I have seen (including new campuses built by EU funding) are just buildings, because people believe yards are waste of money. Things happens in buildings. In these universities, students go to the class, and after that, they quickly leave the university.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> A university courtyard is like a park and students are always hanging around.
>
>
>
There are thousands of colleges and universities in the United States. Some have large campuses with lots of space to hang around. Some are urban campuses with little outdoor space available. Some are entirely contained in one building. Some have mainly residential students, and some have mainly (or only, or some) commuter students who live off-campus. Some serve mostly full-time students, while others cater to students who are doing other things outside of school and don't have much free time to hang around. Some are in boring locations with not much else to do, and some are in fun cities with many events and activities available outside the university. Some are in pleasant climates and some are in places that are very hot or very cold for some or part of the year.
All of the factors above and many more go into determining whether a given university, out of the thousands, is one where students tend to hang around outside.
>
> He also mentioned that it is not unusual for a professor to gather students and sit on the grass outside and run a class.
>
>
>
It may happen occasionally (see [example](https://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalvu/4563940870)), but it is very unusual. I have never attended, taught, or seen such a class firsthand.
[Here](http://bwog.com/2010/04/10/the-great-wet-butt-debate/) is an article with some more anecdotes.
>
> He mentioned that the university environment is not limited to formal education (what is the case in Europe more or less).
>
>
>
If a professor decides to teach outside, it's still a formal class, not a social event.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: To answer the question at face value: Yes, it is *uncommon* for professors to teach outside, or to take the class out of the formal area of the classroom. But it is not unheard of. I typically take my class outside so once a year or twice if the class lends itself to group discussions and the weather is nice.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: American professors often feel free to modify their classroom environment in whatever way they feel will provide the best education. For most large or highly technical classes, this means they don't change anything at all, because they feel a standard lecture environment will be the most effective.
In other classes, however, more of the learning is expected to be accomplished by discussion and other forms of student participation. In these classes, it's quite common for a professor to modify the lecture environment to make it more informal, thereby attempting to make it a more comfortable environment for student participation.
The most common intervention is simply to change the arrangement of chairs in a classroom into a circle. The professor then sits in a chair just the same as any student and facilitates a discussion rather than lecturing. Shifting to a non-classroom setting, such as outdoors, is less common but would probably not be considered particularly surprising by most American students. In my own experience, two of my undergraduate classes frequently relocated outside, and it was probably a good idea for both of them.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: At least where I teach (a small liberal arts college in the northeast United States), if you go to the courtyard on a sunny day in the spring you will probably see one or two classes meeting outdoors.
Of course, this is more common for small classes that don't need chalkboards or other materials. I've taken upper-level math courses outside a few times, but it's a lot of effort to move a portable whiteboard outside, so it's not something I'd be willing to do on a regular basis.
Overall, I'd say that I agree with the professor you mention that colleges and universities in the United States are often thought of as academic communities, and their design often purposefully incorporates communal spaces for students and faculty. However, I've certainly been to colleges in Europe that share this same design philosophy. It may be less common in Europe, but I'm not sure that this reflects a different philosophy so much as practical considerations. For example, it may be hard for a university in the middle of a big city to have enough space for courtyards and such, and universities in Europe often seem to be located in the middle of major cities.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I have actually attended a university in Europe, and on a few occasions we had classes outside. I heard that there are some classes that do most or all their sessions outside (sometimes even at museums). I was a STEM major, so most of my classes required a large blackboard, so I didn't get to be in those classes often - I think it was a lot more common for classes like poetry, literature, language or philosophy.
I have also seen the same thing happen in the US. So the professor is certainly right in the sense that this happens, but not right to paint it as a US vs. Europe thing. Usually it's a question of how the campus is built. Old and rural universities have larger land grants and so end up with campuses resembling parks.
In cities, real estate is expensive, so newer universities or those built in the center will be just buildings, as you say there won't be much opportunity to do a class outside. Although for instance in a city like New York you could still be lucky enough to have a suitable park nearby, although whether it will be practical is another matter.
>
> Most universities I have seen (including new campuses built by EU funding) are just buildings, because people believe yards are waste of money.
>
>
>
Unfortunately, a sad reality of our time. Hopefully those "people" will have had enough of concrete jungles one day.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: There are always exceptions to the rule, but there is still a rule. Asking a like question in the U.S. creates uncomfortable reactions, and usually denial that classifying people or countries or ... is not possible!, as you notice in reply to your question; and this is similar at Academia SE.
That all said, I've studied in Germany, France, and the U.S., and spent about half my life in both Germany and the U.S. By and large, all your *original* questions should be answered "Yes, yes, yes, and yes."
The main reason lies probably in rules that apply in most colleges - you are held to live in university housing, while sharing a room with a stranger for a year or two, in many cases hundreds or thousands of miles away from your hometown. Even when attending universities that, for space reasons, can't have housing on campus (e.g., Columbia in Manhattan), you will usually choose (if only for rent price reasons) a university provided off-campus dormitory type facility. This would have been terrifying for young, shy me, but has some very good consequences in that, by and large, Americans learn to deal with imperfect living accommodations, and to get along with people you have little in common with (my first room-mate was just back from a Mormon mission). Even when I lived in a dormitory at my undergrad alma mater, I had no room-mate, and close to no contact to the other dormitory residents.
There is also a tendency to use college years as the years you go craaaaaaaazy, which is accommodated by the many campus universities which often look like a large park (google Berkeley, or CalTech, say). I've seen a guy run around campus naked, covered in peanut butter head to toes, as part of his campaign to become the football mascot; that mascot (costume) was 'kidnapped' by the rival university (which led to some pompous administrative reactions); one day each year Freshmen caught in a particular spot were supposed to be kissed; and the school band occasionally mooned the opposing team, and performed other 'look how crazy we are' acts. Things have. I think, gotten more Puritan in recent years - I am fairly sure the weird annual kissing tradition stopped. But it existed as recently as about 10 years ago. As you'll know from your campus, that is a far cry from typical European experiences. My undergrad campus, as an 18th century castle built to resemble Versailles, had ample lawns, and a good amount of parties; but the events mobilizing students were the frequent political demonstrations which pulled tens of thousands of students to the castle and the surrounding streets.
Finally, giving a good, entertaining lecture is valued much higher in the States. This is a good thing: all the professors that truly impressed me I met in the U.S. As part of this, lecturing outside happens, but is not common. The world is getting smaller every year though: Europeans teach in the U.S., then go back to Europe - and vice versa; and the Information Age removed barriers that used to be high. So obviously, the stiff Dr. Unrath no longer teaches in Germany either, and I've had classes outdoors there too.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_7: As many other posters recognize, this depends on the university. It also depends on the professor's academic field and whether or not teaching students about this academic field requires the trappings of a classroom (textbooks, white/blackboards, lab equipment, etc.) or are suitable for open-ended discussion. This also depends on classroom size.
For one specific instance of a university for which this is common, at the one specific university I was a student at and also taught at, Auburn University (in the southeast United States) it is not "unusual" for liberal arts professors to do this. Most liberal arts classes consist of 25 students or less, and discussion may be a large part of the classroom.
Many liberal arts professors at Auburn teach a class outside on the grass once or twice a year, and a few will pick a day a week during the spring. The building in which liberal arts are taught has several courtyards as well as an expansive outer area with fields of grass surrounding it:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bfgCL.jpg)
Another thing to keep in mind is that this university is located in a subtropical area and the campus is styled like a park with trees. "Tailgating" for college football (American football) is normal on the grounds on football weekends, and students are used to people picking a spot on the grass to hang out for a whole day, so a professor doing so for an hour isn't remarkable.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: No, it would not be "considered" unusual to run a small class outside, assuming a small enough number of students, good weather, etc.; but it's not something you'd see every day, or in every class, or even be likely to see in any class. I was never in a for-credit university class where the professor/instructor decided to do that, nor do I remember seeing a group that was obviously a formal class moved outside at any campus I ever studied at or otherwise visited.
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<issue_start>username_0: The amount of endowments that American universities receive is much more than European counterparts. Why alumni of American universities and other people have such a big desire to donate money to universities.
This happens in Europe too, but much less than America. Almost all American universities (at least major ones) have many *named chairs* (funded by external donors), but you see it rarely in Europe.<issue_comment>username_1: There is a greater tradition of alumni giving in America, which European universities are trying to also foster (especially in the public funding cuts to universities seen in the UK).
In America there are also generous tax breaks when giving money to charities and foundations which encourages gifting.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: This is an interesting question. There is also an element of high alumni involvement, sometimes a company or individual would want to give to show their commitment to the specific department. Also, often times, those who are major donors can have something in the institution named after them.
Finally, you mentioned "named chairs". These are usually individuals who have an extremely strong research portfolios and that usually have a strong connection with the company as a researcher (in the case of industry named chairs)
Or maybe Americans are just more generous? (joke)
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Another factor may be that, since in the US the student is very aware of how much the official costs have been offset by scholarships and/or loans through the school itself, many of us feel an obligation to "pay that forward" if we can by putting money back into the endowment funds. Similarly, we're very aware of the non-tuition costs of making the school community and experience what it was, and we don't take a good education and its effect on our salaries for granted; there too we have something of a debt to repay.
Not true of everyone, of course. But for some of us it's real.
There are also the endowments made because someone wants to see the school do something in particular, for reasons ranging from ego to investment in research to you-name-it.
Really, it boils down to "that's how the system has evolved over the past two centuries, as it has interacted with the society and economy it's surrounded by." History is less a matter of grand design than of lots of people making impulse decisions whose sums happen to lean one direction or the other on any given day.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I believe a major factor is the experience students have while studying. Certain universities are very good at creating a sense of loyalty, community, and attachment which endures after students graduate.
For example, in the UK, Oxford and Cambridge receive disproportionately more donations than other universities. [41% of all alumni donations in 2013-2014 went to Oxbridge](http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/apr/30/university-fundraisers-russell-group-uk). There are also a large number of [named chairs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professorships_at_the_University_of_Cambridge). Historically Oxbridge students have had a strong loyalty to their college and are keen to give back once they are alumni. This loyalty is built through many means, such as the links to tradition, virtually all undergraduates living together in their college. There is a lot of inter-college rivalry in sport, [academics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tompkins_Table), who has the best may balls, etc.
While I have never been to university in the USA, I would imagine that a similar loyalty exists in Universities which receive a lot of donations. For example, College sports in the United States, in particular (American) football and basketball, have a very large following and people are very loyal to their team. For example the University of Michigan has the [largest Football stadium in the USA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_football_stadiums_by_capacity) (107,601 seats) and is also in the [top ten in terms of endowment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Michigan#Endowment) ($10.06 billion). Could this simply be a coincidence?
Some universities take a more utilitarian approach. With more students commuting to classes, fewer sports facilities, etc. In this case the education process could seem more like purchasing a service. Not that it would necessarily detract from the quality of the degree/education, but it would not instill the same sense of attachment which would lead an alumni to donate. I would suspect that universities structured in this way would rely more heavily on government funding and attempt to keep costs down by reducing the non-essentials.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: One different viewpoint to the other answers here: endowments are **necessary** instruments for most American universities, and are essential for private universities which are not directly supported by the government. They can provide essential resources for meeting the budget needs of these institutions—particularly for costs that cannot be paid for using state or federal funding received. (These can, of course, be supplemented by tuition and other income.)
More importantly, American universities receive lots of money for their endowments because they devote significant resources to recruit and solicit donations. Most universities have some sort of "alumni relations" department to seek out such funds, and typically a development office as well.
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<issue_start>username_0: In the past, most education centers were boarding schools in which students live full time. Still there are boarding school at high school or college level. However, for universities, students just tend to attend the class and leave the campus. Even, dormitories are just like rental projects rather than keeping the students to live in the campus.
Old-fashioned universities like Cambridge still have the so-called colleges which are responsible for student life (to live in the academic community). In this classic model, the university is investing in colleges to build an academic community outside formal education, which is conducted by technical departments.
Is it a formal policy for modern universities to keep students within the campus beside the formal education? OR they prefer if the students attend classes and leave the campus?
The reason that I ask this question is that social activities are conducted by student clubs. If students do not join clubs or somehow live in the campus, it is not responsibility of the university administration (and they normally do not care). In classical universities like Cambridge, keeping the colleges active is still responsibility of the university administration.<issue_comment>username_1: Some American universities require students to live in dorms on campus for the first one or two years of their studies. This is probably the closest you get to the old system.
Among the practical considerations that enter this conversation is certainly that it is an enormous organizational and financial effort to house the number of students who attend university today. My university has 60,000 students. Imagine the effort to build enough dorms for all of them. Most universities will not have the financial resources to do so, and many will also not nearly have enough space on campus to build such dorms.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: In the United States, it tends to depend strongly on the particular university and the population that it aims to serve. In general, the more local and "non-traditional" that students are expected to be, the less that a university will feel obligated to assist in the arrangement of housing and board.
Thus, for example, a place like [Williams College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_College), where the students are mostly "traditional" undergraduates coming from far away to a small isolated town in the mountains, expects to house, board, and provide a full campus life for essentially all of its students.
At the opposite end of the spectrum there are places like [Suffolk University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk_University), which is in the middle of a big city (Boston) and historically focused strongly on professional postgraduate education and on students enhancing their education later in life. Suffolk doesn't even *have* a campus per se---it just has about a dozen buildings scattered around the center of Boston, and until quite recently did not have any dormitories at all.
Across the whole spectrum, most administrations will consider it their responsibility to provide a rich intellectual environment for students both inside and outside of the classroom, e.g., by supporting student groups. The degree to which this happens "on campus" and with direct university investment varies greatly depending on circumstance. No university in America, however, will attempt to *confine* students to a campus---some merely recognize that geography makes it more difficult for their students to leave.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> keeping the colleges active is still responsibility of the university
> administration
>
>
>
You don't seem to understand the role of colleges at Oxbridge. It is not the university's responsibility to maintain the students' social lives. In fact, the university is not directly responsible for the colleges at all, as they are technically separate entities, but that's minor details. Colleges do form **a** focus for social life, as being part of a community is beneficial to learning, but students are entirely free to socialise elsewhere or live elsewhere (just not too far away).
As username_2 has said, the culture of a university community can be very dependent on what the university population is like, as different groups have different needs. Other factors can also play a part, eg. London universities mostly have less of a community feel because there are many other things on around that students can get involved with, and also because a large proportion of students travel home at weekends. In contrast, UCDavis makes up half of the town, so there's not much space for students to separate. Some universities have a policy of trying to create spaces for students to learn together, others don't. Many will offer activities beyond the curriculum because it attracts students (and hence money). But I have not personally come across any where the university is considered to be responsible for extra-curricular activities.
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<issue_start>username_0: I submit a paper to a journal which allows to publish the preprint as a working paper. After submission, I thought I can just take the version I just submitted and publish it on ResearchGate. But then I thought that it might be problematic to use the same format I used for submission, since then everyone knows to what journal I submitted (or at least, to what publisher). Then, if my paper gets rejected, everyone knows that.
Is this an important consideration? Is it important to change the format of the paper before putting it in a preprint archive?<issue_comment>username_1: Personally, I wouldn't bother changing the format. As a wise colleague once told me, if you aren't getting some papers rejected, you aren't submitting to good enough venues. If you're proud of the work, there's no need to try to obfuscate where it's been submitted.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You have no need to change the format of the preprint. Although you may not upload it in the publications section in RG, you may as well do so in the unpublished work section.
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a 16 years old high school student. I want to publish a new piece of work. Writing a research paper is quite difficult for me. If some body has any idea about how to do that then help me.<issue_comment>username_1: Personally, I wouldn't bother changing the format. As a wise colleague once told me, if you aren't getting some papers rejected, you aren't submitting to good enough venues. If you're proud of the work, there's no need to try to obfuscate where it's been submitted.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You have no need to change the format of the preprint. Although you may not upload it in the publications section in RG, you may as well do so in the unpublished work section.
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<issue_start>username_0: I got my paper accepted to a conference, whose proceedings will be published in IEEE digital library (Xplore). The General chair asked me for the paper source, I was astonished when she insisted on me submitting a Word version even though the conference offered LaTeX template which I used.
My question is twofold:
Why would the conference chair need the source of my paper?
Knowing that I couldn't convert my pdf paper to a decent Word file,
is it my problem at all to do that since the conference allowed using a
LaTex template for paper writing but did not alert that a Word source would be required in case of acceptance?<issue_comment>username_1: While we obviously do not know the Chair's intent (unless she happens to be a stack exchange poster), the most likely situation to me is that there's some sort of formatting related issue (or possibly some typos, etc. that need correcting) in your submitted version that they are incapable of fixing given your PDF file.
This does not necessarily imply it's your fault - typesetting systems are sometimes fussy, but asking for both a Word version and the source indicates, to me, that they want "A version they can edit".
On a practical level, yes, it's your problem. You could refuse of course, with unknown results.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If the paper is to be part of a published proceedings, an editable source format often reduces the cost (and sometimes the annoyance) of print production (and even reformatting into XML, where that is a thing).
For good or ill, many such production workflows start with Word. Others do start with some flavor of TeX.
I agree they ought to have told you what they expected. Unfortunately, they hold all the cards here and can demand of you whatever format they need.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Papers are typeset before publication, requiring (LaTeX) source files.
I see absolutely no reason for the Chair to request a Word version. Personally, I would withdraw, rather than going to the hassle of reformatting a paper. Before withdrawing, it might be worth double-checking that a Word file is truly required. (Young, first-time Chairs may make mistakes, I don't know whether that's the case here.)
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<issue_start>username_0: Many professors say on their websites not to email them because they cannot make admission decisions alone, but rather it is the decision of a whole committee. However, my undergraduate advisor said there is nothing stopping a single professor from admitting a student if they see fit. Is this true? And if so, how often does it happen?<issue_comment>username_1: The answer is that it depends on the institution and the professor's influence within the institution.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This varies greatly between departments. In some cases (particularly European universities, I believe), Ph.D. students are admitted by individual professors. There may be some basic requirements set by the department or university, but other than that it's up to the professor's judgment.
In other cases, decisions are 100% made by a committee. For example, that's the case in my department. Any professor can talk with the committee members and make a case for a particular candidate, but it would be unseemly to do this too often, and the committee can simply ignore these discussions if they choose to. (In practice, they are willing to be convinced if someone makes a compelling case for why the student would be great, but they won't admit someone just because a potential advisor is in favor.)
>
> Many professors say on their websites not to email them because they cannot alone do not make the admission decisions, but rather it is the decision of a whole committee.
>
>
>
That's true in my case. I can't evaluate most applications in isolation (unless someone is mediocre or obviously amazing, I won't know how they compare with the other applicants this year), and I'm not interested in lobbying the committee except in unusual cases where I have important information not available to them. (If they know everything I do, then I don't want to offend them by suggesting that I don't think they are capable of doing a good job.)
>
> However, my undergraduate advisor said there is nothing stopping a single professor from admitting a student if they see fit. Is this true? And if so how often does it happen?
>
>
>
So the answer is that this is completely true in some departments, completely false in others, and may of course be in between in some cases. How often it happens depends on the circumstances (what you are applying for and where). If you are applying to U.S. math grad schools, for example, essentially all the decisions will be made by committees. If you are applying for something else, then you'll have to look into that particular case. But if you are seeing lots of statements on web pages saying that decisions are made by committee, that tells you something.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: This depends all too much on individual departmental factors. Some faculty are extremely consensus driven and students are accepted and denied based on that group consensus.
At other places, faculty are given "slots" which they can fill based on their own needs and which other faculty will not interfere with.
And finally, at some places, there are "big people" on the faculty who drive the agenda - including who gets accepted and who doesn't.
You need to talk to faculty or graduate students at that particular location in order to figure out how they operate.
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<issue_start>username_0: I am wondering that how explaining your work with a talk with slides differs from a poster presentation. Since I do not have any idea, I always explain my poster to the viewer just same way as I would have give a talk: starting from intro, methods, etc. Doing this it takes more time and I lack the time to explain it to more viewers.
So I want to know that whether the work shown on a poster and on slides should be same? And are there any good ideas to present your poster to more viewers?<issue_comment>username_1: Without being too wordy, a poster should be able to stand alone without you in front of it. At many conferences, your poster may be available to attendees at times where you are not able to be there to explain it. Therefore, it should be different enough from a set of presentation slides describing your work that anyone could walk up to it and get the point.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In the biology-related fields I'm familiar with, poster presentations are generally to one or a few people who are expected to interact with you, while slide shows are for larger numbers who are expected to be relatively passive. That means the biggest difference between a poster and slide presentation is that the former should be customized to the person you're talking to. Some people may be new to the field, and for them you may just explain what the question you're asking is, and the overall big-picture answer you found. The next person may be the person who defined the field, and for her you may simply point out that you used this particular variation of her technique rather than the original one she published in 1972.
The point being that it's typically a conversation, not a one-way speech. You have to feel out what the person does and doesn't understand, and try to focus on those, while not wasting time on the parts they know.
You might open with "Would you like me to explain, or did you want to read the poster yourself?". Often that leads to something (a detailed technical question, or a general question about the topic) that will tell you what kind of level to begin with. The key is to treat it like a dialog and to make sure you're responsive to the audience, even if it's body language rather than specific questions.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: Is attending conferences considered an absence? If not, then is there a limit on how many conferences a faculty can attend?!<issue_comment>username_1: While I have never experienced a department that defined "absent days", if your department regulates these things, you need to ask you department chair what the policy is.
Departments that I am familiar with expect you to either teach when you are supposed to, arrange someone to cover the teaching, or rearrange the session. In some situations an out of class activity wold be acceptable and in rare cases outright canceling of the class. One should try and keep these to a minimum, but to the extent that the students are not complaining, you can probably get away with it.
I have never seen a department which limits the number of conferences, but if you are rarely around, it will probably come back to bite you. In general, if you are worried about these things, you should ask a senior colleague.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Any educational institution would be pleased to have publications with its affiliation. This goes for conferences too. As long as you are able to compensate your classes, your institution would be able to provide you with an OD (on-duty) leave that considers you present while you can be absent in order to attend your conference. The remaining procedures depends on the regulations imposed by your institution.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: In any ranking system, at least 50% of top universities (top 100, for example) are American. What is special about American higher education?<issue_comment>username_1: This is due to many factors, and some can actually be tied to historical reasons. For example, the Cold War - this lead to high R&D spending by the U.S Gov and the creation of many new labs and research areas. Additionally, the U.S. is a country founded by immigrants, and so until this day, you have immigration from all parts of the world (less so from Europe now as it used to be), and as thus, the brain drain in other countries is affecting the U.S. positively. Many top notch researchers in the U.S.A are not/were not even American, but left their countries to pursue opportunities in the USA. Now in cases like Harvard, Yale, other Ivies, these were amongst the first institutions in the USA, and until this day keep this reputation as the best.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Ranking is based on several features. To understand why many top universities are located in the USA, according to many rankings, you might want to look at each feature. Examples of features:
* faculty salary: this gives to USA-based universities an advantage over some of the countries where academics are less paid. (e.g. [France](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32439/452))
* student satisfaction: the American culture tends to be [more positive](http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2011/11/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Values-Report-FINAL-November-17-2011-10AM-EST.pdf) than in some countries.
* research grants: in some countries, academics don't focus on obtaining grants as much as in the USA.
* reputation: the large average size of US universities make them more visible than in many other countries. Also, (taken from O.R. Mapper in the comments), some American universities seem to run professional news outlets on their websites that report about everything noteworthy that happens in the university. In contrast, in some other countries, e.g. Germany, universities' newsfeeds tend to be on a comparably low priority.
* Americans speak English decently well, it helps to get published, give talk in international conferences, create MOOCs, etc.
* endowment: see [Why do American universities receive lots of endowments?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55743/452)
* etc.
Then of course there is [brain drain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight). Students with good academic credentials wishing to study abroad are likely to choose the USA, [if they have the option](http://college.usatoday.com/2015/02/18/umass-amherst-iranian-students-feel-betrayed-by-admission-ban/).
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: American child-rearing and American education are more tolerant of failure. Top American students have learned how to lose gracefully as well as how to win gracefully. They have been taught that risk-taking is worthwhile.
If you look at the distribution of academic scores in American primary, secondary, and undergraduate education, you will find that the American education system has institutions that are consistently very poor, institutions that are consistently mediocre, and institutions that are consistently strong. Depending on their resources and priorities, Americans gravitate toward the institutions that seem to suit them.
A top secondary student who wishes to attend a premier undergraduate school needs to focus on certain things. In Asian countries, the student should cram to pass tests. In America, the student should split their effort into essay-writing, math, science, and athletics. Most premier American undergraduate schools can easily fill their student bodies with students who have high academic marks. Athletic striving helps distinguish applicants as being "well-rounded".
American secondary schools have well developed inter-scholastic leagues in many sports. In each contest between schools, one school wins, and one school loses. Occasional failure is expected; effort and improvement are demanded; coaching is provided; and success is honored. Success is simultaneously measured on a personal improvement level, in contests between individuals, and on a team level.
Courses like MIT's "2.70 contest" have been replicated at several top engineering schools around the world. Instructors of these courses have noted the wide variety of approaches and successfulness of MIT's students, as compared to other countries' students. At MIT, it is normal for one-third of the students' machines to fail to score any points. On the other hand, some MIT students' machines are wildly aggressive and/or wildly successful. In prestigious European and Japanese engineering schools, nearly all students' machines score some points -- in identical contests -- but few students take the unconventional approaches needed to be wildly successful.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: It started in the 1930s, when Nazi Germany started to fire Jewish professors and other people who opposed the regime. Many others left voluntarily as well. Germany had the best universities before this period. The United States ended out getting more of the refugees than any other country (e.g. Einstein) and this started the ascendancy of American universities.
Then World War II happened. Germany ended out with their universities basically obliterated, through the actions of the Nazis and also from the war itself. Japan's universities were also very damaged. The US on the other hand, not only benefited from the refugees but also from the war effort. A lot of money and effort was put into the Manhattan Project and so on, and this infrastructure was used after the war. Other European countries did not really gain as much... some suffered extensive war damage and others like France were at least occupied. Britain's academic institutions were (basically) intact but they were losing ground to the Americans.
After WWII the Cold War happened, and universities were highly supported by the US government during this period, building on the earlier growth. The US had a lot of financial resources and were willing to use them to help universities. Also, American universities in recent decades have been quite welcoming to foreigners, and the increasing prominence of US universities in turn attracts immigrants. So this has become a self-perpetuating phenomenon.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: The other answers are excellent, but I'd like to add some I haven't seen, in particular aspects where the American system differs:
* American universities have to compete for funds. Even "public" universities have to compete for state tuition and certainly for research funding from places like NSF, NIH, DOEnergy, DOEducation... The best American universities are in fact the ones who have some of the longest history of competing for those funds and winning them. Faculty successful at securing external funding often receive higher salaries than those who do not succeed. (Some Europeans tell me their countries are changing over to this model now.)
* American laws do not mandate a preference for American employees in higher education. There are some hoops to jump through for foreign labor, but they are largely a pure formality, also unlike some countries. (Again, some Europeans tell me that their laws on this are not mere formalities, which is why so many of their universities have a preponderance of natives in the sciences.)
* Perhaps the most important reason: Americans send a much larger proportion of their population to university. Many countries send only a filtered group (e.g., to enroll in the sciences you had to take a certain curriculum at a science-oriented high school). That means a lot of Americans are attending college, which means a lot more money is going through the American higher education system, which gives both more resources to American universities to spend on things, and more incentive to spend it wisely.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I'm looking at <http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2015#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=> and I see that 10 of the top 50 are British, vs 18 USA.
However the population of the USA is about 5 times that of the UK.
So the answer to your question is there's nothing special about the US education system other than the country has a larger population than some other countries with a better education system.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Here's an aspect that's mostly missing in the answers that have been posted so far: American universities -- at least the ones which value research output, which are also the ones that tend to show up in published rankings... -- care either very little or not at all about the national origins and citizenship status of the faculty they wish hire and of the graduate students they would like to attract. They try very hard to hire the very best research faculty and the most research-oriented graduate students, irrespective of national origin.
In many of the top departments in the U.S., especially in the sciences and in economics, more than half the faculty and more than two thirds of the graduate students are not native U.S. citizens. (Quite a few, of course, choose to become U.S. citizens *if* they stay in the U.S.) Thus, rather than thinking in terms of "American universities", it may be more useful to think about "universities in America" in order to understand their prevalence in the rankings. If universities in the U.S. are free to compete for the best talent from around the world, whereas other universities have to give preference to applicants from their own countries (or regions) or are barred outright from hiring non-nationals, it shouldn't be a surprise that the freer system ends up with more talent.
---
*Addendum* to address @Emil's comment, about me allegedly claiming that non-US universities suppress cultural diversity. Please note that I have made *no such claim*. My answer was focused on issues of citizenship and nationality, and not on cultural diversity -- which, I believe, is a much broader concept. Since you asked, though, let me give a specific example of the effects that being able to hire faculty and attract graduate students irrespective of their national origin can have. In Switzerland, the country I live in right now (Switzerland), the immigration law that's still in effect has tended to give great leeway to universities in their hiring decisions. The ETH in Zurich and the EPF in Lausanne, in particular, have made great use of this freedom in recent years to attract stellar faculty and students, in the process either solidifying or strongly improving their international ranking positions. Unsurprisingly, then, a good chunk of the faculty and students, especially the younger faculty and students, of both universities are not Swiss citizens. (Switzerland is, after all, a fairly small country!) In early 2014, however, Swiss voters approved an amendment to the Swiss federal constitution which -- if implemented as some fear/expect it will -- will greatly curtail the freedom of the ETHZ, the EPFL, and all other Swiss universities to go after talent irrespective of their national origin or current citizenship status. Leaders of the ETHZ and EPFL have already warned that if and when the law that implements the constitutional amendment goes into effect, and if the law will be as restrictive as some fear it will be, the rankings of these two universities (and of the other Swiss universities) will suffer seriously and rapidly as many of their top faculty will choose to go elsewhere and as international students look elsewhere when they think about pursuing graduate studies.
@Emil also wrote:
>
> I thought the causation could as well be the other way around: "Because US universities have a high reputation they attract more international students and faculty."
>
>
>
Isn't such an argument nearly circular? For sure, it doesn't explain how or why the rankings of European and Asian universities have finally managed to rise in recent years -- in many cases quite significantly so. What matters greatly, obviously, is having a good reputation. However, being based in the US does not, by itself, establish a good reputation. After all, it's rather well known that there are lots and lots of mediocre and poor universities in the U.S. as well.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: In my somewhat extensive experience of Japanese universities vs American universities, the expectations of students and faculty are far higher in American universities. For example, in Japan it is enough for faculty to publish "research" in their university's own journals, few of which are peer reviewed. Plagiarism is a minor problem. In Japan, the student is simply asked to rewrite the paper. In the U.S. it is grounds for immediate expulsion.
In Japan, students spend much of their time doing extra-curricular activities, and preparing for the school festival. Academics generally take a backseat to the social development that is foregone in earlier schooling, when exam preparation is foremost in most students' minds.
Furthermore, administrators generally make it difficult for faculty to fail recalcitrant students. Giving a social pass is generally preferred to justifying a failing grade.
I recently did an Academic writing class for third year students in a high level public university. I found that many students were recycling papers they had written in previous years, and once I took measures to obviate that, the quality improved markedly, but it was also clear the papers were written for, and edited by, professors of higher level classes.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_1: Here are some factors that contribute and that aren't really mentioned in the other answers:
* **The USA is big.** The USA has 300 million inhabitants. So of course the number of US universities is higher, and the number of US universities in rankings will be higher. It doesn't really make sense to compare the huge US to a smaller country.
* **Rankings favor English-speaking universities.** For example, one of the criteria in the Shanghai is the number of articles published in Nature and Science; these two journals only publish articles in English. Another criteria is the [Science Citation Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Citation_Index), which is also [biased towards English](http://www.cwts.nl/tvr/documents/avr-language-scientometrics.pdf). Similar criticism can be made for other rankings.
* **Rankings favor the Anglo-saxon model.** In France for example, most scientists work in a [UMR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Scientific_and_Technical_Research_Establishment), meaning they are affiliated at the same time at a university and the CNRS (or some other public research institute). This means that for the purposes of counting Nobel prizes for example, only "half" goes to the university, and the other half goes to the CNRS. Some scientists even work directly for a public research institute and not in a university. The CNRS is not a university and doesn't appear in rankings. In the US, a researcher works for the university and that's it; almost all research is done at universities.
* **Rankings favor very big universities.** This one is obvious: if you're just counting Nobel prizes, publications... A bigger university will naturally have a higher ranking. US universities are typically very big: [16 of the 61 (26%) biggest universities by enrollment are in the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_universities_by_enrollment).
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_9: Let's define a top university as a university that attracts top talent from all around the world because of its reputation.
Building a reputation as a top university takes generations. It requires a stable operating environment, a decent level of funding, proper management, and more than a bit of luck. If a university has a reputation as a good university, it tends to attract good researchers and good students, which further increases its reputation over time. Top Asian universities are rare, because most Asian countries haven't been that stable long enough.
Destroying the reputation (or the university) takes much less time. Continental European universities are still recovering from WW2.
We're having this discussion in English. The universities in English-speaking countries have an obvious advantage in recruiting top talent, because most researchers and students already speak English. It's much easier to move abroad, if you already speak the language.
Because of these reasons, it's easy to understand why US/UK universities are overrepresented in most university rankings.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Another explanation is the governance. American universities are governed by their alumni. It is alumni who care the most about quality since any reduction in their institution's reputation immediately reflects on them. It also helps
immensely with fund raising and money helps a lot with making a good university.
In other countries, it tends to either be the faculty or the government who govern and they have different motivations.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: Here's a piece that is touched on in a few other answers but which seems to be unstated: **the United States' university system has many of the worlds top schools because it is massively unequal.**
The US has more than 4,000 colleges and universities — the "best" universities may be in the US but so are some of the worst. These two facts are not unrelated. The US higher education system is more effective at concentrating resources (top students, money, grants, and the best faculty) in a small number of universities at the top than any other national system.
In much of the developing world and in many small countries, there are simply few resources. In many developed countries, universities are funded by governments that attempt to distribute resources widely and fairly (if not equally) across universities in their systems. If, for example, most students go to universities near their hometown, it seems unfair to send the best faculty and most of the grant funding to the university that trains the folks who happen to live in the capital.
In the US, there are few pretensions. Most of the top US schools are private schools that compete with funds and that have a massively disproportionate share of the money, grants, top students, and top faculty. Because there are few checks on inequality in the US system, this leads to a feedback loop where universities at the top use their resources to capture more — aggravating inequality over time.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_12: There are two related factors that weigh heavily on most worldwide university ranking systems:
1. Global ranking systems tend to be heavily biased towards prowess in academic research.
2. The US conducts a huge, disproportionate amount of the world's academic research.
With regard to the first point, let's look at a few specific ranking systems. The [US News & World Report](http://www.usnews.com/rankings) has one such ranking system that is a significant metric for my university. Of the top 50 schools [in their World Universities category](http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings), 36 are American (72%). [Their methodology](http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/articles/methodology) is exclusively research-based (some categories sound like they're not exclusively research-oriented, but if you read the specific criteria below you'll see that they essentially are). Not only are the rankings exclusively research based, they're almost entirely based on research-related publications. This ranking system totally ignores teaching, teacher to student ratio, grad student to undergrad ratio, faculty salary, percentage of courses taught by PhDs, etc.
The [Times Higher Education ranking](https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2016/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/scores_overall/sort_order/asc/cols/stats) is another that comes up highly in Google results. Of the top 50 schools in that ranking, 28 are American (56%). [This methodology](https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ranking-methodology-2016) scores based on teaching, research, and "broader impacts" criterion. However, at least 65% of a school's score is attributed to research by my judgement (research category, citations category, international collaboration, and industry income). This system does include metrics such as faculty salary and staff-to-student ratio, but other educational metrics such as number of PhDs awarded is arguably just another proxy for research productivity.
The third Google result is [QS Top Universities](http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2016). Of their top 50 schools, 19 are American (38%). [This methodology](http://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings/methodology) is starkly different from the previous two. Only 20% of a university's total score is specifically research-related, however the first category (academic reputation) is probably going to be heavily slanted towards research productivity, so 60% of a school's score is directly or indirectly research related. Moreover, this system is different because a full 50% of a school's ranking is dependent on reputation- subjective opinions of the school formed by faculty and experts around the world.
The last organization on the first page of Google results (and where I'll stop) is the [Center For World University Rankings](http://cwur.org/2016.php). Here, out of the top 50 institutions are 33 American schools (66%). If you look at [their methodology](http://cwur.org/methodology.php), essentially 50% is directly research related (points 3-8), and a further 25% is indirectly research related (quality of education, since this essentially measures the number of students who go on and win research-related prizes). This system also does not explicitly rank any of the educational quality metrics mentioned here, with the remaining 25% being determined by the number of students who go on to be successful in business.
With all that said, you should be convinced of point number one above. Research plays a huge role in global university rankings. Even in the systems that attempt to factor both research and educational outcomes, such as the second and fourth system, the ranking is heavily weighted towards research. **Both of those systems place two to three times more importance on research than on education.** If you play the numbers game, a school that scores zero on educational stats but about 50% on research stats will be ranked similarly to a school with perfect educational stats but zero research stats. Also note that the one ranking system that places the least emphasis on research productivity, the third, also contains the greatest number of non-American universities.
Now, with respect to the second point above, the US is the world's academic research powerhouse. This is not to say that other countries do not contribute or that they do not produce good work. What is meant is that the US produces the *largest volume* of academic research as an individual country, and by virtue of that alone receives a tremendous boost in research-oriented ranking systems.
The simplest and best explanation for this in my mind is the amount of funding available for academic research. The top ten countries by expenditure on research in higher education (all funding sources), according to [OECD data](http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/data-00189-en):
```
Country Academic R&D Funding in 2013
USA 64.7 Billion USD
China 24.1 Billion USD
Japan 21.9 Billion USD
Germany 18.4 Billion USD
France 12.1 Billion USD
UK 11.0 Billion USD
Canada 10.5 Billion USD
Italy 8.0 Billion USD
Australia 6.8 Billion USD
South Korea 6.3 Billion USD
```
As you can see, the US expends a significant amount on academic R&D. More than the next three countries combined, and a large fraction of the top ten countries (35%). To generate a graph such as the above you need to view the data set itself and customize:
```
Measure: PPP
Sector of Performance: Higher Education
Source of Funds: Total
Years: 2013
Table Rows: Country (in the layout customization)
```
The difference in funding doesn't explain the difference in rankings fully, but it goes a long way. In my opinion it is the primary source of the problems that other countries face when trying to engage in academic research- 50.6% of the top-ten funding occurs in English speaking countries, while only 28.5% of the top-ten funding occurs in Asian countries. Compared to individual countries, which is perhaps what matters most for your question, the US spends about two and a half times as much as China, three times as much as Japan or Germany, six times as much as France, the UK, and Canada, etc.
That funding disparity, combined with the institutional inertia possessed by the US universities (how that happened is a different question altogether), ensures that the US will be the most fertile single nation for academic research for some time to come.
If you consider research to be a input/output situation, then funding dollars is the primary input. However, all of the ranking systems above are more concerned with research output, as expressed through academic publications. A [slightly dated Reddit thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/20k5dk/top_40_countries_by_the_number_of_scientific/) aggregates this data from a few different sources. If you take that data at face value, the US publishes about 35% of the world's papers. The next competitor (China) publishes about 16%. The third place country (UK) publishes about 10%.
Bear in mind that most of those ranking systems also emphasize quality of papers over quantity, so this is a crude estimate to answer your question. But, different ranking systems will define quality in different ways (citations vs awards and honors, and so on).
As many others have pointed out, there are a host of other interrelated factors that influence this as well. But, I think the overall situation is best explained by the two points I have presented above.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_13: There is no simple answer. I would think that it is a system dynamic thing. Top universities have a tendency to be sinks for the resources. Best people want to work at the best places and they produce the best results. The resource pool in US is big and there is not much friction; it is also that the system is made easy for talented foreigners so the friction from borders is low.
It is also game-theoretic. Governments have their own objectives like producing educated work force, having equally good universities around the nation, and having relatively cheap specialists to do some research for them. If the universities are left free, they can optimise for the rankings. Trivially you get what you make. For a privately funded university the rankings are one of the best commercial. I remember reading about sensitivity analysis paper where Rockefeller University ranked high in some of those lists, but "low" on another. It is important to look into many rankings while trying to figure out "the true ranking".
US universities is not a singular educational system as in many nation they are; thus they can not be analysed as one. In general, US science has a really bad reputation in my country. It is a synonym for "lobbed click-bait propaganda". It can even be used as a counter-argument in a debate to nullify opponent's information. As such it is often attached the name of the US university as a source, if the university is a respectable one. It is a custom to reference the source somehow, often nations or capitals are appropriate in a public debate because the source needs to say something for the audience. US is shunned more than an unknown researcher.
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a student in a rather small (20-40 students) lecture. This lecture is mandatory for the students of this subject in this semester. In the course of the lecture the professor regularly asks students questions or encourages them to theorize about possible solutions to a problem before revealing the proper solution. Usually only about five of the students raise their hands and give answers. I am one of them and maybe the one who participates the most. I partly studied this subject before so I have a little more knowledge than the others but I am also genuinely interested in the subject while most of the others seem to find it boring and are only there to be able to pass the exam.
I often hesitate raising my hand or don't do it at all because I feel like I answer most of the questions and almost get into a dialog with the professor while all the others sit around me, bored and maybe a little annoyed (I didn't notice any negative reactions). I also usually wait a bit after a question was asked and only raise my hand if nobody else did in order to give the others a chance to participate.
**I feel like I am constantly restraining myself from showing to much enthusiasm in fear of appearing as a geek or a show-off. What can I do?**
Possible duplicate: [How not to come off as boasting or arrogant, if you are one of the few active students in a class?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30736/how-not-to-come-off-as-boasting-or-arrogant-if-you-are-one-of-the-few-active-st?rq=1)
(only found this after posting)<issue_comment>username_1: A key question is - why restrain your enthusiasm?
Importantly, it does not really matter what the other classmates think of you - you are there for the interest in the subject, not for their approval. As you stated, you have not noticed any negative reaction - it could be a case that a few others in the class are benefiting from your contributions - and more than likely, the instructor appreciates your participation as well.
It sounds like you are polite, holding back and waiting for anyone else to contribute - that is a positive.
If you are still concerned, speak with the instructor, ask them if there are other ways you can help get the class engaged and of course, ask if he/she thinks you are contributing 'too much'.
What to do? Don't change, you have enthusiasm, you politely wait for others to answer before you contribute. (But as suggested before, talk with your instructor about your contributions).
*Just to clarify, I am speaking as a practicing teacher*
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I have often marvelled at the fact that two students can enter university at the same time, take the same classes and both emerge four years later with a degree; but one of them will have learned very little, whereas the other will have emerged equipped with a huge amount of valuable knowledge.
It sounds like you are one of the lucky ones who will really get their money's worth (or their parents' or government's money's worth) out of your studies. You do not just sit in class as a passive spectator, but you actually take an interest in the material and actively participate in the learning process. That is the only way in my opinion to achieve true learning and acquire real knowledge that will stay with you not just for a few weeks or months but for many years after you have taken your exam.
So, you ask: *What can I do?* The answer is, do not worry what people think, but instead just keep doing precisely what you're doing. It is not you, but the other students in the class who should be coming here and posting concerned questions like *What can I do to get more out of my degree?* My answer to them would be: do what @problemofficer is doing!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I've been there!
In hindsight (I wish I had thought of this at the time) -- I suppose the mature thing to do would be to visit office hours, and put the problem in the professor's lap. The most polite way to do this would be with an I-message (e.g. I feel bad monopolizing the airwaves by responding to a large proportion of your questions to the class) rather than something that could be experienced as an accusation (e.g. The other students don't seem to be comfortable answering your questions).
The professor might at this point say, I've been frustrated about the low participation rate of most of the students -- do you have any ideas for how to encourage others to participate more?
Be prepared with suggestions, in case that question comes -- but don't offer any if it doesn't.
If you have a general tendency toward this thing that is sometimes called *overparticipating*:
* Try to fit your level of participation to the level of the other 4-5 active students.
* One way to do this is to put three small, smooth stones in one pocket, and transfer one over to the other pocket each time you participate. When you're out of stones, that's it for today, look forward to next class!
* It is easier to inhibit yourself from raising you hand to be called on (or speaking, if it's an environment where people just jump in) if you have something to do with your hands (Rubik's cube, some tedious homework, some elaborate doodling or sketching, some knitting or mending, designing or solving a maze, etc.).
* Perhaps you could respond to some of the questions with a question of your own that will hopefully elicit some productive mental gear turning on the part of those students who are somewhat following along. Ex: "I wonder if there's a way to reduce the three-dimensional problem down to a two-dimensional one...."
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a graduate student in mathematics. I've been having a difficult relationship with my advisor, and I need some help on the matter.
**Some background**
When I just started my graduate studies, my advisor warned me that he tends to be strict, and that sometimes he can have anger outbursts. I thought (and still think) that a strict advisor would be good for me, and didn't think the mentioned anger issue would be as bad as it turned out to be.
In the beginning, our relationship was good and (professionally) friendly, and I looked forward to every meeting with him. Our discussions gave me motivation in my studies and research.
About half a year later, I was going through depression unrelated to academic issues (and started being treated by medications), and was completely unproductive and not concentrated on my work for a few of months, which my advisor was unhappy about. He said that he didn't care about my personal problems, didn't want to hear excuses, and that he expected me to work regardless.
From that point on, our relationship completely changed. He stopped being nice and supportive, and started accusing me of not being serious and not working hard enough. This seems to have been the main trigger for his behaviour which I am to describe next.
**The problem**
If I don't get results, and try explaining that I've been working hard and just couldn't come up with a solution, my advisor starts yelling (yes, really yelling) that my progress is too slow, that he's sure he could have solved it in a month/week/hour himself if he tried, etc.
He also tends to interpret everything I say as a personal accusation, even though I always try to formulate my questions carefully and politely. For example, if I ask whether I should stick with a certain approach even after being unsuccessful for a while, he responds by yelling that he's an experienced researcher and that if he suggested it there must be a reason, and how dare I, a student, question anything he says.
A similar situation happened when I pointed out a mistake made by another researcher (and which was checked, per my request, by a third party *after* the incident). My advisor didn't check my claim thoroughly, and yelled that how dare I "accuse" a well-regarded researcher of making a mistake, and that it makes him angry that I "don't check my facts" before making such a claim, and compared me to mathematical cranks.
[To clarify: I pointed out the mistake in an email to my advisor, not in any arrogant way, and without involving anyone else at that point.]
It is difficult for me to work, because every time I'm stuck on something, I panic thinking about our next meeting and how he would yell at me again for lack of results. It also makes me look for "shortcuts" instead of really understanding what I'm studying for my research (even when those are basic things that he would agree I should understand) to save time.
When I explained to my advisor that this slows down my progress, he said that he's not a psychologist, and it's not his job to deal with my psychological problems.
Another problem is that almost all of our conversations revolve around my lack of progress and him yelling repeatedly the same things, while I'm trying to pull the conversation back to the math, as I need his help, and as there is no-one else working in this area at my university (and perhaps in the country). He had another graduate student who just graduated and switched to a different field, telling me that he would not continue for a PhD with this advisor because "he can't survive this psychological pressure for several more years".
I don't see a feasible option of switching advisors for the reason stated above, and also because based on his past PhD students and on what he told me, he could significantly help me in finding positions after I graduate. Also, I regard him as a good advisor in other aspects (much better than other advisors I know at our department), and I do believe that after all he cares and would help me if I made progress.
As much as possible, I would like to have a good relationship with him, and I definitely don't want to harm him in any way (such as reporting it - which would have been counter-productive anyway).
Our relationship quite reminds me of the movie "Whiplash" (without the physical abuse)...
Since the situation seems to have been worsening recently, I would very much appreciate some input on how to deal with this situation.<issue_comment>username_1: My advice: Go to the Chair of your mathematics department, and tell him exactly what you told us. You need to be straightforward and honest.
If not, contact the Dean of the college/or the dean of faculty affairs, and tell them what you told us. No need to tell us your problems where we can't solve them, when you can (and must) approach those who can handle these affairs.
It may seem a bit embarrassing, but I can assure you, with my years of experience, if you tell whom I mentioned (or another authority), at least some solution will transpire.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_1: I cannot stop typing this long response.
I'm sorry to hear that you are in this situation and I have lots of sympathy for you. Your story sounds similar to but not as horrible as mine in the previous university and the department I was in (**NOT** the one I list in my profile now, that is the one I'm currently in, the one I enjoy so far). I'll first give you a one line advice, then answer your question in detail. In the end, I attached my story just for your reference (can't resist telling it!).
**One-Line Advice**
>
> Most likely, the best option is to **peacefully** walk away and find a new advisor.
>
>
>
**Detailed Answer**
Based on your description, I can hardly imagine things will be better later on if you don't take action now. You've worked reasonably hard, but have slow progress for the reasons you don't have control. There are many misunderstandings in the communication with your advisor, and most importantly you're scared of meeting with your advisor. It's impossible to produce any good research work under a scenario like this. Time to look for someone else that fits you better.
You do not specify which stage of graduate study you are in. This may affect your approach now. If you are in the early stage (before passing preliminary/qualify), you should simply walk away, pass the exams, claim your interest change and convince someone else to be your advisor. It's not unusual at all for students to change advisor at this stage. If you're in the late stage (all but dissertation), you might consider enduring the pain for another year to get your degree, the potential cost (like dropping out) of making any unsuccessful move is too huge at this stage. If you're in the middle stage(pass qualify not yet advance to candidacy), the situation is awkward. You probably should talk to some department/university authority, and find out what's the best way to continue your study. However, you need to be **very careful about who you talk to and how you talk**.
When you describe your scenario to any third party (other professors, department chair, ombudsman, etc.), focus on the key issues you're facing and give them enough information so they can offer reasonable solutions. Avoid ranting and complaining, even if what you're saying is absolutely correct and can provide evidences. You run into danger of convincing other people you're a lazy student with many excuses. For example, you should avoid suffering the things I suffered (see my story+rant).
Last but not least, when it comes to advisor, you should have doubts on words of senior students and most recent graduates, they are the people who rely on advisor's letter to find jobs, therefore are unlikely to tell you any bad words, even if they don't like the advisor themselves.
**End of Detailed Answer**
**My story+rant (only for reference)**
Almost the same structure as your story, three years ago I was a new graduate student (in Ph.D. program) working in computational chemistry. It was OK in the beginning. About a few months later, I found out the software and source code I was supposed to use to do the calculation of my main project was fundamentally flawed. Some physical quantities were calculated on a non-trivial wrong way and it was clear to me that any data outputted would be meaningless unless the problems were fixed. I temporarily stopped working on the project to resolve the issue with my collaborators (one postdoc., one software engineer). It was a much slower process than I expect, because the person who wrote the code, although an expert software engineer, knows relatively little about the research I did and couldn't understand why the code was wrong for a long time.
My former advisor then behaved the way like your current advisor. In our meeting, he ignored the issue I faced and only blamed me on slow progress. Very often I found the suggestion he made was wrong and the solution I figured out myself was right. Whenever I pointed out the errors in other papers, providing more than sufficient evidences, he thought I must make up excuses for failing to reproduce the result in the paper. When I wanted to pull the discussion back to the research and seek for advises, all I got is "This is not undergraduate, you're supposed to figure it out."
After many meetings like that eventually he kicked me out of the lab(where he had already kicked out more than half of his students for many different weird reasons), originally with the promised of funding me finishing masters. He gave my research project to another student. Later on he blocked my access to all the data I had, and requested me to come back to lab if the student continue on my project had any problem, otherwise he was going to cut the funding. Even worse, I worked as a TA of my former advisor the academic quarter he kicked me out of his lab, he simply found every chance I made an insignificant mistake in TA job to blamed me, and sent abusive emails.
(**Here is what I did, and don't want you to repeat**) Finally, I cannot endure many abusive emails like that, decided to response one of them rudely (no personal insult and threat though), accused him lying and attached with evidences. The email was cc to all his group members and some department faculties and staffs. He was scared, he turned into the graduate community center (something equivalent to counseling center), described me as a potential criminal, and asked them to physically isolated me from the department. It took a while for me to convince them that I was the victim, not the other way around. After a few weeks of long conversations via the third party, we finally achieved some compromise- He agreed to do what he promised originally (fund me 2 more months to finish M.S.).
On the other hand, despite the evidence, it was impossible for me to convince other faculties in that department to be my new advisor. Most of them believed my former advisor's words and thought I was a failing student with excuses. They set up an "advancement exam" for me, at the date one faculty who potentially supported me had a doctor appointment, to find an official reason to kicked me out of their Ph.D. program.
**End of my story+rant**
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You've taken an important first step here.
A PhD student is in a dependent position with regard to the advisor; there are many parallels between the abuse that has occurred her, and the more commonly known type, family abuse.
In abusive relationships, there is often something very insidious: gradually, the abuse increases, but at each tiny incremental step, the victim rationalizes staying in the relationship, because there is so much at stake (e.g. keeping the family together, financial pressures, etc.; holding onto funding for continuing studies, intellectual satisfaction, successful thesis, letters of recommendation for future jobs, etc.). Often, the longer the abuse goes on, and the worse it gets, the harder it is to escape from it!
That is why I say that you have taken an important first step.
There are many possible next steps out of this abusive relationship. Perhaps one of the simplist is to make an appointment to see a doctor. Nowadays, many doctors ask a key question at each visit: Do you feel safe at home and at work? Even if the doctor doesn't ask you this, you can simply inform him or her that you don't feel safe at work.
Often, when one makes an appointment, the receptionist asks what the problem is. It will probably be easier for you to make something up, like an earache, than to spit out your problem over the phone to the receptionist.
The advice from @fmlin is excellent. I would add a couple more things:
* Find a domestic violence advocacy center in your campus or your town. They are trained in assisting victims of emotional abuse.
* Take a trusted person with you to *each and every* meeting you have on campus related to the problems with your advisor.
There are many possible eventual solutions to the current situation. I will describe one. My crystal ball doesn't tell me whether this will come to pass for you, but I will describe it because I imagine that right now, the paths out from your current situation probably feel extremely limited.
*Student (you) enters mental health treatment, paid for by the university (which, after all, is responsible for the professor's treatment of his students).... Student takes a month or more off from studies and responsibilities, but university continues financial and moral support during this medical leave of absence.... Professor enters treatment, paid for by his health insurance.... Professor is required to send all emails to student through an intermediary.... The university arranges for another professor, in a related field, and with a talent for being emotionally supportive, to be present for ALL face to face or phone conversations between the abusive professor and the student.*
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I have this problem right now with a senior collaborator. He refuses to read or understand any of my contributions, he yells during meetings about how dumb my questions are, he constantly talks over me. He doesn't have time to read emails or notes, and refuses to listen. One time he mocked my own voice back to me. It really took a toll on my mental health.
I hung on to get a paper out of all the work and stress I sunk into that awful project, and in the end all the results we got were based on a bad premise (in part, because my dumb questions about the premise maybe being flawed were never addressed. He's a defensive ass.)
Recently we brought in another senior collaborator, and having another adult in the room is making a world of difference. We're actually making better progress and might get a paper out, plus he doesn't yell in front of other men. When I talk, the other collaborator has to repeat my questions back to the abuser before he'll understand them, but whatever. The communication gets done at least.
So I would say try to get other people involved in your work. Give a seminar or journal club, or some informal talk about what you're doing. Ask other professors about what you're struggling with (even at other institutes. Go to conferences!) If you can loop in another person to the collaboration, you will shine light on the abuse and I bet he'll back off.
But if I could go back in time and undo all the work I wasted on this time sink, I would. When you work with people like this, you actually often just do bad work. There are better collaborators out there, and your career will be more successful if you work with functional people. Plus you need better mentorship than this. I've seen PhD students who come out of these situations, and they are often very bad researchers because they are so afraid to think independently and have horrible habits. This is doing damage to you, and it's hard for the pros to outweigh the cons, so keep that in mind.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a graduate student with an assistantship. I met an undergraduate and we hit it off (talking about sex, but not sex with each other). But now I assist a class with her (and I'm not good at hiding my feelings) and she is very flirty. She also put her hand on my arm outside of class (which was welcome). I am performing my job, but I am worried that if things go bad with us she'll claim sexual harrassment. What should I do?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> I am performing my job, but I am worried that if things go bad with us she'll claim sexual harassment. What should I do?
>
>
>
Don't let things go bad. I.e., stop talking about sex, try to hide your feelings, don't flirt, etc. As long as she is in your class, you have a professional obligation to treat her the same as your other students, regardless of whether she welcomes your interest. Doing anything else is dangerous. (Even if she makes no complaint, other students may raise the issue with the administration, if they are upset by it or suspect favoritism.)
In principle, you could try to change your teaching assignment to another class. However, I'd strongly recommend against asking for this. It might not be possible (maybe there's nobody available to switch with you), in which case you'll be in a real mess if you have implicitly announced that your current assignment is untenable. Any changes will be disruptive, which will annoy the professor teaching the class as well as whoever handles the teaching assignments or has to switch with you. Plus the teaching change will be public enough that it will probably create rumors of impropriety.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to username_1's fine answer, I'd also recommend that you also take steps to make sure that all of your future interactions with students are in public places where witnesses will be present. For instance, hold office hours in a library or café instead of in a private office. Note that this would be a general policy for all of your students, not just your interactions with the student in question.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Talk with your Professor about this. Depending on the course, the Professor may have some leeway in having another TA take over the grading of her materials and interactions with her, etc.
And if not, it would be good to have your concerns "on the record."
You are very right to be concerned, but you don't have to make decisions (on how to handle the concern) all on your own.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Under the assumption that you're in the US, it may be the case that you've already violated your school's policy on sexual harassment. It's important to recognize that quid pro quo harassment does also constitute sexual harassment under most (if not all) school harassment policies. Simply put, quid pro quo harassment occurs when a person incentivizes engaging in sexual or romantic activities with him or herself in the workplace. Again assuming that you're in the US, quid pro quo harassment is most likely prohibited by your college's sexual harassment policy. Title IX generally requires college's to have such policies.
As someone who is in a relative position of power over this student, any attempt to initiate or maintain a relationship with her is almost certain to be a violation of your school's policy, and could end up having quite serious implications for you, regardless of how your hypothetical relationship plays out. While you may view this student as being the initiating party, as the person in the relative position of power, it's your responsibility to set boundaries.
From your question, it's not clear to me exactly where you are getting the idea that this person is interested in initiating a relationship with you, so I would avoid broaching the subject directly, however you need to stop any further discussions of the sort you mention as soon as they come up by saying "I'm sorry, but that's not an appropriate topic for us to talk about". It isn't exactly what you're asking, but I can't help but notice that I don't see any evidence from your question that she's actually interested in having a relationship with you anyway. You say that you had a conversation where sex was mentioned, and that she touched your arm once. Neither of those things to me necessarily imply "interested in starting a relationship", though of course there may be other reasons that aren't in your question.
Other commenters here have suggested trying to switch teaching assignments, however I would suggest that that will not entirely mitigate the power differential necessary for quid pro quo harassment to occur. The best way to prevent her from claiming sexual harassment, is to not commit sexual harassment. It's not the answer that I think you want to hear, however it is the answer that you're likely to get from your school's HR/Title IX department.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: As a female student who is currently VERY interested in one of her TAs, I have to agree with what everyone is saying: DO. NOT. ENGAGE...
Wait until you are no longer teaching her (and there is no chance that you will ever again teach her), then feel free to accept any invitation to coffee. Asking her to coffee yourself could be risky, if it turns out that she is not as interested as you think.
If she likes you as much as I like my TA (who has unconsciously also displayed interest in me, but has been very careful to not show said interest... I have no way of knowing if he is actually interested until after the term is over, when I plan on asking him out), then she will ask you out after the term is over. If she does so beforehand, politely explain to her that it would be highly inappropriate.
At this point, it's not even smart to tell her to wait until the end of the term, because you would still be implying that you like her. You have to act uninterested until the term is over. Period. She will get it. And she will wait. Be patient, and don't obsess or it will show.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I want to give a presentation in which I want to use the title of famous books as some of the titles of my slides to add some taste to it. Am I allowed to use for example (Great Expectations) in the title of a slide regarding the copyright?<issue_comment>username_1: It sounds like you want to use these titles to help build sort of a humorous narrative. From a legal and ethical perspective, this is totally fine: you're using only a few words and in a manner that is clearly referencing the original in a transformative manner.
From a practical perspective, however, I would generally advise against this sort of humor in presentations. The reason is twofold:
1. This sort of "cute" idea is often distracting from the main narrative.
2. Different people have different senses of humor, and this is especially true with the extremely diverse cultural range that you are likely to encounter in academia. Thus, jokes are likely to fall flat with some parts of your audience.
Still, some people can make it work, and if you're a student giving a relatively low-stakes presentation, you should feel free to experiment.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Legally there are no problems. In reality I have seen successful talks including good results, bad results and ugly results, or "Do you feel lucky, punk?". I have also seen such attempts fail pretty badly, especially when the speaker referred to the same joke over and over again.
One rule which I try to follow with jokes that you must always pretend that you did not make a joke or reference.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for a PhD. There is a professor at my undergraduate institution I would like to ask for a LOR. I emailed him, but after a full week he has not replied.
From this I can infer that either he doesn't want to write the letter, or he is behind on email. I have to hope it is the latter, since he is the only professor I did research with, therefore my application would be much weaker without his letter. If he is behind on email, I have no way to tell how long it might be before he will see my email.
I would have gone in person, but I live very far away and cannot easily visit his office. Should I phone his office and:
* leave a message?
* phone during his office hours so I know he'll be there?
Applications are not due for approximately another two months; should I just wait a few more weeks before asking someone else for a (weaker) letter?<issue_comment>username_1: In general you should not call a professor unless they are expecting your call, or have a very close relationship with you (if they did, you would know). The social convention is to send him a followup email reminding him of your request.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You should first send a followup e-mail. If that does not get a response, you can try calling the department office and politely explain that you are a recent student who has been trying to ask Professor X for a letter of recommendation by e-mail and haven't heard back, and are wondering if something is going on that would make him unable to write for you. (For all you know, he might be on medical leave!)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I fully agree with username_1's answer, but therre is an other option: You might have worked with other staff (PhD candidates, post-docs, ...) in this lab. You might ask them, whether the professor is actually in the lab / office (there are things like conferences, vacations, ...). In some cases, you might find someone who will ask the professor on your behalf and this could speed up the process.
It's up to you to judge whether such an approach would fit into the institute's culture. For me, it would work (I would tell the assistant to send me a draft of the letter), but some other professors might not like it.
One additional remark: Did you send a draft for the LOR? For a professor, it takes a while to write such a letter, since you have to remember the student, remember the tasks (s)he did, write things suitable for the new position, etc. If you could send a little draft containing the main topics to be covered, together with the remark that this is just for convenience and should not influence the professors opinion, you might get a much faster reply. If it's well wirtten, you might get it back as is with some minor revisions and a signature in very little time.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I am asking this question, as my previous [question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55791/how-much-is-the-importance-of-campus-life) was closed because of being opinion-based. This made me wonder if there is a conceptual mission for higher education or not?
In most European countries, public universities receive the majority of their budget from the government, as higher education is somehow a public service, and responsibility of the government.
Imagine that all universities in Germany or Sweden decide to abandon any social activities of students. Sell all big campuses and buy modern buildings and only run the educational classes. Then, do the government, parliament, tax payers accept this policy? Is it the university's decision to make or universities have social and cultural responsibility for the society.
It was an exaggerated example, but my point is that:
Are universities simply business entities (even not for profit) to provide a service (which is educational courses) against the money they receive (from tuition or aid).
OR
They have social responsibility to make better citizens beside the professional training.
NOTE: I understand that an urban university may only offer education for a specific range of audience (for example students busy with jobs), but is it acceptable from the fundamental concepts of higher education that a university totally eliminate social activities by assuming that the main responsibility of a university is just providing high quality education.<issue_comment>username_1: This question seems to relate to a really large and *philosophical* topic. However, if I may compress a comprehensive answer into something more manageable, it might be the following set of points.
In my opinion, all universities (and other educational institutions, for that matter) indeed have a major cultural mission (regardless of public, private, for-profit, non-profit, religious affiliation or lack of it, level of social activities or any other status / attribute). Simply because education's underlying goal is people's **internal** *improvement* and/or *enrichment*, which IMHO is what **culture** all about.
Education is clearly not about learning set of facts, and even not so about helping people to acquire some knowledge, but rather it is about *developing people* into better people, who can then continue *improving themselves, others and the world* around them through *lifetime learning and enrichment*.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Almost all universities have a larger mission than simply provision of educational courses. For example, consider the mission statements of two very different publicly funded American institutions:
* [The University of Texas System](https://www.utsystem.edu/about/mission), in addition to education, aims to develop ethics and morals, appreciation of arts and culture, and prepare "educated, productive citizens who can meet the rigorous challenges of an increasingly diverse society and an ever-changing global community"
* [Bunker Hill Community College](http://www.bhcc.mass.edu/about/missionvision/) is much closer to the "pure skills" model, but still also aims to provide community leadership and to ensure that "no eligible student shall be deprived of [education] because of an inability to pay tuition and fees."
In both cases, the university is explicitly aiming to promote social and cultural change towards a society in which most people would generally prefer to live (even though the particular goals of each are different).
Now, mission statements are one thing, reality is another. Every university's leadership decides how it wants to interpret and/or modify its mission statement. Universities also generally have some sort of board overseeing it, which will attempt to guide and shape the university's actions. This is where, especially with public universities, there is often a great deal of fighting about the university mission and policies around it. For example, conservatives who are uncomfortable with the cultural broadening provided by universities often argue that a university should "just stick to teaching skills." In general, however, the faculty and leadership of most universities tend to promote some sort of cultural mission, [even if some are very different than most](http://www.bju.edu/about/mission-statement.php).
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I just started my Masters in CS at EPFL. I got accepted here with their university wide scholarship as well as a unique opportunity to do research in a lab. My problem is that the course load (typically 7-8 courses per semester) is so much for a Masters degree here that I don't have any time to dedicate to any research. Of course there is the Masters Thesis but that only comes after all course work is finished. In the mean time I see that the PhD students and other researchers in the lab are working on really interesting stuff and I won't have the time to participate in such work. So I was thinking about just applying directly to PhD programs either at EPFL or ETHZ or in schools in the United States. I wanted to do a Masters to get a better understanding of what exactly I want to research but I have realized that just by picking the research lab here at EPFL I know what field I want to do research in.
I was wondering how common it is for people to apply to PhD programs without completing their Masters studies. How should I explain this in my application, that I am deciding to leave a program? Would it be fine to explain that I am deciding to leave as I want to enter a more research oriented program? How open will admission committees be to that? Will the admission committee be worried that if I decided to leave this Masters program I might decide to leave the PhD program, which I don't intend to?
Any advice in this matter will be helpful. Thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> I was wondering how common it is for people to apply to PhD programs without completing their Masters studies.
>
>
>
In most parts of Europe, students typically have a masters degree on entry to a PhD program.
In the United States, it's quite common in many fields (including CS) for students to enter a PhD program without a masters degree. But if you start a PhD program in the United States without a masters degree, you'll just have to do the coursework that would have been part of a masters degree at the beginning of your PhD. The course load may be a little lighter, but in general, you won't have much time for research during that period, just like your current situation.
(If you enter a PhD program in the US with a masters degree you'll still have to do some additional coursework in many cases, but typically not as much.)
See [this answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/156/11365) for more details.
>
> Would it be fine to explain that I am deciding to leave as I want to enter a more research oriented program?
>
>
>
It sounds somewhat strange to leave a masters program in which you will have a chance to do research (once you've completed preliminary coursework) because you want to enter a "more research oriented program." In *any* program you enter, if you haven't taken graduate-level coursework yet, you'll probably have to do some before you can do research full-time.
---
It's perfectly understandable that you're eager to get started on research - that's a good sign. But you can't just skip your graduate-level coursework entirely - you'll have to take it somewhere, and while you're busy with that you won't have much time for research.
I suggest you try to look at look at your coursework as something that can *help* you when you finally get to start on your research. The breadth of the classes you're taking will expose you to methods and ideas that you may be able to use in interesting ways in your research. The [following advice](https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/phd-coursework-advice-my-younger-self) is really sound:
>
> What you think is useful or relevant will (probably) keep changing for a while. Everyone is, at some point during their PhD, forced to take some class they really don’t want to take. Over the past few years I walked into quite a few classes thinking they would be irrelevant or even useless. But I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge (and I really should have taken better notes!). Sure, there are classes whose value I still have to figure out (and maybe never will), but there are also classes that surprised me and others whose relevance became apparent many months after I delivered that final paper.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: PhD programs at EPFL have super low coursework requirements (12 credits over 4 years, that's basically less than 1 class every 2 semesters) because you're supposed to have passed a big bunch of "graduate courses" (US-style vocabulary) beforehand, ie. have a Master's degree.
>
> I see that the PhD students and other researchers in the lab are working on really interesting stuff and I won't have the time to participate in such work
>
>
>
That's because... you're neither a PhD student nor a researcher... just a university student, good old European style.
That's very good I'd say: you're in an excellent program that will prepare you for top-level PhD programs after you complete your Master's.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: From some discussion here, I surprisingly found (by googling) that there are some ranking for top universities for partying. From USA Today and Time to Playboy, they list top universities for party and nightlife.
I understand that there are not quantitative factors to make such rankings, but are they genuine rankings or just practical jokes?
It is a fact that some students go to university to have fun, and care about such activities in their future university. Thus, such rankings can attract some students, which is still good for a university.
My question is: Do university take such ranking seriously? I mean, are top party universities proud of this feature and advertise to attract interested students?
Universities are proud of their athletic teams, and use their achievements for advertisement, but what about partying? (I ask because this is the first time I heard about naming top universities for party).
**NOTE:** I do NOT exclusively mean **partying**. I general mean any ranking considering extra-curricula activities, any ranking based on factors other than education and research.<issue_comment>username_1: They are neither genuine nor practical jokes. They are, however, entirely made up rankings designed to sell magazines and newspapers. I doubt that universities take them seriously other than to be concerned that some students may partly choose to enroll based on them in order to take advantage of the supposed party atmosphere. No university I know of advertises its party-schoolness directly, whereas many advertise the corresponding academic rankings they receive from these publications.
Having the reputation for having a great social atmosphere might help a university increase its enrollment, but no serious university is going to try to game the metric that these publications use (if there really is one) to generate these party rankings. They do, often, [try to game the academic ranking systems](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/11/09/george-washington-u-admits-submitting-false-data-class-rank) by manipulating the data they submit. Lots of applicants care about these academic ranking measures, and so universities either need to take them seriously or [refuse to participate](https://www.reed.edu/apply/college-rankings.html).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Universities [aren't pleased](http://wtvr.com/2012/09/26/playboy-names-uva-top-party-school-uva-isnt-pleased/) about ranking highly in such competitions they didn't ask to participate in. That is at least their official position. As it might help with recruiting, some people dealing with attracting students might quietly approve; but in the same way it attracts certain people, others will be repelled. The university in the above link has a great academic reputation as well, and would probably do just fine if it didn't have this other one.
Other than "being known as a 'party school' ", or appearing in 'rankings' such as Playboy's, I don't think there is any publication that evaluates extra-curricular activities. However, schools greatly value to be seen as a good place that people like to spend their formative years at. When I was accepted for graduate school at NYU, I got hardly any information on their academic side, but a beautiful hardcover picture book on Greenwich Village. Places that don't have natural advantages still care about presenting the school and its surroundings as desirable living locations. The tongue-in-cheek "Where the hell is Grinnell?" slogan comes to mind (it's in the middle of nowhere, but both the town and school are rather beautiful). In addition to mere location, social activities on campus are certainly highlighted in information about the school, and when visiting on site.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I have written an article in Persian and then translated it into English. Is it possible to send them to two different journals (one in Iran and the other one in Belgium)?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, this is a problem. You should **not** submit the same work to more than one journal at a time. This applies regardless of language - merely being in a different language does not make the actual work unique.
Further, consider some practical considerations - a simultaneous submission means that you'll have to go through peer-review for both papers and (assuming you don't get caught and summarily rejected) presumably have to make some changes. What if the changes don't align? Now you don't have two translations of the same paper, but two subtly different papers in two languages.
If you're genuinely interested in making your paper more accessible, either post a translation online, or wait until one paper is accepted and then approach a journal in the other language about posting a translation.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Publishing the same manuscript in more than one journal at a time is technically double submission. But this wouldn't be so if you consider one as a translated version of the other after one is published as long as you make this explicitly clear in the second paper. It isn't ethically wrong to publish your research in different language as it increases the visibility of your research in the right sense.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: If you write an article in Persian, you have the legal right to translate it to English, as long as you haven't assigned the copyright to someone else (in which case, you have to obtain the right to create a derivative work from the copyright owner). Many journals require you to assign copyright when they publish an article, and require you to avow that you (still) have the right to assign that copyright. So if you have assigned the right to make copies (including translations) to one journal, you can't then truthfully vow to the other journal that you can assign the right to the derivative work in English.
Journals have two basic reasons for following a no double publishing rule. One is the aforementioned copyright problem, that it might put one journal in a bind with respect to copyright. If neither journal requires copyright assignment and only requires a non-exclusive license, then the second reason may also be applicable, which is that journals consider their space to be a valuable commodity, to be used only when there is sufficient justification. Basic academic quality is one reason, but novelty is another -- a journal's editor could well decide that it is not worthwhile to use journal space to publish a paper that has already been published.
Since this is a matter of editorial judgment, the solution is simply to ask each editor whether it is okay for you to also submit a version in the other language. If both editors agree (and assuming that you have stated the facts clearly enough), then there would be nothing problematic with submitting a version of a paper in Farsi to one journal and a version in English to another journal. Versions in French and English would be more problematic, because there is a reasonable expectation that scholars can read both languages, whereas there are relatively few areas where scholars are standardly expected to read both English and Farsi, and providing an English translation could be a significant contribution.
So, to repeat, **ask the editors**.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I do not recommend it, for the following reasons:
Firstly, because the same ideas and results will appear on two different papers, and someone that wants to credit your findings (and reads both languages) doesn't know which paper to cite.
Secondly, if I would see your Iranian paper (in journal X) cited on paper Y but I would only know the English version of it (in journal Z), I would have to check that they are, in fact, the same scientific result.
Finally, in most journals publications are required to present *new results*. Pushing your case to the edge, I could write 2 papers in English: one in such a way that only a native speaker would understand, and another that my community would understand. This is not acceptable by most journals.
There are exceptions on which publishing the same results is acceptable, for instance, some journals do not require the results to be new. In this situation, I don't see the issue.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I am following a dual degree program in my home country (Sri Lanka). One degree, B.Sc in Computer Science will be awarded by an Australian University and the other degree which is a B.Sc (Hons) in Software Engineering will be awarded by my home country University.
Will I be able to get in to an Australian PhD program without doing Masters with these two degrees?<issue_comment>username_1: Some universities let the applicants, possessing solid background from their undergraduate studies, apply for direct Ph.D.
As a matter of fact, the number of the obtained B.Sc. degrees does not matter, considerably. You better check the possibility for pursing direct Ph.D. with communicating with the coordinator of the target program.
It is suffice to say that, your proved potential ability for research (by means of any published research paper) in addition to a fascinating transcript might be necessary to hit this mark.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: The answer will depend on your grades or GPA. If you finish with First Class Honours, then you will have no problem getting into a PhD degree in Australia.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: I am an Australian PhD student. Most of my fellow students do not have a Masters.
My university lists the requirements for a PhD [here](http://www.jcu.edu.au/grs/prospective/entry/index.htm)
Of particular note:
>
> 1.1.4 To be eligible to apply for entry to a Doctoral program, an applicant must demonstrate the capacity to undertake research at the Doctoral level by the attainment of at least one of the following:
>
>
> (i) A Bachelor’s degree with at least Second Class, Division A (Honours) in a degree program that included a total of at least a semester of supervised project work, the results of which contributed to the Honours grade;
>
>
> (ii) A postgraduate qualification which included: (a) supervised research component(s) of at least one semester or equivalent and resulted in the production of output(s) graded at the equivalent of Distinction or better, and (b) at least one research methods subject;
>
>
> (iii) A Research Masters degree, where at least two thirds of the degree consisted of a supervised research component and resulted in the production of a thesis or equivalent;
>
>
> (iv) Enrolment at this or another Australian university in a higher degree by research for the equivalent of at least 0.5 EFTSL with demonstrated satisfactory performance in the supervised research component(s);
>
>
> (v) A combination of qualifications, research training and experience, considered equivalent to the above by the Responsible Academic Officer in the Enrolling Organisational Unit, e.g., senior authorship of at least one peer-reviewed publication plus completion of an appropriate research methods subject.
>
>
>
Most of the time people who get in appear to have either first class honours or some published research. I have seen domestic students with a lower GPA work with a supervisor to publish some research in order to be accepted into the PhD.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: Having done bachelors in electronics and instrumentation and a research experience in the field of image processing and computer vision and some publications in the same, what are the possible MS options where I can study computer vision and image processing? Can I opt for MS in robotics, computer science, signal processing?
My confusion is regarding the fact that I was a bachelors student in a different field. Would it be difficult for me to change to a masters program in this other field?<issue_comment>username_1: Every research option that is available can be researched in any level from bachelors to doctorate. Masters in no exception here. Only the amount of effort you put into it differs.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: There are Masters of Science programs in Computer Visions and even Computer Science that you can definitely look into. I'm not sure if your preference is to attend school online or on campus. I'm not sure of your location or budget either, so this answer will sound quite generic. However, I have included Georiga Tech's program. The Georgia Tech link is just a course in Computer Visions that's part of their Master of Science in Computer Science program. I believe their program is $7,000 (if it hadn't increased) and it's fully online. I've included their online Masters site link.
[Georgia Tech](https://www.class-central.com/mooc/1022/georgia-tech-online-master-of-science-in-computer-science-cs-4495-computer-vision)
[Georiga Tech Online Masters](http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/)
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: As a postdoc and junior faculty member I was involved in mentoring and training a PhD student who went on to a faculty position. I have now heard that the person I trained has been investigated and suspended by their university for harassing students.
Looking back I cannot think of anything that I did whilst mentoring and training to encourage this behaviour. However, neither can I think of anything I did to *discourage* it. I also can't immediately think of what I'm doing now, with current graduate students, to discourage this behaviour in the future.
What are good strategies for faculty mentoring and supervising students to reduce the chance of training a future harasser?
**EDIT**: Thanks for the answers so far. However, none have added specific strategies that I feel I could act on. As an example of what I'm looking for:
When discussing conferences that students may attend, I would talk with them about
* How good/useful the list of invited speakers and sessions looks;
* What the expected participants are like, and whether they'd be useful for their future network (is this a good/useful community to engage with);
* Whether it fits within their travel budget;
* What opportunities there are to present talks or posters;
* How useful associated training activities may be;
* Whether they'd be able to combine the conference with visits to nearby groups that may be useful;
* How it fits around other commitments in their calendar.
I am now thinking of extending this to include
* Discussions of the meeting's Code of Conduct: why having one is good, violating it is bad, and my expectation that they should follow a suitable Code of Conduct even if the meeting doesn't officially have one;
* Noting the balance and diversity of speakers (I've been doing this more anyway, but making it more explicit that this is good, and that students should interact professionally with all participants), and discussing in problematic cases if lack of diversity at a meeting indicates other problems in the community around that meeting;
* Emphasizing that students should pay attention when meeting participants talk about "personalities" in the field; that this information should be respected, listened to, and considered carefully; and that they should think about how to avoid causing the sort of problems that others discuss.
I need to consider the points that @Fomite and @D. Salo bring up, particularly how to implement a group Code of Conduct that works with, rather than at cross-purposes to, existing university policies. I'm looking for detailed ideas that I can use in other frequent interactions with students.
Finally, I refuse to believe that there's little more that can be done other than setting a good example. We continually demand improvement in our research and our teaching: in these parts of our professional lives we know that concrete, incremental steps show real gains. Building and training a community of professional researchers that act professionally in personal interactions is also part of our jobs. I don't expect perfection, but I'm extremely angry that this has happened, so I do expect improvement of myself, and I think the field should too.<issue_comment>username_1: This might prove futile, in my eyes. If you mandate something like sensitivity training, say, you will teach those naturally well-behaved little, and those who carry the germ of future mis-behavior to hide it. If you advise students from different cultures, on the other hand, it *might* help them to learn what is appropriate in yours. So in that case it might be a good idea as some mis-behavior results merely from different cultural norms (a kind and friendly Asian co-student shared a racist joke via email with *all* my school - because he didn't recognize it for what it was). For anything happening while working with you, you should make it explicitly known that you encourage your students and postdocs to talk to you should one of them feel that they were treated inappropriately by another; that you always have an open door.
<NAME> was a philosopher emperor devoted to service and tolerance; his son Commodus arguably the most wicked Roman emperor in the history of the Roman Empire. You try to set a good example, but that is probably all you can do. Don't beat yourself up over what happened.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: There was one time when a small boy at church, to my surprise, gave me two quarters. Part of my immediate thought was, "Time for a lesson in manners!" so I wrote a good, old-fashioned USPS letter thanking him and saying, "Thank you for the quarters. They came in handy." This is not a lesson in manners in the usual sense of "dressing someone down for atrocious manners"—far from it— but showing by example a kind of behavior he can imitate, and perhaps putting it on his radar that this is an example of a kind of thing people can do.
**The gesture represented in my letter may have had more force than telling him a dozen times that he should say "Thank you" when someone treats him kindly.**
Harassment is disrespect. The biggest thing you can do to influence your students is to provide a model of respect for each person you deal with, specifically including people low on the totem pole.
Two other comments:
1. Support staff are not furniture. There is no obligation to become best friends, but it is good practice to say "Thank you" to anyone who helps you, particularly support staff, and it takes a scant second to say "Hi" and smile or wave when passing e.g. a front desk, and perhaps include them among the people whose names you learn. You might, if there's a convenient or teachable moment, invite others to join you in recognizing that support staff are not furniture. This may influence people *a fortiori* to see harassment as wrong.
2. It is known to have happened that a professor at an MBA program has placed on the last question of a final exam, "What is the name of the person who empties the trash on your floor of the dorm?"
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm very sorry you're dealing with this. For what it's worth, you didn't "train" this harasser to harass.
The activity around conference codes of conduct and similar advances in IT environments suggests that one key to building a healthy environment is making entirely clear that *harassment of any kind* (and be specific about kinds!) will not be tolerated, and being fully prepared to back that up with action.
Whatever rules, policy, or similar documentation you have for your lab, consider adding a code of conduct to it. Bone up on your institution's harassment policies and the reporting chain for non-academic misconduct, so that if something happens you're not caught slackjawed wondering what to do. Make clear that you consider a harassment claim to be serious business, and that you will back up victims in any proceedings they see fit to start. (You don't want to promise *you* will instigate proceedings, because that decision would ideally be left to the person harassed. You can promise to stand behind whatever that person decides.)
The salutary effects are at least two: potential harassers will be warned away, and if (heaven forbid) an incident should happen, you'll have a clear plan to deal with it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Echoing some of the other comments, I think the key is to create an environment where it's clear that kind of behavior isn't acceptable, and to act in a way where students and trainees can pattern off you. This will of course not stop *everything*, but they represent positive steps. Some examples:
* Consciously treat staff and students with respect - it doesn't have to be cloying, but there's no reason to treat department admins, lab techs, IT people etc. as anything other than professionals. Similarly, treat *all* students with respect.
* Be conscious about your implicit biases. Sit down and think about your students, staff, colleagues, etc. Do women tend to get steered more toward "soft skills" tasks? Do things tend to automatically go the way of the person who spoke first or most? Are you inviting speakers such that students in your department can see "someone like them" thriving in the field?
* Make it clear that harassment doesn't fly with you. Don't dismiss poor behavior because someone is brilliant, or because "Everyone knows theoreticians don't have any social skills" or that's just how things are. One of the problems with harassment in academia is the feeling that one can get away with it - that the environment protects and supports those who prey on those who are less powerful.
* Show that you care for victims. If a harassment incident comes forward, show concerns for the *victims*, not how this is going to impact the perpetrator's career. Similarly, if someone comes to you with their concerns, take them seriously.
[Hope Jahren](http://hopejahrensurecanwrite.com) has some excellent essays on the subject.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I don't think anything you said or could have said, would have changed the outcome of what was set in stone long ago.
Although I do not have a PhD, a doctorate, nor any other type of college degree. What I do have is compassion for others & an abundance of common sense. And the reason for it, I believe , is because over time it was bread into me by my parents, my family and the type of surroundings I was exposed to during my adolescent time of life.
Harassing is just another word for bullying. And when someone harasses or bully's someone , it's all about controlling someone else.
What I have seen in the world during my life , is that if you take a group of people who have all been bullied in some way during their life time , you won't see the whole group become compassion for others with the attitude that they would never do that to someone because they know what it's like to be on the receiving end of it.
I can tell you for a fact, that there are people who are put in positions of control ( like police officers) who were bullied when they were younger, like in Jr high & high school, who now have the position of power.
The man or woman at work who was promoted, and now can get back at the certain person they didn't like in the office who always gave them the shit jobs.
Because there are some people that when bullied long enough, there basically becomes a peak that they reach. And when they finally reach that pointed plateau and have had enough of it, they now figure , OK now it's my turn.
I have the position to do it now.
So I believe this type of behavior can only come from how you were raised and/or the type of environment you are or were exposed to in your life.
I think if you had a mother or father , a few school teachers or even a neighborhood bully that you were always on the offensive with while growing up, it becomes part the adult behavior for some people to be that of "the controller" instead of being controlled.
For some, there is that certain thing inside a person that just won't let anyone or anything break through , so you can talk your head off till doomsday , their attitude on life won't change.
Just my opinion
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I was curious, what is academia's perspective on the following type of student, assuming that the student is well qualified via research experience, letters of recommendation, grades, GRE, passion, and other things CV related:
The student is very, very good at asking innovative questions and proposing difficult questions that others have not thought about, that is they can see the current landscape of their field and understand it really well. However, innately, they are not a good problem SOLVER. They can pretty much do a minute portion of problem solving in research, but it's something akin to hinting (ambiguous solutions that need a third party to think hard about implementation). They can solve solve problems as per their curricula (and thus get a high GPA), but not unsolved problems in academia. Moreover, it helps that they are a brilliant communicator and writer.
The reason why I ask is because I have a friend who fits the description above. That friend is heavily, heavily revered by his PI who absolutely loves him. One of the primary reasons is because my friend's questions have been the basis for many grants (which he also writes with the consultation of my professor), resulting in a large influx of funding for my professor. The professor, as a thinker, would be qualitatively put as "above average", and is a hybrid between a thinker and a doer. Everyone else in the lab is a lab technician, and there are a couple of postdocs. What's interesting is that the lab has really good chemistry. My friend comes up with an idea, runs it by the PI. The PI, who has insight checks it off or guns the idea down depending on the context. The PI also proposes solutions. Next, the technicians and postdocs who are highly skilled in procedure and are the tangible hands that make the results happen in real life as per the instructions of the PI. The PI admits that they don't have the innate vision to ask these questions, but given the questions can crank out a solution with the lab technicians. It's a little scary to think that for the past 2 years, an undergraduate has been the mind behind pretty much all of the sub-experiments and directions of my institution's top labs by funding and results. The PI has received tenure as a result. What's interesting is, by speculation, no one can survive without the other. Well, the PI could technically survive, but would be reduced to doing his previous projects. However, without an army of skilled labor and a PI as an intermediary, my friend cannot get anything done. My friend wants to move to a different institution for pedigree as he receives an advanced degree. My friend is an abysmal doer, and cannot learn at an appreciable rate.
By abysmal doer, I mean (by his own admission), sometimes clumsy with the hands, sometimes randomly lacks motivation, and when focused, is "slow" in picking up a step by step procedure. For example, we took an upper level chemistry course together for a science elective. He can easily explain PCR on paper and orally, with much deeper insight and implications than a textbook, so you know he's not memorizing. But come in the lab, he looks totally clueless and out of place, looks at the reagents like they're foreign substances.
Outside of being a theoretician (for example a theoretical physicist, something my friend ironically does not want to pursue), can my friend survive in graduate school?<issue_comment>username_1: A PhD student needs to "do" massive amounts of work, but it's the analysis work that needs to be done personally, not the lab work. He may be expected to do lab work personally, or have trouble finding someone willing to do it, but if he does find a team like the one he is in now, having help from technicians won't bar him from theorizing, analyzing lab results, and presenting an effective thesis. (Naturally credit should be given, the student should not claim to have mixed reagents if he did not).
Really, it's the role currently served by the PI (proposing solutions) where your friend desperately needs to develop skills in order to successfully complete doctoral studies. Of course, this does require familiarity with lab procedure -- some things aren't possible, and things that go wrong need to be accounted for when evaluating results.
But you already knew this -- your question title focuses on the "problem solver" aspect, not lab technique.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This is a beautiful question. I will focus on generalities since I am a pure mathematician myself with no experience in the practical aspects of your field. I believe science has much need for people like your friend, and he can and clearly already does bring a lot of value to the scientific enterprise. **The key for him is to be in an environment where he can collaborate with others who have skills complementary to his**, as in the current situation. I think the history of science probably offers some famous examples of collaborations that achieved some fantastic breakthrough when one of the collaborators was a great thinker and a poor doer, and the other was the opposite. (I admit I can't think of any specific ones right now, but the idea sounds familiar and maybe others can comment with such examples).
As for your friend's lack of practical skills and "doer" mentality, given that he is only an undergraduate it is probably too soon to get concerned. He has plenty of time to continue working on improving these areas of weakness. Researchers mature with age and experience and sometimes become surprisingly good at things at which they used to be quite bad.
So: **can your friend survive graduate school?** That seems impossible to predict; I think the possibilities are that he may have a really hard time because of his practical clueslessness; he may be able to make up for it with his theoretical brilliance and strategic collaboration with others; or he may be able to work on his limitations to the point of completely overcoming them.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Be careful. Interesting conjectures, new ideas are a dime a dozen. The hard work of proving (or disproving) conjectures, and working out the implications of new ideas to see if they turn out useful or are just ephemeral fireworks *are* the real center of any science.
Just go search in e.g. Wikipedia for conjectures, there are many famous ones (and literally hundreds of less well known ones).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I would recommend, in the strongest possible terms, that your friend try to remain with his current PI, at least until he has some significant papers with his name on them.
There are tons of analytical people who have good ideas and know how to ask good questions. It is difficult for most people, even near the top of the academic ladder, to tell the difference between a good question/idea and a great one. The people whose questions get listened to are those who either (a) have the power to investigate their own questions, or (b) have such a high record of success that investigators will choose that person's questions over their own. Your friend has managed to achieve (b), in the eyes of your professor, without going through (a). This situation is incredibly rare, and he will not likely find it with another professor. Instead, he may end up trying to investigate his new PI's (less interesting) questions until he can prove his competency; and if this never happens, his voice might be lost to science, indistinguishable from that of a myriad of crackpots (in spite of his new institution's pedigree). If his question-asking ability is as exceptional as you say, this would be a great pity.
**Important caveat:** This all hinges on the assumption that your description of your friend's situation is entirely accurate. If your professor has been exaggerating your friend's contributions to encourage him, for instance, or if your friend has deceived himself about his own importance, then all bets are off. In fact, this is likely what other PIs will assume has happened if your friend tells them his story the way you have, which is a good reason for staying with the PI who already values him.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I understand that it is a good idea to publish my working papers and preprints so that they are accessible to other researchers. But there are many different ways to do this, e.g:
* ResearchGate;
* arXiv;
* CiteULike;
* Academia.edu;
* The university website;
* My personal website;
etc...
Is it a good idea to put my working papers in all these websites?
An apparent advantage is that it increases the visibility of the paper (however, with Google Scholar, I am not sure it matter).
An apparent disadvantage is that, if I update the working paper, I have to remember to update it in all these places. Otherwise I risk having old versions of my working papers flying around the web.<issue_comment>username_1: One, well selected, place should be plenty. That way you'll have only one set of conditions and one stream of comments to consider, and one place to update. Be careful, some venues forbid previous publishing, you have to make sure they don't refuse the work later because one of the sites they consider "previous publication". There will probably some "technical report" series locally, that would generally not be an impediment.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: No, there is no need to. Uploading to Arxiv is more than enough. Your Google scholar profile finds all arxiv papers and will notify those who follow your work about your new paper. You can also add a link to the arxiv PDF in your university and personal page. That way, you will only have to update the arxiv version of your paper, without having to ever update again your personal and university webpage.
For academia.edu and researchgate I would never bother to upload PDFs. If someone is interested in your work and cannot google your name to find the arxiv uploaded version, then I doubt you will get anything meaningful or useful (e.g., citation, collaboration) from such a person, no matter where you upload your papers.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently a junior in mathematics at UIUC. I have been doing pretty well in my math courses (mostly A and A+). I will be completing a graduate course in topology, a second course in abstract algebra, and a complex analysis course before I graduate. I feel that I can work hard to maintain good grades in my math courses, but my non-math courses are not that good (some B and C's).
* Do graduate schools care more about my math courses grades more or my general GPA more?
* Will poorer marks in non-math courses hurt my chances of getting into good grad schools?<issue_comment>username_1: That very much depends on the local situation. It is impossible to give a general answer. Each committee member will have *her own* weighting criteria, then they discuss each case, and end up in some consensus.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: (I am a tenured professor in the math department at UGA who was on the committee that did graduate admissions for four years.)
If we have to make a choice, then math graduate programs definitely care more about your math GPA than your undergraduate GPA. We also care, equally, that you take the most challenging and graduate-preparatory math courses that can. So a math GPA which is close to 4.0 including year long courses in analysis and algebra, some exposure to geometry and/or topology and at least one graduate course would make you a strong candidate for most graduate programs in mathematics. Certainly one or two subpar grades in other courses are easy to ignore.
Having said that, it would still be better if you got good grades in all your courses, and admissions programs do care about that to an extent. [**Added**: Wait, I didn't say exactly what I meant here. Not good grades in *all* your courses, but good grades in *most* of your courses, as reflected by a good GPA. We will almost never look at individual course grades outside of mathematics and very closely related fields.] Here are some reasons:
1) If you have across the board difficulty with courses in the humanities and social sciences, then that signifies either a lack of linguistic or writing skills or an inability to focus on a single topic (generally you spend longer writing a paper than doing a single problem set, and the paper itself is one big task whereas the problem set is a collection of largely independent smaller tasks). But skills in language and writing and the ability to focus on a single topic both play a larger role in the study of mathematics at the graduate level (and beyond) than the undergraduate level. This kind of poor performance would be exacerbated by a subpar GRE verbal score, and conversely a high GRE verbal score would partially offset it.
2) Some academic scholarships take your overall GPA into account. At my university eligibility for the highest class of internal graduate scholarship is determined by the student's "academic index", which is calculated using their GRE scores and *overall* GPA. This may be a more extreme situation than the norm, but in my experience many if not most scholarship winners are students of the *bulletproof credentials* variety.
3) In line with the above, you have to remember that the graduate admissions process is *highly competitive*. Most math PhD programs in the US only admit students who are fully funded, and therefore by no means could we admit all fully qualified applicants. (Even without funding it is clear that finiteness conditions on the faculty, the course offerings, the facilities and so forth must impose an upper limit.) So if for instance you have a 3.8 math GPA and 3.0 general GPA, you will almost certainly be ranked ahead of candidates with a 3.0 math GPA and a 3.8 general GPA (assuming other factors, mainly the difficulty of courses and the quality of recommendation letters) are equal. But you will be ranked behind some students with a 3.8 math GPA and a 3.8 general GPA. Such students exist, and it only makes sense to take this information into account.
My best advice to you is to realize that your overall GPA counts for something and therefore do whatever you can to get strong grades in all your courses *without sacrificing* your efforts in your mathematics courses. Something that you might want to think about: **why** are you not doing as well in your non-math courses as you are in your math courses? I can't think of an answer that wouldn't point the way to room for improvement. Some possible answers:
* English is not your first language, and your reading / writing skills place you at a serious disadvantage in certain courses.
This is a very particular situation. If you're in it, you should take pains to demonstrate that your English skills are *good enough*. Probably you should take and do well on the TOEFL or similar exams. You should also mention in your personal statement that English is not your first language *but have the English in your personal statement be flawless*. The point is that if you're a foreigner and you're English is okay but not as good as the natives, then as time passes it will get better and be less of an issue. Also a C grade in, say, a Shakespeare class by a non-native speaker has a totally different meaning from the same grade by a native speaker. The admissions panel will cut you some slack for that provided they believe that your English skills are good enough for you to be successful in the program.
* You think it is not possible to give the attention you need to your math coursework as well as your general education requirements.
It certainly is possible. The students who are winning the Putnam, taking graduate courses in their sophomore year, publishing solo papers in serious journals...are usually also excelling at all their courses. My own view, which I think is probably shared by many math admissions committee members, is that advanced math courses are *much harder* than general education requirements. If you read the assigned materials, can think and write clearly, and give yourself enough time to write suitably and according to the requirements of the assignment, you'll get good grades in these courses. It does not even necessarily take more time to get an A- in a humanities class than a B-: it's more a matter of having your act together. (In math courses I have seen students stretch themselves to their limit to get a C and actually been quite proud of their achievement.)
* You haven't mastered the skills necessary to succeed in writing-intensive courses.
As above: you should work on this before you get to grad school.
* You don't take these courses seriously and didn't realize that graduate schools do.
Well, we do. Most academics take *all academics* seriously: generically speaking we are "overachiever types" across the board. If you look through the profiles of award-winning undergraduates, you will usually see that they graduated *summa cum laude*, at the top of their class, as a student marshall...whatever is the local form of highest honors. Success in one academic discipline is undeniably positively correlated with success in another academic discipline. This is far from logical necessity, but it's out there and we do take it into account.
**Added**: Since I wrote this answer, I became the Graduate Coordinator for the math department at UGA. So this topic is much more vivid in my mind now. Here's what I can report: **most applicants have very good GPAs**. The median undergraduate GPA (all classes) of all our applicants this year is around 3.7. I dug a little deeper, and among American students there is a high correlation between undergraduate GPA and other metrics (including various GRE scores). Let me also say that we looked specifically for candidates with very low GPAs but did not reject any for this reason *alone*. Interestingly, many of the (not many) applicants with very low undergraduate GPAs also had not great undergrad performances in math but had nevertheless gone on to a master's program (not at Princeton...) and put up a much more respectable graduate performance. The brilliant math student who blows off all their other classes is indeed not much seen by us.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I've done graduate admissions for a while at a... well, suffice it to say, "higher ranked" (whatever that means) school than UGA. No, I don't care if your grades in "Poetry for Perfectoids" suck, or "Machiavelli for Morons". Just please don't have your grades in statistics (i.e. graduate level probability, etc.) classes that suck if you say you're interested in working in probability in your statement, etc. By and large people in my department on graduate admissions share my philosophy, and many of my coauthors at similarly ranked schools feel the same way, although your mileage may vary depending on who specifically reads your application.
EDIT: My goal in posting on this site is to communicate helpful answers without having to deal with couching in my answers in politically correct nonsense. The last time I had my name attached to one of my answers on a certain practice in the profession (not on this site, but elsewhere on the internet), I got tons of nonsense I did not want to deal with for not couching my answer in a more politically correct fashion. How many times must one qualify their answers so that their younger and supposedly more empathetic towards students colleagues find it acceptable? So that is why I am anonymous on this site.
When I mean "I don't care" here, it means that it does not affect an applicant adversely, for the purposes of admissions or likelihood of receiving the more selective extra money you alluded to if their non-math GPA is lower (bar the exceptional cases I mentioned above). Conversely, if you have a perfect non-math GPA, great, more power to you, but it won't really affect my decision to admit/reject, give you the extra money, etc. And yes, while most people we admit have great track records all across the board, we do quite frequently admit those with crappy grades in non-math courses.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I am interested in compiling a list of learning dependencies by subject matter. E.g., you must know certain kinds of algebra before you can learn certain aspects of trig, and you must know how to add before you can do certain kinds of algebra.
This kind of hierarchy could be applied to math, computer science, biology, written/spoken languages, etc.
Is there a project like this already established? Is there a field of study that concentrates on an idea similar to this?<issue_comment>username_1: While the term "learning hierarchies" is used quite often, I think that either *learning dependencies* or *learning prerequisites* would be a more accurate term (the latter is obviously more often used in the education process context, i.e. see [this page](http://www.ucsd.edu/catalog/courses/MATH.html) and [this page](http://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs/Curriculum/dependencies.html), while the former IMHO carries a more general knowledge acquisition connotation). While I am not aware of any *cross-disciplinary (interdisciplinary)* dependencies in an academic context, from a *general knowledge management* perspective, I would refer to [ontology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology) and [taxonomy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_%28general%29) as the relevant topics. One of general learning taxonomies (important from pedagogical standpoint) is [Bloom's taxonomy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_taxonomy), however, your question, as I understand it, asks for *domain-aware learning taxonomies*.
Having said that, let's focus on mathematics, for illustrative purposes and due to its general nature. The following are some relevant and/or related math-related (except the last item) resources that you might find useful in the context of your question.
* The [*Further Mathematics Support Programme* prerequisites](http://www.furthermaths.org.uk/prereqs) (see linked documents)
* Classic 1981 paper ["Hierarchies in mathematics education"](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00305622) by <NAME>
* ["An Educational Ontology for Teaching University Courses"](http://www.icvl.eu/2011/disc/icvl/documente/pdf/met/ICVL_ModelsAndMethodologies_paper08.pdf) by <NAME> (research paper, presenting an interesting ontology-based and discipline-independent approach to learning)
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I think that prerequisites do not apply to topics and subjects, but to lectures and books. For example, I can tell you what you have to know to follow my course on calculus, but it is quite difficult to say what you have to know before you can understand a derivative. You can either take the real numbers for granted, or give a fake-definition via Cauchy-sequences or Dedikind cuts, or give a real definition within the framework of a fixed set theory. Bourbakists would choose the latter, while all courses I know, which are actually aimed at first year students, pick one of the first two options.
Another problem is that prerequisites are subject to substitutions. If subject A is considered important, and subject B is not part of the mainstream, a lecture on A will rather make detours than using B, while a lecture on B will freely use everything from subject A. For example, the fundamental theorem of algebra is most often proven by complex analytic or topological, and not by real analytic or algebraic means. The reason is simply that most people learn complex analysis before they learn Galois theory, and the real analytic proof is more computational, i.e. not "nice".
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I wonder how you keep tracks of what you've been reading **over the years**. I'm not talking about things that are 'relevant' and 'precious' to your academic work (to that end, all hail to EndNote or Docear and such, perhaps), but I'm keen to know how you track the 'miscellaneous' books you have in your personal library and other reading materials that you've laid your hands and eyes on in some other 'unusual' contexts.
**How do you help yourself with remembering some dots (over the years) so that you have an even better chance to connect the dots?**
[Story time, skip if you please] When I was 6 and started to have some sort of grasp of the alphabet , I was immediately told to make a 'Book of Books' by my godmother. It was a spiral notebook dedicated to the purpose of keeping tracks of all the things I was reading with details such as "title", "author", "page no.", "fav. quotes", and "one-liner summary". I also used colors, stickers and colossal-sized drawings/mind-maps while doing my catalogue work; simply because - ehem - the more stuff I filled up in there, the more sweets and ice-cream I got from my godmother. I kept up with this practice until I was 10 (then all good things come to an end, they say). Anyways, I love this spiral notebook to pieces, and to this date whenever I look at it I can vividly recall the books that appeared in my life around that time. It's been super helpful and wonderful.
[Q&A time] Now at age 26, I'm at a loss as to how to produce something similar: something simple enough but effective enough. I've tried to do it both manually (notebook/folder) and digitally (Excel spreadsheet/Goodreads) but nothing works anymore and nothing feels the same anymore.
With good old-fashioned lists, it's hard to retrieve things sometimes and it's almost impossible to 'share' it with anyone else. With catchy modern things, I can see book covers and retrieve/share book lists/recommendations with ease, that's wonderful. But because of this there's just too much 'noise' and 'temptation', and it's not like my life isn't miserable enough with Facebook and other ADHD-inducing platforms.
Please help! Any recommendation is much appreciated. How do you (digitally) track your personal libraries over the years?<issue_comment>username_1: I use a wiki these days! I've been using a personal wiki to collect notes about everything I learn, read and watch since last year and it's great. I've installed a [DokuWiki](https://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki#) on my personal website, and it's like my micro-wikipedia.
Installation is not complicated and anyone willing to tinker with tech should be able to find a way to get it working in a couple of hours.
Before that, I've used Evernote, and also note taking capabilities of my kindle for that.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The online service [librarything](https://www.librarything.com/home) can help you with this. You can use it to catalogue all your books. Records can be added by searching for book records in Amazon and other sources, or you can manually add or import book records. You can add your notes in the 'private comments' section.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/10/11
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<issue_start>username_0: Let me explain in more detail... I currently occupy a fixed-term temporary faculty position that is set to expire at the end of this academic year. The position I have now will go up for a national search for a tenure-track appointment starting next academic year.
My current department head and Dean both have repeatedly expressed their desire that I apply for the tenure-track position and I intend to. However, there's no guarantee that I'll keep this position and I want to be employed next Fall. I have found another position that would be a good fit in case my current position goes to someone else (a very real possibility as my field has many qualified applicants and few jobs) and as part of their application they want current letters of recommendation.
I know my department head and Dean both would recommend me highly, but I see a potential conflict of interest. I'm also unsure if asking them for recommendations could be perceived as a slight and I don't want to burn any bridges at my current position because keeping it would be my first choice.
Another complicating factor is that this is my first university position and all other potential references either worked with me as a student or professional colleague in a non-academic capacity.
Any advice on the best course of action to take in my position?<issue_comment>username_1: If your current position is your favourite, you can be completely honest with your superiors and tell them what you wrote in your question. In this way you send out several positive signals: You do not take the tenure track position for granted, someone else is interested in you as well, and you are mobile. However, if it should happen that you get two offers and you pick the other one, they might feel cheated. So if the other position is your favourite, you might try to get your recommendations somewhere else, e.g. from people you know from conferences.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Without further information, I would assume the department head and dean will behave ethically and ignore the conflict of interest. They should understand you want to hedge against losing the competition for the tenure track position. Therefore you could use them as references.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: The conflict of interest you are describing is extremely common. The variation of it that I have seen most often is this: Dr. X works at department Y. She does great work and either already has tenure or knows that she is almost certain to get it, but for one reason or another is thinking of moving to another institution. She applies for jobs. Naturally, her current colleagues, who know her extremely well and have been internally evaluating her for years, are some of the people most qualified to offer an opinion about her, so she would like to ask one or more of her senior department colleagues for a letter. This leads to precisely the question you are asking.
I have personally seen this situation from all three perspectives: that of the candidate, that of the letter writer, and that of the letter reader at the other institution. As the letter reader, I noticed that it is common for the letter to contain a statement like "Dr. X is a terrific candidate. You would be very lucky to hire her, and we would be extremely sorry if she were to leave our department, but I understand that she has reasons to seek other opportunities elsewhere." Note that this situation actually can end up making the letter stronger, since the writer has an opportunity to express their feelings about the personal stake they have in the candidate's future.
Moreover, my observation based on those experiences is that because this situation is so common, a norm has developed whereby it is strongly expected that the letter writer overcome whatever tendency they might have had to selfishly sabotage the candidate's chances by writing a weak letter. To do otherwise would not only be unethical and worthy of criticism in the ordinary, obvious sense that would exist even without the norm, but I feel that because of this norm there is a sense of "karma" (for lack of a better word) that pervades this particular kind of situation; a kind of "how would you feel if this were done to you?" sort of thing, or an expectation that the letter writer be extra good at putting themselves in the shoes of the other person, so as to make themselves able to restrain whatever demons they have sitting on their shoulders and whispering nasty ideas to them.
With this somewhat philosophical analysis in mind, my practical advice is identical to that of @AnonymousPhysicist, namely that, barring any specific reasons you have for thinking that the department chair and dean are dishonest people and will behave unethically in this situation, your best bet is to put your faith in their sense of professionalism and ask them for a letter.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: There should be no issue here. Since you can't be guaranteed a position next fall it is perfectly reasonable for you to seek other positions in case the tenure track position is filled by someone else. Your current employer must surely know you would be applying wherever you could, that is only prudent. Assuming everyone is behaving ethically, no one should have any issue writing a letter of recommendation for you.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I narrowed the outperformed in this question to the US and UK, but please feel free to include other First World nations' universities (eg: Canada, France).
[[Source:]](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55792/why-are-most-of-the-top-universities-american#comment129349_55807) The top American universities didn't really compare to the best in Germany, France, or the UK before then.
[This subsequent question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55792/why-are-most-of-the-top-universities-american#comment129600_55807) inducted this post.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't know whether you're asking "How did they do it?" or "How do we know they were better?", but I will try to answer the second question.
I went to the [Nobel website sorted by affiliated university](http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/universities.html) and counted the countries and years there (no guarantee that I didn't miscount or something).
I chose this source and not the [Wikipedia list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation), because on the Nobel page, each researcher is only once and only Physics, Chemistry, Economy, and Medicine are counted.
Top Nobel-Prize winning **Nations 1901-1930**: Germany (28), UK (16), France (15), USA, Netherlands, Sweden (6 each).
Top Nobel-Prize winning **Nations 1931 - 1960**: USA (61), UK (23), Germany (22), Russia (6).
Top Nobel-Prize winning **Nations 1961 - 1990**: USA (128), UK (31), Germany (13), Switzerland (11).
Top Nobel-Prize winning **Nations 1991 - 2015**: USA (166), UK (20), France, Japan (14 each), Germany (12).
In this very limited view of research history, Germany seems to have been more prolific in research in the first third of the 20th century than the other countries.
Since the second third of the 20th century, the USA is the clear leader.
Because the linked question asked about the top universities, here they are:
Top Nobel-Prize winning **Universities 1901-1930**: Sorbonne University, Paris, France (6),
Goettingen University, Göttingen, Germany (5),
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (4),
Berlin University, Berlin, Germany (4),
Munich University, Munich, Germany (4).
Top Nobel-Prize winning **Universities 1931 - 1960**: University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA (7),
Columbia University, New York, NY, USA (7),
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA (5),
University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom (5),
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (4),
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, USA (4).
Top Nobel-Prize winning **Universities 1961 - 1990**: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA (16),
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA (10),
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (7),
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, USA (7),
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA (7),
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA (7),
Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA (7).
Top Nobel-Prize winning **Universities 1991 - 2015**:
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA (9),
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA (8),
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA (8),
Columbia University, New York, NY, USA (8),
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA (7),
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA (7).
*Warning, pure speculation ahead!*
My theory is that the possibility to travel played a role in this. At the beginning of the 20th century, we have Europe with its long research tradition and many established universities on one side of the Atlantic ocean and the USA with comparatively young universities on the other side. Crossing usually took weeks on a ship, so it was a bit more difficult for the american universities to hire great scientists and to participate in academic exchange.
This started to change when the first scheduled trans-atlantic passenger flights were offered in 1931. Nowadays, we can collaborate with any researcher in the world via skype, meet at conferences all across the globe, and moving across the atlantic for a postdoc doesn't mean that you won't get to see your family again for centuries.
For some less speculative reasons why the US outperformed Germany after 1930, see [username_2s answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/75407/13138).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Prior to the 1930s, Germany had some of the world's oldest and best universities. This is largely a [due to historical reasons discussed in this article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_European_research_universities)
But what changed in the 1930s? Rather than ask why German Universities out performed US universities before the 1930s, perhaps a better question would be *"Why did US universities out perform German universities after the 1930s?"*
I would answer that by saying the two events caused the change. First, the influx of refuge scientists prior to World War II boosted US Science (e.g., [this article](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/august/german-jewish-inventors-081114.html)). Probably the most famous scientist to flee Germany to the US was <NAME>.
Second, the US funded science much better than Germany after World War II. This extra funding was partially done out of fear of Soviet science and partially an artifact that the US economy was the only one not destroyed or heavily damaged by the war. ([This article talks about US Science funding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_policy_of_the_United_States) and provides more insight into this specific topic)
Also during the post-war period, many scientists choose to come to the US because of research opportunities. As described in the book *Moon Shot*, <NAME> chose to surrender to the US because he knew only the US and Russia would have the resources for a space program (he surrender was part of [Operation Paperclip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip)). He chose the US because he would rather live here.
Similarly, many scientist immigrants continue to chose the US because of opportunities not available in their homelands. The NSF describes this [here](https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=136430).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: There was, and still is, a strong anti-intellectual current in U.S. socio-economic and cultural life, in contrast to the cultures of UK, France, and Germany (for example). The pretense is "practicality", so that (in my own experience) <NAME>, one of the original donors of Purdue University in Indiana, specifically prohibited the teaching of Latin or Greek, and playing of string instruments (as opposed to "band music", which in English means woodwinds and percussion). What I recall from childhood is an exaggerated emphasis on practicality, and a belief that everything can be made *fairly* simple: not really "simple", perhaps, but that all the crazy "European science" (e.g., quantum physics) was "making things more complicated than they needed to be"... since, surely, some good measurements in experiments would do better.
In the mid 20th century, too, in mathematics, there was a backlash against the "fancy" European mathematics, manifest in many textbooks, which I will not name.
So, yes, in some regards the post-WWII (and atom bomb) era, and the post-Sputnik era, and the post-emigre era, were a very different phase for U.S. academic mathematics (and other basic science). E.g., earlier, <NAME> *tried* to get a math program moving at Johns Hopkins, but was mostly frustrated, and departed. There was simply no niche in U.S. culture then (or now, actually) which would allow it to make sense...
My own perception of the current "boom" is that it is not really a boom any more, since things have mostly collapsed back to a hyper-utilitarian scenario... easy to justify to constituencies who are themselves inadvertently short-term-hyper-utilitarian, or otherwise ... compromised.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: Do case reports involving people with medical ailments require ethical approvals? If they do not, then why?
I am located in Sweden, but am (almost) equally interested in conditions elsewhere.<issue_comment>username_1: From a legal point of view, in the United States, preparation of a case report for publication does not require review by the ethics board because case reports do not meet the legal definition of "research" (according to most interpretations):
>
> Case reports submitted for publication do not strictly meet the criteria of research. Although a case report (defined as a retrospective analysis of one (1), two (2), or three (3) clinical cases) may be illustrative, it does not meet the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects definition of Research, which requires an investigation that contributes to generalizable knowledge about a disease or condition. Instead, a case report is intended to develop information to be shared for medical or educational purposes.
>
>
>
(Source: [Tufts](http://viceprovost.tufts.edu/HSCIRB/case-reports/))
Many institutions therefore do not require any kind of review for publishing case reports. For example:
>
> Q: Do faculty who prepare a case report as an article for submission to a journal require IRB approval prior to preparation?
>
>
> No. A case report is a medical/educational activity that does not meet the DHHS definition of “research”, which is: "a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge." Therefore, the activity does not have to be reviewed by a JHM IRB.
>
>
>
(Source: [John Hopkins Medicine](http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/institutional_review_board/guidelines_policies/guidelines/case_report.html))
(Another example: [University of Wisconsin - Madison](https://kb.wisc.edu/hsirbs/page.php?id=18866))
(Another example: [Columbia](http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/irb/policies/documents/CaseReportPolicy.013111.FINAL.pdf))
As pointed out by [Fomite](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118/fomite), some institutions have an IRB make the determination that a study is "not human subjects research" even for a case study. For example:
>
> A number of studies submitted to the UNC-Chapel Hill IRB are deemed “not human subjects” research which means, once reviewed and so designated, no further involvement with the IRB is needed unless a change in the study might alter that decision. This designation can be given to studies that involve human beings but are not considered to be research in the federal regulations (e.g., not systematic, as in single subject case studies and/or are not designed to contribute to generalizeable knowledge, as in program evaluation or quality improvement projects) or when information is collected from humans but is not about them (e.g, a survey of public health department directors about the content of programs offered). When a student has a study that might qualify for a “not human subjects research” designation from the IRB, the online IRB application will be shortened considerably. Once submitted, the IRB will review the application and let the student know if it agrees with the “not human subjects research” determination. If it does not agree, then a longer IRB application will be necessary.
>
>
>
(Source: [UNC Nursing](http://nursing.unc.edu/current-students/student-handbook/human-subjects-approval/))
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In the US, under the common rule, the answer is generally no, because reporting on the cases of patients who were treated in the ordinary way doesn't constitute "research" in the sense defined by the common rule as
“a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.”
However, if the case report involves several patients, this could at some point cross the line over into research. A widely used rule is that case reports involving 3 or fewer patients are exempt. If you're considering writing a case report you should check with your institution's IRB about specific policy at your institution. You will most likely want/need to get a document from your IRB stating that the case report is exempt.
Buyer beware, Your Mileage May Vary, etc. I'm a member of the IRB at an institution that doesn't have a medical school so we don't handle case reports.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/10/12
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<issue_start>username_0: In my university, some, but not all, professors upload online the grades of every student and their names next to them a few days before making them final at the end of the semester. This is done to give a chance to the students to point out any mistakes the professor may have made.
No one other than the students can see the final grades. When the professor uploads the non-final grades, they are visible by everyone.
Since few people get good grades, others are jealous of them. Long story short, I really have an issue with this.
Is it unreasonable to ask my professors to email my grades instead of uploading them online, like they do with everyone else? What other alternatives do I have?
I live in a European country.<issue_comment>username_1: My experience from European universities is that even there, the grades should not be posted by name, but instead by a student ID number. However, in most cases, the university *requires* the public posting of the grades in such a manner (for exactly the reasons you suggest—to allow for petitioning of changes in grade).
Moreover, because of the large number of students who may be taking a course, it can be highly impractical for the teaching staff to respond to individual requests for reporting grades by email. (Imagine having to send out 1800 emails for a single course!)
Consequently, while you might ask for anonymizing of the grade reports by student ID instead of name, I think it would be unfair to ask the professors to report individual grades by email, unless you have an exceptional and demonstrated need for such an email (for instance, you are unable to get your grade because of extended absence without Internet access).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think your request is very reasonable and what your professors do is unethical and likely illegal¹ (not that I would recommend outright suing before trying to talk to people).
A solution you could advertise to your professors and that neither requires any software nor a big additional effort is the following:
* In addition to their names, students give some arbitrary name or similar on their exam sheets that they can remember, e.g., *<NAME>, <NAME>, [Robert'); DROP TABLE STUDENTS;--](https://xkcd.com/327/)* or *AxPeYvs2`{P97\_E$T+!?tj0YY.*
* When the grades are published, this name is used instead of their real name. In the unlikely event that two students chose an identical name, use an initial or similar to distinguish them in an unrevealing way (or use e-mail).
---
¹ I am not familiar with every legislation and it may depend on the exact circumstances, but for example [this document](https://www.zendas.de/recht/bewertung/noten_im_internet.html) from the central data-protection agency of the universities of a German states that even publishing results in connection with the student ID needs a written consenst from the student.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes, it's unreasonable. Any request for special treatment for you personally is unreasonable unless it is grounded in genuine *need*: e.g. a disability or an acute change in personal circumstances.
If you feel strongly that this practice is wrong you should instead seek to change the practice for all students through the usual university channels for seeking change and raising grievances.
Other posters have suggested that posting results is illegal under data protection legislation, they [are](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2011/05/exam_results_not_restricted_by.html) [wrong](https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1135/publication-of-exam-results-by-schools-dpa-guidance.pdf); Data Protection legislation does not forbid the posting of exam results in Europe in general although specific countries in Europe may have stricter limits.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: It is fine to ask your professor if there is some way to keep the grades confidential when they are posted. As others say, perhaps they could be posted as an ID, or maybe the professor has access to a way to easily send it as an email.
However, keep in mind that there is a strong possibility that you will receive a negative answer.
You seem concerned about peer harassment, but most people at the college level can, and will, act like grown adults. If you do happen to encounter harassment, just staying professional *should* remind them of this. If not, there are avenues you can take to report harassment, but they sometimes vary - so you'd have to check your own school's policies and procedures.
Congratulations on your achievement
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: If what the professor is doing is legal in your country, and he is unwilling to accommodate your request, you should petition the institutional hierarchy, dean, president, or such for a change in policy. If you have a student governance committee/senate/parliament, you could approach them to approach the university to change the policy to use student ID's. In the U.S., published student IDs should cannot be the students federal ID number, aka social security number, nor a portion of that number. This requires a structural change to the computerized student records system and may take years to effect. In the interim, a system of nick names could be devised so that only YOU and your prof knows the whose nickname is whose. Also, most electronic databases have a record number assigned to each record, i.e. each student has a different record number, somewhat akin to a line number in a paper and pencil grade book. The prof could display that record number instead of a name. Maybe not the best solution, but probably the easiest to effect in the short term. He only needs to communicate students' record numbers to each student privately. Be mindful that, whatever the alias system is used, the ordering of the names on the posted list should not be in the real name alphabetical order. If your name is <NAME>, or <NAME>, most can detect who is first or last on the list. Beyond the university, you can petition your local senator or MP, as the case may be for a national or state law. That, again could take years.
Upvotes: 1
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